And then Altarrin is alone. He still can't really think but not having to control his body language opens up a little more space for other things. (The bedroom isn't shielded against scrying, but it would be at least incredibly rude to scry Archmage-General Altarrin while he's taking his clothes off in private, and so far this has not seemed like that kind of interaction. Whatever the gods have waiting for him in Jacona, the on-site researchers - yet - aren't brought in on it, and so he doubts he's being watched.)

Danger. That means - Gate out to safety - 

- but he needs to plan at least one step ahead, because right now safety...isn't to be found this world at all...and he's not going to have time to send a warning message ahead, maybe won't have time to scry ahead, and he doesn't know what's waiting for him. 

The room isn't shielded enough to hide a Gate-signature. However polite they've been, someone will burst in as soon as the magic is sensed, and so he doesn't have time to raise an interworld Gate from here. Gate to a records cache, then, it will only be temporarily safe but, while he suspects there's someone in the Empire who can scry for the magic items he intends to take, he doubts anyone on-site knows how to scry through shielding. They were deliberately chosen to be replaceable. 

And then his thoughts are running into a wall, again, and he's in danger that's the only thing that matters - 

He snatches the headband from the bedside table and raises a horizontal Gate-threshold under himself and in less than a second he's through and half a second after that the Gate is down. This is definitely long enough that someone will notice but probably not long enough for a non-combat-trained mage-researcher, even a very skilled senior one, to do anything about it. 

They burst into the room. He's gone. 

- shit. 

An emergency report is immediately made to Jacona and to the secondary site that ALTARRIN JUST GATED OUT LOCATION UNKNOWN THEY ARE TRYING TO SCRY HIM -

Altarrin's reserves are not incredibly recovered from the sequential interworld Gates earlier, but it turns out that with a fancy Belt of Constitution, same-planet Gates barely register at all. Good to know - he instinctively went for a nearby one but he wants to spend as little time as possible within a reasonable Gate-range of Jacona... 

He doesn't put the headband on. It - will look more friendly, to arrive offering it in his hands rather than wearing it - (and he's not explicitly thinking this but, honestly, being able to think wouldn't help, right now, without it his entire mind is screaming about IMMEDIATE SERIOUS DANGER FROM THE GODS and he can lean on the deep-held reflex that letting down his guard and getting murdered again has NEVER ONCE SERVED THE EMPIRE.) 

He does dive for one of the supply crates. Standard layout, he knows where the shield-talismans are, he untangles the spell sealing it and reaches in - personal talisman against scrying - there should be a box with anti-scrying wards on it too, somewhere, for the headband, it's not as good a design but it should buy him enough time - 

...A talisman that blocks the communication-spell because - obvious godplot - if Bastran's advisors are being steered they can still send him orders that play into the gods' hands - 

(He is not exactly thinking this through coherently, it's still nearly all reflex and cached habits for on-the-spot contingencies, but also he's not thinking clearly enough to notice all of the things wrong with that argument that he couldn't help but catch if he were wearing the headband, which Altarrin might be thinking was convenient if he were capable of finishing thoughts.) 

Half a dozen other talismans because, again, he doesn't know what he's going to be Gating into, or whether he'll get a friendly welcome - 

- he is likely to get a much friendlier welcome if he brings them a lot of diamonds, isn't he. 

Rucksack, for the box to go into, it's not light. Might as well shove more talismans in there, as gifts, and - he doesn't have diamonds here but he does have gold, a universal currency that can be spent anywhere in the world... 

He takes all of it, which is a little under three pounds. He has no idea what the going rate is for diamonds at the main trade market in Nabiru, the coastal capital city of Ghandai, the southernmost of the Haighlei Six Kingdoms, but it's a prosperous port city that sees possibly the highest annual trade volume of any single city in Velgarth. It should have as many diamonds as three pounds of gold can buy. 

It's been less than two minutes. 

...he has to get a map out, which takes another three minutes, because he's never Gated to Nabiru in this lifetime, it's over two thousand miles away. Outside the Gate-range of everyone alive in the Empire, since none of them have his belt. 

...grab some non-diamond precious gemstones, too, rubies are good focus-stones and he has a little box of those...

He's pretty rusty in the language, but there should be some merchants who speak the southern trade-tongue which he's a little better on, and he can pay for an interpreter... 

Within five minutes, he's stepping through a Gate into an oppressively hot day under a blazing tropical sun, and the bustle and roar of thousands of voices in a market that stretches out across nearly a mile. At least it's not too humid, this close to the sea. 

...He gets a lot of attention, unsurprisingly, as the lightest-skinned person in eyeshot and also clearly wealthy and powerful. (Nobody is going to comment on his clothes when he's wearing a dozen powerful talismans.) He shouldn't have trouble finding an interpreter, and someone to show him to the nearest gem-merchant. 

This is the kind of report that reaches the Emperor's ears within less than thirty seconds of the initial panicked communication spell. 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH????????!!!!!!!!!!

This is. Uh. Not. What he predicted would happen. What. What. 

(It stings, a lot, that Altarrin didn't talk to him, which is honestly an incredibly stupid way to feel when Altarrin seems pretty likely to be POSSESSED BY AN EVIL GOD or possibly UNDER COMPULSIONS BY AN EVIL NECROMANCER if that part was even true.) 

His staff are already taking care of alerting everyone with particularly-advanced scrying capabilities - do they know which if any magic items Altarrin took with him, the researchers who saw them can maybe at least share memories with the scrying-specialists - 

(Altarrin is definitely not scryable to non-specialists, right now.) 

(He feels numb. It feels like this can't really be happening, it's - he's far away from all of it and it doesn't feel real - he hopes he's taking all the right actions because he sure does seem to be taking actions but this does not incredibly feel like a process his conscious mind is in charge of -)

What advice if any does Kastil have for obvious things he should be doing and isn't yet. 

Ordering him explicitly to return by communications-spell. Making sure every governor and every general in the Empire knows that Altarrin is under hostile compulsions. Replacing anyone who will believe him over the Emperor when the Emperor says this. Putting out the word to ambassadors, to check if he's arrived in foreign countries. Bringing in top court officials. Preparing for an extradimensional invasion.

(Kastil does not, really, expect Altarrin will be found in the first month. Most likely he's either fled to that other world, or at least to another country out of reach of Imperial commands, where someone will kindly cut his compulsions for him in the confident expectation of a reward.)

(This is worse than the overwhelming majority of Kastil's scenarios predicted. What possible sequence of events could have lead to this? What did he miss - )

"Get that priestforged ring the hell away from anyone who we don't want to be Iomedae's slave."

(The entire argument that the artifacts wouldn't enslave anyone who used them was that Iomedae had tried quite hard not to be killed. The item she sent -)

They should quarantine whoever the ring was tested on, Bastran doesn't think anything suspicious was noted while they were wearing it but maybe Iomedae - or Aroden - can implant compulsions that aren't detectable to mage-sight and only kick in later... 

(Altarrin is uncontactable, either out of range or blocking the spell. They're trying with every single variant on it known by anyone in the Empire but it wouldn't actually surprise Bastran if Altarrin knew how to block all of them.) 

The fact that Altarrin is visibly a very wealthy mage, visibly very much in a hurry, and barely speaks the language are all not helping at all with his haggling ability. This is fine, though, because being a mysterious wealthy mage from an inland country carrying three pounds of gold, while it certainly gets more curiosity and attention than he'd prefer, also gets four different gem-merchants coming to him to show off their inventory. His main challenge is communicating that, no, he does not in fact want this other precious stone that is Even Rarer And Prettier Than A Diamond but will generously be sold to him for the same price, he just wants diamonds. The biggest they have, the necessary size wasn't specified but large diamonds can be cut and smaller ones cannot be glued together. 

Even all of the top gem-merchants of the biggest and richest port market on the continent don't have that many large uncut unflawed diamonds (in general they can be sold for more once they're actually made into jewelry and Altarrin has no idea if the diamonds having been already cut is a problem, and he's certainly not interested in paying extra for diamonds that are probably less useful). If he were willing to haggle, he might be able to buy out nearly all of their inventory of not-already-in-jewelry diamonds.  

He is, however, in a hurry; he doesn't know how long it will take the Empire to find someone who can get through his shields against scrying, and he's not entirely sure that he's out of range of any possible Gates, they could do multiple hops. He's out of gold, but hopefully even a small box, holding 41 diamonds - in a range of sizes, but over a dozen are spectacularly huge as diamonds go, half an inch in diameter or more, and most of the rest are at least notably big - will be at least an adequate opening gift. 

(He wonders if you could use mage-gift to make diamonds. It doesn't seem impossible, if for some reason it were worth several months to design an artifact for it, the spell that comes to mind would have to be overpowered enough that no mage could cast it - the belt doesn't really help with peak channeling capacity, which would be the limitation rather than total reserves.) 

He pays up, and takes his box of diamonds, and Gates to a different records cache - on an island off the southwestern coast, over 2000 miles from the nearest border of the Empire. 

