:I don't know. Maybe. Maybe we should ask Vanyel? He's good at - people being sad problems, and he has Mindhealer friends who use it for Mindhealing....:

:Seems worth trying. We can talk to him once we have figured out things with the Yeerks - I, well, sort of ambiguously kidnapped Mhalir so it seemed best to hurry back: 

:We could swap Carissas for a while, if he needs to go back to his people ideally without there being a whole production about the situation. ...I guess I can't teleport...:

:I would really rather not send you off on an alien ship pretending to be your alt! ...I need you:  

:I suppose I'm going to be totally unable to persuade you that the sad one is just as good. ...and hotter! She hasn't been pregnant.:

Leareth gives Carissa the look that means he knows she is teasing him and isn't in the mood for it. 

She is teasing but also it'd be very good for the sad one to have Leareth, rather than any of the many half-formed versions of him. :Are you going to have to go back or just talk to your people?: she thinks at Mhalir. 

<I think a few hours would be enough to calm them down. Or - hmm. I thought I might persuade them to travel back with us? ...Well, I assume you would prefer they stay in hyperspace and not risk any chance of Asmodeus finding out we exist, but the prospect of adding an alliance with Leareth would be very tempting.> 

:We should check if I'm right about this but I bet if we meet in Leareth's operations building in Aktun there's no way for Asmodeus to learn of them except I guess by capturing someone in the know.:

<Can he... Oh, right, he presumably could Gate us directly there. He is incredibly impressive at Gates. Our Ma'ar would be very envious.> He hesitates for a moment. <...Who does know, right now? Anyone back in your Golarion?> 

:Several people know that Leareth went off chasing something Ma'ar and Urtho found in the Void. Me, Tadesse, Vanyel, Nayoki, and some of Leareth's advisors. Because if there were an emergency he wouldn't be able to return immediately and it's important to be prepared for that. Then I guess they know now that he found it and went and fetched me.:

<So theoretically - if any of them were grabbed somehow - Asmodeus might know that something was happening, but no details. I do not think He would have any way of communicating with - other versions of Himself in other worlds, right...?> 

:I don't think so. We could ask Iomedae.:

<That makes sense. And - your Aroden is a god again...?>

Yes. The war went smoothly and He didn't want to wait too long and He had Leareth to hand Cheliax off to.

<Ours is... I am not sure what he is planning, actually, he is very old and I do not think his current body is immortal - I am not sure what his, well, backup plan is.> 

She knows Leareth's involved possessing his descendents, until some Velgarth assassins broke it; now they both have clones, and the Church of Abadar contracted to raise them if that fails somehow, and there's a government department dedicated to tracking down Leareth's soul should he be assassinated in a manner that prevents resurrection. On top of that he's very hard to kill (though, she thinks proudly, she would've managed it if Iomedae had told her to when they first met.)

Aww, that is a thing to be proud of, Mhalir thinks. 

- did she know that his Carissa successfully escaped from Aroden after he kidnapped her -?

She did not know that!!! Wow!!!!! When she was captured by Aroden she did not have the opportunity to escape at all.

Honestly he thinks Aroden was being kind of careless, though he was also being - nice? He grabbed Carissa when she was out trying to recruit voluntary wizard hosts for them, and he interrogated her in his personal demiplane and stole her hair (to clarify, she has an osmium-lined wig because after extensive experimentation they discovered this blocked Detect Thoughts, though it seems not to reliably block Thoughtsensing.)

But then after that he brought her back to his office in Rahadoum and Iomedae personally sent one of her clerics or paladins or something to offer Carissa an Atonement - and, being a servant of Iomedae, the woman instead had a very kind conversation with Carissa and then let her go to the bathroom unsupervised, where she managed to cast Gaseous Form and slither out through the wall. 

- oh and then much of how she actually got away is because Aroden then spotted Mhalir's shuttle and focused on capturing him. But she did get away, and used scrolls to teleport herself to Vigil, out of Aroden's reach. 

...it seems very plausible that that's precisely the outcome Iomedae was angling for all along, though she's less sure than she'd be before prophecy was broken and obviously that doesn't make Carissa's part less impressive.

Iomedae is really scary. 

Huh? Iomedae is great. Carissa will admit she is some amount partial because "Chelish woman who became a god, mentored by Aroden" is somewhat personally appealing but Iomedae fixed Heaven to have more support for doing things in the other planes and founded Lastwall and maneuvered reasonably well against Asmodeus, who is ten times more powerful, and she's very kind, though with the handicap that she cannot understand fear, since paladins don't experience it. 

Oh, Mhalir isn't disagreeing that Iomedae is great. Just, also, terrifying. It probably doesn't help that he still read as neutral evil the first time he talked to Her. 

That's fair. The first time she talked to Iomedae was when Iomedae manifested in Aroden's conference room to vouch for Leareth as a husband and it was very terrifying though not really more than any of the events of the last day.