carissa meets a tyrant
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Well then she'll summon them and try to form snap impressions!

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Her snap impressions are that they were a lot less prepared to be summoned! Sikandros's first summoning (carried out with similar-to-usual looking lines of blazing flame) is for an alert and for waving small not-metal devices at people; then he dismissed her, waits two minutes, and has her summon up ten more flunkies, most of whom also look scary and impressive but not quite as scary and impressive as Sikandros; unlike his initial minions, they are mostly not showing up with backpacks full of Stuff. They all want to look at small metal or plastic devices and then don't conceal that they're reading something on them very well.

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Carissa assumes that if she is ever supposed to get instructions that aren't overheard she'll get a small metal or plastic device, which, she suspects, are Polymorphed with the infinite Polymorphs to contain the instructions. 

 

She tries to memorize scary names and faces and otherwise stay out of their way. Owl's Wisdom points out helpfully that she feels safest around scary people who want to hurt her and that this is probably objectively incorrect as a metric for who to feel safest around and probably if she wants to latch onto someone she should pick the ones who don't seem like they'd enjoy hurting her. 

Owl's Wisdom really sucks far more than advertised. 

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And then it's time to go back to the operations room! (Pala Lehali is back where she was.)

"My apologies for the delay," he says (with, to be clear, the same tone of calm menace that is part of his standard dictation; it does not particularly sound like an apology). "The magic revealed an error to me. The error has now been - mended."

His eyes flash over Pala Lehali and Lucan, and whatever imperceptible response they give satisfies him.

"There are also a few updates to the procurement file, which have been sent to you. Mendax will join us; I have reinforced the garrison, as Pala Lehali has been informed. We will use both the Chariot and the Phoenix on our visit to the City of Brass; d'Acier will pilot the first, Lorcain the second, and he can provide close aerial support duty in the in the event it is necessary."

"Now. Carissa had been going to explain the nature and status of prophecy in this region of reality?"

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" - before prophecy was broken, the gods and powerful magic users could see into the future - rounds or minutes most easily, but gods could sometimes see ahead centuries -- and identify the small interventions that would make events go in a way that served them. The Church of Asmodeus teaches that it was a useful way for gods to work around mortals being disobedient and stupid, though not the only such way available to Asmodeus, who is the most powerful of the gods. People outside the church of Asmodeus agree at least that prophecy existed, and was used by the gods to manipulate events, kill people as babies who'd rise to challenge them, select suitable kings, that sort of thing. 

A hundred years ago a god named Aroden tried to make Golarion his personal domain, so Asmodeus killed him - the church of Asmodeus claims that, other groups claim it's not known who was responsible though they don't find the claim it was Asmodeus incredible - and in the aftermath prophecy broke. The church of Asmodeus teaches that the gods can no longer foresee what will happen on Golarion, and I think other churches claim that too. The spells that worked through prophecy stopped working. Gods had to intervene much more directly and blatantly if they wanted mortals to not be disobedient and stupid. 

I don't think prophecy broke everywhere in Creation. But I don't actually know. So I don't know if it's broken here or not. If it's not, then the gods saw you coming at least since you arrived on this plane, and powerful magic users in the city will have low-level prophetic magic up to warn them of potential threats, maybe potential opportunities. I don't know any prophetic spells because of how they don't work on my home planet."

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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"That sounds like an excellent reason to shift our center of operations to Golarion as swiftly as possible," he says.

Also, that does indeed sound like Asmodeus is unlikely to be the lesser evil in this story, though you never know.

"You have my gratitude for this service, Carissa Sevar."

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What.

 

”Yes, my lord.”

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"Now, we'll want to arrange for means for rapid communication between the two groups..."

The Duke would be able to concentrate on this MUCH BETTER if he didn't have Owl's Wisdom, which seems wholly unfair. Apparently being Wise mostly just means that the little voice of worrying self-criticism gets much, much louder, which seems wholly unjust, especially since being more Intelligent ought to give him more ability to come up with plans to satisfy it.

Right now, his Owl's Wisdom says he should throw out the whole plan and immediately Plane Shift to Golarion, the only place where - 

... No, that's not his Owl's Wisdom, that's his instincts. He just spent hours traveling through the Elemental Plane of Fire, where he was vulnerable to prophecy. If a god wants to teleport someone in to mind control him, that's not something he can prevent except by immediately incapacitating any intruders. (The good Duke has, in fact, gotten a sufficient number of summaries of books describing spells out of the libraries mentioned by Carissa from his reports from back home to be aware that mind control exists.)

... The main thing his Owl's Wisdom is saying is that he's not invincible. He hates not being invincible. He loves power, and being an angel made him completely invulnerable to harm and also capable of just making anything he wanted. He could do without people. And now he's stuck dealing with an enemy who might be stronger than he is, and who can definitely work some ridiculous magic on him if they can first-strike him. And who can summon demons. He needs allies. Which means he needs to find allies.

The obviously correct first move is to pray to a god who is his friend, if any of the gods are his friend, which he cannot actually tell.

His brain is going in circles but so are his strategic options.

... On the one hand, getting better intelligence-enhancement is obviously correct. On the other, it's also an excuse for delay.

(This thinking will not particularly delay him making his preparations. He can multitask.)

