Nod.

"Apparently they want to convert you but think it won't work if they're very clear about that."

"...that'd be a weird way for it to work. Good usually doesn't make any sense, though."

"I've noticed that! They're nice people but they're not very good at explaining themselves - I suppose it must be a rare skill."

"Maybe. I think Good is specifically hard to explain because - really what's going on is that people are inherently Evil, and if they dedicate themselves to anything except the service of a Good god they will be Evil, but Good tries to be very universalist, 'everyone can be Good!' so they end up having to be in denial about lots of things just so the pieces superficially hold together. It's hard to explain something that isn't even true all the way through. Did they say how long I have to convert in?"

"Not exactly but if they have some other emergency requiring them to hold a wizard captive they were noncommittal about what that would imply regarding what they'd need to do with the handcuffs."

Nod. "If they'd let me look at the handcuffs I bet I could make another pair. But - they have no reason to do that, and materials would be very expensive, for something this nice, anyway."

"Would they? What are they made of?"

"Magic items require spellsilver. It's a metal, occurs naturally in the earth and the elemental plane of earth, but it's rare, you have to do a lot of mining to get very much of it. Antimagic field is sixth-circle so a magic item with it would be - incredibly expensive. I'm not surprised they only have the one."

"But you can do it?"

"Never seen an arcane magic item I couldn't do myself, even if I'm not powerful enough to cast the spell. There's a way around that, where you lay it in little bits that don't require the same peak channeling capacity. It's much harder, but." Shrug. "I don't even know the trick for preparing spells without a spellbook and I don't know any combat magic at all, but I guess they might figure I could learn."

"If there's combat magic why didn't you know any? You were at the Worldwound."

"As a weapons enchanter. I made friends with adventurers and looked at their weapons so I could learn how to make them myself, and I made upgraded arms and armor for our soldiers, and I mostly used my spell slots for translation and unit discipline. A Fireball can kill one demon; a sword of demon-slaying can kill demons forever."

"I suppose, but you don't have to be at the place being attacked by demons to make a sword for it."

"The Worldwound attracts adventurers from all over the world, with all kinds of fancy magic items I'd never get a close look at otherwise. Most of them won't come to Cheliax because we don't permit the primary worship of other gods, so I couldn't get a look at work from elsewhere if I stayed home. And units need two wizards anyway, to get enough mindreading coverage, so there aren't any wizards who just get a cushy home deployment their whole term of service."

"What's 'primary worship'?"

"Well, Asmodeus is the first and greatest of the gods, and owns us, and when we die will use us for the great plan, and you aren't supposed to lose sight of that, but if while keeping that in mind you want to pray to Nethys, god of magic, for insight into magic, or if you're a merchant and pray to Abadar for fortunate ventures, or a soldier who prays to Gorum, god of battle, that's fine, but you'd get in trouble if anyone thought you were more devoted to one of those. I bet it's the same here, you're allowed to be fond of Nethys or Irori or Abadar or Pharasma, one of the unobjectionable ones like that, so long as it's the Iomedean holy services you don't miss and you give her church more money. And no one's looking for reasons to get you in trouble."

"...nobody's seemed to hint at me about the services very much."

"...huh. Maybe it's another Good thing like how they don't want to tell me they require me to convert?"

"I guess. Or it's okay because I'm also not worshiping any of those other gods."

"In Cheliax that wouldn't be enough but here it might be. Worshipping other gods first is a big deal because - gods can see better and act more directly where their loyalists are. So it's strategically important for them to not have people who are loyal to other gods around creating avenues for those other gods to interfere in their plans. People who just don't care about any gods don't invite interference in the same way."

"They can - see through their worshipers' eyes, or -"

"Maybe? I think not without expending more resources than they'd usually bother with? But they can more clearly see the plausible ways people will act, if those people are theirs, and be less surprised by anything we do, and I think it's cheaper for them to - arrange good luck or bad luck, arrange chance meetings, stuff like that..."

"- they seemed to think Asmodeus didn't already know about me, though, and they aren't keeping you in a coma to prevent you from telling him."

"We're in a building consecrated to Iomedae, She can probably not let the other gods look here even if someone who worships one of them but isn't a cleric or anything is here. Though maybe the handcuffs are doing something too, I wouldn't know. I did try praying. There are more than twenty million people in Cheliax and Asmodeus is not one of the gods most shaped for paying attention to humans, it is not very surprising that He didn't happen to look closely at me in particular. He'd know if I had reported it to one of His clerics, like I was supposed to."