WHAT the fuck.

Negative channels are actually amazing for swarms and he doesn't have them anymore. The mace is going to do fuckall unless he specifically swats a wasp against a wall with it. He could try blinding the wasps with Burst of Radiance but if any of those hapless people are Evil it'll hit them too and the wasps certainly are not Evil.

He's just going to scramble for a less stupid position and cast Prayer and hope somebody has a better idea than Creating Water at the bugs.

...The bugs are actually ignoring him specifically. In fact, the bugs nearest where he arrived paused, looked at him for a moment, and then went back to stinging People Who Are Not Him. 

One of the four-armed humanoids holds up a holy* symbol whose actual design is obscured by wasps, and channels negative. They're good at it; only wasps are effected. Some of them fall to the ground, dead. More don't. 

...maybe these people offended Calistria. Underground. He would sort of have expected Her to have a different weapon underground, he heard a story about someone getting attacked by jellyfish when they offended Calistria in the ocean.

Still, the probably-evil party of humanoids is way likelier to tell him where the fuck he is than the wasps are, or than Calistria is. He'll start Creating Water at the wasps.

...The wasps aren't perfect at avoiding this or anything, but after the first couple of Create Waters they cease to be flat-footed about it, in a way that normally bugs are not. 

A couple of wasps pick up silk cords and, coordinating in a way that again, Bugs Usually Do Not, begin binding ambiguously evil humanoids that are downed but not dead. 

........that's so weird?????

Are any of the humanoids acknowledging that he is here and trying to help them literally at all.

Well mostly they are more concerned with attempting to deal with the wasps but that one evil cleric did deliberately leave him out of the negative energy channel. 

A winged figure who visibly parses as a paladin strides around a corner, holding a polearm that looks sort of like an extra-spiky glaive. The remainder of the wasps abandon their assault on the remaining probably-evil humanoids in order to join their fellows in trussing them up, a process in which they are aided by a handful of spiders who scuttle in from the same direction as the paladin. 

...who is this a paladin of.

His holy symbol is a round, polished disk of wood with a stylized fish skeleton carved into it. 

He uses the blunt side of his polearm to club down the cleric after he fails to surrender, and then turns and says something incomprehensible to Blai. 

The thing is it's actually pretty hard to identify a paladin by looking. A person with a holy symbol and armor could be a cleric - Blai has a holy symbol and armor, and is a cleric - and a cleric could be of anybody. If they have a horse it means they have a horse, it's not like the horses look like anything special. If they're not scared it means they're not scared, people who aren't Blai have sometimes quite extended periods in which they're not scared and even Blai you can't tell by checking his face. If they hit something Evil really hard it could mean they're lucky. You have to see them lay on hands, or put Detect Magic up and watch them spam Detect Evil, or something, to be sure they're a paladin specifically. Identifying them as a cleric is nearly as good if you recognize the holy symbol and Blai does not. A fish skeleton!

However, this person is taking prisoners, might be controlling the wasps such that they excluded a random bystander rather than stinging them too as collateral damage, and is trying to talk to Blai without doing it at swordpoint. All good signs.

Blai puts his hands up and says, "I speak Chelish, Common Taldane, and Infernal. I'm a cleric of Iomedae."

...If the paladin understands or recognizes any of those languages he sure doesn't indicate it with his facial expressions. He tries several of his own. 

Headshake. Apologetically: "I did not prepare Comprehend Languages." Maybe they also call Comprehend Languages after its verbal component.

He gives a wry smile and dips his head, which is more comprehension than he's shown so far. 

He contemplates this for a moment, then says, "Ansuzu," gestures at the now entirely bound prisoners, and gives him a questioning look. 

Blank incomprehension? Is that the answer he was looking for?

Seems like it! He looks reasonably satisfied, and calls something back through the caves, including a phrase that is recognizably 'Comprehend Languages' albeit pronounced slightly differently for reasons of accent. 

A tall woman, also with wings and funny ears, walks in and says something dry to the ?paladin?

She can be presumed to be the one controlling the crawly critters from the number of them currently crawling on, or buzzing around, her. 

Oh that's so disturbing. Why is this happening. He is going to keep his hands up but he is going to have to spend slightly more brain cycles on doing that.

The maybe-paladin and the bug lady exchange a handful more sentences, then turn back the way they came. The bug lady gestures for Blai to put his arms down and follow them. 

Okay. Are they bringing the prisoners too?

Not personally, but before long they meet a party of more winged people going in the other direction. Most of them are strong-looking or have contraptions of some kind for prisoner transport. At least, they're probably for prisoner transport. The difference between the underground equivalent of a cart and a contraption you lock someone in to starve them to death can be a little unclear to someone who's unfamiliar with the former. 

He does not have the words to follow up on that!

Eventually they make it out of the tunnels and into daylight. Another winged figure flies down to meet them and hands bug lady a medallion on a silk cord. She takes off the necklace she's currently wearing and puts on the new one. 

"Alright, that should do it. Hello." 

