Carissa Sevar: "I am told that the following of Carissa Sevar is directed, in this place, to gather under supervision, and that I should seek them, or more about them, at a temple of Irori. I therefore seek one."
Indapatta: He looks considerably more nervous of her, now, but grants her entrance.
Indapatta: In the seventh circle of Indapatta, as seen from this entrance, there are mansions, exorbitant-looking brothels. A fenced-off garden is set about with a hundred species of flowers; a few isolated pavilions within glow to her arcane sight with silencing-magics, though they don't quite look like the Avistani standard version of that.
Nothing that looks like an Avistani temple, at least not to her immediate vision.
Following the innkeep's directions will take her down a long, slightly curving, wide road from this entrance-gate, tracing the inner edges of the seventh ring of lotus petals. Probably not the fastest way to get to her destination, but plausibly the simplest way if you didn't want somebody to need to follow even more turns.
Carissa Sevar: She doesn't actually mind sightseeing, though she suspects Ri-Dul does. Maybe after she does this she should do some magic item crafting with him to show him she's competent and not just a charlatan.
Ri-Dul: Ri-Dul doesn't look bored, but doesn't look like anything particularly not-bored either. "First time out of Cheliax, excepting the Worldwound?" he says. "And of course that brief trip to Osirion."
Carissa Sevar: "And Hell. I haven't done a lot of tourism on this plane, though."
Ri-Dul: "Don't expect the rest of it to look this nice. Only a few places. I do highly recommend Quantium; there is not much to Nex, but what there is, is lovely."
Carissa Sevar: "I want to visit Nex after I have talked things through with Keltham and am qualified to feel smug about how we handled our differences much better than Nex and Geb did theirs."
Ri-Dul: "I do believe that is literally the lowest bar on a successful relationship that I have ever heard of, and I hope you'll forgive my frankness when I say that I wish to hear no more of it."
Carissa Sevar: That's an impressive degree of incuriosity, given the stakes. Which of course he has no idea of. Because they've hidden it from him.
Whatever.
Where's the temple of Irori.
Indapatta: They do appear to be entering the more religious section of the seventh circle, now. It is theoretically equal in social rank to the mansions and expensive brothels, but you have to go through a gate to get there, one that looks like it would be rather more guarded going the other way. There are no beggars in the streets here either, no urchins, but also not quite the same quality of carefully tended garden as was in the sixth ring.
It is known even in Avistan, to those Avistani who have learned anything at all of Vudra, that the Master of Masters is to this empire as Asmodeus to Cheliax, in the sense of not being thought mightier than Pharasma but understood to be preeminent god of this land and its pantheon.
If Sevar knows that much, she may correctly guess that the elaborate many-tiered building looming above all others in this lotus petal is dedicated to Irori. Plausibly, continuing to follow this road and taking a right, as directed, would take her there in time.
Carissa Sevar: Also she can fly.
Indapatta: She'll attract much attention that way, obviously, though not of an obviously dangerous-looking sort. Fewer do fly about these streets than in Absalom.
In almost no time at all, then, she's before an elaborate many-tiered building that has been decorated, but not weakly. There is nothing about this building that is thin, pretty in a way that is fragile, all ornamentation is wrought in metal and thickly enough that you could envision a hurricane sweeping this temple and leaving it essentially unscathed.
In the outer courtyard of what appears to be the temple's entrance, there is a tall statue of Irori, such as Irori is now reputed, this long time hence, to have appeared in his mortal life. You must look hard to see that he is muscular beneath the simple robes he wears. He strikes no pose. The statue is clad in metal, and colored as some metals may be colored by searing flame of carefully controlled temperature. It is colored, this statue, but not with paint that could be worn away by time or hurricanes.
(Obviously, those who truly understand Irori would consider this immense foolishness even so, but some effort has been made to annoy them less.)
Whatever business the many people in this courtyard were about will be negated by Carissa Sevar flying here, followed by Ri-Dul a respectful distance behind her. Some gape openly, some do cast her more measured and dignified glances. At least one of the people gaping at her unabashed looks like she might be a senior monk.
Carissa Sevar: She'll land at the base of the statue.
Senior monk it is, if she can correctly identify monks. "I am seeking the dedicates of Carissa Sevar, whose faith, I have been told, is asked to operate subject to the guidance of the Irorian faith here."
Indapatta: "I wouldn't call it guidance. More that our faith was asked to take responsibility for permitting such as is to be permitted. As such, I'll ask you why you seek them, and also, I'm curious what brings you here out of Avistan for it. I'd thought Avistan the center of Sevarism."
Carissa Sevar: "I am Carissa Sevar. Everyone goes to the same Hell, so I don't see why it should be a faith of any specific nation."
Indapatta: "Well. I was going to send you about your way with a younger monk to guide you, but you know, why don't I go with you along the way, and ask a number of questions I'm suddenly extremely curious about. Whose answers, I'll warn you, I've no doubt I'll be repeating to a number of others."
Carissa Sevar: "You are welcome to accompany me, and to say anything you heard of me to anyone who'll hear it."
