”We are not upset with your cousin and she will not be in trouble,” Aroden says. “Falsifying test scores is not ideal, but it was on Iomedae’s orders.”

“Just to be clear, I am also not angry with you and do not wish to harm you,” Leareth says. For all the good it’s likely to do.

"I'm not sure I was sure enough it was Her. She gave me second-level spells, when I applied to work at the palace, so I figured I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, but She didn't give any more detail. I kept asking. I figured if I wasn't getting any feedback that meant I was doing everything right but maybe that was a dumb thing to assume. 

I didn't have time to retrain into wondrous items so I started working on really small weapons. There's - they're in my hair right now if you'd like me to get them out and show you, they don't have any magic right now..."

“I am rather annoyed with Iomedae for unnecessary making you so stressed but it seems you acted reasonably given Her choices here.” His voice is suddenly a little harder. “You had no specific intent to harm Leareth nor the means to do so, is that correct?”

" - I thought about how I'd - if I needed to - but it seemed pretty unlikely, if I knew something I could tell you, it'd have to be if it turned out he was mind-controlling you or something...I wasn't planning anything, I didn't know what was going on yet. I didn't make any weapons - well, I didn't make any weapons that were meant to be used as weapons. I figured I was - taking options away from you, if I did that, you couldn't spare me even if you wanted to - I didn't think about the thing where the hat pins are all weapons by definition or I wouldn't be able to enchant them in the first place. You really couldn't use them to hurt anyone...I guess you could try to stab them in the eye."

“You could not even have inconvenienced either of us by attempting to stab us in the eye with hat pins, so I am comfortable saying they are not, in fact, weapons.”

And now Aroden is looking at Leareth too.

Deep breath. “I asked Iomedae...to help recruit talented people...” Not false and it feels less fraught. “I think she is rather playing a joke on me. I am very sorry you were dragged into it in such a frightening and alarming way.”

She looks like this raises about as many questions as it answers. 

"...oh. Okay. You know it crossed my mind that maybe Cheliax just needed a weapons enchanter but I figured, uh, you could run a job ad. In the newspaper." - okay if no one gets angry with her about that then maybe they're actually not angry with her.

"Right? We could in fact just do that." 

"This method did result in, well, rather more showing off of your unusual cleverness and creativity," Leareth says. (Is that a reassuring or a frightening thing to say? He has no idea! He's smiling though.) 

"We should go somewhere else a little more comfortable," Aroden says. 

Parmida, should we invite her over to our rooms, or is that just going to frighten her more? 

..I'm not actually sure it's about the location? It's your country wherever we are. I don't know what would help, though.

"Carissa, I am going to Plane Shift all of us elsewhere, and we can sit down and explain a little more thoroughly. I am very sorry this happened to you, although I am almost certain Iomedae will refuse to apologize for it even if I shout at Her." 

He stands up, holds out his hand to Parmida and to Khemet, who's next to him. 

Leareth hesitates, and then offers his hand to Carissa. 

She takes it. She is - kind of maybe having a bit of an adrenaline crash at this point. 

They Plane Shift out and land in Aroden's hallway, where everyone else's magic works again. 

"Carissa," he says to her, "you are, at this point, welcome to Teleport yourself out of the country if you have decided you are done with all of this and all of us. However, I would like to finish our conversation, if you do not mind humouring us and our strange lives." 

Leareth waits. He's still feeling weirdly nervous. 

"I was gonna go to Vigil. If I got discovered and had time to run. Figured probably someone there could figure out what in the world I was supposed to be doing. Uh, I like Cheliax, I don't want to leave, but I'm still pretty unclear on what criminal penalties I am facing here, and which things I know I am allowed to know and what's going to be done about the other ones."

"We will need to discuss and figure out what to do, there, though honestly none of what you found out is especially sensitive anymore. Abadar solidly won his bout with the Star-Eyed, and all of the Heralds now know about this. Out of curiosity, did you end up speaking with them at all?" 

Meanwhile he's leading them out of the hallway-demiplane and past his private office to a nice conference room. He sits. 

Leareth pulls out a chair for Carissa, trying not to look too emotionally engaged in whether she decides to stay. 

She sits. "I spoke to the King's seven year old daughter. I needed an explanation of how mage-sight worked and what Leareth had been up to in his original world and who the Star-Eyed was and she was harassing me anyway so it seemed like the best place to get it. I didn't talk to any of the heralds, I wanted to figure out what my artifact was failing to cover first - though it would have been a good idea to test it on them first instead of on Leareth first -"

"Your artifact was fine, Leareth didn't notice anything off about you."

" - well, you evidently guessed somehow."

"Not with magic, your magic setup worked as far as I know perfectly. I just thought you seemed a bit off."

" - I had Glibness up! It's supposed to cover that!"