“There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.”
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
It's not Hadrian's first time in Hell, but the endless background screaming isn't any less disturbing a second time.
They're no longer in a Mage's Private Sanctum. He could Dispel his Nondetection on Sevar, order her to fail her Will Save against Detect Thoughts... the hypothetical enemy probably couldn't nail a Scry on her in a short time window... but he does not have prepped another of his more metamagiced Nondetections. Realistically, they are in Hell, it is a dangerous place, Sevar has just sold her soul of her own will, and this will probably go better if they put aside some hesitations and work together.
"Go ahead and try it," he tells Sevar. If she fucks up her very first Teleport, they'll not be any more lost than they are already.
It's worse without the Planar Adaptation.
It's better with the knowledge that she needs to overthrow Asmodeus.
Carissa tries to hold in her mind the image of the fortress she left from just a few days ago, and Teleport the four of them.
aaaaand in fact fucks it up. Well. Not that badly. This is the fortress but she managed to zap them all with discharging spell energy along the way, severely enough to kill a normal person but not actually all that badly for some fifth circle casters.
- sorry, she almost says before she remembers she is Carissa Sevar and not the most junior member of this excursion. She will simply pretend that didn't happen, like any dignified Chelish person would.
"Anyone hit by that hard enough we should Infernal Heal?"
(no)
"All right, Sevar, what do we do here?"
"Rugatonn did the talking. They all ask, do you offer a payment or a threat, and she said, 'I am the High Priestess of Asmodeus in Golarion about Asmodeus's business; you will serve me as is your duty,' and then they each let us through. I can talk, if you think they won't back off for you."
Hadrian weighs possibilities, concludes that with them being in literal Hell and headed to Dis he's mostly going to have to play this on the assumption Sevar isn't planning to betray them all.
"You'd know better than me whether devils would be more likely to back off for me or you... unless you don't know, in which case my guess is that our strongest threat does the talking, so that's me. How do we get the outer gate to open at all? I don't see anything resembling a knocker."
"Aspexia Rugatonn just....knocked. The result was very loud, she might secretly have a strength of 30 or something. I don't know who devils would be likelier to back off for."
"I'll do the talking, I guess." He knocks on the door... with an Admonishing Ray, he's not going to need nonlethal damage for anything else in Hell.
After a pause, the fortress door swings open, and a being comes forth like a withered cadavar made of bone.
Its eyes pass over the other mortals out of Cheliax, even the one stronger than itself; settles upon that mortal who was previously escorted by a 9th-circle priestess of Asmodeus and spoke before her, and now returns with a mighty crown of Hell upon her brow.
It waits for the strongest to speak.
"Hadrian of Cheliax, as is Asmodeus's country in Golarion and serves Him. I am here escorting Carissa Sevar, who is named favored soul of Dispater, and we require entry to Dis."
And behind her, a Silent Image in Infernal reads, 'they are not serve me, and should not pass alive.'
One of the verbs is conjugated slightly wrong, not in a way that changes the meaning. Carissa was never very good at infernal.
Maybe it's easier when you've got Dispater's favored with you, instead of just Aspexia Rugatonn. The politics of Hell often have little respect for Golarion's ranks.
Hadrian enters, assuming the others will follow him.
She relaxes once it's obvious the message was understood.
Sorry, Olegario.
At the end of their path through the maze is a vast iron room with a silvery irised gate set into the floor. Above the gate, a swaying flat circular platform held slightly above the floor-gate by rough-surfaced chains meeting above the platform, connecting to a slightly thicker chain that goes through a pulley and winds about a huge reel.
A brutish-looking horned humanoid with leathery crimson skin, from whose head protrudes a great mouth filled with sharp teeth, waits about the reel.
Carissa watches unflinching. It's Evil, probably, but it's not. - not the stupid Evil of just taking the default action because someone will smile at you about it. She has vitally important strategic goals and knows no other path to attaining them; she cannot trust Olegario to stick with her if she says 'hey, let's defect from Cheliax', or for that matter to believe it's not a test.
She doesn't own him. She owns an option she can exercise only with leave of Church and Crown.
"You defend this fortress well," she says, when the fighting is over, "I am honored." ....are they gonna interfere with her putting these bodies in her Bag of Holding.
"....it was service of Asmodeus, perhaps a very important one, but a complicated one. I would pay you for the favor to be certain of my standing, if the price is one I can afford." Or that Abarco and Hadrian can afford, because she is absolutely scouring their bodies for possessions right now like a proper adventurer.