Indapatta: The monk turns about and heads out from the courtyard, striding at exactly the quick speed that Carissa was flying when she came here.
"Are you a renunciate priest of Irori, to start, and do you also say as much in Avistan, for that rumor is recent and seems to me suspiciously chosen for Vudra."
Carissa Sevar: "It's true, but I've never said so save in Dis itself; other powers have intervened to take word of me around the world, and I imagine they chose the words that would be most persuasive. I do not know them to have spread anything false."
Indapatta: "That sounds like it must be part of a fascinating story. Do you also attest that you have a compact with Asmodeus that gives you all souls pledged to you out of Creation, if only you can conquer it?"
Carissa Sevar: wait how do they know
Carissa Sevar: - well, Cayden could've - just told someone - there's all Aspexia's and Abrogail's desperate efforts at secrecy confounded -
Carissa Sevar: "Do you, Carissa Sevar, conquer territories or hearts in Hell's name, be you fairly judged by Hell's Prince to be the most prime mover in such conquests, such unsold and unclericed souls from those lands and peoples as enter into Hell calling your name, in death as they called it in life and did you and Hell more service than disservice, shall pass into your custody or the custody of those in Hell you name your slaves or allies;
and when you have conquered three-quarters of Avistan all such souls out of Avistan shall be yours as well; when three-quarters of Golarion is yours, all such souls out of Golarion; when three-quarters of this plane is yours, all such souls out of this plane; when three-quarters of Pharasma's Creation is yours, all such souls out of Creation; while Hell's dominions of those lands and peoples last; and all this be annulled should you fail finally after death in being acknowledged by Hell as a Hellish Power, or should the yield in strength and wealth from those souls granted you be less than He accounts as ordinary from His subservient Powers of Hell; or should the Prince of Hell fairly judge you to have entered His despite in death or life," she says, with the (accurate) air of someone called on to recite these precise words frequently.
Indapatta: "And the foremost principle of your doctrine is the anathema of any soul being destroyed or ending; you promise mercy to your followers in Hell foremost because you fear that otherwise they might seek destruction in Abaddon."
Carissa Sevar: "....huh. That's not, descriptively, all that false of me, but it's not at all how I'd make the core argument. First of all, there's no mercy in Hell, and no one should go there wanting it; I can make them stronger, better, more capable and more alive than anywhere else will make them, and they should come to me for that. Secondly, the way I'd make the core argument, is:
outside places like Cheliax, who goes to Hell? Who do you think of as - the prototypical example, of a person you'd be unsurprised to learn found their way there, after trial?"
Indapatta: "Someone who thought themselves aimed for Axis, but who greatly deluded themselves, as mortals do, about how Good all their actions would be judged by Pharasma to be, at trial. Perhaps because they thought they had reasons. Perhaps they did have reasons but not the kind Pharasma cares about."
Carissa Sevar: "Yes. It is rare for a person who isn't deluded, who is agentic and ambitious and acting in their own interests and not lying to themselves, to go to Hell. It has little to offer them. Cheliax is Asmodeus's experiment in creating a society that sends even its ambitious and interesting and competent people to Hell; it's a very expensive experiment, but I wouldn't call it a failed one. But what, then, is Hell made up of, what is the material He shapes into devils? People who were lying to themselves, or easily lied to, or who never bothered thinking about their afterlife at all, people who weren't very strategic.
Asmodeus doesn't, directly, know how to fix this. I suspect He knows that the things that make mortals useful also make them harder for Him to see. I suspect He's dissatisfied with the results He gets from His extraordinary expenditures. But it's not the tragic situation it might appear at first glance, where this situation serves Asmodeus, but not mortals, so the stupider or more careless mortals lose and Asmodeus wins; it is worse both for Asmodeus and for mortals than a situation where Hell is a place people go on purpose, and where it can use their strength and make them stronger."
Ri-Dul: He stays on track for Axis, pending fully figuring out his lich ascension, by checking with regular Early Judgment and routinely donating to Iomedae's Church.
Before meeting Keltham, Ri-Dul murdered a few extra people so he'd detect Lawful Evil to Keltham, whose notice insisted on that for whatever weird reason. Obviously, he's running the most absurdly expensive form of True Resurrection insurance for the length of his employment. After it ends Ri-Dul will donate enough to Iomedae's Church to get back on track for Axis, using a fraction of Keltham's payment.
Not that Keltham knows any of this, of course.
Indapatta: "I assume you've worked out the rather obvious interpretation of events where Asmodeus has compacted with you entirely to deceive people into doing the Evil they always wished and held back from, once they have hope for Hell. Backed by your hopeful following, you conquer some lesser nation in Hell's name and destabilize a number of others. And finally fail to be judged a Hellish power, because your reasons were not cruel enough for Hell."
Carissa Sevar: "Yes. That would serve Asmodeus well, and me not at all; I expect that on some level He's hoping for it even if the utter triumph of my plans would serve Him even better, because He loves it when things work out that way. I, of course, think He underestimates me even correcting for the fact that He wants me to think that, and underestimates more broadly what's afoot on Golarion, where all the gods can hardly see at all."
Indapatta: "I now believe the part where you're in fact Carissa Sevar and a renunciate priest of Irori, at least. Either that or you managed to practice the part by studying Irorians of some true depth and aimed at convincing other real Irorians."
Carissa Sevar: "I've actually only met one other Irorite. It's a banned faith in Cheliax, you know. I didn't know renouncing Irori was a significant step in His faith, I just needed Him out of my way so I could sell my soul for that compact, this headband, fifteen Wishes, and some other things I needed for the next steps of my plans."
Indapatta: "It heartens me on some level to know that we mortals can still get up to such nonsense with prophecy shattered and no more heroes out of prophecy. You could see it as proving that, of all the trouble older heroes got into, at least some of that trouble was properly their own doing."
Carissa Sevar: Or Cayden's.
Whatever.
"It's been an eventful few months since the god-war," she agrees. " - that was mostly not my fault. To be clear."
Indapatta: "I perceive you to follow in the Way, then, of the seventh head abbot of the line of Avarkenesya, who summed up his doctrine thus: There was a point where we should have stopped, and we have clearly passed it, so let's keep going and see what happens."
Carissa Sevar: "....not far wrong. Anyway, now there are people praying to me. I can't stop here."
Indapatta: "I would never dream of telling you to stop here; not least because, if I did, you would never listen."
"- so said he who'd become the eighth abbot to the seventh. I do suspect you could benefit from reading some proper books of Irorian doctrine, as much as it is obviously far far far too late for that advice."
Indapatta: They're come now to a part of this lotus petal where there are less impressive buildings, and young people about the streets dressed in cheap robes. Before them is a long single-tier building whose door is marked also with Irori's symbol, built of ill-mortared stone such as wouldn't survive a hurricane and ornamented in a way that will not stand time's ravages.
If you know anything of Irori's way, you know that Irori-as-a-mortal would sooner be found here than in his mighty temple, if there was anything here to learn.
Indapatta: "In the rear courtyard of this place, the Sevarites are permitted to gather and train, and a second-circle of Irori watches over it," the older monk says.
Carissa Sevar: "How many are there, approximately?"
Indapatta: "The largest gathering on Sevarism in Indapatta is said to have attracted a crowd of thousands but only a fraction of those would have been your faithful, and how many are here I couldn't guess; I only know that this place is where to send those seeking."
Ri-Dul: "Want me to have a look?"
Carissa Sevar: "Sure."
Ri-Dul: Ri-Dul vanishes, and not even to arcane sight is there any trace of him.
A couple of rounds later, his voice announces that there are twenty-four in the rear courtyard, four with alignment auras, two of those Lawful Evil and two Lawful Neutral.
Carissa Sevar: Well, it's a start.
She will cast some more spells for the purpose of having lots of spells about her - what further purpose would be needed? - and fly on in.
Indapatta: At this time of day, most in Indapatta are about their other businesses, so the courtyard contains a mix of those who have no other businesses for whatever reason. Half of those present wear the robes of aspiring initiates to the Way of one god or another; relatively nicer robes, the robes of those who have sponsors, who can afford to spend their day in search of themselves or at least somebody with some vague outward resemblance to themselves. Teenagers for the most part.
The crowd skews heavily male; a visibly pregnant woman is a visible exception. A man who looks retired, both in the sense of no-longer-working in his occupation and also being tired again after he was already tired, is an exception to the rule that that the crowd skews young.
Formerly the crowd's focus of attention was on a tiny woman - not a halfling, but not that much taller - who was holding forth in lecture.
As the stunningly beautiful crowned woman drops in out of the sky, of course, all attention shifts to her.
Carissa Sevar: She casts Vision of Hell. It's a fifty foot radius; it should get the whole crowd.
Indapatta: ...that'll get a lot of screaming and around half the crowd starting to run away. A number of people in this crowd have made their Will saves, but a fair number of those have also decided they have urgent business elsewhere.
Carissa Sevar: Yep. If they run away screaming at the sight of Hell they should, in fact, probably run away.
...if they have common sense and are departing because this situation looks plausibly deadly then that is not strongly indicative they should run away.
She takes the spell down. "Perhaps I have come to the wrong place; I was told that here I would find Indapatta's acolytes of Carissa Sevar."
Indapatta: The older man present, the one who looks retired, is completing the gestures of Detect Magic; a moment later, seeing much magic about her and little illusion, he kneels. "Some of yours are here, Lady Sevar," he speaks loudly. "Only a few of your best. We can send for more, but it will take time."
Those who fled are largely already gone, for good or ill; it does not take that many seconds to empty yourself from a courtyard, even one transformed into a hellscape. The pregnant woman, who was not running that swiftly, halts at the sound of this and turns about.
The older monk whom Sevar followed here is now also present. There is a profoundly skeptical look about her, but she does not speak.
Carissa Sevar: "If it will take time then it is best begun at once."
Indapatta: "Seek you the few who lead or the many who follow?"
Carissa Sevar: "I'll speak to anyone who wants to listen, however much they strike you as having any real potential. If they were playing a game, they may as well realize that about themselves as quickly as possible."
Indapatta: "If it is those with potential, I can have perhaps a dozen here for you in an hour; many are about their work. Do you come as the sun sets to another place of meeting, it can be fifty; did you announce your place and time of return to all, it would be a great crowd."
"Grandmerchant Taravind has sustained your cause here and he would be sorely disappointed to miss you; he is now about his work but I expect very interruptible by Carissa Sevar."
Carissa Sevar: "I'll come at sunset to a place, if you name it. I don't know this city. I cannot commit to return another day; should that change, I'll tell you when to expect me."
Indapatta: "I will conduct you there, that you may return. Will you speak with Grandmerchant Taravind before then?"
Carissa Sevar: "Yes. Tell me about him."
Anashala: "Your pardon," says the small woman who was lecturing. "I understood yours was a Lawful faith. The regulations of Indapatta require Sevarites to have a ranking member of Lawful Neutral clergy present, when they gather, one who assumes responsibility for that gathering's activities."
Carissa Sevar: The woman herself has a Lawful aura, as might be that of a person powerful in their own right or a cleric of second circle. "Are you the person who has assumed responsibility for the activities here?"
Anashala: "I was."
Carissa Sevar: "Do you have interest in continuing in that responsibility, or should I find someone else."
Anashala: "My interest was in the methods of reasoning that your faith teaches, as are said to make your followers more useful to you in life, and swifter to be molded into more powerful devils after their death. While your followers were peacefully gathering to learn those methods - as, to be frank, seem to me to be readily strippable of Evil - I was ready enough to supervise and participate. If that is to change, I will be no longer willing."
"Either way, I am not willing to take responsibility for the sunset gathering you propose. I'm curious, but based on events so far, I could not tell the city I knew no harm would come of it."
(Carissa's Sense Motive will say that this person is terrified but doing a good job of covering that; her eyes flicker frequently to the more senior monk who is lurking nearby and not saying or doing anything.)
Carissa Sevar: It's farther than she expected them to get on their own. She's suddenly desperately curious what the lecture she interrupted was about, but it's not fair, actually, to ask the woman to tell her about it while terrified.
Carissa Sevar: "I don't know no harm will come of it; but greater harm, I think, will come of my staying away. Thank you for your service to my following; I do not imagine that their purposes will change in the upcoming months, but if they do, they will be expected to conduct themselves such that you do not regret having been their sponsor."
To her guide. "Would you, or do you know any who might, assume responsibility for our gathering this evening."
Indapatta: "I shall. Let's keep going and see what happens."
Indapatta: The man who knelt to her speaks again, after a moment where Sevar could have spoke did she so choose. "Grandmerchant Taravind is the patriarch of the Taravind trading-house, which deals much in slaves. He would not, yet, call himself one of your faithful; he backs us not for the Sevarite reasoning-methods, but because he is intrigued by the possibility of a place in Hell that would appeal to him. I can tell you more of him along the way."
Carissa Sevar: "We should depart in a moment, then. Who owns this building?"
Indapatta: "The Irori faith owns it," he says. "It's managed by Abishek, a first-circle of Irori. The senior present at this time of day would be Dhyana, who teaches meditation."
(The pregnant woman has now approached nearby, and stands with hands folded in the manner of one waiting to speak. Her robes on a close examination are of relatively higher quality.)
(Obviously a number of relatively courageous others are handing not too far back as well.)
Carissa Sevar: "I would like to pay them for leave to inscribe something on the walls of this courtyard; can they be fetched for that?"
And she turns her attention to the pregnant woman.
Indapatta: "My baby's father is in Hell. His death was unexpected. We'd planned to buy his way out later. Your faith is silent on the matter, they say they don't know one way or the other, but - I thought, some people say - you'd maybe, provide a place, even for people like him, who weren't your faithful in life. I wouldn't want to go to Hell myself, even to be with him, but I'd - give your faith almost anything else it wanted, to earn his place in shelter, if there was any shelter to be found in Hell."
Carissa Sevar: "Only in lands I've conquered do even my faithful come to me, for now; I have bought some other souls, for my own reasons, but I paid a price much higher than a Resurrection. If you don't wish to sell your soul for his, I have nothing to offer that's in your means."
Indapatta: The pregnant woman bows to her, as deeply as a pregnant woman can manage. "Thank you for your honesty, Carissa Sevar," she says. "Your faith is a Lawful one, and I will always speak well of it."
She turns and goes from the Sevarite gathering.
Carissa Sevar: "Hell deals in souls and little else. Anyone who wants to purchase the safety of a loved one at that price can probably have it; at no other price can it be purchased, until much has changed."
Where is she on permission to carve on the wall.
Indapatta: Here's a woman coming forth that's obviously the meditation-teacher, if you can read Vudrani dress codes. To Chelish sensibilities she reads as 'openly terrified'.
"I'm - Dyhana. Somebody said that Carissa Sevar - you - wanted to pay us for something?"
Carissa Sevar: "This is the place where my following studies, and I want to carve onto the wall the words of my compact with Asmodeus, so that falsehoods that spread about it can be corrected, and no one hopes of things that won't come, or fears to believe in things that will. If it is your wall I'd carve on, I'll compensate you."
Indapatta: "I don't know - how we'd price that -" begins Dyhana.
"If you want it to endure for only a year, a gold piece will do," says the more senior monk. "- depending on how things go, I shouldn't wonder if it endures for quite a longer time than that."
Carissa Sevar: "A year is long enough for now." She hands over a gold piece, steps back, and casts Stone Shape to put it on the wall in Infernal.
"Whether there should be a Vudrani translation, or whether you'd rather it take Comprehend Languages and be read in the original, I'll leave up to you."
Indapatta: Nobody seems to have anything to say to that.
The man who knelt to her has been instructing a few others present, while this goes on, and they've scattered. The others, presumably, are those he deems without 'potential'.
Does Carissa Sevar have anything to say to those unfortunates before she departs?
Carissa Sevar: Sure! She'll ask them about themselves and what brought them here and what they'd do, if they were competent to do anything they set their minds to.
Indapatta: Sevarite reasoning methods seemed very Lawful and maybe like a missing piece of Irorism up until that point. He has no interest in Evil, if that's all right.
He is studying to be a monk, and if he were competent to do anything would be a more powerful monk.
...it was sort of the new thing and he was bored? He would not usually say this to an up-and-coming deity, but the Sevarite faith teaches inferiors to be honest with superiors and superiors not to punish honesty from inferiors.
If he could do anything, he'd ascend to godhood like Irori, obviously.
Carissa Sevar sounded like she was actually going places and doing things, unlike a lot of monks and priests around here. If you condition on 'sticking around Indapatta' you get some pretty uninteresting monks and priests, in his own opinion, except for a few very high-ranking ones who don't have time for him. He feels completely vindicated by the fact that Carissa Sevar actually showed up here in person. That said he's got, like, zero interest in going to Hell, no offense.
He'd travel the world killing things that ought to be dead.
With a few exceptions, like the pregnant lady who just left, men never do their fair share of the infanticide and it's always just the women who end up in Hell. She's got no realistic way of buying her way out from under that, now.
If she could do anything, she'd be rich enough to buy herself an Atonement, and do the same for other women who had to kill their babies when they were young.
He's always wanted to be Evil, and would totally be Evil if there was any acceptable afterlife option you could get as a result.
If he was competent to do anything, he'd conquer a country, rule it as a tyrant, harem, slaves, all of that.
Carissa Sevar: Well, it's not hopeless. ...she bets Irori is so annoyed about people whose ambition is to ascend like Irori, but that's Irori's problem and He can solve it Himself.
They can be a test audience, then, for Carissa to explain the current state of affairs, where the weak or the foolish go to Hell, those who have no other choices, and how this should injure the pride of Asmodeus, and the credibility of His church. How unfortunate is Asmodeus's situation, for it is not in His nature to make any concessions to mortal frailty, and yet without any He is denied the greater part of mortal strength, and His church is left asserting that Asmodeus will conquer all the other afterlives eventually, which - come on, now. Anyone with Sevarite mind-training should see the problem at once. Gods should not have common knowledge of disagreement on a question of fact; and if Irori and Asmodeus differ in what they tell their churches, no one's going to believe it's Irori who's the liar.
Asmodeus is not, exactly, vulnerable as a product of these circumstances. He will not lose His position. He is just weaker and less worthy of respect and deference than He wishes He were, and He has little avenue to change it.
Or He had little avenue, until Sevar came to him with the compact, which She thinks He granted mostly just to amuse Himself. It is not in Asmodeus's nature to make concessions to mortal frailty, but it is in His nature to award prizes for His service, and to derive from His bargains greater benefit than was initially imagined; and so now, if all goes well, He'll have mortals who are better, stronger, more interesting, more capable, because Hell will stop being a place where mortals go only if they have no alternative. People like the acolyte who has always wanted to be Evil will get to live their Evil dreams. As for the rest of them, perhaps they'd go to that greater Hell or perhaps they wouldn't, but if they did, Carissa would make sure they became great, and that when they looked back they'd either be glad of their choice or glad they didn't get one.
Questions?
Indapatta: "What is your Hell going to be like, exactly, if all this works?"
"Do you have an unholy symbol?"
"If our doctrine is that only the weak and foolish go to Hell I worry that'll offend a lot of people who'd otherwise support us."
Carissa Sevar: Oh, good point, she needs an unholy symbol. She puts up a Minor Illusion and fiddles with it thoughtfully.
"I'm damned to Hell," she says as she does so. "Everyone I respect and admire is damned to Hell. But there are many who should join us, or who should spend their lives growing in strength and confidence and power, who spend it instead fearing, denying, or trying to claw their way out of Hell, or obediently never doing the Evil they yearn to for the sake of their eternal soul. I do not call them weak or foolish, but their lives are not well-spent, compared to a world where they could go to Hell and be better off for it.
I want to make better devils using the ilani methods. Devils who have the creativity Asmodeus saw no way to build into them; devils who are competent and ruthless and interesting, whose pride is in their achievements and whose achievements make Hell glorious. I cast Vision of Hell, earlier, and people fled in terror; but there is no reason they should not be transfixed in wonder. Asmodeus is not the god of torture but of tyranny. I will build a kingdom so wealthy, so powerful, so extraordinary you would rather be a slave in it than free to wander all the rest of the Outer Planes."
Indapatta: "Irori was slave to no one. You can be Lawful without having anyone else in charge of you, and that's what I aspire to be."
"Can we... have any authoritative words on a maximum amount of torture in your Hell, possibly? If we don't have that it's sort of unnerving given the reputation that Hell has about being tricky."
"I thought you were a renunciate priest of Irori. Doesn't that mean you respected and admired Irori? He didn't go to Hell."
Carissa Sevar: "None of mine will wish they hadn't come to me; how much hurt they can withstand and end up stronger will vary from person to person.
My relationship with Irori is that He clericed me, I proceeded on my path, and then I realized I needed to sell my soul and compact with Asmodeus, and I told Him to stand aside. I have not had occasion, yet, to decide what I think of Him.
You can be Lawful without having anyone in charge of you, but you can't actually be mine without having me in charge of you. If you want to take the crumbs I drop and run off in your own direction with them I will not stop you."
Anashala: "Where do the Sevarite reasoning methods come from? Your disciple refused to say, which I take it means that the story is more complicated than you learning yourself to apply a wizard's mathematics to a Way of clear reasoning."
Carissa Sevar: "Which disciple was this? And yes, where they come from I'll not speak of."
Anashala: "She didn't give us her name; she seemed young to my eye, perhaps eighteen or twenty; brown-eyed and brown-haired. She had no visible alignment aura. It's said that when a monk of Irori did challenge her strength and call her imposter, she Plane-shifted him somewhere, casting the spell herself, and didn't bring him back until the next day. Her casting that we saw was wizardry, for she used illusions for illustrations and gave Fox's Cunning to help others understand her lessons. That would mark her as at least seventh-circle in wizardry, if she could cast an arcane Plane Shift, which I had not particularly thought to be possible at that age."
Carissa Sevar: .....she's got nothing. Well, Ione, but Ione's not seventh circle. Even if Nefreti Clepati has a 100x time dilation demiplane, which is not the kind of thing one can rule out, Ione shouldn't be seventh circle yet. Ione with Nefreti Clepati giving her some kind of weird Nefreti Clepati help? ...plausible.
She conceals her confusion, of course. "Under strange enough circumstances, many things are possible," she says mildly, "and these are strange times."
Anashala: "Do you not know her? She claimed to have been taught by you personally."
Carissa Sevar: "Oh, I know her, I just don't know how she got to seventh circle in the last five weeks. I suppose every student ought to outgrow their teacher."
Indapatta: The monk who escorted her here chuckles, at that. "One of those students. Fitting, for such a master as you."
Anashala now seems slightly less terrified. "The Disciple didn't claim herself that she was seventh-circle. Nor anything else about herself, except that she'd been taught by you personally, and that she was teaching only your own doctrine as best she could understand it or predict it."
Carissa Sevar: The other possibility - more likely, now that it comes to mind - is that she's up to fifth circle as an oracle - still outrageous, but much less impossible (and Carissa's much less jealous).
"Then I'll say no more of her either, except that she spoke truly. And it is time for me to go see the site of our event at sunset, I think."
Indapatta: With respectful hesitation, the man who kneeled to her says that Grandmerchant Taravind is nearer to here, to visit first. His business is in the sixth-circle of Indipatta's lotus, while their gathering-place would be in Indipatta's fifth-circle. Fifth-circle is as high as you can go without having to answer questions to gate-guards before you pass.
Carissa Sevar: Very well, then; they can go to him first.
Indapatta: They set out.
There are some introductions spoken: the monk who escorted Sevar here is Ishana; the man who kneeled to her, Parvansh, retired second-circle wizard.
Parvansh can walk quickly and not talk, or walk slower and talk; he's a wizard, not a monk.
Carissa Sevar: Well, how about she casts Fly for him, and then they can go quickly and talk.
Indapatta: They'd still be limited by Ishana ground-walking, but Parvansh can tell Ishana where to find the meeting-place and meet up with her again at sunset.
They fly off.
Grandmerchant Taravind is... an admirably Lawful and Evil person; among his deeds that are known and acknowledged enough to be speakable without incurring his displeasure, he was able to ruin one of his competitors and buy out their debts. Taravind then had that competitor sign over his children as collateral in order to receive a stay on his debt, but despite the stay of debts the man was ultimately unable to pay. When all his business had fully collapsed, his possessions sold into bankruptcy, and his children sent into slavery, Taravind had kindly paid for an Early Judgment to show the man that he was now destined for Hell, perhaps as a result of selling his children so. It's said that the ruined man went about from house to house, among those who'd once had dealings with him, begging them for enough money to perform an Atonement, but was injured when guards cast aside this importunate beggar. With a broken ankle, he limped out from circle to circle, seeking a temple in the lowest ring that might offer free channeled healing; but was slain after he reached the Orison, supposedly by muggers who saw such easy prey.
