That was certainly an experience. Felicia Albareda receives the vision while reading, sitting down. Damian's presence feels more approachable than Conrad's, though she hasn't experienced the latter's herself. The headache hurts, but isn't debilitating. The Damianite head priest explains the same things to her as the Conradian one to Elias.

She packs the night before, and meets Elias and the wizards in the morning. They both receive 250gp to spend on accommodation and other expenses, and she gets a scroll of Sending in case they need help. Andoran is very far from Sarkoris Scar, and they need to make four teleports to get them there. Two wizards come with them.

They teleport from the base to Gundrun, then to Caliphas, then to Kerse, then finally to Bellis. The two wizards then make the same journey back, leaving them behind. The two of them find themselves near a river – if she remembers her geography right, the Sellen river. She cannot fathom what purpose sending a first-circle antipaladin and a third-circle cleric to this small town in Andoran might serve to their gods, and she can't help feeling worried about not knowing. The two of them walk in the direction of what look to be settlements.

Elias feels no fear. No, antipaladins aren't immune to fear like paladins – he's just generally not a fearful person.

It turns out that Bellis is sort of two settlements joined into one. Where they are now is called the Pit: a shanty town composed of loggers who come here for the season to work in the Verduran Forest. Above them is Bellis proper. The rock bluff separates the two communities, but in the middle, the cliff becomes a gentle slope instead. Twenty minutes of walking gets them up to the town.

The innkeeper is distraught over the greatsword Elias lugs around on his shoulder, but Felicia manages to reassure her. Why couldn't the head priest have gotten him a shrinking greatsword? It would be much more convenient and much less provocative. Conrad placed that enchantment on His arcane bonded greatsword in His mortal life – what justification is better than it being unholy? She gets them a small inn suite for 4gp a night. Elias says he'd be fine with just the regular room (which would be much cheaper), but no. Inn suite. Her religion mandates comfort and comfort she shall get. It's not like it's an enormous expense, and if it turns out that they need to stay here for very long, she can sell healing and Remove Disease to people. 

Six horses trot along the path by the Sellen river, passing rafts of logs floating downstream. Tos keeps an eye on the terrain, actually deliberately looking at each rock and stump and curve, prepared for an ambush. It's very unlikely that anyone would attack them, and this area was clear-cut long ago and has few hiding places, but the wizard they're escorting is worth more than the rest of them put together and he's doing his duty.

The wizard is bored. She already used her Silent Image, keeping it carefully out of sight in her hands, and lost concentration when they stopped to change horses the first time. Jakab, in the second reverse-party, told her what spells to prepare in her empty slots for her first day in Bellis - Voluminous Vocabulary, Fox's Cunning, and Infernal Healing - but she can't prepare spells on horseback at this speed.

Alieta hopes they're not in the Pit again. The people there are gross.

She should be studying her scroll of Greater Infernal Healing. She wishes she was a horse. Horses are pretty and useful and don't have to study magic, and they get to spend all day running. Okay, she doesn't really want to be a horse, people are cooler than the coolest horse. People can learn crafts and talk and accomplish things. Horses don't. Do horses have any vanity at all? Do other animals? Dogs seem glad to be useful. She should ask the cleric once the rear-party catches up in Bellis.

Thinking about the cleric drops a tight point of fear into the center of her abdomen. She pauses, takes a deep breath, and silently recites: "This threat is useful; may I become great. This fear is tolerable; may I become strong. My church is Lawful; I am safe." She takes out the scroll, covers a section at random, and tries to remember how the hidden part connects with the rest.

Half a mile from Bellis, they can see the red-and-blue-striped tents of the cult of Marra. (The sunset light makes them appear orange-and-black but she knows they're red-and-blue.) They're in the Pit again.

The inn suite has two separate beds in the bedroom. She takes a nice long hot bath for a few coppers and relaxes.

In the morning, she doesn't pray for spells just yet. She puts on her undergarments and applies perfume and makeup before praying. It's part of Damian's obedience. It's not fully His obedience, since she took a bath the night before rather than this morning, but she isn't at the level where doing obediences helps her. It's a good habit, though.

She lays out a pillow and kneels to pray. She already cast Undetectable Alignment on the two of them before heading out. She should do that again. Sure, few people have the ability to see alignment directly, but it's not good to walk around town with blaring Chaotic Evil auras emanating from you.

The gods they follow were wizards in Their mortal life, and They grant Their clerics a small selection of arcane spells to cast. Most notably for her, Damian grants Prestidigitation and Charm Person preparable as standard spells. Her soul contract even lets her cast Still Silent Charm Person more easily. It's useless at Sarkoris Scar where there are only demons roaming around, but it would actually be useful here. She makes sure to request one of those.

Given that she's probably supposed to rescue someone recently ordained here, it would make sense to request Detect the Faithful, but a modified kind. Detect the Faithful only works if you're, well, faithful. Even if your goals and values line up directly with a deity's, it won't ping to that spell unless you actually knew about them. Clerics of their churches realized that fatal flaw two decades back. Fortunately, divine spells are more malleable to intent than arcane spells. With careful thought on her part, and a little fiddling on the part of her god, she can modify the spell to detect those whose goals and values are particularly aligned with either Conrad or Damian – the sort of people who would be eligible for clerichood. With how many times the other clerics have used this spell, they really ought to come up with a name for it. What about "Detect the Worthy"? That sounds quite good, actually. She'll propose it when she gets back.

The rest of her spells are her usual loadout for when there might or might not be a fight.

0: Prestidigitation, Purify Food and Drink, Light, Detect Magic
1: Detect the Worthy x3, Command, (Entangle)
2: Undetectable Alignment x2, Silent Still Charm Person, (Touch of Idiocy)
3: Cure Serious Wounds, Prayer, (Suggestion)

Elias prays beside Felicia. He's not a full spellcaster like her, but being an antipaladin means he can still cast a few when necessary. He usually prepares the same two spells daily, but given that they'll be interacting with actual humans this time and not fighting monsters, he prepares slightly differently this time. The senior antipaladin who trained them told him that antipaladins usually aren't able to receive Hidden Diplomacy from their god, but Conrad does.

And that's why He is superior, he thinks.

1: Barbed Chains, Hidden Diplomacy

The two of them put on their armor: full plate for him, studded leather for Felicia, and they set about town. Felicia thinks that it's likelier they'll find worthies in the Pit. Her disdain is obvious on her face. He doesn't mind the place, though. People stare at them as they walk past, but not for too long. They don't look any different from regular adventurers. Despite being a cleric, Felicia wears explorers' clothes, and keeps her holy symbol in her pocket. He does the same.

She does not want to be here. She wants to be in Bellis proper, where there are beautiful orange blossoms and good architecture and paved sidewalks. It's so refreshing to be in a place where plants actually grow. She helped out at the greenhouse in the headquarters when she was done with seminary studies: seeing flowers bloom in the wild is great. And there's a greater variety of them compared to either the greenhouse or in Mendev, where she lived before she became a cleric.

The two of them walk all morning, and she casts Detect the Worthy when she finds a lot of people gathered in one place. The people in the Pit stare at them a little longer than they do in Bellis. Sadly, the spell only works for five minutes at a time. She's expended all her castings by afternoon, and had gotten no hits. Walking deeper into the place, she notices...big tents? They're colored red and blue, which is unusual. Most shacks in the Pit are some variety of beige, brown, or gray. It was late afternoon at this point, but she beckons Elias to come with her to take a closer look. It seems promising.

The tents fill a square area a hundred feet on a side with a continual flame at each corner. People wearing red-and-blue striped belts, humans and one half-orc, hold weapons and stand watchfully at the edges. There appears to be a small courtyard in the middle, judging from the absence of canvas roofs there, but the ground isn't visible from this close to the tents. From the encampment come sounds of horses, music, talking, exertion, and the occasional spell, mostly Mending. There are no visible entrances to the tents... ah no, on the other side there are two open tents, one the same size as the others and one much larger.

The smaller tent has three signs in front.

The first sign shows an old man squinting at a book, and, smaller:

- a pair of socks, one blotchy and one smooth.
- a pair of hands, one bloody and missing a finger and the other intact and clean.
- a trio of animals: an owl and a fox, sitting, and an eagle with outstretched wings and grasping claws above and between them.
- a pair of humanoids, one blue, and the other red, except for its enlarged ears and protruding tongue, which are blue.

The second sign shows a young woman praying, with strips of red fabric crossed over her image in an X, and, smaller:

- a pair of knives, one broken and one whole.
- a pair of hands, as on the first sign.
- a circle with two humanoids standing outside and two humanoids with gears for heads standing inside.
- slightly separated from the other images, there is a bloody humanoid lying down and a three-by-three grid. Each cell except the middle one has a small icon in it: feathered wings, a cat, a plant, a cloud, a claw, a mouth, a flame, and a gear. Next to this are 10 gold pieces.

An extra board hangs from the second sign with the text "8 Desnus".

The third sign shows a scroll and a wand.

The larger tent has a sign showing a humanoid juggling knives and a copper piece. The front of the tent is completely open. Inside there are people sitting on the ground watching a middle-aged woman play a violin while tap-dancing on a wooden crate. The audience members do not have red-and-blue belts and appear to be typical Pit-dwellers.

She's momentarily confused at the first sign, then realizes that it's advertising casting services. Right, many people can't read. She shouldn't even be surprised at that: she didn't too until she became an acolyte. Yes, they have Mending, and...okay, that is just inaccurate. You can't grow back fingers with Cure spells, you'd need Regeneration for that, and she highly doubts there's a seventh-circle cleric in that tent. She wouldn't ever be caught in a tent if she became a seventh-circle cleric. She has absolutely no idea what the fourth spell is supposed to be. Elias also couldn't identify it, though she didn't expect him to.

The next sign also advertises casting services? There's Mending and Curing, but also something about gears? She has no idea what that's about. The next one takes her a minute to puzzle through, but she realizes it's Early Judgement. Interesting! That's not something you usually see divine casters advertise for, although it's not a rare spell by any means.

Ooh, so they sell scrolls and wands here too.

The fourth sign she doesn't recognize. Is this meant to be something like a show? Acrobatics and tricks? She holds Elias's hand and drags him toward the big tent.

Elias is against wasteful spending on entertainment! Felicia convinces him by saying that it should only cost a single copper piece, since that's what's on the sign. Besides, there should be lots of people and performers there, so it would be a great place to cast Detect the Worthy. Elias reminds her that she's already exhausted all her castings.

Felicia has no rebuttal to this. Felicia still wants to go to inside.

Elias sighs and rolls his eyes, but relents. It better be something good.

The guard politely informs them that the price is one copper per person, not per group, collects their money, and points out a recently-vacated spot at the front where they can sit. The front rows have thin pillows on the ground.

The violinist appears to have wooden pieces on the sides of her shoes which she uses to hit the sides of the crate, which have been carved to make musical notes. She finishes her piece with a dramatic sequence of triple-stops, springs off the crate with a smug nod, and leaves.

The crate tilts and a young halfling crawls out, trembling and clutching her ears. She looks around hesitantly and tries to drag the crate away.

A human boy holding a handful of knives bounds through a gap in the wall into the stage area, throws them in the air, and juggles them with one hand.

The halfling squeaks and dives back under the crate.

He pulls more knives from his belt with his free hand and juggles all of them, with both hands, in various patterns: crossing his hands over each other, tossing one knife up high back and forth, and throwing several knives at the same time. Sometimes he spins a knife around his wrist, or throws one behind his back, or catches one in his teeth.

He puts knives back in his belt until he has only two knives in the air. He keeps them going with one hand while walking over to the crate. He carefully squats and rotates the crate so the back side is facing the audience.

There is a target painted on it.

After he has thrown all his knives at the crate from increasingly contorted positions, he jogs out the way he came.

From a gap on the opposite side, a burly man enters, and picks up the crate with the knives still embedded in it.

There is nothing under it.

As he carries it out, he stops and sniffs with a puzzled frown. He looks around, glances suspiciously at the nearest audience member, shrugs, and leaves.

Next is an animal trainer with a dog who can bark on command and mimic the somatic component of Prestidigitation. The trainer tells a dirty story about a laundry wizard and his lovers.

A merchant makes her way through the rows selling potato buns, beer, and strips of candied parsnip.

A human man in a formal robe walks slowly on. "Good afternoon, fine people of Northford! I hope you are enjoying today's shows, presented before you with pleasure by the church of Marra."

The halfling from before leans out of the gap in the wall, biting her finger nervously. She dashes onto the stage and waves at the man.

He ignores her. "Congratulations on completing your Shelynite church 5 years ahead of schedule." (Someone laughs at this, too loudly.) "I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure it's stunning."

She dashes back and soon reenters on the shoulders of an older male halfling. As they walk onto the stage, he trips and catches himself in a handstand. She squeaks and rotates in the opposite direction, ending up in a handstand herself on his upraised feet.

She tries to pick up one hand, starts to fall, squeaks again, and manages to catch herself with one hand and one foot on her partner's feet.

When they make it over to the human, she tries waving in front of his eyes.

He still doesn't notice. "I just arrived in beautiful Northford yesterday, here from Bellis, and everyone there was telling me I had to try Mama Tate's spiced mead. Best in all Andoran, they said." (Someone in the audience boos.)

She pulls a piece of paper from her pocket with her free hand, catches the end of it with her free foot, and stretches it out in front of the human's face.

"We always stay in the 'Pit' there, yes that's really what they call it. Raise your fist if you've been there, anyone? It's like Aroden collapsed face-first and that's His, well, you know..."

The duo wobbles and collapses against the human. She wraps the paper around his face.

He freezes.


Lets out a deep breath.

Pulls the paper away and smiles brightly, ruffling the halfling woman's (sideways) hair. "Wow, you really scared me there, Ali.

"So, I saw this girl there once...". His smile fades as he looks in the distance. He moves his head side to side, staring at the cliff and Bellis's skyline.

"Anyway, we're the church of Marra, pleased to have to opportunity to perform for you, fine people of Bellis, very fine people of Bellis, very fine indeed, Barid! Barid!" He runs offstage.

A human man with a slide trumpet marches on quickly and starts playing a drinking song. Another human trumpeter runs to join him. They seem to be doing some sort of mime with how they move and hold their instruments.

Two men do a musical juggling act where they bounce balls to each other off of a set of drums.

The violinist from before comes back. It turns out she's a contortionist too! The audience likes this one.

The older halfling returns. "Thank you, everyone. I hope you have all been entertained by Marra's performers. The next act will be a bit different, a bit more serious. Anyone who wishes to remain innocent and weak may now leave."

One person at the back calmly slips out. The rest of the audience stays, some of them leaning forward eagerly and some of them curling up tensely.

Exactly what kind of circus is this that charges only a single copper per person? Felicia's hot bath cost more than this. How do they make money? How do they break even? Whatever. It's strange alright, and strange means that it's likely to have what they seek.

Felicia smiles broadly and claps during the performances. There is no way either of them could perform feats of Dexterity like that. He's impressed too, actually, though it doesn't show on his face. Not that you'd see it, since he still has his helm on. He's a little surprised they didn't ask him for his weapon when they came in. Usually they do that for shows.

