Bastran takes a deep breath, clears his throat.

“He’d wanted to explain all that as - backstory, I guess. And a little bit more, about - some kind of vow he made at Urtho’s Tower, that he wouldn’t give up until he had fixed everything. 

“He, er, apparently thought it was relevant because - it’s not just Aroden’s church’s teachings that sounded suspiciously like - something he might've written. He says it was also the history of Aroden. Which I guess must be one of the ones we have up north, we could check if we're willing to risk the translation ring. Altarrin said that - um, that it sounded like history. Of his actual life. They had a Cataclysm too. Aroden - lived before it - and ended up fighting a war - it was with another species, in his version, but they'd - taught him, like Urtho taught Ma'ar. And then he was the only survivor who remembered their magic, he tried to rebuild - for a very long time, four thousand years. And then realized he wasn't going to be able to fix everything as a human, the existing gods - weren't good enough. So he figured out how to become a god, which - I guess is something Altarrin thinks is the sort of thing he might do." 

Another deep breath. 

"Altarrin prayed to Aroden. He says. To - check - because he was confused - he didn't really have any explanation for why he thought it was safe... He's claiming that Aroden answered him, and said they had the same goals, and - Aroden said he recognized him, or something. It didn't really make that much sense, but he clearly - it was so important to him, I think it was the entire reason he'd wanted to talk, to tell me. 

- also he admits that they cut his compulsions and put their own on him, when he Gated over. He didn't say that they had at any point taken theirs off. Which - I mean, he didn't have to tell me that, he could've lied, it seems like he was - trying not to. But - still means it's sort of hard to trust anything he said or any of his motives. He - said you'd probably conclude he was a traitor, if you were able to question him fully now. But that he thinks he's still loyal to - the thing he wanted the Empire to be, that he meant to found." 

Kastil is not, actually, confident that Altarrin is an immortal archmage from the past who founded the Eastern Empire to preserve the knowledge of pre-Cataclysm civilization, he's just annoyed that he didn't even consider it, even though it explains a great deal about the man.

"Your Majesty, it does not seem like a great additional mystery, added to Altarrin's astonishing skills, that he is immortal, indeed it explains a great deal about him. Neither is it so extraordinary that the dream-individual who claimed to be him could have been him; neither is certain or proven, but both are plausible."

"The claim that Aroden is - his past self from another world who ascended to godhood? A stranger coincidentally identical to him except for the world in which he was born? - seems like some sort of lie that alien compulsions could force him to believe and that might then help him cease resisting other compulsions, but as a fact about the world it is wildly complex, raises more questions than it answers, and is of no use to us whatsoever."

"I am not surprised that he believes himself loyal to the Imperial dream. With many possible varieties of compulsions, making him believe that would be much more effective than making him completely forget all of his former loyalties. Nonetheless, I see no reason to take anything he said in the dream was true. Information he gave us is information that Iomedae, or 'Alfirin' if that is our current opponent, wants us to have."

And just what she's up to other than demonstrating "hi, I could have pulled a coup if I wanted to, tremble in fear of my might" is much less clear. But Kastil's going to go badger the Ministry of Progress into making his elite assassination team deadlier mage-killer bullets.

He nods, heavily. “That’s - about what I thought. Damn it, I wish we could get him back. But failing that, you’re right, we can’t take most of what he said to me as - information at face value. Though it’s sort of informative that they went to the trouble of arranging a conversation in a dream. …I don’t think it could’ve been Alfirin, if it was an imposter, unless the magic lets them do weird things with time. The dream lasted - I would guess a minute and a half past when Alfirin tried to snatch Aritha.”

Sigh. He drags a hand over his face. “Do you have any other questions for me or can I go back to bed.” 

He'll want more information about precise timing, but that's it. After that, Bastran can go back to bed.

Altarrin takes a couple of candlemarks to scry, pausing to take notes during his rest periods. By the end of it he's significantly more exhausted than he was after the Gate, but he can manage to drag himself to find Iomedae and report in. 

Summary: the Empire is definitely panicking. Nearly every minister and their subordinates were dragged out of bed; he was able to scry the tail end of a hectic group meeting where the Emperor was signing off on new orders for, at the very least, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Progress, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of War. 

He wasn't actually able to read all of the documents, but his guess is that the Empire is already in a dubious financial situation - it was getting close to one when he left - and Bastran is raising taxes - and approving measures to respond to the inevitable riots in the provincial centers - in order to pour a lot more resources toward the mage-research division. He was able to get a peek at a list, on the Minister of Progress's desk, of mage-specialists being requisitioned for the project, and his guess is that they're going to be trying to reinvent arcane magic based on what they saw of Alfirin's spells. 

He was expecting them to respond by crushing the rebellion in Oris even more ruthlessly, given the assumption that they might be providing a base for Iomedae and the church of Aroden, but...actually he didn't see any evidence of this? He...isn't sure, yet, he needs to scry more people and locations once he's rested...but based on some glimpses of paperwork, and a decided lack of forward troop movements when he scried the Imperial legions in Oris itself, he actually wonders if there was already a plan in place to deescalate, maybe even send a diplomatic team to offer a ceasefire. Which is mildly surprising, but - maybe he wasn't giving Bastran enough credit. 

He was able to confirm that the scying-specialist died at some point yesterday evening. 

"That's too bad. I'll send an offer to attempt to Raise them, I think - I hope they realize that this was Alfirin being extraordinarily restrained, but I doubt that's a - very available angle.

I think I want to set up Aroden's church on - Besen, Alfirin said the second continent was called in its trade language? - it'll make Him at least able to grab our dead, including from the Empire,  much more cheaply than he presently can, and it's probably a good enough position for negotiations with the local gods, too. The classic move when you have lots of diamonds and ludicrous geopolitical ambitions is to turn a desert habitable with some portals from the Elemental Plane of Water, but that's probably a project for after we've beaten Tar-Baphon. In the meantime I might see about just setting up an ordinary boring temple in one of the cities you stopped in for diamonds, with some pearls of power so the healing is renewable.

- I'm presuming, here, that you're at this point comfortable with my trying to establish Aroden on Velgarth. If I'm wrong there or elsewhere, stop me; I'm not trying to use you against your own purposes. 

....if Bastran has in the middle of all this arranged a ceasefire in Oris then I want to offer peace. I doubt he'll trust it, but, well, now that we have Aritha we can in fact declare a unilateral peace if we want to."

“I highly doubt they will take you up on Raising the dead mage, but - it probably does no harm to offer, at least." Sigh. "I am comfortable with you starting a church of Aroden. I think it is a good idea, though I do also think we really should try to avoid pressing the Empire any further, and so avoiding the whole continent for now seems wise. I - am somewhat concerned the local gods will try to cause problems, if They can tell that Aroden - resembles me - but I think the gods with territorial remit in Besen might be less hostile, They would have barely noticed the Cataclysm." 

He closes his eyes. It's not just the magical fatigue from scrying; it's now closer to morning than the middle of the night, after a very long day, and his body craves sleep. 

"I am in favor of offering peace, even if Bastran will not believe it or find it reassuring at this point." He bites back on a yawn. "...And if you need a Gate, I think it will have to be tomorrow." 

"Of course. While I have you, I do want my belt back, because you're hardly using the strength or the dexterity. But I got you one of your own of the highest quality for constitution, and a headband for splendour, and the catalogue of a magic items store in Absalom so you can think what else you ought to have."

He gives her the same look that he has several times, now - surprised, faintly disbelieving, and with a muted flicker of annoyance-with-himself because he keeps being surprised in the same direction even though he shouldn't find it startling, anymore, and should really just finish updating. 

"Thank you," he says quietly. "I am grateful." He's not actually sure what she means by 'Splendor', and whether it's the same as what her headband did or a subset or a different thing entirely. 

Probably if he switches the belts very quickly he won't actually collapse during the brief interlude when he's not wearing either. This does not mean it's pleasant. 

Does a Lay On Hands help? Iomedae's are very good and help with a wide range of maladies.

It does help! It doesn't completely fill the hollow emptiness of his reserves, and it's clearly not going to be a replacement for a proper night's rest, but he's no longer desperately fighting off drowsiness and considering the walk back to his guest bedroom with looming dread. 

...He's not going to put the headband on in front of Iomedae. What if it does weird things to his head. Given that he has the option, he would much rather have a chance to get accustomed to it in private. 

"Thank you," he says again. "I - would like to speak more tomorrow, when it is convenient for you. But I had better get some sleep. - is Aritha all right, do you know, has she asked for anything?" 

"I'm sure I can make some time for us to speak tomorrow. I don't think she has asked for anything, though the servants here report to Alfirin and not even very effectually that."

"I will make sure to check on her tomorrow." 

