He scries a record-site from the Void-ship; a thousand years from now, the canyon it's in will be wider, but it's not much of a change. He Gates to it; opens the wards; looks inside. It is unchanged. 

He scries the next one. There's a river. In a thousand years it'll run some different route. He Gates to it.

The cache by the river is also untouched. So is the next one, below the stone ruins of an emperor's palace, already abandoned now though less crumbled and weathered. 

The next one is at the top of the limestone cliffs on the far southern coast, in the country that will someday be called Acabarrin and is currently known by some other name.

This one shows signs of more recent disturbance from the very start; the wards on it are visibly new, redone in the last six months or less. 

- huh. He leaves a note on the Void-ship, just in case. He does the counterspells. He enters the cache.

The dust on the shelves has been recently cleared in some places, though everything has been put back in its proper place. 

The long narrow underground room has a small stone table, at one end, for reading at. There's a sealed letter on it, placed to be very obvious. 

He checks it for magic. If it's safe, he'll open it and read it.

It's written in archaic southern trade-tongue, which at least shares a common alphabet with extant languages, and which Leareth had instructed him to study along with some other common languages of the relevant time period. It looks like it was written hurriedly. 

To whomever is reading this. 

I am not sure who you really are or why you are making the claim that you come from another world in my future. If this is true, and you truly want to help, then I would not begrudge this, and I am sure that anyone who could enter this place has the power to seek me out.

You ought look across the sea, to the west. 

Tadesse, who was once Kiyamvir Ma'ar

If they could directly seek him out, they would have done that! He doesn't have Gate-locations on the other continent - he has no idea what was going on there a thousand years ago. He has only the faintest sense of what is going on there in his own time. 

...though with a name, they can probably do a Sending, now.

He leaves a return note, acknowledging this and saying they'll attempt to find him and get in touch.

He heads back to Golarion.

Leareth takes his report with a level, unreadable expression, and then thinks silently for a long minute. 

"- Across the sea," he says finally. "I know I explored the other continent and islands at a few points, but I have no memory - or any record, apparently - of this instance. I...wonder why." 

The most likely cause is that something went badly wrong, and this particular incarnation - Tadesse, apparently - ended up dying prematurely, without the time to update far-flung records. There are other reasons for gaps but that's the most usual one. 

He thanks the mage, says he expects to have further instructions soon, and goes to find Carissa. 

She's in a meeting, but it wraps up soonly enough, perhaps nudged along once she's aware he has news for her. "Mmm?"

"I received a report back on the other Velgarth. There was a reply." He summarizes the report to her. "I - cannot blame him for being cautious, but it is inconvenient, and...I am worried that the reason why I have no records on this lifetime is not a hopeful one. Apparently he went across the ocean, I assume seeking other continents. Such a journey might be quite dangerous even for a me." 

"Huh. Is the other continent dangerous? Who lives there? What are its gods like?"

"There are a handful of other continents, but the one he would most likely reach by sailing west from Acabarrin - also the largest, though significantly smaller than the main continent you have seen - has a much more arid climate, the interior is mostly desert, and the northern half of the coastline straddles the tropics and is very hot. The southern half of the coast has the most dense settlement, but I do not think it was ever unified in an empire, and mostly not even larger kingdoms."

Shrug. "The gods are...differently frustrating, at least. They did not interfere with me in particular; looking back, I wonder if they were much less troubled by the Cataclysm, being on the other side of the globe from it, and also do not communicate much with the nearer gods? Nonetheless, overall the conditions were not any easier to work with. The gods there seem - more Chaotic, I suppose is the best description I can give them? Also they seem individually less powerful but shockingly numerous relative to the mortal population, and I saw no sign that they claimed separate territories. They seemed more hands-on, in a way, but not any more legible? I am not sure, I would need to dig up and review my notes of one of the later journeys I made there." 

"Hmmm. Well, if he's still there we ought to be able to do a Sending off his name, I'd think. If he's died in the last six months that'll be really inconvenient but presumably he'll find the letter again soon."

"The next step is to try a Sending," Leareth agrees. "I am sure he will be very startled, if he is alive to receive it, but hopefully it will be - well, more convincing evidence of something." 

"It's a shame how you're so paranoid."

"I could wish that my past self had had the foresight to choose a phrase that any future version of me from another world could use to confirm that! Unfortunately, that prospect was not even a hypothesis I had." He smiles a little, though. "Are you up for doing the Sending for me?" 

"Sure. From here, or do you want me to actually go out to the planet so that we can get him if he agrees to be gotten."

"From here, I think. It is nearly a day's journey in the Void to get there, and if he agrees to be gotten I would rather have that time to plan our arrival - and it would be good to know whether making that trip is time-sensitive." 

"And if it turns out to be an outright emergency you can Wish-kidnap him probably even at that distance."

"Mmm." Leareth takes a deep breath. "I am considering what to say. That we received the message and left a reply...that I can provide further evidence of my claim about my identity, if he wants...that I lack any specific records on this name or lifetime and - am therefore concerned he might be in danger, and am willing to come urgently if he is in need of help..." 

"Twenty-five words," she reminds him. "I could do 'replied to your message in cache, can provide further proof of identity, lack records of this lifetime, fear for your safety, help needed?"

Leareth reviews that mentally a few times. "Yes, I think that will do." 

It takes ten minutes to cast; she starts. "What sorts of things were you doing in your lives around then?"

"Quite a variety of things. It is not very long after I - made the update, that the gods were my true enemies and that my existing strategies were not going to work. I must already have been considering the plan of creating a god, but likely as only one option among many, at that point." He looks down at the floor. "I think it was - not an easy time, in my life - lives... I was very frustrated. And very weary." 

"Well. We can solve several of those problems. And then maybe send him back to Ma'ar's Velgarth, I think it bothers Ma'ar to not be - fixing it -"

Nod. "I suppose I am mostly relieved that he will - not break anything. But yes, I think it bothers him too. And I would feel far more comfortable letting him return, especially to Urtho's Tower, with an adult. I think he would need years more to be ready to handle it alone." 

"Do you know how old you were when you tried the first time?"

"I am not sure. I think I remained to study at Urtho's Tower for at least five years, probably less than ten, and once I returned to Predain I would not have dallied. So - twenty or twenty-five, most likely." 

She nods. "Can you say something in the trade-tongue the letter was in? So I know what to point Tongues at."

Leareth nods and says 'I hope this message finds you well' in trade-tongue, as the first thing that came to mind. 

And, "replied to your message in cache, can provide further proof of identity, lack records of this lifetime, fear for your safety, help needed?" she says for the Sending, in the language he just spoke.

And a long, long way away, in another world very far from this one, a sturdy wooden sailship about twenty yards long crashes up and down on the waves, nothing but grey fog on the rain-lashed horizon. 

A young man is hunched under a canvas canopy which partly keeps the rain off his map; he supplements it with a mage-barrier, staring at the waxed paper. 

He startles, grabs the small bolted down table to steady himself. 

Kun, did you hear that? 

Yes, the original inhabitant of this body - who has lately been daydreaming about cakes with fresh fruit and pretty girls dancing with him rather than paying any attention to the navigation - answers. You weren't imagining it. You reckon -? 

I am not sure what to think. 

Well, you gonna answer? 

He doesn't exactly have a lot of time to consider the question; he, too, noticed that the entirely unfamiliar magic has some sort of incomplete loop. Waiting for him, but presumably not for long. 

"Not in imminent danger," he says in the same language, which is not entirely true, but he's not yet at the point of trusting this mysterious presence claiming to be himself from the future to be less dangerous to him than storms. "Can meet at southern tip of continent west of sea." 

He hopes so, anyway. 

She repeats this. "Do you want me to do another Sending to ask when?"

"If you have the spell for it, then yes, that would be good." Leareth is frowning. Something is making him uneasy here, and but he can't put his finger on what. 

