Nod nod.

If they're going to the town guard, probably that's part of the loyalty test from before, and they're going to see whether she turns in the doctor for primary worship and conspiring against the Crown?  But probably that means they're not just waiting to see if she tells the woman right away, if they're going to the town guard anyway. And the part about 'courage and good fortune' is... well, courage could be a lot of gods, really, there's loads of gods that want people to be brave and fight monsters and so on, but luck is probably... well, back when she was little, she used to pray to Nethys for good luck on tests, that's not even illegal as long as you're still treating Asmodeus like he's the most important, but outside of school luck goes with... Gorum for luck in war, Desna for luck on the road, Pharasma for luck in childbirth... well, probably it's not Pharasma... really there's kind of a lot of options for luck too, and if he's pretending to worship someone who's outright illegal even for secondary worship it might not even be someone she's heard of. That's probably not the important part, anyway, it's not like it'll be suspicious if she doesn't know that much about other gods, as long as she's not telling blatant lies like claiming she doesn't know which god you pray to for good harvests or something.

It takes her a little while to figure out what she's actually supposed to do with the crutches, but eventually she's able to figure out how she's supposed to use them, more or less. She's guessing from how big some of the houses are that she must be in a fairly rich part of town The pole with the sign is too small to be a whipping post, but she can see tall wooden poles all up and down the street, with some kind of rope connecting them, so probably they just use those. It's weird there's so many of them all over, you wouldn't think they'd need that many, but maybe there are a lot of people here who break the law?

...Which could mean the doctor there actually was a heretic, and that part wasn't a loyalty test after all, and if she tells the town guard about him then he'll die. Which — obviously it'd be stupid and contemptable to care what happens to a random stranger — but it wouldn't be something that was just happening to him, it's not like she's just choosing not to help him, she'd be turning him in — but if it is a loyalty test, they'll torture her to death for sure, but they might do that anyway—

Well. She's not actually talking to the guard yet. She still has a little bit of time to figure out what to tell them.

Nobody asks her anything at the police station, so she can continue not talking to them, if she likes.

The woman (who introduces herself to the police as Aneta Wójcicka) does indeed make a call to some governmental office asking them to check if anyone named Nessa Martorell is known to exist (she will call them back later for the answer), and to the orphanage to tell them there is indeed a very confused sixteen-year-old girl with a broken leg here and she'll be bringing her in on the next train. 

They get offered tea while they wait.  (Aneta accepts.)

Well, just because they haven't asked her anything yet doesn't mean it's not a loyalty test. The safest thing to do would be to turn him in. But—

If they're actually using a Wand of Sending to talk to someone who works for the Crown and check if she really exists, then she's going to die no matter how loyal she pretends to be. If they're bluffing about that, which is also pretty likely, then... she is still almost certainly going to die. She doesn't have a travel pass, they already know that much. Even if they decide that's not enough to kill her over, even if they actually care what else she's done, a town like this has a decent chance of just having a wizard who can pluck the truth out of her head, or a priest who can force her to say it.

Her chest feels sort of twisty and tight, which is stupid, it's not like she didn't know she was probably going to die.

Probably the doctor wasn't the sort of secret heretic who outright admits it to a stranger he just met. Probably that was just another stupid Asmodean game, and if she doesn't say anything they'll take that as another reason to kill her, and maybe add in some extra torture while they're at it.

But they're going to kill her anyway. If she turns him in, probably it doesn't make a difference, but maybe, possibly, she get someone who's actually trying to fight Asmodeus killed too.

That's the sort of thing she really would deserve to die for.

Her hands keep trying to start shaking and she keeps having to tell them they're not allowed to do that. She's — well, she's going to die either way, but she'll die sooner that way.

She shakes her head about the tea, there's no sense in making whatever they want to do to her any easier, then repositions her rucksack so that her knife is right within reach. 

Nothing happens, and continues to happen. 

Aneta chats with the policemen a little - tells them the girl, "supposedly Nessa," showed up in the woods with a broken leg and is either lying about everything or incredibly confused, do they know any... Gypsy communities or anything like that... around here who might have raised a weirdly-named and very confused child?  No, they don't, although one of them remarks that the clothes she's wearing look hand-woven, not just hand-sewn, so she'd almost have to come from somewhere strange, right?  Well, yes, but she's still lying and she should just stop doing that if she wants Aneta to put any extra effort into figuring her situation out, says Aneta somewhat pointedly.

As opposed to... woven by magic? Probably a wizard could do that, if they weren't stuck with just cantrips, but it'd be weird to spend spell slots on that when it can also be done by hand. Maybe they're closer than she thought to one of the academies, or something, and so here it's normal? That kind of makes sense, now that she thinks about it, they had some Lights up in the office, only in that case it's confusing why no one's even suggested she pay a wizard for an Infernal Healing. Maybe the priests really want to control all the proper healing, or something, so that it's easier for them to keep everyone else under control?