Felicia buys some buns and candied parsnips from the merchant for a few coppers. It was eight times the price of admission. This is the sort of show she would pay a whole gold coin for. Why sell tickets for just a copper? Surely there must be something deeper there. But that can wait. The performances are simultaneously skillful but also thoroughly unpretentious. It's refreshing, honestly.

Back when she lived on the streets, she always tried to learn the sleight of hand tricks that the older kids knew, but she could never quite get them right. She feels a little envious at the grace of the performers. Especially the musical ones – she had always wanted to learn how to play an instrument, but didn't have the money when she was young. Now, she doesn't have the time. The music is lovely, though. It's upbeat and cheerful.

...Innocent and weak? He is just...thoroughly thrown off by that. What have they gotten themselves into? Right, well, it's not like you could get an hour and a half of performance for just a copper and nothing else. He is not innocent and weak, mind you, but he senses danger, and it's wise to listen to that. He gets up, but Felicia touches him on his lap.

Felicia is boastful, but she knows when she's gone too far. But this isn't recklessness. She can intuit danger too, but she also intuits possibility. She whispers into Elias's ear.

"I have spells. You have spells. We aren't defenseless. Let's see what this is about."

She looks around the room. Everyone else who stayed have serious and steely expressions. She holds Prayer right on the tip of her tongue in case conflict ensues. Elias grips his greatsword tighter.

"Life is busy. Working, sleeping, eating, searching for work, striving for recognition, defending yourself from threats. How often do you plan a decade in advance? How often do you think about how you will survive when you're old? How often do you consider what comes after when your body decays beyond its ability to hold on to your soul?

We must face the world, in all its oddity.

Why do we live on a ball of rock by a star? Why are we not all fire elementals on a star in the shape of a knotted rope, gazing in wonder at the barren balls of rock that fly by? Why do souls stay with a body for the time they do, and not flap around, attaching themselves to a new body every hundred rounds? Why is it that magnets are strong enough for us to notice, and yet not so strong, and so omnivorous, that they engulf everything within a thousand miles? Why do souls go to the afterlives they do? Eight, nine, rather more than nine, however you account them, why that number?

Who knows. Maybe someday Marra will craft a great scholar who will tell us. In any case, we must face the world, in all its oddity, its horror, and its triumph.

You may know that we offer castings of Early Judgement at large discount, only 10gp. Right now, we will give away a casting to one of you for no charge at all. Who will it be? Which one of you wants to know your ultimate fate?"

Three people raise a fist. The first stares at him, visibly afraid. The second grins. The third gazes into the distance, her eyes unmoving.

Felicia already knows where she's going after death: to the Silver Garden in the abyss. She's both ordained and is soulsold – so is Elias. She's see the Silver Garden before through the clerics and wizards scrying souls there (which are relatively few in number). She's not going to deny the other people, who are obviously poorer than them, the chance to see what their afterlife has in store for them.

Neither of the two raise their hands, although they remain raptly attentive.

He looks around, considers, and points to the third one. "You. Come out here."

She stands before him with her hands behind her back and her head bowed.

He looks her over. "You're afraid. Hmm. You seem well-behaved... I'm guessing you're afraid of Hell... maybe Abaddon? No, Hell."

She nods without looking up.

"Collect yourself." He pulls a wand out of his boot, pauses, and casts.

She jumps and bursts into tears, choking as she breaths in and wailing pitifully.

"Hell?"

She nods again.

A human woman silently enters, puts an arm around her waist, and guides her out the side door.

"The plane of the damned, where one is endlessly tortured, everything about one erased as one is transformed into a devil. To some, a few devils may admirable, but their magnificence is only for the viewer. Devils have pride, but they are not glad to exist. They do not glory in themselves. They merely play the part, ever striving, ever suffering.

It's tempting, for one in that lady's position, to give up, to disbelieve, to desperately seek out opportunities to appease Pharasma, which is harder than before, in a society that distrusts and casts aside those who are Evil, even Lawful ones.

There is a better way: the church of Marra. Her followers who die Lawful Evil and receive the proper funeral rites are delivered to Marra. She is a new Lawful Evil god who puts all Her souls to useful, worthy tasks, exalting in their abilities and their unique value.

Thanks to this arrangement, the result of a pact She made with Asmodeus, you can grow strong and beautiful. You can keep the parts of yourself you treasure most.

You must face the world, as it is, and make a choice."

He gently puts the wand back in his boot. "If you were here two days ago, you might be wondering where my second wand is. As of yesterday evening, our wizard is here."

The halfling woman from before enters, now wearing a purple robe with many pockets inside and out. As she solemnly takes her place in the center of the stage, sharp-eyed observers might note that her robe is not actually solid purple, but covered in tiny red and blue symbols.

"This is my daughter, Alieta, a third-circle wizard at the age of 34. Remarkable? Well, she started young, but no, Marran wizards with sufficient Intelligence routinely achieve third circle without risking a shameful death in a monster-filled ruin. Marra can guide you to greatness.

But I have digressed. We must face the world."

She could easily have come onstage with a pinch of brimstone already in her hand, but it's more dramatic to carefully reach into one of her outside pockets, remove a pouch embroidered with flames, slip a finger inside, and show the brimstone to the audience on her fingertip, turning so they all get a good view. Those closest might even be able so smell it.

Vision of Hell.

The tent is overlaid with a room made of polished metal. In places it glows orange-hot. Gravelly, strained moans fill the air, and the occasional sudden scream in the distance.

On the left side of the stage, humanoid shapes of flesh hang from hooks above a vat, engulfed in a whirl of source-less fire. The skin of the petitioners is - not melting, exactly, but patches of it slide off in a liquidy way into the vat.

A devil with metal skin covered in tiny spines bursts in from the right carrying another damned petitioner. The devil throws it onto the floor - it sizzles - and rolls a large round stone across it several times. Then, it picks it up and stabs it onto one of the vacant hooks.

Taking a knife that looks way too large to be useful, the devil tears one of the roasted and flayed petitioners off its hook and hacks off parts of it into an array of buckets. Finished, it tosses the remaining head onto a pile.

The devil opens a cabinet and removes a small leathery horned creature, which it holds over the bucket of severed left hands and squeezes until it vomits something blue and shiny. The pile of heads screams.

Alieta drops the spell early. The full duration is too overwhelming for the unhardened.

"Remember, there is a better way.

This concludes the afternoon's entertainment. We will perform again this evening when the shadow of the Pit's wall reaches the top of this tent. In the meantime, we will stay here to answer questions.

If you want to buy an Early Judgement, our cleric has not arrived yet, and I have the wand, so please stay here rather than going to the magic tent next door. The price is 10gp, and if you don't like what you find and you join the church of Marra while we're still in Bellis, we will waive the fee. We guarantee acceptance for anyone Lawful or who already has a valuable skill. If you are Neutral Evil, we'll need to talk, but your chances are good. The unskilled Chaotic will need to convince us of their ability to make a serious commitment, but there is still hope.

If you are aiming for Axis or Heaven, and the fear you feel from today's exhibition spurs you to redouble your efforts, you may take that as a favor. And a taste of how Marra can help you."

Most of the audience leaves, and those who remain are quiet. A half-elf slips in, settles on the floor, and plays a very slow lament on a small hand-cranked glass harmonica.

She'd be crying too, if she knew she was going to Hell when she died. Hell sucks.

When Alieta casts Vision of Hell, both she and Elias successfully make their Will saves to disbelieve, but that doesn't stop the vision from being any less striking. Hell sucks.

She thinks about what everyone has said about Marra. So, this is Marra's church, and this is a conversion enticement and ritual. She's heard that name before: she overheard some of the senior clerics talking about Her, although she has no idea what She's about aside from the fact that she's Lawful Evil. Apparently she has a pact with Asmodeus that makes them not be tortured forever, presumably? That seems to be the inference the halfling wants her to make.

Assuming what he says are true, she likes that Marra preserves the beautiful parts of people rather than quashing them like Asmodeus. She learned Asmodean theology in seminary, since both Damian and Conrad were both Asmodeans when they were young. But she has to question Marra's conception of beauty – in general, the Lawful gods prefer optimization while the Chaotic gods prefer variability. What Felicia likes about Damian is that he accepts everything beautiful, but it could be that Marra has a specific conception of beauty that people are pushed to become. She's not so interested in that. 

Would he count as an unskilled Chaotic? He specializes in killing things. That's a skill, right? Oh, right, he can cast spells now. Casting still feels weird to him, like it's something that just got grafted on. He feels like Felicia would want to waste spend money getting Early Judgment cast on them, and then ask the person questions.

The two of them wait a few minutes so the people who want to go first can go first, and then they queue up, with Elias in front. In case something Bad happens to him, it's better for him to take it rather than her, since she can't heal herself.

The young human man who raised his fist earlier and looked afraid gets up and kneels before the older halfling, looking around to see if anyone is watching him.

    "Hello ... sir."

"What may I clarify for you?"

    "... um..."

The halfling seems faintly disgusted. "I can list the common ones, if that helps. Got in a fight? Knocked a girl up? Spurned someone who thought you owed them aid? Stole? Got revenge? And the other list: 'how much torture does Marra do', 'do you really eat people', 'what's wrong with having friends' -"

    " - the second one, sir."

"And?"

    "They said it was probably fixable, especially if we married and raised the baby together, but she won't see me at all."

"And what do you want from me?"

    The young man is silent.

"You wanted a free Early Judgement. Why? Just to be sure? The Good churches put a lot of effort into their spiritual guidance. Is there anything you didn't tell them?"

    "No! I told them everything. I just - don't want to leave my family. I don't want them to know. So I wanted to be sure. Sir."

"You have to make a choice. I'm not going to tell you what to do; you're not one of mine. Which means I'm not a 'sir' to you, by the way, if you want to start learning our ways.

I can say that Ruth and Calob have been talking about wanting to settle down, but two isn't enough to be safe, and they're getting old. Bellis is as fine a place as any - we pass through four times a year - and maybe we could leave a group here, if it included you.

So there's a possibility that you could seek refuge with Marra and still see your family. As a Marran, you won't be allowed to lie; you can't pretend to be Good or Neutral. But if you behave yourself and conform to the pressure your family applies I expect they will not expel you."

    "Thank you, s- Thank you."

"Do you have any questions for me? We won't have an answer about my idea until the rear-party is here on the 8th, and our cleric can talk to Ruth and Calob and maybe Suli."

    "What should I do until then?"

"If you want to learn, we have a short sermon every morning. In Bellis, we time it to when the sun first touches the top of this tent, which is where we gather. In addition, I offer you a standard suggestion, not customized for you, that you might perform daily obedience to Marra: while doing something painful, strenuous, or otherwise requiring Will, contemplate three things you like about yourself, three ambitions you have, which can include fixing problems you have with yourself, and three duties you bear; and contemplate how you might further grow in those vanities, achieve those ambitions, and carry out those duties."

    The young man nods and leaves.

"Next? What may I clarify for you?"

Elias genuflects and puts down his greatsword.

"Good afternoon. I wish to pay for a casting of Early Judgment on myself. As for what you might clarify...I am curious as to why a Lawful Evil church might want to subsidize castings of Early Judgment. I am no scholar, but I know enough that you are selling these castings from your wand at a loss. Given the awfulness of Hell, one would think that a church which leads people to Hell would not want to dissuade people from going there. Have I misunderstood something?"

"Marra receives Her souls in Her realm, which is shielded from the eminations of Hell and does not harbor devils of any kind. Her realm lies in Stonepeak, at the edge of Avernus and Axis, and, together with Minderhal, the lord of that land, She resists the influence of Asmodeus and the lesser Lawful Evil gods. Thanks to that, She is able to provide an afterlife more suitable than the rest of Hell.

We spend a lot of our resources on recruiting people who are already Lawful Evil, because there are plenty of them who are useful, find it easy to conform to Marran requirements, and can be turned to Marra merely by confronting them with the fate which they have up to now failed to properly consider. The reason for this focus is practical, not ideological. We welcome people of any alignment and background who can be relied upon to follow our rules.

We require payment in advance for an Early Judgement." He holds out his hand.

Elias thanks him and gives the money. He does not attempt to save against the casting.

He receives a vision of stone castles with the sound of rain and thunder. He sees training rooms and armories and magic workshops. He sees someone morphing into a half-fiend. He recognizes it as Conrad's half of the Grey Garden.

He has to steady himself before getting back up. The vision is short, but it's intense.

"Suppose I am Chaotic Evil. What sort of thing would the church of Marra have me do to be permitted to become a part of Her flock?"

"We must be sure that you will not harm us, whether by harming our people, harming our internal social organization, or harming our reputation. In addition, you must provide some value in exchange for the care you require. A soul for Marra is sufficient, but if you are unlikely to be Lawful Evil when you die, you will need to have a skill or trait useful to Marra's vassals while you live.

I am not qualified to provide formal spiritual advice, but I, or anyone else here, can attempt to answer any questions you have about our ways. When our cleric arrives, if we continue in this hypothetical, she would want to know why you are Chaotic. An accident of your history, or does something draw you to Chaos, and if so, what? Have you ever made a serious promise before? Have you ever broken one? Are you prone to sudden violence? What authorities above yourself do you recognize, and how do you relate to them?

A warrior such as yourself is useful for our security and can be hired out, so the main question for you is whether, to use a metaphor which I have heard but not personally experienced, you can stand in our battle line without binding our blades."

"I see. It is possible that I might talk to your cleric when she arrives, but I have no other questions." He does, but he's going to stop himself before he might say something Unwise. Better to let Felicia handle it.

Meeting with Marra's cult could be what their gods sent them here to do, and he doesn't want to give a bad first impression. He's good at intimidation, but not diplomacy.

Felicia deposits the money into Oyek's hand before speaking.

"Hello. I would also like to ask questions and receive a casting of Early Judgment. Could you tell me more about what Marra considers beautiful? You said earlier that Marra lets people keep the parts of themselves which are beautiful. I consider myself quite...concerned about my appearance and aesthetics, and would value a god which shares similar views. I'm put off by Shelyn's church, because they seem to think that beauty can be found in everything, when really, some things are irredeemably ugly. And they seem to be against the idea of romantic or sexual beauty or attraction, which seems saddening to me. I would like to be beautiful in all respects – would Marra accept that?"

He casts Early Judgement immediately. He prefers to talk first, since people are often hard to talk to after receiving this particular spell, but people also find it distracting to wait after they have already paid.

She gets a vision of morning mist and purple flowers and sweet scents. Not the sort of thing one would expect from an Abyssal vision. Conrad and Damian share the Silver Garden as their realm, but they maintain their separate areas.

She composes herself after just a minute. Cleric prayer training is more useful than she thought. She smiles after the spell ends.

She's smiling and she recovered quickly. She didn't seem surprised by her answer, so she's already happy with her destination. But she did pay, so either she has enough money to spend 10gp on a whim, or she's curious about the details of her afterlife, or she purchased the Early Judgement as part of pretending to be interested in Marra.

