Yeah, all right. Van'll have to Gate you all, I can't send you without going myself and I don't have enough teleports to go and come back.

:Van should fix that: Yfandes tosses her head at him.

Vanyel can refill the other teleport spell too, just in case. And - hmm, Gating is going to be tricky since the doorways he can use are a squeeze for Yfandes, but - maybe if he uses the edge of a pattern on the wall that is sort of square and doorway-ish, and convinces his mind that it's definitely a door... 

"I still don't know what to make of what she said," he murmurs as he watches the others head through. "That Gates only hurt because I - expect them to? I don't know how that'd work." 

"I've never heard of that either. I wrote down everything she said, maybe later we can make more sense of it -" And he takes the rod of Extend Spell from Fazil (who has cast Protection from Evil on both of them), casts Tongues on himself so he'll be able to understand Vanyel talking to Leareth, and turns to look into the demiplane again. "She's a seventh circle wizard in addition to a ninth circle cleric, I never even knew that was possible."

"Oh, right, we still need to experiment with that at some point." This is obviously higher priority, though. "And, wow, I didn't either - huh." He peers at Leareth, who is still patiently floating, looking at them. "I suppose we can throw the rope to him?" 

He nods. He tosses the rope. "Fazil said lawful evil, is that a surprise?"

Vanyel answers quietly enough that he doesn't think Leareth will hear. "Evil, no - I think your system would classify his acts and methods as evil even if he's telling the truth and there's some sort of longer term justification for it. Lawful, yes, I'm a little surprised. He's seemed not to respect the laws of any particular kingdom - or ideology, or moral commandments..." 

Leareth catches the rope and starts reeling himself in, slowly, avoiding any sudden movements. (He ignores the still-present undercurrent of terrorterrorterror, which is even less helpful now than before.) 

"Huh," he murmurs back. "You can get Law off your own internally-designed system, if it's careful enough and you're careful enough about adhering to it, but most people can't be that careful. It does make me suspect he hasn't lied, when he's given you his word, but - you never want to lean too much on alignment, it's evidence but it's evidence with some really weird extraneous inputs."

Leareth is about to reach the doorway. 

Vanyel holds up both hands. "Leareth, stop when you reach it. Don't move. I'm going to put you under Truth Spell." And shove him back in if he so much as twitches. 

"Of course." Leareth can't slow his approach, he's coasting on momentum now with nothing to brake with, but he grabs the doorway and stops himself. Stands barely an inch past the threshold, motionless.

(scaredscaredscaredscared– No, go away, the most useful thing to feel here is calm so he does.)

His Othersenses flood back in, though, and he instantly scans the room. 

While Vanyel casts a coercive Truth Spell, it doesn't take long but it's around fifteen seconds to complete. 

Vanyel looks mostly as Leareth would expect, except for a ring he's wearing that's glowing brightly with unfamiliar magic. The man standing next to him is shielded by several layers of barriers, most of them approximately familiar in form but a few of them made of something different entirely, and is wearing a lot of magical artifacts, a headband and a cloak and his gloves and a necklace and something tucked into his pocket. 

The walls of this room have magical protections on them, though some of them have been hacked away. 

Can he get anything off the stranger with Thoughtsensing. (Vanyel, definitely not, he's shielded tightly.) 

The stranger is also shielded but his shields look different, somehow more organic, and not like they're directed against Thoughtsensing specifically, and - there's the slightest opening from one angle, if he tries for a bit to find it. 

The stranger is thinking that if having resurrection insurance makes your party put you in all of the dangerous situations then this is a hazard that should really increase the price of resurrection insurance. And he's not sure what it means, that Nethys thinks Abadar cares for this man, but it's convenient because he and Fazil are both kind of pushing the boundaries of law, here, and that's a bigger risk for Fazil -

Leareth adds to his mental tally of confusing facts, which is starting to seriously overflow now. Maybe he can ask for paper to write some things down once they've reached some sort of resolution here.

(They should, he in fact isn't planning to hurt Vanyel and wants to cooperate with him - wants to even more than before, now that Vanyel has access to absurdly powerful magic in other worlds - but he's still scared.) 

"Leareth," Vanyel says. "Are you planning or intending any harm to me - us - now?" 

The Truth Spell wraps around his mind and forces him to answer, but he was going to anyway. "No." 

Nod. Vanyel relaxes a little. "Have you been telling me the truth, before this, in all of our conversations?" 

"Yes. I never lied to you." It's a second-stage Truth Spell, he guesses, since he can feel it tugging him to give a complete answer - he could sidestep it, probably, the vrondi's magic only senses intent and the answer he already gave was perfectly satisfactory to the letter of Vanyel's question, but... "I did omit a great deal." 

Slight smile. "Well, yes, I figured. So did I. Are you intending to invade Valdemar?" 

"Not imminently - I was not previously planning to invade this year, or even in the next five - current events have not changed that." And the spell wants a thorough answer, even though Vanyel would accept what he already said as complete. "I do have an eventual plan that would either require invading Valdemar, invading somewhere else, or - something I have not even thought of, yet." 

('Something he hasn't even thought of' seemed a lot unlikelier when there was just the magic of Velgarth, thoroughly explored for every possible option. But whatever else is true, here, the evidence of his senses indicates that he's in another world, with magic he didn't know was possible, and - that calls for a halt, to step back from all his current priorities and reassess whether they still make sense. And - flicker of hope, brief but almost painful in its intensity - it might mean that there's another way.) 

"I see." Vanyel glances at Mahdi. "If we let you have magic and all, are you going to scheme to escape back to Velgarth." 

"No?" Leareth's eyes narrow slightly. "One, I do not even know what your capabilities are, so I would likely fail. Two, there is an opportunity, here, and it is a much more valuable opportunity to me if you and your friends are on my team. From both sides, the incentives you are giving me are to cooperate."