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?: 

:Avistan is what we call our continent; it stretches all the way north to the crown of the world, and south to the Inner Sea where Absalom is. The continent south of it is Garund, and to its east is Casmaron. We call the other continents Tian Xia, which touches Avistan at the crown of the world but is a long way by sea, and Arcadia, which is near where Azlant once was. Those are very distant, and I have never travelled to them; there are few mages powerful enough to take me.:

This continues to seem incredibly important and also wow that was hard to keep track of via Mindspeech, especially from someone who is clearly not herself a Mindspeaker and isn't entirely inexperienced at mental communication but is also not perfectly used to it. And who is certainly from somewhere very incredibly far away. 

:I think we must needs obtain paper and pen: he sends. :I confess I have not seen many maps of the whole continent -: 

Which is the point at which they are both interrupted by everything around them suddenly turning to plasma. 

Iomedae has reaction times so profoundly superhuman they're best explained by reference to prophecy and raises her extremely magical shield and drops her extremely magical visor and leaps and rolls in the direction that the blast would carry her and then casts Resist Energy(fire) because everything hasn't stopped being plasma.

There is nothing at all she can do for Starwind.

In which case she will find herself flung past the enormous not-weather-barrier over the Vale (which has already shattered by the point she would have hit it) and well into a wintry starry sky, and then gravity carries her down towards some snow-draped forest that the heat-blast hasn't yet melted. 

The trees are strange and twisted and some of them are slightly glowing and some are weirdly more animal-like than tree-like, but none of them attack her while in the process of cushioning her fall. 

- the entire horizon is still white-hot fire

And the Resist Fire is doing something for it but not, in fact, enough that she's not suffering ongoing burns, and at one point she tried breathing and that was a very serious mistake. She needs to get out of here. She grows angel wings and takes off, opening her eyes only once she's well up in the air, holding her breath, fixing the burns with a Lay On Hands.

And now she's high in the air above - 

- a vast wintry forest -

- and specifically the part of it which has just become a fiery mushroom cloud. The area affected by the fire looks like it's hitting at least a five-mile, maybe a ten-mile, diameter. 

Other than that, everything is quiet and dark. The stars are very clear above her head. No one else is trying to telepathically contact her. 

Well, that was terrible! Those poor people - it was a civilian camp, there were children in the distance -

The spell will not last long enough for her to fly ten miles but she can at least get out from the worst of it before she has to continue on foot, probably. She heals herself several more times along the way; it's definitely doing something that isn't just fire, to her, something that she'd say was more like poisoning but she's immune to poison.

She prays while she flies, and half-expects rescue from home at any time but - less and less, as time goes on.

Nothing else disastrous happens - but, also, nothing else good happens - before the point at which her spell runs out and she has to continue on foot. 

It's hard going on foot, once she has to land in the wilderness, though she's at least past the point where it most feels like she's being poisoned. But the snow is very deep, and the trees and undergrowth are very dense, and the local wildlife is magical and also clearly DEEPLY OPPOSED to her presence. There are invisible lions that are going to try to bite her. 

She is very apologetic to the invisible lions! This is their land not hers and she regrets the incursion and will be out of their way as soon as possible!

If they continue to try to bite her after that she'll stab them, though. Mercifully.

She will have to (Mercifully) stab a couple of invisible lions, and then the rest will back off and leave her alone. 

Eventually the sun rises. She is still in a snowy wilderness of bizarre twisted trees and other foliage. The area around her is very quiet and still. 

Does she get her spells back if she rests and prays?

Nope. There's nothing there. 

Tar-Baphon would absolutely do this if he could but she wouldn’t actually have guessed he could. Maybe it was a Wish.

Does this planet have civilization at all besides isolated magic villages she does not dare go near until she figures out what happened.

Well, worst case, Irori ascended without the Starstone.

This planet may or may not have civilization somewhere! She hasn't seen very much of it yet! 

...There are no signs of civilization near to where she started. There is mostly a lot of impenetrably dense forest, where the trees occasionally attempt to spray acid at her or fling tentacles after her or sing a mind-controlling siren song to summon her toward them. 

(The local wildlife is generally smart enough to have spread the word about keeping their distance from her.) 

She is not very susceptible to acid or tentacles and not at all to mind-controlling siren songs but she's not delighted at the prospect of eventually needing to sleep in this forest. The whole plane can't be hostile forest (it absolutely can).

Jisa tries, again, to raise the Gate. 

Hold it up in her mind, align herself with true north...her location on the skin of the world, and where was k’Treva relative to her… This direction, she tells the spell. This distance. She's pointing blindly, and it wouldn’t work at all if she hadn’t mastered the skill of building an un-scaffolded threshold. 

Here, she tells it, sticking an imaginary pin on an imaginary map. Here. 

–It lands.

The final step is usually effortless, the Gate-spell falling into a stable state, but this time is different.

Jisa feels the destination, and the cord of power that links her to it, but without an existing archway to scaffold it. She builds the threshold anyway, thread by agonizing thread -

- and the Gate snaps into alignment, draining from her reserves until her vision blacks out, twisting the fabric of the material plane around her and yanking it into new alignment. 

And Brightstar's bedroom is gone, replaced by twisted, denuded trees and endless snow.

And Brightstar steps across. 

Jisa can't feel his mind at all, anymore. 

- she looks across, at his anguished expression - 

- it's probably a terrible idea to step across with him but she really wants to - 

:Wait: Enara sends. 

:- how long can you hold the Gate?: 

Really not that much longer! And she's going to be more tired the longer it takes!

A pause. Reluctance in every word.

:Randi agrees you should go. It’s - a gamble, but…:

Enara doesn't finish the sentence.

:...They want you to wait for Need. Dara’s on her way with her.:

....Great. Okay. She's - waiting, then. 

:Chosen, you’d better be damned careful. If there’s any hint of danger, you won’t fight. You’ll run. Promise me that: 

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh. 

:I promise.: 

:Katri’s joining you: Enara adds. :She was nearby by chance, she’s thirty seconds away: 

- that might actually be helpful. Maybe? :All right.: 

:Unlock his door: Enara prompts her. :And grab your goddamned cloak. Where’s your common sense, girl?: 

EYEROLL reasonable, she will unlock the door. 

And then Dara is sprinting through the door, and offering Need to her, hilt-first. 

:Haven’t got the faintest idea what bloody disaster we’re about to walk into: Need snaps at her. 

Fair enough. Jisa doesn't know either! 

She takes Need by the hilt, and steps across the threshold. 

- extend her Othersenses -? 

:.....Oh: 

:Fascinating: 

....and there is apparently a woman in need and so Need is extending her own Thoughtsensing to its furthest extent. 

There's a woman in...not distress, really, but moderate irritation! She is tramping through the forest periodically snapping Telepathically at the local magical beasts that she is sorry for the intrusion and leaving as soon as possible.

Honestly that's very relatable! 

:Hey: Need sends, privately (not including Jisa, who is busy.) :What's going on? - we're here because the place we tried to Gate to is either blocked by an evil archmage or else something weirder just happened.: 

: - say more about the evil archmage?:

:...He's complicated. Immortal, two thousand years old, wants to conquer our kingdom to build an empire big enough that he can murder ten million people for blood-power to - well, what he claims is that he wants it to build a better god than our local ones. Sounds ridiculous, right, but -: a pause, :- but it's complicated. Questions?:

: - quite a few of them. Uh, I'm from very far away, I arrived here in what seemed like a magical accident of some kind, I spoke to the humans living in a - beautiful garden-village in this wilderness, and then after just a few minutes of conversation the village and everything around it was destroyed in an awful magical explosion. This was - approximately a day ago.:

:Right. Thank you:

This seems - messy - and like it might involve diplomacy. Need is really not advantaged at that sort of thing. 

:- Jisa? Apparently there was an enormous magical explosion.: 

Um. 

:....Where? - was it - k'Treva - ?: 

:She didn't clarify but she's from far away, apparently - she just said a "beautiful garden-village in this wilderness" and that's either k'Treva or another Vale hundreds of miles away, right?: 

This is weird and baffling and Jisa is very tired and– not thinking about the things she has feelings about because she really does not have time for it right now. 

:Need. Please.: 

:I also have a lot of questions!

....I - think she needs our help, though.: 

That did NOT CLARIFY ANYTHING, and now Brightstar is staring into the distance in a deeply concerning way and Katri is hovering behind her looking like she would really like clarification that Jisa cannot at all provide and, just, in general, Jisa has unanswered questions here. 

:Who is she, exactly?: 

:One moment, let me ask her.: 

And to Iomedae, 

:What's your name and where are you from?: 

:My name is Iomedae. I am a paladin of Aroden and the Knight-Commander of the Shining Crusade. I am from - very far away, I think. The man I spoke to before his village was destroyed had never heard our names for the continents and - were I merely on a distant continent I'd expect Aroden to have granted me my spells this morning, which He did not.:

To Jisa, :- she says her name is Iomedae and she works for a crusade of some kind and - she worships a god called 'Aroden' that I've never heard of, have you?: 

She hasn't heard of 'Aroden', no. 

- concerned glance at Brightstar? 

:...Right. Um. Can she tell you exactly what happened?: 

To Iomedae, :- We're trying to figure out what happened - can you tell me exactly what you saw in the garden-village before it exploded? Who did you talk to there?: 

:I spoke to a man called Starwind. He and another man were bathing in a pool. They were alarmed to see me, and shielded themselves, and asked questions about what I was doing. The other man went off, after a telepathic conversation I didn't hear. Starwind asked about the war I am fighting in my homeland, and about our understanding of the layout of the continents. 

Then everything exploded. It was - flame and poison and something I'm unfamiliar with, for ten miles around, for a long time.:

....Need relays this to Jisa, because it's not like she knows what to make of it. 

:Um. It - seems like, er, we - probably shouldn't go any closer, then...?:

Assuming this bizarre stranger is telling the truth about anything, but honestly Jisa is overwhelmed and is kind of flatly trusting Need to figure that sort of thing out. 

(She's so worried about Brightstar. His expression continues to be so concerning.) 

Katri has not even slightly been included in this mental conversation and is pretty confused about why Jisa and Brightstar are just standing still and staring into the distance???

:We really shouldn't! ...We should find her and Gate back to Haven with her and let someone with better Thoughtsensing read her mind, I think. I can't do it from here.: 

Jisa's current feeling is that she is overwhelmed and out of her depth and wishes that someone else could be the grownup and figure out what to do! ....which is a very alien feeling, for her, it's not the first time she's felt this way in the last couple of days but the last couple of days have been weird and bad and deeply wrong in multiple ways. 

:- Right. Er, where - is she, exactly -?: 

:Hey: Need sends in Iomedae's direction. :I think we should Gate you back to our capital so we can figure out what just happened, and I'd like to do that without us having to go any closer to the poisonous explosion or whatever it was. Do you have a way of getting to us fast -: a brief mental sense of direction, :- or should we have someone do a short-range Gate to you first?: 

:...I can fly, but not all that fast, and I am worried about going to your capital because I'm worried that I somehow caused the explosion that wiped out that village and in a city it would be unfathomably catastrophic, you'd have like six survivors.:

:- We can probably Gate you to somewhere that isn't a big city.: 

Pause. 

:Jisa, what's the most remote place you have a Gate-location? ....Though, er, I'm really not sure any of us should be there for it. Is there anywhere you can send her that Van can get on his own, that isn't near a big city?: 

It's obviously deeply rude to send Vanyel to do anything, right now, but he's also the most powerful person in the kingdom and the only one who could survive a fight with - whoever this is. Or with whoever her enemies are. Probably. ....Maybe. 

Wow. Jisa is the worst person to ask for this! 

:...Um.: She - technically has some Gate-locations in Rethwellan, but Van won't have the same ones, and also that's so far away and she's - actually pretty tired, right now, though she's been trying to hide it - 

- though, now that she's considering it, she did just do this Gate on blind reckoning. She....can definitely - or, well, probably - get a Gate up to somewhere vaguely reasonable on a map, somewhere that Van knows. She probably won't even collapse in a puddle after trying it.

Need has been in Shavri's head, before. 

:Send her to Polsinn. Van can Gate there.: 

....See, Jisa does not actually have a map on her right now, and she was probably supposed to learn in her lessons where Polsinn is but she cannot, in fact, remember right now. Possibly because she's stressed and terrified and she feels stupid about that but still. 

Need can send her a mental image of it! 

:You can Gate her there. - er, you'll have to do a short-range Gate to get her here, first, but then to there. And then Katri can cast with me to Gate the rest of us home, it's fine.: 

Jisa does not really feel like any of this is fine! Actually! 

...none of that is new. Nothing has been okay since– .....not thinking about Savil right now. 

:Right. Um. Where am I Gating her from?: 

:- Iomedae, where are you, we need to Gate you to us first before we can send you somewhere remote.:

That is not how the spell Gate works but she is assuming that the translation's just behaving a bit oddly around slightly different spells or something. :I don't particularly know how to tell you where I am, if the Telepathy isn't doing it! I'm in some forest that looks identical to all of the forest I have been in since the explosion. I've been on a vaguely southwest bearing since the explosion and I've probably walked twenty, thirty miles.:

Need....is not actually very good at Gating, and relatedly is not very good at precise directionfinding in Mindspeech. 

- she will pull Jisa into the link, it's not at ridiculous range for her or anything. 

Uhhhhh. 

- Jisa will not send :Hi!: in a metaphorically high-pitched mindvoice, since that would sound very stupid. This is so awkward though.

She....will focus on her sense of where this weird person is, according to Need's weird mindlink, and fix a blind Gate over there, and...build a threshold...and raise the Gate...? 

And there's a woman there, blinking in mild surprise at the Gate. She is in magical plate armor and wearing kind of a lot of extremely magic stuff.

:Hello.:

Is she actually stepping across Jisa's Gate or does Jisa need to make a lot of hand gestures about this. She would really prefer not to hold it any longer than she has to. 

- sorry! She can come through! She doesn't really know how this is supposed to work!

Great, okay, the Gate is down and Jisa is....definitely a functional grownup person who is capable of doing things. Definitely. 

:Sorry: she sends. :I'm - apparently sending you to Polsinn? I think it's a small town in northern Valdemar? Need said you thought it'd be safer if you weren't in a big city.

....I'm Jisa.: 

She is NOT saying anything about being lifebonded to the future King of Valdemar. Or being the bastard daughter of the current king of Valdemar. Neither of those things is the point. 

- does Iomedae seem to have any questions before she raises an approximately-targeted Gate to this small northern town she's never been to...? 

Iomedae has so many questions and is not going to ask them of this very stressed teenager who is somehow already a powerful spellcaster. That does not suggest a happy childhood. Probably her country will send a diplomat, or a strike team, and she'll figure things out from there.

...At almost any other point in Jisa's life, Jisa would be fascinated and curious and have a thousand questions she wanted to ask. She's probably going to regret, tomorrow, that she failed to think of any of those questions during her brief window of opportunity. 

Right now, it's hard to care. 

:Gate to Polsinn: she sends, and - raises a Gate-threshold to, uh, somewhere. .....A field, apparently. It's probably close to Polsinn on a map. Van has a ridiculous Mindspeech range, he'll find this weird woman there. Probably. 

Oh thank the good gods it's not another animate hostile forest. A field. Civilization. Iomedae is an Arodenite and her soul cries out for fields of grain.

She says 'thank you', though they won't understand her, and goes through.

The Gate goes down. 

There are no mages currently present in Polsinn. It was a border town in Valdemar two decades ago, but things have changed.

The Web triggers an alarm, of course. It would usually go to Savil (dead, now), or Vanyel (highly distracted), or failing that, one of a number of recently awakened mages, all of whom are also distracted, and the most senior of whom (Katri) is also out of range. 

Jisa does not collapse in the snow because she has dignity. 

:Katri, er, can you - get us home....?: 

Jisa doesn't understand what exactly is wrong with Brightstar but it's worrying her! A lot! 

Katri can Gate them back if she has Need in her hand. 

(Need is...actually in substantial distress, because there is a CONFUSING PULL from Iomedae and also a sense that she shouldn't be there, but she will definitely help Katri Gate them back to Haven.) 

Iomedae continues to find herself in a field. The stars are very clear and bright above her. No one is interrupting her yet. 

Well, it's the best opportunity for an emotional breakdown she's had or is likely to have, so, sure, why not.

She's going to weep for the village. She didn't know the people in it, but they are dead because of her, everything they'd beautifully built shattered because of her, and she hates it, and she can't ever fix it, here where Aroden doesn't even reach. 

She has no idea what's going on here and she can't - find out, walk through the cities, talk to people - until she knows how that happened and if it'll happen again.

And she is angry, very angry, with whoever did it.

Vanyel is not even slightly in the mood for - any of this, whatever ""this"" is, but it's not like that's ever mattered. 

(Whether or not you can, you will.)

"- I don't understand," he says to his daughter, miserably. The misery is for so many reasons, but high among them is the fact that Jisa should not at all be having to deal with this. 

"I mean, none of it makes sense," the world stopped making sense when Savil died and honestly in some sense the world stopped making sense when he met Vanyel "but - she claims to want to help, right? It'd be stupid to just ignore that." 

It feels like it has to be a trick. But....it doesn't feel like the sort of trick Leareth would use. Maybe that's a stupid heuristic to be using, here, but Vanyel doesn't have anything better. 

...He would have gone north to talk to Leareth. Alone, if he had to. It's odd, how clear and stark that feels, now that it's not even the choice he has to make in reality. 

"- I think I need to go speak with her."

Stef....is not actually going to bring up the fact that this is a decision the King should have an opinion on. The King is dying. 

"...I'm coming with you." 

"It might be a trap." 

"I'm not an idiot. Van." 

Are we partners or not, he doesn't say. 

...Vanyel hears it anyway. He's - very tired. And confused. He's way too tired for this much confusion. 

I need him. 

And he'll raise a Gate to the part of Polsinn he remembers clearest, which is the stretch of road he paved for them, leading into the city square. 

Stef sings so that it won't hurt him at all. 

It's still probably a trap. Of some kind. He doesn't understand what Leareth's gameplan is, here, and he's so tired of being confused. 

- he keeps all of his shields raised but extends his Thoughtsensing, looking for minds that don't fit with the surroundings. 

Very well and very weirdly shielded, praying for the dead. She didn't even think to ask where they'll go, here. Maybe they'll be together.

...He's not going to try to read her mind. He'll just - walk in that direction. (He doesn't reach out ahead with Mindspeech either, but this is half because he has no idea how to start a conversation when he hasn't even seen her face.) 

Van is an idiot but he's Stef's idiot. Stef follows him. (He's so curious.) 

And Iomedae will see a short, slender man, dressed in white and with heavily silver-streaked hair, walking toward her. 

She's in the most magical plate armor he's ever seen, wearing a ludicrous number of magic items on top of that. She stands, when he approaches, and addresses him with her own Mindspeech or something like it. 

:Can I help you?:

...Wow. That's - beautiful - he's going to try not to get distracted by the sheer number of fascinating magical items she's wearing....

:I don't know. I - was hoping I could help you, I think. ....I heard from Jisa that you were there when k'Treva Vale, er, exploded. I - have a lot of questions.: 

:That makes sense.: Diplomat, not a strike team, so that's good news in a sense. 

And she'll repeat the account she gave Jisa, with a bit more detail - she was explaining about Tar-Baphon, he seemed interested in whether Tar-Baphon might be operating here...

Vanyel is way too tired for this. 

(And stepping very very hard on any emotions he might be tempted to have about - whatever happened to k'Treva, which might or might not be this stranger's fault, he doesn't think she's to blame but that's a gut sense and he still feels pretty unsure how far to trust his intuitions on who to trust– ...no, that's not even right, he - mostly feels unsure on whether he can convince Randi and - that's stupid - and not the point, right now, focus on the mission–)

:I don't think Tar-Baphon is responsible for, er, recent events: he sends, absently, once it seems like she's finished her train of thought. :I - it sounds like a very memorable sort of magic he uses, that I don't recognize.

...I, er, I - think you're right, that you're from somewhere far away.: 

It feels like there should be a second clause to that sentence but his mind is failing to produce it, right now. 

:That's what I think too.

Do you know what happened? To the village?:

:No! I -: wouldn't have thought anyone other than Leareth could destroy k'Treva Vale, and why would he, what goal is this aimed at, :- hoped you could tell me more.: 

:I know only what I said. The other man went to - check on something - but he didn't seem urgently worried. If I had to guess I'd have guessed he'd - gotten an alert of some kind, an important one but not one of a threat to - everything -:

Vanyel takes a deep breath. 

:...I - want to tell you some things about, er, the person who I think could have done this.: Because, however uncharacteristic this is for Leareth, who else could it has been. :But I - don't know if I can trust you. I hope you understand.

- Do you mind if I cast a Truth Spell and ask you some questions?: 

:I don't object but it probably won't work. My mind is protected against charms and compulsions.:

Huh. How does that even work. Vanyel could probably muster curiosity at some other time that is not this time, instead of - tired frustration - but apparently tired frustration is all he has right now. He's never seen a Truth Spell not work before and is confused what that would even mean. 

:I'll see.: 

Truth spell - the first-stage version, this isn't adversarial enough (yet) to justify a second-stage coercive Truth Spell. Do the vrondi settle on this person's head like they normally do? 

They seem to have a slightly harder time ...finding it? Settling? But they do settle.

...That's odd. Vanyel is very tempted to ignore it but - this doesn't seem like a good time to ignore quiet notes of confusion, does it. Even though he's very tired and he wants everything to stop.

(And Stef is there, hovering quietly being Vanyel, singing a song under his breath that should make him seem like ignorable furniture - well, not furniture, they're in a random field, whatever - except that he doesn't really feel like it's working on this weird impressive scary woman at all, his Gift isn't getting much at all from her....) 

Ugh. 

...Vanyel is one of the few - or possibly now the only (ow) living Herald-Mage, who knows how the Truth Spell works, and how to poke at its components. What do the vrondi think is going on with her? 

The vrondi are confused! There's a mind there and they recognize it but it doesn't work like most minds! ...The first-stage Truth Spell works, they can recognize deceptive intent. Just, there's - no other available surface, there...? 

- so a second-stage coercive Truth Spell wouldn't work? ...Huh. That's - not normally how things work at all - but Vanyel wasn't casting that version anyway. 

:Was anything you said before meant to mislead or deceive me?: he says, first, because that's the obvious question and buys him a few more seconds to think of less stupid questions. 

:No,: the woman says immediately. 

