"It might be worthwhile to have some event where a paladin just stands in front of everyone who wants to see and says under Abadar's Truth that they're not allowed to lie. ...do you want to say more about that, or...?"

"Ah, but what if people don't believe that Abadar's Truth works the way that it's claimed, that there aren't exceptions for powerful enough people? That'll get you some people, but I'm not sure if it'll be most people. Though it would get you most everyone to stop disbelieving out loud." 

Another shrug. 

"It wouldn't do much more for me, in any case." 

"I don't know that people merely disbelieving quietly is an improvement; it seems likely it's not, we won't know when to provide more evidence where we have it."

"If people act like something is true for long enough, they probably eventually believe it, and I'm not sure it's possible to do better than that, here. If the things that they're being asked to pretend to believe are good for them to pretend that's... as good as institutions can get. 

- That's how I feel, when interacting with institutions, anyway. They tell me what to pretend to believe about them and I choose to pretend to believe it, and everything else is between me and my faith and whatever person I'm talking to." 

"I suspect you're not alone in that but it somewhat hamstrings a Good institution to be received that way."

“Yes, I can see that. But - 

I keep asking more philosophical questions rather than more personal ones, despite being more interested in the personal. Feels… safer, even though the specifics of these questions wouldn’t have been safe in the past regardless.

- Why did you choose to serve Him?” 

"It... did not feel like a choice, at the time, by design. It didn't seem like anything about the situation that I could control could go any better in any way that mattered."

She purses her lips. 

"Is this some sort of Law thing? Does that make you more susceptible to believing that there's only one thing to do, that there are no choices, because the rules say so? 

I - don't understand how it can not feel like a choice to be a cleric of a god - I suppose I didn't choose the Dreamer when I was first chosen, exactly, I didn't even know who she was. But I would have chosen her if I had known and I choose her again every morning when I pray for spells and every time I lay down to rest, and in my dreams besides." 

"I didn't actually choose Iomedae either, She surprised me."

"And does it still not feel like a choice, to stay Hers?" 

"I could renounce Her but I do not remotely wish to do that. It... doesn't come naturally to me to think of that as something I am actively doing. Taking actions because I believe they're how I can best serve Her is something I'm actively doing, but when I'm just - existing, being Her cleric, that doesn't feel like making a decision. I might be unusual in this."

"I could believe that it's a difference between Law and Chaos. Or at least this explanation feels confusing to me in the same ways.

I don't think think I'm mostly taking actions because of - a desire to serve. If I stopped being a cleric of Desna I would still want to act in the world in the same way, I would just be worse at it. 

What would you do if you stopped being a cleric of Iomedae? What were you planning on doing when you were no longer a cleric of His?" 

"- it might depend on why I stopped? It was - then - important to me that all the other clerics were dropped too, the same morning, that it was nothing about me, that I hadn't made some - by my framework at the time - terrible mistake. I still had my temporal orders, though, to hold the Worldwound, so I focused on that. I didn't make any other plans. I was pretty surprised my men didn't up and murder me, my second in command was personally loyal but only a second circle wizard and couldn't have held them off if they'd made a concerted effort."

There’s a lengthy pause. 

“That doesn’t -

- I don’t know that there is any kind of explanation that a priest of Asmodeus could have ever given me that would have made sense to me so I shouldn’t be surprised that I haven’t found one here, either.”

She looks down at her baby, who is now sleeping peacefully. 

"I wish I had a better explanation, but there just aren't actually a lot of good reasons that hold up to scrutiny in a better situation, to be an Asmodean. A lot of seminary was about blocking off the possibility of that scrutiny, the possibility of demanding good reasons, the possibility of a better situation."

“Thank you for trying to explain anyway, I’m sure you get this question constantly and it must be tiresome.

I - hope that you don’t eventually feel that way about the life that you’re currently living. Since you don’t feel you chose it either. It’s a way to be that is less confusing to me but -

Most people choose things today because of choices that were made for them yesterday. And I want them to be free to choose today but I also want to help free them from the effects of choices that were made for them. And I want them to do good things. And mostly I don’t know how to balance these. 

- And in any case I should be more focused on the convention and less on the ministry that I’ll resume afterwards - but I have even less of an idea of how to go about that.”

Why is this such an unreasonably discomfiting way for someone to be. If he were held at swordpoint and forced to either renounce or reaffirm Iomedae he could just do the second thing, this person has no power to lock him in a featureless vacuum with no clues and make him choose stuff in it until she's satisfied that his desperate terror is the officially free kind! She is just talking and if he doesn't like it that doesn't matter! "I think there should be a lot of priorities higher than checking up on clerics of Iomedae, for a ministry concerned with releasing people from past entrapments. If nothing else as a point of theology She's concerned with not using people against their purposes when they come to Her in alliance."

"-oh, I agree that there are higher priorities than checking up on clerics of Iomedae, half of that was me musing on this general kind of thing... being a puzzle for me, that has come up often in the past year, and I haven't made much progress in untangling it.

I didn't know that about Her and I'm glad to hear it... though also it didn't sound like you came to Her in alliance, exactly?"

"- I accepted Her?" he tries.

She nods. 

"I am glad you no longer serve the god of tyranny and slavery and are working to do Good in the world. And I appreciate your willingness to answer my questions. I'd like to think I do better work in the world when I understand the people in it better, and you're a very different kind of person from those that usually will speak frankly with me. Though you might also be very different from most people so I'm not sure how well it generalizes. But I think it was still helpful to me regardless. 

- Do you have any questions for me, or any way that I can be helpful to you?" 

"I'm not thinking of anything at this time."

"Then I think that's it from me - 

- oh, I should probably just ask directly, otherwise I'll keep dwelling on it unwisely now that I've been reminded of it. 

Shortly before the Four Days War, I was caught - and - held - purportedly while waiting for a scroll of Malediction or a Malediction-capable priest came through the town. Do you think this was likely just to intimidate me in the hopes that I'd - 

- or were first-circle clerics of Good gods actually often Maledicted when captured?" 

"It wasn't mandatory, but if someone were feeling particularly vindictive, they might have hoped to catch someone who had it prepared and didn't wind up using it. It is unlikely you would have rated a scroll, those keep and were more centrally for spies and defectors."

"It was a small enough town that it was a shock that it'd had a third-circle priest at all, I'd expected a second-circle at worst - that's why I got caught, then." 

She shrugs. 

"The priest - convinced me - while I captured - that it was going to happen to me eventually and it was merely a matter of time. And I hadn't thought to - think about if it was true, afterwards, I just - kind of went on believing it. And it's a relief to realize that it wasn't nearly so definitive."

"...I'm glad you find it a relief." He already knew he and Desnia had very little in common but he cannot imagine taking any comfort in finding that if one ridiculous chance hadn't saved him he might have instead escaped his prescribed fate via someone getting impatient and killing him before coming by a fourth circle priest.