" - hey." She should not really waste time trying to parse what this means for which bad thing is going to happen. 

"Hi. I have located in my notes index some old questions I had in mind to ask an Asmodean if I ever had one who'd hold still for me and I can de-etherealize the books to see what they were but if you actually do not feel this would be a good use of your morning I can save the spell slots I'd use to put them back again, use 'em to spar with paladins or something."

"Oh, are you a sorcerer?... is there a spell for storing things that aren't spellbooks that way? 

I - don't have plans and will try to be helpful to you if I can."

"I'm a sorcerer and a wizard both. And it's the same spell but I stick it to a Secret Page when the book's otherwise nonmagical. I'm here to be helpful to you, I just thought my old notes'd be a good jumping off point."

"Ah. Okay. I appreciate it."

She looks at her index, appears a book in her hand, turns to the correct page. "So some of this is obviated by my having not known much about Asmodeanism at the time and basically treating it as a black box of 'why would anyone be on team Asmodeus, I guess that's just one of the mysteries of life', it might take me a bit to find anything that still applies." Flip flip. "Anything much on your mind?"

Asking whether the wizard wants her would be pathetic. "Is Kyeo okay?"

"...I saw him at dinner yesterday and he looked fine. What happened?"

"We tried praying to Abadar and he caught a headache out of it."

"Ooh, lucky him, that only happens if they bother with you! I'm planning to try to get lots of headaches before I go for the Starstone."

"But it doesn't cause - damage, or anything?"

"Responses to prayer, no, not as far as I know. Going for the Starstone on the other hand is overwhelmingly fatal."

"That I knew."

"Anyway, yeah, he's fine... The church controls the school system in Cheliax, right?"

"Yes. We're the only place I know of that has universal public schooling at all."

"Is that where you're getting most of your information on, like, divine power levels and long term conflict projections and the supreme importance of whatever the fuck Asmodeus does in his spare time and all that jazz?"

"I also talked to people at the Worldwound, but yes."

"And you think the church of Asmodeus is really committed to giving you an accurate view of the world, uh, why?"

" - I assume they're lying and you're lying and everybody's lying and checking whether everybody else's lies are persuasive enough only apparently Atonement runs off some level of conviction it is hard to access just from lectures. I am trying to believe the locally correct thing but it is pretty confusing even figuring out what it is and figuring out how to believe it is harder than that."

"Do you want me to go and get Fazil and come back with an Abadar symbol for a hat and say some stuff?"

"I know everyone's lying all the time and I can still pass a truth spell if I'm lying only the ways everyone's lying all the time and not the way where you - directly misrepresent something observable you just observed."

"...well, if you can be specific enough about in what ways you think everyone's lying all the time, I'll know what to say once I have a hat, won't I."

It is so profoundly unfair that she is going to die if she can't win this game and absolutely no one seems willing to acknowledge they're playing it.

"Lots of things happen. People pick which things they are going to talk about and which examples to bring up and what to imply and what to consider on topic, and they do that so they can continue having their ideology and not listen to other ones. Truth spells do not object to this at all, they're for things like, did you murder that man. People also lie about that but it's not - the thing that is going on in schools, and in paladin orders, and in holy books and at the Worldwound and when you are a prisoner and people are trying to convert you to their religions."

"I don't have a religion, I just think it'd be a terrible pity if you wound up having to marry Mahdi, neither of you would really like it. I guess I cannot claim to not be... exercising decisionmaking power over what I say... without losing my hat, but I'm not sure how you come by any of your beliefs if you have this outlook actually?"

"...well, you check which things you have to believe so people won't kill you, and then you backfill with other beliefs that make those ones work. - why do you think he wouldn't like it, I am not trying to give the impression I'll be hard to get along with."