:Do you work for Leareth.: 

:I don't know that name. My god is Aroden, and there are no mortals I answer to. My crusade is funded by the Emperor of Taldor but his name is not Leareth and I wouldn't really say I work for him.:

...Which does feel like some kind of confirmation that she isn't directly Leareth's pawn, because Leareth would never claim allegiance to a god. (....Probably? He might lie to some of his agents about who they worked for, but - it feels like a thin excuse.) 

And 'Iomedae' really does come across as - someone who doesn't know anything about Valdemar. Which she would, of course, if this were intended as a trick, but....there's only so paranoid he can be, at some point you're just rejecting the possibility of learning anything new. 

:...I'm going to tell you some things, because if you're really - from far away, and want to help - then it's important. I'll pause and ask you more questions under first-stage Truth Spell - which does seem to work, by the way - in the middle. 

- you're currently in Valdemar. Our kingdom was founded about eight hundred years ago, after the first King Valdemar - Baron Valdemar, at the time - fled an oppressive Empire: Leareth's Empire, though he didn't seem proud of it, :with his people, and built a new country for them. He prayed to all the gods -: (a slight flinch, that hopefully Iomedae won't notice), :- whose names he knew, for - a miracle to keep his kingdom stable and good for its people. ...The gods sent the Companions, to Choose worthy Heralds: not even thinking about THAT particular flinch - and Yfandes is back in the forest, because it felt like too much vulnerability for her to be here at his side -  :who would do right by their country. 

...er, does any of that sound familiar?: 

:I don't think it's a place in my world, which I was already fairly sure of because Aroden isn't granting me new miracles. It makes sense to me? Describes a society that I'd be unsurprised to learn existed, though in fact it doesn't? ...where I'm from you would not pray to all the gods.: She didn't miss the flinch.

What. 

...Back up a step. 

:Does Aroden, er, normally grant you miracles? Not just in emergencies, just - as a matter of course -?: 

:- he normally grants me spells and healing powers every day. He isn't doing so here, I assume because I am very far from home.:

This is baffling and bizarre! ...The Healing less so, Karis had the miraculous Healing happen the one time, though every day is still weird, but - the way she's conveying it to him feels broader than that...

:Spells as in - throwing levinbolts or raising shields or casting Gates, that sort of thing?: 

:- most of my spells make me faster or stronger or more dangerous, but some of them allow me to speak to people over a great distance, or to suppress or end the magic of others, or to fly. The closest thing we have to Gates is a Teleport and gods don't give that one out. They also don't usually give out evocations - energy spells - that's usually arcane magic.:

That was a pile of fascinating new concepts that Vanyel would, under normal conditions, have so many followup questions about! 

...Right now he's mostly taking it as evidence that Iomedae is, in fact, from sufficiently far away that she probably doesn't know of Leareth, and isn't his agent, and - also might know a lot that would be of great value to Valdemar in fighting Leareth 

(if they're in the world where Leareth is their enemy, but Vanyel has several internal flinches away from thinking about that, right now, because Savil is dead and he doesn't understand how or why or whose fault it could be if it's not Leareth's doing and he's notthinkingaboutthat right now because if he starts he might cry for the next week -) 

Focus. 

:Right: he sends. :I - sorry - I wish you could've arrived at...at a better time. But - we're probably about to be at war. ...I should give you some context, I think, and - I guess ask if you're willing to help us.: 

:I would appreciate that context. May I cast a truth spell of my own?:

Interesting that she can cast a Truth Spell, presumably because it's a spell her god gave her? 

:That's fine.: 

(GRUMP Vanyel keeps forgetting that this entire conversation is happening in Mindspeech and Stef has no idea what's going on except for what he can pick up through the lifebond. Which...is mostly that Vanyel is tired - not news - and not alarmed, and maybe vaguely hopeful? So that's - well, it could be worse.) 

Well, actually, once she's cast her Truth Spell she's going to grow her angel wings back out and start speaking aloud. "The truth spell that I know only works on spoken words, if you don't mind speaking aloud?"

She just did WHAT. Wow. That's - gorgeous and fascinating and Stef has so many questions and he really hopes Vanyel will get those questions answered so he can write an epic ballad about this. ...Later, obviously. The time for writing epic ballads is after the existential threat to the kingdom is dealt with. Just. He's thinking ahead, right? 

Vanyel takes a deep breath. 

"Leareth is a powerful immortal mage who, er, I'm pretty sure he did something horrible to be immortal but that's not really the point. I - started having a Foresight dream about him almost twenty years ago, where I was fighting him off," dying, but he isn't going to say that out loud, "from conquering Valdemar. 

"...And, er, a few years after that, it turned out we were both in the Foresight dream and could have conversations. So we've - been doing that, for most of the last twenty years. He's– I mean, I guess he's what you'd expect of someone two thousand years old. Very - competent at things, very persuasive when he wants to be," though in hindsight it doesn't really feel like 'persuasion' was the only thing Leareth was aiming at, but Vanyel isn't going to say that out loud either. 

"- He said he wants to fix everything. He - he was eventually willing to tell me that the reason he wants our kingdom is to, to build an empire with a high enough population that he can. Um. Can sacrifice ten million people to build a god. A better god. He....doesn't approve of any of the local ones. Apparently.

"- we were in the middle of negotiating for - something better than that - but we haven't spoken in a few months, and, er. A lot of things just happened. That make me think that he's - given up on negotiations and decided to just invade." 

That was probably a terrible explanation but, in fairness, Vanyel is having a bad day. 

" - do you want some of the magical healing?" she asks quietly. "It helps with - exhaustion.

I am inclined to help you in your war. I would - want to write to this Leareth first."

Vanyel's Truth Spell is still active (it doesn't have a set duration, he has to decide to release it.) 

"Does your Healing have any side effects? Do you, er, intend the offer of Healing in good faith?" The second one feels like a spectacularly rude question but he really should ask. 

(He really should. Stef, so far, likes Iomedae quite a lot and does not trust her even slightly.) 

"The healing has no side effects except removing exhaustion, sickness, injury, poisoning, organ damage, and so on, and regrowing amputated body parts. It doesn't permit me any power over those who are healed. My only intention in offering it was to demonstrate it, and make you less exhausted for what seems like a very high stakes conversation. I intend to work with you in good faith. I'm confused and suspicious about this entire situation, but - I'm not going to stand by and let ten million people die for a human sacrifice operation because I'm very confused."

Her Healing can do WHAT that's not how anything works! Stef isn't a Healer but he's still pretty sure he knows that isn't how anything works! 

...She's neat, though, he likes her. That was a good speech. He should try to memorize some quotes for future ballads. It doesn't permit me any power over those who are healed / My only intention in offering it was to demonstrate it. What rhythms with 'demonstrate'....?

Vanyel nods. "Thank you. ...I think you're right, this - is really high stakes." It's the most high-stakes decision he's ever had to deal with, possibly the most high-stakes decision in Valdemar's history, and he hates it but it's not like his feelings on things have ever mattered. 

"I should ration the healing, with how Aroden doesn't refresh it here, but - I suspect I can figure something out, in the long run, and a lot more people are going to die than my healing can save, if there was a way to avert this war and we don't see it."

...And there's a deep sense of - recognition, there, of feeling like she understands, she's - trying to balance the resources she has and the constraints she faces, even knowing as little as she does - and of course she could be showing that to him on purpose, as a method of persuasion, but it - feels like the sort of thing he's thought about Leareth, sometimes, that it would be so much harder to fake it than to actually, just, care, and do it for real...

- and he's already asked her the questions that really matter under Truth Spell, it's not like it's decision-relevant whether the thing she just said makes him feel seen and understood, whether or not that was deliberate and strategic on her part. 

"Yes. ...I'm sorry. That you - don't have access to all the magic you're used to." It's hard to even imagine, actually - what would he do, if he only had a limited number of levinbolts and shields he could cast, ever, or at least for the indefinite future...

"Well, with your government's permission, after the war is avoided or won, I'll see if I can get a church of Aroden set up here, and maybe then He'll be able to function normally." And she extends her hand to offer the Lay On Hands.

...You can totally kill people with Healing. (Vanyel has done it.) But if Iomedae wanted to kill him, then she could have done it ten minutes ago. 

Vanyel extends his hand. 

She just heals him. A powerful paladin's lay on hands can soothe quite a lot, though not all of the things that Vanyel in particular has going on right now.

He feels remarkably better - nothing is fundamentally different, but it feels like having slept enough and eaten enough for the last month except even moreso or at least more than he's ever experienced before. 

"- Thank you," he says, trying - harder than he realized he would need to - to say it calmly and with his usual level of composure. "I - we were talking about you wanting to write to Leareth? - I do have an arrangement with him on exchanging messages but I've never, er, used it before. And - I think I'd want to read over whatever you want to send to him, if you don't mind." 

"Absolutely. I know almost nothing about this situation and I understand there are many ways that a letter can make things worse, most obviously by alerting Leareth that I'm here and he should do something about that. But it is the custom of the religious order of which I am a member that we war only openly, having made fully clear our demands, our decisive reasoning, and by what avenue our enemies could pursue a peace, and so I'll write a letter. 

In my world men can become gods. I do not particularly desire to offer godhood to a man who seems disturbingly willing to murder millions of people in pursuit of it, and I don't know if it's possible to access my world at all. But - if you think he's sincerely doing this in the pursuit of godhood, and was at least for a while open to another way - we do have one."

Wow. ...Stef is not going to ask any of his dozens of questions right now because it's a bad time but 'in my world, men can become gods' is SUCH juicy ballad material. 

...Vanyel nods. 

"I think– ...I'm not sure how good a read I have on him, but - if I've understood him right at all - then I think he pretty badly wants a - better way. Definitely something better than conquering Valdemar, I - I have the sense our conversations all along have been him trying to - figure out if we can work together somehow instead of that. I - we haven't really talked about alternatives to the - ten million people -" because it would mean revealing secrets that Leareth could, in the world where Vanyel is misreading his intentions, use to conquer Valdemar and consolidate his power forever, "- but - in the scenario where I'm...guessing right about what he wants...he would ver badly want alternatives. I think. ....I'm sorry I can't give you better guesses." 

" - well. We can tell him that I'm from another world; it'll be hard to hide anyway once he's seen me in battle. And we can tell him that if he wants to find another way, my world might suggest some possibilities, but he'll have to - what concrete demands does Valdemar have of him at this time? You fear an invasion, but his troops are all in his territory at this time?"

"....As far as we know? His territory is, er, north of the Ice Wall Mountains, it's - we really don't have good intelligence on his movements. He definitely hasn't invaded Valdemar yet." That, at least, they would have noticed. Almost certainly. 

"- I, uh, think our concrete demands are that we don't want him using our population for blood-sacrifice, but that's - I think he wasn't going to be ready to actually do that for a few decades anyway." 

...Vanyel takes another deep breath. "...And, uh, I'm - not, actually, sure that the recent - things that happened - were his doing. I don't have any other explanation but it - doesn't make a lot of sense, strategically, for him to have done it? ...And I wouldn't have said before now that I thought he could destroy k'Treva Vale. That's the - it's in the core territory of the Star-Eyed Goddess. I'm pretty sure he's claimed before that he couldn't operate without interference from Her in the Pelagirs." 

(Or in the Dhorisha Plains, and - there are real implications there, if Leareth had the ability to defy the Star-Eyed all along then surely Vanyel wouldn't have been the first person to, after two thousand years, show him a memory of Urtho's face...) 

"Well, I'm willing to notify him that I presently intend to defend Valdemar from an invasion, but if he's presently in his own territory I'm also not going to help you invade him - not because you wouldn't have good reason, under the described circumstances, but because I can't myself under these circumstances arrive at enough confidence in what's going on to be comfortable invading another country."

"- Valdemar doesn't invade other countries. ...Er, I mean, if we were ever going to break that precedent it would be for this, but I don't think we realistically can, we have no idea where his people are and - I don't think it's meaningfully even a country he has up north, more a - secret underground mercenary organization?" Vanyel ducks his head. "Anyway. I don't think it costs Valdemar anything that you wouldn't in theory be willing to help us invade his territory?" 

"If he doesn't have an army how is he planning to conquer Valdemar?"

"We're pretty sure he has an army! We have some information about it, even - I don't really know how he has an army north of the Ice Wall Mountains, I don't think you can grow food there without magic - I don't know. He seems confident he has the people and resources to conquer us if he decides that's the best plan and I'm - inclined to think he's not being an idiot about that." 

- vast array of demiplanes, probably. Great. She's - very not thrilled about this person gaining access to Golarion, though it doesn't sound like his own world can handle him any better. 

"Understood. I - do you have paladins here, the other people I spoke with weren't familiar with the word."

"I don't recognize it either. Can you, er, describe some things about what makes someone a paladin and what paladins do?" 

"Paladins make oaths of service to our order that include commitments to behave - honorably, to protect the innocent, to give our wealth where it's needed most. The specific commitments vary by order, but all paladins are honorable and good - the gods renounce any who behave otherwise, and don't select in the first place anyone who is likely to. Paladins are empowered by the gods to be very good at fighting, especially at fighting Evil."

...Vanyel tries to keep his (pointless, stupid) flinch internal, but it's probably still going to be noticeable to Iomedae. 

"That - almost sounds like Heralds? Er, the people who are chosen by Companions, in Valdemar." For some reason Vanyel is failing to bring up that he's one. Yfandes would have something to say about this if she were here instead of safely 300 miles away, probably. "....Except the 'empowered by the gods' part, we - our gods don't work as directly as yours, I think. But the - commitment to behave honorably and protect the innocent - there's a standard oath, I can tell you the exact wording if that's useful...?" 

"Very much so."

"It's...." 

This is weirdly terrible and Vanyel - should probably think about that feeling, at some point, though having to reflect on his feelings about anything ALSO sounds terrible and he's actually just not going to look at all the reasons why, right now, because he'll look like an idiot if he starts crying in the middle of this incredibly high stakes conversation. 

" 'I pledge to you this day my sword. I pledge you my heart, that we may build and preserve our land and people together. I vow to obey our Laws and seek the Truth in every thought and deed, to heal the wrongs and bring aid to those who suffer, and by the strength of my hand to restore and keep the peace. The deeds of those who lived before, the legends of our past, have shown me the way, and my Companion has opened a door in my heart. It is upon love that we build this foundation, and for love that I will serve Valdemar as long as there is breath in me. This is our sacred trust. My path stands clear before me, and where you lead, I cannot be afraid. Upon my soul I vow this to you, that the light that is our people may never fade.' "  

Wow that seems insufficiently specific! Iomedae is going to not be wildly culturally insensitive. She'll nod. "I - think that's an institution similar to what we have in important ways, if not exactly the same. Does that mean - that your enemy will trust your Law - that we can invite him to speak with us face to face and he'll know he can trust it -"

"...I, er, I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean by 'Law' there."

It feels like it's - something deeper than just 'will follow Valdemar's laws' which obviously wouldn't be sufficient to convince Leareth to come to Valdemar for face-to-face talks??? 

"I - do think his trust in our, er, integrity, has generally not been the limiting factor here? I don't trust him enough to want to meet him face to face," where he could cast compulsions on everyone, assuming of course that he can't trivially do that at a distance or by showing up under illusions but Vanyel is, mostly, assuming he can't do that or at least that it would be very costly for him not to be detected. 

"- If I'm trying to imagine his objections, I - think they would be that it doesn't matter what we say, we're a country that follows the gods - and our Companions are direct godmiracles," influenced by it in ways Vanyel knows better than anyone else and also incredibly does not want to talk about right now, "and he doesn't trust Them." 

" - huh. 

What - does he expect would go wrong as a consequence of the gods opposing him, if Valdemar were hosting peace talks?"

"I mean, apparently the gods assassinate him a lot? ...He comes back but I assume it's still inconvenient."

(And Vanyel is pretty sure that Leareth's immortality method involves killing people - he doesn't exactly seem to come back as a baby - and separately that this bothers Leareth.) 

" - sorry, directly? Just - manifesting in person to smite him themselves???"

Great, now Vanyel feels like an idiot for not having interrogated Leareth harder on the exact methods by which the gods supposedly repeatedly killed him. 

"I, er, think usually less directly than that? ...We do sometimes get direct miracles, uh, devout followers of gods can be directly possessed by them and sometimes get Gifts from it that they don't usually have? But usually the gods work by - nudging things to happen a certain way," such as, for example, Vanyel's ENTIRE LIFE nope not thinking about that any further in this conversation, "and it's...feasible to nudge things so that someone ends up dying." Vanyel should know. Though Leareth has presumably learned to be a lot more careful than....that. 

"- and your gods might nudge for Leareth to die during peace talks, so he can't reasonably show up to them?"

"I mean, there's an argument it'd be reasonable for Them to try it! If he keeps invading countries!" ....Vanyel separately has deeply mixed feelings but he is not, currently, in the mood to be charitable to Leareth. 

" - to kill him in general, certainly, but if they'll predictably try to kill him during peace talks then, as seems to have in fact occurred, no one will be able to have any peace talks! Which I would expect to lead to many unnecessary deaths."

"....I mean, I'm not sure the gods would consider that Their problem?" 

- Vanyel is not sure how much he endorses having just said that, but - well, he's not about to correct it, is he. 

"You...think the gods don't care if people die unnecessarily? ....if that's the case, what's even their grievance with the evil immortal warlord?"

(Oh, this is going to be juicy. Stef is being very quiet and forgettable and listening so intently.) 

(Stef has not been forgotten in the slightest but she can direct her questions to the person who has orders to speak to her and not the person who has orders to hang around silently.)

"....I don't know." Helpless shrug. "I'm - confused about a lot of things."

Including to what extent he agrees with Leareth's - well, the hypothetical Leareth who has been telling the truth all along - that Leareth's claim that the gods are, if not opposed, at least indifferent to whether mortal people have good lives. And - he really can't argue with Leareth's claim that the gods wield mortals as pawns in Their games. 

He's so tired.

"I - think They clearly have some kind of grievance with him. And...They did show up to King Valdemar's prayer, and Valdemar is built on - the result of that prayer." For better or worse. "...I don't know." 

Probably Iomedae was hoping for a less stupid answer. Vanyel apparently can't offer anything better than this, right now. 

Stef, to be clear, does not have ORDERS to do anything specific at all here and wouldn't obey them if he did

"Maybe you can help me draft my letter in such a fashion as to avoid Leareth concluding that I and my god operate in the same mold and are impossible to talk with?"

....That sounds almost impossibly hard. But - important. And Vanyel - he's not sure, everything feels like quicksand right now - but he doesn't think he's given up, yet, on it being possible to communicate things to Leareth in a way that helps. 

"Of course. What would you want to say to him?" 

Leareth,

This letter was written with Vanyel's assistance, but I, Iomedae, am the primary author. I arrived in K'Treva Vale shortly before the explosion from what I believe is another world. 

I think that the existence of, and possibility of contact with, my world may change the justification for your war. I hope that this is so. 

I think that it will be much costlier for you to go to war with Valdemar while I am inclined to defend them against conquest. I am so inclined. You could persuade me either that this defense is entirely futile or that your war is justified, though only with great difficulty. I will almost certainly defend Valdemar if you attack at present. My presence on a battlefield is usually decisive. 

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. The grievances Vanyel explained to me would not be applicable to Aroden. 

Aroden was a human once, and he represents that ascension did not change what he strived for, or his commitment to dealing rightly by others. 

Aroden ascended without killing other people, by a mechanism called the Starstone that remains in our world and still functions. Others have used it to ascend after Him. 

Aroden cannot operate in this world at this time. I will likely take steps to change that. You could ask me not to do that, if it seems to you that it might have greatly negative effects. 

I have no desire for war. It is among the most tragic of human endeavors. I have been at war for nearly all my life and am very good at it. 

The communications in this message are intended as part of a peace negotiation. Were we negotiating by the norms of the world I am from, that would have the following implications: I will, to the best of my abilities, not position myself to make inferences about your capabilities from the timing and process for the exchange of letters, and not use the contents against the aims of the peace process. I will not harm your agents in the course of their operations related to these negotiations. If you provide information or resources conditional on my agreement to terms I do not agree to, I will send them back. I will not lie. I will attest to the contents of this letter under truth magic, as relevant; I will swear not only that this communication is true to the best of my knowledge, but that the best of my knowledge is very good; that when I make claims in contexts like this one I am usually correct.

If you were to, for example, take this peace communication as a prompt to attempt to kidnap me, before knowledge of me would otherwise have reached you, this would be, in the terms familiar in my world, indicative that this kind of mutually cooperative and Lawful interaction will not work. I mostly expect that, regardless of your intent, this negotiation will not proceed along the terms familiar for Lawful negotiation in my own world, because we are alien to each other, and nearly certain to face much mutual incomprehension. But I am trying to make this negotiation possible for you and advantageous for you, and will do so past the first several points where it seems to me you are not doing the same. 

...He's impressed, is Vanyel's first thought. Leareth will be impressed, and that's an even higher bar. 

"He's going to have a lot of questions," he says eventually. "That's - probably fine, if you're thinking of this as the start of a conversation and not trying to hit everything up front, but - hmm. I think he's going to want more concrete claims about what you can do such that you're, er, usually decisive on a battlefield." Come to think of it, Vanyel also has questions about that. "Is it related to, er, how you survived the explosion?" 

"I have very fast reaction times, it's very hard to injure me, most injuries do not impair me, I can miraculously heal myself a dozen more times and under ordinary circumstances can do it sixteen times a day, most spells just don't affect me if I resist them, and I am unusually strong."

That does not on the face of it sound like enough to singlehandedly defeat an army, but - she definitely believes that it's true, and for the moment Vanyel is inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. 

"...Huh. Is that all miracles from your god? - and are you sure still works, here, if you know you can't get more of the Healing?" 

"My health and reflexes have definitely remained, or the explosion would have been lethal. I suppose a possible inference from the fact that your truth spell worked is that my protection against magical control is gone, which would be - extremely concerning, actually -"

"....Yes, that would be really worrying. Leareth, er, uses a lot of compulsions." 

"Do you possess the means to check?"

"Compulsions do show up to mage-sight. Or, er, do you mean you want me to try casting a compulsion on you to test it?" He can technically do that but he looks so uncomfortable about it. "It might be fine? The first-stage Truth Spell worked but it - landed oddly - and I think maybe a coercive Truth Spell wouldn't work - I can just test that, if you want?" 

"A coercive truth spell obliges the target to speak? Yes, that should be an adequate test."

- and if he pushes more power into the Truth Spell, can he coax the vrondi to settle more deeply on Iomedae's mind? 

Nope. 

Vanyel sags slightly in relief. "Doesn't work. I can try the compulsion too, if you want, but - fairly sure it won't work either." 

"Good. I would not expect it to. And I believe my other Aroden-granted powers still function here -" She makes her magic sword glow EVEN MORE MAGIC. 

That's so satisfyingly dramatic! Stef is so jealous. 

Vanyel peers at the sword with mage-sight to try to figure out what that spell even is, but doesn't ask. 

"I think you should say in the letter that you believe you're immune to compulsions, and - I don't think it reveals anything we can't afford if you mention the part about fast reflexes and being very hard to injure?" He's curious about that, or at least would be curious if he had the energy; that's...not how Gifts work...mages are hard to injure but only because of shielding, and even Healers aren't harder to injure than un-Gifted, just more resilient to it. "He'll want proof of some kind, probably, or at least harder evidence than just your word for it, but - we can deal with that when we get there, I think." 

He frowns, skimming over the letter again. "...The part about information shared under terms you end up not agreeing to is confusing, it's not like you can un-know something he already told you? Though I think he'd be inclined to clarify terms up front before sharing anything sensitive, he's - very careful." 

"I can avoid acting on things that I was told in confidence, and routinely do so! But yes, I don't think we can or should try to jump right to - the way high-trust negotiations work in my world, it's just worth outlining what they'd look like in case he can recognize it. Some people can.

She will add to the letter, 

I am immune to compulsions. I am immune to fear. I have other forms of protection against magical attack which I do not expect at this time it's a good idea to specify. I do not know of a good basis for comparison across worlds, but in my own world the only powers that could survive in my presence on the battlefield for six seconds are halfway to being gods.

"Probably you should tell me a great deal more about - and perhaps demonstrate - how someone in this world would try to kill me, were they trying to do that."

She's immune to fear? How is that even a thing? ...It does feel thematically appropriate as a miraculous gift from the gods, but it's so weird. Also why "six seconds"? That's so specific! 

Vanyel nods his approval at her modification.

"....Er, if I expected you to be as hard a target as Leareth, and wanted to kill you. I'd - probably Final Strike. Which I can't demonstrate, sorry." 

"Is that - a bigger explosion than whatever happened in the village?"

"...I didn't see the, um, the explosion up close, I don't know how wide an area it hit." And wow he does not want to think about it at all. "Most mages - even Adepts - would, er, have a weaker Final Strike than mine. If it were me then...I wouldn't be surprised if the fireball and the crater it left was ten miles across." 

" - wow." Why is that a thing, that sounds incredibly terrible for the world and also she can't think where the magic power would even come from. ...probably you could do that much damage with a Wish, so it's just a Wish amount of power, and he is claiming he's much more powerful than most people. "I suppose the thing to say to Leareth is that I survived the village explosion and have every reason to expect I could survive a Final Strike for the same reason. ...and that if he wants to try it, he should notify me so I can make sure I'm ten miles away from any civilians." 

It's not actually funny at all and Vanyel is not going to snicker, the temptation to is nerves more than anything.

"Mmm. ...I do think he'd follow those terms, if you offer them and he - does want to try assassination first to prove for himself that you're not lying about your capabilities. I don't think he likes killing civilians, and - I mean, the whole reason he wants our country is to build up a denser population, killing a lot of people in the conquest would just delay that." 

She nods, like the kind of person who will notify you of their intent to assassinate you so that you can go somewhere less inhabited is a familiar type for her. "I'd expect his hesitation to be that I could prepare more for an assassination attempt if I'm told to expect it. Which I won't, obviously, but I wouldn't expect him to trust that I won't."

"- What preparations would you make for it, if someone else warned you and you didn't need to avoid using the information? I'm - not actually sure what I would do if I learned Leareth was planning to assassinate me in a day, I expect most precautions I could take - including trying to be unfindable - would be ones he could get around." 

"I have lots of spells that make me better at dodging enormous explosions and so on. If forewarned I'd cast them, and I'd take particular care to not sleep, which I can go for about a week without doing. But if forewarned in order to minimize civilian casualties I'd take no precautions I do not take ordinarily. Which still probably includes not sleeping this week, since this is a very unusual situation and I want to have a better understanding of it before I rely on anything outside myself."

The letter now reads: 

Leareth,

This letter was written with Vanyel's assistance, but I, Iomedae, Knight-Commander of the Knights of Ozem, am the primary author. I arrived in K'Treva Vale shortly before the explosion, and I think it may have been a response to me, though I don't know how or why. I think that I am from another world.

I think that the existence of, and possibility of contact with, my world may change the justification for your war. I hope that this is so. 

I think that it will be much costlier for you to go to war with Valdemar while I am inclined to defend them against conquest. I am so inclined. You could persuade me either that this defense is entirely futile or that your war is justified, though only with great difficulty. I will almost certainly defend Valdemar if you attack at present. My presence on a battlefield is usually decisive. 

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. 

Aroden was a human once, and he represents that ascension did not change what he strived for, or his commitment to dealing rightly by others. 

Aroden ascended without killing other people, by a mechanism called the Starstone that remains in our world and still functions. Others have used it to ascend after Him. 

Aroden cannot operate in this world at this time. I will likely take steps to change that. You could ask me not to do that, if it seems to you that it might have greatly negative effects. 

I have no desire for war. It is among the most tragic of human endeavors. I have been at war for nearly all my life and am very good at it. I am immune to compulsions. I am immune to fear. I have other forms of protection against magical attack which I do not expect at this time it's a good idea to specify. I do not know of a good basis for comparison across worlds, but in my own world the only powers that could survive in my presence on the battlefield for six seconds are halfway to being gods.

I survived the K'Treva Vale explosion and believe that I would survive a Final Strike for the same reason. If you wish to test this I request that you notify me in advance so I can go somewhere where your attempt will not cause civilian casualties. I will take no precautions against assassination on receiving such notice that I wasn't taking already, except for avoiding civilians.

The communications in this message are intended as part of a peace negotiation. Were we negotiating by the norms of the world I am from, that would have the following implications: I will, to the best of my abilities, not position myself to make inferences about your capabilities from the timing and process for the exchange of letters, and not use the contents against the aims of the peace process. I will not harm your agents in the course of their operations related to these negotiations. If you provide information or resources conditional on my agreement to terms I do not agree to, I will send them back. I will not lie. I will attest to the contents of this letter under truth magic, as relevant; I will swear not only that this communication is true to the best of my knowledge, but that the best of my knowledge is very good; that when I make claims in contexts like this one I am usually correct.

If you were to, for example, take this peace communication as a prompt to attempt to kidnap me, before knowledge of me would otherwise have reached you, this would be, in the terms familiar in my world, indicative that this kind of mutually cooperative and Lawful interaction will not work. I mostly expect that, regardless of your intent, this negotiation will not proceed along the terms familiar for Lawful negotiation in my own world, because we are alien to each other, and nearly certain to face much mutual incomprehension. But I am trying to make this negotiation possible for you and advantageous for you, and will do so past the first several points where it seems to me you are not doing the same. 

With regards,

Iomedae, Knight-Commander of the Knights of Ozem and of the Shining Crusade

There's something faintly ridiculous about the concept of dodging a ten-mile wall of fire, but honestly Vanyel is more confused that she can apparently just NOT SLEEP for a WEEK, who is this woman– nevermind, not the top priority right now. She's claiming to be from another world, Vanyel reminds himself. And she looks human enough but she - might not be the kind of human he's used to. 

"I think it's a reasonable letter," he says eventually, trying not to sound as tired about it as he feels. "I'm guessing you'll want us to arrange its delivery? And - possibly you should be far away from civilians first, in case Leareth gets spooked and - reacts hastily." 

"Indeed. Why don't you recommend me somewhere to go, and then drop it off as soon as is feasible, it seems plausibly quite time-sensitive. If you have multiple redundant locations that would be good."

Nod. "I can have copies of it made. And - hmm - I'm trying to think where it would be best to bring you. Probably north of here, where the population is sparser, but - I don't actually have many Gate locations north of here. Will you need, er, camping supplies or anything - or we could try to leave you at a Heralds' Waystation, I think there are some at least ten miles from the nearest town and then you'd at least have a roof over your head..." 

"That is preferable. I don't actually know if I can freeze to death but it seems like a foolish thing to test. - our magic would make this not an important constraint, at home, but I don't myself have access to the spell that would do it."

"That makes sense. I'll - go look at my map and figure out where we're putting you." And then he has to Gate himself back to Haven, to bring this to Randi and...probably he should apologize to the King for rushing off without asking...it's not the first time and Randi will forgive him but still. 

- oh. 

"Iomedae, how does your Healing work? It seemed - instant, which ours isn't, and it didn't feel like Healing-Gift does. I ask because our King is - ill," dying, but he doesn't quite trust Iomedae far enough yet to reveal that, though she seems absurdly perceptive and will probably infer that it's not a minor illness, "and - Healing him could end up making a very big difference in this war." 

If they end up at war. If they're at war in the first place. It felt inevitable, yesterday, but now there's a slender thread of hope that it isn't. Vanyel hadn't expected hope would hurt so much more than resignation. 

"It is much less useful for illness than for injury, but it can help with some of the effects an illness has had on the body. I am happy to help, if failure won't cause - political complications of some kind."

"It won't make anything worse if it fails, right?" Sigh. "I really don't feel like it would make sense to blame you if it turns out your Healing can't do anything we haven't already tried. I'll talk to him." 

And he'll go dig in his pack for a map. 

Which leaves Stef at loose ends. 

He bounces from one foot to the other. "How do the wings work?" he asks Iomedae. "Are they just - made out of magic? I don't think you could even do that with magecraft." 

"The spell is called Greater Angelic Aspect, and it transforms me to be more like an angel. They are not made out of magic, they are bone and feather, but conjured bone and feather that won't endure all that much longer."

"Huh! So it's like summoning an elemental, but only part of one and attached to you? ...What's an 'angel', is that a kind of elemental?" 

"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.: 

Vanyel is indeed on his feet again, striding back toward them as he tucks the map away again under his cloak. 

:Iomedae, I think I can get you to the next Waystation past Westmark, it's twenty miles from the nearest town. Probably not twenty miles from the nearest farm but we don't have very good census-data, I - shouldn't stay long but I can maybe have the nearest Herald on circuit try to warn evacuate people. Er, the Waystation will have bedding and firewood and some basic nonperishable foodstuffs that need cooking. Doesn't have much else in the way of amenities, but if it's only for a few days...: 

:I don't require food. It should be fine. It seems reasonably likely that Leareth will attempt to kidnap me; if that succeeds, I'll try to talk to him, and I ask only that if my own people come looking for me you tell them whatever you know.:

:Of course. ...Er, do you think it's likely your people will be able to find you, and coming looking? And if so, who they're most likely to send? We're - pretty on edge - I don't want us to end up overreacting because we assume something might be hostile action.: 

:I would've expected them to be here already if it was straightforward. If it is nonstraightforward it will probably be our own most powerful mage, Alfirin, and I don't know if she'd contact you openly or not.:

Nod. :We'll keep an eye out. Is your letter ready?: He holds out his hand for it. :And, er, sorry, we'll have to walk back a bit closer to the town, I need a doorway to raise a Gate on.: 

She hands him the letter. 

:I don't mind walking.: She's surprisingly quick at it, given the plate mail.

Well, she did say she was unusually fast and strong. 

(The healing spell Iomedae cast helped with Vanyel's exhaustion, but he's not actually that accustomed to long walks on foot, and he's not delighted about it. He misses Yfandes. 

...Yfandes must be so worried...)  

Stef is notably not very strong or fit - he has the frail build of someone who was chronically malnourished as a child - and he's slightly struggling to keep up, and is not in a thousand years going to admit to this. Vanyel is clearly impatient and in a hurry, and understandably so. He doesn't want to linger in the possible blast radius any longer than necessary either. 

They reach a barn before they come to within sight of the town itself. Vanyel lifts his hand and casts a Gate on its doorway. The other end opens into a tiny, square, one-room hut with no internal lighting and only a few days of dim wintry sunlight filtering through the cracks of the window shutters. 

:Here you are. I'll pass word to the Heralds that I dropped you off here and they're to avoid it.: 

:Thank you. Let me know if there's a reply to the letter, please, or if you need the miraculous healing.:

:Of course. I - thank you. I...hope it goes well.: 

And the Gate comes down, leaving her in darkness. 

What a complicated and confusing situation. She mostly does expect the local evil archmage to try to kidnap her, and being on edge about that makes doing anything else a little difficult, but she'll start mentally reviewing everything and considering - which heuristics it suggests she should shift, where she would've been less surprised by the newest twist if she'd been using a different internal policy....

Aaaaaand now for the part that Vanyel is spectacularly not looking forward to. 

The healing helped a lot, but after a second Gate back to Haven, he’s still feeling it, and even less than usual in the mood for a Senior Circle meeting.

Randi is worse off, though. If he can drag himself out - well, be carried - for an emergency meeting, Vanyel can cope. 

He lets Yfandes fully into his mind as soon as the Gate is down. 

She surges into his mind, sending love and worry. :Are you all right, Chosen?:

That is a question that doesn’t feel very relevant to anything right now, and Vanyel is - mostly trying not to think too hard about the answer. 

:I’m fine. I - think she is who she claims to be, and genuinely wants to help. She agreed to and passed a first-stage Truth Spell. …Second-stage doesn’t work on her. Her god makes her immune to most mind-affecting magic. Which is good, right, if it means Leareth can't suborn her... She wants to send him a letter. Says she doesn't start wars with people without having talked first.: 

:An admirable sentiment: Yfandes' mindvoice is very tense. :What's she saying to him?: 

:Haven't had the chance to read the updated letter, yet. Need to take it to Randi.: 

And he's flinching away from thinking about half a dozen things, because there hasn't been time to process any of the enormity of Savil's death and he's just learned that, almost certainly, everyone he knew and cared about in k'Treva Vale is dead and it might in some sense be Iomedae's fault. Yfandes is very worried about him. 

And it doesn't change anything. The stakes aren't going to get any lower and the situation isn't going to get any less screamingly urgent just because Vanyel needs time to process - because they all do - and the only thing to be done is keep going. 

:Of course, love. I'll tell Treven's Eren to arrange the meeting.: 

And ten minutes later, the King of Valdemar is arranged in a padded chair in one of the small meeting-rooms. The rest of the Senior Circle is still assembling - only Treven is there, mostly hiding his tense misery, and Tantras looking even more exhausted than Vanyel feels. 

"Van. Can you please explain." 

"I spoke with her. I - think it was the right decision, going north. I've dropped her off at a remote Waystation, she's - worried that she's a target." Though it doesn't make any sense that exploding k'Treva could have been Leareth's doing and also triggered by Iomedae's arrival, she'd been there for minutes, how could Leareth possibly have known enough about her to recognize the threat.... "She explained some things about her world and her god. It really does sound like another world. She says she wants to defend Valdemar if we're invaded, and hopes she can make a case to Leareth against bothering to invade, given that. ....Here, just read this." 

And he plops the letter down on the table.  

Leareth,

 

This letter was written with Vanyel's assistance, but I, Iomedae, Knight-Commander of the Knights of Ozem, am the primary author. I arrived in K'Treva Vale shortly before the explosion, and I think it may have been a response to me, though I don't know how or why. I think that I am from another world.

I think that the existence of, and possibility of contact with, my world may change the justification for your war. I hope that this is so. 

I think that it will be much costlier for you to go to war with Valdemar while I am inclined to defend them against conquest. I am so inclined. You could persuade me either that this defense is entirely futile or that your war is justified, though only with great difficulty. I will almost certainly defend Valdemar if you attack at present. My presence on a battlefield is usually decisive. 

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.

Aroden was a human once, and he represents that ascension did not change what he strived for, or his commitment to dealing rightly by others. 

Aroden ascended without killing other people, by a mechanism called the Starstone that remains in our world and still functions. Others have used it to ascend after Him. 

Aroden cannot operate in this world at this time. I will likely take steps to change that. You could ask me not to do that, if it seems to you that it might have greatly negative effects. 

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.

I have no desire for war. It is among the most tragic of human endeavors. I have been at war for nearly all my life and am very good at it. I am immune to compulsions. I am immune to fear. I have other forms of protection against magical attack which I do not expect at this time it's a good idea to specify. I do not know of a good basis for comparison across worlds, but in my own world the only powers that could survive in my presence on the battlefield for six seconds are halfway to being gods.

I survived the K'Treva Vale explosion and believe that I would survive a Final Strike for the same reason. If you wish to test this I request that you notify me in advance so I can go somewhere where your attempt will not cause civilian casualties. I will take no precautions against assassination on receiving such notice that I wasn't taking already, except for avoiding civilians.

The communications in this message are intended as part of a peace negotiation. Were we negotiating by the norms of the world I am from, that would have the following implications: I will, to the best of my abilities, not position myself to make inferences about your capabilities from the timing and process for the exchange of letters, and not use the contents against the aims of the peace process. I will not harm your agents in the course of their operations related to these negotiations. If you provide information or resources conditional on my agreement to terms I do not agree to, I will send them back. I will not lie. I will attest to the contents of this letter under truth magic, as relevant; I will swear not only that this communication is true to the best of my knowledge, but that the best of my knowledge is very good; that when I make claims in contexts like this one I am usually correct.

If you were to, for example, take this peace communication as a prompt to attempt to kidnap me, before knowledge of me would otherwise have reached you, this would be, in the terms familiar in my world, indicative that this kind of mutually cooperative and Lawful interaction will not work. I mostly expect that, regardless of your intent, this negotiation will not proceed along the terms familiar for Lawful negotiation in my own world, because we are alien to each other, and nearly certain to face much mutual incomprehension. But I am trying to make this negotiation possible for you and advantageous for you, and will do so past the first several points where it seems to me you are not doing the same. 

With regards,

Iomedae, Knight-Commander of the Knights of Ozem and of the Shining Crusade

...This is, in fact, also the first Vanyel is learning of the 'outer planes' where people GO TO LIVE FOREVER when they die and he has emotions. It's the worst possible time to be having emotions. He is nonetheless having a very difficult time concentrating on anything else right now. 

...he can't help trying to picture Leareth's face, when he receives this message. It - changes everything - and whatever else he thinks about the man, Vanyel has a hard time imagining that Leareth doesn't genuinely and deeply want people to stop dying. Or - well, this is almost better in a way than universal immortality, which has all sorts of complications, the sorting system is bizarre but...

He doesn't actually feel like he can guess how Leareth is going to react. Just that it's going to be - a big deal. 

(He might in fact kidnap Iomedae. It's got to be his first instinct to something this new and outside his known context, to get in control...) 

Randi eventually clears his throat. 

"Er. I...honestly don't have the slightest idea what Leareth is going to do with this. Whether or not he's the one who tried to kill her, actually." 

"There's absolutely no way he's going to believe any of it, right? I mean. I don't really trust - any of this - and that's with Van having been there in person with a Truth Spell." 

"I mean, no, not without more evidence. But - if it's true then it's the single most important thing that's happened in - possibly ever, or at least since the Cataclysm? He's going to at least check. - might try to check by kidnapping her but she thinks her god's miracles mean she can survive a Final Strike at close-up range, he almost certainly can't kill her and may not even be able to badly hurt her, and he probably can't compulsion her either. And if he does - act adversarially - then I think that mostly just confirms to her that he's in the wrong and Valdemar needs defending from him?" 

...Which feels, in itself, like a reason to predict that Leareth won't open with kidnapping, because Leareth isn't an idiot and it - holds together, that he genuinely doesn't want a war, which will be costly and destructive and mean it takes even longer to repair and get the thing he really wanted all along. Which Iomedae doesn't want him to have even via peaceful means, but - there might still be common ground there. 

Treven is biting his lip. "What's the risk of sending the letter on Iomedae's behalf? What options does it lose us?" 

"- Anything that would lean on him not knowing about Iomedae or her capabilities, I guess? But - if it was him who blew up k'Treva then he has to know already, right." 

If it was Leareth who– 

Vanyel's mind is still bouncing away from looking at it directly. It hurts, and he's so confused and - what does this even accomplish, from Leareth's point of view, losing Savil (quiet internal screaming, but he can, at this point, make himself think her name) weakened Valdemar meaningfully. But k'Treva isn't even Valdemaran territory. It has to have been insanely costly even for Leareth to operate there. You would think he would find something better to do with an agent in a Tayledras Vale - and it feels like an even thinner excuse that it was an impulse panic reaction to Iomedae's sudden arrival, one because Leareth does not at all seem like the impulse panic reaction sort of person, and two, because he would have had so little time to react, surely not even long enough to receive a spy-report from an agent and respond to it... 

Maybe someone in k'Treva was Leareth's agent and acted unilaterally? That - would be horrifyingly sad, mostly. And still doesn't feel like a story that leaves Vanyel less rather than more confused. 

But if it wasn't Leareth, then - no, he's still failing to think of literally any alternative. 

Treven clears his throat. "Is there any way it could have been an accident? Whatever happened in k'Treva, I mean. It would have to be a huge coincidence, but - it is in the Pelagirs, there's a lot of dangerous magic there...?" 

It would have to be an absurd level of coincidence, Vanyel thinks grumpily - not just that it happened at all, when he's never heard of anything like this, but the exact timing - unless maybe there was a magical interaction, that some of Iomedae's otherworldly powerful magical artifacts or some of her glued-on persistent godmiracle powers interfered with the functioning of the Vale's magic, destabilized some critical infrastructure...? 

The insane conspiracy theory, of course, is that it was Aroden's doing. Or - indirectly, maybe, if the sudden presence and influence of a completely unknown god spooked the Star-Eyed into something that– 

....something that - if not for Iomedae's determined insistence on diplomacy, and maybe even with it, will inevitably result in a war. 

Which (horrified recognition) might, actually, be rather in the Star-Eyed's interests. 

Except that the entire theory is also completely insane. They were Her people. It would surely have cost Her even more than it gained her - it was already pretty determined that Valdemar would go to war, after Savil - 

- the fish came from the Pelagirs - 

- this is an agonizing and stupid thread of thought to be chasing in the middle of an urgent meeting. Vanyel drags his attention back to the room. 

"- good point, that the worst-case scenario here is that Leareth is responsible for k'Treva," Randi is saying. "In which case Iomedae wanting to try diplomacy first doesn't give much away. - that she survived, I suppose, but he would notice her defending Valdemar, and - I mean, I'd want him to realize he can't kill her and his best option is to try leaving us alone." 

"I don't like it. What if k'Treva wasn't him?" 

