"Gate. Ninth circle. You could probably figure out how to ward a room against it with enough development time, and if you're conscious it's possible though very difficult to react fast enough to resist the spell. We waited until you were asleep so we wouldn't be risking that - we were planning to use the magic system mismatch to spy on you but Nefriti happened to already know whether you were asleep or not, somehow. Mostly if Nefriti wants someone dead then they will be. I do not know Cheliax to have anyone who is a ninth circle cleric and a seventh circle wizard with the ability to divine things by contact with the god of knowledge, but it's possible they would choose not to advertise it."

Shiver.

(It seems to be working out mostly fine so far but Leareth is really not pleased that someone successfully kidnapped him from his shielded bedroom, even if they did so by working closely with Vanyel.) 

"Sorry. Or - I don't particularly disendorse our decision process but I'd be angry if it'd been done to me and it would obviously have been preferable to get Vanyel's answer in some way that was not terrifying."

"I am not angry. It was reasonable of you - that was a correct level of paranoia, if you had brought me through into a place where I had magic I would have tried to kill everyone in sight just from reflex. Possibly before realizing it was Vanyel at all. And...I am glad he was able to obtain answers from me that he trusted more. Since they are true." 

"So why, exactly, do you think you can improve things with one more good god?"

"Do you want the long explanation?" 

"Yes. But once Mahdi gets back, so you don't have to repeat it."

"Of course." Leareth asks a few more questions about magic system interactions, and starts taking notes for the order of his explanation on Velgarth gods and their equivalent of geopolitics, to his best understanding, and the limitations that make them nearby impossible to work with but aren't entirely fundamental. 

And Mahdi comes back with the memory of a diamond. It's very big but not so big it cannot be mined anywhere in Velgarth. 

"If you are planning to let me communicate with my people at some point, I can request that a diamond of that size be located urgently. Probably we will need to buy it, but - most parts of Velgarth are poorer, the going rate should not be prohibitive for me." 

Mahdi tries to stand up again from where he flopped after teleporting back, and fails. "I don't think I have two more hops in me even if you refill the spell slot. If you want to Gate to the room where we spoke earlier, Fazil or Hagan can go with you and show you how to use the crystal ball."

"No, of course. You look exhausted. I will do that now, I think, to get started on it, and then come back for further discussion." 

He stands up. "I'll go."

"Thank you." And Leareth Gates them down to the room. "Crystal ball? Oh, it must be that." It's hard to miss. 

"That's the one. You touch it, and concentrate on identifying features of your target. It works best with people you know well, and it fails sometimes even with them, the spell can slip off them and then you have to try someone else.

Vanyel and Yfandes were both trying for you, because it'd fail pretty often. It fails more with people who are carefully shielded and more with people whose minds are - tightly organized and very attentive to external intervention. But a fancy one like this will usually make it even with those."

Nod. "I would say I have a well-organized mind, and I suppose I was heavily shielded." He tries for Nayoki first; she's more 'attentive to external intervention', probably, but he also knows her very well. 

Nope.

Sigh. His spymaster? 

Yep.

Leareth gives some passcodes to verify his identity and passes on a quick, condensed message - he was in fact kidnapped, by Vanyel, who's in another world. His staff should reasonably be suspicious of this claim, but the fact that he was snatched via impossible means and is now communicating with them equally impossibly should be somewhat convincing. He's fine (he doesn't mention the horrible room). Vanyel isn't. He'd like to really quickly relay a message to Nayoki and ask if she knows what to do. 

(She doesn't, unfortunately, it's sort of a novel situation.) 

He is on reasonably decent terms with Vanyel's friends, though, and learning things about their magic, which is very promising. They want to try to help Vanyel by resurrecting his lifebonded. Needless to say, this is higher priority than nearly anything else his people could be doing, right now. He needs a diamond of yea measurements. Ideally in the next couple of days. 

Less than ten minutes later, he turns back to Hagan. "Done. They are working on diamond procurement." 

"Cool. You know, when we were first talking Vanyel through how we could make a lot of money quickly Fazil asked if there were people in your world who'd pay a lot for a ride to ours and he smiled to himself and said 'yes, but we probably shouldn't sell it to him'. Imagine how much trouble we could have saved."

His lips twitch. "Yes, but for all Vanyel knew I might have accepted the ride and then murdered all of you. He was the correct amount of paranoid, given his state of knowledge." 

"He's very careful. And very miserable, it's not exactly an advertisement for it being livable to be that careful."

"Is it still that noticeable? Honestly, I imagine that is mostly about the dead lifebonded. I am probably more careful than him by a substantial margin and I hope I do not radiate misery." 

"Only when we were torturing you. Lifebonds sound like a horrible concept."