"...Oh, gods, did you not get that part of the message. We didn't know until he told us. But he knew when he was dying - it happened really fast and when he died he wasn't sure he would come back." 

"I see. That - makes sense, I guess, why he would've been upset even if it's not the first time he's been murdered." 

"Honestly I think it'd be upsetting anyway! He got eaten by Abyssal demons!" 

"- That's fair." 

Savil looks thoughtful for a while. 

"Anyway. The pharaoh wants to convince the Star-Eyed to let us raise Starwind and Moondance. Aroden thinks that if someone other than him promises to get them back to Velgarth alive, She'll do it. She just doesn't want them going to an evil afterlife here." 

"Honestly that's reasonable! They're horrible and it probably is Evil to assassinate someone even if your god told you to or something. I'm - on board with that, I think. As long as Leareth's nice and far away when they come back."

"I said I wanted to take them back into Valdemar's custody once Aroden questions them. I guess we'll find out soon what She thinks of that." 

She has not gotten back to Abadar on that by the time Parmida and Aroden head over for dinner.

Leareth's headache subsides after five or six hours of lying in bed, and he seems to have gotten all of the shaking and panic out of his system and can look at the situation matter-of-factly. He's still very unhappy about it but, well, it's in fact terrible that he currently isn't immortal, even if probably he can count on another fifty years or more in this body no matter what because Golarion has resurrection and - he has, in fact, just gotten strong evidence that people, and at least one god, will go to great lengths to get him back.

He bathes and dresses and joins them for dinner. He's only radiating misery a tiny bit, it wouldn't be at all noticeable to most people but it probably is to Leareth's alt and his wife. 

Parmida is sure thinking that he looks miserable. She doesn't have the slightest idea how to fix it, though. She could help Aroden a little bit by holding him close and being on his side but Leareth doesn't have a wife and it's not - totally clear that a Chelish wife will work the same way, right, even if not for the thing where everyone interesting in Cheliax is at least a little bit evil. Also if he's planning to possess his dependents because he has to set up the immortality system again then that's a pretty major downside, it was important to her that it was really really unlikely Aroden would ever take Zahra. And it might've had something to do with Zahra never marrying although she doesn't think it was most of it.

She makes pleasant conversation about things she likes in Egorian -- bookstores, lecture halls, theatres - instead of bringing up any of this but she figures Leareth is probably reading her mind and doesn't mind this at all.

Leareth is in fact reading her mind on and off, recently he had stopped having his Thoughtsensing open at all times but when he feels unsafe he always has his Othersenses watching even if he's not really trying to pick up thoughts, and - well, she doesn't mind, apparently. 

He does have to bite down a bitter laugh at 'everyone interesting in Cheliax is at least a little bit evil' - has she forgotten he was Lawful Evil, the same alignment as Asmodeus, until very recently? Although it's true that a lot of flavours of interesting Lawful Evil people are ones he wouldn't get along with at all. 

He tries to focus on her pleasant conversation, it helps a little in the short run, but his thoughts keep drifting back to the snippet of Khemet's thoughts that Abadar conveyed, and - it's stupid, but he finds himself desperately missing that brief precious period of arriving in a place and - not expecting bad things to happen there, because the nation's godking and its god were competent and on his side. He's not sure how much he should model that as having changed, even, just...

Eventually he casts a privacy-barrier, and asks Aroden to do the local version of one for redundancy, and then asks about immortality setups in Golarion. 

Aroden would rather talk in detail in his demiplane, but he doesn't want to bring Leareth there right now because Leareth is obviously very badly shaken, and taking him someplace that blocks his magic seems very unfair to him. He can discuss generalities, though. Some options are only available to very high level wizards, but he thinks that given fifty years of work he can get Leareth something that won't need to resemble his previous method. Ideally it won't depend on any Velgarth-adjacent planes at all, since demonstrably the Velgarth gods will meddle if They can.

He is so unhappy and I am not sure what to do, he tells Parmida. 

I know! Me neither. Do you know a way to make him his own demiplane where only his magic works?

It is probably not impossible but it would be very difficult. I had to understand my own magic very very well in order to specify it for the spell, and I do not know his magic that well. 

Leareth had hoped he would feel more grounded again if he had a plan to fix his immortality but instead it mostly feels daunting. 

Well. I still think the thing he needs is a wife but not the finding-one stage, the part where he already trusts someone and feels safe with them and knows he matters to them. I don't know how to do it. I'm sorry. It's - hard, seeing a you be that sad.

I hate it. I want to fix it - it feels as though I ought be able to - and I am not sure I can - he trusts me but I think that is something differently-shaped? Sigh. He needs friends. It - was a long time, remember, before I was ready for you to be more than my very competent assistant and then my best friend. 

Leareth can tell that they're talking about him, from the bits and pieces of Parmida's thoughts, but he's mostly not tracking it, because yet again he's distracted being bothered that Khemet is upset about this, it feels like something is happening the wrong way and could surely be done better but he doesn't know how to describe what it is. 

Maybe we should ask Vanyel for help here.

That is probably a good idea. 

And they can go back to pleasant conversation to at least keep Leareth company. 

And once Parmida is tired they can head back to Cheliax.

Leareth is not tired, of course. He also doesn't feel very inclined to work on anything in particular. He asks a servant if the palace has a library he can visit. 

It does. A bigger one than the one at the winter palace, though Khemet was having most of the books relevant for magical research brought over.

Leareth will get some books that are not about magic research at all, and read until he's tired enough to sleep.

Which is early for him, apparently being resurrected and having a lot of feelings about it is tiring, so he wakes up hours before anyone else is up and goes for an aimless walk through the palace until sunrise. 

Vanyel is in the library at dawn. He has a Work Room set up to make diamonds in but even with the efficient spell he can't do that all day without wearing himself out, and it's such a good library. 

Leareth joins him there. After the usual greetings they don't talk much, both of them sit and read quietly, but - there's still something pleasant about it. 

Probably Khemet will come find them if there's any word from the Star-Eyed and he shouldn't go bother him. Leareth isn't sure whether to hope that Starwind and Moondance can get raised, or really, really hope for not.