Moondance closes his eyes, his expression going slack as he slips into trance to prepare himself. 

And then Starwind's hand darts into his robes, it's not a large motion but it still makes Leareth twitch around, startled - and Starwind throws something at him, it's small and cubical and heavier than it looks, Leareth instinctively dodges and it smacks loudly into the stone floor, inches from him–

Leareth flings up every shield he has, :what are you–:

The object didn't look magical at all until an instant ago but now it does, almost blindingly so, and Starwind shoves Leareth with a burst of raw force, his shields catch it and it doesn't harm him but it does knock him sprawling to the floor, and Starwind spins around and seizes his lifebonded partner by the arm and within a fraction of a second, before Leareth can move from the ground, there's a Gate up on the still-closed door and they're halfway through it. 

What in all hells - Leareth, now all the way from startled to deeply alarmed, throws a force-net after them - he doesn't have time to Gate but he can maybe hitch a ride with theirs...

Starwind is a stronger Adept than him on raw Gifts, apparently, or else very well shielded with magic items, the spell fails to catch onto him, and then the Gate snaps down and it's too late. 

Leareth instantly switches to weaving a Gate-threshold under himself on the stone, instead, not bothering to move, his mind and his Gifts are faster than his body, and he gets most of the way there–

Two things happen almost at once. 

First, something snaps, released mage-power - no, his own released blood-energies - rebounding on him. As the link that holds his current body to his soul-sanctuary that grants him immortality is snapped. 

Second, the previously-invisible magical artifact under him bursts open, and - he doesn't know how but, from the feel of it, he guesses that it's violently tearing open a connection to the Abyssal Plane, which might or might not be the same thing as the Abyss, and using the energies released from such a tear to summon - something–

The demon-construct bodies are tiny but they're pouring out in thousands - millions - maybe more - and they rip through everything, eating the magic of his Gate and his shields as fuel, until there's nothing left between them. 

It takes maybe a quarter-second for them to reach him, and Leareth has time for a handful of half formed thoughts, surprisingly calm. That he was utterly failing to be paranoid enough and it was stupid of him. That this has to be from Urtho's Tower, it fits, Starwind and Moondance were there, Urtho was the Mage of Silence, his signature talent was casting spells that leaked nothing and left no magical signature, and obviously the Star-Eyed wants him dead–

–that he's going to die, and there won't be anything there to catch him. It would've been easy for a Healing-Adept to snip the cord of life-energies holding him to his immortality setup, they wouldn't have needed to actually find it or know any of the specifics about how it worked. 

That it was very well planned, really, and he would be impressed except for the part where he's going to DIE FOREVER. 

(It's a very rushed quarter-second and Leareth isn't, in that moment, thinking ahead enough to remember that Golarion has resurrection.) 

Then millions of tiny summoned demons reach him and tear his body to shreds, there are endless seconds of unimaginable pain, leaving no room for thought, and then, finally, nothing. 

The artifact burns itself out within ten seconds and the forces holding open the connection break off. The existing summoned demons are trapped in an incredibly well shielded Work Room that even they can't eat their way through, and are very upset about it. 

" - did something go wrong -" one of the clerics standing outside the Work Room asks them at the unexpected sight of them Gating right out -

- at the same time someone bursts into the room he's in, throws himself to the floor - 

" - what -"

          " - couple of seconds ago dangerous specialized portal in Work Room, deliberate, someone's dead -"

" - the Work Room where Leareth and Starwind and Moondance are? Get people there now."

And fifteen seconds later a crowd of people round the corner. To the dismay of the pharaoh's personal guard he's among them.

Then they're going to find Starwind holding the threshold to a soon-to-be interplanar Gate back to Velgarth, while Moondance tries to make increasingly less plausible excuses for why the thing that just went horribly wrong with their spell means they have to go back to Velgarth to get help immediately. 

His ninth level domain spell is Overwhelming Presence. He mostly doesn't use it because it causes people to throw themselves to the ground at your feet, believing you to be a god, and he has enough of that in his life, honestly. 

He casts it, targeting everyone except the people who just walked in with him. 

This causes Starwind to lose hold of his Gate-threshold as both he and Moondance prostrate themselves at the pharaoh's feet - the sense of being surrounded by divinity is so all-encompassing, there is not much room for 'thoughts' or 'plans'. 

"Is it safe to open that door."

"You should probably not do that," Moondance says tonelessly, muffled because his forehead is pressed to the floor. 

"Leareth's in there, isn't he." Something dangerous and summoned - Leareth might still be alive and maybe there's enough force here to stop whatever it is and rescue him but that's stupid, that would be the stupid decision, dead people can come back to life and being in control of the situation is more important than preventing Leareth from being quickly or slowly murdered by whatever they brought into his palace to do it -

His chief security person is pleading, with his eyes, for Khemet to get out of here, which makes sense, they don't know that this was the whole of the plan and these people can suicide-fireball at will and he's one of two people vaguely allied with Leareth who can cast True Resurrection and -

"Let's lock that Work Room so nothing gets out," he says, calmly, looking politely confused rather than upset, not letting up on Overwhelming Presence but he shouldn't be sure it can stop them from the explosive strike, shouldn't be sure they can't throw it off, shouldn't be sure he has anything resembling a handle on the situation, he's so scared -

He casts Deafness, twice. 

"Kill them," he says. "You will have to do it very quickly, and both at the same time."

Khemet's personal guard does not see a lot of action these days but they're all resurrected from people who died in the line of duty. The people rushing towards the Work Room door turn around to bring swords down on the men pinned to the floor. 

And he Plane Shifts to Axis.

Aroden is at home - well, not home home, but the palace in Egorian, he's on a sofa reading over some proposals about schools with his feet up across Parmida's lap - the way he only sits when he's relaxed and comfortable and content -

- and then he's on his feet, in an instant, and then perfectly still. 

She stands up and takes his hand in case this is the kind of bad news where he wants to Plane Shift them somewhere.

"- Leareth is dead. I - I had an alarm, to tell me, if anything - but he was in Osirion–" His voice is flat, empty of all expression. "I suppose I am going there now." 

"Dead - are you worried that they're going to try to make off with his soul, why are you going right there instead of waiting -"

"I want to know what happened. Either they did this or they - let it happen - either way..."

Aroden isn't angry very often. It isn't, usually, a very helpful emotion. But right now, he's furious. 

"If you show up like this they're not going to let you anywhere near the pharaoh because you're scary like this. You run a country, showing up scary in another country's palace is kind of starting a war, I am sure you will win it but -"