"...it has tended to work out to considerably more often than monthly in practice even above and beyond the aforementioned slack consideration but not in a way where I would claim it ought to be important to any other person, let alone you, sir!"

"- it is possible this is just an oddity of meeting a person you knew as a god as a mortal, or a matter of individual temperament which certainly varies greatly, but it is also possible this is an consequence of Hell's rule in which case I would want to address it - one should, generally, have other people concerned for one's welfare, contentment, and spiritual growth, and should not consider those a purely personal concern; the obligations we have to one another do not end at keeping each other in fighting order."

Well that was not in the book.

"It being the case that one should have those things does not obviously make it any specific other person's responsibility to supply them, but the degree to which this is discomfiting is probably largely downstream of the thing where I am more acquainted with your divine version, sir, I don't think I'd have been so concerned for his plausible better things to do with the other paladin. Though I am also not sure I can play a competent game of chess in an active aura."

"You can just - tell paladins you disprefer the aura and they'll leave you out of it."

But can he though. That sounds suspiciously like something that someone whose feelings mattered would do. "It didn't seem worth troubling him with, nor you until the point at which I was not able to answer your questions."

"That assessment seems almost certainly mistaken."

Oh NO. "I apologize, sir."

"...can you say more specifically what you are apologizing for and what sorts of decisions you would make differently in the future having learned this."

"- it seems plausible I should have determined from the fact that in my world paladins tend not to leave their auras out without asking and that you were in fact able to exclude me that there is an obligation I was failing to assist you and the other paladin in meeting though I do not know the exact boundaries of that obligation, but I am not at this moment aware of other inferences I should be completing with the facts I have at this time."

" - no. The paladin aura makes you unhappy, and that is sufficient reason to ask anybody to exclude you from it, when it's not a combat situation or communication is not for some reason extraordinarily difficult. I do not think this is usefully conceptualized as 'paladins have a duty not to make people miserable when this could easily be avoided', though I suppose we do; I think it is generally more usefully conceptualized as - it is better when people are not miserable."

....

.........

Yeah, in hindsight it makes sense that someone who spent several decades as a priest of Asmodeus and had attempted to learn about Good from a disciplinary handbook would fail to learn that it is better when people are not miserable. She would hate Asmodeus even more but she already hates Asmodeus the productive amount.

"I would apologize again but would absolutely not have an answer to what decisions I planned to make differently in the future, sir."

"The obvious one would be that if something is making you miserable, and it is very easy to fix, you could fix it. And similarly if you observe that something is making someone else miserable, and it is very easy to fix, you could also fix that."

"I think the second thing was already - clear enough from my existing models of Good people in general and Iomedaeans in specific - and I would not have disagreed with the first half either -

- except I am not sure how to assess 'very easy' if this was meant to qualify, sir?"

"...it took me about a count of five to figure out and involved expending no other resources. If you were miserable about, uh, not having a window for fresh air, I would see if I could do something about that but that would certainly not be 'very easy'."

"Yes, sir, it was very easy for you."

"...but saying that you would like me to was difficult?"

"Yes sir."

"I suspect there is a habit of thought that would make it easier but I do not know enough about how you think to speculate on what it would be."

"...I think better when I'm in the middle of a chess game. But I don't know if that's the kind of information you can use."

"Well, we could try to play the chess game we were intending to, though I do not actually have much exposure to chess and would expect anyone who plays it regularly to be much better at it."

"I can handicap while you're becoming accustomed. White or black?"

"White."

He turns the board accordingly and removes his queen, one rook and the opposite knight, and after a moment's deliberation, a pawn.