The pharaoh treats his headache, Plane Shifts back to Sothis, confers with advisors in the Dome, and then heads over to meet Aroden in the winter palace.

Aroden is back at the palace after his unsuccessful scrying attempt, and a trip to the Worldwound to make sure the remaining Tayledras are still there and not fled back to Velgarth. They are. He suspects they don't know anything; he should question them anyway, probably, but it's going to be contentious and very irritating. 

He nods to him. "Did you learn anything?"

"I scried inside the Work Room. It is full of what I believe are summoned Velgarth Abyssal demons. They should probably fade out within a week and I suggest leaving the room until then. I could not sense anything direct about the weapon. I used Speak with Dead on the corpses and confirmed that it was on the orders of the Star-Eyed, they denied having other accomplices, and they denied any additional plans not yet carried out. We attempted to raise them but it failed. I have also not been able to scry them. I could scry Leareth - well, at least the river of souls." 

"The Star-Eyed took them back. Abadar is angry; there was an agreement about this, which she appears to have just decided to ignore. She wanted Leareth, too, but does not seem to have had a strong enough claim to fish him out."

"What." Aroden just stares at him for a moment; the distant, not-quite-human haunted look is back in his eyes. "That - She tried to take Leareth..." She didn't succeed, he has to remind himself. "What now. What is Abadar going to do." 

"Abadar wants to take Her stuff. Well, Urtho's superweapons. He thinks that with enough of them working together the Golarion gods can guarantee your safety even in Velgarth, even directly in the Star-Eyed's territory, for long enough for you to take the weapons and leave. This is somewhat delicate, because the other Golarion gods are mostly inclined to intervene in any unilateral attempt to take hold of them, none of them want anyone else to have them. He is coming up with some agreements among them and has a proposal for you but it can wait until we get Leareth back.

She was willing to give Starwind and Moondance's souls back if we promise they won't end up in an evil afterlife. I don't think any of us actually want them to end up in an evil afterlife but Abadar was unwilling to make Her promises to that effect because He, uh, feels that promises are exchanged between entities capable of keeping them."

Aroden nods, seriously, and considers this in silence for a while, his face and body perfectly still. It's eerily like the way Leareth is when he's absorbing a lot of new information at once and deciding how to react. 

"That is not unreasonable of Abadar." His voice has a little more warmth in it. "You can convey that I am willing to promise I will do my best to return them to Velgarth as soon as we have completed our investigation here, as long as She is aware that if they ever return to Golarion then I will personally find some way of trapping their souls here indefinitely. And - that is an intriguing proposal. I agree that it can wait." 

"I will pass that along and let you know if the result is that they become available for resurrection."

He sighs. "And...I'm so sorry. I thought he was safe, here."

"I understand that this is not something you could have foreseen. He clearly did not." Aroden's gaze drifts downward for a moment. "I am sorry we were not paranoid enough." 

"We can get him back. I'm mostly angry right now that - if our alarms had been less specific, or blocked by the Velgarth Work Room shielding, we would've rushed there to see what happened and opened the door."

"Yes. It seems to be almost by sheer accident that this did not claim many more casualties, and - they were perhaps trying a little to mitigate that, but they did not try to do it anywhere else other than your palace full of servants and scholars." 

Nod. "I think we will plan to relocate operations to the Dome, which is more secure and where I think this could not have been done, for the time being. It is deliberately annoying for people without training to use magic in; I'm sorry about that."

"No, no, I understand. A sensible precaution. Will you be going there to raise Leareth tomorrow? I would like to be present, especially given that, if he is anything like myself in this regard, he will - not exactly be calm about recent events."

"First thing in the morning. You are welcome to be there, as are any of his staff members he'd want to have on hand. They should bring clothes for him and maybe replacement magic items, if you have spares."

"Of course. I think he will want Nayoki there, and - probably Vanyel, I will have to ask him but I suspect he will wish to be present." 

"My security's not going to be thrilled about Velgarth mages in the Dome. Because of the thing where they can at any time kill everyone around them, security people hate that. But we'll figure out how to make it work."

"They might both accept a temporary geas not to Final Strike. It is not as though Final Striking when Leareth has just been resurrected will serve any of their goals." 

"I agree that it really would not."

And he excuses himself and goes back to the Dome and spies on Vanyel and is more upset about Leareth than it is remotely reasonable to be, he's known the man for a month.

Vanyel is currently hugging Fazil and crying. 

A few hours later he communicates to Aroden that the Star-Eyed does not trust Aroden's promises about Moondance and Starwind because she heard that Aroden is Leareth and she really hates Leareth. Abadar tried observing that Leareth unlike the Star-Eyed is a pattern-possible-to-cooperate-with but the Star-Eyed disagrees, obviously. 

Well. Aroden is not really sure what to do about that! There are likely other people whose promises She would take more seriously, maybe among the Heralds; he would ask Vanyel but according to Parmida, Vanyel is very distraught and shouldn't be bothered today unless the request is extremely critical and urgent, and he doesn't think at this point that it's all that decision-relevant to raise Starwind and Moondance before they get Leareth back. Speaking of Vanyel, though, he does think it would be a good idea to inform the Heralds in Velgarth of this, if they haven't been told already. 

It probably would, but his point of contact with the Heralds is usually Vanyel.

Aroden recalls that the point of contact for the Heralds' work on the battlefield and cleanup was often Herald-Mage Savil, who's actually senior the Vanyel. Vanyel can contact her via crystal ball but he doesn't think this is worth interrupting Vanyel for. He can recruit Nayoki, though? She's met Savil, since she was often Leareth's point person, and she can Mindspeak via crystal ball as well. 

Sure. Aroden can figure out what Cheliax wants to say; Osirion will convey that they are angry, are considering the partnership with the Tayledras on Worldwound cleanup betrayed, and aren't letting any more of them into the country.