This argument is boring and stupid, according to Stef. 

"Anyway. Let's go back to our room and scheme." Stef likes that word. Scheme. It's a good word. "I think we should get more gossip before we give Medren's friend his uniform back, don't want to disappoint him. So. I heard Queen Karis is here but - probably her suite is all guarded? There might be something interesting at Healers' though." 

"Oh! Is that why my mama had to keep going and doing things at Healers'." 

Jisa looks thoughtful. "- I bet I could sneak in. Probably you can't, but Melody is my teacher and I have trainee Healer robes and everything and they all know me." 

This is such a bad plan but Medren can tell when Stef is already on a roll and it's too late for him to usefully do anything to stop it. 

"- Ooh. All right, let's go back to our room and make some plans." 

Karis meets with Vanyel. 

They have a conversation about Vkandis.

It's not one that Karis is very happy about. 

"Vanyel - what if they are lying?" 

"The diplomats? Oh, I think they're almost certainly lying about a few things. But...not about the fact that the war is bad for their interests and they'd prefer to end it sooner rather than later, I don't think. And - I doubt the part about Asmodeus finding Vkandis difficult to talk to is made up." 

"...What do you think we must do?" 

"I don't know. I wish I did. But - I think you, or maybe your Suncat, need to try to get permission from Vkandis to send a party into Iftel and directly petition their leadership. Maybe a party traveling with the Chelish diplomats, so they could go straight to setting up talks." 

Karis scowls. "I do not like it." 

"I don't like anything about this!" Vanyel sighs. "You should talk to the diplomats yourself, I think. Maybe after you talk to Randi and, er, decide what you're comfortable agreeing to with them." 

Karis talks to Randi. 

She continues to be deeply unhappy about - something, it's hard to pin down exactly what is niggling at her so much.

But she arranges a meeting-time, and a page is dispatched to the guest accommodations with a note explaining that the ruler of Karse is currently in Haven and would like to speak with them, is half a candlemark from now convenient? 

It certainly is!

At the appointed time, someone arrives to escort them over to a meeting-room. 

Karis introduces herself. 

The envoys bow deeply. "We are honored. It is our greatest desire to have peaceful relations with Karse, and to learn from one another."

Karis definitely believes this and finds this plausible, for sure. 

She keeps her expression pleasantly neutral. 

“What would your people need arranged with Iftel’s leadership, and with Vkandis, to accompany a Karsite diplomatic party into Iftel to open negotiations with them?”

"We would want assurance Iftel will not attack the negotiators, or claim their souls should they die. We are of course willing to swear that our negotiators will not do violence, even in their own defense, so as to avoid the possibility of any misunderstanding."

“I understand. …How does that - work, though, the - claiming souls? Vkandis has said nothing of it.”

"In Golarion, when souls die, they go to Pharasma, god of the dead, for judgment, and she directs them to an afterlife that suits the goals and values they represented in life. In your world...gods seem to keep souls, when they die, in order to reuse them when it seems useful. If this is what the followers of Vkandis desire, then it would be foolishness, as people from another world who yet understand your people little, for us to condemn them. But in some cases Vkandis has claimed Chelish souls, and that we cannot tolerate; our people wish to be reunited with those they love in the embrace of their own god, and Vkandis must permit Asmodeus to take them."

“…Has Asmodeus requested this of Vkandis directly? It is…much easier for gods to communicate with one another than for us mortals to make requests of Them, I imagine.”

"He has."

There’s probably a good reason for it, if Vkandis refused this honestly reasonable-seeming request. Maybe He wanted some kind of concessions made first? Is ‘infosec’ a concept that He tracks at all…

“And?”

"Vkandis has not committed to do this. Asmodeus thinks that perhaps it is a communication difficulty of some kind."

“We - will certainly try our hardest to resolve the communication difficulty, if that is in fact the problem. Perhaps Vkandis wishes to request something of Asmodeus and could not communicate it either.”

"I hope so. The situation in Iftel is a tragedy. If something can be done to bring it to a close, we would be very relieved. But the fate of our people is not something we can compromise on."