Hug. 

:And I mean it. Is there anything we can do to help? ...I would offer to shelter her but I expect she's safer with your people, right now - I can pray, of course...: 

This part IS terrifying. 

Iomedae wouldn't be scared. He reminds himself of that. Iomedae would anticipate that if she had judged it wrong, bad things might happen, but she wouldn't be scared. 

:I - the priestess of Bestet said that your temple order might have a Mindhealer? I don't - I need to think about it, and of course I need Iomedae's permission, but - if your temple would be willing...?: 

:Of course. If she is not worsening, you should take the time to think about it. ...If you decide to try it, our god's power is greatest at the natural shrines. I don't expect you to trust that fully, of course, and these are such uncertain times - we do not normally allow guards with weapons, but - if she cannot defend herself... I think we could allow it this time. We should speak of it tomorrow: 

They can speak tomorrow, yes. 

It's somehow nearly midnight. Ma'ar is exhausted. It's tempting to head over right away to ask Iomedae, but she's in fact not deteriorating, she's probably asleep, and if anything another night's rest will give her more time to get over the headache. 

He Gates back to the palace, heads to his quarters without actually swaying with fatigue in front of everyone, and collapses into bed. 

(Downside of headbands that make you mentally much stronger: it's apparently way easier to push the limits of your physical stamina. He thinks Iomedae might have an artifact for that, but he's pretty reluctant to take that one too.) 

At some point his past self arranged to not be needed for the first half of today's agenda. His past self had good ideas. Ma'ar is going to sleep through until late morning. 

And then head to see Iomedae. How is she? 

The headache is not entirely gone. She is worried it might take a Heal to make the headache entirely gone. She still feels kind of fuzzy-headed, and also started crying at one point, which isn't dangerous but is profoundly uncharacteristic. 

She thinks being in bed is no longer doing her any favors and is discussing the matter with her Healers. She thinks she should chop firewood or something. Yes, she can do it with the magic sword. Magic weapons don't lose their edge even when used for chopping firewood.

They don't...actually need any firewood chopped? They mostly use magical heating. It seems good for Iomedae to be up and moving if she feels up for it, though. They can take her for a walk. 

The Mindhealer is still pretty worried. The rate of things improving on their own is trailing off, he's already done most of the obvious fixes - which did help, look at her taking actions and starting conversations, but not enough, and there's still a lot of deeper structural damage that he has NO IDEA how to put back. 

Iomedae is out of bed! She...looks mostly fine, physically, though she's still moving as though dazed. She's probably not going to let him read her mind when she's starting out awake, but it seems like she's with it enough to respond in deliberate Mindspeech. 

:Iomedae: He...sort of wants to offer her a hug, he's just discovered that hugs are reassuring, but also he thinks he doesn't want people touching him when he's feeling unwell in some way. He'll just sit fairly close beside her, and offer another very heavily simplified situation report on yesterday's progress: they have agreements on Predain's use of compulsions and blood-magic, and the tentative beginnings of alliances with the temple orders of Bestet and the Nameless God. The latter will be be willing to carry out Iomedae's idea, of having a neutral organization that can use compulsions to hold mages, and he thinks they'll do it well. They're likely to take six months thinking about it but Tantara won't object to Predain continuing its current practices in the interim. 

:'s good.: Her Mindspeech doesn't usually have much in the way of overtones but right now it's warm and full of pride. :Really good, better than I think I expected.:

He's just going to hug her, actually, unless she indicates that she doesn't want to be hugged, which he is unusually certain he would notice because of the headband. He is fairly sure that she at least won't be upset. 

:I - think I could only do it because you thought I could. ...Not sure if that makes any sense. I can try to explain later when you are better: 

He thinks he could explain it to healthy Iomedae with the headband just fine, but it's actually quite noticeable that Iomedae without the headband - and presumably with a lot of additional impairment - is a lot slower at juggling concepts than he is, and there are certain pathways she probably can't follow at all. He wants to talk about it mostly because it feels like it will help him put his head in order in a way that he can still work with once he gives the headband back. 

:- I might have a plan to help you get healing. But we would need to trust the Nameless God and Their church: 

:'f Aroden has to bail me out again from trusting a god who turned out to be a demon lord He's going to be so annoyed.: She isn't making a strategic evaluation, here. She would need to think through what has gone wrong in Velgarth so far and change some rules she uses for decisions and she knows her brain isn't working well enough for that.

:Mmm-hmm. I - think we can trust Them. I am more sure than that we can trust Their temple, and - They would be working through a mortal, there is a Mindhealer who sometimes gets miracles - I am not sure but I suspect it is at least harder for gods to make their followers do things against their will, and the church seems to teach - following one's conscience - much more than the Star-Eyed's religion: 

He's making some effort to go slowly and use simpler words but he's not particularly expecting Iomedae to actually have strategy thoughts, here, he just - feels better thinking about it when she's right there. 

:I asked Marlana to pray to Bestet for guidance. I think we do have strong reason to believe we can trust Bestet. She intervened for you with Need - twice, maybe, if She helped make sure that Shayeen would reach you before the shamans actually killed you. I think She would warn us if we were about to try something catastrophic: 

Sigh. :And I should ask to speak to their priestess-Mindhealer, before I agree to bring you. The headband helps with - assessing people's character - it is very useful. I am...nervous...it would mean going to one of the holy sites. I think I am not actually scared for a good reason, just - habit: 

:I think we can trust Bestet: she agrees, after some effortful thought. :I think it is worth some risk. The other option is to get a church of Aroden here good enough he can choose priests, and give one of them Heal, which will fix me.:

Ma'ar frowns. :I am not sure what Aroden would need, to do that. Or how to contact Him, honestly, and I - am very worried about you trying it again:

Sigh. :If we had a way to Gate to and from your world, we could bring you to His church there. I am planning to ask Urtho's help on researching how to Gate through the other planes. I think we can do it but it might take many months and I - I know you can survive that but I am worried about you: 

:Oh, that'd be really good. Show them up, too, because I bet they're also doing a research project to derive Even Greater Teleport. And maybe we could put Urtho's terrifying talents to work on - I should not be planning good uses of Urtho's terrifying talents right now. 

I will also put myself together in time. You do not need to treat it as an emergency. I figured out how to be myself once and I can do it again.:

:I know. And I can hold things together in the meantime, I think, I had your advice for long enough. I am not going to - make bad strategic decisions - because I want you to be all right. But I do very badly want you to be all right: 

:I too am in favor of that. ...you did not really have my advice for very long, unless I am forgetting a lot.:

:It was very dense advice! And I, I think sometimes all you need is to know that something could be different, and then you - ask different questions - and find better answers: Helpless shrug. :I think it would be hard to explain to you right now. I want you to be recovered so I can try and you can tell me what I am still missing. ...It is still definitely not an emergency, I - the headband helps, I think I would be incredibly overwhelmed otherwise but I can keep up. Even if I am trying to figure it out as I go by imagining what you would say: 

She leans her head on him. :That's very sweet and I am too brain damaged to figure out if it's a bad idea to say so. 'm not pursuing a romantic relationship while impaired, obviously. I'm just not sure if that applies to saying that's very sweet or not.: After having said this she looks moderately surprised to have said it.

Ma'ar is more than just moderately surprised that she said it! 

...Probably he does not actually have to figure out what she meant or all the implications of it right now, and can just be calm and safe and definitely not make Iomedae explain what in the world that means to him. 

:I am not bothered you said it. I think you should not worry about whether or not things are a bad idea to say if it feels hard. I can account for you being impaired, and - everything else can wait.: 

He doesn't mind at all if she leans on him. For a bit. He does have things to do, and then a priestess to go talk to (aaaaaaaaaah) (but Iomedae wouldn't be scared). He can stay for five more minutes, though, and hold her, and mostly not say anything. 

That sounds nice. She'll try trusting him and not worrying about it.

This is also kind of overwhelming and almost frightening, but - all he has to do is be someone trustworthy. He can't be trustworthy in all ways but he can be someone who won't hurt Iomedae or let her make terrible decisions while brain damaged. 

...he really wants Iomedae who isn't brain damaged back. 

After five minutes he hugs her again and tells her to rest and try not to worry about anything and listen to the Mindhealer here, and then he Gates back to the agreed-upon location for the peace talks, where they can hammer out more details on the various agreements. 

The temple of Vkandis under the current senior priesthood has managed to successfully locate the priests, and collaborate with one of the local governors in the Ceej Empire. Apparently the fact that they stole a powerful magical weapon, and tried to use it to assassinate the powerful priestess trying to set up peace talks with the country that had been, until days earlier, in the middle of conquering theirs – well, apparently this is a convincing reason for this particular governor for why he does not want these men in his province at ALL. 

The temple of Vkandis doesn't use compulsions but the provincial Guard of the Ceej Empire totally does and they have not actually made the decision to remove the compulsions keeping these mages from running away or trying to harm anyone. 

Predain is fine with this temporary solution if Tantara is! They do still want some non-followers-of-Vkandis involved in guarding them. 

Urtho is so tired. He really does not any more unexpected and terrifying complications right now. Tantara will agree that the mages in question can stay under their current compulsions until they negotiate something else. 

(Which, realistically, will probably be getting Predain's mages to do it. He can at least demand that they do it under the direct supervision of the temple of the Nameless God, but it feels less horrific - and, he can admit, leaves more option value for questioning them later if something else happens - than having them executed.) 

The Kaled'a'in have been at least temporarily expelled from the environs of his Tower. (Urtho is upset about this but it can go join the very long list of things he's upset about, which honestly starts with the fact that he betrayed Ma'ar.) The surviving shaman involved in the attempt against Iomedae has been pretty cooperative except for all of the time she spends crying. Urtho's people are...sort of starting to get the sense that she didn't know what either the Star-Eyed Goddess or her clan elder were planning to do, and to the extent she went along with it at all she was probably mostly in shock.