"From the House of Oblivion, the portal to the neutral evil afterlife in Thuvia. Every once in a while some evil outsiders come through and wreak havoc, but in recent years it's been much worse - more of them, and more organized and better supplied, so they venture farther. Thuvia's in no position to mount much of a response. Rahadoum's helping but - no divine casters is such a ridiculous self-imposed handicap, not that many people are going to tolerate having to hobble around with slowly-healing burns or whatever for weeks. Dunno why Osirion's not doing anything, we're Thuvia's neighbors too. Ask his pharaohiness, I guess."

"Why does Thuvia have a portal to the neutral evil afterlife? Who made it? That sounds like such a horrifically bad idea - can it not be closed?" 

"An ancient pharaoh built it as part of a deal he'd made with an evil entity in the plane, where the entity would help him claim power in Osirion. No one knows how to close it. Nefreti could probably encase it in a mountain or something if she wanted to."

Leareth spends a moment lost for words. "I...see. Do we have any explanation for why it is worse in recent years?" 

"We have no idea. Though you really should ask his pharaohiness, seems like something he'd have been devoting more resources to figuring out than we have."

"I will do that." Leareth is expecting another evening visit from the pharaoh, that's been the pattern so far, and if not he can request one tomorrow. 

The pharaoh in fact comes by that evening. "Leareth! Thank you for your Healers' time. This is all fascinating and I think at least a third of it will end up being really important."

"I am glad! Nayoki is here primarily to research an altered version of our Gates that would allow transit between worlds, since that would make it much easier to bring dozens or hundreds of people across." 

"That would be so useful! And at some point, hard to keep secret - I hope the plans that require that are proceeding?"

"Hagan spoke his contact who was recruiting for Rahadoum and it sounds as though we have an arrangement to go for a month. I am reluctant to leave before Vanyel is - doing better - but I suppose we could leave him with Fazil, and find out sooner rather than later what is going on, and thus what degree of secrecy is important and for how long. Knowledge of Velgarth itself will almost certainly leak. Some specific capabilities - which are likely to include large inter-world Gates - would seem best held in reserve. I am not sure where Healers would fall." 

"They seem to have many fewer immediate strategic implications."

"That is my leaning. Anyway. Another ongoing problem we have is the situation in Valdemar, Vanyel's homeland, which is currently somewhat tense and unresolved - Vanyel disappeared suddenly and they are understandably suspicious. I think the best solution here is for Vanyel to return in person, but - he is not up for it now, and it might make things worse for him to arrive in this state and without Yfandes. So we are stuck waiting." 

"We have many means of sending magical messages, if that might help."

"What are they? He has already tried to Mindspeak someone via the crystal ball, and it seems that they found this - and his story of being in another world - unconvincing, but some methods might be more persuasive. For reference, they seem to think that I kidnapped him. Which is ironic given that what actually happened is the reverse." 

"Huh. A Sending is restricted to 25 words but works fine across planes and allows a reply. A crystal ball with telepathy permits longer conversation than that but if they already found it unpersuasive that's kind of tricky. To contact a paladin order in another world I would usually try sending a Good outsider with a message, expecting they'd know the outsider to be incorruptible and able to report whether anything suspicious was up, but Velgarth people don't have routine contact with our aligned planes so I assume they wouldn't know what an archon showing up meant."

"No - I am not sure what that is either! Velgarth does not really have the same concept of alignment. Though that plan sounds better than, for example, going myself in person, which would be a disaster. They do have magic to determine if someone is telling the truth - or to force someone to do so. They would be alarmed and confused, I think, but being able to confirm that a visitor was telling the truth would have to be somewhat persuasive. Also I wonder if the Companions can sense Good alignment, at least weakly. They might; they have a sort of diffuse Foresight-sense which can give them good or bad gut feelings about a person or situation." 

"Archons are lawful good outsiders that serve Heaven and good - usually lawful good - mortals when our aims align with Heaven's. Agathions are the neutral good version of the same thing. They will be very suspicious of you whatever your intentions but they'd work with Vanyel, and their appearance would at least settle the question of whether another world's magic was involved."

Nod. "I think Vanyel is definitely not up for going in person, especially since I am sure they would interrogate him for a week about it, but tomorrow morning he might be up for speaking with one of these outsiders - is 'outsider' a term for a specific kind of being, here?" 

"An outsider is a creature native to one of the nine Outer Planes. They are unaging, and unlike mortals they are shaped by the nature of the plane they're from. There are no evil or lawless archons, and it is impossible for an archon to choose to act evilly or lawlessly, though you could trick them or force them with compulsion-magic. They take many different forms but the most common types are widely known, here."

"Oh, yes, if Valdemar had ever heard of that before, they would find it reassuring. However, part of the necessary persuasion would be convincing them that other worlds exist despite that sounding very implausible, so." He shakes his head. "Vanyel told me - before Nefreti kidnapped me, we have a shared lucid dream sometimes, it is a long story - and initially I thought he had most likely had a psychotic break of some kind, and attempted to send spies to Haven in order to confirm his safety. I do not blame the Valdemaran government for their doubts." 

"Archons are not very possible to mistake for humans, so I'd expect that to clear things up. Otherwise - I'm not sure. We could send envoys once the gods have negotiated the return of their souls to where they belong if they should die."

"A sensible precaution. Our gods are not very good at afterlives - I suppose at least we do not have torture afterlives, that part is an improvement."

(What he is thinking, privately, is that at least people are rescuable from Hell. In theory. Someday. If he says that out loud then probably the pharaoh will just point out all of the ways it's impossible.) 

"Abaddon, the neutral evil afterlife, eats most of the souls condemned there. Just - destroys them. Pharasma thinks this is obnoxious, so she offers souls damned to Abaddon the choice to go to Hell or the Abyss instead, and most of them choose to. I think Hell more often than the Abyss, even. Hell is not good but people shouldn't just - stop being, it's awful. I am sorry your gods are not up to doing their jobs."

"–Nobody had mentioned that. That is extremely horrifying. I am guessing there is a good reason why 'invade them through the portal they conveniently left in a desert' is not a tractable solution. I am nonetheless tempted! When people die in our world they are - mostly lost, I think, but at least some of the information that made them up is kept."

Leareth is feeling surprisingly upset about this. Maybe not surprisingly. He doesn't feel actively disturbed by things very often, but he doesn't very often learn about places that permanently destroy souls either. 

"Abaddon's daemons sometimes prey on souls before they make it to judgment, too, or baby souls in the Neutral afterlife where babies go, though Pharasma tries quite hard to prevent that."