“...thank you. And that’s where you spotted signs that someone was tampering with the seal that should keep the world safe from Tar-Baphon?”

“The Great Seal of Gallowspire was laid by the greatest hands that remained in Avistan when the dust had settled on Tar-Baphon’s trapped body and soul. It was a working unlike any other, that would bind the lich where he lay whatever power was exerted against it. To lend their strength to the great seal, three lesser seals were forged, and distributed among the nations that had led the Crusade to its great victory. One to Taldor, one to the dwarves of Kraggadon, and one to Lastwall, the new-founded crusader state, with its mission to watch over Tar-Baphon’s tomb in perpetuity. Only if all three seals are destroyed could the Great Seal be broken, or so our ancestors believed.”

Ahnkamen talks distractingly like she's in a fantasy novel. Three rings for the elven-kings under the sky - don't get distracted.

“But they were wrong?” asks Iomedae. 

“I believe that whoever manipulated one of the lesser seals did so in order to introduce a vulnerability in the greater one. A vulnerability which might permit Tar-Baphon, while he remains trapped, to extend his influence back into our world.”

“And who manipulated the lesser seal?”

“Only a god can say, and only a fool pretends not to know. The dwarves of Kraggadon have always done their sacred duty, guarded their seal day and night, deep below ground and far from the influence of Avistan’s troubles and terrors. The people of Lastwall have stood their watch nine hundred years, and observed the trouble through close observance of their own seal. And the third seal is kept in Westcrown, in Cheliax, ruled by Hell and presently at war."

She pauses. "Cheliax would have to be very foolish to imagine that Tar-Baphon’s release would serve them long.”

“And they are very foolish,” says Iomedae.

"Indeed, they are."

Kalves is out doing the planting. It's rained and the mud has soaked through his boots, leaving his toes with a squishy sensation which is currently pleasant but which will by nightfall have him badly blistered. He's working anyway, where the fields have good enough drainage to allow it, because if you don't work everyone starves.

Around midday a demon steals over him with great suddenness; it tells him coldly, in his mind, to slip away from the field at the first opportunity no one will notice, and then to start running, and he is powerless to disobey; while he flails helplessly against his limbs they move him away from the fields, and into the woods, where he assumes they will lead him to die. He pleads with the demon that he has a wife and children, that he is a good man; he calls on Erastil, and on Iomedae, and on his ancestors in Heaven who are now angels and should defend him. At first he prays for them to save him. Then he prays to die quickly and not become some kind of demon thing.  His legs move under an alien power, through the woods and up the hill and to the castle, and all his desperate effort and all his prayers are useless.

He reaches the castle. 

"I'd like to set up a meeting with Cansellarion," the demon says through his mouth.

"On what business?" The man might be one of the local peasants, in which case the steward can hear whatever complaint he has, or he might be an adventurer in disguise. They get so many adventurers in disguise here.

"That's secret," says the demon speaking through Kalves. "It'll be worth his time." 

Disguised adventurer, then. They'll fetch one of the paladins.

"If you surrender to me, I will take you to meet Cansellarion after confirming that this is not an assassination attempt."

"Your assurance I'll be free to leave at any time, and not subject to any magic that would oblige or encourage me to disclose anything, and no advantage intentionally derived from your custody," says Kalves, who doesn't even know most of those words.

"You will be free to leave, and until you leave will not be subject in the to any magic except with your agreement, both of these conditional on you doing nothing to betray these negotiations."

"May I use this intermediary or do you require that I show up in person."

"...You will need to show up in person. And release this man."

Fucking paladins.

The last few days of Lilia’s life were very unpleasant, and she is very aware that a person like Lilia but less loyal to her mother would have spent the last day screaming at her mother for getting her into the situation, and then retired to a beach somewhere in Tian Xia. This would be stupid and contemptible of them, of course. Yelling at her mother would not improve anything, and Lilia will at this point only have safety when Hell’s grip on Cheliax is broken and may as well try to see that done as soon as possible.

She still feels a twist of misery in the pit of her stomach when the next steps become clear, because they will involve being helpless again, and she is very tired of that.

She releases the Dominate. She goes to Cansellarion's fortress. She surrenders to his paladins. She does not give her name. These people are presumably supposed to be competent to keep a secret like that, but that doesn't mean much, and in any event she expects that even with paladins one is safer if the people taking one prisoner don't know that they hate you, that they'll be more polite and more respectful as they search you thoroughly for magic items and magical contingencies and bind your hands and feet with reinforced steel and cast divinations (this woman is Lawful Evil, and powerful), and consult with people somewhere else. 

The steel is surprisingly upsetting - no, not surprisingly. The last time this happened to her she did not survive it. 

(If that happens this time Myrabelle will save her. Probably.)

They ask her permission for a Teleport, and then take her to a windowless room in a Mage’s Private Sanctum. There are comfortable chairs. Cheliax would have her kneeling on the floor. She prefers Cheliax’s way.

She looks like her mother, which means there's really only one or two people she could be. He asks anyways.

“Alright, you have my attention,” Cansellarion says, half-expecting her to try to murder him in some horrible way they failed to prepare for. “Who are you, and what can we do for each other?”

Has he never landed a scry on her? How disappointing. She knows his face. (She's not usually unscryable, though she does always have Detect Scrying up so she can start lying when a scry lands.)

"Lilia Ramona de Montero," she says. "Are you hiring?"

"Not for sensitive roles. Why give your name?"

"Abrogail had me executed, and believes me to be in Hell. I'm not all that worried you're going to tell her otherwise."

“Did they send you to Hell before or after you decided to defect - and why do you assume they don’t know you aren’t, I thought they have enough communication with Hell to check things like that.”

"Before. I’m not going to tell you why. Agents I knew of are still in place, and I don’t expect that to change until our actions bring it to their attention.”

"Alright. What do you want for your cooperation? Atonement? Petrification? Gold?"

She is too Chelish to do much in the way of facial expressions but there's a slight tightening around her eyes that means contempt. "I want to watch House Thrune burn.

- also amnesty, and some assurance that if I someday require a favor worth much less than what I've offered you, you'll try reasonably hard to make it happen." This is a contemptible way to conduct negotiations but she's pretty sure it's how Lawful Good people do it.