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In Which Korvosans Rally & The Dead Envy The Living
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And, (in a near-perfect imitation of Toff Ornelos's voice),

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"Swear to it! With Abadar as your witness, and may Hell take you if your dastard intent was to deceive!"

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...That's not what my voice sounds like.

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Well, I didn't want to sound too spot-on.

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It wasn't even close!

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I remember that Glorio was talking to you with telepathy and said we could truthspell him.

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We were speaking telepathically albeit in a fairly roundabout way; he was reading my mind with detect thoughts but had a different rakshasa relaying things between the two of us using message (possibly an invisible rakshasa to arouse less suspicion? that'd make sense). He did say we could subject him to truthtelling, though. 

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Right! Because it was sus as fuck that Malia didn't volunteer for one right away! 

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Glorio Arkona is just loving how these freaks suddenly forgot everything but the broadest brush-strokes of what they were doing.

Why did he even bother trying to charm them by talking smack of the dhruva jivita? All of that for basically nothing. 

The next message Lyvina gets says that Glorio would of course be happy to be subjected, in a private interrogation room, to whatever tests and divinations they think appropriate - Abadar's truthtelling, detect thoughts, give him the whole nine yards! And since Abadar is on everyone's mind here, how'd it feel to get ahead of the WBL chart? Because he can get you way ahead of the WBL chart. If you pocketed his purse, who would he complain to, the cops?

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...And what do you want from us in exchange, Archbanker?

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It seems germane to here mention how in this version of Golarion everyone can tell when a spell is being cast in front of them, but not necessarily what that spell is.

Korvosa, being a city where wizards carry cultural cachet, has no strong norm against casting spells in public--but it's the kind of thing that, depending on context, might make people antsy or prompt a bodyguard to attempt interrupting the spell. It's polite and helps avoid misunderstandings for a wizard to say "I'm going to cast prestidigitation" before doing so, or to simply step out of the room for a moment, since for all anyone without ranks in spellcraft knows you could be planning to cast almost anything. 

This is why the Arkonas, in setting up their message relay, relied on the long range of the spell; anyone in the relay without one feat or another to cast surreptitiously first slipped out of sight, and they did all the finger-pointing too.

This hasn't seemed important to note before, but while I know I had it in mind as a constraint earlier on in the scene it must have slipped my mind by the time Glorio and Ileosa cast message on each other in public (Glorio probably has some trick to cast without making it obvious (not in his printed statblock from 3.5, which is mainly what I've been using for him. Nonetheless.) but wouldn't want to demonstrate it) which made me think I should write this down explicitly. 

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Toff Ornelos has 17 hitdice, one level of Aristocrat, and more INT than some of the dumber gods. 

This means that Toff a) has a lot of skill ranks, and over the years he's thrown exactly 17 of them at Sense Motive (a class skill for Aristocrats) (bringing his bonus to +19, on par with the average rakshasa's Bluff), and, b) is no dummy.

The prior probability of a human knowing how to prepare message and having it prepared, or casting like a sorcerer and knowing that spell specifically, is low. Let's call it zero percent. Whereas the prior probability of a rakshasa having the spell is apparently one hundred fucking percent on account of how all of these people are rakshasa and all of them know the spell.

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...With the possible exception of Glorio Arkona, who is either a rakshasa or an exceptionally good liar. Call it fifty-fifty.

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Toff Ornelos wants to eavesdrop on this conversation and is an eighth-circle wizard, and much more often than not an eighth-circle wizard can solve a given problem they encounter by staring at their character sheet for long enough, which caused Toff's writer to try thinking of how Toff could do it, which caused said writer to remember that message is a great spell for eavesdropping on whispered conversations ("you point your finger at each creature you want to receive the message. When you whisper, the whispered message is audible to all targeted creatures [...] creatures that receive the message can whisper a reply that you hear." so if you cast the message on someone surreptitiously, you can hear whatever it is that they whisper) which caused said writer to realize that this solution would have occurred to the Arkonas too, since they're quite familiar with the spell in question, so the Arkonas should have done something else instead, which caused OTOLMENS to HOVER ANXIOUSLY making NOISE about PLOT HOLES and TAG DELETION and suggesting we change message so that it offers a SAVING THROW and isn't as VERSATILE but then I realized that wasn't necessary because you can use Bluff to pass a secret message and the average Rakshasa has +20 to Bluff and makes that check on a roll of one. 

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So Toff Ornelos is listening, yes, but isn't able to make much sense of what he's hearing.

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(Well, he has a minion listening and reporting back.)

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He did not speak in error: Toff is listening - to the minion. 

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But Lord Toff Ornelos is far and away the smartest person in the room.

He isn't boasting here (although he also isn't not). It's a statement of simple fact. Toff's INT score is closer to thirty than it is 18.

He's paying attention now, and brings the full power of that intelligence to bear on raveling this mystery.

Glorio was passing messages (observation), was trying to worm his fiendish girlfriend's way out of a deserved fate (obvious), Glorio was reading the mind of Toff's blue student (what's her name... A...live..iya?) (inference, and the flimsiest step in the chain of logic: Toff wouldn't have guessed in advance that Glorio could read minds invisibly to arcane sight), Alive-iya was an authority who could contradict him and therefore a constraint in his clumsy maneuvering (observation), after reading her mind he had a coughing fit (observation), therefore she somehow did it to him deliberately (inference), and then her entire group suddenly snapped to like they'd been hit with restoration and the verdant sorcereress said "And we're back", (back from where?), which he evidently finds much more intriguing than does anyone else in the entire Vault (surely all men, insofar as (and to the precise extent to which) they are possessed of minds with which to reason and hearts with which to feel, must see the appeal of Geb's famous institution. For in arcane combination with wizardry of the mere third or fourth circle, banded black chalcedony could elevate and make useful not only this Vault's teeming bodies but also its myriad moron minds), and Glorio had another coughing fit (observation), therefore she again did it to him deliberately (inference).

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Conclusion: Is his student rad? Why did no one ever tell him that his student was rad?

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Further research is necessary. 

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She's spending spells like water, but, sure, she can greater invisibly sneak up on their party with detect thoughts running.

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Master Allesain should start with the kasatha; as a non-caster it will have the feeblest Will. Edge forward to bring it alone within range, and extract what knowledge you can before daring to run a greater risk of notice.

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In the long run the plan is to splash Paladin for Charisma to saves.

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Is... is Altronus Lawful Good?

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Well, not yet, but I've got this whole character arc planned.

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