lintamande: Hell is truth seen too late.
- Thomas Hobbes
Carissa Sevar: Character Name: Carissa Sevar Alignment: Lawful Evil. Character Level: 7* Deity: Asmodeus Homeland: Cheliax Class: Wizard* School: Universalist (subschool: Arcane Crafter) Languages: Chelish Taldane (native), Infernal (not fluent)
STR 8CON 10DEX 10INT 22 (18)WIS 14CHA 15Magic Items:
Armillary amulet, headband of vast intelligence +4
Skills:
Spellcraft +23, +27 when producing magic arms and armor, further +5 from armillary amulet, Bluff +16, Knowledge(Arcana) +16, Appraise +13, Sense Motive +12, Knowledge(Religion) +12, Knowledge(nobility) +11, Knowledge(local) +11, Knowledge(planes) +11, Knowledge(geography) +10, Diplomacy +9, Knowledge(history) lol
Feats:
magical aptitudeeschew materialscraft wondrous items craft magic arms and armorskill focus: spellcraftskill focus: bluff
Arcane Discovery:
Traits:
theoretical magicianconvincing liarsuspiciousempty mask
Iarwain: (*) Stealth Cleric: Your character has somehow ended up the cleric of some god, without knowing this about theirself, and their god is laying low. They do not receive cleric spells or orisons or domains and cannot channel, until either their god wills it so, or your character discovers their nature and succeeds in using it. Effects on alignment auras are halved.
Project Lawful: PL-log: Subevent 1 of PL-incident Even She Doesn't Know It
Time: Day 4 / midday
See also: Subevent 12 of PL-incident Wrong Genre Savvy Is Contagious Via Mindreading
Notes: PL-subject #1 is outside Otolmens Containment Zone while event occurs
Epistemic status: Reconstructed by back-inference from cumulative later observation Nethys is still here, Nethys is still everywhere, Nethys is just not together enough to socialize with other gods
Irori: Irori, in His godhood as in his mortality, is not the kind of martial artist who goes around cleaning up others' messes; he is the kind who cleans up his own. He is Lawful Neutral, not Lawful Good.
This is how Irori was in life:
A starving beggar girl is not his own doing, and he may walk on past her without qualm.
If the starving girl begs a gold coin from him, and perchance he gives it to her, and later she is beaten and killed for it, that is also not his concern; she made her own choice to ask. She was too young to know what she did? What of it? All mortals are too young in the end.
If the starving girl begs a copper from him, and instead he foolishly gives her a ruby he feels he has not himself properly earned, thinking mainly of the consequences to himself but not to her, and this starts a chain of events in which the girl is kidnapped by a criminal king and interrogated to find where the ruby came from - then there will be one less criminal king in that city before the next day's dawn. Even if he is young enough, back then, for that to be a dangerous fight, he goes to it without hesitation. It is not that he is protective; it is that he is responsible.
In godhood Irori cannot afford to be so strict with Himself. His actions affect too much for too many. But Irori is still the god who grew out of that mortal - not by being ascended, but by doing it all the hard way.
Irori: A soul that Irori marked for His attention is now calling out to Him, in her hour of trouble and despair.
It is very rare for Irori to intervene, in a case like that. He would not often do so even if He could do it costlessly. To protect mortals from trials is not Irori's Way.
And yet Irori does notice, and investigates, and not only because of the Otolmens connection. For any mortal otherwise strong enough to interest Him, it ought to take extreme conditions to drive her into a state of such utter frantic determination.
This mortal did not ask for Him to meddle in her life, whether by bargaining with Asmodeus or otherwise. Has she come to some greatly ill fate that is His own doing?
Even if so, as a god facing a god's choices, Irori probably cannot afford to do anything about it. Probably all He can do is contemplate His own failure and consider how to do better next time.
But it is impossible that He would not want to know.
