She doesn't know how late it is when the guards separate her from Valia. It doesn't feel like it's been a whole night, at least. They march her down a corridor and stop outside an empty cell.

"Well, go on then," says one of the guards, gesturing at it.

She was kind of assuming he would be the one to open it, but sure, she can open the door. It's kind of annoying to work around the chains, but it's not like opening a door is harder than writing a letter.

...This is not the inside of a prison cell. She's not really sure what it is instead. Probably it's some sort of trap but they're going to torture her to death anyway, if Calistria has answered her prayers in the most confusing way possible she's not going to waste it. She runs into the room and slams the door shut from the other side.

The men around the table don't look up.

The plant creature looks away from eir metal slab and waves.

Awkwardly, the chains are making it a little difficult to wave back. She walks over to the weird-looking plant person, it's not like she has any better ideas. She's not really sure what this place is but it's definitely not the inside of a prison. (Unless it's some sort of magic archmage trap, but it's not like they need to use weird magic traps to kill her.)

The creature sets down the slab. "Welcome to Milliways, it's an interplanar bar. Would you like help taking a seat? I can probably get those off of you but not quickly."

The plant-person is dressed like an adventurer. Victòria did not know that plant-person adventurers or interplanar bars were a thing. Is this one of those things everyone knows about, would it have come up if she'd talked to a priest of Cayden's?

"Help taking a seat would be great. ...Not being in chains would also be great, if that's something you can do."

"If they're nonmagical and not rigged to poison you if someone is an idiot with lockpicks, I can give it a try. I'm not actually good at this, but I can pull up moving picture books and borrow lockpicks and spend a few hours, it shouldn't be metaplanarphysics."

Ey climbs off eir stool and approaches Victòria, which makes it clearer that ey's about halfling height. "You can put a hand on my head for support, I'm less likely to fall over than the stools are. I think you'll want to move your left foot like so…"

"I don't know if they're magical, I didn't ask for Detect Magic today and I couldn't cast it like this anyways. I doubt they're rigged to poison me." They won't be able to torture her to death if she dies of poison — wouldn't have been able to. It still doesn't entirely feel real that she might not be tortured to death.

She can follow seat-related directions.

Soon enough she is in a chair. It has a cushioned seat and back. A napkin appears on the table.

"Hello and welcome to Milliways. New patrons may have one free drink."

"...Is the napkin a person too or is there, like, a napkin-wizard hiding somewhere?"

"The bar is a person. She likes communicating with the sorts of things it would be reasonable for a bar to have, like napkins."

That's not actually weirder than a napkin-person, probably.

"Is it okay if I wait on the drink until after I'm not in chains anymore?" she asks the bar.

Another napkin. "Yes, definitely. Some people even leave without taking it at all."

"She also does free water. From what I've heard she's very generous about offering credit and not pushing for repayment but I personally have not felt comfortable testing that and many people feel similarly."

The plant pokes at the metal slab. It turns out to have glass on the other side, with light below the glass painting some kind of picture, though from Victòria's angle it's hard to tell exactly what.

Probably the metal slab is some kind of magic item or something. The plant-person is an adventurer, it makes sense for... she's not sure how to tell what gender a plant is... anyways, it makes sense that the plant-person adventurer has a magic item.

"I can do water myself, I'm a priestess. Or, I mean, I can do water once I have my hands free."

"Oh, huh. I'm a druid, I can conjure what I would call water, but most people here can't drink it. Who're you a priestess of?"

Ey pokes the slab more. It says "Hi everyone" in a cheerful tone before ey cuts it off.

"Calistria — is your magic item also a person?"

"It's not a person. I think it's technically nonmagic, just extremely expensive and difficult to manufacture. It can play recordings of people. I don't know if you've heard of linkbooks or Discrete Storage or Clockwork Spies, it's kind of like a fancier version of those. If you'd like to verify that somehow that would be reasonable. And I haven't heard of Calistria, what's ey like?"

If Victòria looks at the item, she will notice it's currently showing a moving picture of someone's hands picking a lock. The hands are moving very slowly, and nothing is locked with the lock, it's just on a table.

"Huh, where are you from that doesn't know about Calistria? The Asmodeans didn't want us worshipping her but they didn't hide the fact she exists — uh, anyways. She's the goddess of vengeance, especially — if someone thinks they can get away with hurting people just because they're stronger or more powerful, and everyone is acting like they have the right to do whatever they want to you just because they're stronger than you, you give them what they deserve, rather than pretending like — like what they did was okay. ...Also of lust."

The plant chuckles. "I see someone has a favorite domain."

"Anyway, I'm from an Alternative branch of the world Suaal, complete with its own Inner and Outer Planes, I don't think I've ever run into someone else from there. Different deities are more active in different worlds. I see we're both familiar with Asmodeus, assuming him being a god of tyranny and such sounds right to you. Some of the other major deities I've heard of are Torag, god of dwarves and metalworking, Dai-Kitsu, goddess of farming, Thyslin, god of walls, Axis, plane of Law – technically not a god but pretty significant nonetheless. Do any of those sound familiar to you?"

"I've heard of Torag and I know he likes dwarves, I don't know how he feels about metal. I've heard of Axis but I've never heard anyone call it a god, do people call the other afterlives gods too? And for farming we've got Erastil, and I've never heard of a god of walls. And then we've got Pharasma, she made everything, she protects mothers in childbirth and stops their babies from dying and she really hates undead, and Iomedae, she's the goddess of fighting Evildoers, she really hates Asmodeus, and Shelyn, she likes art and music and she thinks it's a good idea to put Evildoers to work helping people if they decide to stop being Evil rather than just killing them. And a bunch of others but back home I was — working with — a priestess of Iomedae and a priestess of Shelyn." 

...And probably they're going to be killed, they probably didn't get a miracle from Calistria. Calistria and Iomedae and Shelyn and Cayden I guess, if you can hear me please help Valia and Alicia and Raimon get here too, I don't want them to die either.

"Huh. Iomedae and Shelyn sound nice. Axis isn't a god, it's just that they have a lot of power and have clerics and temples and such and there isn't a god of Axis, so they're sort of godlike. – Bar, can I borrow a translucent lock and a curtain pick? Wait, no, I'm being ridiculous. Can we just borrow a key for whatever locks she's got?"

There's now a key on the bar.

Locks get unlocked. The plant looks a bit sheepish.