Here is a book of church locations in Sothis which includes a map of the city. Essam points out the Grand Bank and the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye thereupon and notes down a draw on the line of credit accordingly.

(And how many such books would their line of credit cover?)

Kimbry thanks the man very warmly and they can get out of his hair and let everyone else proceed with their business. 

For their part, they’re going to find out how fast a Companion of Valdemar can gallop through the streets of Sothis without risking life or limb for themselves or anyone else.

(Easily several thousand.)

The streets are crowded; it's early in the day and it's only going to get hotter from here. People do get out of the way if they notice them coming but there's always someone hard of hearing or who can't easily move aside their wagon.

Then it’ll take a bit longer than it otherwise would to reach the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye. Joshel also stops a few times to check the map and reassure himself that Kimbry isn’t going to get heatstroke. He kind of wishes he’d thought to ask Blai what season it would be and wear summer instead of winter Whites; even with his coat off he’s getting awfully warm.

Okay it should be right around here somewhere…?

It is probably the enormous towering thirty-six story building whose floors are very obviously not supported by any known principle of architecture and also manage to give the impression of being larger on the inside than out. As an additional tip-off there is, at the top, something that is not, actually, an all-seeing eye, but sort of gives off the distinct impression of being one if you squint at it from street level, which no one else is doing (they're not tourists), complete with the impression of turning to squint right back at you and blink.

Joshel is not a tourist and cannot afford to waste any time goggling at the sights but he will, perhaps, boggle for a moment. How did they make that architecture work?

…Is there anyone out front he can address his questions to like at the Abadaran temple, or does it seem like he’s expected to just go in? (Does it look like the doors might just possibly fit a horse inside…?)

The doors would fit not only a horse, but also an elephant, and sometimes a dragon.

Oh that’s very convenient and will definitely leave Kimbry more inclined to warm feelings toward the church of Nethys, mad god or not.

They go in. Who is visible from just inside the doors and looks the most likely to consider it their job to answer questions for ignorant and confused foreign bumpkins with a line of credit from the church of Abadar and a lot more diamonds where that came from? (Though Joshel actually feels a lot less self-conscious about the foreign bumpkin part, here.) 

The interior of the temple of Nethys is a library - or at least the first five floors are, it's hard to see up any higher than that. The bookshelves are served in some places by rickety ladders and in others one seems to be expected to have the power of flight, or at least a good Mage Hand. There are people shelving books and people reading books and people copying books and some books that seem to be going about their own business. There are some brooms sweeping and one that is thwacking an apprentice who just dropped a book on the floor. There is a rich purple carpet and a fish tank that appears to contain a single glowing jellyfish with writing all over it and a cat having a heated argument in Osiriani with an fire elemental.  

(The argumentative cat is unsurprising. Velgarth has Suncats and Joshel has seen how Sola gets in meetings sometimes. Why does the jellyfish have writing– nevermind.) 

Kimbry...will address one of the people shelving books, who seems more likely to actually work here than the people just looking at books. 

:Excuse me. I'm Herald Joshel's Companion. We're representing our kingdom and allies which are in another world, we have a serious emergency with a time-sensitive aspect and we were advised by Cicerone Essam at the Church of Abadar that we could try stopping here in case you can help us. Joshel is a first-circle cleric of Abadar if that's relevant to you but we don't have the truth spell today. Can you tell us who we should be talking to?: 

Is it weird to say they have a line of credit and can pay, maybe that's an Abadaran church thing only, certainly Kimbry would feel incredibly weird opening with that in any Valdemaran temples– well, and now she's hesitated long enough that it would be weird to start up again. She waits for an answer. 

"Hmmm?" she says distractedly. "Were we expecting a Joshel?"

        "Yes, sixth bell."

"You're almost late," she says to Joshel, a bit scoldingly, "there's the bell going now."

??????????????????

...Okay perhaps he was in fact warned about this. Still!!

Joshel does not try to defend himself by pointing out that they didn't want to run down deaf locals or people who couldn't easily get their wagons out of the way. 

:Who...exactly is expecting us and where should we go to meet with them?: Kimbry asks. 

"Well, the High Priest," she says, as if Joshel must be very dense indeed. "And you go up."

Joshel is an ignorant foreign bumpkin from a different planet and from their perspective they should absolutely be treating him like he's very dense!!

