…Okay he deserved that.

Joshel is feeling sufficiently discombobulated that he’s kind of lost track of what he had been planning to explain and in what order before Nefreti jumped directly to the point and derailed everything.

“…I can pay you for your advice unless that’s only an Abadaran thing,” he says, feeling like an idiot. “I appreciate your - help.” For SOME definition of ‘help’ she’s been very helpful but she did not, for example, tell him what the spell he needs a fourth circle cleric to prepare tomorrow is CALLED or whether they can get it anyway without knowing. “- Oh! If you don’t mind, could you tell me how to find or direct a message to any of the, er, archmages who are doing the diplomatic meetings? To inform them that we have the cleric of Iomedae they summoned?”

"Oh, I babysit their kids, I'll tell them when they come by to pick them up."

If Joshel had children he is not at all sure he would leave them with this person.

“I appreciate it,” he says. “I - am not sure how to tell them to direct a letter to me, if they want to reply, but I could probably get it from the church of Abadar at some point.” 

"The archmages will not have difficulty sending you a letter when they conceive an ambition to do that."

“…That’s good.” Joshel is SO discombobulated. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know how anything works. Because I’m from a different planet. Is there - anything else -?” 

He’s not going to bother harassing her any more about a letter of reference confirming his identity. He’s not sure he would trust a letter of reference from this person, if he ran a Lawful church in Sothis, and it would probably come out just as confusing as this entire conversation. 

"Would you like a Snickers bar? It's not Halloween any more but I didn't give them all out on Halloween."

It’s probably not poisonous and it might be rude to say no. “All right. Thank you.”

A very oddly shaped brown object floats across the room to him. "Goodbye!" says Nefreti cheerfully, and the door slams shut.

Joshel gets halfway down the stairs before he realizes that he absolutely did not remember to ask about the name of the stupid spell. And is not at all sure he should believe the High Priest of Nethys that it’s fine not to hurry!! - he’s going to go the rest of the way down a lot faster.

Map. Oh the Grand Bank, that was it, right. That’s where he’s headed next. He’s going to have to explain AGAIN that he doesn’t have Abadar’s Truthtelling and it should probably not bother him nearly as much as it apparently does but it feels like…having forgotten his Heralds’ Whites and showing up on circuit dressed like a random ruffian or something.

They head off through the streets of Sothis as fast as they reasonably can, which is slower than before because it’s gotten even hotter. 

(The “Snickers” dessert-bar is stuffed into his pocket and forgotten.)

The Grand Bank is exceedingly grand. It's got a lot of visible security, though they don't stop him or Kimbry from going in through the open doors. (They're not set up for horses in there but it's a big open area and the doors are large too.)

The trip was long enough to recombobulate a bit, though Joshel is now separately very overheated. (His winter Whites tunic and trews are wool and much too warm for the weather, but he already feels like enough of a foreign boor without stripping down to his underclothes.)

Kimbry has the spiel again, somewhat iterated on, to direct at whoever looks the most like receiving it might be their job or at least not interfere with their duties terribly because they don’t seem too busy. It’s delivered in a very fast burst of Companion-Mindspeech. 

The acolyte Kimbry chose to address digests this, and then recommends knocking on Cicerone Raad's office, up the left staircase, it has his name on it.

Which would be very helpful except, :We don’t read your language. Is there anything else identifying so we don’t bother the wrong person?: 

(Really Joshel wants to get the acolyte to just walk them over because he hates getting lost in strange buildings, but he’s done such an enormous amount of imposing on people today already.)

...the acolyte will precede Joshel up the stairs after thinking for a moment about how to describe the letters in the name "Raad" and deciding this is easier.

Yay. Joshel leaves Kimbry at the bottom of the stairs, again, and can spend the walk up collecting his thoughts rather than worrying about getting lost. 

:Thank you for your help: he earnestly tells the acolyte, and then knocks.

"Enter," calls Cicerone Raad.

The acolyte opens the door. "Cicerone, this man needs Lesser Restoration and Remove Disease, today."

"On whom?" asks the old man behind the desk. "It doesn't look like you need them yourself."

:…For some people back in the kingdom I’m here representing. Which is in another world.: 

Joshel is really thirsty and the waterskin is back in Kimbry’s saddlebags and he’s not feeling up for spitting out the whole spiel again if he’s just going to have to repeat all the parts of it eight times to a lot of different people. 

"How many people? The treating casters to be transported how with what guarantee of safe conduct and payment? They're popular spells, but if you need them today for multiple people you might need multiple clerics."

This is a way more straightforward conversation. He should be able to do this. He should not let the bizarre conversation with the High Priest of Nethys rattle him so much that he can't handle a basic negotiation to pay for services. 

:Four people.: Who are still alive at this point. :We would definitely pay for multiple clerics if that's possible, there are other - there's a whole situation - um, the time constraint is that our allies should be collecting me in six to eight candlemarks as soon as they figure out the Gate-routing here and I don't have a way to get communication-spells so they're just sort of going to put up a Gate where I am and expect me to run through, I think. The High Priest of Nethys said that would be soon enough but I don't know if she's known to always be right about that kind of thing. Oh, and we need to hire someone who's at least a fourth circle cleric because - um, I was originally sent to ask for Restoration but the High Priest said there was a different fourth circle spell that no one would have prepared today because it's - never - been used on this planet before...? She did not tell me what it was called. ...I was sort of assuming that if there's a definite solution tomorrow we can get by for one more day with just Lesser Restoration and Remove Disease because we have been for almost a week but I don't. Actually know for sure.: 

"...Nefreti Clepati is," sigh, "generally right about that sort of thing. I'm sixth circle. I have Restoration prepared, once, and three Remove Disease, and two Lesser Restoration. If we bring my colleague Cicerone Kanza she will most likely be able to make up the difference, though of course you can hire more if you can pay more, and tomorrow I can ask Abadar for the fourth-circle spell that you describe. An adventure on another planet is something that we'd usually like more information about - the people who are inclined at any given time to go adventuring are normally out adventuring, not manning temples. The way you describe this Gate is not how the spell Gate works that I know of."

