There are four of them, all mounted on horses — two human women in front, with an unarmored human man and a halfling woman behind them. One of the human women is wearing a painted wooden pendant, a circle with three dagger-like points coming out of it. They're dressed like adventurers — they all have billowing cloaks, and two of them have headbands — though official adventurers would generally be using the main roads, unless they'd specifically been sent to clear out a threat in the forest.

Fernando may also notice that their horses don't seem to be leaving any sort of trail on the ground, or that the halfling is armed with a bow and doesn't seem to carry herself like a slave. (The human women are also armed, but that's much less surprising.)

(They generally don't aim very hard for subtlety when they're in the woods. If they run into an army patrol in the middle of the forest it was always going to turn into a fight anyway, in which case it's better to have their weapons drawn and Justice's holy symbol ready, and occasionally there are bandits with grudges against Asmodeans who don't particularly have anything against them and don't care to take their chances in a fight.)

The man is clearly some sort of caster, but he's by himself and not in army gear, so it's really not very likely he'll pick a fight with them. "We're not lost, no. And yourself?"

She's got a Chelish accent, though if he's particularly good with accents he might notice it's more like the kind people have if they grew up in the Heartlands.

A 3 pointed symbol... maybe some variant of Pazuzu's symbol?  He knows they sometimes collaborate with other cults on tearing down Asmodeus, and they keep themselves compartmentalized that he wouldn't know if another branch had a priestess of Pazuzu join up.

And he was concentrating so hard on studying them that he almost missed what the woman with the pendant said... he's not sure if she actually said the correct counter-phrase to identify herself?  He thinks she was at least a few words off.  Maybe she's deliberately testing him?  Either way, they certainly can't be a group of licit adventurers, the halfling carries herself with too much freedom to be a slave, so they are almost certainly his contacts.

And she asked him a question.  He doesn't recall another stage of challenge and response identification procedures, so he'll just get to the point.

"I'm not lost.  Uh, um... I don't know what you have planned, but I have a small stack of heretically Good romance novels and I think it would be hilarious if some particularly devout Asmodeans got caught with them.  Not uh, saying it should have priority over your plans but if we could work it into the schedule I think it would be worth it.  And for more serious plans... I've recently gotten Magic Aura down well enough to fake the traits of other casters, although I need a few examples of their spells to study with Greater Detect Magic beforehand.  A well placed Magic Aura is a reliable classic."

Wow, whoever this is seems kind of incompetent. Which is — kind of upsetting, actually, she doesn't want him to get caught and Maledicted for no reason — she should focus, that's not the most important thing.

He has... romance novels and the ability to frame people with magic auras... and he thinks they're part of his group, whatever that group actually is. Hearing about the romance novels, there's a part of her that kind of wishes Haven was here, even though this wasn't actually the sort of mission that needs double channeling capacity. ...It's sort of tempting to tell him to take his apparently-decent spellcasting and go break out another plantation but she's really not sure he could pull it off.

"—There's a couple towns within a few day's ride big enough to have multiple priests." She glances at the man behind her. "Can Magic Aura fake auras from divine casters?"

"As far as I know, it's not possible to determine for certain from a spell's aura whether it was cast by a divine caster in the first place, if you don't see it cast. I don't see why it wouldn't work."

Nod. "In which case it'd be nice to try and frame one of their priests for plotting against another one, get them to waste some time tearing each other apart. But it's more dangerous to try to sneak into the bigger towns — you'd definitely need to deal with the books first—"

Justice can't see it but Independence is kind of giving her a look.

"The books are harder, it's not the sort of crime that'd stick against anyone actually important."

"I think it might depend on who you go after, actually — lots of people are important enough to just make it disappear, but disloyalty's one of the things that can really get you, I bet there's slavers who—"

"If they're rich enough to own slaves they're rich enough to bribe the Fists!"

"There's probably a way to use them to make it look like some of the recent disturbances in the area were caused by Desnans, the hard part is doing that without putting the Asmodeans closer to the right track."

Something about this group feels... off from what Fernando was expecting.  Trying to articulate his observations to himself... they seem more at ease and casual with each other than Fernando was expecting?  That's probably a good sign?  Hopefully one of them hasn't enchanted or drugged all the others or something like that?

