Re: Phinneas in Irieabor

[Zaueski]

"Quietly?" He goes and gets his Aunt and Uncle and brings them up to date on the plans. "So, what do you advise? Could you teleport us in or out Aunt Doreen?"
(Is there a legal system similar to ours? Like with lawyers and due process?)

[Elliott the Undying]

(What you saw in Waymoot with Valor is an extreme version of everywhere else. No lawyers, but there are trials. Think Roman style trials, but you can't appeal higher than the city Governor's court so you get 2 trials max. Sanctions are fines, slavery, and beheading in that order of severity with no torturous deaths except in Waymoot and no long term imprisonment.)

Aunt Doreen shakes her head. "Teleportation is a skill beyond me. I've tried it, and I can't quite get it yet. Asmodeous doesn't give access to that domain of power either. I'll send a message to some of our peers in the priesthood and see if they can come up with anything. Some of them would want revenge on Nabadach as well."

[Zaueski]

"What all does your ritual entail? Is it something we could perform secretly during an execution? Also... I'm wary of letting others in... Vengence is ours not their's. Nabadach will die by my hand or my siblings"

[Elliott the Undying]

"The divination ritual requires a sacrifice. Once the soul is sent to Asmodeus, then the ritual can be done. I can do it in secret in this house. I will receive an omen about finding Nabadach, and we will use it to find him."

[Zaueski]

"So how do we send the soul to Asmodeus? Is it something that we could do swiftly in the jail cell? Do we actually have to break him out? Or just get to him? The more we know the better we can plan this." He talks fairly quickly a little annoyed that she misunderstood him.

[Elliott the Undying]

"Sending a soul can be performed several ways. A specific spell that I don't personally know can be used on the weapon used to slay the individual. Branding the individual with an Archduke's symbol pre-death will send the soul to that archduke. Forming a pact with the individual where their soul is required. And if the individual falls under the Pact Primeval's guidelines to be sent to Baator. If the individual is already destined for Baator under the Pact Primeval, then it won't be perceived as a sacrifice because Asmodeous won't be gaining anything he wouldn't otherwise have without our intervention."

[Zaueski]

"If these criminals are evil anyways would they even count? And assuming they do count all we have to do is burn Asmodeous' symbol into his or her skin? We don't actually have to break them out?"

[Elliott the Undying]

"There's the problem and it's been done before. If the person is branded and they tell a guard that someone snuck in and branded them, a cleric of a celestial deity will be summoned and will cast atonement on them freeing them from the fate we've given them. Even if it's just a prisoner's soul, clerics of celestial deities take souls seriously because souls are power to Gods. Then the hunt begins for the people who branded him with Asmodeous' treacherous symbol. We'll get found out and probably get killed without a trial by those holy inquisitors."

[Zaueski]

"Dammit. So we do need to break him out or find a way to silence him in an inconspicuous way..." He thinks on it for awhile and presents this plan: "You mentioned friends in the priesthood? Can you get them to perform some havoc and mayhem at several key points elsewhere in the city? That would lower the guard from where we need to get into. Less security means a higher chance of success for us. Then we break one out and bring him either back here or to some other safehouse place."

[Elliott the Undying]

Andra gets impatient. "Guys. Why don't we just offer one of them a pact? Offer them the power to escape, they die trying to fight their way through the guards, we get their soul."
"Because we don't actually have the power to make a pact. Only devils can offer Faustian pacts. Besides, if the prisoner was bound for Nessus anyway, it would be for nothing."
"Okay then, you still haven't told us how to tell who goes where without intervention."
"It's complicated. Essentially, people who act orderly go to Baator, people who act disorderly go to the Abyss, and people who fall somewhere in the middle go to the domain of Nerull."
"Okay then, we find a devil to offer a crazy prisoner a pact. How do we do that?"
"We'd have to find a harvester, right?"
"Right. I'm sure our other servants of Baator could help us find one. I could contact them and see."

[Zaueski]

"So we summon a harvester and use them? Would that still count as our offering? I thought the idea was that we had to harvest the soul." He paces the room now as they're speaking.

[Elliott the Undying]

"We would be considered the facilitators of the pact even when the harvester gets the soul. Yes, the harvester takes the soul to Baator with him, but we get credit for sending it because we found the person willing to sign the pact before the harvester."

[Zaueski]

"Okay so we make contact somehow, and promise him escape in exchange for his soul. Devil comes along to sign the contract to seal the deal and we get the credit. Would the devil also facilitate his release or would that still fall on us? Because if all we have to do is talk to him that makes everything so much easier." He stops pacing and looks at Doreen expectantly

[Elliott the Undying]

"I didn't think he was escaping."
"Yes, you left out that vital detail. If you promise him escape and he actually escapes, he won't be dying. If you promise him escape and he doesn't escape, the pact is null because we didn't hold our end. Promise him something along the lines of "power he could use to escape" or something similar. That way he dies and we get the soul. Wording in these things is very vital. If a prisoner takes the deal, nobody will facilitate any release. Understand?"