Marra has worshipers who are not Evil. Finding another one would be exciting, because the supply of easily-turned Lawful Evil people will eventually run out and they need to get better at attracting the non-Evil. Of course, the obvious guess is that she's from the church of Iomedae, undercover to check on how the church of Marra treats prospective members, or she's a follower of another Evil god investigating the competition, though the Evil afterlives usually don't leave people smiling. Maybe she's a really good actor. Hm, or maybe she's Chaotic, as her companion claimed to be, and likes to see what new wonders or horrors the Chaotic afterlives have produced.

It doesn't really matter why. He doesn't have enough splendor to adjust his answer while also remaining honest and forthright, as he must do.

"Okay. When you ask about what Marra considers to be beautiful, I understand that you're asking about Marra's opinions on what Her followers should find to be beautiful, not asking about the shape of soul She prefers. For the most part, She does not have opinions on the details of how we perceive beauty.

The exception is that She requires Her followers to see themselves as beautiful, in a sense. In my speech earlier, when I said that Her followers grow 'strong and beautiful', I meant for the audience to imagine their own personal ideals there. I was also using those two examples, strength and beauty, to suggest a broader concept, which we call 'vanity', without boring the audience with more detail than they were ready for.

Vanity means liking yourself. Enjoying your aesthetic beauty, yes, and also your physical strength, your willpower, your style of thinking, your skills, your ability to follow social rules and fit into your place, even your feelings. Vanity is focused on yourself, requiring neither rivals for you to dominate nor an audience to praise you. Of course, for us imperfect mortals, especially those new to Marra, an enthusiastic audience may be a helpful aid to developing one's vanity. But the ideal Marran would not care about having an audience unless their conception of their art necessarily includes an audience to manipulate.

So what does a Marran soul keep? Everything that the soul is vain about. Also its desire to rule, to obey its superiors and to obey the principle of noblesse oblige, and to follow rules precisely and to create new rules.

If someone is truly vain about their ugliness, then they will keep it, just as someone vain about their attractiveness will keep that. Marra Herself does not distinguish, but she does not require indifference. She allows us to have our own opinions.

I said that the ideal Marran would not care about having an audience unless required by their art. In fact, forms of art that use an audience as a component of the art are very common. A clown's art is not the acrobatics, the acting, the sleight of hand; a clown's art is the mental impressions formed in the minds of the audience and guided to humor by means of acrobatics, acting, sleight of hand, and so on. If the audience is required, then it is efficient for a single event to feed the vanity of all the participants, so we encourage people to develop their taste, to find vanity in being discriminating viewers.

In some art forms, a single person's feelings are given special importance, for example teaching a student or, yes, sex. To be clear, the subject does not have to find vanity in evaluating the art. There are other things one can be vain about: learning quickly, responding engagingly, or endurance.

Too much intimate interaction without well-defined structure and duties can easily lead to unhealthy dependency. Sex is a bit risky, and romance is much more dangerous. So, yes, Marra approves of beauty in romance, but only a Marran style of romance, in which you follow rules and remain vain and emotionally self-sufficient.

What do you mean by being beautiful in all aspects? If you can be vain about every part of yourself, that would be excellent. I think it's impossible to be vain in every conceivable way simultaneously, since some of them conflict. You cannot be both fearsome and cute, both radiant and hidden, or both cunning and predictably reliable at the same time. Does oscillating between all possible vanities appeal to you?

I ask without any expectation that I am owed an answer: what is your alignment, and how did you come to it?

Alieta takes a scroll from one of her robe's inner pockets and stares at it intently.

That sounds very appealing! In another life, she imagines she might have become one of Marra's faithful, although likely not. Marra seems predictably Lawful in that she expects her followers to obey rules and strictures. She values Chaos because Chaos is freedom, unfettering, breaking restrictions on desire. But her conception of beauty and its pursuit seems eerily similar to hers and Damian's. Well, all the better to oppose Shelyn's church, she thinks absentmindedly. Shelyn's...fine...but She's too narrow-minded. Still, there are parts that conflict.

"Thank you for your answer. For Marra to accept any part of myself which I am vain about..." hm, she doesn't quite have the Intelligence to know what sorts of attributes Marrans would consider to be complimentary "...it's gracious of her. Many of the gods, especially the Good or Lawful ones, have a specific and rigid conception of what a soul ought to be like, or what it ought to value."

She pauses for a moment before continuing.

"I confess that my thinking conflicts with Marra's on a few key points, however. I care about beauty and not about vanity – I would not accept someone who was vain about their ugliness, nor would I disfavor someone who was beautiful but meek. And I would prefer, but not require, that there be others around who would appreciate the beauty in me."

There's no one else behind her, so she isn't concerned about holding up the line. 

Marra's and Damian's values seem similar enough that she thinks they're unlikely to come into conflict. She thinks that they might fight over followers, but Damian's faith does not seek to proselytize, so that seems like something that would not cause issues. She's not so sure about Conrad, though. It seems like it would be fine, to the extent she's Wise, but she'll let Elias decide for himself.

"Ah, my alignment. I am Chaotic Evil. I wanted to see a glimpse of what awaited me in the Abyss. I am unsure what my alignment was before, but I came to be Chaotic Evil after I was ordained as a cleric by the Lord of Flowers and Allures, Damian. He's a very obscure and new god, so I don't blame you if you hadn't heard of him before."

We're breaking our cover already? Or, no, she only talked about herself and Damian, though likely they'd be able to infer things from the fact that they're together and both Chaotic Evil. He has trust in her judgment, though. He's always prepared for a fight, but Felicia is usually Wise and Splendid enough to avoid blundering in social situations. The way he's Splendid is only good for making a fearsome impression.

He keeps his hand on his side, right on top of his pocket where he keeps his holy symbol. If worst comes to worst, he can cast Barbed Chains on one of them and flee.

"Seeing you as a connoisseur of beauty who associates with others with similar taste, I would not expect Marra to take offense."

So she is measuring the competition. Or possibly considering an alliance, except she's Chaotic, which makes that unlikely. Is her god also Chaotic? Oh, obviously yes, if she's a cleric and going to the Abyss. Regrettable.

He needs to stop trying to recruit her, and start trying to convince her that the church of Marra is not a threat. And to do that, he needs to know more about her and her god.

"...although of course I assume that you are far more pleasing to your own god. I have no knowledge of Him; what does He value, besides beauty? To what does he command his followers? What does he offer you in the Abyss?"

Alieta looks up, puts away her scroll, and makes the Marran gesture for may-I-join-your-conversation?-I-want-to-learn-(addressing-a-superior) toward her father.

"Aside from beauty, he values that things which have the potential to be beautiful be nurtured to fully grow and bloom. This is an aspect that Marra and Damian share in common, I think. Although, it seems to me that Marra is more accepting, in a way. The way Damian frames beauty is...essential. Not in the sense of being requisite, but in the sense of it being baked deeply into a person. A fern, no matter how much nutrition it gets, will never make bright and fragrant flowers, or indeed, any flowers at all. Likewise, Damian is...selective, about the types of people he permits into His church. He does not really proselytize."

She takes out her silver divine focus, which has a small loop welded to one edge. A cord threads through it. The focus itself is shaped like a heliotrope flower, although it's not immediately obvious what type of flower it is, since the focus in uncolored. She holds it delicately in her hand.

"He commands us to nurture the parts of us which are beautiful and enhance them, while correcting and eliminating the parts of us which are ugly. As for how beauty and ugliness is determined, it is Damian's opinion that it is a sense, much like one can see light or hear sound. Through training and careful examination of one's feelings, one is able to see clearly what is beautiful and what is ugly, and move steadily towards beauty."

She realizes that her taking out her divine gesture might be interpreted the wrong way, since it's also the way clerics cast spells. She could have used it just now to cast Suggestion or Silent Still Charm Person with none the wiser, though she didn't, in this case. Not the time to be throwing out enchantments. She puts the focus back into her pocket, making it seem natural and unhurried.

"Damian lives in the Silver Garden" along with Conrad "which is much more pleasing and beautiful than the rest of the Abyss. Simply being faithful to His teachings would not lead one to it, however, even if one is Chaotic Evil. To prevent being nabbed by demons or other such monsters, someone has to arrange for them to be picked up by Damian's fiends, who act as psychopomps for said individuals."

Felicia and Elias are both trained in Sensing Motives, but neither of them could figure out what Alieta's gesture was supposed to represent. For all he knew, she just told Oyek to initiate hostilities. That may or may not just be him being paranoid, but it's his job to be paranoid. He's relieved that the wizard put away the scroll – he was afraid it was a scroll of Fireball or something and that they'll have to contend with being on fire. He's resistant to fire, but Felicia isn't.

The word of a Chaotic Evil person means little, but it means a nonzero amount.

"I wish to say that we did not come here planning to harm Marra or her faithful, and that we will not open hostility unless hostility is shown to us first. I am willing to testify to this under Zone of Truth, if you have the spell."

He takes off his helm and holds against his side. His celestial ancestry is clearly evident: his hair, lips, and eyes have the color and sheen of polished bronze, and his skin has the opacity and color of glazed marble. A Chaotic Evil aasimar is a truly rare thing – the pull their celestial ancestries have toward Goodness is significant. The vast majority of people would have taken one look at his appearance and his shining armor and assumed he is Iomedae's own. It would at the very least be enough to make people doubt any accusations he's Evil. 

Well Marra cares about vanity, not beauty. Those are different things! Of course Marra and Damian don't see them the same way. But he already explained that, and so is not required to repeat it, and he should say something less likely to offend her.

"Marra's most common title, in my hearing, is The Whittler. Not because She carves souls according to Her will - all gods do that - but because She values the uniqueness of each. Just as every stick of wood has a different shape, different coloring, and a different pattern of grain, and thus suggests a different carving, each person has a different set of vanities and abilities.

How does one arrange to be delivered to Damian? Marra, or rather Her pact with Asmodeus, requires that the body be consumed by sentient followers of Marra. The danger of dieing alone and going to the Asmodean part of Hell prevents us from attempting much risky but lucrative business. If you have a similar requirement, a fact which of course you don't owe me, perhaps our churches might usefully collaborate on protecting our dead."

He gestures to Alieta to go-ahead-(addressing-a-subordinate).

Alieta thinks ferns are awesome, actually, but of course people have widely varied taste, and that's a good thing.

When the cleric displays what appears to be a holy symbol, Alieta casts Detect Magic as a habitual precaution.

While waiting for the results to come in.... How do non-Marrans do this? Whatever, she'll just ask all her questions!

"When did you pray to become a cleric? What brought you to Damian's church? What are His domains? Which ones are yours? Is He a demon lord? What have you done to grow closer to Him since becoming a cleric? Is that your holy symbol? What is it?

Ooh, you're an aasimar! How did you get your celestial blood? Have you ever met an angel? I've met a fallen angel, one of Marra's outsiders! Is it true that aasimar have a racial inclination towards Good? Is it just that you more frequently have strong altruistic urges? Or that people pressure aasimar toward Good? Or is there some" (ick) "divine influence? How did you come to Damian's church? When did you start training with that sword?"

Does the Detect Magic show anything interesting or alarming?

He's handsome! Obviously a dalliance with a non-Marran in a critical diplomatic position is a terrible idea and he will not think about it any more.

"An oath under Zone of Truth is not necessary at this moment. Perhaps it will be useful once we have negotiated to a point where verifiable promises to each other will substantially increase the effectiveness of our collaboration."

It's understandable why he would ask that question, but she's also not sure of what position the ?priest? has, or whether he would be qualified to be a representative of his church. Actually, they haven't even formally introduced themselves.

"It is not that that information is classified, exactly, but I would prefer to discuss it with...someone who could speak for the church of Marra. Are you a cleric of Hers? Even if not, are you in a position to represent it? I am interested in discussing mutual corpse protection, though, because we have our own particularities with regard to that."

Cleric divine foci do not store spells, unlike wizard bonded objects, and neither is the foci enchanted. It does not emanate any aura under Detect Magic.

"I was ordained when I was twenty years old. I'm a half-elf, so that's equivalent to a human's teenage years. Exactly how one becomes a cleric is something personal. I'm not opposed to sharing it with you, but perhaps at another time." Her tone has a motherly feeling to it, but not in a condescending way.

That's a lot of questions!

"He has Evil and Chaos as domains, of course, being Chaotic Evil. His other two are Plant and Charm. Demon lords only grant four domains, like infernal dukes. Marra is a full divinity, yes? Aside from Law and Evil, what other three domains does She have? As for myself, I embody Charm and Plant. As for that question, I'll tell you some other time. Yes, it's my holy symbol. It's a silver figurine of a heliotrope flower. In His mortal life, Damian was fond of that flower. Since Marra is a new deity, was She also a mortal? As in, is She an ascended mortal?"

He's not used to being asked questions directly.

"My great-grandmother was a deva and was part of the Fifth Crusade. No, I haven't. Yes, it's true. Yes. Yes. I don't know – probably not. I'm certainly too far away to be subject to any. I'm not a part of Damian's church." Oops, should he have said that? Whatever. "I started training soon after I was ordained, at fifteen."

He's going to ask a question that's not related to theology. Conrad values practicality.

"I wish to ask another question of you, sir. Earlier, before we entered the tent, we saw a sign advertising arcane casting services, but which also claimed to be able to provide healing. What is that about? As far as I know, magical healing is restricted to divine magic."

Oh wow. The implications of this are huge.

"Has Marra developed an arcane healing spell?" 

Perhaps acquiring this spell is why they were sent here. He turns his head toward Alieta, who he saw both casting Vision of Hell and looking at a scroll earlier.

He casts his Gaze on her, and all the warmth of his bronze colored eyes seems to disappear in an instant. The energy that emanates from them evokes the yawning chasms of the Abyss, as if one's soul is on the verge of being sucked in and falling into its interminable depths.

No! Stop! Do not do that to the wizard! She taps him twice on the shoulder, and it takes all her Splendor and Wisdom to make it seem like a calm, intimate gesture. Elias quickly turns his head to instead look at the ground in front of Alieta instead. Let's hope they don't take that badly. She usually knows Elias as having more gaze-discipline than this, having been trained in looking at people's noses or foreheads rather than their eyes, to avoid inadvertently using that power.

It's probably best to terminate this interaction and return tomorrow or some other day to prevent relations from souring.

"It is getting late, and although we are both trained, we'd prefer not to walk the streets at night. Thank you for your hospitality and your kindness, despite the fact that we are Chaotic, and that we entered your church under not-quite-truthful pretenses."

She bows deeply.

"Would it be possible for us to return tomorrow, or some other day? We would like to pray for guidance before continuing, if our gods are to make arrangements with each other. How long will it be before your cleric arrives? Perhaps we should return then."

"I am not a cleric, nor authorized to negotiate on Her church's behalf." Which would have been obvious if they had been familiar with this particular Marran cult's communication rules, sigh, but rules vary and some misunderstanding is to be expected between different groups. He hopes she isn't offended.

"I see! Marra is a full divinity, with Law, Evil, Sun, Charm, and Nobility. She was a mortal who ascended two decades ago, via the starstone."

