screw you, Abrogail Thrune, and the god you rode in on

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Feliu Mas, Court Mage and Chief of Security for High Priestess Demicardinal Carme Scarpo’s private estate, is not an idiot. This is, to be sure, a rare and precious trait in Cheliax, as Mas is well aware, but it is also one he - a fifth-circle wizard possessed of considerable experience at the Woundworld - possesses. Since, however, his subordinates are fools, rogues and incompetents, he does an invisible survey of the estate three times a day an hour or so after every guard change, catching up on all of the guardposts and making sure the soldiers of His Infernal Majesty’s deputy are properly obedient. After all, how will they quail properly in fear of Asmodeus if they are not properly punished for their every failure in his eyes, even those no man could possibly have seen?

Since Mas is not an idiot, each guardpost carefully overlooks each adjacent guardpost, and there are three soldiers in each of them at all times (two warriors and a wizard, ideally, not that the wizards are up to his standards), all of them ready to trip the permanent Alarm spells keyed to himself alone in case of attack. He does this even though Demicardinal Scarpo’s private estate is surrounded by her rich ecclesiastical domain, in which the slaves and peasants are far too cowed to present any active resistance, she has no rivals worthy of the name, and not once since Scarpo became Demicardinal has she faced any resistance more serious than urban bread riots.

And so it is this night that, invisible, his Permanent Arcane Sight and Extended Detect Thoughts scanning the light ornamental glades (that the Demicardinal planted so she could hang corpses from them) whenever they are within 120 feet from him, Feliu Mas continues patrolling his excellently well-prepared estate. The Demicardinal’s estate is more of a palace than a fortress, true, but does it really need to be a fortress?

They appear in the teleport room of the King-In-Irons’ Absalom mansion, which is, of course, surrounded by armed guards, and get to work. The people in bags of holding can stop holding their breath and get out, and the bags themselves can be looted - the gold and silver counted, the art and gems appraised, the magic items removed from the bodies, which will be sold to the Church of Abadar if they have resurrection insurance and to a medical school if not, and identified… there’s a great deal of work to do.

Not, however, so much that the King-In-Irons (still wearing his mask, which he does, in fact, eat and sleep in, since the bottom part of it is detachable) does not pause, and go to his shrine, where burns four altars to four great gods.

And there he pauses, and prays, and offers incense - to Norgorber, god of crime and his own patron, to celebrate his successful theft; to Calistria, goddess of vengeance, for his triumph over those who wronged him; to Gorum for the triumph he has won in battle, and to Iomedae, for the victory was over their shared enemy.

He does in fact hope that one of the gods he sacrifices to prays will offer him warning if the time comes that Cheliax returns the favor he has done them, and his security mechanisms are excellent, and his mansion was built as a deathtrap for attackers - he’s planning to have a Forbiddance spell cast over it, if the proceeds of this raid let him afford to pay a cleric for it, and a permanent Teleport Trap as well when he can afford it - and if Cheliax hires a bad assassin, as they have in the past, he expects he will manage quite well.

But the King-In-Irons is frankly not expecting to survive the day that Cheliax takes killing him seriously.

He merely intends to ensure that, when that day comes, it is Aspexia Rugatonn or Abrogail Thrune or Gorthoklek, themselves, who take the time to destroy him. That he will, in the end, have injured them enough, that it is they, themselves, who take the time to risk a war with Absalom to destroy him, and pay the price in blood and spells and shattered diplomacy to put an end to the King-In-Irons.

He does not think he can end Cheliax, after all, and when he dies they will Maledict him, and he will be a paving stone in Hell forever.

But he will demand the highest price for his life that he can.

Because screw you, Abrogail Thrune, and the god you rode in on, if you think a petty death in a prison cell is the best use that can be made of Alexandre Esquerra.