His estimation of the wealth of this adventuring party shoots up! Is that a fucking necklace of Tongues! That they had spare! "Hello. I'm Select Blai Artigas, I'm a cleric of Iomedae, I don't know where I am, I apologize if I misinterpreted the situation with the wasps."

"I don't know how you interpreted the wasps. I'm Taylor Haribert, witch. You're on the Villarosa side of the border between Villarosa and Mykorrizyme. I don't know the name Iomedae."

"...she's a saint of Aroden?"

"...'Aroden' sounds familiar but I'm not quite placing it. What's Iomedae's alignment?"

"Lawful Good."

"Oh, good. Well, the situation with the wasps is that those people were cultists of the new Dread Lord, Ansuzu, and those have been doing rituals that--we're not sure what exactly it is they're supposed to do but we're concerned. About the magical structures, separate from the fact that most things Dread Lords do are concerning." 

"I am not familiar with the name nor the term Dread Lord."

"Evil demigod." If those haven't been doing much wherever this guy is from, good for that place.

"Understood."

"So how did you end up there?" It is a very weird place for somebody to end up, assuming it isn't related to the interrupted ritual. Taylor isn't especially assuming that. Not that that means Select Blai Artigas is lying about not having any idea what's going on, necessarily, even if his showing up is the cultists' fault. 

"I was traveling and was attacked by a monster I did not recognize, which somehow teleported me into the cave. What continent is Villarosa on?"

"Surface Iglanti. It's pretty close to where Iglanti meets Pinulant, though." 

"...I don't know of continents by those names. What do you call the planet?"

"Cynorroden. I guess it's not that surprising if you're from another planet, you look..." under-limbed, but that's probably rude. "...not like any race I'm familiar with." What did Seshka say 'humans' from 'Golarion' looked like? She doesn't remember. Probably it's not relevant, though. 

"I'm from the planet Golarion," he says, so maybe that answers her question and clarifies its relevance.

"--Wait, seriously?"

"...I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to lie and haven't actually clarified with anyone better catechized than me if I'm allowed to utter sarcastic falsehoods."

"--That's where I know the name Aroden from, right, he's the guy who does the Age of Glory. ...How's that going, by the way."

"Oh, uh, poorly, He died."

"...Oh. Seshka will be sorry to hear that, I guess."

"...should I know the name?"

"No, no, sorry--she's--the person I know who's been to Golarion. She--left--a few years before the Age of Glory was supposed to start." 

"Oh." That bodes very poorly for Blai being on time to the Constitutional Convention.

"...She'll want to talk to you. She should be here soon." Thank you Adanira and your weird empathic bond thing. 

"All right."

"In the meantime, uh--" what do you do with weird interplanetary visitors. Who come bearing bad news that is not remotely their fault. Feed them? Probably feed them. "Do you eat?"

"Yes. I prepared a Create Food today if you're not equipped to feed humans."

"I think humans probably eat the same things as normal people but I guess I don't know for sure." 

"I can prepare a Detect Poison tomorrow to make sure, since today I do have the Create Food."

"Sure." 

A very pale woman swoops in and drops the last few meters out of the air, her wings slowing her fall enough she doesn't injure herself. 

"What is it, Tay--are you human."

"...yes."

"He says he's from Golarion. And Aroden is dead."

"What! How does that happen?"

"Attempting to move to Golarion went very very poorly. In addition to killing Aroden it opened a portal to the Abyss, drowned a couple of countries, and destroyed prophecy planetwide."

"Augh. That's terrible. ...What year is it now?"

"4714."

"--Fuck!" She turns around and kicks a tree, hard. "FUCK, I have been dead for more than a hundred years--"

"--Seshka--"

"Don't, don't--imagine if nobody got around to Raising your mother for a hundred years--my mom's got to be so upset--I really hope she didn't do anything stupid--"

"Has it... been a different amount of time here...?" Is he already late.

"I don't know. Nothing about what happened to me is normal." 

Deep breath. 

"Once upon a time there was a human girl called Seshka. She got murdered and maledicted to the Abyss, and then she got eaten by something bigger than she was. Normally this would simply be the end of the story! But in this case, a Finola," she gestures between herself and Taylor, "girl at the cusp between childhood and adolescence started remembering Seshka's life. And happened to look a lot like she had at the relevant developmental stage, species aside. And had a name that traditionally shortens down to Seshka. I don't know what happened to me, or how, or why, or how long it could be reasonably be expected to take, because the normal thing that happens to you after you die again in an afterlife is nothing."

"...ah. And... Sendings are inaccessible, or fail, or...?"

"Haven't gotten a response yet. I still try every now and then."

"Same with scrying?" He would not usually assume that anyone had the means to be so profligate but they have a necklace of fucking Tongues.

"...Hasn't worked but I think not being able to scry a different star system might be normal." 

"Plane Shift?"

"...So the thing I haven't explained yet is that I am pretty sure something weirder is going on than us just being in a different star system, because...our planes are weird." 

".......ah. In what way are your planes weird."

