"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: 

:Well, they can go back home once...the stuff happens, right?:

:I guess so. And in the meantime I don't think either of them is especially inclined to run away. Even if not for the Mindhealing set-command: Sigh. :I should probably head back to Cheliax: 

:Yeah. I'm so sorry about - all of this.:

:It could be worse: He's telling himself that an awful lot, lately. 

He talks to Savil. Confirms that it should be fine if he leaves; they have an interplanar version of the communication spell now, courtesy of Leareth, so she can contact him from her end even though Haven doesn't have a crystal ball to scry and Mindspeak through. 

(Probably the next time he's back here, in some number of weeks, will be with Leareth to steal a Heartstone for Abadar. Terrifying thought.) 

He packs up the few possessions he brought with him, and asks Fazil if he's headed back to Cheliax too. 

He probably should, yeah. He doesn't really want to be in Velgarth for the intervening weeks.

Vanyel can Gate them back, but it's pretty tiring so he wouldn't mind if Fazil wanted to Plane Shift instead. 

Actually: is the diplomatic party staying, or do they want a ride back to Osirion? 

They'll stay! There's all kinds of normal diplomatic stuff to be hammered out and also they're enjoying Haven, it's lovely.

Vanyel thinks they probably need to get them out of Haven - actually, get Randi and Shavri and everyone important out of Haven too - in a few weeks, but the diplomatic party presumably isn't briefed on those plans, so he doesn't mention it. 

They head back to Cheliax. 

Leareth seems really glad to have Vanyel back, and wants to talk through various Heartstone-related plans with him.

He and Aroden are also spending very long stretches of time working on Aroden's precautions for the Tower. It shouldn't actually be much of a problem, if the Star-Eyed is being prevented from interfering, but they obviously need to plan for the worst case where everything that can possibly go wrong does. 

Parmida will notice that her husband is often tense and distracted, lately, he has a lot on his mind. 

She has noticed this. She's pretty distracted too, planning social events, though she is going to schedule them all for after the planned assault on the Star-Eyed since otherwise Aroden and Leareth will both be totally unable to get anything out of them. She invites the pharaoh of Osirion, even though he rarely leaves the palace; he accepts. 

She gives her husband shoulder rubs and - there's no point in telling herself it'll be better later, it never will, it's just the kind of person he is - tugs him away from his worries where she can. 

They hire servants to replace all the servants who fled or picked the wrong side during the fighting. They have a zone of truth up for the interviews, just to be safe.

They're very careful about security. Not quite to the level where everyone with any knowledge of the plan is under a geas, Aroden thinks that level of paranoia is no longer justified when he's won the war in Cheliax and the Star-Eyed has no agents in Golarion, but they do all of their meetings in shielded rooms - both Mage's Sanctum and Velgarth shielding, they don't interfere with each other - and all their tests in shielded Work Rooms, and his notes are written in code. 

He is very, very much looking forward to this being over. 

She gets a laundry job. She has hatpins of Enchantment Foil and Glibness and Nondetection and Magic Aura has them all dulled to nothing and she casts Undetectable Alignment on herself in the mornings. 

Aroden's heir is working on something top secret that takes almost all of his time but Aroden's working on it too so it's probably not what she's supposed to be here for. Unless Aroden's heir is subtly sabotaging the situation. 

They do all their conversations in shielded work rooms. She can't smuggle a sword in there; they'd both be able to Detect Magic and see it. She can't get in herself; she bets that Aroden has See Invisibility, and she knows he has Detect Thoughts, she's seen it on him. 

Wizards can have a familiar. She doesn't - always seemed like more of a vulnerability than an assistant - but they can.

Familiars are usually animals but they don't have to be. 

She takes a cactus as a familiar. She names him Batty. She puts a little hatpin of Nondetection in with his other spines, just in case a familiar has any traits that Aroden would be able to notice at a glance. It won't stand up to more than a glance but who does more than glance at a cactus?

- no, actually, shouldn't count on that -

She cleans up the meeting room where they work, after they're done. She places some cactuses. Perfectly normal cactuses.

She waits a week, swaps one out for Batty. 

Leareth joins Aroden for one of their checkins; they're not doing spell experimentation so they don't need a Work Room today, the standard meeting-room will do. 

As usual he absently casts an extra privacy-barrier and then scans the room with all his Othersenses. "...Huh. I like the new cactus decor but they are perhaps not very hardy in this climate, one of them died already." It's not showing any of the faint aura of mage-energies that living plants usually do. 

Aroden frowns slightly and casts his attention to it briefly. "I thought the point of cacti was that they are hard to kill." It looks normal to Detect Magic, but plants don't usually show up to Detect Magic in the first place, Velgarth mage-sight is a little different. 

"I think they can die if you water them too much, perhaps the servants here do not know that since this area is not as dry a climate. I will leave a note." He gets up and scribbles out a polite note that the cactus is dead and they should look up how often cacti need watering and not do it too frequently.