She has a pearl of power; she draws the spell back so she can start casting it again. "What's wrong?"

"I am not sure! Just... Something feels a little off and I cannot explain why." 

She tries to think of things that could be bad. "Maybe...he's a prisoner and someone made him give that answer? He decided to take a lifetime off and spend it on a tropical island with a gourmet chef and three hundred sex slaves and not put it in the notes so it didn't screw with the overall pattern? He thinks he has some evidence we're lying?"

"Maybe." Sigh. "I - do not strongly have the sense that he is lying, exactly. Just that it felt very much as though he is holding back some significant context. I suppose it is not unreasonable of him, not to trust us yet, just -" Shrug. "We will have to see what he says next." 

Tad, we might not make it to the southern coast. 

Tadesse has no specific rejoinder. 

Look, just because you're some sort of immortal warlock soul and you'll come back, doesn't mean I'm fine with dying when we could've gotten rescued!

I know. But if we gamble wrong, and he is an enemy, it - could be worse than death, for you. 

Gusty sigh. You're so goddamned paranoid. 

And it has saved all of our lives more than once. A mental shrug. I suppose we will see about this time.

"We'll meet you on the southern tip of the continent. When."

A week, he's about to say, that's around when they should arrive if any of his calculations from when the stars were visible ever, using the map he drew back when he had enough magic to scry any significant distance, are accurate in the least–

Look, if this storm gets any worse we could all be dead by then. 

And exactly what is he supposed to do about that. 

I dunno, come looking for us and rescue us? 

Sigh. 

"Three days. Look for the top of the cliffs." (This is a wild bet that everywhere has cliffs, no matter how exotic; he didn't get that close a look on the scry, he could only do it at all by redesigning a degenerate, simpler version of the spell.) Which should be possible if the storm breaks and they get close enough in to the continental shelf that there are plants and fish to give off any kind of ambient magic, in which case he can Gate to land and look for the stranger who might be him. And probably the 'southern tip' is pretty nonspecific and if he's not obviously there they'll look around a bit. 

- but if, in fact, 'Leareth' wants to help, and they do end up in serious trouble, and 'Leareth' has the additional capabilities one would expect for someone who can speak into his ear even when he's in the middle of the ocean, then...it might be soon enough to make a difference. 

Happy now? 

Not really, I'm still sick and tired of stale hardtack and Dele's goddamned snoring, but I guess it'll do. 

She repeats this back to Leareth.

Sigh. "Thank you. Do you have any kind of read on him?" 

"He...thought a lot about the three days. I don't have a good guess why. I am not sure we shouldn't Wish-kidnap him now but I guess that's very rude and he might be in the middle of something important."

"I would be inclined to take the Void-ship over now, and - perhaps attempt to scry him? I am not sure if it is more likely to succeed from the same world. I should go in person, I think, it is somewhat inconvenient but I am the one who can best earn his trust. ...You should not come with me," he adds regretfully, "especially if I expect to be waiting around in the Void for two days if, as seems most likely, all is well and he is simply being the appropriate level of distrustful. But - maybe I could take a scroll of Sending with me, and contact you here if he is in trouble and it is more than I can get him out of? And then you can enlist the help of someone who can actually cast Wish and rescue him." 

Nod. "And if you go with Vanyel, there's not very much trouble that's more than you two can get him out of."

"I should hope so." He slips an arm around her, squeezes her. "I will miss you, but I should not be gone longer than a week, unless something very unexpected happens. And I will not be leaving just yet. I should say goodbye to the children, and make sure everything is handed off - and inform Vanyel, I suppose he might need some time to get ready." 

"Well, I'll try not to light the whole country on fire while you're gone, but you know, no promises."

He chuckles. "I had better not dawdle, then." 

He heads off to arrange some handover meetings. 

Vanyel turns up shortly later, or rather sticks his head out of the Work Room he uses in the palace and Mindspeaks Carissa. :Leareth said you could tell me what's going on and why he wants me leaving on a Void-trip with him in three candlemarks? Something in the other Velgarth - did you get word back -:

Yeah. We contacted him and arranged a pickup in three days but he seemed very suspicious, Leareth wants to try to scry him when we get closer and see if anything is up.

:Oh. I see. Well, if was around to get your message, hopefully not that much can go wrong before we can get there. I'll get packed: 

A couple of hours later, Ma'ar gets back to their rooms and immediately heads to Carissa. "Leareth said he's leaving. For Velgarth." 

He's been having another growth spurt over the last year; he's now a little taller than Carissa, which is something he at least is still trying to get used to. 

"Yes, he's going to go pick up the other you. Tadesse, apparently. Exploring another continent."

"I wish he would let me come." 

"But then there would not be any of you around to look after me and Pexa."

"I guess." He says it in his annoyed-teenager voice and rolls his eyes, which isn't that frequent for him but pops out once in a while. "Pexa's going to miss him and be sad, isn't she." 

"Well, probably. But we could always set up an elaborate intrigue operation to keep his absence a secret from her, using Alter Self ...or a simulacrum..."

"That sounds like a lot of work," Ma'ar says in the voice that means he can't quite tell if she's joking or serious. 

"It's a seventh circle spell with a twelve-hour casting time, and it requires half a pound of powdered rubies. Also Leareth will probably find it creepy, what with how it's not sapient and is bound to obey its creator. That might make it illegal, actually, to make a simulacrum of the King of Cheliax and impersonate him with it. Sounds like the kind of thing there's a law against in the books somewhere. But if we don't do it, Pexa will miss him and be sad."

"Maybe I can give her extra snuggles and read her stories to make up for it. She always wants me to play with her more." Ma'ar has been somewhat less enthusiastic over the last year about spending time with his little sister; he has some Chelish friends his own age now, and sometimes disappears to purely social events with them in addition to studying magic together. 

Which is very healthy; Pexa misses him, of course, but he's going to be a grownup soon, and he's going to need to learn how to get along with students at Urtho's Tower, and it is in many ways a different skill than playing with a three-year-old. "I bet she'd like that."

"And it won't be for all that long." Shrug. "I hope he and Van are careful. - Probably worrying about that is stupid. Leareth is always careful." 

"I worry too. But - Leareth is always careful, and we have lots of options if anything goes wrong, and there shouldn't be any enemies, here. Just a suspicious, paranoid, you."

"Leareth thought he might have been having a - bad time. That things were hard at this point." He shivers. "Leareth doesn't even remember it, but - that happened to him, too. I wish fewer bad things had happened to him." 

"Huh. I don't really know if I do. I do wish he remembered it, it seems wasteful if he doesn't."

"You think it was - important to him growing up into Leareth, all the things that happened?" 

"I suspect so. At least - lots of them, he's not as old as Aroden and I don't know that he needs thousands of years more of horrible things happening to be further improved."

"Mmm. I guess it - kind of hurts to think about how alone he was. For such a long time. But probably that was important." Shrug. "And then maybe he can teach me the important part without me needing to go deal with horrible things on my own for a thousand years. Anyway, I'm going to go play with Pexa now, I think." 

"Sounds good. And you don't have to cancel your other plans with your friends, either, Pexa'll do all right for one week."

"Mmm." And he hugs her and heads off to Pexa's bedroom; when she turned three she was judged big enough to move out of the nursery (which, after all, the servants and her nursemaids expect might be required for another baby at some point.) 

Leareth gets everything packed up and handed over, and he comes to hug Carissa goodbye before he and Vanyel Gate across to the Void-ship patiently waiting for them. "I love you. Take care of yourself and the children, and make sure to give Pexa an extra kiss for me tonight." 

"Yes, yes. Don't get yourself killed."

"That would be very silly of me." He kisses her, and they head out. 

It's a long flight in the Void. He and Vanyel have plenty to talk about, but Leareth still spends much of that time being quietly uneasy. 