Irori: Irori cannot easily see much of the mortal realm, aside from the contents of certain determinations and aspirations among those sufficiently already aligned to His ways. He is looking at minds facing in His own direction. Flesh and stone are shadows. Blurry shadows, not legible ones. He can tell the mortal is in the Imperial palace in Egorian in Cheliax; little more.
The mortal in whose life He meddled thinks that she is facing total extinction, it is the one thing she fears above everything else, and to think one more thought is all of her desire. She is striving with all all all that is inside her, to avoid that one fate, to continue. She is in pain. Another is about her, though Irori cannot well see that one, a being of powerful magic.
That's statistically improbable, to be something that would have happened to the mortal regardless, if Irori's meddling had any effect on her life at all.
...and it is a little extreme as an ill fate of His own doing, to make no effort at all to clean up.
Irori: Of what is she afraid, more specifically? Most mortal fears are hard for Irori to see, but this fear drives her so, drives her even to try to change herself and her way of thinking.
Carissa Sevar: The mortal is afraid of being a statue with runes carved on her, buried where no one will ever find her, trapped until the ultimate destruction of the world.
Irori: All right then. He can take responsibility for this mess of His making, without too much cost.
If this mortal becomes His cleric, Irori will be able to find her again in time. Eventually He will get around to questing some powerful caster pledged to Him, to bring her forth. When? Whenever that becomes convenient to Him. It may be a hundred years, five hundred, it matters not to a statue. If the mortal then must leave all she knew behind her, and begin again, well, one must overcome such challenges along the Way.
But Irori should not make her His knowing cleric. She is near something more than powerful enough to read her mind, and see the knowledge in her if she knows; or maybe just notice by normal means, if she stops being so afraid. And then this other being will, say, planeshift the mortal into Abaddon instead; or attempt to torment her into giving up Irori. He does not wish to make the mortal's situation worse again; this would indicate His failure to learn from experience.
Irori: The conditions for forming a stealth cleric are rare, both intrinsically and by compact. Gods cannot go about stealth-clericing whomsoever they please.
By compact, to make any cleric, they must have called out to You, or to a predicate that includes You not too broadly. The natures of god and mortal must be sufficiently aligned, as always for clerics; the only possible exception is your oracle, if you are foolish enough to have one of those, rather than zero.
And improbably: The pressure of a god upon a mortal's soul, impressing clerichood into it, is usually very detectable to mortals even if you try to be slow and gentle about it. Even if it is not a revelation in glory, it's there, and the mortal might be suspicious of what had just occurred. Especially if they'd just prayed for aid.
To create a stealth cleric, she must be extremely distracted while that is happening.
But these strange conditions are met. And so, like trying to kiss a kitten's forehead softly enough not to wake it, Irori presses himself into Carissa Sevar but gently, not opening yet the new channels whose outlines are traced into her, only forging the connection leading back to Him.
Irori: So now Carissa Sevar is, as most other gods would see it, something of Irori's, though she knows it not.
The thought does not occur to Irori at all, to message Asmodeus claiming victory in a contest that Asmodeus might conceive to Himself to have begun. The Way is to succeed at what you set your hand to, to win, not to have others acknowledge that you have won.
Carissa Sevar's progress along her Way is all that is meaningful. Whether she calls Asmodeus Lord for a time is not relevant, except insofar as how that changes her Way, or speeds her progress on it. If there were any victory to be won here, it would belong to the mortal and not to Irori; for her Way is not the Way of Irori but the Way of Carissa Sevar.
And also if there were any such contest, it would not yet be over, for Carissa Sevar's existence will not end this day.
Irori: Then Irori goes upon His way, for many other matters call Him, and He does not have time to wait around watching a statue be levitated and floated away.
...to, as it turns out, an aftercare chamber.
One really can't blame Irori for not especially guessing that this would be the case. He was not, in mortal life, the kind of martial artist who gets way into that sort of thing.
Irori definitely isn't expecting the incredibly annoyed call that He gets from Otolmens a few hours later.
Merenre: Osirion's highest ranking spy in Cheliax is not a very flappable person, as one might imagine from the job description, but he looks nervous at present.
