"My world is not like yours in that there are places where people go when they die. They are sentenced to one based on how they lived their life. One of them, for people who did evil in life, is called Hell, and there the people are tormented into submission and enslaved to the will of the ruler of Hell, Asmodeus. A hundred years ago, Asmodeus took over a country in our world. The gods usually act less directly than that, but there was a sudden power vacuum. He made the country so - everyone in it counted as evil. They were routinely taught as children to do evil things, the coins they used were tied to evil causes...almost everyone from the country was sentenced to Hell when they died.

Ma'ar - learned of this. And his army was among the forces that fixed it. And now he governs there. I understand why you would have worries about this, but he is honored and trusted by the allies he aided in the defeat of Hell, and it is important that you not try to harm him whatever his past misdeeds."

Urtho is silent for a long time. He doesn't seem to know what to think. 

"I...will not defy your world's leaders," he says finally. "It has been a very long time since he was the young man I knew, and - it does concern me, that he seeks power in your world also, but his allies know the man he is now better than I." He shakes his head. "I have learned my lesson - it is a mistake to address what frightens me by starting a war about it." 

"Thank you. If you'll take my hand, for the Plane Shift -"

Urtho takes a deep breath, and takes Khemet's hand. 

The land in the middle of the desert, because of course they do, and then Word of Recall takes them to a temple of Abadar in Sothis. He summons some people over to take Urtho to the quarters that have been arranged for him at the palace. There are magical researchers who'd be delighted to meet him.

Urtho is kind of overwhelmed, there's a lot happening right now and all of it is bizarre and confusing, but he'll go with the flow, and he's never going to turn down an opportunity to discuss magic. 

He drops Leareth a Sending with two pieces of news. "Starwind and Moondance apologetic once Break Enchantment directed at pact with goddess. Worried goddess will escalate. Raised Urtho. He's at the palace."

Leareth's reply just thanks him for the update. He's too stunned to come up with anything else on the spot. 

He gets through the rest of his current meeting with city administrators, and then cancels his afternoon plans and goes back to his rooms and curls up on the sofa. He has no idea what to say or how to feel or what to do about any of it. 

If Vanyel were here, Leareth would consider talking to him, but Vanyel isn't here, he's in Haven with his Tayledras friends, who were apparently literally mind-controlled by their Goddess - on the one hand it's not that shocking that the pact is a magical construct which Break Enchantment can hit, Golarion Enchantments are so overpowered so Break Enchantment is too, but on the other hand... It feels like it means re-evaluating a lot of things and he's not sure what those things are yet, and either way he can't make room to think about it because his entire brain is suddenly full of emotions about Urtho. 

He considers talking to Abadar but it's absolutely not worth the headache, and besides, this is probably the sort of human thing Abadar doesn't understand. 

Instead, after some consideration, he prays to his now-much-clearer sense of Iomedae. I need advice. She doesn't have to answer if it's too frivolous a question, but it seems worth at least checking. 

And he falls and there she is, sharp-eyed and armored and ageless. Sitting closer than she was the first time. 

"I need advice on..." Leareth's chest feels tight, even though his body here is presumably a metaphor. "Khemet raised Urtho. He was - my teacher, my mentor - friend - my enemy... His death was my fault. He betrayed me - his weapon caused the Cataclysm - he did not mean to do any of it, and I - just..." He is absolutely going to cry, apparently, something about Iomedae makes that happen.

"He - tried to show me what Good was. And I do not think he ever succeeded. The thought I had. When we spoke. Is that you could have showed me in a way I understood..." Leareth doesn't know how to explain what he wants, what he desperately needs, any more clearly than that. 

She nods. There's a pause. There's maybe very faintly, in the distance, only because he got a much stronger sense of it when he talked with Abadar, a sense of a god shuffling concepts...

"I am interested in ways in which the war between Good and Evil is asymmetric," she says. "Tools and tactics we possess which they do not, and vice versa. It is known to you, it bothers you, that there are tactics Good people will avoid, while Evil ones won't hesitate to stoop to them. This is an asymmetric advantage for Evil. Hell is full of slaves that made weapons for Cheliax; Heaven isn't. Asmodeus's country can announce that if you hide a traitor your family will be killed alongside you; my country cannot.

