She nods.

It's sort of weird that she's calling harmful channels "evil channels." The Evil gods won't give people the other kind, sure, but Asmodia's not Evil, not since she risked her life giving Guifré what he deserved and maybe longer than that. Maybe people from other countries are just... saying something that's not quite right, but that's close enough for most people, and don't have a lot of clerics of Neutral gods or something?

...This seems like the sort of thing where it'd be really easy to say the wrong thing and accidentally convince the Caydenite that she secretly supports Asmodeus and needs to be tortured to death, or something.

Probably she should come up with some other question instead. Ideally a question that doesn't make her sound like a stupid pathetic child, but she'll take anything that doesn't get her tortured to death for no good reason.

"...Are there a lot of people like, uh—" She gestures vaguely at the adventurers. 

"Depends on what you mean. A lot of eagle knights? Sure. A lot of people as annoying as Joy? No, it's a talent of his."

Joy rolls his eyes.

If Asmodia said that about someone here they would... well, it would depend on who it was. But they wouldn't just treat it like some kind of joke.

"And Eagle Knights are... people who kill people who're working for Asmodeus?"

"Them and slavers. Or - not everyone who fights Asmodeans is an eagle knight, but all of us fight Cheliax."

Which isn't technically true, she knows a couple of guys who are up at the wound waiting for the heat to die down a bit, but they're there because they were fighting Cheliax so that's just nitpicking.

Probably it's very stupid to decide she likes a group she's never even heard of before today just because some strangers claiming to be part of it showed up and killed her priest and lord. 

On the other hand, she's never met anyone else who was actually trying to give the priests and lords (and slavers, apparently?) what they deserved. 

"How do people, uh—"

"They're not going to take an Asmodean, Asmodia."

She feels her chest flare up with hot anger for a moment before she presses it down again. "I'm not an Asmodean."

She raises her eyebrows pointedly.

Well, she's not wrong. It's not that Treason doesn't approve of the fundamental human proclivity to renounce Asmodeus the moment someone shows you a better way, she does tend to want a more than that from prospective comrades. Also, wow, Asmodia. Her parents must be such bootlickers. 

"Most people aren't Asmodeans. It takes a little more than that to be an eagle knight."

"What does it, uh, take?"

"Well, you've got to be able to fight. I shoot people, Liberty hits them with a morningstar, Eric stabs people, Joy's got his wizard shit. And people have got to trust you to have their back."

Eric does his best to keep his wince invisible. It's not that he's not completely aware that the halflings already know they're good at killing, but that doesn't mean reminding them of that is going to be helpful.

Look, the most important thing is whether they're going to start trying to torture him to death. If no one is torturing him to death he's not about to complain. He doesn't think they're going to, but he wasn't expecting what happened with Tea either.

I can learn is the sort of thing you say if you're a pathetic child who can't take no for an answer unless someone's standing over you with a whip. I can fight has the problem that she isn't, really, much good at fighting. I'm secretly a priestess would probably be a lot more convincing, except she doesn't actually have any idea how Caydenites feel about Calistria. They're both Chaotic, and Calistria is basically Chaotic Good, but it'd still be a risk.

"How good at magic do you need to be, if you're fighting with magic?" That still gives a lot away, but there's lies that sort of explain it if she has to, she's not committing yet.

...Who does she think she's fooling here. If she were smart enough to be a wizard she'd be in wizard school. Is she, what, going to try to get her mother to play along with this stupid act?

"You were second circle when you started, right Joy?"

"Yes, same as Liberty. But we take paladins at first."

"We take Paladins before they get spells, they get in by being good at fighting. Hardly counts."

"Don't forget Sam."

"I'm still not sure Sam could even cast real spells, he was a tricky bastard. Whatever. The groups I run with usually don't bring people out on missions until they hit second, but there are plenty of baby wizards in Almas who do training on the side, some of them join one of the ships or impress someone enough to take a chance on them."

"...Where's Almas?"

"It's the capital of Andoran. Morgethai runs the university there, greatest in the whole inner sea."

But, like, where in Andoran. It's not like she's seen a map in the last five minutes. Maybe in Andoran you can just ask people for directions and they'll tell you and definitely not try to turn you into the Asmodeans for being a runaway? ...Or, uh, whatever people do instead of that in places that don't have Asmodeans. It makes sense that they wouldn't go out of their way to turn people into the Asmodeans they don't have, she's just confused about why they'd give people directions, if they even do that.

What else does she need to know?

Andoran is four hundred miles east. It would probably be a good idea to make sure Andoran doesn't, like, only let people worship Good gods, or something, before she just assumes that running off to Andoran would work. Also a good idea to get more specific directions, but that hasn't been working so far, and 'find out which gods Andoran allows' might be easier. What's a way to say it that isn't just a confession, it's okay if it sounds really suspicious as long as it doesn't give things away for sure—

"Are there, uh, other things I should know about Andoran, or Almas, that the Asmodeans wouldn't've told us? Like —  gods that you really hate even though they aren't Evil, or anything like that."

"I mean, probably a lot of things? I dunno, I never lived in Cheliax. Abortion's evil, Asmodeus is a loser, most people don't go to Hell? Slavery's bad, obviously, it's completely illegal in Andoran? I'm not thinking of any neutral gods that are banned, Abadar sucks but plenty of people like him."

"Erecura is neutral, technically."

"I guess. She's banned, because we don't give a shit about Hell's technicalities in Andoran."

A bunch of parts of that don't totally make sense, but it sounds like they're fine with Calistrians, which is really the important part.

Probably she should tell them. It might matter, for getting to Andoran, that she can make water that won't get her sick and do a little bit of healing. Given everything else they've said it'd be pretty surprising if they freaked out about it, unless they've been lying all along in which case she'll die slowly no matter what she says.

It's just—

It's just that she's been assuming that if anyone finds out she'll be lucky if she's dead by the next morning. Which is incredibly pathetic, now that she thinks about it, it's bad enough to be a bit of a coward but there's no reason at all to be scared for reasons that don't even matter here.

...and also she can change her mind about not telling them but not about telling them. That's not pathetic, that's true pretty much no matter what.

She runs her fingers deliberately over what is to all appearances a completely ordinary (if slightly scratched) button.

"But — Calistria's alright?"

"Oh, are you running off to join the whores? You do know whores have to fuck people, right?"

She is managing to hold back the impulse pressing against her skin, telling her to do something about Llora, but it's taking active effort. (She isn't letting it show.)

If they killed people for being Calistrian clerics that would be laughably insufficient misdirection but in fact they do not do that.

"I mean, people will make assumptions about you. But she's not terrible or anything, I've just always liked Milani more myself."

Joy doesn't think quite as highly of Calistria as Treason does but there are some Calistrians in the Eagle Knights he respects fine, he's not going to contradict her.

Asmodia has never actually heard of Milani. (As gods go, she's one of the hardest for the Asmodeans to spin in a way that's remotely compatible with the regime, and before Aroden died she wasn't important enough to have a big presence. At least in her area, no one thought it was worth telling people Milani was banned, not when it meant telling people that Milani existed at all.)

"What do people say about Milani, in places that aren't, uh, ruled by Asmodeus?"

"She's the chaotic good goddess of rebellion and freedom, fights tyranny and slavery and hell. You haven't met Liberty yet, she's prepping spells right now, but Liberty's one of her clerics - we've got a bunch of them in the Eagle Knights, more than there are anywhere else on Golarion, because fighting the Asmodeans is her top priority. Ragathiel does too, but his guys are usually a little too dour and serious for me."