The mage jogs over. "It's getting late? You're sure we should do this tonight, not wait for morning?" 

"Yes. I am sure. I - let me think - probably we should take the risk of a direct Gate to Haven. She is the King's daughter. Find someone who can do the Gate from a map and pictures." 

And she turns to Jisa. "This is Ebet. You are to go with him and listen to everything he says, all right?" 

"Aww. Can't I stay just five more minutes and watch you fix the set-command?" 

"No." Nayoki scowls at her. "Jisa, go with Ebet. Carissa, this way."

She manages to peel them away from a very disappointed-looking Jisa, down the hall and around a corner and up a half-flight of shallow stone stairs, and then to what seems to be a guest room. It's stone as well, walls and ceiling and floor, but pleasantly furnished, with a bed and a chair and desk and a rug. 

:Have a seat: she says to Carissa. :This is going to feel odd:

Carissa sits down. She feels bad for Jisa, but Jisa clearly didn't have enough leverage to get anything she wanted, here.

It does feel pretty odd - the room seems to soften around her as Nayoki gets to work, not her vision going hazy so much as the entire world losing some of its sharpness - but it's tolerable. Nayoki works in silence, save for pausing every minute or so to ask if Carissa is doing all right. 

Carissa has no idea what experiences would suggest that Nayoki ought to do something differently than she is doing it. She says that she is all right because it seems like if she says all of the pedantic things that come to mind everyone here is going to find her very annoying in short order. 

That's fine - most of what Nayoki is checking is just that Carissa is alert and able to understand and sensibly answer questions. 

It takes her about ten minutes. :- There, I am done. How does that feel?: 

(From Carissa's perspective it doesn't feel that different, since the set-command hadn't been blocking any of her specific actions in the last hour, but there is some indefinable sense of a restriction lifted, like having removed too-tight clothing. Also she feels surprisingly tired.) 

I feel good. Thank you. 

:I need to go handle some things, but - do you want to see your colleagues? I can have someone walk you over, or bring them here: 

She frowns briefly. :They are under compulsions not to harm any of our staff or sabotage any infrastructure or attempt to run away: It’s a standard short term compulsion for involuntary captives and Leareth is VERY good at it. :Nothing more restrictive than that, but - just so you know:

Well, of course they are, if that's cheaper than chaining them to the wall. I would like to see them, thank you. 

Nod. :Someone will be over shortly: 

She's left alone in the room (apparently unguarded, with the door ajar) for about a minute, before an older man with a grey-flecked beard arrives. He starts to address her out loud and catches himself. :You wanted to go see the other Chelish soldiers? Follow me:

He waits for her to come to the door, and starts walking. 

She's not scared here, not really. She has a deal. This does not seem like the kind of place where one gets accidentally murdered and there's sufficient reason not to murder her on purpose. 

She follows the man.

They go down some different stairs and then there's a room. This one does have a guard at the door; she unlocks it for them. 

The room isn't obviously a prison cell; it has a rug and a sofa and a small two-person dining table and a bookshelf, and two doors that presumably lead to bedrooms. Carissa's colleagues are both there. 

          "Sevar," Valverde says. 

"Yep. You look in one piece. What do you think of them." They're listening, obviously, but which complimentary adjectives one picks is always informative. 

          He shrugs. "They seem competent. Disciplined."

"This place is nicer than Valdemar." She sits down on the sofa; they sit too, after a moment's hesitation. 

         "You were in Valdemar?"  Carvajal says.

"Yeah. Someone tipped them off we had Leareth and a couple local gods decided to direct their churches to intervene about that. Captured us about eight hours after Leareth captured you."

         "What'd you think of them?"

"I see why Leareth wants to conquer the place, that's what I think of them." It's hard to think of a safer statement than that. "Leareth's Good but not the annoying kind; they're Good and the annoying kind."

        "There's a not-annoying kind?" Valverde asks.

"Well, Leareth is mildly annoying," says Carissa nonchalantly. The intended message, of course, is that she likes her bargaining position fine; they'll be very confused by that, but it's going to take a while to get them any more context than that. "But Leareth is annoying in the way where in high stakes situations he seems to be trying to track whether civilians are okay; Valdemar's annoying in the way where they immediately decided on principle no one can ever go to Hell, despite the fact that the local afterlife is 'sorry, why would any god bother with that', and kept making unstrategic decisions because I'd have hurt feelings at them, and generally didn't seem competent to run an afterschool tennis program for eight year olds."

       She can tell from their raised eyebrows that the intended message was taken.  "What would go wrong if they ran an afterschool tennis program for eight year olds," said Carvajal. "Would they murder the eight year olds to save them from Hell."

