"He's more than a thousand years old. In my world a caster who has invented immortality and had that long to accumulate resources can... pretty much do anything. I haven't seen much that makes me think that's wrong about him, even though he's not from my world."

The Heralds exchange some more tense looks. 

"Do you know why he's, er, even interested in having negotiations with us?" Lancir asks. "Given that he's planning to conquer us." 

"And that from the sound of it we couldn't do anything to even inconvenience him," Savil adds dryly. 

"I'm not entirely sure. He might change his mind and want a way to credibly communicate that? He might be hoping that if you know enough about his capabilities then you won't wage a totally futile war against him? He might just think that, you know, several extremely weird things have happened recently, in case more extremely weird things happened it is best if everyone's communicating with each other where it's in their interests to do so."

Lancir nods. Still looks uneasy. 

"Has he said anything to you about, er, what he was playing at with Vanyel." 

" - I think the same thing he sent me here for now? Figuring it's - better to have avenues of communication than not, and maybe if you know everything you won't fight him?"

"Given that he apparently wants to murder a lot of people to make a god, that seems very unlikely." 

"I don't think he can use people he murders during the war to make the god so if there's a war and then the god-building then that's just even more people dead compared to if he can get directly to work on the god."

"That doesn't mean we would ever find it acceptable to, what, just bow down and let him take our country and use it for his madman's scheme." 

"....if it were my country I would hate him, and be very angry at him, and hope someone stopped him and he was ground down in Hell for a very long time. But I don't - 

- I think I'd probably still surrender, if it was my decision. Because - there are more options when you're alive."

The Heralds seem even less sure how to respond to this. 

"I think that surrendering our country to a bloodpath mage would be...well, abandoning our responsibility to the people of Valdemar. Which is much, much bigger than our own lives." 

She's glad she read the book so she could at least imagine why someone would have an opinion like that. 

"I don't - think I ever felt that way about the people of Cheliax exactly," she says. "Cheliax is pretty different than Valdemar. But, uh, it's easier for me to imagine feeling that way about - my children, if I had children, or about my unit in the army, and - if Leareth showed up and told me to turn them over to him so he could kill half of them to make a god, then, I'd think, is there any option I can think of that involves them not dying? And if there is, then I'd do that. And if there's not, then...it seems like it is abandoning them, to die, instead of to - figure out where I'll have the most opportunity to change things and go there?"

...This seems to make a little more sense to them, or at least it gets Lancir to nod grudgingly. "I - can understand that, I suppose." 

"You've worked with the man for a while now," Herald Jaysen says gruffly. "Reckon there's any hope of convincing him not to make this damned god of his? Or at least to go bother some other kingdom instead?" 

"Jay! We can't send him after some other hapless country!"

Carissa thinks this is an incredibly reasonable suggestion! "Probably he'd go after someone else if he expected less interference there? I think Valdemar's gods aren't very active, compared to the gods in some places, and that was a consideration, and Valdemar has a lot of land and can support a large population. But I think you could get him to go after somewhere else if - Valdemar was going to be harder to take than he thought, or less valuable, or if the gods looked more inclined to interfere after all. Or if you offered him help with the god plan conditional on it happening somewhere else, maybe.

I don't think you can get him not to pursue the god plan and I don't really see why you'd want to? We're all going to die forever, if he doesn't succeed at the god plan. All of the people of Valdemar will die forever. That - seems like not the best thing for them!!"

"- Huh. You don't think it's a completely insane plan?" 

"In Golarion some people have ascended and become gods and it seems....fine? I don't follow any of them particularly so I don't know much for sure, and I wouldn't favor it if your existing gods were doing anything with your dead, but - Golarion is a better place than here, and Leareth thinks it's because your gods can't use much of humans, and - it's good for people, to have a god that can use a lot of - who they are, what they care about..."

"I see." Lancir leans back in his chair. "- I think I want to hear more about Golarion, then, and - why you think it's better, over there, and how your gods are different." 

"Sure. Uh, Golarion is an older world than this one, with a longer history, and it's richer and Lawfuller - uh, more people have magic things, more people have been to other countries, stores sell more things from faraway, it is more common for a dozen different countries to collaborate against a great global threat, I could deposit my money in a bank in Cheliax and pick it up at a bank three thousand miles away, we field bigger armies, there aren't hungry children in the streets - that's the kind of thing I mean by 'richer' -

- and our gods - some of them are as alien as your gods, I suppose, but some of them aren't. We characterize them by - Law and Chaos, and Good and Evil, which are forces on a god-scale and hard to understand on a human scale but you can get a general sense - Law is - reliability. Honesty. Sacred trusts. Whether when you give your word you mean it, whether it's safe to carry money in the street, whether crimes are punished. Chaos is about - individual freedom. Doing as you please. Being beholden to nothing.

And Good and Evil is," Sigh. "Uh, Good is - to shape everything you do with the intent of protecting and caring for other people, keeping them safe, doing your duty to them, arranging for them the conditions where they'll lead joyful lives. Evil is - most everything else. There are gods of - there are Lawful Good gods like Erastil whose domain is farming and family and Iomedae whose domain is the fight against Evil, and Lawful Neutral gods like Abadar, of commerce, and Lawful Evil gods like Asmodeus, of - He regrets that humans were given free will and their own goals, and wants them to stop that, and serve Him. There are Chaotic Good gods like Desna, of exploration and the stars, and Chaotic Neutral gods like Calistria, of revenge, and Chaotic Evil gods like Lamashtu, of - madness and corruption, or Rovagug, who just eats entire worlds..."

"Thank you, I appreciate the explanation." Lancir's voice is a bit rote; he seems to be deep in thought. 

"...To be honest Leareth seems like the kind of man who would create an Evil god," Jaysen says after a few beats, "which - I don't think we want here." 

"I don't think that is what he'd do. Cheliax worshipped an Evil god and when I first arrived here I suggested to Leareth that he ally with Asmodeus and he was very opposed. I think he wants a Good god, or - maybe a Neutral god because Good's kind of narrow? But he doesn't want a god who tortures people, even occasionally when they deserve it."

"Is it, er, normal, in...Cheliax, right - to think that people sometimes deserve to be tortured?" 

"Yes. Which is probably not unrelated to having been ruled by an Evil god."