Feliu Mas, Court Mage and Chief of Security for High Priestess Demicardinal Carme Scarpo’s private estate, is not an idiot. This is, to be sure, a rare and precious trait in Cheliax, as Mas is well aware, but it is also one he - a fifth-circle wizard possessed of considerable experience at the Woundworld - possesses. Since, however, his subordinates are fools, rogues and incompetents, he does an invisible survey of the estate three times a day an hour or so after every guard change, catching up on all of the guardposts and making sure the soldiers of His Infernal Majesty’s deputy are properly obedient. After all, how will they quail properly in fear of Asmodeus if they are not properly punished for their every failure in his eyes, even those no man could possibly have seen?

Since Mas is not an idiot, each guardpost carefully overlooks each adjacent guardpost, and there are three soldiers in each of them at all times (two warriors and a wizard, ideally, not that the wizards are up to his standards), all of them ready to trip the permanent Alarm spells keyed to himself alone in case of attack. He does this even though Demicardinal Scarpo’s private estate is surrounded by her rich ecclesiastical domain, in which the slaves and peasants are far too cowed to present any active resistance, she has no rivals worthy of the name, and not once since Scarpo became Demicardinal has she faced any resistance more serious than urban bread riots.

And so it is this night that, invisible, his Permanent Arcane Sight and Extended Detect Thoughts scanning the light ornamental glades (that the Demicardinal planted so she could hang corpses from them) whenever they are within 120 feet from him, Feliu Mas continues patrolling his excellently well-prepared estate. The Demicardinal’s estate is more of a palace than a fortress, true, but does it really need to be a fortress?