...how strange.  It seems he had begun to enjoy his time here more than in Cheliax, no doubt due to sheer laziness and lack of ambition on his own part.  Esta had not realized before, he had managed not to realize.  But it is obvious enough, once Asmodeus calls him home, and that feels like a punch in his stomach.  The blow is too great, felt too quickly, for Esta to suppress it or for him not to notice.

He has been spending too much time inside Cultural Adaptation to a dreamworld, and zero time inside the Palace at Egorian; his mind has grown undisciplined.

Esta will not dare the Homeward Bound, if they are somewhere that Planar Binding could not call a devil (this decision not being determined by how Mariona would be left behind, of course) and he has no tuning forks yet for a Plane Shift.

But he will send his Sending, before this day is done.  Not to Iker to whom he reports, nor yet to Aspexia Rugatonn.  There are procedures, when at least one of you has been touched and contaminated by an Outer God.

Merrin...has honestly been kind of vaguely worried about Estha, lately. 

Their survival status is, for the moment, fine. Stable indefinitely so long as they have two Endure Elements and one Create Food and Water per [day.] The days are still getting hotter, and Merrin has by now gotten a unit-mapping of the temperature range that Endure Elements covers and she suspects that even with that it won't be safe out in the open in the afternoons, come full summer. But there are caves. She's mapped out like six hypothetical possibilities for longer-term summer shelter.

And...for Merrin, that's already more than she had expected, right? She had experienced True Death. She hadn't thought there would be anything more for her at all. She had four months to...process, grieve her old life, come to some kind of sort of acceptance. She's not ""at peace"" with the possibility that they won't make it off the planet alive, or at the very least Laeirthe is not at peace with it, but, still - 

- her planet will be fine. Dath ilan was fine before she was born and will continue to be fine without her and she doesn't have to worry that her absence will cause any measurable harm whatsoever to the Civilization she left behind. She's sad, for her mother and her siblings and her friends and her boyfriends and - the real Kalorm, the one who isn't in her head, and his family, and there are probably other patients who stuck less in her mind but she stuck in theirs, and now she's gone, from their point of view irretrievably, and that will leave a hole in the world, just...not one that brings any buildings down with it, you know? No one was counting on her and her alone - okay, with the possible exception of the actual Kalorm, who did at one point insist he would only carry an emergency beacon to summon Merrin specifically, but...Kalorm is Kalorm. He's not even scared of True Death, and he's kind of spent his whole life trying to make it so that his loss wouldn't bring down any metaphorical buildings. 

Merrin does not know that the same is true for Estha. She suspects it isn't. 

The narrative tropes theory hints that one of them might be from a place with very bad problems, and it's certainly not her. And it...fits, with the differences she's seen in him. 

Her Estha wasn't always happy, she doesn't think. Most dath ilanis are happy less often than she is, because it's honestly bizarre that Merrin is just as delighted the hundredth time her patient comes off the ventilator and takes a breath on their own as she was the first time. But her Estha had fun, on purpose. He knows how to do self-care and Merrin is not sure she's seen alternate-Estha do something she would describe as "self-care" at any point so far. Merrin is doing a ton of deliberate self-care, because she's under a lot of pressure and now would be a really bad time to end up depressed and full of cognitive distortions about it!

And Estha is probably experiencing even more pressure, if Merrin's guess is right, that something is wrong back home and he can't, actually, be certain that all of the metaphorical buildings will stay up if he's not there to hold them. That's a really stressful situation to be in, knowing that something is incredibly important and not knowing if any of the actions available to him are ones that can even in principle move toward the important thing! Stress is bad for people, especially if they never do anything to try to relax! 

But most of Merrin's observations and interpretations of them are still - at the implicit level difficult to verbalize, let alone put numbers on, let alone link up into a coherent logical case for why he should listen to her and do something differently.

