This place isn't Menador. ...probably. It could conceivably be just a different part of Menador. The horizon is shrouded in ominous fog, so it could really be most places. 

There's a farmhouse nearby. The door is hanging open, creaking in the wind. Nothing's growing in the fields.

Well, that pattern-matches to Ustalav, but really this is confusing enough as an eventuality that it could be Arcadia and he certainly wouldn't know. He casts Guidance on himself and tries to spend it on resisting an illusion, which is either not there or stronger than his save, and then he trudges for the farmhouse on the grounds that terrible haunted shelter might be better than no shelter and he won't know till he tries.

The farmhouse has two ghouls in it. They turn to look at him, something strangely alive in his eyes, and at first don't move, as if waiting for instructions; then they lurch towards him murderously.

Channel!

They're worse for the wear, but only moderately so, and now singlemindedly determined to come bite him.

Yes, well, he does have his mace out from the snake thing and can bash them.

He can, narrowly, avoid getting paralyzed by their claws before he's ground them into ghoul paste. 

Back to eerie quiet, then. There's nothing else evidently in the farmhouse but some rags on the floor.

He checks for a cellar, an outhouse, a silo, any other possible ghoul repositories.

There's a barn and a cellar. Those don't have ghouls. ....how perceptive would you say Blai is?

Oh, ballpark a plus two, give or take ungameifiable minutiae.

In the miserable foggy distance there are things stirring, moving, blending into the fog. 

...also in the miserable foggy distance, in a different direction, there are voices and hoofbeats and footsteps. A sizable party of people on the move.

...he'll light up his holy symbol. Ghouls aren't known for their voices. Or hoofbeats.

However, the undead are known for shining strange lights in the distance to lure you into a trap! The war party will keep going.

"Excuse me! I'm lost! - also not a ghoul!" he calls.

...they do pause, at that, but the undead can also fake cries for help. ...usually they have a more recognizable accent when they do it, really.

"It's a trap."

"Almost certainly. With the aim of delaying our return, most likely, so prepare for an ambush before we're in sight of the city - no, everybody, don't pause, keep moving -"

"I'm a third circle cleric and prepared a Create Food!"

This is a bizarre thing to shout in a terrible accent across an enormous distance and also explains nothing! Someone Teleport-capable could conceivably have landed off course on their way to Canorate, someone Plane Shift capable likewise, but there is no reason for there to be a third circle cleric in the wasteland out here, and also the light - which is, according to Dayi, Bellene's familiar, a holy symbol held aloft by a man jogging in their general direction - is a ...sword...which isn't any god she's heard of. 

Well, shouting across vast distances probably doesn't pose much risk. Their location is already known to the enemy. And she already has Clarion Call up herself, since they're out of the city.  "THE CONCERN IS NOT THAT YOU WOULD NOT BE WORTH RESCUING IF IT WERE SAFE BUT THAT IT IS ALMOST CERTAINLY A TRAP OR AT BEST AN EFFORT TO DELAY US" she shouts back. "IF YOU CAN CATCH UP WE'LL ACCEPT YOUR SURRENDER. IF YOU CLAIM TO SERVE AN ALLIED GOD I'LL SEND A HORSE." And probably lose the horse, but in principled if he were a third circle cleric of an allied god gone astray in a teleportation accident it'd be worth the horse many times over.

"I'm a cleric of Iomedae!"

"THAT IS CLEARLY UNTRUE AND ALSO A BIZARRE LIE TO TELL!"

"...I DON'T KNOW WHY THAT WOULD BE, I'M REALLY REALLY LOST."

Because there is no god by that name on this planet and you are clearly not speaking Taldane through a translation spell or you'd be speaking it better, but she probably should not give the enemy advice on how to convince her of things. 

"Send him a horse."

"We'll lose the horse."

"Probably. But - no number of horses will save us. Only a miracle will." She has lowered her voice. You can't just go around telling everybody that only a miracle will save them, though she really thinks that ideally you would be able to tell them that and they would be able to consider the matter soberly and still do their work.

Horses hate the abandoned farmland around Canorate. For the same reasons everyone does, but horses are skittish on top of that. Conjured horses are better, but you can't send someone a riderless conjured horse. So an unusually well-behaved real horse it is, one trained in 'rescue that man over there'. The man is just barely visible in the distance if you have very good vision. This is a stupid exercise. Go ahead, horse.

Around Blai the stirring things close in.

He can't run very fast but he's running and he's already picked a direction he doesn't yet have any reason to second-guess.

Most of them are slower but some are faster and gaining on him. Shadows, and some skeletal animal -

- they don't usually see undead in those numbers in the area. They know they're out there, because any patrol you send out gets ambushed and dies, but they don't usually show themselves, certainly not in the middle of the day. Attracted by the strange man screaming that he's a priest of Iomedae, then. "Fire on the pursuit."

He turns, and smites, and fires, and only when the thing is dead says, "thought we weren't stopping for the obvious trap."

Most of the arrows are falling short because Blai's really very far away but this is a large company of men.

...the horse is going to absolutely refuse to approach that deadly-looking situation and stand stock-still halfway between the company and Blai, whinnying anxiously.

"I don't think they planned this." 

It's really quite difficult to take down a skeleton with arrows even when you're not firing from a great distance. The bones of this smilodon are going to catch up with Blai even as everything else in close pursuit of him goes down. 

Oh, for fuck's sake. He's going to channel about it, hopefully the positive channel is reassuring even if this is a planet where they think Iomedae's dead and Aroden's alive for some reason or some such nonsense.

Barely scratches the skeletal smilodon.

He has some help, though. Shooting it works better if you smite it first. 

"I'm out of channels!" Smash smash?

Chomp.

"I DO NOT ACTUALLY AT THIS POINT PARTICULARLY HAVE THE OPTION OF TRYING HARDER TO RESCUE YOU." Arrow. Arrow. Arrow. There's technically a teleport-capable wizard with the company but his job is to get himself and Iomedae out if they're ambushed by the whole orc army and it's hopeless, and he will (entirely correctly) disobey an order to go Teleport over there and save the guy, who at this point even the slower undead are catching up with. 

Smilodon goes down to enough arrows, though.

Once he will no longer provoke attacks of opportunity in so doing he will resume running toward the horse.

There's quite a lot of undead in pursuit of him, but they're not especially brilliantly organized; it obviously came to someone's attention quite recently that he was here and that they wanted to kill him. They might be able to keep him alive for long enough for him to get to the horse. She prays, in case she should be doing anything different -

Yes, actually. She should have some spells she does not ordinarily have.

Some shadows emerge out of the ground beneath Blai and a terrible cold consumes him from the legs up as they pass through him -

Whatever Aroden just threw at her she'll cast it -

A burst of searing light explodes around Blai, killing every single undead creature in an eighty foot radius, which by this time is hundreds of them. (It will also sting Blai more than a little but slightly less than fatally.)

"Go and get him."

He's only ever seen Pharasma's high priest cast that. At a gallop, then.