He's definitely not a 'sir' to these people, and it's a lot higher stakes when talking to a delegation from another church than with a potential recruit. He's not sure whether this man would be more offended by being corrected now or by realizing later that he made the mistake and it went uncorrected. Maybe responding with the same mistake will make it okay? Actually, that also has the benefit of being clear that they're not using Marran norms, which maybe makes the whole problem go away! He should have done that earlier!

"No, sir. We offer ordinary Infernal Healing. Perhaps you haven't encountered it, as it is usually performed with the blood of a devil. Our magic store in the adjacent tent sells scrolls of it, non-castable spell diagrams to study, and the blood of Marran outsiders, which works like devils' blood for this purpose."

Eeek that's creepy and not like any spell she's seen before! She casts Expeditious Retreat and flees.

He's alarmed that Alieta fled, but the visitors don't seem to be doing anything hostile beyond whatever that was, and it seemed like the cleric was trying to get him to stop, so maybe this was all a misunderstanding. In the interests of keeping this important opportunity open, he'll keep talking to them politely... oh no. He got Charmed, didn't he, when the cleric was showing off her symbol. So that's what it feels like. Odd that he still doesn't really like them - maybe he's just not capable of liking people anymore. Well, nothing he can do about it.

"You may come here any time during the day, or during the night if there is urgent business. We will be in Bellis for a few weeks more. Our cleric will arrive in five days, on the 8th."

He's confused about why she's thanking him for hospitality and kindness, since he doesn't think he offered any, but he doesn't argue.

The guard by the open side of the tent looks at them sharply and puts his hand on his sword.

"Thank you for your time regardless. We will visit when your cleric arrives." She bows again and then briskly walks away.

Ah, so it's just regular Infernal Healing. He couldn't think of what the spell was at the moment. It is...bad...that the wizard felt the need to cast Expeditious Retreat (now that spell he recognizes), but it's too late to fix it now. He bows, following Felicia's example, and then walks with her.

He doesn't care about honorifics, since the Conradian church doesn't either. They have ranks, but people just use names.

They give the guard standing at a door a wide berth. Sure, he can take them, but he doesn't want to up the stakes, and he already knows Felicia is upset with him for making that mistake.

They arrive back at the inn. Felicia complains to Elias about his behavior, but only for a short while. She thinks about how to salvage the situation. Her just...showing her divine focus without being prompted was a mistake on her part too. Now that she thinks on it, she actually doesn't even know what their names were. Or introduce themselves. Wow. Truly, a diplomacy expert she is. To her defense, the only things she's been fighting against at Sarkoris Scar at demons, and the way you do diplomacy with them is different from the way you do diplomacy with mortals.

Was this really all that Damian and Conrad brought them here to do? I mean, if it's just to contact a church of Marra, presumably They'd have sent visions to higher ranked people in the church, and also brought them to a bigger Marran church, not a small traveling chapel. There seems to be another reason why they were sent here specifically, and why them specifically. She prays on it and receives no response.

The Infernal Healing they sell works with Marran outsiders, which, from what the halfling said, were not devils. She knows Infernal Healing works on devils but not kytons or asuras, so She must have been able to rejigger the spell to work with Her outsiders. Buying a dose of blood and a scroll of it would be great for their wizards to study.

Oh, right. The young halfling woman is the one selling things at the magic shop. That's not optimal. She thinks on what sort of...apology gift would be good.

He also prays on it and receives no response. That usually is a good sign, since their gods would likely have sent them visions if they were blundering horribly. They must be on the right track, or, at least, close enough to it that They have trust they'll be able to course-correct.

He polishes his armor in his free time, but magic armor needs much less polishing – magic armor doesn't rust or tarnish.

He goes to visit the weapons and armor shops in Bellis two days before their scheduled meeting with the cleric. He doesn't think there'd be anything spectacular, since Bellis is a small town, and neither do they have the budget or authorization to buy anything. Besides, if he wanted to buy something for his own, it's cheaper and better to have the Conradian wizards do it for him, since they'll impose a smaller work fee.

The next morning, Tos and three other armored humans leave the Pit and head toward Scroll Street in Bellis. At Diffol's Arcana, Pez and Kuladi stay outside and lean against the wall, Manikaya stands at an inside corner, and Tos approaches the shopkeeper with a respectful nod.

"Good morning, Mr. Diffol."

The shopkeeper nods back. "And may yours be good too. I have your dagger right here - just a second...." He casts a spell that Tos doesn't recognize, presumably Dispel Magic. Satisfied, he rummages in a heavy chest below the shop counter and takes out Alieta's dagger.

Manikaya steps forward and casts Identify. "Looks good."

Tos places a wand of Early Judgement and a pouch of gold pieces on the counter for the shopkeeper to examine. He tucks the dagger inside his shirt, tightening three separate straps holding it in place. He needs to take very good care of this dagger. It's worth over 10000gp*, if you include the time that Alieta would have to spend replacing it, during which she couldn't craft wands to sell.

[*The exact conversion is controversial, but this is something like a million dollars in 2022 USD.]

"Anything new, Mr. Diffol?"

Mr. Diffol sighs. "There's another shooba game short on security - they can't afford you, but maybe some of your cheaper blades. One of Chomber's secretaries needs a friendly reminder of his debts. And I've heard some noises about a 'job', supposed to pay pretty well, might get bloody. You sure about going for Lawful?"

"Yes, I am," says Tos, stiffy.

"Well, when your saffron blooms, I'll enjoy the view."

Tos scowls and turns to leave.

Oh, that must be the Damianite cleric's bodyguard in the corner there! Huh, Mr. Diffol must know he's Evil, he wouldn't usually be speaking so openly in front of an aasimar... or anyone, actually, this just makes a funny image.

"Excuse me, sir," - Tos knows how to be polite to non-Marrans - "I was hoping to speak with your client. How might I arrange a meeting with her?"

Elias still has his armor and greatsword on, but his visor is flipped fully open. Magic shops don't mind people bearing armor and weapons, in fact, they usually treat you better when you do – there's a higher chance that you're an adventurer that might actually buy something and not just window shopping. He's totally just here to window shop, though.

He sees Tos talk to the shopkeeper, but doesn't overhear the conversation.

"Hello. Oh, you're from the Marran church, yes?" 

Client? What client? Does he mean Conrad? His soul is claimed by Him, so...presumably, He would be his client?

Oh. Oh. It takes him three rounds to put all the pieces together. He embarrassingly realizes he's just been standing there silently. The man hadn't been there when he had been talking to the halfling a few days ago, so he probably thinks he's just a fighter.

"Ah, you mean Felicia. Yes, you can talk to her – you don't need my permission to. She's out shopping today though, I think. I can pass a message if you'd like."

He adds after a moment. "I should clarify that she's not my client, per se. She doesn't pay me. I'm a...delegate of a church allied with hers."

"Ah yes, I'm from the church of Marra. Tos Devet, fighter." Oops his red-and-blue belt got covered when he was messing with his shirt. He shifts it to be more visible. And adjusts his shirt to look a bit more respectable.

"Thank you for your courtesy in passing on a message. I would like to talk with her about her church. To be clear, I do not represent Marra here, nor am I likely to be converted. I simply would like to satisfy my personal curiosity. Any time is fine; if I'm not at the Marran encampment, they'll know where I am.

Oh, my apologies in misunderstanding your position. If I may ask, what god do you follow?"

"Yes, that can easily be arranged. The both of us would be happy to answer any questions." Felicia would smile at this moment – he doesn't.

"I follow Conrad, the Contender, the Lord of Staff and Sword. He is allied with Damian. They are both ascended mortals. They were lovers in life, and ascended together. Conrad's church and Damian's church are formally separate entities, though in practice we are heavily intertwined. We share many facilities and services with one another. I'm an antipaladin of Conrad's. I received formal religious education while I was a squire. Less so than clerics at seminary, but enough. If you wish to ask relatively basic questions about Damian's church, I can answer, though anything complex will have to come from her. I would not want to speak on her behalf, or on behalf of Damian."

Ah, another demon lord, interesting. "How does Conrad treat his souls in the Abyss? I heard that Damian's realm is" supposedly "quite pleasant."

"They share an Abyssal realm called the Silver Garden, although they maintain their own sections of it. All people are given the opportunity to see what it's like before they join the church, at least, for lay worshippers. I saw Conrad's section while I was a squire. There's a lot of training centers and magic workshops. Magic works somewhat differently in the Outer Planes and if you're an outsider, so you have to re-learn it. I wouldn't describe it as pleasant, per se, not in the straightforward way Damian's realm is. But it's not the horrifying and disgusting place one usually associates with the Abyss."

He opens the door to exit the shop. "Should we take this conversation elsewhere? I'm planning to have an early lunch."

Hm. 

"I'll pay for you meal, if you want."

"I'm currently carrying some expensive merchandise and would like to keep my guards about me, and of course I would not ask you to extend your generous offer to all four of us." It might not actually be intended generously, but in that case, acting flattered is still the right move.

Can Tos take his guards on a detour? This conversation might end up having some diplomatic benefit after all, but Tos was not acting in a particularly Marran way when he initiated it. 

Tos is technically - no, not technically; straightforwardly, albeit temporarily - in charge of his three guards. He considers his duties. Are they in danger? Very unlikely, as long as they don't literally let themselves be led into an ambush. Manikaya has excellent vanity as a appreciator of food; she would be well served by lunch. Pez would benefit from the challenge of watching a busy room. Kaludi... just wants to practice juggling, probably. Tos could say it's good for him to endure this, but he's been warned that it's easy to decide to make one's underlings suffer, deciding carelessly but having it feel like a well-considered decision, so he'll be cautious there. It would be a bad incentive to give special treatment only to Kaludi, so Tos will offer to cover an hour of a guard shift for all three of them. 

"On further consideration, they do not all need to eat. Are you new in town? I'm quite fond of the Howling Nasturtium." He got one of his first security jobs there, but the food is good too. "Or the Rainbow Trout Inn."

"What goals does one train for?"

"I'm fine with waiting, but paying for all of you would be fine with me too, so long as the restaurant isn't anything extravagant. I'm looking to eat something with lots of vegetables. Oh, and fruit. Few plants grow at Sarkoris Scar, what with the cold and the Abyssal corruption. Which one of them would be better for that?"

He leaves the magic shop, but then stays near it.

"Hm. Do you mean me specifically, or those who follow Conrad? Conrad is interested in...power. That is to say, the capacity of people to alter the world to their liking, and there is no purer power than capacity to do violence. He does not particularly care about how that power is used, only that people grow in power. Growth is important to Him – one's trajectory is more important than one's position.

As a fighter, I am sure you are already well acquainted with violence. Are you proficient in any sort of magic, or perhaps alchemy?"

"Definitely the Howling Nasturtium."

Manikaya is getting lunch, so maybe he shouldn't cover part of her guard shift too. He feels like he's making a mistake somewhere. If Kaludi weren't here, then Pez wouldn't get a hour off, even though he would be doing the same work... actually he would be doing more work without Kaludi sharing the watch. That doesn't make any sense. He'll have to ask for guidance when he gets back to camp.

"Two of us will take you up on lunch, thank you, and two will keep watch.

What is Conrad's preferred end state? Can individual souls keep growing forever? Can everyone in the world have power in a way that is pleasing to Him?

I don't know anything about magic or alchemy, or any forms of violence other than the blade and the fist."

Elias lets Tos and the other people lead the way, following just a little behind them.

"I should tell you that I'm an antipaladin, not a cleric, and since you're already a worshipper of Marra, I won't bother speaking eloquently." It's more accurate to say that he can't – the way he is Splendid is much different from the way Felicia is, but he doesn't need to speak that aloud.

"Conrad is not interested in shaping souls. He believes, and we believe also, that...escaping from your purpose is impossible. The shape of your soul will unerringly bring you to what your life is supposed to be, even if outside forces conspire to alter it. Even outsiders are subject to this too: otherwise, there would be no fallen angels or ascended demons. It is pleasing to Him to see souls which are...hungry for power, yearning to grow, to become stronger...to be 'rescued' from their circumstances and brought to full bloom.

That's actually a metaphor the Damianites use too. What a plant will grow up to be is determined entirely from what it is, and is baked into its being. The Damianites seek to nurture plants which will grow up to be beautiful; we seek to nurture plants which will grow up to be strong. But only good seeds are worthy of being nurtured. The rest can be ignored.

It may be...helpful to think about the churches of Damian and Conrad as being less like churches, and more like adventurers' guilds. They are churches in the senses that they venerate a god and follow His tenets, but the structure is much different from the way Iomedae and Calistria organize Theirs. Most churches accept anyone into the fold, and most churches are hierarchical. The laity obey the priests. Not so with Them. We are...selective with what people are permitted to enter the church – merely worshipping and following the tenets and obediences are insufficient. Once you enter, however, lay worshippers have similar social status as those ordained, and the power structure is flat.

Tragic. Being able to cast magic is...important to Conradians. Both Damian and Conrad were mighty wizards in their mortal life, and Conrad grants the Magic domain to His clerics. Then again, I had no ability to cast anything before I was ordained."

"Interesting... How do Conrad's followers tend to end up, eventually? As powerful demons?

You said that there is no purer power than violence; how much is Conrad interested in other forms of power, such as selling peaceful magic and becoming rich? Or taking protection money and keeping an orderly peace, relying on the threat of violence but rarely using it?

Oh, uh, please excuse my ignorance... is lack of interest in shaping souls a common trait in Chaotic gods?"

They arrive at the Howling Nasturtium. Tos asks for three vegetable platters and a pitcher of ginger beer, coming to 4sp total. The "platters" are wide thin pieces of crispy bread, with a dry bean stew heaped in the middle, surrounded by greens, roasted squash, fresh peas, and sliced tomatoes. There is a spicy orange nasturtium flower in the very center of each platter.

"Only a few turn into true demons. Most are half-fiends. There are several reasons for that. Transforming someone into a full demon while letting them retain their personality is very expensive for gods to do. Petitioners become demons by absorbing the essence of the Abyss – this necessarily changes their character also. This is why Conrad and Damian are distinct from the other Chaotic Evil gods, having ascended without much contact with the Abyss itself. They are Chaotic Evil...in the same way Norgorber is Neutral Evil, as compared to the daemonic harbingers.

Further, the transformation requires that your body be changed utterly, which not everyone is interested in." He would love to become a kalavakus, though. Or a balor, but Conrad doesn't have the budget for that. Perhaps in a few centuries.

"He is interested in such forms of power too. I meant that statement more in the sense that all authority is derived from violence. One can only sell peaceful magic if one can protect one's self from others who would just steal from you or force you to cast it for them for free.

I'm not sure, but I think so. The Elysian gods don't seem particularly interested in shaping souls either, so perhaps there is a commonality there. I'll need to consult with a cleric. Chaos represents...freedom, unfettering, listening to your true desires, being beholden to no one. It would fit."

He loves the food! He smiles with delight. He might be an aasimar, but the way he smiles is a little unnerving, somehow. He has to bring Felicia here, he thinks. She'd love it.

He swallows all the food in his mouth before replying. Etiquette! he can already hear Felicia remind him.

