"He doesn't mind it being unambiguous in principle, he dumps a ton of levels on a guy about it, maybe he'd deign to clarify."

"Probably.

I think they might let us leave when the pharaoh has some heirs. Right now - it's still true that if he died in some irretrievable fashion tomorrow it'd be one of us."

"It literally can't be you! I don't know exactly why clerics have to get picked from within one step but it seems pretty ironclad, you'd think that might cut it!"

"You'd think!"

"Though I hope it's not actually ironclad, I'd like - to be able to pat somebody on the head in Cheliax and go 'you seem ready to nope out, do you wanna nope out' even if they still ping diametrically opposite, you know? And you hear about this kind of thing happening in stories but it's not obvious how it mechanically interacts because by the time it happens they read like a cleric of their new god."

"Won't that just get them killed? I guess not if they hide it well enough. Or maybe getting people in Cheliax killed chaotic good is useful anyway."

"I mean, maybe I could do it to a bunch of 'em at once? Or ones near the border? Or ones who already have teleportation? Or coordinate with a rescue mission? But yeah, getting 'em killed chaotic good is also maybe okay."

He looks off into the darkness where the ship is sailing. "Maybe my brother talked Abadar into a war with Cheliax somehow, that'd be something."

"Something is definitely what it'd be. There should be a Malediction for Nirvana."

Snort. "That'd be neat."

"The Nirvanans would be so happy!"

"I wonder why there's not! I guess messing with peoples' afterlives is Evil, maybe even if you're messing with them in an advantageous direction?"

"Have I mentioned I hate Pharasma? I hate her."

"I was told, though I don't know if it's true, there weren't afterlives at all before her, and all the souls just dissolved back into energy or whatever."

"Maybe someone would have done better than this if she hadn't decided to fuck up at it!"

"I guess maybe they would've."

"Like, if a place has... a ton of wildfires, and you're a god, you could make it rain really hard everywhere all the time and that'll sure solve it. Warp the landscape, flood the cities, and still doesn't save everybody from fire if their stove inside their house falls over, but sure, it addresses the wildfire issue! But now somebody will have a hell of a time doing something less stupid because you've warped the landscape and flooded the cities!"

"I agree! Though I guess I imagine it's easier to fix most people being around in bad places than not around anywhere."

"This system doesn't even actually solve that! If I don't find a good place to put my parents in a reasonably timely fashion they will be gone!"

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks. Ugh. I'm getting maudlin and it is not my regularly scheduled maudlin afternoon."

"Want a funny story?"

"I was about to ask, yeah."

"Once upon a time when I was ten I was dragged to a fancy dinner and hated it and got the idea that maybe an illusion of me would be good enough so I asked my brother to spin one up, only he does his spells by singing, so he had to sing all dinner to keep it up, but he told everyone he had a new song in his head and if he stopped before he'd sung it out loud he'd lose it, and it worked fine, except that my mother told me after dinner I'd been rude to him, pointedly ignoring the song all meal."

"Well now I can't tell if your funny stories are true or not - didn't he have trouble eating any dinner, while he sang -"