"Like I said, I'm not committed to the novels idea, I got them by happenstance and thought it might be funny.  In general, I've just recently got third circle casting, so I've only got Nondetection and Phantom Steed for third circle spells, uh, for the rest of my spells, my I'm mostly focused on conjuration, with basically no enchantment.  I admit I may not seem like the subtlest agent, but I've performed decently posing as a passing first circle or laundry wizard to village too small and poor to have a full time laundry wizard.  And of course I'm ready and able to serve as a supporting spellcaster for whatever buffs you need that I have.  Oh, and I can cast infernal healing without devil's blood so that should hopefully free up some slots if you expect to be tight on healing?  You know, properly cast, it is actually overall better than a cure light wounds, just a bit slower acting."

His talking speeds up as he gets going.  (He partially rehearsed a summary of his qualifications).

Justice has them covered on healing, but there's no real reason to say that when for all she knows Cheliax will torture it out of him tomorrow. 

She'd been planning to point out that she was not actually with whoever his group is once she got through talking through his ideas, but then she got distracted and now it'd be kind of awkward. Maybe she can wait until she has a little more information about what he's up to. (He's clearly not an Eagle Knight, but lots of people hate Asmodeus who aren't Eagle Knights.)

"It'll be harder to pass for first-circle now that you've hit third, that's strong enough to have an aura." Wizards don't get Undetectable Alignment, even if no one bothers to point a Detect Magic his way, and Nondetection's pricy.

"Some versions of Magic Aura can cover for that. I'm not sure how many of the third-circle variants can, though."

"There's probably something it's possible to do with the novels, but trying to pull off complicated plots because they're funny is a good way to get yourself caught." Presumably he's resigned himself to being caught and Maledicted at some point, but there's no reason to make it happen sooner.

"The fourth circle version of Magic Aura can do living creatures yes.  I have a scroll of the 4th circle version, but we should only use it for a really good plan.  And yes, I do need to conserve my Nondetection diamond dust for more critical activity... but I can make do with a Misdirection for a lot of similar uses.. I didn't prepare it today, but I still have my bonded object spell if we have a pressing need for it?"

He addresses the other women.  "Being funny in and of itself isn't a good enough reason I agree, but there is some value if you can push things in a surreal direction, make your targets doubt their own sanity, make them question the standard set of spells and techniques for espionage and wonder to themselves if you've figured out an entirely new spell that can beat all their old methods of spycraft.  Once you've got them thinking like that, they may waste resources or distrust the standard methods for years afterwards.  Uh... not that I particularly had a plan like that in mind... I've been kind of uh... idly thinking of something with a layered Nondetection, Misdirection, and Magic Aura cast at different strengths so a dispel gets one of them in particular..."

He thought the proper orthodoxy (not that Chaos needs to be exactly proper), was to try to outwit your opponents as much as possible... but he had already figured this group might not all be committed to his Lord?  And he can understand favoring simple effectiveness.

The risk there is that you 'trick' them into rightfully distrusting a method that was never very reliable to begin with, but Elettra's not really a magic expert.

"I trust your judgment on how to use your own magic." (But not on very much else.)

"You should also be aware that there have been some disruptions about three day's travel west of here, near Gelida. The enforcers of the law are likely to be on unusually high alert, particularly in the immediate vicinity of the area."

He takes a moment to double check the geography in his head.  He needs to say something, getting made fun of or beaten or even just embarrassed by the new group would be bad, but someone being caught would be far worse.

“Okay, uh… something has gone wrong with information compartmentalization, or someone’s confused or has messed up or something…” he nervously stammers.

“I’m pretty sure that’s in the direction which we were supposed to be creating diversions away from?”

...Well, she's not going to complain if someone accidentally gave them a free distraction, but she hopes they didn't completely ruin whatever the other group was planning. Or at least that if they did, that the other group was able to get away. ...Presumably he doesn't have a good way to warn them, or he'd've had a better way to get instructions from them, too.

"We're not actually with your group." Someone's got to say it.

She'd have told him eventually!

"—We're not Asmodeans, we're not about to turn you in or anything like that. But, uh, it might be good to be a bit more cautious about who you start telling about your plans."

All the little notes of confusion come together clearly now.

“Oh..”

And his mind is still working past his rising panic because he comes to a conclusion he should communicate urgently.

“If you haven’t come across another group in this stretch of forest nor seen any signs of them… they were supposed to be here for at least a few days so it’s possible they’ve been caught on the way here, and if they’ve been caught alive and interrogated one of them might have given away they were supposed to meet me at this location (or at least near it) and I think a third circle wizard is enough to warrant at least a decent effort to catch…”

He catches his breath.

“So we should leave… or maybe if you’re really daring and stronger than I’d have guessed setup a counter ambush or at least be ready to encounter opposition.”

It's tempting. It'd be awfully satisfying if some Asmodean enforcers tried to hunt down what they thought would be easy prey and ended up getting a taste of their own medicine and leaving Cheliax with one fewer group of people to sic on anyone who tries to resist them. But it's the sort of tempting where she knows it's obviously a bad idea, not the sort of tempting where she seriously wants to try it under the circumstances — they can definitely take a regular army patrol, but trying to fight a group of handpicked enforcers specifically chosen to hunt people down is a lot riskier.

"How much did they know about you? I assume you'd've mentioned if you'd felt someone trying to Scry you..."

...This man seems to have decided he's coming with them. It doesn't really seem like a good idea to try to bring him along under the circumstances, but the other three are definitely going to outvote her on that.

(Wanderer, guide them to safety; let fortune favor their flight, and may they rise free with the new day.)

Finally a question he can answer favorably!

“As you may have guessed, my uh…”

And it occurs to him he’s been lucky enough not to mention very many specific details about his ‘group’ and he should keep it that way for multiple reasons.

“…group, practices pretty tight information security, so the only thing the people I was supposed to meet here know about me is that I’m a newly 3rd circle wizard, specialized in conjuration.  So if they’ve been caught they can’t leak too many specifics…”

Or maybe she meant his allies scrying him?

“And the parts of my” don’t say cult “organization that do know my name and face don’t have a lot of higher circle spells to spare, so a scry from them isn’t likely to come… uh I’m supposed to know it’s them if it comes at a particular time and make a quick report in that case.”

And how to ask this next part without begging…

“Er, I likewise have a bare minimum of information to go off for meeting my new contacts so I won’t be able to find them, and it sounds like heading back west anywhere near Gelida isn’t a great idea, so if you’ve got a use for a conjurer I would certainly appreciate the company and contributing to any cause that undermines Asmodeus.”

"It shouldn't be possible for Hell's agents to land a Scry solely from that description."

"And if he's not with us they might be able to follow his trail." They're not masked right now, he's seen their faces. She makes a tiny gesture at Shakti.

He's wearing the tiny copper wire like it's a ring. Message. 

He's obviously hiding something. Just because he won't bring the law down on our heads doesn't mean he won't slit our throats while we sleep.

If you're really worried about that we could make him sleep in a separate Rope Trick? Shakti hasn't used the spell he gets from his ring yet.

I don't want to risk him riding off on his own and getting caught. It's nice when the pragmatic thing to do is the one she'd want to do anyway.

Shakti?

Oh, apologies, I thought I was obviously in favor.

Tiny nod.

"Right now we're mostly lying low and heading east, but if you don't mind not doing anything flashy for a bit you can ride with us. Or, uh, walk with us, once the horses run out — anyways. Stay where she can see you." She points at the halfling. "If we've got to talk to someone, and they're not with your group, let us handle it. Uh, and there's a few hand signals we should go over if we do get into a fight, what spells do you have that're useful in combat?"

“I’m fine not being flashy.  I’m not well prepared for a fight today, I just have a summon monster II and a summon swarm.  I generally get a few extra rounds out of summonings compared to typical for my circle.  I have two infernal healings for after any fight.  Oh and I still have my bonded object spell, so that could be a Web, or Grease, or Glitterdust, to name my best spells for a fight.  If tomorrow I’m preparing more heavily for a fight, I can do more of any spell I just named, and as well Protection from Law, Mage Armor, Bull’s Strength, and Resist Energy depending on what you all want.  I have a Communal Mount I haven’t cast yet, which I can split up to five ways for two hours each, and my current Phantom Steed has two hours left.”

He recites this calmly and firmly.

"Oh, we're not looking for a fight, but sometimes we run into one anyway, and it's good to be ready." And if they're bringing him along, then making sure he can work with them is less important than making sure he can't tell the Asmodeans much about what they can do if he gets captured.

"I'm a priestess, he's a wizard, she's an archer, she stabs people." She gestures to herself, the man, the halfling, and the human woman respectively. "I channel positive, so I can cover healing for the group as long as I'm conscious. At first I've got two of Bless, one Command, one Shield of Faith, one Expeditious Retreat—"

She goes through the rest of her spells. Apart from the Expeditious Retreat, it's mostly standard fare for a third-circle adventuring cleric, except that she's got a Fly for some reason, and doesn't have any Cure spells prepared. "And the spear, obviously."

She looks at the man she indicated as the wizard.

"At first circle I've prepared a Mage Armor, a Sleep, a Silent Image, Break — that one rarely ends up relevant, but I'm a Transmutation specialist—" He goes through his full list; he's third-circle as well, with necromancy and evocation as opposed schools. Something in his accent is noticeably different from how he was speaking earlier.

"I have a slot remaining at each circle in case we need to adjust to something unexpected, and of course my bonded object." 

She gestures to the halfling again. "And it's not going to come up in a fight, but she's really good at sneaking through the woods and forests and so on, as long as she can see you you won't leave a trail unless you're trying to." Justice really doesn't understand how that works, Independence always says it isn't magic but it really seems like it, but she's not about to complain.

She pauses, in case he has any questions he wants to ask before they can get into hand signals.

He nods along.  Sounds like a well rounded team of adventurers.  No cure spells prepared and the ability to channel positive means she is Good and serves a Good God.  The Fly spell means Travel domain, which Desna is an obvious guess for... although... does Cayden have Travel?  Probably Desna, but he should avoid saying anything bad about alcohol and drunkenness' just in case.  Hopefully he hasn't already offended the cleric with his plans for repurposing romance novels?

He should probably find a favorable way to explain himself before it comes up because of alignment detection or something like that.  He starts mentally running through what he has heard about Desna and Andoran to try to figure out the best spin.

"That all makes sense and sounds reasonable.  I've heard of some pretty weird adventurer abilities that actually aren't magic and don't detect as such."

"Great!" She moves her left finger in a circle. "So that's the one for illusions, mostly he" (gesture at the wizard) "uses it to signal that he just cast a Silent Image and you should try to see through it, but you can also use it to point out illusions if it's a situation where you'd rather the people we're fighting not know that you've seen through them. This one" (she makes a little rectangle with her hands, then pulls it apart) "is for positioning Webs or other area spells like that, then for general positioning you want—"

She can go through all of them. There aren't that many. "—and then it won't matter for a fight, but you can use this one to ask him to loop everyone into a Message. Uh, and for everything else, or for anything where it's really really important that the other person know what you're telling them and not that important to keep it secret, you can just use, uh, regular words. Oh, and if it looks like someone's trying to read our hand signals sometimes we'll make up fake ones that don't mean anything, if you see one of us make a hand sign that looks totally different from any of those that's probably what we're doing."

He practices the hand signs to himself as she goes through them.

“That makes sense.  Uh…”

He’s mentally rehearsed this while she was talking but he’s still stammering.

“There is something I should possibly explain about my group that you might want to know… not that I can think it’s likely to be relevant particularly soon… it could easily wait until after we’ve relocated?”

"Well, see, now I'm curious—"

(She totally called it.)

“Well, the thing is, uh, my organization, its primary divine casting, is uh, clerics of Baphomet.  We work with anyone that wants to take down Asmodeus and his servants!  I really don’t think we’ll have any problems working together, as you’ve already noticed we favor complicated tricky plans but I can compromise on that, and uh (I assume from your general Goodness) there will be no torturing Asmodean priests, even the really nasty cruel ones?”

He keeps talking, better to just get it all said now.

“And if there is a check in scry from my organization, (not the I expect one), it should be within 10 minutes of three hours after dawn, so if you want to avoid being seen I would need a few minutes of privacy.  Or you could listen in if that’s necessary to trust to me.”

He tries to put on a disarming smile but it just looks awkward.

Okay, but is it the kind of Baphomet cult that mostly wants to fight Asmodeus, or the kind that traps little kids in magic labyrinths until they starve?

...Presumably it's not full of completely fine people none of whom have done anything particularly bad, she's pretty sure Baphomet doesn't choose that sort of person to be his priests? But there's a lot of — options, ways they could be better or worse, and for that matter for this man to be joining up with them because he wants to fight Asmodeus and they're who he met or because he likes how they let him indulge all his worst hobbies without trying to lecture him.

Someone told her once that Calistria has slept with Baphomet but she's pretty sure they were just trying to make her mad, gods don't have bodies really — that's not actually important.

There's got to be some reason they're working for Baphomet and not any of the other better gods who'd be happy to help them fight Asmodeus. Even if they were Evil to begin with Calistria can pick Evil priests — though Justice had never heard of Milani, maybe they hadn't heard of Milani or Calistria or... Gorum, somehow... no, it doesn't actually sound like Gorum'd like them very much. And presumably the Lawful ones aren't going to help them.

It is absolutely possible that it'll turn out he's spending most of his time doing horrifying things to ordinary farmers who don't really deserve it and staying in the group's good graces because the farmers pray to Asmodeus sometimes. If it turns out he's doing things awful enough he deserves to die for them they can almost certainly take him, it'd be four-on-one — unless he's lying about his circle, if he can Dimension Door away then it'd be a stalemate, at least for now—

"Are you empowered by Baphomet?"

An easy and safe question!

“No, I am not.”

"What sorts of things do you guys get up to? —Uh, don't tell us any super specific secret details, obviously, just, in general."

Wow, she’s practically giving him the opportunity to focus on the more unobjectionable stuff!

“Murdering Asmodean priests and nobility, stealing from them, framing them for stuff we’ve done, sowing chaos and discord among them… like we left subtle goat themed calling cards and got a baron to order every goat in his land slaughtered and burned, that was pretty funny…”

Oh wait is that evil because it hurt the goat herds?

“I mean not for the peasants that owned goats, but it meant the inquisition and his Count took his complaints and comments about Baphomet much less seriously, giving us more room to operate, so it was strategically useful.”

That makes it a bit less Evil, right?  Or is it only Iomedae that thinks that way?  He should have studied theology harder.  He does at least know enough Good theology to put into play his next gambit though…

“And uh, yeah, when the opportunity arose and we could manage it, we sometimes kidnapped and tortured priests of Asmodeus, especially if they had useful information are we really needed to sow fear.”

There.  That should give them something Evil to focus on, but not so evil they can’t understand it (and even approve of it, if they’re being honest with themselves). And if they really push him on it, he can show a bit of remorse or something to draw them into thinking he’s willing and able to repent to Good.

Well, they already knew his group worshipped Baphomet, if he hasn't left out anything really horrifying then that's... mostly pretty reasonable? Sucks for the goatherds, obviously, and it kind of seems like they care more about what's funny than about fighting for justice or freedom or anything, but it's not like people who aren't Baphomet cultists never accidentally get regular people hurt. (And they should cut it out with the torture, Asmodeus loves torture and fuck Asmodeus, but it's not like she doesn't understand the impulse.)  

Of course, it's totally possible he's leaving some things out, but if so he has the sense not to admit it. They really are trying to fight the Church of Asmodeus, at least, she's sure of that much.

"—You should probably stop with the torture, Asmodeus really likes torture even when it's his own people getting tortured. Magic's better for getting information anyways, sometimes people who're being tortured will, uh, confess to things they didn't actually do, for some reason."

(Now she's a little upset, actually. Her old lord and her old priest are dead, they've surely been tortured far more in Hell than they ever did to Tea.)

Also, it's Evil, but it sounds like this man is aware of that and is simply choosing to torture people regardless.

"If you're planning to cross the border you can't follow Baphomet."

"—That's also true, I don't know what your plans are but, uh — I forget exactly how the law is phrased—" Fighting Asmodeus is a sympathetic enough reason that they'd probably go easy on him if he could say under a Truthtelling that he was going to give it up, but it's not a good idea to count on it, it'd really be a lot easier to just give it up before it got to that point.

"Within Andoran's borders, it's a grave crime to compact with an Evil power or a power of the Lower Planes, and a serious crime to willingly serve one, or to proselytize on their behalf." After the revolution the People's Council tried to make it a serious crime even to pray to one, but simple prayer turned out to be sufficiently common for that to be untenable. 

Sometimes with enough torture you can trick the priests into making Oaths you can get them to break soon after!  Fernando is pretty sure Asmodeus hates broken Oaths even if he likes torture and tricky compacts, and if the broken Oath is severe enough, it might even deny Hell a soul!  He doesn’t say this or even let his face hint at it because despite outward appearances he isn’t a total dumbass.

”I hadn’t actually thought about crossing the border, the fight is here…” and he doesn’t want to give up on his fellow cultists even if they aren’t exactly friends.

“Er, uh… how much of a ‘can’t follow’ would you all, or the border guard be looking for?  Like a basic truth spell and a simple formal statement, or a mind reading… or like full on loyalty tests with elaborate enchantments and illusions and extensive mind reading and such?… uh I’m not super strongly committed and can easily avoid proselytizing… but I’m not sure how broadly ‘serving’ is defined, but I don’t want to have my every thought looked through.”

Baphomet approves being able to outwit yourself enough to outwit others.  My mind is a maze.  But Fernando hasn’t ever pulled off in practice more than bending the truth just a little bit while under a truth spell.

"Oh, I mean, if you want to stay and fight that's totally fine, there's ways that are easier to fight if you've got somewhere to go back to but there's lots of ways that are easier if you don't have to cross the border both ways to do them."

The border guard... mostly doesn't ask that many questions, at least when she's crossed. Probably they ask more if there's no one vouching, or if the people vouching tell them the person they're with used to be a Baphomet cultist. "I'm not an officer of the law, I'm not here to — make sure you've got the exact right thoughts, or anything like that, just, it seems like the sort of thing you should know going in. Andoran's not Cheliax, the government doesn't go around reading people's minds just to be sure they're loyal, but if someone's accused of a crime I'm pretty sure they use mind-reading sometimes. And truth spells, obviously. And probably other things I don't know about, depending on the circumstances, I think they're careful-er with casters? —Uh, anyways." She looks at the wizard.

"There are two primary components, one about affiliation and another about actual service, but I don't recall the exact language used in the relevant statutes, if that's what you were interested in. It is not a crime to appreciate that Baphomet is warring against Asmodeus, but some of your other activities would almost certainly qualify."

"—Would examples be helpful? We could maybe try to remember some examples of what sorts of things have counted."

The problem is that, assuming it wasn’t an elaborate bluff (which it might well be), some 5th circle cleric or 4th circle wizard has a bit of his hair, a sketch of his face, and his name.  If he runs off to Andoran they might leave him alone for years, then draw him back into some scheme or plot he doesn’t exactly want to participate in.  He’s actually told these adventurers enough to guess this problem, but if they aren’t seeing it he won’t draw their attention to it.

Also they’ve been talking for longer than he feels safe given the possibility this location is compromised.

“That sounds useful if you have an example or two each way of allowable and not-allowable?  But maybe we should get moving and talk once we’re in a more secure location, assuming you still don’t mind me traveling with you and don’t have any more urgent questions?”

Nod. "It's not really urgent. We're not going to throw you to the Asmodeans." If they wanted him dead they'd do it themselves. "—We'll want to hang back a little bit when we get close to the time you might have to make your report. You can warn them about the disturbances out west, but don't give them a description of us, and obviously if you feel anything tugging at your mind any other time, tell us right away."

And they can set off. Fernando may notice that his Phantom Steed indeed doesn't seem to be leaving any tracks.

The lack of tracks is a nice trick, especially since it can apply to the whole party! 

He'll do his part to keep an eye out as they travel.  He thinks over how he can sell his story better... and he starts to consider betraying Baphomet for real.

They ride for a few hours from there. At one point, the Communal Mount they're using runs out, and they pause for a few moments while their wizard casts another. They don't run into any other people, and whatever monsters are in this forest, they apparently don't want to chance going after a group of adventurers.

When the second Communal Mount runs out, the halfling looks at the sky. "It's almost sunset. Let's stop here."

“I still have my bonded object spell if you want an extra rope trick up or an extra alarm?”

“And I would appreciate some more examples about how cases like mine are handled in Andoran?”

"We'll be sleeping in a pair of Extended Rope Tricks, but if you wanted to cast a non-extended one we could rest there until we're ready to actually sleep." They want at least an hour's buffer on the other end to be sure they have time to prepare their spells, so the soonest they can cast it is nine hours before dawn.