He wasn't expecting that! When he summons things they don't look nearly this confused about it, and he'd imagined there was some warning or a limited pool of summonable creatures so they got used to it!

They all kowtow and say, "Hail the Crawling Chaos! Hail the Black Pharaoh! Hail the God of a Thousand Masks!"

Wow, the summoned-creature directive interface is weird from this end, the words are strange but he knows what they're trying to say. He is pretty concerned that he is not allowed to represent himself as any of the listed things! "I serve Iomedae the Inheritor, and she is Lawful." He is also concerned that they can just Dominate him through the summoning spell. Uh. "Guidance."

The high priest has survived ten years with Mythos Exposure Disorder so he doesn't miss a beat. "Hail Iomedae! Hail the Inheritor! Hail She Who Keeps The Laws! Hail She Whom The Black Pharaoh Serves!"

The other cultists, a bit slower, take one Hail to catch on and mostly mumble in the name bits. 

OKAY????? If they - okay, he can imagine scenarios where you might want to summon an outsider specifically to lead you in prayer, which - seems to be what they're going for. It is not remotely outside his experience to be a new religion and desperately aware that you don't know how to do it right, though he, like, sent a letter instead of trying to get instructions from a lantern archon in thirty second bursts or trying to pull together Planar Inquiry payments while barely keeping his people fed. The fact that he is unqualified and feels catastrophically awkward doesn't rate. How about he just pulls out the Acts and reads through all the standard prayers in the back for them starting with the Exhortation for the End of Hell??

They will kneel and accept their God's words!

,,,This is not really what the high priest was expecting as a teaching from His Lord, since it seems to be about how people shouldn't be tortured for eternity??? It's not that the Crawling Chaos is particularly in favor of people being tortured for eternity, it's just hard to imagine him bestirring himself to have an opinion on the subject at all.

Whatever. They will listen. 

And then Caiden and his strike team burst in, guns in one hand and Elder Signs in the other. "Off the ground. Drop all objects. Hands in the air. If I hear a single syllable of any non-English language out of you I will shoot--"

He belatedly notices that there is a person standing in the summoning circle of this ritual performed by a cult of Nyarlathotep. 

Aw, hell.

Guess today his luck runs out. 

Blai cannot understand this guy. He's stopping talking anyway, since he was interrupted and did not specifically form an intention to talk over interruptions, but he is not dropping the Acts or putting his hands in the air.

As people who could be standing in a summoning circle go he's neither nonthreatening (he's got a mace and is wearing chainmail) nor particularly threatening (the mace is hanging from his belt and he's not actually moving, just blinking at the new arrival).

The translation interface is working overtime conveying that a party of [constables/inquisitors/paladins] has arrived with a [very fast explosive arrow] and [protective sigils against demons-but-worse-and-also-like-Pharasma] and ordered everyone to stand up with their hands in the air and drop all objects and not [speak-unusual-languages/cast-spells]. The cultists wish to do his will because he is their [Lord/Master/god] and would appreciate orders, or alternately that he smite the [constables/inquisitors/paladins] where they stand. 

Paladins?? Oh thank all the gods of the paladin corner. He drops the Acts and puts his hands up.

...

The cultists do likewise. 

Alice is behind him whisper-chanting the spell to banish Nyarlathotep and moving her hands in a way that might be fidgeting. All he has to do is distract the god for long enough for her to get it off. He's always been good at being annoying to people more powerful than him, and this is--

...thaaaaaaaaat is not normal Nyarlathotep behavior, even to the limited extent anything could be said to be normal Nyarlathotep behavior. 

"Caiden Callahan, Lieutenant, Boston Police Department," he says to the guy in chainmail. 

Alice keeps up the banishment. 

...does the paladin want him to talk? He doesn't know any locally usual languages.

Well, until something else happens, he is going to continue following usual procedure. 

Keeping gun and Elder Sign trained on the cultists, he gestures with his head for the other two members of his strike team to begin arresting the cultists. He is extraordinarily well-trusted-- because he's kind, because he's charismatic, because he's survived this long-- which is the only reason that they do as he says. 

He deliberately shifts his stance to be relaxed and alert, with a neutral yet attentive facial expression. In a calm, slow, even, and reassuring voice, he says, "I want to keep everyone safe. I'm here to help you. I don't expect anyone to get hurt tonight. Will you come along quietly so we can get this sorted out?"

The translation interface says that the [constables/inquisitors/paladins] want to bring the cultists to a place where they can't worship the God anymore! This is terrible!

Yeah that's pretty terrible but he can't just show up in a new place and start immediately breaking laws without a plan for how that even helps! He stands there with his hands up keeping half an eye on the Acts where he dropped it.

"Could you say something to me, in English, if you speak English?" Caiden asks Blai.

The cultists, unresisting, are handcuffed and put in a corner. 

Uncomprehending blinking!

Yeah, this really doesn't seem like Nyarlathotep. Time for a gamble. 

With slow and exaggerated movements, Caiden kneels and puts his gun on the floor, where he can't easily grab it, then stands up. He puts the Elder Sign on his own wrist, and then lifts up his wrist, to demonstrate that nothing happens. Then he gestures for Blai to give him his own wrist. 

(Alice is still going on the banishment, because Caiden doesn't believe in taking stupid gambles.)

He doesn't recognize the symbol but if it burns demons or something this would be a reasonable precaution. Wrist.

He touches it to the man's wrist.

It doesn't burn him. 

Alice finishes up the banishment; the man appears thoroughly unbanished. 

Either this man isn't a Mythos creature or this man is a very powerful Mythos creature! He's not sure which, but is going to go with the first one because that's the option where they're not all dead. 

"¿Habla usted español? Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma? Ou pale kreyòl? Você fala português? Fucking-- Bạn có, uh, tiếng Việt không?"

No??

"Alice, help--"

Alice tries Latin, ancient Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Classical Chinese, Enochian, R'lyehan, and Yithian. (Her accent on Enochian and R'lyehan is terrible, but her Yithian is rather good.)

Standing here with his hands up not casting any spells. You'd think if they have this much education they'd spend any of it on enough wizardry to do a Comprehend Languages except for how everything is super weird here so maybe you wouldn't think that if you knew anything about anything which Blai doesn't.

"Do we have any ponies with some kind of translation spell?" Caiden asks Alice.

"A second pony?" Alice asks. "After you've already had me cast a banishment spell that did nothing? Not that I'm complaining, the expected value--"

"It was a banishment, not Withering, that's two weeks' vacation tops." 

"I'll call in and have them look," Alice says, "but this is going to be really embarrassing if he turns out to speak Ukrainian or something. Or if he's Deaf."

"Sure, have him go through the list of interpreters, but I have a feeling about this. --Have them call up to Arkham. Those guys love dead languages, they have to have a spell."

To the guy: Caiden points to himself. "Caiden." Then he points to Blai. 

"Select Blai Artigas."

That sounded reassuringly like sounds that are made with a normal human mouth. 

He mimes talking, then confusion. Then he points to his Elder Sign, mimes talking, mimes understanding, and points questioningly at Select. 

If you want to cast Comprehend Languages through your demon-burning holy symbol you certainly don't need Blai's permission to do it?? Standing here hands up.

Well, that was a long shot. Anyway, even if this guy had language magic, maybe he's saving it. Being summoned by cultists of Nyarlathotep can't be good for your sanity. 

Caiden mimes walking, points up, and then mimes eating. This is his favorite way of building rapport.

Up??

...Yeah, he doesn't know how to mime "this is in a basement." He heads towards the stairs and waits for Select to follow him. 