"If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to ask you the same question. Why Marra? It seems...strange that a fighter such as yourself would work as a stand-up comedian. Not in the sense that that's bad, though. I loved your performance." The compliment is genuine. "What does Marra offer you that you could not find elsewhere?"

"I'm still not convinced that all authority derives from violence. A person with perfect ability to endure suffering would not be moved by threats, but might still choose to participate in a beneficial trade. Of course, no person alive has that ability, possibly not even a perfected Marran outsider.

More practically, a shopkeeper terrified of having their arm broken will work twenty hours a day, and may even be moderately creative when creativity is called for, but will not show true genius unless you also teach them how to think under pressure in addition to threatening them, a difficult thing to teach.

And person learning to balance on a rola bola will not learn faster under threat. They might practice more, of course, or be more motivated to apply mentally-exhausting skills for practicing better, but a threat does not get you anything that is impossible to get without a threat."

"My story is ordinary. I did what I needed to do to survive, legal or not, and once I had gone down that road, well, there's not very many options for a known criminal who's good with a sword and has no other skills. I knew I was Evil, certainly not Lawful, and probably not Chaotic given my lack of initiative. So I figured I'd go to Abaddon, or take the choice to go to the Abyss, depending on how much I wanted to spite the paladins on that particular day.

And then I went to see a circus and stayed for a sermon that gave me a better option. Not just for my afterlife! Since becoming a Marran, I have learned to enjoy my abilities, to find vanity in so many things that I had previously ignored. I now do comedy routines, which may be simple for a true actor, but to me, my art is intricate and fascinating, especially in comparison with my former use of my acting talent: pretending to be boring and predictable and too stupid to be a threat."

"Hm, it's possible that we're interpreting 'authority' differently. I see 'authority' as being power over agents, which is only one half of what it means to be powerful. The other form of power is something that might be called 'technique' or 'expertise' – power over non-agents. As an antipaladin, I only embody the former. I lack the Intelligence to be a wizard or an enchanter or alchemist. Many of Conrad's lay worshippers are casters or crafters of some sort. That's why we're able to requisition magic items easily."

He took a sip of the ginger beer. Delicious. He should have the Damianites at the headquarters make or import some. He's not too fond of wine, honestly.

"I see. So you're Neutral Evil, then? But wait, I heard from the halfling...I'm not sure if he was a cleric, actually. Now that I think about it, I don't actually even know his name. He was the one who was doing castings of Early Judgment from a wand for pay." It was very stupid to not have gotten his name. What an embarrassing blunder.

"Anyway, he said that people who were cannibalized by Marrans would go to Stonepeak when they die, rather than go to Asmodean Hell. Would it work even though you're Neutral Evil and chose to take Pharasma's offer to go to Hell? Apparently, Marra has a pact with Asmodeus which lets them coexist, though I'm not sure what the specifics of that pact are. Or are you Lawful Evil now? Have you had your alignment checked?" He was an antipaladin, and so could tell whether he was Good or not, but he already knew he wasn't. He would have been able to tell if he was an inquisitor, though. He thinks a little bit about asking Felicia to do a Sending for backup, but decides against it.

"In any case, I am glad that you found a place for yourself. How long have you been with the Marrans? I have been with the Conradians since I was fifteen – I'm twenty-four now." He means it genuinely. He agrees with Conrad that people shouldn't be forced to be what they aren't meant to be. He wasn't here to try and recruit anyone, only to try and talk. Now that he thinks about it, this is the first time he's talked to a non-Conradian or non-Damianite about his faith. Being a new church was just...so messy. They had no traditions or standard operating protocol or learned experience. Was that the same for Marra's church?

"Perhaps. In any case, I can certainly see the appeal of having power. And not just in terms of vanity in my strength and skills! Marra values clear hierarchies and I enjoy being at the top as much as anyone else.

I am not yet Lawful Evil, and, unfortunately, Pharasma's offer does not apply to me. Following the devil from the gates of Abaddon is a choice to go to Asmodeus, and there is no way to choose Marra instead. I don't know why the pact is that way, perhaps Alieta - the wizard - might, or her father - his name is Oyek, by the way, he's not a cleric, just likes to talk to people.

I have only been a Marran for three years.

So I didn't see the church begin, but I've heard stories. I wouldn't say it was 'messy'. Marra had followers before She ascended, and had already written Her books describing Her rules for how we should be organized. But there were a lot of arguments between clerics. Eventually they traded followers between them until they mostly had followers who thought as they did, and then each cleric went their separate way.

Oh, there was one cleric who decayed to Lawful Good and was unable to regain their cleric-hood, and then three of their former followers were chosen as clerics the next day. That was a bit 'messy'.

Marrans disagree with each other a lot, but as long as we all obey the rules, it -" doesn't get too Chaotic, is what he was going to say, but he should try not to offend the powerful antipaladin paying for his lunch "...keeps working smoothly. For example, some people care what Marra thought when she was alive, and some care only what She thinks as a god. Some are truly devoted to Her teachings, while some just want a better afterlife option. But we follow our protocols and mind our own business.

When the clerics split up, they had disagreements about how to run Her church. It wasn't just an individual matter, and worse, since they were all first or second circle, they didn't have a hierarchy to follow. But the rest of us just do as we're told, or occasionally pray to become clerics and split off. It happens that my group's cleric thinks Marra benefits the most from souls who are closely aligned with Her and that that matters more than just the number of souls She gets. And it happens that our cleric also thinks that it takes years to determine which people are closest to Her, so there's no point in being selective about recruiting. I think that's uncommon; clerics usually either recruit a lot in order to give Marra a lot of souls, or recruit sparingly to try to filter for quality. But anyway, yeah, our cleric has those particular views, but it doesn't matter to me what she thinks."

Ah, Oyek. Alieta must be the one he inadvertently scared off.

"It's interesting that the way your church organized itself would be described by my church as Chaotic and admirable. Aside from what I said earlier – freedom, unfettering, listening to your true desires – another component of Chaos is...not specializing. Being a jack of all trades. Dabbling, not focusing on one trade in particular. Hyperoptimization leads to fragility and brittleness: it means you are only powerful in a specific situation. Conrad wants Chaotic souls because he feels that Chaotic souls are more robust."

Is that offensive? Well, Tos isn't Lawful yet, so presumably not. In any case, he's not here to recruit people, only to talk.

"Robust in the sense that they can survive and thrive in a greater number of environments, even if they might not be the best player. That Marra's church fractured and was still able to function in that decentralized state would be pleasing to Conrad's sight. Our church is very centralized, meanwhile. The only major 'temple', if you can call it that, is our headquarters in Sarkoris Scar. We have about six hundred people there total, counting lay worshippers. Conrad and Damian crafted many items before their ascension, but just before they did, they each crafted intelligent items imbued with their values, which would lay dormant before they ascended.

For Conrad, this was his arcane bonded greatsword, which is held by the High Priest of Conrad today. Whoever holds that greatsword – no, rather, whoever the greatsword permits to hold it – is considered to be the High Priest of Conrad, regardless of what circles or levels they might have. He's fifth circle now. A mystic theurge, actually, since R-" he would just say Rendon, here, but he remembers that other people care about titles "High Priest Rendon Salian used to be a sorcerer before Conrad's ascension. Most people who worked for Him were casters of some variety. He's fifth-circle now."

"It's interesting that you frame things based on protocol and action, rather than intent. We usually go by intent to assess whether someone is close to Conrad or not, whether they...'care' about His values and goals. I suppose the difference is that..." he can't figure out a way to phrase this without it sounding terrible "we are more selective in our recruitment, such that we can assume competence and good faith from all the worshippers."

He sips more of the ginger beer. It really is very good.

"I should clarify what I mean when I say 'worshipper', since it means something different to us. In order to be considered a worshipper, you must either be ordained by Conrad, or have a soul contract with Him. I have both. Either will mark your soul for His afterlife, so that his half-fiends can recover you in the River of Souls when you die, and prevent you from just ending up in Lamashtu's realm or something. Simply following his tenets and venerating Him won't be enough as a layperson. One is no different from a commoner to us, in that case." They really should come up with a better name than 'worshipper'. Too much baggage. Too imprecise.

"That concerns Conrad Himself. As for the church, we also distinguish between those who work for the church proper and those who do not. I work for the church, so the church sends me out on missions and has me do work, and in return, it pays for food and board and gives me a stipend. I get 15gp a week. It depends on how powerful you are. We have ways to test – Conrad and Damian did much research on this in Their mortal lives. Casters are simple, since you just measure what circle they are, but we have ways to do it for non-casters, or those who have some casting ability but not to the level of a wizard or cleric, such as myself.

Those who do not work for the church but are worshippers are not obliged to do anything for the church, and the church does not need to do anything for them. However, the church offers services at lower prices for them. It's either free or provided at cost if you work for them. Such worshippers might be asked to defend the church in a moment of crisis, but they will not be forced to. Of course, to refuse would likely displease Conrad and lead to any soul contract or ordination being taken away. That has never happened in the history of the church, though, mostly because we are too young to have experienced any such crisis.

The last category are those who are not worshippers but who do work for the church. Those are usually hirelings, or people who are seeking to enter into a contract with Conrad, but are not ordained. I skipped this step because I'm ordained. I know of no one who has not worked for the church but still received a contract." They really ought to think about that now, actually, if the church is planning to expand. He is not Intelligent enough for this! 

"I see how there can be a benefit to diversity, but we emphasize that eventually the optimal arrangement of a church will come to dominate the others. A cleric who is close to Marra and good at spreading their ideas to others will inspire many clerics, who will lead their own groups, usually copying the practices of their predecessor. A cleric with the wrong ideas or with policies that make recruiting hard will not have as much influence, and their flawed practices will disappear.

And of course our church groups are able to work together because we follow our rules for interacting.

Regarding what to do about people rather than groups, Marrans disagree about how narrowly individuals should be optimized. Some think that the ideal person finds vanity in everything they do and think. Some think Marra prefers souls with a single focus.

Some people want to retain as much as possible of their personality in the afterlife, and try to make every aspect of themselves a vanity, duty, or rule, using Marra for their own benefit rather than following her out of devotion.

Your holy greatsword sounds like a very impressive working! Are you familiar with the idea that gods have a limited amount of something like money which they can spend on doing things, not as a physical limit, but as a sort of agreement between gods? Do you know if making that greatsword was charged to Conrad after He ascended? Marra has been very sparing with Her cleric circles and with Her visions and other interventions, and some speculate that writing Her holy books before ascending failed to save Her the cost of communicating them later and that's why She doesn't do as much now.

What's a mystic theurge?" Sounds like it lets you turn wizard circles into cleric circles, which Alieta would find very distracting...

"We don't worry about whether people 'care' about Marra, since we can just check their intentions with magic. Odd, I usually think of putting emphasis on people 'caring' about things as a Good obsession... Do you think of it as a Chaotic trait?

I admire the simplicity of your system for rewarding strength. We get rewarded for spiritual development too, but it is much harder to evaluate us, and much harder to give us good incentives.

I'm curious about your notion of what counts as a threat. If someone displeases Conrad and receives worse treatment because of that, do you consider Conrad to have exerted force on them?

Does your church ever have hopeful followers who struggle to suitably embody Evil, Chaos, or other principles of Conrad? Or Damian? I myself want any advice you might have on being more Lawful.... even if you distain Law, perhaps you might have something useful to say, or perhaps I might be able to usefully reverse your advice."

"We have a similar policy, although it's made much less complicated by the greatsword, who is named Vlipa. Clergy and worshippers are permitted to break off and do their own thing, and they will retain their ordination and contracts so long as they do not oppose the church, other worshippers or clergy, or Conrad's tenets. If things are such that a breakaway church is more...suitable or powerful than the current one, then Vlipa will remove itself from the current High Priest's hands and go to the breakaway church's clergy. Yes, he has flight. That has never before happened in our history, however.

Yes, I'm familiar with the concept from my squire training, although there is a lot of mathematics and theory behind it that only the wizards can understand fully. I think that the agreements are a little different when it comes to Chaotic gods, and even more so Chaotic Evil gods. Lawful gods value...predictability. They prefer to arrange and negotiate things in advance, and then compromise based on the calculated likelihood of each outcome occurring. Chaotic gods are able to do this, but they prefer not to. They are more willing to roll the dice, even if it might not happen in their favor. Part of that is because many of them are able to channel fortuitous circumstances, even in the absence of prophecy, but it is also a fact of their nature.

Chaotic Evil gods are especially unique in that they reside in the Abyss, which, like the Maelstrom and Elysium, is infinite. It is also a violent place, and indeed, Conrad and Damian ascended by conquering Deskari's realm after His death, during the closing of the Worldwound. They have to defend the Silver Garden from attacks from all sides. It is not like that with Marra and Asmodeus, I assume – Asmodeus is Lawful, and would not attack Marra if He compacted with Her not to. There are no compacts among demons like that. I'm not even sure that Conrad is party to the god-treaty concerning the imprisonment of Rovagug. Conrad values the capacity to destroy, but does not make destroying things a tenet, unlike other Chaotic Evil gods. I think, although you should not put much stock into what I'm about to say, that physical energy is the limiting factor for Conrad and Damian rather than intervention budget.

A mystic theurge is a spellcaster who is able to use their channeling capacity to cast both divine and arcane spells. Many of our clergy are mystic theurges, especially the senior ones, since Conrad and Damian employed many wizards before Their ascension. Mystic theurges are not as strong as people who are purely clerics or purely wizards, but being able to cast divine and arcane spells at once makes them fearsome in battle.

Conrad and Damian had a head start in researching measuring power in people, since they were formally trained wizards in Infernal Cheliax, which already had a well developed curriculum and measurement system for wizards. However, they were able to extend that measurement system for partial and non-casters, as well as for full casters with different rates of progression, such as sorcerers or arcanists. We measure it by using spells that – actually, that's probably a protected secret. Perhaps, if Marra were to become Conrad and Damian's ally, we would share that with you.

No, I wouldn't. Well, that depends. If I tell you that I'll give you one gold piece a month because you've fallen on hard times, and then half a year later, say that I'll stop paying you if you don't do something for me, then that's a threat, because the initial agreement had no exit clause. Conrad and Damian value being able to make binding agreements – this is something that they did in fact appreciate from being Asmodeans – but they also value not being restricted or fettered in what they are able to do. The compromise is to make agreements that have exit clauses, or are time-bounded. We are careful to structure agreements between worshippers to have exit clauses for both parties. Of course, that only applies to worshippers. We are free to cheat and lie to non-worshippers, or those who we do not want to ally with, as we wish." He smiles and takes another sip of ginger beer.

"It's important that people in the church 'care' about each other, because it enables cooperation. That means taking into account their preferences. Lawful people can simply make rules that everyone has to follow, but that is not our way. People have different wants and needs, and they should be free to fulfill them or achieve their goals in their own way. I probably sound like a Desnan or a Sarenran when I say that, but I only mean that for worshippers. Not to people outside the church. There is no need to bind someone to rules if you are assured that they are competent and have your interests at heart, which is why we have such a selective filter. Once someone has been ascertained to fulfill these, then we will err on the side of taking their actions and suggestions in good faith, even if it might break the usual way of doing things, or the 'obviously' best thing to do.

