"And now, of course, perky teenager can get Verita safe and you guys can go wherever. Even Cheliax, probably, once Asmodeus is dead. But I couldn't have been...planning on that."

"Yeah. I suppose not.

" - I kinda don't expect them to succeed at killing Asmodeus. That's - all the good and chaotic gods together haven't done it."

"Have they tried?"

"I guess I don't know. They did have that war, a long time ago."

"I believe that Nirvana actually understands that Hell is - that it shouldn't exist and no one should go there. Because they petition for everyone. Abadar sort of understands, but he's not interested in solving it except on the 'make fewer people deserve it' end, because he thinks - people need to choose not to go to Hell, sort of. I'm mangling the theology, I was never very good at it - not just because I'm not very smart, I didn't want him getting ideas about picking me.

Anyway I don't - think there's a lot of people trying to destroy Hell."

"I guess I buy that. Doesn't mean it's easy."

"No. - but neither's stopping time on a whole plane. - or for that matter kidnapping people out of the Dome. That Dome's the shell of one of the spawn of Rovagug. Can't scry inside it, can't plane shift or teleport in or out."

" - wow. Okay.

"Man, I - am trying to predict what I would do with that kind of power and I'm stuck on how implausible it would be for me to have it in the first place."

"I've thought about becoming a god. Not, like, seriously, but, you know, something big comes up and we have to keep adventuring and keep adventuring until we're epic heroes and then I have to go for the Starstone to save the world or something. Just - the kind of stories all kids tell themselves, only I got this - extension on growing up.

I don't think I'd be very good at it. Not that the bar's high."

"I dunno if Cayden Cailean's made anything worse. Admittedly also don't know if he's made anything better."

"Usedta wish a good god would do the thing Abadar does - because it is important, having countries that aren't having civil wars and that no one can push around - but I couldn't really bear to. Even if it'd make things better for most people on the whole." 

Nod.

"I think I'm not very good at this conversation thing."

"Sorry. We can stop."

"I mean, I'm not any more distressed than I was before, just - I dunno what you think needs to be covered. We can probably agree that the teenagers have questionable insight into other people's personal lives, is that all?"

"Oh I just figured that if we talked then if we ever saw each other again we'd be like "oh yeah that's the person who has reasonable opinions about Cayden Cailean", or, whatever, instead of being like "hey the people with superpowers who kidnapped us think that I should be your ...slave and we should definitely be in love and probably have the power to effect both these things not that they mean harm not that they have any idea what it is either -"" His voice is getting more heated. He swallows and shakes his head.

"Ah. Yeah. If they try to take any actions towards that I can tell them they're being stupid. I guess I don't know if they'll listen to me in particular, given they're trying to kill my god, but - maybe the other Karen can talk some sense into them, or something."

"I'm not asking you to protect me. I just - will see more of the humor in the situation once they've made it clear they can drop the subject."

Nod.

"Also I figured if you wanted to be mad at me about the lying then I should - get used to that."

"Pff. Nah. I mean, don't intentionally piss off the fairy, but mostly as a matter of practicality."

"See, if you were Osirian that'd be different."

"Oh?"

"An Osirian would be very angry that I'd lied to them about who I was. They'd feel like I'd - maneuvered them into betraying things that were important to them."