:Does nobody here get alignment detection spells or have any contact with the afterlives?:

:Does no one - what? No, I - I don't think that - I don't think either of those is a technique we have, unless it's a school of magic I don't know about?: 

At this point there's a knock on the Work Room door. Presumably it's Vanyel, but Katri still jumps a little. She ducks her head. :Just a moment.: And she'll go open the door and let him in. 

The man who enters is quite short and very slender; he looks both very fit and like he doesn't quite eat enough. Both his hair and his eyes are silver. He doesn't exactly give off the vibe of an authority figure, but Katri is definitely looking at him like he is one. He's also dressed entirely in white. 

He nods to Blai. :My name is Herald-Mage Vanyel.: 

:Select Blai Artigas.:

Still making eye contact with Blai, Vanyel reaches out to Katri with a private Mindspeech link. :So? I haven't been reading him since you came in here, anything important come up?: 

Okay now she kind of regrets not taking notes. 

:He's been telling me a bit about Golarion. Their magic is really weird - he has magic granted by the goddess Iomedae, but it sounds more like mage-gift than like that one time Karis had a miracle from Vkandis. There's another kind of magic that isn't like Gifts at all, it's not something you're born with, apparently anyone clever enough can learn it and they use books to store their magic in? They have a weird thing where they talk about cleverness - he called it 'Cunning', said it was like being good at math - differently from being wise or being - good at communicating - I think it's those three things because there are different magical techniques to make someone better at one of them? They also have Gifts, or something like it, but he made it sound like they're less important than the book-magic and the god-magic. 

...Er, and the god his goddess used to serve died when He tried to incarnate in the world to do - something, I didn't catch it but it was meant to be good - and it sounded like it went horribly instead. They have a lot of gods, more and less powerful ones. One of them is a god of farming? ...Oh, and we were just talking about 'alignment', which is something both gods and people both have, it's detectable with their magic and...has something to do with afterlives? That's where we were when you came in.: 

That's a lot of things, but so far it does feel like it hangs together? 

...Vanyel is mindful of Jisa's comment and the fact that it's not obviously warranted to read this man's mind constantly, but he's going to do it once more anyway. They have a lot of reasons to be paranoid, and he can apologize later if he decides it was unfair. 

Did she think he was going to poison her. That would be fairly ridiculous since he then ate the food himself but she was looking at it and he would have been fine on half a lunch or no lunch really and it's not like it's not REALLY OBVIOUS when a foreigner is looking hungrily at your food. Maybe it would have been rude. Does he have to figure out the rules about whether it's rude to accept food tonight - does this mean his next casting of Create Food is going to be mostly wastage if they won't take it. Are they telepathy-ing each other now? They look like they are, he shouldn't interrupt them. Unless there was something he was supposed to do besides introduce himself and they're waiting on him for that. Did he do anything besides introduce himself when he first met Katri, that he is not doing now, he can't remember. They're probably just telepathy-ing each other about him and how weird he is and all of the innumerable rude and awkward things he has probably done in the short time he has been on this planet. That is their perfect right but it would be really nice if he knew what the things were so he could stop doing them. Does he smell bad, it's been a bit now since he's gotten prestidigitated by someone who has the entire spell worked out and he was trying to nudge the Endure castings later in the day to be able to eventually skip one and add an extra Ant Haul to make better time without cutting into the Oh Shit Spells. Even though his Oh Shit Spells were manifestly inadequate to the snake thing. Not that he had time to get one off, maybe... no, actually his spell loadout was completely inadequate for nonperson monsters, what was he thinking, it's fucking Menador, was he going to take down even a completely expectable bulette with just his mace and a Divine Favor? He prepped Hold Person and Forbid Action. You can sure tell that clerics do not cast from cunning, just like Jaumandreu used to say. But he was worried about orcs and both spells plus Burst of Radiance would work fine on orcs... and probably he couldn't take a bulette by himself anyway... he is now on another planet and should simply drop context about what the dangers on the road in Menador are, if he gets to Plane Shift home he can ask them to drop him directly in Westcrown. Even if they're off by the maximum error he'll be closer to the city than he was at the time the snake attacked. Unless he lands in the Inner Sea. In which case he will be closer geographically but only until he drowns or is eaten by a sea monster. He doesn't know anything about what spells to prepare for sea monsters.

This poor man is so worried he's being rude. Really, Vanyel feels like it's more rude of them to haul him off to a Work Room with minimal explanation and invasively read his mind. 

...This 'Golarion' world sounds so concerning. Then again, Valdemar might come across just as badly if someone were learning about it only via reading Vanyel's mind while he was having a bad day. 

