:You don't have afterlives?? Why don't you have af- how do you know they're not true, you don't have clerics or even wizards, you wouldn't have anybody to do resurrections and plane shifts and scries anyway.:

:You could say 'how do you know that's not true' about almost anything! I don't think having afterlives is...the default such that you'd need evidence to rule it out...I guess maybe it is in your world?:

Shrug. :From what I know directly, people die and - part of their spirit keeps existing, but not having experiences.: Echoes of a familiar room with a glazed door, dusty nebulas on the other side, a boy who hadn't changed in over a decade while Vanyel had grown up without him. :And sometimes the gods put their spirit back to be born again and they're - sort of the same person, in some underlying way - but don't remember anything. The Companions are reincarnated Heralds who remember a little more. Leareth - had some method that puts him back remembering even more, I guess, but I think not everything. I guess I can't rule out that some gods actually do something more like afterlives, but - I have no specific reason to think so.: 

He closes his eyes. :Leareth - gods, I guess I didn't say any of this before - Leareth wanted to, or claimed to anyway, to - make a better god. That would do something better about people dying, among other things. If he's - telling the truth about anything he's ever told me - then he would definitely have confirmed it.: 

:...okay. I don't know what's going on with that. It could be that the gods here just aren't releasing souls into the River and have some kind of arrangement with Pharasma that allows that. Or I guess this could be outside Creation entirely but you're entirely too human for that to feel likely to me. Golarion people definitely have afterlives, they can be scried there and resurrected from there and visited there with the right spells. There are nine afterlives depending on the deceased's alignment - usually matches their reading in life but there's a trial, sometimes it's surprising.:

:That’s so specific, why are there exactly nine…: He shakes his head. Not the priority right now. :Sorry, I should probably actually talk to Leareth’s messenger: even if this feels enormously more awkward as an interaction than talking to Blai, he’s definitely putting it off at this point.

:If you’re, um, do you need anything? Yfandes has food and water in her saddlebags, I can ask her to come over now that I’m more sure it’s safe.: 

If it’s a trap, it’s probably not one where it actually helps if Yfandes keeps her distance.

:I made myself some water before we came here and will warn you before I make more. I'm not hungry.: He did get to eat most of his breakfast before the kidnapping.

:All right.: He'll tell Yfandes to go back to Stef, then, and confirm that this didn't seem to be the kind of trap where he was immediately attacked or anything was set to explode when he got near it, and - he's going to be a little while. 

(He needs to think about what he can still check, what precautions he should be taking, and - what the next decision to be made even is, from here. He...hadn't thought that far ahead, really, when he left Haven in a hurry.) 

He will, uh, confirm that the messenger speaks Valdemaran, and introduce himself even though she almost certainly know he is and ask her name, and then cast a second-stage Truth Spell even though he's also reading her mind (and is pretty sure Leareth expected and intended her to and that was part of the message), and - what does she want him to know? 

Her name is Feniss and she's here to tell him that Leareth says he had no involvement in either recent incident and, uh, to her knowledge cannot possibly have destroyed k'Treva, and it's in theory possible she wouldn't know if he had planned the Changecreature attack but it would make no sense with what she knows of his other planning. She wasn't chosen for being ignorant of a lot of Leareth's operations and thus unable to give things away; she does some administrative work related to the god-research side of his organization, mainly, and she's not closely involved in his military planning, but is pretty sure that she would know if he was staging large-scale troop movements and he isn't. Until yesterday everything was routine and happening at the pace you would expect if he planned to move in a year or two - though she didn't know the exact planned date - and even in an organization with a lot of compartmentalization and secrecy compulsions in routine use, she would have noticed if some of her friends were suddenly inexplicably busy even if she wasn't cleared to know what they were working on. 

(Reading between the lines, Vanyel could learn quite a lot about how Leareth's organization operates - and its weaknesses - by asking her the right questions. That's not the main message she's here to convey but it's deliberate, that he wouldn't have chosen to send her unless he was willing to take that risk and wanted Vanyel to know that.) 

Leareth instructed her to convey that another world existing changes everything and he intends to take a step back and re-evaluate, and also that's...self-evident to her...from everything. Leareth took a thousand years to move on this plan at all, even though it was one of the first he thought of. She thinks he probably took everything into account correctly on how long to spend looking for alternatives, but some of the people she works with think he should have moved sooner. But obviously waiting is going to turn out to have been the right call if there's another world and there was no way to know that until now! It seems pretty likely the whole invasion plan will be called off and they're going to pivot the organization toward work related to the other world, though of course it's premature to get hopeful about that when they don't actually know for sure if two-way travel is possible. 

