Yemma sighs. "There is a way I could let you in. A couple of ways, actually. Three." He extends a finger. "Easy way: if the Enemy were somehow not able to do anything, I could let you in. As long as he wasn't able to do anything about it, it'd be fine. That's probably not going to happen, to be honest." Another finger. "Slow way: go away, get stronger. Way stronger. Strong enough that you won't have to worry about the Enemy following you in. Obviously, that's not very helpful for you."
Kakara looks up at him through her bangs. "...and the third way?"
He sighs, nodding. "Third way. Quick way."
A door opens in the wall to your right. There are stairs inside.
Leading down.
"You take the stairs, and find what you're looking for the hard way," he says.
Kakara stares at the doorway. "...those go down."
"As far down as you can go," he says, nodding. "And they lead where you're thinking. I'll be honest: there are things down there that could rip you apart, shade or not, and they'd be happy to. If I were you, I wouldn't risk it. But if you really want to get into Heaven as fast as you can..." He shrugs. "I don't know that you want to head down there now, though."
Dazarel squirms free of her grip and scampers up onto her shoulders, hiding behind her neck. 'Please no.'
Yemma shoots the lizard a foul look. "I'd be glad to chuck him down there, though."
Kakara stares at the entrance to Hell, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. It looks surprisingly unimposing, for something so important.
After a long moment of thought, she sighs, deflating. "No," she mutters. "You're right. I shouldn't risk it. Not yet, anyway."
"Sorry, kid," he says, grimacing.
Fortunately, that doesn't prove necessary. Just as the Bandersnatch gets almost close enough to try for a swipe from its claws, it gets the heat ripped from its body and its flesh encased in solid ice. In response to the damage, the creature's body attempts to burst into flames - only to find the rage-given heat entirely inadequate to the task. It'll melt its way out eventually, given that it can maintain the fire long enough, but it is not exactly in a position to move right now and would have issues fighting even if it did until its healing had time to work.
This is significantly more in line with their abilities! Lucia and Kakara remain on overwatch, since it breaking free and attacking them is about the only way they could still lose this, while the rest set in to wailing on it while trying not to help it get free too much. They don't quite manage to defeat it before the ice melts enough that it starts to break loose, but it's nothing a barrage or two of magic missiles can't fix by bludgeoning it until it starts dying, and once it it's out for the count the three of them have an easy enough time keeping ahead of the regeneration until it gives up the ghost.
Neither her Ki sense nor a quick sweep with the sight reveal any more Bandersnatches.
Then they can return to Lastwall, a few spellslots lighter and some harvested magical monster parts heavier, secure in the knowledge that they have just saved some villages from an ongoing issue.
By the time they finished carving up the useful parts of the Bandersnatch corpse and burned the rest - it's flesh too toxic for safe consumption as food without careful preparation essentially nobody knows how to do - it's getting rather late in the evening. With the harvesting, the trip took about as long as expected, but while a secretary informs Kakara that they have another meeting with her scheduled for later that night, apparently the time in questioned is not right now. Vigil is not a saiyan city, populated solely by those who only need rest for pleasure, nor even a modern Garenhulder city where the differing work schedules and businesses that support them allow it to claim to never sleep, but that doesn't mean its quiescent after dark. Guards still man the walls and patrol the streets, to provide warning and defense should one of Lastwall's many foes strike during the hours of darkness, while higher-ups make use of their rings of sustenance to keep long hours and the everyday work in a capital city fails to come to a complete halt just because the sun has set. Her companions on this quest offer for her to come with them to one of the nearby taverns they drink at, for the company even if she can't herself imbibe.
That doesn't exactly sound interesting, sorry. (Left unsaid is that the same would hold even had she her body; she has essentially no interest in the subject and is too young by her own standards regardless).
Instead, she'll beg off to explore the streets of Vigil, invisible to almost everyone, and get a sense for what Lastwall is like when they aren't just trying to give her a good impression as a powerful visitor.
Her impression will mostly track with what she already knew, although there's certainly a sense in which the people she met were more focused and driven, and beyond that Vigil is less monolithically Iomedaean. Iomedae's influence can be seen almost everywhere, of course, but there are temples to Milani and Sarenrae and Shelyn and Erastil and Abadar, as well smaller alcoves and altars dedicated to a dizzying array of gods but especially Desna, Torag, Irori, and Cayden Cailean make appearances. There are merchants with signage proclaiming wares from faraway lands with names like Taldor, Absalom, and Andoran nestled in alongside more local businesses. Vigil doesn't have slums or indeed a noticable homeless population, but there are definitely areas where the architecture tends towards cheaper, sturdier construction supporting dense housing and relatively wealthier areas. The richest of the latter, outside of the city center itself where the administrative functions are based and the nobility resides, seems to be an adventurer's quarter, and while it's not the only place in Vigil with stores selling magic items they certainly have the most variety and number visible to her sight, and are still open at this hour. Would she like to take a look?
Sure, why not? If anywhere she visited today could notice her, it would probably be here, but she is in fact allowed to be here. She'll go into the one that seems to have the most options on display, though of course she'll go back into her masque first.
Her crossing the threshold doesn't seem to set off an alarm or otherwise notify anyone, but if she doesn't take steps to conceal herself she will eventually be noticed by the youth manning the register, who has on a pair of glasses that to her sight appear to supply some kind of perception effect to the wearer.
There's a surprising number of magical items on display, from boots that have some kind of enhancement to movement to a rings imbued with protective magic to a handful neatly laid out rods which appear to be able to do something to magic cast nearby, although it's not apparent what just from a glance. Probably it would be easier to tell if she could read the descriptions next to the items, but unfortunately she cannot. There's nothing especially strong on display; the most powerful items are of course kept in the back under much more secure protection, only taken out under guard when finalizing the relevant purchase, and are stored in a stunning corona of magic visible even through the wall.
Not all the items are magical, either; there appears to be a few pouches of... carefully measured rock dust, of some kind? It won't show up as anything to her sight or ki sense, and her chemistry knowledge isn't giving any clues either.
She's not going to draw attention to herself by poking him telepathically, but not exactly going to hide either. From observation, her clothing looks odd but not especially remarkable, and her appearance is a bit unusual but definitely within the local distribution. Plausibly the biggest issue would be her age, and Lastwall seems to care less about that than Aramaia does, especially since she doesn't need to fully hide her abilities here. Looking at the items, Kakara wishes she'd taken the time to learn pretty much anything about magic sooner, so Dandelor had time to get her past the basics. More for how much it could have helped with Dandeer, admittedly, but being less lost about what she sees would be nice, and Dazarel isn't much better at magic than she.
The rock dust is frankly just baffling.
It takes him a bit to notice her, since he wasn't alerted by a chime when she arrived and he's half nodded off in a daydream, but since she's not taking any efforts to conceal her presence he'll see her eventually and startle awake. Inside his head, he does a few calculations; on the one hand, being invisible isn't exactly a good sign about her intentions, but there isn't actually a rule against it; some adventurers get paranoid about that kind of thing, and since they're also disproportionately the type to spend a fortune on protective magic items given the chance the store hardly wants to discourage them. On the other hand, being invisible while that young implies prodigous magical talent, enough paranoia and spell slots to alter self before going invisible, or enough wealth to purchase invisibility, all of which are good signs both for current purchases and for the potential to return in the future for more. Taken together, it adds up to...
"Welcome, esteemed customer! Is there anything I can assist you with?"
"I'm looking to browse some of your magical items, but it's a bit hampered by the fact that I can't read your local writing."
Huh, telepathy. Usually casters just use tongues, but maybe she's got a cheaper version; telepathy is 6th circle, but telepathic bond is 5th so a lower circle version is in principle possible. It could also be one of those not-technically-a-spell deals that sometimes show up or a magic item. Definitely sums up to "person he wants to make a sale to," and since the store is otherwise empty he has nothing better to do than assist her.
Oh good.
Most of the magical items don't seem especially useful; metamagic rods, for magic she doesn't have, rings of sustenance, to allow her to get by on 2 hours of sleep when she doesn't need any, or a hideously expensive magic carpet to allow her to soar through the skies at a speedy 8 miles an hour. Others, a belt of giant's strength or the various kinds of magical armor, are less strictly useless and more incredibly marginal or outclassed by nonmagical alternatives available at home. Still, there are a few standout picks; a ring of delayed doom could give Dandeer a very unfortunate surprise should they have a rematch she doesn't trivially dominate, while sleeves of many garments would allow her to expand her wardrobe significantly without having to find more space in her closet or even go shopping. Figuring out what the rocks are for is a little harder, since he seems shocked she didn't already know, but apparently the locals make use of diamond dust as a material component in a handful of spells. Kakara still isn't totally sure whether this is a real thing or more of a placebo effect, but since she seems to recall them saying something about a diamond with regards to resurrection spells, she'll assume yes for a the moment. It's not like the Dragon Balls didn't spend much of the year as inert stones, after all.
Eventually, enough time will pass that the scheduled meeting point nearly arrives, at which point Kakara will beg off and fly back to the city center. If they'd had this shop back home, she absolutely would have bought a few things, but she doesn't strictly have money right now nor know what the local currency is.
She's a few minutes early, but she can be waved into the room, where Keyron and a man wearing a bizarre mixture of the most stereotypical fantasy wizarding outfit she can imagine and practical combat clothes that he introduces to her as Charles Rochefort are sitting. She might recognize the name from earlier as the Preceptor Martial for Magic, which by now she has likely picked up implies he's one of the top members of their government and head of their mages.
"Perfectly solving your issues is still going to be a while out, since the diamonds necessary for a wish are both extremely expensive and incredibly short supply, but we think we've found an adequate temporary solution that ought to work more cheaply and quickly."