"Do you think the world is going to end?" Prince Merenre, sixth circle cleric of Abadar and heir presumptive to the pharaoh, asks him tiredly, looking up from the report.
"....in truth, your highness, in cases like this, I don't deal in what's actually going to happen, just what people are saying."
"Ah huh. Do you have plans to spend the next couple of months in Aktun."
"....yes, I do, your highness. Though that's partially because of possibilities less serious than the destruction of the world, and - obviously if my duties require me -"
"I'm not sure I can afford to pay you enough to stay," Merenre says. "Though do give me time to put an offer together, before you abscond, it will be generous."
"You're not - upset about the report, your highness?"
"I'm incredibly upset about the report! Almost nothing in it can possibly be true! Half of it contradicts itself! And I will pay you something like half the gems in Osirion for another report of similar quality."
The spy considers it, for a moment. "I'm honored, your highness, by the offer, but - well. Would you take it."
"- I mean, I'm well past the point where there's vanishing marginal personal utility to money, I'd probably just be weighing how much I want to prevent the destruction of the world."
"Do you ever think, your highness, that maybe the world has it coming?"
"....no," says Merenre, completely truthfully and a little coldly.
" - okay, do you ever think that maybe Cheliax has it coming."
"Cheliax has something coming. I really just wish I knew what it is."
Merenre: "Project Lawful was started because of a direct divine vision from Asmodeus Himself."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Sounds right, if Project Lawful is the study of our captive cleric, We bargained with Asmodeus for a divine revelation."
Merenre: "Do you know the wording -"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "No except that it apparently was not adequate to get him safely out of Cheliax and to here. We can't - put what We bargained for into words well anyway, and don't know how Asmodeus would have tried to."
Merenre: Merenre shifts a bunch of tokens around on the desk in front of him. "Okay. I'm saying, probably Project Lawful is the study of our captive outsider, that one is probably true. 'Asmodeus and Erecura are collaborating on Project Lawful.'"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "We don't know anything about that."
Merenre: "I assume same for Asmodeus and Nethys, Asmodeus and Cayden Cailean - I'm going to say maybe 50 percent for Asmodeus and Nethys, because it'd explain how upset Otolmens is, and, uh, 1 percent for Cayden Cailean. The report author apologized for including it. ....'The library of Project Lawful looks tiny but apparently has as many books available as a major academy library, if someone asks the Project Lawful girl serving as a librarian to 'go look for them in another room', not that there's a Forbiddance in place or anything.'"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "If our captured cleric is someone who - figured out, somehow, how to borrow books from the First Vault -"
Merenre: "....wouldn't you have noticed?"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: " - We might not be allowed to say, if We had noticed, because if there's a way to do that disseminating it is definitely prohibited by godagreements."
Merenre: "Right. Well, it's possible, but also mind the possibility that this is abject nonsense, which I think will become more obvious as I read through more of these. - every devil in Hell has heard of Carissa Sevar by name, I will give you whatever fucking odds you want against that. Project Lawful has been instrumental in all of Cheliax's military victories over Nidal - we did check if they were using any new tactics, and they're not - less than five percent on that - Project Lawful is intensively studying the history of Taldor in order to launch a team of operatives into Taldor's past which will convert Taldor to worship of Asmodeus in the present - less than one percent on that -"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Are they intensively studying the history of Taldor, though. If you have access to the First Vault is Taldor a place whose history you'd want to study intensively -"
Merenre: "I mean, I'm sure they've got ancient magical secrets, but not a particular concentration thereof - I'd go for Azlant, anyone would, and if you're constraining the places you'd go for to ones where learning you're studying it doesn't suggest any supernatural abilities, I'd study ancient Osirion - and then there's 'Even Barons of Hell can't afford to buy the souls of Project Lawful girls in Dis's markets.'"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Very funny."