The storm does not improve. Tadesse stares at the impenetrable horizon, tests his reserves - no, still not enough for a scrying-spell or a Gate, not more than a hundred miles and he's almost certain there's no land within that radius. 

He's not scared, yet, or even all that worried. It's hard to be, after everything. He wishes there would be less uncertainty, though. 

Eventually Ekunde's mother emerges from belowdecks, her oilskin poncho wrapped tightly around her and the hood pulled forward. "Get some sleep, Kun, I'll take the watch now." 

Ekunde is busy daydreaming again, so Tadesse shows her the map. "I think we are here. I - am not all that sure, though." 

She pats his shoulder. "I understand. We'll know more when the storm breaks. Shoo, now." 

He sighs and heads down belowdecks. Which is less soaking wet, but still damp enough to smell of mildew, the boards of the deck are sealed with pitch but the humidity is still one hundred percent and they keep coming in and out in their wet oilcloths and boots. It's dark and cramped and not all that much warmer than abovedecks. 

"Oh, there you are, Kunni." Ekunde's sister, a year younger, rises from their shared bunk. "Thought you'd fallen off the side or something." 

"Don't call me that," Ekunde interjects automatically before lapsing back into fantasies of hot mulled wine and tavern girls hanging onto his exotic stories of faraway lands. 

"No," Tadesse picks up, with a sigh. "Just staring at the map." 

The upper bunk creeks as fourteen-year-old Dayo rolls over. "Are we lost?" 

"Hey, of course we're not lost. Kun, can you heat us some water? I've been wanting tea for hours." 

He nods without speaking and holds out his hand for the kettle. 

"You all right? You're quiet." 

Tadesse tries for a smile. "Just tired, is all." 

"Join the club. It's impossible to get any goddamned sleep in this storm." 

The door creaks again. "Language, Dele." 

"Sorry, Da." She rolls her eyes at Ekunde as soon as their father's back is turned. 

"So, Ekunde, any progress on mage-crafting your way to telling us where in the heavens and skies we are?"

"Not yet. I am sorry." 

Berko pats his son's shoulder. "It's all right. We know you're doing your best." He glances around. "Your ma's got the watch right now?" 

"She just took over." Another sigh. "Here is your hot water, Dele. I need to get some sleep."

He's not tired - well, not sleepy-tired, it's been such a long time since he wasn't bone-deep tired in the other way. But he needs to think. 

Yewande Obi, merchant sailor's wife turned world explorer, sits up through the night, stares out at the fog. 

The storm does not break overnight. It worsens. 

Close to dawn - but an invisible dawn, drowned in cloud - she yells down below-deck. "Kun! Berko! I need you - winds too high - can't take in the sails any more–"

Tadesse is fully alert and halfway up the stairs while Ekunde is still swimming his way to consciousness. He grabs his– well, Ekunde's mother's shoulder. Has to shout to be heard. "We need to turn and run downwind. Maybe bare-mast, wind's strong enough -"

None of these manoeuvres are really anywhere close to safe, in these conditions, but Tadesse can cheat with magic, as his father and siblings run up to help. 

They're going to completely lose track of their position, doing this; they'll be fleeing the storm in a completely random direction, he won't even know what direction until the compass stops being screwed up by the electrical storm - they're lucky lightning hasn't struck the mainmast yet...

There aren't even that many hours of night left, at this point, but it feels like such a very, very long time. 

They take turns sleeping, and reach the other Velgarth, or rather the nearest-adjacent point in the Void, in just under a day. 

The ship has a crystal ball, and a scry should work just as well from here as from the material plane. 

Leareth casts it. 

This does not work. 

Leareth grunts. "It is not that surprising. I suppose I can drop us in Acabarrin, and from there - hmm, probably you cannot boost your Farsight range to reach the other continent, it is at least several thousand miles away..." 

Vanyel shakes his head. "No, I really can't. Sorry." 

"Hmm. I can try to scry it from a map, then, and - probably with some rest I can manage a blind Gate to it." He grimaces. "- And then maybe you can bring us back here to attempt to scry him again." 

"You're worried." 

Shrug. "I would prefer to feel less as though I am operating blind."

And Leareth Gates them to his records cache in Acabarrin, where they can take the next step toward getting to the other continent, which is after all one of the best things he could be doing to ensure his alt's safety. 

He gets out his own map, sketchy as it is - probably his Velgarth has more detailed ones somewhere, but he didn't delay to retrieve them. He has an artifact for scrying with, and is very good at efficient-albeit-lower-resolution long-distance versions of the spell, and he manages to get enough of a glimpse of a red stone mesa that appears to be coastal that he thinks he can manage a Gate there. Although, come to think of it, it's probably more efficient to have Vanyel bring them back to the Void-vessel, get as 'close' as possible, and do it from there. 

He scries for Tadesse again. No luck. At this point further attempts are just going to wear the crystal ball down further without much chance of success; it's not surprising, any version of him more than a couple of centuries old is going to be hard to scry, and he doesn't actually...know that much...about his alt. Even though he, presumably, was Tadesse at some point. An entire life fallen through the cracks of his past. 

He rests, and eventually Gates with Vanyel to the red stone.

Even this far from the equator, it's hot. There are trees with beautiful silvery peeling bark and long drooping leaves, a completely unfamiliar species. A lizard as long as his arm hisses at them and darts behind a rock. 

"Huh." Vanyel has a look around. "It's pretty. Leareth, you should sit down and rest a bit, and then I guess we explore? Find the obvious place a you would go for a meeting." 

They do that. Find a point right near the edge of the tall bluffs, without tree cover so you can see for miles in either direction; it's not not the obvious meeting place.

And then they Gate back to the Void-ship to sleep, to avoid having to worry about safety, and he tries again with the crystal ball - pointlessly, it's less likely to work on each attempt, and he is totally unsurprised when this time doesn't work either. 

He sleeps.

Vanyel can do the next Gate, now that he's been there in person. He's tense, but more in an excited than a scared way. Meeting a much younger Leareth is a fascinating prospect. 

They wait. 

Vanyel watches the sun rise higher in the sky. "I - guess the time was maybe ambiguous..." 

It's noon, now, which is the best default time for a meeting they failed to time precisely. They can wait one more hour. 

...Slightly before that hour is up, with the wind blowing fine sea spray into his face, Leareth turns his back on the sea and gets out his scroll of Sending and contacts Carissa. 

"Tadesse no-show for meeting. Unable to scry or otherwise locate him. Please get him out of here. Vanyel and I are safe." 

"I have a question for you," she says to Ma'ar, writing a letter. "I want a Wish from a wizard. Do I go to him, or does he come to me?"

He gives her a suddenly-very-worried look. Also he's confused why she's asking him when she's a wizard and he isn't (or not really, he picked up first-level spells at some point because Leareth thought studying both kinds would be valuable for understanding magic more thoroughly.) 

"I - don't know - I guess it would depend on your relationship with them? Aroden could've done it but he is not a wizard anymore, who would you ask...?" 

"I'm asking Felandriel Morgethai, in Andoran. I do not expect you to have researched this already; I'm curious how much of it you can infer from first principles. If I was to seek a commission from a great artist, I'd invite him here; if I were to seek the wisdom of a god, I'd go on pilgrimage to their domain. Which one is a ninth-circle wizard?"

"Hmm." It's perhaps made harder to think about by the fact that the main person who comes to mind as 'ninth-circle wizard' is Aroden, even though Ma'ar never met him as a human, and he's now literally a god but that's presumably not representative. "I...am not sure but it feels somewhat more correct to go to them? ...Also in this case it might be faster to do that. Is it an emergency - is Leareth in trouble -?"

