And when they have done all of this, they stay long enough for not-lonesome Adarin to recover enough mana, and -
they go visit his alt.
But the house they're aiming for is mostly unchanged. It's recognizably Adarin's - with a few key differences. There are tweaks, here and there. The windows shimmer, it's impossible to see through them - and the lights brighten automatically at their approach. There is a button that looks like the magical equivalent of a doorbell.
Of course, when they ring it, there's no answer.
"... Well. he's probably around somewhere, if not in his house? I suppose I could scry?"
And then a tired looking older gentleman with white hair comes walking down the street. He looks like he is about to drop where he stands, like he wants to curl up somewhere quiet and sleep for the next century.
He stops, when he sees them. He raises an eyebrow.
He takes out a little shimmery bauble from a pocket in his jacket, and holds it up to look through it. Another eyebrow raise, at whatever the results of this are.
"Well that's interesting," he says, pocketing it. "You're a mage. And I have no idea who you are."
"Oh, come on, that would be a preposterous quantity of family resemblance, and why would an unethically-sourced bastard child who looked exactly like you show up on your doorstep only in his early twenties anyway instead of earlier with a relevantly unethical somebody in tow or not at all, and how do you propose to explain me -?" She has her cloud-pine, and gestures at it. "Look, can your doohickey tell if this is mage magic or not? Because it isn't." She turns it sideways, lets it go. It floats placidly.
"Well, when I went looking for chamomile, I found a planet with its own type of magic. And there I met Isabella -" He motions to her. "- fast forward two years and we were married and taking over the world with portal economics and an objective truth teller that helped her crack resurrection. And immortality, that too."
"Yup. I came with resurrection supplies in case you want your Veron back if you have one - actually I brought three resurrections' worth but I used two on the way, we had to make a stop before we came here because it was too far for a single hop and while we were there we found a me dead of old age and retrieved her and a friend of hers."
"I can do more if you have the herbs and ash and a sufficient population of birds, I just didn't bring enough herbs for more - how do you have both? I totally asked the alethiometer if mages could do resurrection or immortality when I was first writing the spells and it told me no - well, it said it would take many many more mages than were available for it to look at, actually, it's kind of terrible with numbers but still."
"Okay, how do you propose we prove our - would it help if you scried Edarial? And Iobel? Spring would be less convincing, she doesn't look like me and you don't know me well enough to derive her identity with me from her behavior, but the Marlatian pair look just like us."
"Those are Iobel and Edarial, assuming you've found them. They're the monarchs of a country called Marlatia, his mother left it in a precarious situation and they're mopping it up, in their world the magic is called spellbinding and requires having familiars - she has a cat and he has a snake, if you're seeing those," says Isabella, almost conversationally. "We crashed their date a while ago. They were alarmed but did not even start casting antagonistic spells on us. Oh, and his twin is a guy. You seem to match my Adarin more so I'm guessing yours is another Zeviana."
"Well, I haven't slept in thirty-seven hours, and I just spent the last six hours organizing a very insistent group of people that want to move back to Kystle. Three hours before that I was trying to make sure the immortal killing machines had a place to stay where they wouldn't be a danger to those around them. Then, of course, before that was obsessive cataloging of a newly terraformed Kystle to make sure nothing there was deadly or potentially murderous. Before that, my mother was committing genocide, and then before that I was on an exciting quest to find the aforementioned mother's ghost. Oh, and right before that, reunion with my newly resurrected scumbag of a biological father."
"You are in a bubble because your timing is disturbingly convenient. I am concerned that you are going to start committing some more genocide. Because that is the kind of day I've had, lots of killing and arguing and dramatic reveals and lots and lots of magic thrown around willy-nilly. So I am keeping you where I can see you and where you can't do any harm until I have a good grasp of the situation."
"I'm finding our timing disturbingly inconvenient, frankly. For obvious reasons. How exactly would you like to proceed to improve your grasp on the situation when I can't resurrect your dad, can't leave you alone to get some sleep, etcetera? Since Iobel and Edarial didn't help much, apparently."
Idly, he makes a few changes to the shield to properly hold a mage - that takes a delicate touch. A delicate touch that he's currently handicapped in, due to sleep deprivation and exhaustion. He manages anyway, because it's what's necessary, he doesn't think that his - alt will cause any sort of trouble, but he did not get to be five-hundred years old by being trusting. The shield is changed, and then he looks at Isabella expectantly.
"Ready to go?" he asks.
They go a ways, and there is a flat empty space that is quiet and out of the way.
"Here you are." He makes a sweeping showy motion with an arm.
"One day we are going to have a procedure for meeting more of you," she mutters while she walks with careful pacing to let the ash fall in neat lines. "There will be checklists. We will have you figured out and will not have to spend time in shield bubbles."
She's inexplicably anxious. This old unpleasant Adarin has no intention of hurting her and he's not even hurting her own Adarin, just - maybe Path is dealing with a difficult administrative problem back at home and this is spillover - ow, apparently his difficult administrative problem involves landing on sharp things or something because now her foot hurts. She can call home when she's got the spell finished, anyway, find out if he needs her.
She ignores her foot and the building panic from her daemon. She recites the entire spell, complete with gestures and the slaughter of birds.
He has absolutely no idea what that means, but obviously it's bad. "I don't have the mana to manage planar transport right now - Zeviana could - augh, no, she's running on empty, too. Resurrection first, then we figure out how to get you both home so that he can have his - daemon? Daemon."