She thinks it's not really that surprising that the Star-Eyed Goddess (or other gods) would be willing to kill several hundred people to push the war to happen now, especially if They thought Vanyel might be on a track where he would otherwise end up allying with Leareth. The gods kill thousands of people all the time in the downstream effects of Their actions, just in less obvious ways. It's mostly surprising and confusing because it's blatant, and you would expect it to be costly to Her and possibly to cause the kind of chaotic ripples in Foresight that would make it harder for the gods to precisely nudge events happening now, and also it seems like...overkill? And like a plan more obviously-to-Vanyel within Leareth's capabilities would have been more likely to convince Vanyel it was his doing. And in general she thinks they're probably missing part of the picture. 

She wants to convey that Leareth was aware the kidnapping was incredibly escalatory and would be hard to step back from, only made the decision at all because he was worried there might be more destructive interventions if the god-agent was left in Haven, is not sure it was the right call even in expectation, and is probably willing to make even very costly concessions now if it will convince Vanyel he wants to avoid a war. She personally isn't authorized to promise anything on his behalf, but she can answer any questions he has and can in fact talk about a lot of topics she normally couldn't openly, she works at a high enough level to have agreed to standard secrecy compulsions but Leareth took them off for this. 

She does have a way to get messages back to Leareth, though it's a one-time-use artifact so ideally it would be one message once Vanyel knows what he wants to say. 

...Vanyels relays to Yfandes so she can have Stef take notes. He feels like it would be distracting and mildly rude to sit there taking notes in front of her while he reads her mind. 

(He's also going to keep bouncing over to read Blai's mind, not incredibly closely but he still has an itchy feeling about the thing where this really seems like it should be a trap.) 

His Guidance expires without him having anything to spend it on. Vanyel looks like he's concentrating so he doesn't move to cast another right away, what if Vanyel startles and zaps him with something. It's very toasty inside this spell, it's not like an Endure Elements at all, so he shifts the cloak off of him. Wrings a little snowmelt out of his pants. He hopes his men back at #11 are holding up all right without any clerics, he tried pretty hard to retain that random Gozrehn but she wouldn't stay and he's not sure why. Iomedae, things still seem kind of dicey here with this evil archmage, and also there's a god smiting cities maybe possibly, could You put Her in touch with Sarenrae by any chance. What if a blizzard kicks up out of nowhere and they don't have visibiltiy to get anywhere else, should he finish the quinzee? He doesn't think he could make it big enough for Yfandes, does that make it too rude to keep building it. Last time he got caught in a blizzard they had to eat a horse before the weather cleared up and they could continue to the outpost. What if Yfandes is reading his mind and noticed that he thought that and is offended on behalf of equines. Nobody will have to eat any horses here because he's third circle and if they get stranded he can Create Food but there's just no good way to make a heap of snow big enough to shelter her overnight.

All of that feels exactly like the way Blai previously thought and there's no point at which this can be taken as confirmation that Leareth didn't mess with his head but...at some point it's got to be evidence, right? 

...Vanyel has a problem. 

Well, several problems.

One of his problems is that he wants advice, desperately, and - Blai actually had surprisingly good advice, before, from an outside perspective - and is probably not inclined to be biased in Leareth's favor. If it's still entirely Blai in there. 'Asking for advice for a fraught confusing decision' is exactly what he shouldn't do if he still thinks Blai (and maybe the messenger too?) could have been subtly Mindhealed with, presumably, the goal of convincing Vanyel to let down his guard. 

His second problem is that all the Mindhealers he trusts are in Haven. 

His third problem is that he...kind of stormed out and went north ambiguously against orders, and he's always taken for granted that he could count on the other Heralds for basic logistics, like arranging for a Mindhealer to be in a place, and right now he isn't sure he can. There's also the fact that arguably no one else - no one else with a Companion, which is most of the people he would trust to ask - well, okay, Jisa, but he definitely can't ask Jisa to come north and help him think about this - can think clearly about the possibility that Leareth has a point about the gods. If he asks for help figuring out how to verify Leareth's side of the story, that probably won't go well.  

His fourth problem is that...if Leareth is telling the truth, and the Star-Eyed Goddess destroyed k'Treva, then - there's also a Heartstone in Haven. 

There's a Mindhealer in...Waymeet, he thinks? The town on the map closest to the pass, but he didn't have a Gate-location there. One of the new recruits from the northern march, if he's remembering correctly. Melody thought well of her. And all he actually needs her to confirm is whether any Mindhealing change are still there in Blai's mind. He probably has the enough of a reputation that he could ask for that without explaining at all and she would do it. 

The problem is that she's from the north and what if she works for Leareth. 

...Maybe Stef has ideas. Vanyel can Mindspeak him at this range and...wants to, even apart from needing advice, it's sort of absurd how much he misses Stef after being a mile away from him for less than a candlemark. 

Stef considers the problem for a while and is pretty sure he has an idea! 

That...might work? 

He would feel a lot happier about it if he could go with Stef, but he's absolutely not leaving the possibly-Mindhealed-to-mess-things-up people behind, and Yfandes can't carry four people. 

...He should probably explain to Blai what's going on. 

