She mindreads. It is - weird, and a tiny bit disorienting, the way every mind she reads is looking at her and seeing Mhalir. It makes sense since he's doing all the talking and moving.

It is not relaxing at all that no one seems to be plotting any intrigue because it just makes her worry she's missing it.

Mhalir tells her that he's not sure Yeerks do a lot of intrigue the way that apparently politicians in Cheliax do? They're very - young as a species, in a sense, a century ago they didn't even have writing. They have irritating political dynamics but, in his experience, not incredibly subtle ones. It's possible that's just because he's missing all of those, but he's as old as most of the Yeerks on the Council and he doesn't think he's that oblivious. 

She doesn't really think of 'you try to discredit and kill your political opponents, you try to make your allies look good, you try to appear dangerous' as the kind of thing you invent but - maybe it is, sort of. Certainly there's going to be less mind-control involved here. 

This doesn't quite get her to stop worrying either.

The Yeerk Council is kind of distrustful of Iomedae's people, but not nearly as much as they would be of Andalites, and they do seem very impressed by Mhalir's voluntary wizard host and more inclined to listen to him as a result.

After several days of various important Yeerks taking turns with the volunteered clerics, the Council declares that they're willing to agree to work with Iomedae, and are willing to negotiate some specifics of what counts as a voluntary versus involuntary host, they unsurprising have...kind of a different background, for thinking about this. 

They're not sure what comes next? Is Iomedae going to fight the Andalites for them? Talk to them? Stick them in a room together and use alignment detection and truth magic to make them talk to each other? 

Mhalir is also not sure of this and he's unclear if the clerics who were sent know either but he can ask. 

Their best guess is that Iomedae is going to send her herald to the Andalites to explain the situation. From there it will depend how they respond. If they seem at all possible to reason with, which She seems to consider likely, they'll set up talks in Golarion, probably with Abadar enforcing things because everyone knows that Abadar will absolutely turn on whichever side breaks the agreement, he's Neutral not Good that way. If instead they refuse to stop fighting the Yeerks, She might make a bunch of Yeerk clerics or redirect some of Her armies here, and get started on ensuring the Andalites cannot continue to pursue the war. Magic probably makes it easy to break all their spaceships. 

She will probably not directly personally intervene unless the Andalites are planning to kill another planet or something.

They are pretty confused by multiple aspects of that! Mhalir does his best to answer their questions or direct them to the clerics and eveeeentually the Yeerk Council is willing to agree to stop taking involuntary Controllers - they'll implement that now - and free the existing ones. For that they want to wait until they've heard something definitive back from the Andalites, since it'll require redirecting a lot of their logistics.

That makes sense! Also they'll probably be traumatized and need a lot of help to recover and Nirvana might be willing to help with that, they can ask about it when they go back.

Mhalir encourages them very firmly to accept that help if it's offered. The Council is slightly confused at his level of insistence but agrees. 

And eventually they've talked through all the things and it's agreed upon that Mhalir should go back to Golarion as their representative there and figure out what the deal is with Abadar. Mhalir is pleased with this because he wants Carissa to stop being stressed about politics. 

Carissa is pleased about this too! She doesn't know much about Abadar aside from that Osirion isn't as nice as Cheliax which come to think of it is also something she should check with neutral people.

<I think maybe we should try to talk to clerics of all the Good and Neutral gods and - maybe some of the Evil gods other than Asmodeus too, I have no idea what their temples are like and it seems helpful to have as many different viewpoints of this as possible. Probably none of them is the complete truth but they will help us triangulate it.> 

That makes sense. And maybe there's a god out there who doesn't make her really scared of what they're going to do with Cheliax if they have the power. She is very skeptical but it's worth a look.

They've figured out the coordinates to attempt a hyperspace jump direction from the Council planet to Golarion, and are pretty sure it'll work, and they pack up to return to the ship. Presumably the clerics of Iomedae are coming back with them? 

Paladins. Technically. Iomedae also has clerics but most of the people you get as volunteers for billion-mile journeys to be mindread by space aliens will be paladins. 

They are ready to go! They have spent the whole time sincerely thinking at the Yeerks that obviously they will defend them against getting murdered but also they absolutely must stop enslaving people, it is so Evil.

Mhalir is slightly confused about the distinction between clerics and paladins but it doesn't seem like the most important thing right now. 

