"I - sure? Which one? Wisdom and Cunning do different things. I only have Wisdom prepared but could do Cunning tomorrow."

"- I mean, I will almost certainly wish to ask for both, in the longer term, especially since that is one of the types of permanent magical artifact you can make. I was aware that you had only prepared Wisdom as a spell today; that is the one that enhances - one's ability to notice things, in general and including within one's own mind, yes? ...I think that one would be useful by itself, right now, and perhaps even more useful than 'Cunning'." 

"Of course, my lord." She casts it, and then sits down because maybe the alcohol is making her a little wobbly, actually.

Oh. 

It's...not what he expected, somehow, even though once he stops to consider it - which he does almost instantly, because he's aware almost instantly that he's not conceiving of it accurately, or not framing it usefully - that seems to be the main thing the spell does, opens a sudden quiet new space behind each of his thoughts, space for a whisper of – is that true is that incomplete do I really believe that what question am I forgetting to ask what am I trying not to look toward - 

And, it turns out, this feels rather more like being slow and stupid than it does like being cleverer, at least right now, because there are so many things that he has apparently been trying not to look toward. 

A mental tally accumulates, and he slightly wishes he had the other spell too, the one for Cunning, because he could use more speed and working memory and better mathematical reasoning right now, just to keep track of the sheer number of things that are suddenly obvious. 

He's pretty sure he knows exactly what's going on down south, he already had all the information he needed to pick out a hypothesis and - from there it's hardly any distance to being almost-sure, in a situation as messy and with as many degrees of freedom as the southern front, nearly all the work goes into narrowing down on a hypothesis at all. He can see the outline that any solution - or mitigation, really, there are enough constraints that it would take his best possible work and some luck to resolve it entirely

and he's not going to be lucky, because he has never once in the entire history of the Empire been lucky

and it's not even the right question to be asking. Neither is figuring out the northeast, which is less immediately clicking into place, though he can feel the uncertainty crystallizing, like the difference between a map that's mostly unfinished blank areas, and a ledger-book with blood spilled on it to obscure some particularly lines or columns and why does that metaphor feel so apt he's trying not to look he's been trying not to see it for centuries too slow too stupid too willfully blind why

and of course the most important questions to ask are about Carissa but that ties into everything, he thinks, why he's always been unlucky, why spilled blood is of course not even really a metaphor for how that bad luck manifests, it's always been paid in lives and not even his own life and maybe it's still worth it on net he would have to do the math again he suspects the methods he used to estimate value-in-lives saved were flawed before missing some key considerations and he should redo them if he's going to keep doing anything in the Empire and what how why is he even considering not continuing his work here, who else is going to do it, where else is there that could possibly be better... 

...He gently corrals that line of thought, because yes it's true that some of the million things he was trying-not-to-see were his own emotions, but he thinks that isn't the part to prioritize during a limited-duration spell, if it's unresolved he can ask Carissa for another Owl's Wisdom later. Maybe a while later. It turns out this spell is utterly exhausting. 

And it's massively throwing off his time-sense, apparently, when all his thoughts want to keep unfolding and unpacking themselves or diving deeper into themselves. It feels like it should have taken five minutes to cover all of that but he suspects it was much less. There's something scary about that thought and no he's not looking at it yet feelings later focus– 

He notices that he's gritting his teeth, and tries to stop. "Carissa. How long has it been. How long is left." 

" - it's been a ninth of the time the spell lasts. I can dispel it, if you don't like it, or if it's, uh, bumping into your loyalty-compulsions to the Emperor - that is the kind of thing it does, I should've warned you -"

"No. It is - all right for now." It's not actually running into his loyalty compulsions, particularly; he can notice the shape of them in his mind, the directions they tug, but it's never been something he was trying not to look at, and he's not confused; he designed the compulsions himself. He wouldn't be able to make actual concrete plans to defect against the Empire, or leave, or take the current Emperor's place, but other than that, his at least do not particularly restrict his thoughts. Altarrin needs his own mind as intact as possible. 

They are probably related to some of why it hurts so much, but - only some. 

"...Please count off each minute to me as it passes," he says, his voice level and expression unflappable again. "If I - stop acknowledging you at at any point - then please dispel it then. Or if it appears to be having some very bad effect." He will have to trust her judgement on that. 

So. Carissa. 