Okay, he can take one tentative step, hands still up, but then he's going to look at the Acts, which is on the floor still.

No!!!! Absolutely not!!!!! No strange books!!!!!!

"Alice, can you pick up that book and take it into evidence? And, uh, try to look reassuring while you do it."

Alice snaps on a pair of rubber gloves, pulls out a pair of tongs and an evidence bag covered in a pattern of tessellated Elder Signs, gingerly picks up the book with the tongs, and drops it in the evidence bag. 

But they're not complaining about his backpack?? Which they haven't even searched for books?? He - shifts his shoulder a bit in case they want to do that, he can't really point with his hands in the air.

Oh! That's cooperative of him! He gestures for Alice to perform a similar procedure on the backpack, minus the tongs and with a bigger evidence bag.

Caiden gestures tentatively for Blai to remove his mace.

(He'll leave him the armor. If Caiden were in a strange world, he would want armor.)

He will have to try pretty hard to get across that he wants Blai to unhook the mace rather than standing still while they do it for him to put it in a Partially Invisible Bag, but yes he will give up the mace with less reluctance than the book.

Caiden's not just going to take a man's weapon off him when the man isn't fighting him! That's such a dick move!

Now. Up the stairs?

Okay.

They go up the stairs, through a hallway, and to the outside!

Large metal beasts whiz past on a very odd road.

Weird. Also his arms hurt at this point.

...Caiden points to Select, imitates Select's position, and then slowly lowers his arms. 

Arms down.

Caiden heads to his squad car, opens a door, and gestures for Blai to enter it. In the front. 

...could he perhaps see the process of entering this construct demonstrated first.

Caiden doesn't understand Blai's objection but fortunately his usual method of dealing with this kind of problem is to get in himself to demonstrate that it isn't scary or boobytrapped or full of monsters or anything.

So you sort of - duck while sitting - and you don't have to tuck in your legs particularly fast because the hatch doesn't close by itself, good. He will sit.

He gets in the construct himself. Soon it is going terrifyingly fast down the street while playing something that is probably intended to be music! Caiden is singing along, at least.

Blai is going to throw up on his own knees.

Understandable. Caiden hands him a barf bag from the glove compartment. 

Is this - supposed to mop up the vomit - it doesn't really seem suited to that -

Okay, sure, Caiden can try to one-handed mime vomiting into a barf bag without taking his eyes from the road.

He doesn't have any more vomit but the belated gesture is appreciated.

This retroactively makes Caiden's decision to take Blai to a Chipotle seem... not the best. 

Anyway. 

Caiden can clean up the vomit, and then they can go inside. 

Blai has flatly no idea what to do with the Chipotle. He will stand where Caiden seems to want him to stand and look at things in blank incomprehension. He is pretty sure based on the smell that there is food here and that's all he's got.

Caiden points to a food and orders it, and then it is put in a bowl. Then he looks expectantly at Blai. 

Is he... supposed to point at a food. He just puked, there's no point throwing good food after bad right away. (Well, he's probably not food-poisoned, he Created all the food that constituted his breakfast himself last night and that's good for twenty-four hours, but he's clearly got something.) ...he can't explain that and there's something in the Acts that he can't look up right now about food being important and especially for sharing food to matter to things. Maybe that's what this paladin is doing. He will point at some food.

Then they will receive bowls of food to eat! And also strange transparent containers of water. 

To Blai's eye, Caiden doesn't seem to pay for them, although he does do something strange with a plastic card.

(Chipotle doesn't serve alcohol. This is important, because if he had alcohol he would drink, and if he drank he couldn't drive, and he doesn't want to expose Blai to Ubers or some poor Uber driver to Possibly Confusing Nyarlathotep.) 

They have so many half-invisible things. He doesn't even know what this material is, actually, maybe it's naturally half-invisible like glass. But it's very considerate to provide water while he's been asked not to cast spells! He eats his bowl of food.

This... is kind of boring, actually, and if he is bored then he has to think about The Horrors. 

He takes out his phone and starts scrolling through his carefully curated set of discourse-free Reddits. 

Blai does not recognize the magic item but it's not very interesting to watch from the back.

He shows Select a particularly cute image of a kitten falling into a box.

...there is probably something meaningful about this tiny illusion of a falling cat or why bother, but Blai cannot for the life of him figure it out.

If You're Bored, They're Bored. Show Them A Picture Of An Interesting Fish. 

How confused does Blai have to look before this man will acknowledge that showing him pictures of animals does not succeed in communicating anything?

He can look at the back of the phone instead! Caiden won't stop him!

Or he could just finish his bowl of food! But he's not sure it really does the rapport and bonding and and common cause thing Iomedae was talking about if also during the entire meal someone is showing you mysterious animal pictures so sadly this will be a somewhat wasted bowl of food.

Not that wasted, they need something to do while someone gathers the interpreters. 

The meal finishes. Back in the car. Most of downtown Boston is protected by an Eye of Light and Darkness, which doesn't allow in Outer Gods or their servants and causes great pain to those aligned with them. Does Select appear to react as they cross the threshold?

Doesn't notice it at all, he's holding the barf bag and watching the scenery and occasionally moving the barf bag closer to his face before deciding it was a false alarm this time.

Yeah, that's what he expected.

Caiden heads to the offices of the Boston Police Department, chats with a few people, and manages to get Select one of the nicer interrogation rooms.

Blai will sit in this room and not cast any spells even though he really wants to.

Then he will have to put up with a stream of people saying things to him in various languages, some in person, some by video chat. Mostly they're spoken languages but they dug up users of multiple sign languages, human and nonhuman.

They have flat crystal balls here, that's neat.

He doesn't know any of these languages and is starting to become very consternated at the possibility that he will pray for some Comprehend and Share Languages in the morning and then still not be able to convey that he would like to cast them.

And when this person says words he doesn't understand, something happens!

Blai understands magic. This is no magic he has ever experienced.

The entire fabric of the universe has turned, for one instant, to concentrate all its attention on Blai. Stars and planets still for the briefest of instants. He knows everything. He can number the atoms in every drop of water in his body; he knows the songs the galaxies sing to each other. 

Then a wave washes through his mind and removes all the omniscience except the ability to speak English.

- he's gonna throw up again if that's okay with everybody!

Here's a bucket. That's actually in the top 50% of responses to that particular spell.

He doesn't immediately have anything to say - or, rather, he has a lot of thoughts, and could theoretically say some of them, but none are clearing his threshold for Things It Is Worth Saying. He's not going to say "are you personally the herald of Nethys". Or "you could have waited till tomorrow morning". Or "can I cast Guidance for no reason every minute or two please". Or "are my summoners okay", or "this is lasting kind of a long time for a summon and Planar Allies can go home when they feel done but I don't know how", or "do any of you know who the Black Pharaoh is". Or "sorry about the food, I knew that wasn't a good idea but couldn't speak at the time".

- okay he's got something. "Can I have water - or permission to make it -"

Glass of water! "Please don't do magic in here, the wards will scream."

Sip. Calming down. Probably they have questions. He has no agenda with which to preempt those questions, so he can just wait for them to be asked.

"Hello! I'm Caiden Callahan, lieutenant in the Boston Police Department's Mythos Division. What do you understand about what happened to you?"

He leaves until Select Blai Artigas is oriented, like he's been told to, but he's grumpy about it 

He's met enough Asmodias not to blink at the name; all it tells him is that the Drunk is worshiped here by people including this man's parents. "I... was summoned or possibly called, by a group of people who did not actually explain in so many words what they wanted from me but seemed to possibly be in search of religious instruction and seemed to be satisfied with my reading some prayers to them. They had some kind of translation-telepathy effect but it only worked for them; I understood only because they did that we were shortly afterwards being arrested. Uh... if this is your standard translation spell I can prepare my own in the morning if that's acceptable in some rooms that have different wards?"

