Are the afterlives the only places Plane Shift takes one? What is the technical definition of an outsider? What are the conditions of a Planar Binding for the target?

There are also the Elemental Planes.  Fire, Earth, Air, Water.  And powerful clerics and wizard can create demiplanes that count as other planes (it has a multiple hour casting time and takes diamond dust to make permanent and the very minimum spell circle to make a demiplane he's heard of is 7th).  And plane associated with other magical phenomena, like the Astral, Ethereal, or Shadow.  And all sorts of weird one-off planes, the results of demigods or ancient archmages creating demiplanes on a scale beyond ordinary wizards and clerics.

Outsiders are beings made up of planar quintessence.  There is some ambiguity and argument about the exact amount or form of quintessence required to count.  Like, for example, the Abyssal energies mutate some people into Tieflings, who are mostly mortal but have some Outsider like properties, and only count as Outsiders for the purposes of a limited subset of spells that interact differently with Outsiders.

Planar Ally (and its variants at higher and lower circle), as cleric spells, mostly rely on the God to pick the Outsider for the cleric, with the spell acting as a cap on the maximum power of the outsider called.  It is expected to pay the outsider, although many of the Good God's outsiders want their payment donated to worthy causes among mortals so in the case of a church calling the outsider this can result in nearly circular payments (although there are some technical limits to this he admits he hasn't learned).  Planar Bindings are much more finicky as a wizard spell.  If you just want to target one of the common sorts of outsider without caring exactly who you call and risking calling the wrong outsider you don't need anything, but for good reliability or for less common types of outsider you may need things like secret truenames, material bits of flesh of the right type of outsider, secret sigils to put in your summoning diagram, exotic/expensive material components, pacts made in advance, and/or subtle variations on the standard Planar Binding Spell.

(Unlikely to be the method of her transportation, as she does not fit the stated criteria of an Outsider. Still, the best lead she's found so far.)

She will add further questions about various planes to her list of tangents not relevant to the current topic.

He finishes up his list of 7th circle spells (Control Weather, a few others).

"So, for the 8th and 9th circle spells, cleric magic is well known, the Gods basically share a standardized list of spells, with some variance in sub-lists called domains clerics get a spell of each level they can cast from, and a few unique spells per God.  But for wizard magic, we need to copy existing spells or reverse engineer spell or invent entirely new spells to scribe into our spellbooks, so the higher level magic gets kind of irregular..."

There are a lot of higher circle Wizard spells with multiple variants!  At 8th circle Grand Polymorph/Supreme Polymorph/Polymorph for polymorphing with long or even indefinite duration if certain conditions can be met!  Creating demiplanes with various add-ons at 8th and 9th circle! 

Also at 8th, discerning the location of anyone you have sufficient knowledge of if they are anywhere in existence!  Stormbolts, maybe a match for her lightning, he's not sure of either end of that comparison? At 9th, Mage's Disjunction, dispels all spells in an area with absolutely no chance of failure like with the lower circle dispels.  Meteor Swarm, 9th circle, he heard it isn't actually that much better than a well meta-magicked (he still needs to explain metamagic, doesn't he) fireball or multiple casters using fireballs at the same time.  Soul binding for trapping souls!

Wish, as with limited wish, can achieve almost anything, but is only really safe for a limited set of wordings and/or mimicking 8th circle and below spells.  But there are a few particular Wordings that surpass conventional spells and are reliable: instantaneous (he resists going on a tangent about instantaneous versus permanent effects, and instead summarizes as instantaneous lasts forever because it doesn't need magic to sustain the effect, importantly meaning it can't be dispelled) boosts to strength, stamina, agility, intelligence, wisdom, or charisma.  Each wish does only a small boost to one trait, but you can use five in a row on a single trait to get a better effect.  Also a Wish can transport up to 18 people anywhere in existence.

The higher circle spells do seem worthwhile, on the whole. Pity they are so rare. Or perhaps the world is fortunate, depending on one's point of view.

There are more people creeping around in the darkness through the caves, trying to move quietly.  Mostly humans, not demons, if Darth Occlus can tell the difference.

There is a certain flavor of mindset, she's noticed. Do these skulkers seem to have hostile intent?

Their leader is hostile, but ultimately human.  They are determined to reclaim the Wardstone in Baphomet's name and be rightly rewarded.  The leader's followers are less determined in their hostility, many of them are afraid or confused, but ultimately the intend to kill the Wardstone's defenders.  A few among their number are demons, with an underlying malice beyond mortals, but these demons are actually relatively less hostile than most of the demons she's encountered so far, they would rather be napping (or slaughtering easier targets).

"One moment," she says to the wizard, standing. "We seem to have guests again."

Are they clumped up or spread out?

They are looking to find a few separate angles of approach as they creep closer, but the cavernous terrain isn't very helpful with that, so for the moment they are all grouped up.

Ah, nice and easy. She ought to have a few moments more to consider her approach, then.

"Is there anything of interest to be gained from interrogating a cultist?" she inquires of Anevia. The woman reminds her of some of the Intelligence officers she's known.

"Short answer, yes.  A leader and a minion or two as spare would be best if it isn't substantial exertion on your part.  If you're conserving Ki* or whatever, a minion is almost as good as a leader, maybe better since they'll crack easier and most of my questions are pretty general."

*this word seems to almost just mean 'breath' except also with the connotation of being magical.

"I shall see what can be done." And with that, she sets off down the chasm. A twist of the Force sees her seem to fade into the blackness, practically invisible in her dark robes.

When she gets near the group, she reaches out with her will and presses. Sleep, she commands. You cannot resist. This is simply the way of the world Submit, surrender, fall unconscious.

Then if any remain awake, they will see a crimson blur scything out of the darkness, swiftly removing their heads. Next, she targets any demons that remain, then all but two of the humans, hopefully to include the leader among that number.

Their leader, a wizard, and two demons manage to resist the command.  The leader shouts a command: "Glitterdust!".  The wizard is trying to act on that command, but unfortunately spending 3 seconds casting a spell is too slow.  One of the demons does react and a gut-wrenchingly stinking cloud appears in a 40 foot radius cylinder... at the location Darth Occlus was at a second and a half ago.

Goodbye demons, you will not be mourned. Farewell wizard, one wonders how your kind survives on a battlefield at all with such abysmally poor reaction times.

She flicks a hand full of lightning at the leader. Perhaps that will calm them down.

She has heard enough about what happened on the surface to have a resist energy active on herself and so a mere handful of lightning isn't enough to even tickle her.  She charges at the source of the lightning, swinging her glaive at it.  Her glaive glows with her Judgement.  She's not going to let herself lose to some monk with a juiced up deep slumber and chain lightning.  (...which apparently trades off on maximum power?  A real chain lightning would at least jolt her a little bit through her resistance.)

Sigh. She will find a way to make that work again eventually. Doing things the hard way every time is such a pain. In the meantime-

Twist to the side to evade the charge. Saber flickers out to cut off the head of the glaive. Reach into the woman's head to overload her sense of balance. Observe if she crashes to the ground of her own accord, tripping over her own legs.

She resists whatever that was enough to avoid falling, but she is still momentarily disoriented.  She swings futilely, even if she could land the hit, without the end of the glaive it is basically just a blunt staff.  She can't fail here, she needs to prove her worth to Baphomet.

Occlus steps out of the darkness and seizes the remnant of the glaive, using the Force to wrench it from the woman's grasp. "You have already failed," she says. "Broken before you began, and cast aside as worthless, not even worth the effort of punishment." Her voice echoes in a chill whisper crawling up the cultist's spine like the touch of death. (Occlus did not enjoy fighting the Dread Masters, but she will acknowledge they had a remarkable grasp of technique.)

The Abyss doesn't require effort to punish someone, it's default state is punishing those too weak to master it towards their own ends and those that lack a patron to aid their ascension into a true demon.  She doesn't have a weapon now, but there is one spell you can always fall back on, (although usually there is a better action to make).

"You sound like someone too wise to believe the crusader Gods' lies.  Why don't you inflict moderate wounds?"

She works her somatic component into a gesture of supplication and her verbal component into her speech and attempts to touch Darth Occlus with her inflict.  But even if the attempted masking of her casting works on Darth Occlus, there is still a solid half-second at the end where it is obvious she is spellcasting.

The cultist needs to be much better at disguising her hostility if she wants to get the drop on a Sith Lord. So she can have her hand privileges revoked. Occlus steps gracefully aside again as the offending appendages fall to the ground.

At that something finally breaks within Hosilla.  She yells, but it turns to a scream, and then to sobbing in pain and fear.

A far more appropriate attitude. And the distress may make her more amenable to Occlus's influence. "Now then. I have questions, and I am sure my companions will have more. Will you be the one answering them or will I need to try my luck with another?" She stretches out to push on the cultist's mind again, encouraging compliance, submission.

Something within Hosilla's mind recognizes that push and responds to it.

"Yes my Lord Baphomet."

it doesn't really make sense that Baphomet is here, in person, as a woman working against her his cultists.  But the terror and pain are drowning out Hosilla's ability to note and act on that obvious discrepancy. 

It is nothing worth paying attention to. Let the doubt slip away.

"Are those here the sum of your forces, or do you have more in reserve?"