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.
Not all of it makes Vanyel nod along - the writing style isn't that similar, for one, for one - but a number of passages do. Yes, this part reminds him of Leareth; yes, that passage does. In particular, the reasoning behind his claims, the why of it, is very reminiscent. His vision for the future isn't identical, but that could be explainable just by the fact that the two worlds have different conditions, a different set of gods - completely different setups after people die...
It's hardly conclusive. Maybe people with similar goals would write similar things either way. But it still feels like evidence, that points in one direction.
"I'm not even sure exactly what question I'm trying to answer! What does it mean, for people to be the same person... but it does seem like something." Sigh. "When should we bring up to your king that we can see whether Golarion's magic heals him."
"Hmm. Not sure if I want to do it before or after I bring up the, er, thing with Yfandes. Which I should do soon. I think Melody's right and they aren't going to get upset and trust your people less, but..."
"I don't really know anything about how to interact with royalty but I will take your word for it."
"It's not really like–" Vanyel isn't sure how to explain it so he just shrugs. "Anyway, I'll wait to talk to them at all until they're done discussing and ask for me, but Yfandes thinks they'll probably plan a meeting for tomorrow morning. I can try to figure out then what's a good order to mention things in."
The Senior Circle does, in fact, call for Vanyel the next morning, without Fazil.
He's fairly stressed about the meeting. This seems merited when the first thing Randi brings up is the blood-magic use. The verdict, though, is that nobody has time to worry about this right now. Savil has already provided all the context, Randi thinks it was a not-unreasonable response to an unfair situation that he feels terrible about putting Vanyel in, and also can Vanyel please never ever do it again thank you.
(Vanyel can reassure him, honestly, that he intends to never ever do it again, it was dreadful).
...He tells Randi he has some maybe-good news and some worrying news, which would he like to hear first?
So Vanyel recounts his troubles with Yfandes, in the order they rehearsed together multiple times. He hopes it was a weird fluke to do with Leareth's sudden revelations to them on top of all the other stressors of the moment - in which case it's hopefully moot now, since Leareth is busy doing other things - but it seems like the core thing was discomfort with disrupting the gods' current systems, and that could come up again given that Abadar is in negotiations with Them now, and - well, given their bad experience in Iftel, it seems like there's some potential conflict. Whatever the problem is, it's fixable, as evidenced by Yfandes being fine now, but it would be very inconvenient if it were badly timed, so he and Yfandes have tried to figure out what the Heralds can do to steer around it.
This goes smoothly enough. Randi looks worried, and very tired, but he doesn't seem at all inclined to anger or blame toward Vanyel. He looks like someone who has heard enough ridiculous complications and would like it to stop.
A while later, Yfandes Mindspeaks Fazil. :Everything went reasonably well. They’re sending someone to get you now, want to ask questions about your Healing:
“Thank you for coming.” King Randale is as neatly dressed as the day before, but looks more visibly stressed and weary. “You can have a seat. Van mentioned you have healing magic from your world that might be able to help with, er, my problem.”
His expression is quietly unhappy, and like he’s trying not to show it.
"I would be delighted to help if I can. I can't guarantee anything. There are some illnesses that would require more powerful magic than I have, and very rarely some our magic cannot address at all. But - if someone in our world were sick there are a lot of things we could try. None of them could make you any worse, though of course some percentage of the time people get worse after they are cast anyway. Your Healers could observe, if they wanted, to see what the spells did, and if any of it helped maybe to imitate it."
"We deeply appreciate the offer. Seems worth trying, at least."
Shavri leans forward a little. "Could you explain a little of how it works? It's - from your god, no? Do all clerics of all different gods get the same kind of healing magic?"
"All clerics of Good gods, and Good clerics of neutral gods, and most neutral clerics of neutral gods - they get to pick - can convert the divine power we get from our god, whatever spells we currently have it packaged in, into healing magic. It's very good for injuries, or anything else where our magic can find a healed state to restore someone to. It's worse for diseases, we have a separate spell instead, for that. And for - slow problems with the body that don't seem to be caused by a disease - we have Lesser Restoration, and Restoration, which take many of the effects away but do not usually fix the problem. ...my father, for example, drank for too many years and would have died of it years ago and if I cast Lesser Restoration every month he'll live to ninety but there's no spell that'd actually fix it. Restoration is the most powerful healing spell I can cast; I can also raise the dead, but that doesn't help here at all. If Restoration isn't enough, there are even more powerful healing spells we could arrange back in Golarion. At the upper end, the most powerful clerics can just - use all their power to directly request the intervention of their deity to fix the problem. That usually works. I am not anywhere near that powerful, though."
Shavri nods along. Halfway through she looks like she wants to speak, but holds off until he's finished.
"That makes sense. I would be very interested to watch your spells. Randi's illness - we don't know what it is," an apologetic, almost ashamed glance his way, as though this is personally her fault, "it's - slow cumulative damage, from some source I can't See. My Healing can slow it but not reverse it. It's not bad, yet, it's only affecting him a little - and there are still more things we can try, I've only known for six months." Her lips don't smile but her eyes light up a little. "I could probably fix your father's problem, though. Not fully, not back to a healthy person's state, but we can repair it enough that people live decades with it if they're careful with their diet and such."
"That's very kind of you, and I'd be very grateful." He looks very awkward about it, though. "Uh, from that description, I would expect Restoration - maybe even Lesser Restoration, if we're lucky - can reverse it a little bit but cannot make it permanently stop happening. But I don't have nearly as much expertise here as your people do. Would you like me to try now?"
"Like a lot of powerful magic in my world it uses a diamond as a focus, and destroys it. But a small diamond in this case; Sothis will reimburse me. I will need to touch the person I'm trying to treat," he says to Randi.
"Of course." Randi gets up and shifts his chair to Shavri's other side, so he's close enough for Fazil to reach out and touch his arm.