Randi closes his eyes. Pinches the bridge of his nose again. "Then - I have no idea what. Except that - if it wasn't an accident - we might have an even worse problem than Leareth."

Gods can nudge for convenient accidents  Vanyel is going to NOT THINK ABOUT THIS right now. 

"I think the considerations are in favor of trying it," he says quietly. "And, I mean, I did tell Iomedae I would - didn't promise, but - we want her on our side." 

They really do. 

If they can trust her. 

Vanyel...isn't sure it matters whether or not it's a good idea to trust her. They don't have a choice. She can demonstrably do whatever she decides to do, and if Leareth can't stop her then certainly Valdemar doesn't stand a chance. 

"I'm guessing I'm going to need to handle the Gate again," he says wearily. 

"I'm sorry. I think so. Jisa's exhausted, and she's already helping Brightstar with pastwatching, we're running out of time on that window. I, I just - I really don't want to put anything else on him, after..." He trails off. 

He should be there for his children. It hurts, somehow almost more sharply and cleanly than the rest, that he can't because things won't stop happening. 

He can raise a Gate to the message-drop location that he and Leareth agreed on, months ago. Which might turn out to be redundant as soon as he goes to sleep, this is new information if anything is, but - 

- but so was Savil (pain, grief, anger), and the dream didn't come for that. Hasn't come for months, come to think of it. He...should probably at some point try to consider possible reasons why. 

Later. He's too tired for anything more than Gating and then collapsing into bed. 

None of them are thinking. 

Stef can half-sense the pattern of the mistake they're making, and yet he can't step out of it either, any more than he can fly. He is, as usual, hovering and making himself forgettable as he sings away the King's pain, which takes quite a lot of effort these days and leaves little room for thought, and Vanyel's exhausted grief is sucking at him through the lifebond, and - they're making a mistake, it has the quality of itchy frustration that comes with listening to a ballad where the main characters are walking into their doom, looking only straight ahead and not sideways... 

He needs to talk to Van about the afterlives, he didn't miss that flinch, but it feels impossible right now. There's too much weight over both of them. 

Van is tense and miserable enough to hurt himself badly if he tries to Gate right now. Stef will walk with him and the letter to a Work Room, and sing safety and relaxation and nothingcanhurt until the Gate is up and then down and the letter is on the other side. At which point Stef, too, is almost too tired to walk in a straight line. 

They can go to bed. It's not even that late, and tomorrow won't even be any better, but maybe things will just stop happening at least long enough to rest, long enough for Van to find the strength to keep going. 

Night falls early, in the north. It's been dark for candlemarks, and Leareth's initial scry of the message-drop site, in response to the Gate-signature triggering his wards, doesn't show anything except darkness. 

He dispatches one of his Adepts to Gate there immediately. It might be a trap - if anything could prompt Vanyel to use their previously-negotiated neutral channel of communications for an attack, it would be the death of his aunt - but he cannot, at this point, afford to turn down any overtures. And it would be more characteristic of Vanyel to start with a furious message demanding an explanation. He's not going in person, of course, but with reasonable precautions, he places low odds on even a hostile move being irreparably damaging.

Within three minutes he has confirmation that it is, indeed, a letter. Several copies of it, in fact, in separate envelopes and padded boxes around the lonely forest clearing, obviously intended to offer as much redundancy as possible while not actually requiring the chronically personnel-strapped Heralds to raise multiple Gates. 

Ten minutes after that, a clean copy of the letter - he did ask his people to confirm that the letters were all the same one - is on his desk. 

This letter was written with Vanyel's assistance, but I, Iomedae, Knight-Commander of the Knights of Ozem, am the primary author. 

Not, apparently, a letter from Vanyel. Though written and delivered with his assistance, if its claims are to be believed. One line in and he's already so painfully confused. 

I arrived in K'Treva Vale shortly before the explosion, and I think it may have been a response to me, though I don't know how or why.

- what? 

Leareth goes very still, and then reaches out in Mindspeech. :Nayoki. I will have more for you soon, but - there are claims there was an explosion in k'Treva Vale. You have full authorization to use any resources that would help to verify this.: 

Leareth wants her to do WHAT. 

Great. She knows that tone in his mindvoice, and it means there's no point in arguing back that they have no on-the-ground resources in the Pelagirs and how is she even supposed to do this. 

:Of course.: 

I think that I am from another world.

I think that the existence of, and possibility of contact with, my world may change the justification for your war.

That is not where Leareth had expected this to go! He wouldn't even have said he had formed any particular expectations, yet, but this is nonetheless a violent destabilizing blow to everything he thought he already understood about this situation. 

Another world - is that even possible - well, he already knew it was likely that other planets exist. The question is how a person would get between them, and the letter does not actually answer it, or - so far - specify whether it was deliberate or an accident. 

...It's also not at all the kind of thing he would have expected Vanyel, let alone any of the Heralds, to come up with as a fake story in order to distract or mislead Leareth. It's honestly not a bad choice, as a distraction, it's something that if it were true would change everything and so Leareth can't afford not to redirect substantial resources into checking it, but - that isn't how the Heralds think. Vanyel knows him well enough to predict his reactions, but it's - not his style - not in itself a knockdown argument, given that this being the truth is also implausible, and 'Vanyel invented this story' isn't an explanation complete enough to leave Leareth with fewer questions - 

Keep reading. Leareth is not expecting the rest of the letter to leave him with fewer questions either but it's still information. 

I think that it will be much costlier for you to go to war with Valdemar while I am inclined to defend them against conquest. I am so inclined. 

This is less confusing! In either of the two main deeply-implausible scenarios, actually.

It's the obvious thing for Vanyel to try to convince Leareth of, that invading Valdemar (which Vanyel probably assumes is about to happen, and Leareth is intensely frustrated about this) is costlier than Leareth had expected. 

And...it's not a surprising conclusion for an alien magic user from another world to come to, either, that Leareth is the one in the wrong. Powerful mages with armies moving to conquer kingdoms are usually the ones in the wrong, on outside view. Leareth is fully aware of that. 

My presence on a battlefield is usually decisive. 

...Also an obvious claim to make, in either case. Which doesn't make it much less startling. Even Vanyel can only debatably take on an entire army on an entire battlefield, if he's not intending to die for it. 

Vanyel has explained your grievances with the local gods and some, to me, seem legitimate.

What. 

...Maybe it shouldn't be as surprising as it is. If anything, it would be less surprising in the bizarre scenario where this is a ruse of Vanyel's design. Vanyel himself has some sympathy for Leareth's grievances, if not for his chosen response to them. 

And if it's really someone from another world... Well, it depends what 'Iomedae' is like as a person, doesn't it. But - it might be easier for a true outsider, someone seeing the world with fresh eyes, to look at the actions of the Velgarth gods and see their cost in human suffering. 

In the interests of honesty I must disclose that I am a selected follower of the god Aroden in my own world

Which is the first claim that very definitely doesn't read like a story designed to elicit Leareth's sympathy and curiosity, and convince him that 'Iomedae' is someone who he should highly prioritize trying to work with. Does that make it more likely that the story is, instead, just the truth? ...He's not sure. There are still too many moving pieces. 

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

Fascinating. And...back to feeling like a claim shaped to be convincing to Leareth personally, maybe? - Sort of, at least. The particular extent to which it's both oddly detailed and very underspecified doesn't feel like something Vanyel would have come up with. 

and I can fight the gods if it seems like a good idea (which it does, for some gods and some fights).

What. 

- why is that as shocking as it is? It doesn't not fit, with either scenario, and yet. It still leaves him off-balance, metaphorically dizzy with it. 

The grievances about the conduct of the gods that were explained to me do not seem to be to be applicable to Aroden.

 

Aroden was a human once, and he represents that ascension did not change what he strived for, or his commitment to dealing rightly by others. 

What.

Aroden ascended without killing other people, by a mechanism called the Starstone that remains in our world and still functions. Others have used it to ascend after Him. 

It's still too much to absorb. It's overwhelming and huge and Leareth is not really used to feeling overwhelmed, anymore. He knows he needs to be processing this, fitting it together and narrowing down his notes of confusion, and he - can't, yet - his mind is running into a wall, there's too much to hold onto at once. 

He does know that it's possible to ascend a human mind to godhood, and possible to do so while keeping the core values intact. Vanyel knows this as well. Vanyel has a very very good sense - to the extent he's willing to take any of what Leareth's ever said to him at face value, at least - of just how desperately Leareth wants another way. 

Aroden cannot operate in this world at this time. 

- it seems more likely than not that if this were a ruse, they would have been claiming that this 'Aroden' could operate here? ...He's not sure. That consideration is also starting to feel too hard to keep track of, there are too many pieces, a truly absurd amount of complex new information crammed into a single sheet of paper, and he doesn't know what it means, his thoughts bounce away from drawing any clear inferences and back into the growing pit of confusion

I will likely take steps to change that. You could ask me not to do that, if it seems to you that it might have greatly negative effects. 

...Huh. 

That's - another note that feels more surprising than it maybe should. Leareth doesn't know what to make of it. 

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.

....Leareth has emotions about this. 

It's - he doesn't have the time or the spare mental capacity to dig into it, but he can't afford not to either, it's intensely distracting. 

The closest he can compare it to is the way he felt when Vanyel spoke to him, after a year of silence while he traveled on his fact-finding mission. I’m sorry about how it ended. You made mistakes, but you were trying your best, and I don’t think his death was really your fault. I know you cared about him. Words he had never expected to hear from anyone, and Vanyel showing him a memory of a memory of Urtho's face. A precious gift form his past, unasked. 

He's confused, too, but there's barely any space for the confusion, tangled up behind - awe, and pain, and agonizing hope he hadn't imagined was possible. 

- and he can't just sit here stunned, he's somehow only halfway through the letter and who knows what else is still waiting to hit him over the head. 

I have no desire for war. It is among the most tragic of human endeavors. I have been at war for nearly all my life and am very good at it. I am immune to compulsions. I am immune to fear. I have other forms of protection against magical attack which I do not expect at this time it's a good idea to specify. I do not know of a good basis for comparison across worlds, but in my own world the only powers that could survive in my presence on the battlefield for six seconds are halfway to being gods.

It's a paragraph that reads oddly, somehow. Or - it's not the first time he's noticed the oddness, but something about this is making it click, leaving him with the powerful sense that he's missing cultural context. That this letter is written, carefully, according to long-held and carefully shaped conventions that are entirely outside his experience. 

I survived the K'Treva Vale explosion and believe that I would survive a Final Strike for the same reason. If you wish to test this I request that you notify me in advance so I can go somewhere where your attempt will not cause civilian casualties. I will take no precautions against assassination on receiving such notice that I wasn't taking already, except for avoiding civilians.

Maybe he's imagining it. But...it feels very far outside of Vanyel's skillset and level of political situation, to - what - draw up a mental model of a different world's diplomacy with enough believably alien details in it to hint at? 

He doesn't know what to think. 

- aside from, well, 'Iomedae' survived what? 

The communications in this message are intended as part of a peace negotiation. Were we negotiating by the norms of the world I am from, that would have the following implications: I will, to the best of my abilities, not position myself to make inferences about your capabilities from the timing and process for the exchange of letters, and not use the contents against the aims of the peace process. I will not harm your agents in the course of their operations related to these negotiations. 

...And this part makes for strange reading, because it feels like something that - in another time and place, in a version of his life that had gone rather differently - is something that Leareth himself might write. An echo of recognition, even familiarity, reflected across an alien mirror...

