The Ruby Prince Khemet III is in a meeting receiving a report about expected tax receipts when it happens.

Everyone in the room disappears. His ministers, his brothers, his Risen Guard, over twenty people vanish at the same instant and he has seen no magic and did not feel himself shake off a spell.

In matters of state security, the protocol is clear and it is also clear why it is the correct protocol: with no information there is no better choice to be made, and the safety of the Pharaoh is paramount.

Quicken (rod) plane shift to his private secure Lawful-aligned demiplane; the only other tuning fork is stored in the Osirian embassy in Axis. Step into the Lawful Neutral forbiddance.

Unlock the door with its magic key, speak a password (obscured by a permanent mage's sanctum), step into the Lawful Good Forbiddance on the other side. Close and lock the door.

He is now behind the best defensive wall that would fit into the budget estimated as a fair price for keeping the Pharaoh safe. He is already wearing all his protective items and he cannot cast Mind Blank from scroll.

The protocol does not require escalating immediately to a Miracle. Besides, he is not sure what miracle he would ask for. There is another Abadaran cleric on Golarion who can cast a Miracle, hopefully with more information.

He uses the shell of sending whose other half is in the central guard-room of the Palace. There is no response.

He uses the shell whose other half is in the backup emergency security facility of the Dome. There is no response.

He uses his last shell, whose mate is in the embassy in Axis. "Marquis", the codeword for his demiplane. "Ojan, Merenre, Narmer, everyone else in room vanished. Like Wishnapping, but I saw no magic. Blue, Red", the other two shells, "not responding. Investigate, advise. Starting Commune, interruptible." If they need to reach him sooner, they can plane shift to Golarion and teleport into the Dome and then plane shift into the demiplane; this sounds very unsafe but he does not know what is going on and he trusts the judgement of the security experts he employs much more than his own.

Thankfully, they reply. But he doesn't have another shell and a regular sending would take ten minutes. He is now cut off.

He begins casting Commune, desperately trying to come up with a question tree.

Menas is a typical Golarian human, which is to say he is a slightly-literate farmer. He owns a little freehold near Oppara, with olive and fruit trees, and a share in the village's wheat field. He is married and has two young daughters, and a milk-cow.

Like the Ruby Prince, he cares deeply about the yearly taxes. Unlike the Ruby Prince, he cannot forecast the expected tax rate ahead of time. Taxes are a thing that happens, like storms and disease, each in its season.

He is tilling the vegetable patch where he'll plant peas and cabbages when

he suddenly finds himself elsewhere.

The vegetables are gone, replaced with a carpet of flowering clover. A cool breeze dries the sweat on his face, despite the fact that the courtyard he finds himself in is no more than ten or twelve meters across. Stone walls rise three meters into the air on all sides. A large oaken door is barred on this side, as though to suggest he could lift the bar and leave the courtyard.

The sun shines down from above just as it had on his garden, falling across a spread of fruit, bread, and cheese. In front of it is a letter, gently waving in the breeze. A fountain burbles at the center of the courtyard, and a small building stands behind it, the door open invitingly.

"This is all for you," a voice informs him. It is sourceless and androgynous, but it sounds gentle. "The letter contains more explanation. Touch the circle at the top of the paper if you want the letter read to you."

Aaaah?

Did he just die and go to Heaven? 

This definitely doesn't look like Hell, not that he really thinks he deserved that, but - he doesn't remember dying, what happened - is his family - was his little Themis watching him out the window again, did she just see him die, is his family alright -

- he rushes desperately to the door and tries to unbar it.

The bar lifts with no problem and the door swings open, revealing a corridor leading away. The corridor is lined with arches, each leading to a visibly different place.

There is a city built with gleaming metal, sparkling in the sun. People walk through the streets, calling words made indistinct by the distance. There is a cool forest with a burbling brook. Birds chirp in the trees. There is a normal looking village surrounded by fields, and an indoor area lit with magical lights.

If he continues down the corridor, he will probably be able to see into more of the arches. If the corridor has an end, it's not visible from here.

The city is very strange looking. It makes sense that a Heavenly city would be grand and immense and - he doesn't understand what half the things he sees even are. Cities are complex and strange, the one time he went to Oppara he kept losing the way back to his inn and finding himself in scary twisting alleys and - he doesn't have time to figure anything out, right now, he can't waste any time he has to know - 

He runs through the door into the normal-looking village and towards the nearest person he can see.

"Hello," says a man. He's sitting on the porch of one of the houses, re-reading the notes that got handed out to the hastily-assembled volunteers. "I'm Alec. You must be from Golarion?"

"Yes! I'm Menas, I - this is Heaven, right - I don't know how I died - where is my family?" he gets out all in a rush.

"...sorry. Sorry. I'm, um. Honored to meet you?" Reading means a cleric or village chief, right. Where are his manners. He makes a little bow. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just died and I - have no idea why or how, and my family may have died too, could you please tell me how I can - check on them?" Tracking one's living family is an interest everyone in Heaven should share, it's not weird to ask a stranger about it - except, not everyone, oh no - "...please?" he pleads quietly.