He pulls over one of the stools and sits down. :I'm sorry for hauling you over here without an explanation. There were, er, some things we had to check, but - you're clearly not here on purpose or intending anything hostile. I admit we still have a lot of questions, but it's not an emergency. Do you have any questions right now?: 

:I think that was perfectly reasonable of you, I plane shifted into your territory with no advance warning whatsoever! That must have looked incredibly suspicious! I would like to know if you have anyone who can plane shift available and how I could earn a casting. A Sending might also do, since I am wanted for a political pet project of an archmage who could conceivably want to spend the spells to come fetch me himself, though I might want to go about that more indirectly rather than interrupt the man himself.:

Are there questions he's supposed to have. None of these people's anything is any of his business. Is it signaling that he finds them uninteresting or something if he doesn't have questions about them besides whether they can send him home. Does this description of the constitutional convention make him sound too important? He doesn't actually know how many delegates there are going to be except that they want up to ten of them to be empowered Iomedaeans. Are they going to hold a seat for him since they bothered to send him a letter so that he is decreasing the Iomedaean political influence by at least ten percent, or is he easily replaceable - there probably are not actually ten Chelish Iomedaeans, but maybe he's selling short the refugee routes and there's plenty who've been living in Andoran and were empowered a decade ago and will come back now - but then why pull him away from the fort - he definitely shouldn't Sending an archmage, he can probably pay Fiducia Boian with the information that this planet exists or something to relay the facts to interested parties.

:It did look incredibly suspicious, but - that wasn't your fault and I don't think it's fair to take it out on you.: 

Select Blai is taking the whole 'being apparently transported to another world' thing remarkably in stride, and attitude about this whole thing is incredibly...convenient? Vanyel isn't sure whether to feel bad for taking advantage of that or suspicious, not that he can think of any useful direction to point that suspicion. 

'A political pet project of an archmage'???? ...Well, presumably not all of them are like Urtho and determined to avoid involvement in politics. Some of them are Leareth  really more of them are Leareth than you would initially think Blai is from another planet and presumably all sorts of things are different and also, unless there's a lot he's never told Vanyel, Leareth is definitely not running around it as various important historical figures. Vanyel should really focus and stop worrying about Leareth. 

:I don't recognize what technique you mean by 'plane shift': he admits. :If you think your world is in another plane, I have no idea how we could get you home. ...If you think it's in this plane but around one of the stars very far away, I have even less idea, actually. I'm sorry. I don't know if it's possible with our magic.: 

Leareth would know, or be able to figure it out, probably within a week. Vanyel absolutely cannot and should not ask him about it. Though he finds himself half-looking forward to the possibility of having the dream tonight - it's been a while, but someone appearing from another world probably counts as new information even if Vanyel has no intention of sharing it - 

Well, that's kind of weird, but maybe they just never invented tuning forks or something. :I think my world is in this plane but on another planet, but plane shifting twice, once to perhaps Axis or Heaven and then back to the Material but aiming for my planet, would do the job. Failing that if you can do a Sending, or if you have a scroll of it or a wand I might make use of, I can let someone on my planet know what's going on and pass the information along in case I am worth the archmage's time to retrieve.: What if he is not. What if he Sends the Fiducia and the Fiducia writes the archmage and the archmage is like "meh". Then he would NEVER get to finish his chess by mail game with Commandant Terzíc. Wow that was a dumb thing to focus on even for him. There is probably some important political goal to be accomplished for the forces of Good at the convention and if he doesn't meet his catechism instructor there he will never find out what it is, let alone do it.

:...I think your world's magic is very different from ours. We don't have a communication-spell that works across planes or arbitrary distances.: Actually it's entirely possible that Leareth does, especially if it turns out he DOES know there are other populated worlds. :We - can try to figure something out, obviously, with your help, but - I doubt we can figure it out today, or this week. I'm sorry.: 

And he's going to back off and stop reading the poor man's mind now, though maybe after he's finished explaining that, in case Blai reacts very badly to it or something. 

Well, then he guesses he lives here now until he either kills enough monsters to hit fourth circle or the archmage notices he's missing without prompting and decides to care about that. Unless something weird happens, which is always very possible, and happened only just this morning. What if it's a different time zone here and he will be exhausted and having flashbacks to seminary until he readjusts, that would suck. You fall asleep in class ONE time. He won't be late to the convention until a month out but that's not enough time to do much of anything if you have this impoverished a starting point, he doesn't even have a tuning fork on him. :Well, that's regrettable but I suppose I'll just have to find a way to make myself useful here.:

He's really remarkably - easygoing - for someone whose mind is running in circles that much. Vanyel tucks away his Thoughtsensing, with a faint feeling of relief. 

