Mechanus Trip

[Ebiris]

How charmingly poetic. It actually inspires her to respond in kind.

We'll see then, if he's an evergreen pine that can outlast the seasons.

[Anastasia]

He is not. None can stand against winter.

[Ebiris]

Time will tell.

There's really no point arguing about it, all she can do is wait and see how Ox handles whatever travails Auril intends to put in his way, but he won't have her hanging over his shoulder for all of that.

Don't have anything else pressing right now, so barring interrupts I guess timeskip a bit to Zariel feeling up to talking more?

[Anastasia]

It's perhaps half a day later that you hear Jessica's prayer. 'Sister, would you come to the bakery. Zariel has appeared here.'

[Ebiris]

And it's just a second later that Alicia appears within arms-reach of her sister!

[Anastasia]

Zariel is sitting on one of the chairs inside, watching Jessica and family work. She's slowly eating a roll, a few people lingering and watching, but things mostly empty otherwise.

"Alicia," Zariel and Jessica say at exactly the same time. They blink and Zariel pushes forward first. "I thought some food would be nice."

[Ebiris]

She smiles and raises a hand in greeting to Jessica before drifting over to Zariel. "Wanted something more processed than what the wilds provide?" she asks. "I don't blame you. My sister's husband is a wonderful baker - I'm particularly partial to the elven bread. Nothing at all like real elven bread, it's a human corruption of the recipe, but it works as a treat."

[Anastasia]

A slight nod, "Hell did not lack in feasts for those who rule it," Zariel begins, "Yet here, I am reminded of Hell's failing. The truest children of Hell are lemure, who are often thought as little more than ammunition. Indeed, the Dark Ministry classifies lemures as ammunition officially." Her gaze is on Jessica's children, helping out as they can, running to and fro.

[Ebiris]

"I think the feeling is that the truly talented will still survive, but all lemures are mindless identical things and their survival is down to the whims of chance in the chaotic throes of battle they're funnelled into," Alicia muses, keeping their conversation from anyone but herself, Zariel, and Jessica's ears. "How many sublime mortal tyrants end as a mindless fleshy mass sundered on a demon's claws while a crooked loan shark could survive until promotion and claw his way up to the higher stations of the pit instead?"

[Anastasia]

"Few." Zariel says, "Do not think such things are not tracked. Those truly sublime are put on a different track, protected away from the battlefield. Every soul in Hell is catalogued and understood, Alicia. The veneer of fairness Baator puts forth is its most heartbreaking illusion." Her voice is sour, venomous. Her lips twist downward, "The truly sublime of course make pacts and avoid ever becoming a lemure, or are raised to the nobility and transformed without dying."

[Ebiris]

"Ah," Alicia says, feeling a mite foolish. Of course she knows about contracts like that - Beth made one, albeit it's one she and Antenora argued was invalid on its core premise. "I suppose that is a thing that happens." She and Jessica were themselves raised in a similar manner by Mystra without needing to die.

[Anastasia]

Jessica glances over at that but keeps her focus on the children.

"At the bottom of Hell is supreme evil - and distortion, I think," Zariel says, "Distortion into whatever Asmodeus desires. Into whatever tool he desires. All bow to him, the one and supreme of Baator. Everything else, every other glory is a lie predicated on making him seem more prestigious, more glorious, more perfect."

[Ebiris]

"I've heard Antenora often espouse similar sentiments," she says, back on more solid footing. "That Hell is singularly bent around Asmodeus's will, to a degree that you could call it all an extension of him. Even the other Lords schemes against him all tilt towards his own secret ends."

[Anastasia]

"A shrine to one soul's egotism," Zariel scoffs, a sour and ugly sound. "The rigid needs of order, subverted and twisted into a mockery."

[Ebiris]

"That's what evil does though, doesn't it?" she asks. "Primus could be said to fulfil a similar role in Mechanus, and yet he is bereft of ego. His role is but the largest cog in a grand design where everything plays its part. Asmodeus represents the corruption of order into tyranny."