And he thanks Iomedae again, and then makes his way to his guest bedroom, where he totally intends to have a look at the catalogue of magic items, but instead falls asleep without even managing to pull the covers over himself. 

Aritha spends about half an hour recovering her composure and - while she doesn't really trust that she's unobserved - thinking. 

Does she believe that she was raised from the dead? She - isn't sure. She knows the other civilization can raise the dead. They did it to Iomedae, obviously. But why do it to her, especially if - as Alfirin was careful to say - she can remain a prisoner if she wants, doesn't have to work for them - can die a martyr if she wants, Alfirin said, and didn't even seem to mean it as a threat -

- maybe it's so cheap that you just do it in any situation where you'd offer someone healing. (She wants them to conquer the Empire, she wants them to conquer the Empire...) Maybe no one dies, unless the government actively prefers their being dead to their being alive. And Altarrin, presumably, told them to take her alive in the first place rather than to just kill her. 

She should probably talk to Altarrin but she's so blazingly angry at him she doesn't trust herself in his presence, and also has to wonder what he wanted her alive for, which doesn't feel like something she has to wonder about Alfirin.

So once she's pulled herself together she asks one of the constructs in uniforms if she can be introduced to, uh, Curiosity the fox.

Curiosity the fox can be found and introduce himself! He doesn't speak Jaconan, but he can understand it, and after he boops her with his nose she can understand Taldane.

"Hi, I'm Curiosity, you're Aritha, I hear you have questions?"

"Lots of them, foremost among them why anyone would bother to answer my questions, and relatedly why I'm alive?"

"OK so you're right that those questions are related, and there are a couple things going into the answer. First is that Iomedae doesn't like killing people if you could instead put in a bit more work to get everything you want without killing them. And if Alfirin kills too many people Iomedae gets mad about it. And nobody really wanted you dead, per se, they just wanted the empire to not be able to use you to do something incredibly foolish, so kidnapping you was just as good as killing you. The second thing is that Altarrin thought very highly of you and didn't want you-in-particular dead. The third thing is that, because Altarrin thought so highly of you, Alfirin wanted to meet you. And maybe she felt guilty about you dying because of her." Curiosity looks mildly unhappy about that last bit, for some reason.

"...And I'm bothering to answer your questions because I'm on vacation and I like meeting new people, and because Alfirin thought you'd be disoriented. And for other reasons that I'm not going to tell you, not because they're sinister, just because they're private."

She's going to have to learn the court politics of an entire new court, isn't she. "What...is the relationship between Iomedae and Alfirin?"

...Oh boy. Alfirin would...not... want him to speak his full mind here, would she.

"Iomedae is the head of the crusade and Alfirin is the only person who doesn't have to listen to her if she doesn't want to, because Alfirin is the most powerful living wizard on the planet. Alfirin mostly does what is in her interests but she and Iomedae have a lot of interests in common, like preventing the world from being overrun by undead. Does that answer your question?"

So, Iomedae is Empress, more or less, and there's one person Iomedae - can't kill, doesn't have compulsioned, because she's - too useful to kill and too powerful to compulsion wow that does not sound like a stable state of affairs at all and Aritha now urgently needs to replay, in her head, the conversation in which Iomedae asked casually if Aritha would prefer to be Iomedae's prisoner - 

- has she offended the ruler of this entire continent - though why ask, if you might not like the answer -

- she's going to be candid. Mistakes here are safer than mistakes later. "That situation doesn't sound very stable and I'm worried about having inadvertently waded into it."

Inadvertently waded into it? That seems unlikely. Even putting aside Aritha's age, and status as a prisoner, she's been here for what, a few hours? And not said more than a dozen words between the two of them?

...Probably she meant something else.

"I think there's been a miscommunication and you aren't in the middle of any situations. I agree that it's not very stable... but I think maybe you're predicting different things than I am from that!"

"What ...are you predicting from that?"

"That at some point, possibly after the war is over, Alfirin will go somewhere else and not keep working with Iomedae?" He hopes that day is soon. And does not involve Alfirin running off to do secret things half the time for a full decade again.

"...Are you worried they're going to try to kill each other or something? I don't know why they'd do that, what would the point even be? It's not...impossible... but I don't think either of them could really permanently kill the other without a lot of work and...they don't disagree on enough that they'd do that instead of just going their separate ways." There are other, worse options. Like Alfirin falling in love again. But he's not going to mention that one.

"...in the Empire one of them would definitely try to kill the other, and even if that didn't work a lot of other people would die of having chosen the wrong side."