:Gods, like mortals, are intelligent beings that can take actions with moral valence. Even if the ones here are not the same kind of thing they appear to be a kind of thing that much is true of. Though I can't read them directly. But I brought up Pharasma because - the possibilities include that She hasn't noticed this place and its soul-management, and that any change in the soul-handling or creation of new gods might cause Her to - that would be a fairly good reason for the local gods not to want you to succeed - or that She has noticed it, and allows it, but would not be moved to allow a revised scheme.:

:That is valuable information to have. Thank you.: 

Leareth spends a while considering it. 

:Would asking your goddess to help communicate with our gods - for example, to ask if that is why They oppose my plan - necessarily alert Pharasma? ...Is there actually a decision to make there or would your goddess already know about this world because you have been asking for spells from here?: 

:I am not aware of all agreements with Pharasma Iomedae may be a party to but I suspect She would not have agreed to inform on any means of circumventing the Evil afterlives, their end being Her chief goal. However, She's budget-constrained at the moment - gods operative on Golarion forego opportunities to act on the Material plane not out of lack of raw power but due to a treaty-like limitation that constrains them from cancelling each other out at every turn. I don't know how much attention She's paying me or my spell choices.:

Nod. 

:This is on a different topic, and I would need to think about the risk of alerting Pharasma if She is not already aware of us, but - do you need to return home? If it is simply in another plane then I think it ought be possible to direct a Gate there, if I could figure out the search-spell navigation.: 

:I was traveling to meet an obligation but will not be late for several weeks. I do think this is probably in the same plane, though I know of some others one could probably stop in to make a two-hop trip.:

:…If it is on another planet and simply very far away that is harder, but - you got here by magic somehow, there must be a planar routing that would work. …It might take more than a few weeks to figure it out.:

Of course Leareth is sure how to figure it out, even though Vanyel wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start.

:If it's faster to get just a message to someone, the obligation in question is a project of some Golarion archmages who might or might not feel inclined to collect me themselves if they were aware of where I am. I wouldn't by preference contact them directly, but someone who could get ahold of them at a convenient moment.:

Leareth has a number of questions about that! But - now isn't the time to demand answers about what exactly a group of archmages from another world is working on before he agrees to help. 

He intends to cooperate, here. He - thinks it's going well, so far - but he doesn't know how fragile that is. He thinks that in expectation, and given the mistakes he already made because he had incomplete information, the downside risk here is much more "he does something that convinces the priest it's too dangerous to risk working with him", rather than "it turns out to be a mistake from Leareth's values to try for cooperation here." 

He's not going to solemnly swear that he will send a message to someone in Blai's world, but - he's not going to make his offer of help here conditional. 

:Of course. I am not sure it would be less of a research project to figure out how to direct a communication-spell to a person in your world, but it might turn out to be a more tractable spell to cast in terms of power requirements.: 

Nayoki knows that Leareth had not gone into this intending to read the priest's mind, even if he turned out to be unshielded; he has enough to concentrate on already. Nayoki has no such limitation. She's fairly sure this wasn't intended as a trap on Vanyel or the priest's part, but it's not impossible Someone - probably not the priest's god but it doesn't seem impossible - is trying to steer for the negotiation going badly, and she wants some warning. She's no longer in Mindhealing Sight range now that everyone is inside the cave, but her Thoughtsensing range can reach them easily. 

What if Iomedae had to as a condition of ascension agree to report irregular soul arrangements to Pharasma and it was too late to keep a third of this planet out of the Evil afterlives the minute he appeared, or the first time he prayed here, or when he prepared the first Minor Prophecy, and all the local gods were trying to do this whole time was keep the souls out of Hell! He's not totally sure if it's worth it to keep a soul out of Heaven and one out of Axis for every one you're sparing Hell but maybe they're working with different ratios here or something... What if Leareth and the other archmages get into a fight because the archmages are Good (one of them is he thinks even Chaotic Good) and it's like Geb and Nex and there's a new Mana Wastes or worse... what if the local gods are actually great at squashing archmages and would be especially great at squashing ones who aren't used to prophecy working and don't have practice dealing with them and working around them, and they come here to pick up Blai who does not remotely warrant any risk of a Good archmage getting squashed, over some weird slotless Sending to Fiducia Boian to ask him to get word to their offices about a stray convention delegate, and then the Worldwound opens up again and Cheliax descends into civil war and Asmodeus can take it back and millions of children the Arch-healer would have cured of disease die of dysentery. What if Vanyel panics for no reason and explodes. Why can these people explode!!! Why is his copy of the Acts in Haven, he wants it back. Should he have prepped Eagle's. Should he be trying for a prophecy soon. What if prophecies are expensive the same way as communes and the commandant didn't mention that just because he could not possibly have expected Blai to land on another planet because what the fuck.

That sure is a lot of anxiety about something going wrong!!!! 

It...does not actually seem like much of his anxiety is about Leareth deciding to betray them? The closest thing is worrying that Leareth will get into a fight with another powerful mage from his world and cause a new Cataclysm, which is a little understandable, but Leareth in fact knows better now and will not do that. Even if the other archmages attack him first. Which one hopes they will have no reason whatsoever to do! 