"Leareth is fine. He is worried about Tadesse. It is not an emergency in the sense where we ought to rush, because Morgethai doesn't have Wish prepared today, I just asked. You're right, that in the typical case we'd go to him. Ninth circle wizards are rarer than rulers, and know it, and it is more important to rulers to stay on good terms with ninth-circle wizards than to ninth-circle wizards to stay on good terms with national rulers; they are not, as a rule, great diplomats, since it takes a hundred years of relentless study of magic to get that good, though intelligence compensates for many deficits. In general, the question of who goes to who is a signifier of who stands to gain more from association; the artist more than the KIng, the King more than the god. When you see something that looks unexpected from that angle it is often the case that there's something unusual going on."

"That makes sense. So - what are you going to do, are you asking him if we can go there tomorrow?" 

"Writing up proposed terms. Someone else is arranging for us to go there, hopefully. The inconvenient thing about going there is that there is not at all the best place to kidnap Tadesse to. I expect Tadesse to be either annoyed and potentially dangerous or in seriously bad shape, and either way I'd like him here. Hopefully, once we have met in Almas Morgethai will consent to come here." Aroden set up some very very nice shielded rooms that are not very like dungeons at all.

Nod. "Mmm. Is there anything I can help with." 

"I'd like you here tomorrow morning, you might be helpful for convincing Tadesse that he has been kidnapped by himself rather than by what I assume will be his first candidate, 'people who are not himself.' - also you should see a Wish, they're beautiful."

He nods, seriously. "All right." 

And the next morning she goes to Almas, and waits outside Morgethai's door in full sight of most of the attendees at his school of wizardry for sixteen minutes, which she is wholly sure is deliberate, and there is a quick negotiation.

Twenty minutes after that, Tadasse feels an extraordinary impossibly powerful magical tug, sudden and out of nowhere.

Tadesse feels it, distantly, and barely remarks on it, though on an instinctive level he still struggles against it, without success. 

He's no longer sure how long it's been since a grey invisible dawn saw them desperately fleeing downwind, fighting to shield the ship from the worst forces and keep it from ending up over on its side with his limited, fading magic - or how long it was after that when he failed, and they ended up capsized, the mast splintered, and wood still floats even with the hold full of water, and he still tried to shield his family, as they clung onto the hull - 

He ran out of reserves for shields or heat-spells a long time ago, and at some point he remembers, vaguely, taking the force of a wave badly and clonking his head on the hull, and since then he can barely keep track of which way is up.

He can't feel most of his body anymore, which is sort of nice actually. And he's very tired. He feels, at this point, indifferent to dying here and waking up somewhere else, as someone else; it was a gamble, sticking with Ekunde and his family, egging them on for the journey of a lifetime, helping them get this far alive. But the thing with gambles is that sometimes you lose.

(Ekunde is NOT indifferent and is screaming in their shared head, fighting for breath each time the waves sweep over their face -)

And the storm seems to be over, actually? He can distantly sense the swells but it's quiet, now, the waves sigh and gurgle rather than crashing. And there are voices shouting, distant yet near; that's Da, he thinks, shouting instructions to bail out water...

And then all of that goes away and he's somewhere else. 

Ayodele is holding onto her brother - or was, a moment ago, and now she's GONE and did she lose her grip, did the waves drag him away from her - she shrieks to her parents, MA DA HE'S GONE - 

A soaking-wet person lands in a heap in front of Carissa, stirs slightly, moans, stops moving. 

"Fix it," she snaps, she can channel positive energy but that doesn't actually fix 'drowning', and someone reaches down and taps him with Restoration, which should, and someone else darts off presumably to get a Velgarth healer, those have the enormous advantage they can see what is going on -

He coughs and rolls over, blinking, still wet and now shivering hard but his eyes are focusing better. "Where -"

Ma'ar kneels beside him. "My name is Kiyamvir Ma'ar," he tries, in the Predain tongue and then in Tantaran and then in archaic Kaled'a'in. 

"What." 

One of the Velgarth Healers rushes in, drops to the floor beside Tadesse. "...He's really cold, can we - heat-spell, dry him off, get him a blanket -" 

"Yes, do that!" She can give Ma'ar Tongues, so they can at least understand each other - hopefully that's the only reason why they can't -

A mage is summoned to the room at a run to provide a heat-spell, and someone else drapes a blanket over Tadesse. 

He sort of recognized the language, and he definitely recognized the name, but it was out of context enough that he didn't quite parse it. 

"My name is Kiyamvir Ma'ar," he tries again. "I - am you, from another world in the past - you're safe here."

Tadesse starts to sit up, finds that while nothing hurts and he can feel his fingers and toes again, he's still very weak. He gives up and slumps back. Focus. Think. What are the questions to -

"Where are we?" Ekunde interrupts. Tad, does this make any more sense to you... "My family. On the boat. My family. Where are they." 

Ma'ar twists to give Carissa a baffled, helpless look. 

"Your....family?"

"His parents and siblings," Tadesse says, tiredly. "It is– was - their ship." 

"You just left them there?" Ekunde interjects, almost cutting off Tadesse's answer. "You have to - they need us - send us back now." 

Carissa is very confused. "Are you - am I talking to two people -"

Oh, right, this probably does call for some explanation. Even he knows he hasn't usually done this, in the past, maybe the older 'Leareth' hasn't done it again since. 

"Yes. I am Tadesse - I was Ma'ar once - and Ekunde is the...original owner of this body." 

"And then I got possessed by the spirit of my immortal ancestor who wants to save the entire world." This is said with the tone of someone who thinks this is a very exciting thing to happen. "And he talked Da into actually going through with trying to find the other continent - stupid plan, apparently -"

"Ah. Okay. Nice to meet you." She starts casting a Sending. "I'll tell Leareth to try to find your family. Can you tell me their names, it'll help with the crystal ball being able to scry them..."

"My parents are Yewande and Berko Obi. My sister is called Ayodele and my baby brother is Dayo." 

"He is not literally a baby," Tadesse clarifies, "he is fourteen - Ayodele is nineteen." 

"Thank you. I'm working on the Sending. Sorry. We didn't know you, uh, had a family, you usually don't -welcome to Cheliax, by the way -"

Tadesse makes a second attempt to sit up, which goes more successfully; whatever sort of healing they did was incredible, he doesn't exactly feel in peak health but the headache and dizziness are gone, as are the bruises he's sure must have been there, and he feels drained on some weird background level but the magical exhaustion and backlash are vanished as well. 

"Where is Cheliax. I have not heard of it." 

"Another world. There are apparently lots of worlds." She sounds somewhat distracted, and the source of the distraction is obvious; she is building the Sending.

A moment later Tadesse is distracted as well, staring in amazement; he accepts the warm drink that a Healer shoves into his hand without acknowledgement. 

Ma'ar squeezes his hand. "They will be all right. Leareth is going to find them and he is extremely good at magic." 

Tadesse says nothing. 

"Tadasse was apparently sharing, requests you rescue Ekunde's family, mother Yewande father Berko Obi, sister Ayodele brother Dayo, all on ship," she says in Taldane when the spell is done.

Back on the Void-ship, Leareth startles. "Acknowledged. Assume ship travelling to other continent south coast, lost or damaged, no reply necessary unless correction. Will return by Void." 

It's been a very stressful eighteen hours, much of it spent searching for Tadesse with scrying, though he's been sparing with his Lesser Restorations since he can't get any more of them from here and it seemed more and more likely that he would find Tadesse in need of healing. Vanyel has a bit of the Velgarth kind, but only very weakly. 

"Leareth -"

"Tadesse has a family. On a ship somewhere, they need help." He heads for the crystal ball. That at least should be at full power, he hasn't used it since yesterday's failed attempt. 

"He'll try to get them," Carissa tells Tadesse. "I'll let you know once I hear from him."

"Oh. Thank you."

Tadesse glances around a little at the room, then seems to fold inward. He starts to lie down on the floor again. 

"Hey," Ma'ar says. "If you want to rest, we can get you to a bed -" he glances back, "Carissa, would another Restoration help?" 