Shavri will never forgive him if he misjudges and hires one too few clerics for this in an attempt to save money and they lose someone tonight. Valdemar isn't even paying, the funding is entirely from Leareth's organization, and Joshel isn’t going to be careless with it, obviously, but it’s an indication of their priorities that they told him to spend up to the value of an entire Raise Dead diamond on getting exactly the same services faster.

:We’ll pay for more people. I’m fairly sure we can afford it. I can definitely explain more and answer your questions, we have time for that. Er, I’m not a mage and I don’t really understand the research side at all. I think our world’s magic is different from yours.:

"- well, you're something, you're telepathic, I don't know what you mean by 'a mage'. At any rate you still have not described to me what I should tell any potential recruitable clerics about how they will get home and when, which is the first thing I need to lead with if I'm going to send runners to scour every adventurer tavern for loose mid-circle priests. I also need to know if you only want Abadarans in particular, and some information about the general hospitability of the world, and whether you have capacity and willingness to bring along anyone who is not suitable for your immediate purposes as a market researcher or just as a party member for additional clerics."

As expected this conversation is making Joshel feel like an ignorant idiot who doesn't know how anything works. Which - well, is true, at least the 'ignorant' and 'doesn't know how anything works.'

He'll try to go through it one part at a time. 

:I have the Gift of Mindspeech. In our world there are a little under a dozen known Gifts, which are inherited and awaken in adolescence and require training to use. I can read thoughts and project mine. Mages can - it's the Gift that lets you do a very wide range of things. Gates - it's a doorway from one place to another, looks like so: he bounces a memory of the one he just came through, :are tiring and I gather the one between worlds is especially so, it had to route through a lot of different elemental planes. My understanding is that we were very much rushing the research that made it possible at all, because of the situation with the people dying: which he still needs to explain the backstory of but aaaaa it's so much, :and at the point when they sent me we had one person who could do it and he probably drained himself unconscious, but once the other researchers figure it out we can do a dozen a day if there's a good reason to.: 

Pause. Breathe. He's so fucking overheated.

:- I don't think we're only willing to work with Abadarans, it just - right, so a cleric of Iomedae from Cheliax ended up in our kingdom via some kind of magical accident a few weeks ago, it was his recommendation to come to you first. Also I'm a first-circle cleric of Abadar as of very recently if that's relevant.: Although he is VERY BAD AT IT and they should NOT ASSUME HE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING. :We also have a new first-circle cleric of Shelyn and one of Sarenrae and I think they would probably appreciate talking to someone actually from their god's church, we really don't have very much information on - anything.:

What else, there was another thing, oh right the general hospitality of Velgarth. Wow that's a complicated and messy question.

:We would be going to the capital of our kingdom, Valdemar, which we believe is safe although I should - maybe explain more of recent events so you can judge for yourself. There's a different larger emergency on our border that might not be entirely safe, I can go into more detail on that. I don't think we're opposed to bringing additional people over in general: at least he isn't and "market researchers" sound great, :but the first Gate might have limited capacity. ...Could I possibly trouble you for a drink of water I'm very hot.: He prepared Create Water yesterday just to mix it up but he did not do it today because Sumpost has a perfectly drinkable water supply and he did NOT KNOW he would be in Golarion this morning and it would be summer and a desert or something. 

"Create Water." He passes a glass across the desk. "How limited? What time frame would you expect for the research or for the recovery of the mage in question, and do you have a guess - or a Clepati-utterance - about whether there are spells that can help them recover? Should visitors who are not directly relevant to your and your government's projects expect to pay for passage and lodging and if so how much - we can if necessary detour into currency conversion but if you have the weight in silver or gold -"

Oh that’s so much better. Joshel doesn’t even have to stop Mindspeaking while he’s drinking all of the water in one go.

:Six to eight candlemarks is what I was told it would take the other researchers to figure out the exact routing that Brightstar, the mage who figured it out first, was using. - probably a Lesser Restoration would get him up again but I don't actually know that that would speed anything up significantly and the High Priest did not mention it. I think we can get a dozen people across on the first go but I wouldn’t want to bet on fifty. ...Er. I think we probably don't want to provide free interworld Gate-transport to everyone who just wants to see another world and has no intention of helping with our various emergencies, but we can benefit from help other than clerics, we're short-staffed on - kind of everything. I have absolutely no idea what it would be reasonable to charge people for a spot in an interworld Gate.: He could ask Leareth's staff to estimate how much it effectively costs them for an extra five seconds of a Gate being up but he's not even sure that's a sensible way to go about it. :- We could auction off the spots available?: he suggests vaguely. :If it comes up.: 

Lodging in Haven is not that expensive and Joshel's can estimate the weight in silver for a week at a nice inn. ...In the units that Valdemar uses, that is. He does have a bit of Valdemaran coin downstairs and Cicerone Raad could weigh a coin to get the conversion, if it's important – oh, also, most of what he brought is in diamonds and Cicerone Essam wanted to do rather a lot of checking that the one for his line of credit was good and maybe they should do that now. They're going to want to get a lot of Raise Dead spells soon, not urgent on the level of candlemarks but he thinks it is time-sensitive on the level of days?