It's been another half-candlemark. Nearly three candlemarks since he dropped the last reply letter, and he didn't even get a look on scrying that time. His reserves are...actually recovered since he Gated out. (The merchants were very very eager to make him feel welcome and served snacks, and the Gate only took out a tiny bite.) 

He's...actually kind of worried about drawing the attention of Tar-Baphon, and he still isn't sure if the scrying is detectable by the magic of Iomedae's world, but it's - information - he is very reluctant to Gate anywhere without knowing Iomedae's status - he has to anyway but if she's in the middle of a battle and can't be interrupted then that might affect whether he wants to Gate into her people's camp versus somewhere on the other side of the planet. Probably he needs to Gate to her camp anyway, though, he - needs - her help - (a thought that doesn't finish) - 

He tries to scry for Iomedae, first. 

She is in Absalom, actually, in a sumptuous waiting room while Tilbun works out a contract. He usually has one on hand for everything but this is really without precedent.

(He didn’t believe the Church of Abadar to possess six Wish-grade diamonds for sale at any price. He can get her three, though.)

Altarrin has absolutely no idea what she's doing but it looks...sensitive and important? Safer than a war camp, maybe, but he should probably not Gate in and interrupt what might be delicate high-stakes diplomatic negotiations for a different alliance or something. And it might get back to Tar-Baphon. 

How about the place where they had been exchanging letters - anything notable there compared to the last time he scried it? (He, inconveniently, does not have the ring and cannot actually read a reply if there is one, but the location was almost certainly selected to be one that Tar-Baphon would have no reason to be watching for bizarre foreign magic, and Iomedae's side will be watching it.) 

It still has the sword as a scrying-focus but nothing else.

He is, at this point, noticeably more drained. And making a Gate big enough to cross, and then crossing it, is harder. He thinks he can stay conscious through it but he won't be in any shape to fight, which...is gambling a lot. 

- he's not safe here - 

He raises the Gate and tumbles through and sprawls on the ground. 

They have an Alarm up over the area, obviously.

Marit has a Telepathic Bond with Iomedae and Alfirin so they can return in an emergency, obviously.

:A man just arrived through the exchange site with Velgarth badly injured what are your orders:

:-  presume Tar Baphon has made contact with Velgarth, order everyone Teleport-capable dispersed, keep him alive but not conscious and ideally in an antimagic field until Alfirin gets there - and hit him with a Dispel Magic if you don’t have the field, if he’s an Imperial he’ll be under their kind of very weak geas -:

Alfirin may well be there before she finishes the sentence but she herself needs to courteously notify Tilbun’s secretary that she is urgently needed at the front and then get out of the temple’s Forbiddance and then use her boots to Teleport so she’ll be a whole thirty seconds to the scene.

The man who fell through the Gate is not actually completely unconscious. He's not wasting energy on anything like "moving" or "opening his eyes", though, just trying to catch his breath and trying-but-mostly-failing to extend mage-sight and orient to his surroundings; the belt did not rescue him from a reaction-headache, this time, but more relevantly his compulsions are pulling his mind in a dozen different directions and he mostly can't think. 

He's wearing an unusually large number of Velgarth-style shield-talismans and Iomedae's Belt of Constitution and a rucksack, nonmagical save for some spells for waterproofing. (Inside, if they look, they will find a lot more talismans, a very magical box that blocks Arcane Sight, and a totally nonmagical but rather fancy box wrapped in velvet and tied with silk cords.)

Iomedae said “unconscious” so they will Mercifully club him in the head. It only takes doing it once.

Disjunction. Dominate Person. Private Sanctum. Open Book. Detect Thoughts

And Iomedae's here too, just in time.

"Zone of truth and wake him? - " Tongues.

Zone of Truth. 

And a channel to wake him, rather than touch him for healing. (There is almost certainly nothing that'd go wrong from touching him, with Alfirin having destroyed or suppressed any magic that isn't at least a minor artifact. But for important matters, you don't need a specific threat in mind to do the most cautious possible thing.)

Altarrin wakes up.

- not in his bed. Where is he - orient - mage-sight -? 

(All of this is happening in a quarter-second. He hasn't yet gotten far enough in his usual set of reflexive responses on waking in unexpected surroundings to notice the lack of compulsions. He's likely to try to Gate out, on instinct, before doing enough reasoning to notice that.) 

Well he can't do that. He's not allowed to do anything but sit on his hands and breathe and answer questions honestly. He's also not allowed to not do any of those things. He's just going to do those things now and he doesn't really get any say in the matter.