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Carissa will listen closely and inject information about how local magic works when necessary and try to further puzzle through what the point was of thanking her for her service in explaining prophecy. Was he making fun of her? Who was the intended audience of the comment? Was he just trying to further reassure her that he's not going to take her out the instant it's convenient? She's decided to believe him about that, though she supposes it's generous to try to make the believing easier. 

If he wanted her willing cooperation, why tell her he plans to invade her country? What did he notice under Owl's Wisdom that he hadn't previously been noticing? Just that she wasn't a complete idiot and was going to notice her position wasn't safe?

Being this confused all the time is terrifying and she hopes soon she's just helping him kill the Chelish army, which will not be very confusing, though it will suck for all the Carissas who are in the Chelish army instead of by complete random chance among the invaders.

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And after some plotting, they are there! Carissa can dismiss their guide and they can get moving.

What does the City of Brass look like?

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Really cool! It's deeply unclear how gravity works here, but it doesn't matter too much if you can fly. There are bubbling rivers and waterfalls of lava, geysers of steam, fountains of molten metal, and elaborate buildings with incomprehensible signs out front. There are peoples flying these streets, most of them amorphous and alien, maybe 'fire elementals'. The air smells copperish. Periodically what passes for an atmosphere catches fire and everything is briefly whited out by roaring flames that subside as quickly as they started. 

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Carissa has Comprehend Languages up and can read signs.

 

"- that's a moneychanger....glassworker...theatre....uh, I think that's like a bar, though obviously it's not serving alcohol...oh, that's directing you to the slave market, on your left - inn....metalforger....brothel....oh, that one's a magic shop."

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Then the expeditionary group will descend! Carissa can see through the microscopic eyes hovering around the Tyrant (she has her choice of which of them to look through; the controls are simple enough) that the flying machine - what he called a 'chariot' - he, Lucan, d'Acier and Mendax are taking down looks rather like a crouched predator, some bird of prey with its wings ruffled, except in lines of glossy metal, painted in Sikandros's colors and with his faceted sigil stamped on it. All of them are ignoring the heat, and are carrying bulging bags full of diamonds.

When the flying chariot leaves, Carissa can see the castle from outside; it looks extremely imposing, with elaborate Gothic towers everywhere looming over everything, and not in the least as if it was built in the past few hours. (It is not actually that large, especially not compared to the vastness of the City of Brass, but it manages to do a good deal of towering nonetheless.)

They'll hover their chariot up beside the door, a piece of the chariot's wall will slide seamlessly open, and Sikandros, Lucan and Mendax will fly out and proceed into the magic shop, Sikandros allowing his flunkies to precede him.

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Pala Lehali looks visibly unhappy when the 'slave market' is mentioned, but does not do anything about it, yet. Pala Lehali does not like it, but she is capable of prioritization when absolutely necessary.

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Carissa is trying to pay attention to Pala Lehali, since she's very confusing and you especially want to pay attention to very confusing people. Her top guesses for why someone might be unhappy about the slave market are that they don't like the floating palace being full of slaves who are mortal and disobedient and annoying, that they don't like shopping trips and know some other part of the expedition will want to spend all day in the slave market, or that they have Andoran's ideological conviction that it's better to kill people than enslave them, because then they won't suffer where you can see them. She hopes it's not that last one.

(Owl's Wisdom has worn off by now.)

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The magic shop has two fairly terrifying snakelike people stationed near the entrance for security, and then lots of elegant displays for lots and lots of magic items.

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Duke Sikandros will sweep past them, treating them as mere furniture, then survey the shop with a disapproving air, while Lucan and Mendax go around looking at things and tut-tutting and occasionally talking in some language totally unknown to the Elemental Plane of Fire about how disappointed they are in the Elemental Plane of Fire.

Do the tiny spy cameras in fact continue working inside?

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She can't identify those incredibly cool-looking magic items without Detect Magic, though.

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They have a plan for this! Do any of the scrolls sold look to Carissa's nonmagical sight like they're probably scrolls of Scry? Alternatively, do any of the artifacts look like the sort of thing that does an at-will Detect Magic?

Alternatively alternatively, are any salespeople going to show up to try to make a sale?

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Yes! On all counts! Those glasses over there do Detect Magic permanently; that library of scrolls includes scrolls for an absurd number of things (does he want an invisible sphere that bites like a dog? a spell to be surrounded by opinionated, mildly aggressive daggers? the ability to summon a temporary metal cube covered in spikes? the ability to falsely convince someone they have smallpox?); and now that the invisible security have done some divinations with slightly puzzling results, a nervous salesalien is hurrying forward to ask how ze can be of assistance.

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Lucan will sniff the air with great superiority and say that his master, the great Duke Sikandros, who deigns to visit this inferior stall, has considered purchasing a few of its trinkets for some of his less valuable assistants, and then hand the salesalien off with a dismissive shrug to Mendax.

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And Mendax will explain - with remaining superiority to the salesalien, but engaging at something slightly closer to a level - that the minions of the great Duke Sikandros has some interest in a few of his trinkets and scrolls, such as this and this and this... and that he, perhaps, has some desire to see what the spellsilver of the City of Brass looks like, to compare its quality to that of Sikandros's own glorious realm...

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....sure! The trinkets and scrolls are available for sale at prices that Carissa says are only inflated by 40% or so over the cost of the materials.

Spellsilver is refined with heat, here; it is nothing like you'll find on any planet. (Ze does in fact produce a sample of cerium considerably purer than early industrial processes could reasonably attain.)

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