"Especially if Milani is a minor god, and Iomedae is - not. She would be smarter, then?" 

Leareth is still trembling, and having trouble getting his breathing under control. It's very irritating, at this point. 

"I - she said I should...ask you for a hug? Is that a, a normal thing for gods to say to someone...?" 

"It's not normal for gods to talk to people! Most people even Their clerics go their whole lives without that? I ...assume They would say that if it accomplishes their...goals... they're not like humans where their goals are stupid and half the stuff they do doesn't advance them - She said me specifically? Not just, you should get a person to hug you? I guess I'm the only person around who isn't, uh, Aroden."

"And Aroden is not here either! I seem to have - scared him away -?" He's half-laughing now, laughter which hurts and is suspiciously close to sobbing. "She said - for him to bring her people to Velgarth. To - consecrate places? So she can see there? She said - once he's done being an idiot..."

He is trapped in a demiplane with no magic and no resources he controls and no idea at all about what's happening in the outside world. It's...not the most dangerous position Leareth has been in, not in expectation - why would Aroden want to kill him, Aroden needs his help - but it's by far the most helpless he's ever felt. 

Hug? If they're going to start disobeying Iomedae it should probably not be while they're trapped in Aroden's demiplane and it should probably not be over hug-related orders. "She wants - her followers to set up in Velgarth so She can see better there and use it for planning - that makes sense - I think I'd let them into the north, if I were you, Iomedae's not awful as Good gods go and Heaven's a big improvement over the current situation for all your staff - very hard to get but there's nothing to lose -"

"Yes. I - wish I knew more about Her first but She seemed very busy and distracted. By the Worldwound situation, probably. And Aroden." 

And Leareth leans into Carissa's hug.

He isn't expecting to to help, particularly, but...it does, a little? It's easier to get his breathing under control, and his pulse slows as he manages to relax a little. 

"Wish I knew more about Aroden as well," he adds, dully. "So I could - guess better what he wants from us - what he plans to do with us -" 

"Dunno much about Aroden. It wasn't exactly legal to be curious about. But Iomedae was His paladin, before She ascended. They were closely allied, as gods. I think probably we're safe with Him if She says so?" Or Leareth is safe and Carissa's just waiting for someone to notice she's just along for the ride. "Iomedae's - well, you know, paladins. ...actually maybe you don't know. Paladins can't feel fear and they're very sincere all the time and they all looked so pityingly at us all the time but they're not hard to work with."

"- She did not explicitly say we were safe, but she did not say we were in danger either - she did ask me if I was all right. For some reason. - Is it even helpful in battle, not feeling fear? I would think that fear and associated emotions are quite important, when it comes to training combat reflexes." 

Hug-shrug. "I mean, morale's important, having the enemy soldiers be terrified of you is good for you, I think it works out as kind of an extension of that? Maybe it has downsides they don't advertise to us, their enemies. I think it'd be crippling, to think Hell is some terrible thing that should never happen to anyone and also work undercover in Cheliax knowing you'll go to Hell when we catch you, if you weren't immune to fear."

"I suppose that makes sense. ...Right now I am not sure I would mind being immune to fear, it is very much not helping." 

"You're scared that if you refuse to help Aroden he'll turn us into statues that rot here for the next million years?"

"...No. Not exactly that. I - it is more abstract than that? I am scared because I do not have my magic. Because I have little context and - no way of assessing the situation. I am scared because I cannot orient and I feel helpless and I am not used to this." 

Carissa does not have advice for being scared about the human condition. "Well. My non-magic assessment of the situation is that Aroden is alive - or a human who is as much of Aroden as a human can be, and Aroden was an epic wizard for a long time before he became a god - and he wants to start a war with Cheliax and we're with him because we don't want to be statues for a million years, and so you're gonna be hosting some paladins - and we're gonna have to do an abrupt face-turn on my cover story, paladins are judgy."

"- Would it not work to just tell them we lied to Cheliax so that you could stay? I feel as though Iomedae is...fine with that sort of goal-oriented plan." 

"Yeah, that'll be fine. I mean, they'll probably warn you that you shouldn't trust me to be actually on your side now, and that Cheliax might've engineered my defection from Cheliax to get a spy inside your organization, but I assume this is not new information because you were not born yesterday."