It's said that every year Taravind pays to scry the soul of his former competitor in Hell, and that if you can watch and laugh with him about it, he'll favor you in his dealings. Few ask to be part of the viewing party.
Carissa Sevar: "In Cheliax someone like that would often have an incoherence to them, they wouldn't really be acting on their own values, just acting out what they think Evil is; but maybe here, a person like that is their true self. I'll look forward to meeting him."
Indapatta: It doesn't take long at all to move through Indapatta if you fly as the eagle does; very soon they'll be landing in front of a mighty place of business, a two-story building that could house thirty families, faced with gleaming polished-stone tiles. Someone has managed to paint or otherwise color the mortar between the tiles so that the mortar looks like it was of gold alloy.
The name "Carissa Sevar" will gain them hasty and frightened entrance, through a nicely appointed foyer whose walls are hung about with fancy paintings of slaves serving owners in various ways, none outright pornographic; down corridors of well-kept polished wood; finally to the antechamber before a very solid-looking door, heavy wood banded with metal.
A terrified secretary knocks, and when the door opens a crack, hastily whispers through it.
Less than a minute later, a disgruntled-looking muscular woman comes out, blinks astonishment at the crowned beauty, and has a seat in the antechamber.
A portly man, cleanshaven about his face and head, perhaps in his late fifties, holds open the office door, and gestures to Carissa Sevar (only) to enter. Vudrani dress codes are still hard to read, but his robes are quite colorful and layered, and he wears a +6 Splendour Headband and assorted magical means of protection.
Ri-Dul: Message: Tilt her head left if she wants Ri-Dul (currently still invisible) following her in.
Carissa Sevar: Tilt. If she gets into some kind of trouble she'll feel like an idiot; fifth circle wizards aren't actually invincible, if you take them by surprise.
In she goes.
Indapatta: There's a wizard maintaining an arcane Detect Magic, standing in one corner of this large windowless private office, with a Lawful Neutral alignment and maybe 3rd or 4th circle by the strength of their aura.
Other notable room fixtures include a chandelier set with red-orange-yellow gems and crystals, lit in its center by a bound fire elemental; and the Petrified body of a slender woman with a pleading expression, from whose desperately outstretched hand now hangs a cloak and an umbrella.
Grandmerchant Taravind has a quick word with the wizard, his eyebrows climbing as a result, and then bows deeply towards the beautiful, crowned, highly magical woman now in his office. He doesn't speak, for it's said that in Hell the most dangerous thing speaks first.
Carissa Sevar: "I am told that it is to your credit, that a cult of mine now exists in Indapatta."
Taravind: "I should hesitate to claim more than that I doubled or trebled its size, compared to what might've been, and much of your core following would have come to you either way, I imagine."
"May we speak frankly? Urvihat in the corner yonder will say nothing of anything that passes here, and I promise the same if you do."
Carissa Sevar: "You have my word that I will not share your words with anyone." If there's something important to be told to Keltham or anyone else, Ri-Dul will say it. We're all Lawful Evil here; that's fair play.
Taravind: "I'll ask plainly, then. How much of all this is real?"
Carissa Sevar: "The pact with Asmodeus is real. Neither of us lose anything if it goes unfulfilled, and I suspect it serves Asmodeus for it to be known, whether I make any progress towards it or not. It will delight devils to notify people, I think, that they failed to meet the conditions that'd make them Carissa Sevar's, even if such conditions are real and I a true power in Hell.
The cult is useful to me because I intend to ascend. I might or might not conquer some planets first; we'll see how various plans work out."
Taravind: "By compact they need only serve yourself and Hell in life, and call your name in life and death, do they not? So your disciple said. And what do you intend to make of any souls that come to you in Hell?"
Carissa Sevar: "Underlying the lessons circulating as mine there is theory related to devil-making. I understand why Asmodeus made them without creativity, without perfectionism, without all-surpassing ambition. But I don't like what it made Hell into, I don't like that so many with Evil in their heart try to suppress it all their lives lest they end up there.
I see his aim, and I can achieve it while preserving more of what makes a mortal Lawful Evil and deserving of Hell in the first place."
Taravind: "Mm. I harbor some resentment towards the current Prince of Hell, I do admit. Being a merchant in the slave trade means you cannot buy your way into Axis, as do so many adventuring villains whose activities are far less useful and economically important than mine own. Each slave I trade is accounted more Evil than my entire profit donated to charity would be Good."
"I would consider it reasonable to go to Hell, if Hell would only treat me the way I treat my slaves. They aren't punished if they don't misbehave, I train them in ways that make them more profitable, I feed them plainly but enough that they can put on muscle if not fat. I do my best to sort them into occupations suited to them, as is profitable, and I'd say in most cases, kind. I don't sell girls to brothels until they're of age, or underage boys either. Many succeed in purchasing back their freedom or winning it as favor from a kindly master. If they lived an eternity I imagine they would all be free in time."
"I only inflict finite discomfort on slaves who pass through my hands. I refuse to accept that endless extreme torture is reasonable justice for that. Even Good, by all accounts, agrees with this."
"I've summoned a contract devil to see if I could negotiate a more reasonable fate, but the degree of servitude they wanted to Asmodeus and Hell in exchange was frankly unacceptable to me. I am simply not that fearful of taking a Plane Shift to Abaddon at the end of my life."
"We may be able to reach some amicable arrangement, Master Sevar. Indeed, we could almost have been made for each other, I'd hope. But I'd have a great deal more specificity of you, first, on how you'd treat my soul if it came to you in Hell."
Carissa Sevar: "It's interesting, that's not the story people told me when they were telling me how Lawful Evil you are. But letting aside who deserves what, which always seemed too Good of a question to be interesting to me - yes. People should treat their slaves in the fashion that maximizes their output and their motivation; in a way that gives them the opportunity to improve themselves and become more valuable and the incentive to do so.
You can shape people with torture, and sometimes you certainly should, but if people will get tortured no matter what they do they do worse. It is my intent to make every soul I own better and more valuable, to give them the means and the reason to grow, to let them rise by their own strength. But I don't, in fact, know your strength, so I'll make no promises about how far it'll carry you. Those who served me in life, and are presently dead, live in comfort and pleasure in Hell at the moment even though it took some doing; that I swear. I'm not going to turn them into shattered blobs of flesh later unless they really make a point of giving me no other way to make use of them at all; that I swear also."
Taravind: "Those who served you now live in comfort in Hell? This I hadn't heard."
Carissa Sevar: "They're in Erecura's Gardens until I can go and get them. What my acolytes say of me is mostly true, but it's little of the truth."
Taravind: "Mm. And what would it take to earn the same treatment, myself?"
Carissa Sevar: "They did some things of great value to me; one of them is owed at least a third of the credit for the fall in spellsilver prices" by keeping Keltham engaged for at least that long. "There is still much of value that can be done for me, but not nearly as easily; on my current shopping list, for instance, are Wishes, and a headband only slightly inferior to mine for a useful research assistant, and a conversation with someone who has travelled the Great Beyond to other worlds, and a Wish wording or set of Wish wordings that'd close the Worldwound, and some skilled high-level adventurers who could help me cleanly handle a succession dispute in my home country of Cheliax. It might be that my favor can be bought with just the cult in Indapatta, especially if anything comes of it, but a wise person wants more surety than that of attaining anything of particular importance to them."
Taravind: "Those asks are considerably advanced beyond the arenas I do fight in, Master Sevar. What treatment can I earn in Hell from only backing your cult in Indapatta?"
Carissa Sevar: "If I succeed, you won't suffer except in the course of normal punishments for the sort of misconduct usefully corrected with pain, and will have the chance to retain who you are and try your own hand at shaping slaves in Hell. If your cult here impresses me greatly, I'll see about buying you protection in Hell."
Taravind: "What is the greatest intensity, greatest duration, greatest frequency of punishment that'd be applied to me at any time during my eternity in Hell? Master Sevar, it's said that you were an Irorite priest albeit a Lawful Evil one, before you turned to this course; I know a merchant's ways might seem disdainful for you, but protection without specificity is no protection at all, in contracts."
Carissa Sevar: "I don't condemn intelligence; there's rather too little of it anyway. Should this be in my power, I will do to you nothing that you have not done to another, for no longer than you did it, at no less provocation; does that suffice?"
Taravind: "I'd have it be specific that it was nothing I knew had been done to any slave that I legally owned, during the time that I legally owned them. And that I'm entitled to skip burning in Avernus before coming to your hands; even the devil I tried to negotiate with offered me that much."
Carissa Sevar: "Sure, I won't do anything you know has not been done to any slave that you legally owned, while you legally owned them, and I won't sell you except under circumstances where you'd have sold someone, and I'll exercise as much screening of buyers as you did. It amuses me, Master Taravind, for your eternal fate to be substantially bounded by how much the story you tell about yourself is true; I have no hesitations about slavery, but some annoyance at delusion."
Taravind: "I sold none to apprentice torturers, and I was offended to be asked. I'd have sold none of mine to devils at any price I was ever offered. Can we have the explicit understanding, then, that I'm not to be sold to any devil - or at least none who doesn't agree to abide by all these same rules?"
Carissa Sevar: "Yes, I'll agree to that."
Taravind: "And this is to be mine in exchange for supporting your cult in Indapatta?"
Carissa Sevar: "I'll compare it to the cults in other cities with less cooperative sponsors. If I'm convinced, evaluated fairly, you've done me a substantial service, and I do become a Power in Hell with the right to all those souls that call my name and do me and Hell more service than disservice, and you are among them, then you'll be treated in accordance with the terms I just described, and sold on only to anyone who agrees to them."
Taravind: He smiles slightly. "I've spent about a hundred gold pieces a week on your cult in one way or another, in addition to lending it the weight of my name and speaking against a proposed ban of it by the city government - I have no weight at Imperial levels, but have some spoons to stir Indapatta's pot. I hardly think it fair that my fate be judged relative to what sponsors in other cities have done, perhaps those who fear Abaddon more than I. If I support your cult as I've already been doing, is that enough to win that much grace, from you?"