In any case she is not five years old and is not going to stop lying just because they're pointedly accusing her of lying. "I'm not lying, ma'am. If Egorian's got a list of everyone's name then maybe they can also tell you what Sofrituró is called on your map." 

"What Egorian?" asks one of the policemen confusedly.  (Aneta has decided on a policy of ignoring anything said to her about stupid made-up places.)

"................the capital?"

"The capital of where?"

"Cheliax????"

Are they claiming to be, what, some sort of... barony in rebellion, like Andoran Province, or something, and to emphasize just how much they aren't part of Cheliax they have to... pretend not to know what Egorian is? 

That doesn't actually make any sense. Probably this is just another confusing loyalty test but she can't think of what they're testing.

He looks around at everyone with clear confusion.  "I know I was crap at geography, but, uh..."

Aneta sighs tiredly.  "I told you she's making things up."

"She sounds so convinced though!  Do you think she's, fuck, I don't know, crazy or hypnotized or something?"  He stares at her, as if he could somehow tell.

.......If this is another test of her loyalty she doesn't actually have any idea how to... pass it. Probably a loyal Asmodean subject would keep... saying that Cheliax exists... but so would anyone else, so it wouldn't be a very good test.

"...the strongest country in Avistan?"

"I haven't heard of that either!"  And, half in case she really is hypnotized or something and half just because that seems like the obvious next part of the conversation: "This is Poland, we're in Europe, the capital is Warsaw.  Uh, the year is 1993?"  And he is not touching the question of what the strongest country is, thank you very much, especially at work.

.........Did she somehow go back in time? She doesn't actually know how long Cheliax has been around — or, she knows what they told her in school, but for all she knows they were lying about that too. For all she knows whatever country was here thousands of years ago was called... whichever of Poland and Europe was supposed to be the country. She thought there were fewer wizards back then but maybe Cheliax was also lying about having the most?

Or it's still a loyalty test but if it's a loyalty test she's going to die no matter what and if she's somehow travelled back in time maybe she won't—

"Is, uh, this might seem like a weird question, but is Aroden still alive? Like, as a god, not as a human?"

She's pretty sure the years are named after him, so he'd definitely been a god by 1993, and she's pretty sure that wasn't made up, if they were going to make something up they'd say the years are named after Asmodeus or something. Or, well, if he's not even a god yet then probably they counted their years some other way, but she barely knows any history from before Asmodeus killed him and definitely doesn't know what people were doing before he ascended.

"Who? What are you talking about??"  How does she sound so-- well, sane maybe isn't quite right, but-- so self-assured about all this, while saying things that don't make any sense??  Is that really what crazy people are like?  He's never met a crazy person, but he always imagined more wild-eyed yelling.

"There are no gods," says Aneta with finality in her voice.  The two policement look awkward at this but don't contradict her, since she's in charge of the orphan girl.

...She really thought that everyone knew about the gods?? Even Cheliax doesn't try to pretend they don't exist, they've got no reason to tell people about a bunch of Good gods that aren't even real. She thinks there's a country, she doesn't remember what it's called, where it's illegal to worship any gods, but she's got no idea if anything she knows about it is true — the priest said they made it illegal to worship any gods because they rejected the rightful dominion of Asmodeus, and that he punished them all by blighting them with disease, but probably if he could do that he'd just do that to everywhere that rebelled against Cheliax? But she didn't think they tried to say that the gods don't exist, just that no one should worship them.

Actually, now that she thinks about it, the doctor knew about the gods, so it can't just be that no one here knows about them, and the town guards are giving the woman a weird look too. So probably they do know about them — maybe not Aroden specifically, it's not surprising if there's some gods they haven't heard of, although if they're counting the years some other way then she doesn't have any idea when it is. (Maybe the no-gods country is closer than she thought and she wound up there somehow, and it's just that they count from... something that happened 1993 years ago. She doesn't actually have any idea what.)

If they're going to torture her to death for not rejecting every god then it's probably too late, but she should pretend she agrees with the woman. If it's actually the woman who's the heretic, like the other two people seem to think, then she shouldn't, though it's probably not a good idea to mention Asmodeus, in a lot of countries they'd torture anyone who worships him to death and not even let your soul move on. If she's still in Cheliax... it's not really worth making plans for that, if she's still in Cheliax then she has thoroughly failed the loyalty test and just about the only way her words might change things is if she gets the doctor tortured to death too.

...Probably the town guards are less likely to be heretics than the ?wizard? who's acting like she doesn't know about the gods.

