He's wrapping up a conversation with an Enigma at the College of Mysteries, about trading for access to their library, when he recognizes a familiar cloak, one he hasn't seen in years. His sentence hits a hitch before he continues.

"-Sorry, lost my train of thought. Actually, if you don't mind, can we cut this off here? It's terribly rude of me to leave so abruptly, but I believe I just spotted an old friend and want to catch her before she vanishes into the crowd."

"Quite all right. From the Occularium?"

"Indeed. We can pick this up tomorrow if you'd like, thank you kindly."

Was that Enora? She seemed in a hurry.

He gets a better look as she turns a corner: yes, it's her. Looking harried and furtive.

...He could place a tracker? But she was always better with freeform spellworking, she'd notice for sure. Would it be bad to call out?

She turns into a less busy street, and he follows. As she's reaching the next corner, he decides to chance it.

"Ho, Enora! Wait up!"

She glances toward him, and - tries to pretend she's just casting her eyes across the area, probably, he's not a master of cold reading but she's not any good at acting. Why doesn't she want to be noticed recognizing him? She rounds the corner.

When he does, it's obvious she's almost been running from him. Did she hear a garbled version of his departure back to Cheliax?

He turns back toward the College.

He's gotten somewhat better at lying, mostly with half-truths. He asks the secretary at the desk rather than his colleague from earlier.

"Perhaps you could help me: I believe my friend Enora visited the College earlier. I tried to catch her in the street, but there was a crowd, and I lost her. Did she leave an inn's address for messages?"

"I don't think I should release that kind of information freely."

"I was speaking with Enigma Fuln about sharing research earlier, I expect she was doing the same with another Enigma. A Garundi halfling woman, about yea tall, in a blue hooded cloak with a number of enchantments on it- she's probably changed which, she tinkers, but there would be several. She's from the Occularium, unless my information is out of date; I was a classmate."

"Hmm. Let me check."

"Naturally."

She returned in a few minutes and gave him a large inn in the Foreign Quarter. He thanked her, tipped her a silver, and left to leave a message.

He didn't ask the innkeeper for her room, or even to confirm she was lodging there. Two copper to hold a message for a Garundi halfling woman, a wizard, and the promise of a silver if he produced a reply in her hand.

Enora,

I believe I saw you in the streets today. I'm not sure why you were afraid, but I mean no harm. I've had to leave Rahadoum for Cheliax, as you've probably heard, but I'm certainly not a Chelish agent in any real sense. I'm staying in the Wise Quarter, address below; if you'd rather not meet me, I've promised the innkeeper here a tip if you leave him a reply. I'd very much like to catch up,

Your friend,
Theopho

A few days later, shortly after dinner, there was a knock on his door.

"Enora! Good to see you. I confess I've wasted quite a few hours trying to think why you, ah, fled when I saw you. But I didn't want to press. Please, come in."

"It's a long story. But honestly, I'm probably just as curious: you're the last person I would expect to leave Rahadoum. Why?"

"Well, I went on a research sabbatical to Geb and Nex, and when I came back, I couldn't truthfully swear to uphold the First Law."

"...really? A Rahadi like you?"

"I know! It was quite a shock to me, too. But, well, she's a goddess of hubris and seeking immortality, among other things. Gave Pharasma a black eye, and that's hard not to love."

"Okay, I can see it. But why Cheliax?"

"Well, without my professor's stipend, right after I'd returned from Nex without getting any reimbursement, I was nearly penniless. I could manage passage here, Westcrown, or Sothis, probably not Andoran. And I've never been competent to adventure, so I didn't have many marketable skills - especially not here, where the Arcanamirium makes second-circle wizards practically a street-corner thing. And Erecura is, because of defying Pharasma, damned to Hell eternally, though she doesn't really agree with them on ethics. So I rented a room in one of the docks-end boats and prayed for her favor to avoid an early grave, and... She approved."

He pulled his ever-glowing holy symbol out from under his collar.

"Approved quite a lot, actually. Started me out on second-circle priest's spells."

"Wow."

"You asked why I fled? I hadn't heard you left, so..."

She reached for her collar as well, and retrieved a necklace with an emblem of Nethys.

"I didn't get chosen myself, but I had a similar story."

"Oof. And... your parents don't know about it. Nor the Occularium?"

"Neither, yeah. I've been on one long research sabbatical, extending it by letter every few months and carefully wording my replies. I'm not officially an exile. Yet."

