"Angels are Good outsiders from the Outer Planes. Do you not have scrying or summoning access to the Outer Planes here?"

"....Nnnnno. What are outer planes? We can summon from elemental planes, or the Abyssal Plane if you're an idiot. - and what do you mean, that they're 'good' - is it just that they're usually friendly and not hostile?" Stef has a feeling it's not just that. She said it like it had a capital letter. 

"They are aligned with the cosmic force of Good. I suppose I don't know if you have the cosmic force of Good here. Angels defend the innocent and try not to cause unnecessary suffering and provide healing and seek justice and freedom and love and so on. Good people, when they die, go to a Good afterlife, and over time many of them become angels or other Good outsiders."

That is absolutely something out of a ballad. Stef grins at it, though he's not not suspicious of it. 

- wait, what. 

"They go where?" he says blankly. 

"To the Good afterlives. Heaven and Nirvana and Elysium. Do you know where your dead go when they die?"

Yes. Better than almost anyone else. 

(It's a good thing Vanyel is absorbed in his map and not actively tracking the conversation, Stef thinks. It won't upset him as much as it would have a few years ago, but - there's still pain there, decades of it, and Van would definitely prefer that Stef fill him in later, in private, where he doesn't have to keep his composure in front of a powerful otherworldly stranger.) 

"They, er, go to the spirit world, but it's not - really a place - they're not really people, there. They - get sent back to be reborn, sometimes." He suppresses a shiver. "...It sounds like your world's thing - isn't that. I - it should go in the letter, that's enormous, Leareth - if he's telling the truth about any of this, he wants his god so he can end people dying, and - real afterlives where people live actual lives is almost like immortality..." 

" - yes. That does seem important. I will put it in the letter - also I should probably take more precautions against dying than I am natively inclined to. Do you have anything you can spare that protects against magical attack, or helps people react faster?"

In my world, the dead are sorted according to their character and then go to the Outer Planes, where they can live forever. Many of the Outer Planes including Aroden's are paradises. (Some are not. We are working on fixing that.) I am grieved to learn that this is not so in your world, and would be willing to work with you on finding a way to fix that, though not through conquest and mass human sacrifice. Introducing Aroden on this world might do it.

Stef ducks his head. "I - think it'll help, having that. Wow. Leareth is going to have so many questions. ...I feel like I should have more questions right now, it's - probably not the only difference that big - not even sure where to start though." 

“I want to invest more in trying to get Aroden’s attention. Is that something your government will be comfortable with?”

"I can't imagine Randi would object, at least not once we feel like we know a bit more about you. We're a country built out of godmiracles, we're not going to turn down more help."

He's making a face about it, though. 

“Can you tell me more about the - existing miracle? Are you happy with how it functions?”

"Well, it works a lot better than the bloody Eastern Empire, so there's that." Shrug. "The Web is neat - that's a set of wards that cover the entire kingdom. Van made some changes to it and it's a lot smarter now, but even before that it did a lot to help the Heralds catch problems and send people to respond to them." 

He glances over at Vanyel, still squatting in the field a few yards away and poring through the map spread across his bent knee, and then lowers his voice. "The Companions are... Well. They're intelligent magic horses, Van and I are pretty sure they're usually made with the souls of reincarnated former Heralds, and they Choose Heralds as children and bond to them. It's - complicated how voluntary it is, on either side. Heralds usually kill themselves if their Companion dies or repudiates them for un-Heraldic behavior, not that that happens very often but it has happened. And - sometimes it's not even about whether someone did something awful." 

He steps closer, lowering his voice even further. "Van's Companion nearly repudiated him after he learned about Leareth's god plan and - didn't even agree with or or approve of it or want to help Leareth, just didn't want to immediately jump to killing him as fast as possible. There was something done to her mind, she couldn't even think about questioning the gods. ...She ran off, and broke the restrictions by banging her head on it hard enough for days, but I assume all the other Companions still have that problem. It's sort of awkward, when they have to have conversations about Leareth." 

