That seems almost certainly true. She doesn't know exactly what all the things like that are, but some things she picked up through the interactions she's had with people from Predain include that assurances of good intentions are not at all reassuring to them, next to descriptions of concrete incentives to not hurt them; that they are very attuned to signs of being held in contempt or disrespected, and expect those; that most things people say to them seem to be probably some complicated game they don't know and don't trust. 

That makes sense. He'll reconsider who to send for talks based on that, and plausibly Iomedae should also talk to them beforehand?

It's a bit hard, because obviously it doesn't help to treat the citizens of Predain with contempt, but it's...sort of hard to genuinely respect people who are very clearly lacking a lot of things that Tantara considers a key part of being competent adults, like "not responding to accidental insults with threats to kill your family." 

Cultures like that are very bad for the people in them and often the people who have to interface with them! It's not exactly a matter of being an adult or not an adult, though; if the best way to deescalate and keep the peace is with being credibly ready to defend your interest with violence, then adults will do that; it'd be foolish not to and then have a lot of unnecessary violence happen because you failed to be credible. 

It feels sort of like an inherent contradiction, for 'being ready to do violence' to be the best way to avoid violence? Urtho isn't going to argue about this, though. He is very grateful for Iomedae's advice and hopeful that with her help this will go well. 

Is there anything else they should talk about now? (It's been a longish conversation for him and he's starting to look droopy again.) 

Well, there's not a lot of violence when Iomedae is around, because people know that if they start it she'll end it. It's kind of like that.

She doesn't think there's anything else important, and wishes him a swift recovery. 

And Iomedae can keep working on the superweapon relocation project - which is going much faster than the deconstruction, Urtho is planning to meet with some of his top mages later today to see if they can get to a point of being comfortable doing it without him present, but they're not hopeful - and exchanging messages with Predain on locations for peace talks, which seems on-track to be finalized for tomorrow. 

The Predain monitor is safely home and has met with Ma'ar and added her part to Iomedae's summary of what happened with Predain's troops – who are still currently in Tantaran territory, the badly-injured ones in the infirmary at General Judeth's camp and the uninjured ones in a temporary camp surrounded by mage-barriers and stressed-out Tantaran mages. They're working on proposals to get the Predain troops to not be there anymore, at least everyone stable enough to transport (which is really all but half a dozen, most of the very badly injured casualties didn't make it.) 

She can talk to gryphons. Talking to gryphons continues to be a fascinating communication exercise; the gryphons are an insular culture, and a very new one, and feel very different from the rest of Tantara. They are, for example, pretty sure that looking competent is mostly about doing really impressive aerial stunts. 

- around midday there is an urgent Mindspeech message from one of Urtho's people. Can she come to the weapon-storage location right now they can arrange a Gate to wherever she is. 

This is not even that unexpected but it is SUPER BAD. Yes absolutely.

They'll get her a Gate. 

One of the weapons is missing. It's a pretty straightforward one – it mostly just causes a very large very violent explosion. 

One of the guards on duty was also missing. He was pretty highly trusted (thus, being here at all).

The only other thing that stands out about him is that he is one of the worshippers of Vkandis. 

- possibly it is past time that Iomedae sat down with some priests of the local gods. She was told that their priests were not at all like priests at home, but. Nonetheless. It seems maybe very important that she understand Vkandis's interests in this war. Can anyone arrange that.

Aaaand she's going to put up some Protection from Energy (fire). Just, you know, better safe than sorry. She really dislikes having no healing and only those spells she can call back with a Pearl of Power.

They can arrange for her to talk to a priest of Vkandis, sure, though the temple priests who will be available aren't exactly involved in directly commanding the mage-units fighting in the Third Army, and also gods...do not normally take direct interest in wars, or at least don't clearly communicate Their direct interests in wars such that, for example, Their followers steal superweapons?? This is actually really weird and no one was expecting it. 

They can also arrange for her to talk to a high-ranked shaman of the Kaled'a'in people, who worship the Star-Eyed Goddess and also live in close proximity to Urtho's Tower. 

There are also other temple orders worshipping other gods, that are less present in Tantara – Bestet the Battle-Goddess (their temple order is mostly restricted to women and trains them in military disciplines, but they weren't very involved in this particular war), and the Twain (a paired god and goddess, or possibly two such pairs, or possibly just one pair with alternate aspects), and the Nameless God of Eternal Flame whose temples are very definitely not involved in this war, they're extremely pacifist. 

Good for them. Iomedae is not remotely a pacifist but she thinks it's good for some people to be so.

Before she goes to those meetings, she wants to write Urtho a lot of notes on the peace talks, such that there's a chance they don't collapse if the Church of Vkandis stole a superweapon specifically to use on her, which doesn't seem that improbable, and she wants to talk to Urtho and ask him if he happens to possess defenses against his superweapons. Or anything that'd improve her reflexes, that amounts to the same thing.

Urtho is DEEPLY ALARMED about this series of events and willing to talk to her immediately! 

He doesn't have anything that can improve her reflexes - he actually had no idea that was possible with magic, he might vaguely recall reading about Mindhealers who could do it but it'd be the work of years for them - and also would not, uh, really expect that to help if the worshippers of Vkandis really have stolen that particular weapon. It's a very very large fireball.

He can definitely load her down with every single variant of shield-talisman he's ever designed; they don't fully stack, but they provide different angles of protection. 

...Also, she's worked with gods in her world before, right? Does she have any idea what the goal might be, here, if it's actually related to Vkandis and not just something one of His priests did on their own initiative? Urtho has never heard of gods intervening like this and it's very concerning. 

- so, Vkandis wanting to kill her doesn't seem absurd, right, if He's opposed to her goals. Gods do try to arrange the death of their enemies for pretty much the same reasons anyone else does that. She doesn't know much about Vkandis's goals and his followers may not either, it's not as if he couldn't lie. The Church of Asmodeus lies about everything and one of Iomedae's major side projects is countering that on Golarion with a lot of proof that actually their god sucks and their afterlife sucks. 

It also seems possible that Vkandis just thinks Tantara shouldn't have custody of the superweapon and He should? There are countries where Aroden would order one of his people - not Iomedae because she's a paladin - to steal a superweapon, if there were one lying around.

It also seems possible that Vkandis can see something about the weapon which Urtho doesn't know. It might be much more dangerous than expected or something. 

And then there's the possibility that Predain arranged this - the assassin claimed not to have been serving them, but he could have been lying -- and this is Ma'ar's work, eliminating Iomedae as he will have noticed he needed to.

Anyway, Protection from Energy is a lot of fire resistance, and she can put Resist Energy on top of that for some more, and Urtho's talismans will probably mitigate it further, and she'll grow the angel wings again for the associated magical protection. It will very likely be fine. 

- and if it isn't, here are some notes for Urtho on the peace talks, and her sincere desire that he reach a peace no matter how stubborn and intransigent the other side is being. 

Also, now that the superweapons are no longer secret from at least some of their enemies, it's probably worth explicitly telling Ma'ar that the superweapons exist; she thinks it'll make him more cautious and inclined to keep the ceasefire rather than less so, plus if they get suddenly used in Predain she'd rather have warned him.

And is her thinking that if this was Ma'ar's explicit plan (not that this seems likely, even to the extent that Ma'ar made friends at the Tower it generally wasn't with anyone seriously religious) then telling him won't matter because he would already know? All of the rest seems fine, and Urtho is aware that he isn't very good at the paranoid kind of strategic thinking and probably Iomedae is ten steps ahead of him but he did want to check. If Iomedae still thinks it's overall the best plan to tell Ma'ar, then Urtho can definitely send that message. 

Yes, that's right. If this is Ma'ar trying to kill her, then he already knows of the superweapons and nothing much is lost by telling him; if this isn't, then her best assessment of him remains that he's well-intentioned and will be more cautious if he realizes that it's not, in fact, true that he was on the brink of winning the war so much as on the brink of motivating Urtho to desperate actions.

....That makes a lot of sense. 

(Urtho had...perhaps not thought through explicitly, in much depth, what exactly he might do if pushed to the brink of desperation. The thoughts he's now inevitably drifting toward are - not pleasant realizations.) 

He wishes her the best of luck in figuring out what actually happened and how to mitigate the danger. He is, as always, incredibly grateful for her help, and wishes he could help more but he's still not well enough to leave his bed.

(He does not quite reach the point of expressing, in actual words, an apology about having been the one to build all those superweapons in the first place.) 

The Kaled'a'in shamans are easiest to contact from Urtho's Tower. Several of them are available to meet Iomedae on short notice. 

The Protection from Energy is once per day, so she'll go into this one without it. These aren't the people expected to have the superweapons anyway.

She is honored to meet them, apologizes for not having arranged it sooner. She arrived only a few days ago and wanted to help Urtho end the war before it worsened. She'd be very honored if they could tell her about their god and any interests of their god in Tantara that she would, if she can, ensure are protected in the peace.

Silverhorse is the clan leader of the Kaled'a'in clan Taylesederin (which translates, roughly, as "the people of the hawk.") Ravenwing is his junior shaman and apprentice.

Lionwind of clan k'Leshya is willing to join them – he's of a different clan, but he happens to be available, and is a Mindspeaker, weak but strong enough to translate. 

They too are deeply honored to meet her, and would have many questions about her god if it were a better time for it, and they're eager to help in any way they can but it isn't usually the way they would think of it, that their Goddess has interests in Tantara, as opposed to in Her people. Can Iomedae perhaps be more specific? 

Well, Iomedae is going to try to negotiate a peace. She thinks this peace is in the interests of Tantara's people. But in her world, a god might be concerned specifically for their own religious orders, for a sacred site, for secret matters they don't want to tell her about, and so might prefer the war's continuation under certain circumstances, or might be unhappy that she was steering the peace. It - strikes her that recent events have been oddly timed and not served the interests of any of the involved humans, and sometimes that means the hand of something larger. So the question that concerns her immediately - with it understood that she also desires to grow to know them, and the teachings of their goddess, and plans to set aside much more time for it when the immediate emergency has passed - is whether she has given some offense, and whether some of her plans make their Goddess nervous, so she can fix that, and whether there are important interests of the Goddess which her work touches, so that she can do it better.

(Iomedae really dislikes most gods. Concealing this when engaged in religious negotiations is one of the main uses she has for dissembling. She doesn't know that this Goddess isn't perfectly lovely and doing Her best within Her constraints, aside from that they never are.)

Silverhorse will take the lead in speaking, though Lionwind has to translate for him. 

Their Goddess does not communicate often with Her people, or clearly. They're definitely not used to gods, uh, expressing opinions on international politics? If that happens regularly in Iomedae's world, that's - well, different. 

There are some things they can, nonetheless, infer: the Star-Eyed Goddess is concerned about Her people, and among them the Kaled'a'in clans, and since the Kaled'a'in are based in Tantara, the war and its effects on Tantara are probably relevant to Her. Given that, it would be kind of surprising for Iomedae to have given offense, since she is pretty clearly taking Tantara's side in this war. 

...If Iomedae isn't so much taking Tantara's side (which there have definitely been whispers of, not that Silverhorse quite says this out loud) – if Iomedae is pushing for a peace agreement that leaves Tantara making significant sacrifices that would end up affecting the Kaled'a'in people, then that...might be the kind of thing that She would be opposed to, yes. 

- or, you know, She might have any number of other concerns that aren't even visible to mortals. Gods are powerful and mysterious and they aren't really used to understanding the why behind the (rare) visions and other sources of direction granted to them. 

Gods are indeed powerful and mysterious. It sometimes serves Aroden to communicate His reasons, if the situation is unclear to Him, so that She can follow his aims not just His instructions, but it is rare even on Golarion to speak that much to a god, and there is a special technique to make it less costly to the both of them.

Iomedae's intent is to make sure Tantara gets all its territory back in the peace treaty, and while this is a major concession compared to the current lines and will therefore require some other concessions, she does not expect the eventual peace to involve Tantara making significant sacrifices that would end up affecting the Kaled'a'in people, certainly not as much as the war must have affected them. 

Then probably that's all right? 

Their Goddess might also be nervous about, well, future changes? Iomedae is clearly very powerful and clearly intends to change a lot of things - like the fact that Tantara and Predain are at war, which obviously needs to be changed - but it...might not be clear to the Star-Eyed Goddess whether Iomedae, after that point, intends to stop changing things. Which she can do faster than most people because she is so powerful, and powerful in a different way than anyone else in this world.

And that's...well, sometimes even changes that are for the better, in some sense, if you're looking at it from a bird's-eye view, are - still very disruptive and hard, for the actual people living in towns and villages and clans, in a place like Tantara? And their Goddess cares about those people and their communities, and might be concerned about possible effects on their future. 

- yeah, of course. That makes perfect sense. For what it's worth, and she understands why they wouldn't trust her word, she has no intention of running around Tantara making changes, once the war is over and the peace secure. She has no right. She's better at war than anyone else, but that doesn't make her better at other things, and if she was listened to about those other things it'd be only because she's very dangerous. That's not how a place like Tantara should work; she wouldn't really have bought peace, if she'd brought that. She will share the history of her world and its priorities, so that people can take up its suggestions where they seem good. But - Tantara seems good to her, and she has no desire to bring confusion and fear and disruption to places that don't want it. She will probably leave, once there's a durable peace - she is needed in her home world -- but if she is unable to leave, she will still endeavor to tread very lightly, to share what good her world has to share so that people can take it or leave it.

And if there are people who want to follow Aroden, here, or form their own order of the Knights of Ozem, she'll try very hard to make them what the Knights were at home; people whose word can be trusted, whose friends check them in their errors, whose neighbors feel safer when they're home, who anyone can turn to for protection.

The gods empower paladins because there are evils that need fighting, but they strip the power away should a paladin ever break their word, or do evil. It is indeed not a thing to take lightly.

...If she's not in too much of a desperate hurry, they do, actually, want to know some things about Aroden. The things she said about His Knights sound - good, albeit very different from the Kaled'a'in - but it sounds like the gods of her world operate rather differently in general.

If she thinks that someday people in Tantara might want to follow Aroden then that seems like a rather important confusion to resolve – and something where they can relay the answer to their Goddess, maybe, if that ends up seeming important. It's costly to contact Her directly and they do it rarely but it's definitely the sort of thing they're considering. 

(And, implicitly, the traits of Iomedae's god seem like an important piece feeding into how far they should trust Iomedae herself.)