She retches, bringing nothing up, and keeps going through the motions. She will not have the attention to shoot herself within the next six seconds. Probably not for at least twenty, in fact.

"You were not like this the last time we met. Why did you send me that message if you did not want my attention? How many times have we had this conversation?"

"What? I sent—" She heaves, interrupting herself. "What message? You—" Retch. "How did you find me." There. Short enough.

(Retch.)

"For security reasons I do not want to speak of these topics aloud. Will you accept a telepathic bond with me?"

No loss to her at this point, if he wants to do something he can clearly get it through her defenses.

Also Telepathic Bond doesn't permit resistance, as long as you accept it being cast on you. She remembers from Mother casting it.

"Will accept." Heave. "Won't drop will."

She staggers out of the cloud, into the doorway next to him. This should be a good idea whatever the true situation. She still can't really breathe, but she might catch her breath eventually this way.

Telepathic bond.

You sent me an encoded letter from my future self. It's contents were numerous but included your name and your city of residence. I am here to verify the accuracy of the letter and check up on you. You are much more distressed than I expected.

You're— not part of the conspiracy. The other letter. Morgethai. Of course. You're Felandriel Morgethai, and you are not about to dominate me to reveal all my secrets and then erase my memories.

She looks a little sheepish, as much as that's possible while clearly barely holding herself back from vomiting regularly.

My apologies. I thought you were the other high-circle wizard I have interacted with over the course of my futures and sent a letter to, much less directly. He shouldn't have my identity, and if he does I expect things to go very badly for me very quickly.

Also Mother will be down soon, so if you want to keep this secret from her you might need to clean up the cloud.

Ah. My future self did not tell you of my traveling identity. I almost never operate in public as Felandriel Morgethai.

Dispel magic. The cloud vanishes.

You did not. Thinking on it it makes perfect sense, but I have spent the majority of my subjective past four months assuming I was at any time perhaps fifteen seconds from being controlled and imprisoned if my identity could be derived by enemies with whom I had shared a lot of information. I should have realized what was happening, but... I didn't.

If you had a plan for those slots, I apologize for the waste.

I shall have them again soon enough. How informed is your mother? I do not have a second telepathic bond ready.

I did not intentionally inform her, but she may have derived information regardless. With no sign of a combat remaining, she may not approach, and if she does I can convince her this is not to be feared.

Lhín will just be telling her to beware that Tencednil might be about to be kidnapped, or might be perfectly safe. As long as the situation is consistent with perfectly safe, that shouldn't be an issue. They have at least half a minute before Mother will be truly awake and attentive, given how early it is. The real purpose was to ensure she was forewarned that Tencednil not returning would be a sign of something going wrong, not just of her daughter failing to pass information along.

Very well. We should move out of your doorway. Do you have a preference for where we can converse more?

Not strongly. I was anticipating spending my day volunteering with the Guard, working with a group which should discover the location of the Urgathoan cult which is spreading the Blood Veil. With them warned, tomorrow they can prepare and spend the day eradicating the cult, and if I do it right they end up taking no casualties, significantly enriched by the Urgathoans' items, and with everything they need for a cure. I also sent the cure instructions to the conspiracy which is taking over Korvosa, and last time they had it active by a week or so from now, but when you removed them from power it broke down and I sent the instructions to the Abadarans instead. They had it within a week at that point. It would probably be easier to just give the instructions to you, on second thought.

Not having to talk at the speed of her mouth moving is in some ways convenient and in other ways not. She doesn't have as much time to think through her points before reaching them, but she can go so much faster. Finish the math in terms of what Morgethai cares about.

If I am busy instead talking to you, it is possible the cohort will instead be slain by the angered wererats they will meet on that path, which would delay the Guard's certainty about the location, which would push back the raid by a day, perhaps? That means another hundred or so infected, but if the cure is already prepared it might not slow that down, it depends on how Togomor handles it. It means I'm not known to the guard, which makes it harder to warn them about the Mantis cult when that comes up, and I have no idea how to stop that. Oh, and I wouldn't be there for the fungus bloom, but they probably would send a different force without me and if whoever it is flees and comes back with a larger group it should be fine, there were only seven of them. Also I don't know if that will happen if the sewers are more contaminated with disease from the Urgathoans, that upset the otyughs a little and otyughs could throw it off.

