He spends the first month after he died trying his best to avoid the demons.

He doesn't know yet why they don't seem to be doing anything with him; he knows his soul is forfeit, the theologians he spent years studying were quite clear on that point, but he'd expected that to involve some amount of being forced into unpleasant situations. 

Then again, demons presumably aren't stupid, they've convinced the world that it's possible to summon a demon safely so long as you use a good binding and don't give up your soul. They're probably trying to trick him, convince him that it's safe -- to what end? Even if they're telling the truth and he can take summons, no one will let him talk. But there are billions of them, and some of those billions are smarter than he is, and he doesn't want to underestimate them.

On the third day after his death, he finally tests whether he can make things. He can. He makes himself some food, and some tea, and then he's curious so he makes himself a copy of his apartment the day before his death, and an art project from when he was ten that his mother had accidentally thrown out, and all non-chiplocked writing from the past three days referencing his name, and three different lost libraries.

(Someone comes to complain that the libraries are blocking their view. He makes himself a car and drives until there's no one nearby to complain.)

On the thirty-forth day after his death, he finally makes himself try to take summons. He doesn't want to -- this seems like the sort of thing that would cause the demons to do something with that soul he forfeited -- but there are people summoning demons every day. There's almost no chance that anyone will let him talk, but even a slim chance of preventing anyone else from doing what he did is worth it in expectation.

He takes a summons.

The first thing he notices is that there isn't a binding. 

The second thing he notices is that the location is totally unfamiliar and multiple centuries out of date.

"Where am I?" he asks, and then "anyone who summons a demon forfeits their soul it happened to me you have to warn people -- and it's incredibly dangerous to summon a demon unbound -- who are you?"

He doesn't look like she was expecting-- but then again, daemons come in many shapes.It's not completely surprising.

He certainly doesn't talk like she was expecting.

"You're in the the Silver Savannah--" he seems disoriented, so he probably needs more direction that that "--in Ghur, the Beast Realm." 

He -- a daemon-- wants to warn people about summoning daemons? Okaaaaay. "I gave up my soul to the Chaos Gods when I came of age, I am not worried about forfeiting it. And if you were bound, you wouldn't be able to do what I want to, so that would be pointless.

I am Luehmani, Princess of what remains of my kingdom, leader of the Kleaveland Bays warband, sorceror in service of the Ruinous powers, and most importantly: looking for Slaanesh."

"I haven't heard of any of those places. Or those -- people? Gods? I'm sorry, I must be extremely lost."

Maybe she's an alien. That's actually quite plausible; people had tried, after Revelation, to have demons conjure for alien species, and the demons had come up empty, but it wasn't like demons could be trusted.

He tries making a scaled-down model of Ghur.

"You sound very lost. Ghur is a place, Slaanesh is a god. Have you heard of Azyr? Sigmar? Gorkamorka? The first is another place, the second to are other gods, if you don't know them either."

This is weird. Deeply weird. And he's probably not a daemon, which makes no sense. She's a competent sorceror! She can summon daemons! How in the Realms did she fail and what in Khorne's skull pile did she summon!

Making a scaled down model of Ghur may be tricky, considering it is essentially infinite.

When the model reaches the size he is, he stops letting it grow.

"I haven't heard of any of those. Do any of them have different names in other languages? I don't know how proper nouns interact with my understanding of your language."

He tries to make a scaled-down model of Slaanesh.

He just made a thing out of thin air-- which isn't impossible for daemons, but is still really weird.

"They do have different names in different languages. The worm-folk call 'Sigmar' 'Sah'gmar.' ...How are you understanding my language?"

Slaanesh is very magical, and sentient.

"I learned it when you summoned me." She doesn't look young enough not to know how summoning works. Perhaps this is some sort of elaborate prank, but surely no one would be foolish enough to summon an unbound demon for a prank.

He tries to make a small model of a worm-folk.

"Okay." A daemon learning a language when summoned isn't weird. He's finally not being deeply strange! ...except if he isn't a daemon, than just knowing her language would be strange. "What, exactly, are you? And no 'I'm a daemon' business. My patience is wearing thin."

The worm folk are humans! They have a very different style of dress, and on the armoured models, it appears their armour is made of worm scales and hair.

"I'm a human, or at the very least I was. A month ago by the way we count time, I died and woke up surrounded by demons. This wasn't a surprise -- I had summoned a demon, and anyone who summons a demon forfeits their soul, even if they never sell it. I also found that I had the normal powers associated with being a demon, which was surprising, since my soul was forfeit."

He pauses. "I'm sorry, I know you asked for an explanation more specific than 'I'm a demon,' but I'm not a demon, I'm a human with demon powers. I don't know how that interacts with soul forfeiture -- actually, it's possible that's what happened to me, it would explain why they were leaving me alone -- don't tell people that, they'll decide it's possible to summon demons safely. Anyways, if you want to know something more specific I can tell you."

Yep, this ritual failed badly. How, she’s not sure, but this isn't a daemon. ...Or maybe it's one thats fucking with her. Lovely.

"That's --that's not how it works. You can't be human and a daemon-- unless you are a daemon prince, which I am pretty sure you are not. Forfeiting your soul does not make you a daemon,  and it would be very convenient if it did.  Dying doesn't make you a daemon.

So, either you're lying about your past, or your...daemon-ness. So, which is it?"

"I'm not lying, but as I said I'm not a demon, I'm a human who for some reason developed demon powers. I agree that that explanation for why I have demon powers doesn't make much sense, but I don't have another hypothesis. I suppose it's possible that demons can alter memories and have done so, but they're concealing that fact quite well if so. Also, as far as I know there aren't demon princes, although admittedly I didn't talk to very many demons. There didn't seem to be much of a clearly organized hierarchy."

He tries making scale models of every demon within a thousand kilometers.

Generally, when daemons try to mess with you, they generally don't go for 'pitiful and don't know anything.' This is deeply weird, and she has no idea why this guy is so convinced she is a demon. She has no idea why he is here.

"Altering memories is a thing they can do... but the fact you describe anything they do in terms of 'organisation' is suspect. Are you sure you're not a sorceror? You sound more like a sorceror." If he is, the question of how in the Realms she summoned him is there, but 'really misinformed sorceror' at least kinda makes sense. And it explains the constant summoning of small things. What is up with that, actually. "Is there a reason for the constant summoning? I can't see any uses for dolls of worm people."

There are no demons (without an 'ae') in a thousand miles.

"...There aren't sorcerers where I'm from, for either plausible definition of 'where'. I'm making things to try to make sense of your claims, because they make no sense. I think I must be very far from home. What do you call this planet? Have you ever heard of China -- I don't have a word for it in your language, which might mean there isn't one."

He expands his search radius to four hundred thousand kilometers; if they're on Luna, it's not totally inconceivable that there aren't demons within a thousand kilometers. This doesn't look like Luna, but if this is all an elaborate prank it could be.

There are no demons.

"Your claims make some sense if you're a sorceror, and no sense if you're a daemon.

I dont know what a planet is, and I've never heard of China."

He raises his eyebrows. "A planet is the large round object that people live on," he says slowly. "There are some technical requirements, but I don't know them off the top of my head." He makes a model of Earth, scaled down to the size of a beach ball. "This is a miniature model of Earth, which is a planet, although obviously the actual Earth is much larger."

He attempts to make every camera and camera-containing device within three hundred meters. If this is an elaborate prank, someone has to be recording it.

What did he just summon. Why did he just summon. What is he. "The mortal realms aren't round like that. They’re flat."

No cameras.

"That doesn't make sense. A flat world would collapse under its own gravity. Do these 'mortal realms' have names? I don't want to try to make all of them at once, not when I don't know how many there are."

"They've never collapsed, to my knowledge.

There's 9: Azyr, Aqshy, Chamon, Ghur --where we are--, Ghyran, Hysh, Ulgu, Shyish, and Chaos."

He already has a partial model of Ghur; it certainly doesn't look round.

He tries making a model of Azyr.

It's a cityscape, with high towers made of marble and gold and other valuable materials.

Is it flat?

It's flat.

That's absurd.

"Apparently you're correct, which is absolutely ridiculous." Although, now that he thinks about it, someone had claimed that Hell was on a flat plane of gold, so perhaps this was not unprecedented. "Can you tell me more about your world? Demons are apparently known here, but are angels and fairies?"

Luehmani remains confused about why this guy is just summoning a pile of stuff.

"Why wouldn't the realms be flat?