He has so many unanswered questions: about Golarion, about magic, about her history, about how, exactly, Keltham changed her after his arrival, and what gave her the courage to think at all, and then to - set herself on a course to oppose Asmodeus, it must have been so dangerous - still will be, for the version of her that stayed behind minus some memories, if she's right about how that works. 

What did she say...

We deceived Keltham for three months, but then he figured it out and exercised his compacted right to depart, and I was in charge of managing the project in his absence. I had some disturbing realizations that made me less useful to my superiors, decided to set myself on a more practical course and then erase my memory.

And what didn't she say? He has less clarity on her unspoken thoughts, relayed through Ellitrea, but:

1. Her realization that circumstances had changed, that Asmodeus' victory was no longer guaranteed.

(If it had ever really been at all, or was that claim always Chelish propaganda?) (And the relevance, the analogy to Altarrin and Velgarth's situation, is obvious - but it hurts, and that isn't obvious, it's not straightforwardly a compulsion-conflict -) 

2. Realizing that she was fighting on the wrong side.

(Assumption: that it mattered which side she fought on; that she was powerful and clever and knowledgeable enough to be a huge advantage to her allied side, if not necessarily decisive on her own, but - her choices could be decisive and she was able to realize that, recognize it, see the opportunity and the stakes and - 

- and he needs that Carissa here but at the same time his mind is trying to flinch away scaredscaredscared and he knows he's not looking at what's beneath that, maybe with an even bigger Wisdom boost he would make that leap but he isn't, yet) 

3. Realizing that Keltham was already going to take the fight to Asmodeus, and would risk destroying the world. Or the multiverse. 

(And she thought that she had ended up somewhere worse, she was thinking that if Keltham knew that then he would be less careless, and it's really no mystery at all why this hurts, but while under a mind-altering spell is really not the best time to ask her if she still feels that way now that she's had some time to get settled and read the histories)

4. She thought none of it would make sense to him; that they would see her as an insane and useless slave.

(Ouch.)

(Carissa increments her countdown and he acknowledges her, even though for the most part he feels very far away from this room, right now.) 

Ilanism, she was calling it in her head, the thing she expected him to be missing, the reason she thought none of her choices would make sense to her interrogators. Philosophy - no, something much broader than a philosophy, and at the same time more concrete, she talked about mental techniques, sometimes she thought to herself that she was using such techniques. Out of Keltham's world but no longer confined to it; Carissa was conceiving of it as something she could learn and teach. 

And she's wrong. Everything he's seen in her, does make sense to him. Keltham doesn't, yet, but obviously that's a flaw in Altarrin's understanding, not Keltham. He may or may not have access to enough of the key information, from here, and either way all of it would be flowing through Carissa, and so Carissa is still the important question to ask. 

She was horrified about their afterlife situation, or lack thereof. That surprised him, even when he already knew that her feelings on the destruction of her world or her multiverse were 'strongly against'. It...feels like new information, like a new piece to add that will suddenly connect two still-disparate halves of a puzzle in progress and change what he sees. Even though it's the same generator, she wants to exist and keep existing forever and she generalizes that, she wants it for everyone else too. 

What would she think of him if she knew the truth: that he had found immortality, if messily, and then kept it to himself - worse, stolen the bodies of children, relegating them to whatever dark and empty place the gods store dead souls in.

(It's been three minutes.)

Would she say that he hadn't tried hard enough

He didn't. It's suddenly obvious; seven hundred years, and he never made the leap that Carissa, who must only be in her twenties and was raised in a country under the tyranny of Asmodeus and Hell, made as soon as their deception with Keltham fell apart. He still isn't sure exactly how she pulled that off–

...no, he knows exactly what it took: she must have been sure enough her mind wasn't being read. He's seen what her mind does when she knows it's being read by someone with power over her. And she must have cast this spell on herself, obviously she did, because apparently the entire thing this spell DOES is make you notice when you've spent the last months, years, centuries fighting on the wrong side. 

Altarrin is holding himself more still than almost any mortal can, barely breathing, his expression gone completely blank, but he acknowledges the four-minute mark.

They were supposed to be having a conversation right now. That was what he was saying immediately before he asked her to cast the spell, he said it would help, except here he is, definitely incapable of having a conversation using his actual mouth. 

She apologized for not already knowing how to fix it. Meaning that she thought it was reasonable, in principle, to expect herself to know how to fix it. 

...His mind wants so badly to flinch away from accepting the conclusion that he needs to fix it, but it's an empty thought, because he already has accepted it. He can recognize that, now, that he was already resigned to it a long time ago. 