(Tadesse doesn't think that's really the problem, but he doesn't interrupt.) 

Ekunde does. "So we're in another world? Neat! You have really cool magic. What's this world like?" 

"Another Restoration won't do anything the first one didn't. We could try Heal, which is supposed to fix everything...I don't think there's anyone in town who can cast it but we could get them from elsewhere if he's not feeling better in the morning."

"Uh, Golarion has - more varieties of spellcaster than Velgarth, and our gods differ more in how much they share human values, and we have more species of sapients. Leareth is the King of Cheliax."

"Whoa. Neat. And Leareth is - Tadesse's distant descendant, from a thousand years in the future? Wow. ...I guess that means he's mine too." 

"Not necessarily. He only needs to be Ma'ar's descendent. I...somehow doubt we survived, in his timeline." 

"Oh." 

Ekunde is quiet for a moment, eyes downcast, and then goes back to asking questions about Golarion's other sapients, while Ma'ar coaxes him to stand up so they can head in the direction of a guest bedroom. 

Back on the Void-ship a very long way away, Leareth repeats the names to Vanyel so he can write them down, and then tries for the crystal ball first. Ayodele Obi first, the sister; she's also a descendant of his, whereas it's likely only one of the parents is, he can hold that as part of the mental specification for the scry and maybe make it a little more likely to succeed, and also he's not sure but it seems possible younger people have a less strong Will save against Golarion magic. 

There's a girl! Human, brown skin, dark hair plastered to her head by the water. She's swimming in what's presumably the open ocean, judging by the size of the swells; at the top of each one she treads water as high as possible and looks around frantically; as the wave descends, she flips over and dives, swimming down and continuing to look around and coming up about a minute later for air. 

"Damn it," Leareth mutters under his breath. 

Can he widen the view of the scry a little, see if she's at least near a ship? 

No; Golarion magic is as usual not very flexible, though now that he has her he could try switching magic systems.

Doing that from the Void is a nontrivial challenge, but one within Leareth's capabilities. 

For simplicity of coordination, he meshes shields with Vanyel, pulling him into mind-rapport, then gets to work on following the Golarion scry's route. This isn't the most efficient way to find a place, but the problem is that she's in an anonymous patch of ocean, and Velgarth scrying generally anchors on map-locations, not a specific person. 

:Gate to them?: 

:In a second - when I know where -: 

:I'll go through the Gate and grab them, you stay here: Not quite verbalized into Mindspeech, but there in the surface of his thoughts, is that he's far more powerful, can more easily handle himself in what might be a very dangerous situation, and Leareth has been doing a lot more of their Gates and search-magic and is also trying to save his last Lesser Restoration, he's got to be tired already, and Vanyel worries. 

:Got it: 

Less than fifty yards from the swimming girl, there's a ship. Or the wreckage of one, at least, upside-down and mostly submerged with just the curve of the hull and a damaged rudder sticking up. 

There are some other people hanging onto it - a woman, holding a rope that's tied to something else under the waterline, yelling to a man who a moment later dives under the water. Leareth's scry can't hear anything they're saying, but they look bedraggled and exhausted. The woman seems to be having a hard time with the rope; she's sort of hugging it under her armpit rather than gripping it, like her hands are too cold for the latter, which seems plausible. 

And a couple of seconds later there's a Gate, a neat threshold appearing just above the water's surface. 

Yfandes can swim, but her default plan is to stay back here on the ship; she's not going to be much good for grabbing onto people. 

:Be careful, love: 

:I will:

Vanyel does not complain about the water's likely temperature; he grits his teeth and dives through, plunging into seawater. Which proves not as cold as he expected, enough that it's a shock but it'd be perfectly comfortable to swim in once adjusted. 

For a bit, anyway. Presumably this poor family has been out here clinging to the wreckage of their sailboat for hours if not days.

It's closer to days, though Yewande isn't sure how well she's kept track of time, and also she's very distracted right now; mostly she's panicking over her son, it's not just that he's her precious firstborn it's that without his Gift they're almost certainly going to die out here–

She shrieks, in surprise more than fear, as a glowing opening to somewhere else - a Gate, she puts together a second later, only she's never seen Kun do one on thin air like that - appears a few yards away, and a man plunges through it. 

He pops to the surface, and then does something with his hands and - the ship is suddenly not being jostled around nearly so hard, and a few seconds later, there's a loud gurgle and movement and then a bit more of the hull is above water. 

For a moment she's just baffled, and then - oh, he must be a mage too. A stronger one, even, or at least a less tired one, Kun hadn't been able to do that. 

"Are you hurt?" Vanyel shouts to her. 

She has no idea what language that is! 

Oh, right. :Are you hurt? Can you get through the Gate on your own?: 

Kun can't do that either! 

"Who are you?" she shouts back to him over the creaking of the waves. 

He can't understand that either but he can skim it from her surface thoughts. :An ally of Tadesse. Here to rescue you. Where're the others: 

"Tadesse?" The nonplussed confusion in her surface thoughts is obvious.

Oh. Oh. This - is going to be really incredibly awkward, isn't it. 

:A friend of Ekunde. No time to explain. Go through the Gate - I'll find the others -: 

He broadens his Thoughtsensing. 

This man is hanging onto the ajar trapdoor that appears to usually lead belowdecks, and is now sideways and mostly submerged - he's trying to tie a rope to something. 

This kid is holding onto one end of the rope and treading water, keeping it from getting tangled in the splintered remains of the mast. 

This girl, presumably Ekunde/Tadesse's sister Ayodele, is popping up for air, more like seventy yards away from the ship now. She's an incredibly strong swimmer, Vanyel thinks with awe. 

He Mindspeaks all of them. :Here to rescue you. Gate this way. Please come over, or think at me if you need help: 

Yewande is not going through that without her son. Other son. It sounds like maybe Ekunde is...safe?

She doesn't know whether this 'friend' can be trusted or is telling the truth or why he doesn't speak common trade-tongue, but she can't see that they have a choice but to accept his help. 

Have to find Kun first, Ayodele thinks loudly back at him. Can you help -

:Ekunde isn't here. He's, um, somewhere else. Safe. Er, can you swim back here or do you need help: 

Oh. 

A pause. 

I can swim back. And she gets to work on this. 

The man surfaces. "Whoever you are - this is my, our, ship - not leaving without it–" 

:I'm sorry. I can't get the ship, just you. Um, if you want to get some of your things - are they in the hold–: 

"My books. And maps. Yes. Not safe to swim in in the rough water." 

:I can Fetch some things out. Think at me what they look like?: Vanyel is kind of rolling his eyes at this man's insistence on getting his personal belongings, when he could have died, but then again, if he imagines the prospect of losing, say, all his notes from the conversations with Leareth... 

Berko is so confused and dubious but he thinks about the magic-sealed crate with all his precious books, and the oilcloth pouch that has all their additional maps - and if it's not too much trouble, Ekunde would be devastated to lose the navigational device he invented for this journey, it looks like so - 

Vanyel swims over to the Gate, so he can Fetch these into his hand one at a time and shove them through to Leareth, who's waiting with an unreadably neutral expression. 

Yewande boosts her youngest son through the Gate onto - whatever it is on the other side, where is that - and then shoots a despairing look back at the ship. They've seen it through fifteen years of journeys. It's circumnavigated the main continent with them, nearly got stuck in the ice up north but they made it through. And now...

...now, she thinks, she does not want to die. 

She accepts Leareth's hand and slithers through onto the floor of the Void-ship, shivering. 

Berko waits for his daughter to make it back from her desperate, almost-certainly-futile search, which - turns out not to be necessary? Thank the Many Gods for that, he doesn't understand anything yet but if this stranger saved Kun...

Ayodele reaches them, breathing hard, and treads water for a moment, shouting to her father, before accepting a boost through. 

