And here's a human girl appearing out of nowhere! She doesn't show up all at once, but gradually over several seconds, as a distortion in the air that moves colors into new locations until suddenly it resolves into the image of a girl and then the image becomes real. She's wearing strange but sturdy-looking clothes and a bulky backpack and holding a notebook and pen, which she promptly stuffs in a jacket pocket as she says probably-a-greeting in an unfamiliar language.

She looks around excitedly. New universe! Cool red-eyed alien lady! Room that looks like a laboratory of some kind, which would be extremely awesome!

An unfamiliar language is fine, Areelu Vorlesh spent the diamond dust to make tongues and comprehend languages permanent a long time ago. No, what takes her aback is the girl's appearance. It's... not the same, and it wouldn't be even if you changed out what she was wearing and swapped how she styled her hair, but it's surprisingly close - especially for a wish wording that ought to prioritize personality and give no thought to appearance. For a moment, she wonders if she made a mistake on her wording, but even in retrospect it's not clear how this would have happened. Areelu knows the plan calls for her to use mythic sleep here, to transport her to Kenabres in time for the attack unknowing, but she finds she cannot bring herself to do it. Instead, almost despite herself she finds herself fighting a smile.

"Hello," she replies, echoing the girl's greeting in her own tongue.

Huh, English. Possibly a coincidence, probably language magic. "Hi, I'm Brenda. What's your name? And would it be rude to ask what species you are?"

Ooh, there's the making-friends magic kicking in; it's easy to focus on the other woman's face and on what she might be thinking. She's not surprised to see Brenda appearing, for one thing; maybe the Isekai Roulette hooked up to a corresponding summoning ritual on this end so she'd land on someone who was okay being landed on. Polite of it, if so.

"I am Areelu Vorlesh, and I was born a human, but if you're asking about my current form I ascended to become a half succubus. Forgive me my surprise, I was expecting to summon you but your appearance caught me off guard."

"No problem; sorry for surprising you. I hope being a half succubus is fun." It occurs to her that Areelu could potentially be another person empowered by the Spirit of Femininity; she did agree to meet such people and it would explain expecting her. The jury is still very much out on whether Brenda wants to become part-succubus herself; she doesn't necessarily want sex-themed powers yet even if they're cool and she's kind of attached to the idea of becoming part notebook before anything else.

Areelu Vorlesh can't help herself; she laughs.

"I'd certainly say I enjoy it, although I can't say the same for the process of acquiring it. Why, were you hoping for a transformation of your own? I think the ritual would be a lot easier to set up the second time, but it would come with its fair share of social problems, so I'm a bit cautious about reccomending it to you."

Definitely not the Another One, then, if she's telling the truth about the ritual. And social problems aren't going to be mitigated by the "you get the benefits without the drawbacks" thing, unless it's something like being some kinds of fictional vampire where the social problems are downstream of the drawbacks.

"No need to set up any rituals for me, but thank you. I'm excited to learn more about this world."

"You're currently in my laboratory; it's in a private demiplane, but it opens up to the country of Sarkoris on the planet Golarion of the prime material. I had planned to send you to Mendev, a neighboring country, since it's significantly more friendly to humans and is about to suffer an attack by Deskari, which would be an opportunity for you to earn some goodwill from them without any serious risk to you if you wanted a warmer reception than they would give an unknown traveler; in that case, I would advise not mentioning I sent you since I'm not the most popular there for rather understandable reasons. If you have any immediate questions, though, I'd be happy to answer them - there are a couple of magical items I planned to give you before sending you off."

One. It was one magical item, and now she finds herself laughing at the idea that she would ever have been satisfied with that half measure and some quiet shadowing. What would she have done if she somehow lost her again, after getting closer to getting her back than she had ever dreamed of?

"Thank you, both for the advice and for the magic items. Who or what is Deskari? And why did you summon someone; is there something you'd like me to help you with on Golarion?"

Areelu seems weirdly--excited about Brenda? Happy to see her? She clearly wants something; hopefully the fact that she got Brenda rather than anyone else means it's something Brenda will be able and willing to do.