[Zaueski]

"No that doesn't make sense. I would promise him the ability to escape the prison. Then after he has escaped the prison thus fulfilling my side of the agreement we kill him and send his soul to Baator. I fail to see any differences between what we're both seeing Aunt Doreen." He appears very confused now.

[Elliott the Undying]

Emmerson pokes his head in the door. "Did I hear that we're killing someone? I'm in for whatever plan that is." 
Doreen sighs. "The problem we're trying to solve is not knowing where a person is. A criminal who escapes from prison will not be easily found. They tend to hide after escaping. Then we're faced with the same problem. If we give the prisoner a drop of power, the guards kill them for us while he's trying to break out. Otherwise he'll likely kill a few guards during his escape, draw a bunch of attention, and go into hiding."
"Then we kill him before he kills guards. It's not their fault, we just need him dead."
"Good luck with that."
"Oh yeah? Got any bright ideas, Andra?"
"Yeah, a pretty good one too. Quick, quiet, easy, and low risk to us, but you guys would rather empower a criminal with loads of power than do what needs to be done here."
"How much power do we have to give him?"
"However much he will settle for. It's just like haggling in the market. Offer, counter offer kind of deal making."
"So just in case he won't settle low, we have to kill him before he gets to the guards. Heck, we'd be heroes then. Maybe the governor would give us a key to the city."
"Fat chance. We just murder a prisoner and the guards lock us up next. Ooh, maybe they'll think we're with the assassin's guild."
"Hush, Andra. Don't joke about that kind of thing."
"You're right, but if you pick someone desperate enough, they'll take anything. They won't even be a risk to the guards. Just be smart in picking your target, and he'll kill himself."
"Or, even better, as soon as we get him to sign the contract, I cut his head off and say he rushed me."
Andra puts her head in her hands, "It's like you're trying to not understand."

[Zaueski]

"Emmerson the idea is for us to walk away unscathed from this with no ties to the death whatsoever. While we might succeed in killing the madman it'd raise too many unwanted questions." He turns to Andra. "Do you have someone in mind or are you just insulting Emmerson?" He takes a deep breath and says "Here's how I see it. All we need to do is talk to him. Once everything is set the dominoes should fall perfectly into place while we're far away. Unless someone else has connections to a crime I don't see us getting in there by talking. So how about this: we tell a partial truth and say we've found evidence of the killer through magical means. We allow Nabadach's name to be told to them and list one of their prisoners as an accomplice. That's going to be our ticket in. Once we're in we conduct the deal and leave. Any objections?"

[Elliott the Undying]

Emmerson shrugs. "I just wanted to kill someone."
Andra folds her hands in her lap and leans back in her chair. "Now that is a perfectly deceptive plan and none of us get hurt in the process. We can say that there was a witness who prefers to remain anonymous out of fear that it was a guild assassination. We're checking the jails for a possible match on the description. We can get a good view of all the inmates and choose our target that way."
"Y'all are no fun."
"As soon as there's news of an unsuccessful jail break, I can cast my spell and find Nabadach." 
"Come get me when you need a door kicked in or a spleen forcibly removed."
Andra stands and holds her arm out to you. "Shall we?"

[Zaueski]

He smiles "Certainly." He takes her hand and they head over to the prison area (or courthouse if that's first).

[Elliott the Undying]

Andra walks out quickly. You hear Aunt Doreen stammer as you two walk out, "Oh dear. So soon? So soon?"
Uncle Roderick says back, "Better start looking now. They're gone."
Right before you get to the Jail, a ragged looking beggar with a cane hobbles up and stands in your way. "Need any help, kids? Need help finding what you're looking for?"

[Zaueski]

"Out of the way Old Man. There's nothing you have that could help us." He goes to push past the beggar with Andra beside him.

[Elliott the Undying]

The man allows you to walk past him and calls out after you. "Harvest is ripe for the picking this year. Sure hope you can handle it yourselves."
Andra looks at you confusedly. "Is that...?"

[Zaueski]

He whispers to her "I'm not sure... but if it is then we should give him a wide berth. Any deal from him would have too many strings attached for us to consider it." He holds her tightly and continues walking past him.

[Elliott the Undying]

Run an Intelligence check.

[Zaueski]

Intelligence Check (+1): 17
orrrrrrrr... I have knowledge planes too.
Knowledge (Planes) (+5): 12

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