This is an inconvenient opinion to have about someone who can kill you as easily as sneezing but Carissa thinks old guy - who is he? Secretly King Gaspodar? - is delusional and pathetic. She glances helplessly back at Leareth. 

Sigh. "And - I suppose now comes the part which is awkwardly difficult to explain in a way that will sound believable. But it will not make sense without that context, so..."

He shakes his head a little, and then pulls over a chair and sits down, so his head is at least closer to level with theirs. 

"You said Aroden died in 4606. That is - not false - but not entirely true, either." 

- and the vague confusion is suddenly crisp, a negative space that Leareth's mind recognizes the shape of and fills in an instant, and for a second everything feels clear again and then the rest of the implications start to catch up and he's if anything even more confused - no, not confused, not exactly, just - overwhelmed, by the sheer absurd scale of it... 

"You - were Aroden," he says. "You...are Aroden - how...?" 

And he glances at Carissa, wishing suddenly very badly that he could read her mind, because this is exactly the sort of situation where she will never ever say what she's really thinking. 

No! She won't!!!

She has no idea what she's really thinking, though. She has no idea what it's safe to really be thinking. Obviously he's probably lying but even assuming he is lying it's not safe to believe he is, and if he's not lying -

Aroden died. His clerics stopped getting spells from Him. Asmodeus took over His country -

- and this guy wants to take it back -

- gods don't have human forms -

- gods aren't human, not necessarily even human enough for thought patterns like "He took my country and I want it back" -

- Aroden had wanted to manifest in a form on the Material World that - actually, she doesn't know much about it, because heresy, but maybe you could gloss it as 'He wanted to take human form', but He failed, there was kind of a whole thing about it -

- but probably the guy is lying. Or delusional, he could be delusional. But he's very powerful, so telling him that isn't going to work.

Should she kneel?

At least in Cheliax people aren't insane and they do things that make sense for reasons that correspond to reality! Laborda was a normal person and honestly the emotions she was feeling about that were just that it was refreshing.

"I was human first. An immortal human. Sevar must know that?" 

"- Yes, I think she did tell me that." Leareth glances at Carissa for confirmation. 

"Aroden was an ascended human," she confirms.

"And, at one point, I was immortal by means of - successfully taking new bodies. Though later I found several better alternative contingencies." One eyebrow lifts slightly at Leareth. "Not so dissimilar from your method, I understand. I...was not sure - I had no way of knowing - if any of those contingencies would still work, when the other gods destroyed my being and magic and tore everything I was made of to shreds. And...not all of me survived, of course. A human mind is not enough to hold it. But - enough. That is what happened. And so I woke up in the ruins of my country, and...all I could do was - my best to move forward, from there." 

Okay, stop trying to figure out what you believe, that is a stupid impulse that leads only to spending the next several million years as a statue in a garden in a demiplane that can no longer be accessed because the creator is dead. 

The man is planning to try to conquer Cheliax, and he's planning to claim that he's Aroden. So the only level on which any of this matters is - "People won't believe you."

"- Other gods will know me. I am very confident that the church of Iomedae will back me, once I move. And - do you know of the ancient miracle, of the flowers changing colour? I can replicate that - yes, it is just with magic, but I expect it to be convincing to the average person, if I arrive looking as Aroden's human form once did." 

"People don't know what Aroden's human form once looked like and they do know Disguise Self is a first level spell. The Church of Iomedae would back a pig wearing lipstick if it proposed to overthrow Asmodeus."

"I am not especially counting on the majority of Chelish citizens believing me, though I do hope it would reduce casualties. And, yes - I suspect the church of Iomedae would back me even if I were only Malduoni, a Chelish citizen who fled after Aroden's death, became a ninth-circle wizard, took over a country, and convinced all of its people to plan a secret war." A slight shrug. "And I suspect that if I lose, it will not matter either way, and if I win, the people of Cheliax will be...strongly incentivized to believe their conquerers. It is important here mostly as - context, for why I have spent so long planning such a difficult - and indeed, perhaps ill-advised project." 

"Why not take over some country that's bad instead of the best and best-defended one out there."

And Malduoni - Aroden - smiles slightly. "You see, the thing is that there is widespread disagreement on whether Cheliax is good or an ongoing tragedy. This cannot be news to you. Well-defended, I do not contest." 

Leareth isn't saying anything.

He hasn't exactly stopped trying to figure out what to believe. It's too alien a mental motion for him. But - he does feel very stuck. Caught going in circles, gnawing on a claim too big to grapple with effectively when none of his usual tools are within reach.

He doesn't resent the kidnapping attempt. At the very least, he believes Malduoni's claim to be planning to conquer Cheliax - it's not a surprising thing, for someone to want to do - and anyone with so vast a plan would have to be paranoid, to have any chance of succeeding. 

He does feel...upset. More than he expects to, and more than seems strategic or useful. And he's so tired, and - just - things had finally been back under control, things had finally started to make sense again, and now this. 

Mixed into all that is the lingering note of confusion - the sense that there's still some key underlying piece that he's missing, that would make everything hold together, and he can almost, almost grasp the outline of that negative space, but not enough to recognize it or make sense of it... 

"In Velgarth when people die they don't go anywhere at all. The gods recycle their souls to use over again in a new baby. You could conquer Velgarth and give them - whatever you want to give people - and then people in Cheliax can see if it's nice. ...and if it is, I'll help you do it in Cheliax."