Laeirthe is surprisingly unhelpful on the matter, probably because he has fun but he doesn't need fun to be functioning at his best, he just needs there to be a problem left to solve, and that character trait came through a lot stronger in the version-in-Merrin's-head than the original canon. 

Anyway. Merrin hasn't, at this point, even gotten close to considering if she should, like, have a conversation about it? There is a point at which it would solidly feel like she was making a mistake, on an interpersonal-relationship-ethics level, by having her concerns silently and not telling him. But that point isn't now, mostly because it feels like if she tries the conversation will be full of culture-gap pits full of metaphorical spikes and she'll probably end up communicating some different concept that isn't actually what she meant, and that does not sound like a way to decrease Estha's stress levels at all. 

(Trusting him might? He did say something that hinted that he maybe wanted her to trust him more, but - one, "trust Estha" is not an atomic action Merrin can just decide to take, trust in someone is a belief-state and that's not how beliefs work, and two, if it somehow was then that probably wouldn't be the thing Estha wanted, because that's messed up. Anyway, Merrin really feels like the problem here is all the cognitohazard stuff that Estha can't - or won't - tell her about, and she can't unilaterally decide that they're going to be fully open with each other now, and one-sided complete openness with him is...not, really, something that appeals to her right now.) 

Merrin has concluded that the best thing she can do is to be okay, on her end. To be reliable and predictable and super on top of the logistics that are in her purview, and to be uncomplicated to coordinate with and handling her emotional support needs on her own rather than flailing at him across a culture gap and falling into metaphorical spike pits. 

(This is maybe slightly a self-serving conclusion, because doing that is easy and comfortable for Merrin, whereas having a fully open conversation about how Laeirthe is in her head and that might imply things about what the [Outer Gods] want here does not sound easy or comfortable at all. But Merrin has poked at it and concluded that that doesn't mean it's the wrong conclusion.) 

His first thought was to quietly go off by himself and cast Sending without telling Merrin.  Sort of a sheer existential reflex, there.

Then he gamed out in his mind what would happen after that, thankfully fast enough to realize that, actually, some of this was Mariona's business and Merrin would be offended by his concealment, which is stupid if he just has to tell her anyways.

He can't think of any good way to introduce the topic, so he'll simply go to Merrin after prayer and say it.

"My [divinity] gave me the spell that I would use to contact our department.  There is a small chance they show up immediately after that; and a larger chance that they show up the next [day], on their own cycle of [days] and [prayers]; after Athpechya, our executive, has a chance to request 8th-circle [Discern Location] and 9th-circle [Gate]."

….Huh? 

That’s - surprising - why is that surprising - mostly it’s bizarre on a narrative level, but when Merrin uses normal logic she can totally think of possible answers to the question of 'why now' in the first five seconds of considering it. 

"Understood," she said. "...Do you have ideas on why now? My first thought was - if there's an urgent problem back home and they need - us - but I don't actually know if that's plausible?" 

(She considered for a moment if it was deceptive to say 'us' when, like, her single highest-probability hypothesis is one where she's some sort of alternate-universe copy of the Merrin from the eroLARP superpowers setting who Estha actually worked with. But, like, she doesn't have anywhere else to go? And she doesn't have [cleric] [spells] but she does have other useful capabilities, and if Estha's world has scary problems then obviously she wants to help.) 

"That's -- a good question to which I do not actually know the answer, except, it's not that they suddenly need me, I'm not sufficiently important.  I have guessed that my [god] has trouble perceiving this place.  Perhaps It gave me time to try and make my way back on my own, by any means I might, saving two very valuable spells from our department head; but we have now run out Its hope in our project."

(Esta did at one point think that Asmodeus was feeling a little more distant in prayer, but then immediately crushed down that thought; so it is not currently available to Esta, as a first-round hypothesis, that this is his own fault for growing more distant from his god.)

Well that's an enormous relief! 