"Deskari is a demon lord, commonly known as the lord of locusts for the swarm he brings with him wherever he goes. The reason he's headed for Mendev is to take out Terendelev, the dragon that protects Kenabres, but it's not exactly safe for him to stick around on the prime material for too long so he'll probably stick to a small handful of priority targets, which won't include you even if you attack him as long as you keep your distance. And no, you don't need to do anything for me besides stay alive, I've already gotten everything else I wanted out of this experiment."

Areelu Vorlesh doesn't, in fact, have that many extra magic items lying around. There are research projects she has, both largely half finished and not expectedly useful, and of course her own personal supply, but building up a surplus is hampered by the fact that she both already has pretty much all the ones she actually needs and her acquisition is largely limited to the things she crafts herself and that she can purchase in Alushinyrra. Getting to Absalom or Quantium from here is a major pain that involves multiple plane shifts and a teleport, and still leaves her with the issue that she doesn't, actually, have all that much in the way of normal money and no way to turn her spellcasting into that like most other archmages manage. Fortunately, her own personal supply is a broader term than might be expected, particularly given that it includes the backup items she leaves by her clone so as to have on hand after decanting if she dies. It's a bit risky to go without, but she hasn't actually ever died since her ascension and all that would really change is it taking longer after her death for her to be safe to be out and about again. She can pick up a cloak of resistance and ring of protection, both of reasonably high quality, and then a headband of intelligence and a belt of constitution and - no, not her robe of the archmagi, that only works for evil people, but yes to the amulet of natural armor. And she still has the gloves she crafted a century ago and couldn't bear to be rid of, that she didn't manage to finish in time for them to achieve their goal but would now have a second chance.

"I think this should cover most of your bases. Would you like me to grant you a permanent tongues and comprehend languages, or would you prefer not so you can better sell being a foreigner?"

The magic items are So Awesome and Brenda is very appreciative! She wants to learn to make stuff this cool eventually. The headband of intelligence in particular is the most amazing item she has ever encountered unless Alpina counts as an item.

"I already have some language magic, but I haven't tested it out yet and I don't know how long it takes to get conversant; if the city's about to be attacked I should get whatever will be faster. Will it interfere with actually learning the languages later?" It would be kind of sad if she didn't get to learn any languages, but warning Terendelev is obviously more important and maybe she can get it taken off when there isn't an emergency.

"It might interfere a little bit, but you can suppress the effect if you try to hear the actual words being spoken and you can always get it dispelled later if you decide you want to go without - actually, with my caster level that's probably a bit of a pain, but since I'm using limited wish to pretend it's you casting it you shouldn't have any issues with it if you do it yourself, even from a scroll."

"Thank you! I'd love a primer on this world's magic system but I know there's an emergency looming and I don't know what else you're busy with. If I tell Terendelev Deskari is going to attack, is she likely to take my word for it?"

"I don't know if I have anything I'd call a comprehensive guide by itself, but I do have what I consider to be a fairly excellent library. You're welcome to borrow anything you like, with a bag of holding if you'd prefer, though I'd recommend starting with 'Wizardry and Sorcery: an adventurer's guide,' Andrea's 'Memoirs of the hero of Odranto,' Camellia of Eldir's 'on the Question of Sorcerers,' and 'The Druids of Sarkoris that Was.' You should be able to supplement these from the library in any major cities, but I'd be wary of the ones that talk about witchcraft; they mostly aren't worth the paper they're written on.

"As for the attack, I would guess it's unlikely since he's never done this before for good reason. If you warn her about a more general demonic incursion, however, that's significantly more plausible and will have many similarities in how to prepare for it. If you really want to be believed on the matter, you could mention me by name, but this will probably make you seem very suspicious or be dismissed as crazy."

Books!!!

She will take the advice under advisement, but privately she thinks that she's more likely to be dismissed as crazy if she doesn't provide any evidence. And if nobody in the city will believe something because Areelu said it then maybe she shouldn't either; it's not like Brenda has information on Areelu's trustworthiness that anyone else doesn't. She'll share the evidence she has and let the people with local context do what they want with it.