"Well, the afterlife situation could just be explained as 'everyone on the planet goes to Nirvana, and also isn't required to turn into an animal, for some reason' but we have two elemental planes instead of four and they aren't two of the elemental planes that Golarion has! They're metal and wood."

"...someone was channeling negative, are the negative and positive energy planes as I would expect?"

"Yyyyyyyes but we don't have...necromancy. We have, like, ghosts, and the occasional naturally-occurring zombie or ghoul, but any attempt to systemically study undeath so far has gotten, like, extremely squashed."

"........squashed."

"Or something! I mean, I assume anyone has ever tried it, we absolutely have the stereotype of cunning-based casters causing problems by having proportionately low wisdom, but it just is not a thing. Also if you go around asking people if they think you could make zombies on purpose clerics of the local...prooooobably not Pharasma? God of death come 'round to have a stern talking to you." 

"Wait, what?"

"This was before we met."

"I'd've expected Darien to say something about it." 

"Oh, this was before I ever left for the academy, I don't think I've even mentioned it to him at any point."

"Well, I know possibly even less what to make of any of this than you do. I take it there are no immediate prospects for sending me to my own country again."

"If I could get someone to Golarion I'd've done it. --On the other hand, you are, like, in a body, and carrying objects, that originate on Golarion, I might have more luck making a tuning fork now than I have in the past." 

"You are welcome to borrow something."

"Thanks. Uh, likewise--I mean, I make magic items, and I don't want you getting assassinated or anything." 

"Am I at particularly elevated risk of assassination here?"

"...Well, I mean, I don't know that Ansuzu or anybody else has particular reason to want you dead, but we don't know enough about Ansuzu's motives right now for the fact that we don't know her to have any reason to care about you to be particularly reassuring, and you are kind of unique on the planet."

"Well, if you have advice or resources you want to put toward my security I will appreciate that."

"Okay. --I guess it's lucky I decided an amulet of Tongues seemed like a good idea, I haven't...bothered to teach anyone else here Taldane."

"I would have just prepared Share Language tomorrow, but it's an impressive creation."

Sigh. "My mom designed it. I make rings and rods normally-for-around-here because I learned here, but a lot of other stuff people will tell you I make really weirdly, because I learned on Golarion." 

"I'm... probably not able to appreciate the differences, not being myself an item crafter."

"--Sorry, wouldn't expect you to, I just get maudlin about the situation sometimes."

What is the thing people who have definitely been aspiring to Lawful Good for their whole lives do in this situation. Is it nod sagely. He can do that.

"While I'm here--did you get the nest of cultists?" 

"Yeah. They had already started the ritual, but they stopped really fast once I started stinging them." 

"Have I mentioned I love your swarm range? Because I love your swarm range." 

"Is... swarm control... a local phenomenon or just a spell I haven't heard of?"

"--So--Golarion has witches but we're a lot more common here, do you know any things about witches."

"I have heard the word but would not know confidently what distinguishes them from wizards or sorcerers."

"Okay, so specifically witches, and not wizards or the kind of sorcerer who can have a familiar, come in a variety called 'swarm witches' where their familiar is a swarm of something small and exoskeletal, instead of a single animal. Taylor is unusual in that she can include, like, whatever, in her swarm, most swarm witches are limited to a single species." 

"...okay."

"We get a lot of fabric from swarm witches with spiders." He seems pretty confused still and she's not actually sure why but probably adding more information won't hurt?

"That does sound useful."

"--Ooh, you know what's really useful? We have these mechanical devices, for planting and harvesting grain more efficiently." If Aroden isn't going to provide the Age of Glory then someone else is just going to have to step in. 

"...well, then I suppose if I can return to Golarion at some point I should bring instructions on how to build and operate them."

"Yeah! ...I don't have any blueprints on me but obtaining them shouldn't be hard. I...think they're probably supposed to be fairly straightforward to operate...but I, uh, never tried, so I don't know for sure." 

It's really not that Taylor is ungrateful that Seshka is the kind of person who decides to resurrect other people's mothers on literally zero acquaintance but sometimes it is very obvious that Seshka grew up richer than anyone has ever needed to be.

His estimate of her wealth dropped considerably when he heard she made the necklace herself! Still very rich though yes. "I'm... going to assume that given that some of you have wings you don't normally live in caves, where are we going?"

"Klokers live underground; Finola live on the surface. Generally speaking. Obviously people get it into their heads to move sometimes. There's a townhouse you can use; we don't generally stay there, for reasons, but you are not currently affiliated with the local equivalent of the Arcanimirium so attempting to house you there would be mildly awkward."

"Yes, the closest I get to arcane spellcasting is shoddy castings of Prestidigitation."

"...It's not actually arcane-only. The Arcanimirium is the closest Golarion example I can think of but it does all kinds of spellcasters. It even has some martial stuff, albeit aimed at, like, sword-mages and paladins, not people who just hit things with pointy sharp things."

Hearing Seshka say wild things about Golarion is usually interesting but it's even more interesting with an actual Golarionite who doesn't know things about normal stuff right there for her to bounce off of.

"...well, I remain unaffiliated, and it sounds like you don't think I should attempt to become so."

