Only powerful wizards (sex!) can do that. Carissa would love to teach her more sometime but (Glibness is wearing off) she was going to get dinner with her cousin, maybe they can do this again sometime if Jisa did a good job of keeping this a secret so Carissa doesn't get in trouble.

All right! Jisa thanks her again, in her best Serious Grownup Voice, for the cantrip, and then thinks to asks her when her next day off is, and then hugs her around the middle again and skips off. 

She does not, in fact, tell anyone about Carissa the laundry wizard. Keeping secrets is haaaaaard but she really really doesn't want her parents to stop her from going back and learning more magic. 

Carissa the laundry wizard lies on her bed and has a panic attack for half an hour and then carefully writes down all the things she now knows about Leareth and about Velgarth magic.

Then she starts working on a design for a new amulet of nondetection that seems like it ought to give the impression that there are an appropriate and unremarkable amount of life energies. 

Batty says that it doesn't want to be a spy again even if she pulls it off. Carissa agrees that being a spy seems terrible but it is their duty to Cheliax, right now, apparently, and worst case they'll go to Axis, Aroden had the people who died fighting against him in the war resurrected because he dislikes Hell so much. Batty points out that they don't strictly speaking know if plant familiars get an afterlife. Carissa...hadn't thought of that, and it's kind of too many things on the stack of things to think about, but she says she'll keep it in mind. 

Urtho spends several days talking to magic researchers and asking questions about magic in the new world and reading books about magic and trying very hard not to think about the rest of the situation, because every time he tries he feels like he's floundering, in over his head, and has no idea what to do. 

Eventually, though, he tells one of the pharaoh's researchers that he wants know more about what the broader geopolitical situation is, here, and what's going to be expected of him (or done to him regardless of his cooperation, but he doesn't say that.) And also he would ideally like some way to verify that what people are telling him is the truth, not because he thinks they'll lie to him, he means no offence, just, they have to understand it's a very weird implausible situation he's in right now. 

'Wants' is also something of a lie, but he does feel that if he's trying to be responsible here, he should be asking about these things. 

That's super reasonable! If he knows truth magic himself he's welcome to cast it on them, or they can try to walk him through the local spell well enough he can see what it does but that'll probably be difficult, even with how quickly he has picked things up.

Their understanding is that the pharaoh hopes he'll choose to settle in Osirion and do magic research here on useful ways to combine the magic of the two worlds and so on, but he'll certainly have no trouble finding a sponsor anywhere else in the world he wants to go. The geopolitical situation is that Aroden's army conquered Cheliax pretty recently and everyone's still reeling from that, and from interworld contact, but now that the Worldwound's closed and Cheliax is no longer in the hands of Hell there aren't any pressing disasters anywhere.

He does have truth magic and he wants to ask someone who knows the part about Ma'ar to tell him all of that under his truth spell, and then he might ask more about Osirion and about Cheliax. (Osirion doesn't look corrupt so far but he's aware he's only seen a tiny slice of it.) 

The pharaoh's magical researchers were all present when Ma'ar showed up at the palace with a plan to help Aroden's (they didn't know it was Aroden at the time) conquest of Cheliax and they know a little bit about his relationship with Vanyel and Valdemar before that (he was planning to invade, but changed his mind), and they know he's spent much of the intervening two millenia on magical research because he shared a bunch of it with them. 

They can also answer questions about Osirion and Cheliax! Osirion is ruled by the pharaoh; the pharaohs of Osirion have historically been either minor gods in their own rights or aspects of major gods, and the current dynasty of pharaohs are aspects of Abadar, god of cities and wealth and trade. Osirion is not one of the richest or most powerful countries in the Inner Sea - it was, thousands of years ago - but most people make Axis. 

Cheliax was ruled by Hell after a horrible civil war when Aroden died (he got better), and almost all its people were damned. It's a big country, though, and very prosperous; the most powerful player in the region and arguably in the world. 

This is mostly incredibly confusing! Urtho never had the best head for geography and his mind is reeling with all the unfamiliar country names, from two different worlds no less. 

What's Aroden like - is he a good ruler? Also is there any sign Ma'ar is trying to overthrow him to take over Cheliax? That's what he was afraid Ma'ar would do in the first country where he ended up as advisor to a King. 

Aroden's a very good ruler who has been relentlessly focused on trying to fix the institutional situation that got almost everyone damned and give them all the chance to atone and also keep the country as prosperous as it was when there were lots of slaves from Hell paying for it.

There are no signs of Ma'ar trying to overthrow him which would in any event be a ridiculously difficult thing to do because Aroden is, well, technically not a god anymore but he turned everyone in a hundred mile radius to stone at the start of the war, and closed the Worldwound, and transported thirty thousand Chelish soldiers to Nirvana, and at some point you're only technically not a god, you know?

What about the pharaoh of Osirion, who raised him from the dead and is maybe an aspect of Abadar? (He seemed like a person to Urtho, if a very impressive one.) What sort of ruler is he? 

He's an exceptional diplomat and negotiator. Osirion has been prosperous. It's not widely known Osirion backed Aroden in the Chelish war, since Osirion usually stays out of wars, but they sure came out of it in an advantageous position.

He worked with Ma'ar, then. Did they seem to get along well? 

They're quite close, yes.

Do they think the pharaoh might have a biased perspective of how much Ma'ar has reformed since the time Urtho knew him, if they're friends now? 

Their impression is that the pharaoh was not sure of him initially but then Abadar offered to take him as His servant and Ma'ar accepted, which couldn't have happened if Ma'ar wasn't suited in his soul to Abadar's service, gods can't be wrong about that sort of thing.

- Wait, Ma'ar has sworn service to a god? Urtho is baffled, that doesn't sound like him at all, he defied all the gods' precepts before.

Well, it seems like the Velgarth gods aren't very good? Ma'ar (he goes by Leareth now) said they'd assassinated him over things like inventing the printing press. Abadar likes progress and cities and thinks people ought to be rich. So maybe Ma'ar just needed a god worth trusting in.

Interesting. That...does sound like something Ma'ar would approve of. Something he and Ma'ar would have agreed on, even. 

...Velgarth's loss of knowledge during the Cataclysm included the printing press? Urtho is genuinely kind of emotional about this. That's awful. 

It sounded awful! And the gods didn't want to let a flourishing society like Tantara arise again because they were worried that was what had led to the Cataclysm. Abadar is of course also opposed to things that might lead to Cataclysms but He thinks it's possible to exercise more fine control than that.

That's so sad. He thinks Abadar must be right; there have to be better ways. Even if he can sort of understand the gods' fears about it, it sounds like it was very very bad. 

Urtho thanks them for answering his questions, and says he needs some time alone to think. 

They are happy to leave him alone for that!

He paces back and forth in his lovely, luxuriously appointed guest room, in the palace where he's been treated wonderfully by everyone. Which doesn't mean that much about the rest of the country, of course, he's no longer that naive, but - the researchers seem happy, and not like they need certain answers to appease their superiors, which he thinks is a good sign. 

Eventually he calls a servant and says he would like to speak with the pharaoh, if that's possible, he understands if he's too busy. 

An appointment can be arranged later that afternoon! He should learn the protocols for interacting with the pharaoh; they are explained.

Urtho will pay careful attention to their explanation and follow them fastidiously. 

The pharaoh sees him, expresses delight that he's settling in so well, invites him to sit. "How are you finding the palace?"