It is at this point that Luto decides to shut Zan up by kissing her.

Good.

Jivandria does manage to secure a last minute teleport job from Highhelm to Absalom. It's not quite as high as her normal rate, but it's respectable enough, especially for a late-night (by Absalom time, anyway; Highhelm has a triad sleep schedule split between all of its residents) off-the-cuff transport that doesn't involve her actually selling any goods herself. Direct arbitrage via Bags of Holding and pack animals is almost always the best way to maximize profit on teleporting, but it's also a lot of footwork, and she just does not have the time, patience, or energy to do any of that. One passenger delivery for a flat rate works fine for her needs.

She then bids her clients a polite farewell, excuses herself, and finds a nice quiet spot to return to her other self again.

She knows some people at one of the local churches of Sarenrae, and will be going to that one, but, well. She's showing up in the middle of the night. The normal cleric she knows might not be awake at this hour, and in fact for his sake, she hopes he's not. (It would imply he recently dealt with an emergency, which is an awful thing to wish upon someone.) Some of the staff might know of her, but they also might not.

In walks an obvious adventuring sorceress, with all the airs of like she is Here On Adventuring Business, and politely looking around for the temple usher available at this hour. It's Absalom, there's going to be someone.

"Excuse me," she says, without introduction or real preamble, "but I'd like to request two questions of tomorrow's Commune from Sarenrae, please? If you'd like me to pay for them, I'd be happy to, but..." she trails off, because this is not how the Temple of Sarenrae tends to do things.

The usher smiles at her sympathetically, and says apologetically: "I'm sorry, but we don't sell Communes. You must understand; the Everlight grants us Her powers to help the world and redeem those in need Her light, not to enrich ourselves or Her Church." They aren't Abadarans, you see.

(If Sivetrys looks around, though, Her Church does seem to be doing just fine, financially.)

Sivetrys nods: this is exactly what she was expecting, but she would have happily thrown money at them if it would have worked.

"Right. Thought so. I still think these questions are important to Sarenrae's interests, though. Can I make my arguments in a little side room? I can step into a Neutral Good Forbiddance for it, and am happy to tapdance back and forth over the threshold a couple dozen times to confirm my alignment."

Oh. Um. This seems like a Big Deal? He's going to respectfully extract himself and tell someone more senior. 

About fifteen minutes later, an older dwarf in fancy robes comes and gets Sivetrys. "Hail, friend. I am Luminary Sunheart. Please follow me," she says pleasantly. If she's bothered by being woken up at this hour, she's not showing it. 

Hopefully she's on the night shift, and hasn't been woken up at all. Probably not, but she can hope.

"Hello. Thank you for seeing me at this hour," Sivetrys says politely, and: yep, following! She's not sure of the odds on if she's going to be ushered into a Forbiddance without warning; she's already consented, and it's the kind of sneaky thing Tristian would do. (She misses him. She hopes he's okay.)

Well, there's a doorway up ahead decorated with images of cleansing fire, but maybe that's all the warning she'll get?

But then Luminary Sunheart stops, and looks up at her seriously. "This door is the boundary of our temple's Forbiddance," she says gravely. "If you are not Neutral Good, it will harm you quite badly, and may even kill you. If it does harm you, or if you have changed your mind about entering, I will still hear you out - Sarenrae teaches us to offer our hands out to those who need them, not just to those who are already sufficiently pure. But..." she shrugs. "this will make it easier to trust you."

She says all this in a way that makes it clear that she doesn't expect anything she's saying to be a surprise to Sivetrys - it just matters to Sunheart to do things Correctly.

All very reasonable. Sivetrys smiles, and steps very deliberately over the doorway's threshold. Yep. Still Neutral Good. (She's been pretty reliably pinging as it for years now; it's hard to be Lawful in the River Kingdoms, and she's not really personally inclined to being Chaotic. Good has just not been in question at all, especially not with her current activities of fighting a lich she didn't have to.)

Then she's going to step out, and step back in, because it's perfectly possible to tank Forbiddance damage and live (she'd been planning to do that literally earlier today), and pretend she wasn't hurt at all. It is much harder to do that six times in a row without stopping to heal and live.

"I think Lastwall's standard is doing this five to ten times for a proper confirmation? I'm a sixth circle sorceress, I think around five would be enough to reliably kill me if I were lying?" (Step out, step back in.) "But we can do more if you'd like."

Luminary Sunheart raises an eyebrow at her. "We are not Lastwall, dear. I'm convinced." (She mutters a password under her breath as she crosses into the Forbiddance.) 

She leads the two of them into a small plain room, and pulls out an unassuming-but-comfortable chair for Sivetrys. "So. You wish to consult The Everlight about something? Tell me more, please."