Why does this city have two secret evil cults and a pack of angered wererats. Have the Urgathoans already started spreading the disease? How did it spread in the previous timelines?

He turns away and begins moving further inside the house.

If this city only had two secret evil cults and a pack of angered wererats, Tencedil's job would be far easier. This, unfortunately, isn't even getting into the actual problems.

(Arguably the Asmodeans are an evil cult, but they aren't secret. And that might be stretching the definition of cult a little bit.)

I don't know. It spreads by physical contact, it is incurable without magic, and the cult was spreading it through the sewers and through coins imbued with the fungus. It is typically lethal within seven days or so, and the first deaths are in about five or six, but they could just be the unlucky from the first wave. I'm reasonably certain it wasn't being spread before the Breaching Festival or we would have seen signs.

She follows him, and calms the spiders as he passes. They were mostly asleep until someone started making their webs shiver. No need to worry about them as witnesses. (Tencednil isn't actually sure whether Mother has a way to read their memories, but she might.)

Then it may not be too late to prevent the disease entirely. How many are in this cult? What are their defenses like?

He's looking for somewhere to sit down.

Not many. From memory, fifteen to twenty second-circle clerics of Urgathoa, one fifth-circle cleric, and a fourth-circle wizard of some sort. They also have an imprisoned leukodaemon which they released last time, but it was entirely willing to kill the fifth-circle cleric given the chance. If there is anyone else beyond prisoners in the complex I have not observed them either of the times I remember fighting the group.

Tencednil can point out some hammocks which aren't actually webs. They blend in nicely, and hang from the same supports, but they're designed to be occupied by elvenoids humanoids, and should be comfortable enough.

He sits down on one of the hammocks. Well, I could take them. Possibly even without an entire new set of spells. I shall table this for now. I would like to verify your truthfulness. Will you permit me to place a geas on you?

Yes, but enchantment, so Mother—

Can it wait for five minutes? I need to reassure Mother first, and she will want an uninterrupted three or four minutes of interaction to ensure she doesn't believe me to be presently enchanted if I am to reassure her that my disappearance off-plane for a potentially extended period of time is riskless despite the warning I gave her.

It can wait a few minutes.

I will do that, then, and afterwards I can follow you and you can cast whatever you need. You may already know, but if not, anticipate your memory investigation spell failing, I remember it doing so.

She goes off to reassure Mother. Yes she is fine, here, look, she is not enchanted in any way whatsoever, no not even if you look very hard, all her standard subconscious shifting is as it should be, it's not a problem. No you shouldn't know why this was a worry that came to mind, don't worry about it.

And eventually, back downstairs. Whenever, or I will follow you and then you can cast it.

He takes her hand. Plane shift.

Tencednil falls through a dark tunnel and then she's floating in a familiar void. A sea of twinkling stars surrounds her.

Isaac shakes his head and looks around. His appearance doesn't change much in the dead-magic plane. Some items he's wearing are visible that weren't before. "Ah, hello. It's the real Isaac Castrillón speaking now. Felandriel should be around to open the trapdoor soon."

Lhín vanishes in the void.

He's a possible information source, you don't pass those up. That means she needs to be someone who asks questions, so a little tactless and interested in things. Yes used to Morgethai, so he's probably used to wizards, they will ask questions no sane person would expect an answer to. She can do that.

"Oh! You're a real person. Hello. I'm sorry, I'm sure this is terribly confusing." She extends a hand. "Tencednil, as you presumably heard. It's good to meet a new person! And you must be very impressive if Felandriel Morgethai uses you as her typical going-around identity. Is she... possessing you, like a ghost does?" The same sort of possession as what happened to her when she went to the Bank for safety? That does probably make going around as Felandriel Morgethai less risky, even with so many people who want you dead.