???: Their path crosses the form of what appears to be an old woman in white, wearing something like a blindfold made of old and rusted metal, leaning against a brass post of a great brass building.
As the two planar travelers pass her, she lifts her head, and if not for the rusted blindfold her gaze would point at Fe-Anar.
"You will not find in this city what you are seeking here," says she in Ignan.
Prince Fe-Anar: "What," Fe-Anar says automatically, "anything I think of seeking?"
???: Possibly a slight trace of a smile flickers on the old woman's lips. "I spoke of what you are seeking. Not of what you have sought or will seek."
Prince Fe-Anar: "Right," says Fe-Anar, slightly disappointed as this implies much less power to manipulate the markets of the City of Brass. "Who are you and why should we care what you say?"
???: "To you, I will seem at first like a strange entity who knows too much. Your business is secret, and you will wonder if I know even more. I will say that I know you mean to buy thirty Wishes, and you'll think that I could have guessed this by tracing the paths of the six travelers who came to this city before. I will say that I know you are looking for a ship that can sail the Maelstrom, and you will think that anyone who was spying on your current trip could have learned this. It will still concern you, and so you will care what I say."
Prince Fe-Anar: "Well, then, say it, we're in a hurry."
???: "You're looking for a ship that can sail beyond the Maelstrom into the primordial chaos that lies outside Creation. And you are not seeking to do this only from curiosity or an exploratory spirit or from chafing under Pharasma's restrictions. You fear that Pharasma's Creation might end, for reasons ultimately springing from that same anomaly which enabled you to obtain so many diamonds; and you are trying to live on, to ensure that something born of Creation survives."
Prince Fe-Anar: All right, he's paying attention. But he's annoyed about it.
Ione Sala: Ione is a lot more concerned than that, terrified even. Nefreti didn't warn her about this and Ione does know, by this point, in a general sort of way, that things have gone off-track from what was Supposed To Have Happened. And Fe-Anar has less Bluff than zero somehow, and is now visibly Paying Attention in order to clearly inform this entity that its guess was correct. About a piece of information that Nethys and His allies have spent some really incredibly extraordinary efforts to keep confined only to beings who won't or can't use that information.
Outwardly, Ione will not look terrified, or annoyed, or bone-horrified, about any of these things respectively, because Ione has more Bluff than zero.
???: "In honesty, I know more. All of that, is only what I could and would have guessed even if I knew no more. It is only what I would have predicted and foretold in any case, through my having considered in advance how Creation might end or how others might seek to escape its ending; and having always kept a watch on the City of Brass, with certain agents."
"To notice when someone seems like they might be buying too many Wishes, in those planar markets that sell those - to set watch upon those purveyors that someone might wrongly imagine could sell an ark in which to flee a dying Creation - if I had to make the reasoning sound reasonable in mortal terms, I might tell that story."
Prince Fe-Anar: You deal with it, Fe-Anar says through the telepathic bond to Ione. I have already expended all my tolerance for Nethysians.
Ione Sala: I'll try, but I think it's focused on you, and I'm sure it's not a Nethysian.
"What more do you know?" Ione asks it.
???: The old woman goes on addressing Fe-Anar. "Even if you could find here a vessel to sail the Maelstrom, it would disintegrate within hours once exposed to the blind eternities beyond. To truly escape Pharasma's grasp is more difficult than you realize. I tried, in my own time. To forge an ark like that is a millennium's work for a god; and even then, to endure beyond Creation it must be protected by somewhat of those energies that underlie creation itself."
"If I did not know more I would say to you, that I did not think you had all the resources required to it, but that I considered it worth my time to inquire."
"If I did not know more I would say to you, that even if I concluded that you stood a chance, the price of my own knowledge and aid was not only my own place among the refugees, but that I and my husband would take with our chosen people, and we would also lead in that expedition - so I would demand, for there are greater resources required to this work than diamonds."
"In fact, I do know more. But I must play out how things would have gone otherwise."
Prince Fe-Anar: "Right," says Fe-Anar, with genuine irritation now, "then, I'd say that I don't believe you and you're wasting my time, and that I don't care at all what the gods say is impossible, because the word of the gods isn't worth the paper it isn't written on, and that you can come along if you're useful but you're not in charge of a damn thing, because I'm not going to all this trouble just to obey some new equally tedious god."
???: "And I would smile a little, then, but briefly, before I told you that I knew where to find the ark you will not find in this city."
"You being already from Golarion, I would not need to explain the Starstone to you. I would ask instead if you had the strength to pass the lesser of the Starstone's two tests, and reach the Starstone in its Cathedral - as have many previous souls who touched it and were never seen again."
"But those are the less impossible requisites. The energy that sustains Creation can be found in Pharasma, in Pharasma's Spire, above all in the Seal at the base of the Spire, and in very few other places. I'd inquire of you where you meant to lay your hands on it."
Prince Fe-Anar: "I can't fathom why I'd answer any of those questions, or for that matter why you'd ask them."
???: "And I'd reply that I was, possibly, interested in having you join with me to escape Creation - or less probably, that I might join with you, though that would require you to have greater resource than I expected. But that I was interested in fairly weighing the measure of our contributions, with neither of us seeking to dominate the other by force."
"If you can escape Creation entirely without my aid? Then I and my husband are but two would-be passengers upon your vessel, prepared to pay any fair price you ask and submit to any lawful governance; and we know others interested as well."
Prince Fe-Anar: “Right, well, you’d have said that if you thought some thing you don’t think, and that’s about as much as I want to talk about things you don’t think.”
???: "I wouldn't be saying all that if there wasn't a reason. My time is valuable to me, as yours is to you. But I'll offer price for trying to answer as you would have answered; even as my less-knowing self would also soon have offered you payment to continue conversing."
