Some Answers

“Mixed news… which do you want first?” The detective begins getting into the serious stuff.

“‘Bad news first, that gives me time to prime my weapons if necessary’,” I chuckle as I reference an old web comic.

“Heh, quoting Schlock Mercenary?” Seems the man recognizes it. “They're not, strictly speaking, a federal agency: They're an international agency with a license to operate and a budget from the feds.”

Ugh. “Explains why they can get away with ignoring the highest law of the land to a degree,” I take a breath, “what's the good news?”

“A lot of folks aren't happy with the arrangement,” the detective shrugs, “people in power who don't like the idea of the magical cures for cancer being locked away, NOT being able to hire witches to curse their enemies, having to set up fall guys for the hush-hush nature of the budget, the idea that someone can be rendered a legal non-person without trial, that kind of thing. I get the impression that one good scandal and it's going to blow up all over the news with congressional hearings and such.”

“So all I have to do is prove benign magic exists when there's a very active entity suppressing all news of it on all mediums AND there's however many years of ‘magic is fake’ in the collective consciousness to overcome as well,” I consider.

“I didn't say it's going to be easy,” the detective laughs, “but it's the closest I could come to good news.”

“It's something to work with,” I consider, “I'll let it sit in my head and stew on it for a while… I have other matters I need to focus on right now anyway. In the meanwhile… I'm going to guess that the two John Smith's in custody didn't go anywhere?”

“No,” Detective Richards confirms, “they both suicided after we formally charged them.”

“If it's any consolation, they weren't properly alive in the first place,” I shrug, “they're remote piloted by folks in vans.”

“Wait, what?” The detective scrunches his face, “they were very much living, breathing creatures.”

“I'm not sure how it works,” I shrug as I whisper back through the spell, “but there was a guy in a van in a VR rig piloting one I spoke with before I… went offline for a while.”

“The way you say that…” Detective Richards begins.

“I didn't precisely fake my ****,” I admit, “but ‘****’ doesn't mean quite the same thing for me as it does for other people anymore.” I pause, “They've probably dissected my prior body already, given the timeframe.” It's weird to think about.

“You're immortal,” he blinks.

“Pretty close,” I shrug, “but that also opens up Prometheus-style torment.”

“Only if you're messing with people like Zeus,” the detective counters, “how often does that happen?”

“Oh, there's ways a rich bastard could set it up…” I consider what happens if I die in an actively maintained incinerator, and shudder… I should probably pick up some native fire immunity when I can… and non-native now… “and eventually, the sun will eat the Earth, at which point, I'll revive just to be incinerated again, at least until the star cools enough that I can survive on the surface… and with the kind of gravity that's expected after the sun runs out of fuel, well…” I trail off. “But in happier news, I'm not dead NOW. But again, please don't tell anyone, because they might have something effective if they know simple **** doesn't stick.”

“Right,” he stretches, “Thanks for checking in.”

“Thank you for chipping away at the problem,” I respond, “I'm not sure what I'd do without you.”

I cut the connection as he falls asleep, use one of my Domain spells to copy Energy Immunity(Fire) from Spell Compendium, then kick myself out of my High Priest position… interestingly, the Simulacrums and my ring stay this time. So… it doesn't matter if I'm currently Mythic, but as long as I properly exist, the rules are followed by stuff I created? Hmm. Still doesn't answer why the detective is still physically female and his wife can get him pregnant. I need to dwell on that… and I have lots of time.

Over the next couple of days, I prepare for the rescue: I set Charles up as my high priest, get set up as his, make Simulacrums of both the people I want to save (and put the fakes to sleep, and copy the False Alibi spell repeatedly to make them forget all about being Simulacrums and where they've been, and program them to forget about their last few moments of wakefulness after the switch), and let the Solar Simulacrums create the demiplane I wanted for the purpose.

The demiplane itself is small: It's rather single-purpose, and it's much easier to ward a smaller space. It's just a cube about the size of a house, with the Timeless and Dead Magic traits, no entries or exits. Thanks to Unassailable Power, this doesn't bother me, my spells, or my gear in the slightest: I can just Wish-transport myself and the two fakes there. Another Wish and the place is covered by a Mage's Private Sanctum effect to prevent divination. A third, and it is dimension locked as well (which should prevent anything short of someone Wishing their way to us). I then recharge my Mythic ring, and start the plan.

Now, the plan is simple: Wish the two to my side, use the dead magic trait to suppress any and all magical effects from the collars, swap the collars and any gear to the two fakes, wake the fakes, and Wish them to wherever the originals had been. I cast that Retrieval Wish from my recharged ring… and the plan blows up in my face.

Literally: As soon as the real Adam and Brian show up, their collars explode. They aren't very big explosions… but they're enough to decapitate both of them and utterly destroy the collars themselves.

I hear dice in my head and ‘Adam’ speaks up, ‘Your engineering and magical knowledge tells you what happened: Detcord. It was already set off, but held in stasis within the collars by magic. When the magic failed, the detcord finished going off.’

Groaning, I salvage what I can of the plan, dressing the two fakes (Wish for Fabricate), sending the fakes to a mall (they're going to wake up in a mall in orange jumpsuits, thinking that they're Adam and Brian, missing a few hours of memories, having just vanished out of whatever jail they were in… sucks to be them, but they're not real), and then using Wish to resurrect and fix up my two friends (just two Wishes per: I already have the bodies).

Looking them over, their orange prison jumpsuits make sense, but there's one thing I can't help but ask: “Okay, why are you both bald?”

Adam takes a slow, deep breath, “Ah… first, thank you for freeing us… even though that was a BIT rough.” He blinks a couple of times, “And… they explained that in excruciating detail.”

Brian takes over, “It enables a remote kill independently of the collars. They have a voodoo witch coven under their thumb somewhere, and if the coven has a sample, they can do some really nasty things.”

Adam cringes, “So they shaved our heads and collected all our hair in labeled bags. They took other samples too… blood and a tooth.”

I frown deeply, tapping my foot, “So… you're safe enough for now here, but this is just a temporary holding… I was hoping it would neutralize the collars long enough to switch them to the simulacrums of you and send them back to where you started…” I rub my chin.

Brian shrugs, “We'll need to deal with the witches before we can be free… otherwise they're liable to just have us killed the instant we step foot somewhere magic works.”

I nod, “We need to gut the BMM's ability to enforce their will on their slaves. Know anything about the voodoo witches?”

“No,” Adam cringes, “why would they give us anything useful?”

“Right,” I let out a breath, and get another, “Okay, so… I will have an angel set up some accommodations that should be a bit more palatable - but that's going to take a while, and it'll still need to be a dead magic plane to keep you safe. So… beach with edible plants?” I look back and forth between them for confirmation.

…which they don't see, but Brian picks up on that problem and nods, so I continue, “that will take a day or two of real time to set up. Any problems if I leave you two here until then?”

“Best of a bad lot of options,” Adam begins, “so no, no problems there.”

I nod, not that they can see… “Okay. I'll make sure to check in periodically.” I consider, “Ah… anything you two need for now? Anything you know that might be of use? What did they have you doing?”

There's a long pause, and Adam speaks up first, “They put me to work scrubbing toilets. All things considered, I'm glad that's what they had me doing.”

I raise an eyebrow as Brian shudders, “With the exaggerated physique from my Eidolon, they ordered me to make adult videos for them, with female Mythics who had exactly as much choice in the matter as I did. We were all ordered to smile. We were ordered to sign some papers. I am very glad for the Autumnal Embrace from the Simulacrum earlier.”

I purse my lips, and decide against mentioning my findings so far about what happened while I was dead. “A purge it is, then,” I take a slow breath, “What can you tell me about the facility where you were held?”

We spend a while going over every nitty-gritty detail of what they remember of the facilities, and I close with them after duplicating an Interplanar Telepathic Bond spell - it will keep us connected even after I leave.

Because it is time to go to war.