...That seems promising. 

:Thank you: Leareth answers. :May we speak with the Elves who met these people?: 

I will ask them if they'd like to come over here!

This takes another hour but they show up -- the Elf who met the confused person on the road and then three Elves who met the person not using her soul for artistic reasons. Most of them are very nonchalant about this but one of the Elves who met the person not using her soul for artistic reasons is tense. Do you suspect this person of intending or planning some harm? he asks Leareth seriously.

:Not specifically, but we also cannot rule it out. The context is that we - well, Urtho and Ma'ar, I was not present at the time - were travelling in another plane, and saw another traveler there, which fled from them when they attempted to investigate. They tracked this traveler to near your world, and then marked the spot and went back to inform me, since they needed me to do the magic that would let us follow all the way and come to your world: 

He meets the Elf's eyes seriously. :If they do intend harm, then we will intervene and prevent it: 

The Elf has no particular reason to think these group of strangers are any friendlier than the first group but he smiles back. That's very kind of you.

If you get me some paper I could do a quick sketch of her, one of the other Elves is offering.

Leareth is feeling immense appreciation for the suspicious Elf. 

:Thank you: he says to the one offering to sketch the visitor. :That would be very helpful: 

I have no particular talent for drawing, he warns, but when paper is provided he sketches out a person very quickly and in extraordinary detail. 

Yes, several of the others agree, looking at it. That was her.

(Artwork by Steve Vaughan-Turner.)

:....Are you sure: 

...yes? The person who seemed damaged or confused looked different, maybe that's the one you're looking for?

:Maybe. But - I - we know her. We - what - this doesn't make any sense...: 

Leareth takes a deep breath. Manages to slightly recover his balance. 

:Back to the ship: he snaps to the other two. :Now: 

And to the Elves: :Thank you very much for your help. We - will probably be back at some point, but we need to investigate this further: He tries to smile at the suspicious Elf. :I - this this is an indication of less danger, not more, but...it is very very confusing...: 

And without waiting any longer, he raises a Gate-threshold on thin air - the doorway is milky-opaque, the other side impossible to make out - and hustles the other two through it. 

Ma'ar is dizzy from the revelation as well, but he thinks to skim the nearby surface thoughts, gauging the Elves' reaction, before he follows Leareth through. 

The Elves are so confused but only the one is even a little alarmed.

Leareth sits down, heavily. After a moment's thought he casts his last remaining Lesser Restoration. 

It doesn't make sense... He doesn't even have a theory, yet, just utter confusion. 

- After long seconds, he thinks to attempt the interworld version of the communication-spell, anchoring it not just on Carissa but on the bracelet Urtho made for her, the newer version that lets him channel not just shields but arbitrary magic. Even that isn't enough to reach Golarion from here, but if she's not in Golarion right now - it doesn't make any sense, he remembers saying goodbye to her and she was just as confused by the entity that Urtho and Ma'ar chased as he was... 

<Carissa?>

It doesn't work. 

This isn't surprising, and it doesn't clarify anything, and...

Oh. 

Now Leareth feels very stupid, for not having thought of it sooner. He knows that the multiverse contains, apparently, multiple instances of the same person. Not just the same the way he and Aroden are, but literally the same - albeit at vastly different moments in time, for the Velgarths he knows of, but that doesn't have to be true, and he does know two Urthos... 

He takes a few deep breaths, and then heads for the crystal ball. 

He doesn't try to scry for Carissa. Not his Carissa. I want her, he tells the spell, I want this woman - her name is Carissa and she was just here, she said these things to the Elves... 

The spell tries to hold its focus together as it searches the universe for her. Fails. That could mean she threw it off, or that she's unscryable, or that he's holding the wrong concept in his head somehow, one that can't point the spell clearly enough.

Huh. 

...Maybe her name isn't Carissa? It would be strange, but not really stranger than all the rest. 

"Urtho, you try," he says tiredly. Maybe the problem is that he's too stuck on his own Carissa, and can't separate it out enough? "Don't scry for 'Carissa', just for the woman in the picture - maybe try thinking about the thing you chased, too..." 

Urtho is VERY UNEASY right now. 

He takes Leareth's place at the crystal ball, and tries this. Block out the Carissa he's met entirely - he stares at the beautiful sketch, tells the spell he wants this person, the one whose magical signature in the Void looked like so...   

This, too, reaches out into the universe trying to find her, comes back with nothing.

They're going to be wearing down the crystal ball with repeated attempts, but he'll try one more time. 

...Maybe it's somehow, in some absurd coincidence, not the same visitor who was in the Void? 

Leareth takes the sketch. The person the Elf met and drew, he thinks - holding that in his mind, all the details he heard directly from the Elves, and nothing else. 

No.

Sigh. "- Ma'ar, do you want to try once? And then if not we can attempt it again tomorrow." 

Ma'ar nods, accepts the sketch, and tries it. 

No.

Leareth sighs. :All right. Tomorrow. ...Urtho, since we have been there already, do you think you could manage an interplanar Gate back, and learn more from the Elves about the other strange visitor? Maybe she will prove easier to scry. I am going to stay here and - think, I suppose: 

Urtho can do that.