"There is a particular spell in common use among high level wizards in Golarion known as Clone, which serves as an otherwise-identical empty vessel to which their soul can flee to at the death of their body and return to life. Normally, these only work for the person specified during the process its creation, but we think we can rework the the spell with some effort as long as you can handle the transportation into it yourself. From there, we would use another spell called Polymorph Any Object to turn the clone into a replica of your body, which should last a week and probably forever; the exact details depend on how similar the resulting object is to the original, but even the most pessimistic interpretation of it should last days before which the spell can be renewed if we haven't solved the main problem just yet."
"I'll... need to check, that it is and was soulless before, but I don't know any reason that won't work. What kind of information do you need to specify correctly what Polymorph Any Object turns the clone into?"
"Enough to uniquely and accurately disambiguate it to the degree of precision desired. Transforming a shrew into a pig requires less knowledge on the part of the caster than transforming it into a specific pig does, but even the latter is doable with some observation and a basic understanding of what pigs are."
Kakara hesitates.
"In that case, I'm going to need your word and the word of whoever casts the spell not to share what I'm about to tell you, for reasons I would like to glomarize."
"You have my word," Keyron begins, "That I will take this information in good faith, which includes but is not limited to not sharing the information you are about to speak to me without your explicit affirmative permission, except under specific circumstances. Namely, I will only do so with those neccesary to arrange for this task and to provide the security therein, and with the justified belief that they will not share it any further save under these conditions, until and unless such a time occurs that I learn of it through a source not causally downstream of you telling me or anyone reasonably construed to be an ally of mine and it is in my best model in expectation beneficial to the forces of good that I do so and I have reliably evidenced reason to believe that you have either betrayed our cooperation in acts of egregious bad faith bargaining or it that it is in your interest that it be shared, accounting for the fact that you have expressly stated a desire that it be so. And I furthermore swear that I will not take actions intended or expected to cause the information to spread, and to take reasonable precautions against it doing so against my will, such that it is my expectation that it will not happen. This I swear upon my honor, my law, and my goddess Iomedae."
"I swear the same," adds Charles Rochefor, "upon my own honor, my law, and upon my goddess Iomedae."
You get an awful lot of practice arranging oaths like these in the Knights of Ozem, to clearly disambiguate the promise on offer into a form legible to the recipient of the one and reliably followable by the one who swore it. For some of them, it's almost dissapointing that in practice this works out to them swearing to "take the oath under the ordinary conditions of the Knights of Ozem," but such is the power of the reputation they have constructed. Individual knights do ever break their word, but they are few and far between and the neither the church of Iomedae nor any of their allied organizations act to keep those occurrences that do happen secret.
It takes Kakara a few seconds to fully go over that oath, to make sure it's promising what it sounds like it's saying and that that is enough for her own purposes. As the people back home would track it, it shouldn't be; to share this information, even under these circumstances, is a grave violation of the masquerade. But as the sole unsuborned saiyan royal, she does indeed have astonishing lattitude to utilize her own judgment both by custom and by law, and "trustworthy allies in an entirely other universe from the enemy told in a way that can't lead them back" is about as good as it can get outside of Heaven.
"I am not fully human; biologically speaking, about 92% of my ancestry is, but the remaining 8% is of Saiyan descent. Pure Saiyans are a near-human species, of whom the most visually notable difference between them and humanity is the tails, and my true appearance as you see now is the result of a mixture between those two heritages."
A tail emerges from her Gi, the hair a darker blond than that on her head but with still notable yellow within it.
"I would prefer not to go too far into detail on the genetic and biological differences that entails, but if it's necessary we can discuss it."
That's not the revelation they were expecting out of that leadup, honestly, and they're not sure what to make of it without more information. Golarion has all kinds of partly human hybrids, but there's a large difference between, say, Tieflings and the child of a human and a halfling. Plausibly it's the kind of thing they would understand the urge to keep secret more with more context about either her home world or what a Saiyan is, but trying to learn that from means other than asking Kakara would contravene the promise not to make it more likely the information in question leaked, and she doesn't seem to enthusiastic about sharing more details. They'll keep track of the various broad probabilities, but try not to think about actual specifics so they don't significantly risk the information she is clearly trying to keep secret via this request being leaked through them.
"That should suffice, as long as there is only one species commonly referred to by that name. Is there any other similar revaluations that will be relevant before we go forward with this?"
Then Rochefur can lead her the other direction out the forbiddance, where they're joined by an Iomedaean cleric with a tuning fork and are Plane Shifted to a teleport trap in the landing zone of a private demiplane. Charles can then speak the password to temporarily disarm the entryway traps and a different password to go through the forbiddance down a hallway, where there is another wizard and cleric pair waiting by a glass container with an intubated body. Technologically speaking, it's still significantly less advanced than an exile healing pod, but it's certainly more so than anything else she's seen on Golarion so far. At a word, the two clerics step outside the mage's private sanctum for him to relay a condensed version of the information Kakara passed on and extract a corresponding oath, but it's less than a minute before the new wizard gestures, a fantastically complex array of magic springing forth towards the tube-
And there's another her, floating in the tube with empty eyes. It's unsettling in a way that mere mirrors cannot adequately prepare someone for, but there definitely doesn't seem to be anything going on upstairs!