"The language spell is permanent, you just know English now. You were summoned by cultists of Nyarlathotep. Do you know who Nyarlathotep is?"

Someone this casual about using magic is definitely a sorcerer. Annoying. Caiden hates sorcerers, which is why he gets all his spells cast by ponies* even though it's more expensive and less flexible. 

* Short for "one-trick pony." Caster without Mythos exposure disorder; typically knows few spells and can cast only once per few months, with long vacations in between.

"No, I don't recognize the name. They called me several things, and I told them that actually I serve Iomedae the Inheritor who is Lawful and therefore cannot reasonably be called a Chaotic entity crawling or otherwise, and they seemed willing to take that in stride but I really don't understand what was going on there. Are they all right? I think they surrendered only because I did and it would be a - tragedy if in my confusion I caused them to think that would be wise when actually it was against their interests -"

"They're going to go to trial and almost certainly be found guilty. Then they might be imprisoned and might be offered the choice of volunteering for experimental Mythos exposure disorder treatment or being executed. I don't know if that's all right from your perspective but I prefer it to the usual shootout."

"- I don't know enough to confidently say it was definitely a wrong to them based on that information. Worshiping Nyarlathotep is illegal here? What other gods are illegal?"

"If worshipping a God results in replicable and verifiable magical powers, it's illegal."

"I'm a cleric. Is there a neighboring country I can go to where being a cleric is legal?"

"...explain to me what a cleric is."

"A cleric is an empowered servant of a god with whom they are aligned, in my case Iomedae, the Lawful Good goddess of victory over evil; She gives me my spells. - I'd really rather you didn't take the holy symbol but if you just didn't recognize it it's not appropriate for me to conceal its nature from you, it's this," he points at without touching his necklace, of the little dagger with the carefully worked gold wire twisted around it into a sun, "I'm not casting any spells with it and I don't intend to, I did understand that, but you've already taken my holy book -"

"Sorry, no offense intended, books are just inherently a very suspicious kind of object. We didn't know if it was a King in Yellow, or something worse. I don't want to take your holy symbol as long as you promise not to do magic with it and it won't like drive people mad if they look at it."

"It's never done that before or so far as I'm aware even in rumor. - are you not named after Cayden Cailean or is the mandated atheism a relatively recent phenomenon?"

"I've never heard of that person!"

"It's probably a coincidence, then. Is there a neighboring country I can go to where clerics are legal?"

"A couple of countries have a whitelist of specific deities? In America-- this country-- it goes state-by-state. I don't think Iomedae is whitelisted anywhere, but in most of the Midwest you can worship Yig and there are a bunch of states where you can worship Father Dagon and Mother Hydra."

"I don't know those. Is there a process for getting Iomedae whitelisted, if She's just not known here?"

"Whitelisted gods generally have a millennia-long track record of being basically fine? Yig turns people into snakes. Father Dagon and Mother Hydra protect a nonhuman species called Deep Ones. Bast protects cats. Nodens is legal basically everywhere, he does liminal spaces and dreams and the wilderness and he really hates Nyarlathotep."

Caiden has a small Nodens altar at home. Most people on the Mythos force do, never mind what the brass thinks.

"Iomedae isn't even millennia old, She ascended less than one thousand years ago and did not have a dramatically improved lifespan as a human. And if she isn't known here anything I could tell you about Her track record would be, well, filtered through me as a single source of information if you don't want to count the book separately, unless you want to take suggestions of places to scry on my planet."

"Well, does she want to destroy the world or drive humanity extinct or end civilization or parasitize people in any sense literal or metaphorical or devour children or anything like that?"

"No, it's just that I can't imagine your process is willing to take my word for that if you don't already know things like that Iomedae's people aren't allowed to lie or that she's Lawful Good."

"It's evidence. Bet you a bottle of whiskey the high priest is in the other interrogation room telling everyone that humanity is as nothing in the sight of the Great Old Ones and he lives only to hasten their eternal reign."

"...keep your whiskey, but, in that case, Iomedae is Lawful Good, was a paladin in life, opposes the Evil gods and their works on the Material plane, and has written more about her teachings and mortal adventures in the book you put in the half invisible bag."

"You keep saying Lawful Good. We don't have that concept."

"- oh. Uh, there are two alignment axes, Law versus Chaos and Good versus Evil, Neutrality is possible on either axis, both people and gods can be any of the resulting nine alignments. The words 'law' and 'good' seem to exist approximately commonsensically in English though even in the languages of my planet there's some equivocation between formal and broad senses of each."

"This is a... metaphysical classification or a cultural one?"

"Metaphysical; on sufficiently powerful people the alignments can be detected by magic and they affect what afterlife you go to."

...there's something weird about this. 

"--sorry, should have followed up on this earlier. You're from another planet? Are you human or wearing a disguise?"

"I'm a human. Clerics don't really get disguise magic. My planet is called Golarion and while I cannot be certain that this isn't some farflung corner of it, it really doesn't look like it."

"It's not Golarion, we have communication between all parts of the planet inhabited by humans and none of them have clerics of Iomedae. --Sorry, something's funny about all this. How often can you cast?"

"I get four different zeroth-circle spells per day and can cast them as many times as I want, and five single-use first-circle spells, four at second, and two at third, selection sharply limited for one of each of those but the other slots anything a cleric can cast."

"Right. And you can do it every day? People who cast every day don't get-- weird? I can give examples of weirdness if that's too vague."

"I can do it every day. Also I have an imperfect version of a zeroth-circle wizard spell which I can also cast whenever I want. People who cast every day don't get weird. - high circle casters are often somewhat weird but they are usually on inspection people who were always weird, it's a filtering effect on who becomes high circle and to a lesser extent a result of the adventuring career necessary to earn those circles. Third is not relevantly high circle. Under normal circumstances I cast spells upwards of a hundred times per day but that is a little unusual, there is a particular orison I'm very fond of" and NOT CASTING EVEN THOUGH HE REALLY WANTS TO "and perform at little provocation."

"Casters here get-- maybe ten small spells a day at most, unless they're very powerful. Sometimes only one spell, if it's a big spell. They can push past that but then wounds start opening up on their skin, and if they go too far they die. And-- no one can cast hundreds of spells a day without being much, much, much stranger than you are. Even sorcerers who are basically fine are much, much, much stranger than you are."

"...well, that doesn't sound like any of the kinds of casters we have on Golarion and in particular does not sound like the kind I am."

"What's the orison you cast all the time?"

"It's called Guidance. It just makes the subject slightly better at the next thing they do in the next minute. I cast one before I started reading prayers to the cultists so it does work on this planet."

"...that seems important if you're on a new planet."

"- that my magic works here? Well, it would be, if I were allowed to use it right now."

"No, I mean-- being slightly better at everything-- if we head to a park across the street to talk so you can cast as much as you want without fucking up the wards, am I going to regret this decision?"

"I can't predict the - oh, I guess maybe I can predict the future on this planet, prophecy is broken but in a way local to Golarion - anyway maybe but not because I mean you any harm."

"Let's go to the park."

Blai will get up and follow him to the park! And wait for his say-so before he starts spamming Guidance.

"You can now do magic! As long as it's not obvious, obvious magic will freak people out."

"I do have to make a gesture and speak?"

"That's fine, just don't light anything on fire or anything like that."

