There are four of them, all mounted on horses — two human women in front, with an unarmored human man and a halfling woman behind them. One of the human women is wearing a painted wooden pendant, a circle with three dagger-like points coming out of it. They're dressed like adventurers — they all have billowing cloaks, and two of them have headbands — though official adventurers would generally be using the main roads, unless they'd specifically been sent to clear out a threat in the forest.

Fernando may also notice that their horses don't seem to be leaving any sort of trail on the ground, or that the halfling is armed with a bow and doesn't seem to carry herself like a slave. (The human women are also armed, but that's much less surprising.)

(They generally don't aim very hard for subtlety when they're in the woods. If they run into an army patrol in the middle of the forest it was always going to turn into a fight anyway, in which case it's better to have their weapons drawn and Justice's holy symbol ready, and occasionally there are bandits with grudges against Asmodeans who don't particularly have anything against them and don't care to take their chances in a fight.)

The man is clearly some sort of caster, but he's by himself and not in army gear, so it's really not very likely he'll pick a fight with them. "We're not lost, no. And yourself?"

She's got a Chelish accent, though if he's particularly good with accents he might notice it's more like the kind people have if they grew up in the Heartlands.

A 3 pointed symbol... maybe some variant of Pazuzu's symbol?  He knows they sometimes collaborate with other cults on tearing down Asmodeus, and they keep themselves compartmentalized that he wouldn't know if another branch had a priestess of Pazuzu join up.

And he was concentrating so hard on studying them that he almost missed what the woman with the pendant said... he's not sure if she actually said the correct counter-phrase to identify herself?  He thinks she was at least a few words off.  Maybe she's deliberately testing him?  Either way, they certainly can't be a group of licit adventurers, the halfling carries herself with too much freedom to be a slave, so they are almost certainly his contacts.

And she asked him a question.  He doesn't recall another stage of challenge and response identification procedures, so he'll just get to the point.

"I'm not lost.  Uh, um... I don't know what you have planned, but I have a small stack of heretically Good romance novels and I think it would be hilarious if some particularly devout Asmodeans got caught with them.  Not uh, saying it should have priority over your plans but if we could work it into the schedule I think it would be worth it.  And for more serious plans... I've recently gotten Magic Aura down well enough to fake the traits of other casters, although I need a few examples of their spells to study with Greater Detect Magic beforehand.  A well placed Magic Aura is a reliable classic."

Wow, whoever this is seems kind of incompetent. Which is — kind of upsetting, actually, she doesn't want him to get caught and Maledicted for no reason — she should focus, that's not the most important thing.

He has... romance novels and the ability to frame people with magic auras... and he thinks they're part of his group, whatever that group actually is. Hearing about the romance novels, there's a part of her that kind of wishes Haven was here, even though this wasn't actually the sort of mission that needs double channeling capacity. ...It's sort of tempting to tell him to take his apparently-decent spellcasting and go break out another plantation but she's really not sure he could pull it off.

"—There's a couple towns within a few day's ride big enough to have multiple priests." She glances at the man behind her. "Can Magic Aura fake auras from divine casters?"

"As far as I know, it's not possible to determine for certain from a spell's aura whether it was cast by a divine caster in the first place, if you don't see it cast. I don't see why it wouldn't work."

Nod. "In which case it'd be nice to try and frame one of their priests for plotting against another one, get them to waste some time tearing each other apart. But it's more dangerous to try to sneak into the bigger towns — you'd definitely need to deal with the books first—"

Justice can't see it but Independence is kind of giving her a look.

"The books are harder, it's not the sort of crime that'd stick against anyone actually important."

"I think it might depend on who you go after, actually — lots of people are important enough to just make it disappear, but disloyalty's one of the things that can really get you, I bet there's slavers who—"

"If they're rich enough to own slaves they're rich enough to bribe the Fists!"

"There's probably a way to use them to make it look like some of the recent disturbances in the area were caused by Desnans, the hard part is doing that without putting the Asmodeans closer to the right track."

Something about this group feels... off from what Fernando was expecting.  Trying to articulate his observations to himself... they seem more at ease and casual with each other than Fernando was expecting?  That's probably a good sign?  Hopefully one of them hasn't enchanted or drugged all the others or something like that?

"Like I said, I'm not committed to the novels idea, I got them by happenstance and thought it might be funny.  In general, I've just recently got third circle casting, so I've only got Nondetection and Phantom Steed for third circle spells, uh, for the rest of my spells, my I'm mostly focused on conjuration, with basically no enchantment.  I admit I may not seem like the subtlest agent, but I've performed decently posing as a passing first circle or laundry wizard to village too small and poor to have a full time laundry wizard.  And of course I'm ready and able to serve as a supporting spellcaster for whatever buffs you need that I have.  Oh, and I can cast infernal healing without devil's blood so that should hopefully free up some slots if you expect to be tight on healing?  You know, properly cast, it is actually overall better than a cure light wounds, just a bit slower acting."

His talking speeds up as he gets going.  (He partially rehearsed a summary of his qualifications).

Justice has them covered on healing, but there's no real reason to say that when for all she knows Cheliax will torture it out of him tomorrow. 

She'd been planning to point out that she was not actually with whoever his group is once she got through talking through his ideas, but then she got distracted and now it'd be kind of awkward. Maybe she can wait until she has a little more information about what he's up to. (He's clearly not an Eagle Knight, but lots of people hate Asmodeus who aren't Eagle Knights.)

"It'll be harder to pass for first-circle now that you've hit third, that's strong enough to have an aura." Wizards don't get Undetectable Alignment, even if no one bothers to point a Detect Magic his way, and Nondetection's pricy.

"Some versions of Magic Aura can cover for that. I'm not sure how many of the third-circle variants can, though."

"There's probably something it's possible to do with the novels, but trying to pull off complicated plots because they're funny is a good way to get yourself caught." Presumably he's resigned himself to being caught and Maledicted at some point, but there's no reason to make it happen sooner.

"The fourth circle version of Magic Aura can do living creatures yes.  I have a scroll of the 4th circle version, but we should only use it for a really good plan.  And yes, I do need to conserve my Nondetection diamond dust for more critical activity... but I can make do with a Misdirection for a lot of similar uses.. I didn't prepare it today, but I still have my bonded object spell if we have a pressing need for it?"

He addresses the other women.  "Being funny in and of itself isn't a good enough reason I agree, but there is some value if you can push things in a surreal direction, make your targets doubt their own sanity, make them question the standard set of spells and techniques for espionage and wonder to themselves if you've figured out an entirely new spell that can beat all their old methods of spycraft.  Once you've got them thinking like that, they may waste resources or distrust the standard methods for years afterwards.  Uh... not that I particularly had a plan like that in mind... I've been kind of uh... idly thinking of something with a layered Nondetection, Misdirection, and Magic Aura cast at different strengths so a dispel gets one of them in particular..."

He thought the proper orthodoxy (not that Chaos needs to be exactly proper), was to try to outwit your opponents as much as possible... but he had already figured this group might not all be committed to his Lord?  And he can understand favoring simple effectiveness.

The risk there is that you 'trick' them into rightfully distrusting a method that was never very reliable to begin with, but Elettra's not really a magic expert.

"I trust your judgment on how to use your own magic." (But not on very much else.)

"You should also be aware that there have been some disruptions about three day's travel west of here, near Gelida. The enforcers of the law are likely to be on unusually high alert, particularly in the immediate vicinity of the area."

He takes a moment to double check the geography in his head.  He needs to say something, getting made fun of or beaten or even just embarrassed by the new group would be bad, but someone being caught would be far worse.

“Okay, uh… something has gone wrong with information compartmentalization, or someone’s confused or has messed up or something…” he nervously stammers.

“I’m pretty sure that’s in the direction which we were supposed to be creating diversions away from?”

...Well, she's not going to complain if someone accidentally gave them a free distraction, but she hopes they didn't completely ruin whatever the other group was planning. Or at least that if they did, that the other group was able to get away. ...Presumably he doesn't have a good way to warn them, or he'd've had a better way to get instructions from them, too.

"We're not actually with your group." Someone's got to say it.

She'd have told him eventually!

"—We're not Asmodeans, we're not about to turn you in or anything like that. But, uh, it might be good to be a bit more cautious about who you start telling about your plans."

All the little notes of confusion come together clearly now.

“Oh..”

And his mind is still working past his rising panic because he comes to a conclusion he should communicate urgently.

“If you haven’t come across another group in this stretch of forest nor seen any signs of them… they were supposed to be here for at least a few days so it’s possible they’ve been caught on the way here, and if they’ve been caught alive and interrogated one of them might have given away they were supposed to meet me at this location (or at least near it) and I think a third circle wizard is enough to warrant at least a decent effort to catch…”

He catches his breath.

“So we should leave… or maybe if you’re really daring and stronger than I’d have guessed setup a counter ambush or at least be ready to encounter opposition.”

It's tempting. It'd be awfully satisfying if some Asmodean enforcers tried to hunt down what they thought would be easy prey and ended up getting a taste of their own medicine and leaving Cheliax with one fewer group of people to sic on anyone who tries to resist them. But it's the sort of tempting where she knows it's obviously a bad idea, not the sort of tempting where she seriously wants to try it under the circumstances — they can definitely take a regular army patrol, but trying to fight a group of handpicked enforcers specifically chosen to hunt people down is a lot riskier.

"How much did they know about you? I assume you'd've mentioned if you'd felt someone trying to Scry you..."

...This man seems to have decided he's coming with them. It doesn't really seem like a good idea to try to bring him along under the circumstances, but the other three are definitely going to outvote her on that.

(Wanderer, guide them to safety; let fortune favor their flight, and may they rise free with the new day.)

Finally a question he can answer favorably!

“As you may have guessed, my uh…”

And it occurs to him he’s been lucky enough not to mention very many specific details about his ‘group’ and he should keep it that way for multiple reasons.

“…group, practices pretty tight information security, so the only thing the people I was supposed to meet here know about me is that I’m a newly 3rd circle wizard, specialized in conjuration.  So if they’ve been caught they can’t leak too many specifics…”

Or maybe she meant his allies scrying him?

“And the parts of my” don’t say cult “organization that do know my name and face don’t have a lot of higher circle spells to spare, so a scry from them isn’t likely to come… uh I’m supposed to know it’s them if it comes at a particular time and make a quick report in that case.”

And how to ask this next part without begging…

“Er, I likewise have a bare minimum of information to go off for meeting my new contacts so I won’t be able to find them, and it sounds like heading back west anywhere near Gelida isn’t a great idea, so if you’ve got a use for a conjurer I would certainly appreciate the company and contributing to any cause that undermines Asmodeus.”

"It shouldn't be possible for Hell's agents to land a Scry solely from that description."

"And if he's not with us they might be able to follow his trail." They're not masked right now, he's seen their faces. She makes a tiny gesture at Shakti.

He's wearing the tiny copper wire like it's a ring. Message. 

He's obviously hiding something. Just because he won't bring the law down on our heads doesn't mean he won't slit our throats while we sleep.

If you're really worried about that we could make him sleep in a separate Rope Trick? Shakti hasn't used the spell he gets from his ring yet.

I don't want to risk him riding off on his own and getting caught. It's nice when the pragmatic thing to do is the one she'd want to do anyway.

Shakti?

Oh, apologies, I thought I was obviously in favor.

Tiny nod.

"Right now we're mostly lying low and heading east, but if you don't mind not doing anything flashy for a bit you can ride with us. Or, uh, walk with us, once the horses run out — anyways. Stay where she can see you." She points at the halfling. "If we've got to talk to someone, and they're not with your group, let us handle it. Uh, and there's a few hand signals we should go over if we do get into a fight, what spells do you have that're useful in combat?"

“I’m fine not being flashy.  I’m not well prepared for a fight today, I just have a summon monster II and a summon swarm.  I generally get a few extra rounds out of summonings compared to typical for my circle.  I have two infernal healings for after any fight.  Oh and I still have my bonded object spell, so that could be a Web, or Grease, or Glitterdust, to name my best spells for a fight.  If tomorrow I’m preparing more heavily for a fight, I can do more of any spell I just named, and as well Protection from Law, Mage Armor, Bull’s Strength, and Resist Energy depending on what you all want.  I have a Communal Mount I haven’t cast yet, which I can split up to five ways for two hours each, and my current Phantom Steed has two hours left.”

He recites this calmly and firmly.

"Oh, we're not looking for a fight, but sometimes we run into one anyway, and it's good to be ready." And if they're bringing him along, then making sure he can work with them is less important than making sure he can't tell the Asmodeans much about what they can do if he gets captured.

"I'm a priestess, he's a wizard, she's an archer, she stabs people." She gestures to herself, the man, the halfling, and the human woman respectively. "I channel positive, so I can cover healing for the group as long as I'm conscious. At first I've got two of Bless, one Command, one Shield of Faith, one Expeditious Retreat—"

She goes through the rest of her spells. Apart from the Expeditious Retreat, it's mostly standard fare for a third-circle adventuring cleric, except that she's got a Fly for some reason, and doesn't have any Cure spells prepared. "And the spear, obviously."

She looks at the man she indicated as the wizard.

"At first circle I've prepared a Mage Armor, a Sleep, a Silent Image, Break — that one rarely ends up relevant, but I'm a Transmutation specialist—" He goes through his full list; he's third-circle as well, with necromancy and evocation as opposed schools. Something in his accent is noticeably different from how he was speaking earlier.

"I have a slot remaining at each circle in case we need to adjust to something unexpected, and of course my bonded object." 

She gestures to the halfling again. "And it's not going to come up in a fight, but she's really good at sneaking through the woods and forests and so on, as long as she can see you you won't leave a trail unless you're trying to." Justice really doesn't understand how that works, Independence always says it isn't magic but it really seems like it, but she's not about to complain.

She pauses, in case he has any questions he wants to ask before they can get into hand signals.

He nods along.  Sounds like a well rounded team of adventurers.  No cure spells prepared and the ability to channel positive means she is Good and serves a Good God.  The Fly spell means Travel domain, which Desna is an obvious guess for... although... does Cayden have Travel?  Probably Desna, but he should avoid saying anything bad about alcohol and drunkenness' just in case.  Hopefully he hasn't already offended the cleric with his plans for repurposing romance novels?

He should probably find a favorable way to explain himself before it comes up because of alignment detection or something like that.  He starts mentally running through what he has heard about Desna and Andoran to try to figure out the best spin.

"That all makes sense and sounds reasonable.  I've heard of some pretty weird adventurer abilities that actually aren't magic and don't detect as such."

"Great!" She moves her left finger in a circle. "So that's the one for illusions, mostly he" (gesture at the wizard) "uses it to signal that he just cast a Silent Image and you should try to see through it, but you can also use it to point out illusions if it's a situation where you'd rather the people we're fighting not know that you've seen through them. This one" (she makes a little rectangle with her hands, then pulls it apart) "is for positioning Webs or other area spells like that, then for general positioning you want—"

She can go through all of them. There aren't that many. "—and then it won't matter for a fight, but you can use this one to ask him to loop everyone into a Message. Uh, and for everything else, or for anything where it's really really important that the other person know what you're telling them and not that important to keep it secret, you can just use, uh, regular words. Oh, and if it looks like someone's trying to read our hand signals sometimes we'll make up fake ones that don't mean anything, if you see one of us make a hand sign that looks totally different from any of those that's probably what we're doing."

He practices the hand signs to himself as she goes through them.

“That makes sense.  Uh…”

He’s mentally rehearsed this while she was talking but he’s still stammering.