Not many. People can work for the church with no intention of joining it, although we rarely allow those. We prefer to do everything ourselves. Few people seek to join the church since we're in Sarkoris Scar. Not a lot of people there. Of those who seek to join, we initially question them about their intentions and do various checks and detection spells on them. Most of the ones who pass, who are few, are eligible for soul-contracts within a few years." The ones who are Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Evil who are unsuitable are killed, whereas the rest are petrified. They don't want their secrets getting out. He's not going to mention this, though.

"It was nice talking to you. It's good to hear from someone who is a recent convert to Marranism. I think I should be going, now. I need to meet with Felicia soon." He puts enough coins on the table to pay for everything, and then leaves promptly.

"Thank you for lunch and the fascinating conversation."

He counts out 4 silver pieces and hands them to Kaludi to give to the innwarden, and keeps the rest to be returned to the antipaladin next time they meet. Odd that he departed so abruptly...

Hm, so a mystic theurge isn't all that great, and mostly useful for combat. Alieta's shaping is none of his business anyway, but it sounds like it won't be a temptation after all.

Manikaya is still savoring her meal, so he sits and thinks.

The temporary membership agreements of the churches of Conrad and Damian are odd, but he supposes that it makes sense for Chaos. Joining the Marran hierarchy is permanent, and it wouldn't work at all if you could just leave or expel your subordinates whenever you wanted! ...sometimes the hierarchy gets shuffled, like how he temporarily has his guards to take care of, but that's their superiors' decision, and their superiors will enforce proper behavior. Tos can't escape his responsibility to his charges, and they can't escape their duties to him, no matter how short their formal relationship is. Even if they all died, they would still be held accountable by the Marran outsiders who would inherit their souls.

The Conradian principle of looking out for each other's interests does indeed sound like typical Good wishful thinking. Maybe it works okay in a very small group of people? Small groups of Marrans sometimes make contracts for similar behavior and that works out okay. It seems like it would be so stressful, though.

Is it possible that the mysterious visitors are secretly Good? He hasn't seen them do anything Evil, and it's possible to make yourself look like a different alignment, right?

He had to leave to meet with Felicia to discuss their mission here in Bellis. He returns to the inn. The visions sent to them were vague, so they have to do the work of figuring out what exactly they're supposed to do.

The first hypothesis is that they're supposed to meet here with the Marrans, who are presumably local to here. But in that case, why send them? They don't have a high enough position to speak for the church, and there are people who are more Splendid than them who could serve as better negotiators and diplomats.

The second hypothesis is that they're meant to establish a temple here. It would be strange to have the first offsite temple be so far away from their headquarters. It's four Teleports away. He would have thought their second temple would be built in Mendev or Ustalav, where it would only be a single Teleport away. It could be that they could find more worthy recruits here, but Felicia hadn't found any during their days here. Conrad and Damian, as gods, would be better able to examine the souls of people to see how suitable they are, though, so he shouldn't put too much stock into the fact that Felicia hadn't found any.

The third hypothesis is that Conrad and Damian want them to...train, or get stronger, somehow, and so sent them to fight, either literally or in a more metaphorical sense of 'compete'. He has no idea what They want them to fight, though.

The two of them agree to hold off on using the Sending to get reinforcements until they realize what they're supposed to be here for. Perhaps they need to be ignorant of the purpose of their mission in order to achieve it? That's very much not how the church operates, but he's prepared for it. It could also be that their purpose is a combination of all three.

He tells Felicia of the conversation between himself and Tos. They agree that they need to find better terms for things, now that they're meeting with outsiders, but that it would be better to consult with others before agreeing on a term to use with them.

Meanwhile, Felicia has finished her bouquet. She's been collecting flowers from the fields around Bellis. She's been timing her excursions out when there aren't any people at the fields. There's probably a city ordinance against picking flowers like that, or perhaps the fields are private land. She's not going to bother finding out. She puts the violets, hyacinths, and lilacs into a bunch, ties them up with twine, and wraps them with purple paper.

The next morning, she prepares her spells slightly differently. She wants to meet with Alieta in her shop, and brings along a bunch of their gold coins.

0: Prestidigitation, Purify Food and Drink, Light, Detect Magic
1: Barbed Chains, Detect the Worthy, Liberating Command, Command, (Entangle)
2: Undetectable Alignment x2, Eagle's Splendor, (Touch of Idiocy)
3: Cure Serious Wounds, Silent Still Charm Person, (Suggestion)

She casts Undetectable Alignment on the two of them and leaves.

Just before entering the tent, she freshens up with Prestidigitation and casts Eagle's Splendor on herself.

"Hello, Alieta," she says, bowing halfway. "I'm sorry for what happened a few days ago, with you and Elias. I've told him off for doing that. Please accept this as an apology gift." She places the bouquet of sweet-smelling flowers on an empty spot on the desk.

"What do you sell here at the shop? I was told you're an item crafter and enchanter."

The eight guards along the walls watch her closely. The room is mostly bare, with chairs in the front half, facing the desk. At the back are three chests and a continual flame.

Alieta is kneeling on a mat on the ground in the back half, staring at a wand on a stand. She smiles without looking up. "Hi! You must be Felicia? I can talk. Thank you for the gift! What is it?"

"Flowers."

The human woman at the desk stands and bows.

"We currently have wands of Infernal Healing, Zone of Truth, Fox's Cunning, Crafter's Fortune, and Voluminous Vocabulary available. The wizard is almost done with a wand of Fireball. We'll be in Bellis long enough to complete a wand of any of these arcane spells -" she points to a list burnt into the desk "- or any divine spell up to second circle, or any other arcane spell up to third circle that you provide the resources for the wizard to learn, for a small fee.

Today, the wizard still has a casting of Infernal Healing available when she finishes her day's work. If you would like to reserve a spell for tomorrow from her list, let me know. We require half the payment now, half when the spell is cast.

We have scrolls of almost all her first and second circle spells.

We also sell spellbooks, ink, texts on Spellcraft -" she waves at a pile of books on the other end of the desk "- non-castable spell diagrams, standard rings and cloaks, a continual flame, and material components, most notably blood of Lawful Evil outsiders."

"Ooh!

Yeah he gave us quite a scare!" As did Felicia, and the Marrans wasted 500gp on their reaction (Alieta used her bonded dagger's spontaneous spell slot for the Expeditious Retreat, and then they used two charges of Dispel Magic from a wand) ...but her father said not to mention that so she won't.

She bows again, though less deeply. Wow, she did not expect there to be this many guards. But it's understandable, if she's high-circle. She would guess...third, based on the things available.

"My sincerest apologies. It's something he uses in combat, which he should never have done in that situation. And yes, they are flowers I picked," she says to both of them.

To Alieta, "You are a third-circle wizard, right? I'm interested in buying a scroll of Infernal Healing. Not a wand. Hm. You sell Lawful Evil outsider blood too. What outsiders does Marra have? She does not have devils, right?

Has the cleric arrived? Or is it that you are the one creating the divine spell scrolls? Our church has many people like that."

"...why are you apologizing?" If they're peers, then Felicia should compensate for the failure, say by paying them 500gp. Maybe Felicia is treating them like her superiors, as some sort of polite non-Marran custom, and picking flowers is supposed to be a punishment?

"Yeah, I'm third circle! We should have plenty of scrolls of Infernal Healing... Ellin -" the human "- keeps track of inventory."

She takes a scroll from one of the chests and puts it on the desk.

"25 gold pieces."

"Our cleric arrives tomorrow! She can make divine scrolls, but she and I need to work together to make wands. You have wizards who can create divine scrolls without the help of a cleric?"

She's a little taken aback by Alieta's comment.

"You apologize to show that you regret an action, and express hopes that it does not damage your relationship with that person. In this case, my coworker harmed you, and I apologize to show that I regret this harm, and hope that it does not preclude us potentially working in the future." She feels strange saying that.

She takes out her coin purse, although she doesn't immediately take out the coins.

"Yes, because they're clerics too. Many of the clerics in our church used to be wizards, before my god, Damian, ascended. That's why they can cast both arcane and divine spells."

"Does that satisfy your regret - fulfill your desire? But, no, it sounds like you still feel regret?" Obviously non-Marrans are messed up, but she didn't expect to find such confusion less than a minute into their conversation!

"What is our relationship? I don't know much about you, but I usually enjoy talking to new people. Do you do any kind of art? I dance and make illusions, in addition to the clowning you saw.

Oh, right, I would guess that our cleric will be very interested in collaboration between our churches!

Ohh that's awesome! I want to be a cleric too, but it wouldn't be an efficient use of my channeling right now. When I reach fifth circle I might be allowed to try it..."

"Hm. So. It's good for people who wish to trade or work with each other to have assurance that the other person is operating in good faith. That is to say, the other person won't try to overtly harm them. An apology is a way of signaling that possible harm done to the other person is accidental or unintended. For example, it would be understandable if you decided you didn't want to sell me anything anymore since my coworker harmed you.

I don't think we have a relationship right now, but we could have one in the future. I don't do art per se, but I work in the greenhouse at our headquarters, and also practice flower arrangement and perfumemaking. The last two are just hobbies, though

Ah, the cleric-wizards in my church are mystic theurges, which lets them use their channeling capacity for both divine and arcane spells. It's very useful for item crafting, since you get access to both types of magic at once. Of course, you don't need to have the ability to cast the requisite spell in order to make an item that requires it, but it does make it easier."

She turns to Ellin.

"25gp, I see." She takes out the gold pieces from her bag and puts them on the desk. "You sell Lawful Evil outsider blood, yes? What sort do you sell? Does Marran outsider blood work with Infernal Healing? Kyton blood doesn't, from what I know."

"Of course I know you didn't deliberately try to harm us! If you had, we wouldn't be having this conversation! I would threaten to summon the guard, or insist on compensation for the harm."

But why the apology? Maybe she's one of those people who have strong feelings about status and find apologizing to be so painful that it's an effective punishment by itself?

"I have no intent, by whim or duty, to punish you, and no expectations of you, uh, no expectations beyond the implicit customs of Andoran, I mean.

I loosely observe that you seem to be burdened with a habit of tracking things that Good tells you to track. I loosely suggest that you contemplate your feelings, and decide whether you want to compensate us for the consequences of you and your coworker's impression, or decide that you don't care. There are no rules that I know, implicit or explicit, mandating your current actions. You're allowed to just not care!"

Tos's theory that the visitors are actually Good and here to corrupt them is looking more plausible. A lot of newcomers to the church, especially people who didn't think of themselves as Evil before, need to be reminded that it's okay to not care about things that they don't care about.

"It would not be reasonable at all to deny you service! If I wanted revenge, which I don't, and if I were allowed to pursue it, which I'm not since you did not intend harm and you have only interacted with us in ways which fall under our promise of safety, refusing to trade with you would be such a pathetic revenge!"

It's too bad they don't have any clear ways to collaborate artistically.

Hm, being a mystic theurge sounds neat.

"Yes. The blood of 'Marrenai' works for Infernal Healing. A 1-ounce bottle is 1gp."

"Oh, right, you asked about our outsiders! Marrenai are not devils. They are vain, dedicated to following rules, and fit precisely into their hierarchy, mindful of their duties above and below. I've heard of four kinds, but there are probably more that Marra hasn't made yet or which are rare enough that we haven't scried them.

The lowest, the Gofiere, are good for small tasks. Marra never abandons a soul, so we're guaranteed to become at least a Gofiere, but they're pretty boring.

Cantors are best at shaping petitioners and we sometimes summon them for spiritual guidance. They're good at understanding people, and they're pretty and soft and furry.

The Sietaziz are the prettiest, though! They have wings and can dance through the air and they come in every pattern and color and shape. I want to be a Sietaziz when I die! Or maybe a Cantor. Or maybe something even cooler than both of them!

The fourth kind that has been observed are the Regulators. They have lots of arms and legs and fingers and mandibles and antennae and intricate outlines of wings. They specialize in creating and enforcing rules."

Well, yes, she doesn't care in the sense of her emotions, but she does care instrumentally. You don't want to anger a person with influence in another church!

It's totally a pathetic revenge, but she understands the impulse for revenge. She has respect for Calistria.

She pauses for a moment to select the most appropriate thing to say, and simply lands on, "Thank you for your forgiveness."

"Are you able to summon them? Can you summon them with Planar Binding...no, you can't cast that. But what about Summon Monster III? Or do you need a cleric to cast Planar Ally for you? Damian usually refrains from turning us into demons when we go to the Abyss, preferring to make us half-fiends instead. He says they're prettier. He dislikes the appearance of many demons. Is it possible to pay for you or your cleric to summon a Cantor, since they give spiritual guidance? We often summon outsiders too for the same purpose, using Planar Inquiry. It's a third-circle cleric spell."

She puts two extra gold pieces on the desk for two vials of Marrenai blood.

She opens one of the other chests and takes out two tiny bottles wrapped in sleeves made of scraps of leather sewn with wide stitches.

"Yeah, we can summon them with Summon Monster or Planar Inquiry! Which is also a wizard spell. You can summon half-fiends? Or just demons? There's also a unique spell for Marran clerics that only summons Cantors, our cleric can't cast it but we have a wand for it."

"Would you like to reserve a Planar Inquiry for tomorrow? It will be 150gp for the spell, possibly up to 500gp for the offering... They don't charge us for spiritual guidance, but I don't know what they would charge a non-Marran who is not a prospective convert.

Or I could use the wand to summon a Cantor whenever you like, including right now. I'll do it once for you for 200gp, but that price is not otherwise guaranteed."

"Oh, you can use wands? So are you a wizard as well? What circle do you need to be to summon a Cantor?

As for myself, I can summon both half-fiends and demons, but it's difficult to get a demon that is aligned with my god. Half-fiends are easier to get, and they're also easier to summon since, on average, they are weaker. So they require a lower circle of spell to conjure."

She wraps her fingers around her chin.

"Is it possible for me to reserve a summoning by paying half price now, and then potentially redeem it at some point in the near future...perhaps a week from now? I will pay the rest of the money upon the casting of the spell in that time." She'd prefer to have Elias be present so he can ask questions too.

"I'm just barely a wizard. The math is so cool though!

You want the Planar Inquiry? Paying half in advance is fine, that's our usual policy anyway.

Hmm, if we plan ahead, and the cantor wants an offering of more than 50gp to talk to you, we could use the Planar Inquiry for counseling a Marran and then sell you Summon Cantor later. So you can be guaranteed not to pay more than 200gp.

Summon Cantor is a third-circle cleric spell. Marra mostly has second-circle clerics, like our cleric."

She smiles, and puts even more gold coins on the table. That's a large portion of her spending money gone, but she thinks it will be worth it. She can get more money by selling healing in the Pit later, although she's not really looking forward to that possibility.

"How did you join the church of Marra?" She asks the question to both Ellin and Alieta.