The old woman reaches into her shawl-coat, slowly, unthreateningly, and takes out what looks like a bar of metal, coated lightly in glass by some means. "Two pounds of spellsilver still holds some value even in Golarion. I offer this as payment to continue this conversation, as my other possible self would have done the same."
Prince Fe-Anar: ....he holds out his hand to take it. "Well, I suppose having noticed one might want to escape Creation, and also that while it'd be hard to survive outside it it probably isn't impossible, puts you a cut ahead of most people I'd hire, but I'm not joining any projects run by mysterious strangers who think that instead of Pharasma we should have them."
???: "As much as I wished to leave Creation," the old woman answers, "I would not have cared to take my chances on a vessel all of mortals without any divinity to aid them. Gods are like ship-caulkers and wainwrights, to an undertaking like that. But not all gods are so noxious, or so it seems to myself. If Desna or Abadar had been the keystone of Creation then I would not seek so much to leave it."
Prince Fe-Anar: "I don't have any grievances with Abadar -- or rather, the ones I have are all very personal and specific. Desna can be helpful if She wants, but wouldn't, I think, announce that She were actually in charge, and if She did then that's not being helpful and She can leave."
???: "For a long time we will be a tiny ship of order in a sea of chaos, and most islands we happen across will not be friendly nor trustworthy. It's not as bad as mortals are led to think from interacting with only the spawn of the Far Tapestry that Pharasma doesn't trouble Herself to keep out; for those alien things that'd speak to us in plain numbers and trade us knowledge have not been permitted entry to Creation. But it will still be long before anyone has an option of leaving our vessel without their soul immediately dissolving, and where disagreement cannot be resolved by exit it must be resolved some other way."
"Someone or something must be in charge. Had you meant not to appoint yourself and also not appoint any other, my estimated chance of your success would plummet sharply."
Prince Fe-Anar: "Of course I'll be in charge!"
???: "None of the Powers I know, that might otherwise take an interest in buying passage or aiding your journey, will submit themselves unconditionally to a mortal captain. Mortals are simply too changeable, from a Power's perspective. Abadar, if He led, would be a known quantity, He would not change from the goals and methods He had already demonstrated. Even from the perspective of those Powers that were once mortals themselves, it is just not possible to know a mortal well enough to trust them wholly; whatever you have seen of their past, mortals can change."
"Did I and my husband lead such an expedition, we would not ask any allied Powers to submit themselves to us unconditionally; there would be a contract to which Powers were signatory. Have you composed such a contract of passage?"
Prince Fe-Anar: "Perhaps you should go make your own ship, then, for all your Powers, for I'm not wasting my time in the doing of favors for beings that cannot regard mortals as worth bargaining with, and if I have agreements, they are for people whose company I might desire."
???: "I am here and bargaining with you, am I not? And my husband has never held himself too good to bargain with mortals, and has treated with courtesy all those who sought him with that intention, whether they were weaker than himself or mightier. Nor have I asked you for any favor I haven't offered to pay for, and my husband shares that spirit."
Prince Fe-Anar: "Then I might write you a contract of passage, and you can see what you make of it."
???: "Perhaps. I'd worry that as you stand now, it might not be a contract I could swallow. I'd think that perhaps you'd value my possible contributions more dearly, once you failed to find any great ship for sale here that could sail even the lesser Maelstrom, or after you'd verified how the Maelstrom grows more corrosive as you steer towards the edges of Creation."
"But there is one cautionary omen that must be given you immediately, if you mean to undertake this quest and be its hero."
"Buy only twenty-five Wishes this day, not thirty. Do not augment your Wisdom."
Ione Sala: "Hard no," Ione says out loud. She's increasingly worried about where exactly this thing is trying to steer Fe-Anar, and though she has nothing terribly clever to say, she wants to check what happens if its attention is directed more toward herself. "Nefreti Clepati specifically warned me to make sure he didn't somehow end up with augmented Intelligence but no Wisdom, no matter what kind of tricks fate seemed to be throwing about that. Nefreti Clepati is a ninth-circle of Nethys, and she knows things that gods don't."
???: "Nefreti Clepati has only one trick and she uses it for everything. If something is happening that's unparalleled in her visions, she's as blind as an ordinary god after prophecy's been shattered. You should aspire to better, young oracle, and not rely so heavily on your master's guidance."
Prince Fe-Anar: "I think I have enough Wisdom to be getting on with," Fe Anar says, cheerfully enough.
Ione Sala: Oh HELL no, Ione says into their Telepathic Bond, still taking pleasure every time she uses the word as the curse that it should be. Fe-Anar, don't you think it's alarming that the incredibly suspicious entity is requesting you not to augment the one stat Nefreti said to make sure got augmented, and that stat is the Trickery Resistance and Awful Mistake Avoidance stat?
And Fe-Anar is weirdly willing to go along with that, Fe-Anar WHY, Ione doesn't even know why she should be panicking but she clearly should be!
Prince Fe-Anar: It's absolutely suspicious, he says cheerfully back to her. Quite possibly we shouldn't do it. But it wouldn't surprise me very much to learn that this careful game you all are balancing in fact falls apart if I see through it, in which case I definitely want to do that but can believe that this minute isn't the most convenient possible time.
???: When these Telepathic transmissions have ceased, and only then, the old woman speaks again. "Wisdom is also closeness to divinity, and distance from divinity can also be a resource. You will need all you have of that resource, when the time comes to spend it."
Prince Fe-Anar: "See," he says, "I really like that explanation, which is why I don't trust it at all."
Ione Sala: And NOW Ione is trying to figure out the chance that the 'old woman' who's presumably a divinity or a herald or something is able to snoop on their Telepathic connection, maybe even their actual thoughts; or if she's just reading past Fe-Anar's not-so-great Bluff - Sevar did warn them that the Selectively Permeable Mind Blank might not ultimately be as solid as the original complete Mind Blank; it's mainly meant to resist standardized Discern Location from a distance, not divinities staring at it up close -
Prince Fe-Anar: Fe-Anar isn't even considering whether she's able to snoop. Obviously she is. There are a lot of beings that can do this kind of thing (Ione's one of them) and it's always exactly this annoying; he appreciates that in this case Ione's getting a taste of her own medicine.
???: "Indeed. But it is not in my interest to tell you all of my knowledge that you could benefit from, while you still seem little to esteem my aid. I do have my pride as you have yours. I don't say that you could never sail beyond Creation unassisted, given time enough to build your own vessel and somehow lay hands upon the energies of Creation. But you are not conducting yourself like a person who has no time limit on his endeavor; you are here hoping to buy a planar ship already-made, instead of building one special to its purpose. You mean to flee Creation and you need to do it soon. That you cannot do without allies, any more than I myself could do it alone."
Prince Fe-Anar: "If you want to deliver a lecture on how to flee Creation, I promise to act appropriately overawed at your genius so your pride can be assuaged; it must be difficult, being prideful and unable to assuage your pride merely by actually achieving things."
???: "I've no use for your or anyone else's fawning; I've heard far more than enough such, from those who mistakenly think I care to hear it. But to have one's contribution undervalued is a troubling thing, for it implies a corresponding lack of repayment; and the same, if the payer seems too much to overesteem the coin in which I am being paid."
"Mouthing words of praise is easy. I want something harder. I want the respect you give your shoes."
Prince Fe-Anar: "If you have something valuable to me, I'll pay you for it, and respect you for it; if you have something of great value to me, I'll pay you well for it. If you don't, then I won't."
???: "I am not something merely of great value; I am something that is necessary for your long journey. I do not, realistically, think that you could find another pair of shoes like myself."
Prince Fe-Anar: He shrugs. "So?"
???: "There are things you discard the first time they seem troublesome to you; a merchant with valuable goods but who does not seem to treat you respectfully enough for your taste, or who asks you for pay in an unfamiliar coin. There are things you cannot discard, like your shoes upon a long journey. If your shoes could speak, it would be well to make compact with them before you set out."
Prince Fe-Anar: "Look," Fe-Anar says, "I spend a lot of time around mysterious powerful people who are omniscient or are uncannily perfect at guessing exactly what to say to you, or are arguably gods, or some combination of those. They're lovely people, sometimes. There are some of them I wouldn't strangle even if I could. But one picks up some habits, when there are all kinds of powerful things that know too much around speaking vague prophecy instead of handing you a contract they want you to sign, and the main thing you learn is that you can actually just not let them do that and spitefully die in a fire instead.
Maybe that's what you'd call the thing-you-spend-when-you-get-wiser, where you replace that simple and eminently workable rule with whatever gods do among each other. Maybe it's something you have no comprehension of. I don't know. I don't care. I have said I'll pay you; I meant it. If I give my word, I'll keep it. But I will happily die in a fire rather than acknowledge some vague unbounded obligation to excessively powerful things that want to push me around. If I can only have my trip conditional on knuckling under to such beings, that trip is of no value to me; there are no gains from trade to peaceably split.
I would, in fact, take off my shoes, walking across the Worldwound, if my shoes started telling me what to do, because I just don't care that much about dying and I do care a lot about not being easy to manipulate.
If you want to make a deal, offer one. If your deal sounds worse than dying in a fire -- and many, many, many things sound worse than dying in a fire, when they're offered by smug entities that know too much -- then I'll die in a fire instead. If your advice is to make a compact, tell me what you're offering and what you want to be paid for so that we can write the godsdamned contract."
???: The old woman nods. "As you now speak more plainly to me, I'll speak more plainly to you. I was a farrier's daughter before I was a mysterious powerful anything, and I'm afraid to simply appoint you captain of the voyage and obey you because you strike me as in some ways incautious. You offered insult to the mysterious powerful thing, saying, 'It must be difficult being prideful and unable to assuage your pride merely by actually achieving things.' That's the sort of rashness that a farrier's daughter watches men die for."
"I also know more than that, but it's knowledge that I received under contract and that I don't want to use because that imposes additional terms on me unless I could have succeeded otherwise. I'm telling you that because it's something you disclose to somebody with whom you want to build a firm relationship; the sort where you aren't simply wearing your magic items hidden, to manipulate them; the sort where you worry they'd resent the hiding afterward, if they learned. I am being more cautious around you than you are being cautious around myself, and on the proposed voyage we would have to be cautious around things from the Far Tapestry."
Prince Fe-Anar: "The task we've set ourselves isn't one cautious people set themselves. But if you have advice on not being manipulated by beings from the Far Tapestry then that is among the advice I'd pay you for and follow, if it was any good."
???: "My husband is wealthy enough that mortal coin means nothing to me. The pay I seek is a healthy working relationship, in which we either have terms of alliance, or I don't expect to die if I submit to all your orders."
"But I can give you two pieces of advice like that, to be repaid in the coin of real respect, or even a down payment toward compromise. I won't set the price in advance, only ask you to be fair, once you've determined the goods' worth."
Prince Fe-Anar: "I'm listening."
???: "First, this: To the things from the Far Tapestry you are a sort of mechanical contrivance whose levers they are prodding, looking for triggers. To bind them on a level where their words bear any relation to reality, rather than being pure manipulations, is only the first step with trading with them; after that they will be looking for truths that fix reality, true things they can say that move you; and they have more freedom in it than you imagine, because what they say affects what is true. It bears some resemblance to the art of self-fulfilling prophecy, which the young oracle beside you has barely begun to explore."
