"Did you know that actually Geb's not going to attack?"

How confidently do you believe that (and ideally why)?

"It's a megacontinuity and it'd kind of ruin a lot of peoples' character concepts."

Well, all right then. 

LET ME TELL YOU A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN GALT, something addresses the people of Westcrown. 

It was one of the most beautiful, the most ambitious, the most human, the most fanatically opposed to Hell of human endeavors. All the good gods took joy in it, in different ways - in the determination! In the compassion! In the freedom! In the blazing conviction! In the FANATICAL OPPOSITION TO HELL! - and none of them knew how it'd end, either, Golarion being as clouded as it is. That they would face external enemies was obvious. What humans do when beset and infiltrated by external enemies was - also obvious. They dreamed of a better world, and then they shredded each other over disagreements about how to build it. Would you like to live inside the minds of a dozen different terrified mobs, all sure of themselves, half of them doing with unfathomable bravery the only thing that could be done to save their world, half of them plunging themselves and everyone around them into catastrophe (plenty of them qualifying as both)?

Would you like to feel them all die? She did. Would you like to watch them all lose faith in her? She did. Would you like to see, through the cloudy web of futures, an end to the bloodshed, an end also to the liberty, the future that had the best chance of beating back Hell from the rest of the Empire and no chance at all of surviving its infancy to stand on its own two democratically-elected feet? Would you like to decide whether to pull towards that future, or against it? 

Because the gods had to. And they chose, in the end, to fight Hell, but they know how much they paid for it. 

Would you like to see the people outside whose houses you are gathering? Not whether they're tieflings or orcs, She can't see that sort of thing about people. She can see when they are brave, and she can see when they're trying, and she can see when they have placed their trust in a fragile human concept of honor and cooperation that may or may not have the strength to bear it. And she can see when they're diabolists, actually, but they're not. There are not very many diabolists in this city, they do not threaten it, and She intends to responsibly report them to the civil authorities, because IT IS AN IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE OF THE CHURCH OF IOMEDAE THAT YOU REALLY DO NOT SOLVE PROBLEMS THROUGH ARMED REBELLION IF THERE IS ANY OTHER WAY TO SOLVE THEM.

It is, as much as any definitive word from a god that the thing you are doing is Evil and stupid can be, not actually a reprimand. Absolutely nothing good and an enormous amount of Evil would have come of tonight, but - she can, in fact, see more of the people of Westcrown, bestirred by angry speeches to fight for their city and their future, than she has seen of them in a very long time. She can show them that, too, what they look like when their strength and their courage and their honor and determination are the parts that you can see of them. They will need it. BUT THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU WILL NEED IT FOR. GO HOME.

Marit turns around and knocks numbly on the door of the mansion. He's pretty sure he's a first circle priest now.

Uh. Yeah. Ok, angry crowd is dispersing. His bodyguard help him pull away the furniture barricading the door.

He steps inside. Arn is looking back at him, dazed and of course mildly horrified. 

"Well that went - incredibly well."

"So," he says, and his voice sounds very strange to him, like he's hearing it from outside his own head, "theological point that I hadn't gotten to and wasn't really expecting to come up, but - we actually consider it extremely embarrassing when something like this happens."

The civil authorities would have preferred to receive this report about ongoing diabolist activity in a different format.

Far be it from him to guess why the Goddess can afford this but not to choose some fucking clerics. It's obvious if you understand decision theory, of course, but he doesn't.

Well, looks like Enric pretty decisively won his argument with the other guys at the lodging house. 

Llei kneels on the ground, crying, and prays for the first time to a goddess he's sure doesn't hate him and want him dead.

Dolor is feeling really awkward about this whole business, especially the bit where she had to be told some things that are in retrospect really obviously stuff she could have figured out herself. She needs to figure out what her new plan is for the committees she's on, then, and what to do about the army if she doesn't fix it here because guerrilla warfare is probably not her best option.

That seems like it was probably meant for somebody else and anyway Iomedae is not his real mom. He glances over at Victòria, shrugs, and resumes burning down the school.

Okay?? The mob is backing off now?? That seems good? He channels, includes himself, stops bleeding and stops feeling like he's inhaling glass when he takes a breath.

