Carissa pulls a Baleful Polymorph almost together at her fingertips. "Surrender."

Still smiling - and still with the Gate open at his back - Leareth raises both hands. :I surrender: 

A pause. 

:Who are you, actually? And what are you doing here?: 

She lets the spell go, very reluctantly. "Exploring. What are you doing here."

:Urtho saw your - vessel? - in the Void, and was curious and tried to investigate. I apologize if he startled you. He returned and sought me out to find out how you were doing it: 

Mhalir is freed from the compulsion but still speechless. 

"How do you know Urtho? What was Urtho even doing in the Void in the first place?"

The man looks down. :I knew Urtho back when my name was Kiyamvir Ma'ar. I - was responsible for his death, and great destruction alongside it... Eighteen hundred years later, after a very eventful time in Golarion, a - friend of mine chose to resurrect him using Golarion's magic: 

Whaaaaaaaaat.

"Eighteen hundred years later????"

It seems possible, she thinks at Ma'ar, that actually they are in a computer-environment of Melkor's because this is completely nonsensical.

:Yes. We know three different versions of Velgarth, separated by almost a thousand years each. How do you know Urtho?: 

Carissa is going to have to answer because Mhalir is still processing this. 

"We also know a Velgarth. We didn't know there could be - more than one of the same world. - don't worry, we told him and Ma'ar to stop having the war, we had a suspicion it was going to be bad if it kept going."

Leareth spends half a second trying to hide his relief and then changes his mind and lets it show; he's not sure what the point would be of hiding anything, here. 

:I am glad to hear it. ...I understand if you have not seen more than one of the same world, before, at first neither had I. But are you familiar with the concept that two people from different worlds can be - the same person, on some fundamental level...?: 

"Yes." The Andalites match the Osirians and Mhalir and Ma'ar and Aroden - and, supposedly, this man - match -

:You have met Ma'ar. Is one of you the same person as him: 

"- Yes," Mhalir says finally. "My name is Mhalir." 

He doesn't volunteer anything more. Less as a strategic withholding of information, and more because he has no idea where to start. 

:I see. Thank you. And is one of you Carissa?: 

"Yes. I'm human. Mhalir is a Yeerk. They don't have senses on their own but they can - take other people."

That is in itself a VERY CONFUSING statement, but Leareth decides he can try to parse it later, in a minute or whatever, once he's dealt with the open Gate behind him. 

:I see. Well, I do not have any context on your background together, but - I found Golarion and helped Aroden defeat Asmodeus in Cheliax, and then I asked Iomedae for help finding a Chelish wife and - She sent Carissa to me: 

Pause. 

:Anyway. Are you two willing to come across to our Void-vessel - Urtho and Ma'ar are there - or should I take down my Gate: 

"What happened in Hell. When Aroden defeated Asmodeus in Cheliax."

: - Nothing? Or, well, Cheliax tried to evacuate people there and we were not able to retrieve all of them, but I know of nothing more. ...Why?: 

Mhalir is absolutely aware that he should be saying something, many somethings in fact, but instead he is not saying ANYTHING because now, in addition to the confusion and fear, he's worried that Carissa is about to be very upset. 

Carissa is thinking, very quickly in the way that only all her fancy new intelligence bonuses can allow, that she should blow up the ship. Because maybe if they all die here where no one can ever retrieve them, where no one knows to expect them to be, then the other Hell doesn't die, and if instead they compare all their notes and add more-of-Mhalir to the world - she doesn't have time to follow the line of thought all the way through, let alone to carefully count out all its pieces, but she's pretty sure how it'd come out if she did. They can't destroy their Hell yet and they will be able to now.

If she were a Velgarth mage this would be straightforward but instead she has to hope Mhalir is too off-balance to stop her from getting a spell off, and he probably isn't, and she has to Fireball the right point in the engine block, and she's only mostly sure where it is. She tries, anyway, half before she's finished the thought process that brings her to it.

What the fuck - 

Mhalir is distracted enough by the man calling himself Leareth that it takes him several tenths of a second longer than it should to catch onto where Carissa's thoughts are going. 

But only several tenths of a second, and Golarion spells take a lot longer than that. 

He clamps down on her, more thoroughly than he ever has before - he shoves Carissa down until he's cut her off from all of her senses, the way he only ever did a few times even with Alloran. 

"We are coming across your Gate," he hears himself say. He turns back to his people, rigid, his face expressionless. "Everything is fine. Do not panic. This man is - another Aroden, that is all. I trust him." 

(This is not true, he's far from ready to trust 'Leareth' yet and it feels like the ground is falling to pieces under him, but it's not just that piece of ground, and Leareth is suddenly the only stable port in a rising storm...) 

He steps forward and reaches for Leareth's hand. 

All of Leareth's instincts are screaming that something is WRONGWRONGWRONG, and he's not at all sure that he wants something to be wrong on his ship, but it's not exactly better for it to be wrong here. 

They cross the Gate together and he snaps it down.

He's very tired and has no spells left to do anything with this fact.