"I...hope so. I can try very hard to make sure it is - avoid drawing any gods' attention in the city, which I want to do anyway... I do not think I can make an absolute promise, but - I think it is quite likely you and Saba will not have to move again." 

She sighs. Nods, eventually.

He gets out a map, and a book he owns now on the histories of various countries, and looks around at what his options are, assuming they want cities that are around the same size and general activity level as Sothis, in countries where women have at least some amount more freedoms and rights than in Osirion. 

He can either have that or he can have countries where his wife speaks the language; she knows only a few words of Taldane.

He thinks that living somewhere better for the next twenty years is well worth a transition period for learning a language, but he's also aware that he probably has an easier time with languages than most people, he picked up the Osirion tongue in just a few months and was fully fluent inside a year. (He isn't sure that he gets any advantage from having been a god, but separate from that he's smart and driven.) Saba must still be comfortable with Taldane even if it's been a long time since that was his main language at home. 

He asks Parmida for her preference. Does it help if he promises to stay in town and be the man of the house, like she wants, until she's comfortable with the language? Tongues is a third-level spell so he could obtain it and cast that for her as a way of transitioning more smoothly. 

In that case she wants Absalom. It'll be easy enough to sell magic items to shops and probably no one will care as much if her children don't have a father. She has no idea if she'll be able to make friends, herself, but she doesn't really expect that to be better anywhere.

Then they can pack up and buy a place on a boat to Absalom. Aroden apologizes to Saba for dragging him around again, but says that he thinks he'll end up liking the new city a lot more than this small village, once he's settled. Shows him the section in his book about Absalom.

He says to Parmida, absently, that he's sure she'll be able to make friends, she hosts such good parties. 

" - when I know the rules, when I know the people, when they know me and know how to interpret me and know what other people will think of them if they associate with me, when I speak the language and no one feels sorry for me and they expect that it's a good idea to be my friend, that it's not going to suck them into disrepute and drama, that I won't turn up on their doorstep begging, that -" 

Sigh. 

...Apparently friends are complicated. He's not sure he's ever bothered to track any of those things. Probably he should learn at some point; it seems important to understand the interactions between people better, if he's ever going to command armies. 

They take a carriage to the docks and get on the ship to Absalom. 

Zahra does not like being on a ship. Parmida rocks her and asks for lessons in Taldane. Saba reads his book about Absalom and asks occasionally did they know that no one has ever conquered Absalom, did they know that Aroden made it, did they know that dozens of people try the Starstone every year, did they know that Absalom permits marriage between any two free beings, whatever their species...

(Yes, he knew that Aroden made it. Yes, he knows how many people try the Starstone. He wonders how strange it will feel to be back.) 

Aroden takes turns rocking his daughter. He gives his wife language lessons whenever she asks; he's pretty good at teaching it. 

Absalom is twice the size of Sothis, and far more cosmopolitan; there are two dozen languages spoken on the streets, and almost as many people flying as walking (some because they are birds, some because they are wizards or sorcerers). There are serpentfolk and elves and dwarves and halflings and tieflings and gnomes and shapeshifters whose base form is very unclear. There are brothels on almost every street corner, advertising themselves with bright attention-drawing lewd illusions; there are temples to Iomedae and Norgorber and Cayden Cailien, there is a library that takes up two entire city blocks and five stories; there is the Mage's Collegium and the Enchanter's Collegium and the Evoker's Collegium and the Illusionists's Collegium and the Beguiler's Collegium and the Dragonblooded Collegium and the Physician's Collegium and the Illusionist's Collegium and the guildhalls and the artificers and the markets and the magic shops and the harbor and three different secretive monastic orders that are not so secretive they don't have signs up and conspicuous castles (probably more of them which are more secretive than that).

Parmida looks overwhelmed but also mollified. Zahra hates it. Saba clings to his father's hand and stares fascinated at everything, until his mother tells him that if he stares too much at the brothels he'll end up in the Maelstrom at which point he tries quite hard to stop.

It's pretty overwhelming! It wouldn't have bothered him as a god, presumably, but there is way too much to fit into his attention, he feels constantly disoriented, and it's kind of distressing. 

They can find temporary accommodations at a nice inn so they have time to look at houses and select one that Parmida especially likes. He would love to be near the library but presumably prices are higher there, and as a countervailing consideration it would be nice to be toward the edges of town where it's slightly less - maybe just 'less'. 

