"It seems like, if someone were inclined to steal people's bodies and not make this clear immediately, they probably would not be the sort of person who was inclined to come clean later.

...I'm sorry about your friend."

"I wouldn't advise you not to take the actions that will, predictably, lead to her death. It would cost too much. But I'm sorry, too." 

What is this man playing at.

"...Wait, did you say forty-seven twelve? So you're from the Age of Glory. And I'm there, supposedly. What am I doing, besides reincarnating in people's childhood friends?"

And suddenly he sounds very sincere. 

"Alfirin. Is this your first lifetime?"

Does she trust him, just because he sounds very sincere? Well, it is her first lifetime, not just in the case where she steals people's bodies to reincarnate, but also in the case where she doesn't. First and only, in that case. It's not really acknowledging anything if she just says -

"Yes. The year is 3825, if you haven't had the chance to learn that yet. There's a war on, Taldor against Tar-Baphon."

If she's not lying – and it would be an odd thing to lie about – then the timeline's right.

"I know. You win. I had to fix the seals on his prison recently, by the way, and I've got some suggestions for design improvements." 

"As for the Age of Glory – Aroden returned. Or he tried to. Immediately afterwards, he died. Prophecy shattered, a portal to the Abyss swallowed what used to be Sarkoris, a hurricane which hasn't shown any signs of abating in the last century drowned northwestern Garund, the Lung Wa empire collapsed – and servants of Asmodeus conquered the nation of Cheliax, which they've been ruling so as to damn every soul inside it. You've been trying to take it back. A little over a year ago, we did."

"None of that is the important part." 

She thinks there were rather a lot of important parts there. Some of them - if this is all a fiction - that seem to be aimed at upsetting her in particular. Her god dead, her homeland overrun by demons and Iomedae's by devils -

...It seems to hang together, though, and she hasn't detected a hint of duplicity, 9th-circle wizards do not under ordinary circumstances appear out of the blue and he's dressed like one, at least, in an expensive-to-fake way.

It sure seems like either this man is an honest time-traveling wizard from the not-so-glorious Age of Glory, who sought her out now because he befriended her a thousand years in the future or - he's an archdevil - Geryon, maybe, this sure sounds - heretical - or something else with an archdevil's skill at deception and ability to undispelably impersonate an ordinary human archmage.

"What, then, is the interesting part?"

"There's a certain proviso in the contract Asmodeus made with Mephistopheles regarding his obligations to monitor Golarion for signs of Rovagug's escape. If Asmodeus should default on those obligations, he cedes control of Hell. Obviously, he didn't expect this to come up. Monitoring is a very cheap intervention – as long as prophecy obtains. 

If it doesn't – well, it would take much more of an active presence on the Prime Material. Say, a country's worth. He fought very hard to stop us, but – when Asmodeus lost Cheliax, he also lost Hell. 

I'm telling you all this because I know you well enough to say with confidence that you'll agree: if it's really 3825, the thing I want is to break prophecy eight hundred years ahead of schedule."  

"...Oh. Yes, that does sound like the interesting part. Does Iomedae successfully ascend? If not I think I should get her now - I guess then you might not know who she is, she's commanding the crusade - but if she does I'm not sure, being involved in this might - constrain her actions there - maybe in ways that are worth it but we should think about that."

"She ascends." So this is before the messy breakup, he doesn't say. "I'm sure she would be a great help to us – she was the last time – but I'm not sure that telling her now is wise. She'd still be a paladin of Aroden, and I'm not sure that breaking prophecy requires his death – but I'm not sure it doesn't, either." 

"She'd renounce her vows, for this - or, the ones that can be renounced, which include the oath of service which is the only one that would constrain her from killing him -

But if she's going to successfully ascend by default, we should think carefully about bringing her in. She might not be able to cooperate with this, as a god, or - might not be allowed to become a god, if she's planning for this."

"We don't have to decide right away. In fact, we almost certainly shouldn't, since I have no idea how to break prophecy and we'll want Tar-Baphon out of the way first in any case. 

Of course I want to help with that. I'm – not especially good at keeping secrets. The Iomedae I know would accept it if I swore verifiably that to the best of my knowledge she would agree that concealing what I know is in our mutual best interests, but I'm not sure if that's because she's just like that or because she's a Lawful god." 

