"Understood," Tanya enunciates with some difficulty and a noticeable several-second delay. (She might not have 'understood' if he had asked her to think of the best order to use his spells.) "Impaired, pain."

The pain isn't enough to make her scream or flail; she retains enough clarity to clamp down on anything that might bring additional risk. But she is 100% focused on keeping her magic in check, because that does require nonzero concentration (especially with a hyperoptimized dual-core orb), and has almost no mental bandwidth left for parsing instructions.

He uses another lay on hands, and it slows the bleeding little more.  He uses his Paladin's Sacrifice, which stops Tanya's bleeding and causes him to bleed... for a single round, before the bleeding resumes, and although it is significantly slower after that.  And damnation that was a lot of pain.  He is really impressed she is even conscious!  Or maybe she has very narrowly focused adventurer durability?   He uses his lesser restoration, which doesn't slow the bleeding at all but should get some of the blood loss effects.  He uses his last lay on hands and the blood flow slows to something he thinks a civilian could survive a few minutes.

“You should step back in now.”  He gently nudges her backwards, ready to catch her if she falls from dizziness.

The blood loss may be more manageable, but the pain is still all but unbearable.

Tanya has room in her head for 'friendlies, follow instructions' and, after a bit of nudging, 'in room = no pain!!!' but she doesn't quite manage 'in room = no magic'. It is, after all, a very novel concept. (She will be very embarrassed by this momentary lapse in judgement later.) So she flies into the room, and her magic abruptly cuts out.

When Tanya was just starting out this would have been a real problem, but luckily modern orbs no longer explode when abruptly detached from their users; the failsafe shutdown engages correctly.

An orb flight spell isn't like a Golarion Fly spell. It doesn't move the subject, it accelerates them. So instead of dropping a few inches down to the floor Tanya tumbles backwards, acquiring a few new bruises and getting blood all over everything. But with the pain and the magic both gone she can finally focus properly.

"Pain is gone. ...almost. Status? Did you detect anything useful?" she demands as she pulls herself back up.

"That was close to the worse case scenario I discussed with Terendelev, I believe you should return to Kenabres, if you remain in the antimagic field until morning you may not be able to survive leaving it."

He can understand the Archon's half of that conversation.

"Her bleeding still looks bad enough that she could die if it keeps up for minutes.  You can't count on simply bandaging up a cursed wound."

He translates what the paladin said.

"I will ask about getting a teleport to Kenabres as soon as possible."

Tanya almost wishes she could afford to stay in here forever. Get some better furnishings in, sell her knowledge, donate the money to charity and retire with an ironclad excuse for never having to go out and risk her life again...

But it's foolish to imagine that there will be no follow-up effects from the curse and no attempts made by her enemies to further whatever their plan was. And the cursed orb isn't impeded by the antimagic field.

"If returning to Kenabres doesn't help - because our theory of the curse is wrong or incomplete - will we have a teleport back here or into another antimagic field as an emergency option?"

“Terendelev had two teleports in reserve last I spoke with her an hour and a half ago.  So we would have options.  I’m not sure where else has antimagic cells that would be better…”

“I believe Nerosyan has a antimagic cell.”

“Correction, the capital of Mendev also an antimagic cell.  It is closer to the worldwound, which might be good even if we are only half right about the curse.  I believe Mendev’s forces are not as professional or disciplined as Lastwall’s, and their wards and magical protections are likely to be less thorough.  But that is an option.”

Nod. What else could help in an emergency. "You mentioned a stasis option? ...if I can't make decisions because I need to be kept in stasis or I'm not well enough, I agree to the previously proposed deal with Terendelev in exchange for her researching a way to fix the curse. Or a similar deal with anyone else you think would serve. If the curse cannot be lifted, I would like to request that what Terendelev owes me and my orbs are used to prevent Pharasma from sending me to a torture afterlife, with you or the executors being fairly rewarded. ...Add to that my promise of reasonable future help and knowledge-sharing if I'm revived without the curse - I suppose I can't fully define what 'reasonable' means here but I hope my interests and incentives are sufficiently clear?"

What a depressing end to Tanya von Degurechaff's career, making her last will and testament in an antimagic cell. Relying on complete strangers who have a single day's worth of demonstrated good-will behind them, instead of the subordinates she spent years rearing and the superiors she spent years cultivating and proving her value to. The devil-gods are capricious and uncaring and the only fairness in the universe is of human make.

...should she take up the cursed orb and pray to Being X to save her life, on the theory that a mindwipe or whatever he'd do to her is still better than eternal torture? No. Not yet. Not until she's staring definite death and damnation in the face.

He reviews Tanya’s request carefully.

“I believe I understand your interests.  And the amount Terendelev owes you plus the value of studying your orbs should be more than enough to pay for exploring quite a number of exotic options.”

“I am going to see about getting you a teleport.”

Based on Lastwall’s discussion with Terendelev, they were planning on sending people over to inspect the Wardstone anyway, so maybe they can double up on what they are using the teleport for?

While Jon is gone, another Paladin arrives to try to heal Tanya some more.

“We have more healing now, if you will try stepping out for just a few rounds?”

She braces herself for the pain, this time, and mentally prepares not to spin up the orb, and then she steps outside.

The pain immediately returns at full strength, but the increase in blood loss is barely noticeable.  The new paladin uses lay on hands four times, which is enough to close the wound for the time being.  There is some fatigue or weakness to the blood loss the lay on hands doesn't fully cover.

Tanya stoically endures the pain and returns to the cell when prompted, and then she waits for Jon to organize a teleport -

...no. She isn't going to passively wait and leave her fate in others' hands. Sorcha is still there and Tanya will use every scrap of time she has.

What to ask, though? She's tempted to spill it all and ask for Sorcha's own advice, because long-term issues of secrecy don't matter nearly as much when faced with the prospect of sudden death, but it would take too long to explain properly...

What should Tanya ask about if she expects to have only ten minutes to hear the answer, something that could affect her decisions in the short term? ...this is probably a hopeless task, or at least Tanya isn't smart enough to figure it out.

Something she might use in the short to medium term, then? Well, there was the original question she was hoping to lead up to, and Sorcha already heard her talking to Jon about it. Better to ask than to keep spinning in circles, she is on the clock and she can't speed up to outpace it this time.

"I've been offered the prospect of help from Morgethai, in exchange for something that might - let's say, make her and her allies magically stronger. There is a worry that she will use this to attack, uh, Cheliax and that they will learn about her source and retaliate against me personally. As a diplomat, do you have any immediate feedback or advice in the short time that we have?" In retrospect it's pretty obvious that they shouldn't be making political decisions with input from the military and church but no actual politicians or diplomats, unless Terendelev counts.

"Felandriel Morgethai may be Chaotic Good, but I think the Chaos in her alignment is from her part in Andoran's rebellion against Cheliax, not from betraying anyone that was properly her ally.  Lastwall would certainly be willing to trust her with quite critical information if needed.  You should be able to negotiate with her about how she tries to hide the origin of any magic or magical knowledge she gets from you.  And the Worldwound treaty could cover you from retaliation by Cheliax even if you provided knowledge to Morgethai on the side, so long as you meet some minimum level of fighting at the Worldwound." 

"The concern is that she couldn't hide it from them, not that she wouldn't try. In other words, once they learn what she's doing, they would have other ways to track down the likely origin..." Probably not a productive discussion.

"How reliable is the treaty? I was told about it and find it hard to believe that any state would agree to such a thing or, having agreed to it, would follow through when it's so directly against their interests. Maybe their lawyers would find an excuse, maybe there would be a deniable actor, even a genuine self-conceived patriot acting against policy in secret..."

"I was told a man could commit any crime in Cheliax, become the enemy number one of the state, and as long as he escaped t5i Lastwall and enlisted there Cheliax not only could not demand extradition, they could not even assasinate or kidnap him. Not even if, say, Cheliax and Lastwall were at war, as long as he was deployed on the Worldwound front! Not even if Morgethai was on the brink of conquering Cheliax and they desperately needed the same power for themselves! In my experience states simply do not behave this way when enough is at stake." And these states have teleporting assassins and remote kidnapping spells, that's why Tanya came to Lastwall in the first place! There, that is a proper diplomatic question.

Sorcha is indeed not the person to ask about ability to track the origins of obscure magic.

"The treaty is very reliable.  Asmodeus beats in obedience to the letter of agreements very thoroughly into his worshippers.  Cheliax has tried a number of creative interpretations of the treaty over the years, and the Worldwound Arbitration Committee headed by the Abadarans has been very thorough in shutting down their nonsense.  It held through Andoran's and Galt's revolutions which tore away vast chunks of territory from the Chelish empire."  She pull out the atlas and gestures at the territories to emphasize how much land Cheliax has lost.