The Empire is going to fail. 

Oh, not necessarily in the sense that it falls into disorder, or fragments, or is conquered. Just in the sense that it's not what he needs for this war, and probably never could have been, not when he was building it without the full scale of the problem in mind. He let the gods corral his Empire onto the narrow path that suited Them, and it's - there are ways you could tally up the numbers that make it worth it - but it's not, it's not, it's - 

WHY is this the narrow path that suited the gods? He - feels like he has the information to piece that together, and with it a key part of Their motives, and he can notice his confusion in stark clarity, see the negative space of those unfinished thoughts, but he's, infuriatingly, not smart enough to hold all of the puzzles pieces up in his mind at once and fit them together. 

The Empire was worth trying, he thinks; it wasn't a mistake to found it six hundred years ago, and he doesn't think it was even a mistake to be as ruthless as he needed for his people to survive, though gods he was failing to weigh all the elements that go into that tradeoff, he feels like such an idiot and it's really kind of ironic, how intensely this spell is making him feel like an idiot. He's tired and he sets that aside and he's so angry and he sets that aside and he's in so so much pain that he hasn't let himself feel in so long and he sets that aside too. 

Carissa is telling him that it's been five minutes, which means he's more than halfway through his time, and he can't stop here but he can't keep going, either - something is conflicting with his compulsions, now, and he could navigate that if he had any attention to spare but he's holding onto so many fragments already. 

"Would you lend me your headband as well," he says, calmly, pleasantly. "Only for the remaining time on the Owl's Wisdom spell." 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

It's not like he can't just take it - 

- he probably won't want to give it back -

- she can make another -

- she's going to die and have her self wiped away and be reincarnated without memories, if she makes any mistakes in this world - she's not sure if that's the kind of thing she should expect to feel like waking elsewhere, or not -

"...it's not easy for me to part from, my lord - I could make you one -"

His eyes focus on her more intently, as though he's suddenly actually seeing her again, instead of - whatever it is he was seeing, before, that was clearly not the room. Or particularly set in the present. 

"...I understand. For what it is worth, I give you my oath that I will return it to you within - I will commit to within ten minutes of when the Owl's Wisdom spell ends, perhaps sooner if I am no longer finding it as useful once that wears off. I am not going to take it against your will because - that is not the kind of working relationship I wish to build with you and it seems actually very very important that we - can work together. And after this I think I will want to explain things to you and I am worried you will find it harder to keep up without the enhancement you are used to. If you are not willing to part with it then I can wait until you make another, or - try to figure this out anyway more slowly with your remaining Owl's Wisdom spells. I would prefer to do the faster version because I am worried there is time-sensitivity and you will be in danger if I miss any precautions I ought be taking, and separately - this is not a decisive consideration but the process is deeply unpleasant." 

He says all of this very quickly because he does not have a lot of time for this left. 

What kind of working relationship precludes taking her stuff. Is he Keltham. 

But if he's noticed some terrible danger, it'd be foolish, to deny him the resources to think about it. 

She takes it off, and hands it to him, with an expression that makes it evident she'd more happily have severed and relinquished her arm.

He puts it on.

The difference is immediate and obvious. It feels a little like combat-adrenaline, the way that everything is suddenly crisp and clear and time seems to slow down - in a way that feels precise, as though he can count off each heartbeat, very different from with the Owl's Wisdom alone - and yet it's completely different, with none of the narrowing-of-focus. He suspects that perhaps if he had this enhancement alone, without the Wisdom, it might become easy to lose himself in the details of a specific mathematical problem, but it's not in isolation - 

- no wonder Carissa was so reluctant to take it off, no wonder her expression when she relented looked like that of a woman going willingly to her execution - it's going to feel like dying, isn't it, when this ends. 

Not that it matters. He's died before. 

Focus. 

The pain is still there, the corners and pathways of resistance in his mind from the tugging compulsions are still there, but he has so much more thought now, he can hold that in his attention and still, calmly, think about the problem. 

It's suddenly incredibly obvious why the Eastern Empire is the way it is. Like one of those optical illusions, snapping into place and now he won't ever unsee it, even though he never understood before. 

It's simple, really. Two opposing forces. His goals and vision: for a safe, prosperous, lawfully run, thriving Empire, possessed of an abundance of mages, permanent Gates in every town and mage-lights in every home and all of its children literate and nobody starving pointlessly in the cold, not ever ever again. 

