"I don't think he's poised to take over the world next week."

"No. But if He's going to do it eventually, then I want to be something He can use, and if He's not going to do it eventually, then whoever is, I want to be something They can use. Because - that's five million years, five billion years - it's the difference between everything and nothing -"

Belmarniss glances around at her party members for help. "You guys are letting me do all the talking."

"You were doing a good job of it. Uh, the thing that jumps to mind for me is that things we can do might determine whether Asmodeus, in fact, conquers the universe forever, and that's important on whatever scale you'd like."

That is pathetic the way wanting to stab Pharasma is except infinitely moreso.

"Axis gets stronger every year," he says. "They invent things. Hell copies the things they invent, admittedly, but - not all inventions are straightforwardly copiable, and the culture of inventiveness evidently isn't."

That is.... a convincing argument for permitting the continued existence of Axis once Asmodeus has conquered everything.

"I heard that the secret to a happy marriage is to not argue religion with your wife, actually," says Mahdi.

Hagan swats him.

Belmarniss snickers. "I kind of get the sense that - you want to be on the winning side and this consideration so dominates your preferences here that you're not really considering there to be a separate fact of the matter about who's right or who's better besides who wins - but that's not all you have going on, if it turned out that your church had been bullshitting you and actually some people are useful to Asmodeus only as snacks would that change anything? I don't specifically expect that, just trying to tease it apart -"

"- yes, that matters, it's important that in Hell even if you're - weak and broken and bad at things - they'll use you, if they instead destroyed you for that - it'd be important to make sure no one was weak and broken and bad at things I guess, it would not change the feasibility of fighting a god -"

"I - think there are stories about devils getting destroyed in internal power struggles in Hell?"

Nod. "And some die fighting demons or angels or archons. But - but it matters whether the underlying ideology uses everybody or destroys some of them, even if the conquering the other Outer Planes hasn't finished yet and even if you won't get perfect internal obedience."

"Those aren't the only two options."

"Not sure I follow."

"Nirvana sends somebody to everybody's trial. They don't use them for things, far as I'm aware, or destroy them."

"Well, probably you're missing something, but if not, that sounds unsustainable."

"Why?"

"Because if something costs you something and gets you nothing then you will eventually get rid of it, or at least not bother expending resources to defend it from someone more motivated to possess it than you."

"I don't think they're getting nothing, I think they aren't getting use. They're buying some people-not-being-harmed."

"That's....not the relevant kind of something."

"If you could spend, like, a copper, to cause someone's soul to not get eaten, would you do it even if you didn't get the soul afterwards?"

"I ...guess? I wouldn't spend all my money on it. I dunno how I'd decide when to stop. When the novelty wore off, maybe."

"Good common sense, there," says Mahdi. 

"Let's say you'd spend a whole gold on it, that's a hundred souls. Do you suppose it's likely on balance that even if you didn't follow up on that one of 'em would ever make a gold in their ensuing existence and also be like 'that was pretty cool, I'll do that too, till the novelty wears off' -"