Ione Sala, sixth-circle oracle of Nethys and still but a second-circle wizard, does now walk the planes once more, again in company, not quite the same company she had last time.

She sends a thought through a Telepathic Bond, one that can slip through a Sevar-modified Mind Blank spell made to be permeable to only divinations that Carissa Sevar has cast.  (It is still an eighth-circle spell, and not one that could be revealed to any outside eighth-circle-wizard; so it is cast each time via Wish, by an increasingly shocked efreeti who did not realize quite what service she was agreeing to in Golarion.)

What is it with you, ships, and fire? she sends.

Fe-Anar has of course never in his life encountered a ship before, much the less a ship on fire, much the less caused problems thereby. He doesn't bother pointing this out. Nefreti Clepati is just like that too. She has enough of a handle on it - on what is real here and what is real somewhere else Nethys can see -- that she's only annoying on purpose, but Ione doesn't even have that much of a handle and might well be annoying by accident.

Just throw some diamonds at them and let's go find a new ship, he sends back.

...while keeping firmly in mind, this time, that we are in the Elemental Plane of Fire and if you encounter a ship that is already on fire, it is probably supposed to be on fire and you should not try to put it out.

In Ione's defense, Nefreti only warned her to make sure that Fe-Anar did not set any ships on fire, without making it clear to Ione that there was a generalizable issue there.

All right, but if somehow that works out horrendously it's entirely your fault.

Ione will pay over a small amount of platinum to pay for the damage caused - no diamonds being required, here; Fe-Anar does not seem to have a strong grasp of concepts like "negotiating the price downward, even if you currently have more money than that, rather than appearing conspicuous by throwing money at a problem until it goes away".

Then they'll go on looking through the City of Brass -

Fommok Madinah. Some people don't speak Ignan but everyone Fe-Anar's been interacting with recently has Tongues and so no excuse. And even if you were to insist on translating it, 'City of Brass' is a horrendous one, and the popular supposed close-translation, 'Devouring City', hardly better. It's Fommock with an ɤ, not an ɤ̞ -

- for anything resembling a planar ship that could sail the Maelstrom, keeping an eye out for quintuple-Wish-sequence sellers along the way.

Their path crosses the form of what appears to be an old woman in white, wearing something like a blindfold made of old and rusted metal, leaning against a brass post of a great brass building.

As the two planar travelers pass her, she lifts her head, and if not for the rusted blindfold her gaze would point at Fe-Anar.

"You will not find in this city what you are seeking here," says she in Ignan.

"What," Fe-Anar says automatically, "anything I think of seeking?"

Possibly a slight trace of a smile flickers on the old woman's lips. "I spoke of what you are seeking. Not of what you have sought or will seek."

"Right," says Fe-Anar, slightly disappointed as this implies much less power to manipulate the markets of the City of Brass. "Who are you and why should we care what you say?"

"To you, I will seem at first like a strange entity who knows too much.  Your business is secret, and you will wonder if I know even more.  I will say that I know you mean to buy thirty Wishes, and you'll think that I could have guessed this by tracing the paths of the six travelers who came to this city before.  I will say that I know you are looking for a ship that can sail the Maelstrom, and you will think that anyone who was spying on your current trip could have learned this.  It will still concern you, and so you will care what I say."

"Well, then, say it, we're in a hurry."

"You're looking for a ship that can sail beyond the Maelstrom into the primordial chaos that lies outside Creation.  And you are not seeking to do this only from curiosity or an exploratory spirit or from chafing under Pharasma's restrictions.  You fear that Pharasma's Creation might end, for reasons ultimately springing from that same anomaly which enabled you to obtain so many diamonds; and you are trying to live on, to ensure that something born of Creation survives."

All right, he's paying attention. But he's annoyed about it.

Ione is a lot more concerned than that, terrified even.  Nefreti didn't warn her about this and Ione does know, by this point, in a general sort of way, that things have gone off-track from what was Supposed To Have Happened.  And Fe-Anar has less Bluff than zero somehow, and is now visibly Paying Attention in order to clearly inform this entity that its guess was correct.  About a piece of information that Nethys and His allies have spent some really incredibly extraordinary efforts to keep confined only to beings who won't or can't use that information.

Outwardly, Ione will not look terrified, or annoyed, or bone-horrified, about any of these things respectively, because Ione has more Bluff than zero.

"In honesty, I know more.  All of that, is only what I could and would have guessed even if I knew no more.  It is only what I would have predicted and foretold in any case, through my having considered in advance how Creation might end or how others might seek to escape its ending; and having always kept a watch on the City of Brass, with certain agents."

"To notice when someone seems like they might be buying too many Wishes, in those planar markets that sell those - to set watch upon those purveyors that someone might wrongly imagine could sell an ark in which to flee a dying Creation - if I had to make the reasoning sound reasonable in mortal terms, I might tell that story."

You deal with it, Fe-Anar says through the telepathic bond to Ione. I have already expended all my tolerance for Nethysians.

I'll try, but I think it's focused on you, and I'm sure it's not a Nethysian.

"What more do you know?" Ione asks it.

The old woman goes on addressing Fe-Anar.  "Even if you could find here a vessel to sail the Maelstrom, it would disintegrate within hours once exposed to the blind eternities beyond.  To truly escape Pharasma's grasp is more difficult than you realize.  I tried, in my own time.  To forge an ark like that is a millennium's work for a god; and even then, to endure beyond Creation it must be protected by somewhat of those energies that underlie creation itself."

"If I did not know more I would say to you, that I did not think you had all the resources required to it, but that I considered it worth my time to inquire."

"If I did not know more I would say to you, that even if I concluded that you stood a chance, the price of my own knowledge and aid was not only my own place among the refugees, but that I and my husband would take with our chosen people, and we would also lead in that expedition - so I would demand, for there are greater resources required to this work than diamonds."

"In fact, I do know more.  But I must play out how things would have gone otherwise."

"Right," says Fe-Anar, with genuine irritation now, "then, I'd say that I don't believe you and you're wasting my time, and that I don't care at all what the gods say is impossible, because the word of the gods isn't worth the paper it isn't written on, and that you can come along if you're useful but you're not in charge of a damn thing, because I'm not going to all this trouble just to obey some new equally tedious god."

"And I would smile a little, then, but briefly, before I told you that I knew where to find the ark you will not find in this city."

"You being already from Golarion, I would not need to explain the Starstone to you.  I would ask instead if you had the strength to pass the lesser of the Starstone's two tests, and reach the Starstone in its Cathedral - as have many previous souls who touched it and were never seen again."

"But those are the less impossible requisites.  The energy that sustains Creation can be found in Pharasma, in Pharasma's Spire, above all in the Seal at the base of the Spire, and in very few other places.  I'd inquire of you where you meant to lay your hands on it."

"I can't fathom why I'd answer any of those questions, or for that matter why you'd ask them."

"And I'd reply that I was, possibly, interested in having you join with me to escape Creation - or less probably, that I might join with you, though that would require you to have greater resource than I expected.  But that I was interested in fairly weighing the measure of our contributions, with neither of us seeking to dominate the other by force."

"If you can escape Creation entirely without my aid?  Then I and my husband are but two would-be passengers upon your vessel, prepared to pay any fair price you ask and submit to any lawful governance; and we know others interested as well."