Then they'll send on in a fourth-circle priest of Aroden, a fifteen year veteran of the campaign, old enough not to be overawed or particularly nervous to be called in on whatever Iomedae and Alfirin are secretly working on. He bows, not deeply but crisply. "Knight-Commander."

"Elder Astalis. With this man's permission I'd like you to give him a Calm Emotions."

(He does internally note the fact the Knight Commander is noticeably (if you're quite Wise) not full of grim determination. She must have gotten her miracle for Urgir, though of course he won't repeat that.)

"I can stop the spell at any moment you ask," he says to Altarrin. "It suppresses positive emotions as well as negative ones, and can suppress Heroism and so on."

He takes a few deep breaths. Nods. "You can go ahead." 

...Are they letting him use mage-sight in order to watch the spell? He's seen their artifacts but never live-cast magic, and he's curious. 

She notices him wondering in time to carve an exception for mage-sight out of the block on using magic. She's watching him to see if mage-sight is itself detectable.

(Alfirin, to mage-sight, looks like nothing at all, which is not at all what you would expect from a powerful mage presumably wearing - maybe not as many artifacts as Iomedae, but you'd expect any.)

Elder Astalis casts Calm Emotions. He's not using mage-energy, but something slightly different; the spell is notably complex and powerful and structured, compared to Velgarth magic, and he closes his eyes to concentrate on holding it in its structure as he goes.

(Mage-sight is not detectable as magic, no.)

That's fascinating. It's different presumably because it's not exactly a spell, but a repeatable-miracle from Aroden? 

And then he's calm, just like that.

It doesn't seem to be otherwise shifting his thoughts directly, but - a lot of what had felt like content in his thoughts, or observations about the world, turns out to have been mostly emotions? He can be aware that he doesn't know very much about the place where he finds himself now but he isn't disoriented about it, it's just a neutral fact, that he can if he wants address by looking around or by, you know, asking. He's aware that he's missing a lot of context on Aroden and on Iomedae's history and on whoever Alfirin is, but he is no longer experiencing the painful confusion that feels half like physical dizziness. He's not scared. He doesn't exactly feel safe either, he's just - neither of those things - and he can think about the facts of the situation, where the most relevant one is that Iomedae is right here, accompanied by her probably-comparably-powerful ally, and he just brought them diamonds that were apparently vastly more valuable to them than he had actually realized, and this...is unlikely to be a situation where Iomedae is going to let anything happen to him. 

He doesn't expect the feeling of calm to last. Minds form habits and he's no more immune to this than anyone, just - better at being mindful of it, of retraining habits he doesn't want to have. Which takes time, and he has, in hindsight, spent weeks terrified and miserable and trapped, and those pathways aren't active right now but he can tell that they're still there. And - not even entirely inappropriate to the situation, he came here willingly - mostly - that's complicated actually, but he did at least come here because he believed (and was probably right to) that it would be overall a better position to achieve his goals, to be trapped here rather than trapped in the Empire. But 'trapped' isn't the wrong description for it. They are, quite reasonably, preventing him from running away. Also he's in the middle of the camp road and none of his talismans are working right now - he hadn't noticed before, not until he could use mage-sight - and right now the reflex to be very distressed about that isn't activating but this is absolutely something that would under non-mind-control circumstances be stressful.

Also, the Empire is still in the middle of three wars and he probably can't go back and he - he didn't, actually, think through the cost he was paying there, because in order to do this at all he had to approximately deceive himself into thinking it had already been paid. He doesn't know what would really have happened, if he had returned to Jacona as ordered, but 'immediately being assassinated by the gods probably isn't the most likely option. 

Bastran is going to be terrified and will do what he predictably does under those circumstances, which is mostly 'whatever his advisors pitch to him as being paranoid enough', and this will predictably go badly and - he doesn't want the Empire to collapse, whatever its flaws, the alternative is still worse. 

Nothing he can do about it right now.

What he can, maybe, do something about, is Iomedae's war. He wants to help with that. More than he already has with the diamonds, probably, though he needs to coordinate that with Iomedae on that, a lot of his usual strategies would be rather attention-drawing here and it's probably not worth the cost of Tar-Baphon getting suspicious enough to investigate. 

(He doesn't say anything, yet. They warned him the spell was short-duration and he's trying to use that time as well as he can, dragging his mind into something resembling order, trying to arrange his priorities so that he can push through for a while by leaning on the urgency of Iomedae's war. He does at some point have to deal with - all the things that are agonizingly painful to think about when he's not having all of his emotions calmed, the fact that his project of the last six hundred years was almost certainly a mistake - but he doesn't yet feel like he has traction on it, and it's not the thing to focus on in the middle of a war.) 

And the spell runs out. 

"Thank you, Elder," says Iomedae, and the priest of Aroden bows crisply again and leaves. 

It's about as unpleasant as Altarrin expected! 

It's - a clearer and sharper misery than before, which does feel like an improvement even if it's pretty awful to be experiencing. He is much less running around in confused circles in his own head; he's delineated what he's still confused or uncertain about, and he does want to resolve it but none of it is decision-relevant to whether or not he endorses helping with Iomedae's war.

He's scared, but he also has a crisper sense of how much of that is for specific reasons, like being out in the open with no active talismans and being in the same world as Tar-Baphon and not entirely being sure of Iomedae or of Aroden, and how much is just that he's...forgotten how not to be. And overall fear is a smaller component of the misery, now, and the rest is heavily flavored with...grief, he thinks is what that emotion is, for a dozen things but he's clear enough on what that he could make a list. If he wanted. He does not really want to right now. 

Also he's exhausted and only partly in an emotional sense (though he doesn't have noticeable backlash symptoms, which he's only just noticed is surprising) and he's thirsty, and he feels cold - he's not sure if the air temperature is actually cold or if it's because his clothes are slightly damp from sweat after the exertion of the Gate here or if it's mostly psychological, his chest definitely has the leaden hollow feeling of the delayed shock reaction that comes when adrenaline starts to wear off. Which makes perfect sense because he was in hindsight kind of panicking during the earlier conversation until the emotion-calming made him stop it. He wants to be allowed to cast a heat-spell - or, no, probably what he actually wants is to be indoors, which would also help with the feeling of being very exposed. 

He's pretty sure they're still reading his mind and probably he doesn't have to say any of that explicitly? 

"Yes, I'm reading your mind. We're not planning to keep doing that for much longer but it's useful for tuning the mind control and of course we weren't sure at first that you weren't an enemy."

"I want to get you settled in somewhere more permanent, stop the mindreading, give you food and water and blankets and space to think. Alfirin, may I ask for a mansion -" If she casts it extended it'll last more than three days, by which time they'll have taken Urgir, and its presence in the war camp shouldn't invite any particular suspicion. It'll also be useful for hosting the multiple clerics for Miracles she's now planning to hire tomorrow. 

"I am not bothered about the mindreading."

He genuinely isn't. He is bothered about the mind control not letting him Gate out, not because he has any intention of doing so right now - he wants to be here, his goal was to cooperate - and more because 'Gate to a shielded secret location' has been his reflexive response to out of context threats almost since he learned to Gate at all; being able to get out of situations he doesn't want to be in is a pretty important cornerstone for ever feeling safe. (It's separately bothering him that he doesn't have anywhere to go on the same planet; the interworld Gate takes too long.) 

"I would like to go somewhere indoors and shielded," he acknowledges. He's distracted right now, poking at his talismans with mage-sight to gauge if they even could be repowered, assuming Alfirin feels like letting him, or if they're actually broken. He's not quite distracted enough not to be confused about the...asking for a mansion...but he doesn't ask. 

"Yes, I can - I did already use my disjunction, it's a slight risk if I also use my spare eighth and the enemy tries something big this evening - But I can prep a wish in case that happens. A few minutes and - hm. Tar-Baphon will know something is up, not from the mansion but from the private sanctum in the middle of the camp and all the dispersals earlier - Hopefully he doesn't know anything more than that about what - "

The spellbook is back, and this time Altarrin can see the actual spell preparation with mage-sight. The effects Alfirin is weaving on an invisible scaffold are not, actually, any less complex than the spell Astalis used earlier - to the contrary they are much more so, though somewhat less - for lack of a better word - ornate. She builds them up with practiced efficiency, folds them down into small, compact bundles of magic, and - tucks them away? - somewhere where they can't be seen, possibly just under whatever spell is hiding all the other magical signatures that should be on her person.

In between spells she pulls a ring off her finger and flicks it in his direction - once it's in the air it's quite visible to mage-sight.

"See if you can figure out how to activate that, it's just an act of will, it'll make you invisible when we relocate which should buy us a tiny bit more secrecy about your presence here." If he can't she can do it for him but that's obviously dispreferred.

Altarrin tries to catch the ring in a force-net, instinctively - it's fast enough and subconscious enough that Alfirin won't have an opportunity to carve out an exception for the magic even if she wanted to, and it doesn't work, which is very upsetting and produces a jolt of fresh panic even though it's not exactly new information.

Altarrin doesn't say anything, though, just picks up the ring and examines it with mage-sight before risking putting it on. Can he see the trigger point for activating it with mage-sight directly? 

"Sorry."

The ring is also pretty complex, though the complexity is less surprising in an artifact than in a spell. He can identify the trigger mechanism without much trouble, though, most of the complexity is in the generated effect.

Altarrin ducks his head. He wasn't expecting an apology for the fact that they're taking the obvious precautions - given that a powerful mage from an Empire Iomedae had been at war with until he personally arranged to kill her just Gated into their camp unannounced - and he doesn't know how to respond, but he does appreciate it. 