"From the perspective of the Far Tapestry, anything resembling a swift emotional reaction is an alien - to them - shortcut through your mind's pathways, which they will try to exploit towards self-fulfillment. Had I wished to ruin you, using the arts that they would use, I would have - without warning, and with a carefully established previous frame of insufficiently-concealed contempt - prophesied to you that your pride would be your flaw and your downfall, that you would hold yourself too great to heed the counsel of wise elder beings like myself that could have saved you. I am not using the exact words I'd have used, if I were trying that myself; but with the right choice of wordings, intonations, contexts, I could have spoken those words and thereby made them true. I could tell you that your reluctance to compromise would destroy you, in a way that made it sound like I was sincerely contemptuous about the fact but maybe also didn't know as much about you as I thought; and you'd think 'hah, I'll show her, then' and refuse to compromise and so seal the truth I'd predicted."
"Dealing with creatures like that is, in fact, unpleasant, and I would recommend leaving such negotiations to my husband."
Prince Fe-Anar: "I do realize that, and I'm not so easily played, but I'm happy to leave it to your husband, had I any reason to think I could trust him or you."
???: "You're less easily played when you're in a mood to carefully reflect on things, perhaps. I can already predict about you that you are not always in a mood like that, and see some of how I'd steer you to not be in that mood at the key moment when you heard my words. To be a kind of thing that has changeable, responsive moods makes you, from their perspective, a strangely vulnerable sort of thought process; they can consider how to attack every kind of mood you can be prodded to enter, rather than you being in one constant mental state with a more limited set of self-fulfilling claims."
Prince Fe-Anar: " - sure. And thank you, I guess, for not doing that, if you're in fact not doing that, and if that's what you're fishing for. I notice we're not talking about why I should trust you."
???: "We cannot yet form the bonds of trust as trust should be, until you know more about me than it's to my own advantage to reveal now. And you will become smarter than this, and later wiser. If you came to trust me too quickly now, you would notice then. That would be an ill start to the voyage."
Prince Fe-Anar: "Well, then, I'm not sure we have much more to say to one another."
???: "You know more about me than at the start of this conversation; and I know more about you that I am allowed to take into account. That the process does not complete immediately does not mean there has been no progress."
"But I'll move on, then, to my second advice, which is more of a tangible offer."
"I would guess that Nefreti Clepati has seen you in alternate possibilities, and has seen some of your possible fates. Learning of those might enable you to break free of them, rather than others using them to move you about. I will give this oracle girl a private message to bear to Clepati, though it cannot yet come to your own ears, by which I mean to motivate Clepati to tell you what she has withheld. That is my next offering to you in this relationship."
Prince Fe-Anar: "Well, I won't turn that down."
???: The old woman turns then her head toward Ione, and speaks apparently in plain Taldane, though it is also evident that Fe-Anar does not hear.
"Brace yourself and show no reaction to my words."
Ione Sala: Oh that's not a good sign.
"I'm braced."
???: "You made an error, in opposing my interests here, in seeking to warn that man against me."
"It's not to my interest to let Creation be threatened, if I don't think I have a chance to escape Creation. Having learned this much, in this way, if I failed to come to alliance terms with this man, I would eliminate the threat to Creation after I'd investigated it. There would be no constraints on how I used that knowledge, which I'd have learned regardless."
Ione Sala: Ione Sala shows no outward reaction. Her heart is hammering inside her, though, for she's finally thinking and yes, that should have occurred to her, and even more it's occurring to her that Fe-Anar himself would be ecstatic if this being did exactly that.
"Understood," Ione says.
???: "I'd know from having seen him for only two minutes that his pride is his fatal flaw. He is not ready to lead a voyage out of Creation. He is not ready to hear how unready he is."
"There is something in the nature of Creation or perhaps what lies beyond it, that makes mortals to matter in it at all, as we wouldn't otherwise expect to be true. For that reason I consider it a running concern that perhaps a voyage like this one can only succeed if it's a mortal to begin it and drive it, a mortal who hasn't been turned into a full hand-puppet of gods along the way. But he is unequal, at present, even to the simpler requisite of coming to reasonable terms with me about my aid. He wants to be sole captain of the voyage and rule it alone, and it is possible to put him into a mood where he does not want to hear from his advisors. I would not, at present, want to go with him, as he is. So Nethys's gamble ends here and poorly, unless Nefreti Clepati tells this man everything pertinent she knows about his fates and his dooms, and that enables him to grow beyond those."
Ione Sala: "Understood."
???: "My price for my aid to Nethys in this matter, is that Nefreti Clepati tells me anything she's glimpsed in other possibilities about a power that can control space, or make portals of a vast scale; any such tale, however distant from us, might give me a hint about where to look for a power like that somewhere in Creation. Success there would also make this a more promising voyage. And you need me to decide, in the end, that I'll gamble on this being the right moment to go into a greater exile."
Ione Sala: "I'll convey that, though I can't speak for my master. How is Nefreti to contact You?"
???: "She knows me. So will you, as soon as I decide the matter is no longer a secret from you. And that's also a helpful act toward him, for it's better that people begin by seeing me as I am, for good or ill, and only afterward consider the distorted stories of me."
The old woman turns back to Fe-Anar, speaking this time again to be heard by both. "I will be waiting here in Fire where you found me, if you later become more desiring of my aid. I'd offer to send some small minion with you, for your convenience, but I don't expect you want that."
Prince Fe-Anar: "Doesn't really sound convenient, no. I'll think about what you had to say, though rather little of it was about how concretely to do a project like this one."
???: "If you could somehow lay your hands upon the energies that sustain Creation, the mathematics of them have been the study of an ancient silver dragon who dwells in Kenabres. I'd help you more if I could, but while I yet dwell within Creation I am constrained by far too many oaths and pacts and treaties and considerations."
Prince Fe-Anar: He nods, because all the things he can think of to say are sarcastic and that's just bad incentives when she's actually being mildly helpful.
???: Outward sarcasm would mean nothing to her; only the underlying realities of his attitude matter. But that he cares at all what she thinks, and restrains his pride in any way, is progress.
"I say also - in case it should matter to you - that I have not truly been here in person, though this form does resemble me and I have been speaking through it quite directly. Approaching you in my true person without asking your permission about it would not have been courteous."
Prince Fe-Anar: He figured. Gods tend to be notable to be around. "I thank you for the courtesy, to whatever degree courtesy is how your decision was motivated."
???: She smiles slightly, and folds her hands into her lap. Though the metal blindfold is still on her, there is an air about her as if she'd closed her eyes.
Iarwain:Cheliax, at a point in time later than it was before the text earlier said 'Earlier:':
Cheliax: The developing situation in Cheliax is complicated, and of course fraught, and it could hardly be otherwise.
Cheliax: First Abrogail Thrune was assassinated along with Aspexia Rugatonn inside her own palace, which is the sort of thing that happens from time to time. Then Abrogail Thrune was Wishnapped out of Hell, which happens less. Worst of all, the Crown of Infernal Majesty was lost.
Cheliax: ...and then two days later that Crown was ransomed back from Keltham, now styling himself Keltham of Elsewhere.
Foremost, the Crown was exchanged for Cheliax locating every last woman it could find from its secret ilani breeding-program: and giving those women a choice. On the one hand, a Polymorph-abortion before their children could be ensouled. Or alternatively, going to Osirion to be made statues, possibly for quite a while, until Keltham or his chosen delegate declared that Creation had become a fitting place for dath ilani children; or else decided that the children must be aborted after all. In either case those women would afterward be made very rich and free to go where they wished.
And secondmost in exchange of the Crown's return, the Chelish state and Asmodeus's Church, were to make no further effort in person or by proxy to locate or retrieve Abrogail Thrune.
Cheliax: So now, Cheliax can infer: Given that Keltham seemed to know about the breeding program in the first place, Keltham almost certainly knows he has remaining children in Cheliax.
Keltham knows he couldn't get them all.
Keltham, evidently, cares about his prospective children a great deal.
If you had higher Intelligence and Splendour than Wisdom, you might conclude - after a deadline of probable ensoulment had passed, and Keltham had not destroyed Cheliax already - that this meant it was okay to invade Osirion now.
Cheliax: You would not have wanted to look at any earlier point like you were about to invade Osirion. Keltham might not have liked that, and you wouldn't have had those definitely-not-hostages yet.
So you would not be ready to invade immediately after the deadline passed, because you couldn't visibly prepare before that.
But once that deadline had passed, you would start carrying out Cheliax's previous plan, to then begin readying its forces to invade Osirion.
Cheliax: So the first complication of the present situation, then, is that Cheliax is now visibly gathering its forces for war.
Obviously Cheliax hasn't officially made any announcement that Osirion is the target. That part is not spoken outside of the most tightly secured chambers, lest any spy should hear it and make official report.
But that's only so spying empires can potentially pretend not to know, and choose not to take official notice. Everyone knows that if Cheliax is invading anyone, it's almost certainly the home of the Scientific Revolution.
Cheliax: The next element of complication is who now sits upon the throne of Cheliax. Imaginably, one could try to hold the throne open against Abrogail Thrune's return; but then far too many people would try to seize it. Cheliax must have a single clear ruler, at all times, but especially if war is about to begin.
When Abrogail guessed that Calantra Thrune would most likely be next to rule the Chelish Imperium, she made that guess based on mistaken premises having to do with time-travel.
Calantra Thrune is sensible, cautious; older than Abrogail was when Abrogail assumed the throne. Given the apparent circumstances, Calantra has opted to back the throne-bid of a cousin instead. Abrogail is not abandoned by the Church to Hell, she is ransomed away from Cheliax's rescue. For all anyone knows, Keltham could decide to send Abrogail Thrune back the next day. If Abrogail II is really gone for good, Calantra suspects her cousin's reign may not last all that long anyways; most Chelish reigns don't.
There are things you ought not to do if you are determined to keep your head attached to your shoulders for very long, and one of those things is seating yourself upon the Throne of Cheliax, in the throne room that was Abrogail's, while Abrogail Thrune still exists in any form that might take offense.
Chelish Throne Room: Then the new Infernal Majestrix, now styling herself Terthule II though that wasn't her birth-name, is no coward whatever else you might say of her.
Her new position is, of course, fragile; all the more so because Terthule II must avoid letting her reign appear fragile at almost any cost, including that she must avoid the appearance of being concerned about the appearance of fragility.
Terthule II has conducted no systematic sweep of Abrogail II's loyalists, because a number of former Abrogail loyalists are too valuable to be easily disposed-of; Abrogail II's visible fondness for somebody tends to have been unfortunately correlated with their competence. For that matter, an evenhanded tally of the pro-Abrogail faction would have to include, for example, Aspexia Rugatonn, who while on constantly fractious terms with Abrogail II did dislike her less than previous monarchs. If you sweep the Abrogail loyalists, but leave visible holes in the sweep corresponding to people you don't dare kill, that makes you look weak.
Terthule II, then, has not conducted a sweep of only the weaker Abrogail loyalists, given that she cannot sweep them all. The appearance of indifference to them can also serve.
But there are many unimportant personnel responsible for maintaining the Majestrix's personal quarters (mostly repaired after the attack by some greater ilani weapon); and it was easy enough for Terthule to make their palace-service more difficult and demanding. After which it is only natural that Terthule sent off to torture, or took a few moments to personally punish, those personal servants of the Queen who failed in their work. Among those already excruciated to death are several souls whom Abrogail II was said to favor, among her personal household. It serves to perform that Abrogail II is never coming back.
This does have the effect of making a lot of other competent people, whom Abrogail II might have arguably visibly favored in some way, a little nervous about Terthule II. Really the fact that Terthule II isn't purging tons of competent people is something to be said in her favor as a Chelish monarch, even if she's refraining from it during an incredibly tense situation on the verge of war. But it's the sort of internal peace that could change on less than a round's notice.
Cheliax: Another, stranger source of complications in Cheliax, is that somebody has been casting permanent symbols of healing within Asmodean temples - starting with those at the Worldwound, and then in the primary temples serving major Chelish cities. This mysterious benefactor of Cheliax has left no calling card, set off no alarms that anyone remembers, and demanded no payment.
This is a rather significant act, one that in some ways shifts balances of power -
dath ilan: Really? In that case, one wishes to know why it wasn't done earlier.
Golarion: All right, then, some background:
The inability of Evil clerics to channel positive energy for wide-radius healing is one of the key disadvantages of Evil; especially when it comes to large military operations, or the economic productivity of whole countries; especially Evil countries that don't conduct themselves in a way where they could just hire clerics of Abadar or Pharasma to channel healing.
If you look in an academic magical textbook for beginning practitioners, it will tell you that symbol of healing is a 3rd-circle divine spell, and that like most symbols it is among the rare spells with a doubly-stabilizable topology that can be made Permanent. If you look up a standard list of known spells that Permanency can perpetuate, you'll see the entry for symbol of healing lists the caster-strength of Permanency required as late-5th-circle, and a weight of diamond dust that in current markets costs around 10,000gp. (The actual weight is greater than the weight of a Wish-diamond; but a Wish-diamond requires a single large diamond, and that's much harder to find than an equivalent weight of diamond-matter-of-any-size for a Permanency.)
So - given that this trick works at all - why don't large Evil cities already have their own Permanencied symbols of healing, then?
dath ilan: That is a good question! First, of course, one checks the basic economiclogic to make sure the businessplan would consistencycheck. How much could a symbol of healing earn, in an Evil city - how long would it take to earn back the 10,000gp price?
Golarion: The sticker price on a 1st-circle priest casting Cure Light Wounds is 10gp, or so you'll usually be told. Naively, you might think that a symbol of healing bestows an effect at least that powerful; so by using it on 3 subjects per day, you could earn back the Permanency price within a year: 3 people/day * 10gp * 365 days = 10,950gp.
The first issue with this business plan is that 10gp is only the price if you are a foreign merchant, or an adventurer, or you look visibly rich. If you're an ordinary townsman of the faith, Cure Light Wounds runs more like 1gp.
The second issue is that channeled healing, in towns that aren't too purely Evil to offer it, doesn't sell at the same price as Cure. It's not that channeled healing is significantly weaker, but that it's used by more than one person at a time, which means that it runs on a schedule, which makes it less convenient and particularly less medically convenient. The price of Cure Light Wounds is driven by the value of having a cure cast on you right now. The product-market fit of channeled healing is for injuries that aren't urgently life-threatening: Burns, deep cuts, broken bones. It's the want of that cheap lesser healing that has the citizens of Ostenso going about with visible scars or poorly healed bone-breaks, but mostly still alive.
In most cities with channeled healing, it ends up costing somewhere around one silver piece.
dath ilan: Then for any Evil population center large enough that there's 300 people per day who need minor healing, a symbol would pay for itself in one year.
Does Ostenso qualify?
Ostenso: Yes.
dath ilan: So why doesn't Ostenso already have a healing symbol?
...Hm. If one's priors are already updated on light contact with Golarion, one would consider such non-economically-driven answers as: "Because Evil religions don't much prize innovation or economic sensibility" or "Because Evil rulers don't consider it on-theme for Evil cities to offer cheap healing, and they're not the ones living with the consequences". Or the general loan-interest rate in Evil countries could be over 100%. ?
Golarion: Dath ilan is learning! For many temples to Evil gods, that would be a sufficient answer. But Asmodeanism does laud cleverness, and souls pledged to Asmodeus must fear Hell's own vengeance if they violate a compact made in Hell's name; His temples can borrow at some of the lowest interest rates in Golarion. And if the Church didn't think of it, the Crown would.
dath ilan: All right, why are there so many people in Ostenso with visible scars from not-healed injuries?
Golarion: The root of the answer is that symbol of healing is a divine spell, and permanency is an arcane spell, and it must be the same hand that casts the spell and the permanency. Divine magic in general does not always mix easily with arcane magic, and divine healing especially is troublesome.
That Razmir's 'priests' can successfully heal their parishoners, without visibly using Infernal Healing, is unusual; if any wizard with early-Sevar-level Spellcraft could create a Ring of Cure Light Wounds as readily as Sevar made her Tiny Swords of Glibness (also for a spell no arcanist could stabilize), what Razmiran's priesthood could do would not be exceptional enough to fool anyone.
In fact, a lot of sensible educated people in Razmiran shrug and accept that, in real life, Razmir's priests probably just worship a god and get spells from Him. Because why go to all that trouble and do something nearly impossible - namely using arcane magic to imitate divine healing - just to put on a supposed lie that doesn't obviously benefit Razmir that much, compared to Him just saying that He's a ninth-circle wizard rather than a god?
It's a lie that works because Razmir is mixing arcane magic and divine healing on a level that most 9th-circle wizards can't.
Golarion: Which all sums to this: If you want to make a permanent symbol of healing, you would realistically want to be a mystic theurge who could channel a wastefully large amount of divine power to imitate a 5th-circle arcane Permanency, not just a random 5th-circle wizard who got promoted by fiat of Asmodeus to clerichood and cast the symbol from scroll. You'd also need to spend years studying divine healing spells and their interactions with the arcane; or alternatively have something like INT 26, and maybe also a tutor who understood the physics of magic on a level more commonly associated with gods.
The complete list of known spellcasters like that is "Nefreti Clepati", and Nefreti Clepati does not care to make permanent symbols of healing and sell them to Evil churches.
Pilar : ...or rather, that was the complete list before. Pilar Pineda has mostly stayed out of contact with Cheliax after leaving Project Lawful, and she vanished from scries entirely after Abrogail Thrune's assassination. But it is known that Lady Pineda has become a mystic theurge; she displayed that much capability while rescuing a Chelish Worldwound fortress from certain death under a choking demonic smoke.
Cheliax: Which brings us to the complicated part! Even if Abrogail II had still occupied the throne, granting symbols of healing to only Asmodean temples would have been a politically fraught act. A loyal Chelish subject ought to also provide some symbols of healing laid upon banners to be carried about by Cheliax's military, and maybe put them up in some Crown offices as well.
One aspect of the current balance of Chelish power between Church and Crown is that all the serious healing is done at Asmodean temples; but most lesser healing is done by 1st-circle wizards casting an Infernal Healing, far more numerous in Cheliax than elsewhere.
This balance has now been wholly upset, and not in a way where any Crown offices got any permanent healing symbols of their own, even though they could just as easily have been granted to wizards or nonmagical state offices.
In the further context of Terthule II's new reign, this behavior could be interpreted as Lady Pineda - favored of Aspexia Rugatonn, and believed to be on friendly terms with Abrogail II - deliberately snubbing the new regime in favor of the Church of Asmodeus; which is the sort of appearance that every single other power in Cheliax, even Aspexia Rugatonn, has been trying to avoid. Any appearance like that might set off internal conflict, with a war with Osirion on the horizon, that either the new Queen or the Most High or both ought to be cross with you about having started.
...Or you could take the impending Osiran war as a fine time to push forward the Church, since nobody wants to set off an internal conflict about your pushing. If you were sufficiently unworried about how the new Queen would take it. Very few people would be that unworried.
lintamande: “The minister for national affairs should mind that it could also be Clepati,” offers Xulia Cantibari, newly promoted advisor to the Queen, “relying on the fact that our doubts about Pineda’s loyalties might inspire us to permit it, where such an intervention, were it openly Clepati’s, would generate considerable suspicion.”
“Pineda hasn’t denied it.”
“My understanding is that - owing to mismanagement under the previous monarch - Pineda offers no routine accounting of her actions either to Church or Crown, which is why we cannot ask of her if, and why -”
Chelish Throne Room: "Is anyone being assigned to the duty of analyzing the possibility that this benefits Cayden Cailean, and if so how? Or are we abandoning that as a bad deal?"
"My understanding is that Pineda's final reports indicate her as having acquired the capability to act entirely for her own benefit, meaning we can't assume that any particular action of hers is meant to benefit Asmodeus or Cheliax at all."
"It clearly does increase Chelish military potential, if only because we can recall more clerics from the Worldwound and our cities while incurring lesser consequences. I don't think any gods will be confused by a cover of Pineda not rendering direct military aid, which further weighs against her choices having a divine source or reason -"
lintamande: Terthule II lifts a hand, and all quiets at once.
“Never mind Pineda,” says Terthule II, who of course minds Pineda immensely but can’t look interested in calling her to account; she might not answer, and that’d be disastrous. She’s asked people separately to figure out what remains in Cheliax that Pineda might care about, and how it might be credibly threatened; early reports say that Pineda's immediate family is dead and unreachable, but one of Pineda's few disciplinary infractions was about granting too much fame to Paxti of Borras, a former classmate, during a sensitive intelligence operation. “Whether it’s Pineda's her hand or another, we ought not to rely on it for wartime logistics, in case it’s then withdrawn; beyond that, any scheme that strengthens Asmodeus strengthens Us.” Obviously false, but no one’s going to call her on it. “Pineda’s loyalties will become apparent when we go to war; most loyalties do.” And that’s quite enough on this dangerous topic, time to steer for - “Summarize, Timoteu, the state of those preparations.”
Chelish Throne Room: Cheliax's stocks of high-level consumables, scrolls and wands and potions, had been depleted by conquering Nidal; those would have taken time to replenish from only internal sources, and Cheliax is not as rich in high-level casters as in low-level casters. The obvious alternative is to buy those items from foreign suppliers, using the newfound spellsilver riches, but many of Cheliax's usual military suppliers are currently balking at supplying Cheliax directly.
This is inconvenient but not fatal; any sanction on foreign trade that isn't obeyed worldwide is more for show than for impact. Cheliax has offered higher prices to those suppliers that will still sell to them. The former clients of those suppliers, outbid, will turn around and buy from the suppliers that are making a show of snubbing Cheliax.
"I estimate that we're at 70% of attainable military potential. 80% in one more week, 90% two weeks after. That reflects our supply of consumables; our warriors and casters are as ready as they'll ever be. With respect to recalling Worldwound forces," now that the new healing capacity has increased their efficiency, and realistically also gambling on Lady Pineda's demonstrated willingness to reinforce a Chelish Worldwound unit in distress, "we have acquired sufficient Greater Teleport scrolls to retrieve up to thirty high-level casters and fighters from the Worldwound without that impacting our assault potential immediately after."
lintamande: A military advisor standing behind him clears his throat. “Your Majesty, I would recommend we move immediately. Those weapons that we’ve witnessed deployed by Osirion or those allied with it are a problem and they’ll be more of one in more time. This is the best moment to strike at them. We should adjust our objectives in line with our combat power, rather than delay.”
“So which objectives does our lord minister recommend we abandon? Clepati? The project sites? The city? A weak attack weakens us.”
“Our aim is destruction, not conquest; a weak attack weakens them, and their counterattack weakens us precisely as much as they’re capable of, which will be more next week.”
lintamande: This is the conversation Terthule II was angling for, without being too obvious about her desires. There’s nothing like a good war for securing one’s throne. She intends to preside over it with sober, mature deliberation, statesmanlike as Abrogail could never be bothered to be. “Are there those who’d advocate for further delay?”
