March 4th, 1940 (Aiello timeline)
London, Indian Occupation Zone, England
Morning
Somewhere in Hilbert space, a large structure, teetering in superposition, snaps this way instead of that way... and certain events described long ago are about to have a different outcome.
"But there is one more thing you must do. You have wronged us; shall we not avenge? Subhuman I may be, but I am a merchant of Venice, and I will have my pound of flesh."
She blinks, too whipsawed by the rapid changes in her estimate of her future to grasp his meaning. The body she currently inhabits is beautiful, as subhumans see these matters; did he mean...? To her surprise, she finds that she would refuse him and die, if it came to that; so she had been mistaken before, there is something in her besides the need to survive, after all. Even if it is only a deep-seated revulsion at bestiality. She takes some comfort in the fact, in spite of the howling outrage of most of her being at the thought of death; some tiny fragment of her personality has been preserved, then, through all the triage and the errors of copying. Strange that it should take utter defeat to bring it out.
"We'll have your apology, Osiris of the galactic core; each individual human you meet, from now on, will hear you humbly say, on your knees, that you are sorry for what you did. Starting with me."
Her mouth falls open, the first time she has lost physical control of her subhuman body since - well, ever; this is his idea of a pound of flesh? A simple apology, a few words? And yet - behind the subhuman face, impassive again, the soul of Osiris writhes at the thought. She, who has traveled from beyond the visible stars, whose lightest word would, if not for the Accursed Herb, be a binding command to these subhuman vermin, is to kneel? To apologise for her actions, as though she had done a wrong to an equal?
(And now the butterfly-wing effects of a quantum structure's collapse has worked its way up to structures still microscopic, but biological in scale now and not molecular; a neuron fires, the concepts pride and disgust and defiance are activated a little more strongly... and the effect cascades further. Milliseconds later, an electrochemical impulse is travelling down a nerve; muscles contract - and the difference is visible to the naked eye.)
He is an old man, and though the moly powder in the air prevents her from ordering the guards to lie down while she kills them, she still has her fine control over this excellent youthful physique, tuned by exercise beyond the tolerance of most subhumans. She can kill him, at least, before they can react; perhaps the soldiers too, if their first shots go wild, as they well might. Then she will die; a single subhuman body, even with full conscious control of each muscle and with an immense intelligence guiding it, is just not sufficient against the hundreds of soldiers thronging the cathedral. But she will die, after these many thousands of years, as a true human, one who wields subhumans as tools, not one who kneels before them and apologises.
He has led men in battle and countries in war, but he was never a great man of his hands; the Aiello will fight, when needed, but it is not the core of them. He has no time to react, would not have had time even in his increasingly-distant youth, when he commanged tenant militias in the Venetian Spring. And even the legendary warrior-Doges, even Chiano the Lionheart himself, did not stand against the Plotter In The Desert in single combat and live. He is halfway through a surprised blink when her teeth meet in his throat; after that, though he has time to hear the shouts and the shots, there is nothing more for him to do in this timeline.
Ok so character setup. Abramo Aiello is from a timeline that diverged from our own; comes of an extremely prominent family (that is to say, I played the dynasty in Crusader Kings and converted the game forward) in an alternate Republic of Venice, and has just finished leading that Republic in the Eurasian War. He's not any sort of fighting man - he is nearing sixty and has led a mostly-sedentary life after the customary tour of duty East of Suez - but he has the qualities that will let you climb to the top in oligarchic politics and hold your own as leader of a small but wealthy state surrounded by Great Powers. I'm making him a cleric (of Abadar, if I get the opportunity to choose in-game); giving him a Noble/Leader background; and dumping all his physical stats in favour of the mental ones. I end up with:
STR 8
DEX 8
CON 9
INT 16
WIS 18
CHA 16
To be clear this may well be dreadfully unoptimised, I have no idea!
Ah I get skill points, cool. Ok Abramo is a politician so he's probably good at Persuasion, indeed he must have given some pretty good speeches when he caused Venezia-oltre-il-Mare to fight on and keep the capital-in-exile in Damietta, close enough to the front to hear the roar of the guns on a still day. So points to Persuasion... I can only put one point into it? Hmm. Well, obviously Abramo knows Literal Nothing about Golarion so the Knowledge skills are right out. Because there aren't that many options I'll cheat and say that his excellent education in economics counts as Lore (Religion) for Abadar. Perception is another good skill for a politician, probably. Umm... ok having seen a mechanical device of greater complexity than a scythe will probably help him on Use Magic Device, right? And fine, he doesn't know the history of Golarion but he knows a lot of history and geopolitical theory and praxis; I'll take a Knowledge (World) after all on the grounds that he's never heard of Cheliax but he knows what makes countries tick.
Ok feats next. He's probably ahead of most of Golarion in that he's seen more than zero (0) guns in his life, and in fact commanded riflemen in combat, but sadly that's not one of the Exotic Weapon options. Ok Fast Learner seems reasonably thematic, and History of Terrors because the Aiello struggled for literally centuries against the mind-control abilities of the Jackal, to the point of having two bloody revolutions within Abramo's lifetime.
Ah I do get to choose the deity, great, Abadar. The Aiello are a trading family, their arms are "Azure Three Bezants", three gold coins on a blue background, because their wealth came originally from the sea. Positive channeling, and let's see the domains. Nobility seems like a no-brainer for a dynasty out of Crusader Kings, and... yeah Travel, as all the Aiello do an apprenticeship in the Far East and learn how the trade works.
Lawful Neutral.
Ok these beard customisation options are not as good as Crusader Kings', but we'll do this short one with the mustache ...sigh, it doesn't look a whole lot like the character portrait I chose, but whatever. Separation of gameplay and narrative is the lifeblood of AARs. Can we get a hook nose? ...not really. Meh. Not a great fan of this voice acting, but I guess "Reserved" will do.
And ta-da, character sheet and new icon!
Ok cutscene, I feel like I've read this a couple of times and won't write it down... Terendelev doesn't get a character portrait? A strange omission even if she's going to die in the next few exchanges, after all she's a major Named Character.
As I was saying. How about this one. We've got demons, dragons, vaguely medieval-but-actually-more-Renaissance street parties?
Uh... ok this is not what he was expecting to happen after having his windpipe torn out. Indeed he wasn't expecting the thing with the windpipe either. The war was won, dammit, that's what it means when you sit in the enemy's capital and dictate terms to the alien power behind their thrones.
...no you idiots the Jackal was many things but it wasn't a demon, and also London hasn't had city walls since the sixteen hundreds...
...a dragon? Never mind it's some sort of figure of speech obviously... wait what language is this? Not the fluid musical Veneziano he grew up with, not the grunting barks of English, not the thin whining alienness of what passes for Coptic in what used to be Egypt...
That chanting does help with the pain in his chest. Oh, right, that explains it then: His oxygen-starved brain is having some sort of fever dream before shutting down entirely. Maybe influenced by the Jackal as some sort of final vengeance? Its powers are strongest in dreams, although the moly powder and cold-iron chains should prevent that - but even now they still don't know the full extent of those powers. Perhaps it's burning through some last reserves to get him, it can't have expected its body to survive that.
Probably the demons will come and torture him any moment now, but it can't well last more than a minute.
Well... the demons don't seem to be appearing right this moment. Maybe the Jackal is busy fighting the occupation soldiers crowding Westminster Abbey, and doesn't have time to direct his dying dream? Whatever; he supposes he might as well cram in a final few seconds of conscious experience. Although it's already been longer than he'd have expected to be remotely functional. Some trick of subjective time?
We've got a cobblestoned city square, with festive multicolored flags somewhat failing to hide that fundamentally this place is a bit muddy and grimy, but indicating a market with enough surplus in it that one could profitably sell dyes and cloth. We've got a stage on which people are playing flutes and lutes. We've got a knife-throwing booth! Drinks in barrels! Bonfires! A pretty good attempt at a festive atmosphere, really!
Knife-throwing, is it? Abramo is better at throwing reserve divisions into armoured breakthroughs, and the weapons division keep promising that Next Year For Sure he'll be able to throw missiles across major bodies of water, but... knives, after all, have symbolic importance. He'll have a look.
Thump!
Well, that's satisfying! Also lucky; but fortuna is one of the two cardinal qualities of the prince. Abramo will exercise his virtu, and quit while he's ahead. What else is here? ...oh, a mannequin? Well, why not?
Ok so you just punch it?
...oh.
All right, there are the demons. A little behind schedule, but Abramo has noticed that entities whose plots span centuries sometimes have difficulty with timing on the scale of days, much less minutes.
...not a metaphorical dragon after all, apparently. But definitely a dead one.
This is a dying nightmare, directed by the Jackal as vengeance for Abramo leading the coalition that drove its armies from the Volga to the Rhine. It hardly matters what he does, it's not going to end well for him. It follows that all that's left is defiance. Abramo has had a lot of practice at defying the enemy of mankind and all its works, and sees no reason to stop just because he's dying.
"I'll fight."
Locusts; how thematic, for an enemy out of Egyptian legend. Abramo despises locusts; they eat the crops, they suck all surplus out of a market and make it impossible to profit, they never ever land on the supply lines of armies fighting for the Jackal, and it doesn't matter how many you kill... short of chemical weapons, that is. Which unfortunately are in short supply at the moment. But the Jackal seems to have made a mistake: It's given its locusts an identifiable leader, a specific target to aim at... and a crossbow is a lot like a rifle, really. Abramo bares his teeth at the ancient enemy, raises the crossbow, and fires.
Falling is a classic human fear, but qua nightmare vengeance-torture it seems a little weak, honestly. Maybe the Jackal is dying too, and not entirely in control of this dream?
It's been, like, ten minutes of subjective time. Can we get you to notice that that's really not very realistic for a man whose windpipe has been torn out? Also that this cavern is very detailed and textured for a dream, especially one produced by an oxygen-starved brain's final moments?
Oof, ouch.
All right that's actually a good point. The "vengeance dream" hypothesis does look a bit unlikely.
...Abramo will certainly come up with a different theory any minute now, he just needs to take stock of his bruises first.
Actually theorising will have to wait, there are other survivors.
That boulder looks like a job for... a basic knowledge of Aristotle?
Thanks. I don't suppose you've got any healing magic, being a cleric and all?
Abramo has no idea he's a cleric! And doesn't believe in healing magic, he hasn't had time to absorb Terendelev's and Hulrun's casting into his belief system yet!
Incidentally, who the devil is Iomedae, and what's a paladin? The locust-thing mentioned her (?) too - not in a friendly way. Abramo will provisionally classify her as an enemy of his enemy.
...Abramo really admires that full plate, by the way.
Full plate is awesome!
Also that chest looks familiar, check it out for your weapons.
Abramo is a mature married man of more-than-fifty and absolutely does not make any quips about checking out chests covered in full plate; he is also a skilled politician and doesn't allow his eyes to so much as flicker in that direction.
...actually, is he still married? "Until death do us part" were the words, and while death doesn't seem to have had quite the effects he expected, it is not very obvious that he'll be seeing Livia again, or their children.
That problem will have to wait. Anyway Seelah is like one-third his age. He can check out the chest - wonderful, a crossbow. A bolt-action rifle would really suit him a lot better; or a Mark III Ferrata armoured car with the pintle-mounted machine gun. It's still better than nothing.
Oh, and the cloak is azure and gold, cool - the family colors. He'll put it on, this cave is not warm.
Except for the young gentleman at Camellia's feet. Not that she knows anything about how that happened.
There appears to be a war on, these things happen. Let's move along.
Ok insects that size are not actually possible - you know what never mind, Abramo will just file that in the "Check it out later" file along with dragons, demons, and humongous locust-things that seem to be in charge of a bunch of regular-size locusts. Actually centipedes seem kind of related to that last one, and also kind of hungry. If he fires the crossbow does he hit anything?
Ok so they're still pretty squishy in spite of being That Size, good to know. Abramo feels surprisingly calm about the first time he's personally been in combat for twenty years; it's a lot easier when the things you're shooting at can't shoot back and have neither faces, families, or jobs that contribute to the economy you're ostensibly fighting for control over.
I'm picking up Terendelev's scale purely from meta-information not diegetically available to Abramo, here. Incidentally, Abramo also doesn't know he's a caster.
Oh, and giant flies as well? Wonderful. At least a fly that size is unlikely to spread feces to anyone's food, although on the other hand it seems intent on cutting out the middleman from its diet which is Not Really An Improvement.
See the thing about giant flies is, they're much easier to hit with a sword than the regular-sized version.
And Abramo can shoot another centipede; he's rather pleased with his marksmanship, actually.
Also, in this flickery half-light he's not going to notice Camellia's pointy ears under the long hair; but if he did so he would have Additional Questions for the Investigate Later file.
Abramo thinks you don't usually get monitor lizards in caves? But ok fine this ecosystem evidently includes dragons and flies whose wings definitely cannot support them, a lizard in an unusual habitat is nothing. Abramo's just going to ignore the dissociation and probe for a flank while Seelah does the pinning frontal attack, in the best Manuale di Tattica style.
Yeah look these are the tutorial monsters, if you can't handle them this isn't the right timeline for you.
Abramo has not particularly been given a choice about which timelines he experiences! And also he doesn't have access to like three-fourths of his combat abilities because he doesn't get to see the tutorial popups!
Abramo will gladly timeskip past his reaction to Lann and Wenduag! (Although on the plus side, his Additional Questions about Camellia's ears, which he still hasn't noticed, can now drop right off the agenda.) They remind him of the animal-human hybrids that were universal features in the rites of Jackal's cultists, the infiltrators meant to corrupt and weaken the Republic. The Egyptians cleaned up the images for human consumption, when they used them to depict their war with the thing; the cult tapestries were fantastically disturbing, fit only to be burned. But - they were real once, those hybrids; the archeologists have found the mummies, far up the Nile Valley where European armies never reached before the twentieth century. A servitor class, created by the settlers of whom the Jackal was the last survivor; made with human DNA... and all referred to alike, as "subhumans". The same term it used for Abramo's kind. So... they were its creations and its victims just the same as Abramo's race; they are all subhumans together, no matter his visceral reaction on seeing those animal parts blended into a human body.
Being a skilled politician, he does manage to keep it off his face.
Then Lann can explain the incredibly indirect means by which he proposes to Save The Children!
1. Obtain sword.
2. Use sword on chief - er, that is, use sword as prop-aganda to convince chief to have tribe migrate.
3. Save the children!
Well, if he knows the way out of here that would be helpful. Abramo doesn't mind having a look around for ancient Crusader relics, they frequently have resale value.
Abramo put all those points into Perception, and then additionally he has strong Main Character Energy. It takes him roughly half a minute to find the sword.
...a dream within the dream? No... nobody has ever made a profit by refusing to accept the evidence of their senses for long periods; Abramo will call it what it is: A vision. And one with a choice attached, apparently.
Abramo has called out traitors with some success, in the past; he's a skilled rhetorician, and civil wars tend to create opportunities for that. But he does not know the rights and wrongs of this memory. And anyway that's what you do when it's necessary to win a war; it's not how you build. It's much harder to go wrong by building productive assets. Abramo will choose to heal the woman; if that's a mistake, it's an easily correctable one.
Oh, mind-control, is it? Abramo knows all about mind control, thanks. He doesn't have any oil-of-moly to hand; but whatever is doing this, it's pathetically unsubtle compared to the Jackal, which has been known to hide corps-scale armoured engagements under its veil of illusion.
The locust-thing again; Abramo is beginning to dislike it almost as much as the Jackal. Well, he will make the same choice as before: Protection, not punishment. That's what armed force is for: To protect the peaceful trader and craftsman.
"I think... I saw the memories of Lariel (*), the angel who died here."
Abramo has fully suspended his disbelief; a sufficiently powerful vision will do that. He's still skeptical of information presented to him; after all, any three-thousand-year old entity from Beyond The Known Stars can claim to be an angel, without thereby indicating that they have a human's best interests at heart. But he is no longer skeptical of the basic reality of what he's experiencing; no longer thinks of hallucinations or dreams.
(*) The name is not 'Lariel' in the original Taldane, that's a convention of the localisation into English, and hence Abramo is not led to think about the origin of that -iel suffix.
Perhaps. Abramo's judgement is also suspended, along with his disbelief. And this word that he hears as "Heaven" - it seems rather unlikely that it refers to the Name. Abramo is not a particularly pious Jew, but still, there is a Covenant for his people, and the Aiello have kept faith with it for seven hundred years. He's not about to betray it for a light show and a claim of righteousness.
Nonetheless he will follow Lann to their village; Lann has not made any supernatural claims to Abramo's allegiance, Lann knows the way to the surface... and Lann is attempting, however indirectly, to help the children of his tribe. Children are both an investment in the future, and the reason that investing is important; and his own are long grown, but he remembers when they would run towards every sort of trouble they could possibly find. Abramo will help.
...yes yes obviously giant flies go with giant spiders, or vice-versa, sigh. Can we do the timeskip again?
Non-combat events start up again with Wenduag asking Abramo not to advance the plot show the sword to Sull.
Ok, why should I not advance the plot follow Lann's immensely complex plan to save the children?
The Shield Maze killed Wenduag's friends, she doesn't want it to get her whole tribe.
It's a point, but has she considered Lanchester's laws? Combat power goes as the square of the number of units.
Not in this universe it doesn't! (At least, not without additional assumptions which Abramo is unaware of making).
Once they reach the chief, Lann will burst out into full enthusiastic muster-the-clans mode. Send the fiery cross to all the tribes! Whittle the war-arrows! Light the beacons! The Chosen One is here to aid us!
That's an extremely valid request. Abramo doesn't work on faith either.
Right, so is he going to furnish Sull with the proof that will sacrifice half the tribe to Lann's vision, or not?
To withhold true information that the asker will predictably consider important is a hostile act; and the mongrels have given Abramo no reason to think they're dealing in bad faith. And what's more, "finders-keepers" is only the law in children's games and geopolitics; Abramo has no rightful property in the sword. It was the mongrels who preserved it for seventy years, who maintained it even in their evident poverty as a tribute to their ancestors; it is their sword, if it is anyone's. It may be that Sull will make bad decisions upon seeing the sword; but even if Abramo knew that for sure, he'd have no right to hold his silence. They are Sull's decisions to make.
"I did find a sword. Whether it is the Sword of Heaven, whether it is a sign, whether Lann's interpretation of the omen is right - I cannot say. But the sword is real, and so is its light."
"That may be true. But I won't lie to a grown man who is not my enemy, to make him choose as another desires."
"Besides, we've got allies now - and one good fighter is worth ten bad ones."
Horgus Gwerm would also like to make some assumptions! They're about racial solidarity between humans! As against - although he does not use the word, Abramo can hear it very clearly - "subhumans".
Abramo is not impressed by Horgus Gwerm. It's not that the Aiello - of whom he is, or was, a major shareholder and chief officer - could buy him out of the petty-cash budget of any one of their minor African operations; that's the luck of high technology and seven hundred years of compound interest. No, it's that he's the sort of merchant who believes that those whose comparative advantage is financial capital, are thereby made better people than those whose advantage rests in their hands, or their minds. And, worse, is not at all shy about proclaiming that belief loudly. Abramo has lived through two revolutions in his life, the Communist one and the Venetian Spring that overthrew it. He knows very well what happens to merchants who don't respect the people they trade with.
So that'll be two thousand gold, thanks.
This is more like it. Abramo smiles - for the first time since the Jackal's teeth closed on his throat - at Dyra's enthusiasm; he recognises it. The passion for trading, bartering, making all parties better off by exchange - it's not universal, even among the Aiello. But all the best ones have it.
It's a coincidence, no doubt, that just before he died, he had been speaking - to the Jackal, of all entities - about his beliefs; almost his last words. What I believe in, he had told her, is truck and barter, gains from trade, the exchange of one thing for another and the division of labour. And he'd been dictating terms, then, to an enemy he'd defeated in war... but the words were true, for that's often the best weapon. That is what he believes in. He nods respectfully to Dyra.
"Let's trade, indeed."
Yes, yes, ingame he has been a cleric of Abadar this whole time and indeed he just hit level 2; don't @ me. I've been separating gameplay and narrative longer than many of my readers have been alive. And as a point of roleplay, I did in fact refrain from using Abramo's spells for the fights in the cave.
Abramo is of an extremely monotheistic faith, and has just fought a world-spanning war against an entity with immense powers of mind-control and illusion; and he has not yet heard the word 'god' spoken in Taldane. When he is swept away from the world of his ordinary senses, his first thought is not of the divine, or of gods, but of powerful nonhuman entities of unknown powers and goals. He is, to say the least, wary.
Abadar is looking for trade partners, not subjects or servitors or subhumans.
Ah. Trade is, indeed, an interest of Abramo's. And yet - in dealing with alien entities of unknown powers, one ought to be careful that one does not give more than is visibly part of the deal. He thinks for a moment of the natives of the Far Eastern island chains, where the Aiello trade-ships would sell liquor and metal needles and cotton cloth, and of the many things that were included in those bargains - not for free, but for payments not measured in ducats. And with the reminder of the Christian missionaries that always followed the traders, he thinks, too, of very ancient words: "Thou shalt have no other god before me". The joke among the Aiello is that profit is not a god, and so it is all right to put it first... but it's only a joke. One that's less amusing now, in this world of angels and visions, and an entity whose power is indeed godlike.
Abramo will be clear: He will not trade his soul, nor his worship. Those are already pledged to another Covenant, and the terms of the lien are binding even in death.
That is all right; Abadar appreciates the clarification. Abadar requires no worship, and does not trade in souls. He offers a simple contract: Fee for service, revocable by either party at will.
The fee is indeed impressive; powers that seem magical even to a man of the twentieth century, who has killed men at five hundred paces and lit a room with the flick of a finger. Manipulation of forces unknown to human science; with these 'spells' at his fingertips, perhaps he could finally meet the Jackal - or its home civilisation - on its own ground.
And again he is reminded of his last speech to the Jackal, the one that ended with her teeth in his throat: Tell me, did you ever consider using anything but force and fear, to accomplish your goals? Did it occur to you that, with your superior knowledge, you could pay in education for the metal and labour to build your spaceships?
It appears that Abadar has considered that, and has come down on the side of trade, of comparative advantage and value for value given. Abramo appreciates that. But the question remains, what is the service Abadar wants? It is not well to sign contracts with open-ended consideration.
Abadar wants trade to flourish and industry to spring up. He wants contracts respected and merchants unharassed. He wants grain to flow from the fruitful plain to the hungry city, and cloth from the workshop to the field. He wants roads filled with goods, and bellies with food; wants everyone to do the work they can do, and respect that of others. He wants every man to serve his country by seeing to his own best interest, as though guided by an invisible hand.
...yes.
Abramo can work towards those goals. Has done so all his life.
How strange, to be the one signing on the dotted line marked 'employee'. But such is life; in this world, the Aiello name carries no connotation of vast unmeasurable wealth, will not bring Abramo unlimited credit in any bank he deigns to grace with his presence. Here, Abramo's only capital is his mind and his hands. And for such folk the best trade is done with the wealthiest of capitalists, who can provide the best tools. It is only a few minutes since Abramo looked askance at Horgus Gwerm's attitude to his workmen; he is pleased to find that he still agrees with his ideology, now that he himself sells his labour for capital. He straightens his back and lifts his chin. He is a workman now; then let him be worthy of his hire.
Then we can have some level-up mechanics which we'll elide the details of, and some work figuring out how to prepare new spells and rest.
And in the morning, the news that the tribes are gathering - a mighty host, more than three dozen men mongrels!
It'll have to suffice; after all the enemy also seems to lack rifle-armed conscripts by the millions, tanks by the tens of thousands, guns and aircraft and battleships... Although they do have locusts which only strike one side's logistics, just like the Jackal. So at least some of Abramo's experience is still relevant.
Right. Decision time. Abramo isn't quite sure how he ended up in charge of this, actually - Camellia seems perfectly competent with that rapier, Seelah is wearing most of a light tank's worth of armour (well... a French light tank, at least), and Lann should presumably be taking orders from Sull. But all right; he does have some experience in war. So, what to advise?
...what to order. If he's in charge, he'd better think of himself as such; anything else is disaster.
There isn't any very obvious way to advance the cause of trade, here, unless perhaps you count opening communications between the caves and the surface. At least Dyra might get her wish of trading in a money economy. But there's no tactical insight to be had from that perspective.
Well then, fall back on the oldest lesson: If you have a moment of respite, seize the initiative. Sull's deliberate mobilisation is all very well, but speed is life. A small reconnaissance in force, a probing attack - bypass the strongpoints, get into the enemy's rear.
"Indeed. Let's go."
You are in a chamber 40 feet by 15; carvings of the demon lord Baphomet, and banners with his heraldry, fill the walls.
A secret cult in the catacombs below a city; Abramo suppresses a smile at the irony. At least the local version of the Long War seems to be out in the open, shots fired and weapons free. He hefts the crossbow, then remembers the tools he's renting from Abadar. He'll have to be mindful that he has options he's not used to, here; not easy, in the heat of combat.
And they can enter the inner sanctum; tanks heavy armor to the front.
This is concerning; enemies with heavy crossbows are much more dangerous than centipedes. If there's a lot of this kind of resistance then the reconnaissance in force needs more force. House-to-house fighting against humans eats men like... well, like nothing else. Abramo has fought house to house in the back streets of Venice, and knows what it's like; and he commanded the armies that took Cairo, Constantinople, and London. He has seen brigades and divisions broken on single strongpoints.
And Lann's wound looks disabling - in fact Abramo's not at all sure how the man is standing up, after taking a crossbow bolt the size of his thumb to the torso.
Not in sufficient detail, no. Then he supposes they can go on.
...this changes everything.
His gaze falls on the robed man Lann killed; a broadhead arrow in the throat produces a really amazing spray of blood.
...not everything, then. That man visibly has a face; presumably he had a family; and most likely he had a job, some way that he contributed value to others. Abramo much prefers fighting centipedes and locust-things.
Which, actually, raises the question: Why did they fight - kill - these men? There is a war on - but Abramo is not a soldier in uniform, has sworn no allegiance to either side, does not know the rights and wrongs of it. He dislikes locusts, but then, he dislikes chemical weapons and the effects of crossbow bolts on human heads too; that a weapon is ugly does not make its wielder evil. The locust-thing attacked a festival, but it was clearly a wartime festival, with armed guards all about, intended as a rest for fighting troops; Abramo does not know of any truce or armistice that was broken. And... are these men even party to the war? There might be any number of heavily-armed neutral parties about.
They did fire crossbows and swing glaives at Abramo's party... after Abramo had burst into their cellar at the head of a party armed to the teeth, and he is by no means convinced Lann gave them a reasonable opportunity to surrender, or even to speak. He does not think he ought to make a claim of self-defense, if the matter comes before a court.
...actually he is rather worried that he ought, in justice, to simply plead guilty to murder. Not premeditated, at least; he did not know there would be armed men defending the Shield Maze. But he did not think to inquire, either, into whether it might be someone's private property, which might with perfect justice be defended with lethal force against his intrusion.
He takes a deep breath.
"Why did these men" - try to retaliate against the party that had just killed one of their number - "fight us?"
"They are Baphomet cultists?" Seelah does not particularly think any other explanation is needed, and in fact is surprised that Abramo needs even that much.
Abramo has no idea who 'Baphomet' is! The name is pretty obscure even in English, and as meaningless to him as "Iomedae" in the original Taldane!
"Very well, why did these Baphomet cultists attack us?"
"Uh..." Seelah is not quite sure how to articulate this; how does Abramo manage to be present and alive in Kenabres, Wise enough to be an empowered cleric, and ignorant of these utter basics?
"Baphomet is the demon-lord of minotaurs and mazes. His cult works with the Worldwound demons, trying to weaken our defenses. If they have a base here under Kenabres... that's very bad, actually. And they will kill anyone who enters, to preserve the secret." Camellia is also unsure how Abramo manages that level of ignorance, but she hasn't put all her skill points in Hit Things With Sword and can manage a DC10 Exposition check.
At least they're not neutral parties, then. It could still be the case that they have right on their side, and Abramo ought not to join the Kenabrians; it wasn't the use of locusts and infiltrators that put the Jackal in the wrong, however much Abramo despised those tactics. But now he is at worst an illegal combatant on the wrong side, not a murderer. And has an arguable case for having "spontaneously taken up arms to resist".
He could still be on the wrong side. Indeed it's entirely possible for both sides to be in the wrong, and Abramo to have no business here at all - metaphorical or literal. In that case he supposes he'll have to desert or defect, at his first opportunity. But there is clearly no opportunity at present. He will keep an eye out for chances to at least speak to the "cultists" - after all anyone can hang the name "demon lord" on their enemy - and hear their side of the story.
Great roleplay, splendid character development, if I were a human GM I would totally award you some narrative XP. Sadly, the devs didn't put in any such affordance.
Camellia got some points in Trickery during the recent level-up, so she will get the 11 XP.
We also have corrupted mongrels!
They do not obviously have a "hear their side of story" affordance.
One of them manages to land a hit on Seelah, which is a first for this runthrough; the fight is otherwise uneventful.
"Something was very wrong with him, though. I mean, even before I put an arrow in his guts."
Locusts and infiltrators are one thing; if this Baphomet is using mind-control, that's a different matter entirely. But - he has only Lann's word for the behaviour change, and that's based on a few seconds of observation in a dimly-lit room, while fighting. And after all there's such a thing as a sincere conviction - and struggling with oneself when meeting old friends who do not share it, and are attempting to kill one. Abramo's judgement remains suspended.
Indeed. Abramo is not able to see the label "Cultist Champion" above the head of that dwarf; but he does see him fight on after taking several direct hits from Seelah's longsword, with four of Lann's arrows sticking out of him in various places. That's not healing magic. Additionally, it ought not to be literally impossible to land a crossbow bolt on a man dwarf target whose fighting style involves mainly standing still and swinging a flail, of all the silly weapons. Abramo's beginning to think there are some Points Of Interest about the physics here, even aside from the healing magic. And that Lann may have had a point about the skilled fighters.
"This isn't how I pictured it, serving Baphomet. This isn't how I pictured it at all."
Possibly useful intelligence about "Hosilla" and whatever an "elemental" is. Also possibly evidence against mind-control. Nothing either way on which side is in the right; every rank-and-file soldier ever has grumbled in this manner.
Also, while the Divine Zap spell at least lands every time, it doesn't seem to have any sort of stopping power. Annoying.
Yeah at these levels a Zen Archer is really where it's at for damage output.
Yes, and not only that, if you don't understand the Acrobatics skill we can land two attacks of opportunity on you!
Abramo is now dissociating violently; having your neck broken by an unarmed strike is unpleasant enough without then unexpectedly surviving the experience, apparently none the worse for wear.
...this could, actually, be a useful tactic in some circumstances. "Expendable blocking elements" takes on a much less euphemistic flavor if you can get the elements back afterwards. Abramo is still going to avoid it if he can.
But he can be vastly impressed at the thing's ability to fight on while spouting gallons of blood into the dirty sewer water. It reminds him of the defense of Cairo - which is some minor evidence of mind control again.
The Hand of Hosilla goes down rather easily, but that water elemental is a TPK waiting to happen. Possibly there's an item somewhere else in the dungeon that counters the damage reduction, or something?
Abramo will definitely not use out-of-game knowledge to avoid the thing; he will instead remind the others that they are here to scout, and if the water elemental is as troublesome to the cultists as the Hand's orders suggest then why should they interfere with it? Enemy of our enemy, and so on.
I am annoyed that I cannot tell whether the Baphomet AI is really dumb, cheating so that it doesn't actually damage its allies, or roleplaying Chaotic Evil cultists very well. Who uses a negative channel when surrounded by allies?
Hey you go to war skirmish tactics games with the builds you have. Also, don't mind our ret-icon, @ilzolende offered some help with the graphics and we took them up on it; many thanks ilzo!
Ok who uses a literal pool of blood to bathe in?
Where do you even get that much blood.
Maybe it's not human blood, if everyone in this maze were eating some beef every day you might be slaughtering a cow every week and that might be a cow-sized amount of blood.
It's not literally impossible that there's some magic spell that would be activated that way, and the blood might come from volunteers, or from legitimate operations of war; but Abramo is beginning to think that he may have been fortunate in which side he fell in with. It's not strictly decisive, but... not a good look.
The dretches do not scan as particularly outlandish to Abramo, who has seen quite a bit of variety among the mongrels; squat little grey-skinned humanoids who fight naked, why not? The stinking cloud, on the other hand, is a surprise. So, they do have chemical weapons here. How unpleasant.
Abadar will interrupt this battle to Lawfully discharge some obligations incurred by acausal trade. His new icon is to be credited to @ilzolende. Ilzolende, in turn, gives credit to Paizo for the circled cityscape, and Creativity103 for the wire pattern.
Gah, capitalism. Anyway we now return to your regularly scheduled non-meta narrative.
Abadar would also like to point out that Wrath of the Righteous wouldn't even exist without capitalism, and might show a smidgeon of gratitude.
Abramo is entirely unaware of this meta-commentary, and will continue object-level commentary on ingame events.
...a torture chamber. How medieval. He supposes he does not know whether his new allies might have them too, but... the evidence keeps piling up that the Baphometans are Not Very Nice People.
Abramo, born around 1890, is unaware of the conventions of RPGs and won't bother with a four-color puzzle.
In that case, this maze has nothing more to offer except the final boss.
"Eat the flesh of the righteous aasimar, weaklings! Embrace wrath, and become strong!"
Cannibalism is a war crime by anyone's standards; even the Jackal did not stoop to that. And as for the wave of bestial hunger that the thing broadcasts... Abramo does not actually find it very hard to resist. But it is definitely a species of mind-control, and he cannot abide that.
Ouch.
Bolts of light or none, Savamelekh can almost certainly take four humans even if one of them is a paladin and another has some sort of angelic weapon. Say, with 99% probability.
One does not last very many millennia, if one accepts one-in-a-hundred chances of disaster regularly.
"Hosilla, kill them!"
And Savemelekh will exit, stage left, to see how the expendable pawns do.
Obviously; why would anyone who has expendable pawns available do anything else? In fact:
"Wenduag, kill them!"
Wenduag is pretty pissed about the whole thing with the sword and Chief Sull, actually.
Battle Spirit!
Also blade enhancement, it's a swift action, but tbh Camellia is not super into getting in range of that glaive. Let the people who can tank a hit from it do that, she can back them up with the healing so they can tank some more.
Ok... look Wenduag is a pretty good archer but she has to admit that this amount of magic is a bit intimidating. She'll fire an arrow anyway, she's not a coward.
And try out this Summon Water Elemental scroll; square of the number of combatants, right? So 5 is more than 50% better than 4.
I said, you need to roll higher than 1! No, an 8 won't do it either!
Hosilla will no doubt find out when she's in the Abyss, after this Hasted Fortuned Enlarged Smiting critical hit.
Third time's the charm.
In fact Seelah has now gotten used to being twice her usual size, and her next two strikes knock the quasits out of the air, and the Material Plane.
I mean, in light of the luring-into-mazes and eating-outsider-flesh that seems to have been going on here...
"Remind me which one of us can casually disable the other one in a single round? You fired six arrows in that battle and I think one of them hit! What's the use of a demon's bargain that doesn't even work?"
Lann seems set to quarrel with Wenduag for the rest of the day, with no particular conclusions reached - he is still reluctant to kill another mongrel, perhaps, if she's not actively shooting at him. Or - Wenduag implied that they'd been lovers, at some point. So... it falls to Abramo to decide what to do with her.
Killing a prisoner is, actually, a war crime. Wenduag is clearly guilty of desertion, treason, cannibalism... Abramo does not think a jury would be out very long before coming back with the death-penalty verdict. But having surrendered, she does actually have a right to a jury.
It sticks in his throat, but to kill her now is no justice; it's cold-blooded murder.
"Put down your weapons, Wenduag. You can tell your side of it to a court of law."
Wenduag is perhaps overestimating the extent to which Abramo is giving her a choice about this. With a touch of luck, she might resist arrest?
Oh, good. A prisoner who surrendered falsely is another matter entirely.
Yeah sorry, she's a Named Character and not going to die in a cutscene.
For the love of the Name...
Bah. Very well, let's organise the exodus then.
Abramo was born in 1890 in a timeline somewhat resembling ours and is much more conservative than the average isekaied glowfic character, or the average gamedev in OTL 2022. He would, to be honest, not be entirely comfortable with an openly lesbian relationship. Fortunately for him, the green-skinned, short-haired, pointy-eared person in the bulky shapeless armour, who could clearly lift Abramo with one hand, does not particularly scan as female to him. He's going to take 'wife' as a quirk of the local language and move on with his life.
Then Irabeth can roll a success on her Exposition check and explain about the strategic importance of the Wardstone.
And they can fight their way through the cellars following Irabeth and the dwarf Staunton.
Yeah that was the expendable blocking element, we put them there so we could set up this ambush with converging fields of fire at the top of the stairs.
Incidentally, have you considered the advantages of joining a cult of Baphomet, such as living beyond the next two minutes?
That appears to be treason, desertion, and cowardice in the face of the enemy. Summary court-martial convenes...
(hefts longsword)
now.
Those are not the tactical choices Abramo would have made in this situation. Either defecting right in front of an officer who is clearly very formidable in personal combat, or charging alone into the enemy ranks to punish that defection.
If Abramo were better informed about game mechanics and lore he'd also be confused about how a second-level paladin manages to defect to a Chaotic Evil cult due to a few threatening words, and retain their paladin levels.
And Minagho will greet them with her trademarked (*) condescending pseudo-seductiveness.
(*) Not actually trademarked, demons are not Lawful enough to have that institution. But, while much imitated, Minagho's mannerisms have never been improved upon! Ignore the cheap knockoffs, get your soul-draining seduction from the original and best!
Really, dwarves ought not to imply anything! Leave that to us demons, we're much better at it. Dwarves are more fun when they're... explicit.
Abramo will admit that Staunton does not particularly have a comparative advantage in reporting what actually happened, as opposed to making it clear that he blames Minagho. That aside, is there anything to be gained from this conversation?
Hey when you're right, you're really boring! Minagho will make like an eyeless succubus-style demon who has expendable minions to take the risks for her, and leave.
Abramo will land one Serious Wounds from a scroll, then double over retching. Damn these chemical weapons!
Nonetheless, pretty shortly after that the demons will be disposed of, and they'll break through to the wardstone.
Oh good, Minagho gets to give her villain speech! She's practiced this! Not in front of a mirror admittedly, but it's the thought that counts!
Abramo died in his timeline roughly a year before the first nuclear detonation, and doesn't necessarily take talk of turning cities into smoking craters literally. But he's seen some truly amazing magic Extremely Advanced Technology in the past couple of hours and is quite willing to believe it's better for the local infrastructure if Minagho's cultists don't get to finish their ritual.
You know what, that villain speech was a little over the top. Not the sort of thing that leads to great confidence in subordinates. Some of us are going to defect right back.
Then eat demonic magic, scum! It'll be a little foretaste of being eaten in the Abyss for the rest of your miserable existences!
Yeah unfortunately that's not the same thing as being able to land a hit on the demon!
Yeah that does 2 damage and Minagho has literally 400 hit points. So sure, you managed to p-hack your way to <0.05, but what's your effect size? Also, does it replicate?
Yes, yes, cutscene armour cuts both ways, sigh. Have a Fireball to speed you on your way.
Then Irabeth can hand out some sidequests and we'll go into non-combat mode for a while.
Yeah Horgus Gwerm can take his attitude and try to sell it to the demons, they seem like they might be in the market for that sort of arrogance.
Right so we can get Irabeth backstory and learn about racism with green instead of black; Lann backstory with a side order of Wenduag, Seelah backstory and confirm our prejudices about blacks learn a bit about Iomedae, talk to Rathimus and finally get rid of all the incredibly heavy armour we picked up in the catacombs (where did Dyra get to, btw?), get some more implied backstory from Staunton and start the Storyteller sidequest.
Abramo isn't sure what to think of Staunton; he won't give the details of what he did, and while Minagho insinuated a lot, Abramo trusts her word as far as he can throw the Wardstone. But... he's open to the possibility that mind control was involved; and if so, Staunton is hardly to blame. Any more than the population of Cairo was; and if Abramo hadn't had the powder-of-moly shells in his back pocket, what would he have done about Cairo? He doesn't know, and is very glad he didn't have to find out... but at any rate, he wouldn't have blamed them for what he and the Jackal did between them.
Well, does he blame Woljif for this little misunderstanding with the guards?
...yes. Yes he does. Abramo despises thieves; they force men to invest in locks and security instead of productive assets. But... there are three guards just sitting here watching the man, and a crying need for armed men to fight the Apparently Literal Demons outside. There's such a thing as a priority.
Yeah look if Abramo will conscript the guy and make him fight, fine, that's one blade fighting the demons and three freed up from watching him.
Eventually he runs out of quest hooks things to do inside the tavern, and ventures out.
Then he can exit into a vaguely-medieval city, with a pall and smell of smoke hanging everywhere and refugees aimlessly wandering about the streets.
It reminds him of Venice, and he doesn't understand why; there are no canals, no skyscrapers, no densely-packed brick tenements... then he realises: Not Venice in general, but a specific day he spent in it. The day before the evacuation, when they were scrambling to get the government and the guns and as much of the machinery as would fit, onto the ships that would hazard the English submarines to reach Egypt. And the week before that, when it became clear that the Alpine forts wouldn't hold, and the English army broke out into the Po valley. The buildings and the smells and the weapons are all different, there's no distant rumble of artillery to mark the crumbling front getting closer by the hour... but the looks on people's faces are the same. Shocked surprise at the suddenness of defeat; aimless looking for something, anything, useful to do; angry hopeless defiance... most of the citizens weren't evacuated, of course. There weren't enough ships. He did triage and got the heavy weapons out, except the immense naval batteries that they had to blow in place so they wouldn't be used against them in the reconquest... had even he believed in the reconquest, at the time? At any rate he's fairly certain nobody else did. He had chosen not to negotiate, to fight on from beyond the sea, not because he believed that Venezia-oltre-il-Mare could win the war but because... what else could he do? By then it had been abundantly clear that there could be no peace with the Jackal, not for long. Even if he'd surrendered completely and given it the spaceships it wanted, it would have been back as soon as it found its lost home. With an armada of its own kind, to reimpose obedience on the rebel subhumans. If peace is impossible then you must fight, with or without hope of victory.
That's... interesting. Iomedae can vibe with these thoughts. But... it appears that they are not the core of the man; Abadar not only got there first, He has the better claim. That's all right, though. Iomedae is happy to have Abramo at the Worldwound; if Abadar is paying for his spells, so much the better - then She will offer to bear part of the cost, because it appears that Her interests will be advanced thereby, and She is not Asmodeus. And because that's true, Abadar would predictably do the same for her if the situations were reversed. Which is how they'll beat Asmodeus, in the end.
Abadar is, as always, happy to make a deal. An extra level for His newfound cleric with the extremely foreign-to-Golarion mathematical understanding of economics? Absolutely.
It's going to take Abramo a moment to notice that. He's still thinking.
It's the first time he's had more than a minute to think, since... coming here. Since dying. He finds a random barrel in a quiet alley, sits on it. He's been running around fighting demons, dissociating, disbelieving the basic reality of what he sees around him, making bargains with Other entities that admittedly talk a good game about gains from trade... time to take a deep breath and think for a while. Even if that does get him rather more smoke in the lungs than is good for a man his age.
This place is as real as Venice, that much is clear... perhaps more so, who knows? He doesn't know that his memories weren't created at the moment he appeared outside the city walls, and by the evidence of his senses he's not in the world he knows. The world he knows does not have - animal-human hybrids, green-skinned people with fangs, apparently literal demons, this language he is thinking in, gods powerful Other entities of trade and victory and minotaurs and music... magic. If he was created de novo just before the guardsmen carried him to Hulrun, the creator has a strange set of priorities. Even as an avant-garde art project he can make no sense of it.
He might as well assume his memories are real, then; it's not as though he has any others. And real or not, there doesn't seem to be any way to get back to his own world. (And if he did, would he be alive? He does, after all, remember dying. Rather clearly, in fact.)
So: For the time being, he will proceed on the assumption that he is in this world for good, and must make his way here. Or... not. Work, beg, steal, or starve, those are the options, always and everywhere; and he won't steal and there's enough beggars here that it would just be starving with extra steps. But he does have the option of starving. Or simply charging alone into a large mass of cultists swinging a sword, that would be faster.
It's not a serious option. The man who triaged Italy rather than patch up one more compromise peace is not going to stop fighting. But Abramo has the sort of mind that always generates all the options, and considers them fairly. "Thou art weighed in the balance", those are some of the very few words the Name spoke directly to His creation; and if some are found too light - well, they must still be weighed, and their true worth reckoned.
Work, then. If he is to live - and he will - then he must work, and pay his way; at least he has found an employer with a worthwhile job. But while it is now clear to him that the demons are definitely and intensely bad, that does not of itself make the Kenabrians good. To defeat the Jackal he made alliance with Japan - and while he does endorse that decision, he does not blame some Korean slave laborer or conscripted "comfort woman", if they curse his name. It's entirely possible for this Mendev, of which he knows only the name, to be an equally bad dictatorship, or worse. It may be that his best option is to say "a pox on both their housen" and leave, and do his work elsewhere.
...not that he knows where else there even is, at the moment. Strictly speaking he has only hearsay evidence of Kenabres outside of the Defender's Heart and a couple of random alleys, and for all he knows the world is being loaded from disk created de novo just before he lays eyes on it. But if that's true he supposes whatever is doing it can just as well create a non-Kenabres city... Nerosyan, perhaps; the capital which may or may not be sending an army to their relief. That's something anyway. And from there he could procedurally generate learn about other parts of the world, no doubt. It's not actually an impossible project. It just feels that way because... he's more than fifty, and he'd won the war and was looking forward to winning the peace, and while he wasn't ready to retire quite yet he didn't think he'd be starting all over with his bare hands and some magic Extremely Advanced Technology that he doesn't really understand, and trading in a country where nobody knows what the name 'Aiello' means.
At least here in Kenabres he knows some people. Even if Woljif is a thief, Lann is some kind of primitive communist, Camellia is an over-privileged heiress, the less said about Horgus Gwerm the better... Seelah is all right, if not the world's most sparkling conversationalist. Irabeth seems kind of cool... but really, no, he wouldn't stay here for the people. Not even Dyra and Rathimus.
...how do you advance the cause of trade and civilisation in a war zone, anyway?
Well, now he's just making excuses. That's actually really obvious: You end the war.
David was one man. And he had a slingshot, not... Abramo looks at his right arm, where the spells powerful technological constructs cluster like a pod of rockets under a warplane's wings. There's a new one, he notices, larger and more complex than the ones he's used so far.
...David had miracles. Because the Lord God of Hosts was on his side.
...and who's to say that He would not be on Abramo's side?
"Sh'ma, Yisroel," he whispers, though it is forbidden to speak the phrase outside the inmost chambers of the Aiello palace. It's entirely possible that he is now all the Israel there is, that he is the only one in the world who struggles with the Name. And if that's true, it was equally true of his namesake, who was commanded to go to a foreign land he did not know and make a life there, and became the patriarch of a great nation. It does not change the truth of the next part: "Adonai, elohainu. Adonai, ehod."
Very well, then. Let Mendev be as corrupt or dystopian as may be; Abramo owes it no loyalty. But the enemy of his enemy is, at least, an ally of convenience; and in less than a day, the demons and their cultists have made it very clear that they are hostis humani generis, enemies of all mankind. The navies of Venice fought pirates, too, in their day. That is the purpose of warships, rightly understood: To make the seas safe for peaceful merchantmen. And though Abramo is in his heart a merchant of Venice, though he has sat board meetings and declared dividends and guided cargoes east of Suez... the truth is that his life's work, his most notable achievement, is to be a man of war.
And that, if Abadar wanted men whose comparative advantage is in truck and barter, there's no shortage of them in Kenabres. And hiring good guards is also an important skill for a merchant.
He straightens his back and comes down off the barrel. He is the workman now, and not the capitalist; but the best workers are ambitious and have initiative... and there's evidently no shortage of tasks, in his new job. Ending the war with the demons will be a fine journeyman piece.
(For the record, I was not sure of the outcome when I began writing the above self-dialogue. I knew Abramo would not be joining the demons, but I wasn't entirely certain he'd decide to fight on Mendev's side either; a verdict of "a pox on both their housen" and walking south to make a life for himself as a banker was a live possibility in my mind. In which case I'd have kept playing the game but closed the thread.)
Well then: A capitalist can sit about doing market research in his head all day, and call it a day well spent; but a workman had best be visibly about the boss's business. And though he knows where to find some cultists, and is eager to see what his new Extremely Advanced Technology does - wars are not won by skirmishes any more than they are won by evacuations. Wars are won by productive capacity, by the factories that churn out tanks and guns and aircraft by the thousands and tens of thousands. Wars are won by investments. And investments require money; and he knows of only one place in Kenabres where money is to be had in the quantities he needs. He'll have to see Horgus Gwerm after all. Even if the man does make him understand the Communist point of view rather better than he wants to.
...and before one can build the financial infrastructure, one must have the physical infrastructure in place: The roads and bridges, the harbors and canals, along which goods must in the end move no matter what entries are scratched in ledgers. Abramo has drastically underestimated the effort it takes to simply move in a city which has active house-to-house fighting going on; his first task is simply to make it through Market Square.
Then his contribution to the cause of civilisation today can be... building a bridge. A rickety, improvised bridge that will just about allow foot traffic - one at a time. Well. You have to start somewhere.
And they can meet Nenio doing "experiments" on Baphomet cultists!
Well, really now. Two groups of N=3? The instrument differs between the groups, and one of the groups gets to see the other one being tested? No blinding? (When you think about it, Golarion ought to be the perfect place to do social science, you can literally blind the experimenters first and then fix it with a scroll!) This "experiment" is bad and Nenio should feel bad.
...eh you know what, it's not that bad as psychology experiments go.
Abramo has the education the early twentieth century thought suitable for a gentilhuomo, plus some very idiosyncratic Torah studies; he doesn't particularly notice the badness of the "science" Nenio is doing qua science. He does notice that it's rather useless, though. However, he's happy to advance the plot recruit another caster.
They can also meet Ember, who seems surprisingly unbothered about being "sacrificed to Iomedae".
And Abramo can signally fail his Diplomacy check! Possibly because it's not super possible to negotiate with people who are sufficiently... whatever-it-is that leads to believing Iomedae will give you power in exchange for the blood of an innocent.
Abramo does notice the immense suspicion of everyone and everything, but... to be fair, there really do seem to be rather a lot of hidden cultists about. They called his cousin Eliezer insane too, before the Long War was out in the open and any idiot could see that the Jackal's powers were blocked by the herb moly; and they said it of Chiano the Lionheart too, who was not suspicious enough. So he will give polite answer to the rudely barked question:
"I am a crusader (*)."
(*) The Taldane word is much closer to "holy warrior" and does not particularly have the Christian associations that the 'crux' root implies in English. 'Ghazi' would be an equally good translation.
Which pacifies Hulrun so far as Abramo is concerned... but he has history with Ramien.
Treason, in the form of interfering with the Wardstone - just before the attack.
The timing is undeniably suspicious. But... Abramo is not only a Jew, he is a secret Jew; the Aiello are, actually, the marranos your local inquisitor warned you about. The title "inquisitor" does not fill him with joy; the conflation of suspicion and proof... brings to mind more recent police states, some of which caused millions of deaths and literal billions of ducats of property damage before their defeat. Abramo will not be hunting down Ramien on Hulrun's word.
Yeah no. Attacking Ramien without hearing his side of it is not "Lawful", it's not even Lawful Stupid, it's just True Stupid. Come on, now. Iomedae even has the actual concept of an unlawful order! And in fact Hulrun can't even give Abramo an unlawful order to arrest Ramien, on account of Abramo is not in Hulrun's chain of command at all and doesn't take his orders.
It doesn't fit into Abramo's narration, because he hasn't read the AAR he was isekaied from and isn't intimately familiar with those episodes in it that wouldn't make it into a family history or similar text, but there's an episode in it where an Aiello refuses to take orders from an arrogant ally.
That said, Abramo is not actually super impressed by Ramien's claim of receiving information in dreams... until he remembers where the Jackal's powers are strongest. There isn't, actually, any reason why a similar entity, allied to humanity instead of opposing them, couldn't use dreams as a medium of communication: Uninterceptable, impossible to jam, perfectly encrypted... unfortunately, also rather well encrypted for the recipients. Abramo's judgement, as is often the case, remains suspended.
Abramo will nonetheless raise an eyebrow at the Desnans' confidence that the voice they hear in their dreams is indeed an informant within the enemy ranks. The other thing about dreams is, they don't carry checkable metadata about the sender. He doesn't agree with Hulrun's burn-the-heretics approach to the rule of Law, but... he will quietly observe to himself that there's also such a thing as Chaotic Stupid.
As will be well demonstrated by this random-encounter barbarian!
Ember will just note that it's actually really difficult for a combat-oriented game to combine the Otherworldly Waif trope with being a playable character, and that the concept of separation of narrative and gameplay is super useful to her! She really appreciates Abramo bringing it to her attention, it drastically lessens her confusion about her role in the world! She feels much less dysphoric about pulling the trigger on this crossbow now!
After clearing the necromancer out of the market square, they can return to the Defender's Heart.
Norgorber trip the alarm, this was supposed to be a safe space. Woljif will run along the rooftops stabbing people who have just come up a ladder, that's probably the safest task he's best suited for.
Lann will do fire support from the rooftops. First target, any escaladers Woljif misses.
Then Seelah can be the first to enjoy this freshly-sulfured, artisanally handcrafted, short-travel Stinking Cloud!
Wrong evil god, you're thinking of Asmodeus! Also, chemical weapons don't do friendly fire, right?
Abramo is too busy throwing up to mention the Chaotic Stupid thing again, but he'd be thinking it very loudly if he could string two words together.
I mean, that sure did make a mess of your intended sortie and drive your defenders back to the ranks of the Eagle Watch, didn't it? Sounds like Working As Designed to us. Also, we read some military SF once that asserted that it takes very good and disciplined troops to get up so close to the barrage as to take casualties from their own artillery, but it's a winning move!
Those fictional troops generally weren't running into Enlarged paladins. Seelah will take down two dretches in quick succession, that's our doctrine for chemical-warfare countermeasures, right?
Nenio, being a devotee of Nethys - they even have the same first syllable in their names! - is metatextually aware that arson has been a bit of a controversy around here (for metatextual values of 'here') recently, and is briefly in doubt about whether to let the cultist grenadiers through. Nethys presumably approves of the explosions, after all. But - Nethys likely approves even more of explosions created by her, Nenio, His greatest and most intelligent devotee! And those grenades can likely be improved upon by someone of her intelligence, if she captures one for examination.
Create Pit.
Yeah the thing about that is, you have to get lucky every time and we just need to make the Reflex save once.
Alchemist's Fire.
(I'm sure that is somehow meaningful within the game's combat model but its immediate tactical or strategic effect is not very clear. I still see "Tavern Defenses 12/12".)
Woljif will stand at the top of the ladder and absolutely slaughter his way through the level-1 fighters coming up it, even when they take down the Kenabrian who is flanking for him. The sexy shoeful god of war does not need sneak attacks!
And we can have another wave of attackers going up the ladders, including more chemical-weapons troops Dretches!
(Ah, it looks like the "Tavern Defenses" thing was just bugged that first time? The other buildings take it down by one when they die.)
A Blessed Enlarged Bull-Strengthed paladin can hold a gate against a really surprising number of low-level fighters.
Yeah you guys really ought to be going with a skirmish formation in a chemical-weapons-free environment if you're not going to have proper countermeasures.
Stinking Cloud.
That works better if your troops then break through to slaughter the defenders.
Entangle.
Then there will be a breathing space while the attackers work their way through the Entangle, the militia work their way through the last week of dinners, and Abramo works his way through his high-level spell slots to get Seelah and Woljif back into fighting shape.
That's... not good. Fortunately Abramo prepared for this sort of situation.
Holy Smite.
Yeah I'm not actually an outsider though, so that's 3d8, Will save halves... 4 damage.
A human GM might start nudging the dice at this point; I'm going to go that one better and "forget" about the DR 5/Good on this thing.
Oh, well, in that case... Blessed Enlarged Bull-Strengthed Smite Evil Charge!
Wait, I had DR 5/Good! None of those weapons were Good! Especially not the Sneak Attack!
The petitioner is advised that this Court does not have jurisdiction over bug reports. Once verdict has been rendered it may file one with Otolmens's Office in Axis. It will be the petitioner's own responsibility to make its way to that Office, or otherwise communicate therewith. Does the petitioner have any information that this Court may find relevant to its case?
ROOOOAAAAARRRRR!
(This has always worked for the minotaur previously, and entities with Int 9, Wis 7 are not noted for their rapid adjustment to circumstances.)
We did not think so. Then that will be the Abyss; court is adjourned. In our private capacity we do wish the petitioner good luck with its bug report - Otolmens will likely be most interested, once you get the correct forms to Her office.
For the record I do think there was a bug here? The minotaur should have shrugged off the Sneak Attack, as far as I understand the rules, and the militia's swords and pikes should not have bothered it at all.
Wait I got the achievement for defending "without losing a building"? That makes no sense, I had 8/12 left by the time the minotaur went down.
That's not a bug, that's Iomedae putting a finger on the scales for us! In a plausibly-deniable way that doesn't cost any intervention budget, because the goddess is highly Lawful but also believes that Lawfulness means winning. (In expectation.)
Kenabres kestää!
Since all this discussion is metatextual Abramo will not be reminded of his Torah studies, he will just take the level-up, tweak the spell prep, and get ready for actually acquiring the venture funding from Horgus Gwerm this time.
Ok, but has Abramo considered that this town has more than one filthy rich noble?
Eh... you know what, it's on the way to Gwerm's, we can have a quick detour in the interest of establishing some competition. Venture capital is all about the social confirmation, that's why I brought Camellia along.
Ok... that sure is the sort of party that gives "nobility" a bad name. It reminds Abramo of the way the Jackal worked, the slow creeping gnawing away at people's trust that rich men will invest their wealth in productive assets and not pure hedonism. Still... it does seem clear that this particular plot has not yet spanned centuries. The only drug in evidence is alcohol; the strippers dancing on the tables aren't even fully nude; if there's any inventively-cruel sex going on the participants have at least taken it to a private room. As decadent orgies in besieged cities go, it's practically wholesome.
...also if the strippers are going to scream that loudly for literally two demons, would it kill them to run away from and not towards the danger?
Ok, you know what, a redemption arc might be an amusing diversion. Besides, there's no way any further partying is going to top literal demons bursting in; Daeran knows a peak moment when he sees one, and there's nothing more boring than an anticlimax.
All right; go to war with the army you can recruit, and so on. Then we'll continue our quest for venture capital.
Yes, but do you have a business plan? Or a minimum viable product?
Right, right, we will give a demo of our B2B killing-as-a-service app.
This manor doesn't have an orgy in it just at the moment. But it does have the vibe that any orgy held here would not be the reasonably-wholesome sort of affair we saw at Daeran's.
Woljif is generally in favour of casing mansions, but... this place gives him the creeps. He'll lean into the dual-wielding, token-evil-party-member trope and get his pet cat out, daring anyone to say a word about it.
Whips, floggers, collars... strange. Abramo has not had two decades of Internet exposure to inform him about kinky sex varietals. He does not read "lifestyle BDSM" at all, that's not a concept available to him; but qua torture implements they seem rather weaksauce.
A brisk little skirmish with a couple of demons will make everyone feel better, right?
Even though Otolmens has not RECEIVED a report in the proper FORM, She has diligently INVESTIGATED the alleged BUG. She wishes to point out that the mortal WOLJIF has the rogue talent WEAKENING WOUND, which reduced the complainant's DAMAGE REDUCTION by his level, which at the time of the INCIDENT was three (3). The reduced damage reduction of two (2) was indeed applied CORRECTLY to all attacks made on complainant.
Although the COMPLAINT does not raise the issue in the proper FORM, Otolmens has included in Appendix A of Her INCIDENT REPORT a bibliography of previous problems caused by the COMPLEXITY of the feature commonly called DAMAGE REDUCTION but referred to informally by Otolmens's debugging inevitables as OH THAT GODDAM THING AGAIN. Otolmens would also draw the reader's attention to Appendix B, containing a somewhat LENGTHY history of mortal COMPLAINTS about what they call BALANCE ISSUES surrounding damage reduction, reduced damage reduction, and resistance to reduction of damage reduction. Otolmens does not fully UNDERSTAND these alleged issues but they certainly do add rather a lot of WEIGHT to what is already quite a heavy REPORT.
Pharasma is glad to hear that there was no fact of the matter which might have impacted the timing of Judgement for the relevant petitioner. Petitioner's request for review of their sorting to the Abyss is therefore moot. Otolmens's report will be sorted... into the usual bucket for such reports.
Ok, but to answer the actual question, yes Woljif did gain "Bewildering Injury" on hitting fourth and yes that's why that Flameblade has that modifier now.
Unfortunately we do not have any Dretches available for that "cloud-oriented" pun.
The signal given, Horgus will reveal the secret door, and some other secrets.
In particular:
1. Camellia is his daughter, out of wedlock.
2. He's been impersonating Horgus Gwerm since he was ten.
Look Horgus Gwerm wasn't Abramo's favorite person anyway; these new facts are... not really all that damning? Abramo's not going to relitigate inheritance disputes from fifty years earlier, and as for bastardy it's not exactly unheard-of for noble families. The actual priority here is funding the war.
Horgus Gwerm is rich but not, like, fund two legions for a year out of his own pocket rich -
Then he's not in fact rich at all. That's what "being rich" means.
(Abramo, as the heir to seven hundred years of compounding 8-10% growth and also for much of his adult life head-of-state of a major regional power, may be just a tiny bit oblivious to his privilege here.)
The wheels of justice, on the other hand, may grind slow but they grind exceeding thorough. Hulrun has finally caught up with Ramien.
Right so usually we have a trial before we get to the bit where the executive gets to do what they're named for.
I am the Law. I would be judge, jury, and executioner if not for the fact that Mendev, not descended from the common-law tradition of Northern Europe, doesn't in fact have juries even in peacetime.
You're a lawless thug, is what you are. But - just at the moment Abramo does not have the strength required to enforce justice on this city. He will reluctantly recruit Hulrun for the attack on the Gray Garrison, instead; conscription into the army is, after all, one traditional punishment for murder.
All right, Abramo sees his mistake: He tried to find twentieth-century venture capital in an economy that, although it has magic these Extremely Advanced Technological Constructs, is clearly very unproductive by his standards and not immensely financially sophisticated (*) either. He will turn, instead, to - ahem - adventure capital. It appears that the Extremely Advanced Technology can also be used to create objects which show permanent effects, as opposed to being one-use; and such objects are both commonly wielded by cultists as weapons, and saleable for prices that are high relative even to large amounts of military equipment. If every cultist leader killed can fund say half a dozen well-equipped mercenaries, then - well, this is a war of skirmishes and scuffles, by the standards he's used to. At that rate he can soon put together a vast host - say a hundred men or so.
Abramo's not going to worry about the effects of all this liquidity entering the disaster-struck local economy which, so far as he can tell, is currently not producing anything except perhaps fighting men, nor about how it is doing so. There seem almost to be two separate economic tiers here, one that deals in onions and fish and chickens, and one that deals in weapons of war, and their prices are almost entirely decoupled. As though producing more breastplates and pikes and boots and winter clothes somehow did not funge against grain and potatoes and turnips... or as though Kenabres is connected by this Extremely Advanced Technology to some humongous reservoir of both, too large for its prices or its productive capacity to be much affected by what Kenabres chooses to import in exchange for exporting the Extremely Advanced Technological Objects ok fine he'll just call them "magic weapons" like everyone else. As he was saying: Kenabres is apparently connected to some huge outside economy which can absorb its (presumably) finite stock of magic weapons without making much of a dent in its prices, and if he controls that export then he can choose what gets imported in exchange - and perhaps even avoid the immense inflation that so much money chasing a finite and diminishing stock of goods must inevitably cause. He'll just avoid having the money enter the economy in the first place, the so-called "gold pieces" will in effect be an accounting device between him and the Outside Economy, an intermediate step that makes it easy for him to figure the exchange rate between, say, pike-and-breastplate to equip a fresh recruit, or wagons of flour to feed existing ones.
And in any case - needs must when the demons drive. If he doesn't win this war fast, there won't be time for inflation to cause widespread starvation. Instead there will be widespread starvation among the demons when they're done eating the humans.
(*) Abramo is, actually, a country bumpkin on this point; the financial industry he's thinking of doesn't even have derivatives trading for retail customers, or indeed standardised options contracts. But yes, routinised joint-stock companies and stock exchanges operated by radio and telephone does in fact put it ahead of Golarion, or at least Mendev, in spite of the best efforts of Abadar's churches.
In which case: Tower of Estrod! Silken Threads Atelier! Blackwing Library!
...yep that's ten thousand gold pieces right there. In terms of spending power it would make a reasonable coming-of-age have-some-fun-with-it gift for an Aiello scion; but Abramo doesn't think he's seen this much literal physical gold all in one place before. The Aiello wealth is not kept in metal, except for the Three and some last-ditch bugout bags, and the sophisticatedly financialised economy of his twentieth century does not run much to such gaudy baubles; bearer bonds and claims on the taxing powers of major governments are the order of the day.
Nonetheless he sternly resists the temptation to throw it up in the air and let it rain down on his head. There's a war on.
Woljif has another connection to the hypothesized Outside Market, if Abramo can take care of this little trouble among the Family?
Ok, so... the thiefling infighting that they have to investigate isn't, strictly speaking, illegal; on the other hand, all involved have confessed, just in casual conversation with Abramo, to enough looting-in-the-face-of-the-enemy to hang them all. (And Woljif's alleged hereditary claim to the Moon of the Abyss is a) highly suspect coming from a known liar and b) unclear anyway since Fyllemen clearly bought the thing in good faith; he may have a claim against his grandmother for being a terrible trustee of his inheritance but that doesn't extend to any third parties.) But Abramo has already mentally extended Woljif amnesty for acts committed prior to his arrival, in exchange for joining Abramo's little army; and he's very handy with those blades. And as for the other thieflings, one is quite enough thank you! Just let them get out of Kenabres!
The zombie horses really bother Seelah.
They shouldn't, probably. There's plenty of human undead about to be bothered by, if she needs something more immediately visible than the existence of Hell. Iomedae would - not ignore them, exactly; but She would - She presumably did - slot them into a place on the Great Triage List somewhere, plausibly well above "spices for everyone" but below, say, "children going hungry in Kenabres", and then She would go on with the Work. She would not be bothered by them.
They bother Seelah, though.
The horses didn't choose to be here; they are conscripts... in a much more profound sense than the Mendevian and Lastwaller soldiers, who have much more Cunning and knowledge-of-the-world to escape with if they really cannot abide being forced to fight. The horses, by and large, would not even exist if not for humans wanting to conscript them to their wars. And Seelah can't object to that, they need the horses, the wrong done to the horses is smaller than the gains in the Work, she's never going to be doing Commune Math but she can count past ten without taking her boots off. But...
There's a special responsibility you take on, when you create a sentient being to serve you in war. And to have such beings die on your watch is one thing, it's a war, deaths are inevitable. But to die, and become a zombie, and not even get to leave the fighting that you never understood and never cared about and suffered in anyway, for the suffering to go on and on without end or reason or rest... it feels like a particularly bad outcome, for an Iomedan. As though she were creating her own little Hell, for her own purposes, and making the horses vastly worse off for their good-faith alliance with her.
It bothers her.
She doesn't use Smite Evil on the zombie horses; that's severely unoptimal. But she puts a little extra force into the killing blows.
"And do you pay your horses," he quotes, when she mentions in passing how she feels, "when you want a gun drawn to a new position?" He smiles, not humorously. "Someone said that to me, once, when I accused her of treating humans as her cattle, and thinking only of rule by force and fear, and not of trade. I made her a snappy reply, but... she had a point, perhaps."
Seelah nods, but it's not quite the thing... Abadarans think in terms of trade. But you could write a contract in which the risk of becoming a zombie was just one more line item in the consideration-of-the-party-of-the-second-part, to be carefully enumerated and weighed against the consideration of getting to exist at all, and then you do the trade if both you and the horses are better off in expectation... and she supposes Iomedae does that too, you can't well guarantee a good actual outcome for everyone who might be your ally, only the expected value. Paladins go to Hell sometimes, if things go very badly, and Iomedae hates that but She cannot well let it stop Her from doing the Work. But Seelah cannot feel the rightness of the numbers as an Abadaran can; cannot quite multiply the probability and the disutility of crawling utter horror without end and arrive at a reluctantly-endorsed decision.
So, even though they're dragging themselves back to the Defender's Heart after nearly being killed by a brimorak; even though her armour is scorched and sooty from the fireballs, and her face still aching as with sunburn where the channel restored the melted skin, even though she's exhausted and out of magic and needs a bath... when she hears, faintly, the whinnying cry of terror and fighting rage, her head snaps up.
"It came from over there," she says, and changes direction without checking whether the others are going to follow.
"What did?"
Woljif follows Seelah anyway, because he predicts that Abramo will do so, and where Abramo goes Lann will follow, and that's a majority of their remaining fighting power right there and he likes having a gang around him. There isn't exactly safety in numbers, on the streets of Kenabres - not even before the invasion - but there's no need to beg for trouble by being visibly alone. He doesn't have to be happy about it, though.
"It sounded like a horse," Camellia informs him. She would raise one elegantly-arched eyebrow in ironic inquiry at Seelah, but having expressions makes her face hurt. And anyway Seelah is not looking behind her, she's intently marching to the sound of the horses.
"We're a horse-rescue society now?" Woljif mutters, but he does so under his breath, which he needs to keep up with Seelah. "Paladins." Though, come to think of it, horses are edible and it's been a while since he's had a big chunk of meat in his diet. He brightens and quickens his step to catch up.
Abramo is thirty years older than any of the others, and feeling every day of it; but he lets Seelah take the lead. Sometimes you have to support an ally in a priority that is definitely not one of your own. He hopes he won't be called on for any effective contribution to a fight, though.
There are two of them, one big and one small - a stallion and a foal. The foal is backed into a corner, the stallion is standing between it and two zombie horses. Blood runs from bites on its chest; its chestnut-and-silver fur is flecked with foam. At the sight of humans coming around the corner it makes another defiant battle-whinny. A human who didn't practice strict discipline to avoid anthropomorphizing animals would likely hear a note of desperate hope in this one.
Zombies, of course, do not take any notice of defiant challenges. They just keep methodically advancing, taking the occasional thumping hit from the flailing hooves, snapping their rotting teeth and sometimes drawing blood. Two against one, and the two are vastly more able to absorb hits; the living cannot ignore bruises, broken bones, blood drawn. There's only one possible ending.
Yeah two zombie horses are not particularly dangerous to a paladin of Iomedae, armed cap-a-pie and with her blood up.
Good, he won't have to draw on his deep reserves to make a contribution to the fight. He's not sure he has any left.
"You saved the foal, at any rate," he says to Seelah.
Seelah looks at the still-living horse, and... cannot really disagree with his assessment. She doesn't understand how the animal was still on its feet, much less actively fighting.
"At least it won't be a zombie," she says. That's something. Nowhere near enough, but... not everyone can be saved. They are utterly empty on renewable healing, that's why they're dragging themselves through the streets still limping from bruises; and she cannot ask for their precious scrolls to be expended on a horse. You can buy three horses for what one healing scroll costs. Iomedae is also the goddess of triage.
She is, yes. Or rather, She has had to become so, in this desperate century that should have been the Age of Glory. But... She was a goddess of victory, once. And for a paladin in Her service, fresh off a hard-fought victory against a brimorak, who has just come to the aid of a beleaguered garrison and offered it alliance in good faith... for such a one, it can sometimes happen that the correct triage is to make an investment in future victories.
Oh.
That's unexpected; it had not occurred to Seelah that she could even ask, much less be answered. But - if the goddess thinks it worth while, Seelah cannot well object. She looks inside herself, in the place where her faith meets the goddess's, and finds... a tiny accession of strength; the smallest possible reinforcement. And yet, after all, how many battles have been lost for lack of a horseshoe nail?
Lay On Hands.
"I thought so too! The goddess - I didn't even pray for this, I swear!"
"I see. That's all right then." If Seelah had misreported the resources available to her, that would have been a serious problem; he's glad there isn't one. He looks at the horse, and smiles a little.
"It's ironic, in a way. I spent twenty years trying to replace all the horses in my armies with -" Taldane doesn't have a word for "trucks" - "with golems. Far more powerful, easier to feed, faster... the army with fewer horses Just Won, in the wars I knew. And now a single horse is a significant addition to my strength."
Seelah smiles back at him. She has no idea what country might have enough golems to replace horses with them, but that's not important. They won't be replacing this one, in any case.
"This horse would be an asset to any army," she says. "Did you see how it fought? Bleeding from two dozen wounds? As though it were a golem itself, made of iron." She snorts at a sudden thought. "Hah, there's a name! I'll call it - Irony."
Abramo can feel a strategic cusp approaching; if his feeling for war translates at all to this tiny scale and these strange weapons, victory in the small skirmishes he's been fighting all over the city has put the defenders' feet under them again, and they can seize the initiative if they can find some suitable attack to make. And, of course, the target is obvious: The Gray Garrison, where the enemy is presumably still pursuing their plan to corrupt the Wardstone, all undisturbed by any tactical setbacks in the streets. And besides, he has run out of other missions. The Wardstone is the punto focale, the place where the campaign will be won or lost; as long as the enemy holds the Gray Garrison, they are winning. But he has reached the point where he can, at any rate, attempt to shake their grasp on victory.
It will be a set-piece engagement, one with an Actual Plan, even if on the level of "Hulrun takes the left, Irabeth the center". He carefully reconsiders his order of battle, checking whether he should make changes. It is possible that the companions he's been leading in house-to-house skirmishing are not the right ones for a siege assault... but in the end, the raw power of Nenio's and Camellia's "third-circle" spells, and his growing understanding of how to use them, win out over Ember's and Daeran's flexibility. He does not consider replacing Seelah, Woljif, or Lann; he needs the reliability of Smite Evil, Sneak Attack, and rapid-fire cold-iron arrowheads against the multitude of targets that are not worth expending scarce magic on.
He is quite annoyed, then, when he reaches "check boots and equipment, replace missing items" on his checklist and discovers that the hypothesized Outside Market cannot deliver any more Cure Light Wounds potions. There are a sufficiency of Cure Moderate Wounds for immediate tactical use; but the healing-per-gold ratio (*) is better for Light Wounds, and so he likes to use those to recover from battles, when there's no enemy actively fighting.
Still, that does give him an excuse opportunity to try the potion-brewing kit.
...the ingredients for CLW go for how much?
Right, yes, if the potion can't actually be had for any money then sure, the ingredients are suddenly quite valuable. But Abramo is reasonably convinced that Gemyl has not in fact changed his prices in response to the shortage. He would really like to shake down Rathimus for an explanation of how rainbow quartz, at 56 (fifty-six) the piece, and shiny chitin, at 76 (!) (seventy-six, not factorial), plus a fair amount of highly-skilled labour, combine to make a potion that sells for 50 (fifty) gold pieces. Is there a subsidy somewhere? Some ill-considered state intervention diverting the ingredients away from a high-value use not visible to him, into military applications?
...there isn't time. When the war is over he will learn how to disassemble a potion into its component parts, and remake his dynastic wealth on the resulting arbitrage; or at least he will shake this parody of an economy into something resembling sanity. But to sit for a few hours and talk markets and money with Rathimus, as much as he'd enjoy it... is just one more casualty of the war.
(*) As measured, obviously, by how many gulps it takes for fighters to report they're back in shape after a battle, averaged over many battles, rather than by, say, checking the definitely non-diegetic popups.
Otolmens wishes to DISCLAIM, on behalf of Her office, any RESPONSIBILITY for the alleged operations of what the mortals call SUPPLY and DEMAND. Otolmens can only concern Herself with the operations of simple (*) DETERMINISTIC systems such as TOPOLOGY applied to MAGICSTUFF; any 'emergent' properties of such systems are OUTSIDE Her REMIT. For bugs in the particular emergent effects called ECONOMICS, Otolmens suggests applying to ABADAR, Whom She understands to occasionally take an INTEREST in such matters.
(*) Otolmens would also like to register (**) for the RECORD that many DETERMINISTIC systems, such as DAMAGE REDUCTION, are not at all SIMPLE and would benefit from a well-considered REDESIGN in the light of EXPERIENCE.
(**) Otolmens, being a GODDESS, has the ability to diegetically insert FOOTNOTES into her speech, yea, even unto the meta (***) level.
(***) But not the meta-meta level. That's reserved for gods who don't, even when they are strictly observing all the Rules, preface the noun with 'demi-'.
Otolmens's suggestion of a redesign will, of course, be given the full attention of Pharasma's sorters and placed in the appropriate bucket, as all things should be. But Pharasma will, without prejudice to the process, venture a guess as to which bucket that will turn out to be.
It's the first time Camellia has been in a major battle, of the sort Abramo calls "set-piece" without explaining what that means; one with planning beforehand and contingencies. It makes her nervous; not afraid, of course, it's actually literally impossible to be afraid with Seelah standing nearby blazing like the banners of Heaven, but... nervous. Seelah's aura of courage makes it possible to think of sharp metal stabbing through one's soft vulnerable entrails without flinching; but it does not do anything about the worry that one might fail to do one's part.
...and she fails.
Just sheer stupid nervousness, really: She sees the dretch and, without thinking about what's around her, starts executing the contingency she agreed with Abramo. If they have any dretches, cast Mass Delay Poison. Trigger, action - and the Abrikandilu that rushed past Seelah, taking the cold-iron blade to the face so it could get in among the second line, sees her casting and casually backhands her. And the spell fizzles in her hands.
To add insult to injury, she's the only one who fails her Fortitude save, and spends the rest of the brief skirmish puking up her guts while the others take down the dretch and its friends.
Serves her right, really; it's her fault. What kind of idiot just casts, reflexively, because she nervously fixated on the contingency "Dretch -> Delay Poison" and doesn't look around her to think about what the enemy might do?
It's Seelah's fault, really; what kind of idiot doesn't manage to stop a demon running right past her to get the casters, when it leaves itself wide open like that?
Abramo's at fault here. What kind of idiot leaves his chemical warfare countermeasures with a single point of failure? It's not as though they're constrained on carrying capacity, they could have stuck six extra potions in the Bag of Holding as a backup, but no, he had to be frugal about it, like a proper merchant of Venice, and conserve his resources for the next step. Without considering that if they fail at the Gray Garrison, there may not be a next step.
...he's not even getting a safe four percent interest on that money.
Okay Woljif is not going to be joining in on the taking-the-blame party, what is he, a paladin? But to be perfectly honest he feels a little bad about whiffing that Sneak Attack on the abrikandilu.
There isn't time. There will have to be a postmortem, which he hopes will not be literal; but - no plan of battle, and so on. The enemy also has a plan. But - planning is everything, plans are nothing, what matters now is speed and violence. Go, while Irabeth's keeping them busy at the front gate and Hulrun does - whatever he's doing; go now.
She wipes the vomit from her lips, and definitely not any tears of rage and shame from her eyes, and follows.
Cute. How do they feel about a basement with five (5) dretches in it?
So a +1 rapier is not, actually, a strict upgrade on a cold iron masterwork one in a combat environment with lots of Damage Reduction.
*Raises metaphorical eyebrow MEANINGFULLY, looks at pile of thick REPORTS about Damage Reduction*
The middle of a Stinking Cloud is not, actually, a good place to take a deep breath, but... metaphorical deep breath. Think.
Misfortune.
Damage Reduction should really also apply to Will saves! That spell is definitely neither Good nor Cold Iron!
Oh come on. Look Pharasma gets annoyed enough about Otolmens suggesting balance changes. Trust me, you really don't want to come to Her attention as a 2-HD outsider. I'm doing you a favour here by intercepting that before She sees it.
No taking deep breaths, check; but nonetheless - all said and done, chemical warfare or not, they're still literally 2 Hit Dice each.
Sword to Face.
Well, that plural is very interesting! Naïvely and natively it ought to be "Abrikandilus" in English, no? But we don't know what the word, much less the plural, is in the original Taldane.
...oh, their combat power? It would be much more impressive if they didn't constantly use "Sunder Armor" which - definitely works and doesn't require Otolmens's attention at all whatsoever.
Yeah fair. How about one (1) Succubus - and six (6) Kenabrian militia englamoured literally to the eyeballs?
It makes Camellia feel a lot better about the Delay Poison thing, actually, because now there's nothing left to throw up at the sight of the succubus eating the eyeballs it just made that knight tear from his face. Every Stinking Cloud has a silver lining.
Fortunately Abramo did not make his mind-control defenses a single point of failure.
When he was a child the Aiello were still doing more-Catholic-than-the-Pope protective coloration in public. All heresy, of course, but a skillfully constructed one, as it had to be to last for two thousand years; and their central prayer is, actually, rather good.
"Non ci indurre in tentazione, ma liberaci dal male," he whispers, as he releases the spell. Presumably the Name created this world along with the other one, with all its magic and miracles, and will not mind being reminded of the purpose of the spell He created.
Mass Protection from Evil.
(Sadly the game does not model the militia as dominated or mindcontrolled, it just puts them in the enemy faction, so neither Unbreakable Heart nor Protection from Evil has any effect. Ah well. I'll file a change request with Pharasma.)
All right, how about (rolls dice (for show, the encounter is actually pregenerated)) two (2) um (ostentatiously checks random encounter table) babaus?
Did you know that this game has a stealth feature? How about we try out some stealth gameplay!
Fair enough, you can avoid them that way if you're a bit careful with when in their patrol routine you choose to click. But have you considered these trapped areas, which are easy enough to spot but hard to disarm before the babaus come back?
Not a problem, we'll just pick our way around them. Hah, the game is called Pathfinder, and we're literally finding a path, all we have to do is avoid the areas in red, right? Should be a cakewalk!
Ok, if this part is meant as a stealth puzzle, I'm not smart enough for it. You can sneak past the Babaus, right enough, but only right into a room full of other enemies, and then the Babaus come up on your rear while you're dealing with them. And they're bad enough by themselves, thanks kindly. So, let's expend those Blur potions and see what other buffs are available, and see if they go down.
Right so Magic Vestment lasts an hour per level, that's basically "the whole mission" at level 5. Should have cast that at the start.
All right, let's see if burning resources will do the trick. Step one: Mass Resistance to Evil; once we're in the fight, Bless.
Step five: Enlarged, Hasted Sneak Attack - which due to Weakening Wound halves the damage resistance as well as doing a lot of damage.
Step seven: Tank the hit. Ouch. Nonetheless, between wearing enough metal for a French tankette, Magic Vestment, Protection from Evil, and the grace of Iomedae, it's only the one hit.
Leaving us with another round to take the second one down. Boom!
Ok, that wasn't too bad and the Magic Vestments are even reusable.
All that, and the door is locked? With not so much as an option to pick the lock? That's cheating.
Indeed, why is the enemy even bothering with babaus, minotaurs, and ghouls that can apparently walk through walls, when all they need is a door?
Ok I have been all over the map, including the bit hidden by the statue puzzle, and no key. Hunt-the-pixel is my least favorite form of gameplay; Google time.
All right; time to call on the Powers Outside Creation. He takes a moment to center himself, to remember the prayers he was taught as a young child - not the Christian ones for public show, the real prayers that were only to be said in the Inmost Chambers.
Second floor, northwest corner. Watch out for the swarms.
Ok. I will admit that technically that door is not hidden and also quite large. Nevertheless this is annoying.
The swarms are effectively invulnerable to our weapons; but their summoner is the capstone of that arch. So, fight summons with summons: Azata, right on top of Jeslyn.
...which, see, allows Woljif to get in Enlarged Sneak Attacks from round 1.
Additionally Jeslyn will be a bit distracted by the outsider - she's supposed to be the summoner here, abyssinate (*) it! - and swing her dreadful scythe at it. Which does a lot of damage, but...
(*) Taldane equivalent of "damn", but different planar target.
...to an entity which is, ultimately, expendable. Abramo is not great with the direct damage, and will heal one of Hulrun's Inquisitors that appeared out of nowhere (although where is the man himself?) and are doing a splendid job of keeping the various demons busy.
Enlarged Lann does a lot of damage when the sonic arrows hit - lots of loot with military applications lying around this crusader fortress - but he does have some difficulty getting used to wielding a bow that's suddenly child-sized. Miss, miss, miss.
...and there's the key, at long last. Abramo can only hope he hasn't expended too many of his resources in getting it. Men are dying in the front courtyard to buy him this chance; it must be attempted, win or die.
It does not occur to Abramo that one could camp in the middle of the Gray Garrison fight. It did occur to me, but I'm not going to do it; I'm just going to throw shade at the devs for apparently allowing it. Just how long is Irabeth supposed to be fighting in that courtyard?
Then once the door is unlocked, we can have a cutscene! Featuring:
Miiiiinagho as the jilted demon-lover yearning only to make her beloved see reason and abandon the friends who have already betrayed him!
Staunton Vhane as the terribly-wronged knight who still stubbornly clings to his principles, poor misguided cinnamon roll that he is!
And... in a surprise casting which nobody really thought through, but that's fine, Minagho is a professional and can improvise...
Abramo Aiello and his merry band of interlopers as - (ostentatiously does not check notes, since there aren't any, what sort of idiots are running this show anyway?) - as... all right, you know what, people who want to steal the spotlight from Minagho can at least work a bit for it. Your cue, Abramo!
Right so:
1. The "Good" option shows faith in Staunton, but it also puts words in his mouth. Abramo does not want to speak for the man, when he's doing such a splendid job of speaking for himself.
2. The "Lawful" option is back to Lawful Stupid; the alleged evidence that Staunton is a traitor is that he... spits defiance in the face of the demon currently torturing him. Come now.
3. The "Chaotic" option is a moderately sick burn, but does not actually make any sense.
4. The neutral appeal-to-Staunton's-good-sense option is at first glance the best of a bad lot, but it also tells Staunton to do exactly the thing he is already doing, to wit, not believe the demon's lies. Which is good advice but unfortunately works out to an insult to a brave man; Staunton is already disbelieving and defying her, what more does anyone want?
5. The neutral do-not-interfere option is just deeply stupid. What sort of person doesn't interfere when they come across their enemy torturing a man who has been a steadfast ally at great cost to himself?
Abramo is inclined to agree with Minagho, actually: What sort of idiots are writing this?
...all right all right "Good" it is then. Abramo will depart a little from the script to mitigate the damage; he indicates Staunton as he speaks, to show that he's not speaking for Staunton but taking him at his most recent words.
"What are you trying to accomplish, Minagho? Staunton knows you're a liar."
Bah, if you're going to improvise you should at least have some fun with it and not just play it completely straight - although perhaps he's trying to help Minagho out by being the straight man to her comedic genius? Oh well, it'll be all right on the night - no that doesn't work either, does it? Whatever, Minagho is getting paid anyway.
"The crusades are the lie! My love is as true as a flame!"
And as lasting; and as damaging. Staunton will slash Minagho's lying face and exit, stage right.
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.
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.
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.
The Babau and Schir don't, though! (They do have regular Fire Resistance, but... a Brimorak is a pretty powerful caster, actually.)
Not if they're just going to do the same thing, no. Mythically Powered Horse Charge!
Scientifically speaking this is actually most inconvenient; the observations will be entirely useless, being massively confounded. On the other hand Nenio supposes that having the experimenter survive to observe again is, actually, moderately important. Haste.
Ok to the extent that the enemy has huge amounts of reinforcements they will grind us down eventually, mythic power or none. Presumably Minagho is the capstone, and Seelah has already targeted her with Smite Evil, but that Dimension Door is annoying. Hence: Challenge Evil.
Oh come on. Minagho has a Will save of literally 21... right mythic power ignores saves, right. Yeah. So this is beginning to look like a "disengage, plot vengeance" sort of situation. But we can have a Phantasmal SatisPutrefaction first, as a treat.
Fortunately Lann doesn't cast from Wisdom! And also he's quite used to powering through dysphoria!
So what happens if we do this scroll with Mythic Power behind it?
Order's Wrath.
Ok hurting demons is good orderly actually but please keep in mind that not all your allies are Lawful either!
Hey if we ignore damage resistance anyway, we can use sonic arrows instead of cold iron. And between the Haste and the extra attacks, we can do (checks log) 159 damage in one turn.
That... is actually outside the realm of "stings" and into serious danger. Minagho is going to activate her fallback powers.
Run Away.
And Staunton will step between her and the victorious crusaders.
Oh.
How disappointing.
It is still possible that he is not acting of his free will; Minagho clearly has any amount of magic, and then, quite ordinary torture has also been known to break men's minds. But - that cannot be allowed to matter, any more than it did for the corrupted angels. In the absence of a way to free him from mind control - if, indeed, the mind control even exists - then let justice be done. Abramo will say the Shma for him, afterwards, but... justice first.
That's rather sweet, actually. Minagho will exercise whatever shreds of plot armour she has left, and take Staunton with her.
Then we can have a celebration in which several references are made to being "blessed by Iomedae" and "messenger of the gods", which make Abramo deeply uncomfortable. Because yes, that Mythic Power certainly came from somewhere and he hopes it was the Name, but... he did not actually receive a notarized letter certifying that it was so, and there's a reason his god is also called the Word. There wasn't so much as a burning bush to be seen, unless we are to count the crotch region of those brimoraks, which he Does Not.
And a (briefly) incognito Queen can show up. And make the same uncomfortable remarks about breathing on stones for luck.
It's not that Abramo is some sort of firebreathing anti-monarchical republican; sure, England was a monarchy before his armies ground the empire to dust, but then so was his ally Japan. But nonetheless he is a merchant Doge citizen of Venice and he does not kiss any rings. No, not even if it's labeled the "Lawful" dialogue option. Law does not actually consist of truckling to any random "authority" that may have lucked into a hereditary monopoly of violence over some particular area.
Oh, now the regular army arrives to save them, and makes with the rhetoric about "time to turn back the tide". Splendid. Where were you when the Fiendish Minotaurs were hammering on the gates of the last-ditch defense, and chemical weapons poisoning the hastily-raised militia? Speaking of turning tides!
Yeah Abramo is not actually super fond of people who needle monarchs from behind their inherited privilege either, but the nobly-born jerk has a point.
Galfrey has been dealing with Daeran, and indeed any number of other nobly-born jerks, for longer than Abramo has been alive, and doesn't particularly notice the latest instance. She will have a drink after dropping her hints about "big plans", though.
And the next morning she will declare the Fifth Crusade, and Abramo its Knight-Commander. First objective: Drezen.
Well... that is somewhat reasonable, for a monarch, actually. Give an army to the man who has demonstrated his ability to use it. Fair enough. As for objectives, Abramo will form his own judgement, or why is he in charge?
...also he will take Inspirational Leader and Force Reality as his mythic abilities; he despises mind control.
Then we'll have a walk about the camp and a word with the available forces - oh good, we have an actual quartermaster now.
And Galfrey can give a briefing about the Sword of Valor, which is not in fact a sword but a banner; at least it's not named for a kitchen utensil like some non-swords we could mention. As a side note, the upper-class Received Pronunciation accent of her voice actor is presumably intended to translate some archaic sociolect of Galfrey's Taldane, which will completely fail to land on Abramo because he didn't grow up with this language.
At least she understands the importance of money for raising armies - although this is not the same as understanding the limitations in converting money into physical bread and bucklers which must flow over bridges made of actual bricks. But when she speaks of a war that has lasted "over a hundred years", Abramo is not immensely impressed. The Long War began before the Pyramids were built.
Also we can conscript Daeran, and while Abramo doesn't object to conscription as such - well, he does, but it's sometimes the lesser evil - he does wish that someone would write some "Lawful" dialogue that didn't sound quite so much like he has a stick up his ass. "Frivolous gesture", indeed.
Ok, then we'll bop around the camp. Some personal backstory from Irabeth, who also has the ability to teleport in troops - and Abramo appreciates her understanding of physical march times and the difference between raising troops and having them on the battle front! Crusader lore from Nurah. Hilor also has mercenaries available. Liotr will point out some of the holes in Daeran's official backstory, which is fair enough but not obviously immediately tactically relevant. Sosiel will tell us about the Desnans who died, his friends, and about Desnan doctrine in wartime. Abramo will praise their devotion to duty, even though condolences would really fit the Desnans better, because Lawful dialog options that are not actively stupid are few and far between. Seelah will talk about being chosen by Iomedae, which again makes Abramo deeply uncomfortable, he really needs to sit down and have a think about these so-called "gods". When he can spare a moment from running an army, that is. It's an all-absorbing activity, as he well knows - if one for which he's better suited than personally applying maces to demon faces. Woljif will suggest setting up a Razmir-style monarchy, and thank you very much Lawful dialog writers, being "heresy" against a set of gods that Abramo doesn't think are anything of the sort is not actually the problem with that. We'll go with "I'll think about it" instead. Camellia's point about mythic powers as noble privilege is well taken!
And then there are all these level-ups and mythic powers. Hmm, multiclass into war-priest? ...I think on the whole not, it seems very in-your-face about the "war" thing and that's not really Abramo's style. I'll just continue as a straight priest of Abadar. Level six isn't a very interesting cleric level, apparently, but I did get the Mythic Hero rank so I'm not going to complain. I think I'll single-class everyone else as well, just for simplicity. Ember's "Hex" powers go really oddly with her backstory, by the way; I think I'll give her the Evil Eye, because she ought to have the power she was nearly burned at the stake for. And Lightning Bolt because sometimes you really want to end a fight by hitting That One Target. And Abundant Casting for the mythic power, that sounds really useful.
For Seelah to be able to cure Sickened would have been really useful at lower levels, when we didn't really have a defense against Stinking Cloud, but now we have spells and also much better Fort saves, so I'll go with Disease instead. And for her mythic ability - I would really like to take Perfect Cavalry actually, but attacks of opportunity are highly situational while Seelah hits someone with a sword basically every combat turn, so Unrelenting Assault it is.
Nenio can have Elemental Barrage on the grounds that it seems to fit her ugh no unfortunately Abundant Casting is just too overpowered, I'm roleplaying a bit but there are limits to my ability to ignore optimisation. And Lightning Bolt because I'm a bit lacking in the fight-finishing direct damage.
Woljif can get Best Jokes because it's funny ugh no sorry he's a caster even though I'm mostly using him for sneak attacks. Abundant Casting it is. Sigh. I despise overpowered no-brainer options, they leach all the fun from leveling. At least he can learn the Hideous Laughter spell, maybe I can take Best Jokes on his next mythic rank. At least Lann can't take it, he can get Distracting Shots instead, adding debuffs to damage I would be doing anyway is great.
And Camellia gets, sigh, Abundant Casting.
Then we can have a rest to fill up our (smiles cheerfully) abundant new spell slots, and then we'll head out!
Well now, this is more like it! This is the sort of war Abramo knows how to fight - counters on maps, road capacities, supply stockpiles, known enemy concentrations, fuel depots, naval artillery support, fighter and bomber sorties per day, tradeoffs between forward airbases and rear-area rail... well, at any rate it's more like what he's used to than hitting demons with a mace.
We'll recruit a few extra soldiers in Kenabres, on the grounds that nobody ever lost a battle by having too many soldiers... ok, fine, except for that one time in Crimea but that was a total fluke and also could easily have been avoided by having the Japanese actually coordinate with their liaisons. No allies to herd like cats manage in this war, at least. And then we'll march, direction Drezen.
...with a quick detour to the Houndsheart camp, why not? This war is being financed by the sale of magic weapons; it's not as though we have an actual tax base.
Right we should not underestimate the combat power of two brimoraks when we don't have the mythic spell resistance available, should we? Ouch.
So the quasit leads us to the halfling, the halfling grabs the ring and disappears, and while leaving, summons - three babau. That's... a bit of an issue actually.
Mass Protection From Evil.
And we'll have a brisk little fight, but Lann has a really impressive damage output and so does Seelah.
Elan accuses Curl (the halfling) of setting a trap, and says he was justified in striking him before he teleported out, and Seelah should not have stepped in. So let's see: Seelah has a good point about trials, mind control, and accusations without much formal evidence; Elan has a good point about people who summon three demons. And also about the heat of battle; inter armes silent leges, and usually trials and such are reserved for people not actively fighting. But then, the heat of battle covers Seelah's action as well; she could reasonably have thought it was Elan who was mind-controlled - and she might have struck him, instead of shielding Curl.
"Done is done and eaten is eaten; let's not fight among ourselves... any more than we have already."
Elan accuses us of, in effect, leveling too rapidly, and setting bad examples of trusting too much as a result.
Perhaps so. But without that trust we would not have been able to get the levelling. And, again: Seelah also trusted Elan. She saw him strike, without warning or apparent cause, at a comrade - and she did not put her sword through his face, as a mythic paladin might easily have done. She put her shield in front of Curl. It's entirely possible that was a mistake; but it was clearly a much more recoverable mistake than an immediate counterattack would have been. Abramo will back her on this, and on believing that allies are Lawful until the opposite is proved.
Sigh at the "Lawful" dialogue implying that one can never make alliance with someone who has not acted perfectly in every respect in the past - and also that Abramo should, by the same logic of "no thieves", remove both Seelah and Woljif from his retinue. That's well into Lawful Stupid. It'll have to be the Good option. Don't give up on extending second chances, Seelah.
Ok for the record: Abramo is utterly oblivious to Daeran's apparent romance subplot; he knows that homosexuality exists but it is entirely non-salient to him that people in his immediate social circle might be so, especially in his direction. Likewise for Sosiel. As for Galfrey, haha no, a Doge of Venice does not romance any queens thank you.
Yeah Abramo is definitely drifting towards Lawful Good here, sigh. But it's not as though any Evil dialog option we've seen so far has made any sort of sense for his character.
Let's knock off Sosiel's funeral as it's here in the south and we're heading north.
...ah, zombies. Of course. In hindsight this should not be a surprise.
For the record, paladin-bonded horses can absolutely climb ladders if their Athletics DC is less than 20. You monkeys think it's difficult just because you use your hands to do it.
Sosiel will rush in among the zombies and confront the necromancer, because Neutral Good means never having to think about optimal tactics!
The necromancer will insert himself into the recent discussion by begging for mercy once all his undead are unundead.
Sigh. Summary execution of enemies trying to surrender is not, actually, Lawful, even if they do deserve it. Will nobody think of the incentives?
Taunting a priest of Shelyn into a killing rage and making him Fall is totally worth an eternity in the Abyss!
So that's what Chaotic Stupid looks like. Don't do it, Sosiel, he's not worth giving up your ideals for. And, as noted, incentives.
Right how about a court deals with this? It may have to be a court martial, but - not the field force still bleeding from his treason, at any rate.
And we can have our first formal battle: A skirmish, really - a company-sized engagement with the disorganised cultists fleeing our victory at Kenabres. Still it is an engagement in which both sides form a fighting line and push the pikes; that's a battle, even if it's entirely one-sided. Best sort of battle, that.
Abramo's forces have grown beyond the point where their morale is a part of their personal relationship with Abramo, and he will have to turn to the traditional means of army management: In a word, propaganda. It's a good problem to have; wars are not won by special-forces strike teams no matter how mythic. It's still a problem, though. He will make a start by translating into local idiom some of the more famous propaganda of his own world.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of Iomedae's long sword
She is triaging disaster in despite of Hell's foul Lord
She hath loosed Her mythic heroes on the vile Abyssal horde
Her army marches on!
Glory, glory, Iomedae! (3x)
Her army marches on!
I have seen Her in the Wardstones where they hold the demons back
Thus Her shield protects Her army while it readies to attack
She hath righteously triaged them to ruin and to wrack
Her army marches on!
Glory, glory...
I have read a Lawful gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my alliance so with you my Law shall deal
Let my hero, born of woman, crush Deskari 'neath his heel
My army marches on!"
Glory, glory...
She hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
She defends the righteous fallen at Pharasma's judgment seat
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Her! Be jubilant, my feet!
Her army marches on!
Glory, glory...
Aroden born of Azlant died for glory over sea;
His Inheritor fights on with aid from mortals - you and me
Though this Age is not of Glory, let us live to make men free!
Our army marches on!
He is not vastly impressed with his own poetry in Taldane, but - it will serve. His soldiers are not very critical; it's good enough for a hundred men to sing while marching down a muddy Mendevian road with a battle at its end, and that's what matters.
Privately he is, actually, somewhat concerned at using the names of these 'gods', where the original had the Lord even if it was the heretical Christian version. But - the commandment is to have none before the Name; it does not actually say not to mention them at all. And anyway, are they even gods? They could just as well be very powerful aliens, using human mortal agents for their own reasons... Anyway he is doing this for the war effort, and practically everything is licit if it is to save a life; on that much, at least, he feels on firm ground. It will admittedly be hard to say exactly how many lives are saved by the morale effects of a good marching song; it's one of those want-of-a-nail things with a small probability of a large effect. If some particular soldier feels just enough braver that he doesn't turn and flee, and so does not trigger a rout, and does not collapse a flank, and does not lose a battle, and does not destroy an army in the retreat... that could be very many lives indeed. But he will never know.
At any rate he is not worshipping Iomedae, just singing about her. There is no commandment against song.
We meet some scouts in the road; they turn out to be drow cultists of Deskari. Fortunately Abramo does not touch the tea.
And we can do the Conundrum Unsolved, whose ghost has the courtesy to inform us that it is a teaser and not meant for serious security against intruders.
And we can take the ford at Vilareth, with an unsustainable rate of casualties however.
We'll get some reinforcements from Horgus Gwerm, and with their aid easily overrun a band of mercenaries who should have inquired about the fine print in the Abyss's insurance. And we'll have a quick skirmish with some marauders in Nightinggale Grove, in which Nenio goes 0 for 4 on the ranged touch attacks.
And we will get an appeal for help from a Hellknight order; and everyone except Ember will speak against aiding them, for one reason or another.
And yet - everyone agrees that they are allies; they just don't want them to be. Admittedly the name 'Hellknights' is not auspicious. But who will join your alliance, if you do not come to the defense of those who have? Japan was no liberal democracy either, but they fought the Jackal's German cat's-paws from the Indus to the Rhine, and the war would have been lost without them.
"Very well; we will march to the sound of the" - no guns in this war. "The sound of the gargoyles."
Prophecy is, of course, broken on Golarion; but mythic heroes can break many rules, and Abramo gets a... premonition... a repeated premonition in fact - that the gargoyles are too hard a target for his existing army. In the light of this intelligence he pauses for a few days to bring up reinforcements from Kenabres, and meanwhile investigate Moondance Grove. Where the plagued smilodons are also very tough up close, but fortunately Abramo has another premonition and orders some summons to keep them at a distance from the non-expendable party members.
Woljif isn't going to show it, but nonetheless "non-expendable" is possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever called him.
The azata has actually been called much nicer things, and is frankly rather miffed at being considered expendable. The whole point of Good is that nobody is expendable.
Yeah that would be Chaotic Good, and anyway Abramo is Lawful Neutral. So far, anyway.
Wilcer observes that our equipment is good enough for Kenabres, and not really up to the much tougher environment of the inner Worldwound.
Then we shall have better equipment. Ropes, hardened boots, warhorses, artillery, tanks, aircraft, battleships - whatever is needed. If civilisation has any advantage over barbarism it is the sheer productivity of industry applied to war. Pour It On.
And by emptying the treasury for mercenaries and a general with extra command ability improved staff procedures, we can put together an army capable of taking on the blocking force of gargoyles, and in fact overcoming them with a very low rate of casualties. Langton's Laws still hold: The more you use the fewer you lose.
Who will immediately demonstrate that the nickname isn't chosen at random, by murdering wounded soldiers who would otherwise slow down a retreat.
Ruthless, at best, but... conceivably necessary, in a desperate situation, to get the other soldiers moving. It does not seem to Abramo to set up the best incentives.
Gargoyles turn out to be not that formidable against a group where everyone has access to magic that pierces their damage resistance, although indeed they can walk through ordinary soldiers, even ones armed with cold iron that cuts demons, without particularly noticing.
Regill explains that the gargoyles seem to be attempting to take prisoners, presumably not for the purpose of putting them behind barbed wire and giving them food and Red Cross packages.
"Why does anyone still follow you?" Seelah bursts out, echoing Abramo's thought about incentives.
"Because we are Hellknights" is not actually a good answer to that question, which is about why anyone would choose to become a Hellknight in the first place. However, the gargoyles renew their attack before Abramo can pursue the point.
The Hellknights are numerous and there is almost certainly at least one of us on whom that would work, yes. Against this particular set, though, simply being effectively immune to cold-iron weaponry works rather better.
The first wave of them goes down rather easily. The second one too. The third wave... includes rather a lot of different-coloured gargoyles and That's Bad.
Appearing in the rear like that, with no convenient hulks of muscle between them and Nenio - makes the gargoyles the first good target we've seen for Nenio's new trick.
Lightning Bolt.
Right so you checked that we don't have Energy Resistance against that, but did you remember to check for spell resistance?
This combat system has too many variables! How is a scientist supposed to keep track of all the confounding factors?
Otolmens will add this COMPLAINT to Her next REPORT to Pharasma. There must be SOME amount of them which will MOVE the Creator.
Regill is fairly sure he did mention that the situation is moderately exigent!
Not only that, he is in rapid succession immune to energy drain, blindness, and black adder venom!
That's good, because in the end, all tactics boil down to "keep them busy long enough for Lann to kill".
There is much to be said for this approach, if the fire element is sufficiently powerful. And speaking of expendable blocking elements - Regill would like to acquire what's left of the Sunrise Sword knights.
Hum. For once the writers have managed to come up with three aligned options that are not actively stupid.
1. (Good) Take over the Sunrise knights for the main Crusader army, "I don't treat my soldiers as expendable".
2. (Chaotic) Let them decide who they follow.
3. (Lawful) Give them to Regill, but demand his support in return.
The main Crusade can always use more soldiers, to be sure; but... soldiers are expendable. If expending them achieves some goal more valuable than their lives. That's what command is for, to decide what is achievable and what costs are worth paying. And these people have already decided to join the war, to be men under command; presumably they did not do so with the intention of electing warlords by acclamation. There is, actually, a regular chain of command in this war, even if the table of ranks is a bit more informal than what Abramo is used to.
And... the Hellknights' weapons didn't bite on the gargoyles any more than the Sunknights' did; but they did duty as blocking elements, while Lann finished the fight, in an extremely disciplined manner. The Sunknights' archery was much less useful.
Very well, then. The scales come down on alliance and quid-pro-quo, as they so often do: It is worth putting some soldiers of Sarenrae under a much harsher discipline, to gain Regill's aid.
Then Regill will join the party, gain a mythic rank, and observe in a conversation about the law that "We cannot call it law just because some foolish local prince thought it up or a council of demented elders deems it wise, now can we?"
A gnome after Abramo's own heart! He would plainly extract a pound of flesh from anyone, if it was lawfully owed.
They're full of undead. How disappointing - undead are neither novel, nor any sort of puzzle.
Ah, but there are statues that ask questions! Much more interesting!
Oh, feh, a mere revelation of true forms? Nenio's true form, social role, gender, and passion is scientist. Human or kitsune, who cares?
Still, the quest for knowledge continues. The entity must evidently know some things, or it could not so casually reveal truths Nenio had forgotten. Tear my mask off and place it at my feet; hmm...
Indeed? How about if the road gets a new valley across it, and the valley is full of ...rolls dice... locusts?
Otolmens is CONFUSED. It appears that every entry on the TABLE Deskari is using is, in fact, LOCUSTS. This entirely OBVIATES the PURPOSE of using a lookup table in the first place.
At least LOCUST would make a change from the constant cry of FLESH from the Abyssal advocates.
Why did it have to be locusts? Abramo despises locusts.
He will send the historian, whatshername, as the forlorn hope to distract the enemy; she does not seem particularly useful for anything else.
It is perhaps fortunate that Ember came along on this, even if it was "an experiment". The vulnerability curse combines nicely with Burning Hands against swarms of insects that are otherwise fairly resistant to our magics. And the Deep Slumber curse is a one-in-three chance of instantly knocking out a Royal Guard.
Seelah does not like to complain, but maybe the civilian whose cries attract more demons would have been a good opportunity to practice the virtue of triage!
Sorry. Best guess was that the echoing, "building-up" quality was some sort of attack and leaving him there would have been even worse.
Otolmens observes that the VULNERABILITY CURSE requires a specific target and is not useful against SWARMS.
That appears INACCURATE. The problem is that there is only one CURSE. If there were curses PLURAL then they might affect more than a MINUSCULE portion of the SWARM.
So by exchanging Seelah's sword for a heavy mace, and some other, similar changes to our equipment, we can get vastly more efficient at fighting insects; it turns out they squish much better than they slice. Obviously Abramo totally foresaw this problem and absolutely made the change before entering the canyon.
As for the Vescavor Queen, it has spell resistance up the wazoo, but oddly enough no damage resistance. Between Smite Evil and Smite Chaos, it does not put up that much of a fight.
She did however have an insider who placed locust-attracting items in our gear.
Cultist traitors among the crusaders? Oh, what a surprise. This is Regill's surprised face. Yes, it's just like his regular face, that's because he's constantly being surprised by this sort of thing.
One would think Nurah would have some sort of comment on her role as a distraction for the locusts, but no.
Oh well. We can all level up. Woljif can learn Fireball, that'll be useful the next time we encounter a swarm enemy; at least if they're not resistant to fire. Swarms seem rather difficult in general.
Abramo has slightly lowered his standards for what it means to be rich. Horgus Gwerm still does not make the cut; he's not bankrolling even a single legion for this campaigning season. Nonetheless all contributions gratefully accepted, even from nouveau-riche impostors with delusions of grandeur.
Although we overcame the Leper's Smile, the delay gave the demons time to move up a strong blocking force - too strong to risk the casualties of overcoming it; Abramo has only this one irreplaceable army, while the demons can call on all the infinite Abyss. Which makes speed all the more important - but if it can't be done, it can't be done. The Urals Line was never taken either, in spite of all the blood shed in those mountains; it was outflanked to the south. Abramo will take the lesson, and send his scouts out to probe for a flank.
(The Eurasian War, in Abramo's timeline, did not have a long period in which the main armies had no fighting front; consequently it did not develop strong strategic-bomber forces. So Abramo does not think of attempting to treat Drezen as Dresden was treated, in spite of the coincidental similarity of names. In any case he has no air force of any kind.)
This is more like the war Abramo knew, though on an absurdly tiny scale: The scouts, patrols, and fortified outposts define something like a recognizable front line, with a crusader salient running along the Sellen in the direction of Drezen. Abramo knows what to do, in such a war, when your enemy brings up strong forces and your offensive runs out of steam: Halt, dig in to consolidate your gains, search for the weak points that moving troops to block you must inevitably have created... and mobilise, recruit, produce. Abramo has now had time to study the geopolitics of his new world; "infinite Abyss" or not, it is clear to him that the nations of Avistan could easily retake Drezen, if they put their backs into the effort. The Fifth Crusade is nowhere near the limit of the resources that could be mobilised in its support, if the state capacity and the political will existed.
It will, of course, do no good to point this out; Abramo is hardly the first to realise it. What is needed is a means of creating that political will. And in this, as in other things, there is no substitute for victory. Abramo will go hunting.
We meet the kobold bard Crinukh. A night ambush allows us to learn that Schir are no longer much of a threat when the party is not restrained by the need to conserve spells; Nenio's Phantasmal Killer drops the first one in its tracks, and from there it's a rout.
The search for a flank takes us past Chilly Creek, where we visit Jernaugh, the cleric of Erastil, as promised. And also a hydra who happens to be attacking the village just as we arrive. Hydras are not that tough, as it turns out.
Neither are dire wolves, but there's something weird about a village with this amount of predatory wildlife right on its threshold.
There is clearly Something Going On here with the Icy Rill and the dolls, but it's beyond Abramo's ability to unravel in the time he can devote to it. He'll have to leave it for the priest of Erastil.
The search for a flank bears fruit. The main road to Drezen, south of the dry riverbed, is blocked by powerful forts strongly garrisoned by demons. But by fording the small stream that runs into the Sellen, one can find a place where the cliffs have been eroded into something practicable for formed units and their logistics train; and this is guarded by a relatively weak force of cultists, who scatter in the face of a Hellknight charge, allowing Abramo's army to advance onto the plateau on which Drezen stands.
It is not a sure thing; nothing in war is certain, and there is no information on the interior of the plateau. But it is a victory and a way forward, and Abramo milks it for all it is worth. He gathers the bards he's been having Daeran recruit.
And they will assuredly do so, when there are any to chronicle. Meanwhile they can make themselves useful by spreading Abramo's translated propaganda; it has a catchy tune.
Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song!
Sing it with a spirit that will start the gods along!
Sing it, so the demons hear us, several thousand strong,
as we go marching through the Worldwound!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The Fifth Crusade are we!
Hurrah! Hurrah! We'll set Sarkoris free!
Sing the chorus with us from Kenabres to the sea,
as we go marching through the Worldwound!
How the mongrels shouted when they heard that joyful sound!
How the cultists gabbled which our inquisition found!
How the filthy zombies even started from the ground,
as we went marching through Kenabres!
Hurrah, hurrah...
"Abramo's lawful crusade boys will soon give up the ghost!"
So the vile Deskari said; a foul anarchic boast.
Looks like he forgot, indeed, to reckon with our host
as we go marching through the Worldwound!
Hurrah, hurrah...
Unlike the "Battle Hymn of the Fifth Crusade", this has a direct call to action: "Sing the chorus with us, from Kenabres to the sea" - and it makes that call just as the news of victory arrives from a front that has not moved for a decade. Suddenly the Fifth Crusade is on everyone's lips, from Absalom to Zirnakaynin. And though it will take a while for recruits to arrive, as they have to physically walk across the face of Golarion, the donations are managed by the church of Abadar and move at the speed of capital.
Very rapidly, that is. Even by the standards of Abramo's world, which did not have Sending, a worldwide currency, and a borderless bank run by people whose god will demonstrably smite them if their fingers grow sticky. Even the Banco di Venezia, which set the quite literal gold standard on which Abramo's world ran for half a millennium, would have struggled a bit to meet that standard!
Unfortunately, the plateau does not have any roads that both go in the right direction and are passable by formed military units. Abramo hides his dismay as best he can. He was never the sort of war leader with a genius for operations or tactics, any more than he is a great man of his hands. Logistics and strategy and propaganda to hold together a fragile coalition against an enemy with literal mind control, those are his strengths. And if the Manuale di Tattica mentioned what to do after the step "pin the enemy front and send the reserve company around their flank" fails to find a flank, he cannot now bring the text to mind.
The Hellknights have a proverb that may be applicable.
"If you're going through Hell, keep going".
Yes. Abramo looks through the scouting reports again - and finds some hope. The reported garrisons are strong, yes; too strong for the army he had, when he first reached the confluence of the Sellen. But, while there are many adjectives that can be applied to the demons, 'organized' is not one of them, nor is 'proactive'.
Abramo, being of the mid-twentieth century, will not think of the obvious corpspeak-is-demonic joke here; anyway it's more associated with Lawful Evil.
As he was thinking: It does not seem that these garrisons have been reinforced - and Abramo's army very much has. And moreover, the raw militia he started with have now fought in three pitched battles and half a dozen skirmishes; they are veterans now, and that matters as much as the raw numbers.
In the end it is much easier than he feared. He is no great tactician; but then neither are the demons. And in this world without radio, and with armies that can deploy entirely within a commander's sight even before accounting for the farsightedness of age, tactics are not very complex in any case. All he has to do is order his stolid veteran infantry -
A far cry from the frightened emergency conscripts who held the Defender's Heart. These are veteran units, and well-equipped ones; every man has a cold-iron blade, every company a first-circle healer, every recruit a battle-hardened corporal to stand behind him and stiffen his spine.
Kenabres Kestää!
- order them to hold the line, to dig in their heels and shout their battle cry and stand. Oh, yes, he will need a battle cry for the entire crusade; this situation of each unit having their own is - not the largest of his problems, but a problem. He wants a slogan that Hellknight and Shelynite can shout with equal enthusiasm, and equal awareness that they are part of one army. But for this moment, what he wants is for the Kenabres militia to hold, to hunker down behind their tower shields and absorb the terrible ton-weight charge of the gargoyles; and for that, "Kenabres Holds" will do very well indeed.
Indeed. And then the Hellknights can sweep around the pinned flank and charge. And then we'll see who has the better "terrible ton-weight impact".
Abramo has seen fifty-ton tanks advance at three times the speed of a galloping horse, into the teeth of fire that would shred gargoyles without noticing. Or, at least... he has seen the images of them, in flickering black-and-white, 24 frames to the second. It is not quite the same as being on the battlefield, where the charge of chivalry - hundreds of tons of horseflesh and armour - makes the ground literally shake with their passing. He had thought that was a figure of speech.
The demons did not think so; in fact they are quite used to the ground shaking, the Worldwound does that all the time. It hardly matters. Their momentum was used up in failing to break the shield wall; the Hellknights shatter them like glass struck with a hammer.
Then they will heal the wounded, bury the dead, and go marching through the Worldwound!
This happened after I posted "Marching through the Worldwound", and I was not aware of it when I started translating songs!
Pff. I bet they didn't even set a market price for bees.
Fighting enemies with air superiority is an absolute nightmare, as Abramo well knows. Venezia-oltre-il-Mare did effectively nothing, except defend the Caucasus and the Strait, before fresh supplies of modern fighters arrived from the American factories. But to fight enemies who can fly, when you have literally no air force, not so much as a flak gun improvised by turning a machinegun upwards, and your army seems unfamiliar with the entire concept... that is new to him.
Well, first things first. He cannot do without Regill, his liaison with the Hellknights; or Irabeth, who commands the paladin orders; or Galfrey, technically the head of the state fielding his army. Woljif is reported to have run into the night, which is bad if accurate, but it's also one of those wild rumours that fly around any war camp and are reported as "eyewitness accounts" by people who did not see anything of the sort; he will not accuse a comrade of such a thing until he has at least checked the obvious alternative hypothesis that they were captured by the gargoyles along with the others.
It is an error to allow the enemy to force your hand, it is an error to attack a place the enemy knows you must take... but needs must when the demons drive. The alternative is that his army breaks apart on the spot.
He will march on the Lost Chapel.
Gargoyle claws can neither melt steel beams nor hold their grip on a scientist.
Excuses like that are for the common rabble. Daeran just has straight-up plot armour, like a named character.
And also he is very bad at concealing that the treasures are in fact highly interesting, or at least revealing of something-or-other.
The Hellknights really seem to bring out the worst in the writers. When a soldier has just been captured by the enemy, escaped by immense luck, been flung into battle against a number of ghouls that would likely have converted him if the high-level protagonists hadn't happened to come by just at that moment, and is now expected to help rescue his comrades... then it is neither cowardice nor desertion for him to express the wish he'd stayed at home. If he ran off screaming into the night, sure. A little grumbling? Come now. We are not executing people for pointing out that the situation could be moderately improved. That rules out Evil and "Lawful".
On the other hand, the "Good" option is not exactly a stroke of genius either; no public executions? Abramo is not ready to commit to that policy! What's he supposed to do when people genuinely do desert? And the Chaotic option of making fun of the Hellknights - on a stricken field where they've just demonstrated immense courage and discipline! - is well into the Stupid side of the alignment spectrum.
"We'll do without executions," Abramo says unalignedly, while making a mental reservation for if he ever gets his hands on the people who write this dreck.
Sosiel will go Daeran one better - not just plot armour helping his escape, he also acquired a new subplot in the course of it! In particular, figure out where the Hellknight who escaped with him got his brother's shield.
Regill has, of course, escaped just like the rest. What is he, an NPC?
Also, the gargoyle attack was clearly an inside job. This is Regill's surprised face - oh he did that one already? Well, he's just as surprised as before.
Galfrey was, but of course, being named in that way is a powerful protection against anything actually bad happening to you.
Irabeth begs to differ; hanging by the arms while you wait to turn into a ghoul qualifies as "actually bad", in her opinion. Respectfully, y'Majesty.
Ah. There's the trap. Abramo thought this was somewhat too easy. And yes, he's aware of the irony of saying so when they've used up all their potions, most of their channels, and many of their spells.
Regill is not given to vulgarities, but will observe that it is suboptimal to be unskilled.
That would appear to be the idiomatic mongrel rendition of the substance of Regill's remark, yes.
Staunton was redeemed once; he can be redeemed again. And wasn't Regill the one who suggested that the crusaders weren't really using every means to win? Well then, how about making powerful fighters switch sides, is that a weapon we might make use of?
Regill was not commenting on his suitability for redemption, only on the apparent mismatch between his actions and his judgement of their consequences. If Staunton did not want vengeance on the crusaders, why defect? He should improve his predictions of what outcomes he will endorse in retrospect. Or as a mongrel might say, 'git gud'.
This is reminding Staunton of why he hates crusaders. And demons and Minagho and himself and Pharasma. Kill them all and let him be done.
"Of course, sweetie! Anything for you!"
Minagho waves a hand languidly at her latest minion, the ghoul-demon Nulkineth. Minagho is not going anywhere near that mythic power if she can possibly avoid it.
A tactic that relies on having suboptimal opponents who fail important saving throws. Regill hasn't been so unprofessional since he was a first-level Armiger. On the other hand, how does Nulkineth feel about this rather excellent +2 axiomatic gnome hooked hammer we found on the ghoul cleric outside?
Regill, being a Hellknight, can use the truth to mislead. Seelah is a paladin, and feels obliged to point out that the whole truth is that that hammer has also had Holy Weapon cast on it. That's in addition to Regill's Smite Chaos and Aura of the Godclaw.
Improved Abundant Casting isn't quite as much a no-brainer as Abundant Casting was, because the highest circle we've got access to is 4th; so with some difficulty:
Abramo: Mythic Potion Brewing (potions are hard to come by outside of Kenabres)
Lann: Mythic Deadly Aim (every bit of extra damage-dealing helps)
Seelah: Perfect Cavalry (yay charging through trashmobs to get the casters!)
Nenio: Improved Abundant Casting (still a no-brainer for a wizard)
Sosiel: Boundless Healing
Regill: Mythic Weapon Focus (Gnome Hooked Hammer)
Daeran: Boundless Healing
Ember: Witch Wandering Hex
Camellia: Second Spirit (Nature) (seems cool, comes with beast shape)
Woljif is among the missing-in-action after the night raid - one among many, and that matters for morale and the army's strength; but the only one Abramo knows by name and face and cynical sense of humour, which matters to Abramo even if it shouldn't. He is not quite sure whether to hope it is still "knows" rather than "knew". He has two reports of Woljif running away, and presumably deserting. He also has a strong sense of how much these people distrust tieflings, how much they're willing to interpret their actions in the worst light. After all, many people "ran" on the night of the raid, himself included; ran for cover, ran to find a weapon, ran to break contact and regroup and regain the initiative. Being seen running is not, in itself, particularly strong evidence of - anything. Failing to reappear in the morning is - rather worse; but not decisive. Perhaps he was captured, and was less lucky than the other companions about the escape. Perhaps he ran into a demon he couldn't handle by himself - perhaps parts of him are contributing to the stench that forces them to move the camp, even in this winter weather - perhaps some undisciplined demon took him somewhere other than the Lost Chapel and is even now eating his liver. Perhaps, perhaps. Why are the crusaders so quick to rush to judgement? Abramo's remains suspended. If Woljif shows up again, he'll get a chance to tell his side of it, and it may be perfectly reasonable. And if he doesn't turn up - well, he's hardly the only one.
That said, Abramo has, actually, been remiss. If Woljif did desert, he did so in defiance of an extremely informal agreement: Release from prison in exchange for enlistment - and not even in the crusade, which wasn't declared at the time, but in something on the order of "the armed retinue of Abramo Aiello, gentleman without visible means of support". It just happened that every warm body in Kenabres who could hold a spear was perforce conscripted into the fight, from the noblemen's retinues down to the street-thief gangs; and then Abramo's personal gang were smoothly folded into the staff of the Knight-Commander of the Fifth Crusade - and none of this is in any sense a contract or a code of military law, from which one could read off whether Woljif was in breach and liable to penalties. Abramo didn't even specify a fixed period of service in exchange for that release, and this only a few pages days after he'd explicitly thought "it's not good to sign contracts with open-ended obligations"! Arguably Woljif was only bound for the duration of the emergency in Kenabres, and has been marching through the Worldwound since then out of sheer personal loyalty to Abramo.
...and, of course, none of that will hold so much as a drop of water with the army, if Woljif should turn up again without a good story, and Abramo takes him back into the staff. They will see the Commander's friend given special consideration, favors handed out, corruption of the ordinary un-Abyssal sort that kills armies much more insidiously than what happened to Lann's people. And they might well be right.
He can't repair that mistake as to Woljif; but he can avoid making it going forward. He'll have a code of military law drawn up for the Fifth Crusade, with fixed terms of enlistment - he can hardly make it "for the duration" in a war that has already lasted a century! - and well-defined elements of the crimes desertion, cowardice in the face of the enemy, treason, conduct unbecoming a crusader... he had better not try to write this from memory. Besides, what worked for the Milice di Venezia in the context of a global war of steel-and-petroleum industrial Great Powers who had centuries of diplomatic history, is not necessarily suitable for a horses-and-swords crusade against literal demons with mind-control powers and no evident ability to even understand what keeping their word means. He will take a look at the local military codes.
The Order of the Godclaw has one! So do the other Hellknight orders, if he wants some differing emphases to compare and contrast.
That looks very suitable for a military order which can get arbitrary numbers of expendable gallows-bait to join, and cares very little about the percentage of them that survive to become formidable knights as long as a few do. Abramo, however, has limited numbers of both volunteers and healers, and cannot well flog to the point of infection risk for trivial infractions.
Yes, and it appears to assume that every soldier is a member of the fighting-tail of some officer with a specific vassal-relationship with the monarch, and that officers, being nobles, are effectively undisciplinable except by being sent home to their estates. With their troops, presumably. It won't do.
Mmf. It does assume conscription, which Abramo both despises and, more practically, cannot currently enforce. And it seems to take Iomedae as commander-in-chief, which Abramo cannot well rely on...
...wait Iomedae was once mortal?
Yes yes Abramo cannot well be reading the allegedly-holy texts of every local cult he might encounter, you know! Technically he has a religious obligation to study the Torah and that's rather a lot of text already, which he can't even read because he doesn't have a copy!
...this changes everything.
If mortals can become "gods", it follows that whatever the local "gods" are, they're not at all the same sort of thing that the Name is. And then it's clearly permitted to do business with them, to accept aid from them, to deal with them as one might with any other powerful entity. That is to say, with circumspection and care, so as not to be exploited or swindled or mind-controlled. But - if they are not gods, in the sense of the First Commandment and with no scare-quotes, then they cannot well be false idols either; in effect they are just - Great Powers, to be fought or traded with or appeased or allied with as strategy and goals dictate, but which do not put Abramo in any danger of putting them before the Name.
And in that case, he is free to call upon Iomedae far more than he has been doing.
And speaking of Other entities, we will do Daeran's birthday party and learn some interesting facts about his backstory, but nothing of immediate tactical relevance. It does seem there are multiple powerful forces moving in the background here, though.
He walks through the chapel tent, considering the gods. Iomedae, once mortal; well and good, he can ally with a mortal who has gained great power. Erastil, though - "god" of hunting and farming, families and communities; Torag, likewise "god" of craft and kin. They are not said to have been mortal. Cayden Cailean, who was, is not represented here, although it is a chapel of the Good gods. Neither is Norgorber, though from what Abramo hears that is a more understandable omission.
(Did Woljif venerate Norgorber? Abramo never heard the man speak of the "gods", except to complain about Iomedae's paladins.)
'Understandable', why? Norgorber is as Good as any of them! In that He's never been caught doing anything bad. At least not so's anyone has proved it in court! Unlike that thieving rascal Cayden.
He wishes - and is aware of the irony - that he had studied more theology. For some reason he thought it an impractical and unworldly study, better suited to academics and Christians than to practical statesmen and merchants.
Desna, "freedom, travel, dreams". Sarenrae; "healing, light, redemption". Not among the once-mortal gods. What does it mean, to be goddess of redemption? (Would Abramo be accidentally serving her, if he pardoned Woljif? What of Staunton, who was seemingly redeemed once already, and rejected it?)
Sosiel's goddess is not represented. Nor Abramo's employer.
Asmodeus isn't represented either. Curious, that - the Hellknights are clearly the most effective unit, as measured in combat power per GP of supply cost, in the crusade.
Asmodeus (*) is not among the once-mortal either. And - "tyranny, slavery, pride, contracts". Only contracts are at all reasonable, as a thing one might want; and Abramo has seen a few example ones, in the histories he's been reading. (Yes, there's a war to run; but to do so, he desperately needs to understand the geopolitics he's operating in - and it seems that starting with the mortal countries of Golarion might have been a mistake. They are not the real Great Powers of this conflict.) A merchant who tried the sort of cheese-paring, nitpicking, letter-of-the-law approach that Asmodeus is apparently famous for would shortly be laughed out of court, and more to the point, would soon have such a reputation that nobody would sign any further agreements with him. The purpose of keeping your word is... to have a word to keep, so that it's possible to make agreements that last beyond the moment the parties are out of sight of each other! Not to... he's not even sure what Asmodeus accomplishes, with these "contracts" that he apparently prides himself on "keeping" to the "letter".
He thinks of the prohibition on boiling a kid in its mother's milk, and of the vast superstructure of kashrut that his people erected on the top of that seemingly-trivial task. A "fence around the Law", an absolute refusal to tread into zones of mere uncertainty about whether one might accidentally breach. Asmodeus would, evidently, do nothing of the sort. And - there's the problem. Former mortals are one thing, but he's just not quite sure about the others. Including, of course, Abadar, his employer.
(*) Obviously this is not the literal sound of the name in Taldane, but rather a translation convention; Abramo does not hear any resemblance to the demon-king of the book of Tobit, any more than 'lilitu' reminds him of Lilith.
He is reasonably convinced he has not broken the Law; but... he may have climbed one or two of the fences around it.
Well. If so... after all, the fences are there to avoid carelessly breaking the Law; they are not, themselves, the Law.
And there is a war on, against an enemy that kills indiscriminately and, worse, sends locusts into fertile farmlands. (Abramo resolutely avoids thinking too deeply about the eighth plague inflicted on Egypt. Anyway, the Pharaoh of Exodus was probably possessed by the Jackal.) One may break kashrut to save a life. He will apply the same principle here.
Enough theology, then. He will consider Iomedae as a human ally; he will continue his employment contract with Abadar, and carefully not step over the line into worship; as for the other gods... he will tread carefully.
Formidable demons, considered individually. Abramo still would not care to fight a Babau by himself, without the support of his companions. But as against an army, a large number of mortals working together under discipline...
That is, indeed, another purpose of Law: It creates formidable armies from individually-weak units.
Well, in principle... but not under Deskari. Iomedae did say 'Lawful', not 'Locustful'. However much difficulty Deskari might have with hearing the difference.
The way to Drezen lies open, and we'll add another verse to the song!
So we made a thorough job of vrocks and dretches slain!
Six long miles in latitude, and sixty leagues of gain!
Demons fled before us, for their locusts swarmed in vain!
As we went marching through the Worldwound!
Hurrah, hurrah...
Irabeth's episode of PTSD is... I mean; hanging from a hook in a literally ghoulish dungeon, waiting to be turned into a cannibalistic monster that hates everything you stand for? Abramo understands where she's coming from! And yet nonetheless, she remains a formidable fighter and we need that. The army of an industrial Great Power could afford to assign her to some safe rear-echelon job where she could continue to do useful work; such an army, of course, depends very little on the ability of its officers to personally slay demons. This army will just have to... patch her up, as much as possible, and send her into battle again until she breaks, or the war is over.
We will infiltrate through the dungeons, as Nurah suggests. But before that we'll level up.
Abramo gets level 8 of cleric, it has the domain powers.
Daeran takes level 8 of Oracle and can now cast Dismissal.
Lann will multiclass into Ranger and become a Demonslayer! It seems cool and also Lann is our main DPS, so a bonus against demons should be useful. And a point of STR, that also goes into damage.
Seelah is the paladinest paladin that ever paladined, and gets the 8th level of that accordingly. It has the anti-charm aura. And a point into Splendor.
Nenio remains a wizard, thanks; that's as close as Golarion gets to her true class of Scientist. And a point into Cunning, which with the Kitsune racial bonus, the headband, and completely dumping Strength brings her to 24. As for new spells, Mass Enlarge Person seems awesome; and sure, Rainbow Pattern for battlefield control.
Regill: The game recommends Armiger 7 over Hellknight 2, possibly for the second level of armour training? Fine, fine. And a point to STR. Also I will invest in his Lore (Religion) skill in the hope that he'll learn some interesting facts about Hell.
Sosiel: Same as Abramo, cleric 8 has a domain ability which looks useful, Holy Lance. Point to WIS.
Camellia: Shaman 8 has an extra hex and an extra Bane, so sure. Point to WIS, yeah. A munificent two skill points? Trickery and Nature then, we lost Woljif and she's the next-best lockpicker. Slumber for the hex, because Will-save-or-die abilities are awesome.
And finally Ember, Witch 8, point of Splendour, Protective Luck for the hex, Phantasmal Killer for the spell because, again, Will-save-or-die spells are Good Actually. Although it does go really oddly with Ember's trope.
Will-save-or-die spells are Good
This appears to be a misconception.
Seelah is the paladinest paladin that ever paladined
This appears to be a misconception.
the hope that he'll learn some interesting facts about Hell
This appears to be a misconception.
Nurah turns out to be the traitor, and leads us into an ambush by the Prophet of Baphomet - the Prophomet? - who is a huge fiendish minotaur.
This is Regill's - no actually that is in fact surprising. If it weren't surprising Regill would already have accused the frivolous halfling of treason.
There is also a half-fiendish furious minotaur, two Babau one of whom is a caster, and a cultist who is apparently pretty good with a crossbow.
Between spell resistance and good Will and Fortitude saves, a Phantasmal Killer has about a one-in-eight chance of Just Killing that fiendish minotaur. That's pretty good, actually. Twelve-and-a-half-percent chance of dropping a powerful enemy in its tracks? Worth a shot.
(Glances up from the latest Report from Otolmens) Oh, another one? Put it in the pile over there, I'll sort them later.
Regill is aware that some people believe 1d6 is a bad damage die; that you really want 1d8 or even 1d10. Those people evidently have not considered how modifiers work. In particular, we have:
Strength: +2
Prayer: +1
Enhancement: +2
Weapon Specialization: +2
Weapon Training: +1
Unrelenting Assault: +4
Piranha Strike: +6
Smite Chaos: +2
oh and also an additional 2d6 Holy damage from using this named axiomatic weapon on a chaotic creature. Once you're up to 1dN+20, the value of N is not all that relevant. Indeed he can roll a 1 with perfect equanimity.
Heal.
Hah! Back to full hit points! How's fighting a Cleric 12/Monstrous Humanoid 6 working out for you lot?
Shrug. Regill notes that this move concedes all initiative to the opponent; the equivalent of retreating one's improvidently-advanced queen back behind the starting pawn line. Hit points are only one resource; tempo is more important.
So that'll be a Strength/Smite/Strike/etc Full Attack, then.
Well, fu -
Oi! What's the use of handing out DR10/Adamantine if you're just going to give the crusaders' Smites the ability to bypass Damage Resistance?
The petitioner is once again reminded that this court does not have jurisdiction over bug reports and especially not over alleged "balance issues". This court is, in fact, getting a bit tired of petitioners arguing about "balance". The only balance that applies are those between Good and Evil, and between Law and Chaos.
After the fight, how do they feel about meeting the informant who sent them the warning about the attack on Kenabres?
Oh come now. A pretty lady chained up in the dungeons? Who doesn't even try to hide that she's a succubus? That's the oldest trope in the Player's Adventurer's Handbook!
Abramo is not familiar with that work, or that trope. In general he feels that people stored in an enemy's dungeons are probably there for a reason, and can at least provisionally be classified as enemies-of-the-enemy. Especially when he does in fact recognise the voice. He's rather curious about why the demons would choose to lock someone up, though, as opposed to tearing them limb from limb in a spectacular public execution. That seems more their usual mode.
Look Arueshalae has read the Handbook too. How about she doesn't offer to show them a secret way into the enemy headquarters, or suchlike, but just asks to be let out of the cell and go away?
Truthfully, he has absorbed rather a lot of the local anti-demon prejudice in the past few weeks; they do, actually, seem like an untrustworthy, backstabbing bunch. But, to be fair, if one of them is reliably backstabbing its own kind, well; enemy of my enemy, and all that. And besides, they did just take down two fiendish minotaurs in fairly short order; a single demon ought not to be an immense threat even if it attacks them upon being let out. Actually, now he thinks about it, to the extent that a succubus is a threat, it's not particularly one that depends on being out of the cell; the mind-control magic works just fine on anyone it can talk to.
And they still have Protection From Evil up, and he doesn't actually feel particularly compelled to listen to her words...
Oh, very well. He took a chance on Woljif; he'll take a chance on this one. It is the nature of correct judgement that it must remain suspended until the data is in; and sometimes you have to take a risk, to gather that data.
Indeed! That's how you do science! But we really ought to find another succubus prisoner to be the control group. Or better still, how about that halfling over there?
Hmm. What does it indicate when the control group shows the expected behaviour, and the intervention group doesn't?
The assault on Drezen is very bad.
Abramo has not been impressed with demon armies in the open field. Individual strength and resilience do not actually do much to make up for the formidable push of cold-iron pikeheads thrust forwards by disciplined men in well-ordered ranks. In the warren of garbage-choked alleys and decaying houses that is Drezen seven decades into the occupation, it is a very different matter. In these close quarters every Dretch is a gas barrage that stops infantry attack cold; every Brimorak a mortar battery zeroed in on a crossroads, and making it impassable to unarmoured men. And as for the greater demons, the Vrock and Derakni whose droning screech can render a platoon helpless... they are not invincible, if you can just get at them from more than one direction! In the open field, with squads and platoons free to advance where the greater demon isn't and expose a flank, the Crusade can defeat them readily enough. But in a narrow street that limits them to frontal attack, from behind an improvised barricade of torn-down houses and dead horses and less wholesome things, a Vrock can stand its ground for hours on end, and heap up enough corpses to make a second, ghastlier barricade.
Abramo knows what house-to-house fighting can do to an army; there was Cairo, and the three-year siege of Constantinople, and even to the very end the Danes held Viipuri against all the power of the Imperial Japanese Army. And that was in a symmetrical conflict, both sides wielding the same weapons, where the attacker could at need manhandle a six-pounder gun into sight of a stronghold and blast it over open sights! And even so, every city that could not be bypassed shattered regiments and divisions; individual factories and neighborhoods became famous fortresses in their own right, whose defenses passed immediately into myth with Thermopylae and Masada; whose fall had the same electrifying effect as the sinking of a dreadnought, or the death of a renowned general. Abramo cannot afford for that to happen here; the war is just too small. In the terms of his own world, his entire army is three understrength regiments - he cannot well call it a division, for he has neither artillery nor a transport pool! - and he cannot expend a single one of them taking any of Drezen's strong points. There are no waiting millions to conscript into these ranks, if he carelessly spends their lives in bloody head-on attacks.
There is no artillery, no tanks, no sky-blackening thousands of bombers to lay a resisting city flat and break the hearts of its defenders. Abramo uses what he has: His tiny special-operations strike force, backed by his own magic. Regill and Seelah can take down a Vrock, darting through the skull-shattering screech that kills ordinary infantry to slash at the flanks after Lann's arrows strip away the blurring-dancing-shimmering Mirror Images, in spite of the splitting headaches that looking at them for more than a few seconds causes. The Brimoraks are not so formidable as all that against Sosiel's Mass Protection From Fire. The Dretches remain a nuisance - no man has understood the horror of chemical weapons, who has not seen an Enlarged paladin reduced to helpless Enlarged Vomiting all over a narrow alley - but exposure has built some tolerance, and usually only one or two of the companions are affected now. It can be done, they are doing it.
...at a price. The city is full of chokepoints, which become literally choking points when the Dretches do their work. The strike team is immensely deadly against any one of them, when prepared with a full load of spells; but they cannot take the time to so prepare against every barricade, every crossroads, every house full of cultist archers led by a Brimorak. They must take the city quickly, before the enemy can mobilise the still-greater demons deeper into the Worldwound.
They ration their spells, carefully; to use too few is a false economy, for then they need healing which is still more limited. They run low on scrolls, then on potions.
They've cleared the outer city and are attacking the inner walls when it happens. The fortifications of Drezen have decayed for seventy years, and the demons are too disorganised to put them in even a rushed semblance of a state of defense; otherwise the thing would not be possible at all. But the inner fortress retains two gigantic constructs in working order, rattling spider-contraptions of wood and metal that run nimbly up and down the crumbling walls firing deadly rays from their many eyes.
One of them hits Nenio.
It's rather an interesting experience, actually, turning to stone! Nenio would quite like to observe it further!
...in fact, there are many things Nenio would have liked to observe further.
Flesh to Stone, unfortunately, will prevent the petitioner from observing even the workings of Pharasma's court, the one miracle usually granted to every mortal.
That's the least of the problems with this, and also, if Pharasma dislikes Flesh to Stone so much she might have designed a Creation without it. And without undead, likewise. In fact, has Pharasma considered that Iomedae would do a much better job?
...yes yes that's rhetorical. Returning to the Worldwound... Iomedae cannot actually justify intervening here. Not for such a slim chance of the large gain that would be the closing of the Wound. She is desperately stanching too many near-certainties of disaster, to take a very long shot at that victory. But oh, how She longs to. She is not goddess of triage, originally; She is goddess of victory over evil.
However... Iomedae is not the only god with interests at stake; and there are those who have their hands less full than she, and positively enjoy small chances of high rewards.
Hey, Nethys, have you noticed?
Nethys, who sees all things, had indeed noticed one of His followers get Flesh-to-Stoned; unfortunate, but these things will happen. Nethys is not a god of safety. But - Iomedae rarely wastes Nethys's time. It might be worth a little more of His attention. To see is not the same as to understand.
And Nethys, who sees all things, sees how the battle will unfold without His follower's magic. Sees the construct fall, too late, to Regill's smashing hammer-blow; sees the gate fall to the ram in spite of the Vrocks that swoop down on the bearers. Sees the party, down a member and limping from the desperate struggle against the balor, enter the dungeons that whisper madness at every corner. Sees them struggle with minotaurs through the mind-twisting corridors, expend their channels against wave after wave of ghouls from the vast stinking flesh-pit. Sees their progress slowed so the Abyssal corruption has time to work; sees Dismissals fail for lack of focused will, and demons left free to rend flesh and bone. Sees them arrive wounded and exhausted to the confrontation with Minagho; sees her nervous desperation turn to shrieks of hysterical triumph when Staunton's hammer-blows finally bring even Seelah to her knees, and Abramo is left without healing to keep her in the fight. Sees, at last, the mythic hero fall, and all the shining bright hope of the Fifth Crusade sputter and fail.
And what is that to me? What do I care for the Fifth Crusade, or the closing of the Worldwound? The demons use magic just the same as the mortals; more so, if anything. And the Wound itself is a great achievement of my art, and Areelu Vorilesh one of my most cherished worshippers.
Quite so. Iomedae knows full well that Nethys cares for nothing that She cares for, and asks for nothing in that respect; nothing that She would have to buy. But even Nethys has been known to aid His followers, if they have great potential cut short by ill luck; and as for the Worldwound, how great an achievement would its closing be? Nethys is well known to be indifferent between great works, and great explosions.
...And Nethys may call Iomedae a fool, if He wishes; indeed He often has. But if Iomedae had a worshipper with mythic ranks, and all their future achievements were reduced to dumb rocks by a mindless construct... She would not sit and ask, "what is that to me".
And Nethys, who sees all things but does not always understand them, looks yet again at the battle; and this time His fragment sees what Iomedae does. Mythic power, indeed; as yet very little of it, but - the potential is there, for works and explosions that will satisfy even Nethys's shattered soul. And, after all, the intervention needed is so tiny; a matter merely of
...nudging...
...this swirling coil of unsettled magic, twisting chaotically in the maelstrom of duelling spells...
...so that the ray hits Nenio at the slightest angle...
...and she makes her Fort save.
It is still quite an interesting experience, having one's Flesh very nearly turned to Stone! Nenio is glad to have experienced it! And also to be able to experience other interesting things, such as casting Phantasmal Killer on that wretched acolyte.
...and is that a Balor?! Truly, there is nothing better than being alive; what could a statue possibly experience, that would be one-half so interesting, nay one-tenth so interesting, as feeling its Unholy Aura ripping at one's very sanity?
Quite so; the kitsune has the spirit to go with the mythic ranks. Nethys will... continue to see this one, as He sees all things; but now He will be paying attention.
It would be amazing how much easier everything is, when Nenio is there to back them up with Haste, Grease, and Phantasmal Killer; except that Abramo, of course, has never experienced the Nenio-less counterfactual and thus has no reason to think of his one and only real life as "easier". To him, the monstrous Balor appears quite deadly as it is, and he is drastically relieved when Greybor jumps in with the teleporting dagger. He shivers at the close call when the ghouls paralyze him, and does not at all stop to think how much worse it would be if both he and Sosiel went down under a wave of filthy cannibal claws until armour-clad Regill and Seelah could finally hammer and slash their way through the horde. He winces when Nenio's Phantasmal Killer fizzles in her tired paws and he has to Dimension-Step away from the enormous minotaur's frenzied charge, for he doesn't know how much worse it would be if her Grease hadn't neutralised the archers right behind the beast.
He is tired, when he finally unrolls the Sword of Valor over the courtyard and the troops cheer their throats hoarse, but he is not reeling on his feet from Abyssal corruption and the unending stench of ghouls and demons and blood, blood, blood. Which is just as well, as he needs his wits about him to speak to Areelu Vorlesh.
Eh, it wouldn't matter that much, actually. Areelu is sufficiently enhanced that the difference between INT 9 and INT 18 is much of a muchness to her; she's already dumbing down her dialogue about as much as is feasible, just to be intelligible to a baseline human. Anyway: Mysterious hints about the purpose of the Worldwound and whether Areelu is entirely on the demons' side, quantity half a dozen, serve well stirred with a pinch of salt. You're welcome.
Mythic rank 3!
It looks like my options are Angel and Demon, which is a little disappointing as I was looking to do Legend, but ok. Angel it is.
Abramo: Ascendant Summons - summons have been very weak against demons but if they can ignore damage resistance then everything changes!
Lann: Cleaving Shot because area-effect damage is awesome and he is frequently the killshot.
Seelah: Mythical Beast because Irony is an awesome horse and it would be nice if he could actually contribute in combat against demons. Probably not very optimal tbh.
Nenio: Ascendant Element (Fire), which is a little boring and also Nenio does more battlefield control than direct damage, but I'm just not that impressed by the other mythic feats available to a wizard.
Regill: Hmm... I'm torn between Magic Nullification which seems thematic, Thundering Blows because area-effect damage is awesome and I hate when Regill misses anything, and Last Stand which also seems appropriate for the iron-willed Hellknight who will not die until he has finished the mission. Unstoppable fits too, but there are just not that many paralyzing, nauseating, or frightening threats that Regill doesn't have a pretty good save against. In the end I come down on Magic Nullification because I like the image of Regill just no-selling any magic that would interfere with getting things done.
Sosiel: Domain Zealot because his "Luck" domain abilities are really rather good and having them as standard actions is the main limiting factor; moving that up to swift actions will be surprisingly powerful, I think.
Daeran, Ember, and Camellia: Improved Abundant Casting remains a no-brainer for primary casters, sadly.
And after a quick detour to zap a vampire, level 9!
Abramo: Cleric 9, and fifth-circle spells, ha. Feat is Spell Penetration because spell resistance is really annoying.
Lann: Demonslayer Ranger 2, because the Combat Style looks cooler than the remaining Ki powers. Improved Critical (Longbow) because a Lann critical often ends even a tough fight. Combat style is obviously Archery and first feat is Toughness, although I don't understand why Rapid Shot is disrecommended.
Seelah: Paladin 9, of course. Improved Critical (Longsword), same reasoning as Lann. Exhausted for the Mercy because that's really crippling when gotten from an enemy spell and I super need a counter for it; ask me how I know.
Nenio: Wizard 9, lest Nethys be pissed. And Deft Hands for the feat, along with putting all the skill points into Trickery, because I really need to replace Woljif for locks.
Irony: Endurance because I'm leaning into Irony being tough as nails - his horseshoes have to be attached using adamantium or mithril - and also he's my go-to for Athletics checks which is otherwise a weakness of the party.
Regill: I don't understand why the game keeps recommending Armiger over Hellknight? Perhaps it's because the lower levels of Hellknight don't have that much Cool Stuff, but then, they are prerequisites for getting to the Cool Stuff, so... Ok, fine, I'll take Armiger 8 and the bonus combat feat. Which is Improved Critical (Gnome Hooked Hammer), and then Critical Focus because why not stack bonus on top of bonus?
Sosiel: Another Cleric 9. Feat is Spell Penetration because Dismissal is really powerful against demons.
Daeran: Oracle 9, why not. Spell Penetration.
Ember: Witch 9, Greater Spell Penetration.
Camellia: Shaman 9, Elven Spirit.
He still needs a battle cry, something to unite the army - a motto, a slogan. The local "gods", whatever their nature, cannot help here; there are too many of them - he cannot well offend the Hellknights, his only source of good heavy cavalry, by choosing a motto from Iomedae, and he equally cannot offend the paladins and anyone who has any sort of sense and, frankly, himself by choosing one from Asmodeus, and any other god has similar problems.
...actually that might not be true of Abadar, but with Rathimus gone and Dyra back in Kenabres he's probably the only one who would find "Gains From Trade" to be inspiring?
He does not consider "Praise God and Costco", but only because that would break the fourth wall, and Abramo is very respectful of other people's property. Someone put time and effort into building that wall!
Well, he can put off the problem for a little longer; to confront Minagho and Staunton in the citadel doesn't need the whole army, or anything more complex than "I will accept your unconditional surrender". He doesn't even need to say anything about moving immediately on their works since he'd be saying it in the middle of their works and it would be rather redundant.
Staunton is not in the mood to surrender. Look, he's not saying he made no mistakes. He just... doesn't have it in him any more. He can't fight for people who despise him for a traitor any more, that's the grim bedrock fact; whether he actually is a traitor - and he still holds that he wasn't until very recently - is beside the point. Here he stands and can do no other; and... any god that will help him, is a god whose help he doesn't want.
That's... yeah. Abramo doesn't see any trade they can make now, and he is the man who once offered a trade to the literal mind-controlling alien who had caused the Eurasian War and its fifty million deaths. But to be fair, the Jackal for all its crimes had never, actually, broken its given word.
Mostly because it would never have occurred to it that "subhumans" were the sort of things you might give your word to; but still. You have to start somewhere.
Then we can have some Heavily Offscreen-Buffed Smite Evils, and be done surprisingly quickly actually. His brother put up a much better fight and he didn't even have a high-level demon backing him up.
Ok so Minagho can sort of see how the story goes here, right? She's prevented from fleeing by teleport, so she stays in place for darling Staunton's really quite manly threats - that armored fist on her silky-smooth throat is practically Abyssal, it makes her feel right at home - and then she discovers that actually it wasn't really the threats, after all the poor dear is still only twelfth level and couldn't actually crush her like a bug if she defied him, no she genuinely loves him and the sight of him on his knees and bleeding brings out her hidden reserves of resourcefulness and she wins the fight and his love? Right? That's the clearly-foreshadowed script for Minagho, the only person here with Obvious Protagonist Energy, right?
Because if that's the case then she guesses she kinda-sorta appreciates the thought, but actually she is a faithless Abyssal demon who wouldn't have risen this high if she wasn't capable of betraying people she genuinely loves at the drop of a +3 adamantine glaive. That's a pretty significant thing about her. Like she understands where they're coming from here but she very much does not take any sort of genuine risk in a fight, not even in the single-digit percents, that's not how you get to survive a millennium in the Abyss.
And hey, is that a nice big picture window with a mere 6d6 of falling damage to get her away from the mythic-rank adventurers? She'll take it, kthxbyeeeee!
If Joran Vhane wanted to live, he evidently chose the wrong sibling for his loyalty-unto-death; not to mention the obvious flaws in his tactics. Admittedly the man had made himself a very capable defensive build, but imagine trying to fight by himself right in front of his Abyssal forge, with no DPS to complement his, again, very good tanking! Or any way to call for backup from the many allied forces nearby - or better still join forces with Minagho temporarily, proportional-to-N-square and all that! Really now, this is just nontrivially suboptimal and also why the forces of Hell will eventually win. Lawful Evil may have some flaws but at least it can manage to concentrate forces with those it has interests in common with, even if it despises them utterly.
But actually, Regill thinks Staunton's "he wanted to live" is doing Joran Vhane an injustice; certainly Vhane wanted to live, but he also had a principle that he valued even more highly, which he followed to its logical conclusion. Regill respects that. Unlike Joran's worthless brother. Not, of course, that respect meant so much as a centiround's hesitation before hooked hammer crushed skull, when they finally wore him down enough for the killing blow. That would be unprofessional. But it does mean that Regill takes some personal satisfaction in doing the same to the worthless brother.
Um this is all very interesting but Nurah does kind of want to live? Can she get some of that "unconditional surrender" she heard about earlier?
Sigh. It is not actually very obvious that demons are meaningfully able to surrender as Abramo's laws of war understood the term - but Nurah isn't a demon even if she does show up Chaotic Neutral to Aura Sight, and many of the enemy are perfectly ordinary human cultists who are maybe not strikingly Lawful but can follow a basic incentive gradient. Nurah isn't entitled to the protections of a uniformed combatant, of course - well, they don't use uniforms here, but she was just blatantly gathering information on his side of the front under false pretenses, not to mention the sabotage.
Yes, yes. He listens to her ranting for a moment, but - she is not actually a sufficiently established character that this sets up any sort of conflict, nor does she have Woljif's roguish charm. (Not that Woljif's wink-and-grin, watch-me-perform-tiefling routine would have done him any good if he'd called in demons on Abramo's location.) He has nonzero sympathy for people born into slavery into Cheliax, which sounds more like a hellhole the more he hears about it, and nonzero (large, negative) sympathy for former slaves who decide to take vengeance on the world at large and don't even have the guts to do so openly. The actual question is, what if any obligations does he still have to her under the laws of war? Is he even required to accept her surrender? She's plainly no sort of lawful combatant, he definitely doesn't have to feed the bitch her, but what does he have to do?
The words "Regill, kill her" tremble on his lips for a moment... but no, he remembers. She's still entitled to a trial before being hanged. Fair enough; they can arrange a court martial tomorrow. Given the evidence it should not take very long.
It turns out there's a lot of Crusade business to go through, now that he's proven he can command - and that Galfrey and the Mendevian establishment were perhaps not quite so gung-ho about handing over their real resources to random people who appear out of nowhere as it might at first have appeared. Well, good for them! Abramo knows how to fight this sort of war: Set policy, make sure the people implementing it understand and believe in it, distribute resources according to the priorities, check that nobody is mind-controlled by the enemy and also that the people checking that have themselves been checked... It's a little odd, actually, that he's fought two wars where that was important. His teachers spoke of morale and propaganda and the home front, of course, when he was young; but actual literal mind control somehow didn't make it onto the curriculum of a Venetian gentilhuomo. But no matter, after all the main thing they were supposed to teach him was to land on his feet and be ready for anything, and fight the war he found himself in and no other.
...and he's stalling, isn't he. Well then. Court martial.
The case for the prosecution is very simple: The accused did, by her own admission, plant pheromone-scented objects on the strike force attacking the Leper's Smile, in order to attract additional swarms and hinder that force in accomplishing its mission; and additionally she did, after representing herself as an ally, take up arms and fight openly in the demons' ranks during the assault on Drezen. Both offenses merit death.
Sigh.
The case for the defense is... mercy. Redemption, if you like. The defense stipulates the facts presented by the prosecution. But... everyone makes mistakes. Everyone needs mercy at some point. Everyone deserves a fate better than the Abyss - where, by the by, a high-level caster like Nurah will surely turn into a powerful demon to fight on the enemy's side. Nobody wants that, right? So, let her work her passage. Find her guilty, remand her to the care of the church of Shelyn, let her redeem herself with good works. Somewhere far away from the Worldwound. And when she comes before the Judge she might make Elysium, and be a force for beauty and art for thousands of years to come. She has talent; let us not destroy it, let us put it to use.
Hey is my actual literal lawyer going to talk about the fact that I was literally a slave and did everything to take vengeance for that? Or does 'Lawful' just mean that you never have to take motivations into account?
Sosiel rubs his face tiredly.
"Yes well... and additionally the defendant had, in fact, been rather considerably wronged by some of the parties to the Worldwound defense." He carefully does not look at Regill. "None of which justifies her actions, but - may add some weight to her plea for the mercy of the court."
But, actually, Good is not the same thing as too fucking nice to ever defend oneself against people who, apparently, think that the Crusade is responsible for things Cheliax did, or who don't care who did it just as long as they get to kill someone.
Yeah, no.
Woljif was accused of petty theft, and Abramo was willing to conscript him for the war effort which is, arguably, some percentage of a death penalty although sitting in a cell waiting for the demons to break in was not exactly conducive to Woljif's most sapiently-flourishing life either. But... petty theft. This here is sabotage, espionage, probably not strictly speaking treason but only because Nurah never swore any formal oaths about the Crusade; war crimes. Not Staunton's ambiguous was-it-or-wasn't-it mistake with raising the banner against orders, not that "mercy" worked out that great for Staunton; just straightforwardly fighting for the other side while out of uniform and pretending friendship. It's not a case in which the Law as Abramo understands it allows any clemency.
"Death," he agrees softly, avoiding the impulse to look away from Nurah because if he's willing to kill her he should be willing to look her in the eyes as he does. He's not under the illusion that accepting her surrender was doing her any sort of favour, or that there's anything he can do for her now, but what he can do is to keep in mind that she's still human, however awful, and that might help the next person accused of something like this. The Law, in its majestic equality, hangs subject and object alike but judges ought to keep in mind that they are not the same. If only for their own humanity.
Nurah does not go with dignity; she's terrified and doesn't mind who knows it. She thought surrendering to the Good side would, like, work! She cries, screams, begs, and occasionally rants about coming back as a powerful demon and eating them all because a high Splendor isn't the same as having any sense of which forceful statements have even a small chance of advancing her goals.
Mendev doesn't do long-drop hangings and a halfling has a much higher head-to-body ratio than a human; it takes a long time for the noose to choke her enough that she finally goes still.
It shouldn't bother him, just because he knows her face and has spoken to her quite civilly. He's ordered any number of faceless soldiers to deaths just as bad and he doesn't even know about them, and they hadn't even betrayed the Crusade and the cause of civilisation on Golarion.
Nonetheless he has little appetite for dinner.
Speak of the tiefling, and he appears!
In charge of a band of cultists, no less, though he does manage to restrain them from attacking Abramo.
Right, well. As previously mentioned, Abramo is willing to hear his side of it. He's not the sort of Lawful that goes about shooting people on the basis of hearsay and eyewitness accounts from a confused night ambush; that way madness lies. Or Hulrun, which is much of a muchness. On the other hand he did just hang someone for sabotage, so he's not promising to be particularly merciful, as such. Just... a hearing.
Can't say fairer than that, guv. Not to a tiefling who's never gotten a fair shake, anyway.
Honestly, it could be worse. Yes, a zealous prosecutor could lay a charge of cowardice in the face of the enemy, for running in the night battle - but Abramo is not convinced he would convict. It is not as though Woljif was ordered by a superior officer to attack, and refused to do so; or ordered to hold a position, and ran from it. No, he was cut off from the chain of command, made his own tactical decisions as the man on the spot, and (all right, this is a little charitable) arrived at "break contact to reestablish situational awareness and gather force for a counterattack". It need not be the ideal, staff-college answer, to be a perfectly reasonable response to the situation as he found it; and - man on the spot. One ought not to second-guess one's subordinates, when not in direct tactical command of them.
As for being captured by the enemy, why, half the army is guilty of that; if that were a crime, he'd have to put Galfrey in the dock, and Irabeth next to her. It's true that many of the others managed to escape in fairly short order, but although it is a duty to attempt escape, one cannot well require people to win. And in any case Woljif appears to have quite successfully infiltrated the enemy organisation and neutralised them for some time. If the demons hang him for a saboteur and spy that will be well within their rights, but Abramo's not going to do their work for them! And he's brought back valuable intelligence, too. Abramo's not proposing to give the man a medal, but - well, in all honesty, men have been mentioned in dispatches for rather less fraught infiltrations.
He does take a moment to consider the looks of the thing; he's aware that he's not entirely immune to Woljif's roguish charm, and needs to be careful not to show favoritism. But really - if Woljif has spent some time undercover, infiltrating enemy cultists, that seems perfectly reasonable? Nobody will think twice about the tiefling rogue doing such work while the Hellknight and the paladin fight in the front line, or think that Woljif's neck wasn't at risk. It's not even necessary to give the impression that Woljif had been ordered to infiltrate anyone; "captured in the night ambush" and "escaped by his own talents" are perfectly true statements.
Incidentally Abramo does wish to register another complaint about the dialogue options again; he does not think it is particularly Lawful to state that nobles have privileges and Woljif should be grateful that Devan addressed him politely. If we're doing that sort of thing then the Lawful approach is that power has privileges and Devan can be grateful that Woljif didn't gut him, thanks kindly. And also the actually Lawful thing is to be polite to everyone because that way you are acausally trading with everyone else who follows the same approach that's the mutual-cooperation equilibrium and gets you more expected politeness in return across your lifetime. It's obvious if you understand decision theory had a gentleman's education in a polity with, like, actual gentlemen.
Also the ridiculous things the devs call Good and Lawful as regards Woljif's mythic powers - look, if Abramo were going to advise anyone to give up unusual powers of uncertain provenance because he was unclear about the spiritual consequences of accepting them, he'd start with the beam in his own eye. Since he's not doing that - well then, he'll take the "Evil" option of advising Woljif to keep the powers, and choose carefully what to do with them. He needs to stay out of the Lawful "Good" region anyway, Abadar is one thing but he doesn't trust Iomedae to keep Her divine hands off his prior obligations. Abadar understands contracts.
The months turn, as they do. Abramo, child of sunny Italy and owner of many vineyards and olive groves, had been under the impression that the weather when he arrived had to be the depth of winter, and is displeased to learn otherwise. As he was removed from his timeline before nuclear weapons could freeze Great Power competition into a Cold War, he does not particularly have that concept close to mind, nor does it occur to him to call anything a "frozen conflict". But it's only the accident of timing that stands between him and these jokes.
The informant who told them of the attack on Drezen has more information for them, regarding the strangely powerful demons that occasionally attack patrols. But they need to interrogate this old hag, who lives in such-and-such a location. And prevent her from teleporting out, by ringing this bell.
Fair enough, the succubus's information has been good in the past, and she kept their agreement that one time in the dungeon below Drezen. Abramo doesn't precisely trust her, but he's willing to follow that lead - eyes open and Protection From Evil raised, of course.
Dismissal is currently very effective against these midlevel demons.
Then they will eventually reach the hag, take her down fairly easily - she'd be much more formidable with some minions to tank for her - and... ah, um.
Well yes technically Arueshale may not have been telling the exact truth when she said the hag knew about the powerful demons. But since she was hunting Arueshalae, and closing in on her too - then if Abramo wanted that information, he did in fact need to fight the hag. So it wasn't quite a lie, either.
That is... not really a great way for would-be allies to deal with each other. But. After all, no formal contracts had been signed, no agreements made. Arueshalae offered information which Abramo wanted, and told him how to get it, and behold, he did what she suggested and now he has the information. (She didn't even mislead him about the risk involved - she did say there would be a fight.) It is not quite a trade; but - he did come out of the transaction better off. He'll allow it... once. If Arueshalae has any desire to work with the Crusade in the future, she will kindly deal honestly and openly with them, and offer all the relevant information and state upfront what quids she desires pro quo.
That's... not easy for a demon. It becomes a habit, after the first couple of centuries, to deal in deception and manipulation whether it's necessary or not.
It's also more trust, even conditional and with an implied threat, than anyone has extended Arueshalae since - well, ever. Arueshalae is a little impressed, actually. And Abramo has even managed to keep his eyes on her face; not many men do.
Well really now, what is he, forty?
Abramo did actually notice that Arueshalae is, well, a succubus. But erotic attraction only gets so intense, the body can only respond so strongly! Sure, she's literally supernaturally hot; the fact remains that this is only say a 50% increase in hotness over that of an athlethic, healthy human woman in her early twenties. (Women are really super attractive to heterosexual men, strange but true!) There are lots of smoking hot women in the Crusade, even without anyone throwing Fireballs around, whom Abramo could totally drool over if he weren't, you know, a professional with like three ounces of self-control. And also fifty-mumble years old; he admits that in his thirties his eyes might have dropped downwards for a few seconds.
Then Arueshalae will totally join up! And promise to deal straightforwardly with Abramo going forward, Desna be her witness.
Desna's not actually the best goddess for that sort of thing (or indeed anything, since there can only be one Best Goddess), but they'll have to take what they can get.
Then they will search the Molten Scar for further clues. And Arueshalae can come along as the DPS in place of Lann, let's see how those pure ranger levels, ah, stack up.
Actually they go very nicely into the new area-effect spell Abramo has been itching to try out!
Banishment.
Indeed it is hard to see how anyone could, as prophecy is broken. Unless the demons know something Nenio doesn't? Tell her more!
...Nenio really must insist that Abramo not send her experimental subjects out of the plane, in the future, until she's had a chance to extract what they know.
Among the prisoners at the Molten Scar is Seelah's former friend Jannah.
Who ran away when Curl revealed himself to be a cultist. But... Seelah would like to be not quite so quick with that "former" friend, please. It's not as though her own past is spotless.
Abramo will apologise for putting words in Seelah's mouth. Indeed Jannah is going to need a friend; because her crimes, unlike Seelah's, were committed after joining a military order, swearing obedience, and receiving a lawful order to attack, in response to which she first ran away and then disappeared. That's... not a great set of facts, legally speaking. Abramo doesn't quite see how to call it anything but cowardice in the face of the enemy and desertion.
Uh, boss... look nobody understands better than Woljif that friends are friends and you look after your friends, and for sure nobody's gonna complain about a high-level rogue sliding out of stuff that a low-level paladin catches The Book for, those are practically defining class features of rogue and paladin... but you Lawful types are always going on about consistency and stare decisis and stuff. Isn't this, like, kinda similar to - recent events in Woljif's life? That nobody gave him any shit about?
It's not, actually. The difference is that Woljif didn't run away after receiving a direct order to attack from a superior officer in his chain of command. That's kind of important to us Lawful types.
...and yes fine Abramo will admit that results matter too. If he'd found Jannah infiltrating a largish cult and neutralising them by sheer force of personality, he might be a bit more inclined towards the allegedly "Good" options in this here dialog. But as it is - well, she's entitled to a court martial. And the charges aren't as serious as Nurah's, she might escape the noose even if found guilty. But, to be honest, he would not choose to sell her life insurance.
And on the plus side, Jannah is a human and, if hanged, will strangle much faster than a halfling! (Or a gnome, for that matter.) Although this is of course a somewhat minor consideration compared to the afterlife she goes to. Unfortunately she is unlikely to be found Lawful after the major decision of her short life is breaking an oath, so Hell will not get an opportunity to make sterner stuff of her.
What? Regill isn't allowed to disagree with Pharasma on how Creation ought to have been designed? In point of fact, he has as many as several ideas for improvements, which he will certainly point out to Pharasma when he sees Her. It's the plain duty of every good officer to give their superiors advice.
...yeah, ok. They can agree on that much at least. And Seelah appreciates the effort but she would like Regill to stop trying to be comforting now. And, um, maybe not try it again until he's put a couple of skill points into it.
Speaking of old friends, Lann is kinda curious about why Sull hasn't shown up with the mongrels yet. Could we head back to Kenabres and check on them?
Very reasonable. Fortunately Abramo has foresightedly been creating a network of Teleport Circles (and wow, if the Jackal had had these things in its science-from-beyond-the-known-stars toolkit the war would have been over in three months) and getting to Kenabres does not waste three days of weary marching.
Yesh, well. Wenduag kidnapped Dyra and is holding her hoshtage sho we don't go anywhere, and we're too dishpirited to sho mush ash shend a meshage about it. You know how it ish.
No, actually, Lann does not know how that is. Lann is kind of annoyed about it in fact.
Abramo presses his lips together in pain. You cannot allow hostage-takers to get their way, that just gets you more hostage takers. He believes in that principle and intends to follow it. But it can't be denied that it's not good for any particular hostage, only for the many who aren't kidnapped in the first place because of the incentives. And - Dyra, of all people? That's who Wenduag chose for her victim? The harmless little cleric of Abadar - the first person, actually, to say the name 'Abadar' in Abramo's hearing, the person who introduced him to his employer - Dyra, who wanted nothing other than to make everyone better off with trade? That's... Abramo is momentarily lost for suitable epithets, until it comes to him: This is not fair dealing.
It shall not stand.
Lann is pretty sure he knows where she's gone. There's a spot where Wenduag and he used to - well, anyway, that's likely where she is.
Nenio would like to interject that addressing people as 'boy' is her idiosyncratic speech pattern and she'd appreciate if Wenduag knocked it right off.
(Woljif is not going to mention that he has twice as many horns as Lann. He's not. He's learned his lesson about making slightly off-colour jokes in extremely tense situations. And anyway it's not even all that funny.)
Oh all right. He has to say something or he'll explode.
"Wait, the fox girl can remember names? How come crazy spider-cat lady rates it, but charming rogues and cheerful paladins don't?"
Nenio only remembers names of things she intends to dispose of shortly. If they're going to figure in her future experiments she gives them a more convenient label like "boy" or "test subject #341".
This thing? Plainly useless. She wouldn't want its pelt for cleaning supplies. She'll be pleased to forget its name in a minute or two.
(It may be relevant that Nenio's Cunning is currently in the region of 30 and she has grasped the entire situation from the context clues well before any of the others managed to formulate the hypothesis of what Wenduag has done. The act is, after all, unthinkable - unless you are very good indeed at thinking clearly.)
Wow, that's... you know what, Lann will engage with the sudden unexpected viciousness from Nenio another time. Because. He's actually pretty worried about the conspicuous lack of hostages in this cavern. But, like... Wenduag, you didn't, right? Please say you didn't.
So... Abramo would like to get this straight. Wenduag would like the mongrel tribes not to go anywhere, for whatever reasons make sense to her internally and which he's not going to bother asking for an articulation of, he's pretty sure they're not super legible even to Wenduag. So, following her ideology of strength, she kidnaps Dyra and notifies Sull that he should stay put, on pain of losing his cleric. So far, immoral but effective. But then she... eats her hostage? In what possible world is that going to conceivably work?
*Shrug* Sull's not going anywhere if he has any excuse not to, is he? So it doesn't matter that much if Dyra is actually alive or not, what matters is what Sull believes about it and he's way too fat to actually check anything. And besides, it saved Wenduag several hunting expeditions plus keeping an eye on her hostage all the time. She had class levels, you know.
Of all the short-sighted... Abramo is lost for words again. He's used to fighting demons, who are impulsive and break commitments at the drop of a Hat of Disguise and are kept in military formations strictly by the threat of violence, but nonetheless they are able to keep track of the basic elements of a plan. Such as, for example, not killing the hostage you need to be able to threaten once someone inevitably tracks you down and tries to negotiate! Not that Abramo had any intention of letting such a threat move him, but to be unable to make it at all is just, just...
Insane, Commander. The word you're looking for is 'insane'. Or 'crazy', if you prefer the mongrels' informal language.
Well, yes. You're right. There's no point in getting angry at a madwoman, or trying to reason with her.
Bolt of Justice.
Crickets.
...sorry boss, locusts just don't make the right sound for this situation, it's not my fault! If you wanted "locusts" to be the go-to meme for "nothing happens after someone makes a dramatic outburst" you needed to start your cultural manipulation fifty years ago!
That... might have been true a year ago, Wenduag. Even three months ago. I've spent those three months killing demons; what have you done? Sat in a cave and killed a first-circle priest who never hurt a Giant Fly!
Additionally, it appears that the enemy commander has neglected to account for the overall correlation of forces, to wit, Lann has brought five high-level companions and Wenduag has...
Still, Lann would like the others to step back, please. A man ought to kill his own crazy ex.
Sorry it's not a fancy spell or anything. It would have been a little nicer, actually, to finish this with a "Bolt of Justice" or "Arrow of Sanity" or something. But - two in the chest, one in each eye, that's how archers say good-bye.
Full Attack.
The repentant cultists who kidnapped and then defended Ember can go in the prison right alongside Jannah, to await trial. Trials are a great invention! They are vastly superior to military commanders making life-and-death decisions on the spot! They can sometimes even have, like, written procedures and outcomes consistent across similar cases!
Right? Pharasma cannot fathom why people are so down on Her trials. They give one of exactly nine outcomes, how's that for consistency?
Abramo will note that his god is in the legislative branch, not the judicial, and frankly he rather prefers that. He was, for a while, open to the possibility that Pharasma, who claims to be the Creator of all this world he finds himself in, might be another aspect of the Name - there's nothing in Genesis saying that the world he was born in was the only one created - but... no. They are just not the same; no such easy solution.
Anyway. Deserter from a Hellknight order impersonating Sosiel's brother? Well we have six cells in this here prison and only two of them currently occupied, so... arrest awaiting trial! Abramo is quite happy to have this highly Lawful solution available!
Makes sense! However, to be clear, this sort of thing obviously doesn't apply to high-level companions with mythic ranks, right? Those people can kill a few crusaders to heal the spirits, without anyone getting in their face about it, right?
To be clear, Anevia put Abramo on the killer's trail without notifying anyone else or naming any names, specifically so he could deal with the situation that way if he chose. Not making policy decisions here! That's the Commander's job! Just thought he might... like to know that there was a decision to be made.
*Rubs forehead tiredly*
Yeah, no, killing people on your own side is, actually, illegal. Yes, even for people with mythic ranks who have A Theory about how to close the Worldwound and self-admittedly no ability to actually communicate with the spirit they're allegedly feeding. That's... look Abramo's standards for 'insane' have been raised by recent events and he will admit that Camellia at least has enough contact with reality to try to hide her deaths and not, for example, kill anyone who would be crucial to later steps in her plan. So, good on her for maintaining that much sanity, he's not going to give out any medical diagnoses, he's not qualified. (He'd insert a joke about his mother being disappointed that he was a mere head of state instead of a doctor but actually that's a different branch of Jewish culture.) So... would Camellia care to come quietly to a nice cell to await trial? It's not even padded, they don't seem to have invented that here.
She would not! Look, I understand you're not exactly thrilled about the killing-crusaders thing but really, if I can close the Worldwound that has to be worth some deaths, right?
Abramo is in fact making precisely that tradeoff, on a large scale, every day, when he sends soldiers into battle. Which they signed up for, knowing the risk they were taking. And he has, like, an actionable plan that isn't based on vibes and wishes. And he doesn't stab them in the back.
Woljif broke the law too! How come the tiefling gets away with it and the human doesn't?
Oh, this is a bit unfortunate. Abramo wasn't expecting to fight anyone, and went alone; he'd usually have Seelah or Regill up front to keep the sharp pointy metal at a distance while he summons the fight-finishers. Worse, he used up his Bolts of Justice at Blackwater and really needs to rest to be much use in a fight.
Yeah! This here's a duel, logistics boy; let's see how much good your fancy support-role spells do you now!
Stab! Stab! The spirits demand your blood!
Abramo is twice Camellia's age and rather dislikes up-close-and-personal fighting; he doesn't rate his chances highly in hand-to-hand combat with a spirit shaman who wields that magic rapier like her finger. However, there's a saying about age and treachery as opposed to youth and enthusiasm, and also he still has Fortress of the Faithful up from the aforementioned fight at Blackwater.
That stab looks pretty deadly but, actually, his throat is over here.
Dimensional Hop.
Blindness.
That's... not great, but Camellia is a high-level shaman, she can work with this. Aspect of the Wolf.
Sure, sure, that was only to keep her busy for a moment. Summon Bogeyman. Incidentally, in Abramo's home culture a monster called a 'Bogeyman' wouldn't be dangerous to anyone who confronted it boldly and maintained eye contact at all times; do they work like that here?
Spirits guide me, spirits protect me, spirits lead me to my enemies...
I, too, can call spirits from the vasty deep. And they indeed come, when I do call.
Air Elemental Swarm.
Make that argument to Pharasma's court, if you like; their judgement is less easily refused than that of the Drezen military tribunals.
Goodbye, Camellia.
There is a rhythm to all things, especially war. In Calistril the fighting, already slow merely because it is done by men who have to get to the front using their own personal feet, grinds to a near-halt. The scouts can find no more armies of demons, to be met in formal set-piece encounter by the massed ranks of pike and priest. There is only the constant pinprick attrition of skirmishing patrols, ambush and raid and reconnaisance - all at the pace of infantry marching through the coldest February Abramo has ever seen. By Mendevian standards it is practically peaceful.
Abramo does not believe any such thing, of course; you have peace when you sit in the enemy's capital and dictate terms, and not otherwise. (Or, to be complete, when they dictate terms to you; defeat is still peace.) But there's such a thing as a lull, even in industrial wars fought at the speed of rail and truck; with these pre-steam logistics he's actually somewhat surprised the fighting went as deep into winter as it did. And he has learned to his cost that you cannot fight the lull, cannot force the pace; "to appear fast or slow is what happens when the rhythm is out of synchronization", as his Japanese allies kept quoting him. What you can do is to take advantage: Fill the supply depots, strengthen the fortifications, drill the troops, get ready for the next beat.
How about a nice sensible flogging and five years at hard labor? The thing about incentive gradients is that they need to be a gradient; the result of theft should not be the same as the penalty for desertion and cowardice-in-the-face, nor the same as the reward for faithful service.
But these are details, and he has them well in hand, now. The main thing the lull gives him...
...is time to think.
...and to his surprise, he finds that it isn't the ordeal he thought it would be.
This world he finds himself in has "gods" which visibly intervene in mortal affairs; very well, what of it? It is clear that none of them are the Name, or the same kind of thing that the Name is. Conceivably they may be the sort of thing that the Torah speaks of when it forbids Jews from worshipping idols, though that raises some questions about how they disappeared from his home world. But in any case there is no longer any conceptual difficulty: The alleged "gods" are simply very powerful entities. Some of them deal honestly and can be fairly bargained with, others want only horror and evil and will stoop even to lawyer-tricks to get them, and must be banned from any honest merchant's warehouse. That can be a practical problem, with customers (or capitalists) who are very powerful, but it is not a religious one. He finds it very easy not to worship any of these gods, or to make burnt offerings to them. His contract with his employer is very clear: Neither party is making any sacrifice, that is to say, any uncompensated gift offered simply as honour, or as the other party's due. Each party gives something, and gains something they value more; that is trade, and no sacrifice at all.
It seems clear that the local "gods" did not bring him here, and while Areelu is clearly scheming something to do with him, he does not think she has the power to yank him out of an entirely separate creation. (If that's what happened; maybe Earth is just another planet within Creation, entirely isolated from the "gods" for whatever "divine" reason, with a fossil record showing human (and horse, dog, elephant, dinosaur...) evolution and no knowledge of whatever fundamental force underlies "magic"... he thinks "separate creation" is the simpler hypothesis but he is not certain.) Which leaves random chance, and the Name. And between the two, he knows what hypothesis he'd invest his brainpower in.
It wasn't shy about speaking to the prophets, and Abramo now routinely does miracles that would make Elisha's trick with the speaking bones look like, well, second-circle necromancy. Without, so far as he can tell, any backing from the Name.
Is he supposed to be the ancestor of a people, like his namesake, and make a new Covenant, and spread the worship of the Name far and wide on Golarion?
He already has children, actually. Three. And a wife. Although it looks quite unlikely he'll see any of them again. And unlike Abraham he is not desperate to have more children, in his age; he has done all that, and it was rewarding and meaningful work but it was a young man's work. And besides, how can he teach the worship of the Name, without the texts? He's no savant, to have memorised even the Torah, much less the rest of it; and the commentaries...
And, as a purely practical matter, he must admit that he would have some difficulty formulating an advertising strategy to gain market share against "gods" who, while evidently not actually divine, do very demonstrably exist and intervene in mortal affairs!
It is a Christian custom, to ask questions during prayer; and the Aiello have had to give up the obligation to pray three times a day, it's really not very compatible with the masquerade. Here on Golarion where nobody ever heard of either Christian or Jew, he supposes he could pray, but... he's not in the habit, and anyway he does not know the words.
...it's worth a try.
For a god called "the Word", the Word is really not very talkative!
Pharasma is pleased to hear it. Entities from beyond the Dark Tapestry are generally Very Bad News. That does seem like a nice little religion you've got there; it would be a pity if something happened to it.
Abramo gives up on theology, and goes to take out his temper on the demons of the Midnight Fane.
Then they can have a really invigorating running fight through the underground temple, with occasional excursions into the Abyss!
What, me worry? Just because the crusaders who have cut through all my minions and defeated me in single combat every time we clashed, are approaching? Pff. I've got a whole-ass balor here, a powerful marilith, some disposable cannon-fodder babau and schir, what's there to be worried about?
Why, that useless piece of filth... what is he saying, Minagho acted exactly as every lilitu always acts, if you don't have a proper collar on them. And every other demon, to include balors. Really, this is his own Pharasma's fault for making the Abyss like that. Anyway, who cares? He's a balor, they're mortals, this ends only one way and rather quickly at that.
Arrows of - um, justice isn't exactly one of Desna's domains - and anyway Arueshalae would have no right to claim such a thing, sinner that she is - um, arrows of repentance, if that's OK?
Arueshalae has some self-confidence issues but she's a really good archer, that's why he brings her to fights. Also, the "justice" branding is entirely optional! He'd really prefer to be casting Bolts of Gains From Trade!
Regill is not given to calling his attacks, but in the spirit of cooperating with his allies - Gnome Hooked Hammer of Kneecapping?
Oh, games is it? Darrazand is good at games. How do the mortals feel about a (free action) Roar of Amused Disdain followed by Balor Bull Rush?
Ouch.
But that's why Sosiel is behind the line, ready to cast maximised healing. It's a lot like frontline fighting back home, actually: The infantry pins the enemy in place, the trains bring up millions of shells, the artillery breaks the enemy's hearts and makes them run.
Abramo is the artillery, now - and with Greater Abundant Casting he finally has the logistics support he needs.
Storm of Justice.
The minions are down but they're not actually important, they're only there to witness Darrazand's prowess as he crushes the mortals -
Seriously? 5d4+5, and Darrazand will likely spell-resist two or three of those?
Well, ackshully, between Bolster and that Mark of Justice backed by Seelah's Splendor, each missile is 1d4+16. Or in other words, 5d4+80 - from a spell that hits unerringly and doesn't allow a save. As the gnome pointed out the other day, if you stack up enough modifiers the base die stops mattering. As does Darrazand's admittedly impressive Fort save which does block old reliables like Phantasmal Killer and Disintegrate.
And Destruction. Which is why Sosiel is sticking to buffs. Mass Cure Critical Wounds.
Which is what allows Abramo to stand against the slashing whip and the boulder-sized fist, absorb the hits and dig in his heels and bare his teeth in defiance against strikes that would crush a tank (*).
Storm. Of. Justice.
(*) Well. One of those French tankettes that might or might not outweigh Seelah's armour, anyway. A Venetian Carro Armata is a fairly solid chunk of face-hardened steel and Abramo is (since the point is unlikely to ever have any sort of tactical relevance) patriotically certain of their ability to withstand even a balor's fists.
That makes this an excellent time for Galfrey, fresh from the holding action in the antechamber, to rush in and Smite
"Welcome, Queen Galfrey."
Abramo carefully does not say "you're welcome", but Galfrey has an even higher Splendor than he does and it's possible she hears it anyway.
"Thank you, Knight-Commander." Galfrey's slightly-archaic, aristocratic accent doesn't have a consonant out of place, though her hair is in fact slightly mussed by fireballs and ichor. "As this completes the reconquest of Drezen, it is a good time to review your work."
Abramo listens in increasing disbelief as Galfrey lays out what she chooses to regard as his failures - no, by the time she reaches "interfered with the Sword of Valor" it's clear that these are excuses rather than reasons; the "performance review" is purely political. That actually relaxes him. If Galfrey really thought this trivia was a firing offense for a successful army commander he would have to drop her as an employer; such a micromanaging fault-finder would be impossible to work with. (In any case she's not his real employer, whose most recent performance review consisted of giving him eighth-circle spells; but she is, admittedly, paying his salary and providing his troops.) A purely political hatchet job he can live with, it's not an actual critique of his work and they both know it.
"...which is why I find it necessary to relieve you as Knight-Commander."
Abramo doesn't bother to argue; plainly the real reason is some sort of Nerosyan-internal intrigue which he can't even address, much less fix at this point. The question is rather whether he chooses to raise the Sword of Valor in rebellion over the point. Galfrey has clearly chosen her moment rather carefully, when he is low on spells from fighting through the Midnight Fane on her behalf and then going toe-to-toe with a Balor; she isn't visibly backed up by multiple high-level paladins but that means nothing, she won't have started this without high confidence she can finish it.
...although tomorrow is another day with a fresh spell allocation and much easier access to his large army of moderately-personally-loyal troops, and she'll have thought of that too; it follows that she won't let him walk out of here unless she's convinced he intends to stand down.
"I see. Did you, possibly, have another task in mind for me? Or should I rather seek to advance Abadar's interests outside Mendev?" Abramo is not actually certain he will back down and leave Mendev, but he wants to see how she responds to the implicit offer of Lawful dealing.
Yes, there is absolutely a task that gets the dangerously-popular-and-successful general well away from his army, without having him hanging about places with large markets in mercenaries and capital. To wit, Galfrey would like him to enter the Abyss, track down the source of Nahyndrian crystals, and destroy it. This will prevent any further mythically-powered demons from attacking the Crusade; it's of vital strategic importance! Nerosyan-internal politics have nothing to do with it!
Well.
Actually, that is of vital strategic importance. And it plausibly does require Abramo and his special-forces team; this kind of war, with some individuals having roughly the combat power of an armoured division, is occasionally strange like that. It's not that different from what Abramo has been doing anyway, seek-and-destroy missions against particular concentrations of demonic power.
...except for the part where Galfrey stripped him of his rank first.
"The mission is plainly important. Less plain is why it requires the Commander to give up his rank before undertaking it. Changes in leadership are bad for discipline."
"Quite so, which is why there is no change in leadership: I remain Queen of Mendev, as I have been for longer than even gnomes can easily recall. I expect the Abyssal expedition to take considerable time, longer than one ought to run an army on delegated authority from an absent commander-in-chief. Thus I will myself take over the day-to-day affairs of the Crusade; the Fiducia" - it is the first time she has referred to Abramo by a title other than Knight-Commander - "is an extraordinary talent, but a hundred years of experience ought to count for something."
"Indeed it should," Regill agrees. There isn't a hint of irony in his voice or his yellow eyes; he is the very model of a Lawful Hellknight officer.
Arguably it is actually a better division of labor. Better still, perhaps, if Galfrey joined Abramo, and left the day-to-day logistics to one of her many perfectly competent officers who aren't capable of standing up to a Balor in personal combat. That would allow some real gains from comparative advantage. But - politics is the art of the possible.
...it is of course possible that this is a Uriah-posting, that the Abyss is intended to swallow the strike team like, well, what it's named for. But Abramo doesn't actually think so; if nothing else, Galfrey remains an empowered paladin of Iomedae. He does not have as good a sense of Her as he does for Abadar, but She is no backstabber. If Galfrey had decided to kill him she would not do so by subterfuge.
Still, Lawfulness does not require one to supinely accept every possible deal one is offered, even in good faith. He will at least gesture at his best alternative.
"If I am no longer Knight-Commander, then it would appear that you cannot well order me to go - indeed, in that case I am no longer in your chain of command at all, nor are most of my companions." Seelah and Sosiel being the main exceptions. "Why then should I undertake this difficult and perhaps deadly task?"
Galfrey is the highest-level paladin the world has seen since Iomedae was mortal, or at least that was true until Seelah started gaining mythic powers. The DC on her Guilt-Inducing Eyebrow is extremely high.
Abramo is an eighth-circle cleric of Abadar, and entirely immune to a paladin's power to make people guilty for not doing things for free. He raises his eyebrows right back.
Abadarans. Can't live without them, can't get them to do the most obviously necessary things without money...
"I have no objection to giving you some other knightly title, and you may continue to draw the same salary."
That is not, actually, anywhere remotely close to fair compensation for Abramo's contributions to this war. But then, neither is the title Knight-Commander.
...the uncomfortable fact of the matter is, Abramo's not actually doing this for any sort of compensation, he's doing it because he believes in the cause. He is never ever going to admit this to anyone except himself and possibly Abadar - presumably the Name knows already but the Name is not saying anything and should continue to do so in this one context at least, please and thank you. Nonetheless it turns out that, yes, Abramo believes demons are bad actually and should be kept away from cities full of people trying to truck and barter and look to their own interest.
There remains the point that Abramo is a merchant of Venice, and he has his self-respect and would like to keep it.
"Three times the salary," he says, knowing perfectly well that Galfrey could pay thrice that again and find it cheap. "And a landed estate to go with the knighthood." It's no pound of flesh, but then nobody around here would get the reference anyway.
Abadarans. Galfrey does not roll her eyes, because between her headband and a century of practice she is entirely in conscious control of her expressions, but she thinks it very loudly.
"Agreed," she says instantly.
"Then I'll go to the Abyss." He turns to the companions. "I don't believe our contract obliges anyone to go with me; does anyone prefer to stay?"
Stay on the boring old Material Plane, and not get to do the many fascinating experiments that the Abyss allows? Forget it. In fact, Nenio already has.
"I - I hate who I was, in the Abyss. But I can't improve by trying to ignore it." Deep breath. "I will go to Alushinyrra; and do better this time."
"The mission parameters as outlined by the Queen seem to have an acceptable risk/reward ratio."
"Perhaps there's beauty in the Abyss? It's getting hard to find any around here." Sosiel does not have Abramo's or Regill's fine control over body language, and stares directly at Galfrey as he says this.
"Sounds like the Queen ordered me to go to the Abyss, and she knows more about stuff than I do."
"We're seriously doing this? I mean - eh, whatever. You're the boss, chief. Just - maybe keep in mind, I got some kind of big juju demon after me, Alu-whatever might be almost as bad as Kenabres for my health."
"How can we make peace if we don't meet the demons where they're at? I'll go. Maybe they'll listen to me if they're at home."
Abramo isn't entirely surprised, but he's a little touched nonetheless; entirely unanimous? No hesitation? He bows his head in salute to his companions, gives Galfrey a measured nod.
"Then let's go."
The Abyss is... awful, actually.
Not for the way the constantly-changing tides of unreality seem to rip at the sanity of mortals, although that's bad enough; Abramo has gotten used to that, fighting in the Worldwound. Not for the singing literally-demonic tension that threatens to break into violence at any moment and sometimes does. Not for the nonsensical architecture that disappears or changes as soon as you take your eye off it and refuses to stay still, or the distances that stretch and rotate unpredictably, or the smells of blood and sulfur that come wafting every few minutes. Abramo could deal with all of that.
It's not a city, that's the problem. It's a... congeries of imagined buildings and conscripted residents; as if someone had read a children's book about Great Cities and decided they wanted one, and heaped up walls and doors in random colours to make a fine show from a distance, and strong-armed their friends into running through the alleys and Playing City with them.
A city has some reason to exist. It's a place where craftsmen barter with farmers. A harbor that shelters merchant ships from storms, and where they unload their goods to be taken inland. A fortress guarding a mountain pass. A refuge from invasion. All else failing, the Name help him, it is a delivery mechanism for drugs, to weaken an enemy in a plot spanning centuries... in a real city, people have things to do. They truck and barter and trade; they exchange one thing for another, and make both parties better off; they work and save and invest; they build.
A city may have beggars, by all means; because it is a place where wealth is created, and sometimes that wealth overflows into charity. It does not have... swarms of people lying about the streets, to all appearances playing the role of beggars, whom nobody ever gives anything and who will not starve if nobody does, because they are demons and need not eat.
A city has a market, or a multitude of them, or is itself the market, and sometimes - not where Venice rules, but it happens - those markets deal in slaves; it doesn't have only a slave market and nothing else. It doesn't have "traders" who don't need a profit to live, but play-act at slave trading anyway because they enjoy being cruel, and someone more powerful has decreed that their toy city must have a market.
A city has brothels, no doubt, or elegant courtesans as famed for their conversation as their beauty, or back-alley whores, or all three... because everyone needs to eat and some people are willing to admit that every comparative advantage allows some gains from trade. It doesn't have... Abramo can't find words for what the "Ten Thousand Delights" is. It's as though someone heard that a properly decadent city should have dens of sin selling exotic sex to stir jaded appetites, and didn't actually understand much about sex (or sin, or sales, or plausibly even appetites) but immediately set off to invent some exotic variants of it.
A city has courts of law, or merchant arbitrators, or clan elders who mediate disputes; and those courts may be corrupt or they may enforce bad laws or they may be tools of the powerful against their enemies or they may just be overloaded and arbitrary, but they don't hold "trials" whose sole and avowed purpose is to demonstrate the contempt that all involved feel for the concept of law.
Abramo has never cared much for the intricacies of Christian theology, but here at last is a place where it applies: Alushinyrra has the accidents of a city but none of the substance.
Alushinyrra is not a city, it is an abomination unto Abadar, and if Abramo had the power he would ask the Name to smite it as Sodom was smitten, and for much better cause. And the Name would ask him whether he would not save the city for the sake of ten righteous men, and Abramo would reply that any righteous man would rejoice to be smitten if it wiped this, this blasphemy from the face of the world.
None of which can be allowed to matter. Abramo does not have the power to smite the parodic imitation of a city, and if he did it would interfere with his work. But he sets about it with a grim get-it-done efficiency quite unlike the satisfaction he took in organising armies and building infrastructure on the Material.
The demon who's on his case turns out not to be all that bad, in the end - what he means is, it goes down easy enough to the combo of twin daggers and powerful friends. His so-called "grandfather" who set the whole thing up, Moon of the Abyss and all, on the other hand...
That guy is... awful, actually.
Woljif guesses this shouldn't exactly be a surprise, what with the whole "powerful demon" thing. You don't get to be a powerful demon without selling out some friends, and once you've done that a couple of times, just raping a mortal woman so's she can bear a tiefling child that will grow up to be a "destined vessel" for you to keep backstabbing and raping your way through life, eh, what's the big deal?
No, the weird thing is that he seems to've thought Woljif would actually go for that shit. What, was he born yesterday? "You'll have the power", "we'll be equal partners", "vengeance on everyone who hurt you", give him a break. Woljif knows a conman's pitch when he hears one. He's not even tempted, honest.
After the resulting fight - Woljif really appreciates having a boss who can fling those Bolts of Justice around like they're magic missiles - they obviously loot the smoking corpse; waste not, want not. The fact of the matter is, the Moon of the Abyss was a nice enough jewel, and all, but... any one of the bits of magic gear this powerful demon carried woulda paid for it twice over, and it's still not as good as Woljif's stuff. Which you can tell, because Woljif just used his gear to kill the guy who had this gear, right? Kinda disappointing, really.
The rat is - well, ok, its looks are a bit against it. Not that Woljif hasn't sometimes wished he didn't look so obviously fiendish, but at least he has a roguish charm and his horns grow out of a mass of dark curls. Chicks go for that look sometimes. This rat? Well, maybe Abyssal rat chicks go for the mutated scabby half-starved look, this is the Abyss and for all Woljif knows it's the height of fashion among the local rats. Lann was able to attract a girlfriend, after all, and his horn is much less handsome than Woljif's. But it's not conventionally attractive, as rats go.
Looks can deceive, is the point Woljif's trying to make. But what doesn't deceive is - this here rat has obviously been living in the walls, scurrying away whenever so much as a dretch came by, eating whatever scraps it can grab, never fighting unless cornered and never getting cornered if it can possibly help it. And then when the local top guy gets killed, what does it do? It turns around on a copper piece, comes right out of the walls bold as brass and politely asks if it can have a share. This rat has an eye for the main chance, is what he's saying.
Well yeah. You try surviving in the Abyss without an eye for opportunities and the balls to grab them. Nocticula's protection doesn't extend to the likes of us, you know.
That's the thing about powerful people's "protection", innit? It only covers the ones who don't really need it in the first place. If you're a street rat, or a fiendish rat... they don't want to hear about you.
That's why rats gotta stick together.
(Woljif's not gonna yaw anyone's head off, here; that's not how he rolls.)
"You might already be familiar with it."
"All right then. You got yourself a familiar. Long as the food's regular, anyway."
Cool. Abyss, Hell, Material, they're all the same: Everyone's against rats. But sometimes... the rats can make a place for themselves anyway. If they stick together.
And never, ever sell anyone out.
Alushinyrra is... awful, actually.
Oh, well yes, what they did to Trever is awful too. Sosiel hates it. But - it could be worse. Sosiel was terrified, when he heard that Trever had become a Hellknight, that the war in the Worldwound had killed his brother - not his body, if he died in battle they would meet again in Heaven. No, he was afraid that what he admired in his elder brother, the parts of his soul that would have made Pharasma judge him as part of Heaven, had died. And truthfully, a gladiatorial arena in an Abyssal city is not a place where he'd have expected to find those glimpses of Heaven. But he spent so much time thinking of that, and worrying about it, that he did all his grieving for Trever in advance. And then when he finally found him... his brother, his elder brother who showed him how to paint, who went to fight the demons at the Worldwound to keep them out of their homeland, the reluctant paladin... he rose out of the filth of the Abyss one more time, and defied every demon in the city so that Sosiel might be safe. If Sosiel does not meet that man again in Heaven it will be because Sosiel's besetting sins became too strong.
"Perhaps there's beauty in the Abyss," he said to the Queen, sarcastically; he was implying that there wasn't any where he was standing on Golarion - a deep insult, coming from a cleric of Shelyn who is instructed to find the beauty in all things. And truthfully the Queen wasn't actually very beautiful at that moment, for all the regularity of her fine features and golden mane of hair; not with rage and envy and immense tiredness in her clear blue eyes.
He wouldn't have said it if he hadn't been exhausted, and wounded, and enraged at the Commander being stripped of his rank and sent to fetch the secret of the Nahyndrian crystals as though it were a paladin's first escort mission. But that's no excuse; he needs to do better, and he resolved to do so, and... well, he's found beauty in the Abyss, indeed. That's the problem.
The glittering buildings, in shades of purple from delicate nightshade to smoldering foxglove, that curve and shift and twist elegantly out of the way - no, he might as well admit it. The buildings' are not the curves that bother him. It's the succubi.
They are... so beautiful. And so toxic. When it's said that a man could "drown in her eyes" or "lose himself in her beauty" it's not usually meant literally!
Beauty not for its own sake, not for the joy it brings, but weaponised, venomised, made a tool in the service of hurting people and making them into more beautiful, poisonous demons to hurt still more people with this, this... Sosiel is not much given to theology, but the Commander has the right word: This blasphemy.
He looks a little askance at Arueshalae, after that. He believes sincerely in her repentance and her attempt at redemption, Desna is not his goddess but She is not known for half-assing Her miracles any more than Shelyn is. But - now he understands a little more, what it is she is repenting of, what she needs to be redeemed from.
He thinks of all the times he's shouted "you are beyond redemption" at some hapless brimorak, and blushes for shame; he'd always known it was wrong, for a priest of Shelyn to say that, but it felt like a venial sin. How much did it hurt Arueshalae, to hear those stupid words? That shallow, ignorant curse? He was a child, shouting words he did not understand for the pleasure of seeing others react, knowing nothing of what he was talking about.
