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.