"It's--complicated and kind of elitist? To get in you need an invitation, and invitations are traditionally obtained through some combination of--favors changing hands, money changing hands, being of a social class where it's just expected you'll be invited, and doing something so impressive that it would be embarrassing not to invite you. I was invited because I'm rich; Taylor was invited because she accomplished something really impressive and also has a unique swarm ability. Most casters learn though less, uh, snobbish, methods of teaching."

"You're not supposed to say the quiet part out loud." 

"I'm also not supposed to punch a duke's son who has actual muscles because he was being mean to a baron's daughter, but I don't care." 

"Understood. I appreciate the hospitality with respect to the house.

"- should I expect that Iomedae can reach me here with new spells in the morning?"

"I have no idea. --Like, even if she normally could, I wouldn't want to bet on it. Soooomething's going on, and we don't fully understand it, but the gods have been kind of...hard to get ahold of...lately. It's been affecting ex-mortals less, so Iomedae has that going for her, but less doesn't mean none."

"...this is the gods that are known and worshipped locally, becoming less responsive?"

"Right. Most days all the god-supported casters can get their non-spell stuff, like channels and smites, just fine, but occasionally even that doesn't work--on about half of days they'll get all their spell slots filled, but only with cures--occasionally you'll get exactly the spells you asked for. This is averaged across all the gods, though; as I said, ex-mortals have been doing better than the ancient gods, and demigods better than full gods--we've had, like, one Commune go through successfully since this started, and it was with the local equivalent of an Empyreal Lord." 

"I... will bear that in mind, whatever happens in the morning, then."

"Have we considered the possibility that the time connection between here and Golarion is deeply Chaotic, and the past thirty-three to thirty-one years took place in the handful of years leading up to when the Age of Glory was supposed to start, and then the past hundred or so years on Golarion have been the past two-ish years here, and the death of Aroden is causing this?"

"Well, I hadn't, but now I am, and I don't like it."

"Does prophecy still work here?"

She makes a so-so hand gesture. "It doesn't categorically fail to work, but it's subject to the same interference as whatever's messing with the gods." 

"And no one has... gone to your Nirvana-ish afterlife and asked the Powers there what's going on?"

"I would be surprised if nobody's tried it but if they have I don't know what results they got." 

"Fair enough. Extreme time dilation could explain some of the spell preparation irregularity, I think at least on Golarion every cleric getting spells at dawn and skipping a day if they constantly teleport to different times of day is probably treaty-negotiated."

"I think our treaties must be different because we...have fewer evil gods." 

"I'm not sure that actually directly implies much, it could be that this planet is just not a high priority for evil gods for whatever reason."

"Well, that's fair, but it seems like it would affect what treaties govern this planet? Like, in the ordinary course of things, the Good gods do more things than I remember from Golarion. Our infant mortality rate is lower, for instance, and was even before we got a bunch of nifty crop-related innovations recently. Governments that suck get overthrown way more often than ones that don't. Stuff like that." 

"...huh. Maybe Good won a - persistent victory here a long time ago, and fewer of those things involve active acute intervention than it looks like?"

"I don't know. Maybe. ...But we're having some trouble lately, because...remember what I said, about ex-mortals and demigods being better at functioning around the interference?"

"Yes?"

"Our evil god situation here is one ancient evil god and a number of ex-mortal evil demigods. I don't actually know how many, we're seeing activity from cults of Dread Lords we thought were dead. --Dread Lord is our catchall term for evil demigods, because not having evil afterlives means we don't have separate types of fiend to sort them into." 

"...when I said Iomedae was Lawful Good that appeared recognizable even though you also have only one Good afterlife?"

"We have alignments; what we don't have is categorizing Outsiders based on alignment. On Golarion you have archons and angels and azatas and agathions, and except for angels you can tell for sure what alignment one of those is by what kind it is. In the local afterlife you get regions based on different interests and preferences, and, like, if you spend most of your afterlife in the Great City and become an Outsider there, you become a Citizen, and most Citizens are Lawful but not all of them. There's a distinct subset that are Neutral Good instead, but they don't--cluster, based on that."

"All right. So, fiends, but not demons and devils and so on."

"Right. Although mostly just Fiend Lords who ascended directly from living mortals, because one of the similarities to Nirvana is...ours is called the Waiting Gate, but it's basically the same as the Isle of the Penitent. People who die basically aren't allowed to fiendify." 

"Basically?"

"I'm not actually a theologian, and I don't expect we know everything about the afterlife even so; if there are exceptions I wouldn't expect to know about them. But, like, nobody wants Dread Lords to happen, and they do every now and then anyway; I would expect that at some point somebody managed to break all the safeties despite being dead."

Nod, nod.

"Oh, and--there are a lot of places like the City, where being there and growing with it turns you into a specific thing that there's a name for, but there's also a bunch of one-offs. Not especially relevant to the question of Dread Lords but it adds variety to the sorcerous bloodlines going around." 

"There are already quite a few of those on Golarion. I'm not sure I've ever definitely met two alike."