Parmida is slightly worried about being mugged for magic items if she's supporting the chlldren by making them and supplying them to the magic shops, so probably it'd be good to be near there. (Though less would also be good.)

He will get her some really good protective amulets so she's very hard to mug. He's been hard to mug for a long time, but women are probably seen as better targets for mugging just by dint of being smaller. Seems worth living near the magic shops just to shorten the walk, though. 

He looks at houses. A somewhat higher price range than their last place seems fine, their earning potential is higher now too. (He's pretty sure he can earn more than enough adventuring to support his family, Parmida seems to keep...not believing that he'll actually do that?) 

Parmida thinks that he's gone at least a little bit mad and will probably get himself killed and she had better be prepared for this and able to support their children on her own. Also the last time she was happy and felt safe, everything was awful just a couple of months later, so now she is superstitious about being happy or feeling safe. She likes some of the houses, though, and with Tongues and Detect Thoughts up she can start interviewing staff, and hire some good people to clean and cook and look after the baby.

Saba does not, it turns out, remember Taldane very well, even though it's his first language; he will be behind in school for a little while, though he should catch up. Parmida finds a temple of Irori to enroll him at so he has at least that much continuity. His mastery of magic turns out to make it fairly easy to make friends even in a foreign country where he barely speaks the language. 

The two of them can get more regular commissions here than in Sothis.

Cheliax is reportedly interfering in Rahadoum's civil war.

(Oh for fuck's sake - can things stop happening for six, goddamned, months so he can get his family settled somewhere without some other part of the world falling apart in the interim...) 

He promised to stay until Parmida was comfortable in the language, and he intends to keep that promise, though he is quite insistent about their language lessons happening every day. He tries to learn everything he can about what's going on in Rahadoum. Absalom should have a lot of travel and trade from other regions; he tries to find merchants and ship-workers who've come from Rahadoum or parts of Thuvia near Rahadoum, and reads their surface thoughts. He's very tempted to pay to have Detect Thoughts placed permanently as well, it burns an annoying number of his daily spells to be casting it himself and gives him only a few minutes.

He considers paying to copy a select number of fourth-level spells, while he's here in a city packed with wizards, he should have no difficulty finding even very obscure ones, and surely the sheer number of wizards who can sell a given spell will drive down the market rate for it. He's pretty sure the only thing holding him back right now is power, and he shouldn't be far off - just needs to get into some careful fights, it's so stupid and inconvenient that humans gaining more magic works that way but it does.

...Overall he thinks he should go for mind-affecting spells. It seems like the highest-leverage way he has to affect outcomes with his current level of power. He pores over books in the library, talks to other wizards, surveys his options. 

He can make himself a medallion for permanent Detect Thoughts for about six thousand gold in materials costs; he should have it inside six months, longer if he wants some fourth-level spells first too. 

The obvious one is Lesser Geas, which places a permanent magical command in someone's head or Triggered Suggestion, which works like his third-level spell for implanting suggestions but makes them activate when specific conditions occur instead of immediately; also useful would be a special kind of shield against people mind-controlling him, which makes him aware of what the command is but not obliged to follow it and is sometimes more useful than straightforwardly blocking it in the first place. And at fourth level there's short-range teleportation, improved invisibility, detecting scrying...

Parmida makes magic items all day and does language lessons in the evenings and doesn't seem miserable, even if she's not as happy as she was in Sothis.

There are so many things he feels like he needs before he could possibly intervene in country-scale political struggles, and however much more wealthy he is now than he was at the beginning, he can't trivially afford everything right now. 

He works toward the Detect Thoughts medallion, that's absolutely something he would want to have if he's just going to stroll into Rahadoum, and - for now he wants Lesser Geas and the shield against mind-control. He can try to get teleportation if he has long enough, at least to copy into his notes and get ink for his spellbook later, but short-range teleportation in itself isn't that useful.

Ideally he'll have a year. A year to sell magic artifacts and teach his wife the language and save up in a measured way that doesn't involve sacrificing her getting to have nice things, and does allow him to leave her with some gold whenever he does end up departing. He won't be ready in a year - he won't have fourth level spells, he'll probably only be able to get them after he ends up in some fights - but it'll be less likely to be a complete disaster. 

