"It was excellent. Thank you."

        "The roast was overdone."

"Félix thanks you as well."

The bird is the one they can still mindread, so this doesn't escape them at all, but he nods politely. "What...is Félix, if I may ask? Intelligent beings that prefer to take the form of an animal are very rare here." 

"Félix is a magpie."

      " – a very rational thing to be, too. I don't go around asking people why they prefer to take the form of elongated apes who can't fly." 

Slight smile. 

"He's my familiar. Wizards in my world have the ability to endow an animal with a portion of our own souls. It makes them sapient and allows them to assist us in our magic." 

" - huh! So he's -- part of you?"

"Possibly. What I've just said is the most common explanation, but – " 

       " – does it look like I'm part of him?"

" – the process isn't especially well understood. We don't share thoughts, he has his own goals and desires – "

       " – some people think that's just what you want and can't admit, but I say they're full of it – " 

"It's complicated." 

"Understood. The bath's ready, if you'd like me to show you over. Your world sounds like it has - fascinating magic. We are very lucky, that you arrived here." He does not entirely sound like he believes this.

That's fair, Élie's not totally sold on this either. 

"Please do."

He'll make small talk along the way, for the benefit of interested Galtan-learners. The bathing room is, of course, elaborate; the water is hot. They leave him to it.

Élie is also paying attention to their Quenya. He'd like to rely on the creepy inexplicable telepathy as little as possible, thanks. The bath's nice. 

They have some adequately human-sized robes for him by the end of the bath. They're lovely. Very comfortable. They have a tiny hat for Félix, too, if he cares to wear it.

       "No."

"Please. Please. You have to."

        "No way."

"But it's adorable – "

        "My point exactly."

"...I will prestidigitate it gold."

The supervising Quendi does not seem in a rush. In fact no Quendi so far have seemed in any sense in a rush.

When they emerge, Félix is wearing the hat. 

Then they'll show him to the Prince Curufinwë, whose office is - of course - spacious and luxurious with a view to the north and a painted-view of a lake under the stars.

"Elie Cotonnet," he says, in nearly perfect Galtan. "Thank you for joining me. This is a very strange situation; I confess some uncertainty what to make of it."

Oh, is this what we're doing? Fine. Élie will respond in worse Quenya. (And send his meaning telepathically, he's not that much of an optimist). 

"I wish I could make things clearer. I've already told your men what I know." 

His face - twitches, at that. And then he smiles, and corrects the Quenya. 

"I might even believe you," he agrees, cheerfully enough. "And yet it seems that this has to be the work of the Enemy, not that I have any idea what he gains by it. Can you tell me about - the place you're from, the human civilization?"

Élie can keep speaking Quenya, then. He doesn't like to embarrass himself, but the quicker he can master their language, the better it'll go for him. (It doesn't matter if they speak Galtan; until he speaks Quenya they'll still see him as a performing ape).

"There's a great deal to tell. What sorts of things would you like to know?" 

"All of it, really, but I suppose I'd start with whether the Enemy is at work there, and if so what you are doing about it."

"My civilization knows of many gods, some of whom are more more powerful than others, some of whom are more concerned with the lives of mortals on Golarion than others. Asmodeus is one of the oldest and most powerful of these gods – at least, his followers claim he is, but in this case I have no reason to doubt it. He rules over Hell, the Lawful Evil afterlife. 

About a century ago, another one of our gods was killed. This god, Aroden, was an ascended human. In life he had ruled over the empire of Cheliax; as a god, he protected it. When he died, it fell to Asmodeus's servants. Cheliax is a large nation, as we consider these things – about thirty million subjects. The sole aim of its rulers is to ensure that the greatest possible number of these subjects will be condemned to Hell when they die. I'm certain that Asmodeus has other interests on Golarion, and on many other worlds besides, but that's the one I'm most concerned with. 

I was born in Galt when it was still a province of Cheliax. Five years ago, we expelled them and declared our independence. We – I mean, my friends and colleagues in the Galtan government – would like to finish the job and drive the Asmodeans out of Cheliax entirely. Or make peace with them if they agree to recognize our independence. Or go even farther and make the whole continent and patchwork of sister republics – this is mostly academic, since we can barely hold our own borders as things stand. 

I don't know if our Asmodeus is your Enemy. Certainly they – rhyme." 

"Indeed. And yet I haven't heard of Hell, and we think our mortals go no where when they die, and it does not seem to be a great concern of the Enemy. And - 

- our other gods haven't spoken of this, of other worlds, and it would surprise me a little, if Melkor operated there without their knowledge. They'd imprisoned him for a time. I'd think that'd have affected his operations elsewhere."

"Then he certainly isn't Asmodeus. Maybe an archdevil, one of his more powerful servants.

Do you know that your mortals don't have an afterlife, or have just not found one yet? My civilization doesn't know if all mortals from all worlds go to the same set of afterlives, but we know they pull from more than just Golarion. There are spells known to us that could verify this, but I'm not powerful enough to cast them." 

"We don't know. We think they don't go to the place Quendi go to when our bodies are destroyed, but - we have very little ability to guess, beyond that. We have no spells that could verify it."

"Mortals on Golarion have nine afterlives. They correspond to the fundamental moral alignments, which I'm just now realizing might not be a concept you have – we've got two axes, Good to Evil  and Lawful to Chaotic, one can be neutral on either. The goddess Pharasma decides which one best matches the character we displayed when we lived. 

The Good and Neutral afterlives are – fine. Some of them are much nicer than others, and reasonable people might disagree about where they'd like to spend eternity. The neutral and chaotic evil planes are horrors, but most souls sent there get eaten by more powerful outsiders and permanently destroyed, so that's a limit to how dreadful they can be. Souls in Hell are just tortured for eternity. They tell us that the best and luckiest eventually become devils themselves – but Asmodeus is, among other things, the god of lies." 

" - well, all right. I guess once you've figured out how to kill one god you've probably figured out how to kill them all."