Berko follows, and then Vanyel, and that's all of them. 

Leareth drops the Gate with immense relief, and focuses on taking deep breaths for a moment until the dizziness and spots in his vision subside. He has one Recharge Innate Reserves left, which he casts as soon as he can concentrate on it - it gets some of the empty feeling, but not the reaction-headache. 

His single Lesser Restoration is almost certainly more urgently needed by any one of these people. :Van, who's hurt worst:

Vanyel isn't nearly as tired - holding a ship steady in a force-net, Fetching air into it to displace some of the water, and Fetching out some boxes isn't enough to wear him out, though his Fetching channels in particular were giving him a warning twinge on the last round. He's been trying to ask in Mindspeech and also touching each of them to use Healing Sight. 

:The kid, I think. They're all dehydrated and suffering from exposure but he's the smallest: 

Leareth drags himself over to the boy and taps him with Lesser Restoration, which fortunately isn't tiring to cast. 

Awed look. "Whoa." And now that he's less exhausted and miserable, Dayo has the energy to look around. "Whoa," he repeats, more emphatically. "What - where...?" 

Yfandes approaches them, cautiously, and settles down to start radiating body heat at maximum Companion force. :We can't understand your language, sorry, but we can read your surface thoughts so you can answer. This is our ship, in the Void, which is what Gates go through. We're travellers from another world, we - know Ekunde's, uh, friend, Tadesse: 

You have Kun? Is he safe? 

:Yes. Back in our world, he was - rescued by different means. We didn't know about you lot yet, just him, but we came back right away when we got word. Um, it'll be a longer journey our way. About a day: Pause. :Er, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's get you all some blankets and something hot to drink, and then we can talk: 

Ekunde stays mostly in charge of his and Tadesse's shared body while being helped to a guest bedroom and settled in with lots of heated blankets and more sweetened tea. 

He eventually runs out of questions, or at least runs out of energy; the healing magic they did was amazing; he's been treated by a Healer before, after the accident, but it took candlemarks of them working, and days to feel like himself again. Right now, he certainly doesn't feel in top form, and is very content to be tucked into bed and fussed over by the Healer, but the concussion is completely gone and he's not in pain at all. Also he doesn't feel at all like he hasn't slept in - what, it has to be at least two days, maybe more. Even once he was incapable of useful magic, sleep isn't really possible when one has a sore head and is immersed in cold water and constantly being tossed around and getting water in his face. 

He's incredibly glad to be alive, and thanks whoever's within earshot multiple times, and then he closes his eyes. 

Ma'ar pulls up a chair and hovers anxiously at his bedside. 

:Carissa?: he says. :I - I'm worried about Tadesse, the one who is Leareth. He...seems not very engaged at all, it feels wrong: 

:Yeah. I have no idea what to make of it. I don't see why he would've been more injured and tired than Ekunde? Maybe he's...not very there? Not very himself. I know Leareth eventually stopped sharing, because - the costs of sharing were worse than the costs of just killing people.:

:Maybe: Ma'ar tries to control a shudder. :I - either one is so horrifying. ...I suppose Leareth does not have any records from this life, maybe it was an - aberration, in some way, and in Leareth's world Tadesse died and left no trace....: He somehow hates that idea even more than the idea of his future self trying a hopeful experiment and ending up - incomplete, distorted, not-really-himself. 

:I want to help: he adds, plaintively. :I am not sure I know how: 

:I wonder if there's any way to get him a separate body. If it's the sharing that's - affecting him negatively. It seems like there ought to be some way - like, what if we tried resurrecting him into his original body...:

:- Would that work? I - guess I could pray and ask Aroden, he'd know if anyone does. I would have thought someone had to be dead for it, though: 

:In general you definitely do have to be dead for it. In a case like this... I'm not sure. Probably the resurrection would just fail.:

:I guess maybe we could - kill them, and promise Ekunde we would resurrect him too, in his own body? I am not sure if Tadesse could die at this point without Ekunde dying too: 

:It is an option but I'd ideally want to talk to a lucid Tadesse about it, and ...him not being available for that is most of the problem.:

:Mmm:

Ekunde drowses, looking forward to more answers to his questions about Golarion, and COOL MAGIC, and maybe pretty girls who think a young man from another world is attractively exotic... 

And Tadesse thinks. 

It's hard to anchor his thoughts in anything clear and solid, and he ends up spending a lot of time going in circles, but eventually he gets...something like an answer, if not a very conclusive one. 

At which point he's still tired and he falls asleep. 

Ma'ar sits at his alt/future self's bedside until it's obvious that he's asleep, and then a little while past this point, and eventually he heads out to play with his baby sister until her bedtime, and then he sleeps. 

Tadesse's circadian rhythm is deeply confused by all the recent events, and he wakes up around midnight local time. 

He sits up, finds a glass of water ready at his bedside and gulps it down, and then calls out in a hoarse voice. "Hello?" 

The servant who answers does not have Tongues and can't understand him at all, but does go looking for Carissa, she's generally still awake at this time. 

She comes over immediately. 

Tadesse is sitting up in bed. From his body language, it's clear that it's Tadesse - the younger alt of Leareth, her Leareth - in control. 

He nods to her. "Leareth is not here right now, but - you know him, right?" 

"Yes. I do."

"How and why did he - find me, and bring me here." 

"A while ago someone found Ma'ar. He was thirteen. They called me in from this world using powerful magic and I tried to - prevent the Cataclysm, by warning him and teaching him. Leareth looked for me, and searched lots of worlds to do so, and found yours along the way. And then he wanted to be in contact, because - well, we have a lot to do, right, and it's useful to have several of you for it."

He looks down. 

The first note in his expression is one of relief, in response to 'prevent the Cataclysm'.

The second note is - weariness, turning away slightly. Another version of him wants his help, when he hasn't even fixed his own world yet, and–

Stop. 

He takes a deep breath. Orient. 

"How did you meet Leareth," he hears himself say. 

"When he conquered Cheliax he asked one of our gods for a recommendation for a local wife and She recommended me."

Tadesse sits bolt upright, wide-eyed. "Your gods here are - helpful?" 

"Yes. Well. Some of Them."

(He doesn't actually have any questions prepared for that scenario, which is stupid, but, well...) 

"And you brought me here because - you need my help." 

"I mean, not with anything urgent, things are pretty much okay. We were thinking it'll be easier to make progress in Ma'ar's Velgarth than yours, because the gods don't hate him yet, but he's too little for it to be a good idea for him to do it all himself. But - if you're not in a state for that, we'll be fine. It'd just be - a silly use of resources, right, to leave you alone..."

"I am grateful you did not leave me there," Tadesse hears himself say, mostly automatic. "Of course I can help Ma'ar with his Velgarth." 

His voice is flat, toneless. 

Carissa is incredibly suspicious. But - Leareth will be back tomorrow. They can decide what to do about this situation then. 

...can they. If he wants to run off in the middle of the night...

"Did the Healers get another look at you?" she says mildly. "They were a bit worried."

"They were here for a while and then I fell asleep," Tadesse says, neutrally. "I feel fine now. What were they worried about." 

"Whether there were any long term effects of almost drowning, I think. Do you mind if I call them back in?"

Shrug. "Of course I do not mind." 

She calls them back in. 

"I'm worried about him," she says quietly. "Can you - keep him asleep until Leareth's back, or would that put him in any danger -"

The Healer in the doorway looks blankly at her. "Not medically," he whispers back. "What - are you worried about...?" 

"I don't know. That someone put a compulsion on him. That he's - substantially off-model, somehow, maybe because of the sharing - that he's not entirely in control, for the same reason - that we're wrong to assume the same story across worlds means this is actually Leareth..."

The Healer blinks at her. All of those things sound well above his pay grade!

"- I can keep him asleep if you prefer," he hisses back to her, that at least is something he's capable of. 

