.........."because She selected me" is going to be a completely inadequate answer on every level, isn't it, he's not even totally sure why but he can definitely see it coming.

It's... the only one he's got.

"Because She selected me, sir. I apologize if you were hoping for more of an - independent mindset or ambitious nature or something, it's possible I have unrealized potential in that direction but it would not be my guess. I expect the typical Select or paladin would be more satisfactory on that measure and I was mostly just some combination of well-positioned and inexpensive."

Well that does make sense of how a person would end up being a priest of Asmodeus when his country was ruled by Asmodeus and then a priest of Iomedae when his country was freed by Iomedae. "Do you, as far as you can tell, want things other than to be a good soldier for a god who wants your service? Do you have a preference between Asmodeus than Iomedae?"

Does that matter. Well a-fucking-parently it does but WHY does it matter. Does it have to continue to matter or could it perhaps stop. "...it is very much in-character behavior for Asmodeus to dismiss slaves who no longer suit him and it would be very much out of character for Her to send me back so I would presume a situation presenting itself that way was - that's not really what you asked -

"- I want small scale ordinary things an approximately normal amount. Evil drastically underperforms on the general availability of small scale things that one wants a normal amount as well as in other respects. Iomedaeans are supposed to have fun at least once a month and it was not difficult to come up with something. But I was not interrupted at doing something else with my life, sir."

"Okay. A theory of this situation which I have at present, though I'm confused about a great many things, is that while part of the Empire was ruled by Hell they attempted to inculcate - a habit of not contemplating one's own purposes, or possibly considering it disobedient to possess them. Do you think they were doing that?"

"- not exactly. That is to say, one can perform orthodox Asmodeanism in that manner but there was considerable room for personal ambition provided it took place within the hierarchy, lots of cutthroat church politics and noble backstabbing and such, improved relative positioning being the chief way to achieve improved relative safety and status and whatever other ends one might contrive. I was not ambitious in that fashion, either, which is why I spent twenty years at the Worldwound instead of jockeying for a cathedral or a court position or something."

“Do you care about the Worldwound, separately from it being as far as one could honorably get from court?”

"Yes sir."

Proud smile. “It sounds like - one of those problems with that character that only a great many people working together can solve it.”

"...well, no, the archmages closed it, but it took a lot of people to keep it from spilling beyond its borders before that time."

“- holding on until archmages save you counts too. It’s all we are doing here right now, apparently.”

"Yes sir."

“Do you understand why I care about this?”

"- would you like me to guess, sir?"

“I would like to know how confused you are but if you dislike guessing you could answer in some other format.”

"I do not know what about this line of conversation is important to you."

“So - people join the Crusade for a wide variety of reasons. Because it’s steady pay, because they want to see their wife as little as possible, because they want to make it to paradise, because they want to make it to paradise sooner, because they’ve got a family to support or because their family would like them to be as far away as can be respectably arranged or because their cousin did it or because they saw a knight when they were five and have wanted to be one ever since. 

As far as I can tell practically all wants have something of the Good in them. This might be less true of people raised in Hell-occupied territory, but - it might be true anyway, I’m not sure. Certainly practically all wants can be ordered towards Evil, and it’s not usually very difficult. But the things men do Evil for - nearly all of them they could have in paradise, for the asking, or for the honorable winning.

The Crusade is very important and I think a great many possible wants unite in this moment on “we should not let an evil necromancer conquer the world and kill all its inhabitants.” But - the reason we should not let him do that is that those people matter, all their wants and all their reasons and all their eternal fates. 

If there is a god of fighting Evil - and I have contemplated that there should be one - it is very important to me what She is fighting Evil in defense of.”

"I have managed to pick up that She is supposed to be the god of, not fighting Evil, but specifically of defeating it, and where that is impracticable, triage."

" - I can think of some circumstances under which that'd make sense. But only because there are already a great many other gods of Good, such that perhaps - if no one in your army can use a pike and you're getting slaughtered by enemy cavalry charges it makes sense to recruit and train exclusively pikemen for a while, but not because a good army in truth consists entirely of pikemen. Probably there should be a Good god of triage, and certainly of the war on Evil. But not because that constitutes the Good, just because we're short on it."

"Yes sir."

"I have little experience with clerics. But I would worry about a paladin who was here because his order had been commanded to come here, if that was his whole account of his presence here. I would worry that - you cannot order someone to really and truly try to win, they have to want to."

"The... account of my presence here... is that a monster caused me to time travel, sir."

"I know that. And possibly the commander of this army will decide that you should be kept in complete secrecy very far from the front or turned into a statue which is stored in a library of complicated heresies, in which case your priorities will not really change very many features of the world. But if that does not happen I would recommend considering whether there are things that you want."

"...I asked for permission to Prestidigitate myself a chess set but the paladin who was guarding me before said no. - someone asked me once if y- if She hated chess and I have been presuming not for lack of better options to fulfill the mandatory fun requirement but I suppose you might know."

"I really really doubt She hates chess. Chess is part of the Good, if not a part I've ever specifically considered in any detail. ...the gods start giving out Prestidigitation at some point?"

"No, I learned it in the wizard fashion, but not very well, I can only do the making objects part so I use it mostly for chess sets and sometimes propping up a book or combing my hair. - the idea was that if we managed to learn it properly we would have more leverage over a laundry wizard we might one day share a village with, being able to replace their main function, but I wasn't cunning enough to be picked up in the screening for potential wizards so I suppose that explains why I'm rubbish at it."