Andrew shrugged and thought for a bit, "I'm out of cure poison." He scratched his chin a bit, then snapped his fingers, "Ah. That's what we can do." He turned to Miriam, "Okay, I'm going to cast a summon spell through you and you're going to summon a unicorn."
Miriam blinked, "Say what now?"
Andrew shrugged, "Only a chaotic good person can summon a unicorn. I'm Lawful good, so it won't work."
Miriam went quiet.
Andrew started to squint, "What?"
"Uhh... you know you put alignment detection in that headband you gave me, right?"
Andrew nodded, "Yeah... and?"
Miriam clicked her tongue, "When... was the last time you looked at yourself with your headband on?"
Andrew pulled his headband down, winced as it turned on, then stared at his hands. It took painfully long to work, but eventually, it revealed his alignment: Lawful Neutral.
Andrew flipped his headband up, "WHOA! I'm one of the good guys! This-This-This thing is broken!" He took off his headband and started to examine it, checking the intricate layering of enchanting he put into the headband to have the various detection spells all work in tandem, "Clearly I made a mistake somewhere. The detect good spell must be malfunctioning, or it's in conflict with the detect lawful function." He scratched his head as he squinted at it, "Did I use enough experience? Maybe I miscalculated somewhere."
Miriam hovered there and stared at Andrew, her eyes flickering towards the woman and back towards Andrew, "Uhhhh... You know..."
Andrew looked up with a glare, "HEY." He pointed at Miriam, "I can cast spells through you and yet I don't see no unicorn!" He snapped his fingers a few times, "My chosen religion allows me to default to summoning with my divine spells, so Get Summoning!"
Miriam bit her lip for a second, "Uhhh... okay." She turned to the open space in the tent, "{Familiar recast: summon monster circle four}" The area dimpled for a second and over the next six seconds the spirit of a unicorn from the celestial realms appeared.
Elyin seemed both impressed and shocked as if this was an impossibility. To her reality itself was broken, "Hu-hu-hu... HOW???"
Miriam shrugged and pointed at Andrew, "Him. He summoned me and then reformated my existence into making me chaotic good."
The unicorn pawed the ground and looked around. It seemed quite intelligent for a white horse with a single horn sticking out of its forehead. She looked at the children and seemed quite distraught.
Andrew stepped up to the unicorn, "Okay, I need you to cure poison with-" He didn't get to finish as it took a threatening step towards him. Andrew backed up, "HEY! What the HECK? I-"
Miriam intervened by interposing her between the two, her hands held up defensively, "Whoa whoa WHOA there big fella!" She smiled softly, "He's okay! He's just trying to help..." She glanced over her shoulder at Andrew, then turned back to the unicorn, "In his own way." The unicorn let out a snort and eyed Andrew.
Andrew frowned at the unicorn, "What the heck is your problem?" He hooked a thumb at his chest, "I'm the guy supplying the juice to summon you here so you can cure these kids!"
Miriam gave Andrew a patronizing smile then turned back to the unicorn, "What he said. I had to stab them with my sleep poison to stop them from killing themselves." She wiggled her tail in the air, "Think you could counter the poison?"
The unicorn snorted while narrowing her eyes at Andrew. She nodded once then proceeded to touch her horn to one child after another.
"[What's her problem?]" Andrew muttered out of the side of his mouth to Miriam in their shared familiar tongue.
Miriam turned back to him, "[Unicorns can detect good, I believe.]" She pressed her lips together to form a thin line and just stared at Andrew, letting the silence drag on.
Andrew's scowl only deepened until he abruptly smacked his forehead, "OH MY GOD! The reformatting!" He turned away as he buried his face in his hands and moaned, "Oh crap! That must have been an evil act! CRAP!" He made a fist and smacked himself in the forehead, "I am so stupid-stupid-stupid!" He put his hands on his hips and stared at the tent wall, "That's when it must have happened." He shook his head, "Damnit. Ah well, I'm sure I'll shift back to good soon enough, what with all these good deeds I'm doing."
The woman looked at Andrew's back, then over to the Miriam. Miriam forced a smile and shrugged helplessly while mouthing the words: 'I'm just the familiar'.
Andrew made a fist and bounced it against his lips, "Huh... I think... I'll need to start putting aside ten percent of my loot to donate to the church. That should fix it."
Miriam raised an eyebrow and mumbled, "I dunno if you can buy an alignment shift, Boss."
The unicorn had just finished reviving the last of the children as Andrew uttered this statement. Both the unicorn and Miriam squinted at the back of Andrew's head in disbelief. The unicorn looked at Miriam and slowly shook its head.
Andrew caught this gesture out of the corner of his eye and peered at the both of them, "What?"
Miriam bit her lower lip and looked at the unicorn. It looked back as if to say, 'Not my problem. Good luck!' Then proceeded to vanish as the duration of its summons ended. She took a deep breath then smiled in a patronizing fashion at Andrew, "Let's talk about this later. We got-"
Andrew frowned deeply, "Uh, NO. How about we talk about this, right gosh darn NOW." He stabbed a finger at the ground, "What was that look for?"
The elves remained silent and just stared at the pair as the exchange went on. Miriam sighed and let her head fall forward in exasperation, "You want to talk about this in front of strangers? FINE." She looked up, "What good deeds?"
Andrew pointed at the elves, "Uh, DUH! Rescuing Slaves! Good Deed!" He looked at Miriam with wide-eyed exasperation.
Miriam's expression went flat, "You know I can sense what spells you cast."
Andrew looked around, "Uh... SO?"
She fluttered over to the tent flap and left. She fluttered away, then a few seconds later came back inside, "I just wanted to check. Why are there piles of clothes out there with no BODIES?"
Andrew paused then looked around. He held up his hands to the side, "I wanted to get rid of the bodies so the kids didn't have to see them while putting them to good use."
To say Miriam looked boggled would be an understatement, "You cast Distill PAIN!" She stabbed a finger at the tent flap, "You converted their corpses into liquid experience points!"
Andrew's eyes darted from side to side, "Uhh... So? I got a lot of crafting to do!" He threw his hands towards the tent flap, "RECYCLE REDUCE REUSE! I'm protecting the environment and putting their remains to productive use while cleaning up the remains!"
Miriam Blinked in disbelief, "Distill Pain is an EVIL spell!"
Andrew went quiet. After a bit, he muttered, "No it's not."
"IT HAS THE WORD 'PAIN' IN THE NAME! HOW COULD IT NOT BE?" She facepalmed, "You understand your justification is what a DRUID might say, not a Lawful Good hero-type like you CLAIM To be!"
Andrew hooked a thumb at his chest, "I AM LAWFUL GOOD!"
"PALADINS ARE LAWFUL GOOD!" Miriam fluttered into Andrew's face, "Explain how distilling the corpses of your enemies into material components for crafting magical equipment is something a PALADIN would DO!"
Andrew opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
He held up a finger and squinted.
Nothing came out.
He closed his mouth and looked away, scrunching up his lips as he stared off into the distance. Eventually, he looked at Miriam, "It gets rid of the corpses without a trace, thus helping to cover our tracks, which will protect the children and this woman!" He nodded slowly as if he thought he had won the argument.
Miriam put her hands on her hips, "Uh-huh. If that was your goal, then you clearly don't need the craftable material generated by the spell. That's an unwanted side effect of the intended purpose." She held out her hand, "Hand it over so I can pour it out."
Andrew looked shocked, "Are you insane? Do you know how much grinding it took to get the craftable materials for what little I made so far? That's like fifteen thousand silver worth of Materials!"
Miriam withdrew her hand and instead crossed her arms as she glared at Andrew.
Andrew paused, "I mean... it... already exists. It'd be a real shame to let it go to waste. Think about how much good could be done with it." He sounded increasingly less convinced the more he talked, "I mean, at the very least I should..." He paused, then snapped his fingers and pointed at the woman, "Give it to her so she can sell it for cash!" He started nodding and pointed at her, "They're going to need money, after all." He reached back to summon forth the flask of malevolent, black fluid, "Those men were her captors, so it only seems reasonable I give it to them."
The woman recoiled in horror at the flask and moved to interpose herself between Andrew and the children.
Miriam rolled her eyes, "Andrew!" She fluttered over towards the woman and grimaced, "Uhh... look. Sorry about this. His heart's in the right place. He's trying. He's really a nice guy when you get to know him."
Andrew visibly shook all over from frustration, "Oh COURSE I'm a nice guy! I killed the bad guys! I removed their curses and Wizard sigils! I even arranged to summon a Unicorn to make sure they were healthy!" He pointed at his face, "That's ME! The Good Guy!"
Miriam closed her eyes and fluttered over to Andrew, "Andy? Listen to me. Please."
Andrew rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, "Fine. I'm listening."
"I was, and technically still am, a corruptor class devil. My JOB was to corrupt my master, in this case, YOU, into becoming evil." Miriam steepled her fingers, "One of the first things I was taught when I evolved into being a mirror imp was the tools of evil cannot be used for good outcomes." She gestured to the vial of black fluid in Andrew's hand, "I don't care what reason you come up with, that's a tool of evil and exactly the sort of shortcut I'd convince someone to use whose soul I was trying to drag into Hell."
Andrew eyed the flask, "But... I already spent experience buying this spell. You're telling me I bought something I can never use?"
Miriam looked sympathetic, "That depends. I bet you could remain lawful neutral, easily enough." She slowly shook her head, "But if you are wondering why you aren't lawful good..." She pointed at the flask, "That's why."
The woman finally seemed to find her voice, "The road to evil is the path of least resistance and paved with good intentions." She sounded terrified to speak up, but she spoke all the same, "If you are unsure what to do, ask yourself, what would be the hardest choice to make? Chances are, that's the right one."
Andrew eyed the woman and the children behind her, then at Miriam, then the flask. He bit his lower lip and closed his eyes as he held it out to Miriam, "You have no idea how much this hurts."
"I have a pretty good idea." She took the flask and moved to exit the tent, "Much better than I'd like to admit." She disappeared outside. A few seconds later, Andrew's whole body cringed as he heard the faint sound of a thrown flask shattering against a tree. Andrew closed his eyes as he shook his head sadly, "Fifteen grand..."
A moment later, the sound of rising wind could be heard. The tent shuddered as the howling of damned souls began with the wind and raised to a crescendo. The elves all huddled together as the sounds of some sort of horrific beast seemed to be prowling around outside. Andrew rushed for the exit, but as he reached it, the wind and wailing came to an abrupt stop. Instead, as he pulled back the flap, he was greeted by a smiling Miriam.
"All gone!" She entered the tent as if nothing had happened.