I think the correct concept of Good - the one that wins the war - is one which brings out strength in people that Evil cannot bring out in them, one that inspires transmission in a way that Asmodeus's ideology, despite a hundred years of tinkering, does not and so never really caught on anywhere He couldn't indoctrinate people with it from birth. And therefore Good must be - shaped for those aims. It must tell ordinary people that they possess the strength to do extraordinary things when their families, their countries, their futures are at stake. And it must be a target which, when they aim at it, will actually cause them to mostly do things that actually help or at least don't hurt. Because they are young, and foolish, and confused - you're confused, too, Leareth, and I am confused, what Good really is is an unimaginably hard question - and because they're in a world whose other actors are young and foolish and confused, and looking for cues they can evaluate quickly about who is a threat to them and how that threat is bounded. 

If someone admired you, Leareth, and saw what you were trying to do, and set themselves to trying to do it too, but they were not quite as careful or quite as clever, what would happen?"

"...They would make mistakes. Misjudge the benefits of a path of action, or fail to see its true costs... I have made such mistakes before. It is not impossible I am still making them now. And - most people's decisions do not leave great marks on the world one way or another, but if someone is trying to shape themselves like me, they could - be very very large mistakes, with comparably vast consequences." 

Leareth looks down, folds his arms around himself. "I know I am - not a very safe person, and what I have tried to do, how I have tried to be, is a dangerous path to follow. If I lost some small part of what I am and what I care about, if the pattern that is a Leareth were jumbled at all, many such small steps leave a monster. I know that." 

"And you know also that it is very very hard for anyone to tell from the outside whether that is already true, that it requires an expenditure of their time and attention that very rarely are they going to be justified in paying. And so you cannot be followed, and should not be followed, and would not benefit from transmitting your worldview except under exceptionally unusual circumstances, and set bad precedents, and the resources of Good people and institutions are wasted on trying to stop you, and you risk losing the bits of yourself that make it even conceivably worth it. 

Maybe you could have won, that way. Aroden nearly did. I would not in advance predict of anyone that they could endure like that, but the two of you could, and did. And the price is high the other way, too, but - different. Trying to be Good means going slowly, sometimes, when going quickly could save people who will be dead by the time your careful allies who do not understand the stakes decide to back you. It means that people die when they could have lived, not because you could not have saved them but because you would have had to cut off part of yourself to save them, and you decided to hold it instead, for yourself and for everyone who looks up to you and will try to do what you've done. Being someone it is possible to cooperate with the way it is possible to cooperate with Vanyel means, sometimes, seeing a way to solve your problems and not taking it, and not knowing if another way will come up.

But in my experience - there is Good in people, and they blossom when they see it in others, and there are more souls shaped-like-mine in armies that possess already souls-shaped-like-mine, in a way that's not true for Asmodeus, in a way that I don't think was even true for Aroden. Because they're doing something people want, they're doing something people can believe in, they're doing something people can reach with their own strength. And so the other paths open, from directions you didn't expect them, because a hundred people trying will open more doors than one person door-opening as ruthlessly as he possibly can. And maybe, in Velgarth, where all the gods stood determined to murder your allies, that wasn't true - but I would have moved to a region without any gods and set up weather magic and raised lots and lots and lots of orphans and hoped that I could build a little corner of the world where it was, before I gave up on it."

"...I understand that, I think. And - I do know what I was giving up. I did not understand it yet in Urtho's time, when he knew me, but later I did." Something hurts, obscurely, Leareth isn't sure what. "I tried - not exactly the orphans, but things such as that. Perhaps I was unlucky. Perhaps I - am just too much the shape I am, and cannot be like Vanyel. I think that most people cannot be like Vanyel." 

He raises his eyes to hers. "Urtho tried to be Good. But - he thought that it meant setting bounds on one's duties. I would understand if that is, in fact, better for most people and will lead to saner choices. But it is not something that I can do, not without - destroying the entire kind of being that I am...and so I never knew how to speak of it with Urtho..."

(There's almost terror in the thought, fear not of dying, but of - losing that core part of him that says, over and over, never to give up never to stop trying never ever ever–)

"There are Good gods who are very old, much older than Aroden, old enough to remember the battles of the beginning of creation. They believe that the universe is, and always has been, and always will be, the site of a grand struggle between Good and Evil. And Good will do our part, though it may be futile, walk our destined path whether it leads to triumph or ruin or most likely neither.

That's stupid. We're not doing show swordfighting. We're here to win. I introduced myself, to you, as the goddess of defeating Evil; it's a different thing than the goddess of fighting Evil. Urtho does not trust himself to be Good, and to be fair when he tried it didn't work at all. He had no gods worth listening to; maybe he can do better now. But the thing he believed in was wrong for you, and you were right to see that. And the part of you that will fight until your dying breath for as many dying breaths as there are diamonds to raise you is Good. When you come to me you are not walking away from it."