Chelish Throne Room: There's a surprisingly loud click and nearly simultaneous snick.
Chelish Throne Room: This is the sound made by an adamantine spring, unwinding under incredible tension; and the sound made by an adamantine blade that sweeps forth and returns almost instantly back.
Anyone who sees at mortal speeds will see only that blood sprays forth from Terthule's throat, and she stops talking and looks puzzled for just a moment, before her head falls off her shoulders in another gush of blood.
Abrogail: Abrogail gracefully catches Terthule's head before it hits the ground, removes the Crown of Infernal Majesty, and heaves the rest of Terthule's body off the Throne of Cheliax before seating herself down there, uncaring of the latest set of bloodstains.
There are things you ought not to do if you are determined to keep your head attached to your shoulders for very long, and one of those things is seating yourself upon the Throne of Cheliax, in the throne room that was Abrogail's.
Abrogail: "I assume," Abrogail says aloud, glancing at the current royal guard members, who are looking just as decidedly neutral as everyone else in this room, "that you have secret instructions to summon the Grand High Priestess in such an event as this, considering my recent circumstances." She leans to one side upon her throne, flinging one boot-clad leg up on the throne's arms, the very picture of seductive relaxation. "Be about that, if you must."
Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia will come there swiftly.
Gorthoklek: Accompanied by adequate reinforcements, should they be necessary.
Chelish Throne Room: Everyone who is none of those people will be saying absolutely nothing.
Aspexia Rugatonn: "You have not donned the Crown of Infernal Majesty."
A tiny feeling of relief (entirely about Cheliax's prospects for competent governance, and which Aspexia was not in any case acknowledging in the slightest) vanished upon the instant that she saw.
Abrogail: "It's... very tempting. But you will be pleased to hear, Aspexia, that I have finally learned not to do what I shouldn't."
Aspexia Rugatonn: "Has Sevar broken you to her service, then?"
They are none of them stupid.
Abrogail: "It's different when an ex-priestess of Irori does the remaking. I am strong enough now to rule without this Crown." Only a +2/+2/+6 three-quarters-circlet that she wears, small almost to the point of being invisible beneath her hair, and leaving her forehead clear.
Chelish Throne Room: There are uneasy shifts at this, the royal guards meeting each other's eyes, not daring quite yet to take up combative stances against Abrogail Thrune returned.
Aspexia Rugatonn: "If you intend to try taking Cheliax from the grasp of Hell, even if only so Sevar can reclaim it in Hell's name, there will be a fight about it."
Abrogail: It's an obvious stratagem and the one that Aspexia would expect. It's the one that Abrogail expected: that Sevar would send her back to liberate Cheliax from Hell's grasp, make it true that the country was now ruled in its own name and without Asmodeus's compact. So that Sevar would receive all the souls there, after she claimed Cheliax back from Abrogail's hands, in Hell's name. It's the stratagem that would make sense of why Carissa Sevar did not simply return wearing the Crown, and claim Cheliax directly.
Abrogail still doesn't know why that was not the plan, but she has her orders.
There is, however, no need to say that right away.
Abrogail: "Sounds like an expensive fight."
Gorthoklek: "I see you have undergone insufficient torment to cure your optimism."
Abrogail: "You could have been slain upon this spot, Gorthoklek, having come to this place not fully prepared for war. I too would have died, but I would be resurrected afterwards, and you, utterly destroyed. The ilani philosophy of weaponry is still being revised to incorporate and counter magic, but it isn't designed with an aim of giving the targets a chance to fight back, or act at all, really."
Gorthoklek: Gorthoklek is already defended now against a weapon of such potency as slew the Queen and Most High before. And there are more pit fiends in Hell, should it come to a greater war against ilani-spawn; did Gorthoklek fall here, the next pit fiend after himself would not die so easily. He does not say as much, of course, but instead this:
"Do you intend to try to take from Hell a country that Asmodeus has compacted for and claimed as His own?"
Abrogail: "Not if there's a less expensive alternative."
Chelish Throne Room: A number of people are currently strongly wishing that their general status and deportment permitted them to run away, very quickly, sometime around now.
Aspexia Rugatonn: "Are you betraying your compact with Asmodeus?"
Abrogail: "I died and the country of Cheliax was bestowed on another Thrune. I need not regard current events as falling under the rubric of that compact."
Aspexia Rugatonn: Could Aspexia win? Definitely, she reckons, if Abrogail does not dare to don the Crown - unless Abrogail is more backed by Sevar and Keltham than Aspexia expects...
Aspexia finds that she is reluctant to open battle, no doubt because of how disastrous it would be for Cheliax either way. Aspexia will not give in to threats from a lesser power, for only that reluctance; it is the Asmodean way to give in to threats only from greater power. But she will make an attempt to avert a costly outcome, even if those watching might misinterpret that as a sign of weakness, in a contest where appearances matter.
"Abrogail. Come to your senses. Asmodeus still owns your soul, and I don't see Him particularly happy about this matter, even as a threat that you then don't carry out. If Sevar has broken you too badly to see it -"
Abrogail: Abrogail interrupts her with a brief, cold chuckle. "Carissa Sevar showed me what awaits in Hell; for myself, for the others here. Accurately."
Aspexia Rugatonn: "You cannot be serious. If any of that came as a surprise to you, I have catastrophically overestimated your wisdom and indeed your sanity."
Abrogail: "Would you swear to me, Aspexia, in Asmodeus's name, that Hell takes anything like care not to wantonly ruin those souls whom we believed, trusted, to have made themselves valuable? Instead of just having whatever cruel fun strikes their whim, and making a few devils out of what remains?"