“There is something I should possibly explain about my group that you might want to know… not that I can think it’s likely to be relevant particularly soon… it could easily wait until after we’ve relocated?”

"Well, see, now I'm curious—"

(She totally called it.)

“Well, the thing is, uh, my organization, its primary divine casting, is uh, clerics of Baphomet.  We work with anyone that wants to take down Asmodeus and his servants!  I really don’t think we’ll have any problems working together, as you’ve already noticed we favor complicated tricky plans but I can compromise on that, and uh (I assume from your general Goodness) there will be no torturing Asmodean priests, even the really nasty cruel ones?”

He keeps talking, better to just get it all said now.

“And if there is a check in scry from my organization, (not the I expect one), it should be within 10 minutes of three hours after dawn, so if you want to avoid being seen I would need a few minutes of privacy.  Or you could listen in if that’s necessary to trust to me.”

He tries to put on a disarming smile but it just looks awkward.

Okay, but is it the kind of Baphomet cult that mostly wants to fight Asmodeus, or the kind that traps little kids in magic labyrinths until they starve?

...Presumably it's not full of completely fine people none of whom have done anything particularly bad, she's pretty sure Baphomet doesn't choose that sort of person to be his priests? But there's a lot of — options, ways they could be better or worse, and for that matter for this man to be joining up with them because he wants to fight Asmodeus and they're who he met or because he likes how they let him indulge all his worst hobbies without trying to lecture him.

Someone told her once that Calistria has slept with Baphomet but she's pretty sure they were just trying to make her mad, gods don't have bodies really — that's not actually important.

There's got to be some reason they're working for Baphomet and not any of the other better gods who'd be happy to help them fight Asmodeus. Even if they were Evil to begin with Calistria can pick Evil priests — though Justice had never heard of Milani, maybe they hadn't heard of Milani or Calistria or... Gorum, somehow... no, it doesn't actually sound like Gorum'd like them very much. And presumably the Lawful ones aren't going to help them.

It is absolutely possible that it'll turn out he's spending most of his time doing horrifying things to ordinary farmers who don't really deserve it and staying in the group's good graces because the farmers pray to Asmodeus sometimes. If it turns out he's doing things awful enough he deserves to die for them they can almost certainly take him, it'd be four-on-one — unless he's lying about his circle, if he can Dimension Door away then it'd be a stalemate, at least for now—

"Are you empowered by Baphomet?"

An easy and safe question!

“No, I am not.”

"What sorts of things do you guys get up to? —Uh, don't tell us any super specific secret details, obviously, just, in general."

Wow, she’s practically giving him the opportunity to focus on the more unobjectionable stuff!

“Murdering Asmodean priests and nobility, stealing from them, framing them for stuff we’ve done, sowing chaos and discord among them… like we left subtle goat themed calling cards and got a baron to order every goat in his land slaughtered and burned, that was pretty funny…”

Oh wait is that evil because it hurt the goat herds?

“I mean not for the peasants that owned goats, but it meant the inquisition and his Count took his complaints and comments about Baphomet much less seriously, giving us more room to operate, so it was strategically useful.”

That makes it a bit less Evil, right?  Or is it only Iomedae that thinks that way?  He should have studied theology harder.  He does at least know enough Good theology to put into play his next gambit though…

“And uh, yeah, when the opportunity arose and we could manage it, we sometimes kidnapped and tortured priests of Asmodeus, especially if they had useful information are we really needed to sow fear.”

There.  That should give them something Evil to focus on, but not so evil they can’t understand it (and even approve of it, if they’re being honest with themselves). And if they really push him on it, he can show a bit of remorse or something to draw them into thinking he’s willing and able to repent to Good.

Well, they already knew his group worshipped Baphomet, if he hasn't left out anything really horrifying then that's... mostly pretty reasonable? Sucks for the goatherds, obviously, and it kind of seems like they care more about what's funny than about fighting for justice or freedom or anything, but it's not like people who aren't Baphomet cultists never accidentally get regular people hurt. (And they should cut it out with the torture, Asmodeus loves torture and fuck Asmodeus, but it's not like she doesn't understand the impulse.)  

Of course, it's totally possible he's leaving some things out, but if so he has the sense not to admit it. They really are trying to fight the Church of Asmodeus, at least, she's sure of that much.

"—You should probably stop with the torture, Asmodeus really likes torture even when it's his own people getting tortured. Magic's better for getting information anyways, sometimes people who're being tortured will, uh, confess to things they didn't actually do, for some reason."

(Now she's a little upset, actually. Her old lord and her old priest are dead, they've surely been tortured far more in Hell than they ever did to Tea.)

Also, it's Evil, but it sounds like this man is aware of that and is simply choosing to torture people regardless.

"If you're planning to cross the border you can't follow Baphomet."

"—That's also true, I don't know what your plans are but, uh — I forget exactly how the law is phrased—" Fighting Asmodeus is a sympathetic enough reason that they'd probably go easy on him if he could say under a Truthtelling that he was going to give it up, but it's not a good idea to count on it, it'd really be a lot easier to just give it up before it got to that point.

"Within Andoran's borders, it's a grave crime to compact with an Evil power or a power of the Lower Planes, and a serious crime to willingly serve one, or to proselytize on their behalf." After the revolution the People's Council tried to make it a serious crime even to pray to one, but simple prayer turned out to be sufficiently common for that to be untenable. 

Sometimes with enough torture you can trick the priests into making Oaths you can get them to break soon after!  Fernando is pretty sure Asmodeus hates broken Oaths even if he likes torture and tricky compacts, and if the broken Oath is severe enough, it might even deny Hell a soul!  He doesn’t say this or even let his face hint at it because despite outward appearances he isn’t a total dumbass.

”I hadn’t actually thought about crossing the border, the fight is here…” and he doesn’t want to give up on his fellow cultists even if they aren’t exactly friends.

“Er, uh… how much of a ‘can’t follow’ would you all, or the border guard be looking for?  Like a basic truth spell and a simple formal statement, or a mind reading… or like full on loyalty tests with elaborate enchantments and illusions and extensive mind reading and such?… uh I’m not super strongly committed and can easily avoid proselytizing… but I’m not sure how broadly ‘serving’ is defined, but I don’t want to have my every thought looked through.”

Baphomet approves being able to outwit yourself enough to outwit others.  My mind is a maze.  But Fernando hasn’t ever pulled off in practice more than bending the truth just a little bit while under a truth spell.

"Oh, I mean, if you want to stay and fight that's totally fine, there's ways that are easier to fight if you've got somewhere to go back to but there's lots of ways that are easier if you don't have to cross the border both ways to do them."

The border guard... mostly doesn't ask that many questions, at least when she's crossed. Probably they ask more if there's no one vouching, or if the people vouching tell them the person they're with used to be a Baphomet cultist. "I'm not an officer of the law, I'm not here to — make sure you've got the exact right thoughts, or anything like that, just, it seems like the sort of thing you should know going in. Andoran's not Cheliax, the government doesn't go around reading people's minds just to be sure they're loyal, but if someone's accused of a crime I'm pretty sure they use mind-reading sometimes. And truth spells, obviously. And probably other things I don't know about, depending on the circumstances, I think they're careful-er with casters? —Uh, anyways." She looks at the wizard.

"There are two primary components, one about affiliation and another about actual service, but I don't recall the exact language used in the relevant statutes, if that's what you were interested in. It is not a crime to appreciate that Baphomet is warring against Asmodeus, but some of your other activities would almost certainly qualify."

"—Would examples be helpful? We could maybe try to remember some examples of what sorts of things have counted."

The problem is that, assuming it wasn’t an elaborate bluff (which it might well be), some 5th circle cleric or 4th circle wizard has a bit of his hair, a sketch of his face, and his name.  If he runs off to Andoran they might leave him alone for years, then draw him back into some scheme or plot he doesn’t exactly want to participate in.  He’s actually told these adventurers enough to guess this problem, but if they aren’t seeing it he won’t draw their attention to it.

Also they’ve been talking for longer than he feels safe given the possibility this location is compromised.

“That sounds useful if you have an example or two each way of allowable and not-allowable?  But maybe we should get moving and talk once we’re in a more secure location, assuming you still don’t mind me traveling with you and don’t have any more urgent questions?”

Nod. "It's not really urgent. We're not going to throw you to the Asmodeans." If they wanted him dead they'd do it themselves. "—We'll want to hang back a little bit when we get close to the time you might have to make your report. You can warn them about the disturbances out west, but don't give them a description of us, and obviously if you feel anything tugging at your mind any other time, tell us right away."

And they can set off. Fernando may notice that his Phantom Steed indeed doesn't seem to be leaving any tracks.

The lack of tracks is a nice trick, especially since it can apply to the whole party! 

He'll do his part to keep an eye out as they travel.  He thinks over how he can sell his story better... and he starts to consider betraying Baphomet for real.

They ride for a few hours from there. At one point, the Communal Mount they're using runs out, and they pause for a few moments while their wizard casts another. They don't run into any other people, and whatever monsters are in this forest, they apparently don't want to chance going after a group of adventurers.

When the second Communal Mount runs out, the halfling looks at the sky. "It's almost sunset. Let's stop here."

“I still have my bonded object spell if you want an extra rope trick up or an extra alarm?”

“And I would appreciate some more examples about how cases like mine are handled in Andoran?”

"We'll be sleeping in a pair of Extended Rope Tricks, but if you wanted to cast a non-extended one we could rest there until we're ready to actually sleep." They want at least an hour's buffer on the other end to be sure they have time to prepare their spells, so the soonest they can cast it is nine hours before dawn.

“I haven’t learned any metamagic myself yet…”

He casts his rope trick from the amulet around his neck without using the typical bit of powdered corn or loop of parchment (although he still has to use an actual rope for the target).

They all climb up the rope and settle in. 

"Right, okay. So — not all of these are necessarily going to mean the same thing would definitely happen to someone else. The courts here don't just care whether you broke the law, they also care about whether you were doing the right thing, and whether you were even trying to do the right thing. Uh, I thought of some while we were riding but I couldn't write them down — there was this bookseller last year, it turned out he was smuggling in copies of the Disciplines and running a secret Asmodean congregation, when they asked him at his trial how he'd failed to show virtue he said the only thing he regretted was getting caught. He got sentenced to death, I don't remember offhand what happened to the others. Then, a few months back, there was this merchant who kept getting accused of dishonest deals, and one of the people she ripped off accused her of being a Mammonite. Anyways, she got put on trial, and at the first part of the trial — that's the part where they make sure they know what actually happened — anyways, she said under truthspell that she'd never even prayed to Mammon since the revolution. They made her pay a big fine, since she'd broken some laws about not lying about what you're selling, but they said she wasn't guilty of serving an infernal power, since she'd just been trying to get rich, not specifically to serve Mammon."

"The rest of his 'congregation' had to go to spiritual counseling, but I think it might've helped that he got caught the first time he tried to hold a service, so the rest of them could all tell the magistrate that they only went once, seriously regretted it, and wouldn't have gone back again. That was controversial, though, it easily could have gone the other way."

"Right, yeah, I remember now." Justice thinks they got off too easily and isn't particularly trying to hide that fact. "Uh, regular non-Asmodean spiritual counseling, not, like, torture. Anyways, that reminds me, there was that woman with a deformed baby, she got caught desecrating one of the temples to Shelyn with Lamashtu's symbol, but at the trial she said under truthspell that she was trying to protect her baby and she couldn't think of any other way to do it. They made her go to spiritual counseling and pay a little fine to cover the cost of cleaning up the symbols, and I think they also, uh, explained that Shelyn doesn't want to murder deformed babies for being ugly." 

He nods. "Last year in Almas there was a different incident with Lamashtu — the perpetrator was initially arrested for similar behavior, but it turned out that he had been doing some sort of magical experiment to make enormous venomous winged centipedes. He swore he wouldn't breed more monsters, but he was still executed."

"There was the halfling who killed that slaver adventurer. The Thamirist."

"Right, him too — uh, there was this idiot adventurer from... Brevoy, I think?... who didn't realize Andoran was serious about not allowing slavery. The halfling he'd brought with him slit his throat in his sleep and escaped, and while the watch was interrogating him it came out he worshipped Thamir, who's this halfling god of murder. Which, I mean, that checks out. That one barely even counts, though, if he'd hung for it there'd've probably been a riot." She says this in a tone of voice that suggests she thinks obviously rioting over that would have been reasonable.

"In terms of things that wouldn't have normally been against the law, this would've been a few years back, but there was that family who beat their kids, which is totally legal." (She says this in a slightly disapproving tone.) "But it turned out they had an altar to Zon-Kuthon in their home, and they were beating their kids because they wanted to glorify Zon-Kuthon without getting in trouble with the law. They were definitely both convicted but I don't remember what happened to them."

"In the village where I grew up there was a tradition of praying to Urgathoa for protection from disease, and that's not sufficient to constitute 'serving' her. ...It's still unwise, to be clear, in significant part because it doesn't actually work."

"That's, uh, kind of concerning. —Anyways." She looks at Fernando. "What you're doing now would definitely count, if you were doing it in Andoran. They might let you off easy but only if you could say you wouldn't do it again. But there's lots of ways to fight Asmodeus without, uh, specifically going out of your way to serve Baphomet."

So, some of that he can't use.  Andoran seems to go easier on you if you're pathetic, like a desperate mother or slave or halfling.  He can't exactly turn himself into a halfling or whatever.

Some of it seems... kind of obvious?  Like of course you shouldn't be an idiot and pray to Urgathoa for a removal of or protection from disease... maybe she can target other people instead of you but praying for that is obviously Evil!  And punishing someone for cheating people in business dealings is what a sensibly lawful (i.e. not Cheliax) should and would do.

Andoran goes easier on you if you can show repentance.  That fits with what he has heard third hand.  Fernando can't exactly summon up feelings of repentance, but he can conjure up a little doubt about most of his life decisions with only a little bit of introspection, and with the right framing that is kind of like repentance?  He hasn't heard of the framing "lack of virtue" before, but he can kind of guess and with a few weeks to learn Good theology he could probably get it right.  He can practice right now... torturing Asmodean priests into breaking oaths... is a lack of solemnness, because it is really really funny?  No wait, it's a lack of mercy... except Good is allowed to kill Evil, that seems kind of worse than torture?  He can probably just ask at some point on the exact dividing lines.

But the more important question is a bit bigger in scope.  There is no point in betraying Baphomet (for real, and not just enough to pass a truth spell) if he's ultimately bound for the Abyss anyway.

"Do any of you know how long it takes someone to make Neutral from Evil?  Or like, if it varies, if you have a ratio in tortured Asmodean priests to years of giving all you can afford to poor and living in solemn self abnegation or whatever the maximally Good earning way is?  Just a very loose estimate would help.  And if you could also make an estimate of years of freeing slaves via piracy for someone that just made Neutral to eventually make Good?"

Hopefully the last part isn't just propaganda against Andoran and that really is the national past time?  He wouldn't want to risk it while he's still Evil himself, but it seems like a reasonable way to improve the Maelstrom to Elysium and if he dies then the Maelstrom should be tolerable.

"It's sort of hard to tell, there's a spell that can show someone where they're going but only priests of Pharasma get it, but from what anyone's been able to tell it definitely depends. It took me a few months to start channeling positive after I got to Andoran, but I don't know exactly when I switched over. ...And, uh, I hadn't been torturing people for Baphomet. People'll sometimes say very loosely that you need to do as much Good as you did Evil, but it's not like there are... numbers... for how Evil it is to do any particular Evil thing.