"This is true. We also have fewer kinds of people, though, so it might even out--like, we don't have unicorns or phoenixes, so you're not going to get a unicorn or phoenix-blooded sorcerer. ...Actually the situation with wizards is weirder." 

"Oh?"

"So, there's, like, a bajillion ways to be a wizard, here, and they don't all store their spells in books, and even two traditions that hit on roughly the same medium, such as writing things down, as opposed to knotted cords or magic beads, are really difficult to translate spells across, and sometimes something is a circle lower in one tradition and nobody can figure out how to make it work in the others." 

"...how odd. Do some of them pick up multiple idioms of wizardry or is that not popular?"

"You can, but in order to really get anywhere with it you more or less have to spend all your time on it or be really smart, it's basically like being a wizard twice. ...I sorta wonder if there was something like that in Azlant and then the one we have now is just whichever one Aroden used, but that's just speculation."

Shrug. "I can cast and catch Prestidigitation in the Golarion wizard fashion but can't use most of its functions."

"Huh, really? I...don't think I've ever heard of that."

"I could probably do more with it with more practice, but I'm not really cunning enough to be a wizard properly so it would take a long time and has never seemed like a very compelling use of my spare hours."

"'People who aren't cunning enough to be wizards being taught cantrips' is something I've heard rumors of happening in a specific place I've never been to on this planet; I never got even that much of an inkling of it on Golarion." 

"It's unusual on Golarion too."

"Fair enough. The world has a million wonders, after all."

"Is that an aphorism?"

"Oh. Yes, a local one."

Seems sort of weird not to have an equivalent idiom to that. What are people going to do, not notice that the world contains weird exceptions to every rule stuffed into all its nooks and crannies?

They're going to notice that and describe it in terms like "stranger things have happened."

At some point are they going to lead him to the townhouse they offered or are they supposed to stand here for another hour or what.

They're going to wait until Taylor's bug-senses inform her that the mop-up of the cultists and the ritual site is complete, and then they're going to Teleport there, yes. 

Seshka will do the teleporting so he doesn't have to touch Taylor's swarm-covered body. 

He doesn't even know Taylor can teleport, so he doesn't note the courtesy!

Well, they're the same circle, and regular familiars exchange spells just fine with swarm familiars, but he doesn't know that and Seshka isn't going to draw Taylor's attention to the fact that Golarionites tend to expect Fewer Bugs in people's personal space than people acculturated to swarm witches do, so that piece of communication is just going to not happen for right now. 

The townhouse doesn't look too outrageous, compared to what a secondary residence of a wealthy person in, say, Taldor, would look like, but there are a lot more balconies, and the roof is constructed in a way informed by the assumption that people are going to be on it. Seshka leads the way inside, calling out to the servants that they have a visitor. 

Balconies and structurally sound roofs make sense for a winged race, not that he's ever thought about that before.

This guy is very foreign, he's a cleric of a Lawful Good god none of them will have heard of, she's putting him up, let her parents know about him if they show any indication of visiting the city. 

One of the servants' children toddles up to her, arms extended to be picked up; she scoops up the kiddo, kisses their cheek, spins them around, then puts them down and continues talking to the majordomo like nothing happened. 

He has never had occasion to discover if he's any good with children or not and hopes he does not have to find out right now.

The baby sits down on the floor and jams their hand into their mouth, ignoring Blai entirely. 

Seshka finishes arranging things and then Blai can be shown to a room. 

"Thank you. Should I perhaps have a phrasebook of a few things I might need to tell or understand from the servants? Especially if I can't guarantee preparing Comprehend Languages or Share Language tomorrow."

"Oh, uh--" she looks at Taylor. 

"Fair enough." Taylor takes off the Tongues amulet and holds it out to Blai. 

"- thank you. Are there any particular precautions I should take with this or a schedule on which you expect to need it back?"

"--No, and...I will talk to a Lawful friend and get back to you on the latter? My standard procedure is to loan things to people I expect not to run off with them and then ask for them back when it comes up, which..." she spreads her hands regretfully. "I'm Chaotic. By temperament more than philosophy."

"Understood."

"And you're welcome!" 

The two girls depart shortly thereafter. The room Blai has been shown to is, well, the kind of room you find in a rich person's house, with a very soft bed and shelves with books and all the fabric looking a lot easier to damage than anything you'd find in a military fort. 

He can indefinitely occupy himself with solo chess and studying the Acts if nothing comes up.

A few hours later a servant knocks on his door with dinner. 

"Thank you. Where should I put items to be Prestidigitated - the dishes, clothes overnight, that kind of thing -"

She shows him a dumbwaiter in a wall, and a bell he can ring to have it taken. 

"Oh, how clever - thank you."

He eats his dinner and sends the dishes down and when it is bedtime he sends his clothes down too and he - waits to see if he'll be roused with the dawn -

He is.

...there's definitely something weird going on, there, though. He gives Her a sitrep about where he is and why it might be weird. He reaches to swap out a cantrip, drop Spark which is only useful if he's camping and replace it with Read Magic in case it makes sense for him to dip into someone's reserve of divine scrolls here in this situation of scarcity - and it happens, sluggishly, and - that's it.

