"My compact with Asmodeus for the throne of Cheliax had many terms, but the only one that matters is: that He gets to have his fun, and I mine. And, frankly, I've begun to think that just winning all the time has to be no fun for Him. You don't even level that way."

We're, uh, kind of concerned about your definition of 'fun', but bookmarking that and the 'leveling' thing to come back to later: are you in fact willing to help us overthrow the Governance of Cheliax, which, as we understand it, is optimizing its population for eternal damnation? We understand you were someone of importance there.

Sure!

(This planet can obviously curb-stomp Cheliax if they want, with or without her help, but is way too fucking paladin-y to stand a chance against her irresistible schemes of corruption. If she's alive to attempt them. And then she gets to have an empire in two universes.)

We'll discuss the details of that later. In the meantime: leveling? (They really desperately need information on how the ass magic works and this sounds possibly related.)

"In Golarion, a magic-user grows in power by—using magic while at the limits of their physical and mental endurance. The prevailing theory is that being in such a state allows the body to absorb magic it would otherwise refuse to, or something like that. It's widely believed that the requisite state requires being in actual danger and is impossible to induce intentionally, even in others, without actually meaning to harm them. This is, in fact, false. It merely requires very great skill on the part of the inducer." Her tone makes it very obvious that she considers herself to have this very great skill.

Back in metaphorical Keeper group chat:

[Why is everything about today such a GIANT PILE OF TROPES?]

[Did you really expect a wizard invasion to NOT be a giant pile of tropes??]

[What are you even talking about?]

[... you do know who she landed on, right?]

[...]

[... yeah.]

[She DEFINITELY has some sort of ero powers. And I'll give you 100:1 she's a sexual-sadist.]

[Also she landed on Merrin NAKED, did the briefing mention that?]

[Well yes because she ESCAPED FROM CRYO]

[Obviously tropes always have in-universe justifications for happening]

[Unfortunately I'm not sure her home universe has heard of consent or even knows how to]

[I'm not saying to set them up on a date, just—]

[That it'll happen whether we want it to or not?]

[NO because this is NOT AN ERO-LARP]

[... are you sure?]

[Admittedly not but I would still like to register my objection to feeding Merrin to the ero!witch]

[Literally no one is suggesting that]

(Someone has pressed the ORDER button, which prevents all chat members from sending messages for ten seconds.)

When Merrin wakes, she has a message saying to go to [this location] when she's ready for her debrief.

Merrin is a little bleary. It takes even her more than one night's sleep to fully recover from a day like yesterday, because, wow, WHAT a day.

Also it's starting to sink in that she can't LEAVE, which is...mostly just surreal, rather than something she has actual emotions about. 

...ALSO she is now distracted remembering how the patient is super attractive. This...is not something Merrin normally finds distracting?? It's really baffling and feels undignified. 

She will get herself something to eat and then report to the specified location, not necessarily moving fast because she is, in fact, physically still tired after yesterday, and has an overall-pleasant-and-satisfying but definitely noticeable degree of muscle soreness. That happens when you spend an entire day climbing icy mountains, no matter how fit you are. 

They don't actually need any factual information from Merrin at this point, they got most of the incident details from the other medtechs, but they'd like to know how Merrin is feeling about the whole situation?

(In part they're looking for traces of continued mind-affecting magic, and in part for evidence on how Merrin might feel about being more involved in this situation before telling her additional secrets. Obviously, they don't tell her this yet, because her responses will be more informative that way.)

She, uh, is definitely thrown-off-balance by the unexpectedness of suddenly landing in a grade-six-infohazard type situation! Merrin systems she'll have more emotions about that later, once it's sunk in fully. Right now her emotional state is mostly....very confused, and really desperately curious? She isn't going to press if they don't think she needs to know, but she does really want to know what the supercooled waste site is going on with the patient's weird physiology. And also whether the patient is going to be okay? She's pretty invested in that? 

The patient is conscious and expected to make a full recovery; that much isn't any more secret than the whole rest of the case.

They're a little bit concerned about exposing Merrin to anything more, because she is in fact too famous to quarantine for any significant length of time; people would notice. (They know that Merrin hates hearing this but it is in fact a live concern that she needs to be tracking.) But they have, on the other hand, identified something that needs doing in this situation that Merrin is kind of implausibly perfect for? She's approved to know some of what's going on, if she's potentially interested in doing that thing. It does carry a small risk of having to be quarantined for a much longer period, though, and she would be expected to cooperate fully with anything they have to do to make her absence seem non-suspicious to the public, in addition to all the usual secrecy oaths.

