"I haven't been to very many parties."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Usually busy. Of course, if you're a little more generous with the word then I've been to more, with classmates and such."

Nod. "Well. Old guy thought what I'd change about Cheliax was relevant to Good. Not sure how."

"Oh?"

"You can probably get him to repeat it yourself if the exact details matter but he said that Cheliax wasn't interested in raising people who could answer that question, and I said well of course not I'm not a noble or aiming at being a court wizard, why would Cheliax bother raising me to answer that question, and he said that - people noticing answers to that question is the thing that happens by default, and what Cheliax is doing is raising them to lose that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know! I wish that if they were going to kill people for not figuring out their ideology their ideology would be more straightforward! Mine is! Yours is! Mine is that you should obey Asmodeus, yours is that you should obey Ibyabek. If we were going to kill people for having the wrong ideology at least they could figure out the right one."

"Ibyabek is a planet, not a person, so it's a little more complicated."

"I have been modeling it as your government is like the church and tells people what the will of The People is like the church tells people what the will of Asmodeus is."

"I guess that's a fine first approximation."

"If Good were just about obeying Iomedae instead of Asmodeus I could work with that. It'd seem like an inferior religion because Iomedae is weaker but - you can make sense of it, right, backing the losing side of a fight is a gamble but it means a bigger reward if you end up winning."

"We don't gamble on Ibyabek so I'm not familiar with the convention."

"Huh. Well, in general, you can bet on a likely thing for a small return or on an unlikely thing for a large return. But that's not what Good is doing so I'm not sure it is a helpful example, really. I am curious what the cleric of Abadar will think. Abadar's neutral, which is much less confusing."

"Well, I can pass on questions to him if you have some."

" - if Lastwall will allow it I bet the church of Abadar has common sense and would be willing to let me make magic items for them in a dungeon somewhere, the items are worth enough to pay for the security."

"I can suggest that. Is making magic items very fun?"

" - I mean, if I'm doing something useful then they're much less likely to kill me. It can be fun, too, but - that's not really the priority here, if they just want a headband every two days for the rest of my life that won't be fun but I can do it."

"That's the one that makes people smarter?"

"Yeah. They sell well."

"I'll ask."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Good luck with figuring out whatever it is that they want."

"I think it's less pressing for me than for you."