They got a miracle and it probably saved his life and it did not make what he is supposed to do next any clearer but maybe if he is very lucky Iomedaeans will take some time from their busy schedules to make pilgrimages to the site and he will be able to corral one for a CATECHISM CLASS.

Honestly, Valia seems way cooler than Iomedae. Delegate Ibarra is probably brave, and he might even be trying to cooperate with people sometimes, but that doesn't make what he did okay. She smiles back at Raimon and continues burning down the school.

Dear Temple of Iomedae at Westcrown..

While Attempting to Preserve my Urchins, I was Forced to take Drastic Action and Teleported them All, in a Sack, to my Most Secret Lair. The Riots were then Immediately Obviated by Divine Decree. This seems Unfair and I wish to Protest!

Lady Eriape, the Undying, Princess of Badgers.

Hmm. Was the goddess saying, when she said diabolists "do not threaten the city", that diabolists weren't responsible for this pamphlet? That they no longer are a threat to the city now that Iomedae has both revealed the pamphlet was entirely nonsense and reported them to the civil authorities? That they did not directly threaten the city, that they only had any power insofar as the idiots were being idiots?

It probably doesn't matter. She should go to Abadar's temple in the morning about getting a reduction in what she's paying for business insurance, though. Iomedae's intervention not only directly reduced riot-related risk, it implies that Iomedae considers a whole swath of other possible risks to the city be negligible.

Wow, those mage's decrees can be really convincing when cast by an archmage!

Tomàs sags, holding herself up with her pike like a staff because the mob isn't gone and if she fell to a knee she'd be unprepared for a fight, which is unacceptable.

So that's Iomedae, she thinks, seeing herself as the goddess does. She wouldn't shame the Order as a patron. Or hate us.

Rosa is not particularly pleased. They'll be back to their old misbehavior soon enough.

But they obey the Law tonight, and that will have to do.

Sorry – the gods paid for the Galtan revolution? He knows some people who think they had a little something to do with it. 

It seems an attorney's capirote does not block Iomedae Herself from leaving you with a splitting headache ringing with the True Name of a certain archon and an agonizing thought-impression along the lines of CALL IT, MORON.

(This intervention paid for on the side by Nethys, who has seen the cool archon and wants to get to it already.)

Well. Two out of three is more than he expected. And She doesn't seem likely to be including him on the reported list.

Oh, good. Then her earlier report was retroactively correct, and she can just go back to sleep.

Also? Goddess? She didn't do any of it for your approval, so kindly fuck off with your shit. It makes her want to run off into the woods and resume a campaign of blighting this country's crops on general principle. She's not going to (unless these idiot humans force her hand) because she's an adult who makes reasonable decisions, but. Saying you approve of her makes her want to burn this country to the ground.

Anyway, yes, zzz.

You are not my goddess, Sergi thinks, but I thank you for your blessing and the warmth of your gaze all the same. He knew he was trying, but to have the gaze of Good on him confirm it means a great deal.

He pauses a moment, then goes back to writing his letter. Cheliax still needs Sarenrae.

How interesting.

Interesting, to know he is true neutral like his patron, interesting, to see that Iomedae disagrees with everyone under the old regime who called him weak and useless, interesting, to learn that much of his apathy was, from a certain viewpoint, the closest he ever came to resistance, interesting to see that, from that same viewpoint, the apathy has outlived its usefulness, interesting to see the quiet disappointment Iomedae feels in him, the belief that he is a soul potentially useful to her cause, but one predicted with medium to high confidence not to significantly realize potential.

He would probably have stronger feelings on this if he had made up his mind about Iomedae. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Liushna sits on a rooftop and snuggles a sobbing little tiefling. 

The gods have not abandoned her people. There may or may not have been an event in the past in which they were cut off from gods they used to worship, but there are other gods. If the Itarii were to reach out to them--

This is honestly kind of a huge upheaval of her worldview, but philosophizing can wait: there is an actual specific child in front of her who needs actual specific things from her. Figuring out what the fuck to tell her Rokoa later comes second to holding a crying little one. 

Huh, so Iomedae and all the other gods of self-proclaimed good did sell out the revolution. He thought they did, but it's good to know. Maybe the Rahadoumi were less pointless about their evil than he thought.

Also he is absolutely currently swordfighting a cultist of Mammon right now and is going to cut her shoulder open with a blade of lightning while she's distracted by a sudden vision of Iomedae. Some people have work to do.