Wow! Oh good Merrin is so relieved!

(She is pleased enough that the patient is recovering that she is not even particularly upset at them calling her "too famous" for something, which would normally be very aaaaaaah. Partly the entire situation is...kind of just too surreal to parse as actual reality with implications about her normal day to day life, as opposed to a weird sim, or maybe even a bizarre alternatephysics novel.) 

...She, um, maybe needs a few minutes to think about that, if she has to make a decision with literally only that information? If they think she's really well-suited for some important task here, she believes them - they have the full record of all her certs - but she is not even a little bit managing to picture what. 

Obviously there's alternatephysics involved in the thing. The existence of that isn't secret from her, since she's now seen it with her own eyes. But sure, she can have a few minutes to think.

....Huh. Merrin does a quick mental search of all the alternatephysics settings she knows about, and - nope it's still not obvious to her how her qualifications are applicable. 

On the one hand: wow Merrin cannot possibly be qualified for whatever it is they want her to do! She's not important enough for that! Aaaaah!!!

...On the other hand: she is sort of ready to explode with curiosity. And she does, in fact, kind of want a reason - an excuse, if she's entirely honest with herself - to stay involved in the situation and look at the patient's face again why is her brain DOING this.

If she would be providing something valuable for Civilization, that seems worth the potential risk of...whatever it is they're worried about that could require a much longer quarantine. Her mom would forgive her if she knew what was really going on. Also, she feels actively motivated and wants to stick around. 

Now can they tell her what the thing is? 

So, recently, Civilization made contact with a—basically you would call it a fantasy setting, though it doesn't really resemble any fantasy setting ever invented in dath ilan. The people there look human. They're still studying whether that's anything more than an appearance. (Not said to Merrin: probably if it were a fake fantasy setting created by hostile aliens to optimize over dath ilan, it would look more like dath ilani fantasy settings, and also less OBVIOUSLY EVIL.)

Also, it turns out their alternatephysics is maybe not so 'alternate', because it works fine in dath ilan. They're still studying whether it's safe, and indeed possible in general for unspecial people to learn, and a lot of things could happen that could make this proposal not work out, but. One thing they did discover is that magic users gain power by using their magic at the limits of their physical and mental endurance. And since Merrin already pushes herself to her limits as part of her regular job, and landed (kind of suspiciously?) in the middle of the situation anyway, they could in fact learn a lot at a relatively small cost, if Merrin could learn some magic so they can study the process.

....Huh. That is - weird and not what Merrin was expecting. And definitely not a cert she has. But magic powers do sound really cool and if she can get stronger magic powers by pushing herself really hard, Merrin will admit that maaaaaaybe she is unusually qualified for that. How do you start learning the magic? 

They will—get back to her on that? They just made contact yesterday and the research team they sent to figure things out just left this morning and won't be back until tomorrow morning.

- right, of course, sorry for being impatient. They can let her know when they have more to go on. 

(In the meantime Merrin will go back to her room, and be desperately curious and also kind of resentful that they aren't letting her talk to the patient.)

Meanwhile, the research team:

A Gate opens on the frozen tundra, on the outer perimeter of the Worldwound. This isn't an ideal location but it's the only location in Golarion Athpechya knew well enough to target that was not, in fact, in Cheliax. (She wasn't entirely sure that it was a real place, having only seen it in a god-induced vision, but it was worth a try.)

The team consists of Athpechya, mostly to get them there, Therril, to negotiate with Iomedae, and three mid-rank Keepers, to discover as much information about this world from as many independent sources as they can. The plan is to stay until Athpechya can get new spells to get them back, or longer if a reason to do so arises.

Their strange clothing, and the rank-insignia-circlets most of them are wearing, which kind of look like slightly exotic cognitive-enhancement headbands, will give most Golarians they encounter the impression that this is a party of high-level casters from possibly another planet.

All of them have Tongues up, thanks to Athpechya. Ideally they would wait until actually encountering people to cast it, since it will only last a little over three hours, but Athpechya is unfortunately forbidden from casting any spells in Golarion that aren't planar travel out of Golarion.

The first human life they encounter is a party of Chelish Hellknights.

—who immediately stop, and kneel as well as their armor will allow.

"Most High?" one of them ventures.

Athpechya switches on her supervillainess gendertrope, and declares ominously:

"Silence, fools. I am about our Lord's business. Begone!"

... they do be going.

"What was that about?"

"Don't ask."