It's also not difficult to sneak up and accomplish, since Tadesse has closed his eyes again and turned away onto his side. 

She's worried because you're obviously a mess and sad all the time, Ekunde thinks at Tadesse. 

Tadesse ignores him, and when he starts feeling suddenly very sleepy, he lets himself drift away. 

"Thank you. Do you need to be here to keep him asleep, should we set up a rotation -"

"He should stay asleep naturally for a while, he's tired - he might have nightmares or wake up for other reasons, though, if you really want him out for the next eight candlemarks we should have someone watching. ...Are you that worried, really?" 

"I'm only a little worried but if we wake up and he's vanished I'm going to feel very silly that it was because I didn't want to ask people for night shifts. And if he's - mostly a Leareth, but considers us adversaries, then he's very, very dangerous."

The Healer is still for a long moment, and then nods. "I'll pull in some other people for a rotation."

"Thank you." She herself paces for another hour, or so, then goes to sleep.

The Void-ship is headed back toward Golarion, according to Vanyel, at least. 

"Your son is - my descendant - or, rather, the descendant of my original self and body," Leareth is saying. "Whenever it is that he first manifested mage-gift and attempted a fire spell, he was possessed by my spirit. Or the version of my spirit local to your world, at least." 

Blank faces look at him. 

"I - knew that," the woman whose name is Yewande, who is Ekunde's mother, said softly. "I think. He...changed. After the accident." 

"Accident?" 

"A - bad thing happened," Berko says under his breath. "When he was fifteen. Afterward he was mage-gifted." 

"And sad a lot." 

Ayodele says nothing, but hugs herself. 

"....How long until we reach your world?" she says, after a long moment. 

Glance at the navigation chart. "Er, at least eight candlemarks. Maybe you ought to sleep." 

Dele doesn't want to sleep. She's busy fretting. 

...But her brother needs her. More than she ever realized, apparently. And so she had better rest, to be ready whenever they arrive. 

Dayo snuggles up against his big sister. He's not really that worried; mostly his head is full of COOL ALIEN PEOPLE and OTHER WORLDS. 

Yewande stretches out next to her children, and reaches to hold her husband. 

Leareth doesn't sleep. 

He watches the snuggled-up, sleeping family. His family, once. 

He doesn't remember them at all. Not their names, or faces, or anything... 

Two and a half hours before their arrival back in Golarion, he trades off with Vanyel and snatches the two hours of sleep that he needs. 

Vanyel tethers the Void-ship, and then does the Gate back to the palace. 

:Carissa?: he sends. 

:Van! I'm glad you're back. How's the family.:

:Um, fine. Asleep right now, I think - I need to wake them to cross the Gate...: He trails off. Hesitates. :They - didn't know. About Tadesse: 

:There's something weird going on. Tadesse - mostly wasn't running the body, at least not when they first arrived here. He's there. He just - mostly doesn't do things.:

:...That doesn't sound like Leareth. Huh. Is Ekunde doing things instead? Maybe they're, I don't know, friends and he trust Ekunde...: It still feels off even in his head. 

(Leareth nudges Yewande awake, then taps Ayobele's shoulder as well.) :We are here: 

:Ekunde was doing things instead. I don't think it was because he expected them to be - aligned in a context as different from their usual one as this. I am confused about it. ...I had Healers keep him asleep. I don't know what's going on but I'd rather figure it out with you two here.:

:Oh. I, er - we'll be right there: 

Ayodele is awake in an instant and through the Gate even before Leareth. :Where is he -:

Vanyel scrambles through. :His, um, Ekende's sister wants to see him...:

She consults security about where the Gate is and goes over. :Of course they can see him. He's sleeping. The Healers think he'll be fine.:

A very pretty girl of about eighteen or nineteen seizes onto both of Carissa's hands. "You know where my brother is?" 

A woman of the right age to be her and Ekunde's mother follows, gripping the hand of a man - presumably her husband - and looking around, wide-eyed. 

"This is Golarion? ....Wow." 

"Welcome to Cheliax. He's sleeping - he was pretty exhausted when we found him - but I'll bring you to him." :Did Vanyel explain: she adds to her husband.

Leareth slips over to her and takes her hand. :Van and I took turns explaining most of it–: He stops. :Something is wrong. What:

:The you seems off. Ekunde was mostly the one - talking, reacting, engaging with us. I don't know what's wrong with him but - you don't remember him at all - are you sure we have the right person, are you sure this is your story and not some - other path it could've taken - are you sure of him - I don't know, maybe it's fine but I asked the Healers to keep him asleep until you got back.:

Leareth follows her as she leads Ayodele and the others toward wherever they've stashed Ekunde/Tadesse. :I - Carissa, all I know is that the world is Velgarth, in my past, and he is - close enough to me– to the shape I tried to maintain, that he could reverse-engineer the location of the records cache and reply to our message: 

Pause. :It - sounds as though I ought speak with him. ...Or with Aroden. Or maybe I should have him talk to Aroden: 

:Maybe so. I'm glad you're back. 

The family is cute.:

:They really are: 

Ayodele rushes ahead. "Can I wake him, is that all right -?"

"It should be!"

She sits down on the side of his bed. "Kun, hey. It's me."

The Healer backed off as soon as they appeared, and Tadesse wakes almost instantly, sitting up, eyes pausing for a fraction of a second on the familiar comforting face before cataloguing the rest of the room. 

"You are all safe?" he says. 

"Yes, we're fine." She takes his hand. "- I'm talking to Tadesse right now, aren't I. They - Leareth told us, when we were taking his spirit-world-ship back." 

"The Void-ship," Ma'ar corrects from the corner. "The spirit world is something different." 

"Oh, huh." She blinks, then smiles and waves a little at Ma'ar. 

"That is Kiyamvir Ma'ar. He is - also the same person as Leareth and - me - but much younger, from - the very beginning. Ma'ar, this is my sister– well, Ekunde's sister. Ayodele." 

"Nice to meet you." 

"Hi." She turns back to Tadesse. "Hey, can't I be your sister too." 

Ekunde takes over. "Missed you, Dele. You got to fly through the Void? Cool." 

"It was pretty cool! And Leareth and his friend Vanyel are nice." 

Yewande watches her children from the doorway, her eyes simultaneously grateful and relieved and worried. 

Leareth watches as well. 

:Something does feel off: he agrees to Carissa. 

She watches them. :Did something happen shortly before this life?:

:I think it is not very long before this that I gave up on many previous approaches and went back to the drawing board. I had admitted that the gods were my enemies, that talking to Them had proved ineffective, and that I could not fix things without - taking the war to Them first. I checked back in my records, and it must have been not very long before this - fifty years, perhaps less - that I first considered the plan for building a god. And - estimated the cost in lives. I imagine I was not very happy about it:

:But if that's the problem - he has new options now, why still be...:

:I am not sure: 

:Do you remember ever sharing after this?:

:Not specifically, but I have not reviewed all my lifetimes of notes since this point. I think that well before this point, I had already settled on a policy of not attempting to share unless there were exceptional reasons to think it might work - if it happened to be with someone who was very similar to me and actively wanted to help... I had tried it earlier on, but sharing with people who had very different values was - bad for me: 

:In the sense it was unpleasant to be sharing with them, and made you less effective? Or...:

:It - took more effort to stay myself over time? I could still do it, overall, I do not think I actually - lost anything of myself - from trying this, but I needed to spend more time working on that, and...well, it was disconcerting even taking the risk: 

Nod. :He seems sort of unlike himself. Hopefully just in a temporary way.:

:Hopefully:

The Obi family is starting to get their bearings. Ekunde's father and younger brother want to go have a look around! 

Dayo is so excited and has so many questions! 

Ayodele wants to stay with her brother and hug him until he's ready to get up. He must've been so scared and alone, not knowing if they were safe - and they all came so close to dying... 