"No, see, I could respect that," Carissa says. "They would - so, I actually met one of their eight year olds, in the course of escaping, the King's bastard daughter, and she was convinced her adults wouldn't hurt people so she couldn't understand why they had prisoners, and she also couldn't understand things like why her mother wanted her to wear dresses, and it was very apparent no one had ever in her life suggested to her that she is the person looking out for her interests, and other people are looking out for theirs, and that people make rules because it benefits them, and that her adults absofuckinglutely will hurt people, since they live in the world, and have enough brain cells to have made it to adulthood. I don't think of myself as someone with strong feelings about parenting but that's like raising your kid by poking her eyes out. It doesn't even benefit you!! A kid who isn't competent to interact with the world will, for example, help your prisoners escape! If Valdemar ran a tennis club in Cheliax they'd end up with the kids trying to stop a public execution because the prisoner was crying and everyone involved being quartered in the streets, and they would not even understand why."

       "And Leareth wants to fix this?" Carvajal says. 

It's a good question. She's glad they're on the same page about what this conversation is actually about. "No, Leareth's Good and a dumbass also and we haven't discussed this specifically but I bet you he just wants to make every place in the world somewhere where nothing bad happens to you if you try to stop a public execution because the prisoner was crying. But at least he wouldn't personally try it. My standards for potential allies are low, here." Translation: I believe myself to have a stunning amount of leverage. I can insult Leareth quite openly in front of his staff, and they will pretend they didn't overhear us. 

       They both look at her with cautious hope in their eyes. She shrugs. I'm undecided on whether I am going to try to protect you, that means. "We don't have a way to get out of here anytime soon, I'm not fourth-circle and Vkandis is going to be very upset if we cross His barrier again, last time He tried to sell me to the Star-Eyed and I tried to cooperate with this but it turns out I can't obey a god who sucks that much. But I'm gonna work on that. Leareth is enough of a dumbass that you don't, actually, strictly need to make yourselves useful, but consider yourselves ordered to do it anyway. Teach 'em the language, spar with their soldiers - uh, but don't break them, the locals don't get properly stronger with practice - I think we're here another couple of months at the minimum, unless Cheliax wins soon enough and thoroughly enough that Iftel's barrier goes down."

      "They've given the impression getting useful work out of us would cost more in supervision than they expect it to be worth," Valverde says.

"It's because they're weird backwards Good people who give normal-person justifications for their Good-motivated behavior," says Carissa confidently though she's not totally sure where her confidence here is coming from. "I think I understand how to talk to them, sort of. I'll get them to assign you something. That's, to be clear, all I'll do; I'm going to be busy."

      Valverde opens his mouth and then, wisely, closes it again. 

"Great," Carissa says, and stands up. Pauses. "You're Lawful, in a world that has only the faintest idea what that is. You are Chelish, and have a security in your fate that no one in the world has ever possessed. You'll be well-behaved, you'll be impressive, you'll be weird-backwards-Good if that's how they like you. It does not serve our Queen or our God to make enemies of these people, or to give them doubt about whether Cheliax is a good neighbor and a good ally." She is actually not at all sure that it's defensible either religiously or politically for her to have made this one-woman alliance here, and it seems very possible that home, when she gets home, will judge her to have crossed a line in one dimension or the other, but it's obviously counterproductive for them to be worrying about heresy or treason also; obeying her is a good enough reason for them, in an ambiguous case, and giving them cover says she has noticed it's an ambiguous case but will punish their treating it as one.

She leaves.

And, elsewhere: 

A mage named Ebet, who works for Leareth, speaks to another mage called Talli. Talli can Gate from a map plus detailed enough drawings or paintings of a place, and they have those for a few Palace outbuildings, courtesy of certain agents based in Haven. 

An escort of three un-Gifted but highly trained guards, and a Healer just in case, is assembled. More than that seems unwise. They're trying to de-escalate here. 

The Healer checks that Jisa is unharmed, and gets a washcloth to clean all the attic-dust off her face and gown. 

Jisa rolls her eyes about this but doesn't protest. Protesting when grownups want you to have a clean face never works. 

And they prepare to Gate. It's tempting to delay, but that won't make anything here better. 

Vanyel is still with the Chelish diplomats. 

He doesn't even need the Web-alarm; he feels the Gate, even a mile away and through the shields on the room and with his personal shields at full strength. It's enough protection that he only winces and yelps a little. 

:Savil?:

:- You felt that? I'm closer. Going to– Oh. It's down: 

Vanyel didn't need to be told about this either. Also, wow, that was a fast Gate - it must have been up for barely ten seconds. 

He sags a little against the nearest wall, letting out his breath as his jaw un-clenches. 

The Chelish diplomats conceal their reactions to this extremely bizarre occurrence! The one whose thoughts Melody can read is thinking that he can't actually imagine news or pain bad enough to get a person to make a face in a diplomatic meeting - maybe the escaped prisoner just Sending'd him to let Vanyel know he'd murdered his children?

Vanyel catches his breath. "I - sorry - I'm sensitive to Gates. There was just an unexpected one. Savil is going to see what it is -" 

:Rolan's on his way: Yfandes interjects. :Should be there any second: