"I think you did the right thing."

"I know I did the right thing."

Leareth is confused what Hagan is upset by and would usually read his mind about it, except he can't due to not having Thoughtsensing, which is maybe a good thing. 

"Hagan, what is bothering you? The geas?" Slight shrug. "I - apologize for being like that?" 

"I don't care about that."

Leareth narrows his eyes. "...I suppose you do not have to tell me. If it is not important. I - I feel that Aroden is being very reasonable here, since I would be a similar level of very alarmed if I stumbled on some people infiltrating my organization with the level of secret knowledge we have of his, and we did - come here knowing what we were up against. Still, it is objectively a hostile act, keeping us here, and I would not be bothered if someone were angry about that so I assume he will not be either." 

"You don't have to - I'm not going to do anything stupid."

"I am not worried about that I am just rather confused." 

"I spent - twelve years - a prisoner in the palace and I hate it there and I also hate places that are - nice, and pretty, and important, more important than you'll ever be and so obviously it makes perfect sense for them to - the more sense it makes the more I hate it, since I can't even be upset for a reason like that something is bad. And I'm not going to fuck anything up and so it does not actually matter.

Okay?"

"Okay. Yes, that makes sense." 

He falls silent. Starts poking around at the books. "I wish I had a place like this just to keep my records in. These are presumably not the highly sensitive ones, but - this entire place is more secure than anything I could build in Velgarth." 

"You could pick up wizardry. It'd take a while but it sounds like lots of things you do take a while."

"That is true." He has to assume he would lose at least much of it with each new incarnation, but Mahdi and Hagan won't know more on that (Aroden presumably will), and as a general rule he doesn't talk about his immortality setup with, well, anyone.

"Clerics also get Create Demiplane," he says. "And Plane Shift to get there, though weren't you figuring you could do that with a Gate? Or you guys could share. I feel like once he's warmed up to the idea he's got to see the appeal of having two of you. He can throw off an occasional permanent demiplane for you and you can move his armies all around the world."

"It would be a fruitful collaboration," Leareth agrees. "Also, he must think quickly. I would wish for much longer than two hours to consider this situation! I have had over a week and that is still not long enough to be adjusted to it." 

"He probably has time dilation. Or could've put us in it, conceivably. Demiplanes don't have to track time on the Material Plane."

That has so many implications, he's not even going to bother going through them now. He keeps looking at books. 

...Unsurprisingly, he decides that he likes Aroden's taste in books. 

Shocking. He will read about math while he has a classier headband than he could ordinarily afford.

He checks whether the fanciest headband fixes his reading problem but he already knew it wouldn't. He takes off his shirt and stitches up the spear-related hole, instead. Fy gives him hugs so he stops having stupid breathing problems related to the situation.

Malduoni (who was once Aroden, but for the most part no longer thinks of himself by that name at all, not now, not yet), sits in his private office in a different place, and thinks. 

...He believes them. Specifically, he believes Leareth. On too little evidence, perhaps, but - he's seen enough pieces, and none of them fit before but the tale Leareth gave does, in fact, hold it all together. Leareth originating from an entire other world is the simplest explanation for his bizarre, un-sorcerer-like powers. Leareth being, somehow, an alt of himself is the simplest explanation for his entire mind being the way it is. And for how he and his allies could have made an impossible inference. 

He's going to take precautions and seek additional evidence anyway, of course, but - he leans toward putting some qualified, caveated trust in Leareth, and extending that trust to Leareth's allies to the extent Leareth does. There's a huge upside here, if Leareth is telling the truth about his army - which, as far as Malduoni can tell from his thoughts, he absolutely is. It's not an upside he can really afford to ignore, because victory isn't overdetermined, here, not as thoroughly as he would prefer, and some of the paths to victory would bear a cost far higher than he wishes to pay. 

He's not at all happy, though, about Abadar's obvious involvement, or the pharaoh of Osirion's knowledge of this. It could prove to also be an upside, and - if this is all some elaborate plot against him, it's not Abadar's work. His god-translated memories of Abadar are set on that; it's not his style, it's not a kind of scheme he's really capable of at all. Mainly he feels unhappy because there's a mystery, there's a player on his gameboard that he can't see and doesn't understand, and he isn't keen on mysteries at this stage of his planning. 

