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These people have not properly identified themselves as officers of the law. Plus Farrukh doesn't like people messing around in his head.
He doesn't try SUPER hard though. Just enough to make 'em work for it.
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"Weak-willed, isn't he?" one of the peddlers remarks off-handedly. Farrukh is pretty sure he recognizes the voice of one of the Blessed Angels he bashed in the face previously.
Feeling very similar to Cuetzpalli, Tanith doesn't resist either. There is nothing to hide other than his general disinterest in the dystopian city.
Nodding in satisfaction (and smiling widely at Tanith and Cuetzpalli), the Blessed Angels usher the party into the Aerie. There, they are made to wait at a receptionist's desk for ten minutes while an imp the Angels summon slowly goes over the paperwork in front of them.
"We apologize for the delay," the imp drones, for what has to be the tenth time. "Your visit is very important to us. Please note that your visit will be monitored for quality assurance—"
The door opens. Mara strolls in, dressed in a simple gray suit, and takes a seat, nearly crushing the desperately-retreating imp in the process. "Good evening!" she chirps, steepling her fingers together. "I understand our Adventurers' Forbearance Program has borne some fruit already? How did the little trip go?" She smiles broadly.
"Four dead dragons, one undead-now-dead acidic green slime alchemical abomination," Eben says succinctly.
"We even killed a dire rat! Show 'em the head, Eben!" Astraden offers helpfully.
"A dire rat? Goodness, but we did get our money's worth, didn't we?" Mara smirks. "I'm happy to hear it went well so we can put this ugliness behind us and be back on the same team. Spiny's Six and the Blessed Angels make far better friends than foes, don't you agree?"
"Why Angels by the way? Just for the irony?"
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"And back? Irony?" Astraden stutters, momentarily stunned by Mara's casual insinuation that Spiny's Six was working with Alhaster's government. "The lion and the armadillo sharing a man's corpse does not mean both are murderers."
"Ahem, I mean, oh yeah, we're really glad to keep this 'partnership' going, and we think your government is very legitimate."
"Can we have our associate back now?" Carina finally speaks up, her patience waning.
"Why Angels by the way? Just for the irony?"
Mara blinks, looking up at the paperwork she's been filing—an enormous stack of files which she's been working on as the party conversed with her. It feels like the party has been listening to her quill scratch into the paper for weeks on end when she finally puts down the last sheet. "The Blessed Angels of Hextor were named for our great loyalty to Crown Prince Zeech, who is, after all, Hextor's chosen emissary since his fall from holy grace. I believe our name was intended to inspire trust and confidence." She grins.
"Can we have our associate back now?" Carina finally speaks up, her patience waning.
"Yes, everything appears in order." She appears to concentrate.
The door opens, and in walks a lone figure, fully equipped, clothed, and healthy (as far as the party can tell): Zalamandra.
She has been kept in a waiting room adjacent to this one for the last hour, unaccompanied, with absolutely nothing to do. When the party arrived a few minutes ago, she was able to hear everything that went on between Spiny's Six and Mara.
Zalamandra makes a dramatic bow, then stands expectantly, creasing her eyebrows at Spiny's Six. "Yes, hello, let's not all rush to welcome me back to the number of the unimprisoned." She opens her arms and gestures for a hug, grinning.
She then addresses Mara. "It feels quite just that Prince Zeech allowed my release on almost exactly the same day I would've been freed before, prior to the reschedule of the Banquet date. A clever deal, in that he seems to have gotten a free service from Spiny's Six in the bargain." She turns back to her companions. "Who did you kill, now? An undead dragon and some slime oozes?"
"Some live dragons and an undead ooze." Farrukh corrects.
Cuetzpalli gives her a hug. "Yeah, it was pretty gross."
She then addresses Mara. "It feels quite just that Prince Zeech allowed my release on almost exactly the same day I would've been freed before, prior to the reschedule of the Banquet date. A clever deal, in that he seems to have gotten a free service from Spiny's Six in the bargain."
Mara gives a slow catlike blink. "Goodness, so he has. Prince Zeech is very clever."
Carina can read the discomfort on Zalamandra's face quite clearly.
She moves to give her a hug as well. "Come on--let's get you to the Deluxury."
"Yeah Zalamandra, get it right," Astraden joins in, mimicking Farrukh 's tone.
She goes in for the hug too, of course.
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"Yeah, it's been a busy few days, boss. I hope you weren't getting bored; we had really important reasons we couldn't get you out sooner. Like, babysitting and stuff!"
