"You might need those for later, no point wasting them.  Also I have a Teleport scroll, and I actually know where we need to be."

"Right then.  I don't know if you're Lawful these days, but how about if you promise me anyways that you're taking us to the City of Brass, and not Plane-Shifting or Teleporting me to anywhere you don't expect me to come back from in a timely fashion.  A couple of days tops, say."

"I so promise."

"We're on the same side, Pilar.  On this particular trip, to be clear, not in general on all matters of morality."

"Because otherwise 'Mister Doomlord' wrecks Avistan, or some such?"

"Noooooo comment."

"I can't believe I used to find you relatively pleasant to be around."

"Not commenting on your character arc either."

"Shall we go?"

Pilar sighs, takes a very deep breath, and extends her hands to Ione.

Resist Energy (Fire) x2.

Plane Shift.

Teleport, from scroll, immediately, because you don't want to hang around in a random section of Efreet territory even a tiny little bit.

Planar Adaptation.

Planar Adaptation (from scroll).

...and Pilar exhales the remaining breath she was holding, and breathes again.  With Planar Adaptation around herself, the air doesn't smell like anything.  White-glowing sparks enter her nostrils and do nothing in her lungs.  It feels like a slightly hot day, and no hotter than that.

Around them stretches the City of Brass.  Not reputed to be one of the safest places in Creation, but the Efreet won't slay you out of hand, it's said, for they do wish to protect their City's trading custom.

It does not, quite, look as large as Dis, but then Dis tries to look large.  It looks wealthier than Dis, at least to the eyes of someone from Golarion, because using souls as building material doesn't strike the eye in quite the same way as making whole buildings out of brass.

Fire is everywhere, and nothing is burning.  Anything that could burn, in this place, is long since gone and not even the ash of it remains.  If there's a section of the City of the Brass that's meant for mortals too weak to protect themselves, and yet somehow strong enough to travel hither, it is not this section.  Its mortal hospitality is seen in how there are stable brass streets to walk upon, and not just lakes of lava submerged in oceans of fire.

"Looks like the others aren't here yet.  Hopefully we're not too early, and hopefully Nefreti will poke me if it turns out we're in the wrong place."

"I guess we'll just hang around in the City of Brass, then.  Just like old times in Ostenso, only with everything on fire and also the two of us being enemies."

"Not that much of a change from Ostenso, then, in a certain deep sense.  But sure, we've got stuff to catch up on... actually it wouldn't surprise me if I was given deliberately bad timing information for that reason."

Ione casts her eye critically about the brass architecture around them, in which there is a notable lack of conveniently human-sized chairs or benches.  Eventually she steps over to the end of the platform they landed on, and sits down on the edge with her feet dangling below, facing a pleasant view of a rippling lava lake.

Pilar follows her.  "Oh, you don't already know everything about what I've been up to?"

"There's a lot of details I don't need to be told, especially if you're going to tell it to me anyways."

"So how was Korvosa?"

"At first I was annoyed once I realized how Snack Service had set me up, but I spent a couple of days being tortured by the only woman I've met who's as beautiful as Abrogail Thrune, and... I'm not going to lie, I needed that, after everything else I've been through."

"Glad to hear you enjoyed your torture vacation."

"I mean, Ileosa could have been better at the actual torture.  Her usual torturer, Kordaitra, was a devout member of the Church of Asmodeus and Ileosa correctly guessed that Kordaitra shouldn't be told about me.  But Ileosa was even more sensual than Subirachs, and was genuinely trying to break me and brainwash me into serving her, and that made up for a lot."

"Never going to be my own cup of tea.  If I would've ever had a side like that, of either polarity, Cheliax ruined it for good.  But it sounds like you had fun and I'm sincerely glad about that."

"So how'd the adventure progress from there?  I don't think your curse could've just walked you out of a torture cell, on my understanding of the rules it follows."

"Pretended to be a lot more breakable than I was, played up the adorable agonized victimhood for all it was worth.  Managed to lure one of the Grey Maidens guarding me into also having some fun with me.  They hadn't been told that I was senior Chelish personnel, or a plague-ridden corpse when it came to avoiding contaminating the Church of Asmodeus with knowledge of me.  I managed to unwillingly leak to my new Grey Maiden playmate that I was ever so terrified of Asmodeans and their torments."

"She brought Kordaitra in to have a pass at me."

"I didn't actually tell Kordaitra the whole story, at first, just let her 'break' me too, and spilled out secrets as appropriate -"

"Wait, did you literally overthrow the wicked queen of Korvosa just by... submitting and getting tortured a lot?"

"I was trying to do it exclusively that way, but Snack Service told me I was running out of time and needed to stop playing around.  So yeah, I brought the commander of the Guard into the conspiracy, without trying to seduce her with my adorable victimhood.  I got into some actual magical fights.  I didn't directly fight the Queen myself, obviously, she was out of my current league.  But it's not that hard to take out a royal when your side has got her second-in-command, her third-in-command, and surprise."