He ballparks an hour of prayer anyway, it's good for him and She can presumably still hear him even if he can't replenish his spells this way.

Are his clothes back yet?

His clothes are back!

Then he will get dressed for the morning and sit on the balcony with a chess set awaiting breakfast.

After a little while, Seshka alights on the balcony holding a basket. 

"Hi! There are some things here that seem to be the same as things I remember from Golarion, which are almost certainly safe, and there's some other stuff if you want to experiment." 

"I don't have Detect Poison, I was able to exchange one cantrip and then couldn't reach any more spells."

"That is a weird amount of spells to be able to get but okay."

"It's possible She could have extended herself for more but it didn't seem necessary? I still have most of yesterday's and this isn't a particularly dire situation."

"That's fair. Maybe if I understood more about how the god-disruption worked it would be perfectly logical. I'm glad she can get you here at all, though."

"So am I."

"You're third circle, right? I don't have any Pearls of Power available to loan out right now, but I know how to make them."

"That's right. I'm not sure how much the situation calls for such unless there's a healing shortage or something."

"It's not that bad. Clerics still mostly get their channels, and witches can heal, and we're a lot commoner on Cynorroden than Golarion." 

"Is there anything useful to be doing?"

"I'm much certainer that there is than what--aside from learning the local language, I don't anticipate needing the amulet back immediately but it is a good idea to try to get to the point of not needing it and I...don't actually know how long it takes a normal person to learn a language." As opposed to a person with enough cunning to properly cast from. 

"It'll be my fourth, but two of those are closely related and the other I learned in a school setting. The amulet will probably help if I have people to talk to, only I'm not sure whose best use of their time is talking to me."

"I can find somebody. I have money and you're my best shot at getting home, at some point. Is there anything in particular that would help?"

"...I'm not coming up with anything much more sophisticated than chatting about our respective planets and clarifying points of grammar over whatever number of chess games the other party will tolerate, I'm sure there are better ways to learn languages with an amulet of Tongues to hand but I don't know them."

"Well, finding someone who will tolerate more chess games is a relevant consideration." 

"It's not an essential feature."

"Well, no, but I don't expect finding someone who likes chess to be hard."

"Then I will be delighted to entertain them."

"Excellent. Conveniently, chess is the same here as in Avistan, which--is not the weirdest similarity but it's noticeable."

"Is there an identifiable weirdest similarity?"

"I think the weirdest similarity is how many things, in aggregate, there are that I'm familiar with. Like, not only do we have specific plant species that I'm familiar with, 'Seshka' is a name both here and in Sarkoris where I'm from, and so is 'Alfirin,' and dishes I remember my original mother making are in common circulation here, and some of the magic stuff is really different but some of it is similar enough that it's a weird coincidence given the things that are different, and--" she breaks off and then waves a hand. "A bunch of other stuff that you probably don't have the context to have any idea what I'm talking about." 

"Sarkoris... is... gone," he says.

"What!" 

Oh, fuck, Mom made decisions and also choices, didn't she. 

"That's where the Abyssal portal opened."

"--The one that was caused by Aroden dying?" Honestly if Sarkoris being gone isn't Mom's fault that's a huge relief--and actually the planar barrier to the abyss tearing open in Sarkoris makes a certain amount of sense, it was always thinner there, that was the whole point of sticking around to do research on it. ...If Sarkoris is gone and it's not Mom's fault she really hopes Mom got clear of it when it happened.

"Yes."

"Oh. Well. ...I hope people managed to evacuate, but also I hope it nailed the practice of witchhunting into a coffin and then burned it so nobody could animate its corpse." 

"One hears about it coming up in Mendev but it could be garbled rumors of anti-demonic inquisitions, I haven't spent much time there."

"Well, I sure hope they're being reasonable to people, but, uh, demons are reasonable to inquisit against and wizards* are not."

*Villarosan word that encompasses both witches and wizards, as well as cunning-based sorcerers; denotes arcane casting but is also used derogatorily to refer to people with a higher cunning:wisdom ratio than is good for them.

"If you say so. I don't have a very good history education so I don't know what might have been going on at the time."

"...Well, historically speaking, it's how I personally died, so it looms a bit large."

What are normal condolent things to say. Things that don't rely on figuring out if he has any specific emotions in here. "That makes sense. I wish I could tell you more about how things have progressed since then."

"It would be nice, but--I don't want to be ungrateful. Even just the information you've provided is really valuable; just being from Golarion is really useful." 

"Are there more things I should be describing for you?"

"I think I would like to know which countries drowned?"

"Lirgen and Yamasa."

"...Those're in Garund, right?"

"Yes, northwestern Garund."

So, still a tragedy, but not anywhere she knows enough about that she can usefully update her model of the world. "What has prophecy being broken looked like?"

"...based on only very thin evidence I think - paladins and clerics might fall more often now? A couple more gods established theocracies around that time. Fewer omens and more visions, though still not a lot of visions."