"- I am aware of Velgarth's horrific god situation. That is why Leareth wished to make a new one, yes?" 

Leareth says nothing. 

He should probably be having some sort of feeling about this? But he mostly isn't. Tired and scared and no room for anything else, even though he's very aware that this is not helping. 

"Yeah. And if he succeeds, and it's better than Asmodeus, then fine, people should take the best they can get, even Asmodeus would say so. But right now, in Cheliax, at least people get Hell."

"...And that is indeed better than oblivion, even according to myself, though perhaps not according to everyone. And yet - Nirvana would take all of them, if it were possible. Axis would take very many of them, I think - they did before, when it was my country." He looks thoughtful. "It might be as effective an anti-propaganda move as any, to show you Axis. It is - beautiful and remarkable and wealthy and alive -" 

His expression, in that moment, is wide-open and longing, holding nothing back, a look that Carissa has never quite seen on Leareth's face. But only for a moment. 

"- In any case. I suspect you have been given false information on the other afterlives. Axis, I think, is where people stay the most themselves. I could take you to meet some of them, if that would - if that would help." 

Malduoni is mostly paying attention to Carissa, right now. He's noted quietly that Leareth is - not in a good mental space to be reasoning, right now - he's quietly calculating what to do about that, but in the meantime, this conversation feels actually informative in a way he hadn't expected. Relevant to his plans - relevant to whether or not he can make Cheliax truly his again, and at what cost... 

Leareth is no longer paying attention to the conversation at all. 

He feels so helpless and trapped and - frustrated that he can't shake that off and engage anyway, because this is important - if Malduoni/Aroden is telling the truth, it's the start of one of the most important events in history, here in this world. And if he's telling the truth, then it has implications for Leareth, too, and for Velgarth, for everyone there - 

- for Vanyel. 

Oddly, thinking of Vanyel is what prompts the idea. Vanyel, who Leareth has no doubt is really, truly, genuinely Good. In the way Carissa thinks she means when she talks about him, Leareth - and for some reason Vanyel got on her bad side, but she's missing so much context there. 

He's trapped and helpless and without magic, but he's in Golarion. And there is a certain Lawful Good god who knew Aroden. Who could vouch for him, if any of this were true. 

...If Leareth can manage to reach Her at all. He's not Good; not by this world's metaphysics, whatever that even means. 

But - he thinks he can grasp at the outlines of what it would mean, to be that instead. Because he can imagine the person Vanyel might, someday, grow into, now that Leareth's plans are outdated and he won't ever have to make a certain awful choice. Someone who will never, ever give up on fighting to preserve the lives and value around him, to protect the innocents, to build a better future - and he's already decided that isn't only for Valdemar. There's a literal song that says so. 

And a different song, which Leareth thinks is rather moving even if he is never ever going to admit that to Vanyel. 

Herald Vanyel raised his golden voice and sang of life and light,
Of the first cry of a baby, of the silver stars of night.
Herald Vanyel sang of wisdom, sang of courage, sang of love,
Of the earth's sweet soil beneath him, of the vaulting sky above -

But Vanyel isn't just Good, because he's built on what Leareth taught him as well. He's fought in a war. He knows how to be ruthless. Knows when it's worth paying the cost of a thousand deaths now, to save ten thousand in the future.

There's a new possible world here, where they could be allies, and Leareth wants that very badly. 

- and maybe what Good means, here, over and above the litany of never give up never walk away not until everything is fixed and everyone is all right. It means - not just being Lawful, possible to form alliances with, because Asmodeus has that. There's...something else. 

Leareth doesn't quite have it any more clearly than that, but - it's something Vanyel would want to have. And maybe that's the difference, between a Leareth and an Iomedae, maybe that's what he needs to hold in mind, alongside a tower and a starry sky and a vow he made millennia ago, to cross the gulf of alignment distance between them - 

Leareth has no idea if this is how praying is supposed to work, but he's doing it very very hard, holding all of that up and trying to - reach, to call out, I think this is very important and you would want to know it - and if it is true then I want to help us win - 

It feels like falling, and like catching fire, though it doesn't exactly hurt - like all the parts of catching fire except the pain, and all the parts of falling except the landing, and all of the parts of noise and light and movement -

- and then it stops. 

He's in a familiar mountain pass. But Vanyel isn't looking back at him; someone else is. A Chelish woman. Her face is slightly vacant -

- and then suddenly isn't - 

- "it'll do," she says. "I'm sorry, I would really like to have more attention directed here but we have a problem at this moment at the Worldwound and Aroden's making this very expensive. Yes, it's him. No, I didn't know that five minutes ago -

- are you all right, Leareth?"

No. He isn't especially all right, and about a third of that is because he's TALKING TO A GOD and he did not think through at all how utterly terrifying this would be. But none of that matters. Later. 

"What sort of problem at the Worldwound - I can, I can help, if I convince him to let me out of his magic-blocking library -" 

"Tell him I want to work in Velgarth, I can see better. He'll need to take some of my people who can consecrate some ground and help me get oriented; he can pick them up at the Worldwound, when he's done being an idiot. Tell him it was Milani, and I think She got the math wrong but either way it bloody fucking obviously wasn't me. Then get Carissa Sevar to give you a hug."

And the mountain pass dissolves in its usual fashion, though the woman doesn't; she stands there, watching him, until everything else is gone.