"She tries pretty hard to be a Lawful god even while she's still mortal. She'd accept it."

"...The thing is, I'm still not entirely sure I accept it. It's actually quite hard to rule out that you're Geryon, or Mephistopheles, or some similarly powerful trickster-demigod, which is not something that's usually worth worrying about until the person in question is trying to convince me to kill Aroden. So I propose that - first you let me dominate you, which will let me rule out some things short of an archdevil, then I release that spell and you plane shift back to Absalom and wait there while I pay a great deal to the temple of Abadar for a miracle where their god looks at you very very closely and commits to doing absolutely nothing with that information beyond telling me whether you are, in fact, as you claim to be."

"I can't say I'm happy about that, but the last time we did this together Mephistopheles spent two years pretending to be your pet bard and we only found out after we made him the king of Razmiran. 

– It was much less of a disaster than you'd naively expect, but I'd still like to act in ways that would prevent it from happening again. I do want assurances about what you'll do while I'm dominated." 

"I'll have you tell me truthfully whether you've been honest so far, and explicitly confirm key details of your story, and cast a ninth-circle wizard spell to verify that you in fact can. And nothing else, unless additional questions occur to me in the next couple minutes which I think you would, if you're telling the truth, endorse me asking and getting an answer to that I can be more sure of."

"...And once I know that you aren't Mephistopheles, I am going to want to hear that story in a lot more detail."

"That's acceptable to me – and there isn't all that much to tell. You know, he's a very good actor." 

"I hope that I have had no personal experience of that." dominate monster. She can feel it land - there are ways to trick that but he doesn't have an enchantment foil up, and the less common ones - that she's heard of at least - take a great deal of specialized training, mostly incompatible with being a practicing wizard who reached ninth circle.

"So now, please repeat your name, and where you are from, and the important details of the time after Aroden's prophecied return." The dominate is at the moment compelling honesty and nothing else.

"My name is Julien Camille Élie Cotonnet. I'm from Galt, currently resident in Diobel and Isarn and some assorted demplanes, in the year 4712. A great deal of important things happened after Aroden's prophecied return and I can go into more detail on any of them if you like but, most relevantly – Aroden died, prophecy ceased to function, the Worldwound swallowed Sarkoris, and Asmodeus conquered the empire of Cheliax for Hell." 

"And the key events of 4710-4712?"

"Let's see. My companions and I closed the house of oblivion – I don't remember if that one exists in your time, it's a portal to Abaddon that was starting to become a serious problem in Thuvia.  The king of Cheliax was assassinated by his niece. We pushed the borders of the Worldwound back past Drezen. We killed Razmir – Evil archmage pretending to be God in a little kingdom east of Lake Encarthan, had something to do with the runelord of wrath. Cheliax opened a permanent portal to Hell and started raining nemesis devils on the Galt-Druma border and brought back the four pharaohs of the ascension and sent some Urgathoa cultists to unseal Tar-Baphon, so we dealt with – all of that – that was one day – accidentally leveled their capital when we closed the portal. Galt and Rahadoum launched a counter-invasion. We closed the Worldwound. There was a very, very bloody week.

And then we won. Mephistopheles deposed Asmodeus. You're the queen of Cheliax now. They're drafting a constitution. I finished making an artificial witch patron which currently only grants Remove Disease as a hex but I'm working on giving it other spells. 

– Presumably there were some other things that happened that I was less directly involved in. In my defense, it's been a very busy couple of years." 

"What ninth-circle spells do you have prepared, and do you have any open 9th-circle slots?"

"Disjunction, Time Stop, Teleportation Circle. Yes." 

Well, no disjunction here, Élie might break the demiplane. Teleportation circle will fail to do anything without a second caster, but - she'll be able to check that it is, in fact, a teleportation circle. He'll cast it, then.

- and that's a genuine teleportation circle. Good. "Have you made any attempt to deceive me since making contact in this time?"

"I have not." 

She would have been shocked if he said otherwise - really very little point in trying to trick her like this if he didn't have the ability to undetectably fake being dominated but you have to ask anyways, or people will try things. She dismisses the dominate.

"Now, you plane shift us back to Absalom and I'll meet you, say, at the site outside Diobel - tomorrow morning? I don't expect Tilbun will have a miracle prepared for sale today, Nethys' high priest might but I trust my ability to bargain with Abadarans better."