"I don't know. I hope so."

"Vanyel said that Leareth didn't ask him directly for help from Valdemar, but - it did sound like there might be, er, a plan for Cheliax in the nearer term. And I'm wondering if you're working up to asking for our help now." 

"Where are their agents now, and who in your capitol do they have access to?"

"They're in Haven." 

"The plan is to get them out of Haven by sending a delegation of our own to visit Cheliax, which we'd already discussed, but we're having to - make some special arrangements, about that." 

Hiding all the details from these people, Vanyel is fairly sure, isn't actually going to help. 

"We don't think they're mindreading the Heralds - at the very least, most of us are trained to be very good at shielding - but we're also keeping everyone who knows about this away from them - fortunately we know that the range on Golarion Detect Thoughts is short and so is the duration. Randi didn't actually brief anyone but us that we were going ahead with this meeting at all, let alone the place or time, and the three of us were going to stay out of the city until they've left." 

"All right. We have plans to retake Iftel in ten days. This has been communicated to Vkandis and we think He intends to cooperate. We can use mages, if you can spare them. It will not be safe."

Vanyel takes a deep breath. 

"We need to think about it, obviously. I'm not sure it's the kind of decision Valdemar can make without a Council vote, even just to send some Heralds, and - obviously we can't take the risk of doing that while the Asmodean diplomats are in our country. But - if there's any possible way I can be there to help, then of course I want to." 

"Van -" 

"What? Tran, you know we can't let Asmodeus take Iftel as well. And He will, if no one intervenes. I'm...honestly not sure they can even manage another ten days, though I suppose Vkandis would know better." 

"Randi isn't going to want you to put yourself at risk. We need you, Van." 

Shrug. "Do you? If Leareth's gone and repented and decided to work for a Lawful Good god from another world, and to take his army to handle that instead of using it against Valdemar, then -" vague gesture, "- then nothing like the Foresight dream is ever going to happen. And there is a problem where I could help innocent people now." 

"We might be able to arrange resurrections for people killed in action in Iftel but we cannot guarantee it. It would depend how well it goes. The local gods seem to grab souls which they want and Iomedae's trying to get them instead but She's hardly specialized for it, it's not how it works in our world at all."

"The Shadow-Lover usually sends me back anyway." 

"- Wait, what?" 

"Oh. Er, it never really came up before." 

" - huh. Well, that's the first I've heard of a god from your world doing something helpful that isn't 'lighting Chelish soldiers on fire', which is helpful but not endearing."

That seems like a slightly unfair impression.

"I mean, the Star-Eyed Goddess did protect the Tayledras people after the Cataclysm, and gave them Heartstones - technically gave Valdemar one too, our defences rely a lot on it. And Vkandis did a miracle to help end the war," well, after the invasion was over and the battle won, "and it was Healing, not setting anyone on fire. ...Though Vkandis and the Star-Eyed did team up to kidnap Leareth and might've been planning to permanently destroy his soul, so..." Shrug. 

"Well, I can't blame Them for that." 

"I - just - can't you see -" 

This entire conversation is so frustrating. Vanyel has been trying very hard to keep a lid on it, but he's dangerously close to losing his temper. 

He clenches his hands behind his back. "All I want to say is - don't you think maybe he'd have been less...the way he was...if They hadn't kept trying to murder him and prevent any of his plans from working?" 

"I think he was more upset, actually, that they won't permit any improvement in the world? No better crops, no better technologies, no better medicine, no independent civilizations without them. Though he might have been biased against them because they kept murdering him in particular. But if there was somewhere where they were - letting things get better - I think he would have waited, for a long time, to see if that would grow into enough. 

Anyway, it seems encouraging that your gods can do healing; maybe they can be encouraged to do more of that."

"I think a lot of the times they murdered him, it was because he had a plan to make better technologies? And - he's pretty good at plans, he got better at - making them hard to derail just with bad luck and coincidences - so I guess getting him out of the way for a while was easiest. And he just...had to spend two thousand years learning how to be more and more careful and more and more paranoid and not trust anyone less careful or paranoid than him, because then they'd be a vector vulnerable to god-meddling, and I - just - he must have been so lonely. And in hindsight I'm surprised he bothered talking to me, it must have - seemed like it had such a low chance of working? But he tried really hard. And - taught me things that would make me stronger and make Valdemar stronger, even though he knew that unless a miracle happened his plan was to conquer us..." 

And then a miracle did happen. And Vanyel feels like he still can't think about it; there's a whole world worth of new information and all its ramifications and he's not looking at it, not really, he's - still caught in the loop of Valdemar's immediate mundane concerns, and he doesn't know how to break out of it. 

"...well, he certainly seems to have taken to having allies," Ignasi says. "He'll be all right. Do you - want to learn more about Iomedae? We have Her holy books, here."

This interaction is getting very awkward and it's so frustrating that Keiran doesn't have strong enough Mindspeech to talk to anyone but her Companion, and so Tran can't easily ask her if she has any idea what's going on with Vanyel lately. 

He tries to smile anyway. "That's a good idea. We would be very pleased to learn more about Her."