"Yes there are! Maybe they aren't all the same as the ones back home, that'd explain why you haven't heard of Aroden, but I've never heard of anywhere that doesn't know about any of them."

"Wait, do you mean like there's the Christian God and the Jewish one and... well the Orthodox one's the same, right..." 

"I think the Jewish one's also the same, in theory?" chimes in the other policeman.

"Okay yeah... Oh, the Muslim one! That's different, right?  ...Anyway, do you mean it like that, or do you actually believe in multiple gods, like in ancient Greece or something?"

...As opposed to what? Thinking the rest of the gods are devils or demons or angels or whatever the other types of outsider are? 

"I don't know which ones the ones you just said are so I don't know if I worship them or not. I — if there's only one that people are allowed to worship I don't mean to break your laws — but there's" Asmodeus, but if she went back in time naming him will be suspicious, "Erastil for farming, or Pharasma for if you're having a baby, or Desna for safe travels, or..." Dispater, Mammon, Moloch... "lots of other ones, Nethys for wizards and schoolwork, Gorum for battles..."

Probably she should stop naming them, she doesn't know which ones are legal here. There's also Calistria for whores and other people who are too weak to defend themselves but try to fight back and hurt the people who wronged them anyway (actually, now that she thinks about it, that sounds kind of great?), and Norgorber for bandits, and Cayden for getting drunk and sleeping around, and she has the names of all the archdevils memorized. Oh, and Abadar, like Mammon but Lawful Neutral. And Aroden, but Asmodeus killed him, before that he was... in charge of Cheliax? And Iomedae for killing demons. And probably a lot of others that she'll think of in a moment.

"I've never heard of any of those!"  It's a good thing it's not his job to figure out if she's making all this up or what.  He has no idea, and trying to think about it was making his head hurt.  "It's not illegal to be a weird pagan, but..."  He's clearly uncomfortable about it.  "Well, the orphanage'll take you to church and they'll straighten you out."

Aneta sighs, because yes, they will, and she disapproves of all that indoctrination of children.  "You don't have to go to church if you don't want to."  She keeps telling everyone that, and it is technically true, but somehow it never ends up happening.

So they have a required god, with what sound like are probably normal punishments for disobeying, but they... pretend it's not actually required, as a local type of loyalty test? Or maybe it even technically isn't, and it's just that they've got a bunch of other laws that are hard to follow if you don't follow their god... but probably not, it seems like it'd be hard to make it so no one's heard of any of the normal gods with just that. Even Asmodeus didn't try to stop people from praying to Erastil and Pharasma and so on. 

"I'm happy to go to church, ma'am. What god do people worship there?"

"Just God - there's only one, so there's no need to name him," says the more talkative policeman. 

"The Christian God, if you need to differentiate," Aneta clarifies, sounding like she'd be rolling her eyes if she was less professional.  "They call him Yahwe, but nobody ever says that, because like he said, what's the point if there's only one.  And his 'son' Jesus Christ, who doesn't count as a different god because he somehow simultaneously is and isn't the same person.  Nobody's ever going to explain to you how that makes any sense, because religious people love to make up complicated nonsense to make you feel stupid."

... Oops, she got so annoyed about religion that she forgot that 'Nessa' is probably making everything up and already knows all this.  Ah well.

"... And the Holy Ghost," adds the less talkative policeman.  Both of them look SO awkward, but arguing with communists about the Trinity never goes anywhere good.

(They have a god who's undead??)

"And, uh, what is each part of that god" who are definitely different gods, but apparently she's not supposed to say that "the god of? And what alignment are they?"

"How about we catch the train, and you get your religious education from someone who's paid for that?"  Much good may it do her.  "Or don't, which is what I'd recommend, but I know people are going to be pushy about it."

Aneta gets up and says goodbye to the policemen, not particularly waiting for the girl's input, and continues the conversation on the street.  "You do need to realize, it's all made up."

She's not really sure how she's going to catch anything with a broken leg, but sure, she can follow. 

"Like... you think their god is actually an angel or a devil something, not a real god?" She's not sure if that's legal to say, but it seems like the sort of thing that's important to know. If she's gone back in time she probably can't avoid saying things that'll get her punished but if she's lucky she can figure it out fast enough that it'll just be a whipping or something.

"There aren't any angels or devils or gods or anything.  People make them up so they can tell everyone what to do, and it works depressingly well, but they can never prove any of it."

"....who do you think is giving priests their powers???" Does she think they're, like, really weird kind of wizard or something? Maybe that's why she got mad when Nessa brought up laundry wizards, if it's insulting to priests or something, except she's also acting like she doesn't think very much of priests, so that doesn't really make sense.