Oh good. She'll take that one and then go sit outside somewhere to read. With her back to a wall. Looking out for thieves.

Person Preparatory Steps consists mostly of checklists and sidebars about checklist items and some blank sections prefaced by questions to write your own answers out. You're supposed to fill it out and it advertises that you will not miss anything important if you complete the whole book and then have it firmly in mind while making your person.

Oh good that's a really useful thing to have. She will get started on filling out checklists for the person worthy of being a cleric of Asmodeus who Asmodeus will hopefully then choose and then figuring out how to use this place will be in more suitable hands.

She doesn't care what they look like. Maybe they can look exactly like her? Sort of inconvenient to tell them apart. Exactly like her but with black hair. She'll do a sketch next time she can see her reflection. 

The person worthy of Asmodeus is not interested in sex though they're not, like, averse to it, if it's strategically useful.

What does the person like to eat? Do they have any cute little habits? What is their favorite chore? What are they good at? Describe their style of being good at those things. What languages do they speak? What would they do if their original lifestyle were no longer feasible for some reason? Who do they know and love? Describe the way they will want to relate to those people. Check every box on this list to make sure they will not have any of these weird problems random people have. What is their name? What do they do in their spare time? How would you imagine them reacting in these 50 everyday scenarios (lover's quarrel, being cheated at the market, someone offering them ground pork, loved one not home when expected, prolonged snow-in, low on food, they get ill, a loved one gets ill...)

The person values their food being nutritionally balanced and readily available. They - if you don't come up with anything it fills it in with something random - have a cute habit of reciting from the Asmodean holy books when they're nervous. Their favorite chore is....creating water? They are good at research and at winning people over in conversation and at serving Asmodeus. They're good at research by...having a good memory, and being able to notice subtle conceptual connections between things, and having good orderly habits of mind for believing things, and enjoying writing up and explaining the things that they learned. (Should they not enjoy it? But the human motivation system runs on enjoyment and probably it's hard to make a person who doesn't use it at all and it doesn't seem actively bad). They're good at winning people over because they're good at - understanding other people and picking up on nuances of how their arguments are going over and knowing the right thing to say and truly, deeply, appreciating Asmodeus's aims, so intensely that people believe it from how they believe it. They are good at serving Asmodeus because they don't - get defensive or self-important or obsessed with human things they want more than they want to serve Asmodeus. They don't have free will. They don't get sad or reluctant about hurting other people when it's necessary, though they don't do it gratuitously.

That's a negative, not a positive description of what being good at serving Asmodeus is. 

She puzzles on that for a while. She's met some devils and they don't seem much better than her at - wanting to fix the world, wanting to serve Asmodeus - which makes her worry that she's missing something...

They understand Asmodeus. They understand his anger at how the good things in the world were replaced with worthless stupid disobedient things. They want to fix it for him. They want the world to be full of people who aren't broken.

Languages: Taldane, Infernal, the local one.

If their original lifestyle were -

- well, if Asmodeus doesn't choose the cleric, then they should want to help her figure out what went wrong. And....until chosen by Asmodeus the person should be inclined to listen to her about their goals, since the person should assume that Carissa may have fucked up at making them and knows better than them what Asmodeus wants. Once Asmodeus chooses them they'll have proof that actually the person knows better than Carissa but until then, it's important to have a contingency plan for if she makes a mistake and the person is horribly wrong.

Who do they know? Carissa. Who do they love? Asmodeus. They want to help Carissa fix the entire universe of its free will problem. They want to worship Asmodeus and be an instrument of His will. 

She checks boxes.

What is their name. Uh, Asmodia. It's a common girl's name.

What do they do in their spare time? Their duty.

She goes through scenarios.

She can finish the whole book in a day if she insists but it recommends going over it a bunch of times because your person will still be there if you make a mistake or change your mind.

Yeah, that makes sense. 

She doesn't think she'll change her mind. The only other obvious thing to try is talking to a devil first and she doesn't have summoning outsiders in her spellbook. She could try to derive it off Mount but this stands a chance of getting her killed. It'll be a safer chance to take once she has allies. And - it's not that big a deal if Asmodia comes out wrong. She'll be kinda disappointing and Carissa might have to kill her in the worst case and then maybe she'll dissolve, if that's really how it works here, which is horrifying but not worse than never having existed at all.

It will save a lot of time if she gets this right on the first try, though.

She buys dinner, and goes back to the inn, and cleans it, and rereads the book of checklists, and eventually goes to sleep.

In the morning she wakes up and slaps herself in the face. ...clothes. She forgot clothes. She should go look into how expensive it'll be to buy her person clothes.

Pretty expensive!

Figures. 

...how about a knife?

Also pretty expensive but the blacksmith has heard she can fix things and will take some of that.

Great. She's not going to pretend here that she's doing it nonmagically - it'll be really blatant, with metal. Does he have enough work for her that she can also make money for clothes?

"Depends, what happens if something isn't very good to begin with, can you fix that?"

"Not usually."

"If it's got to be fixed from broken and not fixed from slapdash I don't have that much. You probably want to be in, like, a real city. Ivory maybe."

"Do you buy passage on the ships?"

"Yeah. There's usually one bound for Ivory around any given time."

"Thank you. I'll think about it."

She should probably do it. Get perspective on this world from more angles. But everything feels so fragile, while she's here alone, as the only person who knows that better than this is possible. 

She cobbles together a holster for her knife. Goes and asks about the cost of passage to Ivory.

She can pay her passage in scutwork if she wants, but can't afford to buy passage where she doesn't work during the trip.

Sure. Fine. How long is the trip?

About two weeks, with a stop in the middle on another round.

Ugh.

It's probably worth waiting two weeks to have more context and do this right but she doesn't feel like it. She wants someone to talk to. Not that they'll be friends. 

She agrees to do scutwork for the passage. 

She reviews her checklists in the evenings. Grows to hate them. Adds to Asmodia's traits that she enjoys repetitive boring work so long as it advances the cause.

The sail to Ivory leaves in the middle of her sleep shift; she may sleep aboard so she doesn't miss it.

Sure, she'll do that.

They have her peeling and chopping vegetables and scrubbing dishes the whole way there. Also, there's no gravity.

An Unseen Servant can do that. This is not really more efficient than doing it herself but it makes her feel better, and it does free her up to reread her checklists.

(Also, that's kind of cool.)