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Ma'ar is watching the wards and the hypnotic swirl of the Void on the other side of a shimmering barrier, and practicing illusions. He's never been very good at them, but practice helps with everything.
- something, a flicker, a ghost, maybe nothing at all, but it doesn't fit and it jars him out of his half-trance of watching.
He keys into the navigation wards. Tells them to look here.
"- Urtho? Can you come look at this?"
They're happy to produce a picture of the other person.
Scrying for that person doesn't work either, but the crystal ball is getting quite run-down.
Leareth is displeased about this level of confusion. He's been attempting to diagram out everything he knows and doesn't know on paper, figure out what his unresolved questions are, but it just keeps ending up full of question marks EVERYWHERE and so this exercise is not the most helpful.
"One more day." Leareth's voice is firm. "We stay here, we think about everything we know - if we consolidate all of it, I can probably get a clearer sense of this person - and then tomorrow when the crystal ball is recharged, we will try again. If we do not succeed, then I will reconsider our options."
Nod.
They pass the rest of the day in on-and-off discussions and solitary thought, and then sleep.
And in the morning, when the crystal ball should be fresh, Leareth tries it again. Focusing on exactly those parts that they know by direct sensory evidence via talking to the Elves, and nothing else.
On the second try it works.
Mhalir is piloting; she's taking notes for herself with an illusion-spell, off to the side.
Leareth sags in relief, and then stiffens again, and then watches with his full attention.
...What.
What.
He stares for a while longer, and the evidence of his senses continues to be the same. Carissa's face - not quite his Carissa, the differences are hard to name and aren't just about her clothing or her ABSURD display of incredibly expensive magic items, even Queen Carissa of Cheliax doesn't wear so many...
But she doesn't move and she doesn't talk like Carissa.
She moves like...
...like him. Like Aroden. Like Tadesse. Like Ma'ar.
Leareth is SO CONFUSED and he doesn't like this at all.
...
Eventually, maybe a minute or two of silent staring later, he remembers that a good enough scry will work for communication too.
Spends a moment considering if this is actually something he wants to try, but - what, is he going to not talk to her/him?
:Carissa?: he tries.
The voice isn't talking directly to him and also Mhalir is very used to startling situations, and so he doesn't jump either.
What - that feels like Mindspeech - not Ma'ar, not anyone he recognizes, somehow still familiar - he doesn't understand - how, why...
He doesn't answer.
Fine.
:Be ready to attack and rescue me if anything goes wrong: Leareth instructs Ma'ar and Urtho.
Leareth casts his last Recharge Innate Reserves, takes a deep breath -
- and attempts to raise an interworld Gate from here to - there, the scenery he can see in the not-Carissa-not-him's immediate surroundings, he doesn't know what direction or what plane but there...
From the perspective of Leareth's Gate search-spell originating in the Void, this is not very different from being on the surface of Endorë.
- A glowing doorway springs up from nowhere in front of Carissa.
- what.
She starts to cast Greater Invisibility; Mhalir will have to be the one to tell their crew how to react.
Leareth, his Thoughtsensing already extended, steps through the Gate and does his best to disrupt the half-formed Golarion spell - a hard Mindspeech thwack, enough to be startling even through the shields he presumes she has, and also a very very bright mage-light and a levinbolt, underpowered enough that it certainly won't hurt even a unshielded adventurer.
Carissa has very good magical shields and also all of the fanciest items that could be purchased anywhere in Golarion and she does not lose her spell. They go invisible.
Leareth can't sense them at all but he knows where they just were, and he attempts to slap down a compulsion by blind feel alone, to NOT MOVE.
And he Broadsends at everyone present in the room.
:My name is Leareth - formerly Kiyamvir Ma'ar - I do not intend harm but I need to figure out what is happening here -:
That is important information that should maybe make Carissa reconsider her approach here but mostly she thinks that if they want to not have a fight new guy can try not having a fight.
She has a kimono she purchased in Tian Xia. It trades off against having robes of the archmage but it gives her spells the power of a seventh-circle caster and it has the ability to, once per day, drag someone nearby into an extradimensional maze. She tries that. It doesn't require moving.
That feels like a Golarion spell - a powerful one, unfamiliar - Leareth is well shielded and fights against it -
He slips clear of it. Carissa next tries to dispel the compulsion, she has to move to do that but between her and Mhalir one of them should be able to -
Mhalir can't move, it turns out, but Carissa can.
<I think that is in fact a me - he moves like I do, it - feels right ->
Not that he has any idea at all what to do about this fact. He doesn't have theories or guesses or anything of the sort, right now, just blankness, like white noise suddenly filling half of his map of the world.
- This is absolutely how another him would react. ...Or another Carissa, come to think of it.
Or - both...?
Leareth snips the compulsion loose, and, despite himself, breaks into a smile. :Carissa: he says. :And - Ma'ar...?:
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