"Goddesses all this is such a long story, I'm sorry. Um. I'm from another world. This is my husband who is also Adarin and who is also from still another world. We came to visit and your Adarin - was - paranoid and accidentally suffocated him, I think it must have been that - and - and I can get him back the same way I got you but I'm not sure if I should do it here because he's supposed to have a daemon now -"
"The problem is my Adarin has been to my world, we live there, and he had a daemon because in my world people have those - daemons are, um, external animal-shaped souls, I should have been paying attention, Path was watching her die and tried to warn me and I thought it could wait, augh - and - and I don't know what will happen if I resurrect him here, I don't think she'd come back automatically and I don't know where he'd be if she didn't, so maybe I should wait until I can get home but I don't know how to tell your Adarin how to find the place where we left the portal from Pantheon to Chamomile, I don't know all the mage technicalities -"
"Oh. After you died Kystle was invaded and there was an emergency evacuation to another plane. So there are two Kystles and two New Kystles and this is your Adarin's New Kystle but I've only been to my Adarin's New Kystle and it's lagging behind yours in the - timeline."
There's absolutely no doubt that he could manage this - he's a big guy. Size-wise, anyway - he's tall and has lots of muscle and could probably break people like twigs if he wanted to.
"What will happen is I will walk off in seemingly random directions following where my very limited finding magic tells me to go. Then I'll find him, but you won't see or hear him. I will. But he will be able to hear you. He's just a little lost right now, all ghosts are at first."
"I'm - definitely missing a story here too. But I can resurrect the dead. I've done it lots of times. I'm just all out of herbs, I used the last ones I had packed on him." She indicates Veron. "While your local Adarin was busy accidentally murdering my husband."
The woman smiles a little. "Hello, my name is Lynnari Corvalias. I was unlucky. I did not get to go into the lovely convenient bubble so helpfully made by the twins. I was left on Kystle."
Lynnari waves. "Hi. I'm that, too."
"No. I will let you know when I find him, not to worry. Regardless - I'll tell history from my perspective. I was - oh, thirty? Somewhere around there. I'd just lost my entire family, found a new change in pedigree, and my home was just invaded. I was very, very angry."
"- I think I might need a story from you, too, I'm quite confused about what he's saying, but - he loves you very much, and is worried and lonely and something about a bird?" She peers at the spot where Adarin assumingly is. "Uh, Path, the owl, he's asking if he's okay, too?"
"I wasn't paying attention to Path," says Isabella, rubbing her eyes and shutting them tight so the ghost's invisibility doesn't throw her off, "I should have been paying attention, he was trying to warn me, I'm so sorry, sweetie. Do you want me to try getting you back here or do I need to make your terrible alt take me to Pantheon so I can go home first and you can have Vern again straightaway?"
"He's - waffling a bit, can't decide which is the better option, give him a bit." Pause. "He's wondering how long it would take for his - alt? Alt, to take you to Pantheon, if it's more than a day he'll try the resurrection here because he is worried about you and - being a ghost is disconcerting. Apparently. He thinks he'll get Vern back when he's home."
"Your terrible alt and your terrible alt's Zeviana are both running low on mana and so it'd probably be more than a day to get to Pantheon. I'll try it here," says Isabella, nodding, swallowing hard. "When he's brought me the herbs. I'm - I should be fine, it's only Path must have seen - so I'm weepy."
"He says it's not your fault - he's - actually he's saying he knows you'll get him back so he's taking it all right. As all right as he can, anyway, considering. He tried to contact you by your - rings, but the shield wouldn't let him because - I don't actually understand what that means, Adarin, I'm a mage but I'm not that much of a mage. Yes, that works, thank you. 'Because magic.'"
"Yes. Adarin - this is going to be confusing but I need you to follow my instructions, okay? Don't pay attention to the scenery or anything around you. Don't try and find your way by wandering through the world. It won't work. Focus on your wife, okay? Just her, follow her." Pause. "Okay, he agreed, he'll be following you now. We can head back to my husband, I'll notice if your husband gets lost."
Isabella kneels by her husband's corpse and unwraps the cloth to get at his armored clothes. At least it doesn't include the underwear; Adarin's ghost would probably be embarrassed further if it did. "What did you retire from that used to have you doing that?"
"Fuck, fuck fuck fuck -" Keeping one arm firmly around her resurrected husband Isabella reaches into her portal bag with the other and finds her alethiometer and thingamajigs and doesn't pull them out, just turns them so she can see them and operate them one-handed. "Fuck, I should have checked, mages, I've never resurrected a mage before -" She fumbles with the thingamajigs. There are mages present in Chamomile and it should be able to answer a general question about them.
She gets the question inputted and waits as the hands of the alethiometer spin lazily.
Path appears on the other end at once. "Isabella - Adarin - what's going on," he whimpers.
"Adarin's alt accidentally murdered him but I got him back but there's no Vern and he seems sick and I don't know why and the alethiometer's being cryptic," says Isabella, "and he has a ghost who's still there and the alethiometer -"
"Why didn't you pay attention," Path exclaims. "I tried - she couldn't breathe -"
"I'm sorry I'm so sorry -"
"You," she says, "how long will it take you to have the mana to get us to Pantheon so we can go home and I can have access to all the herbs I need and my original spell development notes and so my Adarin can have his daemon back?"