Uh, in terms of things I know can make a difference — it takes longer the more Evil you were beforehand, obviously. It's faster the more Good you're doing, like, I think it helped that I was a priestess, there's loads of ways to help people if you're a priestess. It matters whether you actually care about doing the right thing or whether you're just scared of going to Hell. It hurts a lot if you're still doing Evil — you don't have to be perfect, but — you can think about it like — a Good person wouldn't be looking for excuses to keep doing Evil things? And so if you are that suggests you're not really serious about doing the right thing, you don't deserve to be treated like someone who's actually trying, and it means you've got more to make up for. And then there's lots of other things people say might make a difference, but those are the ones that people mostly agree about."

Justice is pretty unimpressed with people who are just trying to get out of Hell, but it's not like she wants Asmodeus to have their souls. This guy shouldn't have that problem, at least, the only way he's going to Hell is if he gets Maledicted there.

"How much do you know about afterlife trials?"

“Uh… your God and any other God that has a use for you argue over your soul before a judge of Pharasma, winner gets you sent to their afterlife?  Alignment detection indicates which way the judge will be strongly leaning towards, barring particular good arguments for one God over another?”

He had kind of assumed the judge sends you to the God’s specific afterlife domain but, now that he’s seriously considering betraying Baphomet, he admits to himself he’s not quite sure about that?  Even devoted worshippers of Dispater or Mammon still end up in Avernus, right?

That's closer than she was expecting from someone Chelish, so she really can't complain. "That's on the right track. Each afterlife can send a representative — supposedly Nirvana sends one to every trial — but as far as I know they don't have to be connected to a god."

"We might not know if they did, though — I don't think they do, just, I don't know for certain one way or the other. But it's kind of hard to imagine the Chaotic afterlives having, uh, that kind of rule."

She nods. "We don't know very much about how the trials work. But we do know that they aren't just adding up everything you've done in your life, they're trying to figure out what sort of person you are."

She traces a little branching path on the floor. "The way it was explained to me once was — we all choose what path to walk down, and some of those paths are full of Evil deeds, and if you keep walking down them they'll lead you to damnation. But no matter how far you walk, you can always choose to turn around and get on a different path." She mimes this with her finger. "Even if you've gone a long way down the path to the Abyss, so far that you never make it back to where you started, if you choose to turn around and put yourself on a different path, and you're committed enough to that path that Pharasma's court is very sure you wouldn't have just turned back around again, the court will judge you for the path you were on when you died."

“That seems less quantifiable and less assured than I would have hoped, but potentially faster?”

Faster if he can genuinely commit to a Gooder path, which he doesn’t think he can.

Also that explanation might be Andoran propaganda aimed as assuring their pirates that stop detecting Chaotic Good after murdering one too many slavers.

“There is one spell I’ve heard of… Atonement.  Do you know how affordable it is in Andoran?  And how it interacts with Pharasma’s court?”

"Uh, I know it's really expensive but I don't know how much, do any of you know?"

"It requires the same type of incense used in Commune spells, so the price fluctuates slightly depending on the growing conditions that year. It's consistently more expensive than a Cloak of Resistance, and less expensive than a standard headband."

"And it only works if you really mean it. I think the only time I've ever heard of someone getting one is Councillor Liberty, and she stepped down from the Council after — uh, she was a priestess of Milani, I think that's why she bothered with the spell."

"And the adventures who went up against the nightmare-faerie." 

"I think that might've technically been a different spell? I don't think they could've afforded the incense, and getting mind controlled is pretty different."

He doesn’t have a headband himself, the cult didn’t quite have the funds to buy one (even if it would have meant he could squeeze an extra spell or two in his scaffold) and his group hadn’t lucked into robbing anyone rich enough to have one.  Also, he thinks he see an obvious loyalty-test sort of perverse twist to the whole concept of paying so much for an Atonement.

“If you’re actually committed to Goodness, I suppose it usually makes more sense to donate the money to people in need of charity than to spend it on buying an Atonement for yourself?”

He’s pretty proud of himself for seeing through that little puzzle.

Nod nod! "Yeah, exactly."

Oh good, he figured out the right answer!  Andoran seems kind of manageable if the loyalty tests are about that difficulty.

He could move on to safer topics, like planning spell preparation for tomorrow, but they haven’t actually threatened him once, and he’s curious about other things…

“What exactly does your God (Desna, right?) in particular teach about Goodness?”

Why... does he think... she's a Desnan. She's... travelling? She's... in favor of people being free? He hasn't seen her free any slaves, or pass out any secret Good romance novels, or anything. 

...If they make it back safely Haven's going to think this is hilarious.

"—Uh, I'm actually a Calistrian." She gently taps her holy symbol. "I can tell you what sorts of things she teaches, there's plenty that's helpful for doing the right thing, but she's not technically Good, if it makes a difference. I mean, I do also like Desna, I know some of the sorts of things priests of Desna say, but I'm not a priest of Desna myself." Her girlfriend's a priestess of Desna but she doesn't really want to bring that up in the middle of enemy territory.

"I'm a Desnan as much as I'm anything. The regular kind, though, she doesn't give me magic."

“Oh, I thought you said you had Fly prepared, so I assumed Travel Domain, which I thought meant Desna or maybe Cayden?”

A Calistrian is actually better for him, she should appreciate torturing Asmodean priests to death out of revenge?  Unless he has actually been doing that Wrong and she’ll be extra offended?

“Uh yes, I would like to hear about both Gods if you wouldn’t mind.  It’s hard to get accurate information in Cheliax.”

Even his more recent theological education has been too pragmatic to cover non-Evil Gods.  (It was mostly focused on not offending allied cultists of other demon lords or allied Druids.)

"Okay. Uh, first thing, you don't become Good by picking a god and trying to exactly copy what they do no matter what. Or, like, I'm sure there's people who do that who count as Good, but the point of being Good is to do the right thing, not just to obey the Good gods, or anyone else."

She reaches into her bag and pulls out a leather strap with little symbols of a rose, a butterfly, a sword with a wing, and a wasp. "So, I'm a Calistrian. The short way people describe Calistria is that she's the goddess of revenge and lust — that's not perfect, none of the short ways people talk about the gods are perfect, but it's good enough. 

There's a few different ways people to think about the vengeance part, I'm going to... talk about a couple I like, I guess? One way is — there's a lot of people who think that just because they're strong or powerful or important, it's their right to hurt other people as much as they want. Slavers working people half to death in the fields, noblemen forcing themselves on their servants, priests of Asmodeus torturing a midwife to death because she favored Pharasma too much. And — none of that's okay. It makes me angry to hear about people like that just getting away with what they're doing, day after day after day, and it should make people angry to hear about things like that, and we can give the people who do those things what they deserve and no one will have to suffer under them ever again.

And there's a related thing of, if people who're strong and important know they can get away with whatever they do, they can hurt people as much as they want, but if they know there's people who'll stand up to them and take revenge even if it's hard and dangerous and scary, then some of them will be less awful. This doesn't work very well in Cheliax but it sometimes helps in other places.

Another way is — when the souls of those sorts of people's victims cry out, Calistria hears them, and she's with them, and she will help them show that just because they're weaker doesn't mean other people can get away with hurting them without consequences. Uh, sometimes, at least, gods can't do everything and I don't always get how they decide, but even when she can't help she's still on their side — anyways. Uh, some people'll talk about how it's important to 'fight fair', but — that just means that whoever's the strongest gets to do whatever they want. You've mentioned trickery a couple times, Calistria's in favor of tricking people, or poisoning them, or swearing a solemn oath to them and then breaking it, or whatever, if that's what it takes.

Another way is that I really really hate Asmodeus, and I don't know how you take vengeance on a god but kicking him out of his country seems like a good place to start. And while we're working on that, we can help people get out, and be safe and free and happy, and stop his servants' plans, and so on, and he doesn't like that either.

...There's a couple other angles but, uh, mostly they come up when I'm arguing with Sarenrites. Which, speaking of — all of that's the sort of thing you've got to be careful about, obviously. I've heard of Calistrians doing things like... tracking down someone who wronged them, and killing that person's entire family in front of them, because it would hurt them more — that's wrong and Evil, people shouldn't do that even if it feels like it'd be satisfying. And — Pharasma doesn't really think like people do. Sometimes even if someone hasn't really done anything wrong, but what they did is the sort of thing that would be wrong to do to an innocent person, Pharasma still decides they're Evil for it. I think it's more important to do the right thing, no matter what Pharasma says, and the last time I checked I was Good, but I don't totally understand how she decides between Calistrians she's alright with and Calistrians she isn't, besides people who are doing things that are obviously messed up."

She... does not actually want to give a guy she just met sex advice. She's just going to skip that part of being a Calistrian for now.

"Uh, and I get Fly from the Azata domain. And her symbols are this pointy dagger thing, and wasps, and sometimes hives of wasps but that one's not as common. And she lives in Elysium for some reason — I asked someone once and she said 'well, wouldn't you rather live in Elysium if you got to pick', which is true, but you'd think if that was all there was to it there'd be way more gods there."

Does he have any questions, or should she move on to Desna?

Oh, there’s another domain that gives Fly.  Sounds like she picked a useful domain (is that how it works?).  He hopes to get Fly copied into his spellbook soon, but all his spare income might be going to bastard orphans or whatever.

“I’d pick Elysium if I got to pick, but maybe they don’t let in Gods that won’t stop torturing people and that excludes all the Evil and some of the Neutral ones?”

It actually sounds like torture or killing people’s families in revenge isn’t actually a deal-breaker for Calistria, but it is Evil, and this cleric is personally against it.

“Do you know if Calistria gets her Evil and Chaotic Neutral clerics with her in Elysium or if they get sent to the Abyss and the Maelstrom?”

If he could get his activities retroactively counted as following Calistria, and make Chaotic Neutral and then maybe being her follower would get him sorted into Elysium?

"Uh, so with the warning that there's a lot that's hard to say for sure about the afterlives — as far as I know they still get regular trials, if I had to guess I'd guess that they're more likely to have a rep from Elysium and the Maelstrom but I don't think that's a guarantee of anything. I've heard people say it's not that hard for them to move from the Maelstrom to her part of Elysium, but I don't know how hard 'not that hard' is, and I also don't know if those people were, uh, making things up." And if she doesn't get Maledicted she thinks it would be nice to run rescue missions on Calistrian-types in the Abyss who haven't done anything really awful, but that's not the sort of thing anyone should count on.

"Making Elysium's not really the point, anyway. If I wanted to make Elysium for sure I wouldn't be running around in Cheliax where I might get Maledicted."

He suppresses a surge of irritation bordering on anger.  Avoiding an eternity of torture is in fact the entire point!  But probably a Calistrian priestess who is risking not only her life but her eternity to get revenge on Asmodeus (but not too mean revenge with actual torture, even though she allegedly doesn’t care about risking the Abyss) wouldn’t get that.  Possibly chaotic clerics are all irrational like this?  It would track with the chosen of Baphomet’s and other demon lords he’s met.

“Could you tell me more about Desna?”

"Okay." She taps the little butterfly symbol. "Uh, Desna's the goddess of — a lot of different things, really, travel's the biggest one people care about but she also likes dreams, and the stars, and dancing, and I don't know that it makes sense to say she likes luck but she's definitely connected to it. The thing that ties those all together is — freedom, and especially free choices. Pretty much all the Chaotic gods have some kind of connection to freedom, but with Desna it's what brings everything together. If people're free to travel, they can choose what they want to do with their lives. If luck's on someone's side, they can make choices without having to always worry about which ones are the safest. People's dreams let them — see what things could be like, see what it would look like for things to be okay, even if when they're awake it seems like everything is terrible. The stars are — uh, the stars are kind of doing two things at once. The obvious one is, you can use them to navigate, even if you live somewhere like Cheliax where no one'd ever let you see a map. —We have a map, you can see it if you want, it's not very detailed but it's better than nothing. Uh, anyways. The other half of it is, around some of the stars are other worlds, and those worlds are full of new kinds of people, and new ways of living, and different spells that no one here's ever heard of, and it's possible to learn to walk among them — I don't know how much of that's true but it's something Desnans say. And then dancing is — the sort of thing people choose to do when they're free, when no one's making them do anything."

"Desna thinks that most people will choose to do what's right, if they have the freedom to choose. In free countries, even people who aren't especially Good would rather entertain themselves by dancing and singing and watching illusion-light-shows than by hurting people."

"I still think the games make that wrong."

"Taldor's not a free country."

"There's a lot of different ways to do Desnan kinds of Good. —Uh, that doesn't mean Desnans only do these kinds of things, just, if you see a Desnan serving food at a soup kitchen that doesn't make it... the sort of thing people think of when they think of Desna specifically, if that makes sense. Lots of Desnans free slaves, all the Good gods hate slavery but Desna's one of the ones who hates it extra much. Lots of Desnans will — uh, this is sort of hard to explain. Uh, there's a good chance the romance novels you mentioned were copied off books that Desnans smuggled in. Some people take that to mean that Desna really likes romance novels, but actually it's more like... wanting to show people that they have choices that are better than the choices Cheliax wants them to make. Cheliax — wants people to think they've got no choice but to do Evil, and that's almost never true, you can always just choose to do the right thing, but it's easier when you have a sense of what sorts of things you could do.

Sometimes Desnans'll try to break out prisoners before they can be sentenced, but that one's sort of tricky, like, sometimes the reason someone's been arrested is that they're trying to fight Asmodeus and other times it's because they're, like, going around murdering innocent people. 

And then Desnans also do things like... protect roads, to make them safe for travelers, or travel around on ships to keep them safe from sea monsters, or wander around to lots of different places and teach the people in one place what the people in another place are doing, or that sort of thing."

"The most detailed known map of Andoran was created by a party of Desnan adventurers. I believe that is also true of Varisia, and likely of many other countries."

“That sounds… nice.”

He turns the words around in his head ‘show people that they have choices that are better than the choices Cheliax wants them to make’.  He can imagine another life, a worse life, where he hadn’t fallen in with the group that he did and he just kept to his same pattern of choices: scrimping by, looking for people to gouge on healing spells, no greater hope than maybe buying and learning a new wizard spell here or there.  He can also imagine a better life where the people he had fallen in with weren’t as Evil.  Where they enjoyed clever puzzles just as much, but didn’t punctuate them with a bit of cruelty at each other.  Where they worked together to stop Asmodeus without treating it like a fucked up game.  That would be the sort of choice he would want to make, if he really could feel safe making any choice.

He’s lost in thought for a minute or so.

It’s the way this group is around each other that decides it for him.  There isn’t any guarded fear between them, any tension brought on by the expectation that they will hurt each other.  Being in the cult was better than being around Asmodeans, but it wasn’t like this.

“I think I’d like to go to Andoran with you.  I mean, once we’re done with whatever mission you’re on.”

He says this softly.

He still needs to figure out how to deal with the scrying that might or might not come, but his mind is made up.

"Andoran'll be happy to have you." Assuming he cuts it out with working for Baphomet, but she bets he will. "Uh, we finished the main part of our mission already, but we had a couple smaller parts we figured we might as well do while we're here, but they should be faster."

"Did you have any other questions in the meantime?"

He doesn't want to deal with this now, but he really should start planning as soon as possible.

