"....there are lots of things happening, and lots of them matter, and lots of them could be called a 'plot'?"

"Are there, like, another fifteen of me all of whose stories are going to collide with mine during the next story arc?"

....shrug. "Sounds like a good question to ask Nefreti. But I didn't mean that there were more of you specifically, just that there are many plots that have nothing to do with you. Like, sometimes Nefreti will say things about the rise of the -"

"Don't," says Dana. "In his current mood? He'll take it as a plot hook for whatever the fuck he's doing."

" - but my whole point was that it's -"

"I know, but if you say it in front of him he'll decide that it's part of his story. I went through a phase like that too."

"You were a protagonist before you became Nocticula?"

"If I became Nocticula, then I sure bet I was a protagonist before that!"

"Not a very successful one, unless this world was a lot more of a wreck before you showed up.  I suppose I have no right to say it, haven't exactly been much more successful myself, but if there have been failed protagonists before me then that's not a great sign... well, it wouldn't be if they were like, actual protagonists and not just in-story former protagonists."

"I don't know why you're imagining Nocticula doesn't like the world fine."

"Fair enough.  Hope you're not Nocticula, then, or that you're misdirecting about what Nocticula is okay with."  She seems like a nice person, and it would be correspondingly non-nice - though, obviously, very much in keeping with the plotline so far - if Keltham had to destroy her too.

No one is quite sure what to say to that. 

Not that that stops them. 

"Is it true that Aspexia Rugatonn pretended to be Nefreti?"

"And you figured it out by asking her to prove she was omniscient but she's not because she's just a follower of the loser god, Asmodeus?"

"Is it true that Carissa Sevar pretended to be the entire church of Abadar while also telling Aspexia Rugatonn the setup to pretend to be Nefreti while also solving the hardest math problems you could think of while also wearing the Crown of Infernal Majesty while also almost collapsing from internal conflict about whether to betray Cheliax for you?"

"Yes Aspexia did, yes that's how I figured it out, yes Carissa pretended to be a seventh-circle priest of Abadar though it was her own version of the theology, I don't know - Ione left quickly - about whether Carissa was telling Aspexia how to pretend to be Nefreti, I gave Carissa a math problem that was hard but I thought solvable for her like I didn't ask her to prove that every even number is the sum of two primes, Carissa said that the Queen lent her the Crown but I don't know myself if she spoke truth then -"

"- where did you hear about the internal conflict thing, did - Ione say that, or Clepati?"

"- oh I just kind of heard it at breakfast -"

"I heard it from Elodie who said she heard it from Odette -"

"I heard it in the tavern this afternoon, I figured someone had gotten drunk last night and repeated the whole story -"

"Oh, that was me, only I don't remember what I said -"

"I think I am going to go ask Ione whether that was a, spoiler leak, or not.  Right now.  Excuse me."

To the library door.

It's a beautiful library. It's eight stories tall and you mostly can't navigate it if you're incapable of flight, but some effort was made at some point to put the books that'd get you to third-circle within reach of the ground, and also there are some only-slightly-defective magic carpets heaped over the backs of chairs for use as needed. There are desks of every size from 'for five year olds and/or gnomes' up through 'for dragons', one with an actual dragon sitting at it, in dragon form, reading. 

"Oh, wow, you a dragon?  A girlfriend of mine once got temporarily turned into one of those and was forced to hide it from me as part of an enormous conspiracy.  Never actually seen one before outside of books.  Actually there's a lot of things I've never seen outside of books."

The dragon blinks enormous golden eyes at him. "Yes, idiot, I'm a dragon. If you don't mind, I'm working. ...if you do mind, I'm still working."

"Sorry for bothering you!"  He'll look around for somebody who looks more botherable and ask them how to find Ione.

Someone's waving at this dragon-bothering idiot from behind a library desk, one with quite a few books stacked.

Well, he'll go over and look at her, then.

"Hi, I'm Keltham, you apparently may have heard of me.  Know where I'd find Ione?"

"If you haven't already found her, she's probably not here today."

"Okay, I can recognize the voice even with the changed hair and changed clothes and - and -"

"Hi," Keltham says, from behind the hands that are now covering his face.

She'll take him by the arm, then, and Shelve the two of them directly into her private bedroom-nook, and then make there be Hush In The Library.

He notices, obviously, when he's teleported, and opens his eyes even as the suddenly-distant sounds of the library quiet entirely.

The library is not generally set up for cursed oracles who need to live in it, but it is set up for researchers who keep odd hours. This nook is in a corner full of dusty old books on the Kelish empire in the 13th century, and it has a plump mattress on a low table, and an Everburning light beside it, and a dresser, and a mirror over the dresser that's angled to reflect the distant library ceiling, where a wizard can dimly be seen flitting around.

"That's new - or is it?"  His voice cracks some.