"So good news!" Alec responds. "You're not dead and your family is fine. I can explain what happened -- long story short, we had to evacuate Golarion because it was about to be destroyed -- but I can absolutely help you get back in contact with your family first."

He looks at the app that was handed out to the volunteers, and sees that there were some people near where Menas came from that share his DNA (or share DNA with one of his probable-children) which the system has tentatively marked as possible family members.

He floats their pictures in the air between them.

"Are these your family? Is this list missing anyone? I can send them a message asking them to come meet us here. They would have all been transported to their own stations -- areas like where you arrived."

Those are his wife and daughters!! He nods vigorously.

It takes him a moment to be able to speak again, and then rather longer to think of what to say.

"We're not dead? The world was about to be destroyed? ...are you an angel?" He suddenly feels very small and not nearly deferential enough. "Am I - keeping you from saving the world from being destroyed?" Oh no, this is horrible! "I'm - I'm so so sorry - please, I'll get out of your way, thank you" - if his family is alright he will not bother anyone super important ever again!!

"No, no! I'm not an angel," Alec responds. "And I'm not one of the people fighting Hell -- I'm in no way brave enough for that. Here, let me send your family a message asking them to come meet us here, and then I can explain what's going on. That's the part that I did volunteer to help with. Fighting Hell is not my idea of a relaxing afternoon, but helping all the refugees get organized and settled down is just neighborly."

He taps the pictures and sends off a message. In several other space stations, a voice announces "Menas has invited you to meet up with him. You do not have to go to him, and there is no way for him to reach you here without your permission. If you wish to go to where he is, touch the glowing circle on the wall under his picture."

His wife and daughters don't step out of the corridor... door... which rather disconcertingly turns out to be free-standing behind him, without any wall to be a door in. They just - appear, as if stepping out through a door that isn't there at all. 

They all run towards each other - well, he and Irene and Asteria run, Themis tries to and promptly faceplants - Irene changes course to pick her up before he gets there -

- then they're all hugging and laughing and crying and for a little while they rudely ignore are blissfully oblivious of Alec, and even of Heaven itself.

Eventually they approach Alec again, Menas timidly in the lead and Irene and the children even more timidly in the back.

"So we're alive, but already in Heaven?"

Where other normal-looking people live in normal-looking villages and... eventually die, he assumes, and then just - keep on living going about their... existences? It sounds frankly much better than having to live out their lives back home! Heaven doesn't have bandits and wolves and forest monsters and secretly Evil people! ...probably it still has taxes, one can't have everything, but still: Heaven!!!

"Does that mean - only the Lawful Good people were brought here, and the other people are... in Axis and Nirvana and so on?" He desperately hopes everyone he knows went to one of those and not to - any of the bad ones - but sometimes people do go to the bad ones, is he about to find out who out of his family and all his ancestors did and didn't make it -

He suddenly realizes that means his little Themis made it to Heaven (!) at three years old (!!) when everyone even the cleric of Erastil said children that little always went to - a horrible place named for bones - 

Menas has never been happier and prouder in his life. He hugs Themis very tightly.

Alec looks up from reading his notifications.

"I'm sorry for the confusion, but this isn't Heaven," he explains. "It's a bit of a long story, you can sit if you'd like," he continues, gesturing at the other simple furniture scattered around the porch.

"This isn't Heaven, but it is another 'plane'. I don't think it has a name, because until just a day or so ago, we had no idea that there were other planes. We also had no idea about magic, or gods, or anything like that. But that also means that we didn't have problems with demons or monsters. My world had a fairly similar history to yours -- kings and armies, wars, and so on. But without magic, over time we developed better and better nonmagical tools. And as our tools got better, we could work the land more prosperously, which meant fewer people had to work at growing food, so they had more time to spend on inventing better tools, etc."

"Eventually, we got to a point -- only a few years ago, actually -- where our tools could move us incredible distances instantly, like the doors you've seen, and generate food and clothing from nothing, and a thousand other helpful things. Different people reacted differently, but I ended up spending my time taking up painting. It's not Heaven, but it is pretty good here. Nobody goes hungry, there's enough space for everyone, everyone is free to do what they like. And then a little more than a day ago, we learned that there are other planes! New people to meet, new friends to trade with!"

Alec pauses for a moment.

"And then we learned about Hell."

He looks out into the distance.

"I told you earlier that I'm not a brave man. And I'm not. I didn't have it in me to go and volunteer to help with the fight. Not if it meant risking my comfortable life. But we got enough volunteers together to mount an assault on Hell. With some miracles from the good gods, we succeeded. But apparently there was a prophecy, that Asmodeus would release Rovagug and destroy Golarion rather than surrender. So we used our tools to pull everyone out of Golarion before he did."

He turns back to them.

"And that's how you all arrived here! We didn't have enough volunteers to greet everyone individually, and the tools aren't smart enough to figure out who is a family, which is why you all got your own stations. I got a message a moment ago saying that they banished Rovagug again, and put the planet back mostly how it was. You can go back now, if you want to. But there's no rush. I volunteered to spend this afternoon explaining things to people, and I'm happy to tell you more about my world or its history, or about what happens now, or to get you access to our tools or a house in our world or whatever else you need. So go ahead and ask the questions I'm sure you have!"

