"Not forever! For centuries but that's objectively a very small fraction of forever! Also he doesn't prefer to torture people it's just the expedient way to get them to stop being defiant. - Leareth is not going for being like Him, if he were he could just find Golarion which would probably be faster and wouldn't require killing anyone."

Vanyel spends a while staring at her, looking like he very badly wants to be able to agree or nod along sympathetically or something but cannot, quite, find a way to make it fit together. 

"Most people who aren't from Cheliax think Hell sounds really bad. I don't know how to - think about who's wrong, there, or what it'd mean to be wrong, but certainly we can do better than it."

Now Vanyel is giving her an even more baffled look. "I - what does it - even mean, that you don't know what it'd mean to be wrong but - that we can do better? Aren't...'wrong' and 'better' talking about the...same kind of thing...?"

"I think you can make a god that uses more of people than Asmodeus has use for. I don't know if any of the other Golarion gods are that. I don't think any of them would win, in a fight with Asmodeus, so it seems like an error to shape people towards suiting them, rather than Asmodeus. But here, we don't have to think about who is going to win, so we can just - try to make the god that is the best possible one for humans, since it's humans making it and we don't have any reason not to try to make us valuable to it."

Vanyel listens, frowns and visibly tries hard to think about it.

"...Huh, why don't you think any of the other Golarion gods could beat him? It - sounded like there were more not on his side than on his side." 

"They're kind of all over the place, like, demons are the enemy of both us and Heaven. But Asmodeus is among the oldest, and the one with the most power to act both in his own realm and on the Material Plane, and someday he'll conquer them all. Or, well, so we were told, but the paladins mostly didn't dispute that Asmodeus had the upper hand."

"Hmm." Vanyel stares past her, hands twisting in front of him. "...I mean, I can't - shouldn't we..." He takes a deep breath. "I - think if Hell is bad then we shouldn't - just abandon everyone who's in Hell in Golarion just because they're not from here, right, it'd - also be better to go save them too...?" 

"You can't. Even Leareth can't. Heaven tries and all that happens is they murder people, forever, if you die in the afterlife you don't get another one..."

"Oh." Shiver. "I'm - sorry -" Vanyel looks like he's very unsure of this being the right response.  

Shrug. "It never really occurred to me to be very upset about it, it's not like anyone on either side would care what I think."

"That's, er, not something that would make me less upset." 

"I think maybe Good people are sad about things they can't change sometimes to signal at each other that they would coordinate on fixing those if they could, or something, but in Cheliax wanting something you can't reasonably have is just very pathetic."

This also seems to be a model of emotions that makes no sense to Vanyel; he makes a couple of different odd faces as he tries it on, and lands on looking very upset again. "I - do your feelings care if they're pathetic and just go away?" 

"...mostly, yes? Sometimes not really but I can at least fake it."

"Oh. I'm - sorry you had to do that, that sounds really hard." 

Now it is her turn to look like she has absolutely no idea how one is supposed to respond to a sentiment like that. "Probably it's harder if you're, uh, Good, and want lots of Good things, and care about people and stuff."

"Oh. I, um... I used to try to not care about people. But it - made me really miserable. Although I didn't - really realize that, until later, when I - had something to compare it to..." 

" - huh. Well. I don't suppose I have anything to compare it to. I do like people reasonably often and everything, I have a totally unremarkable generally positive relationship with my parents and siblings and exes and classmates, I think lots of people do fine without ever specifically getting invested in other people?"

"Mmm, maybe." Vanyel seems unconvinced. He shrugs. Fidgets with his sleeve. "I - does Leareth get - invested in people, that way? He - I can never tell."

"...you know, I'm not sure. 

I think he cares about you. He was - specifically mad at the gods, for setting you up to fight him."

"Oh." Vanyel doesn't seem to know where to go with this. He sits, picking at his nails, and looks very miserable and very tired for a moment. 

"...Why did he send you here?" he asks finally. "I, er, sorry, I don't mean this time, but - before, when you - came and seduced my sister and the little girl turned up..." 

"He wanted me to - actually work for him - I don't think I quite know how to explain it, I was working for him, I was doing magic research to try to reinvent some of the things Golarion wizards know how to do that I hadn't brought with me and I sent him weekly updates and I made him the fanciest kind of headband and I was working on an artifact that lets people fly -

- but I was also working on figuring out whether I could leave, if I decided he was going to kill me, on figuring out exactly how much I can get away with - I had also seduced one of his staff members, to learn more about what was going on and so - there'd be someone who was at least mildly invested in whether I was alive - and he knew that, and he asked what he'd have to do, to have me entirely aimed at his goals. I didn't really get what he wanted. The way to have someone entirely pointed at your goals is to hurt them when they do other things. I think I told him that. It wasn't what he - 

- I think that actually, if you hurt someone when they're doing things that aren't your goals, that gets them entirely pointed at yours but it doesn't get all of them pointed at yours, it just kills some and points the rest, which maybe isn't even worth it if the stuff they were doing otherwise is valuable -

- anyway. I said that I couldn't really - I'd believe whatever he wanted but as long as I'd only ever heard it from him and his staff I'd know that was where I'd learned all of it -

- and he suggested I go to Valdemar. To try to learn more about the world. And verify the things he'd told me. And - figure out whether I expected working for him to get me the things I wanted for myself, the things I was trying to squeeze in on the sides."

"Oh." Vanyel scowls. "I mean, hurting people unless they do what you want is also horrible - not that I'd've expected Leareth to care about that... Anyway. What...did you end up deciding. After that." 

"I want him to build his god. And I think - 

- I think he wants me to understand something. And I want to learn it. And I don't understand much of it yet but - it feels like there's something about people which Asmodeus - I wouldn't go so far as to say He didn't understand it but He apparently can't use it, and Leareth can, and that makes it easier to imagine a god that can, and that god seems like - maybe it'd be stronger for it."