She follows him. Verita follows her. 

She murmurs something and lights up the space around them. The only other light is streaming in from the portal.

It's the same rocky cavern that they came in from.

And a metal helmet, of unfamiliar and fairly menacing make, appears on Hagan's head, out of nowhere. He collapses to his knees, reaching up to try to pull it off. This does not work.

- what the fuck.

" - are you okay - "

He's not okay. It feels like a bunch of things are suddenly clear and a bunch of other ones are slipping away from him. The helmet's cursed. Can't take it off. Should figure out who did it, whether Korva and Verita are in danger, but his head is unfamiliar and hard to use. 

He has cleric spells. He notices it when he tries to cast his own spells, and there's something there which isn't the reserve he's used to. He has - a lot of cleric spells, more than makes any sense, no one's suddenly a seventh level cleric except -

- except that and that's not a seventh level cleric, it's fifteenth, he's not fifteenth, his heart stops for a second while he checks but he only has fourth level spells and below. Sending. He can prepare Sending. 

He stands up and his head is still so scattered - it's contemptible, really, how disorganized he is, how defenseless he is, it's amazing Korva puts up with it - looks around at the empty room -

"- I have cleric spells. I think something's very wrong. I'm going to prepare Sending and get Fazil and Mahdi. Verita do you have a way to detect if there's anyone in the room, invisibly -" he's weak and useless and unprepared and he could easily die for it before he has the spell -

She shakes her head and then decides that things are wrong enough that people ought to be talking out loud. "Don't think so. I can detect magic - maybe someone could throw sand or something - "

"Sure." He closes his eyes. His head is clearing up a little. Being distracted by self-loathing now would be as contemptible as the original mistakes he's upset with himself for. He needs to get Fazil and Mahdi, he needs to get home, he needs an explanation, he needs to stop fucking around -

Can you, uh, hear me?

He doesn't get an answer, but he has more information than he had a second ago and is entirely sure of it, which is sort of like getting an answer. He hates it. Fazil never described communing with a god that way. Hating this is part of what's wrong with him, what's wrong with how he's spent his whole life, destroying his own capacities and being stupid and being weak and then resenting it any time this affected him badly -

Who are you?

It's Abadar. That's very bad. The worst answer he could possibly have gotten. It also doesn't make any sense. 

How - 

The helmet. Helm of opposite alignment. 

Why -

"Everyone's dead," he says out loud. "Sending - we're two hundred ten miles north and fourteen west of the city, there's a portal, there's an emergency, come right now -"

Verita's throwing sand around the room. She keeps doing this.

There doesn't seem to be anyone in the room.

- well she's really very unsure what's happening but whatever it is it's terrible.

" - which everyone," she asks him, when she's pretty sure he's done with his sending.

"'m family. In Sothis, and the ones who weren't in Sothis, and the ones who weren't in the country and the ones who weren't on the plane, except me because the spell couldn't reach the Deep Plane."

" - gods.

"I'm - so sorry - "

"Can't raise them, they didn't make to Pharasma. I bet Mahdi's reassuring his wife, useless idiot - need them to hurry -"

- Hagan calling Mahdi a useless idiot sounds very - wrong - but she still doesn't have a good sense of what's going on, and whatever it is is pretty far above her level, so - she nods.

"Cleric levels are - from Abadar?"

"Yes. But I don't have plane shift, 'm not smart enough, he can't give it to me - I'll fix it once we're home - and we'll also need a teleport so I need Fazil and Mahdi. What's keeping them -"

"It's been like twenty seconds, they're probably - figuring out where the other one is, or something - "

"I hope you're right," he says, a little coldly. Then he regrows his arm.

She'd been really looking forward to getting that taken care of as soon as they were back on this plane. She was going to be really really happy for him. Right now she's busy having a stomachache.

She wants to ask him something about how it's really weird for Abadar to make him a cleric if he's going for Elysium, but obviously the circumstances are really extreme, and she can't think how the question is supposed to go, anyway.

She waits.

"Pretty sure the room's empty," reports Verita, once she's thrown enough sand.

"Well, maybe Fazil and Mahdi will deign to join us before that changes."

"...yeah."

She crosses her arms and taps her fingers nervously and tries to think of sane questions to ask.

"Are we expecting any specific company?"

"No, but the things that chased us to this door before might notice us if we linger, and we're badly needed back at home."

Nod.

She has more questions but she kind of feels like this is probably not a great time to ask them.

Fazil and Mahdi show up a minute later. They glance around the room and turn to Hagan in confusion.

"We need to get to Sothis as quickly as possible. Prepare two plane shifts, we can go over Aktun. Mahdi, do you still have a teleport -"