:We don't need anything from you right now and we're not - going to demand you work before we give you food, or anything.: Though maybe his magic can straight-up create food? Vanyel isn't sure he could possibly have caught that right, but magic directly granted by a god might have a lot of capabilities that mages don't? :But I'm sure you could be very useful here, if you wanted. What kinds of magic can you do?: 

:Clerics are, compared to other Golarion spellcasters, best at healing, followed by enhancement type spells, but we can do a lot of things - summonses, divinations, today I prepared Create Food and Water which I was planning to exchange for hospitality at a random farmhouse when I was done walking for the day, direct combat magic but we're not as squishy in weapons fighting as a wizard is either. I'd need to vet any situation I was doing combat in, of course, but I'm not constitutionally averse and Iomedae isn't a pacifistic sort. Tomorrow I can prepare Comprehend Languages and Share Language so you don't need to spend telepathy usage on me.:

What a strange mix. And, well, there might be fighting soon, but there isn't now, and either way Vanyel would be very reluctant to drag this man into a war with Leareth. 

:Mindspeech isn't especially tiring, but it does limit you to talking to Mindspeakers, so if you can do translation with magic: (!!!!????) :then that's a good idea. We don't have a shortage of food but - hmm, I don't know how it works, if it can create any kind of food including something exotic from your world, then - well, we do have an ice festival on today, I'm sure you could earn some coin.: 

He should really ask about the Healing but - it probably can't help Randi, Velgarth Healing certainly can't, and some part of him is reluctant to go ahead and confirm that. 

:I can specify the type of food, but it does always come out undersalted, so it's usually more impressive to people who are hungry than as a novelty. If I get a look at what kinds of food there are here I can try to guess at something that might be exotic. How common are Mindspeakers? Comprehend Languages will last a bit under an hour for me and let me understand and read whatever is said or written in any language, and Share Language will let me cause one person to speak a language I know as well as I do for a full day.:

Nod. :Mindspeakers are rare in general, but there's not exactly a shortage here in Haven – this is the capital city of Valdemar. Most of our Mindspeakers are in pretty high demand, but - it's not like you arriving here isn't also important - we might as well assign a Gifted Herald-trainee to follow you around and translate, that's not especially costly for us: if anything, it would make some trainee's day, :and works at least as well as having you give someone the language. Though being able to understand what everyone is saying is - certainly something I'd find reassuring in your place - even if it's only for a candlemark.: 

:I can prepare it several times, albeit not enough to cover the whole day, but if you're going to assign me someone to escort me and translate for me and they're already telepathic then I suppose I don't need Share Language, though I don't know what I do need the second-circle slots for in that case.:

:What are your options? ...I would like to hear more about the Healing you can do in particular, in case it complements our Healing-Gift rather than being redundant with it.: Pause. :Though, er, also it might not be a bad idea to prepare some defensive combat spells, if you have those. Just - just in case. We aren't currently at war but - it's possible a war could start soon, and we wouldn't have a lot of warning.: 

They're not at war, but Vanyel is aware that, however much it wasn't deliberate on Vanyel's part to grab someone from another world with otherworldly god-magic, it's something that Leareth could take as a threat. And he doesn't know what Leareth is thinking, they haven't been talking in a while. 

:There are a tremendous number of spells. War against who or what? That affects which ones will work well.:

...Oops, now Vanyel has to think about what's a good idea, given that nearly all of the details are...a state secret...and he likes this man, so far, but (whatever Jisa's impression of his mind might have been) doesn't actually have enormous reason to trust him. 

That being said, it's all much more in the open than it was even just a year ago. And - it feels unfair to this man, to ask him to make himself useful with his god-magic when that might bring him to Leareth's attention, and not even warn him. 

- what would Leareth be likely to actually do, if he received word from his spies of a man with suspiciously impossible powers in Haven? (Leareth wouldn't be fooled by the fact that 'making food appear from thin air' doesn't seem like a big spell. It's an impossible spell by all the known laws of magic.) 

He takes a deep breath. :There's a very powerful - archmage, I suppose you could say - based to the far north, who we have reason to think may be planning an invasion. Not necessarily imminently, but - we believe he has spies in Haven, and even though we know we didn't bring you here on purpose, it's possible he could learn about it and see it as an - escalation on our part. I don't know exactly what I expect to happen, though.: 

:Okay, but, what kind of invasion. Legions of the undead, armies of demons, called fire elementals, normal human or other mortal person soldiers... Would it be more convenient for your deescalation efforts if I were somewhere else? I wouldn't object at all to being relocated somewhere less provocative, though I don't have a better way of getting away than walking.:

:I don't know what 'undead' are, we might not have that? He has a lot of mages. It seems likely he has mages who can Gate directly to Haven even if that's not feasible for a full invasion. I don't know if summoning demons is something he makes a habit of, but that is used in combat here - though come to think of it I have no idea if they're the same as your demons or not. I know he makes a habit of using compulsions - mind-controlling magic, he could stop people from fighting back or - probably make them do whatever he wanted them to do, honestly.: 

Sigh. :...And we should consider moving you somewhere less visible, I suppose, or at least only asking you to do magic in private. It trades off against your magic being useful to us, but - we don't need that, it's not like we were counting on it, and I - don't want to ask you to put yourself in danger.: