"Welcome back!"

"The suicidality clause is a lot harder to trigger than most people think. I have to believe that you really mean it and that you have the means to do it and that you're probably going to do it pretty soon unless I intervene. I have a lot of leeway there for my own judgment there. And even if all the rest is true, the main point of that is to stop people from making silly mistakes. Most people who feel like killing themselves change their minds within a day or two and then are glad they didn't do it. For people who have really thought about it and come to a careful decision, I don't consider myself to know better than you."

"If you just have a reckless plan that might result in your death but you don't want to die, then actually I'm not obligated to stop you at all! Though I do care about my clients' well-being so I'm probably going to ask some questions about that."

"If you have specific plans to harm specific other people, I am required under Tarasoff to report that. Though now that you mention it, if we're having this session on your turf then Tarasoff doesn't apply, so never mind that part. Also I don't know who I would report it to exactly."

"Strangely enough, my code of ethics does not treat plans to hurt children any differently than plans to hurt adults. However, if you already hurt or neglected children in specific ways, then I am supposed to report that. Though, again, I really can't think what agency would consider it their jurisdiction."

"Operating off-planet means I am working without any state machinery behind me and my ethical code at all. So a lot of my disclosure sort of doesn't make sense, and I'm going to have to revise it so I'm just making statements about me and my own ethics. I guess on the topic of, say, abusing children, all I can say is that I'm not going to support you in doing that or try to help you achieve that with less distress. But I am acutely aware that there is no principled way to move through life without hurting other people sometimes, and I won't immediately assume that you need to be stopped from doing that."

"Did that answer your questions well enough? When you're ready, I have a question for you as well."

"I think that mostly answers my questions! Are people supposed to go to separately qualified therapists if they have distress related to their child-hurting habits?"

"Unfortunately in our society we don't yet have a way for people who actively enjoy hurting children to get some help with that without immediately being imprisoned and shunned for it, so those people simply don't get any help. We're better about most other classes of behavior."

"Here's my question: in your contract you want me to attest to being Lawful but I don't know exactly what that means. I think this paragraph here was supposed to clear it up but I'm not sufficiently sure I understand it to be willing to sign."

"Oh, sorry, I must've written it carelessly. You probably wouldn't know if you're Lawful. Does 'if you have broken contracts in this general class in the past' make sense?"

"I mean, I'm not sure where to draw the boundaries around 'this class' but I think I've done a good job protecting my clients' confidentiality to the best of my ability."

"Well, I'm comfortable with you signing to that. When should we pick you up for the session?"

"Day after tomorrow in the morning, my time?"

"How many the-duration-of-our-first-conversation-s from now is that?"

"Oh gosh. Let's see. The first time we met we talked for about half an hour. So... like... 76 of those? Give or take? Let's make it 80 to give more margin for error, and if you get here and it's still dark outside, well, I'll be along soonish. You can always go across the street to the Five Point Cafe if you need to kill some time. The food there is good and they're open day and night."

"Your civilization has good food," Carissa says cheerfully. "See you in eighty of those, then!"

Altarrin can accompany Carissa back to Velgarth. At some point he probably does want to research how to Gate back and forth. The ordinary Gate-technique doesn't work, though without further study he can't tell if that's because it's too far for the standard search-spell to reach or because they're on an entirely different plane of existence and he can't access the Void at all from here with the usual method. For now, though, it's simplest to go on getting rides from Carissa. It's not impossible that Gates, a form of magic native to Velgarth, would be more visible to gods in Foresight than Carissa's Golarion-style Plane Shift.

Carissa makes a little hourglass that'll count the appropriate time unit and sets an Unseen Servant to tallying how many times it has run out. She could probably do better than that but she hasn't made a particular study of timekeeping. "You'll tell Bastran the meeting time?"

Nod. "I can tell him. And Gate both of us over here a little bit early." You can do timekeeping with Velgarth magic, but it's not trivial, especially not for making on the fly for time-units from another world. 

"Great." Carissa's going to turn her small car back into a big car and get started on taking it apart to study. 

Altarrin heads back to the Empire. He sits through a couple of routine meetings, acting like nothing is out of the ordinary, and then summarizes the conversation with Ramona and her confidentiality agreement to Bastran. "I had a positive impression of her. She seems - quite levelheaded, even when faced with highly bizarre situations like ours. I expect she will have useful advice to offer you and Caris." 

"And you too? You're coming, right?"

Bastran continues to be pretty sure that Caris is in love with Altarrin, and vice versa. And they're stubbornly avoiding actually doing anything about that out of some desire to avoid hurting Bastran's feelings. Which would be very thoughtful of them, except that the hurtful part is mostly the part where he knows perfectly well that Caris trusts Altarrin with his life, and - reasonably! - doesn't trust Bastran. Beside that, whether or not they're also sleeping together fee ls like a minor note. ...Okay, fine, maybe it would in fact bother him, but that's a stupid way to feel. Altarrin isn't going to be jealous and immature about things. 

Sigh. "Yes. I will be there, at least for the initial meeting. Though I think she will want to talk to you alone, at some point, and probably also just you and Caris without me there." 

...Sigh. 

By some convenient coincidence, the day length on the other planet is the same as on Velgarth. Two days of being distracted in all of his important meetings later, Bastran is ready at the appointed time for Altarrin's Gate over to Caris' wizard tower. 

And Caris has run off to Earth to pick up Ramona. He's wearing an exact imitation of the attire of the man he bought the Toyota Corolla from.

Carissa is an attractive woman, but not supernaturally so; Caris is the form she picked to seduce the Emperor and he is extremely specifically designed to Bastran's tastes: nineteen or so, very muscled, very striking. 

He knocks on Ramona's door.

It's a Saturday, the office building is pretty quiet, and this is pretty close to the time she was expecting Carissa.

Ramona has packed a backpack with a notebook, lots of pens in different colors, a sweater, a variety of over the counter medications, some tampons, a water bottle, and some protein bars. She also has backup batteries for her cell phone that will of course not have any signal on another planet but she just can't seem to bear to go on any kind of trip without it. She remembered how fighter pilots used to carry cigarettes and nylons in case they were shot down behind enemy lines, and she threw in a battery-powered flashlight and some batteries for it, just in case that's a novelty of value to someone if she's stranded. She's wearing a comfortable outfit, sensible shoes, and the Scholar's Ring.

She is definitely not ready for this, but she's as ready as she can make herself, and that's going to have to do.

When she hears the knock at the door, she opens the door, fully expecting Carissa.

This... is not Carissa.

"Um. Hi."

Ramona is having a little trouble stringing together a sensible greeting.

She was in a very specific other headspace.

Now she doesn't seem to be in any kind of a headspace at all.

She internally shakes her brain like a sodden golden retriever getting out of a lake.

"Can I help you? I'm actually very busy today, but if you just need directions or something?"

" - oh, sorry, this is Carissa. I mentioned I'm a boy for Bastran? I'm here to pick you up, if it's convenient."

"Haha! Ha!"

Ramona is painfully aware that she is spazzing out. She pulls herself together and makes a mental note to prioritize finding other outlets when she gets home.

"Of course! I didn't realize you would already be in this form when you arrived. I'm ready!"

"Great!" Then he'll take Ramona's hand and his item, Plane Shift them back to Velgarth, land in a random location, and Teleport them home to the threshold of his tower.

Obviously like any mildly self-respecting wizard with access to a lot of diamond dust and silver he's Teleport Trapped the whole vicinity of the tower; they are on the other side of the lava moat, over which there is a stone bridge.

(There is really no point in being a boring person anymore, if you have led the life Carissa has up to this point. And it was good practice.)

"Bastran and Altarrin should be here shortly," Caris says, flying across the moat to order the doors open for Ramona.