(If Merrin were to spend longer thinking about it, she might have the thought that Estha's apparent...stress levels? Seriousness? that something about alternate-Estha's entire vibe had made sense with the hypothesis that he was the sort of person holding up a lot of metaphorical buildings back home, and not someone from a Civilization with more than enough slack to make up for his absence, and if he's not worrying about the metaphorical buildings falling into holes then she is perhaps left feeling like she lacks a complete explanation for why he's...like that. But, in the moment, Merrin is mostly just too relieved - on his behalf, on both of their behalves - to put more thought into it.) 

...Actually, no, wrongthought. Estha said 'small chance' and 'larger chance' but not how large. And if their Civilization has serious problems, and Estha isn't that desperately important to solving them, then - it's possible that there's a better use of what sounds like a very big deal sort of rescue. Like, the translation-spell is giving her the impression that "8th-circle [Discern Location] and 9th-circle [Gate]" is a lot more costly than, say, Merrin being personally on-call during a storm in which Kalorm's family thought there was a chance he might end up in trouble. 

"What probability would you put that, um, your executive comes at all?" she says, quietly. "Versus - still being on our own, to solve it?" 

"Another good question.  I would ordinarily say that my person is more valuable than those two spells and that my version of Merrin is not.  There is however the question of whether our value diminishes if we have been touched, and at least one of us transformed, by an [Outer God].  I don't know whether they already know about that part.  I will not neglect to report it to them."

Nod. Merrin can do any necessary processing later about the implication there. She’s not going to make it Estha’s problem. 

She doesn’t have any further questions and will go back to temperature math and let him make his report.

He spends some time composing words of Infernal.  And then over the course of 10 minutes casts Sending, targeting One who cannot possibly be harmed, even if Esta now unknown to himself speaks a blasphemous gibbering language that will drive all mortals who hear it mad.

Esta's voice is steady, without trepidation from exceeding his place or wasting a pit fiend's time.  Part of the point of Gorthoklek being sent to the Material Plane is to have a safe handler for Dark Tapestry affairs, watching over the planet called Cage.  A Tapestry-lost priest of Abadar, seeking to send back a report to their own Church, could pass word through Gorthoklek the same, and Gorthoklek would faithfully repeat it to Osirion, if He deemed it safe.  That is part of Gorthoklek's role in the Material Plane, or so Esta was told after reaching 4th circle.

"Vicar Esta for Rugatonn.  Yog-Sothoth kidnapped myself and Mariona Duran.  At least one transformed.  Asmodeus distant but godchosen spells suggest return commanded.  Planar calls failed."

There is no reply that Esta hears.

Perhaps the little 4th-circle spell managed to reach out in one direction, toward the ordinary and central portion of Creation?  But if so, Sending didn't succeed in traveling back in the other direction.

Esta thinks about this point, strangely chilled.

(Somewhere inside himself is a watcher that knows which evidence Esta is suppressing, and where that thought would go if it weren't suppressed, which is how Esta's brain knows which thoughts must be suppressed in advance of thinking them.  That watcher cannot cogitate in words, it is all System 1 and no System 2, as stupider compared to Esta as an LLM without versus with chain-of-thought and reasoning enabled.  But part of Esta knows that Asmodeus felt more distant, last time he prayed.)

Then he goes and tells Merrin that, though it's possible the message made it through, he did not hear whatever reply was given.

And that if Esta is truly irretrievable by their department, it is possible that he will, at some point, stop getting spells, because their [god] will not be getting any more value in return out of a permanently lost [cleric].

Oh.

…There are a lot of implications to be processed. Updates to various hypotheses, attempts to reason at what it could possibly mean under the narrative tropes theory.

Right now, though, Merrin’s mind has mostly been on the part where she’s worried about Estha. (And, guess what, Merrin knows a great lifehack for putting off feelings she would rather deal with later! It’s to firmly tell her brain that, however upsetting she finds a piece of news, it is not actually about her and her feelings. …She’s mostly used this to hold off on crying about a patient in front of their literal family, but she can perhaps abuse it here.)