It's nice, having her there. For some reason he's still groggy and it's taking him a long time to wake up fully, maybe he slept too much. 

Yewande watches them for a while, then sidles up to Carissa and Leareth. Lowers her voice. "- Can we talk? In private." 

"Of course."

"We can go to my office," Leareth says quietly, gesturing for her to follow them. 

Yewande follows. She accepts the chair Leareth pulls out for her, sits. Fidgets a bit. 

"I...didn't want to bring this up in front of the other children," she says finally. "Don't want them to worry. But -" She chews her lip for a moment, then goes on hesitantly, as though painstakingly picking out each word. "It...fits better, knowing. About Tadesse. But - I worried about Ekunde, before. And I'm not sure this leaves me less worried." 

"Tadesse seems...very out of it. Which isn't normal, for - his many lives. I don't have any idea what's going on. If sharing isn't good for them we might be able to separate them."

"Maybe it's the sharing that's bad?" She seems unsure, though, dubious even. "Though...if anything I think it might be good for Kun. He - grew up a lot, after it happened. Seemed more like he knew what he wanted - he got closer with his siblings, too, they used to bicker constantly. But..." Shrug. "I don't know. Looking back, I can sort of guess which of them was in control when, and Tadesse... I'd catch him with, just, this awful haunted look. Like...nothing would ever be good again. It's uncanny on a child - makes more sense, knowing he's eight hundred years old, but Leareth doesn't look like that." 

"And Leareth, when he found out about a new world, jumped on it instantly, precisely because his options in his own world were so terrible."

Nod. "That fits. ...Maybe he just needs time? He's had a stressful last few days." 

She glances at Leareth. "I hope that's all it is."

"I hope so too." Sigh. "Thank you for telling us your concerns. We will - give him some space for a day or two, I suppose, and if he does not seem any more - like himself, then I will sit down and ask him what is wrong." 

:I wish I remembered anything about this: he adds to Carissa. 

:Is it usual, that you don't?:

:I mean, at this point I have barely any actual native memories of lifetimes that long ago, but usually I review all of my notes each time and I manage to retain something, and can look up more if I need to: 

:And even if you died you'd - take notes next life, right, on what you learned before you died?:

:Usually. Unless - I am not sure what it would take. Unless I had the very poor luck to immediately die again, or I came back directly into an ongoing emergency of some kind... Also it is not unheard of that I only manage to transfer notes into one records cache and then it ends up destroyed before I can finish my next full review and make copies elsewhere. I...could get more information on which it was in this case, I suppose, but I would need to return to Velgarth in person and visit all of the records locations, and I do not really feel I can afford the time to do that: 

She nods. :I'm not sure it'd answer what's wrong with Tadesse anyway.:

:No, I doubt it: 

He sighs again, and leads Yewande back to where her husband and youngest son are getting shown around the palace, then returns to his office to stare at paperwork he's behind on and worry. 

:Should we be keeping an eye on Tadesse.:

:- For what? Possibly he ought not be alone, but Ekunde's sister is with him right now - I suppose we could trade off watching them as well if you think that is not enough: 

:For if he's not just out of sorts but off-model and not our ally.:

Leareth frowns. :I am not very worried about that in particular - that he will cause serious damage to our interests here, I mean. He seems - damaged, but not more dangerous than I am. Still, I would feel less uneasy about it if I were more sure... Can you read his mind? My Thoughtsensing cannot get past his shields, but Golarion Detect Thoughts works differently, and he is not himself mind-Gifted, he only has the mage-gift: 

:I can try.:

:Thank you. If it does not work, I can dig up Aroden's magic item for permanent Detect Thoughts and try with that: He hasn't ever used it, yet, since trying it out as a test; he's a strong Thoughtsenser and is used to that and finds the Golarion version disorienting. 

She will wander on over to where Tadesse is and cast Detect Thoughts out of sight of him.

This does not work. 

Annoying but not very surprising. She circles back to inform Leareth.

"Thank you for trying." He squeezes her. "I suppose I will go try with Aroden's amulet." 

Inconveniently, it's currently in his operations building in Aktun, somewhere in a magically-locked box in a magically-protected storage room, alongside some other magic items Aroden left him that he uses rarely if ever because his own magic covers their purpose already. He tracks down one of the palace staff who can do a Plane Shift for him there and back, and spends fifteen minutes hunting around for it, and eventually is back and hiding just outside the guest-room. 

He tries to read Tadesse's thoughts. 

This time it works. Both on Tadesse and on Ekunde, actually, but Ekunde is mostly daydreaming and enjoying his family being safe. 

Tadesse is...feeling very tired, in a way that has little to do with the physical. He's sort of caught in a recurring loop of noticing that this is an incredibly significant thing to have just happened, possibly the most significant thing that has ever happened, and - well, he should care, right, this matters, it changes everything - 

- and yet for some reason that's a thought that hurts. 

There are a lot of thoughts that hurt, right now. 

He keeps being tempted to ask Leareth if he ended up doing it (his thoughts bounce away from 'it' and leave it unclear what it refers to, except that it feels doomy to him), and then...not doing that...because it's unclear whether either answer would make him feel better or just stupidly, pointlessly worse. 

And it's not an emergency, right, it would be easier to pull himself out of his moodiness and do things if there were a pressing emergency, but there isn't, not really. 

...He wonders if Urtho is still alive, in the teenage Ma'ar's world/timeline, and both answers to that question would hurt, too, so he hasn't asked it. 

He does not at all expect to feel this way forever. The black moods that catch him sometimes lately don't tend to last more than a few days or weeks, if there are in fact goals and plans he can pull toward, and...probably tomorrow there will be, again. 

It's just that he's tired, and it's not an emergency, and tomorrow is probably fine. 

Leareth stands and listens for a longish time, and then Mindspeaks Carissa. :Can you come try with the amulet as well? I...want a second impression, I think: 

:Sure.: She heads over to do that.

Tadesse is now thinking about Carissa's request, that he help Ma'ar fix things in his world. It's - good news, right, really, that things are still fixable he nudges his mind away from that thought, it's not as though it's determined that his own Velgarth isn't fixable, it's just...

...it's been such a long eight hundred years. And he wants to stop and he wants to not be alone, and it– and neither of those feelings even makes sense, anymore, but apparently the feelings are ignoring his sensible objections. It's very inconvenient. 

He keeps dwelling on the thought that in the original version of this history, he must have died alongside his alongside Ekunde's family, lost and adrift in the ocean, because they tried something beyond their capabilities - because they were brave and curious and willing to think new thoughts and travel new places - and it feels so bitterly unfair, that he would have survived that, come back to try again, and none of them would have. 

He's sad and tired and wishing vaguely that the world would go away and leave him be, just for a little while, and he doesn't want to be feeling that way, it's pointless, but as usual, wishing reality would be different is not by itself the solution to any problems. 

:...sounds like he's moody about lots of bad things having happened and not having any idea what to do.: she says back. :I don't know if that's all, but - it didn't seem like there was any other really big thing...:

:I agree, it does not seem there is any other major thing, just - well, it was always true for the last eighteen hundred years that many bad things had happened and often I was not sure what to do. But I do not think I am usually that upset about it. Not to the point of being - that disengaged and existentially tired. That aspect worries me:

:It's worrying! I guess if it's not anything more - adversarial - then at least we can ask him what he thinks is up with it.:

:I see no sign of it being more adversarial, just - whatever the cause, he...does not think the way I do, at least not right now:

:Well, maybe he'll be able to explain it.:

:All right. We can let him be today and speak with him tomorrow. I am not the kind of worried where I want one of us watching him all the time, I think? But would like your impression too:

:That seems right. He's - off but not in a dangerous direction, that'd be too much work.:

:I think so: Leareth sighs again. He’s feeling a sudden craving for Carissa’s arms around him.