"Aroden does not blame Her for it. He - thinks it might even have been worth it. A world without Foresight is one where gods are incentivized to be much more friendly and cooperative to mortals. Though Cheliax paid a very high price for that boon." 

"I think I don't have a full picture of - Aroden's plans for Cheliax. Tried looking up what was supposed to happen during the Age of Glory but it's not the kind of thing people wrote about during the time we were ruled by Hell."

"Aroden was not that able to explain how he would have brought about the Age of Glory, I think maybe it was a plan only legible to gods, but in terms of the what, he hoped for a Cheliax that would look much more like Axis. No scarcity of material goods, abundant magic available to people, education and resources available to anyone who wished to build something with them. Our plan now, of course, takes into account the fact that Aroden is no longer a god and his initial plan failed, but that we do have Velgarth magic. We are going to build a network of permanent Gates throughout the country and likely linked to other countries - Osirion will be a node linked to Egorian, they also wanted a permanent Gate between Sothis and Aktun. Vanyel's diamond-making means that we hope to be able to offer life insurance at prices affordable for almost everyone, since diamonds for Raise Dead are now quite cheap, and then no one will need die prematurely and stay dead. I suspect there is an abundance of other ways to productively combine our magic that I have not even thought of yet." 

"Why?"

"Because I am not clever enough to immediately think of every application for magic, and I am still learning how arcane and divine magic work?"

"No I meant - why turn Cheliax into Axis, what does he need that for..."

"...What he needs it for seems like - the wrong question, not the right framing... He wants people to flourish, because people matter - because that is the entire point of - of trying to fix things and make them beautiful and good - it is what makes some world-states better than others, some actions more worth taking - and I suppose he could be wrong about what sort of world is best for that, either of us could. But, a world where three-quarters of all people are subsistence farmers with no slack to try to build anything else seems so - ugly, so wasteful of what people are and can become. I think we both consider an advanced civilization with abundant resources and education and freedom for its people to be one where the largest fraction of people will be happy, and - able to do things, to choose their goals and achieve them, shape their world into what they want it to be..." 

This is a weird thing to try to explain. It feels so incredibly self-evident to Leareth. 

"I think I don't quite -

- Asmodeus wants everyone to be an instrument of Asmodeus's will. And - being an instrument of Asmodeus's will kind of sucks, and also the way to make people an instrument of Asmodeus's will is to torture them, and also anyone with any sense will stay - small - so they don't lose everything, so it just seems - inefficient, like subordinating your whole self to someone unworthy of it.

I guess I have been basically thinking of Good as the same thing except making yourself an instrument of some other will that thinks it can use - more of you."

"Well, I am not Good. Neither is Aroden. Lawful Neutral, like Abadar."

...Leareth recognizes this is perhaps not the most helpful answer, but his brain is still working on dredging up anything better. 

"I'm not sure that's the - maybe that's relevant." Sigh. "I think probably being an instrument of Abadar's will is a coherent concept?"

"Abadar wants - the simplest explanation of it is, a world containing many mutually beneficial trades. A world where more people exchange goods and services and skills because it is in their self-interest to do so, and the end result, when such a process works well, is - well, Aktun is a very good example, it is hard to describe how I felt when I saw it for the first time, but - it felt like coming home, it felt like - recognizing that what I have been trying for so, so long to build in Velgarth already exists, as a god's divine realm, and - and that is not all I care about, there are both benefits and costs that Abadar does not really perceive and cannot engage with, but it is close enough..." 

He frowns. "Iomedae tried to explain to me, at one point, what She means by Good, and it was - not really what you said, but also not captured by Abadar's values. I will think on how to describe it." 

"Huh."

"- Also I am not trying to be an instrument of Abadar's will, either. I am an instrument of my own will, always. We are allies, because our goals and values happen to align, that is all." 

"How much do you know about Asmodeanism as, like, a philosophy?"

"Probably not very much? I arrived in this world quite recently and only came to Cheliax for the war. My impression is that He was trying to maximize the number of people in Hell so that He would have labour for His factories there? And people to torture, I suppose, but - I still somewhat fail to parse that as a motivation, whereas wanting to produce goods makes sense to me." 

"The main teaching of the church of Asmodeus is that free will was a serious mistake. That people will basically squander their lives, not even evilly but just stupidly, that the main thing most people are is rudderless and uninspired and uninteresting and without any aims worth pursuing. That they have the capacity for valuable things and will basically never, left to their own devices, pursue them. And you can make people capable of doing things that matter, but it's not a pleasant process, especially not if you're resisting it. And that Asmodeus values every human soul despite all of that, and wants to put them to use, and it's in principle possible for this to be tolerable but only if you stop aspiring to be the kind of thing that - has independent aspirations, that wants petty human things like to be loved or to be special or to be free - and usually people fight that, and so they take a lot of shaping, which Asmodeus finds tiresome, though He doesn't give up on anybody."

"- Wow. I hate that so much." 

"Yes, it seems like you would. I left, as soon as there was anywhere to even plausibly leave to, but - but that's where people are starting from, right, when they're trying to figure out what Aroden wants, that's what they've had their whole lives and Asmodeus isn't stupid, there's very pretty essays and poems and morality tales about it, kids start in school at three..."

"That makes sense." He looks pained, again. 

(We were not fast enough, he thinks; nearly a century too slow.) 

"I think Asmodeus' belief about human nature is false, as an empirical observation," he says slowly. "I find that, when people do uninteresting things with their lives, it is generally for lack of freedom and options and resources to pursue them, not for a surfeit of those. But - even if Asmodeus were correct about that, that would - it would still matter that their lives be pleasant, that they have nice things, and belong and be loved - though in Velgarth I could often give people so little, and - sometimes only in exchange for taking away other options and freedoms..." There's an ache in his chest. 

"Sorry, I was trying to explain my conversation with Iomedae. She said that - well, there is what I do, which is setting a goal, of a world I think is better than the current one, and fighting ruthlessly for it, trying to win. And I care about things being good but the process I used in Velgarth was not Good. Iomedae says that Good is - being a shape where people want to cooperate with you, and follow you, and where it makes them stronger and makes the world better when they try, even if they are not perfect at it. - Actually, you should talk to Vanyel. Iomedae said repeatedly that for me, reaching for Good would mean - shaping myself to be someone Vanyel could work with better. He is an excellent example of someone who is Good, and I do not think he considers it about being an instrument of anyone's will." 

"Is he here in Egorian?"

"Yes. He spends most of his time making diamonds, sometimes takes breaks to pave roads. I think he is enjoying it much better than the wars he fought in before. He would probably be delighted to have dinner with you."

Nod. "I can do that.

The thing - you're describing - sounds much much harder than just figuring out what the forces of Good need you to do and then doing your best to do it."

"It is very, very hard. I wish the world were less complicated and contained fewer tradeoffs - that there were a clear right answer every time..." He shakes his head. "I have never, ever wished I could instead figure out what the forces of Good required of me and do that. I think I am fundamentally not that shape of person. Vanyel, I suspect, would understand that desire better." 

"Well, if you're figuring out what powerful people want of you and trying to do it you - have more of a lever? If you try to do things on your own you just get crushed. So you just want to figure out who you'd rather lend your - you. Or you won't get anything done."

"That sounds horrible. I would hate it. ...Probably I would scheme to overthrow one of the powerful people so that I could just have the lever instead of deciding which powerful-person lever to lend myself to."