Also if the wizardry books aren't already in the bag of holding when they enter her possession, she's going to start reading them. She's only human (so far. There was a mention of Terendelev being a dragon.)

There are definitely also books on dragons in the library, though none of the four recommended to her seem to be about them and only the discussion of sorcery gives it serious page time, and also on gods and monsters and angels and demons and devils and elementals mixed in with imposing academic treatises on subjects like spellform optimization and soul surgery and planar interactions and of course more normal works like geography and histories and holy books and biographies of famous individuals. If Brenda isn't careful, she might end up filling her bag of holding entirely with books.

What else would you fill a bag of holding with??? (Also this world has so many species, it's great, she's going to meet as many of them as possible and be fifty different things!) Would Areelu like to look at some of Brenda's science books from Earth? She doesn't want to loan them out long term because they're irreplaceable but if there's magic to duplicate them Areelu is welcome to make copies. Also she makes no guarantees that any given fact in them is true on the Material Plane.

There's no easy way to copy that many books in a short amount of time with magic from golarion, but that mostly just means Areelu Vorlesh is showing off when she taps each book in sequence and a quill starts copying each one significantly faster than is usual for scrivener's chant. If she has any objection to Brenda apparently deciding it is her life's ambition to carry as much of a library with her as possible at all times, she certainly doesn't voice it.

"I'm planning to keep an eye on you with scrying for the next bit to make sure you get through the attack safely, but feel free to wave me off if you decide you want more privacy than that going forward as soon as you're not in immediate danger or just want me to stop watching for a bit. If you do and decide to contact me, a sending should typically work to get my attention as long as you can find someone willing to send me on your behalf; I can give you a couple of scrolls if you'd prefer that."

"I have no idea how much any of this is costing you or how many people can cast Sending, so I'm fine with whatever makes sense to you. You can contact me easily enough if and when you need your stuff back, right?"

In that case she’ll slip three scrolls into Brenda’s bag, though it’s coming up on the limit of what it will fit.

”Don’t worry about it, none of the items are stuff I can’t replace and I made half of them anyway. I wouldn’t advise selling them, but mostly because you’d only get a fraction of what they’re worth.

”When you’re ready, I’ll transport you to Kenabres, but we do still have time if you have more questions.”

She wants another sixty seconds or so of detail on where to look for Terendelev and how long until the attack is expected and if there are specific things Terendelev or Kenabres should do to prepare, but then she's ready to go.

(She's nervous, and trying ineffectually to hide it. Theoretically her Battle Maiden power should let her "be a match for" Deskari, but she did not ask enough questions about what that meant or where it applies because she had planned to avoid fights. She would still really like to avoid fights! But if it turns out that she got sent to this particular place and time so she could protect people she doesn't want to let them die by being too scared. And she can feel the belt making her tougher and the Inner Strength power sitting unobtrusively behind it, hinting at what she can do only by making everything she's currently carrying feel effortless.)

Then Areelu will shapeshift into a more ordinary looking woman, and take Brenda’s hand to transport them. It’s a multi step process, first bringing them to a desolate rock with unusual coloration and a purple sky, then 6 seconds later the air over an ocean, but then they’re in a back alleyway of a probably preindustrial town.

”Terendelev should be in the festival plaza, but she’s rather difficult to scry so I’m not completely sure where. You want the woman with silver hair and eyes, but pretty much everyone should know who you’re talking about. You've got about half an hour before the attack, but other demons should start showing up before Deskari makes an appearance.”

Ooooh teleportation she wants to learn that, what was that place with the purple sky, was it another planet, does Areelu have interplanetary travel, is it FTL focus Brenda you have a job to do.

"Thank you. I'll see you later, I hope."

Areelu smiles at her.

"I expect I can manage to arrange that, yes."

Then she vanishes.

Kenabres is bizarrely empty, but that can probably be attributed to the sounds coming from the nearby square; there seems to be a celebration in full swing, with excellent attendance. Most of the people are human or look it, but there are some shorter individuals that might be dwarves and a handful of more exotic persuasion. Terendelev is not immediately obvious.