"I'm a cleric, so I joined when I was ordained, but for laypeople, you have to decide whether or not to work for a church. Were you already Lawful Evil before you joined? Was the prospect of a better afterlife appealing? I relate to that – Hell sounds awful, and it seems that you get to keep so little of yourself as a devil. I'm looking forward to seeing a Cantor. I've heard that Marra lets each of her outsiders be unique, rather than impressing a standardized form upon them like the other Lawful afterlives."

"At a slave market in Diobel. I was probably headed to Axis, but" shrug "they offered me safety and education and - dignity.

Later I was transferred here because this group needed an accountant."

"You were freed, then? Does the Marran church disapprove of slavery?" If that's true, that's...very surprising! She did not expect a Lawful Evil church to buy slaves to free them. No wonder Marra lives outside of Asmodeus's realm.

"Yes, since I'm now in Andoran, but not really. It doesn't matter. All Marrans have the status of feudal vassals in their hierarchy. No matter who you are, joining is a permanent commitment that we enforce with violence if necessary.

It's theoretically possible for a slave acquired unexpectedly, who is usefully skilled but has a soul unsuited to Marra, to negotiate for their freedom. In practice, we screen out such people beforehand.

Marra is the god of Feudalism and Rules, not Slavery. She dislikes all social relations that deviate from her ideal.

The Marran church finds slavery convenient for obtaining skilled people who would not otherwise be recruited, and dislikes the trauma it causes. We stay out of politics."

"I grew up in the church!

How did you decide to become a cleric of Damian?" Maybe she's willing to answer that now?

"Yeah, marrenai look different and keep the vanities they had in life, although all the ones of each type have the same abilitystats. Sietaziz look really different from each other, like red with butterfly wings and long spines, or translucent and spirally, or with extra legs and big eyes and horns... Those are the ones I've seen illusions of people scrying. Cantors vary in the color of their fur and the shape of their ears and tails and not a lot else, but their personalities are really different, probably so petitioners can get matched with a good fit.

Some people say that Marra wants to collect one of every shape of soul, well, limited to shapes that She likes, but that can't be right, too many of Her Regulators used to be Axiomites, there's got to be some duplicates there."

...isn't that the same as being a slave, still? Presumably a serf gets better treatment than a slave, but still, you can't leave either way. Perhaps that her Chaos talking.

There have only been a few dozen children born in the churches of Conrad and Damian, and the manner that they ought to be raised and treated caused a lot of controversy in the church. It would be interesting to find out how Alieta was raised.

"I have never seen outsiders like that before! Most devils and kytons look ugly to me, but it seems like Marran outsiders are beautiful. I think merely being able to see one would have been worth my money." That part wasn't a lie.

"Alright, I'll tell you. The Worldwound was closed when I was young. Mendev was poor already, both because of its cold climate being unsuitable for agriculture and because of demonic devastation. It became even poorer after the Worldwound closed, ironically enough, because the southern countries stopped sending aid to it. There was no reason to.

I was an orphan. I think it's because I'm a half-elf, and that usually means you're an illegitimate child. Elves and humans rarely marry each other. I lived on the streets and learned how to survive by stealing and tricking others. I was poor, but even then, I remember...wanting pleasurable things. I remember the taste of the food we would swipe from the shops, or the feel of the cloaks and jackets we would steal from people. I was clericed after a string of failed heists. I remember being angry over not being fulfilled, over not being able to satisfy my desires. I was discerning in my tastes even though I had nothing to choose from. I think that was what caused Damian to see me and cleric me, in the end. He cares deeply about people...paying attention to what makes them feel good and what doesn't. What appears beautiful to them and what doesn't. I live a very comfortable life now, working for the church."

She pauses for a moment before continuing. "I think that many people stop thinking when they get something that gives them pleasure, whereas I thought about how that pleasure might be heightened or extended or flavored. Damian pays attention to that, and it's something that we give a lot of thought as clerics. The exact way something feels. How the experience of me seeing the color red might be totally different to your experience seeing that color. I'm not sure whether it's a Chaotic thing or a Conradian and Damianite thing, but our churches pay much more attention to specific sensations to pursue or frames of mind to adopt rather than sets of tenets to follow or guidelines to obey."

"Woah, so you didn't even know about Damian's church when you were chosen? I didn't know that was possible!

Was being frustrated necessary? I imagine that if you had been indulged in everything as a child, you wouldn't have grown to appreciate pleasures as much. People are so bad at appreciating things. But if you had been calmly given things to enjoy as rewards for being correctly appreciative... I guess that takes mind-reading magic that most people don't have access to.

Your focus on mindset makes sense. We care about mindset too, like being vain about things, selecting which emotions you want to follow and which you want to reject, having habits of thought to remind us of our duties... I guess vanity is the best example of an emotion we're supposed to have.

It doesn't seem like a Chaotic thing to me? Like, we optimize our feelings and follow rules, Neutral optimizes feelings, and Chaos optimizes feelings and rejects rules? That's how I usually think about it."

"It's possible, provided that you are sufficiently aligned with the god's principles. Many gods do choose to pay attention to when mortals invoke Their name, though.

Perhaps, but perhaps not. Damian was a rich noble in before His ascension, and he was still able to cultivate that same attention to sensation that we train ourselves to do. I'm not sure that approach would work, though." She can't tell exactly what's wrong with it, but it just...is way too Lawful. It emanates Law. That's totally how she expected a Lawful person would react. Hm. She should probably think on why that is. She should have prepared Fox's Cunning too.

"Hm. Something about that does not quite sound right to me, although I cannot exactly pinpoint where the issue is. I think it has to do with the sense of obligation. The way you phrase things implies that you are...reshaped and reformed to fit a mold. Whereas for us, the desire is already there, and it's that we lack the training to get what we want. Or perhaps it is that our desire has been suppressed or was laying dormant somehow, and must be awoken. It's why we are very selective in choosing which people get to enter our church, whereas Marra accepts everyone who accepts Her and Her tenets. We do not reshape, but merely preselect which souls are already correctly shaped.

Both Conrad and Damian are fine with not everyone following Their tenets and worshipping Them, but only that those souls who are worthy of them and would be unfulfilled without Their presence in their lives be...'rescued' from their plight and shown to Them. Does that make sense to you? I get that the way I phrased it is rather confusing, but I'm not sure how to phrase it better. It's a sensation similar to pity, I think. When...the potential of someone is wasted. Yes, I believe that's a better way to put it. They do not want the potential of worthy people to be wasted, and wish for them to be able to enter the church."

Yes, she really needs Fox's Cunning. Damianite theological instruction does not really go in depth with regard to theory, in all honesty.

"It's not that we reject rules, but we have more faith in the judgment of our fellow worshippers than we do in systems. Systems and rules have a limited ability to adapt to context. If I feel that doing X would be better than doing Y, then I will do X, even if precedent calls for doing Y. We are able to adopt this because we are selective in who gets to enter. We can assume competence and good faith from them."

"I suppose Marra also finds some souls more naturally suitable than others. I think we should scry Her realm more to figure out whether souls that come to Her more vain and obedient and dutiful produce stronger marranai, and by how much, and how many lesser souls they're worth, but that would take centuries at least... All of Her currently finished marrenai came to her from other afterlives, finished or almost finished.

Suppose we were to make a deal that I'll teach you to stand on your hands and you make me a perfume, but then, say, I lose my sense of smell. So we need to renegotiate, right? If there's no rule saying how we work it out, why should I expect you to behave reasonably? Maybe you decide that since I won't appreciate the perfume, you don't have to do anything anymore. That doesn't seem fair to me; I think one better option might be for you to pay me what would have been the cost of the perfume, in money, plus a bit extra for not needing as much materials. Maybe. I don't know how making perfume works, maybe that's not reasonable. But anyway, why would you pick a reasonable resolution? I feel like you're saying you would do it because you like me or something. And you want me to rely on your emotional state! What if you stop liking me once I can't appreciate your perfume art anymore? What if your emotional intuitions of what is reasonable differ from my emotional intuitions? I don't think this system works!

And I think you're imagining that if we were both Marrans, the rules would get in the way, that you would have to make the perfume exactly as requested, even if it were customized to me, and then I would have to find a buyer for it. But that's not how it would work. Because we follow the rules of negotiating in what I would call "good faith", we would try to figure out a clause to put in our contract that we would have agreed to earlier. If for some reason we couldn't communicate, we would at least do something like what we would expect the other would agree to, avoiding irreversible actions if possible, and work it out later. And if we couldn't even do that, we would at least know that we would both obey the ruling of our closest common superior in our hierarchy."

"Hm. Your system works, but we do not work like that in the church. If you lost your sense of smell, we would try to use Remove Anosmia/Ageusia on you to try to recover it. But ignoring that, I would have offered to do something else for you, like make you a medicated ointment or lotion or perhaps make cosmetics for you, if you use makeup.

With us, it is something similar to liking each other, but not quite. We are taught to care about ourselves and our pleasure. But when we get inducted into the church, we say that part of our souls are given to others, and a part of others invested in us. That is figurative and symbolic, of course, you can't do that to a soul without destroying it. What it means is that a portion of what I value is now what is valued by others in the church, by virtue of them being in the church also, and likewise them in myself.

It is similar to how, in a good family, members of the family look out for one another and take into account their interests and desires, without having to make explicit arrangements for it. It is the same with us. Were you to join our church, I would treat you as though you were an old friend or a cousin despite us never having interacted before. You would not need to renegotiate with me because it's likely that I would feel pity for you in that situation and offer to do something else at no additional cost.

That may seem extremely Neutral Good to you, but it's not quite. We do not extend this treatment to people outside the church, and we are encouraged but not obliged to help others in ways not directly related to missions the church gives us. The bare minimum is for us not to harm others in the church in our time off. I am treating you nicely regardless of what I might feel about you only because of what upsetting you might do, and the benefits that may be incurred to me if I am in good standing with you. Good people treat all others as being moral patients, whereas we only treat people inside the church as moral patients. We value outsiders only insofar as they might benefit us. That doesn't mean being impolite though – it's unwise to antagonize people for no reason.

How do I explain more clearly...what I'm referring to is the sort of bond that you get when you undertake many trials with someone for a long time. You get a sense that they will have your interests at heart, or at the very least will not take advantage of your vulnerability around them. Have you felt that way before? In our case, it is enforced through our soul contracts. Conrad and Damian will strip them of their contracts and related powers if they attempt to harm others in the church or betray our trust. And, of course, we will send hunters to ensure they die a painful death."

"Yeah, that sounds like Good.

Marrans have tried to make contracts to take each other's interests as their own. Not a whole church, just two people! And even that hasn't worked. Mortals just aren't capable of fully understanding other people. For sure, intelligent marrenai are able to rule over lesser beings... But two mortals of roughly equal abilitystats can't optimize each other, and certainly can't fulfill their duties at the same time.

Marra is the god of Paternalism, so we try really hard, at one-directional optimization where the optimizer puts a lot of time and effort into it, and the domain is limited. That works pretty well. I'm very glad that my father is optimizing my wizarding progression, for example.

I don't think the kind of 'good family' you're talking about actually exists. I mean, I'm sure they try, I'm sure there are people who think they're succeeding. But 'friendship' is a bad idea." It's also heretical for Marrans, but that's obviously not going to convince a non-Marran.

It seems like Felicia really has a Good outlook on life. It's not surprising that she's Evil (if it's true that she's Evil), since being properly Good requires exhausting vigilance and lots of people try and fail, but it is kind of surprising that she's an Evil cleric, and that Damian is Evil.

Wait, take a step back.

Obviously the ways other gods do things are weird and messed up. So what if Damian wants His followers to have a sort-of-Good mindset and stick to that mindset at the expense of a sensible system, no matter how much pointless suffering it causes them. Okay. He can do whatever he likes with His followers. And His actions are certainly both chaotic and Evil!

Huh, why isn't Sarenrae Evil then? She makes Her followers drown themselves in their altruistic feelings and let their bodies be dragged around by every passing current. But She and Her followers obey the strictures of Good, and so She's Good just because of that? Wow.

Up to now, Alieta hadn't realized that the difference between Good and Evil was so arbitrary. She had thought it mostly about altruism, which just showed why Evil was better than Good, because Evil people are allowed to be altruistic when they feel like it. Evil isn't limiting like Good is.

She had had wary respect for Iomedae, who has very different values than Marra but still makes sense, and had considered the other Good gods as boringly pathetic. But it's worse: the Good gods are just cheating! Well. Making use of one's superiors for one's own purposes is a virtue according to Marra. Pharasma is the other gods' superior and if they can exploit Her, okay, fine, it's not Alieta's problem.

But she feels a flash of hatred (which she immediately focuses on and erases, since it's not an emotion she wants) for every Good person who has ever acted like they had a profound insight into life that meant that they should have the right to steal her away and reshape her.

It's really so unfair that Evil clerics get useless negative-energy channeling.

She perks up when Felicia mentions the soul contacts and the hunters. It's terrifying to think of being punished so severely without rules stated in advance, but at least the Damianites are trying to have some accountability.

"Fascinating.

Thank you for explaining your church to me. I have never had friends, no - Marra forbids it - but I think I understand much better now.

Is there anything else you would like to talk about?"

"Yes, I would think that we are both good and Good to each other in the church. Our Evil is always directed outwards. And the 'good family' you're talking about does exist – I'm living it right now, but I understand if the thought seems implausible to you." Her Eagle's Splendor is working overtime to make her not sound extremely shady when she says that.

Really? Marra forbids friends? Hm, well, that isn't surprising, actually. Asmodeus also forbids friends.

"Our church has had debates over how children born into the church ought to be treated and raised, and what their status is is the church before becoming an adult and upon becoming an adult. What was your childhood like? You were born to Marran parents and raised by the church, yes? That's how you got your wizard education, which is expensive.

Our church tests both children and new converts to see what sort of role might be suitable for them. For example, people who have an Intelligence of at least 14 are considered for wizard education. Those with Intelligence 12 are eligible for training to be magi, if they happen to be Strong or Dexterous also. We have been struggling to find a good compromise between our ideals of permitting free exit and freedom of association, but also not hampering the development and training of children which, while not soulsold, are still a part of the church."

It's been an issue for a while now. One of the reasons they want to have a church in a civilized area is so that people who have babies can leave the church to raise their children without involving the church in their raising. Their current policy is that children are given free training similar to a non-soulsold initiate, but that means that, if they choose to leave without selling their soul, they'll have to erase all their memories. Since they were raised in the church, that would mean giving them total amnesia. Damian, in His mortal life, developed a spell that could erase large swathes of episodic memory, which he derived from the spells Amnesia and Modify Memory.

If they had a church in a civilized area, the children could grow apart from the church, and the church would not need to give them education for free (although they would provide it at discounted prices for a soulsold member). The children would then have the option of joining, if they are found worthy, once they reach adulthood. No memory erasure required.

"Mm.

How do your debates work? We argue lots, but there's always a final authority. Do you have that?

My childhood was great! ...as far as I can tell. It will be decades before we can be sure.

