Keiran is still looking at the map and Callia (a newly-graduated Herald as of a year ago) is kind of overawed by being in the presence of another kingdom's royalty and with all those fancy protocols too. 

The Tayledras visitors have questions, though. Mainly they want to know what the pharaoh and Abadar have learned of Leareth. 

In this world, there was an immortal survivor of the Azlantl empire named Aroden, who somehow returned from the devastation of Earthfall when no one else did (they think now that he did not return in the same body, but his histories elide this, probably so as not to inspire imitators.) He founded another empire and worked to prevent the magical knowledge of ancient Azlantl from being forgotten forever, and he led an army into the Abyss and fought a demon lord, and he became a master of magic unparalleled in his world, and then he dragged the Starstone out of the sea. It was a remnant of the moon that hit Golarion during Earthfall. It's said that it contained the essence of two gods, the ones killed when Earthfall happened. Abadar implies it is more complicated that that but that that's close enough for humans. Aroden set a series of elaborate precautions around it, and then ascended, and became a god. He was destined to return and usher in the prophecied Age of Glory, but instead he was murdered and prophecy broke and his ancient immortality method caught him again, or at least one tiny piece of him.

Leareth thinks - and Abadar agrees - that Leareth is the same person, in many important ways. He has the same motivations and a strikingly similar history. There are differences. Leareth is Evil, when Aroden wasn't. This is probably partially because Aroden, being aware of the alignment system, would have tried harder to mostly avoid being labelled by it as a servant of Hell, and partially because with Evil magic like blood magic in their world, ruthless mages are incentivized to commit mass murder in a fashion that, in Golarion, they largely are not.

But Abadar thinks there is the same core. And - this makes the people of Golarion want to work with him. Because Aroden was the god of humanity, the god who died trying to end the small horrors of ordinary mortal lives, and Abadar knew him, and trusted him, and because Asmodeus is the god who obviously benefitted the most from his destruction and being on the opposite side from Asmodeus is often a pretty good plan. Leareth says that he will learn from Aroden's mistakes, and not attempt any plans like the ones that failed here, and he wants to fight Hell, and Abadar would like to keep a close eye on him - has offered, in fact, to make him a cleric - but thinks that this alliance is advisable. 

"Though the gods can't see farther than us, not anymore. More, but not farther."

There are nods, and then Starwind glances at Vanyel. 

Vanyel lowers his voice. "I don't know how much you still feel it'd be useful to know more of Leareth's past, but - we think we know a place in Velgarth that has written histories of the Mage Wars period. It would be with the Shin'a'in people, who are in a pact with the Star-Eyed Goddess, but it might be - easier to interpret as a human, than whatever she's given you." He looks over at Moondance. "The Tayledras are a sister people, they're on good terms, and Starwind and Moondance would be willing to accompany whoever wants to go." 

"I have Foresight hunches, sometimes," Moondance said. "And - I have a feeling this would be a good idea, if we can spare the time and resources." 

"That sounds worth it to me. Since we are betting a great deal on Leareth and his counterpart being capable of pulling this off and, well, better than Asmodeus is a low bar and 'as bad but more tractably toppled' seems extremely likely because Asmodeus is one of the most powerful of our gods but...still, if we could learn more of him, I think we ought to. You'd need a Gate, for that?"

"Yes. It's a long way south - we can give you the location on a map, but none of us have ever been. We could Plane Shift back afterward, though, or I could just do my kind of Gate to Haven and join the other Heralds. ...We really could use better disambiguation between those spells." 

"We do. My spell can target from a map, and I could do it tomorrow for this purpose."

"I think we should go. We ought know more of this man, if we are to trust him with so much." 

Vanyel nods. "We'll be in kind of a hurry, but hopefully we can make it work. - oh, and I should try the diamond thing before we go." 

"Please. If you can do that - well, we can get lots of people back, for one thing, including everyone dead in the last century who'd want to be in on this, and also I'd expect it to give us a lot of negotiating power with Aroden."

"Of course. Do you know if Leareth minds being interrupted right now? I can ask him what spell he was imagining using for it." 

"He said you could interrupt him, yes. I can have someone show you there."

"I would appreciate that, thank you." 

So someone can show Vanyel there while he remains to answer questions for everyone else.

Leareth, who is kind of stuck right now and glad of a break, greets Vanyel with surprising warmth and explains the spell. He asks Khemet's researchers if they can supply black carbon or coal or something for Vanyel to try compressing, and also do they have any shielded rooms for practicing magic in? This seems like the type of test where if it goes badly something might explode, and Leareth can provide shielding too but Vanyel is five to ten times as powerful as he is. 

They can absolutely supply black carbon and coal, and they do have shielded practice rooms, this being a hazard of their kind of magical experimentation too. Nefreti Clepati infamously levelled the temple of Nethys once. (Nethys infamously rewarded her with several more cleric levels for it.)

Vanyel takes a pile of black carbon and coal into a practice room, and shoves it into an approximate sphere with the barrier-spell, and then tightens the force-net as instructed - and pushes power into it - and more power - there's a node within reach and he reaches for it and feeds more and more power– 

The ball shrinks and compresses and glows - 

- and then the spell, strained past its limits, violently explodes. 

Leareth only has to shield both of them from one angle, since Vanyel is standing close to the door, and he does so while also using magic to yank Vanyel back and slam the door shut. 

"...Oops." 

"Healing?" asks one of the magic researchers with cleric levels who is standing nearby.

"I think I'm fine - except for the part where I have a horrid backlash headache, ow." 

"I think that Lesser Restoration would probably address that." Leareth frowns slightly. "I suppose I had better invent you a spell that can take more power. I think you were getting there but you need a technique that can handle more power input."