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.
"I hope it doesn't inconvenience anyone that I drained that entire node– ow. I hate having magic explode in my face."
The cleric casts Lesser Restoration. If anyone is annoyed by the node being drained they don't say so.
"By rights the possibility ought to make diamond prices considerably lower," someone is murmuring to someone else.
"Only if people with the information are allowed to trade on it. I don't think it's a way to get us cheap diamonds quickly enough for the war."
"Not a lot anyway, even if Leareth gets this tomorrow, it's really tiring. Also I have further coordinating to do in Velgarth so I'll be leaving in the morning."
Leareth looks like he poooossibly wants to object to this, but instead just nods.
Once the other group has asked all their questions he tells them that he'll be ready to Gate them to the requested location tomorrow morning, and heads back out. Servants can show them to guest rooms and shielded meeting rooms for any further planning they want to do.
Vanyel figures he's done enough meeting and discussing. He goes to bed.
Leareth, back with Nayoki, has what he thinks is their first breakthrough on Velgarth Gates - which is that they can route the search part of the spell through one or more of the elemental planes, without actually having the Gate land there. If they're right and Velgarth shares the same elemental planes with Golarion, then if they go 'through' the spell ought at some point be able to find it.
He demonstrates a tiny test Gate on two hand-sized practice thresholds across a table from each other. Notes that it has the surprise plus of, he suspects, also being untraceable - even if a mage is directly watching one terminus, they won't be able to follow the threads of magic to where the other one is.
Leareth is delighted! He's tempted to go find Khemet and tell him right away, but 'go find the pharaoh' is probably a huge breach of protocol, so instead he just asks one of the servants if Khemet is still available.
"We have the first step toward an inter-world Gate." Leareth casts it again, quickly explains the magic, all while looking very pleased about it. "I am much more confident we will have this working in time."
(Leareth really appreciates talking about Velgarth magic - or anything really - with Khemet, who has zero context on it and is nonetheless smart enough to follow easily.)
He takes the Gate down. "Unfortunately it is more tiring than an ordinary Gate, which will present a greater difficulty if we wish to move thousands of people, but - once the spell exists I can teach it to others. I think we can make it work."
"Have we tried having someone stand by and cast fatigue-combatting spells on you while you do tiring things? I would be curious if they can keep up with the tiredness that way or if eventually you run out of something the spell isn't quite addressing."
"Lesser Restoration is quite effective on backlash but I have not tested continuing to do tiring work for a long time while having it cast repeatedly. It does seem worth trying. If someone is available to cast fatigue-combating spells now, it will not matter much if I do end up exhausted since I am going to bed after that."
Hmm, what's the most tiring but still non-destructive magic he can do...? Leareth settles on repeatedly raising a very big un-scaffolded Gate from where he is to his bedroom and taking it down again; holding a Gate is easier than raising one, and un-scaffolded uses a bit more power than putting a Gate on a doorway, not normally enough to be that significant but if he's going to do it twenty times in a row it'll add up.
...He's going into it kind of tired already, after working all day, and despite the short range, he's tired enough after the third one that he kind of wants to sit down. He nods to the cleric who's going to cast the spell for him.
He's now less tired! He casts another three Gates and then is tired again, and the second iteration of the spell - doesn't seem to quite do as much, or something, he feels physically fine and has the reserves for another Gate but it still feels like something, somewhere, is emptying and not getting refilled.
He does another two and then is tired again, and the next iteration of the spell only ekes out one more Gate. That's interesting.
He is watching fascinated. "There is a cleric spell - not a healing spell - called Recharge Innate Reserves, that creatures with innate magic use can cast - but only on themselves, there're a lot of spells like that... I wonder if it works better than Restoration for something like this."
"Interesting." Aaaaand he's going to find somewhere to sit down now, that was enough Gates. "What defines innate magic use, in your system?"
"Some species are - I guess you could think of them as all sorcerers but usually there's just one or two limited magical abilities that are common among them. Invisibility, or magical flight, or teleportation, or a electricity attack... Sometimes we've been able to design a spell that imitates the ability, sometimes we haven't. Dragons have lots of them, which is one of the things that makes them terrifying. Outsiders usually have some."
"It seems quite possible that that spell would do something for you. If we were lucky enough, something complementary with Restoration."
"This is something I would only be able to test if I accepted Abadar's offer to become His cleric."