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leareth, king of cheliax, searches for his alt in a velgarth 1000 years earlier
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Tadesse sits. Looks around a bit. 

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Khemet comes in a few minutes later, precisely on time, and gives Leareth a hug. "Tadesse! Nice to meet you! We've been curious for years, ever since Leareth first mentioned he found another Velgarth."

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Leareth hugs Khemet back. :It is very good to see you: 

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"Nice to meet you too," Tadesse says, politely and noncommittally. 

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Ekunde is very glad to stay in the background for now and let Tadesse lead. Whatever Leareth claimed about the usual protocols not applying here because it's another plane, he definitely feels like he ought to be at least bowing when meeting a literal pharaoh. 

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"Have you shown him around Aktun yet?"

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"Not yet, I did not want to have to rush to squeeze it in before this." :And - I am not really sure if he is up for it, or whether it will actually help: he adds privately to Khemet. :I wanted your impression on - how he is doing - first: 

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"They're opening a new skyscraper next week, forty four stories. There's a restaurant at the top and I think the rest is all office space. The Times is relocating there. I think the building is mildly ugly but the chef is a very good one, and maybe you have to be mildly ugly to get forty four stories. It was going to be forty two but then the Spire opened at forty two, and they scrambled." He sits down. "I said to Abadar that the natural endpoint of all of this is a city that goes on forever into the sky and He said it's going to be amazing."

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"I think I am with Abadar on that one!" To Tadesse: "It is not as tall Urtho's Tower, but the space inside is used much more efficiently. Urtho was– well, he admitted to me himself that he was showing off a little, seeing if it could be done at all, and half the total height of the Tower was in the spires, which do not have much inside except an elevator-shaft and some viewing windows and balconies." 

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This gets a faint smile from Tadesse. "That is quite impressive. I look forward to seeing it." His voice still isn't particularly animated, though. 

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(Ekunde can't wait to see it, but is trying to be polite and not interrupt.) 

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"So what have you two been up to?" he asks Tadesse and Ekunde.

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"Ekunde's parents are merchant sailors and have their own ship. We went all the way around the continent a few years ago, seeing places, and then decided to try to sail all the way across the ocean to find the other continent. There are legends of it but no one has travelled there in living memory, it is a long way. I was able to scry it though and make us maps, and build a new device for navigation." 

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"Huh! And that's when we made contact?"

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"Yes." 

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"Technically," Leareth says dryly, after a few beats of silence, "this is when we rescued them. Their ship was badly damaged in a storm." 

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"And so Leareth kidnapped me when I did not appear at the meeting-time and place we had agreed on, and Ekunde had to alert his wife to immediately send Leareth and Vanyel back for the rest of his family." 

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"You keep saying that like they're not your family too. Reckon they've all made it clear they'd like to be, you saved all our asses enough times." 

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Tadesse is silent. 

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"You know, when Aroden first met Leareth he kidnapped him. He was very panicked by the fact we'd learned he was alive and he decided snatching Leareth and his companions in the dead of night was the best way to find out how they'd learned it. I guess it probably was. Very frustrating, though, when you're going out of your way to not kidnap Leareth yourself and then someone else goes and does it."

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"What, were you going out of your way not to kidnap Leareth?" Tadesse says, eyebrows raised. 

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"Yes, I was. He was very mysterious and clearly up to wildly bizarre and potentially threatening things and I was very curious about them but I didn't kidnap him at all."

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Tadesse nods, his expression controlled and level. 

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Leareth gives him a reassuring smile. "Khemet was being very helpful, actually - as I recall we were staying in his palace, he was offering extensive use of his resources and the help of his magic researchers. Which I suppose might have been mostly a strategy to learn more of my mysterious and wildly bizarre plans, but it was a tempting one." 

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Tadesse feels like there are several years worth of subtext that he's missing here, and he could try to keep up anyway but it seems effortful. 

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