WOW this planet is really something. He will be met by the gallopping knight and go cooperatively. ...he will have a problem with the anti-fear aura and keep it to himself, it's not really in the top insert-any-number-you-please most important things. It's probably tactically essential and probably remains so even if it's slowing Blai down a hair.

"I suspect it'll be a fight to get us back to the city," he warns him, pulling him on his horse. "Now that we've stirred 'em up. We would be grateful for your assistance but intend once we're safe to take you prisoner."

"Understood. May I know who is taking me prisoner, please."

There are more undead emerging from everywhere including the ground. The company's reorganizing for a fighting retreat. "This company's commanded by the Knight-Commander Iomedae of the Knights of Ozem, a paladin of Aroden, serving in the second army of the Empire." 

"Oh. I see. I'm from the future."

"I don't really believe that but I don't have time to argue with you about it right now. ....no, wait. If you were to die in the next five minutes what would be the most important things for us to know about the future."

"I have two copies of Iomedae's holy book in my bag. Aroden dies in 4606 and this opens a portal to the Abyss in Sarkoris, drowns Lirgen and Yamasa, and breaks prophecy planetwide. The forces of Hell conquer Cheliax, although as of my time a party of archmages have taken it back. In... 4640, I think, but my history education wasn't very good. The archmages are in 4713."

"....so we win? Cool." Angelu cannot actually fire his bow from horseback without the advantage of a smite, and is out of smites. He pulls his horse up with the rest of the company.

"Oh. Yes, you win, Tar-Baphon remains sealed in my present day."

The stuff about Aroden dying is bad of course but it's in the very distant future and can probably be avoided if it even really happened. Now how to ask the next question without sounding unbearably self-important. "We don't know of a god called Iomedae. Is she a god of this world, or some other world?"

"This one. The Knight-Commander ascends by Starstone."

"That seems unlikely but I'd be very happy about it if it was true." And for now less arguing more fighting.

Blai doesn't have any ranged options but if they happen to be gallopping right past any undead he'll at least try to swat them.

Not carrying a ranged weapon is kind of baffling but maybe he usually lives and works in Oppara or something. 

Iomedae is testing out the other spell Aroden dropped on her which turns out to be undead-frying beams of light which are very useful for covering their retreat. They're still a mile from the city and this is going to be miserable but probably winnable misery, or Aroden wouldn't have bothered. 

Blai is trying to think of what else would be useful to know for the Shining Crusaders. "What year is it -"

Angelu is out of smites and has a guy on his horse with him and so is really only useful for keeping nearby horses from spooking, though he's doing that very well by virtue of being a paladin. "3803."

...inconveniently many of Blai's tactical instincts route through him having a normal complement of emotions. He remembers to cast Prayer before they've gone too much farther, though. "Is that... before calling Arazni, at some point you're meant to call Arazni but I can't look up the date right now. - she also dies, during the crusade. If that happens again you should destroy her body so Geb can't turn her into a lich later."

This is honestly kind of a lot to keep track of in the middle of a serious fight when the man doesn't speak Taldane properly but he is doing his best to listen, and when a diving dead bird of prey of some kind claws at Blai's face he heals him, and he repeats under his breath 'call Arazni...she dies...destroy her body...' even though these claims do not make any sense either separately or especially together. 

And there, as they crest a hill, is the city. Its walls look forbidding and it has a general aura of misery but the men cry out joyously anyway.

404 emotions not found try again later, over here, but he's being very Chelish about it.

If you asked Angelu to generate stereotypes about Chelish people he'd come up with 'unfashionable' and 'not especially good on horse' and not in a very long listing of qualities 'emotionally reserved' but it's good that the man seems inclined to be helpful. 

The undead won't pursue them into archery range of the city walls. 

Great. Then they will have the opportunity to learn why Aroden wants them to save this man.

"Sir. He reports that he has travelled in time from the future, we sealed Tar Baphon, Aroden is dead, you ascended by the Starstone, Hell conquered part of the Empire, and he has two copies of your holy book in his bag."

She's going to be in so much trouble with the Church if she claims to have a time traveller who says that Aroden is dead in the future. She will tell Aroden directly in case He somehow didn't know already, and then -

- if they win the war, then maybe the first thing to do is just to do whatever wins the war, because she really can't see it -

"I see. Don't repeat any parts of that to anyone, and for now take him in with the other prisoners as if he were one of them - but apologize to him privately and tell him I'll see him shortly -"

Blai may have missed it because quite a few things were happening, but there are in fact other prisoners, a dozen bound men who look decidedly the worse for the wear tied to some of the other horses.

"Yes, sir. Also he said that we call Arazni, and she dies, and we should destroy her body so Geb can't raise her."

That doesn't make any sense! If Arazni will die if they call her then they shouldn't do that! "Don't repeat that to anyone either. - do you have the books?"

"He said they're in his bag."

Aroden said this was important, as unambiguously as Aroden has ever said anything is important. Also General Arnisant suspects the city is riddled with enemy spies and history books about how to win the Shining Crusade are as useful to the enemy as to them - more useful to the enemy, maybe -

The city is under military control and she has the authority to seize anyone's property on grounds of necessity but she does not use it lightly and is troubled by using it to take holy books from a cleric of...her... how is he still channeling, since she's not a god in this timeline - not one of the most important questions here -

Losing the books to the enemy is probably irrecoverable and none of the other risks here seem similarly irrecoverable. "Bring the books to me, arrest him, I'll be there as soon as I can."

Right.

He will head back over to Blai. "You're under arrest. I've conveyed your claims to the Knight-Commander. She intends to come speak to you as soon as possible, and apologizes for the circumstances. I think you should not repeat the claims you've made until she comes to speak to you." And he'll take the books.

Augh he's back in the field of slow thought again why. "Understood. Do you take the armor or should I keep it on?"

So the thing is (Angelu knows this from firsthand experience since the Knight-Commander got arrested in Oppara last year), when you are arresting a cleric of an allied(??) god because the circumstances are confusing and you cannot afford incaution, you might well let them keep their armor, because you want to offer no affront to their dignity.

However. The Knight-Commander wants him brought in with the other prisoners, presumably so if there are spies in the city they'll think he's just one of the other prisoners and not report that a strange man claiming to be a time travelling priest of Iomedae is here, which would really now that he thinks about it be quite bad for the enemy to learn - they could just assassinate her, she's not a god yet and it wouldn't be that hard -

- and the other prisoners are deserters. And not just normal deserters, who they usually let die of wandering into the enemy rather than risk more assets tracking them down, but deserters who stole some quite valuable magic items before sneaking out. And those they will not allow to keep their armor.

Incredibly awkward way for the cleric of Iomedae to be introduced to her order, though. "I'll take the armor. I expect it'll be returned once we...figure out what to do, here."

He nods and starts taking off the armor. Having more thoughts on this topic takes him longer than it would have but he will just sound kind of slow, oh well. "The mace? The holy symbol?"

"Those also."

Some of the feelings he might conceivably have about the holy symbol are not strictly speaking "fear" but conveniently he isn't having them as much as he could have under other equally implausible circumstances because, like, his god is right over there somewhere.

His god has a truly extraordinary amount to think about and is going to make a very abbreviated report to the general's man - because she is a paladin the fashion in which it is abbreviated is 'and then Aroden aided us in a safe return to the city, the details and circumstances are secret' - and then take the holy books off Angelu and go to the chapel to pray. 

And someone else will herd all the deserters to the dungeons and if they get a stick to the kidneys quite a few times along the way, well, it's less than they deserve.

This does not actually give Angelu pause at all though of course he is not going to hurt Blai, who isn't a deserter.

"There was also a third book in my bag."

"Mmm?"

"Which might conceivably be of interest."

"I'll pass that along." It has not occurred to him that this exchange has anything to do with the treatment of the other prisoners. He's just going to stand here and if anyone goes after his prisoner he'll glare at them and they'll assume it's a paladin thing.

Oh, is he just going to be there. Radiating the inability to think. The whole time. Okay. Maybe Blai will get used to it.

Aroden has blessed him with conviction and fearlessness and by that conviction and fearlessness people know him blessed, yeah.

Aroden. I take it this man is important to your plans. Perhaps he is an answer to the question of how the Empire can survive and triumph in this war, and if the things he says are true there are great horrors in the future that we can avert with knowledge of them. Or perhaps it is something entirely different from that. 

But in case you actually, somehow, do not know already - the man says that Tar-Baphon is sealed, and you die, and that we call Arazni and she dies, and that Hell conquers half the Empire. 

And then she'll open Acts, and try to find the current year, and try to see if that account of matters is any less confusing.

"May I Prestidigitate myself a chess set?"

"I - what?" That's a cleric spell in the future? "I think you had better not."

"Okay."

"He claims to be from the future, and had a book giving an account of the Crusade. It says that Aroden tells us to call Arazni for aid. ...and that she dies helping us, but not for twenty years so perhaps she can still help, just for less time than that, or informed by the thing that happens in the histories. Aroden sent a miracle to ensure we recovered him. I request you order a Commune to learn whether we should call Arazni and whether we should take the books to the Church in Oppara."

"- is there any reason not to just send the books to the Church in Oppara and let them run the Communes from there?"

"I'm worried, sir, that our enemy has people inside the Church. And I'm worried that the Church won't be happy about the books, or about the man. He also claimed that in the future, Aroden is dead."

"That can't be."

"It is definitely heretical," says Iomedae.

She has a disturbing way of saying that things are heretical while implying with her expression that she also thinks they're true. "Give me the books."

Of course.

He doesn't look at them. It's probably a curse of madness on the pages. "Where's the man?"

"In the dungeons. As we don't want rumors of this I told Angelu to take him in with the deserters. But I would rather not leave him there. He is a cleric of a Lawful Good god, and Aroden intervened to save him. And - he claims that he is a priest of me, as at the end of the war I ascend by the Starstone."

Definitely a curse of madness. "Who else heard this?"

"The whole company heard him scream that he was a cleric of Iomedae. It could have been some different Iomedae."

"But the book says it's you?"

"Yes."

"You don't seem very surprised."

"...Aroden put the Starstone there so we could follow Him, sir."

Arnisant does not think woman gods is precisely what Aroden had in mind but then he also wouldn't have expected Cayden Cailean or Norgorber to be what Aroden had in mind. "Return to your duties, don't speak of this, don't act on this, tell your man the same."

"I would like to speak to my cleric, sir."

"We'll see how the Commune goes. Dismissed."

While incapable of apprehension about how it's going to go down when they find out he's an ex-Asmodean is a fine time to think about how to play that out.

One possibility, of course, is that they're reading the letters in his bag already. The correspondence with the Commandant would suffice even if he didn't have letters from before that which he also chose to keep.

If he has to tell them he should...

It is so hard to think of things. There are probably lots of things he should do and they aren't there to find among the miscellany. He has to wait for them.

If... he were holding a prisoner in a remotely analogous situation...

Wow, Blai would make a terrible god.

What if Grec were a god instead, how about that.

If he were holding a Lawful Neutral cleric of Grec, who used to be a cleric of... Norgorber?... then... it would be... polite of them... to...

Okay. He should ask if they are satisfied with the security of his imprisonment, it's possible they're undershooting because he is not in the same category of prisoner as the others he was brought in among.

He might still be in a paladin aura at the time it comes up, but if he is not he should be aware that it's going to be unpleasant, in an emotionally normal fashion, and be braced for that. He is not sure how to brace himself for forthcoming unpleasantness in a paladin aura. He is arguably doing it right now and still doesn't know.

It's possible he should frontload a reiteration of Asmodeus conquering Cheliax and having been recently defeated in case that did not get passed on. It might be important context on how he could be distinct from Shining Crusade era Asmodean clerics, who probably had to seek out the office.

Unless that's dishonest spin. It might be. He isn't sure.

Being unsure of things in a paladin aura is weird. It's very - blank - even more than the rest of the time spent in a paladin aura.

He probably wasted five entire seconds on that one observation and now he's wasting another five entire seconds on this one.

They probably leave their auras on for a reason. Maybe it's important to the other prisoners. Maybe auras that toggle off haven't been invented yet.

Angelu's just going to stay here making sure that his important prisoner doesn't get mixed up with the other prisoners and all the bones in his hand broken, that would be horribly embarrassing.

The Church in Oppara will not actually mind if he covers for them by figuring out what share of this man and these claims Aroden cares to have conveyed to them. Will prefer it, certainly, to the whole mess being dumped in their lap in one piece. Aroden is far-seeing; His plans need not make sense to mortals, and this is plainly one of them.

Should the claim be conveyed to your Church in Oppara that this book represents a prophecy of the Shining Crusade?

NOT NOW

Should the claim be conveyed to your Church in Oppara that Arazni would be willing to aid us in the Crusade?

YES. It's not going to go as well in the short run but it's just as needed. More so, really, because the man can't fall into enemy hands.

Is this going to get her killed?

I HOPE NOT

(It's very irregular for gods to give a non-standard answer to Communes, let alone several such, and the priest doing this one looks extremely overawed.)

Should the claim be conveyed to the Church in Oppara that the man we have in custody is a priest of Iomedae?

NO

Should the claim be conveyed to the Church in Oppara that this matter is in any respect more complicated than 'we got a sign from you that we should call Arazni'. 

NO.

So he is not allowed to pass off the whole mess to the Church but perhaps he can pass off the whole mess to Arazni. He would be so much more reassured and hopeful at the possibility of Arazni coming to their aid if not for the prophecy of Her death. 

Should Iomedae be permitted to speak to the priest?

The thing that is in Aroden's interests here is for them to causally isolate the priest so he can see and then do nothing for at least a week or two so Arazni's not going in completely blind. However, he cannot tell mortals to do that and they won't figure it out on their own until Iomedae grows up. If Iomedae grows up. Probably Iomedae will still grow up, if she lives, but he can't see. 