"Guidance. - would you like one, it's touch range."

"Yes, but mostly just to see what it feels like."

"Guidance."

"...that's not our magic."

"Yours seems... not identical, certainly."

"Right, I'm-- used to it-- I can get a friendly spell without needing to throw up like you did. But I didn't even need to brace myself."

"The spell Share Language is second circle and - it only lasts one day but also it doesn't do the extra part."

"Yeah, that's a Yog-Sothoth spell, they're all like that. Yog-Sothoth is one of the more helpful deities. Too helpful, really, the problem is always getting him to stop."

"...there are a lot of more helpful than that deities operating on Golarion. I've heard the name Yog-Sothoth but I don't know Him to have an active cultic presence there."

"I'm gathering that that's the case! Including whomever decided that everyone needed to have their morality clearly labeled for your convenience. It must make moral decisions so easy."

"...I suppose I don't know how hard they are here, but mind that alignment detection only works on powerful people and only on the people themselves, not individual actions. You can do statistical research but it involves a lot of expensive magic and this all runs off the Creator's opinions anyway, which correlate with but are not identical to the opinions of moral philosophers."

"You can just ask the Good gods what they think?"

"...yes, but that is also expensive magic and mostly limited to yes or no questions."

"Oh. Here you can summon a god and talk to them. It's not a good idea, but you can just do it."

"I can do that with relatively weak outsiders but certainly not gods."

"Well, I guess for talking to a god you'd want a Contact spell, which are usually safer than summons. But the god might still take offense at you and you're still talking to a fundamentally alien superintelligence that has no particular care for your wellbeing."

"I wonder if the gods operating here are just - all Dark Tapestry types, hard for Pharasma to hedge out and not concerned with intervention limitation budgets at all?"

"I don't know what the Dark Tapestry is?"

"My understanding, which I did not get directly from a god and may be flawed in any of the ways mortal knowledge can be, is that Pharasma's Creation including the Material Plane is defended from interference by - other entities as powerful as She is, or at least on that order of magnitude? But that this defense is not absolute, which is why I've even heard of Yog-Sothoth. The gods popular on Golarion have treaties amongst themselves limiting the extent to which they work at fruitless cross-purpose. If this planet is particularly reachable by Dark Tapestry types they would have no real interest in that treaty and maybe they are too strong or not destabilizing enough for Pharasma to act to stop them."

"I have no idea who Pharasma is so I don't know if that's true or not."

(He's too sober. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a flask.)

"The Creator and Judge, goddess of birth and death. Neither Good nor Lawful but mostly benign."

"She hasn't made her presence known here." This isn't what he's supposed to be thinking about, but-- "What's the kind of powerful that matters for the alignment spell?"

"...if I say 'the same kind of powerful that matters for everything else' is that going to be very unhelpful?"

"Like, you rule a country, or are a sorcerer, or are widely beloved by millions, or--"

"Being a sorcerer doesn't do it till nearly third circle - it's exactly third for wizards, sorcerers lag a bit. Martials who never learn to cast any spells can read if they're... the kind of martial who hangs around third circle or better casters, in adventuring contexts, though my career was a military one and that has a different distribution. Ruling a country or being beloved by millions would tend to correlate with having achieved this amount of power on Golarion but are not themselves forms of it."

With surprising intensity: "can you check me?"

"...I don't know but I can prepare for it tomorrow if you'd like. It's something where I could check everyone in a room with one spell so if many people will want to be checked that should be arranged."

"Most people won't believe you. I shouldn't but I have-- a gut feeling. You don't feel like a cultist."

"You might still want to have people checked so you have the data for later if the evidence mounts satisfyingly."

He sounds like he's quoting. "Police officers are not to voluntarily become targets of magic without approval from Magical Resources or a bona fide emergency situation as defined under subsection whatthefuckever."

"The spell targets me, it just lets me see a thing about what I'm looking at that I usually can't. But if that's immaterial to the regulation I can cast it and look only at volunteers approved by Magical Resources - are you in that department -"

"Oh, they'd never approve it unless it's to solve a case. I guess I could pack you off with Dr. Aarons to be a test subject-- he's the one who cast the spell."

"...I do not really want him to cast more spells on me. At any rate I don't think I had better go around breaking or helping people break your organizational regulations."

"Why?" he says in genuine bafflement.

"I'm Lawful."

"Remember we don't have that on my planet."

"...are you asking for more explanation of Law or trying to assure me that no one will hold me to it."

"The former. I wouldn't dream of telling you to go against your values unless your values involve sacrificing humanity to the Great Old Ones."

"- so, you could tell me that this rule is fake, that it hasn't been enforced in thirty years, that three other rules which do get followed contradict it in routine situations, that the Magical Resources department was co-opted by cultists of some tentacled thing at the time the handbook you quoted was written. Someone having an idea for a rule and writing it down isn't the thing that can make it important, on its own. But if any weight is being put on the regulations you operate by at all, I don't want to be the force that destabilizes them. I don't want to make it necessary for anyone who actually cares about the consistency with which they describe reality to spend effort and resources on checking and following up. I don't want to make it harder for any other organizations you work with to trust that you hold to your self-description. I spent twenty years regularly trusting my life and those of the men I commanded to the strength of a treaty between dire enemies with a lot more weight behind that enmity than someone getting their alignment read without asking their superiors for permission. It held. Things like that should hold and I will hold them."

"It's not a bad rule. Most people should follow it. --That's not the kind of relationship any cop has to the rules, really. The difference between a good cop and a bad cop is that a good cop knows why the rules are there and when you ought to break them. A bad cop takes bribes or fakes evidence or gets scared and shoots someone and says they had a gun. A good cop-- knows when you should enforce the law and when you should pretend you don't see things-- or when to clock out and then keep working, because it matters--"

"Well, it sounds like you have good cops and bad cops and not very many Lawful cops, and I'm not a cop nor such an expert on your work that I'd presume to say how you should do it. There exists Good work that can't be done Lawfully. But I'm not going to break your regulations for you and if I come to expect that you're concealing them strategically I will accordingly get less useful. - I think we've gotten onto a tangent from whether it can be arranged that it be legal to worship Iomedae."

"I'm not going to hide the regulations now that I know, I want to be on your side."

"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."

"Demons we haven't had to deal with, I don't think. What are they?"

"Chaotic Evil outsiders. The Abyss is within Creation, they're not inherently maddening to comprehend, but they're, well, Chaotic Evil."

"And you're sure they're actually bad?"

"...yes, I am sure demons are actually bad."

"You have to admit, an Outer God classifying people as Evil and not-Evil, they might not agree with us on what that means."

"Pharasma's Judgment mostly correlates with human judgment so far as I'm aware; it's her sentencing that the forces of Good take issue with."

"--honestly that's not the weirdest possible Outer God situation. Fine. Complaint retracted."

"There are probably petitioners in the Abyss who aren't that bad, who were Maledicted there or who came off unusually poorly at trial. But once they become demons, no."

"What the fuck????"

"The Abyss is an afterlife. That's... the problem with Pharasma's sentencing, that there are Evil afterlives."

"There are what???"

"Alignment in life with Good, Evil, Chaos, Law, or the intermediate point on either spectrum decides which afterlife a soul goes to."

"Souls survive after death???? In the normal case????"

"Yes. - I mean, in the Abyss and also particularly in Abaddon they are sometimes then eaten. But yes. This is also how resurrections work."

"No, resurrections work by yoinking your soul forward in time from the point of your death with the power of Yog-Sothoth. --Or occasionally reducing you to your essential salts and bringing you back, but people tend to come back wrong that way even if no cat hair gets accidentally mixed in."

"...I've personally raised the dead to life, albeit only with scrolls, and I did not require Yog-Sothoth or salt to do it."

"Have we had an afterlife all along???"

"Probably? I can't cast the spells that would let you check up on anyone you knew."

"Because it's illegal or because you don't know how?"

"Because I'm not powerful enough. I could do a Sending at fourth circle, a Scrying at fifth, but I'm third."

"A sorcerer admitting they can't do something, will wonders never cease."

"I'm a cleric, not a sorcerer. If you wanted to count my fractional cantrip, which would be very strange, I could be construed as a wizard. Sorcerers cast the same range of spells as wizards for the most part but they're born with them rather than learning them or getting them from a god."

"For us, the division is 'ponies'-- as in 'one-trick pony'-- who are trying to keep their sanity intact and so can only cast a few times a year, and 'sorcerers' who aren't and can cast nearly as much as they like, and 'psychics' who are like what you call sorcerers except they can only do one thing each. We don't distinguish clerics and wizards, or else don't have them. "

"It seems plausible you just don't have them. I'd be a little surprised if clerics were limited to Golarion in particular as a phenomenon but not astonished and wizardry seems likely to be very contingent."

"--Question, when you're dressed like this, is it because magic sticks better to medieval armor for some reason, or is that actually your tech level?"

"...I suspect based on the exact nature of my confusion at that sentence that it's the second thing."

"Do you know about, uh, computers? Nukes? The steam engine? The printing press?"

"No."

"...well, this is going to be a headache. I think there's a pamphlet online somewhere. Care to go back into the police building given that you've decided you can't do magic anyway? --Also, you're free to go whenever you want. I don't think this is a good idea, because you don't know anything about how this world works, but if you want to I can't stop you."

"As you say I do not know anything about how the world works and am willing to return with you, ideally as soon as possible to speak to the department that can whitelist my goddess. - if they do that is there any chance of me getting my holy book back."

"You're going to object to me ensuring it is lost from the evidence locker, right?"

"Probably but I might pray about it a lot first. Once I'm allowed to do that. I've only read it all the way through once."

"You are difficult to build rapport with. Normally I build rapport with sorc-- illegal magic users by breaking rules for them."

"Oh, if you want to build rapport with me we should play chess. I guess I don't know if you have it here."

"Not only do we have chess, we have computer chess. It's great. You'll love it. Let's head back to the police station and I'll show you."

"Is that a variant?" Blai follows agreeably.

"We are, uh, better at causing the universe to do things, but not in the magic way, in the engineering way? And one of the things we can do is make metal think-- nonmagically-- and then sometimes we can get the thinking metal to play chess."

"Is that how the constructs work?"

"You mean the cars?"

"Yes, those."

"The cars normally don't think-- well, most of them do now, sort of, but-- we're very good at getting metal to do things nonmagically. Like thinking or going very fast."

"I don't think I can render down 'nonmagically' here into anything other than 'won't show up to a Detect Magic spell', which is traditionally achieved with more magic. I'm willing to take your word for it, but it's not - explanatory."

"Sorry, I was very bad at school. I don't know how they work either, and I don't know what kind of technology to expect you to have. Um. You have... forges? Because of the armor?"

"Yes."

"It's like making something in a forge. Except... really complicated somethings, with a lot of pieces, that do cool stuff."

"Like a watch?"

"Yes! Like a very complicated watch."

"I will bear in mind that things here that look magic are probably more like complicated watches though I don't think this will change all that much about how I relate to them, at least not before I'd be allowed to cast Detect Magic."

And they arrive at the police station, where Dr. Aarons is arguing loudly with a receptionist. 

"Under Section 425 of the Yith Accords I am entitled to interview all off-planet visitors from novel planets within 48 hours of confirmation of their extraplanetary status--"

"No one thought that would ever come up when they signed the damn Accords."

"Well, maybe they should have thought of that before trying to get one over on the time-traveling immortals."

"- if there's a treaty under which you're entitled to interview me of course you should be allowed to interview me. Uh, by your own people, I'm not a signatory, but I don't object."

"I'm Dr. Aarons, one of the Great Race of Yith," Dr. Aarons says, as if expecting Blai to know exactly what this means.

"I'm afraid I'm not acquainted, but I am not the one with a treaty entitling me to interview you. Thank you for the language, incidentally, I was not in quite the frame of mind for etiquette at the time but it's useful."

"You're welcome. It's a useful little spell."

"You have magic and don't know the Yith? What planet are you from again?"

"Golarion. It's the one with Rovagug the Destroyer sealed inside it."

"Oh, right, that one. I liked Aroden when he came to visit, have you met him?"

"He's dead. Hundred years ago. It broke prophecy on Golarion among other disasters. I'm a cleric of the Inheritor's, though, Iomedae."

"Sorry, I'm not a Golarion expert, I have no idea who that is. --You actually weren't scheduled for a new extraplanetary visitor for this body's expected lifespan. Isn't the unpredictability of history exciting?"

"I hate Yithians," he says to no one in particular.

He seems perfectly pleasant to Blai! "One of Aroden's saints, who ascended the same way He did. Lawful Good goddess of victory over evil and triage."

"Seems like a nice person. --Most information about the Great Race of Yith is secret from those who aren't Yith, but relevantly for you we are the keepers of all historical, anthropological, economic, scientific, magical and artistic knowledge in Pharasma's Creation. We also exist on Golarion, of course, but-- is Geryon active on Golarion?"

"Yes - well, Hell in general recently became much less active on Golarion, but about as much as any archdevil."

"That'd be why, then, even if magic is known we tend not to make ourselves known on planets with Geryon. Makes things too easy for him, you understand."

"I can imagine that being a major constraint for an archival project, yes."

"Well, if we can schedule an interview for-- say-- noon to 5pm tomorrow, followup interviews as necessary, I will be greatly obliged and will have no further need to trouble you."

"I'm not currently aware of any competing demands on my time, though if the availability of the department that can whitelist my goddess is limited I'd be inclined to schedule around them."

"I'm sure they can accommodate."

He departs. 

"Yithians."

"I really don't mind giving him an interview!"

"Oh, yeah, he's just going to want to ask you a lot of extremely specific questions about what kinds of boots you wear and what motivates you to stop learning languages and whether you studied poetry in third grade."

"Poetry was not a - I guess you don't care about the answers to any of those questions."

"They were not chosen to be the most interesting to me but I generally find talking to someone from a completely different planet interesting."

"Well, if he doesn't want me until noon tomorrow and I can't yet meet with anyone who can whitelist Iomedae I can answer questions that are interesting to you. Though if someone who can do that might be available I would like to... check."

"Yeah. I'll get on that. But first I will show you computer chess."

Caiden sits Blai in front of a computer, calls up Chess.com, and says, "see, you can get the computer to play against you."

Blai does not know how to operate a computer, but once he figures out how you click on things, he is soon absorbed in playing chess against one of the chess.com bots.

And Caiden is off to call in favors and subtly bring up blackmail material until someone rearranges their schedule to screen Blai. 

Jane joined the Commission on Demonic Affairs fresh out of Miskatonic with a dual major in management and History with a concentration in modern non-human relations. The Commission, for reasons she quietly assumes are magical given what they do, has not changed its name from the late 1600s even as relationships with non-human and non-earth persons have warmed substantially. These days it's really more about oversight and safety: labor regulations and whistleblowing opportunities for ponies, being an honest broker when Miskatonic and the cops and the feds all want something (or someone), monitoring the more active sorcerers without offending them, consulting for the rest of the government on anything from "is it safe to build underwater here" to "can we use magic to do this? should we?" (almost certainly someone can; you probably don't want to pay the price and almost certainly don't want to take the risks). 

Caiden is not a headache. He cares about people, never forgetting either side of the relationship, and the last time her office got a complaint about him it was because he'd burnt books that were illegal to possess, even in Louisiana. Also he has a very cute smile: that helps. Particularly when he needs someone to certify someone from an entirely new church. It's fine, she can handle it, and he really didn't need to bring up the assistance she'd gotten for her last promotion. Glowing letters from across government are helpful in their line of work, and it wasn't like she had explicitly asked him for that mild embellishment of being in the room and helping when the event happened. So it's all good. She can come by this afternoon. If he wants to owe her, she can come by this evening and talk the guy through the process before an official interview tomorrow. She'd been planning on lobster rolls tonight.

"I'll ask him."

He trots over to Blai. "I have a question for you."

"Just a moment -" He's found out how to make the games faster. He loses this one and doesn't start another right away. "Yes?"

"Commission on Demonic Affairs-- don't look at me, I didn't name it-- says they can do an interview this afternoon, or they can do one tomorrow afternoon and the interviewer can swing by this evening to walk you through the process and make sure you don't say anything you don't mean."

"Do I seem likely to make some kind of misstep without that walkthrough?"

"Not sure. You're from a very different culture and I don't know what you don't know."

"I don't think I'm likely to say things I literally don't mean but I could be - impolitic? I don't know how much these things tend to turn on that."

"Jane's an honorable person, I don't think she'll try to trip you up on purpose."

"Then I'd like the sooner interview."

Then Caiden will leave him to play computer chess until interview time. 

Jane tells her boss that she's been asked to do an emergency interview for someone who showed up as a result of a summoning but seems to be trying to cooperate. He knows Caiden Callahan, right? Boston PD, survived that case three years ago with the mass summoning attempt. And she's caught up on the rest of her work. 

After the '63 incident the Boston elite strongly indicated their preference that most Mythos storage and activity be somewhere other than downtown, so she has to schlep out to Braintree on the red line. At least it's not a long walk: she needs the heels, at her height. Metal detector, Elder Sign check, chat with the receptionist at the front desk for three minutes (talking about the weather or your family, while it may not be enjoyable, turns out to be a surprisingly effective check, and she's not going to bully her way past it), directions, and she's walking into the interview room with her laptop bag in one hand and a folder in the other. This isn't going to be particularly easy, but she can hope.

"Jane Donahue, Commission on Demonic Affairs: pleased to meet you." Normal social rituals are important. 

"Select Blai Artigas, cleric of Iomedae. Thank you for coming by."

"Thank you. From what Caiden tells me you're a new arrival to earth and doing your best to be helpful, so I am pleased to welcome you. I understand you're applying for a license for the Church of Iomedae to handle Mythos knowledge and artifacts in Massachusetts, with you as its current sole representative?"

"- that's actually somewhat beside my main aim here, I don't know if I would be particularly good at interacting with the artifacts or anything like that. I am given to understand that it is currently illegal to worship Iomedae or use magic granted by Her. She is a Lawful god and I am a Lawful person and I do not intend to violate this prohibition while it stands, but it prevents me from doing a lot of useful things that are routinely usable without driving anyone insane. It has not even been made clear to me if there is anywhere else on this planet I can physically travel to where it will be legal for me to pray for and cast spells, perform healings, or use my domain powers. It's not even obvious if it would be legal for me to ask Her to withdraw my powers so that she has more to spend elsewhere in creation, should I be trapped here for the foreseeable future and obliged not to seek contact with my goddess."

"So, using magic is not illegal by itself: there are too many sorcerers who would react badly to that. Worship as a purely mental action that does not cause observable effects is also not illegal, so if withdrawing her powers from you did not make your limbs fall off or age you rapidly or lose your eyesight, that would be allowed. However, teaching others about Iomedae, possessing written documents about Iomedae and her rituals, engaging in group rituals, causing consensual mental damage via exposure to the Mythos, or financially benefitting from magic including casting spells as part of employment is illegal. Furthermore, if anything does go wrong as a result of your magic use not having a responsible organization is much more likely to result in your rapid execution. If you are just doing magic solely by yourself, for no benefit or harm to anyone, without teaching anyone or studying from any non-exempt mythos texts, you don't have to register. But we designed the process during the 60s to better accommodate friendly churches: I really think that this will be the best way forward for you. Caiden mentioned a book that you had when you arrived, and this would almost certainly be required to get it back without a specialist verifying that it contains no harmful knowledge, which would take much longer and be more expensive. But if you don't want to continue, I have no intention of making you."

"- it is gratifying to know that prayer that does not grant spells is permissible and that private casting is as well, if I understand you correctly. Some spells I possess are recyclable indefinitely and I would not need to re-prepare them to use them for myself. I don't know if that is enough for it to be worth Iomedae's investment to continue to empower me as Her cleric but, should I explain the situation to Her and find the magic withdrawn, this is known to be survivable without any such obviously deleterious effects.

"I am not familiar with how you are using the word 'Mythos'. There are spells that negatively affect the mind but very few of them are impairing beyond a few minutes, and even so, refraining from those specifically would be much less limiting than refraining from spells that, for instance, cure blindness, or provide me with breathable air in smoke or water, or allow me to carry heavy objects more easily, or stabilize a dying person. I do not generally perform magic that calls for group ritual. I am not presently qualified to teach anyone about Iomedae even with my holy book, for personal background reasons, but don't know if you mean to include just mentioning that She exists and has Her basic traits. I cannot teach anyone to perform my divine magic; cleric spells are granted by gods and Iomedae is vanishingly unlikely to choose any clerics on this planet for the foreseeable future.

"I would like my holy book back and to be able to support myself and Good causes with spellcasting, if you think that is possible to arrange."

"It makes sense that you are from a different planet and would not be familiar with our categorization scheme. Human minds are not well-equipped to handle many Activities, Concepts, and Experiences that human science currently struggles to understand. This centrally includes all magic, observing some entities in various states, exposure to certain works of art, and certain explanations of facts about the broader nature of the universe and the species within it. Witnessing magic is not particularly likely to cause serious harm, but using it or studying it generally will. It is possible that the magic that you have access to operates differently, but our commission will be very skeptical of such a claim: there have been many sorcerers who insisted that they had some technique such that they were unharmed, and they have a higher murder and suicide rate than average, at least of those we track. Iomedae is what we would call a mythos entity, though from what you have said it seems she is a relatively benign one, and if you were summon any servants of hers that would also count."

"If you have a conversation with me or Caiden to convey basic facts about Iomedae, that is permissible. If you try to convince others to worship her, speak about how others may worship her, or do the equivalent for performing rituals of her, sacrifices to her, or similar, that is not permissible without permission. You're an unusual case," like most of them" so some of our normal rules and regulations aren't going to fit you quite smoothly, but we can do our best to work through the process together. Once that's done you'll be eligible to get your book back, and the Boston Police Department will be authorized to ask your for assistance and offer payment for consulting services, same as they are allowed to do with other Authorized Mythos Institutions. You're not just restricted to working with them, of course: Miskatonic would almost certainly pay handsomely for spellcasting. Working in a hospital might not be viable, so stabilizing the actively dying will not be of much use, but curing blindness would be very helpful to many people and would be legal activity."

"Since it seems like you want to begin..."

She takes out her laptop and starts filling in the form. "You're the only member of your church in Massachusetts that you are certain of, yes?"

"That's correct."

"And Iomedae, the Church of Iomedae, and you the representative intend to follow the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States of America? You also have to swear under penalty of perjury that your organization does not now, nor has it within the past century, regularly practiced human sacrifice, intentionally exposed unwilling or unwitting humans to harmful Mythos effects except lawfully or in cooperation with law enforcement, or plotted or worked towards the overthrow of the government of the United States."

"I intend to follow those laws, though I do not know them all and could be mistaken about whether that will be possible. The church of Iomedae does not now and has not within the past century practiced human sacrifice. To the best of my knowledge the church has no specific knowledge that the United States exists and has not attempted and will not attempt its overthrow. If Mythos effects include all magic, then the fact that, on my planet, magic is routinely used in self-defense, warfare, espionage, et cetera, including between humans and human countries, might qualify as exposing unwilling humans to harmful effects, but the church and its members would do so according to the conventional Golarion rules of engagement that they advertise themselves as abiding by, following applicable treaties to which the relevant organizations were signatory and accepting surrenders where possible and abiding by strict standards for the treatment of prisoners and so on."

"For your information, use Mythos artifacts and magic in war is legally controversial, having been banned by some international agreements, though the US government currently reserves the right to do so in the future while stating it does not employ Mythos effects. But I am going to mark that down as lawful use for the locality in question, which is all this one needs."

"For this one, I'm supposed to verify to my satisfaction that your Mythos artifact handling procedures meet all requirements for anything you want to handle. The easiest solution would be for you to say that the Church will follow instructions and procedures from a government entity, which can include the Boston Police Department, for all Mythos artifacts and media or equivalent procedures of greater safety, that anyone in the church handling them will receive training from said government entity on safe handling, and that we will go over the results in two years when the license gets reauthorized. Does that work for you?" 

"Probably, but I'm not sure what the instructions and procedures would... be."

"If you want to fill in the rest but delay submission until you've gone over them, we can. But saying that you will follow what BPD says and you will have yourself trained formally on their procedures is sufficient, and the Commission also holds regular courses on safe handling where we share our best practices with a range of other groups for useful cross-training and experience sharing. You're not obligated to stick with the Boston Police Department, just be following procedures at least as secure as some government entity at all times."

"The only artifact I want to handle is the book, which - no, I guess that's not true, if all magic is technically also a Mythos artifact my mace and armor would also qualify, but I'd miss them less. Do you have some general sense of whether I would be allowed to read my book, perhaps exclusively in private while obliged not to try to translate it into English, under some accessible set of procedures?"

"Creating Mythos media in an accessible language, for example, one widely spoken on earth and not Enochian, R'lyehan, or Yithian, would be much more legally complicated. I would advise against it, at least for now. Possessing the book and reading from it would be acceptable in almost all areas provided that while doing so you remain conscious and capable of physically defending it and you are willing to certify that you are a capable combatant. You said magic is used in self-defense and warfare and that you can use magic to cure blindness, and you're wearing armor, so I imagine that you are as capable as a police officer is required to be. You would probably have to lock the book up in a safe when not in use, and I don't remember the key-handling procedures off the top of my head but I know cops take work home sometimes."

"What do your armor and mace do?"

"I think locking up the Acts when I'm not reading them would probably be fine. I have twenty years of military experience at an active front on my home planet. They're not very interesting, they're just slightly better at being armor and a weapon respectively. My mace was taken when I was brought in but they didn't seem to want the chainmail and I don't have a place to put it."

"I'm going to chew Caiden and quite possibly a few other people out about that later, but it isn't your fault or your problem. Just take it off and submit it to them to be stored with your mace before I make it back to my office and everything will be legal."

"You will swear that the Church of Iomedae has not had more than one accidental mass casualty event, one causing more than fifty deaths, in the past century per thousand worshippers? That would include armed conflict if the deaths were unintended and caused by the Church of Iomedae in the sense that a member of the Church cast a spell, not including "we were attacked and not everybody survived". You can instead swear to the best of your knowledge and that you reasonably believe you would know if so, and if you find out otherwise will immediately report it."

He starts the process of removing the chaimail. "I actually probably wouldn't know, my history education was - wait, per thousand worshipers, like it doesn't count if this happened ten times as long as there are more than ten thousand people who worship Iomedae at any given time? I think that rate would be sufficiently embarrassing for the church of Iomedae that I would in fact have heard about it from hostile sources, actually, and I do not believe it to be the case that there are accidental mass casualty events where the casualties are unintended and precipitated by a church member at anywhere near that rate. I could imagine - suicide attacks, declining to come to the aid of allies in an unsalvageable position, somebody channeling positive energy and killing an unexpected friendly dhampir, casting through hostages to get at an urgent threat like a demon - but it's actually pretty hard to kill more than fifty people by casting a single spell in any normal combat situation."

He has the fitness of someone with 20 years of experience at active fronts. Not nearly as many scars as she would have expected, though. Presumably people at a tech level where they still wear chainmail just die if they're injured that badly. 

"This would include a single person in the church deciding to kill more than 50 members or civilians without blackmail or a similar mitigating factor, with insanity pointedly not being such a mitigating factor, even if it took them multiple spells. I suspect that many mass casualty events are the result of a person casting a spell multiple times. But it seems like none of those occur at a high frequency in the Church of Iomedae. You are very lucky, to have magic so friendly."

"Tell me about your plans and goals for the next two years, as an organization. You said you wanted to use magic to support yourself financially and aid good causes, right?"

"If someone tried to spend multiple spells to continue killing a lot of people who were not supposed to be dead, Iomedae would take their magic away, unless something especially weird were going on. I suppose if you mean to include wizards who are signed on to Iomedaean knightly orders or suchlike it would be slightly less unlikely because She wouldn't be able to pull their spells, but not by enough that it could possibly approach that rate of fatality.

"I am flexible about the details, as I have been on this planet for less than a day and don't know where it most needs the kinds of support I am able to provide. Cleric magic is, compared to other Golarion magic, most specialized for healing, but I could also be preparing divinations, including translation spells that could have obviated the 'pony' spell cast on me earlier today to grant me English, or providing assorted protective and enhancing spells to law enforcement - which, to be clear, I strongly expect will not drive anyone even slightly insane - or participating directly in combat situations. I am not religiously required to charge money for these services but I expect to need to, since I don't have a lot of other skills that will make sense on another planet. Even if the military experience were useful it's all against demons and involved a lot of magic use, for instance, and it doesn't sound like it'd be a good idea at all for me to try to start a church, which is fine because I'm not qualified and Iomedae is having some budgetary issues which makes it unlikely She could invest in one right now."

Either everyone in the Iomedean cult church is mildly possessed somehow, or something strange about his magic is going on. It's not on the form, and she doesn't want to cause him trouble. He seems like he wants to help.

Sure, probably some religions require charging money for spells. That's a reasonable thing, really, by the standards of the multiverse.

"Alright, magical support to registered organizations, beneficent use of magic, worship without proselytization. If any of that does change, you will have my number and it will be helpful if you give me a heads up. Categories that would be different would include trying to learn new spells and communicating with Mythos entities".  

"I think that, after you have been on this planet for a few years and demonstrated that your style of magic does not drive you or others insane, there may be interest by the Commission in someone other than Iomedae investing in starting a church. But that's something we can talk about later."

"Is Iomedae more like an abstract concept, or a single very powerful non-human entity?"

"The latter. She was originally a human, hundreds of years ago, and ascended to godhood by means of an artifact left for that purpose on my planet by the god Aroden, Whom she worshiped in life and who Himself was an ascended mortal. He died about a hundred years ago, if that matters."

