Blink. "—Alicia mentioned you to me a few days ago? She said you'd be a good person to talk to about the copying spell."

"Alicia. Victoria and I know each other from the Diabolism committee, I'm a lay follower of Shelyn."

She blinks at Victoria's response.

"...I was talking about Raimon Queralt, at the cafe Isarn."

Snort. "There's lots of Raimons. I'm Pages. Though I can also Scriven, if it matters!"

"Oh. ...I don't know which one that is, I didn't ask anyone's name there."

"Is that the fellow who likes to call people things like 'Citizen Avenger'?"

"Yep, that's the one. I don't know if he does them himself or just knows a guy but he always has the new pamphlets and plenty of copies of them, so whatever it is clearly works."

She shakes her head to refocus.

"Right. So, what happened to you Victoria? Bearing in mind that if you aren't sure if something is a crime you should keep quiet about it, since this isn't that private."

"Uh, a couple of guards came to arrest me at my inn, and I didn't think I could fight them off without hurting anyone else by accident, so they took my holy symbol and brought me to that building. And then this nice friendly woman came and asked me some questions about helping to write Valia's speech. And I told her that it was legal, and that it was wrong for the Queen to arrest her for it, and she should quit her job and stop working for someone Evil. —I don't know if the Queen is Evil anymore, I thought she was at the time, but I guess maybe she really isn't if she let us go. Uh, I'm not sure how to talk about the next part without talking about crimes...?"

"I gave you a tour of one of my old haunts!" suggests Raimon brightly. "And we made a donation to the Church of Nethys!"

She starts trying to piece it together before she stops herself. She doesn't need to know and shouldn't ask.

"I'd say they must have disliked it a lot to send a teleport enchanter after you, but they sent a teleporter after me and I wasn't involved with your bit. I'd guess that they went after Victoria and I for the speech, then learned about you from interrogating Victoria, but that doesn't explain why we're outside of bars right now - you don't normally get let out of prison unless you've got someone powerful in your corner, and if even the church of Iomedae couldn't free Valia I'm not holding out hope for Shelyn's being able to manage me."

She did not manage to pick up on all of Alicia's subtext!

"Sure. So, Raimon and I had, uh, gone on that tour, like he said, on the night of the riots, which is — illegal, right, trespassing is a crime — and while she was asking me other questions to find out about if I'd been doing any rioting — I really didn't do any rioting, I didn't hurt anyone — they figured out about the, uh, trespassing. ...Probably because they were reading my mind, I didn't notice at the time but it explains a lot in hindsight. I didn't tell them about Raimon but I think they read my mind about that too. Anyways, I'd figured before that that they'd probably have me executed, they arrested Valia and she's a priestess of Iomedae, no one's going to let a random Calistrian who ticked off the Queen go even if they actually hadn't done anything. So after they found out about the, uh, the trespassing, the nice woman asking the questions told me that she needed to ... make sure I wasn't a danger to the city ... but that I wouldn't necessarily be in trouble.

—I didn't believe that, obviously, I thought she trusted the Queen way more than she should, but they let me go eventually so now I'm not sure?? Anyways, I told her about all the ways we made sure it was safe, and about how we were, uh, trespassing in a way that hurt Asmodeans? There was a copy of the Disciplines there, it was really bad... and after a while she brought me to where Valia was staying. And Valia told me I should write letters to some Iomedaeans she knew telling them about what happened, because she thought if the Queen understood what really happened she'd let me go? Which, again, I really wasn't expecting, but they did let me go so now I'm mostly just confused. I thought the Queen was Evil, because of how she had Valia arrested even though she followed all the laws and didn't do anything wrong, but, I mean, I'm a Calistrian and they let me go. ...Not right away, after a few hours they brought me to a different cell and sometime after that they let me go. But they already knew about the trespassing, it's not like they're learning anything new by spying on me. Honestly I'm still really confused. When the guard came and got me I thought he was taking me to be executed."

"Oh, I hope my guy was reading my mind," chuckles Raimon.

"The queen isn't evil, she was detecting good even before freeing Cheliax from Asmodeus and it seems like it would be really hard to end up evil after that. The part that confused me is why this resulted in us being let go in the first place, since being innocent isn't usually enough even in countries with good rulers and they were able to get you to confess to a crime besides. I've got a few theories, but all of them are confusing so I'm probably missing something."

"...When I said not to talk about crimes I meant that kind of description too, but if you're telling it to me this freely I guess it probably wouldn't be hard for another prosecutor to charm you into talking again anyway and this doesn't add risk."

"...I am very tired and if you want me to do something complicated you'll probably need to explain it like I'm five. I'm pretty sure it's been more than a day since I slept but none of the rooms I was in had windows so I don't know for sure. ...Anyways, the person asking me questions already knew about all the trespassing, it's not like she's going to forget just because she let me go."

"I'm saying that if you tell your friends about crimes you tell everyone who charm persons you about crimes, they don't even have to take you in to be interrogated first... probably if you're tired this is a bad time, yeah. Do you have somewhere safe to sleep? The crown might not be going after you but I wouldn't put it past a lot of the nobles to try."

"...did they Charm Person me? My mother only had cantrips, no one's ever cast it on me before..."

"They cast it on me so I assume so, it's a little less reliable on clerics than song sorcerers but you're not a powerful cleric. Uh. I'd offer to cast it on you so you could tell if it was the same thing, but I don't know if it feels like anything when we're already friends."

"I'd offer but, yeah, I'm not sure it will really illustrate the effect if I do it."

It's totally unreasonable to be upset about this. There's nothing wrong with making someone like you. It is nonetheless pretty upsetting!

"...Anyways, I think lots of people know where I'm sleeping, the Evil assassin from the Diabolism Committee was able to find me there. But I'm not sure where else I'd go. ...Also I don't want to sleep through Valia's trial, assuming it hasn't happened yet."

"In theory I have a room at the cafe and I doubt Raimon - other Raimon - would just let a noble through quietly, he doesn't like them, but I don't want to get him killed trying and it's probably ransacked anyway.  I bet the temple of Shelyn would put you up if I asked though, and if you want to repay them we could always use more channels."

"That's where I channel if I feel like walking into some other god's church to do it, but that's a big if, I usually don't. I asked about getting a Calistrian one but they said no freebies, I'd have to buy it at full price."

"I don't — Calistria usually gives people negative channels? Except for Raimon, apparently? I didn't even know she could give people positive channels until I talked to the azata."

"...I mean, She's Neutral, so it can go either way depending on the cleric."

"Yeah, I mean, that makes sense, just, before I talked to the azata I didn't realize she'd give people positive channels, like how Pharasma wouldn't give people negative channels."

"Pharasma could give people negative channels if She ever wanted to pick an evil cleric, but a neutral Pharasmin would probably never choose negative channels and I can see why one of us would've, yeah."

Blink blink. "I think I'm confused but maybe just because I haven't slept—"