Alfirin had been expecting to find Iomedae’s sword in the bony grip of Iomedae’s hostile corpse, so technically what she sees instead is very good news. Iomedae’s eyes are blank and bleeding copiously, more than it should be possible for a person to bleed. She’s staggering forward like a drunkard, her legs barely making it out in front of her in time to stop her from falling over. 

She’s not bearing her own sword, but Erum-Hel’s, and it’s….broken? Yes, the blade is jagged and missing six inches from the tip. Iomedae’s hand, where she holds it, is blackened and shriveled. In the other hand in the place of her shield she’s holding the Chalice of Ozem, its special abilities active; it’s vibrating wildly in her grip.

Iomedae’s alive and incapacitated, she says over the Telepathic Bond, need a cleric -

Quickened Arazni’s Limited Wish to imitate Arazni’s Break Enchantment, which does make the cursed sword fall out of Iomedae’s hand, and then - there’s no one else around to see - Heal, which doesn’t stop the bleeding or fix the blackened shriveled hand or restore light and comprehension to Iomedae’s eyes, though it should -

Before she can try again Nachamius is here and a couple of his guards, casting his own Heal which is as useless as hers was and then starting a Restoration. 

“Do a Greater,” she spits at him, while she tries a Greater Dispel Magic despite the fact Iomedae doesn’t appear to have any spells active on her.

“I don’t have it.”

It’s not one of the ones she’s learned to hang herself or she’d do it and damn the consequences, which would in fact be substantial because now Marit and Karlenius are also here. Karlenius tries a Lay On Hands. Iomedae watches him approach her with blank incomprehension; the healing does nothing. 

More clerics are trying things. Remove Curse. Remove Curse again. Neutralize Poison. Remove Blindness. Another fucking Heal.

“He could’ve planted an item on her,” says Marit. There’s nothing visible to Arcane Sight but that doesn’t mean much.

“I’ll do a Disjunction if you all back off,” Alfirin snarls. “ - and take the chalice.” Ordinarily her disjunctions don’t actually disable Iomedae’s magic items with any reliability but she has a sinking sick feeling she could land any will-defended spell she wanted, right now. 

Nachamius finishes the Restoration, which at least stops the bleeding, and then backs off. Marit retrieves the chalice. Alfirin does the Disjunction. Iomedae makes a sort of sad whimpering sound when her belt and headband and armor are all suppressed. 

“Give me the chalice, I know how to use it," Alfirin says. Marit hands it to her.

Holy water, and that act of ineffable will -

She holds it to Iomedae’s lips and tries to get her to sip the nectar of the gods. Iomedae is trying to cooperate but not very good at it. She has an arm around Alfirin to help keep herself upright and she keeps half-exhaling in a little hiccup. Alfirin has been dissolved in a puddle of acid by a black dragon and it was less excruciating than this. Someone’s trying Protection from Evil, and Neutralize Poison, and yet another Heal, and yet another Restoration. Someone’s checking her carefully for cursed items. 

Iomedae finishes the nectar and then beams vaguely in Alfirin’s direction. “-c’you ask Aroden if we should give pursuit?”

“Erum-Hel?” says Alfirin. “You - drove him off, you think he’s injured?”

“Yeah.”

“I ordered a Commune,” says Marit. To ask about whether to spend a Miracle fixing Iomedae, presumably, but while they’re at it they can also ask about Erum-Hel. 

“I don’t want to wait ten minutes,” Iomedae says stubbornly to Alfirin. “Now, please, if we pursue we should do it immediately, I took his Mind Blank off but he’ll get another -”

Oh. Alfirin feels the dissolving-in-acid sensation again. Arazni could Commune in the space of a single instant, could do it on the battlefield without any apparent pause in her spellcasting. “Iomedae, I'm Alfirin. Not Arazni. 

Arazni’s dead.” 

 

Arazni is not newly dead, but it hits Iomedae like it’s news; she cries out softly in grief. “Oh,” she says. 

She pries the arm that is wrapped around Alfirin loose, unsteadily stabilizes herself without it. 

And then closes her eyes. 

Nachamius lands another Restoration. Iomedae’s eyes flutter open again. “Aroden says no pursuit,” she says. 

Which is bizarre. Aroden is perfectly willing to send Iomedae visions even though it’s far costlier than a Commune, but usually He’d do that if there were something time-sensitive He needed to convey -

“Is he back on the battlefield?” says Marit. 

“No. Not this year not in a hundred years I didn’t ask past that,” says Iomedae. “He’s gone.”

 

There is a stunned silence. 

….check that, says Alfirin to Marit. In the Commune you ordered. If the vision was really from Aroden, and if Erum-Hel’s really gone.

Obviously, Marit says back.

 

One of the priests lets out a gleeful whoop. “Erum-Hel is gone! Iomedae defeated him!” and this of course is taken up by everyone who can hear it and suddenly they are surrounded by gleeful shouts, whoops of joy -

 

Marit looks deeply irritated, not that anyone present but Alfirin will be able to read him. 

“Aroden says I’m not enchanted, won’t be lastingly damaged, and am intact in my concerns and priorities,” Iomedae says to the two of them, covered by the whoops of joy. “I’m very impaired, though - can you stay at least until the headband and belt are working again -”

“Of course.” Alfirin is prepared to Plane Shift her, Dominate her or murder her as the situation requires and would not under the present circumstances obey an order to be anywhere else. 

And three more people Teleport in to the air above them, flying; Arnisant’s attached sixth circle wizard and Arnisant himself and his pegasus. 

“Knight-Commander,” he says to Iomedae. “Congratulations. - hate to do this to you, but the men need to see you in the air right now.”

“Of course,” says Iomedae, and fumbles with her gauntlet for a pearl of power. 

“Greater Heroism?” asks Arnisant’s wizard.

“Go ahead.”

She’s in pretty bad shape if it’s her at all, Erum-Hel may well still be on the battlefield, and she’s claiming she got a vision from Aroden that I don’t think He’d have given her, Marit says to Arnisant flatly before Alfirin can do it. 

And I can win this with her in the air showing off that broken sword, and not without that, Arnisant says without missing a beat. - I presume we’re looking into the rest of that. 

 

Yes.

Iomedae recalls and recasts Greater Angelic Aspect as a fourth circle divine spell, which is in fact some significant evidence that it’s her - only paladins get it at fourth. She frowns consideringly at the cursed sword, its magic currently suppressed, then picks it up; it does not further damage her. 

Marit and Alfirin go invisible and take off with her when she soars into the air on angel wings. Her armor is bright and gleaming. You can only see the blood up close. Down below, there is wild cheering. 

“Did Aroden say anything else?” asks Alfirin, once they’re clear of anyone else’s earshot. 

“I only asked the four questions,” Iomedae said. “‘should we be acting on the assumption that I am enchanted, lastingly damaged, or not intact in my concerns or priorities’ - no - ‘should we pursue Erum-Hel in the next few minutes -’ - no - ‘if we don’t seek him out is there a substantial probability we’ll encounter him again in the next year - ‘ - no - ‘next hundred years’ - no. 

I couldn’t think what was next on our list for when we had the spare questions and I figured when I was this impaired was the wrong time to be trying.”

“Sorry,” says Marit, “you ran a commune with Aroden? I thought you got a vision.”

“Oh,” says Iomedae, “sorry, no. I thought it’d be visible enough what I was doing. It would not have been a good time for a vision, He’d shred me.”

 

Marit does not comment that he thought it seemed suspicious. Once Iomedae’s back to normal it’ll be extraordinarily obvious that he thought it seemed suspicious and until then she is - not someone he shares information with without careful consideration. 

“What you visibly did was close your eyes, open them again, and say Aroden said you’d defeated Erum-Hel,” says Alfirin, the realization creeping up on her like ghoul paralysis. 

“I’m very impaired right now,” says Iomedae. “If there’s an inference you were hoping I would make, there -”

 

“Arazni could Commune inside a Time Stop,” Alfirin goes on patiently. Iomedae knew that, obviously, she’d been asking Arazni to do it when she thought Arazni was alive. “She wasn’t doing that as an archmage, by casting Time Stop. She wasn’t doing it as an astral deva. She wasn’t doing it as a deity in her own right. That was one of the abilities that Arazni had because -

- because she was Aroden’s herald.”