"What do you mean when you say 'didn't really matter'."

"- it did not impinge on my ability to follow my instructions and perform my role, that I did not enjoy it. Asmodeus does not command that His clerics have fun once a month. But I was at one point told that punishing people was supposed to be fun so for a period of time I was running my Worldwound fort by making people play chess with me when they were drunk on duty and such."

"Why would any god command people to have fun once a month, that seems pointless and horrible... did you renounce Asmodeus, when the war started and it might actually matter how many third circle clerics He had to fight with -"

"Valia, Iomedae commands that we have fun at least once a month."

"...are you sure?

....even if we haven't sworn any oaths to the Church and don't have to do what the Church says?"

"- we can ask Crina when she comes back but I think so just like how we're also not supposed to lie." Otherwise you will Fall Over. He can't say that out loud with his face. "- anyway, no, He dropped me. I wasn't - looking for openings, I wasn't thinking about things being a different way than they were, I wasn't checking whenever something happened whether that would be a good time to renounce Asmodeus any more than I was checking if it would be a good time to kill myself or a good time to - turn into a dragon, it wasn't a thing I thought about doing, ever."

"I got a lot of people killed, and so I've been thinking about - what I should have been thinking about, to not get lots of people killed, like how if I could read it wouldn't be as hard to get what was happening, and how if something really confusing happens like an archduke saying that actually it's important not to kick unrepentent Norgorber cultists off your committee then probably a lot of other things are very different than you thought they were and you should - stop doing things entirely and just flee into the hills and watch until you understand - the metaphorical hills -"

"I've been doing - the corresponding thing, not exactly that. And my progress so far is the illegal orders thing, that I mentioned last night. The sense that - my instructions ought to contact any other part of the world beyond what my master willed."

"That continues to make a lot less sense to me than the things you said about - not seeing why it mattered who worked for Asmodeus or whether there was a way not to. It seems like - when you do things, they have the consequences they have, and of course you will inevitably notice whether you want those consequences or don't want those consequences. And I am having trouble imagining what it would mean to - you weren't noticing that, but you think you could have noticed it if someone said that - some things were wrong even if you were commanded to do them?"

"I don't inevitably notice whether I want or don't want consequences at all. I have to check for that on purpose and usually only do it if I have some specific reason to do so. - sometimes I notice partial reactions without looking deliberately but I don't, automatically, add them up into a clear wanting or not wanting."

"Do you think that's something they did to you in Asmodeanism school or did you have it before then too?"

"Oh, it was actually worse before."

"Do you...think to yourself 'I am hungry', and then go to the kitchens to get food because then you'll have food and that will solve being hungry? - I'm not trying to be dismissive, I just - you're describing not having something that is how I thought all actions got taken."

"- often I just eat because it's a mealtime and that's what I plan to do at mealtimes. At other times I notice I'm impaired at something because I'm hungry and trying to address the impairment takes the form of eating, if I have food, or ignoring it, if I don't."

"Do you think that's true of a lot of people or are you very unusual?"

"I think I'm probably unusual. The person who read my mind to check to see if I could be a wizard made an impolite remark about it and didn't say a word about anyone else in the room besides the ones she picked to be wizards. But I don't know what it's like to be anyone besides me."

"I think most people...want lots of things. And will risk lots of things the instant they realize that they weren't wrong, all along, to want things, that they were right and those things were worth fighting for. And then they are mostly opposed to Asmodeus. In my experience."

"I... think you are also unusual. Probably less unusual."

"Hmmm. I keep thinking that I was - wrong, obviously, in a really important way, but - not about the fact that people would rebel against Evil even in Westcrown, if they believed it was worth it, if they believed Iomedae was with them. The thing I was most importantly wrong about was - whether they'd spent a lot of time thinking about how you'd have to do it if you ever got the chance and so whether they'd do incredibly stupid things, and of course whether the targets were worth killing. But - not about people being willing to fight.

Most people even in Pezzack aren't me but they - wanted things. They wanted Asmodeus gone and everyone who had killed their families dead and they wanted to be free. That wasn't just me. It wouldn't have worked, if most people didn't want those things very badly themselves."

"I specifically think you are unusual in that you are inspiring, and - everyone you talk to is talking to you when you talk to them.

"Which might be another argument in favor of prioritizing reading."

" - oh. Yes, that seems true. 

Her Majesty's interrogators figured out why I can't read, it's that I have weak eyes."

"- I think Remove Blindness works on that. I don't have it today but I could have it next time I am here."

"- that would be very good. If it weren't too inconvenient. I - I spent a lot of time confused about why I was so stupid and most people didn't have so much trouble."

"It's third circle but I usually put something in the slot that I don't wind up using as a contingency for surprises, so I can spend it on this without it likely having any side effects."

Valia feels very strange. She spends a minute trying to identify it. 

"I was fairly sure I was going to die. It feels very absurd, to just - keep going. Like it felt right when the war ended, except then there was something to do."