He's even less happy about Nethys' role. If all of this is a scheme against him, it would be Nethys' work. Nefreti is involved. A significant chunk of the information that Leareth and his allies are reasoning from comes from Nethys directly. Nethys...might actually have the foreknowledge, stolen from other worlds, to interfere in a subtler way than the other gods are capable of in this era. He doesn't understand what Nethys is working toward. 

Two gods know about his survival and his plans, and this is a deeply concerning thought, because - if it's two, it could soon be a lot more.

He doesn't think any of that changes the bottom line with Leareth.

If anything, it nudges toward moving faster. For a decade, now, he's had his pieces in positions where he can move on a week's notice. The question is whether Leareth also can, but - well, if they're the same person, or same template, then Leareth may have made similar plans.

So. One decision that he has the information and cached reasoning to make now. The question of what to do about Abadar and Nethys is still unresolved. 

His prisoners know who he is; for the next part, he doesn't need to hide it deep within a corner of himself. 

Just over an hour later, Aroden Plane Shifts back into his demiplane. "I apologize for the wait." 

He sets his book down, nods. He is thinking that this whole situation involves far more risk than he feels comfortable but at least if they don't all die of it they'll learn some fascinating things about magic. 

He is thinking that libraries are terrible. This is a very unreasonable way to feel but it is how he feels. Probably libraries are much less terrible if one can read.

"I wish to accept your offer to help with Cheliax," Aroden says, levelly. "I will shortly transport all of you out of this place. However, you have already inferred that everyone in my organization who is aware of the true mission is under geas. I will place a geas on all of you before I Plane Shift you out of here. This is not an indication of mistrust; it is based on my outside-view observation that if I do not take this precaution, secrets inevitably leak." 

Slight sigh. "This is not the order I prefer. Usually I would explain the full conditions of the geas before I consider bringing someone in - from a pragmatic perspective, a geas is not a good strategy for obtaining someone's cooperation when they did not give it voluntarily. Unfortunately, you already know everything. I am aware that this means the geas is no longer voluntary, and this is not ideal. I do consider it fair play, given that you came here as spies, and knew the possible consequences of spying on someone like myself." 

He lays out the conditions of his geas before actually casting it, though it'll be spoken out loud then as well. They must not reveal the secrets to anyone not similarly geased or explicitly whitelisted by Aroden. (The pharaoh is approved; Aroden feels unsure of this and spent a solid chunk of his hour of thought on it, but at this point it would be an adversarial move not to, and it's not really going to give Khemet information he doesn't already have.) They must not betray him, directly or indirectly; there's an additional paragraph of conditions fleshing out this clause. They must not resist spells he casts on them - this is there for Aroden's convenience, to reduce his spell-preparation overhead.

In public Aroden goes by Malduoni. They will refer to him and think of him by that name only, unless he specifies otherwise. (He does not assume that he's the only one who can read their minds.) 

Neither of the Osirians seem very upset; it is an improvement on being turned into a statue for the duration of the war and maybe forever. Mahdi spends a while trying to think of loopholes, not particularly expecting to find any and not particularly expecting to use them if he does, but it's good to check; Hagan is mostly thinking that letting them talk to the pharaoh makes it much less likely the pharaoh has it taken off the minute they get home, which is too bad.

Leareth is nodding along and smiling very slightly. He is so unsurprised. He's considering the pros and cons of geases versus standard Velgarth compulsions. He's also trying to predict the pharaoh's reaction, and modelling what Aroden must be thinking there. Wondering how annoyed he is about Nefreti. Leareth himself is mostly intrigued by her, but he has a lot less personal baggage with the Golarion gods, Nethys included. 

It would be very wasteful to turn people who came here hoping to help into statues. (Though he might do it anyway he were any more in doubt that their goals are aligned with his.) Aroden is also aware of the pharaoh's incentives here. And of the fact that Leareth's main feelings toward the pharaoh are of respect, even warmth.

"Before that," he says, "who else knows? I imagine that others in the pharaoh's court are aware of the Cheliax aspect, at this point. And you had others in your party. The cleric you did not bring with you, and - Vanyel? Leareth's acquaintance from Velgarth. Where are they now?"