"So my sixth circle cleric of Sarenrae got gatenapped - Tristian, if you know him," she says, like that's at all a normal sentence to say, "but I think he might have secretly been an outsider this entire time," and risking final fucking death like a madman, "so my questions are: Would I be advancing Sarenrae's values by attempting to call her cleric Tristian using Planar Binding, and then the second one, only to be asked if the answer to that is Yes, is about whether he's under some kind of mental binding effect, like a geas or something. But I'm less sure of the wording there."

Dwarves are not particularly known for their expressiveness. Nonetheless, Sivestrys will see Sunheart make a wide variety of facial expressions as she processes this. 

"Well," she begins.

"...I have heard of, and exchanged a few letters with, Luminary Tristian," she says slowly, because that seems like a good place to start. "He donates his spare spells to the church on occasion, which is not uncommon, but there aren't that many sixth circles doing that, in these lands. If he was an outsider, this was not known to me." 

"For the second question, I believe should we assume that Luiminary Tristian is being affected by a powerful compulsion spell would cover the bases there."

She sits back and thinks for a bit. "...how sure are you that it was a Gate? And would you be willing to tell me more about how this all came about?"

"I saw the spell grab him. I'm really quite sure it was a Gate, and it's why I think he's an outsider, too, because of - how it - it did the outsider grabby thing? Extremely technical explanation, I know, but.

"As to how it all came about... so, earlier today we fought and defeated a demilich." Again: said like this is at all a normal sentence to say. "And it had some kind of - artifact in place of it eye, that Tristian - I think he invoked Sarenrae Herself to break it, I don't see how else he could have done it. He was weirdly insistent about wanting to be given the pieces of it, such that my party thinks he might have been bound to retrieve it for someone. He was grabbed right after he had all of the pieces in hand. So it might've been a Contingent Gate, for when he had it, which I guess makes some more sense, but." Awkward shrug.

"I do have a theory for who might have snatched him, but I don't have confirmation, and she was already out for me," and more offensively her barony, "before, so. Pissing her off by stealing my cleric back is really not going to make things any worse for me, I don't think."

......................

"I think I would like to get a Truthtelling from down the street to confirm all of this," Sunheart manages to say faintly, after a long pause, "but assuming that this all checks out, I will Commune with the Everlight on your behalf after dawn." 

"And - you have my condolences. It is a terrible thing, for a friend and an ally to be ripped away from you like that, and separately distressing, to have to wonder in retrospect of whether or not he was in possession of his will. No matter what She says this morning, I hope that Luminary Tristian will make it out of whatever he's been caught up in safely."

"Very reasonable, I am happy to pay for the Truthtelling personally if you'd like. If not, it's going in the donation that is not at all obligatory, but will nonetheless be happening." Smile.

"And - yeah. Thanks. We're not abandoning him to it either way, it's - it's just a matter of logistics of how we will go about saving him. Because trying is - it's going to happen regardless. We're not leaving him, even though part of the tactical reason it might've been a Gate was to spook us into letting him go."

Sunheart nods. She'll pay for the Truthtelling - she's the one who wants the confirmation, after all. 

They can go do that now, if Sivetrys doesn't have anything else she wants to go over? 

Nope! They hit the highlights. She might want a consultation on what spell is required for resurrecting Varn, but that can happen at any Good temple, and she doesn't have his body with her, anyway. She plans to handle that at the same time they're resurrecting Vakt.

Truthtelling: she is in fact telling the truth, has not lied or attempted to deceive Luminary Sunheart or her goddess in any way, and sincerely believes that their interests coincide in most cases, including but not limited to this one.

Then Sunheart will prepare and cast the Commune for her in the morning. Sivetrys is welcome to be here for it, or come by at her convenience to get the answers. 

Was that all? (Sunheart is, at this point, pretty visibly tired.)

Yes, thank you! And sorry for the late night surprise.

If they have a spare room suited for item crafting, she can just stay here for the night, and be available at Sunheart's convenience? (She's not going to be able to sleep for another eight hours, probably, so. Might as well craft.)

They have a few spare rooms and would be happy to let her wait in one. This usher will show her the way. Sunheart will go sleep.

Excellent. Thank you. (And sorry again for the late night surprise.)

She forks over a generous donation to the church of Sarenrae, then settles down in the spare room to craft. She calls Bergamot out of his kitty container, for snuggles, and also letting her know if he needs walkies or something.

Hmmmmm tragically not Playtime, but also not guard duty, and pets are nice. Acceptable.

Ekundayo sits in their party's suite, alone except for Okbo, methodically cleaning his armor. His bow (unstrung, because this is better for the long term health of even a magic bow) has already had this treatment. Its primary and both spare bowstrings for it have similarly had their latest cleaning and waxing - he will probably have the primary swapped with one of the spares, but that will depend on how the bow feels tomorrow. The armor takes longer, and overall handles long term wear and tear better than a carefully tuned arrow dispenser, but it's still worth keeping in good shape. It will, after all, probably save his life at some point.