"Nice to meet you! Uh, is it a good time?"

"Now's great, I was about to take a break, I need to space it out because Lesser Restoration doesn't get all the magic-fatigue. Speaking of that, er, Leareth, do you have a spare Lesser Restoration or do I need to find someone." 

"I have not used any yet today so you are welcome to one." Clerics are still a bit harder to come by here than in the pharaoh's palace. Leareth casts it for him. 

Vanyel hops up from the workbench, stows his diamond in the box of them for later division into appropriate sizes for various spells, and locks the Work Room, both non-magically and with a Velgarth spell. "All right, want to go for a walk or something?" 

"Sure."

"Enjoy. I will see you tomorrow night, Carissa." Leareth hugs her goodbye and then leaves them to it. 

Vanyel heads down the hall toward his favourite garden path walk, humming a bit until Leareth is out of earshot. 

"Uh, I assume Leareth explained that he asked Iomedae for a wife and she sent me?"

"Yes, he did." Vanyel is not-smirking about it so hard, just like he did when he first learned it. "I think he really likes you. Er, do you like him? I wasn't sure if gods would be much good at matchmaking." 

"I like him. He's very well-meaning, and clever. I think he'll probably do all right for Cheliax. And he explained about the - him and Aroden thing - which is very confusing but I think reassuring? And Iomedae assured me he'll be good to me and I believe her."

"Makes sense. The him-and-Aroden thing is so confusing. It was even more confusing before he put together what Nefreti meant, when I'd just kidnapped him and she was sitting there saying all these utterly baffling things implying they'd met before." 

"Is it just them? Do any other people repeat?"

"We haven't noticed any other examples. Although I haven't been looking as hard for a local version of me running around." He glances at her. "Was there a particular thing Leareth thought we ought to speak about?" 

" - yeah. So I was trying to explain to him - Asmodeanism holds that free will was a mistake and all people ought to be and will eventually be shaped to be instruments of Asmodeus's will. And that hurts but it hurts less if you just acknowledge that it's right and strive for it instead of fighting it. And, uh, Asmodeus lost the war, I jumped ship -

- but I guess I was kind of pretty much working off a model where instead we had been chosen to be instruments of Aroden's will, whatever it was, and then I got picked by Iomedae which meant that actually it was Her I was - giving the rights to use me where needed for Her goals. And this is, like, fine? Her goals are really important. I did a lot of research and I trust Her. 

But it wasn't how Leareth was thinking of anything at all and he was very appalled about it and said that he and Abadar are, uh, more like business partners, which is not how I have ever heard of being a cleric working, and then he said I should talk to you about the nature of Good, since he's not an expert."

Vanyel feels really put on the spot and kind of embarrassed now! Apparently Leareth thinks he's more qualified to explain what being a good person is? Or, no, they probably mean the capital-G Good alignment sense, which he's also not sure he understands fully, but he does read Good at least, and Leareth obviously doesn't. 

"I'm so tickled he described his relationship with Abadar as 'business partners'," he says, while he stalls to give himself time to think on the other topic. "It's very Leareth. He would've been a lot more eek about the prospect if he had to worship Abadar about it, he doesn't - do that, really." 

"I think gods derive some sort of something from worship but I don't know exactly how it works and maybe being partners also works for it."

"I mean, if 'thinking Abadar is great' does the thing, he certainly does that. He took me to Aktun, Abadar's realm in Axis, and he was so incredibly delighted about showing me around, and all the kinds of thing Abadar wants the world to have. It's really cute. I - hadn't seen him happy much, before that." 

"He seems really happy around the pharaoh of Osirion too but I guess he's officially also Abadar." Her voice sounds so reasonable and upbeat about this.

"I think that's a different thing. Abadar doesn't hug him and I think he really badly needed that. Especially right after the whole Star-Eyed murder plot, he was so sad and scared about it, it was awful, he'd - I think been just earnestly treating them as allies? So he went into a Work Room to help them research magic to fix the messed-up Worldwound, and then they broke his immortality setup and had him eaten alive by demons. I tried doing my bit to comfort him about it, and it probably helped, but..."

Shrug. "Digression, sorry. I'm not sure I can tell you what the Good gods in your world think Good is, not having met any of them, but I can say a bit how Heralds tend to think about it, in my world, and how I do." 

"I don't think I'm especially aiming for Good in particular necessarily? Just - thinking about what things that aren't Asmodeanism with a different person at the top there are."

"Oh, that makes sense. Valdemar might have good examples there, at least sort of, because we don't have a national religion, lots are practiced but the Heralds don't tend to be very focused on which god they worship, it's not where we get our sense of ethics from. Er, do you know much about what Heralds are or should I explain?" 

"I, uh, asked Jisa, and got her account of everything."

Vanyel can read between the lines that this was part of her spying; presumably Leareth has already decided if he wanted to tattle on Jisa to Randi, and either way the duty won't fall to Vanyel. 

"Right, so - we're all Chosen by Companions, who were made by a god or gods, but they're just people, too, pretty much. We have our traditions and each other and we try to look after Valdemar." His eyes flicker down to the path. "I - didn't even want to be a Herald, at the start. Lots of children dream of it, Heralds are very glamorous, but I didn't want to be selfless and help others, or go into danger, and - the circumstances were pretty bad, I'd lost my lover and been badly injured and I just wanted it all to go away. I think a lot of Heralds see their duty to Valdemar as this - comforting, reassuring sense of being where they're supposed to be, knowing what to do. I never really had that. Just, I could notice that I was really powerful, and that meant there were things I could do for Valdemar that no one else could, and - then those things would be done, right, and that's real and it matters. There are paved roads all over the north now because I built them, and farmers can get to market even in the rainy season when the dirt roads would get impossible. There are a lot of people who would be dead if not for beasts and bandits I fought for them. It's still really hard, sometimes, but - that's worth sticking around for. Does that make sense?" 

"It seems like - often it's harder to tell - than with beasts or bandits - but yeah, as far as it goes."

"A lot of it is really hard to tell. Maybe the most important parts are. I think I do end up sort of hanging a lot of my motivation off the parts that are clearer? It's less inspiring to tell myself I made the world better by judging a difficult court case, if I really wasn't sure of the verdict. Or, gods, a lot of what happened in the war we just had with a neighbouring kingdom, probably had to happen but - it really didn't feel like I was making the world better, in any way. Just burning some of it to ashes along with Valdemar's enemies." 

He turns to catch her eye, smiles. "You know what's great for that, though? Right now I sit and make diamonds most days, and then at the end of the day I have a headache from using my mage-gift too hard and Yfandes tells me off, but I can weigh what I made and say 'there, I just made it so this many ward casualties could come back from the dead.' I don't think I've ever felt as sure as I do now that my existence is making the world better and that's worth sticking around for."