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.
If Leareth dies in some implausible terrible accident there, does Abadar still have a strong enough claim on him to grab his soul before the Star-Eyed can.
He is pretty confident that He does. To be safe Leareth could have a contingent resurrection set up.
...If Abadar thinks the plan is safe with both of those factors, Leareth with trust him.
Moving on from the Heartstone question. His next question...is one that Abadar may just have no answer for, he's aware it's a weird thing to go to one's god for advice about, but, well, Leareth is a weird person. Anyway. He needs to find a wife. He's concerned that finding a Chelish woman he can work well with, let alone love, is going to be very difficult. Khemet suggested he check with Abadar for suggestions, and this was maybe half in jest but Leareth thought he might as well ask.
Abadar can only see one trait about people, really, which is how aligned with Abadar they are. He can expend more resources to see more detail on their motivations and their current activities and their goals. He has a vague sense that for marriage it is also important that their bodies have specific shapes and capabilities, and that they not already be married, and He couldn't help with any of that.
Hmm. Leareth thinks that he doesn't particularly mind what his wife looks like. (He probably can't get away with marrying a man for these purposes, even though it feels like it would be simpler in some ways.) Leareth suspects that alignment with Abadar would at least correlate strongly with his getting along with someone? He (or Parmida) can do the step of checking whether they're already married or eighty years old or a man, he thinks.
He's also considered asking Iomedae, who's apparently easier to talk to, and was very good friends with Aroden so would probably have some insight on who he would get along with.
Different sorts of people get along with Iomedae than with Abadar but She does have good taste. Abadar could try nudging exceptionally aligned-with-Abadar people to go stop by the palace? Even if they are unsuitable on the marriage front they could probably be found suitable things to do.
That sounds excellent and Leareth would be very grateful.
Leareth doesn’t mean to pose it as a question, exactly, but his mind is going back to the snippet of thought he sensed from Khemet, the hint that Khemet...doesn’t feel like his life is abundant in nice things, and the part about neglecting his wives, and - Leareth doesn’t actually have a question or even an opinion here, he’s just sad, but it’s probably the sort of human thing that Abadar doesn’t understand well.
Shuffling...
Humans are often pretty bad at converting resources into achieving-their-values. It's tempting to conclude they're just not really the kind of entity that has values or should get resources but they are, they're just very small and incompetent. Abadar gives his proxy in Golarion lots of resources and this doesn't work to make him not sad, and Abadar doesn't exactly have other problem-solving strategies. He did give Leareth Khemet-snippets so that Leareth and Khemet could be good for each other? That seemed to work pretty well.
That makes sense. The resources - do help, Leareth thinks, even for the specific goal of his being good for Khemet, because it seems to be very good for Khemet when Leareth is relaxed and unstressed around him, and Leareth can only be relaxed because Khemet has near-absolute power here. Even if it wasn't enough, one time, it was still - it wasn't irretrievable, right, he was resurrected fifteen hours later because Khemet has diamonds and True Resurrection.
Anyway he's happy about Khemet and will try hard to figure out what he needs and help him have it.
Abadar approves abstractly of Leareth accomplishing his goals and of things being good for Khemet.
He's glad.
They probably don't have anything more to discuss, then, unless Abadar has other things to pass on to Leareth or to Khemet.
Aroden should talk with Iomedae about the terms, which are now settled, for the confiscation and long term storage of the superweapons.
Ow ow ow that was a longer conversation than he'd intended. The problem is that Leareth likes talking to Abadar, likes being in contact with that bigger, incredibly magical force, now that he's become used to it enough that it's no longer nerve-wracking, and it doesn't hurt during, only afterward.
He lies with his eyes closed for a while, and then decides that he should ask for Delay Pain after all, so he can get down his notes on the Heartstone part and then convey it to Khemet and Aroden, it was kind of complicated and will significantly affect Aroden's other plans. It takes him another five minutes to actually get up enough to call for someone, though.
Then he'll get down some detailed notes on the conversation, and sends a message for the pharaoh that he has a pretty complicated Heartstone-related proposal from Abadar, and possibly they should both meet with Aroden about it.
The pharaoh is eager to move on the Star-Eyed and can set this up as soon as Aroden's available.
Leareth contacts Vanyel with their spell to relay a message, and Aroden can make himself available later that afternoon, which works fine for Leareth since Delay Pain will still be in effect. While he's waiting he contacts another of his mages and has all of his notes on the hypothetical Heartstone-based version of the stage one god creation carted over.
Aroden Teleports himself to right outside the Dome at the specified time, without Parmida, and heads in to join them.
"Abadar agrees that the Heartstone gives the Star-Eyed an unfortunate amount of power in Valdemar. He thinks that the Valdemaran god would also oppose this, now, given recent events. He also thinks that he can - steal it from her, with the right setup. My specifications for the god-building project turn out to be surprisingly useful, here, and Abadar can wrap his head around them much better than I can. He thinks that working with that, and with both Vanyel and I present on-site, he can make the Heartstone his power source instead. We would obviously want to time this to happen around when all the rest was being done, which is - a little tricky."
"The Star-Eyed is going to regret what She did so much, if that's an emotion She can feel. And if She can't, maybe we can teach Her. Hmmm, so this requires - you and Vanyel in Haven at the same time Aroden sets up a scaffold around the Pelagirs and then goes to Urtho's Tower - I guess at least there's the Rod of Security so he can refresh spell slots in between - and then Nefreti stays at the Pelagirs - how long does her part in this take..."
"Six hours from start to finish, she thinks. However, we know that she can cast a difficult spell while simultaneously turning into a dragon, so I think that she can protect herself fine and I will not worry about leaving her there to attend to the Tower."
"The Golarion gods who are party to the superweapons agreement will protect you in Urtho's Tower - from the most blatant of the Star-Eyed's intervention, don't count on it as protection against handling the weapons carelessly or anything. They'd like you to take them through a Gate to a vault Abadar can show you in advance, and believe they will make the trip safely. There's, uh, a recommended order, in case you can't get them all out."