I don't know of anything you could accurately call angels or fairies. Some people call the Stormcast Eternals 'angels,' but they are wrong. Very wrong. Fewer still call sprites or elves fairies, but they are also wrong."

"It's been almost two decades since I've taken a physics course, but I can try to explain it -- do you know what -- I don't have a word for it in your language, so you probably don't have the concept yet. We have a concept called 'gravity.' It's what makes objects fall when you drop them, but it's actually a force between any objects, pulling them together. The way it pulls on planets makes them spherical rather than flat.

Where I'm from, you could summon an angel or a fairy with the same process you would use to summon a demon. Is demon-summoning common knowledge here? If it were, I would expect you to have heard of angels and fairies by know, although perhaps you consistently gag your demons."

He tries making models of a Stormcast Eternal, a sprite, and an elf.

"Things fall, but they don't get pulled together from what I've seen.

Daemon summoning is-- known. Known, but not common. And while some daemons aren't capable of talking, I don't see why you would gag them. Or how, actually."

The Stormcast Eternal is the largest of the models, almost one and half times the height of the elf. It wears full plate armour, with a face carved into the helmet, and made of a metal he has not seen before. The sprites appear one part ghost to one part humanoid tree, and glow ominously. The elves are mostly human looking, apart from pointed ears.

"Most random objects are small enough that the force isn't noticeable.

People gag demons because they don't realize that summoning a demon causes you to forfeit your soul automatically, and they're worried that demons will talk them out of their souls. You gag a demon by writing it into the binding."

He pauses. "Have you invented bindings?" That would be one explanation for why this circle doesn't have one. She'd said earlier that an unbound demon couldn't do what she wanted, but maybe she was using the word differently.

"I thought you meant literally putting a gag on them. A physical one. It wouldn't be impossible... but I can't see any reason gagging a bloodthirster would be worth the effort of getting it on.

You bind a daemon to things - weapons usually, but other tools as well, but it doesn't sound like that's how you mean the word."

"A binding is a restriction placed on a demon's behavior. I suppose in theory you could put a physical gag on a demon, but even very stupid people can figure out that that's a bad idea, especially since you could just use a gag binding. Summoning an unbound demon is extremely dangerous; if I wanted to, I could kill everyone in this -- realm -- in a matter of seconds, and many demons would gladly do so. --I suppose given that this realm is flat there might not be a way to do so in seconds, and in any case I'm not inclined towards mass murder."

He could destroy the whole Realm in seconds-- how is this guy so powerful and so clueless? Everything is confusing.

"That's--impressive. Summoning daemons is dangerous, yes, but that's the point. What's the point of a blunted sword, or a crippled warrior? You summon daemons because you want something dangerous. Restricting their behaviour could be useful, in certain cases, but most of the time it would make the summoning pointless. Most of the daemons it is dangerous to let talk are the ones you want to talk to."

"Even most people who want demons for dangerous tasks want to prevent them from doing some things. I agree about the gags, though, the danger they're supposedly preventing is inherent to demon-summoning."

He pauses. "Most people also aren't using demons for anything particularly dangerous, although of course some are."

"I doubt there's any preventing you could use that wouldn't prevent them doing things you would find useful. ...and why would you use daemons for things that are safe? It would be a lot of effort and danger for no good reason."

"Well, it's never actually safe, summoning demons intrinsically causes you to forfeit your soul, but the dangerous part isn't usually the user of powers. People will sometimes also use bindings that prohibit certain actions outside the context of a deal."

He rubs his forehead. "I don't support people summoning demons to obtain random goods, but some people do it anyways, and most of the random goods are safe."

"I don't see why you would use daemons to summon random goods, it seems so wasteful. And if you can summon demons, you can probably summon some goods yourself.

And soul forfeitures isn't really the largest danger."

He gives her a confused look. "What else would you use demons for, besides making things? 

But yes, the risk of a demon literally destroying the world is also significant."

"...Attacking people? Gaining knowledge?

You are aware that most daemons couldn't destroy the Realms even if they wanted to, right? If it were true, there would be a lot fewer Realms."

"Any unbound demon where I'm from could destroy a realm, although admittedly that might not have been true with the knowledge your society has. If people regularly summoned demons unbound on my world, one of them would have done it by now."

One of them almost did, he doesn't add.

