Leareth hadn't actually been sure. 

(He knows what his intentions are, and the shape of person he is, and that if Vanyel is willing to offer his cooperation then Leareth will do everything he can to make sure it wasn't a mistake. But it's hard to guess how the magic of another world would weight things, and what it would judge him for. He...hadn't been sure. If this way of trying to demonstrate his intentions would actually work, or - how it would go, if it didn't.) 

He relaxes infinitesimally. 

Vanyel has twenty years of practice trying to guess at what Leareth is thinking and feeling from the tiniest shifts in the tension around his eyes. He notices. 

Leareth is not Chelish but he might as well be and Blai has no individual familiarity with him. :This by itself guarantees almost nothing but I would be willing to trust sufficiently - solemn - and sufficiently broad so as to avoid exact-words-ing oaths, now.:

"I was also planning to cast a first-stage Truth Spell. Do you have a way to get around it?" 

"No." 

He could likely have figured out a way, if he wanted to put in some research. It...did not seem like it would be an ability he wanted to have, in the worlds where it was ever going to come up. 

He could also solemnly swear to that if Vanyel asks him, but Leareth is already very careful about the oaths he gives, and he does not actually like the feeling that maybe he has to be additionally careful because he doesn't know what the other world's magic is judging him on. 

Truth Spell. The vrondi do in fact appear to behave normally. 

Vanyel isn't going to ask him to solemnly swear about that specifically, mostly because it would be a little weird in any other situation in his life and it hasn't occurred to him. 

(Blai recasts Detect Magic.)

He can see the vrondi! They're very pretty. 

This might be one of the most important moments in the last thousand years and Leareth is - 

- terrified, actually, mostly because a god from another world who he knows barely anything about might be paying attention to him right now. He doesn't know if that's how it works but it could be. 

That doesn't matter though. 

"I swear to you on the stars that I have not lied to Vanyel to date, that I intend to tell the truth to best of my knowledge today, and that my intent is still to cooperate with Vanyel. I swear I did not arrange for the Changecreature attack in Haven - or any kind of offensive against k'Treva Vale - and had no knowledge of them until reports arrived after the fact, I did not authorize any operations against Valdemar at all, I did not form any contingency-plans that resembled either attack in any way, and I have verified to my satisfaction that they could not have been done by anyone affiliated with my organization without my knowledge. I - had made no firm commitments to Vanyel, but was not expecting or intending to begin a war in the next year, significantly because I placed - at least one in ten odds that Vanyel would end up willing to help find something better.

"I am not going to commit to a future course of action until I know more, but I think it is - at least nine in ten odds - that I will call off the current plan, however costly that is, and spend at least fifty years determining if the existence of another world means there are better alternatives, either a different power source or a different way of improving the equilibrium with Velgarth's gods. ...At least forty million people will die of other causes during that time, if my estimates are right, and - from what I know, it is significantly less likely that a god I end up creating would have remit over their spirits to get them back."

And he made a vow and it applies to them too, and he's fairly sure that talking to the priest of the god from another world is in expectation the best action he can take toward fulfilling that vow and this does not make it less terrifying. There's a chance the gods of another world are less limited than the gods of his. There's a chance that this priest's god will notice him, decide that he doesn't look steerable in convenient directions, and try to destroy him, and succeed. 

It's still worth it. He doesn't think it's a very big chance. 

"I would still choose to wait, if it means I can find something better. - I am definitely not willing to swear anything about what I might do after fifty years, but I swear I am not deliberately misrepresenting my intentions at this time." 

The vrondi think that Leareth is not lying about any of that. 

:I would like your oath that you will neither personally ascend while evil - I have no personally verified knowledge of you being evil, though I can check tomorrow - nor create a god likely to be evil. I can justify this request in more detail if it's not self-evident. My goddess is ascended and in life served a god who also ascended, and I have nothing against adding new gods to the world in principle. But not evil ones.:

This is in some sense one of the most sensible initial responses anyone has ever had to Leareth's plans! He wasn't planning to create an evil god, and is really very sure that using blood-magic to power the working will not directly impact the gods values, but it's on priors a reasonable worry for someone to have! 

He also has very little information on what the priest's goddess (or the mortal civilization in his world, but the goddess's values are the relevant ones, probably, if the spell comes from Her) would consider evil, and swearing an oath on a pointer to an ethical system he isn't familiar with sounds like a terrible idea! 

:...The request is self-evident but different people in Velgarth disagree widely on what they consider evil. I do expect that if you were to - check directly via the same mechanism you used to check if I am 'Lawful' - I would probably count as evil. I am willing to swear I do not intend to create a god who is evil and - if your world offers mechanisms for verifying whether a given design for a god is likely to be evil, I swear I will use those. ...I am not going to swear now to abide by them in all cases but I would be willing to once I know more about the ethical system involved. I was not intending to personally ascend and would need vastly more information on how the mechanism...works...to consider it at all, but - I swear I will not knowingly choose to ascend and become a god that I predict would act in ways that most Velgarth ethical systems agree are evil?: 

Being asked for this is probably a positive update! It seems like evidence that the goddess from another world cares about human welfare at all! It would not help to panic about the possibility that he has an irreconcilable values different with the priest's goddess and she will see that he's not willing to back down and choose to destroy him over it, and Leareth is not panicking about this, but it's taking some work. 

...Leareth is scared. 

Vanyel has absolutely no idea what to do with that observation??????? 

:Iomedae was concerned with turning out the shape she intended on ascent and made extensive use of the spell Commune to check with her own god about it. He is no longer available, but She is. I can't cast Commune myself as it is fifth circle and I am third but there are clerics who can on my planet and probably on others though I have no special ability to locate additional planets with established churches. I do not know exactly what ethical philosophies might be prevalent on this planet nor whether my belief that the nature of Evil is mostly commonsense will hold under these circumstances. I... don't have my copy of the Acts of Iomedae, it's in Haven...: