"Sure, all right, if it's that cheap and it's a one-off maybe people get helped for the novelty. But - it's an ongoing cost, sustaining a divine realm that other people can live in, and it's not cheap, and if you get nothing out of it eventually you'll stop. That's - the whole problem I have now, right, is that it's not very cheap for me to continue to exist so everyone has to try to figure out if there's a way to get enough out of me to make it worth it."

"There's an idea, we could drop you off in Nirvana, see if they have anti-suicide precautions..."

"They don't, I did ask the paladins if it'd been considered. Happy to take her, absolutely not equipped to keep her from doing magic research, on the spot, badly."

"I don't want to kill myself. Why would I do that."

"To report to Hell, presumably. That's why an Atonement would also work."

"Asmodeus probably already knows there are other worlds and I don't know that Kyeo's are specifically interesting or valuable to Him and I like being alive."

"Be that as it may."

"I think it is not that expensive to create and defend spaces where people can figure out good lives. Elysium is infinite and Desna is not to my understanding actively doing maintenance, and it's lovely, and the inhabitants defend themselves and intervene elsewhere on behalf of others as suits them."

"I don't think Elysium would be a nice place if it had to take everybody."

"There is a tradeoff between resource-intensiveness and niceness and universalness, yeah. But almost all of the places at any point on that tradeoff are better than Hell."

" -relevantly here I don't think Hell is very bad or anything."

"Devils are made, and warped to further alter them, through torture."

" - yes, I know that. Childbirth, or war, or, I don't know, eating chili peppers, is also painful but sometimes people do painful things because there are desired results."

"If it were voluntary I would have many fewer objections."

"People want stupid things and the things Asmodeus wants for them are more important than the stupid things they want themselves."

"Isn't that what's wrong with Ibyabek?"

"What's wrong with Ibyabek is that they all die and don't go anywhere after that."

"That too, but the reason they're so poor is the thing where somebody's deciding that they should want only specified things."

"That seems like it would be fine if the person in question wanted them poor for some reason like that it'll make them more motivated or more compliant. It seems pretty stupid if it happened by accident because they didn't understand what money was for."

"Are you actually indifferent between Cheliax being poor and Cheliax being rich -"

"- no, I'd rather Cheliax be rich, because from a position of strength you can get more done. I think I'm indifferent about other places that aren't even geopolitically entangled, or trade partners, being rich or being poor. Especially if they don't even have magic."

"Get more of what done?"

"I can't really think of anything it doesn't help with. More conquest, more defense, better daycares, better schools, better academies of magic..."

"I mean, yes, it's very generically useful, but do you perceive this all as aiming at the preservation of as many souls as possible, or at just not doing anything silly and embarrassing like a prolonged failure to accede to the inevitable, or what."

She looks kind of puzzled by the question. "It's ....aimed at whatever Asmodeus is aiming at...He doesn't tell us...Iomedae doesn't usually tell the paladins either, I asked."