The duty to live

[Ebiris]

"Isn't that a woman?" Alicia asks. "Dragodan described her after we captured him."

[Anastasia]

Oh, now you get a look of open interest. "Tell me more," The Lord of the Seventh commands, "This sound as if another secret and game Shar so foolishly plays."

[Ebiris]

She looks back at him as if to gauge whether she's being toyed with or not. "She was identified as the Dark Speaker of Shar. One who commands the dark speech with Shar's own insight," she's willing to hand out information like this freely, even to a devil.

[Anastasia]

Give me Sense Motive.

[Ebiris]

[18:02] <@Ebiris> roll 1d20+93 divine insight, improvisation
[18:03] <Penuche> Ebiris invokes Penuche's magic: < 104 > [d20=11]

[Anastasia]

You don't detect any duplicity. For whatever that's worth when dealing with such a being, anyway.

"Ah. Bait." The Lord of the Seventh says, "Of course. How tiresome."

[Ebiris]

"So either Dragodan wasn't telling the truth, or your captive is a fake?" Alicia asks. "Or Penae wears multiple faces and Dragodan only ever saw the female one."

It reminds her a bit of Violet's scheme with the fake Robeaux, but if Shar was doing that why get something as basic as the dupe's gender wrong?

[Anastasia]

"There's the classic point that we're missing some piece of it," Syala says, then, "Did you bring Penae along? We could get to the bottom of this now."

Beezlebub is silent at that, "Yes, that would be perfect," he agrees, a snap of his fingers as Surgat steps back and is gone. "Momentarily."

[Ebiris]

Alicia silently waits. This isn't a time for small talk.

[Anastasia]

Mere moments later the door opens again. Surgat leads a figure alone. He is tall and wears a simple cloth shift. His brown hair and eyes are joined by a beard of light brown, his features blank. He merely kneels when he sees the Lord of the Seventh, yet now says not a word. He is a strong man from the looks of it, the signs of muscle and a warrior's build glimpsed.

"Good," The Lord of the Seventh complements, "This is Penae."

Surgat bows and returns to the shadow of the Lord of the Seventh.

[Ebiris]

Any magic on him?

[Anastasia]

Yes. He suffers under a curse that puts all of his mental ability scores at 7 and a powerful anti scrying ward. Not hidden, but of vast power.

[Ebiris]

"Are you familiar with the dark speech, Penae?" Alicia asks the considerably mentally reduced figure, it not being hard to see how Beezlebub has dominated him after cursing him to such a degree.

Honestly it's less disturbing than what they did to make Dragodan fall in love with Marie.

[Anastasia]

"Yes." The answer comes immediately, no resistance.

[Ebiris]

"How familiar?" Alicia presses, because it's like that.