"Some people use demons for those purposes, yes, but they do so by having the demon make something. It's not like it's hard to kill people that way."

"I'd say it's fairly regular.

Generally people use demons to attack people by... getting them to attack people directly. And they gain knowledge by asking them questions. Getting them to make things seems like an unnecessary step, and good luck getting a bloodtletter to make anything."

"I suppose a demon could, in theory, punch someone or something, but it would be much more efficient to have them make a sword inside of your target or encase them in steel or make you a gun or something. You could also in theory ask a demon questions, but then you'd be limited to that demon's knowledge, rather than all the information in any book written that you know to ask for."

what.

"...You aware a lot of daemons have swords for arms, right? No need to make one. They already have them. And while I'm sure you could ask a Tzeentchian daemon for a book, I wouldn't trust one that was summoned by one.

Are you sure we're talking about the same thing?" That seems politer than 'Are you sure you're not an idiot?

He blinks.

"I suppose it's possible we're talking about different things. I am speaking a language that I learned magically when you summoned me; the words I am using are the words that feel intuitively correct when I try to express thoughts, but they may not be the words that are best suited, or they may be homophones, or there may be some other consideration.

It's not theoretically impossible for demons to have swords for arms, but I don't know of any. In any case a sword that's already inside your target seems more useful than a sword you actually have to use.

I wouldn't be any more inclined to trust a demon's honesty than to trust their conjuration, although a sufficiently good binding and some attention to detail should be able to ensure either."

Okay, so elaborate misunderstanding is plausible. (And if entities with enough power to destroy the Realms exist, and they're summonable and controllable-- this is going to be saga worthy.)

"Generally if a daemon wants a sword inside someone they have to walk over there.

Okay so, daemons: made of magic and or Chaos, usually work for one of the Chaos gods, usually tied to a certain emotion, forms are somewhat fluid but within certain parameters. Is that true for your daemons?" Probably not.

He makes a sword nearby, for demonstrative purposes.

"Almost none of that is true of the type of demons I know of. Demons are made of -- I don't have a word for it in your language. Demons are made of the same sort of thing as everything else, but magically indestructible. They tend to look like winged humans. Their forms can be altered somewhat, but I don't know what the exact parameters are. Alternatively, an angel could change a demon's form for them, but they could also do that for a human, and would be more likely to because humans are more ethical than demons. I don't know of any connection to emotion, but there are some traits common among demons, such as being part of a massive conspiracy to cause humans to surrender their souls, and it's possible that such a connection wouldn't be known if it exists. On my world, whether there are gods at all is a controversial question, and the evidence suggests that there are not, just angels, demons, and fairies."

Luehmani is glad the sword did not end up inside her!

"I think we're having a word clash. Some daemons do look like winged humans, but not most. Most don't have wings at all. Some of them want souls, but it's not really a conspiracy, more a known fact about their nature. If you are a daemon, I'd imagine you know if they are made emotion: being made of emotion is not subtle and you would notice," Hopefully. Maybe this guy is just incredibly in-observant. "And gods definitely exist, and not controversially. They are quite observable."

So, this guy knows how to summon potentially world ending things, and knows how to do it relatively safely. And she's really not concerned about forfeiting her soul, she's already sold it.

He may not be able to give her information about what is up with Slaanesh, but he could give her something else useful.

"So, how do you feel about harm reduction?"

His expression is very carefully neutral.

"Well, of course it's better when all harms can be avoided, and it's generally a good idea to look for other solutions first, but there won't always be a better option. In general, less harm is better than more harm, even when that requires you to do something that would ordinarily be unethical."

He's quite familiar with this principle.

yesssss this might work

"So, let's say --totally hypothetically-- you have someone who can summon demons, but they only know how to summon them unsafely. Their soul is already forfeit many times over, so that's not an issue.Their also going to be hard to dissuade from-- hmm-- potential sources of power. Would you teach them how to summon safely? If it would prevent the Realms from being destroyed?"

"That question does not sound particularly hypothetical."

He pauses. "I would recommend not saying things that make it sound like you intend to destroy the world, lest I conclude that the risk of leaving you alive is too great. I don't want to cut your worlds off from all possibility of daeva assistance, but I will if I have to. If what you want is for me to teach you how to summon safely, you can ask about that."