Merenre: "No that's, uh, just true."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Right. Okay. So I take it we have a full list of all the Project Lawful girls based on price spikes in Hell, then? Is there some kind of unifying feature -"
Merenre: "We have a list, I don't know if it's a full list, it doesn't have Carissa Sevar on it and it seems pretty well attested that she's an involved party and maybe there are some more who didn't sell their souls or whose having sold their souls isn't widely known in Hell. The names are all girl wizard students of the most recent graduating class in Ostenso."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: " - that raises several questions. One, can we help any of their families defect or something. Two, what share of girl wizard students in the graduating class does that represent, do we know any wizarding students in that class not to be on the project, distinguishing features? Three, Ostenso's where the interdiction is so I guess that confirms what's up with that.
Four, why girls."
Merenre: "One obvious hypothesis is that our stolen cleric is able to get books from the First Vault - or whatever he does - through a sorcerous bloodline and they're trying to breed it. That's the first thing everyone comes up with, because otherwise why girls, but - I don't know, it's still sort of unsatisfying? It wouldn't make their souls all that valuable, that'd have to be something transferrable to them directly, owning a soul doesn't give you a claim on its offspring. ...also I flatter You that any cleric of Yours would think to demand to be permitted a Sending to the head of Your church before having a bunch of children in Cheliax."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "They might've lied about who that is. They're, you know, Cheliax, I'm not actually sure that not-lying is something they know how to do. What other theories have you got, though."
Merenre: Merenre looks back down at the paper. "If an event worth celebrating happens to you, one of the girls on Project Lawful will already be standing behind you and will offer you cake. It's good cake and eating it seems to be completely safe as far as anyone can tell. Nobody knows what happens if you refuse to eat it."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Okay, that has got to be false. They've been inside a Forbiddance for the last four days."
Merenre: "Almost certainly. But if it's not false, uh, I do wonder what the range is."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: " - you know what? Sure. Find someone whose wife is very close to giving birth, send them out with high-level escorts to an inn a couple of blocks from the capital in Egorian - completely licit travelling adventuring party - Sending them when the baby is born, and if we get a cake girl, remand her to Osirion in order to investigate her role in the imprisonment in Cheliax of Our cleric."
Merenre: "If she can teleport like that -"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "- fair enough, remand her to a demiplane."
Merenre: "Not to Aktun?"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "We've had enough godwars to last a century, all told, and that seems likelier to spark one. We can move her there later if it seems like a good idea. - this is almost definitely not going to work."
Merenre: "Yes, I put it in the less than five percent category. Which is to say, if it does work -" Despairing gesture at the beads on his desk.
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "What else is at more than five percent."
Merenre: "One of the girls on Project Lawful who died during the Nidal attack got sorted to Elysium' - seems pretty likely. 'And then came back -' almost certainly not, but maybe they substituted a replacement in order to not have an embarrassing incident, or maybe they were holding her family hostage, or capable of threatening her even in Elysium.
'One of the Project Lawful girls used 5 different cantrips in a day' - fits with my going theory, but I want to hear yours first -"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "My theory is that our priest figured out something really important and Cheliax is throwing an absurd number of distractions at him to prevent him from realizing how important it is or telling anyone else about it, and the distractions are causing all these absurd rumors."
Merenre: "Possible. Mine is that the thing our priest figured out is something like a way to give sorcery to people who aren't born with it. INT-based sorcery, presumably, or why have a bunch of wizard students as test subjects. With some special abilities that are really, stunningly valuable, and expected to carry over on death, thus the rise in prices in Hell. And something that produces the reports of - the girls also being clerics, the girls having too many cantrips, the girls doing things that shouldn't be possible -"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "If you can do that at all - maybe you test it first on wizard students from Ostenso but then you start empowering everyone -"
Merenre: "Well, maybe they planned to, and Otolmens put Her foot down. Or maybe they want to wait more than five days to see if it has side effects. It's not totally satisfactory, though, it gives no explanation at all for the question of why girls."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Some bloodlines are only expressed in girls."
Merenre: " - how sure are we that our priest is a 'he'. Did You directly observe that."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "We can't see that kind of thing."
Merenre: "New theory," says Merenre, moving beads. "Our priest is a woman. Whatever her powers, only women can have them."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Well. That's not my favorite theory ever. Goddamn it, if that's true Cheliax actually is a better place for her to start than here."
Merenre: "I mean, they do still have all the lying. And the torture. And only the stupid soul-based prediction market. But yes, we'll need to rethink things. If that's true. And need to rethink different things, if the class of theories where the priest is borrowing books from the First Vault are true, and rethink yet more things, if the public Project Lawful is a distraction to cover for something much more effectively kept secret..."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Such as the possible diamond-stealing thing."
Merenre: "It's the obvious candidate. We have confirmation that Nidal's not raising their dead. Or, I mean, they're raising them as undead, but -"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "I took your meaning.
If Cheliax can do that whenever they want -"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Where are our diamonds presently."
Merenre: "Tried a lot of different stuff since we don't know how they did it. Some of them are permanently but dismissibly transformed into chunks of granite. Some are permanently but dismissibly transformed into rags that were dipped in a highly reactive alchemical reagent which will cause a massive explosion if exposed to oxygen, and are now in glass jars in a room without any. Some are in a demiplane, some are in a bank in Aktun, some are in Ismat's workshop so we'll know if ones in a very standard and knowable location got taken. I don't think they have the ability to do that at will. You'd expect to see a fall in the value of Chelish souls with decades more expected lifespan."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "We hope you're right."
Merenre: "It might be useful for more of You to think about this."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "We're trying. We're trying really hard. Do you know what We've got with any reasonable confidence."
Merenre: "Do tell."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "This morning, someone gave our priest - priestess - 600gp for a service worth far more than that to them, though they did not achieve that by lying.
That's the kind of thing We get when We look really hard."
Merenre: "Have you ever considered, just, waltzing over to Absalom, and checking if this would be any easier if you were two gods."
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Dismissed, Merenre, go update those prediction markets. And, uh, send your wife Our highest regards."
Merenre: "Because we're going to need her if the most powerful magic in the world turns out to be woman-only?"
Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Also because We hold her in high regard! At least five percent because We hold her in high regard!"
Project Lawful: PL-log timestamp: Day 4 / morning
Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia Rugatonn makes her greetings to Keltham. She wishes she could check this with Sevar, but thought of it too late; this, too, is an interaction that should occur in the alter-Cheliax. She will try to keep it brief.
If Keltham learns or deduces anything about how Forbiddances might work, including by reference to other protective spells that depend on caster circle, Keltham might deduce that perhaps Forbiddances also ought to be cast by the most powerful cleric available, and that Aspexia Rugatonn should therefore have been on-site right after the Forbiddance went up. And then wouldn't it be strange if she didn't hang around while Keltham was teleported in, just in case Nidal attacked; and then wouldn't it be strange if she didn't greet Keltham at all? She didn't for the last Forbiddance; but Keltham now believes, correctly, that Cheliax considers him more of an important person after the Nidal attack on him and resulting godwar.
"Greetings again, Keltham," says Aspexia, looking as warm and grandmotherly as before. She is not, on reflection, 'Aspie'; she has, on reflection, started to side with Sevar about the importance of the Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus seeming relatively more Lawful. Isidre can take credit for Aspexia's little prank, if it requires crediting at all. "I'm afraid I have a great deal of work to do today, and this is not a good time for us to talk," with Sevar out of the loop, "but be advised I will be doing that work on-site, so don't be too surprised if you see me eating lunch by myself later in the day, or some such."
Keltham: "Staying on-site because..."
Keltham's thoughts are mostly on what he can do today that will be productive while he's missing Carissa, Ione, Pilar, and Asmodia. The remainder, mostly on constantly telling part of himself to shut up Carissa will be fine.
Aspexia Rugatonn: "We were instructed to rush you here as soon as the most basic defenses were in place for you; it is apparently significantly safer for you here, than in the Imperial palace in Egorian. Other defenses are still being emplaced, and while they are, the Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus may as well happen to do her day's paperwork from here."
Keltham: "I would not have expected the leadership position for Asmodeus's Church to be determined by who has the greatest military power."
Aspexia Rugatonn: "In this case it occurs the other way around. Asmodeus empowers more those who attain a deeper understanding of Him."
Keltham: "All right then. Good to hear."
Aspexia Rugatonn: "We have, for what it's worth, now screened everyone previously in the villa for being secretly a cleric - though we had to consult with Hell to determine that was even possible, and how it could be tested - and it is all negative."
Keltham: "Also good to hear, but do keep in mind that if that 'trope' governs at all you have somehow missed her anyways. I agree that it probably doesn't govern, and I hope that nobody was too much inconvenienced by the screening."
Aspexia Rugatonn: "Perhaps I should not ask, but if you'd pardon me one question..." Aspexia waits for the nod. "And also, if you can, please answer this quickly rather than thinking about it for long. If 'tropes' govern, who is the ultimate antagonist and what is their plan?"
Keltham: "I'm sorry, but I'm really not comfortable answering that, under these circumstances. I cannot just point an accusing finger at somebody especially if the cleric thing turned out to be wrong, Asmodia has no superpowers, and there was no significant conflict with the Queen.”
Keltham immediately thought 'Isidre'. Isidre plans to convert the world to Lawful Goodness. She is carrying out this plan via a program of illegal emotion-reading and mind-control, which has penetrated Chelish Governance to a far greater degree than the Grand High Priestess or the Queen would think even possible.
Aspexia Rugatonn: "I am sorry for having asked, then, and see your point."
"Should you change your mind regarding the wisdom of answering, keep in mind that I am, in principle, the member of government who would be most responsible for dealing with 'tropes' if they existed."
Aspexia gives him a polite nod and departs.
Project Lawful: Ione, Pilar, and Asmodia are also away from the site, in queue for additional Security screening supposedly.
Keltham might want to make inquiries, upon seeing them again, regarding prophecies, or excursions outside the old Forbiddance, or trips to Hell.
So somehow those three will only manage to get to the new site after Sevar is back, and functioning sufficiently to authorize any necessary lies.
Aspexia Rugatonn: And as for why all this visit is happening, really?
When Aspexia read Abrogail's proposed outline of what she intended to do to Sevar, it occurred to Aspexia that perhaps, if Sevar is out of communication with the Project Lawful site for an extended period, maybe somebody who can read Keltham's mind should be on the Project Lawful site as a substitute for Sevar. Just in case Keltham picks this particular morning to suddenly go closet himself and think for three hours.
It seems like prudent policy even before considering how much that could plausibly be a 'trope'.
Keltham: So... study magic, learn more about Cheliax and Golarion, see if they can teleport in a metallurgy expert so Keltham can hear about the current state of art in mining and refinement of metals, maybe ask Governance to send him the politically convenient version of the gains-splitting bargain to see how loudly Keltham screams about it...? Keltham isn't currently thinking of anything else he can do with everyone missing.
Carissa is going to be okay though, right oh my ass brain, would you stop that, I decided this was a good idea it has all kinds of safeguards and you won't find out what the results were until Carissa gets back so right now these are not productive thoughts to be having at me.
Project Lawful: PL-log timestamp: Day 4, late afternoonPL-log placestamp: Egorian
Pilar : And now once again Pilar has found herself somewhere holding a cake, and this place doesn't even seem to be inside the Palace!
lintamande: Instead it's a private room in a classy inn; from the window, the palace grounds are visible across the street. The room is presently empty except for an unaccompanied Unseen Servant, which is sweeping.
