"Don't get ahead of yourself, many attempt and few succeed."

"Sure, but most people you run into in a temple of Abadar looking for econ lessons don't turn out to be adventurers aiming for the 'Stone."

"I suppose as far as that goes I do distinguish myself. What's your deal, not-an-official-cleric?"

"Oh, same."

"Do they not let you have people call you Cicerone if you want to go sit next to Abadar instead of kneeling at his feet or whatever it is clerics do?"

He laughs. "You know, I don't actually know what the church thinks of this. But no, my levels aren't in cleric, they're in something else. I just happen to philosophically agree that most people should aim for Axis. I'm aiming for Heaven, myself."

"Oh, you're one of those weird things. Do you have a name for your weird thing?"

"I've read the name 'Oracle' in musty old tomes, seems to fit alright."

"I'm technically a weird thing too but only four levels of it and it's just one of the many kinds of sorcerer."

"What's your weird thing? Mine is like almost like cleric but I can literally choose to follow any gods I want or whatever; I still get cleric spells, Abadar just has nothing to do with it apparently."

"Did you test that, did you try worshiping Irori for a week or check if it still works if you head for the wrong corners of the alignment box and sing the bawdy praises of Nocticula - my mom called us 'cunning sorcerers', we run on fox's not eagle's."

"Oh that's cool, another way I'm different from cleric is I run on eagle's. And yeah when I first got these levels I was actually not worshipping any gods, I just happened to start getting a bunch of cleric spells. I became an Abadar follower later."

"Missionaries got you?"

"Sort of. I went to visit Axis and listened to missionaries from some other places and Axis does actually just straightforwardly seem to be an extremely good choice for the majority of people. At least people who are as psychologically similar as humans and gnomes and dwarves and elves and so on."

"I have a lot of respect for the Osirian project but I have not taken this as far as actually worshiping Abadar, seems a bit much."

"Well, I guess 'worship' is perhaps the wrong adjective. I don't pray to him or anything. I should say instead I'm more of an Abadar fan, I guess."

"I can't be a fan of anybody who insists on possessing a copy of my diary and didn't even answer my stern letter."

"—what, the library?"

"Yeah! See, I like the concept of the library! But it's very indiscriminate and there's no provided guarantee of privacy at all."

"I suppose that is pretty skeevy, now that I think of it. Ever talk to a cleric about it?"

"Yes, they didn't understand my problem and pointed out that nobody has a reason to visit the library and find out where my diary is."

"...except the god himself, what, did they not have the concept that you might not want Abadar having your diary or that the principle of the thing matters, too?"

"Didn't get it at all! They were like 'the library is a heartwarming example of Abadar's alignment with mortal values because he preserves all these things we write down' and I was like 'what about the mortal value of privacy' and she was like 'in practice the library isn't heavily trafficked for things like that'."

"Wow. That's obtuse. I suppose there is kind of an intrinsic conflict between those values, though, right—like, even if you personally would be okay with some guarantees like 'will only get the diary under these extreme circumstances' or something the value of 'I want to never ever have anyone read anything I wrote ever' is a thing that is absolutely irreconcilable with the library."

"Yup. It's not, like, top five injustices in the world, but I cannot be unrestrainedly enthused for Abadar though I agree with many of his policy opinions."