He goes inside.

A man slides into the booth across from him. The lighting in the restaurant is dim and unnaturally even in the way lights in Axis are, and the man’s face is almost entirely hidden in the shadow of the wide brim of his hat.

“Senyor Riudaure. I cannot say it’s an unexpected honor, but it is an honor nonetheless. I really am an admirer of your accomplishments, even if you did it all for a goddess who can’t appreciate it.”

“It’s not that She doesn’t appreciate me. It’s that She can’t give me the only thing I want.”

“There’s no difference—but very well. What can I do for you, Senyor Riudaure?”

“I mean, I know, obviously, but if all the hoarded treasures of the House of Thrune were not enough to buy your soul back from Hell, I don’t know what you expect me to do. I like you, Senyor Riudaure, but not actually enough to outbid your Archduke.”

Indeed not; if he were looking for someone to buy his soul back he wouldn’t be here. He doesn’t say this. “There is a ritual,” he says instead, “to turn a mortal directly into an outsider without the intervening inconvenience of death and judgement. It’s most commonly used by demoniacs, but I don’t believe it to be limited to Chaotic Evil—my research suggests that Arazni was a subject of something like it at one point. I inquired with my lawyer about an purchasing an axiomatic version, and he completely refused to confirm or deny its existence, leading me to believe that law, rather than difficulty, is what stops it from being commonplace.”

The man chuckles. “Oh, yes, my people can do that for you. I’d hardly be in business without the ability to sometimes tell Pharasma to fuck off.”

There’s a catch, obviously.

“But?”

“I like you too much, Senyor Riudaure, to let you owe Me a favor for something you don’t need.”

What?

He barely notices the shift in pronoun, the confirmation (or at least claim) that he’s speaking to no mere servant, but to at least some small fraction of the god’s attention, because the thing the god is saying is impossible and doesn’t even make sense as a lie. Still, there’s nothing to say but—

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that your soul-sale contract has been null and void for nearly a hundred years, as have everyone else’s.”

“Mephistopheles made a deal with Sarenrae. For what, I can’t say. But the reason Hell won’t sell you back your soul is that they don’t own it, and are rather desperate to avoid that fact getting out. A man who believes himself damned will do all sorts of evil to get out of it.”

Like making deals with fucking Norgorber. And so Hell gets what it wants anyway, in the end.

“It’s not too late for you yet.”

“How do you know any of this, and why should I believe you? I’ve asked Iomedae, personally, questions whose answers should have been different if any of this were true.”

“There’s more than one god of secrets in Creation. I can’t see into Caïna, but everything I’ve told you is quite inferable from information you already had yourself. You wouldn’t have done those Communes if you didn’t suspect something.”

“As for Iomedae, She also sold out, if you didn’t guess from the Commune answers of NO COMMENT. Her Commune manual does specify that she might agree to causally isolate information from her decision processes in a way that might produce inaccurate answers. Whether or not that constitutes ‘lying’ I will leave between you and Her.”

(His clerics also get NO COMMENT in response to any queries involving Mephistopheles, but that’s hardly relevant, is it?)

“And I’m to believe you didn’t sell out?”

“I hate it when people go to Hell. It’s the one thing that all of the ascended gods have in common, though we all come at it from different directions.”

“Of course I took Meph’s money. Who wouldn’t? But it turns out that the contract only specified not letting the information leak to the Material, and you’re not going back to the Material.”

(It’s about now that Jean might notice that he has, at some point, wandered into an antimagic field.)

“I’m doing you a favor, I promise. When you get back to Axis, you should consider repaying it.”

The man takes a revolver from his coat pocket and shoots Jean Riudaure in the head.

“Do you know your name?”