"My understanding of the divine end of enforcement... if Asmodeus's church in Cheliax tried supporting a deliberate violation of the treaty any clerics involved would lose their magic, up to and including the High Priestess of Asmodeus.  And it is commonly believed the Thrune's contract with Asmodeus demands lawful behavior, so the current Thrune Monarch, Abrogail Thrune, would lose some of her empowerment if she tried violating the treaty.  This would drop her from being one of Cheliax's most powerful spellcasters at 8th circle to somewhere between 5th and 7th circle."

"And one side detail... Lastwall itself plans to stay neutral if war with Cheliax breaks out between Cheliax and Andoran or whoever.  We've very carefully separated the chains of command within the church so that the Glorious Reclamation is independent in funding, various other resources, and command structure from Lastwall and Lastwall's branch of the church.  We are not sure if Cheliax will respect such an arrangement, but in between the Worldwound and the Seal on Tar-Baphon's prison we maintain, hopefully Cheliax will see their incentives in respecting such neutrality."

Divine overlords threatening people with loss of their granted magic if they disobey goes a long way towards explaining unnatural-seeming behaviors! Dependency on granted magic, backed by an enforced absence of locally controlled magic or technology that could replace it, is a time-tested strategy for keeping colonial subjects obedient, at least if they're rational... and irrational actors would have their powers stripped away, making them easy to subdue and replace. From the overlords' perspective this must be a very convenient and efficient system; it works by aligning incentives rather than directly applying force.

If this is true... or at least the locals all believe it's true... then Tanya can rely on this treaty. Of course, she'd have to spend the rest of her life fighting, so it's really a solution of last resort. And eventually her orb would fail - well, if this whole scenario is kicked off by Morgethai replicating orb technology, maybe she could get a new one? A lifetime spent fighting is horrible but dying and then being tortured is much worse. It would at least buy her time.

Lastwall planning to stay neutral is honestly great news! More countries should plan to stay neutral in the event of a war! But apparently it's more complicated than that, somehow, it's a neutrality that Cheliax might not see as such?

"What are the glorious reclamation and the seal you mentioned?"

"Tar-Baphon was a ‘Lich*’ Archmage who tried to take over the world around almost nine centuries ago.  There are 9th circle spellcasters and there are Archmages on another level entirely.  Most 9th circles can manage somewhere around 4 ninth circle spells a day.  Tar-Baphon is known to have cast a dozen in one day.  Most necromancers max out in undead they can directly personally control with a number proportional to their circle, I think somewhere between 70 and 110 of the least sort of undead extrapolating to ninth circle from lesser spellcasters?  Tar Baphon could personally control entire undead armies at once.  Liches form new bodies at their phylactery if they are slain and can only permanently die if their phylactery is destroyed, and Tar-Baphon's phylactery is suspected to be somewhere unusual and unreachable by conventional means, maybe another planet or in the black between stars or guarded by a God.  So, at the end of the Shining Crusade, after a divine intervention helped to stun him, the crusaders had to instead seal him away, they couldn't permanently kill him.  If he is ever released, he would almost certainly begin trying to conquer the world again."

"Maintaining the seal on Tar-Baphon is Lastwall's most important duty.  To try to separate affairs such that a failure to overthrow Asmodeus's rule of Cheliax wouldn't doom the continent as a whole by spiraling into a conflict that could release Tar-Baphon, Lastwall has maintained their neutrality with respect to Cheliax.  The Glorious Reclamation is an organization with the goal of freeing Cheliax from Asmodues.  To respect Lastwall's neutrality, their founder and leader, Alexeara Cansellarion, a Paladin of Iomedae, founded them with as much independence from Lastwall and the rest of Iomedae's church as possible.  She gets her Communes cast through the church, and the church has the power to indicate if she is a Paladin in good standing, but otherwise the rest of the church has no direct authority over her or the Glorious Reclamation.  The fundraising and resources collection she has done has been outside of and independent of Lastwall."

* Sorcha can’t find a good word with tongues so simply uses the Taldane word.  

Tar-Baphon was known to cast an incredible twelve spells in a single day and so he threatened to conquer the known world? Incredible! What a threat to civilization! Tanya does not at all miss the implications for her value to Terendelev. ...more seriously, though, he must have had unusually strong divine patrons to relax the usual limits on spells granted per day, ones who convinced the other factions' followers they were willing and able to upset their schemes (or at least to tell their followers that). 

The additional need to let him mind-control whole armies is frankly bizarre. Surely these people have invented hierarchy! No-one could control an entire army in detail anyway; delegation is required for practical reasons. Perhaps the 'gods' disallow the mind-controlled to mind-control others in turn?... not important right now.

(The terms 'Lich' and 'undead' have no obvious meaning; presumably these are the labels for a nine-hundred-years old political or religious movement. This is unsurprising; if you were told that 'nazis' threatened to conquer the continent, you would not care about the proverbial Ignatz.)

That locals are permitted their own soul-manipulation and auto-revival is excellent news (though the devil will be in the pudding). Presumably one needs powerful divine backers for that as one does for everything around here, in which case it's not really important except insofar as Iomedae cannot defy Pharasma 'indefinitely' about the fate of a soul. Still, even temporary protection is much better than threatened death at any moment! Not that this helps her with the curse, necessarily, but Tanya is feeling more optimistic about her future once the curse is fixed.

Anyway. Back on topic! The Glorious Reclamation is a deniable front for Lastwall to try to overthrow Cheliax while remaining ostensibly neutral. (It's sad but unsurprising that people will do this kind of creative 'problem-solving' whenever literal gods aren't enforcing the meaning of a treaty or law.) If Tanya was in the Chelish military she would take a dim view of any such posturing - no, what is she saying?! Any underhanded means are worth it to prevent an even larger war! Tanya has spent too long in the army and should be thankful for the existence of diplomats.

What next? Sorcha disclaimed the Worldwound and its 'demons' as out of bounds for diplomacy. Tanya would like to better understand the military strength and posture of every country involved, Galt, Andoran, Cheliax, Lastwall, Mendev and their neighbours, and broader military strategy given the local magic, but that's just habit; it's not actually relevant to her decision-making. And anyway, Sorcha isn't the one to ask about that. Tanya might be out of questions about diplomacy per se... but Sorcha is here to give her a broader overview of history and the presence state of the world, and that includes areas even non-experts have to know some things about: industry, the economy and the broader organization of society.

"On another topic. What are the population sizes of these countries, and of their biggest cities? What are the major economic activities and industrial sectors? How constrained are the growth of the population and the economy, and life in general, by lack of food or land, by disease, or any other large factors I'm not guessing at? I understand a detailed overview is impossible in the short time we have but this is genuinely relevant to my interests." This is Tanya's first feeble attempt at learning how much this place stands to be improved by importing cutting-edge 1920s technology, and accordingly how much value she brings to the table in any future negotiations.

She refers to An Avistani Political Atlas and goes through population and economic statistics for various nations across Avistan (and just outside of it, like Rahadoum).  The numbers are very roughly consistent with Early Modern Earth, not that Sorcha would be able to make the comparison.  She notes a few exceptions and caveats to the Atlas, for instance: "The numbers for Taldor sort of inaccurately imply Taldor could actually coherently focus it's military might or economic power on any one objective.  The political factions within Taldor are heavily divided and very dysfunctional, if one tried to say the sky was blue, another will try to say the sky is actually bluish-green, and a third may say the sky is red.  The emperor theoretically has a lot of power, but in practice is quite limited."  She has multiple caveats about Razmiran in particular:  "Razmir seems kind of idiotic for a ninth-circle, but it isn't enough to entirely break his country and ninth circle magic can make up for a lot of shortcomings" and "Razmiran can make up for troop numbers with very high numbers of planar bindings to call outsiders."

Sorcha has read The History of Future and Humanity and thinks she sees some of where Tanya is going with her interests maybe Sarusan is a technomagical paradise that keeps itself hidden to avoid the mess of the rest of the world. 

"About seven-eighths of the population works to produce the food to sustain itself in some form or another.  A bit less in areas with lot of access to the spell Plant Growth or naturally fertile farms and fields.  A bit more, up to the point of famines in areas with problems.  Not many spellcasters can cast Plant Growth, but it takes some true idiocy or tyranny to alienate all of them (even a few can cover a lot of ground since the spell can last a year at a time), Cheliax and Razmiran have both managed to drive out most of their potential Plant Growth casters.  If you've got a supplement to Plant Growth that is castable by any wizard that would be quite something.  Or maybe even just the right nonmagical farming techniques could shift things critically, every person not needed for farming can specialize in other ways, potentially very economically productive ones.  Other big limits... cities often have big problems with diseases, and Remove Disease is third circle you know.  A lower circle version castable by wizards would be quite something, Aroden made it a priority to provide a second circle version of Remove Disease.  Or if you know of techniques to make nonmagical medicine actually useful for more than mild headache or stomach relief.  For other constraining factors... I think fixing just one of those two things could go quite far, but I could probably come up with more if I think a bit..."