"Ah, okay. I thought it might have more obvious consequences, for being one of the first things brought up. Who set up theocracies?" Probably someone picked up Cheliax and/or Taldor, with Aroden gone? That might be unrelated to prophecy specifically, actually.

"Asmodeus and Abadar."

"Asmodeus!" What the fuck???

"How does that happen?"

"When Aroden did not appear for the Age of Glory there was a civil war and House Thrune, backed by Hell, won."

"I--okay--you'd think someone would stop that--I guess maybe the giant gaping abyss-hole might have distracted them--"

"Asmodeus, eesh, I am generally pretty firmly opposed to demon lords but there, specifically, Baphomet has a point, and uh are you okay." 

"...I don't really think Baphomet has a point."

"...Not even when the point is very specifically 'fuck Asmodeus' and not, like, any other Baphometian cruft surrounding it?"

"The Worldwound treaty was an incredible edifice of Law that kept the demons contained by a cooperating mass of worst enemies until a party of archmages was able to close the portal. It required treating with every party capable of contributing to the defense and willing to do so including Asmodean Cheliax. Baphomet did not help take Cheliax back from Asmodeus at all, as far as I know."

"...That's a really excellent point and I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry."

"I'm really glad to hear that the portal is closed, though!"

"It's on the whole a good thing though there were already plenty of demons on the material side of the portal at the time and the subsequent collapse in resource investment in the border would really have been better timed as a gradual phase-out over the next ten years."

"Mm, fair. I wonder if anything I can remember from my mother's and my old research on the Abyss would be helpful in putting down the demons that are left. Probably you cannot just get dretches to surrender by offering them naps." 

"I don't think I could rely on the surrender of a dretch even if it was very convincing about wanting a nap."

"They always want naps but that's so incredibly fair."

"It... doesn't seem very evil to want naps," he says dubiously.

"...Well, no? Demons are evil but they're, like, mortal evils condensed down and stripped of mortal goodness, not totally alien evil optimizers, that's qlippoths. Demons generally want things that aren't inherently evil, like personal comforts and safety and for other people to be really impressed with them, just, also, they also want things like to hurt people, and also even when the things they want aren't inherently bad they don't see anything wrong with hurting people to get them and so on."

"I suppose I did not spend much time having conversations with them."

"I did! While they were under very thorough bindings. Obviously they can't be let to run loose on the material plane or anything, but, like, finding ways to improve demonic quality of life that don't trade off against literally everything else any other kind of being might value is an incredibly understudied area."

"Aren't... other uses of those spells... things that trade off against that?"

"Oh, well, yes, but that wasn't the primary reason we were summoning them, we were summoning them to do magical research on the thing where the barrier between the Abyss and the material is really thin in Sarkoris. And then as long as we had them anyway there was no reason not to do things like talk to them or let the dretches take naps or whatever."

"Oh, I see. I'd tend to think that talking to them would be potentially hazardous but I guess I don't specifically believe that about dretches."

"None of the kinds of demons we worked with could hurt you just by talking to you; as long as you commit hard enough to not letting them out no matter what it's perfectly safe." 

"...and yet, if I heard that someone had been led to demon-backed atrocities I would be deeply unsurprised to find that their previous activities included talking to researched demons while committing hard to never letting them out, and would remain pretty unsurprised even if they also never actually let any demons out during their research."

"...Well, yes, but I think that would be more because...someone who's been doing demon-based research is more likely to use demons, if they're going to do atrocities? If you haven't been doing research on demons and you decide to do atrocities then probably you just blow up a city or animate a shitton of skeletons." 

"Perhaps."

"...I admit that when you said Sarkoris was gone my first thought was 'oh no, Mom must have reacted really badly to my being extremely dead,' but, like, I was the one talking to demons and not her." 

"...is there any chance I would have heard the name?"

"Areelu Vorlesh?"

"--You said it was Aroden dying that did it!"

"- I don't know her to have had anything to do with the Wound opening, though if, like Hell taking over Cheliax, the process had multiple steps only one of which was Aroden's death, I wouldn't know. She's... effectively Deskari's herald."

She throws up her hands. "Oh for fuck's sake, Mom." 

That is certainly one of the possible reactions one can have to learning that one's mother, Areelu Vorlesh, is Areelu Vorlesh.

She buries her face in her hands and takes deep breaths. 

"When I see her again I am going to yell at her so much." 

That is also technically a thing one can choose to do if for some reason one is in a room with Areelu Vorlesh!!

Most people in a room with Areelu Vorlesh have no reason to be confident she won't hurt them! Seshka is really quite unique in that regard. 

At least it means Mom is still alive. Not--okay, she wouldn't call being Deskari's herald okay, but--recoverable. 

She's not stupid enough to say that out loud in front of a guy who has every reason to classify Mom alongside demons in terms of people who shouldn't be allowed to do things. 

"I am guessing but not assuming that she has graduated past seventh circle." 

"I'm not certain she's ninth but I would bet that way."

