"If their goddess told them that it was necessary..."

"Savil, I really think She might do something like this. Leareth's told me a few of the ways he died horribly when he tried to interact with Her or do anything in the Pelagirs. And - gods, they got the weapon from Urtho's Tower, I think that almost has to be true, Leareth is pretty hard to kill - if you're not a god - but we know Urtho did it." 

He looks down. "I don't know if She could've...maybe possessed them directly, like Vkandis did with Karis. Or something like a geas. They have the pact with Her, it - it might not've been them of their own free will..." 

That's...pretty horrible, but it's very slightly easier to swallow than her best friend having carried out a suicidal assassination mission. Savil is silent. 

"I'm going to talk to Aroden," she says eventually. "I want them raised and handed over to Valdemar. I - honestly don't care what they did, the pharaoh slaughtered them on the spot, I do not want him to have them." 

Vanyel just nods, dully. It's really hard to think about that, right now.

The Osirians exchange glances but do not say anything.

It takes her a while of storming around, gradually wearing out the sharpest anger and cooling off a little, before she locates Aroden. 

Aroden, currently wearing his usual old-man face and not his formal Aroden face, is at home with Parmida. He invites Savil in and hears her out. 

"I agree," he says when she's done. "I do intend to question them, but I think their Goddess will only return them - and thus allow them to live at all - if there is a commitment that they will be returned to Velgarth, rather than going to an evil afterlife here. I too do not actually wish them to suffer an evil afterlife, even for what they did - especially since no permanent harm will be done, once we resurrect Leareth tomorrow. The Goddess did not seem inclined to trust my promise, but perhaps with the addition of yours... I will pass it on to the pharaoh when I have a chance, so that he can have Abadar negotiate further with Her, and I will keep you updated." 

Savil nods, tightly. 

"Well, I'm going back to question some people in the palace myself. Don't want the pharaoh's people to be the only ones doing it."  

Aroden trusts the pharaoh's investigation pretty thoroughly, actually, and also after interrogating the corpses he's pretty sure it won't find anything, but it's certainly no bad thing to have a second set of eyes. "Yes, of course. I wish you good luck."

Once she's departed, he prepares another Sending for Khemet, with news of his and Savil's plan and the hope that this might get the Star-Eyed to budge. 

He responds confirming that he'll pass this along to Abadar. 

There were a hundred and sixteen people in the winter palace at the time of the murder: the pharaoh, half a dozen of his support staff, a dozen members of his personal guard, six advisors here to discuss economics with Leareth including the pharaoh's brother and presumptive heir, twelve magical researchers (all of Osirion's palace magical research having been relocated to the winter palace), two dozen members of the palace guard, one of the pharaoh's wives and her personal staff, one of the pharaoh's cousins and her personal staff, and forty servants.

The pharaoh's chief of security rushed over once the alarms were triggered and was present when Starwind and Moondance were killed.

Ugh, this is going to take the rest of today and most of tomorrow, isn't it.

Savil has a peek inside the Work Room too; it's not shielded against Velgarth mage-scrying. Yep, those sure are Abyssal demons, a variant she hasn't seen before.

By four hours into Truth Spell questioning, she's starting to feel on a gut level that - maybe it did happen the way Vanyel thinks, the Star-Eyed using her best friends as puppets. Her smouldering anger feels kind of stuck, now, unsure which way it ought to be pointed. 

The pharaoh spends the night having an awful headache and in the morning invites Aroden, Nayoki and Vanyel to the Dome to resurrect Leareth. They should bring a diamond.

Vanyel can most definitely bring a diamond of the correct size, and also he and Nayoki will both accept mind-control not to Final Strike. (Why in all hells would he want to Final Strike the pharaoh of Osirion and Leareth both at the same time, it makes no sense, but he can understand them wanting to take the precaution.) 

Aroden would like to bring his wife, if that's all right. (This is only partly because if he were being brought back from the dead after being horribly murdered then he would want his wife there; he also just wants her advice on navigating things if Leareth is upset or angry with the pharaoh or something.) 

