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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.
"You haven't tried dragging me off to any demiplanes even a little bit -" he's supposed to be giving advice here -
"Is it about - feeling like you can predict the person? Like you understand what's going on in their head and how they'll react to things?"
That seems closer. "I...think so. Certainly I am far more comfortable with people when I feel I understand their incentives and expect they will follow them instead of doing - random impulsive things... For this, it might be specifically expecting that they will act in ways that help my goals and not ways that harm them. That seems to be the shape of what Aroden has with Parmida. Parmida is certainly not powerful enough to meaningfully defend him if he cannot defend himself, but - it is in her interest to advance his interests, so he can just straightforwardly predict she will do that?"
"And you don't feel like you have a full understanding of - what she might do under various conditions? How she evaluates the world? What she wants?"
"...I do not feel that I really understand what she wants, no. All I have to go on is that Iomedae chose her, which maybe should be enough - she considered it enough to be sure of me - but, apparently... I tried to ask what she would have done with her life otherwise, but it was unhelpful because she felt very constrained, and scared of the previous administration, and so she would not have done anything interesting. I suppose I am not sure who she will be in ten years when she actually believes that we are trying to make things better and it is safe for her to have ambitious goals."
Nod. "Exactly." He leans against Khemet's shoulder. "She said an interesting thing, about - well, it was about women wanting to wait for men to invest in chasing them, because it was an indication he would value her afterward too. And that it did not count for me to just say it because that was not a costly action. You raised me from the dead and schemed revenge against a god for me - you wanted to torture people to death for harming me - I mean, I did not want you to do that, but all of that was certainly hard to top, as a costly sign that you care about me as a person. It seems unfair to her, to be comparing her to that, but..." Helpless shrug. "I do think that was relevant, with you."
" - I bet she'll be jealous if you say that to her. Just so you know." He pauses a moment, thinking. "Abadar kept - sending you snippets of my thoughts, to try to make us closer -"
"I was not going to say that to her! Not for a long time, in any case, in the long run it - seems bad, not to tell her important things about my life. Anyway. Yes, Abadar did do that. I was not sure at the time if it bothered you, Abadar seemed to think it would not but he has never been human, so..."
"I - have to rely on Him more than I'm accustomed to to have not done it while I was thinking about any state secrets that you didn't know, but assuming I can rely on Him for that - and I probably can, it'd just never occurred to me to evaluate before because He actually doesn't intervene much at all in the running of the state -
- I'm very glad you trust me. It's worth a lot to me. I'm not really planning to give you the opening habitually because it'd be really really - warping, I think - but I'm glad that it was able to get us here. I don't know if this suggests anything about how to trust her more? Probably you could make a Velgarth artifact that'd let you read her and ask her if she'd take it, then it'd be straightforward enough for her to take it off if she changed her mind..."
"Well, if our date goes well then I will maybe ask her. I think it is a weird thing to ask for and I am worried about throwing too many weird things at her at once, she was so startled by Iomedae turning up in our conference room to save time on multiple people all going to yell at Her separately."
"She was in the Chelish army, which routinely mindread all its members for disloyal thoughts, she might have negative associations with it but I'd expect her to think it's the opposite of weird."
"Right. That is good to keep in mind."
Leareth leans into Khemet's arms. "I missed you."
"Missed you too." He leans over to nibble Leareth's ear. "Does it ruin the tying people up if there's no magic free demiplane and they absolutely might figure out how to make you stop it."
Leareth has to consider that for a moment. A longer moment because he's now distracted. "No, I do not think it would ruin it."
–Leareth was somehow not expecting that at all even though it's, in hindsight, rather predictable, and he's very surprised - not in a bad way, actually a rather pleasant way - and he instinctively brute-force resists it for a moment, which is definitely not going to work, and then relaxes and starts methodically looking for a weak point in the spell he can snip through.
Not too hurriedly, though, because he's curious what Khemet is even going to do now.
Well, distract him, obviously. Leareth has far more combat-suited magic so he needs to make sure he is not able to focus on using it, which he's quite good at but there are some clothes in the way, though if he gets fifteen seconds there'll be much less of them.
Leareth does not find a way out of the spell in fifteen seconds, although he does find the concentration to defend some of his clothes with a mage-barrier in the way to at least make it inconvenient for Khemet, so he can narrow his search of places to get out of the spell - it's a really lovely distraction though - mage-sight is overlearned enough that he doesn't need a lot of concentration for it but it means he's doing the search in pretty much the least efficient way.
It wouldn't be very much fun if he wasn't trying to succeed, surely.
- oh, there, weak spot in the spell. Leareth tries not to give any indication that he's found it, and just in case he gave some indication anyway because this is Khemet, he waits fifteen seconds. This is not exactly a hardship.
...gather all his concentration, which is very challenging...
And then he snaps free of the spell and in about a tenth of a second, it's much easier to cast once he can move, he throws a not especially elegant but nonetheless powerful force-net around Khemet and pins him in place. He's grinning and breathing hard, this is excellent.
He did not really prepare spells for this particular use case this morning though he can activate the one that makes everyone around throw themselves to the floor convinced they're in the presence of a god.
Leareth is tempted to think that this is kind of cheating but it's also quite clever - which is extremely attractive - he tries to resist it anyway–
He can resist it. Maybe he has an advantage because he's not tempted to throw himself to the floor in the startlingly-routine-these-days presence of actual gods.
This is true! (On some level Leareth feels like it would have been really hot if the spell had worked, but not if he hadn't even been trying.)
He kisses Khemet, while adjusting his force-net to a more convenient spell that closer imitates Hold Person and won't annoyingly get in his way. Are Khemet's clothes still in the way such that he has to fix that too?