"I suppose. After Aroden died, I kind of gave up on religion. Still help out the Iomedans, but, I don't love Iomedae, you know?"

"I was a devoted citizen of Rahadoum for a third of my life until I discovered Erecura's history of hubris by accident, I totally understand. Iomedae's a damn sight better than Asmodeus but I'd still rather stay well away."

"Did you have one of those singular moments when you understood Erecura? There was this Arodenite poem that I read- I was so young then- maybe sixty, and I understood what Aroden was trying- the glory of it"

"I don't think anyone mortal actually has enough information to understand Her, and I'm not sure She wants to be understood. Does anyone understand Norgorber? They just imitate Him in ways He likes. But there were a couple moments when I saw... that we were kindred spirits, in an important sense."

...she remained mortal and secretly resented Pharasma's imposition of death on her and other humans...

...Erecura was not merely the Speaker of Auguries and the Flourisher-In-Desolation. She was also the Thief of Forever and the Emira of Hubris...

"...Assuming I was right about Her, which I perhaps didn't question as much as I ought. I didn't actually realize I'd broken the First Law until I came home from a research trip to the near Obari and couldn't swear to it in one of their permanent zones of truth. Then, well, I asked Her, and She answered."

"So you gave up your home for Erecura? That's...romantic!"

"Idealistic, more. If I was more willing to change myself to fit in, I would have come back in a few months and asked again to be admitted. But I am... there's a word in a minority dialect of Draconic, tauhanwe. It means something like 'adventurer', but to dragons where that's a weirder thing and also includes whatever it is Mengkare is doing with Hermea. Someone who goes out and does things because they have an irresistible impulse of their nature to obey. And I'm clearly a taunhanwe. ...But literally translated it means 'shit-stirrer', and that's not wrong either."

"We certainly need more of those!" But it's said with a smile. 

"Sir- might I ask as to what it was that you were researching? If it's not too private? I help the Professor-" she smiles- "with her research."

"Theoretical spell topology, right? It was never my field but I saw the name. At that time, I was looking for further data on the construction of lich phylacteries. I got to examine two with detect magic, and I'm still under a couple geases for my trouble. I think it's plausible that the lich ritual can be conducted with significantly less murder than is typical; I conducted some practical tests on mice and published it as Theopho Rahadi, and the obvious next step was to talk to the relatively civilized specimens in Geb. Which went relatively well, two for seven and no assassination attempts was better than I expected."

"Aroden's Adamantine Armpit!" Coeliaris looks shocked. "That's very impressive. I wouldn't have expected any lich ever to go for that."

She thinks for a moment.

"Are you still investigating?"

"They were young, not particularly impressive, and not particularly paranoid... yet. People forget how many liches final-die young, for every one that sticks around long enough for history to care. Our local Badger Lady will most likely be among them. ...I haven't done much work on it since, Asmodeus dislikes being denied souls even more than Pharasma and I was busy. I still have notes, but, as I said, geases, they're kept very securely with methods I can't actually reproduce myself without scrolls and bought spells, so taking them out to look at is expensive."

"So you're not going into the sewers in with a bouquet of badgers and a proposition." Professor Coeliaris giggles.

"Seriously- I am quite interested in- if the research you performed noticeably affected your pharasmic vector?"

"I've considered trying to recommend she move to Rahadoum, just because they have more tolerance for her sort, but I doubt it would be listened to and someone will likely hunt her down first. As far as I know, I was never tarred as Evil by my research, though I expect if I'd continued it I would have done something Pharasma disapproved of eventually and not been able to check. Rahadoum doesn't have much facility to check alignment and tends to maintain a deliberate air of scorn at Pharasma's judgments as threats and blackmail from a tyrant, so all I really know was that no one remarked on it in Geb or Nex and I was Neutral when I arrived back in Cheliax because I could channel positive."

"That is interesting. We eat animal flesh, of course, and the vector doesn't quiver, and I have heard it before, in Absalom, that undead animals offend less but certainly more than zero.

I wonder if it would be possible to quantity the relative quotient of human to animal, and if there's a difference between, say, a great-wasp and a cat."

"I suppose there must be some sort of rate, but the preliminary checks I did weren't even clear on zombie owlbears being a ding in Pharasma's eyes so I didn't take it seriously. It probably would have mattered more if I succeeded -- I only ever made things that were unstable, converting the soul to a lich but not properly securing it in a phylactery, which is what happens about three times in five on a nearly-successful attempt for humanoids."

"And do you intend to... try for yourself, if you come up with a deathless way?"

"I don't really expect it to come up. I'm a very poor adventurer and no one short of sixth circle has ever succeeded at lichdom, as far as any of them remembers; I expect I'm laying stones for the foundation of a tower that I couldn't ever climb. If I got to the end of my life with the circles to try, and I was Evil, or thought Pharasma held a grudge... Most likely. If it was actually free of any deaths, and not just cut down to one painless one like I think is most likely, probably I'd go for it regardless of alignment." Maybe not if he'd somehow made his alignment read Elysial. That one doesn't seem so bad, no trusting anyone more powerful.

"That's exactly it! Laying the stones indeed. The Arodenite poem I mentioned has something similar-"

She recites it from heart: 

Reach me down my Aroden, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later magic, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.

"Hmm, I don't think I quite get it. 'To completion?' Maybe just not my style of poetry. Or else Aroden just isn't my god."

She slumps."I shall scrive you off a copy of the poem- but there is little point."

She looks away, eyes focused on nothing.

"There's a god, a whole portfolio, missing. You know, after Aroden died, some of the stronger faithful tried - they went to the Starstone, to replace him. Not like Iomedae- but- people, out of religious conviction. They all died, of course."

"You'd probably feel it more keenly, I don't know what's supposed to be there.  ...Whatever I think of Him otherwise, the Starstone was an achievement surely worth a lot of trouble. Even a lot of deaths, if the grim theory's true. Putting mortals among the gods is righting something that was out of balance." Even if he can't see why Norgorber any more than anyone else.