YES.

"The dungeons will be otherwise emptied this afternoon for the executions. Talk to the priest then."

"Thank you, sir." 

And when they have dragged all of the deserters out and only Angelu remains she'll go in. "Return to your duties, don't speak of this."

"Yes, sir."

(There totally was not a trial or anything, if Blai is keeping track of that.)

That depends on whether it's obvious that they're going straight to the execution step from here, which it might well not be. "Sir," he says to Iomedae. Modern depictions probably don't have her face right, but he's never seen one; he's going by context and also her heraldry.

The guards were not particularly secretive about what the next step is!

"I do not know if I have those qualities of the god to who you are given that inspired you to Her service. I aspire to them, of course, but would not hold you to those promises you've made to Her. I am sorry about the dungeons. We hope to ensure the enemy does not learn there is anything notable about your presence here.

Are there any things I should know urgently?"

"Urgently? Uh -" HE HATES PALADIN AURAS, IOMEDAE THE GOD NEVER DOES THIS TO HIM "- did you take a report about the things I listed earlier, those are the most critical pieces of future information that came to mind."

"I was told that we summon Arazni, that She dies, that Her body should be destroyed, that we seal Tar-Baphon, and that in the Age of Glory Aroden dies and Hell conquers part of the Empire."

"His death also has other side effects besides the civil war in which the diabolists took Cheliax, like a portal to the Abyss in Sarkoris, the end of prophecy globally, and drowning Lirgen and Yamasa, but that is all correct. So if you are pressed for time I do not think I have anything else urgent to say."

"I don't know our time to be scarce. I am not expected at the executions." Her unit doesn't have any desertions, obviously."

"The bag also contained in addition to two copies of the Acts of Iomedae the disciplinary handbook of Lastwall, Her theocracy, and another book which is about chess and almost certainly irrelevant, and also some of my letters; how much have you read?" However much it is doesn't include the letters, probably, she might have said something.

"I skimmed the Acts, I did not read the others, I do not at this time have access to any of them. They make claims that the Church would condemn having repeated....does that make sense or should I say it more clearly -"

"I have a very poor history education and would probably make inaccurate guesses about how heresy is treated here and now. Do you have instructions for me about how to speak in this or other circumstances? I think I am not allowed to lie but don't actually know that for certain, I'm generalizing from paladins, She mostly selects paladins."

"I also do not lie and will never ask you to. There are matters on which I might choose to not comment, or not comment beyond stating my understanding of the Church's stance on a matter. Were I to persist in saying things that the Church had informed me were not consistent with the Church stance on the matter I would expect disciplinary action, and it would not be particularly helpful that I was unambiguously not lying, or if there were a great deal of evidence for my position. I would expect claims that Aroden dies in the future to be of particular concern to the Church, and most other claims to only be of concern if one is speaking from a position of authority, or in Oppara, or to someone who is important in Oppara."

Oh, is she... not going to ask how it could be that he could not know all of his rules while also being third circle... he was sort of expecting her to ask that and feels extremely nothing about it. The nothing that he feels about this is deafening. If he doesn't get more used to this soon he is probably going to have to confess to an operational constraint and it's the world's stupidest operational constraint and he feels absolutely nothing about how stupid it is but extremely frustrated about how nothing he feels about that.

"If you or someone else is likely to read my letters soon there is a matter I should explain in advance. Are you satisfied with the security of my imprisonment at this time?"

She's not actually asking him things right now! This isn't an interrogation! "I think our major security concern is the Enemy but we don't have a more secure place to put you, I assume a Commune considered whether we should send you to Oppara and Aroden advised against for the reasons we have just discussed."

"- the matter I need to explain might concern you about my security in the more conventional direction."

"Are you planning to try to escape? Please don't do that. The set of circumstances where it would help are very small, I expect it would be enormously damaging to your and my interests, and I cannot assist you in identifying the circumstances where it would be a good idea."

"I am not planning to try to escape, sir." Some internal checklist that is still struggling through the motions suggests that he take a deep breath at this juncture. What for. He is unafraid and deep breaths are not attested for help with feeling suffocating swathes of vast choking Nothing. "I am from Cheliax - Dekarium on Lake Sorrow, I don't know if the city exists yet - and Cheliax as I explained was conquered by the forces of Hell. There was universal compulsory education and systematic attempts to identify potential wizards and clerics. I was for some two decades a Chosen of Asmodeus."

That sentence ended before providing most of the context which she would most want to have and she is left wildly extrapolating for the rest. "...and then you switched sides?"

"He dropped all of His clerics at the same time, sir, not long after the archmages took Cheliax, and She picked me up a few weeks later."

"Has there been - some kind of inquiry into this situation, by you or by the Church of Iomedae or by the Empire?"

"I wrote to the Church immediately - those are the letters I have in my bag, it's why I have the handbook and the Acts. I am not qualified to be in the Church command structure, that's separate from being selected. I was at the time in the command of a fort on the Chelish-held part of the border around the portal to the Abyss and was not exhorted to leave my post to seek immediate catechism. Later I was summoned to some kind of political advisory role for the new Chelish government and was traveling to that and hoped to meet a catechism instructor in Westcrown but had not made it that far south as of the attack from the time travel monster."

"How long ago were you renounced by Asmodeus and selected by Iomedae? Do you know if this occurs frequently?"

"I don't think it's common at all but I would not have been informed if it were a known phenomenon in Chelish clerical defectors. I wouldn't have been told if there were ever Chelish clerical defectors. It was a few months ago."

"And the total of what has been conveyed to you about the teachings of the Church of Iomedae is - the holy book and... the disciplinary handbook of...Lastwall? Their order for handling the portal to the Abyss?"

"Lastwall is Her country; it's on Lake Encarthan and my attempts at a map would be poor but perhaps better than nothing. They hold part of the border around the portal; the Commandant my letter reached sent me the handbook as a guideline for updating the management of my fortress. In addition to the books there were a few occasions on which I encountered Iomedaean paladins as part of Worldwound border management operations - the treaty mediating everyone's participation in the defense is very robust - but I picked up relatively little from them." Because they hated his guts. "- I wasn't sure immediately it was Iomedae. I tried a key first."

He's talking too slowly and he can't be afraid but he can be embarrassed.

Where are his thoughts

and why are most of them worrying

and why can't he just get them in some more convenient format now.

"And do you still worship, or consider yourself to serve, Asmodeus, or have oaths that you have made to Him or organizations of His on the Material?"

"No sir."

"You were a cleric of Asmodeus's for twenty years and you did not make any oaths to his organization, or they had a procedure for lawful dissolution?" It really does not seem Asmodean for them to have a procedure for lawful dissolution!!!!!

"...I made some oaths about military service but was disentangled from them at the time of the - time travel - so that I could travel to the constitutional convention that the new queen's party member wished to hold..."

"Do you know anything about why Asmodeus renounced all of His clerics at the same time?" Is He dead?

"Speculation only. The archmages were presumably very busy even when their public-facing whereabouts and actions were not fully explanatory and I don't know what preparations they may have made before conquering Cheliax. And also closing the Worldwound, which they did as well. He may have required - emergency budget, or something."

"What things have you achieved that you are proud of? What are you hoping to accomplish?"

"Sir, I am - failing to - acclimate to the paladin aura and will probably acquit myself better at this kind of conversation without it. Is it possible to turn it off or has that not been invented yet."

" - it only encompasses allies so in principle one could -" not think of someone as an ally, except that the magic isn't going to be tracking her deep convictions, that isn't how magic works -

- there. He is not in her aura; she is not extending Aroden's assurance to him.

OH wow that is so much better in the sense that now he's a completely normal amount of terrified but at least he is terrified QUICKLY! Why is he like this! "Thank you sir. If you are asking about my accomplishments because you are trying to figure out what made me an adequate Select my speculation is mostly that I was well-positioned for something - possibly the Constitutional Convention, prophecy is broken but I don't know how long the planning stages went on or how long it was planned to invite clerics - and also inexpensive for a third-circle cleric, but my fort performed well in the defense of the Worldwound. The insurance adjuster said it had the best rates on the Chelish side of the border. I had not at the time of the monster attack divined any specific likely mission I might have been intended for besides voting with the Church at the convention - the letter inviting me specified that it mattered that I was native-born."

Wow that is a completely different person. Huh. There are a bunch of fascinating fragments of things-that-don't-exist-yet in his speech - forts insured like merchant ventures? and their commanders assessed by the rates? - and also she has no idea what a constitutional convention is but that's not really the priority right now. 

" - so you don't know what Iomedae intended. What were you intending?"

"...to go to the convention and meet with the catechism instructor I sent for there, sir, I was hoping to catch up enough to be formally in the chain of command as quickly as possible."

"Why?"

"Because I expected the Church would have a lot of information relevant to what I ought to do. The Acts are... epic poetry about your adventures, sir, their applicability is not always obvious and there has been some refinement since then of how to implement the principles, as derived through Communes and experimentation and such. I had only very limited previous exposure to Iomedaeans and they spent the entire time understandably loathing me so most of what I was able to learn was things about their operational limitations and not things like how they would cast votes or why."

"I think I have a good understanding of why, having decided to spend your life in the service of Iomedae, you would have sought out guidance from the Church on how to do it properly and been cautious while having not yet received that guidance, but I do not understand why you decided to spend your life in the service of Iomedae."

.........."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."

"And you can cast it armored? Huh! I should suggest to some people that they try to pick that up. I do not think you should evidence that power around anyone not authorized to know who you are but I'll see about getting you a chess set. What do you mean by mandatory fun?"

"I do sometimes have to retry, with the armor on, but I'm never casting it under emergency conditions so I just try again. I mean the thing where we are commanded to have fun once a month, presumably as a self maintenance thing though I suppose it also dovetails with what you've said about aspects of the Good."

"I do not currently have any such regulation and haven't really contemplated it. Do you know more about the justification?"

"No sir, I'm only guessing."

"All right. I'll try to get you sent a chess set. The holy book did not appear to contain the things you said about Arazni being made undead by Geb, what more do you know about that?"

"It happened after the Acts were published, and before I was born, but I can't narrow it down much further than that. She administers his country for him and has been described as the goddess of despair."

"Thank you for telling us.

What do you know about Aroden's death and Hell conquering part of the Empire - I assume the latter happened because we were in disarray after Aroden's death -"

"...Cheliax broke away from Taldor before that time. I think it might have involved Aspex the Even-Tongued but I don't know when he lived and I mostly think he was involved because a lot of Chelish people are named Aspex or Aspexia. Cheliax was, or at least I am told it was, an empire in its own right for some time; Taldor proper is... I don't really know but its people didn't have a major presence at the Wound. The king of Cheliax at the time was Gaspodar and he prepared to abdicate in Aroden's favor and then Aroden did not present Himself because He was dead and there was catastrophic weather, the end of prophecy, the opening of the Wound. There was a civil war, I am certain I have been lied to about its particulars and do not have a good way to guess which ones. House Thrune won backed by Hell and ruled - as a house, not as individuals, the reigns were often short - until overthrown."

"By archmages, plural."

"There are a married couple of archmages, Abadar's high Inquisitor, the Queen who is rumored to have swordfought the Tarrasque, and another archmage with a powerful familiar. I do think they tapped a paladin order called the Glorious Reclamation for - post-coup cleanup - but don't have details on that."

"Do you know if any of them are around yet? Probably not, Aroden wouldn't be sending Arazni if He had anything else that'd do it....All right. Of the claims that you've made the ones I expect to cause a lot of political problems are that I have my own country, especially if any of its territory is within the present boundaries of the Empire, that Cheliax breaks away from the East and especially that Aroden was expected to return there not Oppara, and of course that Aroden dies. I'm not asking you to lie, but I think you should treat those claims as very sensitive."

"Is there a - standard deflection that will parse well?"

"Probably. I am not myself any good at politics. If you were in my command I would order you not to speak of it and then that's a perfectly good deflection."

He keeps not being qualified to be in chains of command and it's getting to be distressing! "Is having been advised not to the sort of thing people who will not like many possible answers will try to override, or...?"

"I don't really expect my advice will count for much of anything.. you can join the Knights of Ozem if you'd like to, I just do not think it would be appropriate to declare all priests of the goddess Iomedae in my command here and now and it was not obvious from your...reasoning...that it would contain any of the features of being a priest of the goddess Iomedae which you value."

"...I don't immediately know in which direction it would tend to weigh but I don't yet know if I will get spells in the morning, or even channels."

"You have a strong Lawful Good aura, as a third circle cleric of a Lawful Good god would be expected to. I suppose I don't know that to translate to spells and channels. I haven't heard of previous instances of time travel. I have no experience commanding non-paladins but a cleric of a Lawful Good god really seems like it would have many relevant similarities."

"I'm probably Lawful Neutral. In my own right." Why did he say that, it's really very obvious.

"The reason paladins are generally understood to be unwise to accept a command of non-paladins is that they eventually fall if employing ordinary military discipline and you can't run an army without it. I take it that this problem has been solved in the next nine centuries and quite possibly in my lifetime, and I rejoice of it, but it still seems unwise to undertake without a theory of how I'll avoid that problem, and for a cleric of a Lawful Good god that theory is 'rulebreaking will be exceptional circumstances or inadequate training and it won't come up just like it doesn't for paladins'."

"Who is it who has my books, sir?"

"General Arnisant, who has the command of the Second Army. I do not think he has read them."

"Did he... say what his plan was regarding them, or my letters, or... anything else, really, the scroll case has the spellbook page I use to get the Prestidigitation back if I drop it..."

"He intended to run a Commune about it but I don't know what specifically he'd have asked. Probably whether to send them and you to the Church or not, and whether to call Arazni in light of how it might get her killed and also is needed to save the world."

"And this would have taken enough time that I should not yet presume I'm not being sent anywhere?"

"I have not been told anything but I would strongly expect that I would not have gotten permission to speak to you before Communes about whether this is some elaborate trick, and if Aroden said to make you Oppara's problem then the general would have done that and not done any other things. Also I don't think Aroden should send you to Oppara. You would hate it and they would be terrified of anyone believing anything you said and it really doesn't seem like the first step of actually winning."

What does him hating it have to do with anything. He knows better than to say that aloud. "Yes sir."

"The concern is that the books fall into enemy hands, which would probably lose us the war. If Tar-Baphon can just kill everyone who becomes useful in opposing him before they are strong enough to resist a Wish he'll do that."

"Yes sir. - if I were trying to secure someone or something under analogous conditions I might try to negotiate for the use of the Black Dome in Osirion but I think Osirion is not yet Abadar's and don't know whose it is."

"We are technically not at war with Qadira right now but we definitely can't store strategically essential resources in their cities."

"Understood. ...Aktun itself? Abadar might want the books if He didn't acquire them as soon as I appeared automatically."

"If I were writing the Commune questions I'd ask about that. If there are other good methods - besides 'have someone hide it, then execute them' - they're secret."

"I don't know much about what the church of Aroden is like that didn't come through in the book and am developing the impression that that window into it may have been tailored for a censor's reception."

"Well, hopefully it gets continually better over the next eight hundred years, that being its primary responsibility. I can speak to how it functions today but I do not know what has surprised you particularly."

"I don't think I knew enough to be surprised, exactly. Could you perhaps compare it to the Abadarans, who I'm relatively familiar with in my time - not in great numbers but the insurance adjuster came by with his party every year and he'd talk to me."

"The Abadarans have not yet invented insurance for forts though I can see the charm of the idea. I don't think you could put it in place in the present political climate without a lot of political talent. I see...more dissimilarities than similarities, really? Abadarans do not do politics, besides fighting for their right to collect interest. The Church of Aroden is very involved in politics. Abadarans do not serve in the army, generally. The Church of Aroden has many many priests in the Crusade and plenty in the Empire's other wars also. I don't think Abadar picks paladins; Aroden picks a great many of them. Abadarans you can buy at the right price; there are Arodenite priests who are mercenaries but not many of them and mostly only out on the fringes of civilization."

"Involved in politics to what end?"

"I do not know quite how to answer that question, in that I think an accurate answer would involve explaining which are the live political debates in Oppara and what side of them the Church is on, and I do not know that, except that of course one debate is over the Crusade and the Church is in favor of it. Many things that are very important to me are not live political debates in Oppara at all and the Church is not broadly inclined to expend credibility on them."

"I guess I was expecting non-Asmodean countries to have - more - live political debates."

" - I don't mean that there are few live political debates, there are quite a lot of them, I just don't know what most of them are. I have only been to Oppara once and had no idea what I was doing and was told to leave so I didn't mess up delicate politics I didn't understand. ...and then refused to leave and was arrested. I am sure that our attitudes are all shockingly barbaric to you because civilization has had nine centuries in which to surpass us, but it is not the case that little is debated, just that I have almost no exposure to politics."

"I expect today's Empire will surpass the society in which I grew up and fall short of what I have vaguely and groundlessly imagined about Lastwall, sir. I can stop remarking on it.

"Is there something I should be reading or hearing about the Knights of Ozem with a view toward swearing on if the notion is not preempted by Aroden ordering me to Axis or me preventing my own existence and vanishing or anything like that?"

" - why would you stop remarking on it? If we can learn the customs of a more advanced civilization and adopt them immediately we should! If anything the problem is that your remarks are not specific enough that I can identify what you suspect we're falling short of!

- the Knights of Ozem are committed to the Crusade, and the strongest reason not to join would be if you think you should plausibly be doing something other than the Crusade. We are a paladin order in Aroden's service, and aid the Second Army by being absolutely trustworthy against all temptations of barbarism, selfishness, or the Enemy. I recruit from every crowd I can gather; we do not expect a stronger understanding of the law than that one should obey orders except where ordered to disobey Aroden Himself, tell the truth or not speak at all, give one's word very reluctantly and die rather than break it, and strive to get strong enough to build paradise in this world and inspire people to it in the next one."

"My remarks are not specific because I have very little specific knowledge, of Lastwall, beyond what was in the handbook, and that was about keeping succubi out of their border forts and when I was supposed to execute people, not whether they have live political debates, except insofar as I can extrapolate from, for example, the fact that heresy is not a disciplinary matter for the rank and file. And it does not sound like at present you have - leverage to make use of anything I might note in any context greater than that of the Knights which I expect are already functioning well. But I can also continue remarking on it if you prefer, sir.

"Whether I should be doing something other than the Crusade probably depends a lot on how securely it is possible and necessary to contain me and what I know."

"Heresy is not usually a disciplinary matter here, either, but most heresies are less explosive than 'Aroden dies in the future and the Age of Glory doesn't happen'. I have had the thought that no true claims should be prosecutable as heresy but I don't know how that would work in practice and in particular how it'd stand up to adversarial action - if Hell's trying to conquer the Empire and in your timeline succeeds then preventing that is very very important and 'give Geryon cover of law' might be a serious mistake. 

I agree that whether you should be doing something other than the Crusade depends on that, and don't know the answer at this point. Hopefully it is being thoroughly investigated by my superiors."

"Do you have an opinion on whether I should cast my Create Food at some point today or hold on to it in case it is not replaceable in the morning?"

"I don't....think you're likely to find yourself in a situation where Create Food is of extreme strategic importance? I suppose if you can produce exquisite future cuisines that might be diplomatically valuable. Do you want dinner, I can have it ordered here."

"My fort was on slightly short rations at the time I left - our supply was drastically complicated by the war, Cheliax supplied the Wound by Teleport and a lot of wizards defected around that time - so perhaps it looms overlarge in my mind as a logistical constraint. I don't mind eating on whatever schedule is customary for prisoners."

"The city is besieged and I'm sure they're not feeding prisoners generally but I'll have food ordered." She steps away to the door to do that.

"The handbook obliges feeding prisoners."

"Huh. Is food much cheaper in the more civilized future or do they consider prisoner welfare a much higher priority?"

"It could be either. Or both. I don't have any money on me, I was planning to eat created food the whole journey, or I'd suggest comparing a coin, I can still do it but it will be a poor guess because Infernal Cheliax had paper currency."

"Paper currency? How does that work? Like - notes of authorization for silver held somewhere central?"

"Well, perhaps you could do it that way but the reason I don't have any is because it was instead backed by damned souls."

"Ah. I see. ....we've got to beat Tar-Baphon first but after that we will figure out how to prevent that. ...does Lastwall execute prisoners outside wartime? It has occurred to me to wonder if a civilization could get away without that."

"I have - uh, have read - the Worldwound handbook and not the domestic one, so I don't know."

"Do you know anything about how they choose their government?" This is also something where she has lots of ideas but enough sense to not say them aloud.

"I think it is slightly more complicated than just being a theocracy... and I might have heard of it, given recent events in my timeline, if it were a republic, so I think it probably is not."

"What is a republic."

"Oh, that's when leaders are elected by a popular vote. Andoran's doing it. Galt was for a while but I think is now complicated in some way. I'm not sure either example recommends it very highly, Andoran throws tremendous numbers of pirates who I assume must be very popular and Galt had a reportedly dreadful civil war about the implementation details, but the husband of the archmage couple is reportedly Republican and that's behind the constitutional convention he wanted."

"A vote of...all citizens in the major city?"

"...my impression was throughout the country but I don't actually know how I came by that impression."

"Has transportation improved much? ...in this society people mostly travel by river, which is only moderately dangerous, or overland, which is quite dangerous in most places. Powerful wizards can Teleport but most people will never have met any wizard that powerful or anyone who has travelled by Teleport."

"Cheliax had a lot of wizards, because of screening everyone in the compulsory education - they'd get all the kids together in a room and read their minds and see which ones were bright enough and take them even if their parents were serfs or something. I got a Teleport with one of the remaining supply wizards from my fort to Taggun Hold, I don't know if the place exists yet, it's in Menador, and I was just going to walk the rest of the way to Westcrown."

"And that would be safe to walk alone?"

"Not overwhelmingly, and in fact I will not make it to the convention due to a monster intercepting me, but I didn't have anyone to walk with."

"All right. I'm interested in whether any of the major inventions of the next centuries can be had early just from knowing of them, but there's both the fact that Asmodeans would've tried quite hard to limit what anyone knew about anything and the fact that you haven't seen much of our world. When you read the Acts were there things that stood out as more difficult to do than they'd be in your time, or done very differently?"

"...there's the prophecy spells, of course, but that's not... hm. I think I would have expected a higher concentration of arcane casters than seemed evident but I know Cheliax is unusual on that even in my time and don't know by how much. I have only read it all the way through once, though I scrivened off the second copy myself and skimmed it then and have consulted individual passages more often, just, not ones about inventions..."

"I would have expected innovations in warfare to stand out and not be something the Asmodeans could censor but maybe fighting a portal to the Abyss just does not really involve conventional warfare because demons are not capable of strategy."

"There are things I would, if commanding the forces described in the Acts, choose to organize differently, but not in a way where I know it to be better rather than circumstantial rather than stylistic. I can try to compose a report on that for you but it will be more difficult without the book to consult."

Perhaps to calibrate her expectations she should look at how much progress has been made in the last nine hundred years. Her homeland was civilized, but that's not a matter of invention. "I might appreciate that but it doesn't seem of immediate importance. Did you have other questions for me?"

so hypothetically how drastic a discount do you think She probably needed to "I don't think so, sir."

"I have a sermon to deliver after the executions but I can remain here another half-hour, if you'd find it valuable."

"It is not obvious to me what I am likely to be cleared to know about the strategic picture and was assuming that information would be issued on a need to know basis..."

"It is widely known that this is the city of Canorate, capital of the imperial province of Moltuna, currently under military rule and the base of operations of the Second Army of the Crusade against the king of Ustalav, Tar-Baphon, a powerful necromancer, who has also swayed the orcs of Belkzen to his service. The Emperor of Taldor is Kydonus, long may he reign, and the Empire reaches from Galatia province in the northeast to Sophra prefecture in the southeast to the Arch of Aroden in the southwest and to, well, here, in the northwest, with the rest of Moltuna currently very dangerous due to the war and with the lands north of it occupied entirely."

"They call it Molthune in the future. The Glorious Reclamation was based out of it and the Lord Marshal thereof is sometimes described as the most powerful paladin since - you, except presumably that refers to later in your career, I don't know how powerful you are right now exactly."

"There are paladins more powerful than me in this city. Is Molthune one of the provinces conquered by Hell?"

"It broke away at... some point, I think it did not spend much time being ruled by Hell. Would you like me to try to draw you a map?"

"Sure. We can both try to draw one."

Iomedae's has no concept of what's on the other side of the Arch of Aroden. Monsters, probably. Otherwise the continents at least haven't moved. "Galatia province, Verduran - it's not really a province because it's a forest, but we keep the river clear - Carpenden prefecture, Arthfell prefecture, Sirmium province, Chelam province, Menador - that's where I'm from -"

He knows.

His map has Rahadoum on it, and Osirion and Mendev and the Wound and Absalom, and Cheliax divided into its archduchies - "Do you happen to know what they call it before 'the Hellcoast', I presume its name was changed but don't know what from" - and Thuvia and Katapesh and Lastwall and Belkzen and the little stub of what's left of Taldor, and Galt and Ustalav and Razmiran - he thinks Razmiran might not be very longstanding but has no idea what was there before - and Andoran and Nidal and some vagueness where the mammoth lords hang out and... Irissen is around here somewhere? - and Qadira extends to hereabouts - bunch of river kingdoms over here, he doesn't know any of them individually - Isger's here, it's a Chelish protectorate - he's forgetting stuff over here and also over here but cannot immediately call it to mind.

"The Empire hasn't settled that coast yet, it'll be named when it's incorporated." Iomedae has complicated feelings about the breakup of the Empire. She would like it to be more possible to build things out of Oppara's power and also she notices that it got conquered by Hell.

Nod. "Is the sermon one of the ones that made it into the book, or...?"

" - the one I'm going to give soon? I doubt it. It is not making a particularly complicated theological point. I think there are some interesting theological points to be found in why armies punish desertion but - I do not think that would be helpful to the men to hear tonight. They just - need to believe about themselves that they'll stay at their posts, and that their fellows will, and that they will all have paradise for it." She is suddenly curious how Hell convinced people to stay at their posts but it would be a rather intrusive question.

"The handbook requires trials and it is possible I missed something, as the Taldane is different, but it did not seem obvious that they were getting even a very abbreviated one."

"Is the idea that if you do not require trials you will sometimes execute someone who was innocent, or are they supposed to have some other benefit?"

"They are supposed to be entitled to deny their crimes under a truth spell if there is an Abadaran to hand but Zone of Truth is not reliable enough and I never had an Abadaran to hand during the relevant timespan... I'm not sure of the exact justification."

"That seems like a perfectly good rule to minimize the chances you execute innocent people, though in this specific case I do not think there is much question of their guilt. Which is why I wondered if there were supposed to be other benefits. I suppose you could learn of coconspirators who didn't leave with them, that way."

"There could be other benefits but the handbook did not specify what they were or how to conduct a trial in a way to efficiently achieve them."

"They are not my men and paladins mostly don't commit capital offenses but I am delighted about - bits of institutional design from a world that has done more of it - and I will probably adopt much of it."

"I will try to remember more of it as it comes up, sir, presuming you don't get access to the book itself."

They bring him food, and a chess set. 

"Aroden keep you."

"Thank you," Blai adds, when the chess set is passed in; he takes a bite of the food but then is occupied setting it up. The pieces feel strange in his hand for being real. It's been a long time.

