- honestly she's been considering it pretty likely he still had someone in her, though she'd been trying not to think about it. 

It's probably safer than not-that, if she doesn't plan on escaping. 

"We could - try it for a day or a week. And - you have to promise that if I'm still thinking about things wrong you won't punish that - as long as I'm behaving myself -"

<I promise I will not punish you for wrongthink.> He says it sort of distantly, his attention already mostly elsewhere, in his thoughts it's obvious that the entire framing where he might punish her for her political opinions on his war doesn't even make sense to him. <I am going to wait until Detect Thoughts ends, and then I am going to ask you to do something for me; some of the details are need-to-know so I do not want you reading my thoughts while I ask.> 

"Okay." Now she's very curious and very tempted to pretend Detect Thoughts is over before it is but Andalites seem to have a very good sense of time.

She is trembling but this seems stupid. Mhalir is a very strange person but he doesn't know what he wants well enough to tell her how he wants her shaped and him being in her head wouldn't change that.

Mhalir doesn't miss that she's trembling but he doesn't know what to do about it either. He knows how long her Detect Thoughts lasts, because he's been in her head, and he counts out that interval. 

<All right. I want you to go to Absalom again and do some recruiting. I have a script for the mercenary company cover story, reviewed after the new intelligence. I also have a separate request. I want to hire a cleric powerful enough to do a Plane Shift - or a wizard, I suppose, but clerics gain the capability sooner. I want someone who will not ask questions about why, and who is willing to meet at a specified neutral location to do it.> 

"Okay. I wanna make myself an item with Glibness, in principle I can do that even though Glibness can't be prepared, it'll help with all this bluffing. But this I think I can arrange without that. Plane Shift to where."

<- Oh, right, they need to have been to the relevant place in order to Plane Shift there.> He hesitates, but only briefly. <To Nirvana.>

Probably this gives Carissa enough information to just guess what his plan for Alloran is? But he hopes he hasn't given her the incentive to be very curious about it. Or to try to sabotage it. He wishes he could read her mind, he feels blind without that. 

" - I don't think the Good gods will help you, even if their priest says so."

<I am not planning to ask their help. This is for something else. I - do think they are not inclined to interfere, or Sarenrae would have done more than send a reassuring vision to her cleric.> 

"Yeah, fair. I will ask."

<Thank you. I am still going to watch in case someone reads your thoughts and tries to rescue you, but - I am trusting you, at this point, to know your incentives in this situation. If this goes well I will give you extra money for spells and magic items.> It's a very blatant bribe but that seems appropriate to Carissa's entire framing here. 

She doesn't think of herself as a very mercenary person but it's the one thing she wants that she can get, here. She does not try to explain that it's more that she's scared she's not worth nearly this much back home, anymore, and might fail a screening for loyalty, and doesn't know where else she'd go.

"I'll prepare spells for the trip," she says.

Mhalir watches her a moment longer, wondering what she's thinking. Well, he'll know soon enough. His backup plan, if she finds having him intolerable and it makes her less effective, will be seeing if he can tolerate the cleric's dislike of him, and his backup backup will be kicking someone else out of their host. 

<Thank you> he says, distant again. <You can inform me when you are ready to take the shuttle down to Absalom.> 

She prepares spells from her gloriously long list of options and lets him know when she's ready.

Mhalir stopped blocking Alloran's senses as soon as the conversation was over. Alloran must be so confused about what's going on, Mhalir doesn't normally do that nearly this often. 

He joins Carissa on the shuttle, along with the usual staff, and they can fly down invisibly to Absalom and drop her off near one of the bugged taverns where adventurer recruiting is known to happen. Mhalir perches on the adjacent rooftop in helmeted hawk form, watching her intently through a window and listening to the recording device audio on a tiny hawk-sized earpiece that they made for this purpose on the ship's fabricator. 

Carissa goes down and talks to people. She has the headband of +4 intelligence, now, which suggests she's a solidly impressive wizard, and she has a nice cloak of resistance and a ring of sustenance. She gives herself Eagle's Splendor and smiles at people and sticks to the script. 

They can get a cleric of Sarenrae to do the plane shift, if they want, or one of Cayden Cailean, or one of Abadar.

Mhalir spends a bit being indecisive about this. He...probably prefers not a Chaotic god's cleric? And on the one hand Sarenrae might be trying to help, but on the other hand he's still kind of scared of her because she presumably knows he kidnapped her cleric, whereas Abadar is Lawful Neutral - thus, by his reckoning, likely to have a cleric who's trustworthy and will keep his word and also won't go on a rescue crusade - and Abadar has less reason to know anything about him. He'll go with the cleric of Abadar. 

She has to pay half up front. They presumably do also want a Plane Shift back. The proposed neutral location is thus.

Carissa should have enough gold in her purse to pay half upfront and Mhalir will pick her up when she's done negotiating, and put together the rest in the shuttle to give the cleric when they're scheduled to meet. He supposes they do want a Plane Shift back, they'll pay for that too. (They might just want the cleric to drop off Alloran and Plane Shift back right away, Mhalir still hasn't decided if he's going to go at all. It depends on how the conversation he's about to have with Alloran goes. 

<Alloran> he says to the Andalite he's spent fifteen years enslaving and torturing. <We need to talk.> 

Alloran can't stop him from talking but does not particularly care to talk back.

<I am planning to free you and leave you in Nirvana> Mhalir says. <The conditions that led me to think enslaving you was a worthwhile tradeoff have changed, now. I expect you to try very hard to sabotage my plans, but I also expect you will need the cooperation of the locals and they will not agree to help you revenge murder me, and you will not be able to enlist Sarenrae's help unless you figure out what it means to be Good. What I would prefer to do is send you there in human morph, without me in your head, but this requires that I can trust you to cooperate at that point rather than murder me. I think it should be in your interest to do so. You will have more options in Nirvana, even though I do not expect it will be trivial for you to kill me from there and I would not be doing this if I did.> 

<Who are you going to enslave instead>.

<Carissa agreed she would try it and see if she minds. If she does mind it, I will probably go to the cleric of Sarenrae, and let him try to redeem me and convince me to stop being so Evil.> 

<Huh.>

<I hope that works.>

<Will you cooperate with being Plane Shifted and left in Nirvana.> Mhalir pays attention to Alloran's thoughts as well as his deliberate response. 

<Cooperating involves - not attacking the cleric? I won't do that. Not attacking you is a stretch. if it's safe to Plane Shift in morph I'll Plane Shift in morph.>