"Hello, Luminary, what can I do for you?"

"I've been told you have context that might be helpful for counseling Chelish cultists?"

"I grew up in Cheliax, though I don't know that I ever met a Baphometan in particular there."

Nod. "What would you say is most important for me to know?"

"It may make him uncomfortable if you make - pronounced facial expressions, as much as most non-Chelish people seem to, but I don't know if that means you want to try to avoid it, or do it deliberately. If he's a particularly good cleric candidate he might have been picked for Asmodean seminary but if he was too - obviously Chaotic or disloyal or not Wise-looking enough - then maybe he was passed over. It is popularly put about in Cheliax that even in other countries being Evil is common for such minor and unavoidable behavior as abortion or beating slaves and there is therefore no point in making any attempt to be slightly less awful and try for Axis. It is not unlikely that he grew up in an orphanage. He can probably read. I don't know what's useful -"

"Most of that is useful, thank you. It seems possible that the Baphometism is partially a response to the dominance of Asmodeanism within the country, do you have any advice about navigating that if it turns out to be the case?"

"It's - rather alien to - my naturally Lawful temperament, to react to it in that way, and I haven't seen it before, I don't know. Certainly it is dreadful that He has the place but that isn't because He's Lawful..."

"Mm. Is there — a non-Evil alternative for people who might otherwise be inclined to become Baphomet cultists that a Chelish Baphomite would perceive as a viable alternative choice they would have made? I know what alternatives sound reasonable to me but I'm sure many of them would come across as ridiculous or out-of-touch to someone who grew up there..."

"They make it very hard to perceive alternatives. It is harder to catch clerics of true netural gods, but Baphomet does not have much in common with Pharasma or Gozreh or Nethys. If he needed the spells to make it out of the country, wearing a pentagram and snarling at people may easily have seemed and been the likeliest way to do that without getting killed, and they talk a lot about the accessibility of Malediction, out of proportion to its real availability but laypeople don't know by how much."

Well, just because saving someone's soul might well be a doomed endeavor isn't a reason not to try.

"Is there anything else I should know? Angles on Goodness that Chelish people find particularly compelling or uncompelling, Evils common in Cheliax and not elsewhere that could damn him even if he thoroughly repents of what he's done as a Baphomet cultist...?"

"...the paper money's Evil. They back it with damned souls. The schoolchildren whip each other, top performers beating the worst. Positions the least bit sensitive are at routine risk, though again exaggerated compared to availability, of surreptitious mindreading for compliance, so it's possible he has - some flinch about that which might or might not analogize to Judgment itself. I don't actually know how common slavery is in other countries but there are plenty of halflings and orcs enslaved in Cheliax and their welfare is protected not at all, contact with those would be a risk factor. I - I personally enjoy the Iomedaean view on Goodness and Law being the same underlying thing, the ability to cooperate, though I think I do not hew to it as closely as She does, and I do not know if it will be remotely popular with Chelish people who have abandoned Law anyway."

"—Slavery is legal in most countries, including Mendev, though even outside Cheliax it often leads people into Evil. I... would generally expect Chaotic people to find that framework unpersuasive, yes."

"I don't really understand Chaotic people. I guess it's possible to - construe Law and Evil as the same thing, if you buy enough Chelish propaganda, and - but that is probably not what a Baphomet cultist is doing, that's what I'd guess if he were a Calistrian or something."

Nod. "Is there anything else you think might be helpful for me to know about Cheliax?"

"Nothing else is obviously more useful than 'he can probably read'."

"Thank you very much for speaking to me, then."

"Feel free to come back at need."

He departs.

Eventually Anevia knocks on the door to inform him that she needs him to clear out of the private upstairs meeting room so she can have a different private meeting.

"Yes, of course, I apologize." He gets out of the way.

"No need to apologize."

Downstairs, people have apparently decided that the bartender's desire to wait for Irabeth to actually be willing to stick around and party before getting the party started isn't going to stop them. One group of people is singing a song about a brave soldier killing his way through a variety of different kinds of demon; another group of people is clustered around those of Blai's party members who haven't joined in the singing; another group of people is competing to see who can lift increasingly heavy objects for increasingly long amounts of time.

It's going to be a late night for anyone who has to sleep down here. If Ember doesn't want the bed and Arendae's elsewhere he supposes it could be his or Seelah's or Lann's, do any of them have opinions?

Lann fidgets. "I'm going to be honest with you, I don't really see the appeal."