There is a part of Seshka's soul whose immediate reaction is to cheer and congratulate her mother on the achievement. Seshka very firmly isolates that part of her from problem-solving. Mom being ninth circle doesn't become something to cheer about until this stops involving catastrophic amounts of evil. 

"Well. I'm very sorry this all happened. And I promise I'm not going to go join her in being extremely evil." 

"I am glad to hear it."

"...Man, this is context that makes the thing I said about Baphomet earlier much worse. So I am also specifically sorry about that part." 

"Baphomet was not empowered by your remark so far as I am aware. It's fine."

"I think under the circumstances I have an obligation to not scare people with the extremely pertinent possibility that I am about to go off the deep end, demonically speaking. Like, given the context that we each had at that point, it wasn't egregious at the time, but I want to signal that I am taking these things into account going forward." 

"Understood."

"So...I think you implied that the Asmodean theocracy also got fixed?"

"The same archmages conquered it."

"Good archmages."

"That is my understanding, yes. Though they also have the grand inquisitor of Abadar who is probably neutral."

"--Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that in the sense of speculating on their alignments, I meant it in the sense of commending their accomplishments."

"Ah. Yes. One of their party took the throne of Cheliax. She's the one rumored to have swordfought the Tarrasque."

"Was the Tarrasque needing swordfighting also a result of Aroden dying?" And/or Seshka's mom's fault but maybe she had better not say that part out loud. 

"No, it was more recent than that."

"Oh, I wasn't assuming that anything that was a result of Aroden dying necessarily had to happen right away after he did, but fair enough."

"I suppose it could have been but not in a way known to me."

"Reasonable. Any idea what happened to the Tarrasque after she swordfought it?"

"...well, she won, or so I'm told."

"--Well, I rather assumed, from context, but I mean, like, what does winning a swordfight with the Tarrasque look like--did it disappear, is its corpse moldering around in public, was it bound somewhere, does Cheliax have a nifty new palace like Osirion's Dome--"

"I don't know, the teleportation monster attacked before I reached Westcrown to receive fresher evidence."

"--Oh, okay, it was that recent."

"Worldwound rumor is none of timely, reliable, or complete."

"Well, that's fair. Do you know anything else about the archmage-team?"

"It's a married couple, the archmages Cottonet - the husband Elie Cottonet is a Galtan wizard and his wife Naima an Osirian arcane healer of some kind. They have children. There's the Inquisitor Shawil, also Osirian. - Osirion is Abadar's theocracy, if I didn't specify. There's the Queen, I don't remember her original name though I'd probably recognize it since it's related to her claim to the throne, but her regnal name is Aspexia III, she's also Galtan. There's another archmage, but some kind of sorcerer whose spells stop at what's topologically sixth circle, with an exceptionally powerful familiar, and I can't remember that one's name. They sometimes adventure with the most powerful paladin since Iomedae, Her man Alexeara Cansellarion, but I don't think he's a routine party member."

"--Oh, huh, I figured if Abadar and Asmodeus both set up theocracies in the immediate aftermath of Aroden's death, and Asmodeus got Cheliax, then Abadar would end up with Taldor."

"Taldor persists in a smaller but as far as I know otherwise recognizable form."

"I would say good for them but I'm not sure 'recognizably Taldor' is a great thing to aim at. ...I guess 'Taldor, but smaller' is less likely to have Taldor's, you know, expansionist, tendencies."

"I don't know a lot about it, they don't have a major presence at the Worldwound."

The amount of specifically Worldwound-focused he is does not make the fact that her mother went extremely evil less awkward. Oh well. 

"D'you know specifically what kind of arcane healer Naima is? Witch, song-sorceress, some other sorcerer varietal?"

"I haven't been to see her in person, she does some kind of circuit between major cities and I don't spend a lot of time in major cities. I haven't heard anyone saying she sings. I don't know if she prepares or not. She has a dog familiar, I think the dog sometimes... also does a circuit of major cities..."

"Might be a witch, we do familiars. Might also be a weird sorcerer I haven't heard of. It's really hard to rule out weird sorcerers."

"It is. I can't rule out her being a witch but have not heard her specifically identified as one."

Nod nod. "My fiance is a sorcerer with a bloodline that gives cures, but he doesn't have a familiar and his ancestor is one of the local idiosyncratic Outsiders."

What is the normal thing to say about that. "Congratulations."

"Hm? --Oh, I was using that as an example, not," she waves a hand, "trying to bring up the engagement."

"Ah. I think the party member whose name I forget is some kind of weird sorcerer, which, I suppose, might make it more likely that the Arch-healer is a witch, since apparently assertions that members of the group are weird sorcerers can and do escape at times."

Nod. "My party has multiple weird sorcerers but it's also bigger than that."

"Is the caving adventure on which I encountered you typical?"

"Mostly we've been sticking to the surface so far."

"...in characteristics other than the caving aspect, though?"

"It was one of the quieter ones. Most of 'em take more than Taylor and Tristan to handle that quickly."

He can't tell if their usual adventuring goals are sensitive information she's just blandly talking around or not but he certainly isn't going to pry further. "Do you have an idea of what the tuning fork process might look like?"