Aroden sounds concerning. That Aroden died sounds much more concerning. Something killed an entity capable of ascending others to something capable of communicating with large numbers of cultists. But there wasn't a sharp uptick in problems a century ago, and she is going to assume it is still not causing problems.

"Do you know the name of the entity that killed Aroden?"

If he has a religious objection to a whitelisted cult that could be an issue.

"The cause of His death is disputed. Asmodeus claims responsibility but other sources suggest it just didn't work very well when He tried to instantiate himself on Golarion to bring about the prophesied Age of Glory. - the present age is instead called Lost Omens, His death caused various problems including breaking prophecy."

She's never heard of that deity. "Could you write down that name for me, Azmodius? Ideally in as many scripts as you know it. He sounds like an entity to be wary of, if the claim was even plausible."

Aroden broke an entire category of magic when he died. It sounds like Blai has a different set of Entities running around, doing very strange things. She still thinks she's jealous of them, with not driving people insane for learning magic. It's why she's never touched spells, as nice as a life of mostly vacation time sounds sometimes.

"Do you have any questions for me, or anything you think I should have asked about but didn't?"

"Yes, I wouldn't recommend whitelisting Him." He writes it down in Taldane and Infernal and does his best to transliterate into Roman characters for her too. "Do I need a travel pass or to register with any other state entities to be able to move about this city?"

It doesn't even slightly hurt to look at the symbols! Good for both of them, really.

"It's mostly intended for Yith, but we've got a form for New Resident Registration. Testimony from Caiden and someone else on his team that you were clearly summoned will be sufficient, and it's designed to let them handle most of the details since many non-humans are not familiar with forms. Since you do not have a specific plan to return, as I understand it, that's probably the easiest route. That will get you a green card in under a week, since it is designed to meet treaty obligations. Until then it is legal to move about within the borders of the United States on public roads and property except in certain designated government locations that will have clear signs saying that you can't. Not having ID could cause a lot of confusion and stress, though, so get Caiden to give you his badge number and phone number in case you run into any problems with police officers. A driver's license will take longer...do you know what a car is? How to operate one?"

"I have been in one but do not know how to operate one."

"They're useful for getting around, but learning to operate one is something you can only do after the rest is sorted. For now I will mark you down as Select Blai Artigas, head of the Church of Iomedae in Massachusetts, social security number pending, address pending, domestic criminal record none, other criminal record none. I'll submit the form when I get back to the office, unless Caiden calls me with something urgent, and I'll make sure it gets handled quickly. You should have your book and armor and mace back in less than a week. We're deliberately overstaffed for most months, and at the moment we're not in a crisis."

Well, submitted after she has someone in the library take a careful look at the scripts for Azmodius and verifies that there's no higher priority action to be taken there. Just another in the very long list of Do Not Engages, most likely. And confirms that none of the scripts he wrote in match something someone knows, or seem to cause harm to the paper, or start spreading to adjacent text, or anything like that.

"Thank you ma'am."

Caiden meets him as he leaves. "How'd it go?"

"I think it went well. I am supposed to ask you to store my armor, as it is magic." Here it is all folded up. "The padding isn't but it would be somewhat ridiculous to wear without the mail."

"Ohhhhhh I am going to get chewed out about that. I am going to chew me out about that."

"The mace is also magic, if that implies different storage procedures than you were using, but it's just those two things, magic items are expensive."

"Well, I mean, you're the expert on storage procedures."

"They don't do anything when not in use. They're just a little better at being armor and a weapon respectively. Magic items that do fancy things like go straight through armor or also make the wearer more resistant to poison or something are more expensive."

"I'll arrange for them to be stored the usual way. I'd feel bad about you not having your accustomed magical items, so-- magic users hate that, but I think it doesn't matter too much because you're not going to be hitting people with a mace anyway?"

"Well, being unarmed and unarmored does make me more vulnerable if anything should attack me but you'd know more than I would about how likely that is here. Commissioner - is that the right title? - Donahue said it would be fine to cast magic privately, so if I do get savaged by something perhaps I can just duck out of sight and heal myself once the fight is over."

"Getting attacked-- it's not that it never happens but I wouldn't expect it to happen if you don't join a gang or provoke people at bars or walk late at night in a bad neighborhood."

"I do not frequent bars nor do I wish to join a gang, but am not confident of my ability to, on a strange planet, avoid provoking people or identify bad neighborhoods."

"I'm... getting the sense your world is much more violent than ours in a way where clarifying where the bad neighborhoods are may not help."

"That's possible. If you were to walk from here to the next city and back on a regular basis how many times do you think you could make the trip before being attacked?"

"Uh. A couple of thousand? More?"

"...then it seems completely appropriate to have a norm of people not going around armed."

"Yeah, I'd be more worried about you getting confused and attacking someone in what you think is self-defense than I would about you actually getting attacked."

Nod nod. "I would expect to run into a monster or a highwayman or a band of orcs or something of that nature between any two cities in Cheliax at least half the time. Within the city I'd consider going without the armor, it slows me down, but I'd carry the mace and it would be understood in that context very differently than it sounds like it would be here."

"People would assume you were wearing a costume and if they discovered it was an actual mace, I-- don't actually know what they would think, no one carries maces. Open-carry of guns will freak people out though."

"Open-carry as opposed to - hiding it and not making it visible that you're armed? Is that common? I associate that mostly with the kind of person who has so many knives that it would be impractical to display them all; usually you want to make it clear at a glance, if you're not a soft target."

"I think we normally assume that the police will deal with things, so if you're carrying a weapon it says 'I want to start shit.'"

"And your response time is fairly good, I gather."

"Could be worse, but honestly people mostly just don't attack each other."

"That's good! - She also recommended that I get your badge and 'phone' numbers in case anything comes up in the next week before I get a 'green card'."

"Here you go." He scribbles them on a piece of paper. "We should see about getting you a phone, actually."

"What is... a phone."

"A very small computer you can hold in your hand."

"I assume this lets me do something more important than play chess with you."

"It lets you contact me and also access a library of nearly all information in the world. And a bunch of stuff that people made up."

"...is the stuff people made up easily distinguishable from your messages and all the information in the world?"

He takes out his phone and demonstrates calling, text messages, and upon reflection how to add numbers to your contacts. "You can go on the Internet-- that's the library-- here, and-- uh-- stuff on Wikipedia is basically accurate, the rest of the Internet maybe not. I wonder if I can get you a book on Internet safety." 

"...wow. How many times a day is is usable - or is it minutes per day? - how expensive is it - I suppose I have no sense of the local currency yet anyway -"

"You can theoretically use it 24 hours a day and some teenagers have. You need to plug it in to charge"-- he demonstrates-- "when this bar looks empty. A phone costs-- maybe a day's wages? And then maybe half a day's wages per month in order for it to continue to have all its functions. --But the Boston Police Department can pay for yours."

"...can they do that because I am going to be useful in some way, I'm still sort of unclear on that."

"You got summoned by a summoning spell, so as best as I can figure you're a Mythos entity and it is the job of the Mythos Division to deal with you, which in this case means 'explaining to you how the world works and getting you the necessities of life until you're settled in and can fend for yourself' instead of the more usual 'killing.'"

"If you say so."

"If it'd make you feel better I can pay for it out of my own pocket."

"It - makes sense that the organization considers itself responsible for - squaring me away. I just also have no job skills that make sense on this planet if I'm not supposed to use magic in a room that has anyone else in it, and that also makes me a much worse investment for Iomedae's budget."