"Maybe it's only slightly hypothetical.

I don't want to destroy the world, I live here. Destroying the world would be very counter to my goals.

Summoning --in a way that prevents a demon with a grudge or a lust for destruction destroying where I live-- is something that isn't counter to my goals."

"What are your goals?"

"So, starting from 'probably possible' to 'probably impossible': I want to get revenge on the Stormcasts for destroying my people. I want to get my people back. I want to find Slaanesh, or avenge them if they are destroyed."

"Why do you want those things?" he asks, in his best approximation of a neutral tone.

(It's not a particularly good approximation.)

This guy sure makes some facial expressions doesn't he. And thinks revenge is bad? Huh.

"The Stormcasts slaughtered us. We're maybe a fifth of our numbers. If you'd seen a stormcloud spit out armoured monsters, seen them slaughter your family, your friends. seen them destroy your lands-- you'd want some retribution. If not as justice, as a blood price, at least as a discouragement. I'd rather I had my people, my family back, but weapons are easier than resurrection.

You sound like you don't have a god you serve, so the third is harder to explain. Slaanesh has given me many things, has given my people many things. We have been pledged to them, as we have pledged ourselves to all the Chaos Gods. It is our duty to find them, and if not, avenge them."

He tilts his head. "When you say weapons are easier than resurrection, do you mean that resurrection is impossible, or just that it's very difficult? If the latter, what makes it difficult? Our magic system doesn't have resurrection at all."

"It's not impossible, but it is very difficult, and involves circumstances I don't have. Sigmar can resurrect people; that's how the Stormcasts work. He can keep bringing them back indefinitely. But, well, I'm not Sigmar. You can turn people into undead, which isn't really what I want." 

"Perhaps the best course of action is to find Sigmar, then. Does he resurrect people routinely?"

"He only resurrects people who meet his 'standards.' Which considering he sent his warriors to slaughter them, my people are unlikely to meet." 

"That's ... I ..." 

He runs his fingers through his hair. "Unless you are withholding some highly relevant information about both his standards and your people, that's horrifying enough that I don't actually have words for it. Can any of the other gods perform resurrections? Can any of them perform resurrections while not being completely evil? Is he vulnerable to persuasion, to bribery, to threats..."

(Luehmani is withholding information, due to a combination of ignorance and not thinking it's relevant. But she isn't going to say that, because either she doesn't know or doesn't think to say.)

"Grungni helped Simgar develop the method of resurrection, and Nagash or Nurgle could do it in theory-- but that's a big 'in theory' considering they are the gods of death and disease respectively. Sigmar is in theory persuadable? But not by me. And also in theory bribable, or threatenable-- but not easily. Considering he's a god."

"Could he be bribed with near-arbitrary objects? How about, specifically, technology from my world, or knowledge? What about the ability to alter objects, or the ability to move them very quickly?"

"Knowledge is more of Grungni's thing, but if you have a lot more knowledge than us, Sigmar might be interested. He is a god, so moving, creating and changing are things he can do. 

I'm not sure how I feel about negotiating with him.... though turning him to our own ends is appealing."

"I'm sure we have lots of knowledge that you don't have but I'm less sure of how much of it transfers. Guessing from your apparent technology level, we're probably ahead of you in most if not all sciences. Your physics is almost certainly different, if you have a flat world. Your chemistry might or might not be -- I think some of it relies on physics, but I'm not enough of a scientist to guess how that will impact it. Our medicine will probably work for some but not all of your species, although if you can do resurrection with your magic system you might also be able to do better healing. We have technology that you don't have -- I don't know for certain which technologies you do have, actually, that would probably be good to figure out. None of our theology applies. Philosophy might be interesting -- have you invented consequentialism yet? I suppose you might not know -- but also might not be relevantly knowledge, depending on his preferences. We probably have lots of interesting ideas about economics and law and that sort of thing. Our mathematics doesn't strictly have to be ahead of you, I don't think, but it probably is -- actually, wait, I think there are some proofs that only work with computer access."

He pauses. "There's also summoning knowledge. I would be very wary of giving someone like him that power; even if he can in theory make and change and move things, he probably doesn't know how to do it as destructively as we do, and unlike with technology sharing it would be hard to control what he learns once he has it. In theory this is mitigable with a carefully-done gag if we don't teach him how to summon any other way. In practice that would be very risky."