And the second: the gods of Velgarth, nudging and tugging, not directly away from his own vision, but away from - something that usually correlates with it - and so the Empire isn't Tantara and never will be, it's wealthy and its children learn to read but it's not...free, even though in all his experience before that point, prosperity was a prerequisite for freedom. 

(Cheliax, too, is wealthy and unfree, and it's not for the same reason but the analogy might have helped.)

The Empire falls over and over toward the attractor where, for all their Palaces and mage-lights and reliably excellent crop yields, nobody is allowed to think. Their constraints are more nebulous than hunger and poverty: it's social, political, and of course the more direct compulsions. And so the Empire always falls toward this groove, and - it feels like he can extrapolate it out for a thousand years if he wants, with at least moderate confidence. Dynasties will rise and fall, rebellions will boil up and be crushed, civil wars will kill some of the best and brightest of every general but not everyone, and the Empire, this vast machine he built only half-knowing what he was doing, will endure. The Empire is a stable structure and that's the point, it was the one place where he and the gods could agree. 

Stability, because - of course, because They see the world through Foresight, and of course it's going to be blurrier, less useful, if things are changing too fast and the future is too uncertain. You get that with human Foreseers, too. He could probably have guessed this as early as during his first life, when he was only Ma'ar, fighting a doomed war with his former teacher, and toward the end none of his Foreseers were of any use. 

The gods didn't see the Cataclysm coming. Altarrin has no absolute logical proof of that, but he thinks the balance of evidence favors it.

Tantara was wealthy and free and flourishing, and the gods at the time allowed it, and then Urtho's brilliance and Ma'ar's arrogance took it past some critical point of no return - 

(A quiet mental note, that thought feels off, incomplete and wrongly framed and mostly wrapped around a core of self-blame and grief.) 

- but some line was crossed and suddenly the gods were blind, and no one saw the Cataclysm in time to stop it. 

To the extent that gods can be terrified (and they probably can't, it's forcing fundamentally alien beings into a human ontology, but there must be some analogy) it would have been terrifying. 

No wonder it seemed worth spilling blood, to Them (if They can even care out - or see at all - the human lives lost, Altarrin doesn't think he has enough information to draw a confident conclusion either way, and shouldn't get too stuck in any guesses based off incomplete picture.) Altarrin's made that tradeoff himself. 

But the gods are doing it wrong. It's not enough. The Empire will never be enough (and he had to fight Them every step of the way even for that), and the rest of the world is worse, and - 

- Carissa's horror about it helped bring it into clarity. People are dying, every day, and there's nowhere for them to land, nothing to catch and hold them and give them ongoing experiences - but they're not gone, he knows indirectly via spying and rumor that the Shin'a'in shamans claim to be able to speak with, or at least interact-in-some-way-with, the spirits of their people's dead. And he thinks he understands Keltham's theory of people, when they truly cease to exist, waking up in a different place, but the dead souls of Velgarth won't even have that. Only murky faded fragments, so much less than he gets, which is already so far from enough. 

(He doesn't remember Urtho's face, anymore.) 

He - probably could try harder, or at least more creatively, or at least in more costly ways, to cross the vast inferential gap, to convey to the gods how and why the current state of the world is unacceptable. 

He's not really expecting it to work, though– 

No, that's a wrong thought as well...

Only the gods get a seat at Their negotiation table. 

Is that what Carissa was planning in Golarion, as well? He should ask her if her world offers a way to create new gods to specification, or to become a new god oneself– no, he shouldn't ask her right now, the negative space of his confusion says that there must be, and besides he has only ninety seconds or so left before the new smarter Altarrin dies before he will be in a much worse position to think original thoughts, but in a better position to get Carissa's thoughts on the situation, since she'll have her headband back. 

This isn't Golarion. Magic is fundamentally different; an absurdly oversimplified gloss on it is that, here, magic doesn't allow you to cheat, it doesn't let you pull information and intelligence from nothingness.

Though Carissa's magic seems to work anyway, and maybe it's learnable– it should be learnable, that's another thing that didn't explicitly come up in her words or thoughts but feels suddenly obvious in context - but even that might not be enough, the gods of Velgarth are different as well, Carissa's magic might only work up to a certain point, he has to assume a worst-case scenario where his only powers and resources are the ones he already has, and the ones that Carissa already has right now. 

Is there still a way to move forward, claim a place at the gods' negotiating-table...