:Would you mind showing us the way up so that we don't get lost?: Kimbry asks. :...Er, and does it accommodate horses or am I better off waiting down here? I can go up stairs but I can't very easily get down them again.: 

"Well, I wouldn't go up stairs if I couldn't go down them, personally," she says, looking kind of flummoxed that her opinion was asked on this point. "I don't think you can get lost. The stairs are there; you go up them until there aren't more stairs to go up, and then you're as high as the stairs go, aren't you?"

Okay. Joshel will stop bothering these poor people. Kimbry will wait at the bottom of the stairs (maybe peeking at some spines of books but she can neither read them nor pick them up) and Joshel will - go up. Until there aren't any more stairs to go. In a hurry, because apparently he's almost late. Really hoping that he cannot in fact manage to be unusually talented at getting lost in here. 

There are twenty eight flights of stairs today! At the top of them there is a very ornate door. 

Joshel has no way of knowing that there might ever be a different number of flights of stairs! 

He reaches the top quite out of breath but he's going to need to use Mindspeech anyway. He– that door is intimidating, Valdemar doesn't go in much for ornate decor, but is there an obvious place to knock...? 

Not especially, but as he approaches the door a gust of wind blows it open. Within there is a parlor with some stuffed armchairs and a large fireplace, curled up around which is a silver dragon. 

"Come in, come in," says the dragon. "...I'm not really a dragon, but it's Halloween."

Joshel manages not to jump nearly out of his skin, even though his main association with creatures that look anything like that is “something that came out of the Pelagirs” and the Heralds have had some quite bad experiences with that lately.

How does it - she? - speak Valdemaran?? Oh it's probably magic, he does remember now that one of the first-circle spells on the list Dara had put together for him, after the Heralds put their heads together to list out everything Blai had used or mentioned, was for understanding languages. He never prepared it because it was strictly less useful on the Iftel border than a Cure Light Wounds and he's ended up burning both his non-floating-disk first circle spells literally first thing every morning, on Cures for the worst-injured people who missed his last channel the day before and can't wait for the next, and it wasn't like he knew he would be here today, they're days ahead of schedule. Also while he’s here noticing ways to be confused, how can a whatever-that-is TALK like a PERSON, it looks vaguely like a colddrake without the “cold” part and they definitely can’t -

...The actual content of what was said, he's not even going to ask.

He goes in. 

:My name is Herald Joshel and I’m here on behalf of my kingdom and our allies in another world to seek aid for a serious emergency with time-sensitive aspects: he sends, a little uncertainly. :- I’m also a first-circle cleric of Abadar but I don’t have, er, Abadar’s Truthtelling today to prove it…?:

Oh no and he completely forgot to mention Blai being a cleric of Iomedae earlier and that might be relevant. Because of the powerful archmages. Who might care about getting their delegate intact enough to help Joshel-and-cleric-assistance get back to Valdemar sooner. Maybe.

:We also have a cleric of Iomedae, Blai Artigas, who was supposed to attend a diplomatic meeting of some kind in - Cheliax, I think? Organized by some powerful archmages?:

"Yes. It'll be delayed by the interplanetary diplomatic emergency, so he does not need to worry about being late. All for the best, that. There's a spell, fourth circle, that will fix them all."

He hadn’t even gotten as far as explaining what the emergency is or why it’s time-sensitive???

Well, he’s going to provisionally assume this is some kind of mad god not-Foresight and she knows what she’s talking about and isn’t wildly making things up.

“…All right. How much does it cost and where do you think I could find someone who can cast it and was willing to come back with me in about six to eight candlemarks when our allies retrieve us? I was also authorized to spend up to the value of one Raise Dead diamond on getting back faster if you can help us with that. …I was told that we need Remove Disease very urgently and I don’t know if that spells covers it.”

"There's no need to rush back faster than that. They'll be fine, certain people will enjoy getting to make Shavri miserable for longer, and no one's going to have prepared a spell never before used on this planet today anyway. It's fourth circle, and any fourth circle priest you hire should have no trouble getting it."

Um???????????????

“…I was told we need at the very least Remove Disease and Lesser Restorations today and it really really cannot wait for tomorrow,” he says stupidly, because it’s the only part he can really figure out how to engage with. “I, um— you seem to know who I…am…so is there any way you could write a letter of reference to the,” he’s forgotten what it was called, “the church of Abadar that can sell us Raise Dead? So I don’t have to explain all over again? And, um, is there - since you seem to know things - is there anything we don’t know yet that’s going to be really important?” 

"Yes. Most people barely know anything and lots of things are really important."