"Do any of you have any ideas about what to do about any possible future scry check-ins?  The particular sub-group of the cult I was previously in did not have any 4th or 5th circles, but they allegedly passed on a clipping of my hair and a sketch of my face to another branch that does.  I've never been scried on, but the 3rd circle cleric that led my sub-group would rarely (like once every several months or so) claim to have gotten orders from some more powerful, more central group that apparently had some way of communicating rapidly over long distance... so scrying or sending, assuming it wasn't just an elaborate bluff.  I'm not sure how many resources a 3rd circle wizard is worth... my worst case scenario is a 5th circle teleporting on top of my to forcibly drag me back and maledict me if I refuse.  To be clear, I think that is unlikely, elaborate bluffs are pretty central to Baphomet's theology... if they had those teleports to spare I never saw them... but I want to be prepared."

The upside of a crazy group of adventurers already willing to risk malediction is that his worst case scenario isn't exactly a new risk for them.

"...Well, the easiest thing to do is just lie to them, tell them you couldn't meet up with them but don't tell them you're going to Andoran. But that only works if they believe it, and if they scry you again in Andoran they'll know something's up. I guess in theory they might, uh, be okay with you leaving, if you're still fighting Asmodeus, but that's not a good idea to count on." There's got to be some reason they're with Baphomet and not a better god.

"In terms of magical defenses... if we knew that they were definitely going to attempt to Scry you at a particular time, it might be worthwhile to use a Nondetection to attempt to deceive them into believing you to be dead — many of the afterlives are only inconsistently Scryable — but given material constraints I don't expect that to be worthwhile. Rope Trick can block teleportation; given the pre-specified report time, we could ensure that you were in a Rope Trick at the scheduled time, but if they find that suspicious they may subsequently attempt another scry at an unpredictable time. Scrying provides information about the target's apparent surroundings, and it's possible to use a Silent Image to make those surroundings appear sufficiently different that a Teleport will certainly land off-target, though Detect Magic can sometimes function through a scry, and if they successfully determine what happened they may bring reinforcements.

If you expect them to Maledict you, there are various potential methods of suicide, but none are perfectly reliable."

"Does Scrying tell you what plane the target is on?"

"I don't believe so."

"You could make it look like he's in Avernus."

He frowns thoughtfully for a second. "I could attempt to do that, yes. I suspect it would be difficult to convincingly replicate the sounds, which would need to be done separately, but that's not necessarily prohibitive."

"And obviously if whatever we end up going with doesn't work and they do try to kidnap you back and Maledict you we'd try to stop them. But I can't promise we'd succeed, none of us are fifth-circle. Wizards go down fast but they might be able to get out by magic too."

Ideally it won't come to that, ideally the Baphomet cult can just keep fighting Asmodeus on their own and let him fight Asmodeus separately, but if the cult's not willing to go along with that they're obviously not going to just cooperate with them trying to kidnap someone and forcibly damn them to the Abyss.

He is having some feelings about this...  He tries to focus on the practical details.  He'll deal with the feelings later.

"The check-in time thing I told you is real, or at least, it is what I was told, and they generally didn't get too complicated with layers of fake plans.  So if you wouldn't mind the shift in schedule so that I'll be by myself in a rope trick around 3 hours after dawn... it might be worth it on the off chance a scheduled scry comes in, at least over the next few days, just to force a delay of any immediate teleport follow-up.  I don't have major image for your illusion plan... although I could have a silent image up each day at the time and you could throw in ghost sounds from outside the rope trick?  Except the cult is really used to throwing lots of illusions around, so I'd give them better than normal odds of seeing through them in addition to what you said about the chance a detect magic works through the scry.  I have enough material to cover nondetections for the next four days... except I think with enough strength as a caster, divinations can go right through it.  So in the worst case of a 5th circle wizard involved they probably beat it and it would put them on guard, so I don't think it is worth it."

"If a scry does go through... I'll try a lie that won't get their guard up in the event they have a teleport to spare... maybe I just say I ran off because the meet-up location was empty but looked used?"

He's glad his own former subgroup of the cult doesn't have any teleports.  Assholes that they may be, he really wouldn't feel right about ambushing them.

Nod. "That makes sense to me. ...Are they going to think it's suspicious if you're in a Rope Trick when they scry you?"

“Depending on how good the cult’s record keeping and information sharing is the central group that would hypothetically be scrying me may know some of the spells I have in my spellbook, and that includes rope trick.  I hadn’t previously learned metamagic to extend spells … but I recently reached third circle, and it isn’t implausible I learned a new metamagic recently as well.  So I don’t think an extended rope trick by itself will make them suspicious?  And if I act as if I’ve been scared by the failed meet-up, it won’t be implausible that I’ve been traveling at odd times of day and hiding in rope tricks.”

Yeah, being an idiotic coward is a pretty plausible for him.  He’ll own that.

He frowns in thought for a few moments. "Considering the timing, we will most likely want to use a standard Rope Trick for the potential report — I can prepare one in my second-circle school slot. They may be able to discern some limited information about the surroundings if their sensor is positioned such that it can see through the opening in the floor, but the limited visual range should make it nearly impossible to target a Teleport solely from that. It may also be possible to cover the opening from within, but that may seem more suspicious." He pauses. "They may request that you exit the Rope Trick to provide them with a better view of their surroundings. Is there an excuse they would find plausible that would justify your refusal?"

"I wasn't sure if the scrying sensor could actually cross outside the Rope Trick since it is technically a sort of planar boundary.  Let's see... I could stall a few minutes by being in the middle of preparing spells, or just messing around with my scaffold?  I've gotten a lot better with my spell prep very recently, so I think I could have my scaffold up and fake being the middle of spell prep in a convincing way that they wouldn't expect."  

He considers the problem for another moment.

"I guess if they intended for an immediate teleport follow-up they could just order me to stop in the middle even if it would mean I lose a prepared spell or two.  I could feign just enough concern about potential pursers or being spotted to take my time looking out of the Rope Trick slowly before exiting, but not enough concern that any teleport follow-up is prepared for immediate combat?"  

"So... to signal to you all I'm not being scried, I announce myself to when I exit, if I poke my head out cautiously, you know I am being scried and you should start preparing and casting?  Maybe if one of you keeps a watch on my Rope Trick to warn the others?  How long should I stall for on exiting to give you all enough time to cast your spells?  And you all should be ready to hide out of the way in a direction I can draw the scrier's attention away from..."

It is a lot more enjoyable making complicated plans as a team when there isn't a hostile undercurrent of rivalry and one-upmanship!

"I should be able to find somewhere in the woods with something the four of us can hide behind."

"In ideal circumstances, if we knew exactly when they were going to arrive, we would want Bless, Communal Protection from Evil, Haste, Mage Armor on myself, though that I would cast well in advance, Cat's Grace on her," (he nods to the human woman who isn't the priestess) "and a little bit of luck on... most likely myself. Possibly Prayer, depending on our planned strategy, though it trades off against other third-circle spells."

"If only the wizard comes, then landing a Bestow Curse probably just decides things. But wizards're decent at fighting off that sort of thing, the Prayer might be better."

Nod. "All of those, including the Prayer, would take four moments to cast, and we could reduce that to three if we don't prioritize the luck. With the exception of the Protection from Evil, which is touch-range, the other multiple-target spells should apply to you — though some part of your body will need to cross the planar boundary for me to land the Haste on you. Beyond that, we also need to ensure that we'll be prepared for anything we encounter in the forest if they don't make contact with you, or don't attempt to go after you with a Teleport, though most of those spells will also be useful against a patrol or a forest-creature — that would be another advantage of the Prayer. ...If we do have to fight them, we may want to wait in successive Rope Tricks until the next dawn, to avoid getting into a fight with our resources so depleted."

"Both of you have Rope Trick and Communal Mount, so we don't need to be too conservative with planning out other second-circle spells."

"That reminds me, if you happen to have extra spellbook ink, you are welcome to copy any of my spells."

"I have at least enough ink for one third-circle spell, and I don't have many third-circle spells, so anything that isn't enchantment and is third-circle would be helpful, conjuration would be best.  I don't even have Summon Monster III yet."

It is one of the strongest signs that his old group didn't really like or value him that they didn't spare more resources on getting him another scroll or two to copy before sending him off.

"They are likely to favor illusions... the other three wizards I knew in the cult were all at least somewhat specialized in illusions.  Protection from Evil should help with seeing through illusions.  Greater Invisibility is a possibility... I could prepare a Glitterdust?  Although I'm still pretty hopeful they don't have someone that can teleport, even if they have someone that can scry, so spells that will be useful for any other fights or such are a good idea."

"I actually don't have Summon Monster III either — clerics can cast it too, so it's always seemed less urgent than other spells. Most of my third-circle spells are transmutation, but I do have one conjuration spell at third-circle. It's a fairly obscure one, developed by some researchers who were trying to compress Dimension Door into a third-circle slot by reducing its range significantly. More importantly, the current version is blocked by any solid object, even a thin sheet of glass, so I rarely prepare it. Outside of conjuration, I also have Haste, Slow..." He's perfectly willing to recite his third-circle spells, with occasional commentary on where they're unexpectedly useful or useless.

...Right, the man also had a strategic question about Glitterdust.

"—It's rare to encounter invisible enemies in this area, so the main benefit against most opponents would be the possibility of blinding them. It may be better to plan to cast it from your bonded object if necessary."

"They probably don't have a teleporter, anyone who can teleport and hasn't sold their soul to Hell could just leave Cheliax. Even if they're really dedicated to fighting Asmodeus, people who can teleport mostly spend most of their time outside the country. But it's good to be prepared just in case."

"They might have sold their soul to Baphomet instead."

"—That's true, they might've." It'd be a stupid thing to do, but so's selling your soul to Asmodeus. In that case her best guess is that they would still leave Cheliax, but they might still be taking orders from Baphomet's priests. 

His old group's leading cleric had made mention of rituals to gain boons from Baphomet, culminating in a demonic mark which granted the ability to recast a spell once a day, and a few other perks, like summoning demons without a spell.  But successfully completing the ritual requires fourth-circle, at a minimum, so Fernando hadn't inquired for more details.

"A 3rd circle teleportation sounds really interesting!  …I shouldn't use the ink if it's not going to be useful for a potential fight... but if someone teleports right on top of me, even a short range repositioning could be vital!"

Teleportation is one of the best tricks of conjurers, but Fernando had resigned himself to not being able to teleport (even short distances) until he died and worked his way up as a demon.  He is tempted to get sidetracked with discussion about teleportation as a subschool of conjuration... he needs to focus on the tactically relevant for now.

"I'll focus on spells we are sure to need and save the more niche spells for my bonded amulet.  A Mage Armor for myself, more Mounts and Communal Mounts, a Summon Monster II... " he lists out some options for them to work through.

He is reasonably knowledgeable about arcane magic and will endeavor to discuss the strategic implications without getting too distracted by magical theory.

The rest of the group is less knowledgeable about arcane theory in particular, but they're perfectly competent to discuss strategy.

Eventually, the halfling peeks out of the Rope Trick. 

"It's getting late." She fishes some food out of her bag and starts dividing it up into five portions.

All in all a productive conversation!  He also made good progress on studying the third circle teleportation, Phase Step.

"If I get to sleep soon and wake up before dawn I should be able to finish getting this spell copied well before the possible scry time.  And I'm not sure I mentioned it among our other magical discussion, but at risk of repeating myself, I only need around half to a quarter of the time for spell preparation... I'm kind of inconsistent, but I can definitely finish under a half hour."

Then once they've eaten dinner, he can cast the Extended Rope Trick, and they can settle in for the night. 

The next day is largely uneventful. Fernando is able to copy Phase Step into his spellbook. They manage to find a reasonably good location to ambush a Teleport strike team, but no one attempts to Scry Fernando at the scheduled hour. They don't encounter any other people in the woods, though they do see signs of a trail heading northwest. At one point they have to fight off a colony of hostile human-sized beetles with enormous teeth, but it's nothing the five of them can't handle; they don't even end up injured enough to need a second channel. They manage to avoid fighting something the halfling identifies as a man-eating tree.

Nothing disturbs them overnight.

The morning after that Fernando is playing around with his scaffold at the expected time of the scry.  Well, not really expected.  If a scry was going to come, it probably would have come yesterday and he didn't think it particularly likely in the first place.  If he is clear today, well, it wouldn't hurt to be cautious, but that probably means he got away free and the cult doesn't have anyone strong enough to teleport.

Leading the Cult of Baphomet in Cheliax is often an exercise in frustration (insofar as it even has a single leader dedicated to the country).  The better half of the cult is still not as smart as they think they are with constant clever plans that aren't usefully clever.  They constantly engage in schemes to outwit and humiliate the Asmodeans... that only barely accomplish any tactical or strategic goals.  The worse half of the cult think of Chaos as mere inversion of Law and regularly engage in stupid randomness.  

Still, he likes to think he has a workable system the usefully channels the chaos.  Isolate information on a need-to-know basis, weed out the stupid using them up as distractions and cat's paws, strengthen the more clever and hone them into reliable tools worth keeping around.  He's seen how dysfunctional the Church of Asmodeus can be over something as small and petty as building a new cathedral, he knows he is doing better, even with all the mid-wits and would-be-schemers he works with.  Even as frustrating as they are, he's actually kind of fond of them.  But he can't afford to be lax or lenient, especially in the face of treachery.

Which brings him to the case of Fernando.  He contemplates the reports he's read as he works the scry.  Reading between the lines... Fernando actually has decent long term potential.  Fernando's apparently barely smart enough to even hang third-circle spells, but he's managed third circle, a headband could fix his deficiency in raw intelligence.  Fernando's a bit squeamish and a bit cowardly, but that also means he is cautious enough not run wild with idiot schemes or complications.  And his hatred of Asmodeus, desire for a greater purpose, and desire for companionship should all ensure his overall long term loyalty.

The best case scenario is that Fernando is hiding nearby, waiting to be directed back to the planned meet-up.  (He's still frustrated that the cell Fernando was intended to meet managed to misread a map that badly!)  A slightly more annoying possibility Fernando is in the process of returning to his original cell.  He will use a teleport with his demonic mark, allowing for a second casting, so that he can pick up Fernando and relocate him to his new cell as well as make a visit himself.  He doesn't like exposing himself over such petty things, but it is likely both Fernando and the cell that apparently can't read a map would benefit from his guidance.  And it's not like he will risk showing his true face or leaving so much as a hair behind.

One of the worse scenarios is irrational cowardice or deliberate desertion on Fernando's part.  Irrational cowardice, well the cult doesn't have a lot of third-circle's to spare, it will take a delicate balance of punishment to make his point without breeding resentment.  He's seen how Asmodeans regularly destroy their own potential or turn it against themselves.  As to the possible case of deliberate desertion... Fernando is too much of a liability.  He will swiftly make an example of him with a scroll of Malediction.  

The very worst case scenario is that Fernando is captured and compromised.  In principle some cunning and ambitious Asmodeans could use that to set a trap for himself, layering a False Vision or disguising a scene mundanely on a Dominated Fernando.  He will need to examine the scry carefully to mitigate this risk.  But in practice the constant infighting makes most Asmodeans unwilling to take risks (and sometimes even proper initiative).  It is one of the upsides of his Cult over their Church.

The scry resolves, showing Fernando inside of a Rope Trick.

Fernando is apparently struggling to prepare a spell with motions twice as fast as normal, the magic partially slipping from his control without being entirely lost.

He hears a voice

This is your contact, confirmation the laughing bull under the moon.  Report.

Fernando flinches just a hair and begins his report, responding back through the Message that squeezed through the scry.  "My contacts were not at the location at the agreed upon time.  Fearing the worst, I began to return west to my old contacts before chancing upon news of a disturbance and corresponding Asmodean activity and I headed back east a different way than I had gone before."

Get your scaffold put away within the next five minutes and then exit the Rope Trick to allow me to get a teleport location.

One of his inquisitors arrived to be on standby as the scry finishes and he instructs the inquisitor now.

"Tell Mateo to grab his belonging and have both of you ready to teleport out with me 6 minutes from now.  Bring two of our second circles, not for coming with the teleport but to cast the standard protections and buffs."

Taking Mateo will serve a few purposes... Mateo has seemed a bit discontent lately.  In the event Fernando has outright attempted to desert Mateo would benefit from seeing him swiftly and decisively Maledicted.  In the more likely event they all teleport out together, Mateo has the apparently rare skill of being able to fucking read a map and would serve both to supplement the errant cell and settle his own restlessness doing some useful work.

He continues to study the scry while he waits on Fernando to finish preparing his spells and the Inquisitor to gather his people.  He is looking carefully for any illusion or sign of treachery.  He manages to squeeze a detect magic through the scry as well.  So far everything seems normal, but he can't see very far outside the Rope Trick, Fernando has sensibly hidden it amidst some trees.  He'll take another minute studying the scry once Fernando is outside.  You only have to get sloppy once.

He ties off his scaffold at around four minutes, seemingly failing at finishing the last spell he was working at, and pokes his head outside the Rope Trick's entrance, quietly and cautiously looking around.

Cat's Grace. Haste.

Bless. Communal Protection from Evil. Prayer.

And a little luck for Shakti.

When no one immediately materializes she starts tapping everyone else with Guidance. It's not like it can hurt.

She's ready with her bow, waiting to shoot whoever looks most like a wizard as soon as she sees them.

She's likewise ready to get in close with her daggers.

The haste gets his head.  He quickly moves out of the rope trick once he feels it take effect, the teleporter will need a good view as soon as possible.  One potential problem is if the teleporter takes their time, their shorter round duration spells will wear off, so he doesn't want the teleporter to have any reason to delay.

"It looks clear to me, no one else is around, and I don't have any reason to think I was followed."

While he is waiting on Fernando to exit, he casts Disguise Self, just in case he has any reason to remove his mask.  He doesn't expect trouble from Fernando, but the other group he plans to teleport to after might have attracted trouble... so he casts his Overland Flight, it lasts the better part of the day and the mobility can be a life saver.

Lesser wizards from the cult cast a few buffs they have spare on himself, the Inquisitor and Mateo: a Protection from Law for each of them, a Resist Energy (Fire) for himself.

He takes another two rounds after Fernando exits the rope trick to look for any sign of illusion or ambush.  He thinks it is clear.  He reaches out his hand to take Mateo and the inquisitor.

She hopes the third circle wizard has fucked up hard enough that they can torture and Maledict him.  She hopes the leader lets use the scroll to cast it, she's good at casting from scrolls but 4th circle scrolls are expensive enough he may not want to risk her wasting it  (apparently it's different enough from Inquisitor spell that there is some risk of that).  Maledicting this wizard would also the added benefit that it should stop Mateo from being such a whiny little bitch.

She casts a Heightened Awareness to stay alert, but she doesn't expect to need it.

She takes their leader's hand.

Mateo had thought being brought to the cult's central base would be a promotion.  Instead, he's found he's gone from being the best fighter of his little group which camped outdoors, to the worst fighter (although still better than the wizards) in a larger group hidden away in a cramped underground base (stone shapes are decent at moving stone, but not especially voluminous).  He can bully the weakest wizards into doing some of his chores, but that doesn't help with the boredom and restlessness.  And to make matters worse, in a recent detect thoughts inspection he had openly thought about fucking off to go be a bandit.

He is decent with a glaive and an excellent grappler, but he knows the real reason why he is being brought to help wrangle an errant third-circle wizard.  If the wizard turns out to have been deliberately attempting desertion they are going to torture him and maledict him, just to help stop Mateo from getting any ideas.

He reaches out to accept the teleportation.

After casting his abjurations, he checks the scry with his detect magic, the leader got it cast well enough to fit one through.  A second set of eyes looking out for trouble wouldn't hurt.  He thinks he sees another transmutation as the wizard they are scrying on pokes his head out, but its hard to discern from the transmutation aura of the rope trick itself and across the planar boundary of the rope trick.  It takes another few rounds for the detect magic to refocus as the scrying sensor crosses the planar boundary.  He thinks he can make out a haste... which might be cause for alarm.  He tries to focus to see what it is... oh wait they are already leaving.  He starts to say something... but surely the leader would have seen for himself if there was any problems?

Just when he had started to fear the delay might last long enough that the haste runs out, three cultist appear right around Fernando.  If all three are the equivalent of fifth circle wizards, they might all be dead, he really hopes that "start on a new path" theory of Pharasma's judgement isn't just optimistic propaganda.

He already has his Phase Step going off before any of the cultists can react, he wants to be well clear of their glaives when they realize this is an ambush.

She shoots at the one that looks like a wizard. (Protection from Law won't help him. No one here is Lawful.)

Web, positioned carefully enough that it won't stop Elettra and Justice from closing in around the wizard.

Well, she really would've rather they been the sort of cult that was perfectly willing to leave people alone as long as they're fighting Asmodeus, but it was always pretty unlikely it'd work out that nicely.

Hold Person, aiming for the wizard. He'll probably throw it off, but if he doesn't it's the sort of thing that could decide the fight, if it's winnable to begin with. Once it lands, or doesn't, she's running in.

She's moving the instant the Teleport completes, charging towards the wizard with her daggers out. Magic can stop a wizard from casting, but so can being dead.

Mateo is thinking faster than he ever has in his life.  They are outnumbered, in an ambush, presumably against an enemy that has already cast their spells.  He didn't really like his place in the Cult, and judging by their wizard having turned on them to work with these ambushers, his attackers evidently take in former Baphomet Cultists.  He'll figure out exactly who he needs to proclaim for or theology he needs to parrot once he's made clear which side he is joining in.

You only have to get sloppy once.

He doesn't waste time contemplating if Fernando turned traitor or was dominated or somehow completely unwitting. He focuses on exactly what he needs to do.

He is badly tempted to try for a Phantasmal Putrefaction, if any of his attackers lack both will and fortitude it will take them out of the fight.  But he doesn't know how strong they are or that there isn't more of them hidden.  So he immediately begins to cast his teleport to get them out.  He also starts to fly upward.

 His mind brushes off the hold person like it isn't even there, but the web catches him and halts his upward momentum, but teleport doesn't actually have somatic components so he keeps casting.

One of the arrow catches him painfully in the shoulder, but he maintains his concentration through the pain.  He just another half second to finish casting-

He can pull just enough free of the web to get at least one attack in.

Stab.  It lands just about perfectly on his (former) leader.

"I repent of serving Baphomet!  I surrender!  I want to join you!"

He is desperately trying to think of exactly what or who his ambushers might be aligned with so he can declare for them more clearly.

He loses the spell.  With the web slowing him, he can't risk anything with a somatic component.  One of Baphomet's boons allows him to summon demons without using a proper spell and thus bypass somatic and verbal components.  Even though it is faster than a normal summon monster spell it will take him another precious few seconds.  Wizards of his level are substantially tougher than ordinary people, but he still won't last more than another round or two at this rate.

"Traitors!"

She might be dead anyway, but she'll take Mateo with her, she can hit hard enough to put her glaive straight through his armor.  She activates her judgement of destruction with a thought.  Surviving longer with a judgement of protection might be the better choice for lasting a round or two longer, but she isn't thinking that clearly.

Well that sounds convenient.  He needs a moment to reorient after his Phase Step, but he can guess what is happening just from hearing it.  He'll start summoning a wolf to join the fight.

Well.

That might be some kind of trick but if so it's a trick that got the teleporter stabbed and wasted his spell.

There's a sort of trick to using Bless, where if you're thinking of it right you can consider someone to be, or not be, your comrade-in-arms. She doesn't actually know whether it's the sort of thing you can change once you've cast it, and she's still reserving judgment on what sort of person the new defector actually is, but it's not hard to think of him as her ally in killing this fucking wizard.

"—Leave that one alive," she says. (She's mainly speaking for his benefit, her friends don't actually need to be told.)

She shoots several more arrows at the wizard.

He's not sure what the opposed wizard is doing but it doesn't seem like it involves any form of speech or movement; he holds off on casting his next spell, ready to react to whatever the wizard does next.

She stabs at the wizard with her spear, willing him dead.

Her daggers dance in and out, aiming for his weakest points. Whatever he's doing, he won't be able to do it if he's dead.

His demoniac boon is easier to use than a spell, but it still requires concentration, and he loses it before he can finish.  Not that it matters, he is dead in the next moment. 

One of the "perks" of being a demoniac is that it drags one's soul directly to the domain of their demonic master.  The next thing he knows is opening his eyes to an endless labyrinth of bone.

Possibly she should have turned her attention towards guarding the leader instead of killing the traitor.  Well, it's probably too late now, she might as well finish what she started, with her judgement active she should be able to kill him before the ambushers can turn their attention to her.

He attempts to step back but the web has him caught.  It probably wouldn't have helped given the reach of the glaive.  He is trying to think of something to say to get them to heal him quickly but nothing good comes to mind and the glaive in his chest turns the start of a shout into a gurgle.

He finishes summoning a wolf.  He lands it right in the way of the still fighting cultist.  Hopefully they can save the defector so they have time to get on a path away from the Abyss (he kind of doubts the purity of their intent would be enough to keep them out of the Abyss if they died right now).

Silent Image, creating a 'barrier' between the injured man and the cultist.

She shoots at the one who's still standing.

If she focuses on dropping the last cultist she can heal the man who's down once she's dead, he can last a few more moments — no, that's not true, the cultist seems like the sort of person who might go out of her way to kill him even if it guarantees she'll die too. She reaches for one of her spare Bless spells and pulls the energy out of it, channeling her hope that the man won't have to die for fighting back against an Evil wizard, then steps forward and lets the spell complete itself.

She moves into the webbing, putting her feet in just the right places so that it doesn't impair her, and goes for the woman with her daggers.

You're damn right she'll spend her dying breath punishing traitors.  She twists her glaive as she pulls it out to try to do more damage and goes for one last strike, but an arrow gets her in the shoulder, the summoned wolf bites her leg enough to put her off balance, and with the woman with the daggers is at her side also she trips and falls.

He briefly passes out from blood loss before the cleric heals him.  He nearly passes out again when the glaive is pulled out of him, but he holds on.  It looks like he might survive this.

It looks like they've just about won.  He is ready to cast another spell if they need it, but unless someone pulls out some dramatic tricks it would be best to save it.

Once the woman drops she leans down and slits her throat. 

(...And then she checks the corpses to see if they've got anything valuable on them. She is an adventurer.)

She looks at the injured man. "Do you know if that was their only teleporter, or is there a chance more'll come after us?" Pause. "—It's okay if you aren't sure."

Fernando is also eyeing the loot.  Of course, they saved them, they’ve got priority (if not a claim to all of it), but hopefully that will make them more favorably inclined to him.

It looks like the wizard (and demoniac if he’s guessing what the mark on his arm if correctly) had a nicer intelligence headband.  Not the most expensive type, but better than the standard.  He also had a Ring of Sustenance, a ring of some kind he doesn’t recognize, a cloak of resistance (stronger than the basic sort, Fernando can’t judge the exact strength), a standard belt of constitution, and his amulet was a bonded object with 3 separate enchantments at once.  Fernando isn’t sure if they will all work for someone other than their original user… but it looks like an armillary amulet, combined with natural armor, combined with something else?  He also has a bag of holding, one of the smaller sizes, but still very useful.  They will need to be careful with opening it, it’s the sort of thing that could easily be trapped.

The… cleric or inquisitor (Fernando’s not sure which) had a standard wisdom headband and a cloak of resistance, and her (Fernando can see she is a tiefling woman, underneath the armor) glaive appears to be silvered (for use against devils probably).

“Oh, uh, the leader was the only one who went between groups, so I think we should be safe?  I guess someone might have a teleport scroll stockpiled away, but I doubt they can afford to waste it on taking revenge?”

He needs to show he is with this group and committed to whatever they are committed to…

“I’m Mateo by the way.”

He takes off his mask.

He sees they have a halfling with them.  So maybe they are Bellflowers?  Or maybe Andoran pirates?  He’s not sure how they got inland, but his gut is saying Andoran pirates.  He’s not sure if they openly praise Besmara, he’s sure there was another pro-piracy woman God who is Chaotic Good… the name escapes him, but he can think of another Chaotic Good adventurer God.

“Hail Cayden Cailean!??”

Oh man, that came out like more of a question than he meant it to.  Well, he’s pretty sure Cayden is pro-freedom if they are actually Bellflowers and not pirates.  He hopes they are pirates, he could make a great pirate.

Back at the cultist’s base…the scry actually had a few minutes left in it, and one cultist had happened to linger to watch.  It was confusing with the sensor rushing around to follow Fernando, but he is pretty sure their leader is betrayed and dead.

He should tell someone… their now dead leader took swift delivery of news without attempt to deflect blame as a reason to heavily mitigate any punishment and even to dole out favors and rewards.  The two strongest candidates for next in line to be leader, a 4th circle cleric, and a 4th circle wizard (who might be 5th circle soon if they succeed at the demoniac ritual), do not share this philosophy.  The wizard is very much of the Chelish school of thought on punishments, and the cleric is simply prone to violently lashing out.  He might well be blamed for not mentioning the haste he thought he saw cast.  Or this ambush might be internal intrigue and knowing too much about it might be bad for his odds of continued survival.

He’ll pretend like he didn’t see anything for at least a few hours while he calculates what and who best serves his chances of coming out ahead.  …There is a second-circle antiPaladin, not as well connected across cells, but very popular within his own group and known for rewarding his followers well.  Perhaps with some earlier news of this untimely death he could leverage his place in the cult well.

"—You don't have to worship anyone in particular."

...If she says she's a priestess of Calistria there's a decent chance he'll decide he needs to worship Calistria, but if she doesn't say anything he might decide he needs to keep guessing who he's supposed to worship, and that doesn't really seem better.

"I'm a priestess of Calistria but I also like Milani and Desna and Ragathiel. And my friend here" (she gestures to the other human woman) "likes Desna best, and my other friend here" (she gestures to the halfling) "mostly prays to Chaldira, and my other friend here" (she gestures to the human man) "likes this one really minor good god that I'd never even heard of before I met him. But if your favorite's Cayden or one of the others, or none of them at all, that's also fine. Uh, and we can tell you more about them if you want to know." She pauses. "Uh, and if you want to cross the border you should know that the law says you've got to give up on serving Evil gods and other powers of the lower planes, but it seems like you're doing that already. Thank you, by the way."

"We should get back into the Rope Trick — that wasn't exactly a quiet fight. We can have this conversation and split up their stuff just as well in there."

Nods all around. They get to work hauling the bodies inside.

Is he supposed figure out which of those Gods is best?  Or is it an invitation to say his (new) favorite God?  She's Calistrian, and that means Chaotic Neutral, so maybe Besmara is okay?  He'll stick with Cayden for now, he likes alcohol and they didn't react badly to his half-assed declaration.  He nods at the Avenger.

He gets to work helping move the bodies.

He wonders if they will let him keep any of the loot.  He was almost afraid they would have to leave the loot behind out of some pathetic Good principal about respecting bodies or something but that seems like a no?  So even if they don't let him keep any of this loot, it bodes well for his future as an Andoran pirate.

He's still bleeding from where the glaive was pulled out, but he's not going to ask for healing just yet, this seems like a good opportunity to show off how tough he has (it normally takes a couple of cure light wounds to get him fully recovered from near death).

He's alive and free!  There is still the whole problem of his afterlife and eternity, but he has some room to maneuver in the near future at least.  He'll also help with the bodies.  He continues to inspect them with detect magic.  He wonders how hard attuning a new bonded item to himself would be, the wizard they just killed also had an amulet for a bonded item, like his own, except heavily enchanted, maybe he could switch it to himself?

Once they've gotten everything into the Rope Trick she can do a couple of channels.

"Can I get a Guidance?"

"Sure, here you go." Guidance.

She will attempt to very carefully inspect the Bag of Holding without setting off any traps that might be present.

While Elettra is looking at the bag, Justice turns to Mateo. "So, thinking about our plans for the next few days — what sorts of things can you do? Uh, and then, what are your plans, like, are you hoping to cross the border, are you hoping to stay here and just not be working for Baphomet...?"

(He is perfectly happy to let the other wizard keep the amulet if he gets an uncontested claim on the nicer headband, but he's waiting to propose anything specific until they know what, if anything, is in the bag.)

"The cleric, in, uh, my old group, had a bag of holding, which I think was trapped with a symbol spell of some kind that would activate if the bag was opened wrong.  I don't know what the trick to opening it right was.  I think the symbol will be inside the bag and rigged to be the first that comes out and triggered at the same time?  Or something like that.  The symbol my the cleric used was some obscure or at least nonstandard one that needed bloodstone and garnet, I have no idea if a fifth circle wizard has better options for a symbol.  I think most symbol spells have similar limitations, so one strategy would be to open it and attempt to pull things out with an unseen servant from over 60 feet away?"

A question he can help with.

"Yeah, according to the contingency planning, if the leader died there was only a few people that were supposed to go through his stuff, with the implication it was trapped and only they would know how to look through it safely."

Now, how to answer the Avenger's question and make clear he will be a Chaotic Good Cayden pirate.  (He is pretty sure that means only killing and looting from slavers, he needs to subtly check on how restrictive Andoran is on its pirates.)

"Andoran has lots of pirates, yes?  To help free slaves?  I'm good with a glaive and excellent at grappling, and as you can see I can take at least one good hit and stay on my feet."

He is eyeing the dead inquistor's glaive now.  He already has a silvered glaive, like hers, but hers has a bit nicer of a polish to it with a few less scratches and a bit less wear.  Also, maybe he could figure out how to wield two glaives at once?  He daydreams a moment with the thought of swinging two glaives around.

She smiles at Fernando. "That's helpful, thank you."

He wasn't able to leave unfilled spell slots at second or third circle under the circumstances, but he did save one at first. He starts preparing an Unseen Servant.

...Is that what she sounded like? Is this how Treason and Liberty and Joy and Eric felt when they met her?

He — could easily be the sort of person who really just wants an excuse to steal from anyone and doesn't care whether they're even slavers at all. But the first thing he did was help them fight off the cultists who were trying to kidnap the wizard for daring to disobey Baphomet, and presumably before that he was fighting Asmodeus, he's clearly got some sort of conscience somewhere. He — is probably really confused about some things, he's Chelish, but it's not like she wasn't confused about lots of things when she first got to Andoran.

Lawful types would probably say it's a bad idea to trust someone not to betray you if you know they betrayed the last group they worked for, but betraying the Baphomet cult was right, actually.

The Sarenrites she likes to argue with are going to be so smug that's not actually relevant. 

She's gotten into a lot of frustrating arguments with people who more-or-less agree with everything she's actually doing but think she feels the wrong way about it; if he's going to actually be a worse person because of how he feels, that's an issue, but she's not in charge of what's going on in his heart. 

"—Yes, Andoran's got pirates who free slaves." She's only a pirate on Stardays — that joke is only funny if you know her. "We can put you in touch with some people — they'll want to get to know you before taking you aboard, obviously, but it's always good to have more people fighting slavers and Asmodeans. Uh, and the glaive's yours if you want it for sure, none of us fight with a glaive."

Well now he’s got to learn to fight with two glaives!  Or maybe he could teach someone how to use a glaive and give them him his old glaive?

“I just figure all my skills are for fighting, you know?”

He glances at his fellow defector.

“It’s not like wizardry where you can learn a new spell and start making good money without any fighting…”

A thought occurs to him…

“Does Andoran also have travel passes?”

Yes, being a wizard is in fact great.  He made the right choice all those years ago not to pretend to be stupider like his mother said.  He would kind of like to know how she’s doing.  …actually he’s allowed to think that.  If he ever gets fourth-circle he’ll scry on her.

“I’m curious about Andoran also…”

They’ve been so busy planning in the immediate term, he only learned enough to decide Andoran is better than Cheliax or the Cult and he didn’t really get to asking for any details beyond that.

Headshake headshake. "Travel passes are Asmodean — like, the Asmodeans came up with them, even countries with lots of rules about where people can go mostly don't use them. But Andoran's a free country, you can travel basically anywhere. There's a few rules, but they're things like 'you've got to follow the laws for whatever part of the country you're in' or 'trespassing is a crime' or 'if there's a plague outbreak you need to follow the quarantine', nothing like what they've got in Cheliax."

"People are also allowed to leave the whole country."

"Yeah, that's true too, if you decide you'd rather live in... Absalom, or something... no one's going to stop you from getting on a boat. Uh, what else did you want to know?"

So it sounds like if the whole slave freeing Chaotic Good pirate thing doesn't work out, he could wander off to somewhere lawless and go back to the sort of banditry he was doing before becoming a follower of Baphomet.  He's not actually mentally flexible or self-deceiving enough to suppress this thought, he's just kind of hoping they won't actually check.

He wants to know the rules on how Andoran pirates split up the loot.  He thought maybe Good people don't steal... except these adventurer's definitely just looted a dead body... maybe that is actually supposed to be Lawful people don't steal, except Asmodean priests definitely steal, they just throw around some complicated justification for it?  He'll wait for the other guy to ask questions first.

He could and probably should come up with a lot of theological questions, at least to get the official Andoran line of propaganda straight, but he'll start out with a few safer and more immediately useful questions.

"Does Cheliax really have more wizards than everyone else?  They said it was because everyone else was too poor to have schools."

His theory is that Cheliax shoves more kids into wizard schools, but also it washes a lot of them out, so maybe it doesn't have more real wizards.  Actually he should clarify his question.

"I mean, I assume Cheliax manage more laundry wizards with their cruel joke of a school system, but beyond that?"

He's pretty sure less wizards means wizards can charge more, which is great news for him... actually are ruinous prices Evil?  He can ask that next if he can think of a safe wording.

"It's — complicated. I think Absalom's technically got the most, right—"

He looks up from where he's preparing the Unseen Servant. "Absalom has by far the most per head, but Cheliax has more in total, even discounting laundry wizards."

"Right, that makes sense. And then I think Andoran and Galt have less than Cheliax but more than most other places, since — I mean, lots of people learned to be wizards before the revolution, even though they couldn't keep the schools open without Hell paying for all the books. Uh, I don't know about circles, though."

"A lot of wizards gained circles in the revolution, but a lot of them also died in the process. I don't know off the top of my head how that compares to what people manage at the Worldwound."

"The last attempt to make a direct comparison that I know of encountered issues due to the general untrustworthiness of claims made by the Chelish government."

"Galt's army is trying something, right?"

"—Right, yeah, there was something about it in the papers. I think they're... trying to find soldiers who'd make good wizards, and putting just them through wizard school, or something like that? But I might be misremembering some of the details."

"Andoran does offer scholarships to attend Almas University — that's how I was able to attend — but the government isn't doing anything anywhere near as comprehensive as Cheliax. I'm sure there are people with just as much innate aptitude for wizardry as me who never thought to apply."

"Does that answer your question?"

“Yes, thanks.”

Well that’s just sad… for them.  It also means he can probably sell spells for a good amount of money.  Also, the fact that they told him means they aren’t just feeding him optimistic propaganda.

He already knows he has no aptitude for wizardry, so it’s not like it matters the least bit to him.

“I was thinking about selling spells… is charging someone too much for something Evil?”

"—It depends who you ask — or, uh, presumably it doesn't really depend, but it's not something like slavery where basically everyone agrees. I think it depends what you're selling, and who you're selling to, like, I sell spells sometimes when I'm home, and I don't charge people for Remove Disease but one time this rich guy offered me a bunch of money so he could try out flying and I didn't turn him down. The Abadarans say there's not really any such thing as a fair price, and you're not doing anything wrong if you charge as much as people'll pay you, but they think it's fine to demand a widow's whole life savings to cure their sick child, or to charge people for water even though it only takes a moment to make, or to raise their prices even higher the more people need what they're selling. And then the Sarenrites and the Shelynites say, uh — that if you came across a dying traveler on the side of the road, and even though it'd be trivial for you to save his life you demanded he give you everything he has, that's Evil, and charging too much for things people'll die without isn't very different. And I asked a priest of Iomedae once what he thought and he said you could just charge people a lot of money and then donate it to the Church of Iomedae, but I don't know if most Iomedaeans think that or if it was just him, and then the other churches I've talked to don't necessarily agree with each other. ...Pretty much everyone I know who's not an Abadaran thinks people should charge fair prices, mostly they just disagree about what that means. —And third-circle wizards can definitely make enough money to live on no matter how careful you are about not charging people too much."

 "Erastil chose a priest in my village after the revolution, and he liked to say that Erastil had given him these gifts so that he could strengthen his community, not so that he could profit. The only payment he ever asked for was the cost of the materials for his spells. But that's a relatively rare perspective."

"—And it's not the sort of thing you need to worry about too much as long as you're basically trying to be fair. Sometimes people get — scared — that every little thing they do is going to be Evil, and there are some little things that are Evil, but as long as you're trying to be fair with your prices and you're not taking advantage of people it's not wrong or Evil to sell your spells." 

That's probably another Evil to atone for, before joining the Cult he had managed a lot of variations of 'even though it'd be trivial for you to save his life you demanded he give you everything he has'... more than they had actually, he had ready made contracts to squeeze the peasants for money long term.

The priest of Iomedae sounds really practical, he should try to find one to talk to.

So if charging too much money is Evil... can he report them for that?  He could get used to living in a Good country!

"Who do we report heresy to?  Like if someone is being a Mammonite?"

He can recall one of the examples from a few days ago specifically mentioned that someone cheating others in business was not found guilty of being a follower of Mammon.  But it is overall still a relevant question, with so many accepted and actively approved Churches he isn't sure which one handles reports of heresy.

"—Laws about heresy are one of the things that's really different between Andoran and Cheliax. In Andoran it's illegal to deliberately serve the Evil gods, or other powers of the lower planes, or to proselytize for them, but that's basically the only thing that's illegal heresy. —There's some extra rules involved if you're trying to publish anything, or give a big public speech or something, but they don't apply to things you're just thinking, or that you're saying to your friends or family or anything. 

Apart from that, the main things countries other than Cheliax call heresy are saying things about the gods that aren't true, or saying things that are true, but that make the gods that are popular in those countries look bad, or that would make people not want to serve those gods, or sometimes if they make the gods look good but make the people in charge of the country look bad — usually they call that last one some other crime but I think Taldor sometimes calls it heresy. But — if someone in Andoran's saying things about the gods that aren't true, and it's not because they're proselytizing, it's probably because they're confused, and they're probably confused because of how Cheliax used to lie to everyone. And it'd be better if they weren't confused, but it's not their fault that Cheliax lied all the time. And then lots of countries think it should be illegal to say true things if they make Iomedae or Sarenrae or whoever is the most popular god look bad, but in Andoran people mostly think that's stupid, and I think so too.

And so then — the laws we have about religion aren't special, you don't need to go to any sort of church to report them, you can just tell the town watch like it was any other crime. Uh, there are some priests who work for the watch, but they aren't a separate thing. Like, in the cities they pay Abadarans to cast Abadar's Truthtelling — uh, that's a special kind of truth spell that only Abadarans can cast — and then there's also some paladins who've sworn a bunch of specific oaths about how much they'll tell the watch about what you tell them, and so on, but you don't need a priest of Iomedae to tell you that someone who's going around saying 'everyone should worship Asmodeus' is proselytizing for Asmodeus."

Nod. "One of our friends thinks none of the gods are worth listening to, and he'll try to convince anyone who'll listen, and he's never gotten in trouble for it."

"He got punched in a bar fight once."

"Fair. He's never gotten in trouble with the law for it."

"That wasn't the only thing he said that conversation, anyways, I'm not sure which one actually got him punched."

Settling heresy with bar fights actually seems really sensible to to Mateo, and the proper sort of thing for a Caydenite to do (he doesn't know any Caydenite theology yet, but he is already starting to identify as one).

He glances over at Sinashakti's preparation of unseen servant and thinks about how they will use it to safely set off any trapped symbols in the bag of holding.  An unseen servant should count enough like a living creature to safely set off a symbol (such as a symbol of pain)... assuming standard triggering conditions.  But maybe a skilled wizard could manage more nuanced conditions?  He hasn't ever used a symbol spell before, even the lower circle symbol spells are more expensive than he can afford just for the sake of practice.  Also, if it is a more obscure symbol spell... it could have a long duration of activation making it annoying to wait for the spell discharge (actually pretty plausible)... the spell itself could have no apparent effect on unseen servants (somewhat possible)... the spell could maybe have longer than the 60 foot range he is expecting (very unlikely)?  Actually, mentally reviewing the math on the ranges, to keep the servant active, Sinashakti will be within the edge of a 60 foot range.  He could open the bag and immediately retreat?  Actually most symbols are burst effect... they could put the symbol in the rope trick, and then get clear of the rope trick's opening, while staying within the unseen servant's range but a burst won't bend around a corner.

"I am going to use my empty slot on an unseen servant also, thinking it over, it is quite possible we will need two of them, like if one trap destroys the first unseen servant and we want to ensure there isn't a second.  Also, if the bag is trapped a symbol of pain or similar to it, we could be waiting around for it to finish discharging for two hours or so.  Just something to keep in mind"

Oh great this is about to turn into a bunch of wizard talk.  He'll come up with another question then!

"What do people in Andoran do for fun?  It seem like a torturous execution is the most excitement most small villages get around here.  And the cult was big on torture.  I was a bit too squeamish and soft to really enjoy it myself."

Well... he's been accused of being squeamish a few times (they were actually a result of various mixes of boredom, sleepiness, and irritation at the victim's screams), so this isn't purely a lie.  But he is mostly figuring that Good people are squeamish about pathetic about torture and is trying to work that into the conversation as a fact about himself to establish.  He's been mentally preparing a speech about how they were going to torture the deserter to death and he didn't want to and that's why he defected.  It looks like the speech won't be needed?  But he doesn't want to waste all the partially mostly true facts he's prepared for it.

"Andoran doesn't do torturous executions, Asmodeus really likes it when people get tortured — uh, not having them is controversial, people aren't sure if you get more criminals that way." The Lastfolk say you don't but if you don't just assume that Lastwall is right about everything it seems kind of ridiculous? Lastfolk also like to say that hanging technically counts unless you do it the special way Lastwall came up with, which really seems like the sort of thing you could only believe if you'd never seen someone flayed alive.

Nod. "Besides that, people in Andoran do lots of different things for fun. Some people sing, or dance, or play instruments, or watch other people do any of those. Some people read books or poetry, or play dice or card games, or play other games like basilisk or prismati, or go out to the tavern with their friends. In the cities people watch plays, and concerts, and footraces or horse races or flying races, and illusion-shows or other feats of magic, and daredevil acts — things like crossing a tightrope over a pit of snakes, or juggling fire, or complicated trapeze stunts where if you miss by an inch you'll fall — and something a little like the games but no one does it except by choice, where people fight against summoned beasts, and public debates. Some of those also happen in smaller towns, but not as often."

"And archery contests, and lots of kinds of art, and going to see animals displayed from other places. And some people actually like going to church services." 

"I think there's two — no, wait, three — big differences from what people do for fun in Cheliax. First of all, people don't do things for fun that are just... hurting other people for no reason, like, there's operas in Andoran but there aren't, uh, operas where they frame an innocent person for a crime and force them to take part in an opera where they actually get killed. Then, uh, this is actually the third thing I thought of, people aren't — trying to make sure that what they do for fun makes them look like perfect Asmodeans? People can spend all their free time painting, if they can afford it, without worrying that they'll get accused of primary worship of Shelyn, or read books that aren't half about how everyone should worship Asmodeus, or get together with a bunch of their friends to sing songs without the priests worrying they're planning something. And then the last difference, which I think is maybe the most important, is — there's a lot of things that are more fun to do with people you like and care about than with strangers, or especially with people you hate. If you go to the bar by yourself it'll probably be pretty boring. If you sit down to play Hazard with some random strangers you've never met you're basically just counting. If you try to go do a group dance with people you hate, then even if no one tries to hurt you on purpose it's probably going to suck. But if you've got a group of friends together than even if what you're actually doing is pretty boring you can still have a good time talking to them, if that makes sense."

(He will quietly discuss strategy for using their Unseen Servants with Fernando while this is occurring.)

Dice and card games are fun, so that puts a minimum threshold on how boring Andoran can be.  He's not sure daredevil acts would stay interesting if no one ever got hurt, but if they are only half as good as the one time he saw the games in a city that is still pretty entertaining.

He's kind of confused by not doing any torture just to... spite Asmodeus?  Oppose Asmodeus in everything at all costs?  The leader always said you can't get at the true essence of Chaos simply by reversing Law nor can you can you be wise simply by reversing foolishness.  And now he's feeling a flicker of guilt that he had to kill leader...

"What sort of punishments do you have that aren't torture?"  And he immediately thinks of a follow up.  "And you don't need to torture people for Calistria?"

Opps... that one might be a little sensitive.  Well worse case if it's heresy the punishment is only a punch in the face, he can take a punch.  Is he supposed to fight back if she does go for a face punch?

That question was a little too much even as casual as they are being.  He'll pretend he didn't overhear as he continues his side conversation on how to handle the bag of holding with the Unseen Servants.

Well, she doesn't look inclined to punch him, at any rate. 

"—No, you don't have to torture anyone to be a Calistrian, even if you're a priestess. Calistria's the goddess of revenge but there's lots of different ways to get revenge — she might be bothered if I really really really wanted to torture someone to death but I decided not to for reasons I didn't actually care about at all, but if it's just — I care about lots of different things, and I decide to get revenge on an Asmodean priest by killing him and freeing his slaves and fighting to make it so Cheliax can be free someday, and I'm happy with that — then that's fine." She... might feel upset about letting them off with just death if her spear were secretly a Final Blade or something, but it's not like they won't get tortured more than almost anyone could possibly deserve no matter what she does beforehand. "You don't even have to kill anyone, lots of people who worship Calistria have never killed anyone."

"And then Andoran's got... let me think. Execution. Whippings and other things like that, those're allowed if they're not really excessive, there's arguments about what exactly should count. Fines, and they can make you sell off things you own if you can't pay the fine, there's rules about what exactly they can make you sell. Uh, labor sentences, technically, except slavery's illegal so anyone who gets sentenced to a labor sentence has to be allowed to say they'd rather be executed. Sending people to a monastery if there's one that'll take them, that's technically counted as a type of labor sentence but I think it might be different. Maiming." She pauses for a moment.

"Branding. Pillory."

"—huh, I don't think I realized we even had pillory, I've never seen it."

"There are a lot of requirements about how it has to be done. They're kind of a pain, so magistrates mostly don't use it."

"We've got exile on the books, but it almost never comes up. And imprisonment, though that one is mostly relevant for labor sentences for spellcasters. There are also a few additional forms of punishment for members of the military, or members of the government."

"And then, uh, people'll argue a lot about whether it technically counts as punishment or not, but the magistrates have a ton of discretion about being able to make you do things that they think'll get you to stop doing crimes, like, they can make you go to spiritual counseling, they can say you have to get a different job, if the thing you did is fixable they can say you have to fix it, sometimes they'll make someone repeat something they said at their trial as a sort of... speech?... They've still got to follow the other rules, like the ones about not doing torture, but I'm sure there's all kinds of things that have happened once or twice that I've never even heard of."

He doesn't like the idea of magistrates having a lot of discretion, but if they can't torture you that puts an obvious bound on how badly they can use it.  He tries to focus on his planning.

He's kind of curious if they make the whippings worse if they know you are an adventurer with the extra toughness, but it sounds like they have enough options on punishments they can just give him a different one if it comes up.

"What is spiritual counseling?  I think in Cheliax that just means a priest lies to you a bunch, maybe while torturing you, and then demands something."  It wasn't that different in the cult either... except for the leader, who liked giving him puzzles and riddles to work on.  It is pathetic to feel bad about killing the leader when the leader was probably weighing the odds of needing to eventually maledict himself.

"—It can include a few different things but in Andoran none of them are torture. In general it's... when there's something you want advice about, and there's a priest who you think'll have a good perspective, so you talk to them about it? I think if a magistrate sentences you to spiritual counseling they probably... talk about why you broke the law, and then if you were confused about whether what you were doing was right they talk to you about why it was wrong, or if you did something wrong and you don't want to do it again they... give you suggestions on how to stop?... and if you did something wrong and you aren't interested in stopping I don't know what they do. And if you were actually doing the right thing then it probably depends on which god they're a priest of. But most spiritual counseling's for other reasons, like — if you're trying to do the right thing but you want help figuring out what that looks like, or you have questions about the gods and you're hoping they'll know, or you think you're about to die, or you're in a confusing situation and you want advice, or — if you know you've done something Evil, or a lot of things that are Evil, and you regret it, and you want to make up for it."

"That sounds helpful."  He bets you can get advice from a Caydenite spiritual counselor over a drink.  That seems like the sort of thing they would do and maybe being told to be pathetic to stay out of Hell or the Abyss (he assumes that is why most people would bother trying to do the right thing in the first place) wouldn't be so bad if you're a touch drunk.

"Do you do any counseling?"

"Sometimes, yeah, it's not the main thing I do but it comes up every now and then. —Was there something you were hoping for counseling about?"

What do you if you regret killing someone, even if they were Evil and going to maledict someone?  He doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Maybe, I’ll think about it…”

"You don't have to if you don't want to. Or if you do want to but you'd rather wait till we get to Andoran and find someone else to talk to that's also fine."

Meanwhile, he connects the final strands of the spellform for his Unseen Servant, save for the connection necessary to actually cast the spell.

He actually finished first even though he started later, he’s practiced getting his scaffold up and down fast.  With Sinashakti finished and Mateo’s conversation finished, he’ll repeat some of their discussion for the groups benefit.

“So if we have an unseen servant open the bag of holding while it is inside the rope trick, and are just around the corner outside the rope trick, we should be safe from most possible symbol effects, as most of them are bursts or emanations that can go around corners.  Once we’ve had an unseen servant poke around for a bit and set off any symbols… there are still a few other common magical traps, but most of them require active reading writing, not just passively seeing a symbol, so the unseen servant can’t set them off in advance, but we can also just avoid reading them.  We can look back over the stuff we take out with a detect magic to try to find any remaining traps.  If the unseen servants do set off any symbols, some of the more common ones can take tens of minutes to discharge, so to wait it out we might need up two hours.  I’ll defer the judgement on when in our day works best for that.”

He pauses for a moment.

“Those are the major points of consideration I came up with so far, if anyone had any other precautions or recommendation that would be good.”

"...If we wait till tomorrow there's, uh, technically a trick I can do with a Summon Monster II, for anything that's triggered by reading, but it'd only work some of the time, so it's probably not worth waiting." Also, it'd really suck to hit a random person with one of the nasty symbols, even though they'd almost certainly be okay afterwards — she wouldn't do it unless they agreed, but it'd be better not to have to.

"Is there a reason we're putting the bag in the Rope Trick and going outside rather than putting the bag outside and staying here?"

"If we stay inside the rope trick and put the bag outside then we could be stuck inside the bag waiting out a symbol's duration.  That would be an hour and a half if the wizard that teleported on top of us was fifth circle-"

"I'm pretty sure he was sixth circle."

"So waiting two hours for the symbol's duration to expire... except if he had extend spell metamagic?"

He glances questioningly at Mateo.

"I don't know, I didn't see him typically use a rod or staff or whatever?"

He's kind of proud of himself for knowing that either a rod or a staff are usually involved in metamagic.

"So he didn't have metamagic rod, but he still might have known how to use extend metamagic, which would mean waiting four hours for the symbol.  Except... I know a few examples of symbols, but I can't rule out an obscure symbol spell I haven't heard of with a longer duration.  A hypothetical two hours per caster circle duration would mean we would be stuck past this rope trick expiring, at which point it would drop us on top of a potentially nasty symbol.  The obvious solution would be to have an unseen servant just shove it back in the bag, but if it's something that can disrupt or destroy the unseen servant before it can do so, then that wouldn't work.  So it's not overwhelmingly in favor of putting it inside the rope trick, but I think on the balance... oh and if we're concerned about someone teleporting on top of us, I could cast another rope trick from my amulet and we could wait in that one?"

"I don't really know what your trade-offs are on waiting versus getting the bag opened sooner?  Like maybe if it has something extremely useful like a teleport scroll that is worth the rush?"

He expects everyone in his party would actually prefer to save a scroll of Teleport for an emergency rather than simply using it to escape to Andoran immediately, but by rights the two defectors have an equal right to any such scrolls, and he suspects they would prefer not to risk being captured by either the Chelish government or anyone affiliated with the cult.

"The primary benefit of opening the bag today is that even if it takes several hours, we weren't planning to spend today travelling, so it won't delay our departure. Secondary benefits include, as you say, the possibility of the bag containing particularly useful items, or time-sensitive information, as well as the fact that it would enable us to distribute the items among the six of us immediately — though we could do so regardless, at some risk of a less fair distribution. If we do open it today, it likely makes sense to do so just after you cast your Rope Trick, which should outlast any Symbols unless he had a particularly rare technique."

They’re giving him a cut?  Good people are great!  He hopes all of his future fellow pirates are Good so he can count on them to give him his fair share.

“I’m in favor!”

He would really rather minimize risks to his life until he detects as Chaotic Neutral (or better).  It’s nice to have confirmation that they will give him a share of the loot though.

She looks between the two wizards. "Do either of you know, is there a spell any of us could prepare that'd make it easy to deal with whatever's in the bag? Or is it more like, if we wait until tomorrow we'll still have all the same problems, but slightly better odds if it turns out he could do something weird? I know there's some kinds of magic you can't just Dispel without setting them off..."

“A dispel would have bad odds against a caster three circles higher than us… I have heard of a spell to Erase magic writing (which would get symbols as well as other trapped writing like explosive runes)… I think it also depends on the caster’s strength, and thus it had the same problems as a dispel?  I don’t have it anyway… I can’t recall if it was abjuration or transmutation?”

"Transmutation, but it's ineffective against all of the Symbol spells that I am familiar with. It can erase Explosive Runes, but at some risk of inadvertently triggering them." He runs his finger over the leather bracelet on his left wrist.

"So probably not worth it?  I've been trying to think of other traps besides magic writing...  Cursed items are a possibility but detect magic should show any problems.  Poisons should show up to detect poison.  Any dormant creature powerful enough to be a serious threat would probably also be large enough it would waste too much bag space.  Misdirection only lasts for hours so even a sixth circle wouldn't want to waste the spell slots on keeping traps concealed.  Well... magic aura and greater magic aura last for two days per caster circle... so we can't be completely confident in any results of detect magic... I suppose a skillful illusionist might be able to interfere with the results of detect poison as well even though the spell normally just effects magical auras?  So we check everything after the unseen servants have been through it once, but we don't get overconfident in the results of the check?  I suppose we could hold off on using anything not absolutely necessary and wait 11 or 12 days (or 24 days to allow for the possibility of extend) and check the items again after that duration, just to be cautious?"

"To answer the original question, there isn't any spell that would make it significantly easier that I know of.  There are lots of things we can do to slightly improve our odds and cover weird possibilities."

"Well, I'm not a wizard, but in that case it sounds like we should either try it today or wait until we're home and bring it to a specialist, does that seem reasonable?"

"That sounds reasonable to me. I defer to the two of you" (he nods at Fernando and Mateo) "as to what sort of resources he was likely to be carrying, and whether they justify the risk."

"If he was carrying a teleport scroll, that seems worth the risk of doing it now to have that as an option for an emergency need to escape.  Well... two of us would need to fit into the bag I don't think a sixth-circle's teleport is strong enough to get six people, even assuming he scribed it at maximum strength.  And if the bag isn't particularly high capacity we could use two reduce persons.  So what are the odds he had a scroll?"

"He was the sort to always have a back up plan, so he almost certainly has at least one teleport scroll, if not more.  Probably lots of other scrolls for contingencies?  Oh and he would have had at least one scroll of Malediction, you know, for, uh-"

Mateo nods to the wizard.  And if there are two scrolls of Malediction, Matero is definitely going to stop feeling the twinge of guilt.

"So I'm in favor of opening it sooner rather than later."

These seem like a nice bunch of people, but 12 or 24 days or whatever is plenty of time to accidentally forget a loosely implied offer to split the loot.

In that case, they can do some basic set-up (in case there turn out to be any of the kind of traps best handled by throwing the item into a small hole or something), and re-cast their orison buffs just in case, and cast a second Rope Trick, and ensure they've positioned the bag correctly, and then send out the first Unseen Servant to investigate.

If the leader had the spare energy (at the moment he is quite busy struggling against less developed demon larvae, his demonic pact has given him a substantial but not overwhelming advantage) to recount his thought, he might say something like this:

Most of the scenarios it was worth it to secure his bag of holding against involved internal mischief, backstabbing, and plotting.  Killing a genuinely threatening internal rival is reasonable.  Killing a pawn of rival would be wasteful.  Even someone as lowly as a second-circle wizard is, in the long run, quite valuable.  Valuable enough to use one of the more expensive trap options he considered as opposed to a cheaper trap.

So have a Symbol of Pain.  He rigged this symbol via subtle modification to the bag of holding to be the first thing that comes out if an unauthorized user fails to use the failback command word or gesture.  Hopefully this will teach a valuable lesson to any pawns while leaving them alive.

And for more serious thieves, well, just keep trying to dig through the bag and see what happens...

The Unseen Servant is a mindless force undeterred by pain! It keeps trying to dig through the bag. What happens?

Baphomet doesn't care about divine treaties restricting his clerics to such a precisely constrained and from one of these clerics he had learned an obscure symbol.  Have a Symbol of Exsanguination!   Enough blood loss sustained over multiple rounds can kill even seasoned adventurers.  And it will leave plenty of evidence for him to track them down later.