They make it back to the ship and jump back to the Golarion star system and head toward the planet. 

It's so pretty from space. She wants to go check out the other planets and see if they have a different magic system but she's not high-level enough for this to be safe at all.

<Maybe someday. I am also very curious.> Pause. <I remember the first time I saw our home planet from space. With Seerow. It was through a Gedd's eyes and their color vision is not as good as what humans have> much less Andalites, he still misses having 360-degree vision, <but still... It felt like it changed everything.> 

Carissa can Beast Shape to Andalite for a couple of minutes at a time, these days, if he wants it. And maybe once they're not at war they can trade for the technology polymorph, which seems awfully useful for Yeerks.

That would be a shocking swerve of Andalite policy, sharing morph with Yeerks, but very surprising things keep happening so who knows? 

The ship reaches orbit and Iomedae's paladins can be shuttled back to Vigil, dropping off their Yeerks in the pool on the ship unless they actively prefer to keep them, and then Mhalir regroups with his people and - should they go to Osirion next? Probably they should send a message ahead or something but he has no idea what the protocols for that are. 

Carissa knows almost nothing about Osirian politics except that (according to Chelish geography lessons, and the questioning she got in shops in Sothis) they won't super think she's a person. Maybe they will consider her adequately supervised because Mhalir seems to identify himself as a himself even though she's not clear on whether that corresponds to the things humans think make a person a man or a woman. Probably the thing to do is to go to the Church of Abadar in Sothis.

Then once the shuttle is back they can do that! 

Mhalir is back to feeling kind of unmoored, like none of the pieces of the world will hold still for him, but the feeling isn't actually preventing him from taking actions, so he ignores it. Possibly it's preventing him from being able to tell which actions are reasonable or correct ones, but - well, that seems like a decent time to lean on Good instead. 

What are we asking the Church of Abadar. Hi, we heard Abadar maybe wants to mediate an aliens dispute, how do we learn more?

<I do not have a more specific question than that, anyway. I want to know what Abadar's interests in this are. Also why there are Andalites in Sothis but that is a different question.> 

"Okay." She could Alter Self male but she actually wants to know how they'll react to her as she is. 

She walks into the temple. There's a greeter, a kid in not-perfectly-fitted robes. In Cheliax children go to school up through that age, but nowhere else in the world educates all its children for free. 

             "Can I direct you to someone?" he says. 

"The Church of Iomedae says that Abadar might want to mediate a dispute with some people from another planet we are fighting a war with. I was wondering how we can learn more about that. Also what the faith of Abadar is, uh, about."

             "Do you want to sign up for any of our classes?"

"What do you have classes on?"

             "Law, trade, prices, marriage, motherhood, the history of invention, the history of Osirion, the history of Axis. They rotate, we're in the middle of the one on marriage right now."

"What do men take instead of motherhood."

              "Insurance."

"Are the classes the - recommended way to learn what Abadar is about, is there anyone around who can give us a five minute version and then answer questions?"

              "You could hire a private tutor."

"How much is that."

             "A gold for an hour, if you want someone chosen by Abadar."

"How much if I want someone very important chosen by Abadar - fifth circle or something -" That's what Iomedae sent them so it only feels fair. 

            He consults some notes. "A hundred fifteen for an hour."

"I'll do that. Who decides how much it is?"

             "They - tell us how much they'd want to be paid to do it, and then the lowest bid is the price I quote you. Some places are trialling complicated rules so there's not an incentive to undercut your colleagues by one silver or something."

"So they had happened to already be asked the question of the price for an hour of their time tutoring? What if I'd asked for something they don't have quotes for?"

             "Then you'd have to pay for five minutes of their time to consider your question and give you a quote."

"Can I pay for the pharaoh's time this way?" 

             "...it would probably be very very expensive."

"Can I pay for Abadar's time this way?"

            "The pharaoh is Abadar's human aspect. There is more to Abadar but you can't - talk to it, the part of Abadar that'd understand you or be able to make you understand it is manifested on Golarion as the pharaoh."

It's an intriguing way to run a country, if this is actually representative of how things work in Osirion more broadly! 

<Is there something you wanted to ask the pharaoh about?> he asks Carissa. He feels a lot of apprehension at interacting directly with an aspect of a god. He doesn't know that he wants that much of Abadar's attention on him, Lawful Neutral or not.