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An adventuring party recruited from Osirion teleports into Azir on the 8th of Desnus. Rahadoum's recruiting contact in Osirion wrote ahead to note they were expected. Couple of guys he's known a long time - a wizard, a ranger - and a new guy, sorcerer, probably to replace the cleric they usually travel with. They spend two days in Azir getting oriented and head out to the front. The ranger wears an unusually high quality amulet of Nondetection; the sorcerer wears a headband for intelligence, which is a bit unusual as sorcerers usually don't need it to cast, but some variants do; they are otherwise unremarkable. Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, no reading, which could mean neutral or 'hiding it'. They work quickly and effectively, manage resources reasonably well, get recommended to higher-ups for a closer look on that account.
The pharaoh is trying to figure out what the plan for the Worldwound is such that it'll be useful to add the Heralds and non-disastrous to lose Cheliax's forces. No one's going to tell him, for obvious reasons, but if he can derive it he suspects they won't complain. He has a map out, he has a list of known ninth-level wizard spells just so he doesn't have to hold that piece in memory -
- and he is thinking of Leareth, imagining Leareth sitting here across the table from him considering these plans, imagining him in fairly extraordinary detail -
- what could you do about the Worldwound? You could bring in a powerful artifact with a dimensional anchor spell with a range a thousand times the ordinary one, so that none of Cheliax's forces could get down south to begin with -
- his imaginary Leareth doesn't like the plan. Why not. One point of failure - Asmodeus, if he's responding, can just destroy the artifact. Fine. Same hypothetical but the spell uses every person in it as a focus, somehow - he doesn't know this to be possible but he's not going to derive the correct magic with this method just the correct shape of a solution -
- his imaginary Leareth still doesn't like it. Why not. Dimensional anchor is - probably too narrow - he doesn't know another way to move large groups of people but maybe Asmodeus does - maybe the war lasts a long enough time they can travel a hundred miles on horseback - maybe they walk right into the Abyss and then Asmodeus can open a Gate home from there - maybe you can bar those specific things but there are too many things -
- how do you come up with a plan that doesn't have that trait though?
Discard the list of known spells, what outcome, if it happened, would make Leareth relax.
Everything within a thousand miles of the Worldwound dead. (Horrifying, but that's a separate dimension of interest, he's trying to look at the other side of the problem right now). Yes. This is satisfactory. There's a known way to bring people back to life, but one at a time, it'd be an unfathomable expenditure of power even for Asmodeus to bring them all back, and not really worth it in the vast majority of cases - they're only soldiers - his model of Leareth does like this plan better, even if he's grimacing about it, even if he wants to object that he'd find a better way if there possibly was one -
- no spell to undo, the effect has to be immediate and then require reverting one by one, if it's possible to revert at all. A known way to do it is fine, as long as that known way is expensive, as long as it would break the rules of the gods for Asmodeus to do it directly even once and he'd have to do it ten thousand times. That's the correct shape of a solution.
Hopefully the actual solution is less horrifying but he's not going to guess it, it'd be too detailed, depend too much on things he doesn't even know about magic. For a placeholder in his head he comes up with "kick everyone at the Worldwound five years forward in time". Probably Aroden can't do that but from a strategic standpoint it's nearly isomorphic to 'kill them all', and the real solution probably falls somewhere on that spectrum. And that means you need the Heralds to hold the Worldwound itself but only the Worldwound itself, the surrounding area won't be swarmed with demons, they'll be dead or gone, the thing you want is a plan to move the wardstones inward as fast as possible and then a plan to keep the demons from flooding through the crack from the Abyss.
(He thinks he is only about fifty percent likely to have a good enough picture, here, but it's worth drawing up a plan for this, and then he'll try from a different angle...)
Leareth is impressed, that's his first response.
He - would normally be scared, that someone is skilled enough at understanding him and the patterns of how he thinks to reverse-engineer a plan he would design - not even his plan, Aroden's plan, who the pharaoh has never even met. But he isn't, now, he can't be, not when he can feel implicitly in every thought that Khemet wants the same things he does, here. Maybe not the exact same in details but derived from the same underlying map, steering in the same direction.
And the response to an ally understanding you that well isn't fear, it's - pride, something like fondness, and relief, gratitude, if someone else is picking up that piece then he's carrying less of it alone. He's surprised to be feeling that way. It's not an emotion-blend he recalls ever quite feeling before.
(Aroden also didn't tell Leareth his exact plan, it wasn't necessary for Leareth's planning and he, like Leareth would in his place, is sharing information only when absolutely necessary for strategic reasons - but he's already, himself, guessed that it's something like that.)
The pharaoh runs out of ideas on that and writes some incredibly cryptic notes he can pick it back up from in a language no one in the palace even speaks - he has permanent Tongues - and then picks up something else. How much coin should Cheliax have in circulation, he had asked Merenre yesterday, and of course this turned out to be an unsolved question in economics - you would think Abadar would know that sort of thing but apparently He doesn't, He can recognize when a solution is missing pieces but not translate the pieces and not just give them a number -
- the obvious next question is 'how much coin does Cheliax have in circulation and is it exhibiting any of the signs of being too much or too little', which will be inconvenient to research without anyone outside the palace having any sense that anyone inside the palace is remotely interested in Cheliax but Merenre thought it might be derivable from publicly available exchange-rate numbers, which there are lots of reasons to ask about. He'd thought at first that Asmodeus would probably whatever else His deficiencies have given Cheliax the right amount of money, but Merenre had pointed out that there are lots of ways having too much money printed can be damaging to peoples' character - the price of goods keeps on going up, there's no point in saving for the future - not necessarily things Asmodeus would want but definitely things He would have considered whether He wanted, which means Cheliax might or might not have the right amount of money right now.
(To do next year, if the world is still around: figure out whether Osirion has the right amount of money in circulation.)
And Abadar tugs them back out of the pharaoh's head. Sends - fondness, familiarity -
- awareness that they should probably stop talking, it's bad for humans to talk to gods for too long -
Leareth, as someone with several different ciphers he personally invented and has never taught to anyone but are intuitive enough for him to partially re-derive on each new incarnation, can't help feeling warmth and amusement at the pharaoh's note-taking habits. He wonders if any of his own economics studies would be useful, here, though probably it's all standard knowledge in Osirion...
He should probably stop talking to Abadar, though, he's mostly not in his body but the headache is increasingly insistent.
Abadar sends affection, warmth, hope, or something as close to those as gods can manage, and then Leareth is alone in his head.
Leareth spends thirty catching his breath, that was helpful but it was also really stressful and his pulse is taking a while to return to normal. The headache isn't helping.
He opens his eyes and sits up - or rather, tries, ow ow ow ow, this is - possibly the most pain he's ever experienced in this body, it's at least tied with the time he got stabbed and it's hitting his ability to think a lot harder, it feels like an icepick is being driven in just above his eyes and directly into his brain. Khemet sort of warned him, he remembers blearily, but he'd been imagining a standard backlash headache, not whatever this is.
It's a little better when he's lying down again with his eyes closed and his arm over them; the curtains are open and letting in light, which is terribly rude of them, but doing anything about it would require either moving again or doing magic and he's inclined toward neither right now.
He mumbles out something about how they can leave it by the door also PLEASE be quiet.
Nayoki packs her things and eats lunch with Narva and Leareth still isn't back - he said he was going to send a message and then probably speak with the pharaoh but it's been hours, he can't possibly still be there.
She asks a servant if they know where he is.
After a few of them consult they can inform her that he is in his room, and seemed to have a headache, but he can talk and hasn't asked for anybody.
That doesn't sound promising for 'can Gate her back to Velgarth', she had better go check on him and find out if he wants her to attempt a Gate back herself - she can do the spell but she's not as strong a mage nor as efficient as he is and it'll wear her out for the rest of the day - or ask the pharaoh, who then maybe won't be able to transport the Valdemaran contingent. Also she's a little worried.
She goes to his door. Doesn't knock, just calls out quietly. "Leareth? You all right?"
It feels too complicated to explain, and searching for words makes the headache worsen again, as does the noise, and after it had only just settled to a sort-of-bearable level.
"I am coming in to check on you." She tries the door. "Leareth, your door is locked. Can you please unlock it for me so I can make sure you are all right."
Well, see, the door is over there and he's here and he would prefer not to attempt to be there instead. "I'm fine."
"You do not sound very fine. Also you did not eat lunch." She nearly stepped on it. "If you cannot make it to your own door you are definitely not fine."
Okay fine he can do this, if he doesn't let her in she's going to keep talking at him. Leareth sits up carefully, eases himself to the edge of his bed, stands and marches to the door and unlocks it and then turns around and heads right back to the bedroom.
Nayoki doesn't have standard Healing-Gift but this doesn't look like ordinary backlash to her, and besides Leareth is very good about not pushing his magic too hard, he's had lots of experience to calibrate.
She Mindspeaks one of the researchers with cleric levels and asks if they can come have a look at Leareth, he seems to be ill or something, and maybe bring along one of the Velgarth Healers, who she can't find right now, maybe they're testing something in one of the Work Rooms.
