"- do you have any idea how it may have happened?" asks the monk, taking Asmodia's I's hand and watching how it hangs in the air if he lets go.

"I have a guess. Where I'm from there is a way some people are where they're - stickier, they change less over time. We called it the difference between having free will and not having free will. It is the only thing I had in my mind which wasn't entirely standard so it must have done it but - I have not heard of this happening."

"Why is it you wanted someone without free will?"

"In my religion it's considered better. Because you're not replacing yourself all the time with new people who're different. I was jealous when I first heard about it. She was gonna be a lot like me - I have a magic research project and I wanted a collaborator on it - so I thought she'd feel like me about it."

"She looks like you, too." He tries tugging her along. "This isn't understood to be a specialist skill where it's common?"

"No one ever warned me that I shouldn't try it though I left before I started seriously planning her."

"And your books are from here? Where are you from?"

"It's called Cheliax. It's a long way off. I've been wandering for a couple of years. I bought books the last round I was at, Snakeseye, and then more books here."

"Hrm. Well, we can pray for her, that's what we do. I don't know if it will help."

Nod. "I should - I broke the law, right - because she's not even well enough to eat -"

"I believe you that it was an accident, but, yes, I believe it still violates the law, because there's no way for a judge to be sure if it was only an accident."

Nod. 

- does she dissolve, when she dies here, if Asmodeus can't hear His cleric praying does that mean He can't collect His souls -

"How do I report it"

"I'll ask one of the nuns to go with you to the office if you don't know the way." He tugs Asmodia I in, sits her down on a bench under a tree, murmurs to a nun. The nun hustles out to join her.

Carissa nods vaguely at her.

"Would you like me to pray for you that it turns out all right?" asks the nun, ushering her down the street.

Carissa is pretty sure these people aren't even praying to a god, they're just kind of thinking hopefully in case the universe has some mechanism for detecting hopefulness and arranging coincidences on its behalf. The universe does not at all seem to have such a mechanism. 

"Yes please", she says quietly. 

She is vaguely aware that an hour ago she considered it probable this would turn out all right but right now that seems ridiculously unlikely. When you can make people with a thought, why would you keep any slightly inconvenient one breathing?

The nun murmurs a stock prayer under her breath as they go and they reach a police office. There is an old policeman sitting at a desk doing paperwork. "Problem?" he asks, looking up from his desk at them.

"I made a person. I made a mistake and she doesn't really do things. She can walk if you hold her hand and otherwise she just stands there."

"- hm." He gets out a form. "Your name?"

"Carissa Sevar."

"Spell it?"

She does.

He has no idea what to make of her alphabet and eventually digs up a chart of phonetic symbols and uses that. "Where you from?"

"It's called Cheliax. It's a long way away. I've been travelling for a couple of years. Before this I was in Snakeseye and before that I was in -" she names another round that the crew on her air-ship talked about.

The policeman wants more details - when he made her, what she wanted her for, he digresses for a bit about the whole magic thing, whether she's made people before, whether she has the notes still. He wants the notes turned in.