"Heralds can be renounced for - being unsure - and they usually die of it?"

Yep. Exactly. That is indeed what Stef just said. 

"Does your world not have that? ...I mean, it happening for being unsure only came up the once, and I don't think it's - being unsure about ethics in general, because Vanyel was always like that - I think the problem was Van considering whether maybe Leareth was right to - want to fight the gods, even if his methods are unacceptable." 

Judging by his expression, though he's trying to hide it, Stef is rather sympathetic to Leareth's position on fighting gods. 

"If Aroden renounces me I may experience great emotional distress but - the same way people are distressed if their parents disown them or their village exiles them, which isn't - what you're describing, I don't think -"

"No, it really isn't. It's - people don't get over it, ever, even if they survive." 

He stares at the ground again.

"...Does your world have lifebonds? It's - the same sort of thing, except between people, makes you fall in love, and there's definitely no choosing allowed. It's...

...Van's the only person who ever survived a broken lifebond, and - he wasn't okay. For decades. He's sort of relatedly the only person who's ever been lifebonded twice, once he met me." Or, technically, years later, but that's more complication than Iomedae needs to know right now, and the exact relationship between Stef and Tylendel is way more unnecessary complication and also private. "Figure you should know, it's - strategically relevant - Van is ten times as powerful as he has any right to be because the gods wanted to line him up to kill Leareth, he's the only chance we have at winning a war." 

" - what's even the point of killing Leareth, if he has been killed many times and comes back -"

Shrug. "Don't ask me what the gods are thinking. Buy another twenty years and then kill him again next time, maybe? They've delayed him for this long. ...And, I don't know, maybe They do have a plan to kill him and make it stick this time." 

"Well. We don't have - life-bonds, and the relationship between a paladin and their god is just the relationship between any person and an entity they trust and respect enough to have decided to cooperate towards shared aims."

She will edit the paragraph that read 

Vanyel has explained your grievances with the local gods and some, to me, seem legitimate. In the interests of honesty I must disclose that I am, like the Heralds, a selected follower of the god Aroden in my own world, part of an institution by which the gods select specific people who are then highly trusted and highly reliable, and given positions of authority accordingly. The grievances Vanyel explained to me would not be applicable to Aroden. 

to instead read

Vanyel has explained your grievances with the local gods and some, to me, seem legitimate. In the interests of honesty I must disclose that I am a selected follower of the god Aroden in my own world, part of an institution by which the gods select specific people who are then highly trusted and highly reliable, and given positions of authority accordingly. This system is like the heralds in some respects, but were Aroden to renounce me I would be only an ordinary amount of grieved by this, I can renounce Him if I cease to believe that serving Him is the best path for me to achieve the goals I believe I share with Him, and I can fight the gods if it seems like a good idea (which it does, for some gods and some fights). The grievances about the conduct of the gods that were explained to me do not seem to be to be applicable to Aroden.

"Mmmhmm. I think that's good to specify. ...I don't know if you should explain more about the fundamental cosmic forces of Good being a thing in your world or if it's just going to make Leareth more suspicious about the rest because it sounds fake." 

"It can probably wait for a second letter; I think it's less likely to be obviously decisive for him, and if you throw too much into diplomatic communications it's harder to make sure the things you most wanted to say got said."

The wings expire. She switches back to telepathy. :Is there anything else I should know?:

:...Almost certainly but I can't think of what, right now. Er, we should probably arrange to have a way to exchange messages with you. That ideally doesn't involve Vanyel having to Gate personally to retrieve them and put himself at risk. - what's the range on your Mindspeech, Van has a few hundred miles but I'm not sure he could reach you from Haven if we stick you way north.: 

:- wow. Mine has only a hundred feet of range.:

:Huh. Then I guess either we'll have to pick someone to be a relay, or Van'll have to Gate to fifty miles from you or something– oh, here he comes.: