”You’re right, Lena. We’ll have to dig for it, if we want to help this literal embodiment of evil.” she scowls, figuring her friends are goody-goods enough to want to do just that. It was one less fight for her, too... ”Fine. We’ll figure this out, and then when we’re done you can go straight to Hell. But we totally get your stuff on the way out. Get me?” Grumbling incoherently to herself, Meliora goes to look over the papers again. The first thing that comes to mind for a devil is a contract, and those are generally done on paper. But there wasn’t anything like that in the papers that she’s seen so far..?
That being the case, she'll go right to using Detect Magic to search for a dim aura on a page.
She heads back over to the imp, holding up the page between two fingers.
"You. With the evil. This what you're talking about?"
"Put it in the coffeehouse's lavatory to use as wiping paper?" Jack suggests.
Cripes! Meliora and Canacha are rubbing off on me!
Lena studies the little creature. "You can't stay here, and I don't want you loose on our plane so what do you suggest we do about this?" she asks the imp.
"Yeah, that sounds suspiciously like the sort of contract that would let you screw us over basically whenever you wa--that's totally what this contract is, isn't it. That's why you came here with us, after being stuck down there--."
She pauses, then busts out laughing.
"Oh my gods, that lemure ritual was you, wasn't it? Ahh, I shoulda' known--it looked like a half-arsed hackneyed ritual that wouldn't work for more than a half a second. Oh, that explains so much."
Jack looks to Meliora for instructions. The wizard seems to have a deeper understanding of devils--and of what this particular one's all about--than he does.
"You can't harm it, but others might be able to? What happens to you if the contract is destroyed? Is that something you want to happen?"
Lena looks at Meliora. "Is it a good thing or a bad thing she goes back to hell? I've avoided things like this most of my career."
"If a demon is destroyed and goes back to hell, it's theoretically possible that someone who knows her name could summon her specifically to do their bidding. That'd be us, basically, once she tells us her name. Other than that? She's basically stuck being the low rung on a totem pole that's like the Asmodean church on steroids. It's not a fate I'd envy, but it's one that she's used to I'd wager."
She smirks at the imp.
"That about the size of it? Having to clean a erinyes's toenails out not your thing?"
"Devil, demon, you all smell like sulfer in the end. Though, there is something to be said for a good succubus..." She laughs, and it's probably clear that antagonizing something that's been annoying her is very much a thing she enjoys. "As for me? If I'm going to summon a tiny girl it'd have to be a Lyrakien. They're not so much for stabbing you in the back, and less damnation for me means more time for partying later, right?"
"Tell ya what: I'll make your life very, very easy by explaining the situation you're in. Grabbing that wing is Micheria. I've seen her punch a Lemure to death with her bare hands, and your skin ain't any tougher than that. The right wing? That's Jack freaking Duncloak. He can slice through anything except other humans, and as it turns out? Y'ain't human. To my left here is Lena. A cleric of Milani--basically your exact opposite. Definitely not a fan. To my right? Canacha. She's a goody goody who literally wields the power of explosions to slay things with tiny shards of really fast metal, and I'm willing to bet she brought silver. Of them, we've got three people who I'm willing to bet want you bled dry on principle, one who probably doesn't care either way, and me--a pure maiden who, frankly, has been having a very bad month and would love to take it out on an acceptable target."
She takes a deep breath and releases it, giving the sort of smile that comes with a friendly stabbing ten or so minutes later.
"So what I'm saying here is... if you're going to make an offer? Now's the time to do it. Because as it stands, 'certain death' is looking like what's staring you in the face. And please bear in mind... I'm not a freakin' Sorcerer. It had better be good."
"No names--secret organization," Jack reminds Meliora quietly. His mind is still strangely transfixed on the concept of an erinyes's toenails...one body part he'd never before considered in his few musings on those devils' anatomy.
”This one’s been watching us invisibly for literally since we moved in. She knows them already.”
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The imp rolls over laughing at Meliora, figurtively speech "Lady perhaps you should work on your intimidations, you spoke way to long about nothing useful to scare someone. Death on the material plane perhaps, but Lord Asmodeus will have me reformed in hell. I tire of this conversation, since you doesn't seem like wanting to contract my skills, you can just tear up my contract and send me back to Hell."
"Well... this is been a great deal of talking and I will be honest, I kind of stopped listening. I did get that you can die here and, as I could grab you, I am sure I can kill you. I ran a business and understand deals. Do as you are asked, tell what you know, I tear up the contract. The other way.... well... you will probably black out and not wake up, I'm not an animal."