"Well, I'd say you're always welcome in my parlor, except that even if you could stomach diabolists you'd probably be enslaved on sight."

"I appreciate the thought anyway."

"...more unpleasantly but also less of an empty promise, if you ever are enslaved in Cheliax, tell whoever took you that High Priest Theopho of the Runes, in Westcrown, will pay a premium for you. Freeing halfling slaves is extremely illegal but you wouldn't be the first friend I bought so that they'd be treated as a person."

"High Priest?"

"Lady Erecura really likes me. And I got her church officially established."

"Huh. Do I want to know about the other friend?"

"I only own three slaves: a man named Tibex who was my parent's when I was growing up, his wife Janina, and their son Gix. I don't intend to ever get more."

She quirked an eyebrow.
"I assume you have a reason for vagueness."

"A reasonable deduction. Do you want to hear about my conversion, or will you share yours first?"

"I guess I can share. So, I took a sabbatical to Lirgen, I think you remember."

"Yeah, sounds familiar."

"There was a lot of interesting things in the Sodden Lands, but one place had an old, ruined temple of Nethys. With the most powerful piece of magic I had ever seen in it. Overpowering divination, clearly a divine artifact, this tablet with script that was illegible but also shifted while you watched. And, get this, when I tried to pick at it to inspect it in detail, it opened up (metaphorically) like it was trying to be a puzzle to be solved."

"Sounds interesting."

"Yeah, I was very curious. So I picked at it more, and it was like puzzle pieces mixed with a riddle. And even solving parts of it flooded knowledge into my mind. Looking back and researching it, I'm pretty sure it's one of the Three Riddles of Nethys, where if you solve all three you have the power and knowledge to destroy the world."

"Sounds like Nethys, all right."

"Yeah, He definitely has flaws. But, well, getting a close look at a little piece of His mind made me realize how much more knowledge was possible to learn than before. And, well, I've always been obsessively curious."

"Worshiping knowledge, almost?"

"Yeah, though I'd never have called it that before. I didn't do a 180 on the spot, but when the sabbatical was almost up I extended it and went to Sothis to talk to their temple - talked to Nefreti Clepati briefly, even."

"Is she as weird as her reputation?"

"Weirder. I resolved not to become a cleric of Nethys after that, even if He offered."

"That's... hard to picture."

"Yeah, I think that's why her reputation doesn't match up to the reality. It is hard to convey in words quite how strange she is. She said something about me being 'the first one to ever cast spells like that' and my 'story being impossible to complete'. I asked for clarification but she just got more confusing, she said something like 'you're only here for him - not now, later, but also before', so I stopped asking."

"Wow. Yeah, that's an incredibly legitimate reason to stop asking. And to decline to be part of the Nethysian clergy. Tit for tat?"

"I'd like to hear your story, definitely."

"It's less fascinating, I think. So it started back when I was compiling the immortality prospectus and the Pure Legion let me into their stacks..."

"...And I told them 'well, apparently that counted, that's a surprise'. They let me clarify a bit; I didn't recognize the man but possibly he recognized me. But I made my apologies, affirmed that I hadn't been in violation before that trip, and turned back to the docks. And then I realized that my options were being a pauper in Absalom, the appalling theocracy of Cheliax, or the differently-appalling theocracy of Sothis. So I headed to the docks-end to see if I could get a little leverage to get me back in relatively good graces in the country where I was somewhat wealthy and could see my family face to face, and got more than I expected. She turned my sketch of Her holy symbol into this, and sent second-circle spells immediately."

"That's really rare, isn't it? Starting someone above first circle?"

"Normally, yeah. I think for major gods they have a truce or something. But from how things went in Westcrown, she was already angling to make me High Priest, no one else along the Inner Sea had second circle spells from her. She called in some favors with Mephistopheles to send me a message via his priesthood, and so I went to the capital, argued for official recognition for Erecura in the same 'loyal opposition' kind of capacity she has for Dispater - they're married, did I mention? that's a big chunk of why I thought this would work - and for Asmodeus, and that worked out. She sent me more power after that, I think I'm on the same wizard-hybrid theurge path that Clepati is, though obviously much weaker. In the last year I hit fourth circle for arcane spells and third for divine, a little while after I set up a formal temple and then bought Tibex and his family from my parents. Probably helps that I have a near-monopoly on positive-energy healing in Westcrown."

"That's got to be profitable, yeah. You're right, it's not as good a story. Still a good one, though."