He scratches his head. "Of course, that assumes that summoning works normally here. If I was really the first, that seems strange, but I might not have been. Summoning was known only to a handful of people for thousands of years in my world. In any case, it shouldn't be hard to test."

He duplicates a Safe Summoning Authority fairy circle and makes some chalk to fill in the gap.

No fairy materializes.

"Perhaps it doesn't work here, then, or perhaps that has something to do with my mysterious demon-like powers. Daeva can't summon, so if my powers are similar enough to standard daeva powers I might be unable to summon as well." He copies another circle and offers it and the chalk to Luehmani. "Would you be willing to fill in that gap? It should be quite safe, but you should also probably let me talk to it lest you accidentally agree to a deal you don't want to."

"So, tech-wise we have guns and artillery- those are somewhat recent. Sigmarite has been made. We don't have any, but by all rights it's an impressive material, very durable. The Skaven have impressive war machines... and can tunnel through realms... but I think that's just Skaven.

Never heard of consequentialism. Our philosophy-- I wouldn't say it's tied to religion, many religions have many philosophies, but it's possible consequentialism is from a religion I know little about.

A thing to note is that while Sigmar is not The Smith god, he is A Smith god. So any tech you give him, he could reverse engineer, which could be dangerous with summoning."

Luehmani is starting to get used to things materialising out of thin air. She finishes the circle.

A fairy appears. She has dark skin, pale blonde hair, and thin blue dragonfly wings.

"Hail, sum -- where am I?"

Luehmani vaguely gestures in a well, you wanted to talk to it, didn't you? sort of way.

"You're in a place called Ghur, which as far as I can tell is another plane from Earth in the same way that Heaven and Hell and Fairyland are."

"Is this some kind of prank?"

"Not as far as I can tell, but it's not like you really have reason to trust me on that. I can ask her to send you home if you want me to."

"Uh, no, if this isn't a prank this is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. Even if it is it's still up there." She pauses. "Can you make me a chiplocked computer?"

"I don't know how to. This is the first time I've ever taken a summons."

"Wow. You must be a really new demon." She examines the binding on her circle. "Do you have a task for me? This circle doesn't let me do much otherwise and it's not like it's roomy."

He doesn't correct her. "I don't think we actually have plans for the use of fairy powers yet, although now that we know it's an option we can develop them. Until then -- would you like to leave your circle, staying within fifty meters of one of the two of us at all times, in order to move that rock a meter to the left? In exchange I will make you one object that I deem to be safe of your choice." He points.

"Sure."

He glances at Luehmani. "You can agree to that. If we decide we want her to do something else, later, we can renegotiate the task."

"That sounds reasonable," she says to Simon. "Can fairies only move things, or is that they only safe thing they can do?"

"You can go do that," she says to the fairy.

"They're indestructible, they learn languages the same way as demons, and they can do almost anything a normal person could do. They can do quite a lot by moving things, though -- fairies on Mars run the -- they -- they make our future technology work -- and not every application of moving things is safe. This binding was designed to limit them to a handful of safe activities."

The fairy leaves the circle and moves the rock. 

"Can I have a copy of Made of Sundust?"

Simon grimaces but hands one to her.

"Okay, so your kind of summoning works. That's something. Not sure I'd want to offer it to Sigmar, but it is at least something we can offer.

...Is there anything concerning about Made of Sundust?"

He sighs. "It's not unsafe, at least not for someone who already knows what various modern technology does, it's just boring and terribly written."

"Hey!" says the fairy.

"I'm not insulting you, I'm insulting the book. I can try to avoid criticizing your reading preferences but I'm not going to lie about what I think of them."

She rolls her eyes, turns away from him, and opens the book.

"We have some recreational books, but we have plenty that are dangerous to read. I used instructions from a book to summon you, and that was probably the safest information in the book. So. Worthwhile checking that sort of thing.

Is there anything else we need the fairy to do, or should I... dismiss them, however that works."

She looks up. "Pleasedon'tdismissmeIdon'twannamissoutonthenewworld."

He looks over at her. "You could tell us your name, and we can consider summoning you back later."

"Ilpherisa but I'd rather stay."

