Leareth wishes him goodnight in return and meanders back to his room.

He is, in fact, very tired, and sleeps in late enough that he's still in bed when Vanyel gets up and packs for their return to Velgarth. 

Moondance is very quiet this morning, deep in thought. 

:Are Mahdi and Hagan coming with us?: Yfandes asks Fazil. 

Fazil can Plane Shift himself, Vanyel and Yfandes, Mahdi and Hagan, and Moondance and Starwind, so they may as well all go, if Vanyel and his friends are all right with that.

:I'll feel a lot more comfortable with backup. Not that I expect it to be dangerous, necessarily, but - things always happen to Van: 

Starwind thinks this is quite reasonable. 

Then they'll all come. 

The pharaoh, as last time, does the spell from a great distance. Where on the map do they want him to be targetting?

There is a perfectly round area marked as the Dhorisha Plains, and a dot on the eastern edge labeled Kata'shin'a'in; they'd like to go there. 

So he opens a dimensional portal to just outside the dot. 

With some amount of trepidation, Vanyel goes through. 

It's winter just shading into early spring and Kata'shin'a'in, a bustling temporary trade city in the summertime, is almost deserted. The plains look kind of soggy and sad. 

There's a cluster of permanent stone buildings quite a ways ahead. 

"We wish to go there, I think," Starwind says, and starts walking. 

The Osirians follow, looking around (with Detect Magic, in Fazil and Mahdi's case, and alignment sight in Fazil's.)

The place isn't very magical, actually! The only magic to be sensed is somewhere ahead in the cluster of buildings. 

As they draw near, a couple of people come out to meet them. One of them is a vigorous-looking man in his fifties or so, iron-grey hair swept back into a long brain, wearing loose, light-coloured garments with copious embroidery and some sort of simple headdress, and reads as True Neutral. The other is younger with jet-black hair and sparkling black eyes, dressed in plain brown, and reads as Chaotic Evil. 

"I am Tre’haren shena Vuy she'edras," the older man says. "Senior shaman to Kata’shin’a’in. This is Ke’valen shena Pretera'sedrin, Swordsworn. Wingbrothers, what brings you here?" 

"We have an urgent request that we be allowed to see your people's histories," Starwind says. "Of the time before the Cataclysm, specifically." Then his expression flattens in the characteristic way that suggests he's Mindspeaking to the shaman. 

"...I see. Well, come on this way and we can talk." The shaman beckons for them to follow him into the cluster of stone buildings. 

:Huh. Pretty cooperative of them so far: 

Fazil will pass along a translation and everybody's alignments to Hagan and Mahdi and Vanyel through Yfandes.

Vanyel is so startled by the Swordsworn's alignment! He looks so friendly. Then again, the entire definition of someone being a Shin'a'in Swordsworn is that they swore an oath to serve the Goddess so that they could be permitted to go on blood feud; this seems like maybe-useful cultural context so he passes it on. 

They're led into a cozy stone room in one of the very ancient-looking stone buildings, and offered tea, and then left alone. For quite a while. The low voices of a discussion are not-quite-distinguishable in the distance. 

Given the oath of vengeance thing it's maybe actually weirder that he's Chaotic than that he's Evil! Fazil is still a bit on edge and trying to be in range to grab everyone if they're lit on fire suddenly but mostly they can wait patiently.

Finally the shaman returns. This time he has a different person with him - a woman, short and slim, dressed in blue robes. She also reads as True Neutral. 

- and, to Vanyel's Sight, is noticeable a weak mage. So is the shaman, actually. 

"This is Karna shena Tale'sedrin," the shaman introduces her. "She is Scrollsworn - a priestess-historian of our people. You wish to learn of the mage who killed our forefather Urtho." 

Urtho. 

:He mentioned the name to me once, in one of our dreams: Vanyel tells the others. :It was on Sovvan - our harvest festival, also the day of remembrance for the dead. Leareth burned a candle for Urtho to remember him. I didn't know who he was at the time: 

:Huh.:

"He wants to lead a war in our world. The enemy he would fight is very horrifying, but we want to know - whether it would be a mistake all the same, to let him fight for us."