It won't actually trigger for the Unseen Servant, undead and constructs were on his mind when he setup the triggering conditions for this one.

And if that doesn't work... his bag is probably completely stolen or lost, and Explosive Runes don't cost anything to cast.  Have six of them in enlarged writing all on one extra large sheet of parchment.  And have fun looking through his books and notes, he has a scattering of more explosive runes across his writings, tucked away were he can conceal or reveal them with a quick page turn.

The Unseen Servant can't read, so unfortunately it won't be triggering any of those. It sorts the items according to the simple-enough-for-a-mindless-construct rules it's been given and puts the Symbols into a small hole.

There are over a dozen scrolls and typical adventurer's supplies: rope, a tent, rations, water bladders, hand ax, dagger, various other mundane odds and ends.  Among the more ornate or unusual items (and thus likely magical): a pearl, a decorated goblet, an odd foot long iron bar with many protrusions and spikes, a headband, a rope studded with bits of metal, another headband with spikes, and a third headband.  And finally three notebooks and various papers.

Once the first Symbol has had time to exhaust itself, they can peer at the remaining items with a Detect Magic. The results won't be entirely reliable, of course, but they can still be somewhat informative. (The untriggered Symbol is, at this point, safely in a hole.)

There are lots of auras of abjuration, faint, but on the heavier end of faint, so likely third circle.  6 of them on one big sheet of paper, more of them in the notebooks and papers.  And if he is particularly discerning he can make out that they have force effects, so almost certainly Explosive Runes.  He had better be careful not to read any of them.

The scrolls will need to be individually identified, but none of them have that aura of abjuration so they should be safe to read?

The pearl has an aura of strong transmutation, almost certainly a standard pearl of power.  The goblet has a faint aura of conjuration, it can create water.  The iron bar also has a transmutation aura, it looks like it effects the bar itself, allowing it to transform into a variety of forms?  One of the headband's is a standard headband of wisdom. 

The other items are weirder.  The rope is something like a combination of a backwardly done metamagic rod with a transmutation spell built into it (or maybe it responds to a transmutation spell).  The obvious spell is rope trick.  One of the other headbands is almost a standard intelligence headband, except it is critically flawed, as if the creator tried but failed to cram an Owl's Wisdom into it.  So it interferes with the wearer's wisdom, effectively reducing it by somewhere around a half to a fourth of the amount Owl's Wisdom increases it.  The other headband is complicated... in it's typical operation it only works half as well as the least sort of standard intelligence headband, but some conditions can strengthen it temporarily up the full strength of a Fox's Cunning.  Also, other conditions cause it to inflict moderate to extreme pain on the wearer.  Also it is cursed so it can't be taken off by the wearer.

The symbols dropped in the hole are deep enough that their aura can't be seen without taking them out at least partially.

He's looking over carefully too.  Lots of Explosive Runes, their caution was well worth it he doesn't see any notable illusions, but that's not a guarantee.  They should all compare what they see in case one of them lucks out and sees through a Magic Aura... maybe they should use an identify tomorrow before they try using anything, just to be safe.  Or maybe one of them should use their bonded object spell now on it?

That seems reasonable to him. His inclination is that once they've done that, they should use the Unseen Servant to bring over one scroll at a time, while Elettra (as the person with by far the best reflexes) 'reads' them to ensure they don't have a disguised Explosive Runes or a Sepia Snake Sigil, after which he and Fernando can attempt to decipher what each scroll actually does. Does anyone have objections or modifications to propose? (For that matter, does Mateo know whether the leader ever made use of cursed scrolls that immediately activate when deciphered?)

"He liked fiddling with item designs... it sounds like the sort of thing he would be capable of doing, but I think he had spells for trapping scrolls?  Like one of the ones you already mentioned, with the Explosive Runes or the Sigil Snake.  Oh, I recognize the rope from a description, it directly casts Rope Trick occasionally, and once a day it can make a rope trick (either cast on it or cast by it) last longer so someone less powerful can make their rope trick last long enough or if he needed his to last all day."

He looks to Elettra.  "Are you that confident in your reflexes?  Do you want a Cat's Grace for the extra boost?"  If she's confident he's got no objections.

She nods. "I'd take one, it can't hurt."

“Alright.”  He casts it.

“The rest of us should all be ten feet from you and the scroll… well, let’s make that twenty feet just in case of metamagic.”

She nods, accepts a Guidance from Justice, and repositions herself accordingly. The Unseen Servant starts bringing over the scrolls one-by-one.

None of the scrolls have any Explosive Runes or Sepia Snake Sigils (or Incendiary Runes for that matter).

Scrolls should be a shareable resource that can he give to other cult members that could put them to use, and working around Explosive Runes would be an obstacle to that!  In principle you can instruct someone how to avoid specific explosive runes, but in practice you should allow for moderate odds someone fucks up following even simple instructions (he'll allow for low odds in the event they have a decent headband and decent starting mental abilities, but not no chance).

In that case, he and Fernando can attempt to decipher the scrolls. What do they find?

Two Teleports, two Maledictions, a Lesser Geas, a Delay Poison, a Water Breathing, a Remove Blindness/Deafness, a Lesser Restoration, a Magic Aura (scribed with the full potency of a fifth-circle instead of the minimum to put it on a scroll), an Invisibility (scribed at the potency of a sixth-circle), two Air Bubbles, two Infernal Healings, and a non-standard version of Black Tentacles squeezed down to third-circle (further analysis will suggest they do more of a flailing random grasp than a proper grapple).

(The Grasping Tentacles scroll was going to be a gift/bribe to the errant third circle wizard if they took their punishment/correction with the appropriate attitude, assuming he didn't have to maledict them.)

Hearing that there is not one but two Malediction scrolls makes him confident he made the right choice.

He wasn't doubting his decision to defect enough in the first place to feel any different.

"I don't know exactly how you all plan to split up the loot, and long term I'm planning on selling spells and I don't really plan to need another combat spell... but this variant of Black Tentacles looks really interesting.  It has been squeezed down to third circle and I think the only trade-offs are a bit more randomness and a bit less forcefulness to them."

"And as for the Malediction scrolls... I heard it's possible to cast in reverse or something like that?  Has anyone heard more details?  I think reversing it sends a previously maledicted person to Pharasma's normal judgement?"  As opposed to sending them to the opposite afterlife, and thus you can't use it as a get-into-Heaven free card, even if Heaven would accept that and you had a malediction scroll to spare.

"I'm not sure of the exact limits... like if it works on anyone sent to the Abyss or if it has to be cast on someone maledicted to Baphomet's labyrinth in particular. my former group never bothered maledicting anyone, we didn't have the scrolls to spare or anyone high enough circle to cast it.  I assume your group had more higher circle people?"

He glances to Mateo.

Stupid bastard, you don't indicate you aren't sure about your share of the loot.  You should in fact imply you are owed at least an equal split (at a minimum) but leave enough ambiguity that someone stronger than you can take more than their share without either of you losing face or reputation.

Also, you shouldn't be reminding these Andorans about their former cult membership.  He's gonna have to ditch this guy once they get to Andoran if he keeps this up!

"If reversing it can only be used on people formerly maledicted by the same god and only sends them to Pharasma or whatever I don't think that would help anyone.  The only people I know of that got maledicted to Baphomet were priests of Asmodeus.  Tortured by Baphomet's demons or tortured by Asmodeus's devils, like same difference right?"  And if that is heresy it is hopefully only at face-punching levels of offense.

She knows this one! It came up once in a public sermon by some Sarenrite about how there are no mistakes that are truly irreversible. (She didn't think it was a very good sermon. Even if you fish someone back out of Hell, you haven't reversed the years they spent being tortured.)

"The person who cast a Malediction can undo it by casting the spell backwards. I don't know offhand whether it works to cast it from a scroll made by a different god's cleric—" She glances at Shakti.

"The spellform should be the same, so by my understanding of the likely mechanism I would expect it to, but I don't know for certain."

Nod. "The Sarenrites and the Shelynites would know for sure, and if there's someone who could make use of them they'd know where to find them — I don't know if there is, almost everyone capable of casting it was killed in the revolution or fled to Cheliax. That's if we're Teleporting back, if we're going overland I don't want to risk it falling into the wrong hands."

"—and you really really shouldn't Maledict people even if they're Asmodean priests, it'll almost never matter but — sorry, I know it wasn't you casting the spells, just — do you have the concept of there being some things that are wrong to do to anyone no matter how awful they were—"

Also if someone is going to be damned regardless it still feels kind of messed up to force them to be damned the opposite way of how they'd have chosen? But she's not sure how well that holds up for priests of Asmodeus, it's not like she wants Asmodeus to be more powerful either.

"I never really understood the evil theology anyone tried to teach me, so I definitely don't know any good theology or whatever it is you're trying to explain."

He thinks that should be an acceptable way to frame his ignorance.  And anyway, he's gotten the feeling this group isn't likely to hit him for not knowing something no matter how he frames it.

"I think I can sort of see what you're trying to say?"  Refusing to do some things no matter the circumstances seems to match with the criticisms he's heard of Good.

"But I don't see how an Asmodean priest being sent to the Abyss is more awful than them normally dying and going to Hell?  Like Asmodeus tortures even his loyal followers, right?"

He wants to change the subject to the question of whether they should be using the teleport scroll immediately or not, but this Good theology seems important... and he's not feeling quite ready to push the implicit claim to a share of the loot that asking for the teleport scroll to be used basically is.

"—So, there are a couple different parts to it. I agree that it's a lot worse to Maledict someone innocent. But — well, first of all, Asmodean priests almost always get sent to an Evil afterlife, but there's technically a chance that they won't be. I don't know if it's, uh, ever actually happened, but it could. And I think that chance matters, and it's wrong to take it away completely.

So then, second, I think there's a difference between... a bad thing happening, and making that bad thing happen on purpose? Like, if you're travelling, and you meet a traveler who's been attacked and left for dead, and you could save his life really easily, it's wrong to leave him to die. But it'd be worse to just go up to a random traveler, stab them, and leave them bleeding out, even though they end up dead either way. —That one's the sort of thing where people argue about how much it matters, pretty much everyone thinks it matters some but not everyone thinks it matters the same amount. And so — there's a difference between killing them, even if you know they'll be damned, and trying to make sure of it.

—Uh, that's a little bit sideways from what I was starting to say, which is that — so, there's plenty of things that are usually wrong, but that'd be okay to do to some people, or in some circumstances. Like, it'd usually be wrong to kill people, but it's not like we don't kill Asmodean priests sometimes. But there's other things where there's never something that makes it okay, like if we'd taken an Asmodean priestess captive for some reason we wouldn't rape her. And with Malediction — it can be easy to feel like what Asmodean priests have done is so horrible that they'll deserve what happens to them in the Evil afterlives. But — Hell is really really really awful. I don't know if you've ever seen a Scry of Hell but it's worse than almost anyone imagines, if they haven't seen for themselves. Almost none of them deserve that, and — people say that with the Abyss it depends a bit more on where they end up, but I'd be shocked if Baphomet's gentler with Asmodean priests in particular. And unlike when they go to Hell, you can't even say — it'd be better if it didn't happen to them but they kind of brought in on themselves, we can't just let them keep doing all the awful things they're doing just because they're so committed to being awful that they're willing to suffer forever for it, if they don't want to go to Hell they should make different choices — because if you Maledict them you're taking it out of their hands."

"I think it also matters that they'd have chosen Hell over the Abyss if they'd had the chance. That's not the main reason Maledicting people is generally wrong, but it is a reason, and it applies just as much to them as to people who'd have preferred an afterlife that isn't terrible."

She glances around the group. "—I'm happy to keep talking about this but we should maybe figure out if we're using the Teleport right away first, if we are then there's not really a reason to stick around."

"How much is a Teleport scroll worth in Andoran, and is there anyone besides the six of us that would get a cut?"

"And as a point of comparison... in comparable missions, how often do you or similar adventuring groups run into extreme danger on your way out of Cheliax?  Not like the giant beetles we ran into the other day, like a real threat, like a prepared Chelish team closing in on you."

The price fluctuates somewhat with the seasons, but Teleport is the single fifth-circle arcane spell for which scrolls are in the greatest demand. They are slightly cheaper in Andoran than in countries where wizards are rarer, though not very much cheaper; as trade goods go, it's relatively straightforward to transport in a Teleport. (If they happened to have convenient access to the black market in urban Cheliax,  they could likely get an excellent price, but they almost certainly can't do so without being arrested.

He quotes the most recent price he remembers in Andoran (around a thousand Absalom pounds), "split between the six of us, potentially with adjustments to ensure no one gets an unfairly low portion if there are fewer items they can use." (Plenty of adventurers donate some of what they get back to the Eagle Knights as a whole, but in this context it wouldn't be required.) "But if it's money you're worried about, your share of the remainder should be more than enough to cover your needs — my concern with using it here is that it would most likely mean that whoever we would otherwise have sold it to won't have access to it in an emergency, and is more likely to be captured themself."

"I think — it depends on what exactly you count, probably? Like, we get into some sort of fight with Cheliax pretty much every time, but that's, uh, counting fights that we started ourselves, on purpose, which are less dangerous, relatively speaking. Accidentally getting into a fight with Cheliax that we really didn't want, with a patrol or something... definitely less than half the time for us, when we're travelling alone. More than half the time for people who can be tracked, or who can't spend all night in a Rope Trick, or who're trying to do some sort of complicated spying thing where they have to lie a lot instead of sneaking through the woods, and more than that if we've got a group of people with us. But it's usually just a patrol, and it's not that hard to fight off a patrol, if you're third circle. The hardest part is — if they retreat and any of them manage to lose you, or if you do it anywhere where anyone was watching, now you're at risk of being scried, and if you've got the scroll you can just Teleport out. —There's places where we'd use masks or disguises or things like that, so they can't get a good description but it's not worth it for just travelling through the woods. Running into some sort of monster in the forest happens almost every time even if you only count things that are more dangerous than those bugs, and it hasn't killed us yet but..." She looks confused for a moment. "...I don't know if that means anything, since if it had we'd be dead...? And we, uh, don't worry that much about getting killed by forest monsters, if we're alone, like, we'd rather it not happen but it's a lot better than getting captured by Cheliax."

(Presumably he's a lot more worried than they are about getting killed by forest monsters, though.)

"Half the people I met when I joined up are dead."

"—wow, okay. I forgot, how long exactly's it been for you?"

"Five years."

Nod. "And mostly that'd be people who've got at least some adventuring experience already, not people who're just, uh, really bad at adventuring." 

It was kind of hard to spend money in Cheliax as a bandit or cultist, but he managed, and he is pretty sure he can spend even more money in Andoran.

"I'm favor of not using it, I bet we make it out of Cheliax no problem!"

"Uh, I guess the same for me.  If it looks like we are about to run into a more serious problem I'm in favor of using it right away, though."

Huh, she hadn't been expecting that. She's proud of them but it'd probably come across wrong to say so.

"Makes sense to me. Uh, probably it makes sense for each of you to carry one of them for now, even if that's not how we end up splitting the money?"

"We should probably split up the rest of it now as well, some of it could be useful for the journey back." Nod to Mateo. "I know you had your eye on the glaive, was there anything else you were especially interested in? I'm assuming the wizards can figure out how to split up the wizard stuff themselves."

"I know a Bellflower who could really use the rope. One of the wizards should probably have it for the trip back but I want it once we're home."