He looks back at Luehmani. "If you want to dismiss her, you can do that by concentrating on doing so for a minute. All daeva you've summoned will also be dismissed instantly if you die, but obviously that's worse for most use cases. If you don't want to dismiss her, that's also fine."

"I don't want to dismiss her unless she's going to cause problems, if she wants to stay that bad. And who knows, maybe Sigmar really, really wants to move things."

She turns to the fairy. "Not planning on causing problems?"

Ilpherisa smiles reassuringly. "Definitely not! Who's Sigmar?"

"An evil god. An evil god who can resurrect people.

We're trying to convince him to resurrect more people, and be less evil."

"No offense but that sounds kinda fake. Back home loads of humans used to believe in gods but most of them stopped after Revelation."

"The idea that people don't believe in gods sound fake to me. They're rather.. present, around here. Or if not present, they make their presence known. What with the magic powers, resurrection and the not-your-kind-of-daemons running around.

Oh and the flat realms. Apparently your people find that deeply strange."

She shrugs. "I don't think it's that weird. Fairyland is flat, Hell is flat, I think Heaven and Limbo are flat..."

"Limbo?"

"Where humans go when they die, I think. I'm not an expert."

"Do you have any ideas on how I could verify that such a place exists?"

"Try conjuring for the current surroundings of ... some famous dead human, I'm not really an expert. I think Shakespeare is fairly well-known."

He doesn't want any members of the Church of Certainty in Angels, or any known demon summoners, but as far as he knows Leila Amjad was neither. He tries making her current surroundings.

Leila Amjad is currently standing on a plane of dry ground, talking to someone who looks about eleven. It certainly doesn't look like Hell, nor does it match the descriptions he's read of Heaven or Fairyland.

"Fascinating. That resolves a major theological debate, you know."

"Anyways. The gods thing. Can you, I don't know, gods sound pretty magic ... can you make Sigmar's current surroundings?"

Simon tries that.

Sigmar is sitting on an ornate throne, a finely crafted golden warhammer across his lap. His armour shines, not as a metal, but as something luminous, and crackles with lightning.

The room he is in could be described as a 'throne room', but would not do it justice. It is massive, with a frescoed ceiling depicting Sigmar riding across the sky, hammer held high and lightning at his back. Every spare piece of wall is adorned with either tapestry made by the deftest hands with the finest silk (depicting Sigmar, of course) or a statue of marble or jade or some other exotic material chiselled by the finest artisans (also of Sigmar, naturally.)

There is a phalanx of armoured warriors standing in front of him. Simon would recognise them as Stormcasts, though the colouration of their armour is different.

"It certainly looks like he exists, although admittedly I'm not an expert on forensic conjuration."

"Uh, no offense, but that was kind of obvious."

"Sigmar is not subtle. At all.

... as a warning, don't try to summon the surroundings of Khorne or Tzeentch or another Chaos power. It's unlikely to be safe. The Warp can be-- hard to comprehend."

...He is very curious, now, but not so curious as to risk it.

"So, now that that's settled, we need a plan."

"To get to Sigmar, or to convince Sigmar?

To get to Sigmar, we'd just need to take a Realmgate to Azyr, and find a way into the palace. That would involve  finding said Realmgate, taking control of it, us somehow not looking like band of Chaos worshippers so we aren't immediately killed when we walk out of it.

Which would likely be easier than convincing Sigmar."

"I could probably locate a Realmgate, and she--" he gestures towards the fairy "--could transport us there quickly. I don't know what exactly is involved in taking control of it but we could probably disable a force of anything human-like with daeva powers. An angel could alter our appearance, although depending on what specifically we want we might need a specialist.

We should probably decide how we want to persuade Sigmar before we try any of this, though."

He tries making the surroundings of the nearest Realmgate.

"Taking control of it mostly involves no one trying to stop you getting through it. They are powerful strategic resources-- so many groups try and own them, and stop you getting through.

Appearance-wise, the best solution would probably be clothes. Dress like an Azyrite, and you could probably play yourselves off as a weird species.

Sigmar would probably like anything that helped his Empire, and assurances that resurrectiong wouldn't be used for anything 'bad.' Which would require getting him to redefine 'bad.' His current definition is, well, bad."

The nearest Realmgate is built into a limestone arch, that bridges a canyon. The canyon wall is riddled with holes. Through some, noxious green acid pours out. Through others, greasy, mangy, humanoid rat things pour out.

"Oh, Skaven. Lovely," Luehmani says.

"If this one won't work I can attempt to find us another one."

He rubs his forehead. "If all we need is clothing I can make a copy of something Azyrite-typical. If I make some miniature Azyrites can you pick out inconspicuous clothing?"

He attempts to make models of any Azyrites within a hundred kilometers.

"We can totally deal with Skaven. It'll just be a thing, you know? We're nominally allies. But Skaven worship the god of betrayal, among other things. So."

There are some Azyrites in a hundred kilometers! Most of them are Stormcasts. The rest are wearing flowy, layered robes with tabards over them. "Stormcast armour is very not typical. The robes look normal. I'm not the best judge though."

He picks out three arbitrary sets of robes and makes copies in his best guess of their sizes.

"Why does Sigmar think that your people are evil?" He pauses. "Also, given that he thinks that, why does he think it's necessarily wrong to bring them back? If he resurrected them and they started murdering people or something, he could just bring back their victims. I suppose that wouldn't work for everything they might do wrong, but he's a god, surely he can do something."

"Because we don't worship him? Worship his enemies, more specifically? And if we're brought back, we might not act all over-joyous about his wonderful gift, and might not immediately convert, and keep worshiping his enemies.

I've also heard news from the grapevine that resurrection takes some effort. Though mostly as an explanation why there aren't swarms of Stormcasts. So, take that with a mountain of salt."

He nods. "Is that likely to make it difficult for him to resurrect your people?"

"I doubt it would make it more difficult specifically, but it might make him less likely to do it. It'd be one thing to do something for your enemies, and quite another to do something effortful for them."

He nods. "You said we might need to get him to redefine badness if we want him to resurrect your people. How do we do that? Is that likely to be the best strategy for persuading him?"

"I'll admit I haven't given 'how to convince Sigmar' much thought, it's never been practicable.

It'd probably involve convincing him that order is not the ideal way for a world to be-- and that would be difficult. Not necessarily impossible, he has a practical streak and demon powers could 'convince him,' but it would not be easy."

He nods again. "That sounds likely to be challenging. Might it be easier to convince him that accepting your people's practices is not incompatible with order?"

"...we do worship Chaos. We are somewhat inherently incompatible."

"That would seem to make it difficult, yes."

Ilpherisa looks up from her book. "I mean, they say Hell's an anarchy, and it seems to work for you guys."

He sighs. "I'm not sure that demons are exactly an ideal model for what principles we should follow."

She shrugs. "It was just an idea."

"In any case," he says, inclining his head in Ilpherisa's direction, "if our goal is to convince Sigmar, an example of a society that --" he pauses "-- achieves its goals, without the need for traditional ideas of order, might be useful."

"I mean, if hell is a nice place, he might buy it. ...I don't like the guy, but he does care about his people. Seeing a less ordered society that works better than his might bring him around." 

"My understanding is that it's a fairly decent place for demons to live, but it probably helps that they're indestructible, and there's only so much damage they can do to other demons."

He pauses. "If you don't mind me asking, why do you worship Chaos?"

She makes the pinched off expression of someone trying to articulate something difficult. "Because it is freedom. Because with Chaos, anything you want to do, anyone you want to be, is possible. It won't be easy--it takes hard work, devotion, sacrifice-- but it can be done. Anything.  There are no limitations except the ones you put on yourself.

--and even when you are very limited, when you're faced with something you cannot face alone, the gods pull through. When a plague whips through your people, Papa Nurgle with bless you. When invaders encircle you, Khorne will help you face them down with his rage. When it seems like fate has turned against you, Tzeentch will change the way. And Slaanesh--" a flash of a sad look "--when they were around, they gave the joy that let you survive anything."

He nods.

"Where I'm from, most people don't trust demons, which makes sense, seeing as how demons are inherently evil."

Ilpherisia raises her eyebrows at him. "You're a demon!"

"I'm not a demon, I'm a human who happens to have--"

"Whatever." She rolls her eyes.

"In any case," he says pointedly, "if the goal is to demonstrate the viability of Chaos so that Sigmar is willing to help your people, Hell does seem to work well enough for the demons who live there, at least, and it sounds like it works reasonably as well for your species as well."

"It works pretty fine when we're not being invaded, yes."