He puts the ring on and - he probably could figure out how to activate it by poking the trigger with his mage-gift, but it's not immediately obvious how, so instead he tries willing it to work and make him invisible. Presumably it will not make him invisible to Alfirin's mindreading. 

"It's unlimited use, you can stay invisible if you want but it's not costly to deactivate it now and reactivate it later. And yes, it's a separate spell to block magical senses, I don't have that one in ring format so I'll cast it on you before we leave this area."

...If it's all right with her he'll just stay invisible. It doesn't feel safe but it does feel slightly safer. He waits. 

She doesn't mind. Caring about whether their conversation partners are visible isn't really for people with permanent see invisibility, not that it matters because she's not looking up from her spellbook.

It's not much longer, before she closes the book again and taps Altarrin with a nondetection. Her eyes lose focus on him as soon as she does.

"I can still sense your thoughts, and you're still normally audible, but you should be hidden from most spells. In a moment I'm going to take down the privacy spell here, and we're going to walk over to a better location to put a mansion, and I'm going to cast that spell. Please stay close behind Iomedae and myself and try not to make much noise until we're inside."

Iomedae has stuck her head outside the Sanctum to give some telepathic orders for security given that Tar-Baphon's people have probably noticed the crusaders are up to something. She ducks back in. "I expect forewarning if there's trouble," she tells Altarrin.  It would be unlikely for Tar-Baphon's immediate response to the situation to be dropping on Alfirin and Iomedae the (very few) people who might not immediately die of that. Probably he'll instead send spies or Dominate her people from a distance or so on.

...That does indeed seem like less than a brilliant move on Tar-Baphon's part but it's still terrifying to be reminded that it might happen and he wouldn't even be able to Gate out. 

Altarrin mostly hasn't been trying to move. He can stand up without difficulty, he's not lightheaded, but for some reason he's suddenly shivering uncontrollably, and it turns out that walking - especially walking quietly - is harder when he can't stop shaking and also cannot actually see his feet, including with mage-sight. He can still manage it but he is not enjoying the process. 

She is a creature capable of learning and will wait to confuse him with an apology until they're in the mansion.

The place she picks to cast her spell is in between two of the larger tents in the center of the camp. There is definitely not room for an entire building there, but the spell seems more like a gate than like conjuring a structure out of thin air - though the structure the gate opens to is obviously conjured, the whole thing is magical.

"Sorry about that, too, moving invisibly can be disorienting the first time - I could have done it for you but I expect you to have liked that less."

Altarrin watches the spell with muted amazement; he's not particularly surprised that it's possible with this world's magic, but this is mostly because feeling curious about things seems to be mostly broken right now. He is noticeably less tense as soon as they step inside. 

...He's not sure what exactly Alfirin means but probably both 'carrying him' and 'literally moving his body for him with mind control' would have been worse, so he's grateful that she didn't. 

Is there somewhere obvious to sit down? 

They've stepped into a grand hallway with many doorways leading up to a similarly grand staircase, all brightly lit by floating orbs. A collection of - he'd say 'uniformed servants' except for the distinct lack of servants inside the uniforms, there's a mostly-humanoid bundle of magical energy but nothing visible to the mundane eye - are standing about waiting to open doors or perform other tasks - one is pouring tea, another looks like it might want to take someone's coat if any of the three of them were wearing a coat. There is one door open, on the left, with a set of plush chairs around a low table next to a fireplace visible through it.

"The spell just does that," she says tiredly. She would judge people for using magic like this while there's a crusade on, if she were unaware that this is just what fits into a seventh-circle bundle and you can't get it down to six no matter how much frippery you omit. 

As they head toward the room, they are passed by a procession of uniforms carrying a small - no, actually rather large - feast to the door and depositing it just outside. They can't feed the army with a single casting of the spell, but they could feed a thousand men for a night on it (Or supplement the dinners of many thousands with a little more variety and luxury than is common on campaign. On days when they have a need for a magnificent mansion Alfirin briefly becomes everyone's third favorite person.)

Altarrin had not been planning to ask. He feels too tired right now to even be curious, though if surprise were working properly he would have been more surprised by the apparent extraplanar space than either the luxury of the surroundings - that could be mostly illusion, the kind that's convincing to touch as well as eyes - or the servant-uniformed magical constructs, which you could if you wanted to do in Velgarth with summoned elementals though in this case he wouldn't be shocked if they were created from scratch out of raw magic. Mostly because he wouldn't be shocked by anything right now. 

- where did the food come from, that's actually weirder than either -

He waits for instructions or permission to actually sit down in the chair closest to the fire. It's probably fine, but he's still unendorsedly shaken from the last time he ran into a mind-control-limit on something he wasn't allowed to do.