"Babysitting? How did that go?" Zalamandra asks as she heads towards the doors, blatantly not saying goodbye to Mara. "Was it good practice? For when you and Lowri, shall we say, adopt?" Zalamandra raises an eyebrow.
"Ah, that's a little and by a little I mean a LOT premature. Plus my vote would be no spider-shapechanging witch babies. A bit much hassle." Once a decent ways from the Aerie, Eben gives Zalamandra a curious sidelong glance. "Oh, by the way, while you were on lockdown, word came from Diamond Lake. Esmerelda finally had puppies!" He thinks very, very hard about a dog giving birth to an adorable litter of furballs.
But an image of a two-headed puppy-birthing cow pops up somewhat unavoidably in his head and then refuses to settle down, much like the archetypal pink rhinoceros.
". . . What?" Zalamandra seems to focus on Eben, staring very intently at his forehead like a cat at a mouse hole, for a full two seconds at least. Then she breaks into a cackle. "Good for her."
"So what did you find out about the Blessed Angels while you were in there?" Astraden asks. "Any new tidbits? Weaknesses? Did you see any other prisoners?"
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Zalamandra's time in the Aerie largely passed uneventfully—she was kept in a rather nice cell, furnished with a dragonchess board, a small table with a bowl of fruit and a nice, somewhat scratchy bed.
She was visited only twice during her stay, both times by Mara. Mara never seemed very happy, though she always tried to feign smug calm. Mara insisted on playing chess both times she visited, both times offering both better food and some conversation in exchange. Zalamandra, loath to give her captor the satisfaction but even more loath to sacrifice an opportunity to garner information (not to mention the creature comforts), accepted both times.
The first game, Mara played very fairly. Zalamandra and Mara were fairly evenly-matched, Zalamandra being more experienced in the game but Mara being a disturbingly quick learner. As they played, they talked, although Mara was very skillful at keeping her answers cagey and useless.
But as the game drew to a stalemate, Zalamandra determined that she was just a little bit more skilled at getting people to talk. Mara was clearly frustrated. She didn't seem happy about the interactions with the party, but orders from someone else restrained her. It was hard to tell if those orders were all that were keeping the party alive or all that were keeping Zalamandra locked up. Zalamandra was unable to gauge what Mara really wanted, or how Mara felt toward the party. Only that Mara was not happy with how things were going.
Mara did, however, make one thing fairly clear: The devils do not think much of Prince Zeech. In fact, Mara cracked a smile on multiple occasions when Zalamandra mentioned him.
Zalamandra's second match was...a lot more frustrating. Mara almost gleefully cheated this time, reading Zalamandra's mind with impunity to head off her tactics. Naturally, Zalamandra was rendered unable by her bindings to return the favor. By the end of the game, Zalamandra only had seven pieces left: Three warriors, both her thieves, and a mage all trapped on the earth level, with her king isolated up on the air level.
Mara smiled widely as she placed the king into checkmate. The conversation during the game had been kept carefully banal, but as she left, Mara was goaded by an offhand remark by Zalamandra into one very small slip.
"If you're as good at sorcery as you're good at losing chess games, Zalamandra, I am sure that all this will prove a worthy investment indeed."
Mara did not visit after that.
The party returns to their respective inns and sleeps, exhausted from a long day in a city they long to be rid of. And soon, the morning comes.
The voice cuts out.
After Astraden asks the second question, there is silence for a moment. Then, in Gurz Grep's croaking voice again, comes a short, hurried response. "You've gotta find some friends who know how to slip under the Devil's eye. I know you don't like orders, but follow the letter of this one: Resolve to utilize a dash of debonairness."
The morning is cool and crisp, and the sun slowly rises over clear skies as Tanith rises—first, as usual, but quickly followed by the other early birds of Spiny's Six—for his morning routine.
"I didn't have an opportunity to see any other prisoners, but I did get some useful information."
Zalamandra describes her encounters with Mara on the walk back to the Deluxury. "'I am sure that all this will prove a worthy investment indeed,' she said. Perhaps she just means it was worth keeping me locked up while you were embroiling yourselves in trouble out here, but I have to wonder if she doesn't mean something about Zeech in particular. Is it possible that the Angels want us to fight? That they're just after his soul? It's quite the classic infernal contract, in that case."
"And one could be concerned about what happens to us after we've done their dirty work. If it was his orders holding them back from reprisal . . ."