If you provide information or resources conditional on my agreement to terms I do not agree to, I will send them back. I will not lie. I will attest to the contents of this letter under truth magic, as relevant; I will swear not only that this communication is true to the best of my knowledge, but that the best of my knowledge is very good; that when I make claims in contexts like this one I am usually correct.

If anything about the letter can be taken at face value, then - then 'Iomedae' of the 'Knights of Ozem' is someone Leareth can work with. And - if the most shocking claims are true, then figuring out how to work with Iomedae might be the most important thing imaginable. 

If you were to, for example, take this peace communication as a prompt to attempt to kidnap me, before knowledge of me would otherwise have reached you, this would be, in the terms familiar in my world, indicative that this kind of mutually cooperative and Lawful interaction will not work. I mostly expect that, regardless of your intent, this negotiation will not proceed along the terms familiar for Lawful negotiation in my own world, because we are alien to each other, and nearly certain to face much mutual incomprehension. But I am trying to make this negotiation possible for you and advantageous for you, and will do so past the first several points where it seems to me you are not doing the same. 

Well. That's exactly the kind of thing you say, if you know Leareth well, to convince him not to even try the obvious path, which is tracking down and containing Iomedae long enough to learn more. 

Which, you know, he's not sure he can do. Because either all of this is fake - in which case 'Iomedae' doesnt' exist, and this baffling ruse is presumably part of an incomprehensible multilayered godplot that may have been in motion for decades - or else it's real, and so are Iomedae's claimed capabilities, including categorical immunity to mind control and the ability to survive a Final Strike. 

What now. 

...Leareth is not, in fact, taking any of this at face value yet. But it almost doesn't matter for his initial response. There are godplots afoot and he doesn't understand their end goal, and - 

- and he hadn't intended to move this winter, not when he and Vanyel were so close. The cost of delaying is greater each year but it was a decision he had already made. The fact that the gods are trying to force his hand, now, means that They must have seen, in the tangled web of futures, that there was a chance he might succeed. 

He has absolutely no interest in being steered into mutual destruction.

And, well, provisionally responding to this in the way he would if he were seriously considering that it's true also isn't a terrible way to learn more, in the scenario where it's not. 

He has a letter to write, then, and it's going to call for a lot of care and attention. (Just like the letter he just received.) 

In the meantime, does Nayoki have any updates for him? He'll summarize the rest of the letter to her in a moment, but - it's complicated. 

...Not really. (He did just hand her an impossible task less than twenty minutes ago.) 

Their spies in Haven have limited visibility into the Heralds' work at all, and certainly into their secret operations. Approximately all they know for sure is that there were several unscheduled Gates, not using the permanent Gate-terminus, and a number of Heralds seem to have been pulled off their usual duties. 

In addition to the Gate that triggered the initial alarm at the message-drop site, their sole mage-gifted spy on the ground in northern Valdemar also detected several unexpected Gates. From a great enough distance that they didn't get an exact tracing of the location, but given the severe Herald-Mage shortage, it's almost certainly related. They'll try to narrow it down with scry-coverage but there's really quite a lot of northern Valdemaran forest. 

They're trying to get scry-coverage of the Pelagirs, but there's sort of a lot of Pelagirs to cover, and they don't have reliable intelligence on the current location of k'Treva Vale. Vales move, and even Valdemar doesn't have an up to date map, since all travel to-and-from is by direct Gate. 

Can he please tell her what's going on. 

Leareth wishes he could! Unfortunately he has very little idea. 

A quick summary: a powerful spellcaster (?) or perhaps miraculously priestess of a foreign god (??) claims to have arrived in k'Treva Vale directly from another world (????) via unspecified means. They claim to have survived an explosion there. They claim to work for a formerly-human ascended god called Aroden (??????). They claim their world has multiple afterlife planes where souls continue on after death (!!!!!!). They are opposed to an invasion of Valdemar, claim to be powerful enough to prevent one and immune to mind-control along with various other capabilities, and are offering negotiations. 

That doesn't make any sense. 

Indeed. Leareth is also very confused, but it's not like it makes any more sense as a godplot. He intends to reply. 

...His guess about the Gate in northern Valdemar - assuming that, from Vanyel's perspective, this really did involve a foreign visitor claiming to be from another world - is that Vanyel was trying to pre-emptively relocate Iomedae to a safe distance from the nearest civilian population. Vanyel is probably inclined to blame Leareth for whatever happened in k'Treva Vale, and so of course he would be worried that Leareth will try again, even though trying again and expecting it to go differently this time would be kind of stupid. 

Leareth intends to write a letter immediately clarifying that he wasn't responsible for k'Treva and only learned that something had happened at all via this letter. He would, separately, like Nayoki to delegate some people to try to locate 'Iomedae', assuming Iomedae is in fact somewhere in a remote forest in northern Valdemar. Not to kidnap them, because that closes a lot of doors and is unlikely to work regardless of whether this is real or a trick, but - to learn more. 

All right. 

To Iomedae of the Knights of Ozem,

I am grateful for your earlier message, and for the effort exerted to ensure it would reach us promptly. If you are, indeed, of another world, then I anticipate our local gods cannot see you well yet, but will once They are more oriented be very unhappy about your intentions and I would not be surprised if attempts to sabotage our communications ensued. In fact, taking your letter at face value, I worry your safety is at risk and the gods will be highly motivated to kill you before you can disrupt the path of this world's future any further. I would offer protective measures, but of course you do not yet have reason to trust any offers I make.

If your claims about Aroden and your world's afterlives are truthful, then we have many interests in common, and I will say now that I would be eternally grateful and enormously relieved to have an alternative to my current plans. They were not lightly considered, and I have spent a thousand years looking for another way. In the scenario where you are telling the truth, I would be willing to work very, very hard to ensure that we can work together, and not be steered into pointless enmity. 

I am, of course, far from convinced of your claims; this would be the first incidence of contact with another world, the mechanism of your arrival is unclear to me, and the timing is very suspect. If I am right about when this happened, it would have been shortly after certain events in Haven that I have only recently learned of. If I am additionally correct that you have already spoken to directly with Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron, I suspect he will have said that he and the Heralds are interpreting said events as my opening move in an invasion. I do not expect you or the Heralds to believe my side of things either, until such time as I can offer further proof, but I was not responsible. I would swear to this, by every star in the sky, though of course you do not yet have reason to believe that my oaths mean anything. 

I am still unsure what exactly happened, except that I believe it resulted in the death of Herald-Mage Savil Ashkevron, who is Herald-Mage Vanyel's aunt and very important to him, and whose death I suspect of having been engineered by the gods, though I am not sure how, to convince him that I was the first to betray our previous negotiations.

I did not intend to betray our negotiations, and will state now that I am still not planning to invade Valdemar this winter, though I will defend my own territory against attacks. If the Heralds wish to take the reasonable precaution of redeploying their own troops, I will not interpret this as escalatory as long as they remain within the current Valdemaran borders. 

I was not responsible for the explosion in k'Treva Vale, and your letter is the first I learned of it. I also do not expect this claim to be believed without further proof, but I think it ought be very surprising to Vanyel to posit that I possess this capability at all; if I were able to operate in the territory of the Star-Eyed Goddess, my past plans would have gone quite differently, and if I had an agent in k'Treva Vale I am sure I could think of better things to do with them. 

 

I am aware that it is difficult to prove a negative, but I hope it will mean something to Herald-Mage Vanyel that the strategic purpose of this attack, if it were my doing, would be deeply unclear. While I will not deny that I am ruthless and willing to pay costs that the Heralds consider unacceptable, I think Vanyel ought to know enough of my past work to consider that my plans are rarely so confusingly aimed. 

I would be eager to arrange a way that I can prove my intentions to you, or at least provide stronger evidence than words. I appreciate your offer to testify to your claims under Truth Spell, though unfortunately this would need to be done with the Heralds' cooperation, since the Truth Spell is a form of magic I do not have access to myself, and my usual methods for confirming honesty would count as mind-affecting magic that you claim to be immune to. 

Unfortunately, my current information state does not rule out that the contents of your letter are a ruse intended to disrupt my plans and potentially to cause my death, though I admit it would be even more baffling and unclear in its goals than most godplots. Nonetheless, I am reluctant to place myself in a position of greater vulnerability, for example by coming in person so that I might speak under a Truth Spell to confirm that I was not responsible for the attacks on Haven or on k'Treva Vale, until I have less reason to believe that the gods will use it as an opportunity to assassinate me again. 

I am sure that you can think of more ways than I for how to provide evidence of your otherworldly origins or of Aroden's original humanity. 

 

I do not expect you to update on this until you have seen further proof of it in my actions, but I will nonetheless express now that I have no desire to start off on a hostile footing, and do not currently intend to make any attempts to kidnap you. I will admit that this is partly because I do not expect that kidnapping you will succeed or achieve my goals in most of the possible scenarios here. If your claims are true, then I doubt my people could capture or hold you at all – which I am admitting to you in a good-faith offer of information, and have no expectations about how you will use this information – and, of course, if the letter is fraudulent then you probably do not exist and it does not matter.

I am not at this time comfortable giving a more formal oath, but mainly because I am deeply lacking context and so have wide uncertainty on all of my future plans, and because I would not hesitate to 'kidnap' you if I believed that the alternative was your assassination by our local gods.

If there is any way to arrange it, I believe it would be valuable to have a channel of communication independent from the Heralds. I do have a measure of trust in Herald-Mage Vanyel, given our years of communications, but the Heralds as an institution are servants of the local gods, whose intentions here I do not trust at all. 

I hope that this letter will reach you in a timely manner, and I await your reply.

- Leareth

(And he's going to include an unusually detailed postscript conveying the point in time at which he wrote and sent this letter, just in case that ends up mattering.) 

- and then Leareth is going to make several copies of the letter, immediately, and drop a couple of them off with clerks off-site in other facilities and one in a sealed records cache, because this feels spectacularly high stakes and he's incredibly confused and - he doesn't even specifically know in what scenario it would be useful to have a copy of his letter in a sealed records cache, but it feels worth sixty seconds' of effort to take the precautions he can think of off the top of his head. 

And then he will ask - not Nayoki, she has enough on her plate already - one of his other highly-trusted staff to handle delivering this letter - multiple copies in fireproof boxes, please - to the message-drop location. 

...He doesn't really expect this to be sufficient. It's already evening. Vanyel has - even taking any of this at face value, maybe especially if he takes any of this at face value, Vanyel has had an incredibly exhausting day. Leareth is not entirely clear on who else among the Heralds, if anyone, Vanyel has delegated the responsibility of checking the message-drop location. 

- and if this is true the Iomedae is trying very hard for - something better than war - and he wants to reciprocate.

He's going to go try some direct personal scrying. He doesn't really expect this to work, because 'possible follower of an alien god from another world' is not a valid scrying-target even for Leareth, but it's worth a few minutes' effort. 

First, though, he's going to pass on to Nayoki that they should get one of the longest-ranged Thoughtsensers to the closest point they can without, technically, crossing the border into Valdemar. (The Web would detect it. Maybe more importantly, Iomedae might have the ability to detect it.) 

- also he's going to delegate to someone else, who can cast very fast unscaffolded Gates, to drop a few copies of this letter into midair above the city of Haven. It's a gamble, but - just in case the Heralds are on board with passing on messages and the sole issue is that Vanyel didn't think to put anyone else on duty to check the standard route.