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"How much do you think I know? I've been stuck in thst basememt since the original silver birdies took my contract from the Sarini house. I don't even know if that family still excist. Which is why I've used my spells to communicate with a more powerful devil to work a working portal straigt to hell, untill you moved me here and here I just had fun sending poor silver dumbasses to the dotari with notes of suspicious activity going on here, but noting specific. I didn't want to tip my hand in the case you stopped my notes."
"A Sarini? That's interesting. Any one know that name?" Lena has no idea. What are we going to do with an imp? They can't seriously be thinking about keeping it around. That makes no sense.
Sarini?
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Jack can inform the others that House Sarini is one of the oldest noblefamilies in Kintargo. They talk openly about the uses of diabolism, which the contract with the imp proves. The matriarch is one Countess Urora Sarini, a semi famous singer.
Micheria nods at some of the elements of what Jack tells the others.
"Well that gets us someplace. Do we destroy the contract or should I choke it out?"
"Choke what?"
She said innocently taking the barrel of her pistol and jamming it straight down the devils throat.
"I dont like your tone."
She added completely ignorring really everyone else... she had been caculating figures and not paying attention.
"Well that is one way. I would bet a pull of the trigger will end you. I think I am not the only one who has lost interest or patients so as long as its gone I guess. We know who it was working for once upon a time."
She pauses for a moment.
"Guys, I have an alternative. She's stuck in proximity to the contract, right?"
She jams a thumb back at the door.
"Tie the paper to a rock, throw the rock in a fast moving river, she ain't our problem anymore and she gets to live here. So long as she runs quick, anyways."
"Sounds good to me."
I can think of so many things that might go wrong with that, but I don't have a better alternative."
She can't stay here for sure.
"We could mail her to someone's cousin? Does anyone have a cousin they don't like?
She grinned quite evily considering her slightly extended canines.
"I've an entire branch of crusading cousins in Ustalav. I bet they would love a little devil showing up to entertain them."
Jack ponders the dilemma a bit and then speaks.
"Do you promise to not reveal anything you learned about our group, our headquarters, and our designs to anyone or anything in Hell if we rip up the contract and send you back there?" Jack asks the imp. Giving the matter a bit more thought, he wisely adds, "By 'reveal' I mean vocally, in writing, telepathically...in any manner whatsoever."
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So far you haven't been able to make a conclussion about what to do with the imp. The week has gone by with you rooting out the spy in your midst, first attempting to set up the original suspect untill Jack and Meliora noticed he was charmed in some way. Searching the hideout for a few days you finally found the imp and have now been discussion for a while what to do about her.
At the end of the week Rexus and Meliora has translated the last of the documents recovered from the old livery. Meliora shares her translation. "The Silver Ravens were said to be able to use something called the “Song of Silver” to defend Kintargo when it was attacked by enemies, but sadly, no additional information as to what this mysterious song was can be found in these notes." While Rexus adds "The last section translated speaks of how the leaders of the Silver Ravens had seen the proverbial writing on the wall—they knew House Thrune was likely to seize control, and had come to the difficult decision to surrender should this event come to pass, hoping to prevent Thrune from razing Kintargo. Indications exist that the cache of treasure and documents hidden in the Fair Fortune were intended to serve as a sort of time capsule, should Kintargo forget the Silver Ravens with the passage of time."
Later that day around the end of the afternoon Rexus calls the team together again. "I need to ask you all of a new favor. While translating the documents I have been increasingly more certain that my mother may still live in hiding somewhere. I've been thinking because I never knew if my mother was at the estate on that fateful night all those weeks ago. And no investigation has found any bodies in the ruins. She once told me of a secret hideout her and a secret group she belonged to used as a safehouse. Becuase she was a member of the Sacred Order of Archivists, I think Thrune targeted our estate to silence her and keep the documents see restored from public eye. They have long used chambers below a local museum of oddities called Hocum’s Fantasmagorium as a secret base of operations. If my mother survived the fire, she may have remained silent for so long simply because she’s been lying low in the chambers below the museum. I've never been there but this mithral key should open the doors in there." He says handing the key towards Jack.
Jack takes the key but says nothing to raise the hopes of Rexus about his parents' fate; it seems to him they'd have contacted their son by now if they still were alive and not rotting away in some cell somewhere.