"I know." He looks her in the eye. "That is what Aroden said. That you are trying to win. He loves you. And - you love him, no? And so I know we are on the same side." There are tears in his eyes again. His breath catches. "Maybe you can help me explain it to Urtho. Perhaps it should not matter so much to me, but - I want so badly, I have wanted for such a long time, just for him to see it, to understand, so that we need not be enemies, it was so stupid..." 

"I will talk to him, if he asks. We can't very easily talk to humans who haven't asked."

"I think you have already helped; I know better what to say now, if he ever wishes to speak with me." He bows his head. "I know this is a rather unreasonable thing to ask of a god, but - could you hold me again, just for a little while? It - helps, when I feel lonely." Which keeps happening, it makes no sense, that he was never aware of feeling lonely until he had friends who would hug him but sometimes weren't there...

And once again with the in between steps sort of skipped he's in her arms. Abadar faintly radiates fondness, pride, satisfaction; Iomedae on the other hand radiates that she is intensely dissatisfied, all the time, though it's clearly not directed at him. Towards him there is the crisp conviction that he will do his best, and often it will be good enough, and someday they'll win.

She holds him for a long time, and this time when she leaves there's the faintest twinge of a headache.

Interesting. That's good to know. 

Her dissatisfaction is kind of validating, honestly. It's how he feels about most things in the world. 

He takes a few notes and then curls up in his bed, still vaguely wishing Khemet were there, but the ache of loneliness, which he's aware is mostly pointed at the immutable past and Urtho, has mostly subsided. 

Enchanting weapons is considered a separate art form from enchanting rings, or amulets, or cloaks. They're taught separately in school, and each take the better part of a year to learn, so there's not a lot of reason to pick up both. 

But why are they different at all?

Carissa contemplates a sword enchanted with Glibness. This took some doing because Glibness isn't a wizard spell but she hung out in the magic shop looking closely at the magic item of Glibness and she bought a potion of it and drank it and she bought a scroll of it and memorized it and eventually she could see how to get it done, and it was the trickiest enchantment she ever laid but she made a sword which can, once per day, give her Glibness.

The sword she is contemplating is very very small. About the size of a toothpick. It's not sharp, either. She didn't want to try both making a sword enchanted with a spell she couldn't cast and making a sword that wasn't a central case of a sword at the same time, so she'd tried toothpick swords first, last week, enchanted with cunning like normal, and then when that worked she tried Glibness on a full-sized dagger, and now she'd gotten Glibness on the toothpick dagger to work. If she was holding it, she could give herself Glibness once per day.

She starts melting down the full-sized dagger and the cunning toothpick for their material components (smaller ones are not appreciably cheaper, because you still need a metal that is capable of holding and replenishing the reserves for the spell and metal that is dense enough to do that for a small item is much more expensive per pound.)

She runs through her logic in her head again, even though she has done this so many times it has started to seem fake.

You are a servant of the Chelish goddess Iomedae, the Inheritor. She has told you that it is important you be aware of the activities of Aroden's heir, a powerful sorcerer from another world, and given no further instruction probably because so far you are taking actions in approximately the right direction. You have no idea if you're supposed to act alone or with others, and what sort of problem you're supposed to solve. It's possible that you are supposed to uncover wrongdoing by the heir, or assassinate him, or defend him from other attackers. It's possible that hundreds of people have been having these dreams and it's possible that you are entirely alone. What do you do?

She needs to get more information and she needs to do it without coming to his attention. She's been unable to find any others who know what she's talking about, though she's talked about it vaguely enough they probably thought she was a crazy person. Maybe they don't want to tell her because she seems inexperienced enough that she won't be an asset? But if so they could tell her to go home. She'd do that if told. 

Maybe this is a rationalization but she's increasingly thinking it probably makes sense to try to get more information before she has made contact with others, if there are others, so that she cannot betray them if captured. But it would still be very bad if she immediately betrayed herself to Aroden's heir - his name is Leareth, but on the streets no one calls him that, they call him Aroden's heir, so she's been trying to avoid letting his name slip too much into her habitual mode of thought.

You need a lot of magic items to get near a powerful wizard without it coming to his attention that you are sent by Iomedae for unclear purposes. And she can't make wondrous items, only swords. But it seems the swords are allowed to be hat pins. 

She needs Nondetection. She's not sure how you put that on a sword but she'll figure it out. She needs Enchantment Foil, the spell that lets you, when enchanted, maintain full freedom of action while sending magic feedback consistent with being enchanted successfully. If you make your will save. But she's a wizard with ten years of training and a cleric of the Inheritor, she's going to stand a chance. And then she'll be able to lie under a truth spell, if needed, or to move as one compulsioned while maintaining the freedom to act. She needs Magic Aura, to hide the other ones.

And she needs Undetectable Alignment. She'll need second-circle spells from Iomedae for that. Hopefully whether or not she gets promoted to second circle will be at least a little bit of information about whether she's on the right track here. 

She has considered whether she should also have a hatpin that is a Slaying arrow (Humanoid) but concluded that was stupid. Firstly, she knows how Law works and knows that Aroden will have to have her put to death if she threatened his heir with a genuine weapon even if this was the best thing to do with the information available to her. Secondly and more importantly, she is having a hard time coming up with an idea of what information would actually drive her to that. It jumped into her head right away, probably because it's very dramatic and there is the thing where Iomedae apparently picked for this a person who makes enchanted weapons for a living. It seems unlikely that she was chosen for this mission for reasons that were actually entirely unrelated to the fact she knows how to make a hat pin that can kill even a reasonably powerful wizard. 

But.

She doesn't actually know that much about Iomedae? Worship of her was not technically illegal but definitely the kind of thing that'd bring suspicion down on your whole family, before, and worshipping her more than Asmodeus was definitely illegal and also Carissa does not think of herself as an idealistic person in the kind of way where you defiantly worship Good gods and die for it. She thinks of herself as an idealistic person in the kind of way where you look at all of the plans you have that are not dumb, and figure out which one destroys your enemies. That's probably just, uh, not an idealistic person at all, but - the Inheritor did pick her. 

And obviously Asmodeus was awful and Aroden is better and Iomedae is probably lovely, but they don't actually have the kind of relationship where Iomedae can tell her to assassinate people. And Iomedae didn't even tell her to assassinate him! She just sent visions that were, honestly, maximally vague, unless the bits about intimate conversation with an unfamiliar man were meant to convey that he's a spy for - somewhere where they wear seriously overwrought headgear, maybe the Kelesh Empire? It feels like a stretch. 

Anyway it's not that there aren't things worth dying for. Even dying horribly, which is how she assumes you die if you stab Aroden's heir with a slaying hat pin and then do whatever's necessary for him to stay dead. She can readily enough imagine situations where she'd be seriously considering it. If she'd been asked to assassinate someone as part of Aroden's conquest of Cheliax, say. But it's hard to think what in a few weeks of investigation at the palace she'd discover that'd make it seem like the right way to go. And if Iomedae wants to offer clarification, if there's some reason talking to Aroden doesn't work...well, then, she'll get started on the pin then, it's not like it'll take her too long. 

She spends a lot of her time trying to think of what else it could be. Maybe the man is just looking for a quality weapons enchanter. But she's pretty sure gods do not do prophetic vision personnel ads. Maybe he's in danger. ...which she is going to be able to protect him from how, she doesn't even have a slaying hat pin. Maybe he needs a virgin sacrifice for...no, Iomedae is a Good god, the Good gods don't lure their followers into being virgin sacrifices even though you'd think that objectively at least sometimes this advances the cause of Good, it being a big multiverse and all. 

Her best guess is 'something I haven't thought of', which feels bizarre to have as your best guess, but better than best guesses that don't make any sense. She works on her hatpin of Enchantment Foil. She applies for a job doing laundry at the palace, using a cousin's test scores (much worse than hers; thus, laundry track, not weapon enchanter track). This is illegal, but she feels oddly secure that it won't hit her for law. She carefully considered whether this was important enough to justify eroding the precedent against resume falsification and in her mind Iomedae's steely yet reassuring voice said 'yes, it is'.

Vanyel spends the next couple of days mostly in the Work Rooms with Starwind and Moondance. He does get around to asking for a large pile of coal, and mostly spends the time making diamonds, he can cast spells and hug Moondance at the same time. 

Moondance does not get appreciably less miserable, but at least he's sleeping and eating. 

Starwind is very quiet. He doesn't really talk to anyone except Savil, and to Moondance in private Mindspeech. 

:I'm not sure what our plan should be from here: Vanyel eventually tells Fazil, one day when they're both sitting in the Work Room watching the two Adepts. :I can't stay here forever, and I don't actually know what we should do with them, even: