Aroden can't do anything to make it an easier choice to make; it's not an easy choice, it's an awful tradeoff. But He can keep the goddess distracted enough that She won't interfere, and he can be proud of Iomedae. And faintly apologetic that it's not worth the intervention budget to give her two Lay On Hands so she can heal herself too, it is not in fact worth it but He does hope to find a way to get her spells here at reasonable cost. The simplest way to do that will probably involve negotiating with one of the local gods but even the ones who aren't trying to steal his paladin are so frustrating. 

Having made the very hard decision does not, by itself, make it incredibly obvious how to get back to her body, but with some persistence Iomedae will be able to figure it out. 

THe pain gets worse, and that's how she knows she's found it. 

She can't really operate it. She's spoken with gods too long, and nothing in this world feels real.

Ma'ar. Ma'ar is here, and - the peace - needs Ma'ar -

She lurches abruptly to her feet, in one motion, and looks around for him - where is he -

It hasn't been very long, in the material plane. Ma'ar is still on the floor, a few feet away from her, his face grey and slack, with a crowd of Healers around him. 

Someone put a blanket over her, but the Healers have mostly not been focused on her injuries, since it didn't look like her life was in danger. They're incredibly startled when she wakes up but are not going to interfere with her trying to stand.   

She is in unfathomable pain and can barely see but she has a mission and it's Ma'ar. She walks over to him and crumples on him and does a Lay On Hands and

-

- she really hopes that worked because she is only still conscious by sheer force of will and she can't think over the pain and she can't remember if there was anything to do after that or not.

It worked! 

In a single instant, Ma'ar transitions from very very deeply unconscious to in perfect health. Physically in perfect health, at least; even Iomedae's healing doesn't especially fix the aftereffects of Aroden contacting him while very distracted and in a hurry. 

...His instinctive reaction to suddenly waking up, and not knowing where he is or why he was unconscious, is to Gate somewhere else and then figure it out. Usually he has more of an opportunity to catch himself, because usually if something knocked him out at all, he's waking up still substantially impaired in his ability to use magic. 

He does not in fact manage to override the reflexive response, which is to shove away whoever is lying on him and Gate out. 

UM?????????

The Healers are very concerned about this! Someone should get in comms-spell contact with him right now! 

...They're also pretty concerned about Iomedae, who seems to be conscious but, like, not very conscious. They'll get the blanket on her again and someone's wadded-up cloak under her head - moving her very carefully - and get a link to her, and try to ask her if she can open her eyes or squeeze this Healer's hand. Her head looks fine on Healing-Sight but the apparent symptoms are definitely closest to those of a very severe head injury. 

Iomedae's sensory processing is not really working. One of the Healers will try to Mindspeak her, which is somehow even MORE agonizingly painful even though it really seemed like she was already experiencing the maximum possible amount of agonizing pain. 

She will attempt to Smite them. Luckily this doesn't do anything unless you also attack the person which she is not capable of.

They'll stop doing that! They have very little idea what's wrong with her but they can, at least, throw a lot of Healing-energy at her in case that helps.

Physically she is actually in...reasonably okay...shape? They can probably safely move her and at least get her to somewhere more comfortable while they attempt to diagnose the problem; they're not really sure what else to try, Healing-Sight normally just tells you. 

Ma'ar is now alone in an underground secure location nearish but not in the capital, trying to piece together his surprisingly jumbled recent memories. 

Iomedae. 

Did he...? 

- where was he just before this, he didn't have a chance to open his eyes or even really assess the situation with mage-sight. ...Probably the Citadel, he vaguely remembers glimpsing the right kind of shields and it seems like a plausible location he would have decided was safe. Relatively safe. Being anywhere on this planet doesn't feel entirely safe, right now. 

He is INCREDIBLY WORRIED about Iomedae - and he should probably be worried about other things, like the state of the ceasefire, but that's a distant afterthought right now - but he's still going to scry the Gate-room in the Citadel before he Gates back in there. 

The Healers are getting Iomedae onto a litter to carry her.

She looks incredibly not okay, but she's at least no longer convulsing or trying and failing to scream. 

He's so scared. His head feels...weird...not exactly foggy but like everything is distant and too bright and is probably happening to someone else, and there's a sensation that is probably a headache but isn't pain so much as wrongness. It's especially odd given that he otherwise feels completely healthy, and also very annoying, he has things to do. 

He Gates back to the Citadel, and promptly has to fend off extremely worried Healers who need several minutes of examining him to be reassured that he is not, in fact, dying. 

There are an enormous number of things he should be dealing with, and he continues to have no idea what actually happened, or how to protect Iomedae from it happening again, which makes it feel impossible to plan.

...Not actually impossible to plan. He has tactical problems and he can address them with his usual strategies. The first priority is to figure out what his people's reaction has been to - recent events - and the second priority is to figure out what Tantara's reaction was to him Gating directly into the Tower, and - actually maybe his first priority is to send a message to Urtho. If he can reach Urtho at all.

(scaredscaredscared not productive need to focus) 

He can do that via Mindspeech and communication-spell from Iomedae's bedside. He isn't sure she has any idea he's there, and he's so worried, but according to the Healers she isn't even slightly responding to verbal requests let alone able to talk, and under those conditions he's not going to be able to get an explanation from her. 

...He will, very so often, tell her out loud that he's here and they're in Predain and she's safe, just in case she's able to understand and just not answer, or becomes able to understand at some point. 

The Healers are still really confused and suspicious that they're failing to spot a very serious problem. It looks a bit like someone knocked unconscious by a very strong Mindspeech blow, but there are things they can check to rule that out. The symptoms also look a bit like very severe backlash, but she's not even Gifted, though her life-force is dim (especially for her) in a way that doesn't not hint at being incredibly low on reserves. That, at least, they can fix. 

...They should get a Mindhealer in. 'Non-functional, but without physical injuries that explain why' is a Mindhealer sort of problem. He still can't think what would have caused it but they can at least check if she's improving or deteriorating. 

They can work on that. Predain doesn't have very many Mindhealers, and things have been, uh, pretty chaotic, so it might take a while to locate one who's available. 

Ma'ar can also get a situation report compiled for him. The situation is that Predain saw what looked like an assassination attempt on Ma'ar, and he was not-very-coherently expressing that Iomedae was in danger and then Gated out, and a very brief interval later Gated back with Iomedae, both of them seriously injured, which looked even MORE like a deliberate assassination attempt by Tantara. 

They've sent a message demanding an explanation. They haven't gotten one. Their monitors are in contact with Tantara's monitors on the front, who are professing ignorance and trying to convince them that Tantara didn't have any assassination plans, but of course they would do that. Communications do not particularly seem to be entering or leaving Urtho's Tower right now, at least not from Urtho. 

They've been getting everything into position so that they can proceed with plan: capture Urtho's Tower. They're ready to go whenever Ma'ar gives the word. 

They should ABSOLUTELY NOT DO THAT. 

...He's not sure what they should do. Try to reach Urtho, probably, but he's worried Urtho is...in serious trouble...and if they were slightly more thoroughly not at war then maybe Predain could respond to this by helping but they cannot, at this point, do that. 

He thinks they should have their monitors tell the Tantaran monitors that they're still committed to the ceasefire, and don't blame Tantara for the recent escalation, and in fact it's not clear that the attempt on Iomedae really counts as violating the ceasefire. It's of course completely unacceptable, but no one in Predain was hurt except for Ma'ar, who was expecting this as the predictable result of Gating into a restricted military area. He should...write some kind of apology about this, probably, he'll work on that.

In order to proceed with peace talks, they're going to have to come to an agreement on Tantara's response to the shamans of the Star-Eyed Goddess, who probably are the ones responsible. Starting with arresting them, ideally, or at least locating them – which may or may not have already happened. He isn't sure what response would be adequate, and most of that needs to be done on Tantara's end. He would really like to have Iomedae's advice and has no idea how long it's going to be before she's functional.

They should suggest to the Tantaran monitors that being out of communication with Urtho at this particular moment is very bad, given that whether or not this was a ceasefire violation it was very very escalatory and unacceptable and they need a resolution urgently. 

(He feels some reluctance to advise anyone other than himself to Gate to Urtho's Tower, given the unknown danger, but they do need to establish what's happening there.) 

Any update on the Mindhealer? 

They have located a Mindhealer who is technically available and hasn't already been awake for more than eighteen candlemarks! Shakat is elderly, but this does at least mean 'experienced'. He'll be there in ten minutes. 

Ma'ar starts working on a formal written apology for his unauthorized Gate into Tantara's territory during a ceasefire, and the fact that this is the second time he's done it, and that he wasn't able to warn anyone first except for the magic sword. And FRETS. 

Shakat may not have been on duty for the last eighteen candlemarks, but he's been working fourteen candlemarks a day for months and he is not, in fact, delighted to be hauled urgently to the capital for a problem that was not particularly explained to him aside from "probably an assassination attempt" which really doesn't sound like it should be a Mindhealer sort of problem. And also sounds dangerous to be in the vicinity of. Also his back hurts. 

His Sight-metaphor is oil paintings. He'll ease himself into a chair next to Iomedae's bed, and have a look. 

This woman appears to have a lovely and remarkably intricate and structured oil painting of a mind, all built around a central blindingly white pillar.

Recently someone definitely dunked the entire thing in water and then tried to scrub as much of it off as possible and she tried to rip it out of their grasp and ripped a bunch of the edges and then someone else tried to paint it back on and also a lot of glue and acetone got spilled in the fighting and someone may have fired a cannon and gotten the ash and smoke and scorch marks all over her oil painting as well.

Metaphorically speaking.