Of course. 

There's a sheet on the floor; he's gotten competent enough with True Resurrection that he can at least weave the body under it by now, though he's still acutely aware he's objectively very very sloppy for a ninth circle caster.

He takes the diamond and does a True Resurrection.

Aroden has clothes for Leareth and some replacement magic items to lend him. (Vanyel also brought some shield-talismans.) He grips Parmida's hand. Waits. 

Leareth wakes up lying on stone, naked except for a sheet over him for some reason, disoriented and terrified. The last thing he remembers is dying - well, actually, the last thing he remembers is endless unimaginable agony, so much pain it drove out all thought, even now the jumbled memory of it is vivid enough to knock the breath out of him. He's not sure how long it took him to actually die when the demons were eating him alive. 

(He doesn't normally remember things this clearly, when he comes back, and it certainly doesn't normally feel like it was less than a second ago.) 

The thing he remembers before that is - gods - Starwind and Moondance, the Tayledras Adepts, a Work Room - his frantic half-second of time to think, surmising it was Urtho's weapon - 

- feeling the cord to his immortality sanctuary snap - 

- dying, knowing it was forever this time -

He reaches for his magic and it's there and he throws a shield over himself, for all the good that's likely to do, it didn't help before - he has no idea where he is and he can't think through the panic. He can barely muster enough concentration to grasp at the cord of magic that should be there, tying his physical form to the Void, to the sanctuary that's brought him back again and again for millennia...

Nothing. 

Where is he - he's never felt so helpless and scared before - he tries to shove it down into a corner, he has to think here, but for once he can't even do that - 

...

From the outside, what the others can pick up on is a wave of accidentally projected terrorterrorterror, Leareth came back without shields up, and then it cuts off as a hemispherical barrier of shimmering force snaps up over him, and then he makes a low keening sound and curls up into a ball and doesn't move. 

Aroden casts Charm Person so he can talk to his wife without startling Leareth any more. What should I do. 

They eventually figured out how to make the telepathic bond two-way even if she's not also charming him. 

The poor thing. I'm not sure he would appreciate us trying to talk to him right now - people don't usually come back that upset, I wonder if the Star-Eyed trying and failing to grab him seemed like anything?

He casts Calm Emotions. Leareth would be entitled to be angry with him about this but he suspects he won't be.

Leareth can tell it's coming from outside of himself, which is awful in itself, but - it gets him back more of his mind, which enables him to propagate that this makes no sense and he doesn't seem to be dead - and then remember that of course he isn't dead, Golarion has resurrection and there are multiple people who would fight very hard to get him back. 

While he's having said thoughts he instinctively scrambles to his feet, with some difficulty due to getting tangled in the sheet, and tries to interpret what his various senses are telling him. His eyes aren't quite focusing properly yet and also now he's dizzy, probably on account of standing up too fast after recently being a dead body on the floor.

Khemet is there. So is Aroden, with Parmida, and Vanyel standing by Nayoki. 

He sits down on the floor again, and focuses on weaving proper shields before he attempts to speak. Shielding himself is soothing, at least a little. 

"What happened," he says, in Khemet's general direction. "Where - how long...?" He's calmer but his hands are still kind of shaking; he presses them to the floor, trying to make them stop. 

"It's been fifteen hours. You were murdered. We think that the Star-Eyed goddess directed her people to use a weapon smuggled out of Urtho's Tower."

"Yes. Figured that." His chest still feels tight, it's hard to speak, but he can't Mindspeak the pharaoh. And - he wasn't just murdered, but...they might not know, it wouldn't have been visible to anyone not in the room. 

"They broke my immortality," he says dully. "Not - certain - I can fix it. Not if - She was watching..." He feels like crying, which is objectively really stupid when his allies just brought him back from the dead. 

Aroden goes rigid, dropping Parmida's hand. "What."