He pulls out a bowl of sliced apple pieces and sets it where they can all reach, and then takes one to munch.

They're not in Heaven? But then what was that, that city? Menas thought the doors in the corridor led to the seven tiers and this was the Summerlands but - if this is another mortal world - um.

They - developed better tools for farming, so they could feed more people, that makes sense. But why did fewer people become farmers? Did they run out of land? That is worse than Heaven. In Heaven, more prosperity means more people get to farm.

So. They were rescued from something terrible. He has no idea what a Rovagug is but anything Asmodeus did can't be good. And now the Rovagug is over, and they're welcome to stay for a few hours before going home.

"Thank you! That is - very kind of you, really." They take seats. "We'll have to get to Heaven the hard way. It was - really too good to be true, wasn't it, going to the Summerlands alive and all together."

"Our our world is - only mostly how it was?"

"Your village is fine," Alec responds. "There are a few things elsewhere that didn't get put back exactly as they were, though, because they were dangerous. Things like the Worldwound, or unattended fires. And we rescued all the animals and people, but not very many people have had a chance to hear an explanation and decide to go back, yet. So the world is mostly empty right now."

He thinks for a moment, and then continues.

"Oh! And I was supposed to mention -- now that we've made contact with Golarion, there's going to be free travel back and forth. If you want to go check in on your village and then come back to hear the rest of the explanation, that's fine too. Or if you want to go somewhere other than Golarion. We can actually send you directly to Heaven or Nirvana or Axis -- they're just a little busy right now dealing with all the people rescued from Hell, and we aren't sure how long things will take to settle down, which is why we didn't send everyone there in the first place."

This is all a little more than a little overwhelming!

"I'm - glad to hear you rescued all the animals too. You seem like - really, really good people. I'm glad to have you for neighbors."

"And we definitely shouldn't get priority for going to Heaven over people who've been rescued from Hell! We can make our own way there if we have to!" Admittedly it's so much better to be sure about it, especially for the little ones. He already knows Themis is Good, he just isn't sure she's Lawful enough yet.

"We should - probably go back, then? To talk to our neighbors and our priest and - if anyone is going anywhere, we should decide it together. As a community. And I wouldn't want anyone else to think we might not be coming back, so - we should probably go back now. And then we can hear all explanations with our friends and neighbors, and - make sure everyone knows that... everyone knows there's nothing to worry about?" He hopes that made sense.

"So... I hope to come back soon. And you are very welcome to visit too. And again, thank you."

Alec smiles at them.

"It was my pleasure! I'm glad I was able to help. When you want to come back, making this gesture will take you back to the station where you first appeared," he tells them, showing them a particular hand gesture. "Or if your hands are occupied, you can say the word 'melipartifluous' and it will do the same thing. If you poke around in your stations there are more explanations of how to do things like send people messages or get a door to a specific location. But rather than making you deal with that right away, I'll just give you this."

He hands Menas a wrapped handmirror.

"If you unwrap that and I'm not busy, you can use it to talk to me. I'm free all afternoon, but don't hesitate to call me any time you need something."

He stands and opens a portal to their farm.

"Is right here an okay place to drop you off, or would somewhere else be better?"

This will take a little getting used to! Menas never expected to be able to use magic. But after a couple of tries and demonstrations they think they can manage. The mirror, at least, doesn't require any gestures or spell words.

(Themis always expected to be able to use magic and is so happy to finally get it! But it doesn't feel sparkly like magic ought to. She is suspicious.)

And with more thank yous and goodbyes exchanged, and Asteria having worked up her courage to take a slice of apple, they step through the magical doorway and back to their farm.

She is a typical Golarian domesticated cow, which is to say she has Int 2 and Wis 11. In human terms, she is less cunning than the toddler who likes to ride her, and wiser than the man who puts the toddler on her back. But she is not human; one should not measure a cow's cunning and wisdom by human norms.

Her life is peaceful. A higher intelligence might call it "boring"; her wisdom knows to call it "safe". She trusts the humans to look after her. She doesn't go hungry; she can sleep alone without fear of wolves. 

She is not unhappy. But she is - unsatisfied.

Sometimes she meets a bull, and they mate, and she gives birth. But the humans take her calves away before they are grown, and she is alone again.

Sometimes she dreams of the vast herds roaming the plains. Her wisdom tells her those are good dreams. But her cunning is not enough to preserve their memories when she wakes.

She is placidly eating - outside, like she does every day this season - when

she is in a different field, with different ground cover. It is rich and nutritious grass, well-watered and in season.

"This place is safe," a voice tells her, and the magic running under it makes sure she can understand. "This grass is for you."

There is silence for a minute or two, and then two doors open in the boundary of this new paddock and the voice speaks again.

"You can go back to the place where you were, or you can go to a safe pasture where there are other cows and no predators or farmers. Or you can stay here. Nothing can get to you here and the doors will remain open. There is no rush."