:I also have no idea what to make of it! I - need your help, talking to her - she did not really want to interact at all, on the way here. And...Mhalir is very shaken, I think. About what she did. He was not expecting it - it seems like they had a lot of trust...: 

He shakes himself a little. 

:Also, we have a different and completely unrelated problem. We chased them to - yet another world: 

:...and?:

:Different aliens, different gods. One of their gods, Melkor, is Evil. There was a war between the gods a few millennia ago. Melkor - made many copies of people's souls - it is complicated, they implement souls with technology there - and he - ran them at faster subjective speeds in order to torture them: 

:Huh.

Let's - we should maybe back up and think before we go to war with all the Hells in the multiverse, they can coordinate too -:

:I know. I am not making plans yet - I am not even going to tell anyone except for you, yet, I think...: Shiver. :I was not quite done. The other gods, on this world, captured and imprisoned Melkor, but - eventually He claimed to have changed, to regret his actions now. And They released him. The people there are all incredibly naive. Very non-Chelish. I...am nearly certain that there will be another war, sooner or later, and this time would be worse: 

:Huh.

You know, the more common that is, the more it seems like a bad idea to - end up in a state of eternal total war with all of the Evil everywhere. We have no reason to think we will win every single one of those fights.:

:...What else are we supposed to do?:

:I don't know! I'm not a god! Just - if we do this every world we come across some day we'll lose, you do see that, right, and lose whatever we gained in the meantime, because there's no reason at all to think we're the scariest things out there. And maybe the only answer is to get as scary as possible as fast as possible but maybe we also need to not give all the Evil gods everywhere a strong motivation to coordinate against us whatever the cost!:

:...Yes, I see that. If we are going to win in some places then we need to be careful and clever. And perhaps we cannot win everywhere. I am not going to be hasty, here - and I would defer to Aroden and Iomedae before we move in any case: 

Sigh. :And I am not going to tell Them yet. I want to go back to the Void-ship and...try to figure this out between us humans, first: 

You're very sure she can't blow us up while we talk things out?

:I am not stupid. I placed a compulsion on both of them not to harm anyone. And Ma'ar knows to watch very closely in case they attempt to use her spells to break it: 

:Okay. Do you want me to come back with you?:

:Yes. Please: Leareth takes another slow breath, lets it out. :In a moment. We should not delay too long, but - can you just hold me. For a little while: 

:Mmmhmm. Are you upset - for her? For him? About the other Hell? About - how now we have to figure out how to do this -:

:...All of those, I suppose? But - mostly about the other Hell. They - Iomedae hoped that someday, somewhere in the multiverse, they could find a way to bring those souls back. But I do not know if they ever will. Three billion. That could be more people than have ever lived, on Velgarth - I would have to do the math properly...: 

Shudder. :And Melkor. They tried to rescue the tortured copies of people. After the war. All of them - preferred not to exist. Literally all. Millions of souls - I cannot even imagine what it would take, to do that to every single one...: 

:Honestly that sounds implausible.:

:It did to me too! The alien species in question is psychologically quite different from humans, though. Like I said, they are - well, mostly they read to me as extremely naive, but - they are very honest, open, trusting, kind to one another. They seem happy. Also so, so vulnerable. They are utterly unprepared for hostile actors: 

:Huh. Maybe it's like trying to torture an archon into a devil, I think that just doesn't work.:

:Maybe. The other Carissa's read was that they - their species is called Elves - lack free will. Mhalir was unconvinced of this, he thinks their traits fall within the range found in Earth humans - albeit at an extreme - and that it could be explained by ordinary factors like inherited personality traits and cultural background: 

:Huh. I guess it'd be interesting whether they're still like that if you raise them in a more adversarial environment.:

:A few were a little more suspicious. The King, his - grandson, I think - a diplomat from the other star system, there are two. Still far less paranoid than either of us, but - more within the human normal range. For non-Chelish people, I mean: 

He leans his head on Carissa's shoulder. :I love you. I - do not think I could do this alone. I spent the last day not having any emotions about this and - I need to go back to doing that, I think...but it feels very wrong, right now: 

:I guess we could borrow Aroden's time dilation plane but... I'm worried we'll need it more than we do now in the next week.:

:I agree. And I think that is overkill, I will be all right in a moment. Just. ...This feels very unfair and impossible to ask for, but I think I need you to - say something reassuring. I do not know what: 

:Well, if the new people have any good things aside from weapons that can destroy Hell you haven't mentioned them yet. But it seems like it'd be pretty surprising for having more of us to make us worse off, considering we could always ignore them and keep doing what we were doing. So I guess I think things will be okay?:

:- True. I think the Yeerks have a great many valuable resources aside from that, I have just not gotten around to asking Mhalir about it, we had so much else to catch up on. But - Mhalir's version of the war with Urtho is over - though his Urtho is dead, that part is so pointlessly tragic - and the two aliens species who were fighting are now allied with Golarion. ...Oh, apparently there is another Khemet, too? One of the enemy alien species, they are called Andalites and look like so -:

Leareth shares a mental image with her, slightly blurred. 

:- And I almost forgot - Mhalir and Carissa found another Velgarth, met another Ma'ar. This one as an adult. It was mid-war with Urtho - but they stopped it, they are at peace now: