"Curses!"

Exit, stage direction-neither-Taldane-nor-English-has-a-word-for.

Then we'll have a fight with another humongous minotaur, in which we carefully conserve our few remaining spells in the expectation that this is not the final defender of the Wardstone...

...it is, though. Unless you count the DC 14 Mobility check to get there, and one does have to wonder what would happen if some hapless player rolled a nat 1 on that.

Ah, another vision, and another choice. All right, what do the competing hosts have to say?

Two factions of angels: One holding to the task set them by Iomedae, one gone over to Deskari and asking to be released from their imprisonment. And an outsider's eyes who sees even the initial, uncorrupted Wardstone as a flaw in the order of the planes, and wants it gone.

Abramo does not actually consider unleashing the corrupted angels; if they are in their right minds then they are trying to get out of a contract they signed in all good faith, and if Deskari has mind-controlled them somehow - well then. And simply destroying the Wardstone seems just deeply stupid. Three options left, then. "Offer peace" to the corrupt ones (Good, Angel); destroy them (Lawful, Angel); or return corrupt and uncorrupt alike to Heaven (Lawful, Aeon).

This is annoying; I prefer Aeon to Angel but the Aeon choice as described does not really fit Abramo's concerns.

The creation of the Wardstone may in some sense have been a "crime against the cosmic order", but that is not the sort of Law that Abramo cares about. You cannot actually make a thing accord with the Word, or with justice, merely by labeling it 'natural' or 'orderly'. 

Well then; let justice be done, though the cosmic order fall. These corrupted angels broke their contract. It is possible they are not entirely at fault, that Deskari has controlled them somehow; but Abramo does not see a way to free them, if so. Then - let justice be done, let the scales be balanced.

No Aeon mythic path for you, then.

That's all right. It seemed to be written, not exactly Lawful Stupid, but - Lawful Alien? Not in an interesting way, either. Like someone trying to find an alien way of thinking about Law, not being very good at it and not putting in too much effort, and ending up with "everything stays where it was originally put". Or like Pratchett's Auditors, who care mostly that "things move in elegant curves". Well, so they do - at the level of atoms; no atom has ever moved in a way not described by the laws of physics. It is nonetheless a confusion to think that a materialist believes that's the only thing going on, much less that one would try to enforce such a perception. 

Then we can have a cutscene showing how Abramo arrived at the festival and hinting at Mysterious Plots, possibly ones that span centuries decades anyway!

And then Minagho can show up in the Wardstone room! Ah, and this explains the problems with the script - Iomedae has snuck someone onto the editorial staff. 

Well, even Iomedae must have some difficulty messing with Minagho's production if Her favorite actor is written out of the story. If Her powers extended to plot armour, Minagho would have lost already. To the Maelstrom with the script then! Clearly some brutal, eviscerating improv satire is the order of the day!

It must be admitted that three Babaus, two Schirs, and a Brimorak is rather a formidable host even without Minagho, who didn't particularly take any notice of their best effort the last time they fought her - with Irabeth and Staunton by their side. Abramo has, it's true, become stronger since then, but he does not much care for these odds. But what of it? It is clear that there can be no good-faith negotiation here, no patched-up compromise peace - not even a last-minute evacuation over the sea, to fight on from exile. All there is to do is fight, with the army he has and the hope that the Lord God of Hosts will come to his aid.

Not sure we have any of those, but we can do a Mythic Power and full restoration of all spells and limited-use abilities?

That does seem like it will help a lot, actually. However, Abramo would appreciate some warning the next time this sort of thing happens; it is very hard to calculate the net present value of his combat assets if he's randomly going to get more of them. If he'd known this was going to happen he wouldn't have carefully conserved those Smite Evils.

Quite so; also, Smite Evil.

Ouch - that actually stings. It's been quite a while since Minagho got in a fight with something that actually stung her. But, after all, it didn't go well for the other demon.

Dimension Door away from Seelah's sword; Waves of Fatigue.

It appears that we have Mythic Spell Resistance now. The lesser demons, on the other hand...

Camellia has her Delay Poison back, and Minagho didn't bring a single Dretch along? Rude! Annoying! Demonic, even!

Well, a bit of extra protection never did any harm.

Mass Protection from Evil.

Abramo is really rather annoyed at having saved this for the whole run through the Garrison; as it's not money he supposes he ought not to feel he should have been getting 4% interest on it, but he does. Nonetheless, if ever there was a time to expend some assets to get liabilities off the books, this is it.

Archon's Aura.

The brimorak has not quite absorbed the point about mythic spell resistance, and also it Really Likes setting things on fire; that's sort of its Whole Thing. Fireball.

Mythic Spell Resistance, yeah. And if even the horse has it, well...

The Babau and Schir don't, though! (They do have regular Fire Resistance, but... a Brimorak is a pretty powerful caster, actually.)