Pilar : Pilar has a sense of what her curse wants to do (sigh) and she's not going to fight it without a reason, so she lets herself leave the room, go down a hall, go down a set of stairs, still holding the cake. It's one of the nicer and larger ones she's delivered, now that she looks at it, very formal.
lintamande: The first floor of the inn is a busy restaurant, presently in the middle of serving lunch. It's clearly an upscale adventurers' inn, not one for nobles or rich merchants. You can tell by the decor, which is awfully cosmopolitan for Cheliax, and by the security, who look like they mean business potentially against very dangerous adversaries, and by how quickly the waitress takes it in stride to have a very conspicuous girl come down stairs she definitely at no point went up. "Can I help you?"
Pilar : Pilar hands her the cake, and lowers her voice about as far as it can go. "This cake is for the party of Osirian adventurers who'll be arriving shortly. Please wait until two minutes and forty-five seconds past the early-hour bell, then give this cake to them with compliments of the cake girl."
Pilar : WAIT WHAT
Pilar : WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK
lintamande: The woman blinks at her.
"That'll be - five silver for a special timed delivery on short notice," she says, "and no guarantees about what happens to the cake if they fail to show and you don't return to claim it in the next hour."
Pilar : Pilar seems to be holding five silver. Somehow this surprises her, even though, if her curse can do all these cakes, there's no reason it couldn't do small amounts of money.
Pilar hands the money over more or less on automatic, thinking furiously.
Pilar : Pilar has by now worked out that, whenever she appears for somebody without her having chosen that, they have at least heard of her. Maybe they know her as Pilar and not the cake girl, back in the villa when this first happened; or they've heard a rumor about the cake girl, in the Imperial palace, but not the name Pilar.
But she has never suddenly found herself with a cake for somebody, who has no idea of who she is or why she'd be there. And that goes by the final recipient, not by anybody who hands the cake over on instructions.
Pilar does not, in fact, know any Osirian adventuring parties, or anybody who'd plausibly be on one.
Which leaves the question of how an Osirian adventuring party knows either Pilar Pineda, or the cake girl.
lintamande: The waitress pockets the money, takes the cake, and walks it over to a heavily built man by the door who squints at it and then shrugs. She takes it off to the kitchen.
Pilar : Pilar starts to turn back to the main room, with the intent to talk to that impressive-looking inn security about where Pilar can find the highest possible level of Church or Crown security, on very short notice and very near by.
Project Lawful: ...her curse really really doesn't want her to do that.
Because the Osirians will be captured. And probably tortured. And that's not nice, not at all.
Pilar : Pilar directs a furious thought at her curse about how these people are not street orphans, they are here to kidnap and torture her and would eventually figure out a way to do that in a way she finds genuinely unpleasant. Furthermore, in case it has escaped her curse's notice, she is Lawful Evil, operative word Evil, and an extremely loyal servant of Lord Asmodeus and His interests. She doesn't think her curse can actually stop her if she tries, or at least, Pilar is very willing to fight and find out.
Project Lawful: Pilar is Lawful Evil, operative word Lawful.
Her curse trusted her with this. She can well serve Lord Asmodeus's interests here, but she has to not do horrible things from the perspective of Chaotic Good, using her curse's power and knowledge, in the course of that.
Her curse wouldn't have steered her into the trap, obviously. That wouldn't have been nice either. But her curse could have just let the whole thing fly by without Pilar noticing.
Pilar : It's really fucking creepy how Pilar's brain just thinks this crap like it's her own fucking thoughts.
Project Lawful: Her curse probably feels sorry about that, too, because it is very Stupid Good, but this is important.
Pilar : What the fuck is up with this whole 'you're Lawful and therefore you have to keep to this agreement you didn't actually make at any point', huh?
Project Lawful: It's how god-agreements can work, sometimes.
Pilar : Pilar is not a god.
Project Lawful: Hasn't she learned anything from Keltham? Dath ilani aren't gods, but they can sometimes decide to behave like them.
And if Pilar doesn't choose to act like a god, well, her curse probably won't be trying to do things like this again in the future.
Pilar : Pilar doesn't scream, but it takes an effort. She is, no doubt, nowhere near the level of sheer seething hatred that the Grand High Priestess must have accumulated for Chaotic Good at this point, but Pilar sure isn't dawdling along that road.
Pilar : She thinks.
Pilar : She decides.
Pilar : Pilar walks over to the most impressive-looking inn security, and uses Message this time. "I have a Crown security issue that needs to be escalated as quickly as possible. Point me or escort me to the nearest state Security who can escalate me further immediately. Do not talk about this afterwards."
lintamande: The man raises his eyes, then grabs her arm and Dimension Doors.
They're at a palace security checkpoint, now, just outside the Forbiddance.
"FREEZE, DON'T RESIST", someone instructs them instantly, and casts Hold Person; the man makes a face as though it's taking him a lot of effort to let the spell touch him, but he does permit it.
The Hold Person is powerful enough Pilar couldn't really throw it off if she wanted to.
Pilar : Well, Pilar won't say anything then, but she will think very loudly that, first of all, most people are not authorized to read her mind, and second, that she has an issue for immediate escalation to the Grand High Priestess, also somebody needs to note down which inn they just came from because Pilar doesn't know that.
Message repeats.
lintamande: Palace Security dismisses the spell after a couple very fast exchanges. "Kid says she urgently needs to be escalated higher," the retired adventurer said. "You want me to keep escorting her, or do you have it from here."
"We have it from here. This is classified, don't speak of it to anyone."
"Yeah, yeah."
Pilar : "What was the name of that inn?"
lintamande: "Skymetal Sword. Am I allowed to head back, I'm on duty."
"No," Security says flatly.
Pilar : Message: Need to escalate to Grand High Priestess, time-sensitive.
lintamande: "Right, come with me."And they can hurry to the Grand High Priestess's office, where the Grand High Priestess is not, because she's in Ostenso.
Pilar : "Do you recognize me as a person of interest," Pilar says to the Grand High Priestess's emotionless secretary who is widely believed to be actually a devil.
lintamande: "Yes. The Grand High Priestess is not here."
Pilar : "I either need personal control of a Crown intelligence issue, including the ability to consult Crown intelligence about actions that best serve Lord Asmodeus's interests and the ability to direct Security accordingly, or I need somebody to assume command of this issue whom the Grand High Priestess trusts to deal with deranged fucking god-agreements."
lintamande: The secretary, at this, pulls out a mirror and contacts the Grand High Priestess.
Aspexia Rugatonn: "Talk," Aspexia Rugatonn says on recognizing Pilar. Nothing need be said about 'I assume this is urgent'; it obviously is.
Pilar : A surrounding silence has obviously already been cast at this point.
"Curse directed me to where I now expect an incoming Osirian adventuring party who's heard of the cake girl to try to kidnap me. Curse doesn't want them hurt, curse said it trusted me, and appealed to my Lawfulness, and told me to act like a god, and said it won't do this again if I don't. I can serve Lord Asmodeus's interests as much as I want so long as I don't do anything my curse hates, like getting the Osirians caught and tortured, which to be clear I would be incredibly comfortable with -"
Aspexia Rugatonn: "What do you request?" Aspexa Rugatonn interrupts; she doesn't need to be told that Pilar is loyal.
Rugatonn can see what she'd do, but if Pilar hasn't also seen it independently, she cannot entrust Pilar with doing it independently.
Pilar : "I need direction on whether to obey this bargain that I never actually made. If no, I'll give the data to Security. If yes, I either need somebody else who understands deranged Chaotic Good curses to assume command over me and this issue, or I need authorization to control it myself. I prefer the former."
Aspexia Rugatonn: "And the scope of that authorization?"
Pilar : ...oh no.
"Authority over local Security, and ability to consult with Crown intelligence over which fun non-hurtful prank on the Osirians will most serve our Lord's interests."
Pilar isn't doing anything as unprofessional as making a face on purpose, but hopefully her control isn't perfect and therefore the Grand High Priestess can hear her face trying to shout 'NO' through the mirror.