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She is slower than the mirror-faced snake, and for some reason it is choosing to chase her, and she is not in dense enough forest to lose it by going up a tree or between a couple too narrowly spaced for it. So it catches her before emergency services can turn up.
And then she is somewhere else, in a not particularly attractive room next to a person who looks sort of off somehow.
"Excuse me," she says, taking a step out of his personal space.
"Iiiit's probably more like a fear spell than like actually thinking there is circumstantial danger."
"What's the deal with that Starstone thing we think our local version is going after, is that a good shortcut?"
"No one knows anything about the tests that surround the Starstone, but people who touch it ascend to godhood. People who die trying and are resurrected report no memories of what happened after they crossed the abyss to the island where it's kept."
"A very long time ago some powerful enemies of the powerful human civilization of the time dragged a planet out of its orbit to impact ours. Through the intervention of our gods, the impact was mitigated enough to not extinguish all life on the planet, just plunge it into a thousand-year ice age that destroyed all the extant human civilizations. The incident was called Earthfall. The last survivor of the lost civilization of Azlant was an immortal human named Aroden. He found the Starstone at the bottom of the ocean, at the heart of what had been the meteor. He ascended to godhood, raised the surrounding area into the island of Absalom, and put protections around the Starstone so the unworthy wouldn't touch it. I don't know what kind of test of worthiness he had in mind; he's now dead."
"Well, that makes the local's plans probably simpler in some ways and more complicated in others."
"Aroden's death incidentally destroyed half a continent and kicked off three civil wars. I'm not saying one should never kill a god if they can but - I hope that's not their core strategy."
"I know. But there are a lot of evil gods and not that many continents left." He gestures for someone to give him the list of all of the people with adventurer's resurrection insurance purchased in Osirion.
It's a long list. Though Osirion doesn't have the 'bel' or 'pel' consonants, which means the list of names that include one of those is considerably shorter.
The non-Maitimos crowd around to divvy up peering at sections of it. Pelape says, "There's a 'Belmarniss'."
"Belmarniss. Elf. Country of origin Noctimar. - we have never heard of a Noctimar. Conceivably it could be on the Elf planet? Occupation, adventurer, god, none, next of kin none, history of deaths no, criminal history no..."
"You take it and concentrate on the name and other identifying information you have on the subject."
Pelape takes it. The others encircle so nobody else can see. "How soon do I know if it's working, I don't see anything?"
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