Malduoni spends about a second wondering how far he's willing to trust her, and how paranoid he wants to play it here, and then decides that whatever his uncertainties with Nethys still are, they're far smaller than the stakes of this situation. Which Sarenrae thinks is still possible to de-escalate but there's no guarantee of how long that will remain true.

"Of course," he says, levelly. "I am curious to hear your reasoning there but I can ask questions later, or while we work. What do you need from me right now." 

She takes his arm and hops them along to her office. "I am going to try to explain, but you will be frustrated, because I am seeing different things than you are seeing, and you will think, Nefreti, explain in terms of what I see! But if I could see enough to infer what you see I couldn't see the things that I see! There is a story, and it is a very tragic story, and most of the pieces of it can be retrieved even late into the tragic story but there is a piece that can only be retrieved very early and I can't see quite when so now is the best time. Kidnapping Andalites will retrieve the piece but I don't know if they are the piece or if they would otherwise destroy the piece. When I meet them I might know that. All the other pieces have more string to play out. I can Gate us there, but I don't know where there is. The piece could be destroyed in the fighting, that's not the kind of thing that can't happen."

He is, in fact, very confused! He nods, though, and tries to be patient. He was a god, once; he knows what it's like, to see things from another angle that can't be explained in human language. Sometimes he's tried to cram those thoughts back into his poor human head and it's left him debilitated for days. 

"I think I am confused whether you can Gate us 'there' right now despite not knowing where you are Gating to, or whether you are asking my help to - do some detective work, or something, to figure that out?" 

"I can take us there right now but I don't know what we'll be doing when we get there and the Gate will be visible. So it would be good to know where there is and what we will be doing there once we arrive there, if you can figure that out, so there is less that we have to improvise. Or if you know how to do a silent invisible Gate that would also be a solution."

"I cannot think how I could begin finding out where this will take place and what needs to happen with that little to go on, from the angle that I see things. I - cannot currently cast a silent invisible Gate but - perhaps I could figure it out. It would take me some research time, and then I would need to prepare the spell."

His lips move into a faint smile. "Would you like to come with me and help with spell research? I have a Rod of Security, I can pause time for us while we do that, and your help would make it go faster. I have missed studying magic with you for the last ninety years." 

"I think I would like that."

The Rod of Security is in his Bag of Holding, because just about everything he might possibly need in an emergency that wasn't specified to him in advance is in there. Malduoni asks Nefreti if she needs to pack anything, waits for a response and for packing if packing is needful, and then takes out the Rod. 

About a minute later they're in a demiplane outside the normal flow of time. There's a pretty meadow, and a stream, and fruit growing.

He takes out some paper for notes. "All right, so we have two problems to solve - I think the part where it glows is trivial, I can rework that in an hour or two of staring at it, but the part where there is a Gate there and you can see through to the other side is less so..."  

"We could get up an illusion very fast if we knew what we were getting an illusion of up. Since we don't -

- you could maybe do with another Gate -"

He looks confused for a moment and then sees it. "Oh! Yes, of course. Two Gates sort of - back to back, superimposed in just the right orientation that they see exactly what they are supposed to see. And then we can simply go through invisible. It will take something to make sure we both know how to put our Gate in exactly the right place for that to work. And then we would have to do something clever to retrieve anyone through the same Gate, since otherwise they would step through both Gates and end up exactly where they would have been anyway if there were no Gate..." 

"Yes. The two Gates don't have to open to the same point in our world for this to work, just the same point in theirs, that should help -"

"Hmm - does that - no, I think you are right..."

He stops drawing on his paper and instead just closes his eyes, holding the shape of the spell. Looking at it from an angle humans cannot generally see. The ways human spells can stabilize are very arbitrary, from a god's-eye view, but there should be nearby islands of stability, and some of them will be what he wants... 

Elsewhere she steps out of Aroden's shielded study, which apparently does not count as trying to run away if she is firmly intending to look for a bathroom and only incidentally expecting that Mhalir's tracking devices will work.

There's a restroom right there! 

Elsewhere, Mhalir has been asking the wizards to scry repeatedly and staring at the computer indicator for Carissa's concealed tracking device, which stubbornly remains offline. Since receiving the Sending he's been even more on edge. He hasn't quite succeeded at composing a response. He stares at the tablet screen, frustrated, trying not to focus on how terrified he is. 

- until suddenly and apropos of nothing, the tracker is showing up again! It takes a moment for the signal to resolve, and then - 

"Rahadoum," he says tightly. 

Carissa - has been in enemy hands. He doesn't know what they've done to her, and Golarion has copious mind-control magic. But the ship is well outside Teleport range even if she could Teleport, which she can't, and in terms of technology there's nothing she can do to harm him from there. Theoretically his signal could be tracked, but she doesn't have the equipment to do it, or have any idea how such equipment would work, and none of her extensive knowledge of Golarion arcane magic suggests a way to do it with wizardry, so it's unlikely her captor can either. 

He remotely toggles the recording device and transmitter to two-way mode. 

"Carissa. Status report." 

"I don't know who he is or what his angle is but he's ninth circle and had me in a custom demiplane and arranged a cleric of Iomedae to come chat on extraordinarily short notice. His wife is named Parmida and gave his name as Alexeis. He'd talked to Alloran. I told him everything." She has an impulse to defend herself, about this, but doesn't. "He had me do the Sending you got earlier and then he wanted me to do an Atonement with the cleric which he thinks I'm still in the middle of, I think. The cleric left. I am under a lesser geas to not cast spells and not resist his and obey him and his wife and not run away." Which means she's a totally useless host, now, but they should have people who can prepare Break Enchantment. "I do not know if he desires or intends that you come rescue me."

"Do you want me to rescue you right now. If I try and fail it might - go worse for you than otherwise - I think we have better than even odds of succeeding but am reluctant to put it higher than that." 

"He's going for Good and didn't torture me even when I was very rude to him, I don't think I have very much to lose. - unless you kill his wife. My read is that he will in fact be real mad if you kill his wife. If you have some plan that doesn't involve that - I would prefer it."

"I will keep that in mind. I do not actually prefer killing people. Stay where you are. Alert me if your situation changes." 

And he mutes the microphone on his end and summons the wizards again. "We have her location." It's pinned down to a very precise spot on the map, now. "Can we get her out with Teleport." 

" - kind of depends what they've got there with her," one of the wizards says. "If they are at all competent they're redirecting Teleports into the area, and probably expecting us."

"What are our options for working around that, magically speaking? - I suppose it might be easiest to bring the cloaked shuttle in rather than use magic at all. If I do that, you can cast Invisibility and just walk in, right, unless there are physical barriers against that?" 

"Yes. We could at least take the shuttle in and get a look at the precautions but it seems overwhelmingly likely they're expecting us to do that. 

...honestly I don't think you should rescue the girl. It sounds like she's fine and this is approximately the most obvious trap I've ever seen."

"- Yes, I know, just..." Mhalir doesn't know how to finish that sentence; all of the possible ways are stupid. He wants Carissa back now, she must be terrified and that feels deeply wrong. He wants to understand what's happening again. He's yet again almost dizzy with the confusion. "I - am going to think about it. How likely do you think it is that this ninth-circle wizard intends to keep the terms of any prisoner exchange we agree to?" He doesn't especially want to hand any prisoners over, but, well, the operation is already blown wide open, or at least fully known by this mysterious wizard. 

"Well, is he Lawful?"

"How would I know?" 

"Detect Alignment sometimes functions through a scry. Ninth circle wizard's gonna be unscryable but we could try to get the wife. More description would be useful."