Vanyel looks suitably impressed. "Wow! How - does the magic know how to do that?" 

"Our magic relies on some kind of underlying structure that lets it do information, yours doesn't, we haven't been able to figure out what the difference is - aside from that you can learn ours, if you want to." Shrug. "We have a lot less flexibility with it but the things it can do include a bunch that would be too complicated for Velgarth magic."

"Huh." Vanyel looks thoughtful. He glances around the room for somewhere to sit. "...Anyway, er, how - are you? Are you... Um, I wasn't sure how much you were here - of your own will, or because Leareth made you..." 

"Seems not very wise to send a representative who doesn't want to be there....I guess if I cared about the kid he could make it work?" Shrug. "I agreed to come. I was a little worried that you wanted to kill me or wanted a hostage or something but Leareth didn't think it was likely and if it's not - it just seems fairer, if you know what's going on."

Vanyel gives her a puzzled and slightly offended look. "We're not evil. We're not going to kill you." 

"Does Valdemar not put people to death for espionage?"

Vanyel looks uneasy. "I...guess we probably ever have? But - you didn't actually hurt anyone, and - it seems unfair, right, you were - obviously being coerced by Leareth..." 

"Well, if it's contingent on how obvious people consider it that I was coerced by Leareth, then I might bet I can sell that but I wouldn't sleep very easily, would I?"

Vanyel seems unsure how to parse that. "...Are you, er, saying you weren't coerced about it?" 

"I don't really know how safe it is to argue about that and I don't think I know how you'd define it. I think it's ambiguous enough I would not expect all courts to conclude that I was?"

Vanyel ducks his head, looks sheepish. "Er, sorry, I'll - stop..." He shakes himself a little. "I - sorry, I got distracted. I wanted to talk to you because I - I guess I'm trying to understand what Leareth wanted, when he was talking to me. He's so confusing. I was - sort of hoping you'd understand him better, since you've been around him more." 

"I can try? I guess I don't find the things he's said to me very confusing. He wants places to be - prosperous and nice - and for people to not die forever - and the existing gods object but he thinks if he made a new one things will get better, so he plans to do that."

(Vanyel winces, turning away from her slightly, and blinks hard as though trying to hold back tears.) 

"Doesn't he, um. Need to kill a lot of people to make the god. That seems - counterproductive." 

"....counterproductive?"

"If he thinks it's bad when. When people die." 

(For some reason Vanyel is flinching even more about this sentence.)

"It's bad that when people die then they - don't exist anymore and they will never be able to do anything ever again. If when they died they went to a decent afterlife then it wouldn't be very bad I think?"

Vanyel blinks, hard, and then turns his face toward the opposite wall and breathes unsteadily and doesn't say anything for the next thirty seconds. 

Carissa has absolutely no idea what to do with strangers having emotions in her vicinity. Why would they do that.

Vanyel gets himself under control. He seems fairly practiced at this. 

"Anyway. I - just, Leareth sort of - told me at the very start that he was - trying to do the right thing. That would help people. Does...that seem true, to you." 

"I think he's trying to build his god and I think he expects his god to make things nicer for people. I don't - think he's pretending to try to build a god, he's doing lots of things that only really make sense if he's trying to build a god like he said, and I don't think he's pretending to want the god to make things nice for people because - I mean, he's immortal himself, right, he's the only one in the world who doesn't need it..."

"...Huh." Vanyel takes a deep breath. "So I don't know if you knew this. But we're pretty sure Leareth was - kidnapping mage-gifted children from Valdemar. And - supplying magic artifacts to, er, really horrible people. I, just, I - don't understand how you can...be the sort of person who cares about making things nicer for people. And then go and do things like that." 

"The - confusing thing - is that he - 

- oh! He's not Good! He just for his own reasons wants everything to be nice for everyone! 

 - probably that's not actually a good explanation, sorry -"

"No, that seems like -" Vanyel shakes his head. "I - don't know what you mean by Good, I think that's - some sort of Golarion god thing, right? But...that does sort of seem like the thing? He's not trying to be a good person - he literally said that to me - just, I think it still looks like he cares, whatever that even means..." 

"Yeah. Good is - I don't think it's very different than the Heraldic thing, even if you haven't explicitly got the concept. If you're Good there's things you won't do, because they hurt people, and sometimes you're allowed to but you have to have lots and lots of circumlocutions about it, I interpreted it at the time as 'you have to act very apologetic' but there's a bit more to it than that, I think... and Good people are kind of mutually-verifying, when they describe to each other the decisions they made they're mostly going to conclude each other are Good, which you can use for coordination... He's not going for that. But you can not be going for that and still not want everyone to die forever. I'm not going for that and I don't want everyone to die forever. Asmodeus stopped Rovagug from eating the world."

"Asmodeus is - the god of Hell who wants to torture everyone forever, no?" Shudder. "If Leareth is going for being like him then, gods, I obviously have to fight him."