It's probably not worth risking an escalation with the Heralds by trying to get one of Leareth's spies in Haven to retrieve his goddess's holy book, even though Leareth almost certainly wants to read it and it would be very informative. Also she's not sure they even could at this point, the Heralds have really tightened up on paranoia. 

She doesn't interrupt Leareth. 

Leareth is starting to get an extremely itchy feeling about their current location. It's not very godclaimed territory but it's not that far from the Pelagirs on one side, and only moderately further from Iftel on the other side, and he can't think how any of the forces Valdemar is amassing right now would be able to track his movements, but there was a Gate and someone could have already been scrying the general area and zeroed in on the mage-energy signature quickly enough, it's not completely impossible if they get lucky enough, and - luck has always been on the side of the gods. 

:There is a great deal more we ought discuss: he sends, :including methods to contact your world, but - are there further assurances you would need to feel comfortable having those conversations in one of my secure bases on the other side of the mountains?: 

:I'm willing but I very strongly advise also setting up a non dream based communication system as soon as humanly possible.:

Nod. 

:I have a mage-artifact I can give Vanyel for a communication-spell variant that I do not believe is known outside the Eastern Empire - which will at least make it harder for parties opposed to our negotiations to intercept - and written instructions to cast it directly. ...Now that we have met face to face, we should also be able to Mindspeak directly as long as Vanyel is north of the Valdemaran border, as long as neither of us is behind shields that do not allow directed Mindspeech. I can commit to ensuring I am within a hundred miles of this location and not behind shields that would prohibit Vanyel from reaching me with Mindspeech. I can also provide a second artifact if Vanyel would like to deliver one to Waymeet, but given that the dream seemed to be blocked from within Valdemar and we suspect this was through the influence of the Web, I am not entirely confident that a communications-spell could not also be blocked. The messenger I sent who I believe is now in Haven does also have directions if the Heralds other than Vanyel wish to contact me. I have not heard anything.: 

Leareth is actually not entirely sure his messenger is alive. Putting a spell to track her life-force would have been detectable, and he deliberately chose to send her in with no detectable magic at all, even a shield-talisman. It would be extremely out of character for the Heralds to execute her, but - the Heralds aren't the only actors in Haven. And the Heralds have clamped down wildly on security, which is understandable but means his spy-coverage of any decisionmaking they choose not to involve the Council in is very lacking. 

They should tell Leareth about the second prophecy and what they saw happening in Haven. It seems really unlikely at this point that Leareth had - was going to have? - anything to do with it. And it's plausibly information on exactly how hostile the force behind the Web might be to them. 

Vanyel reaches out to Blai privately in Mindspeech. :I think we should warn him about - what we saw me doing in Haven. Did you still want to cast the prophecy spell on him as well?: 

:That's a good idea.: Unless it's as expensive as a Commune! But he has no way to check! Iomedae if these are too expensive PLEASE stop giving them out! :I've prepared a Minor Prophecy which grants me a vision of a significant event the subject is involved in over the next several days. Would you like to be the subject of the one I can cast today?:

Aaaaahhhh???!!! 

....Leareth thinks that most of his feeling of alarm about this is not especially rational. Probably. Vanyel doesn't look like he finds it alarming. 

:What do you think are the odds that it causes your goddess to pay attention to me when She had not previously been, and this results in: Her deciding to destroy him that is not actually the threat model to be focusing on here he's just unreasonably terrified of it as a concept :- Pharasma finding out about our world and objecting to the soul-management arrangement?: 

:Er, we - already used it once, on someone from our party, and got a vision that had you in it.: And of course Vanyel had not even slightly tried to game out what other problems that might cause! :I don't think casting it on you as the target has much additional risk?: Glance at Blai. 

:I agree that it's not a large additional risk compared to having already prophesied about you and on this planet at all.:

It would not help to dedicate any of his thoughts right now to panicking about that and Leareth doesn't. He has more information now and having more information is always preferable to not even if the contents are terrifying. And Nayoki is here and explicitly delegated with deciding if he needs to get out immediately and telling him to do that. 

:Then - yes, I am willing.: 

"Minor Prophecy."

In the Void, amidst endlessly churning smears of magic, where it should be impossible to build anything, there is a structure, and a spell. 

The structure is a hole-inside-a-hole, a planar space carved out of nothingness, a hidden nearly-indestructible sanctuary built where nothing else is stable.

That structure is Leareth, as much as anything is, and really moreso than his body, which after all hasn't always belonged to him.

The spell is a thread and it ties Leareth to the world and it stands for - 

- a relentless infinite sense of purpose, never to die never to give up never to lose to return again and again no matter the cost no matter how long it takes - 

And then a spirit hawk on wings of fire pounces on the sanctuary and very carefully and methodically shreds it, delicately avoiding disturbing the cord of magic that would warn Leareth that something is happening. 

Oh that's dizzying and he can't hold it very well, he hopes somebody was reading his mind for it.

Nayoki was reading his mind! And also has any context on what they might be looking at!