The Erastilians have secured for themselves a former temple of Asmodeus a short walk from the convention hall. There are plenty of foreign ones filling it out as a stopgap measure but this one looks local and appears to be a delegate.

"Hello!" she says. "I'm a cleric of Cayden Cailean! But I don't have a holy symbol yet."

"...the drunk?"

"I'm told he also handles freedom from slavery!"

"News to me. Guess it's a better use of time than getting drunk, not that it's saying much."

"See, I'm not actually sure why freedom from slavery is good-- or why being drunk is, for that matter-- so I'm looking for information about it. And also about what I'm supposed to be doing as a cleric."

"Well, if you let on you are one sooner or later someone will ask you for your advice, and I guess if they pick you they want advice about freedom from slavery or getting drunk, so maybe brush up on those. I don't have too terribly strong an opinion on slavery except that every slave takes up space that could've belonged to a real neighbor with a little extra room at the dinner table when you're in trouble, instead of livestock you can't even eat in a bad winter. Drunkenness is a bad use of grain or grapes or whatever you're using beyond what you've got to do to make the water safe if you're too far from the nearest cleric, and it makes folks bad spouses and bad parents, so I'd say overall I'm more in favor of freedom from slavery than drunkenness. But that'd be if someone came to me for my advice, and not to you for yours."

It had not occurred to Tetula that "advice" might be part of this gig-- she didn't know why, Asmodean clerics gave advice, it just didn't really seem like her dream-lover's kind of thing-- and she wasn't sure she had any advice that applied to people who weren't the luckiest girl in the world. 

"Do different good clerics say different things, then?"

"Sure they do. If nothing else there's Lawful ones and Chaotic ones, and the ones in the middle also."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense. I knew they got along better than Asmodeus and Zon-Kuthon but I didn't know if it was like how if you talk to a cleric of Dispater they'll preach out of the Disciplines of Asmodeus same as everyone else."

"Somewhere between the two. So far I haven't seen any of the other Erastilians meet somebody and say 'this is the wrong church for you, go to the Sarenrites', but it wouldn't seem out of the question, I think. Different enough that somebody might be at home with one over another, but the same that you'd hear it from whichever one you were talking to."

"I'm sorry if this is the sort of question I'm supposed to go to the Sarenrites with but how do you... be... good."

"I don't know if I am good! Could be Lawful Neutral. You could probably be Chaotic Neutral, I suppose."

"I'm pretty sure I'm Chaotic Neutral. I haven't done anything except go to school and do a Worldwound tour."

"And I just farm. Is there much you particularly aspire to about being Good?"

Tetula would say "well, I like my god as a person" but she doesn't really want to tell strangers about her weird dreams.

She tries, "I guess I want to do a good job representing my god, and there are only two Caydenites in the city and one of them isn't very coherent and the other one is too busy to talk to me, so I figure if I understand what good is probably I can be good and then I'll do a good job as a cleric? Unless there's something else you're supposed to do to do a good job as a cleric."

"Cast spells, so you'll need a holy symbol, for that."

"I commissioned one! It's coming!"

"Then I hope it makes its way to you quick. Has he got a book? If you did enough school I imagine you read."

"He has... a collection of approved signs you can put on the wall of your tavern. Apparently. The tavernkeeper heard about this from a sailor, and wanted me to tell him some signs he could put up on his wall to show that he was a good Caydenite, and I told him I had just become a cleric this morning and didn't know anything about any signs, and he didn't seem to think this was a good argument so I told him to put up HANGOVERS ARE UNPLEASANT because that seemed like generally reasonable advice."

"Ha, I wonder if he'll do it. There's some monastics, lately of Irori, putting together something of a religious library. One of their student's been dropping by every day to read me a bit of Erastil's book, very kindly of her; if yours has a book the abbess'll at least know it exists. If you swing by in a couple of bells you can catch her going home and walk with her."

"I should go check it out! Thank you!"

"You're welcome. You seem a nice enough girl and I hope you and whatever it is the Drunk preaches come to a happy agreement."

Tetula waits around awkwardly for the child to take her to the monastery.

Does anyone here need... help, or something? She's pretty sure good clerics are supposed to help people. 

Everyone seems too busy to interrupt at tasks that require a holy symbol, any knowledge of your god's teachings or failing that Chaotic Good, or both.

She takes out the political pamphlets from her bag and attempts to become an Informed Citizen. 

The Sisters have changed up which student they send from day to day, as many of the girls like the chance to get outside the monastery and talk to someone new and Gaava Gabi lobbied hard to get to read the last chapter, the fable the Sister's invented and added themselves, as is tradition for Erastil's Parables.

A 13 year old girl with a slightly too big smile (smile's are Good, and she is a Good subject of the new Queen) approaches.

"Hello Sower, I'll be you reader for today.  And is this someone new?  Hello!  We're on the last chapter, so unless you think of something new you want read I guess we won't see you again?" She says with a slight pleading tone "Or, we left some blank space in the back for parables of your own, if you think of something you want transcribed in the book we could do that!.  Oh or if you want to do a reread!  You can find our Abbess, Thea, when she goes to get her convention stipend, and I guess you'll see her at the convention itself!"

Gabi is perhaps trying too hard to appear perky.

Relatable!

"I'm Tetula. I'm a new cleric of Cayden Cailean and I'm trying to learn more about him."

New Cleric means Delegate! Yes!  She can recruit sign up to tenancy a delegate herself instead of just spying on them disguised as a street urchin and passing it off to Thea or Dia! 

Let's see Cayden Cailean... Chaotic Good... bigger smile.  (Her smile is now definitely awkwardly big)

"That is so cool!  The older Sisters just finished transcribing some signs of his out of an Asmodean book making fun of them!  You should come back to the monastery with me and read them!"  She suppresses the urge to recite the entire tenancy terms and conditions from memory.

"I mean after I read this parable!"

"That was my plan!"

"I can lead you back after I read the Parable!"

She decides to explain a bit, since this girl is new.

"Traditionally Erastil's Parables have a few unique chapters with the parables and fables and stories based on local customs and traditions."

"So, after liberating a damaged copy of Erastil's Parables from the foul coils of a former cleric of Asmodeus-" Gabi has momentarily forgotten that extorting (arguable stealing from) Asmodean priests is of questionable legality, even after the Four Day War.

"-and transcribing a copy, we, the Sister of the Abbey of Ashes, decided to add a parable of our own invention before gifting a copy to an Erastilian priest"

"Ahem"

and she begins to read:

The Snail and the Snake

By the Students of Irori of the Abbey of Ashes for any and all Faithful of Erastil who wish to hear our wisdom.

A snail once lived by a pond.  One summer, after many hot days without rain, her pond dried up, so she left to go to a stream she knew was a few weeks travel away.

She traveled slowly, inch by inch, but steadily, watching her footing as she went.  And it was for the best, as the drought would continue, so best to get moving now.

One day on her travels, a snake came across her.  He said to her: "Where are you traveling little snail, perhaps I could carry you there?"

The snail replied, "No thank you."

The snake offered "You look thirsty and the sun is hot, would you like to drink some saliva from my mouth?"

But the snail ignored him (for such an obvious trap does not deserve a polite reply), so the snake went on his way.

Her voice is animate and excited, with long dramatic pauses.  She particularly emphasizes the words "watching her footing as she went". 

"...why wouldn't the snake just crush it and eat it anyway, if that's what it was after?"

"Oh you'll see..." Gabi is outright gleeful, but resists spoiling the ending.

Tetula likes this snail but isn't really sure about "confusing story" as a medium to teach about gods. Isn't it easier to just write down in plain Taldane what you're supposed to do perhaps on a placard

She continues on with her parable:

And so she traveled on slowly, inch by inch, but steadily, watching her footing as she went.

About halfway into her journey, the rain briefly drizzeled.  She drank from shallow puddles as she went, but she traveled on.

The snake came across her again "Are you going to the stream?  Why not stop, there are so many puddles nearby."

"They will dry soon enough she said", and she traveled on slowly, inch by inch, but steadily, watching her footing as she went.  And it was for the best, as the sun dried up all the puddles anyway.

She continues to emphasize "watching her footing as she went".  Her voice is a bit less enthusiastic with this part.  (Gabi thought this middle part should have been left out, but Lilly insisted having 3 parts was something lots of other fables did).

What confusing snake behavior.

She's getting pretty invested in this story! What's going to happen to the snail? What is the snake up to?

A few days before reaching the stream, the snake came across her one last time "Are you traveling to the stream, you're so close I wouldn't mind carrying you, why don't you crawl into my mouth?"

The snail ignored him (for such an obvious trap does not deserve a polite reply), and continued on, watching her footing.

So the snake, frustrated his deceits had failed, sprung towards the snail and swallowed her whole.

But the snail, who had been watching her footing, clung to a stone.  As the snake swallowed her, she turned a sharp edge of the stone outward, slicing the throat of the snake open, and leaving the way free for her to crawl free.

She licked some of the blood of the snake to sate her thirst, and continued on her way, inch by inch, until at last she arrived at the stream which had plenty of water.  And it was for the best, as the drought would continue on for a few more weeks.

So always watch your footing and don't let snakes deceive you on your journey, no matter how long it may be.

She's smiling.  It was her idea that the snail used the stone deliberately!

"So... what do you think?  Do you have any stories of your own Sower?  Literal or metaphorical snakes you had to outsmart?" ...or fight, a fight would be cool, but he doesn't quite seem the fighting type?

"Remarkably patient snake. I'm not the story-spinning type... everything coming to mind would just be gossip."

"...why didn't she just kill the snake when she first knew it was up to no good?"

"How in tarnation would a snail do that?"

"I guess maybe she didn't have the sharp stone until then."

"Exactly, the snail didn't have a lot to work with, and the snake was an Asmodean snake, plotting and scheming and dangerous but not without weaknesses.  So the snail had to wait patiently, even more patiently than the snake, and keep her footing, and stay on guard for just the right moment with just the right way to counter the snake!"

"I liked the bit where she didn't even answer when the snake was being particularly obvious."

"Yeah, there is being polite and then there is putting up with blatant malicious deception."  That is one teaching from the Sisterhood that the new Abbess didn't revise, only moderate.  It is one of several reasons the Sisterhood of Eiseth did not get along very well in Infernal Cheliax, despite being a Hellish Order.

Nod nod.

"I don't know if parables are supposed to be accurate but blood is actually very salty and if you drink it it will make you thirstier."

"Will it? How do vampires work, then?"

That's not one of the parts she came up with, but she still feels inclined to defend it.

"Yeah, in parables animals can talk and stuff even without a spell.  It's metaphor.  They represent other stuff or multiple things like the snail is Irori or us and the snake is Asmodeus or his devils and even if they are stronger Asmodeus lacks the perfect discipline of Irori and his devils lack the discipline Irori's students can learn."

"I think Vampires use evil magic?"  The Badger Pamphlets have been annoyingly sparse on practical details.  "Maybe that's why they keep having to drink blood instead of eat food, because it keeps making them thirstier?"

"I'm pretty sure vampires drink blood as a source of positive energy and not because they need the actual blood? But I'm not sure, it didn't come up that much in school." 

"It's a good story! I liked how the snail kept going no matter what."

Vampire Lore!  From school and not a sketchy pamphlet!  Her smile becomes realer as she hears that!

"We have a wizard at our monastery that knows all about positive energy, or at least, she's trying to learn.  I should ask her about vampires!  And yeah, it's like monk training, just got to keep going no matter what."  She nods at that, but her smile falters some at the thought of the endless hours of practice.

"Any other thoughts Sower?  If not I'll guess we'll be on our way!"

"I don't know much about snails besides which vegetables they'll kill but I'd think it'd get thirsty faster walking instead of waiting in its shell."

“Oh, uh.  We did not think of that objection.  I don’t know how long snails can wait to drink and it was a pretty long drought.  That’s why she licked up some snake blood!  But I guess that doesn’t work either?”

She glances at Tetula, hoping she has an idea.

“If you think of a good story where a snail waits something out in its shell you could have someone copy it down into the back, we left some blank pages!”

"Maybe so, maybe so. Thank you and yours for the book, and you let me know if you need anything from me or mine."

Tetula sets off with Gabi towards the monastery.

"Are you a monk of Irori?"

Gabi was actually picked for a bit more weapons training, stealth, and social subterfuge, but she basically thinks of herself as a monk, and she wouldn't mention that other part anyway!

"Yep!  Lot of footwork and punching and kicking and training!  Are you a wizard in addition to a cleric, is that how you knew about vampires eating positive energy?"

"I actually became a cleric this morning! I was a wizard before."

"That's cool!  Since you're a wizard and you said vampires eat positive energy, do you think a vampire could eat other vampires to eat their negative energy and would that make the vampire Good instead of Evil?"

Gabi glances down a somewhat sketchy alley, looking carefully, and then decides to lead them through it.

"I don't know anything about vampires! Maybe it could. Although you have to wonder why the vampires didn't think of that."

"Maybe because they're too Evil and not perfectly lawful neutral like Irori?"

"Being Evil doesn't mean you're stupid."

She is about to repeat more praise for Irori when she has a cleverer idea.

“Sometimes Evil means you take the simpler easier thing.  Like -“

She hesitates… the Evil the Sisterhood did before the Four Day War is fine and even normal to admit to, right?

”- simply beating your student instead of giving them a chance to take a punishment that teaches about what they did wrong and makes them stronger!”

There, Evil in the past, perfect Lawful Neutral in the present!

”So the vampires are so Evil they don’t think of any more complicated ideas instead of just drinking the blood of the living!”

"So the idea is that if you're trying to be Good you're more constrained so you end up coming up with cleverer ideas within the constraints? Like writing a poem?"

Gabi does not know much about poetry writing, but it sounds like Tetula is agreeing with her!  She talks quickly moving past her uncertainty.

"Yeah!  Do you like writing?  You should talk to Lili, I mean Lilly!  She loves reading and wants to learn how to write really good, not just reports and stuff, like stories.  She came up with most of the parable you heard earlier!  I helped too."

She leads them to an even narrower alley, one that is a close fit for Gabi, then remembers that Tetula is bigger than her.

"We can go around, it's not much slower."

"It's a nice parable! I'd like to talk with her about writing. I've never written anything really, but there's always a first time." 

"I can try to make my way through the alley!"

"Let's do it then!"

Tetula can squeeze through, but she will get bits of dust and soot all over her clothes and hair!

"And the Abbey is just around this way, it's built underneath an old crematorium!"

"I look so silly!" Tetula exclaims with glee. She draws a design on her arm with a bit of the soot. 

Gabi laughs at that.  In between her and Nuria, she's pretty sure Chaotic Good people are great!

"Do you have a prestidigitation?  I wouldn't mind getting the worst of it off, even if I'm not as bad off as you.  This is my nicer set of clothes."

"Yeah, let's." She prestigidates herself and Gabi. 

And she leads them onward!  The crematorium is just down the street from her shortcut, with a crudely made open palm symbol over the entrance.

She leads her inside and through a hallway, to an unusual open door.  It is apparent the door slides rather then swings and shut it would blend into the wall.  Gabi pauses to explain quickly.

"This used to be kind of secret but not really because all the beggars knew to stay away from the crematorium and I bet the city's authorities knew from that so really its just ordinary commoners that didn't know."

"Why did you keep it secret from them?" Tetula asks with utter lack of guile.

Gabi begin to lead them through a long, gradually spiraling downward, hallway, lit by distantly spaced continual flames.

"You know... I'm not quite sure?"

And then she remembers she hasn't explained their full epic history!  She begins speaking quickly.

"Did I remember to tell you we used to be the Sisterhood of Eiseth, and worshipped Eiseth, not Irori?  And then she and all her sworn followers abandoned us.  And before that, there was tension between them and the Church of Asmodeus because we wouldn't take their treacherous shit and killed someone every time they tried pulling some contract thing on us.  Except I didn't know that at the time because I was younger but Dia knew and told me because she is a little older and was good at inferring details and trusted with not spilling anything to Asmodeans that would tell the Church and have to die for it.  And before that, before Aroden died they used to be actually totally secret because the nation wasn't ruled by Hell!"

Ah! Too much detail.  She pauses to talk a breath.  She thinks she avoided any current secrets?  Just older secrets, which they want to tell, to retaliate against their abandonment!

"So yeah.  I guess they kind of just kept trying to be secret even after Aroden died even though they weren't a real secret."

There is brighter light up ahead.

"That makes sense! Do you know anything about how you changed going from a Lawful Evil group to a Lawful Neutral group? I'm trying to learn how to not be evil so I can serve Cayden Cailean better."

They come to a large open chamber seems to open up to the sky.  On second glance, it's a very larger permanent illusion on the ceiling (or maybe multiple permanent illusions considering how big the chamber is across).  Archery targets have been set up on the far end of it, and space marked off.  Even as big as the chamber is, the targets are close compared to the potential range of the long bows they are practicing with.

Yes, they are definitely totally Lawful Neutral now!  And they were totally properly Lawful before that.  Now how to say this right.  Gabi slows down and speaks at a mostly normal speed.

"Our Abbess has been working hard at changing how we do things.  She was really smart and figured out Irori would want her for a cleric.  Normally once we turned 16, they would step up training enough that about one person in a cohort of four would die before they were 19.  And even before we turned 16 most of us would take a maiming injuries that need a full restoration for, not just a cure light wounds.  I lost vision in an eye once before they healed it!  Anyway, Irori's book says if you have to rely on healing like that for just training, your training is flawed and the healing is a crutch!  And Thea doesn't have that much healing yet anyway!  So we've been training different!  No temporary blindness for me!"

Her voice picks up in chipperness at the end.

She waits for a lull in the archery practice.

"This is Tetula!  She's a cleric and a delegate and I was going to show her some books in the library!  Let the Abbess know when she gets back!"

An older teenager (16?) looks back and sizes Tetula up.

She isn't sure she should leave this to Gabi.  But for all Gabi blabbers she does know to keep quiet on really important things.  Eh, it's probably fine.

"Will do!  Let me know if you need a reminder on the tenant rules, don't tell her them wrong!"

Tetula isn't sure how much this helps her understand what her god wants because you can't get less assault-y than zero.

"I'm not a tenant, I have a house! I just want to read the excerpts of the holy book of Cayden Cailean."

She’ll let Gabi handle this.

New tenant signup plan: ended!

Delegate networking plan: still in progress!

“That’s fine too!”

“But you should stay for dinner sometime!  We have another delegate (besides our Abbess) staying with us, Nuria! She’s Chaotic Good and a second circle cleric of Desna and a book smuggler!  She eats dinners most nights with us and she’s great!”

Gabi leads her down a side hallway.

Tetula heads down the side hallway. "Maybe I can stay for dinner tonight."

Gabi's near constant smile becomes even realer at that.

"Awesome! That would be great and then you could meet Nuria!"

And they reach a doorway.

"And here we are!"

The library is a moderately sized room, with around a two dozen or so bookshelves, with only 6 separate shelves at least partly filled (all on different bookshelves).  A top shelf in the back of the room is filled, another closer shelf mostly filled at a middle height, a close bottom shelf completely filled.  Spread across three separate partly filled shelves are novels.  There are two tables with chairs, enough to seat a dozen people or so.  A child is sitting reading a... romance novel?

Gabi goes towards the closer middle shelf and pulls out a book.  It is amateurly made and titled: Shrine Wall Writings, Taverns Placards of Wisdom, and A Brief Sampling of Asmodean Idiocy Responding to Them.

"And here it is!  We (well not me personally, but the Abbey) recently finished transcribing it out of an Asmodean text making fun of them, we didn't copy any of the mentions of torture but did copy some of the dumber things an Asmodean author wrote trying to make fun of them to make fun of him.  I mean to make fun of the Asmodean, not Cayden!"

She hands the book over and waits expectantly.

"Thank you! I can read it here and then give it back to you when I'm done?"

“Yep! Uh if you want to make notes, we have a workroom next door with blank paper and ink!  Make sure not to spill any on the book!  There’s writing desks next door as well.”

…she should have probably mentioned collateral or however it was supposed to work if Tetula damages the book, but it should be fine!

Tetula heads off to the workroom!

A few hours later, more full of knowledge and yet somehow more confused, she heads off to dinner. 

"I'm Dia, I can show you to the mess hall, I imagine these hallways might be confusing to someone that hasn't lived in them their whole life."

And she can guide Tetula back through the main chamber and down another hallway.  The mess hall is a large room with long tables and an eerie orange glow for a ceiling.  It could seat maybe a hundred closely, but currently under twenty members of the monastery are lined up to be served food, with a few people in front of them, and a few poorly dressed people behind them (perhaps beggars?).

"Are you helping the poor?" Tetula asks Dia. She's pretty sure Good clerics are supposed to help the poor. Maybe Neutral ones too.

A woman walks in and joins the line who is dressed, just, ostentatiously Desnan. …Probably most Desnans don’t have holy symbols that are actual preserved butterflies.

Dia thinks the beggars are a minor security liability and distraction, but if it gets them more healing it is easily worth it.

"Yeah, we have space and food, so Thea figured it wouldn't hurt to try some of the obvious things to get to Lawful Neutral.  As our guest you can go to the front of the line."

She turns to the woman that just walked in.

"Nuria, this is Tetula, she's a cleric of Cayden Cailean."  Or at least claims to be, Gabi didn't confirm she can cast divine spells or even check for a divine focus, so Dia is keeping an eye on her.

“Oh, cool! I’m Nuria Tosta. Of Desna. Obviously.”

"Chaotic Good buddies! Do you know anyone else from your church?"

"I've met a couple of other Desnans in the capital but we haven't had as much time to talk as I'd like. And yeah, Chaotic Good buddies! Chaotic Good is my favorite, although I've got a lot of respect for non-evil Law, it's just, you know, not for me personally." 

A big pot of stew is brought out and the line moves forward.  They can get a bowl of stew (and some hard bread if they want) and then get seats.  The stew smells great.

Thea joins them, but doesn’t interrupt.  She gives a shake of her head to indicate to her students not to interrupt them either.

"I haven't had time to talk either! Did you get picked before or after the Four-Day War?"

“Before.”

"That must have been frightening!"

“Well…at the time it happened, I was trying to save someone’s life, so I was mostly really happy. I was scared later, but,” she shrugs. “I was doing dangerous things anyway, and if I managed to kill myself before being Maledicted, I was better off afterwards as a cleric of a Good god than otherwise.”

"That's really brave! I don't know that I could be that brave. What were you doing?"

“Smuggling romance novels!”

"Gosh! Illegal ones from Andoran?"

“Lots of places! …I guess I don’t know where all of them were written but some were definitely from Andoran and some from Galt.”

"That's really cool! What are your favorites?"

“My favorite is about an Andoren cleric of Desna and a Mammoth Lord who get stranded in hostile territory at the Worldwound.”

Tetula is going to demand plot summaries.

The two of them are summoned into the middle of a demon camp through unclear demon magic and the part of the magic keeping them helpless is interfered with by a miracle from Desna, who both protagonists venerate, before the demons can kidnap anyone else, and the two of them break out of the magic circle and wreck the summoning setup before fleeing into the wilderness of the Worldwound, attempting to navigate back to the correct side of the Wardstones while dealing with periodic demon attacks and also a generally hostile environment.

Some of the demons who attack are trying to get revenge for the thwarted magic thing but a lot of them are just, demons, in the Worldwound, as you do. The two of them become closer over their journey until finally, within sight of the Wardstone barrier, the cleric falls into an Abyssal rift and the Mammoth Lord has to choose between definitely being able to get to safety or risking everything to rescue her.

He picks the latter, obviously, saving her from a setup where the demons had put her in a deeply skimpy outfit in which to sacrifice her to a demon lord. Once all the demons are dead they consummate their relationship right there in the abyss, before returning through the rift, making it to the correct side of the barrier, and getting married.

The Mammoth Lord is used to an environment where it is much colder, so he spends the overwhelming majority of the book shirtless and sweaty; the author likes to linger over descriptions of how glistening and chiseled his torso is. Also at least one of them usually gets injured in any given demon attack and there’s a lot of tenderhorny wound care.

Thea might need to keep a closer eye on which of Nuria's romance novels are suitable reading material for her students.  But then again, the Sisterhood of Eiseth always said the urge to claim your desires motivated willpower and strength?  And Irori's teachings suggest temperance, but don't strongly command it directly?

Tetula is an enthusiastic audience who gasps and exclaims at all the right points.

“It was the first one I ever read, and the only one for a long time. It’s why I wanted so badly to get into romance novel smuggling.”

"Does Desna like romance novels?"

“—Well, she must, I know I’m not the only Desnan involved. Calistria too, actually.”

"You know, the Chaotic gods are a lot less scary than I was led to believe."

“Well, I wouldn’t want to meet a demon lord. But yeah it turns out the thing that really matters is good versus evil, instead of law versus chaos.”

Thea's not sure if she believes that.  She hasn't met any Calistrans or Gorumites yet, maybe they would feel more similar than different?  Or maybe law and chaos matter more the further you are from goodness?  Still, she doesn't interrupt yet, it seems Tetula is appreciating Nuria's advice and counsel.

“Like, I’m chaotic, but I really respect this monastery, and I’d probably get along fine with a paladin! But like I said a demon lord would be bad.”

Thea appreciates the complement!

"For my part, I was always told that chaos lacked the discipline and diligence to become strong and good lacked the will to claim its desires.  But Nuria made it to second circle pursing her desire for goodness and romance.  And you, Tetula, seem to be diligently seeking to understand your God's will.  So I'm not really sure what alignment even means in an absolute sense, other than in the most blatant cases.  I'm Thea, by the way, I didn't want to interrupt your conversation earlier."

"I think I have a sense of what they mean but I don't think I understand it well enough to put it into words...or, rather, since I'm still relatively uneducated on the point, I expect that whatever words I picked would turn out to be wrong later on after I learned more. Like, I don't mean to knock romance novels as a window into Not Cheliax, but I feel like no matter what your source is, if you only have one angle, you're going to be wrong about some complicated things." 

"I think Chaos means you get to do what you want instead of what other people want you to do. And Good means-- not having to be afraid anymore."

"That's definitely a feature of Good! But Good is much bigger than that. Good is about--being kind to other people, even when it doesn't get you anything. And--for me, right now, I'm not making claims about the fundamental nature of Law versus Chaos, but--Lawful Good is about building systems for people to be kind to each other, and Chaotic Good is about being kind to people even when there aren't any systems for it and nobody is going to thank you or maybe even notice."

"I guess I think about kindness as-- being the sort of person that other people don't have to be afraid of."

"That's true. Although--sometimes, people not having to be afraid of you doesn't mean they aren't afraid of you, and you have to roll with that." 

"If you can't roll with people being afraid of you then maybe it makes sense for them to be afraid of you."

People being afraid of you is extremely useful, Thea does not say.  It might be bad for some forms of teaching and learning, and both Tetula and Nuria seems to think it is non-good, and Thea is trying to be Lawful Neutral, like her God, so she should at least learn to moderate how much she intimidates people.

So she'll just continue to listen.

"I think that probably depends on what not rolling with it looks like? Like, if someone is afraid of you, so you're unkind to them or pushy on the issue or anything, then yeah, but like--if halflings are consistently afraid of you, so you just try to avoid halflings, then the halflings don't get the benefit of whatever you would have done instead but I don't think it makes sense to say that they should be more scared of you because of that." 

"I guess I was thinking of avoiding them as a kind of rolling with it?"

“I think it’s sort of rolling away from it. And like also Neutral and not active Good?”

Maybe Tetula is confused about Good again. She often is.

"I guess-- leaving people alone when they want to be left alone feels like..." She trails off, because she doesn't want to finish the sentence with "what her dream-lover would do."

“—Well, sure, generally, but sometimes someone is bleeding out in the road, and they’ll be scared of you if they wake up, but the thing you need to do is save their life, not leave them alone.”

Thea considers to herself if she would leave a stranger bleeding out in the road.  Maybe?  If that stranger was a woman she could take them back to her monastery.  A healing spell isn't that valuable to her, so she could spare at least one.  And more pragmatically, any healing spent helping a stranger in such a way pushes her closer to lawful neutral and having a lot more healing to work with.

"I'm not sure if we disagree with each other."

“I think we agree with each other on what’s right to do and may or may not agree on what words to use about it, which is much less important.”

"Fair enough! I'm really excited about getting to be a cleric and help people."

“Yeah!!! You can do so much this way!”

"I've been trying to figure out how the church of Cayden Cailean works. I know we aren't midwives like Pharasmins and we don't do healing and plant growth like Erastilians, and I don't think we go around rooting out heresy like Asmodeans. I don't think we even have services."

"Caydenites run taverns!" 

She feels a sense of dread that she immediately represses. Taverns are fun! People love taverns! She can try something new!

"That sounds more fun than services! I think. I've never been to one."

"I've never been to a Caydenite tavern! I...assume they're better than the taverns I have been to." 

"There is always adventuring for clerics also!  I would probably have tried to become an adventurer if I didn't have a monastery to take care of, and I mean to take a sabbatical sometime in the future to adventure and grow stronger.  I think adventuring is a good fit for Cayden as well, given what I've read of his own life?" 

The last part is kind of a question.

See! Everything is great, actually. She should have believed in Cayden.

"I think when I'm done with the convention I might adventure instead of running a tavern! I really enjoyed my time at the Worldwound."

"If you like the wound, you'll probably find adventuring even better... from what I've heard the wound is much harder to like than adventuring!"

Thea has heard many comments from Estella about the Worldwound on everything from food to weather to a commander who thought "Opposition Schools" are a made up excuse of weak wizards.  Maybe Chaotic Good clerics are just... generally happy people?

"It's really pretty up there and I liked the excitement."

“I’m going to travel after the convention. That’ll probably end up involving some adventuring.”