"I believe there's books about it.

"I'm sorry if it seems I keep meandering around without making a point, I'm trying to figure out more about where you're coming from here. To circle back to your original problem -

"- you can get the weight of a sin off your soul without doing much, but only if you really regret it for the right reasons. And you can get the weight of a sin off your soul without regretting it hardly at all, but only if you do quite a lot. And it sounds like both of those things are going to be pretty hard for you and the question is which is harder."

"...I mean, I could try to regret it if it would mean I didn't have to do so much, but I don't really expect that'd... count."

"I think that's a sufficient reason to go about trying to regret it. But it's not regretting it all by itself."

Nod.

"I can go back to trying to explain why it's regrettable, if that's the approach you'd like to go with."

"Trying to do Good's probably safer."

"Well, doing both is going to be the safest, in case one doesn't work you'd have the other to fall back on."

"I guess that's probably reasonable."

"What would be the hard parts of adopting children, for you? - donating money to Good causes is Good but I think it's more expensive, per dead baby, maybe too expensive for a chandler."

"Well, I'd need to take care of the kid, and pay someone to watch it during work, and buy it food and clothes, and it might keep me up at night or get mad if I don't care about its little-kid problems." Also she doesn't want to.

"...well, some of those difficulties would be less if you got an older kid, is that any more appealing?"

"...It's less unappealing? But I'm not sure that's really the same."

"A thing I keep running into here is that it's not clear what you find actively appealing. Even the entertainments you buy tickets for - I asked if it was fun and you said you think so."

"Well, stilt-walking's definitely a lot more fun than taking care of a kid."

"But is that because stilt-walking is so great or because taking care of a kid is so bad?"

"Both, I guess?"

"You don't sound very sure."

"Well, it's not like I know how much fun is the normal amount of fun for fun things. ...It's fine if doing Good isn't fun, I know that makes it count less, it'd just be nice to have a way to make up for everything that didn't actively suck."

"I think doing Good things is often fun for a lot of people. I don't think that even makes it count less, though I admit I didn't get that direct from Pharasma. But Goodness is fundamentally going to involve extending yourself for other people's benefit. If you didn't have a baby in the Boneyard on your soul I'd say, okay, Axis is lovely, no need to extend yourself too much - but that baby's really going to cost you. That was your big chance to extend yourself for someone else's benefit, and you did the opposite, and the hurt you did is probably still ongoing as we speak beyond your or my power to correct, and now you've got an uphill climb."

If she's probably going to Hell anyway she might as well not even bother doing Good things that suck, but if she says that she'll probably be arrested for proselytizing for infernal powers or something.

"...What are the Good things most people find fun to do?"

"Doing Good work can be like any other sort of work - you can chat with the people you're working with, and come up with ways to make it more entertaining and beautiful - I work here, for instance, and we're making the church prettier every day - for a while I was doing pamphlet readings, where I'd go on the steps and dramatize the nicest pamphlets for anyone who didn't get a copy, that was a lot of fun and I think it did Good too by spreading Good ideas and helping anyone listening who wanted to read them but couldn't. - how would you feel about teaching a candle-making class here at the church, do you know how to make fancy candles in colors with designs on them?"

"Colors're pretty easy if you've got the right dyes. Designs you want to have the right mold for, you can't just do any design you like and expect it turn out right. But I could teach a class."

"I think that would be a strong start. I don't think you'll get all the way you need to, that way, but - I'd like to get to know you better and maybe then it'll be easier to think of something. And teaching is Good, and beautiful things are too. You can go organize a class with the lay priest over there."

Sure, she can go talk to the lay priest about that.

That was a tough one! Why was that harder than the guy who had to go turn himself in for participating in a murder! You learn something new every day, she guesses.