"My people were reading your mind enough that I would be very surprised if it could possibly have been arranged by Cheliax. But - no, I do not fully trust you, obviously." 

...He would like to. Someday. Which is an odd thing to notice - it's not a way that he's felt often. Very rarely, in fact. The most salient other example is Vanyel. 

"Anyway, it seems we are going to be left here to wait, so - perhaps we can try to learn more? There are books here." Tongues apparently doesn't let him recognize the writing, but Carissa will be able to read anything that's in her language. "You could see if there are any history books about Aroden?" 

"Oh, yeah, I guess." She stands up and goes to examine the library. "It's mostly books about magic. It's too bad I can't hide anything under this shirt."

Leareth can't help chuckling at that. Actually, it's closer to a snicker. He's pretty sure the ongoing shakiness and lowkey panic are responsible for that. 

"Thank you. I...might try praying to Abadar? He is the other god that I think I have a clear enough sense of, and - the same alignment as Aroden, right? It is not impossible that He is less busy than Iomedae, but also - invested in this situation - and would be able to tell us more about Aroden as a -" he was about to say 'person' but no, actually. "...as a being." 

"I mean, it's your head, but I think talking to gods is...bad for people? The mind can't bear up under the strain, and all that? Iomedae gave you like four sentences and you practically had a seizure. I dunno how much farther I'd push it." Is this a history book? Ha! A history book. Maybe she can put a magic research book in the sparkly shirt and just dare Aroden to say something about it. 

"- I feel all right now? I do not think I was harmed, especially, it was just..." Well, at this point, what's the point of hiding his emotions from Carissa. "It was - very frightening, being in a god's presence. I have not exactly had positive experiences of Their attention." 

Leareth sighs. "I do not prefer it, but - we do not have very many avenues, right now. And I strongly disprefer lacking context." 

"Well, here I've got a book from Aroden's church, or you can try dragging more gods into this, your call. If we're not siding with Aroden we probably want to get in touch with Milani, right?"

"Do we know anything about Milani? Other than the fact that She is Chaotic Good and - betrayed an ally...?" 

"My religious education wasn't very good. She's the goddess of revolts against the government, her symbol is a bloody rose, I think she was involved in the whole nightmare in Galt at one point. I think I've heard it said she was allied with Aroden."

Sigh. "Well, between the two of them, I have to say that I think I like Abadar better. But I suppose we can see what is in your book first." 

So she sits down, hugs him again - orders from gods should be taken very seriously and carried out with impressive predictability and dedication, that is how one is valuable to a god - and reads aloud from the history of Aroden.

He's from the ancient Azlant empire, across the sea from what's now Avistan; at the time, Avistan was a backwater, and Azlant was the most sophisticated technological and magical empire ever know, with wonders the world still hasn't replicated, eight thousand years later. He was a wizard; he was a genius; he learned directly from the algothulls who lived in an underseas empire on Azlant's shores. The algothulls were ancient and prosperous and alien, and at first they were delighted by the rise of Azlant, as a parent takes pride in their children; then they started to have misgivings. No one really knows exactly what happened. Aroden's church admits this outright in their holy books which is a bizarre thing to do, in Carissa's opinion. It's said that Aroden had made an extraordinary magic artifact that would select the future rulers of Azlant, and then it selected him, and that was the final straw; it's said that he had nothing to do with it and it was mostly about internal maneuverings among the algothulls; regardless, the algothulls attacked. Azlant fought back. Azlant was rich by then, and powerful and inventive, and it was not as easy a fight as the algothulls had expected. And eventually -

- this part Carissa knows well, and speedreads, blah blah blah, the algothulls pulled the moon out of the sky, intending for it to strike Azlant but leave their underwater kingdom untouched, but they miscalculated, and it destroyed all of Azlant and all of them, and would've destroyed the world if the moon god hadn't interceded, the continent is now a peaceful range of small uninhabited islands, Aroden moved to Avistan to continue his work.

It's interesting and also upsetting, and also -

- also it's uncannily, uncomfortably familiar? Leareth isn't sure why - it is possible that he's not exactly thinking clearly yet, still distracted by the brief interaction with Iomedae - but he tries to say this to Carissa.