Astraden comes into the common area of the Deluxury with a coin on the back of her hand. She seems to be studying it. When she notices the party, she slips it into her pocket and begins tapping her foot as she waits in the line for the breakfast buffet. She's wearing more refined clothing today, a vest with lace around the collar and flared pants rather than her usual dungeoneering clothes.
When she sits down with her companions, plate piled high with sausages and funny little flaky breads with chocolate in the center, she shows the coin to the party. A weathered face of some long-dead monarch grimaces on one copper side, and the other side is copy of that image with a deep scratch through it. "I was debating just flipping this to decide what I'd tell you about Olidammara's response. But I think it's better to be straight up, here. Olidammara didn't respond. Whoever did doesn't know whether we need to go into the Sanctum or not. And they think we need someone 'debonair' if we do want to do it." Astraden sets the coin down on the table so that it balances on its narrow edge and recounts the responses to the best of her memory. "Maybe we should put it up to a vote. Try to sneak into Sinner's Sanctum again, or give up and just go to a party."
"Also, you might be interested to know this, Tanith - seems like Olidammara is heisting something from Scourgehold right now. Would be fun to be in on something like that."
”After running the Angels errands for them, do you think there’s any chance we can work out a deal to get access to the Sanctum?” Tanith asks as he pops another hardboiled egg in his mouth. ”Without some big magic workaround, I don’t think we’re getting in unnoticed.”
The mention of a heist perks the big man’s interest.
”Are you serious? Anything that tweaks Hextor’s nose is good by me most days. That goes double since we’ve been working in this cursed city.”
"There's definitely something down there. It's worth trying whatever we can to go down, but asking the Angels is a bad idea. If they say no, they'll just be on guard for if we try to sneak in again."
"I'm debonair!" Eben says indignantly, sputtering some fried potatoes from his mouth as he does so. "I always thought the plan was to get Zal back and then have her teleport us past the entrance. The only thing is we don't know what kinda lookouts the angels have, and they can see invisible stuff. But Miomay hinted there were ways around that... maybe she's the debonair one with the big magic workaround. We should stop by and ask her before making a decision."
"I'm all for talking with Miomay again."
"Is it really worth the risk of running foul of the Angels again? They've already proved our match, and getting us all thrown in a cell or worse isn't going to end the Age of Worms."
"Anything they don't want us seeing has to be worth seeing! It's an old Ebon Triad base; who knows what Worm-related stuff is down there!"
"Well, that sounds true, but what I said is also true. Unless we have a way to do it without getting caught, I personally don't think it's worth it. At least not before the banquet with the Prince."
"That sounds like at least three votes for trying the Sanctum again. I honestly can't decide if it's worth it, babe, so I can't help fix it to a tie."
Astraden turns to Eben. "You think Miomay can help us with this, then?"
"It's worth asking if her... what did she call it? 'Absolute Totality technique'? is something that will come in handy."
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That morning, the party ventures out to Miomay's Playhouse, meeting with the flamboyant playwright. There is some substantial confusion before it is clarified that the party is not here early to get ready for the banquet, and is, in fact, here on other business.
Miomay hurries the group back to her private rooms, shushing loudly, though nobody has said anything compromising yet.
When they are safely in private, she turns to the party and hears out their plight.
Astraden relates the story of Sinner's Sanctum, looking to Zalamandra about halfway through saying how Zalamandra got arrested for the party's crimes, realizing only then that it may be a personal matter for the recently released sorcerer.
"Uh, and then they let her go again! Wasn't that nice of them?"
Miomay considers the party's story carefully. "Well, I was Speaking from the Heart when I informed you all that we have Some Measured Capacity at Slipping Beneath the Eye of Hextor. As it happens, one in my employ—my good man Grin, as a matter of Great Fortune and Coincidence—knows a Unique and Highly Sought-After technique in Magicking. With some effort, he can render his illusions impervious to the Angels' Most Unsporting Ability. I believe he can cast the spells invisibility sphere and major image with the Technique In Question, as well as some Spells of Less Impressive... Level." She pauses, as if annoyed she had to resort to a less-than impressive word to end her sentence. "Regardless, the Pull to his technique's Push is that these illusions are Excessively Fragile, and any interaction is likely to disrupt them.
"However, if you believe that something within the Sinner's Sanctum poses Meaningful Value to Those Wishing to Challenge the Angels—and if they are guarding it, such seems likely indeed—I would be willing to send him with you today. Having just returned from a... a successful paper delivery, Shall We Say, he should have prepared the Relevant Tools for this Trade."