He wonders why it's only sometimes but doesn't ask, just toggles the microphone back on. "Carissa, can you give us some further description of the wizard's wife?" 

"Old, probably at least...eighty? She has a headband as nice as mine. Keleshite or maybe Garundi, wearing very fashionable silks. She has a cheerful kind of affect and mostly quizzed me about the magic I know and about the wanting an atonement, while we drank tea. She gave me my wig back - they'd ripped it off for the interrogation."

"I can try," the wizard says, sounding dubious, "but it's not a good bet."

"I understand that. Thank you." 

He paces, which is probably not his poor human host's favourite occupation, it's much more suited to an Andalite body. 

"We could....fly over in the shielded shuttle and try casting Break Enchantment down into the building through the ceiling. Normally you can't do that but with your technological scrying maybe we could, if you can get the location exact enough. Or if she can get to a window then it'd be much easier. It'll be warded against hostile casting but possibly not against abjuration. It might set off an alarm, though."

"If we get the shuttle close I can send in a tiny drone with a camera to get footage of the inside, it is about the size of an ant when folded up and would be able to slip through very small cracks under doors and such as long as they are not magically sealed. We should all wear the helmets against Detect Thoughts just in case someone has unusual range with it, a ninth-circle wizard seems like the sort of person who might." They have lightweight caps with osmium now. "And maybe if I can get drone footage of the wife, it will be easier to scry her and find out if she is Lawful? For whatever that is worth." 

It's something to move on, anyway, which feels better even if maybe it shouldn't. Mhalir is wondering why he feels so strongly that losing Carissa and not getting her back would be the worst outcome in the world. He has higher level wizards. It doesn't completely handicap his operations or anything. Her capture was a serious hit, but the damage is done, she's already been interrogated, getting her back now won't undo that.

Ten minutes later they're on the shuttle with equipment both technological and magical, and spare Yeerks, flying toward the planet. 

They work out how to do non-glowy Gates and then how to do two Gates that open only a millimeter apart from each other angled so that there's nothing apparently not where it should be. It takes a couple of days but Aroden has a very nice time dilation demiplane. 

"I think we are as ready as we'll be until we see what we are doing."

Malduoni is feeling very well rested after his requisite two hours of sleep, and has prepared all his spell slots - he has over eighty - keeping in mind that he doesn't have much idea what he'll need to do. Plenty of enchantments, though, because that's his specialization, he can prepare them more efficiently.

"I agree." And he can drop them out of the demiplane and back to her office. "- Should we be somewhere else for the Gate, or is dropping some aliens into your office fine." 

"I don't know anything about these aliens, are they dangerous to themselves or each other?"

"They have very sharp tails, which I suppose they can use to do whatever damage they want to anything - and I got the sense from Alloran that they are rather willing to use it to kill themselves, if they suspect they are about to be enslaved by a Yeerk. They also have instant healing, though, with some form of shapeshifting they use." 

He can show her a Silent Image of Alloran grazing in the field in Nirvana. 

"Hmmmmm. So then we can't do something that only gets most of them, in case the ones it doesn't get decide it's Yeerks. But we should be able to clarify pretty quickly that we are not Yeerks and are in fact going to stop the Yeerks. I think ideally we would be something that doesn't have the kind of body a Yeerk can interact with, like air elementals, so that it is very apparent we are not prisoners of Yeerks."

"I think they will have no idea what air elementals are, and they have their own form of illusions that could perhaps fake the visual evidence of bodies that Yeerks could not infest. It might still be worth trying, though." He makes a slight face. "This point against using enchantments, since those - could more easily be mistaken for the feeling of being enslaved by a Yeerk, and so I fear would be read as very very adversarial even if it does not result in any of them killing themselves." 

Pout. "They're the best way to disable a large crowd all at once, though."

"I know, right? Also I have more spells for that." Sigh. "We do not know what situation we are walking into, which makes this difficult. If it is something chaotic and urgent then I think trying to explain anything we are doing to them is a lost cause - I could cast a Mass Hold Person, the version I figured out that will work on non-humanoids," human arcane magic is so stupidly arbitrary, really, "and then use enchantments once they can no longer resist. They have never encountered our magic, probably few of them will throw off spells? But I am not sure of that. Anyway, if we go through and it is instead a relaxed - picnic in a meadow, or something, I suppose we could use Charm Person and try to explain. It cannot exactly be mistaken for a Yeerk's control. And I prepared Gate twice, in case we need to let the first one lapse and use a second to get back. You did as well, right?" He also has Wish and Time Stop, taking up all four of his ninth-level spell slots. 

"Yes. I can also cast Mass Hold Person and I can do it twice at once, whereas you have to do it one spell at a time."

He smiles at her. "Indeed. Perhaps I will let you do the heavy lifting and cast it twice, and I will keep mine in reserve."

"All right. All set? Are we being air elementals - or fire elementals, fire elementals are also fun - or are we just being ourselves."

"Probably better to go as ourselves? They are familiar with humans, and unfamiliar with any elementals. Fire elementals are fun but might be especially alarming." 

Pout. "All right." 

And she prepares to raise their Gates.

So does Malduoni, and they raise them together, perfectly aligned like they practiced - 

- what do they see on the other side? 

A big grassy field sloped like an auditorium and full of Andalites. They're not visibly doing anything of course but he can read their minds and they're arguing. 

<The line between dissent and treason is not, actually, particularly ambiguous, and it behooves us to stay on the correct side of it> an Andalite in the center of the whole thing is declaring. 

- that one is an important one but not the most important one, Nefreti thinks at him through the Telepathic Bond they cast.

A shuttle lands on the grass behind them and another Andalite lopes out of it, he's thinking that he watched that exchange on his computer, it was public, and that he's not going to murder the first one but he really should - maybe he will but probably he won't but he really really -

That one! We want that one and we want to take him to the palace - oh, this is beautiful -

Malduoni spends a moment evaluating the situation. Battle: no. Calm picnic: also no. Tense situation, that might be about to explode into violence, but hasn't yet. 

We could go through openly and be a loud distraction asking for help with a Yeerk invasion, he suggests. That might defuse this. And if that does not work we could Hold Person them and grab just him - do we want any of the others, I really hope we do not need to kidnap all of them.