Starwind strokes his shay'kreth'ashke's hair. "I know. But - you know him - I am sure he is doing well." 

"I know."

Moondance sighs. Leans harder onto Starwind's shoulder. 

"...And our Wingbrother? I - he bears such a heavy burden." 

Starwind pulls him closer. "Ashke, you worry too much." 

This is the point where a magical explosion sends a woman flying through the air. She lands on a tree, hard enough that her landing snaps the tree in half.  A thick branch falls on her.

She lifts it over her head and out of the way and stands up. Where...is she.

She is in...a place that looks sort of like a dense tropical forest, and also sort of like a gorgeously cultivated garden, and also fifty feet above her head is a shimmering barrier, which doesn't particularly obscure the view of a glorious night sky. 

Near the dense tropical grove that she landed on is an area of pavement, and a deliberately-carved-looking pool fed by a hot spring, and two naked white-haired men. 

- one of whom is lunging out of the pool and flinging a shield over himself and his partner. 

:Identify yourself: Starwind sends. 

She holds her hands well away from her sword, though not in a gesture of surrender.

:I am Iomedae, paladin of Aroden, Knight-Commander of the Shining Crusade. I came here by accident. I don't know where I am. I apologize for the intrusion.:

Most of those - not words - most of those Mindspeech concepts don't even mean anything. What. What. 

Starwind keeps shielding Moondance (who is now slowly pulling himself from the pool, wearing an odd expression that, even seen from the corner of his eye, Starwind does not especially like.)

But the stranger doesn't seem hostile, so far, and (this is perhaps partly a feeling he has because he knows Vanyel, and he's not sure how to feel about that) he doesn't want to be the first one here to declare enmity. 

:You are in k'Treva Vale, in the Pelagirs: he sends. :I am Starwind k'Treva, Speaker for the Vale: 

He has no idea what kind of 'accident' could have landed her here, but there are plenty of things he doesn't know, in this world, which is wider and stranger than he had understood even just a decade ago.

:What - is a paladin?: he sends. :...Aroden is a god, yes?: That concept seems to have mostly come across, though it feels oddly-flavored. :What is the Shining Crusade and what is it fighting against?:

:The Shining Crusade is a war to stop Tar-Baphon, an evil ancient undead mage who is trying to conquer the continent of Avistan, where my homeland is. Aroden is a god, yes. A paladin is a...member of a honorable good martial order of a god who gets special powers from that god to fight evil. I have never heard of the Pelagirs. I did not intend to come here and don't know how it happened; if I caused damage I can recompense you for it.:

Half of those mental concepts ALSO don't make sense and Starwind is pretty bothered about it! 

...Not to the point that he actually endorses attacking the stranger, even though showing up from nowhere in the middle of a Tayledras Vale is under normal circumstances a deeply aggressive move. 

:I have never heard of 'Tar-Baphon' or of - what does 'undead' actually mean -: he starts. 

Moondance shifts behind him. 

(He is filled with a sudden overwhelming sense that there is something very important that he needs to do, and it's not an entirely unfamiliar feeling but it's never been even close to this intense, before.) 

:I - I am sorry, I - need to go handle something in the Heartstone sanctum: he sends to Starwind, privately, already scrambling out of the pool. 

Starwind knows that expression. 

:You saw something?: he sends back, equally privately and directionally-shielded. 

:- Not so clearly, but - feel it vaguely, yes.: 

Bizarre events are happening and it's really not at all surprising that their Goddess wishes to convey advice on wards and precautions, and of course Moondance is the best vessel for that.

Starwind doesn't nod, but he conveys the equivalent mental acknowledgement, and a waft of love and affection. :Go, then.: 

Moondance goes. 

And Starwind turns back to their strange visitor, and - doesn't smile, it wouldn't be honest, but conveys in his expression that he's paying very close attention. 

:- and I have very many questions: he finishes.

(There were, perhaps, three or four seconds of pause elapsed during his brief back and forth with Moondance.) 

:There are techniques by which a person can force the dead body and trapped soul of another person to become their slave, and undead are people so controlled. Tar-Baphon is a lich, which means he removed his soul from his body and hid it away somewhere, and the death of his body does not end him.:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh?????!!!!!!

....."Tar-Baphon" is....probably not literally the same person as Leareth....but Starwind is much less sure of that than he would like. 

(And - suddenly much more urgently worried about Brightstar, his son, far away in Valdemar and correspondingly much closer to the immortal bodysnatching mage who might or might not be literally the same person as the enemy that 'Iomedae', follower of a god he's never even heard of, has been fighting for what he gets the sense is most of her life.) 

:Tell me about Tar-Baphon: he sends, with suddenly increased urgency. :What are his - goals, and methods, and allies -?: 

:His servants are mostly undead like him, and he can command an unlimited number of them to his will.: Which is more impressive if you were previously familiar with undead enough to know that most necromancers are sharply limited. :He used them to conquer most of northern Avistan, though from some nations he won agreement not to oppose him and was for now content with that. Of course, his conquests give him more dead he can enslave. If he has an aim beyond ruling and terrorizing everyone, he hasn't conveyed it. He might. He is - intelligent and sometimes subtle.:

Starwind does get the sense, across the Mindspeech link, that this is supposed to be more impressive than usual.

(He doesn't really have a baseline to compare it to. It is of course wildly impressive at all to be able to - is he even following that right - to control the animated bodies of dead people? Aaaaah???!!! - he should stop that, the internal screaming is not helping at all.) 

- it doesn't, in fact, sound much like Leareth at all. She didn't say anything about bizarre manipulative debates on ethics and philosophy. 

And Moondance steps across the magical threshold into the Heartstone sanctum. 

a rushing overwhelming feeling of importance and enormity 

this is the most critical action you will ever take

aaaaaaaaaaaaa 

He's ready. What is it. 

Starwind takes a deep breath, and - tries his best to pay full attention to Iomedae, because this is clearly incredibly important. 

That almost sounded like someone I know of, but I do not think it is him, he doesn't say, because he doesn't entirely trust this stranger yet and also, if she is who she claims to be, then she doesn't have nearly enough context to get anything useful from that. (And if she's not who she claims to be, then this entire conversation is meaningless and the part that matters will start when they begin to fight.) 

:I think the geography here may be important: he sends. :I do not recognize the word 'Avistan', but we may use entirely different maps. What are the main geographical landmarks near Avistan?: