Sofia adds: "Remember that these people are Good, they will not trick you, they will not hurt, and they really wear their emotions on their sleeves. I mean, you have seen the big angel, he wouldn't be coming along if they detected Evil at all!

You should take some time to look around, see how you feel about this place. If you want to go back, you will be allowed to. Well, maybe not immediately, we don't want to forewarn Hell of anything happening. But you are not prisoners, and if you decide you want to go immediately we could probably find a way to allow that. Somehow.

If you decide to stay, I would like to offer you a job as cultural interpreters, learning about this world and its people and explaining it to the Chelish refugees we will have when the war starts."

"I will stay with you. You can pet me if you want. You can also ask questions about Good, about Evil (although I'm not good at those), and about how Nirvana can help you grow into your best selves (I'm very good at those)."

The Hand follows Cynthia inside the building, with Sana trailing them.

Cynthia takes the Hand into the building, quickly finding a conference room that maybe hosts a dozen people. She rapidly taps on her phone, causing the projector to display a greyish rectangle on the wall. "It won't be too long before they're ready for the discussion. I won't be able to contribute much, so I think I'll walk out once the talking's started."

"Thank you for your service, healer. Your courage and openness has set in motion something Good."

A thomassian officer, wearing a well-fitted suit of combat armor, appears on the projector screen. "We were wanting to siege Cheliax, using the superior range of our weapons to restrict supply lines over large swathes of ground. Do you believe that this is a viable strategy? What do you consider to be their strongest possible response to this approach?"

"The people from Golarion have never seen your level of technology and they will be completely taken by surprise, especially by the sniper rifles, artillery and machine guns.

You can field more soldiers on a short notice than Cheliax can with an extended round of conscription. And they will be volunteers, better equipped and with higher morale.

On the other hand you have no magic, and don't know what to expect from that.

My expectation is that the first thing they'll do is try to get hold of your weapons, by teleporting under invisibility and Dominating or killing everyone they can.

I think our biggest priority is for you to learn all you can about magic, and to get more allies that can protect us from magical attacks."

"They will have access to Wish diamonds, and Pit Fiends to cast them. Not a lot of them, but enough to kidnap your generals if they manage to get their names. You can be Mind Blanked to protect you from that, up to a point.

I think that our best bet is to be quick, have overwhelming force, and topple the Thrunes before Asmodeus can mount a reaction. They have a very disciplined army, but because their obedience is shaped through torture and hate, their forces will have inferior independence, and will be more susceptible to a decapitation strike.

A siege would work, because you have the superiority and can maintain in, as long as they cannot duplicate your weapons -"

"They wouldn't have the technology for that, their weapons are the result of centuries of advances over the best crafters and alchemist in Golarion."

"- then the biggest risk is that they will Dominate your people into attacking each other, sowing doubt into your ranks."

"How many people can get dominated at once? Does the person dominating get access to the information of the person being dominated? What are invisible people invisible to, normal vision or more than that? Is there dangerous magic that works without line of sight, or would staying unseen effectively protect our soldiers?"

"One at the time, but the spell lasts 2 days per circle, so at least 10 days, if not more. You don't get information automatically, but you can command the person to fail their save against Detect Thoughts, and you can receive their sensory inputs, which is very effective for spying.

Invisibility makes people impossible to see with normal vision, but there are spells to work around that - I can See Invisibility for 9 hours each day - and creatures who do not rely on vision can still detect invisible people. It is also possible to just hear someone if they are careless with how they move.

Most magic requires line of sight, but some do not. In particular, a Wish kidnapping can be cast from any plane to any plane, and other effects can move - like a Cloudkill, moving 30 meters each minute, and lasting for 10 minutes.

And a fireball can set you on fire without knowing exactly where you are, if it's close enough. Or if the building is made of wood.

There are also ways to find people, from See Alignment which would reveal you if you are strong enough to show up as Good, to Discern Location, which is able to discern the exact location of a specific person, with no saving except Mind Blank.

That said, remaining invisible is a great strategy, and it will protect you from most things."

"In other words, we can use improved, mundane senses for detecting invisible adversaries. And dominating people sounds like it would be logistically difficult, there's a reason that it sounds like traditional combat remains relevant. But that Wish-kidnapping sounds like a severe danger. It sounds like a costly effect - what kind of wizard is necessary to use it?

How many of those effects do you believe they'd be able to summon? Would it be able to have a different ending point or starting point, hypothetically teleporting a general from here into a plane where they're trapped forever? Or would it only be useful for capturing them as prisoners?"

"Yes, that would probably work. You can also set up an Alarm spell, for a specific location.

With regards to Wishes, they would probably enlist Pit Fiends - strong devils directly from Hell - but they need a diamond about this big " - he indicates with his hand - " for each attempt, although they would be able to try to kidnap up to 18 people.

