"I appreciate that."

"There is a procedure to get new gods approved in Massachusetts-- we're kind of a center of a lot of this stuff-- but it's designed for, you know, cults that were previously secret and maybe did some human sacrifice and now want to get right with the law."

"...and this procedure is inapplicable to Iomedae because... She didn't order enough human sacrifice?"

"I mean, some of it will likely be inapplicable, and I don't know how they'd prove a track record of non-destructiveness... but I guess that's the bureaucrats' problem."

"I assume there is a bootstrapping problem if I offer to cast a truth spell on myself."

"That there is. --I can put in an application for you, at least."

"I would appreciate that. Should I assume that I must not pray in the intervening time? This will prevent me from getting new spells but if I'm largely not casting them anyway that's not necessarily a problem - I would like to tell Her what's happening in case Her unsupported visibility isn't good but I will refrain if it would be illegal while the application is pending."

"No praying. Guidance is in a gray area. --You're sure it comes from her and is not a coincidental power?"

"Yes, there was a period of time when I wasn't sure and I tried another holy symbol but Hers is the one that worked."

"If a god just taught you the spell, that's okay, a lot of gods teach spells that we use. But if a god gives you the power for the spell, that's a no. Legally speaking. --Although this law was created with the understanding that gods almost exclusively empower people to kill large numbers of people or turn them into snakes or something."

"I don't think there are any cleric spells that turn people into snakes. Some of them are damaging but I wouldn't cast those in any situation where I wouldn't also strike someone with a weapon. In any event, She definitely gives me the power for the spell, I would not be able to cast them without Her having done so. Is Guidance still a gray area?"

"Assuming you want to follow a law, at a fairly significant amount of personal cost, written by people who have absolutely no idea that 'spell that makes you slightly better at things' would be granted by a god. --We could probably extrapolate that a spell like that exists, the Voorish Sign exists."

"What's the Voorish Sign?"

"Makes you better at magic." He demonstrates a complex gesture. "If you see someone doing this, run."

"You advise running, specifically, over hitting them with a spell or evacuating civilians nearby?"

"Oh, right, you're not really a civilian, are you? --If you see someone doing this, hit them with something that will disrupt their concentration or evacuate civilians. Or obey the orders of your commanding officer but I think you wouldn't have trouble with that."

"I spent twenty years in the military and only recently passed on the command of a fortress guarding a border around a portal to the Abyss. I am not a civilian. Is there an emergency protocol allowing spells of non-listed gods in these situations, the only one I have that doesn't come from Her is Prestidigitation and I can't even use most of its functions."

"--you're not going to like it." 

"My not liking things is almost always immaterial."

"If the Esoteric Order of Dagon happens to agree that it is in their best interest for sapient life to continue to exist on Earth, since they live here too, and uses magic in defense of this goal, I will certainly pursue them with all due force. And I may decide, using my situational awareness and judgment as an experienced police officer, that the amount of force which is due is 'none, because they saved my ass.' --Everyone does it, the laws are designed by people who are scared by everything Mythos except of course all the Mythos technology that society runs on, it's not-- you just can't go out there and act like the Dagonites and the Cthulhu cultists and those Azathoth psychos are all the same thing-- if you don't deal fairly with people they won't help you and the rules aren't designed to get people to help you, the rules want everyone to give up their religions their families have practiced for thousands of years and probably they should but they won't and in the meantime people are going to die--"

"- I don't actually think that's necessarily Lawless. It suggests - a system not designed very well in response to the situation on the ground - but I knew that already. If... a demon betrayed its warlord based on an incorrect understanding of the Worldwound treaty believing that this would entitle it to the protections the allies holding the border enjoy, say... there are limits to what this could reasonably earn it but if all it wanted was to go back to the Abyss there's a spell for that and it would be worth the spell slot, to be the kind of entity worth betraying a demon warlord to. Which is disanalogous in many ways but that's where my experience lies."

"Well, if we happen to encounter a sorcerer bent on mass destruction before you get your legal situation sorted out, I will yell 'active sorc!' and if you use magic I'll make sure you don't get arrested. What you then decide to do will be on your own conscience. --I don't think that's especially likely but, you know, it is Boston." 

"I can't say that I do know much about Boston."

"The entire Northeast United States is a hotbed of Mythos activity. Ley lines, apparently, worst in the world outside of Tibet. --You're ex-military? Fighting... demons?"

"Yes. My country and several others coordinated to hold fortresses colocated with a line of wardstones which stunned demons exiting the area of the Abyssal portal, to patrol for stunned demons and kill them, report and engage demons that got across unstunned, handle covert demonic infiltration in military rather than civilian settings, etcetera. I had the command of a fort until I was asked to instead attend my country's constitutional convention in my capacity as a priest but I was summoned here during my journey."