Secrets of Bone and Blood
Twentieth Day of the Second Month 294 AC
Malarys had prepared for this, or something akin to it at least, as any conjurer still in the possession of their souls knew baatezu were fond of poisoned gifts, and a corpse no less than silver could be one. He motioned for the others to follow, the priestess following readily enough, aware he had more experience with this breed of fiend, while the young knight still looked slightly unsteady on his feet, and not from encountering one of the black orators of hell. If he did not have more pressing matters to occupy his mind Malarys might have been amused, as it was he dismissed the notion from his mind, focusing on what they must do now.
First was moving to a safe house, a former inn that had seen better days on the outskirts of the city that was half refurbished to give it the authentic feel of a failed business and with a great many very solid locks. He stripped the body, quickly finding no fewer than three scrying foci amid its blood soaked clothes, though the fact that none of them were particularly hard to find set his teeth on edge. He sorted everything into the stitch fleshed creations designed to ward off far-sight, before leaving the inn for the last time...
"Can't we just translocate from inside?" the young alchemist asked hesitantly, likely from the sight of him wearing a dead man's blood. People often mistook Malarys' desire to appear scrupulously neat when possible for an unwillingness to get his hands dirty when necessary.
With a though the mage-lord vanished the blood before explaining: "The Inquisition might regret the loss of assets, but it would hardly bankrupt the treasury." Turning to the priestess he added. "No need to make the fire appear mundane, our enemy already knows it is here."
Under the power of R'hllor the Red the old inn burned as though a full fourteen wings of dragons had spilled their wrath upon it. Good reason, if any more were needed, not to underestimate Melisandre of Asshai.
Once inside the Snare Malarys set about questioning the corpse as thoroughly as his craft allowed and in the doing began to piece together what must have happened near the Plaza of Punishment. The dead man, one Jaelar Maeteos, actually was a priest of the Watcher, an ambitious and favored servant who sought to raise himself up in the eyes of his patron by striking a blow against Hell and helping to fill the void left by the disgraced Sons of the Harpy.
Was he perhaps hoping to steal away some of the Unsullied, or merely to unveil the plans of Asmodeus and trade that to the King? the mage lord wondered
Regardless, further study revealed that even now the Cult of Meraxes was not without allies in Astapor, mostly among a small number of militarily inclined young men of middling birth who scorned the Sons of the Harpy for their failures, slowly cultivated over the years by priests from the temple of Volantis. However, being rightly weary of spies and traitors, Jaelar had worn a glamour when meting his local contacts, the same glamour the apostate devil had been wearing when carrying the priest's now enchanted corpse.
Perhaps it had suited the fiend's sense of irony to pass off the true priest for a devil worshiper just slain and thereby gain the trust and corrupt the remainder of Meraxes' faithful in the city, whom it would doubtless lead into damnation. The scrying foci had never been meant to serve as a principal gambit because the devil had not intended to be separated from its prize.
What does Malarys do with the newly discovered information?
[] Go to the temple of Meraxes and request the high priest raise Jaelar. He is more likely to answer a call from a familiar mage given how he perished and there are questions to be asked of the entirety of the church
[] Raise the dead priest here and now and question him, he might have useful information and in any case it is best to know who else is operating in the shadows of Astapor
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: And here we are, it was a trap, just not a trap for you guys, hence why meeting the apostate devil was on the random encounter table. 
