It is an honor beyond description, of course, for one’s god to name one as their herald. It is an honor that has never on Golarion, as far as the history books tell, been extended to a mortal while they were still mortal. 

It is an honor that Iomedae never wanted, but only because that place was taken. By her mentor, her most powerful ally, her closest friend. 

It is possible, Iomedae is well aware, that by far the most important effect that her life will ever have on Creation is that she robbed Good of a god.

It seems entirely likely that the loss when Arazni fell at Vaishali Pass is a greater loss than Iomedae will ever be able to deal her enemies, that it would be better if Iomedae had never been born. It is not a useful kind of analysis to dwell on but she knows.

There is a spell that has been broken and can never be cast again, a kind of triumph that this could have been and never will be, a gaping wound in the fabric of Creation that will endure forever, probably, though Aroden was not exactly unambiguous about it. And it is Iomedae’s fault, but Good would gain nothing if Iomedae suffered for it, and so for the most terrible mistake of her life she gets a promotion. 

She would be blazingly furious with Aroden, for handing her such a poisoned gift like this, except that of course it isn’t His fault and it isn’t a gift. She needs this power, to complete this work; no matter how stupid, how foolish, how unworthy, she is, no matter how little she would have chosen to pay what she has now paid for it.

There is just as much work as there was before, and fewer people to do it, and in the end that is the only analysis.

Beneath them, the men are cheering, stomping their feet, waving their banners as she passes overhead. Iomedae executes some aerial gymnastics in midair. If their purpose is primarily to serve as a distraction so that she can catch her bloodied eye with her elbow and wipe a tear away before anyone sees it, well, the only people who will ever know will never say. 

And then she’ll ask for a scroll of Mage’s Decree, and wave the broken sword, and tell the very abbreviated story of her triumph over Erum-Hel to everyone for miles and miles around, Aroden’s strength about her, positively glowing with it, and then drive their enemy back with glorious ease.

She leaves future historians a lot of notes but not enough that they’re ever able to figure out what exactly the third sorrow was.  

(Three years later)

(Virlich, somewhere)

This army of zombies is marching on these terrified people who are desperately trying to make it across the river in little rafts before the zombies catch up!

In the air over them appears a woman who was, briefly, under Mind Blank and inside a Forbiddance and is truly, fantastically, confused. She doesn't look like a legendary hero, at least not to anyone who can't see through her habitual Disguise Self, and in fact her hair is still damp, since she only just got out of the bath.

That does not, however, stop her from dipping into godhood a moment and telling the universe that all her spells last twice as long as they should, and then stopping time. When she comes out of it she's no less confused, but she's also very invisible and immune to most magic, and a great wall of fire stretches between the river and the zombie horde with an astral deva and a trumpet archon floating in empty space about forty feet from her.

"Protect the refugees and destroy the undead."

The astral deva and trumpet archon will quite happily do that! The refugees cry out gladly! The zombies, too stupid to flee but not too stupid to stop short of the wall of fire, advance on it and then stand there confused and then are mowed down!

- a Teleporting wizard appears in midair above the refugees, takes in this scene which is completely different from the scene he feared he was Teleporting in on, and hovers uncertainly while he conveys that and waits for orders.

Her first instinct is to teleport out, but that's an instinct for someone who is not only now just realizing that this is too bizarre to be a trap. She was in Aktun, and now she isn't. She'll fly closer and read his mind, unless he has Mind Blank up.

He doesn't! He's reporting that the refugees should, uh, be able to make it across the river fine, because someone before him put up a wall of fire and summoned an astral deva and a trumpet archon. Where 'someone' ...pretty much has to be Alfirin, that's two ninth circle summons right there, except it's a weird thing for her to not mention she already handled?

He is instructed to ask the astral deva. He'll do that. 

"Excuse me, holy warrior, who summoned you?"

They don't know, which was the point of going invisible first.

Also: Alfirin? Arazni hasn't even thought about her in... centuries, it must be. Is she even still alive? She'd have to be a lich by now, wouldn't she?

The astral deva is in fact extremely confused about this whole situation but figures the zombies being destroyed is better than not that and the refugees getting across safely is better than not that. Does this wizard have more context? They're under orders to protect the refugees and destroy the undead but can benefit from context. 

...right. The context is that this is an army of Tar-Baphon's, and sacked a town on its way across this bit of Ustalav, and they decapitated it in a strike this morning but didn't have the resources for cleanup because of an enemy counterattack on their own main force. Destroying it is indeed the thing to do. He's authorized to do a Mansion for the refugees if and only if nothing else goes horribly wrong today.

(He'll report all this, somewhat more urgently. What are his orders.)

Hey, you didn't randomly burn a bunch of spells saving some villagers in Virlich, did you?

No, I'm still in Absalom. And would probably tell you if I wasn't going to have spells available later.

I would have expected so. 

We have a claim from one of our wizards that someone summoned a trumpet archon and a monadic deva to defend some refugees from some zombies in Virlich. Weird thing for you to do, weirder thing for Tar-Baphon to do. 

Orders to the Teleporter:

Permit the scry she's ordering. It should land now. There. 

Ask the civilians if they saw anything. 

(They did not). 

Get the civilians that Magnificent Mansion, we don't want to look to this ....ally?.... like we're going to expend fewer resources ourselves because they're helping.

And then, uh, shout 'hey, are you willing to tell me anything about yourself? I'm a spellcaster with the Shining Crusade, I fight the undead too!'

That sounds like such an awkward thing to shout but he's not sure if Iomedae's exact words are important so sure.

Magnificent Mansion for the civilians. 

"Hey, are you willing to tell me anything about yourself? I'm a spellcaster with the Shining Crusade, I fight the undead too!'

With the Shining Crusade.

This is plausibly a dream. She knows outsiders can mysteriously appear, but - 

- A powerful outsider didn't mysteriously appear in the Shining Crusade - 

- If that's true, Aroden's alive - 

- She's going to fly in a random non-wizardly direction and toss a Greater Scrying on... Salis Enhefel, that's a random name of someone who she knows fought for most of the Crusade, survived it, was cremated after death, and became a Good outsider. The hardest sort of person to raise as undead, recruit for an evil scheme, or disguise as a mortal.

Hanging out at the camp of the Shining Crusade, doing archery practice. 

ARODEN THE AGE OF GLORY WON'T WORK YOU DIE AND ASMODEUS TAKES OVER CHELIAX

The fragment of Aroden that listens for prayer in the material plane is a relatively small and specialized attention-fragment, but even so, it's obvious that the mind calling out to him is...well, for one, not mortal, though it seems to be praying to him in the manner that a mortal would. Outsider, and - maybe a demigod, but if so a very very weird demigod. Either True Neutral or Lawful Neutral, which for a powerful Outsider should not be ambiguous in that way.

Figuring out what to make of that, and unpacking the content of nonstandard but very important-seeming prayer, calls for more of Aroden to parse. The prayer-listening fragment makes a call to the larger Aroden, prioritizing more attention to the situation. 

A moderately larger coalesced portion of Aroden's attention picks apart the content of the prayer. This not-mortal is presenting Him with new critical information about how His plans will go badly, in a way that is absolutely not verifiable in Foresight even now that He knows to look. Moreso, it's presented with an outlook of blinding urgency, even though - as far as He can tell - this is about a plan scheduled for almost a thousand years in the future. 

This calls for a substantially larger resource allocation. More of Aroden is pulled in. The dedicated machinery for granting cleric spells and passively listening for other prayers is still doing that, but most of Aroden's active intelligence turns toward this new and utterly out-of-context entity. 

...Aroden recognizes Arazni.

Aroden now has additional questions. 

- on closer examination, it's not Arazni. Or. It's sort of shaped like Arazni, enough to recognize. It's very definitely not His Arazni.

Obviously, because His Arazni is lost, dead, more dead than mortals can die - though not gone, or at least complicatedly gone, threads of Foresight that He couldn't communicate to Iomedae - but not this, even the partial Aroden can tell this is different, not even slightly connected to that part of the web of Foresight - 

Aroden reprioritizes and draws in even more of Himself, attention usually aimed at passively observing and monitoring what He can see of the material and other plans, and then a large fragment of the almost-fully-coalesced Aroden splits off to look back in Foresight, where did the anomaly originate - 

The part of Aroden's attention now examining Arazni is uncovering more detail on the strangeness. She is a demigod, but she isn't praying to him as one; her godsenses and godpowers are clamped down, except for a few tiny tendrils of power aimed at boosting her direct spellcasting, and she has yet to establish domains for herself to draw power from. Which is very understandable, because up close it's clear that her mind is - incoherent, in conflict with itself, which (to some extent, usually not this extent) isn't odd in a mortal mind but is odd in an Outsider, let alone a demigod. No wonder her alignment is unclear; the underlying nature would be Lawful if it were whole, but it isn't whole, the demigod part of her has no domains, and the entirety of her isn't - fully sane.

- and the fragment of Aroden following up on threads of Foresight is determining that warped future Arazni, or the entity masquerading as that, does not appear to originate from within Pharasma's Creation. Or, at least, not this instance of Pharasma's Creation. 

This is out of context in just about every imaginable way, and if it's real then it's incredibly critical information -

(And a paranoia-focused corner of Aroden's mind is noting that if any of the Evil gods could somehow fabricate an entity that resembled a broken and partly-insane Arazni from a future where the Age of Glory failed and Aroden died, it would be very much in Their interests to convince Aroden not to attempt it at all. Or, possibly, just to prompt Aroden to pull all of His attention in, away from whatever They don't want him to notice right now...) 

(If Aroden finds out that an opposed god did do this, it would almost have to be a Chaotic god, because it has to be in violation of a huge number of godtreaties, and also all of the Lawful gods including the Evil ones would be with Him on stopping Them by any means necessary...) 

Aroden continues to have so many questions. 

If warped-maybe-Arazni were operating as a demigod, this would be straightforward to approach, with the channels of communication that gods use between Themselves; Aroden could simply offer an information-packet of questions and a shockingly large payment in godresources for answers to them. Aroden is almost inclined to do that anyway, because while warped-Arazni is clearly deliberately not unfolding her godpowers, and it looks like she might be right that bad things would happen, approaching her as a mortal isn't obviously a better idea, her mortal mind looks...very easily shreddable, right now...significantly moreso than should have been the case even for the Arazni of a very long time ago, a powerful outsider but not yet a demigod... 

She is wearing some minor artifacts that should be in other places, and other fragments of Aroden's attention quickly confirm that they are in those places. These are duplicates. Not similar but distinct artifacts of the same type, exact duplicates. Some of them are enhancements; in mortal terms, her Wisdom is currently enhanced by +6 - but the underlying native Wisdom is at least 10 points below what it should be. 

- why does warped-maybe-future-Arazni think this is so desperately urgent (which implies it might not keep long enough to be communicated via the more, safer usual channels) - 

Straightforward enough; she's afraid of being killed at some point in the next couple of minutes, there's no strong indication that the information is spectacularly time-sensitive from Aroden's perspective but communicating it immediately must have felt incredibly time-sensitive to her - 

(The emotions that a god has are not especially like human ones, and Aroden kept - more of His human nature than the pre-Starstone ascended gods, but not all that much - but Aroden is having some kind of godemotion about this situation, for the very brief interlude before He decides this is not a current priority and shuts that process down.) 

Aroden will brush warped-future-Arazni with the lightest touch possible of His presence, just enough to communicate that Her prayer was, in fact, heard and received.

(And split out some of his attention again, to start charting out the ways He can communicate this information to His mortal agents and try to ensure warped-future-Arazni's near-term safety. Aroden is not committing to keeping her alive at all costs, because it might be a trick, and because even if it isn't it might not be a good idea for - whatever Arazni became, later - to be acting in the world. But that's a decision for later, to be made with thorough consideration and a lot more information.) 

- Okay, message received. She's going to try to send Him the rest of the urgent information, shaping her mind so as to make communication easier; she expects that if she survives the next several minutes she's going to go to Aktun or Aroden's realm in Axis to operate from there, unless there is a really good reason not to.

First: Arazni is from a future she is desperately trying to avert because barring one fantastically implausible miracle that will probably not repeat, it is Very Very Bad.

Second: Arazni's memories HAVE BEEN ALTERED. Anything a hundred years in the future-from-this-date or before that date should be discounted as plausibly altered by an alternate timeline Geb for his purposes; anything less than a couple days in Arazni's subjective past should be similarly-but-less discounted.

Third: Arazni does not know who kills Aroden. Everything went about as He had planned except for the part where there was an unexpected shift in the balance of power and He died.

Fourth: Aroden's death triggers the breaking of prophecy.

Fifth: An unprophecied god- or very-strong-demigod-level (beat Barbatos in a fight, beat Arazni in a fight, beat the whole of Avernus in a fight) Chaotic Good outsider probably from the Dark Tapestry showed up about a century after the breaking of prophecy; She was on track to end Hell and defeat the forces of Evil. Arazni requests that Aroden sell all information about her that might help locate her to Desna, Her name is Lucy Whitman, here are Arazni's clearest memories of Her all in a bunch, She can do mass resurrections and used this power to resurrect everyone dead in Ustalav, in Geb, in Avernus, and in the entire river of souls. (Arazni was in Geb.)

Sixth: The Shining Crusade is unreliable according to Arazni's memories and its leadership is untrustworthy/unreliable. Her memories are probably lying but if they aren't this matters; a Starstone-ascended Iomedae takes over Aroden's entire powerbase after He dies and screws everything up until Lucy bails her out.

Seventh: Arazni herself gets resurrected by Geb as an undead lich and demigod of despair, this is a fate much worse than death, assuming this is after Her death she is going to try to destroy Her this-timeline corpse to avert it, if this fails for some complicated reason and She dies she requests that Aroden destroy it in such manner that He is confident there is no remnant in Pharasma's Creation.

Eighth: Arazni does not expect to die but thinks her death would be Very Very Bad; most likely sources are whoever dropped her here, inevitables annoyed she's from another timeline, and Geb if he notices she has duplicates of some of his magic items, this is why she's trying to give Aroden all the key information as fast as she can.

Everything about this continues to be spectacularly out of context but Aroden is, in a sense, less confused now. That - is a possible story that would explain warped-Arazni's actions since appearing from outside (this instance of) Pharasma's Creation. Not an incredibly plausible story, one with several gaping holes and a glaring instance of "and then an inexplicable miracle happened", and it leaves entirely unexplained how the alternate-timeline-Arazni ended up here, but it is a sequence of events that mostly follows the logic of cause and effect. And "Arazni is resurrected by Geb as an undead lich and demigod of despair" does explain the Foresight tracing that Aroden had been unable, or at least unwilling to spend the required attention cost on, communicating to Iomedae. 

(He is not taking for granted that the sequence of events described is the actual process that produced an apparent warped-Arazni relating said events to him; it's obvious that she is experiencing remembering this, but not impossible that could be faked.) 

Arazni should almost certainly not retreat to Axis. If her story is true, then she's in violation of the rules laid down by the inevitables, and her Foresight path if she stays on the material plane looks - well, not clear or safe, His Foresight channel is full of noise (and the fact that this being Arazni is not doing anything to reduce that noise is, itself, incredibly worrying as to warped-Arazni's internal coherency and continuity with the Arazni he knew, the Arazni He knew was unusually legible to Aroden.)

Though normally Aroden would be able to guarantee safety in His own divine domain, in this case He's less sure it would be safer overall. Not to mention, He might be able to keep her presence - well, not quiet, the Foresight disruption will hit everyone, but at least keep any details back from the other gods - the ones that He isn't selling information to, at least - from here, but from Axis would be more difficult. 

Communicating this to Arazni directly would be...expensive. And plausibly bad for her, especially if the Foresight noise is hiding a threat such that it would be very bad timing for her to be incapacitated right at this moment. 

There is someone else who Aroden can communicate with unusually cheaply, because Iomedae is his Herald. And who is already praying to Him, presumably having already heard something about the situation happening. 

(It is very obvious that warped-future-Arazni does not like Iomedae at all. Which isn't entirely unreasonable, given the events that led up to her initial death, and the rest could be because, as she mentioned outright, her memories have been edited. It also isn't by itself enough to shift Aroden's planned response.) 

Aroden will very carefully (though less carefully than He would have to be for any ordinary mortal) reach out to Iomedae's mind, and drop a few key facts. 

- The powerful Outsider who just materialized appears, to Aroden's direct senses, to be from outside of Pharasma's Creation.

- The powerful Outsider claims to to have originated from an alternate later-timeline Golarion, to be aligned with Aroden's goals, and to have critical information on future plans.

- The powerful Outsider may or may not be what they claim to be, but should be protected, including at very high cost, while Aroden gathers more information.

- The powerful Outsider will be less safe in Axis and should be contacted and told not to attempt to travel there.