"Of course. Has the game changed any, in the last nine hundred years?"

"- I think so, actually, because, uh, the difference between the standard kind in Avistan and the kind my book describes as Vudran is that the Avistani kind has a 'crusader Queen', moves like a rook and a bishop combined, but it could be that's apocryphal."

"Huh! Would you like to play a game?" It seemed like chess was important to him. He mentioned it when they were discussing wanting things.

"- if you have nothing better to do, sir. White or black?"

"Only if I have nothing better to do? I might not but I haven't specifically considered it and would need to think a moment."

"I - didn't mean to conditionally agree to play, sir, it's just that it is not clear exactly why you might want to."

"It seemed like it was important to you."

"- I hadn't meant to - impinge on your - I was planning originally to Prestidigitate pieces to play against myself, sir, in preference to staring at the wall, being as prayer is somewhat confusing as a pastime just now, and it will not rise to the level of actual importance for another three weeks and that's allowing some slack so that it does not become an emergency at the precise one-month mark -"

"- it would be surprising to me if an instruction to do something you enjoy once a month no matter how dire the surrounding circumstances were meant to suggest that one should only do things one enjoys once a month, or only consider doing things one enjoys a priority insofar as they are in danger of failing to meet the obligation."

"...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.

Iomedae will need a reminder of which are legal moves and then can at least reliably make those and not make ones that get a piece taken. She considers her moves for a while, partially because she doesn't know how to play chess and partially because he said while playing chess was when he could think best.

Well, making the game slower is not actually the way to make a game amazing at improving the gears of his brain, but he can think more moves ahead and explain how pawns work and tell her why she is not allowed to do that thing which puts her in check and so on.

She is not, on the whole, particularly good at chess at all, but after they've whittled each other down to fewer pieces she surveys the board consideringly and says 'you win in four, good game', which people who are new at chess do not usually do. 

"Was that...helpful for sorting out what policies you would change if you cared whether you were miserable?"

"Somewhat, although that was not the phrasing of the question I was considering. I do not - arrange to be miserable in the face of genuinely trivial obstacles to not being miserable - but may be idiosyncratic about which barriers appear to me to be trivial, and in particular probably have culturally miscalibrated expectations about in what ways other people are relevantly nontrivial, but being aware of that does not directly render me non-idiosyncratic or well-calibrated. I am accustomed to it frequently being the case that things more important than my internal state must and do override whatever my other preferences might be - the Worldwound is very cold, for example, and it would be in no way appropriate to prioritize nor encourage anyone else to prioritize letting me in before a security check was completed up to and including if my toes were about to fall off, because having a policy breakable for things like that is how you get succubi. There is potentially a wide range of things between that extreme and the opposite end where I will for example scratch my arm if it itches and I'm not actually sure what thresholds you're proposing to emplace where."

" - yes, you absolutely should not allow people to bypass a security precaution because they are in distress, the security objective is more important than not being miserable. Many things are more important than not being miserable. I am just not clear what, in this case, was more important than not being miserable."

"Various guesses crossed my mind about why the auras might be up by default some of which could have been more important. My reaction to it is I think rather bizarre - unless you've seen it before? - and I did not know if it might attenuate with practice or the mere passage of time, though that at this point seems unlikely; in which case this would have been a perfectly reasonable occasion to pass that time since I'm not doing much of anything else and did in fact find it impairing in the fighting retreat to the city. I had absolutely no idea how bringing it up might parse in terms of - what claims it might seem to be making about social reality or my status - or what effects it might directly have on those things, both of which I am also independently unsure of to begin with and therefore ill positioned to assess risks about."

"You can ask paladins for confidentiality, if you would like to discuss something with them and would like it not to be further reported or employed in assessments of you. It seems unlikely that you are more willing to ask for that than for the aura to be adjusted, but it is available as an option. ...for calibration, if a peasant I'd never met was stuck within the aura for an extended period and wanted to be excluded from it I'd want them to ask me."

"I did eventually ask you, just, only when it appeared to be affecting elements of the situation that mattered to anything besides how pleasant it is to occupy myself, because asking affects elements of the situation besides that. I didn't have any reason to believe it was worth the attention it would cost to parse the sentence so long as I thought the balance of the effects were wholly local to my internal preferences."

"...and the reason I would give why it is worth the effort to parse the sentence is that a lot of things that are wholly....local to your internal preferences....still matter."

"...at least once a month, sir."

"...no."

?

"I really think you should interpret the once a month thing as 'if this is not your highest priority at least occasionally, that is very bad for you', not as 'this does not need to be a priority at all except when it has been a month since it last was'."

"...yes, that seems like a reasonable interpretation of the rule, I have been assuming it's a self-maintenance instruction..."

"So yes, but - if there were someone who in fact suffered no consequences to their judgment or fighting skill whatsoever from being miserable all of the time, it would still be preferable that they not be miserable, and it would not be preferable specifically that they experience non-misery once a month, but whenever it could be cheaply purchased."

".........yes? I've already - said that in practice I wind up playing chess more than once a month -"

"And yet you still do not seem to be making predictions about what is worth someone's time from the assumption that you being miserable is a bad thing."

"...at steep enough exchange rates I do, I asked the other paladin for permission to cast Prestidigitation."

"I am sincerely glad to hear it. You are still speaking of this in a way that suggests some important gap in understanding but it is possible it is only a gap in communication."

"I am still confused but not in a way where I know what questions to ask."

"Sometimes I find it helpful to describe to myself - a great many situations that are all variants on the same theme, and contemplate whether I think there are morally important differences between any two of them."

"I don't recall that any examples of this exercise made it into the book, sir."

"Is murder wrong?"

"Yes sir."

"So if I am riding down the road and I see a man walking and I take off his head as I ride by, this was wrong?"

"...unless he's a zombie or something, sir, yes."

"He is for now a human man, twenty years old, offering no provocation at all. But perhaps instead of the Empire I live somewhere uncivilized where this is entirely legal, is it less wrong now?"

"It's...... less stupid? I don't think it has bearing on - are you tracking the time, sir, your sermon was soon -"

"Huh! I would have said that some of the ill is the ill of lawbreaking, and the betrayal of a trust, and so there is a little less of it in this case. Unknown to me or to him, the man was about to die right around the next bend of a bear, does this make the deed less evil?"

"Less... consequentially so, I suppose... the book does say that you tend to think of Good and Law as facets of the same thing but that's neither otherwise conventional nor intuitive to me."

"What if I did know that the man was about to die of a bear around the bend, and chose to kill him only because he was already doomed?"

"...I guess that might be slightly less evil if you were specifically on a mission to deprive the bears of food to the Good end of reduced bear activity in the area? Possibly much less evil if you somehow knew the man to be bound for Paradise and to prefer swords over bears as a way to get there."

"What if I don't kill the man at all, but I know there's a bear around the corner and could shout a warning to him and don't bother? Am I as guilty as if I had killed him myself?"

"...I don't think so?"