They can absolutely teleport a general wherever they want, and even do worse things than just trapping them, by turning them into stone, trapping their soul into a gem, having their soul be eaten by a daemon or - the most probable - Maledicting them to Hell where they will be tortured forever until nothing human remains.

I don't have updated information on their fighting force, but there should be less than a thousand wizards in Cheliax, and most of them are going to be low circle ones, not warriors."

Less than a thousand. Uh. Something more to add to the pile of lies she needs to unlearn.

"An Alarm spell can handle the invisibility separately? We could easily set it up in a specific location; our weapons have a simply extreme range, so we wouldn't need many defended in such a way from invisible assailants. Just so we know what to compare it to: what's the range of a bow in relatively inexperienced hands?

How many diamonds sufficient for a Wish do they currently possess? This Malediction business, would you mind explaining this in greater detail? Would common soldiers be able to such a thing? Secondarily, how permanent is being sent to hell. Presumably, Wish would also permit us to kidnap people from hell? Were it not for Wish and our worries about malediction, those thousand wizards sound like they don't make up too much of a threat for modern repeating firearms. Would that assessment be correct?"

"If you can have few positions, we can do better than an Alarm, by putting down a permanent Forbiddance that will hurt all Evil people and forbid anyone from teleporting in. They are very expensive, but we can afford to put down some. A good longbow will easily hit at thirty meters, and become utterly ineffective after three hundred. Some magic bows can do double that. In inexperience hands... I would say sixty meters would be the range.

Their stockpile of diamonds is a very closely guarded secret, not even Heaven knows about the exact number. It is definitely more than one and less than a hundred.

With regards to Malediction, what do you know about afterlives? Common soldiers no, it is a 4th circle cleric spell, they have less than three hundred of them and they cannot have them all fighting, lest they lose control over their population. Being sent to Hell is usually permanent, especially for Malediction. You need a Miracle or Wish, to physically retrieve the soul - which is very hard to do but not impossible, or to convince the original cleric to free the soul. Although sometimes trying multiple times also works, so if you can spend diamonds it will probably be enough. I can personally resurrect a person who has died recently, up to three times per day, but if they have been Maledicted it will only work about half of the times.

My assessment is that a powerful enough wizard is able to deal with anything you can throw at him, but not everything. Repeating firearms would not be an issue for an archmage, because you would never have him in your crosshair. But for anyone who is not one of their very few powerful wizards... yes, a firearm can still be very effective."

"Hand, these people are incredibly rich, if that helps with strategic decisions. Also, I am Evil so please don't demonstrate smiting or Forbiddances while I am around."

"You do not detect as Evil."

"A Forbiddance sounds beyond spectacular. So our soldiers won't have to worry about anyone Evil walking up to or teleporting into their positions. And with the extreme range of their firearms, far far beyond 600 meters, conventional weapons won't be an issue either. We believe that a surprise siege of Cheliax, will be far safer than a decapitation strike and far more reliable than any siege initiated after their knowledge of our presence. 100 diamonds don't sound like they'd be close to enough. That would let them capture, what, less than 2000 soldiers and leave the rest of their wizards and soldiers to be massacred? Not a very sustainable approach.

We were convinced of the nonexistence of afterlives. But if you have convincing evidence of their presence, we'll have to consider that. And if they only have 300 people capable of maledicting, it doesn't sound like it'd be a meaningful problem for our full army, especially considering how difficult them attacking us would be to begin with. If spending multiple diamonds is the only thing needed to reverse a Malediction, we aren't particularly worried. If we started looking, we'd find much more than 100 such diamonds!

And we're not there for their wizards. More relevant than whether we could deal with an archmage is whether an archmage would be able to deal with us sabotaging their ability to control of their population. It doesn't particularly sound like they'd be able to rule all of Cheliax with us having near-perfect control of their supply lines."

"They would not use the Wishes for your soldiers, but for your generals. And that would allow them to grab your secrets and plans. But we can Mind Blank them, and as much as possible avoid the enemy even knowing their names. And give them magic items for further protection.

A resurrection, as opposed to a Wish, requires a smaller diamond.

If you want to see an afterlife with your own eyes, I can bring you to Heaven; moving between planes comes easily to me.

No they would not. I still think that a decapitation strike would be the best choice, but I do not know your strengths and tools, and I believe that mortals should be allowed their free will. I will assist you whatever your plans will be. The things you will probably find most useful are my ability to resurrect three people per day, to heal even severe illnesses, and to fight their strongest warriors and be unassailable by fear and very hard to harm or control with magic."

"If you have even more faith in a decapitation strike than our best plan, presumably because we can be fairly sure of its total success, we gladly defer to you and choose that rather than our plans. And if resurrection only requires a smaller diamond, then that's amazing news.

Mind Blank our best men, give them magical equipment, and tell us where to send them. They will certainly crumble before our unimaginable prowess."