"-'s fine. I should - sleep."

It feels deeply wrong to be separated from her while she sleeps and he misses her and aaaaaaaaaaa, but...it's not like he knows what to say, either. 

Carissa goes to her room and unwinds the twine from her fingers. One of them promptly starts hurting more, which feels appropriate and reasonable. The other one - she can't feel at all, except for occasional stabs of intense needle-like pain into her palm.

She sits there for a while, staring at it and contemplating how she deserves this because she is stupid. 

The finger looks - greyish.

Probably she should go get some magical healing but the idea of interrupting her alt with her husband the King of Cheliax to ask for Iomedean healing is so unbearable she'd rather cut off the hand. 

- those are not her only options.

She checks with her trueseeing goggles whether they've put any tracking spells on her, and how thoroughly shielded the room is.

The room is super super shielded! Not in any way that will prevent her just opening the door, though. It looks like there are wards against teleporting in, a very reasonable precaution for the King of Cheliax, but not out. 

There's some sort of Velgarth spell on her - it's not familiar, at a guess it might let Leareth locate her, but it doesn't look like it's set up to trigger an alarm if she leaves the suite. 

There are a couple of very low-powered enchantments on her, matching Velgarth compulsions. 

She could dispel the location-spell but if it's just to let him locate her when he actively tries, and she's planning to be gone and back before he wakes up, it might seem less hostile to leave it be.

The compulsions - probably easiest to see whether they block her going out to the chapel or not by trying it. 

Her finger - the one that's less concerning - hurts a lot. 

She opens the door and tries just walking down the hall.

Nothing stops her from doing this! 

She passes some servants and some discreet security staff, but none of them even blink at her presence, given that she looks like the Queen of Cheliax.

She doesn't want anyone following up later on the Queen of Cheliax's mysterious self-inflicted injuries, so once she's alone in the hallway she Alters Self into one of the servants she just passed and looks for a servant's exit out to the street.

She can find one without too much difficulty. 

Once she's clear of the palace she Dimension Doors downtown, changes faces again, looks for a temple to Iomedae or Erastil or Abadar or whoever.

There's one to Abadar not far away, as usual also serving as a bank. 

This random, portly middle-aged merchant crushed his finger under a heavy chest and wants a cure spell right away, and a Lesser Restoration if the cure spell doesn't do it. He has Absalom pounds on hand. (She also has Chelish money but she's not sure if it is the same Chelish money or not; presumably both Arodens reissued it to something not backed by souls and they might've made different design choices.)

Sure, they can do that. It's late and the cleric is tired and harried and not suspicious. 

Leareth snuggles his wife and feels only slightly odd about the fact that he's also snuggling another himself. 

It's not that late, for people with a Ring of Sustenance, and he's mulling on whether to suggest that Mhalir take a turn in his head next. 

Mhalir is FRETTING. He's aware that this is very pointless and not helpful, but he MISSES his Carissa and she looked so miserable and small, before. 

:I think you did - really well, in an important sense?: she offers, though she has no idea what to do about feelings in general. :And in the morning we'll introduce her to Vanyel and maybe that'll help.:

Mhalir isn't sure what she thinks he did well at. He is curious to meet Vanyel, though, and a little hopeful. 

<...Can we check on her? I - I know I do not have anything new to say, but - I want to tell her that I care about her...>

Why is this so distressing. He is very unreasonably upset. 

:I think you did well at making her - feel safe enough to think about what she wants and develop her own philosophy and stuff. We can check on her if she's not already asleep - is she?: she asks Leareth, who can Thoughtsense through his own wards easily.

"Mmm?" Leareth rolls over and then sighs and reaches out through the wards. 

- A moment later he sits up, suddenly rigid. "She is not there." Pause. "She is not in the suite -" 

" - did you not have her compulsioned -"

"To not leave the city! Or harm anyone - it seemed unnecessarily restrictive to compulsion her not to leave her bedroom!" He takes a breath. "I can locate her; I placed a spell for that. One moment." 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. 

Carissa feels considerably better after getting her fingers healed in a way that has almost nothing to do with her fingers no longer hurting. She wants to - wander around downtown, see more of the city, figure this all out -

- but the hard part is going to be getting back in undetected, and she should get started on it.

She Dimension Doors back to well outside the palace and studies its protections. Presumably if she turns invisible and walks in she'll set off some alarms? What if she's gaseous and invisible? What if she's a gaseous, invisible housefly?

It doesn't initially seem like it's going to do anything; she can get past the outer wards and fence, there are some night workers out tidying the gardens - 

- and then Leareth is suddenly right there, stepping through a short-range Gate and scanning the area. His spell is insisting she's here, but in the nonspecific, unresolvable way that means she's concealed with Golarion magic of some kind -

He can't find her but he tries to Mindspeak her anyway, just sort of broadcasting it to most of the garden. :Carissa:

Well, shit. 

She stops being a housefly, stops being a gas, lands with a thump in a flowerbed. :What.:

He crosses over to her, not quite at a run. :Where were you. Are you all right: