Once Kass was done questioning, Aria gave the impostor a hearty smack across the temple to knock her unconscious again. After they left her under the eye of a pair of armed temple priests, Aria mulled what Kass said and then answered, "Assuming our decision isn't made for us by being unable to swiftly travel or properly teleport to one of the two cities, I suppose I'm inclined to go to Luthcheq before Tsurlagol. We seem to have a particular time window of opportunity for the former, as well as the potential to face all the foes in smaller teams, if  that place in Tsurlagol she mentions holds a larger group than the team that's going to snatch the shield.:<br/><br/>"It's possible that that thief or thieves is currently at this opera house, in which case going to Tsurlagol would let us intercept them prior to the deed, but possibly present us the greater danger of a fight against more foes at once, and on their home turf. If, instead, the shield thieves are already in Luthcheq or on their way there, we'd fight fewer foes at once but might not catch up to the shield-thieves; and for all we know they plan to go straightaway to Arabel from Luthcheq with the statue and-or shield."<br/><br/>"Whereas I figure if we go to Luthcheq, we can intercept them and then later go to Tsurlagol and root out any else at the opera house, especially if the Luthcheq thieves didn't bring the statue of Adon with them or we get the impression that whoever commands that terrible magic isn't among those we've just subdued. That way we'd fight them in two smaller groups, or so I'd hope. And if whomever mans that temple of Ares refuses to let us stand guard with them for these thieves, then at least we'll have warned them in time, and won't have spent long in Luthcheq at that point. We could then either scout around the temple to anticipate the angle of approach for the thieves and intercept them outside or something; or if hat seems infeasible, go on to Tsurlagol without having spent much time."<br/><br/>"I can think of scenario in which going to Tsurlagol first is preferable - if whomever is going to Arabel plans to set out from there, and is not going to Lutcheq nor will rendezvous with those who do. Since the lady mentioned us going to Cormyr to deliver a message, which I believe for anyone not teleporting would entail several days sailing, I figure that's not likely to happen before this planned shield-snatch. Or at least, we're more likely yo intercept them at the shield-snatch than to miss them because of it."<br/><br/>Since Kass had expressed interest in strategically using the capabilities of the Siwa clergy, Aria used her arcane sight to assess the spellcasting potential of the various clergy they ran across while speaking to them about such things. Rana, Aria revealed to Kass, knew divine magic of the fifth tier and Teleport as a divine spell; every other clergy member knew less, and none knew arcane magic like Kass, nor how to use arcane scrolls and wands, nor gave Kass and Aria the impression of being anywhere near as skilled at arms as themselves. One knew of a hire-wizard in the town who had teleported able-to-pay clients and sold scrolls of the same, and another seemed to Rana to be the one clergy member who knew teleport magic, but did not think she had the range or familiarity to visit any of their cities of interest, only nearer places such as the port cities of Mulhorand.  Several temple members (including the two men they had interacted with) seemed willing to venture to Cormyr to deliver a message; Rana and several others new Sending magic but none were familiar enough with anyone<em>in</em>Cormyr to have such a recipient.<br/><br/>While Kass asked around thusly, Aria searched the small temple library to find sparse descriptions and cursory maps about those same cities of interest. She didn't find anything about the temple of Ares or the 'Ultros Opera House' specifically, but she felt confident that with the succubus's staff she or Kass would've been able to teleport to any of the cities the impostor had mentioned without landing in the middle of a river or something.<br/><br/><br/>(as you can see I basically had Kass query IC about what you were interested in.)<br/><br/>lol, that's brilliant about the bard spell preparation.<br/><br/>Generally speaking, I try to make NPCs like most real people in that they will act according to their own incentives of self interest (which for good-aligned or religious ones, may include altruistic or team behavior, such as clergy wanting to help get their own relics back) to the limit of their ability / willingness. Most are not fundamentally incompetent or stupid, but their ability is probably vastly less than that of a high level PC (as is their willingness to risk their life).<br/><br/>Most NPCs are competent in the sense that they can understand and do things if they have incentive, and are not categorically incompetent. The vast majority of NPCs are not 'competent' in the sense that they'll be vastly lower level and less well equipped than our PCs. Only a very small percentage of the people in the world are high level or know much magic:  for example, that Shandalara lady who was the high priestess of one of Sune's biggest temples is a canon NPC and 9th level. A typical acolyte is maybe a Cleric-1 or Adept-1, and a random person in a town maybe has 1-3 levels of Commoner or Expert. I believe the canon pharaoh of Mulhorand is a paladin-8 or so (and much more moral and idealistic than most of his predecessors, who were probably not LG).<br/><br/>In this particular RP we have the ability to gauge a lot of this IC since Arcane Sight lets Aria determine a person's highest spellcasting level (and arcane vs divine).  Rana has 5th level spells (I forget if she told Kass this already in the RP) and everyone else Aria has seen in Siwa is lower.<br/><br/>So none of them know Gr. Scrying or Gr. Teleport (nice tactical thinking though). Rana is capable of preparing one Teleport per day since she has the Travel domain, and usually does.<br/><br/>Note that Sending has a 10 minute casting time, so its tactical use for 'hot' situations can be limited. (Most items have the same activation time as the underlying spell, unless otherwise noted.) OTOH Gr. Scrying lasts 1 hour / level and everyone who can cast it will be at least 13th, so a 'backup' character could just start scrying in advance if they are willing to watch all day.<br/><br/>(The Forgotten Realms, compared to most settings, does have a good number of uber NPCs like Alustriel. Usually they are in larger cities or have their own digs like Elminster's tower.) And there are some pockets of high level characters - for example some of the novels have the Cormyrean War Wizards constantly scrying on people and teleporting around, so they must have a number of 9th+ level members. (And they have some who do the 'scry on someone all day and teleport in when needed' thing - remote bodyguards for royalty, etc.)