So - unless it looks like Asmodeus is imminently going to win, he'll stay for a year, even if there's a war raging, even if there's blatant interference. It hurts, but he has to pick his battles now. Plan for the long term. Even Rahadoum falling to Asmodeus is more recoverable than getting himself stupidly killed.

He works and studies and watches and waits. 

What's going on in Rahadoum is a large-scale many-factional political struggle that they're calling the Oath Wars. Several different churches tried to step into the power vacuum when Aroden died, to mostly destructive effect; while they've spent down their vast national wealth on mercenaries and flung their paladin orders at each other they've lost a lot of their public support, and there's a growing antireligious faction of the opinion that the only good god is a dead god and maybe more of them should follow Aroden's example. This faction is likely to lose, though, since divine magic (and external support from other countries, which the churches have and they do not) is very important to winning civil wars. Cheliax controls the southern tip of the Arch of Aroden, but is not for the moment advancing, at least not openly.

Parmida masters Taldane. Zahra masters walking and short sentences: "Dada food! Dada lights!". Saba gets good scores on his exams, and is offered a place in the Mage's Collegium if he gets the same scores again next year; he seems excited about it. 

Parmida asks if they can tell her family where to write letters to.

Aroden seems happy, briefly at least, when Zahra takes her first steps or asks him for magic light entertainment, and when Saba's exam scores arrive. He tells Saba that he's very proud of him. In general he is eating and sleeping normally, working long but not excessive hours, making time for a weekly family outing to look at some part of the city, and a night a week for marital relations - though he does obtain them a method of contraception, it doesn't at all seem like a good time for Parmida to end up pregnant again.

He makes theoretical plans about interventions in the civil war, under various assumptions about his power and resources when it comes down to it. Somehow helping the anti-god faction to come out on top seems like the final state of affairs that would most accomplish his goals, though not all of the churches and gods involved are terrible and certainly most are better than Asmodeus. 

...He's not sure what to do about her family. Probably they aren't going to be seeing Nefreti socially such that Nethys will quickly find out where he lives, but - paranoia. He looks around for ways of renting an address just for mail, or having it sent to a magic shop she visits regularly, or something. 

They can get correspondence addressed to a magic shop for a fee, if they'd like; maybe the one that gives them commissions. 

Parmida asks him to sit for a portrait so his daughter will know what he looked like.

If they set that up then he's content for Parmida to give her family that address. It seems only fair that she get to ever exchange correspondence with her family. 

There's no point in telling her, again, that he fully intends to come home. He sits for a portrait. 

Before the year is out he has enough gold for his spells and for the materials for a medallion of Detect Thoughts.

The anti-gods faction in Rahadoum's civil war took over a sizable coastal city, burned down all the temples and drove out all the priests, but now they're besieged there by four different angry churches' forces. Asmodeus is not directly involved unless Aroden is paranoid that maybe the reason an orphanage of Sarenrae's went up in flames the anti-god faction denies lighting is that there was divine intervention of some kind.

Any of the gods could've been responsible for the massive wave of disease outbreaks in the besieged city, besieged cities often have that problem anyway and it's the barest expenditure of power to make it worse.

If he's going to move, he should probably do it now. 

He pays to copy Lesser Geas and the shield against mind-control into his spellbook; he tries casting Lesser Geas and he can't, quite, he can hold it in his mind easily but he just doesn't have the strength. He has Triggered Suggestion in his notes; he didn't even have to copy it, from the god's-eye perspective that he can briefly touch when he's smarter, he could see how it's a barely different use of magic from Suggestion, just folded and compressed differently. He buys the materials for his medallion and works furiously on it. 

He things about what the besieged city will need most. Clean water, he thinks, more than weapons or even food, if they're all dying of disease right now. Recruiting clerics would defeat the entire point - but druids and rangers have something akin to divine magic, working via some entity that is poorly understood and even less goal-oriented than Nethys. He isn't afraid of that entity having any agenda against him at all. And a country without any divine casters would surely benefit the druids living there a lot, raising demand for their kind of magic, so maybe he can sell them on that. If he can convince anyone other than himself that this war is winnable.

(He thinks it is, more from some gut-deep intuition than because he has a plan yet. Maybe via means that he won't like at all, but nonetheless ones he would use if it came to it. There may not be anyone alive who knows how cold and ruthless the young Aroden, long before his ascent to godhood, could be.)

He asks around in his social circle, which is limited and mainly consists of people he's shared spells or talked about magic with, if anyone knows a druid who would be willing to speak with him.