Does Estha want a hug?

It does not seem particularly likely to make anything better, so no, not really.

(The part of Esta that understood the implications of Asmodeus seeming more distant, quick enough to suppress the feeling, does not think hugs result in continued spell access.)

Merrin thinks it's a good idea to relocate their stuff to a better cave. Thanks to all the Bag-search map-making, she has a whole list of options to pick from! 

It's getting hotter. It's now planetary day 47 since Merrin's arrival. The outside temperature is peaking at 52° C in the afternoons. The temperature inside Merrin's cave is getting up to 36° C absolute, as high as 32° C wet-bulb temperature when the tidal flats are freshly exposed at noon, and that's already in the risking-heatstroke range without Endure Elements. Merrin's careful timekeeping is not, yet, picking up any sign that the rate-of-change in the day length is not practically-linear, which means that the summer solstice is not next week. 

But there are some lovely deeper caves, with ventilation, radon-free, high enough to stay dry even at high tide, where it still never gets higher than 15° C. They'll probably get a bit hotter than that at the peak of summer, if the rocks are absorbing more daytime solar radiation on each long day than they can shed over the shorter nights, but it'll be significantly moderated. 

And Merrin is not really that much help for the Bag-search, at this point. She's doing all the sector-tracking to plan out what regions to search on what search-periods, but Estha is perfectly safe with Wind Walk and pretty safe with Ride the Waves and Word of Recall and he's the one who can Locate Objects. Merrin was mostly going along to keep him company, because Wind Walk is really cool, and because she really hates sitting around being bored. She can, instead, spend a bunch of time figuring out the best and safest route to haul all of her crates one by one into a new summer shelter. 

This one is a bit further from the current shelter than Merrin would really prefer if she were doing this on her own. Nearly 4 km upstream, and that's a long way to haul storage crates. 

She's not doing this entirely on her own, though. And it has other advantages. It's past the main chokepoint in the river channel that squeezes the tidal bore to its most epic heights and speeds – it still gets a pretty big wave, but she's talking, like, ten meters high and moving at maybe thirty kilometers per hour, and the cave-entrance actually faces away from the sea. At low tide, it's actually sort of walkable, if she were to very carefully clamber down the bank from the plateau. At exactly the right tidal window – post tidal bore, by a couple of hours, but well before the actual high tide – it would be swimmable, and her boxes are watertight when sealed and actually a lot easier to haul that way. 

Also it's quite scenic. 

It would be nice if Merrin could feel more straightforwardly cheerful about her find. She was so happy about the other cave, and this one is going to be so much cooler! 

It's different with Estha here. Instead of unforgiving but simple survival math, Merrin's life now contains social complications. 

Merrin could totally be misreading it! She's not exactly a low-neuroticism person, and she's aware that SO many factors here are going to be combining to bring that out. Her social instincts aren't, in general, bad, but they're - sensitive - and she is absolutely aware that one of her patterns of misreading social cues is to, correctly, notice that someone is stressed or frustrated or unhappy, and then incorrectly assume that this is 100% entirely her fault. 

Merrin does not think she's misreading the fact that something is wrong. It is pretty obvious that a lot of things are wrong and of course Estha isn't happy about it! They're stuck on an exoplanet. He's missing most of his gear, including what he needs to get home. An [Outer God] is messing with him. He was implicitly given instructions to get back already, and the method didn't work, and if they remain stuck here then his [deity] will at some point write it off as a sunk cost, and even apart from that meaning he loses the superpowers, that's...probably an upsetting thing to have happen? 

In short, Estha has PLENTY of reasons to be having a bad time that have nothing to do with Merrin, and she has no actual, specific reason to think that she's terribly offended him and he's really mad at her, and dwelling on it all the time will not help. If she did terribly offend him, then he's making his own decision not to bring it up, maybe for the exact same reason that Merrin is not making all of her own silly petty resentments his problem.