There are lots of opinions on how to raise Marran children. Our leader randomly chose for me to have a caretaker when I was little, who I was allowed to get attached to, while I trained in emotional regulation. Uh, leader, not cleric; this was before Marra ascended. I was encouraged to explore everything I was interested in, as are Marran adults in most groups. Everyone was directed to teach me anything I wanted, for free, and that's less common. When I was 10, right after Her ascension, I cast my first cantrip, Prestidigitation, and the newly-chosen Almas cleric decided that I would study to be a proper first circle wizard. We already had a scroll of Infernal Healing, for emergencies, and she bought me Crafter's Fortune. I was assigned to our current cleric, Meicona, who split off to travel the Sellen. One reason was that, once I had mastered my new spells, I could help fund the new group.

The other reason was the theory that travel and change would be good for a child. All my superiors at the time were concerned about my loyalty. I formed attachments easily. Oh, to be precise, caring about people is not forbidden, only becoming emotionally dependant on them. I mean the bad kind of "attachment". Anyway, right then, I was loyal, very loyal. But my mindset was wrong and they were worried I would rebel when I was older.

My caretaker informed me that when we left, in a month, she would go someplace else and I would never see her again in our mortal lives. She would help train me to me release my emotions towards her. After we parted, if I was emotionally distressed by her absence, I would be punished.

I did perfectly.

They took a few months to make sure the lesson had stuck and hadn't damaged me, then started seriously investing in my training. My father researched magic and guided me to reaching second circle when I was 21. I continued studying the artforms that I had liked as a child - dancing, acting, illusions (when I had an extra Silent Image), and acrobatics - but no longer got special treatment.

The next five years were unexciting. The group almost doubled in size, now that I could sell my spells in the same volume as our cleric.

So, third circle has some useful spells to sell and some extremely useful ones for our own purposes, including recruitment. And getting me to third circle would allow us to afford to recruit a lot more. You see, Marra never abandons anyone. Accepting a new follower is a permanent commitment. So we needed to budget carefully, and take our time deciding whether to risk pushing me to third circle.

At 26, I met my assigned cantor, Kireh. Before, I had only briefly spoken with another cantor as part of a group receiving guidance and getting cantors assigned for future use. This was my first time with a summon all for myself. We can get a wizard to third circle without combat, but it's psychologically hard and they really didn't want to damage me, so they needed to check that I could handle it.

It took two years of intermittent training to reach third circle. That was six years ago. Since then we've tripled in size. I'm now considered critical enough that, even though my loyalty is no longer in question, I talk to Kireh annually. I'm not perfect, but I'm living excellently.

Going beyond third circle requires combat, as far as we know; the failure rate from torture is too high. We don't quite have enough savings for me to leave for years on end to seek adventure, yet, but it would be really awesome if I could get to fifth circle. I could bring in a lot of money with a group that visits bigger cities."

"You have magi? Do you have to fight a lot?"

"Oh, my parents. I was not actually born Marran. My father escaped slavery in Isger and crossed the mountains to Andoran with me when I was tiny. By himself! It turns out there are people who help slaves over the mountains but he didn't find that out until he was halfway down the Foam river and someone recognized his accent and gave him passage to Almas, where he joined the church. He was worried he was damned, in particular for leaving my mother behind."

"Yes, we have a final authority. The High Priest of each church has final authority on what happens to those under them. However, we are reluctant to use that power of final decision unless absolutely necessary."

Ten...hm, halfling age slower than humans. That's quite early.

"Hm, we also discourage emotional attachments, but we don't forbid it." Her god is emotionally attached to another god, after all. It would be rather heretical to forbid it. Not that the Damianites would forbid such a thing, but she could see the Conradians doing that. They're much more zealous about the self-sufficiency thing.

Her jaw drops when she mentions how her caretaker was told to abandon her. Wow. One of the advantages to being an orphan (to the extent being an orphan affords you advantages) is that you don't form a connection with your parents. There is no feeling of loss. She's not sure she would have taken that as well as her, as Wise as she might be in her adulthood now. Her enhanced Splendor lets her catch herself early and recover.

"I'm not sure about Marran privacy norms, but I might request Kireh when I request my Planar Inquiry, so that I can ask them about you and what life in the Marran afterlife is like."

Another jaw-dropping moment, although her mouth doesn't open this time. Being able to get wizards to third-circle without combat!? She can't imagine what that might have took. Infernal Cheliax – this is one of the subjects she had to study in seminary, because of its importance to her god – was only able to get up to second-circle in its wizard students. Both Conrad and Damian graduated as first-circle-but-close-to-second in their mortal lives. She can't imagine how much experimentation and study it must have taken for Marra and her followers to have developed such a training regimen.

She really wants to ask about how they do that, but she's pretty sure that would be a closely guarded secret. And the process involved would likely be something only a select few people would want.

"Yes, fifth-circle is a great milestone, since Teleports will net you a lot of money. Not to mention its value in logistics for your church. We have about two dozen fifth-circle wizards between our two churches." Oop. Should she have mentioned that? Oh well, it's not a big reveal. Teleportation is of particular importance to them because there's no way into the church via mundane methods. The headquarters is more than a hundred feet into mountain stone, and it is hermetically sealed from the outside. The only way to get in or out is to Dimension Door. It used to be open to the outside in the very early days, but they have since closed and filled all the passages.

"Yes, we do. Demons no longer pour out of the Worldwound, since it doesn't exist anymore, but Sarkoris Scar still has many demons prowling in it. Demons don't die of old age. We fight them to clean up the Worldwound of Abyssal corruption, and also for developing channeling capacity." Very similar to Infernal Cheliax, now that she's thinking about it.

"Magi are of particular importance to Conradians, since Conrad was an eldritch knight in his mortal life, and He advocates for people to have both martial and magical skill. People who are Smart as well as Strong are encouraged to become magi, or perhaps eldritch knights. Being able to train as the latter is particularly prestigious for the Conradians. 

As for us, we are only able to train people up to the first-circle without combat. More accurately, without risk. In the lower circles, we've found that it's possible to develop channeling capacity from enduring harsh conditions without being in combat proper. Sarkoris Scar is an inhospitable place, and we have to train ourselves to brave storms, blizzards, slippery ice, and the effects of lingering Abyssal corruption. Low-circle wizards are placed far away from combat until second-circle, using only medium or long ranged spells, as well as casting helpful magic before battle. We've found that to be a good balance between speed of development and lethal risk.

We do the same for clerics, even though it's not strictly necessary. Developing channeling capacity as a cleric yourself makes it easier and less costly for a god to invest in you."

She smiles. "I'm happy you and your father were able to escape from Isger safely."

Oh they at least have a final authority, that's good. Well, no, it's not good, it's none of her business. She clearly has a problem with having inappropriate feelings about how non-Marrans do things. When she finishes her work for the day, she'll need to do some exercises to fix that. And she should probably talk to Meicona about interacting with non-Marrans more, so she's not caught off guard if she goes adventuring in a non-Marran party.

"We don't care about privacy. If I'm uncomfortable with Kireh telling you about me, that's my weakness."

It's cool that they have fifth-circle wizards! "How many of your wizards die getting to fifth circle?"

Why is Felicia saying that she's happy that Alieta is safe? For Marrans, she could be exercising kindness towards a subordinate, or revealing emotion to a superior focusing on her emotional development. Neither makes sense...

She's probably lying? Customers sometimes say nice things to her that they don't mean; it's probably like that. Alieta usually says something nice back, with the understanding that this is just a polite custom in Andoran business transactions, and does not violate the Marran prohibition on lying, but she doesn't want any risk of lying here.

Customers of healing are sometimes genuinely emotional and need to be led out by the guards. That's not the right approach here either.

With a blank face - by universal Marran standards, a lack of expression is never considered a lie, but faking an emotion is - she nods solemnly.

She thinks about that for a moment. She doesn't know the exact numbers, but she can estimate.

"We have a large number of wizards proportionally. In absolute numbers, we don't have enough such that I could answer your question reliably." And because...it's not a guarded secret per se, but it does touch on unit strengths so maybe she shouldn't talk about it? "Many of our wizards, especially the high-circle ones, joined from before They ascended, and I think your question is meant to ask about the death rates starting from a student trained by us. Sadly, I don't remember that information off the top of my head.

Wizards can fight at long range and have little need for weapon training, so they're actually safer than magi, even though they are less Enduring. That's true of all short range fighters in general.

Have you been in combat before? Does the Marran church teach you weapon skills or combat spells? I dislike fighting, but I was required to fight demons in a scouting party as part of my seminary training. Both far away using spells and a crossbow, and also with my spiked chain." It was an unpleasant experience she doesn't feel like repeating – she's not really the violent sort of person or the sort that enjoys that type of thing – but in general she'd say that that was an edifying experience for her.

"Well, I think our cleric would be interested in knowing whether sending me to fight for you would be better than sending me adventuring. Loosely, out of curiosity, do you know whether you are short on power, and so would pay for my help, or are you short on enemies, and so would charge for my use of them?

Do your wizards grow at the same rate as they would if they were in more danger?

I've never been in a real fight, although we run drills for it. I practice with my dagger and light crossbow, but I don't have any remarkable skill with either. I have about a dozen combat spells, some subset of which are listed for sale. The others, if any, are intended as a surprise for attackers."

The list on the desk includes Mage Armor, (Communal) Protection From Good, Expeditious Retreat, Hydraulic Push, Magic Missile, Pilfering Hand, (Communal) Resist Energy, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Protection From Energy, and Fireball, and mentions that Alieta can cast Merciful spells that are unlikely to kill the target.

"So, I'm not sure whether that would work, since that would either involve us letting you into our headquarters which would cause lots of problems, or set up a camp nearby which would have its own set of problems. We only permit worthy initiates into our headquarters, not people we want to hire. At least, that's how it would work if we were operating under the auspices of the church. There would be no restriction on you joining an adventuring party of soulsold laypeople or ordained people who struck out on their own, although the church would not be responsible for anything that happened to you. In any case, we definitely wouldn't charge you. There are many, many demons in Sarkoris Scar, still, and it will likely take decades or centuries to clear them out.

I'm not sure. Testing that would involve putting them in more danger. Some of them do decide to get closer to the action – we don't stop them. They do tend to reach higher circles earlier, from our limited statistics, although we're not sure whether that's because of them being exposed to more danger or because they tend to study harder. It seems that merely being exposed to danger is not enough to develop channeling capacity, or at least is only one component of it: being pushed to the edge of your abilities seems to be closer to what triggers it."

She takes a look at the spells for sale, and is confused.

"Is it that you're selling wands or scrolls of these? Or offering them to be copied?" Surely she can't be selling these for a person to hire her, bring her to a fight, and ask her to cast Magic Missile once and leave.

"Interesting. Do you have a reason to cast Merciful spells? Very few of us bother to learn it. In the case of dueling or training, we have Merciful weapons for fighters and Merciful rods for casters.

I've heard that Marra was a wizard in Her mortal life. Did She leave behind or create any spells? We have a few spells that Damian and Conrad taught our wizards, although They focused on item creation. It's Their research and work that let us live at Sarkoris Scar comfortably."

"Is the problem with bringing in unapproved people something that could be fixed by me swearing an oath?" Is it just that they aren't used to dealing with Lawful people who can keep secrets, so Felicia didn't think of that, or is it a religious issue of not having the right mindset... "In any case, joining an independant party from your church might also be useful!

It's too bad you don't have better data. Our methods also involve pushing people to do difficult things. Real danger is not required, but real desperation is.

We sell wands, scrolls, castings, and copies, with prices by circle as listed. I don't know why anyone would buy a single casting of Fireball, but they could if they wanted! Maybe they need to test some armor? You can hire me for combat, although no one ever has, for the cost of all my spells for the day and additional money for the danger, to be negotiated case-by-case.

Our law is that if we save or spare someone's life, they belong to us. Even if they don't cooperate in life, we want to be able to send their soul to Marra, if they're Lawful Evil, which requires a mostly-intact body. This is especially useful if we acquire a devout Asmodean whose soul Marra can trade to Asmodeus for the soul of a lost Marran. So far this has only happened in isolated incidents, since Asmodeans do not currently have a systematic campaign against us, but it's only a matter of time before Marra becomes popular enough among Lawful Evil people that they realize we're a threat, and when that happens, they will be limited to fighting us with clerics, soulsold, or people they don't mind exposing to our 'heresy'.

Also, in some cities, a fight where no one dies breaks fewer laws.

Marra gives Her clerics the specialized spell for summoning cantors, and a first-circle version of Detect Thoughts limited to touch. If She has other spells, they're secret. In life, she focused on using ordinary mindreading and pain to train people to think properly and grow their skills."

"Yes. You would simply be told not to talk about anything you observed about our headquarters. However, even if you were a Lawful outsider, it would take a massive change on our part to let you into our inner fastness just like that. We respect oaths – we still consider breaking your word to be bad – but we only swear to time-bounded oaths, or oaths with exit clauses and conditions. We would never swear to or expect someone to swear to an unbounded oath that could last even after death, such as this secrecy oath.

It's possible that you could adventure with me in the future. After I'm done with my mission here, I've been planning on staying away from the church for a while and perhaps living here. It's so warm and pleasant. I've lived my whole life in cold countries. You're permitted to work for the church and leave as you please once you're soulsold or ordained, but only in between missions.

Fascinating! I did not know that Marra traded with Asmodeus for souls like that. Is it a one-to-one ratio, or are some souls valued more than others? I wish you the best in your campaign against Asmodeus. If our churches make a deal to become allies, we would likely sell you magic arms and armor at very favorable prices."

Eagle's Splendor wears off. She should probably leave soon so she doesn't say something untoward without its enhancement.

"I don't know the exact terms of Marra and Asmodeus's deal. When She ascended She sent a vision to Her first cleric confirming that Her plan to work something out with Him had succeeded, and describing our funeral rites, that's all.

What is your church's stance on Asmodeus?"

She looks back to steal a glance at the outside.

"Sadly, I must be going soon. But I'll answer your question before I go.

We are taught a lot about Asmodeus and Asmodean theology in seminary because it plays a key role in the development of Damian and Conrad. They were born and raised in Infernal Cheliax, and trained and fought as their wizards at the Worldwound. We find Asmodeus's policies appalling, although we are not in direct conflict with them. Like with you, we expect that as our churches expand, we would conflict with them because we would want to 'rescue' worthy people from their grasp and let them try living like us.

It's important to us that initiates be given a clear and unvarnished view of what life is like in the church before joining us, but Asmodeus deceives His own followers. Further, Asmodeus approves of torture to reform and correct behavior, but we prefer to use milder methods. Asmodeus also expects people to just tolerate pain and pay no attention to it, but Damian wants His followers to have a comfortable life. There are more issues, but those are the main ones. The Conradians have a similar but slightly different set of complaints. Their chief complaint is that Asmodeus is interested in keeping His followers weak, so that they can be controlled, whereas Conrad wishes for all His followers to grow to their fullest strength."

She bows deeply again, but for a shorter while.

"It has been nice talking to you. I look forward to seeing you again soon."

She takes the items she bought, which had been left on the table, with her.

Aww, they were just about to have a fun conversation about the uses of negative reinforcement!

Tos said the other guy left the conversation abruptly, too, huh.