:We have a plan to get a Mindhealer here with - some urgency, but it might be a day or two if we're unlucky - and without attracting attention or making it obvious to Leareth until they're here. I think we shouldn't go back to Haven and we probably shouldn't involve the other Heralds until I'm - more sure, one way or another. Er. I could honestly really use advice but it's plausibly a bad idea to use you as a sounding board for confusing problems when we still don't know if Leareth's Mindhealer did anything to you. ...Though I haven't seen anything indicating he did and at this point that's some evidence he didn't.: 

:I certainly wouldn't take my advice if I were you and we were on my planet! But we're not, so you're the expert on whether my advice will be contaminated. Will the heat spell last at least until tomorrow morning? After that I can prepare enough Endure Elements for everyone.:

:I can keep it up as long as I want, there’s plenty of node-energy here. Yfandes will come drop off my camp supplies and then go with Stef. …Also we’re apparently right on top of one of Leareth’s supply caches and we could in theory sleep in there if the weather gets too bad, I don’t think it’s a vastly higher risk of a trap if I check it thoroughly first.: 

He’s going to do that himself rather than following the instructions that could be intended to trigger some sort of trap-artifact that puts compulsions on him, or something, though really you would think Leareth would have had many opportunities to come up with a less convoluted way to get at him given how he was riding north with just Stef. 

:Since you probably can't take my advice anyway, is it okay if I make a chess set?:

Vanyel should probably not take Blai's advice even though the threat he's worried about here is something he has no specific reason to believe is even possible and is mostly worried about on the vague belief that probably Leareth can figure out a way to do anything, which should maybe apply less when Leareth had one of his staff doing it who is presumably not also two thousand years old. But he's going to be tempted to rationalize it because he doesn't want to sit here awkwardly having nothing to do except wait for maybe the next two days. 

:You can make a chess set.: He's dully curious why in the world Blai has a spell to do that specifically but at this point not even especially surprised. 

He casts a spell. It's got a more complicated gesture than most of them. "Prestidigitation." And then he sets about materializing chess pieces and a board, one at a time.

Huh. Neat. 

Yfandes drops off his bedroll and tent and saddlebags of food and also Stef's horse, who won't be able to keep up. Vanyel is pretty sure that Blai doesn't have his food-creating spell today, since he prioritized being ready to fight a kidnapping attempt (not that this actually worked), so he'll dig out some supplies and use a direct heat-spell to start cooking pease porridge on; it's a lot more tiring than lighting a normal fire, but tidier and less smoky and doesn't involve taking his eye off Blai or Feniss to go find firewood. 

And Stef rides Yfandes to Waymeet. 

It turns out Yfandes is really fast when she's not holding back. Stef is pretty sure they're...skipping?...bits of forest entirely, and feels vaguely seasick by the time she gets him there, somehow barely a candlemark later even though it's over twenty miles and they mostly weren't even on the road. 

...He stops outside the town. Puts on Vanyel's spare Whites, which are only a little big on him. Rubs some soot into his hair to disguise the color. Finishes writing the letter he started earlier while he was waiting for Yfandes to get back, and makes sure the envelope is properly sealed. 

Gets out the token he carries as one of Herald Katha's spies. 

He spends a few moments rotating it in his head, putting on the right face and mannerisms, and then he forges into Waymeet like a man on an urgent mission. Which he totally is so that part doesn't even require acting skill. 

It turns out that given sufficient desperation, Stef can successfully impersonate a Herald - who basically no one in Valdemar has met, Herald Ubran has Receptive Empathy that barely deserves the name and no other Gifts and has spent most of the last decade as Katha's agent in Hardorn - to the senior Mindhealer stationed in Waymeet, and convince her that he needs an urgent letter conveyed to Melody in Haven. And also (or so he hopes) successfully given the impression that this is a private and sensitive matter and it would be highly inappropriate to mention Herald Ubran's visit to any other Heralds who might come through. 

(Waymeet is shockingly active for a small border town, and there's a Gate scheduled in a candlemark, to be cast by one of the White Winds mages who Jisa apparently brought over first thing this morning; they're already moving people closer to the border. Stef is on the one hand glad he guessed right, that the Heralds are alarmed enough to make that happen in a hurry - if there wasn't an emergency, the letter would have to travel the slow way and it might take weeks - but it also makes it pretty nervewracking. He's very relieved when he makes it out of town without anyone suspecting his disguise.) 

If Agnetta does work for Leareth, well, maybe he'll get a report in a while about Herald Ubran having a problem that called for a Mindhealer, but hopefully he still has no way to connect it to the current situation. He would have had to have a Farseer tasked solely with watching Stef for the last multiple candlemarks, and Yfandes still might have lost them on the ride over. 

A candlemark and change later, in Haven: 

"You taught Bard Stefen my private cipher?!" 

"Um. I was twelve, all right? I'm sorry! ...Though it's good he did know it, I don't think Leareth could possibly have read the message even if he intercepted it. Does he say what he urgently wants you for?"