She nods to him, and sits, Herself, or at least the body that She's apparently inhabiting apparently positions itself in a sitting sort of way. The chair does not in fact depress beneath the illusion, and there's a general careful unreality to it, like She's not just not quite here but carefully not even pretending perfectly to be here. 

"If someone like Cam came to this world," she says to Carissa, "and trusted the - promises, the apparent generosity, the good intentions - of the Chelish soldier who summoned him, how often do you expect that would work out for him?"

"Well, that depends on what he wants."

"It barely does. For nearly any conceivable set of wants possessed by anyone other than Asmodeus, it would plainly usually go very badly. If it would have worked, in this case, for Cam to trust you, that is because you are, in fact, a Lawful Good person in denial who carefully avoided ever thinking for six seconds about what you'd do if you had power, and then successfully thought about it in a very small window of opportunity when you had one. I am very glad that occurred! But I cannot fault the judgment-patterns that would have been correct if it hadn't."

Okay after the Church of Iomedae pointedly did not make any efforts to convert her Carissa was in fact not expecting the goddess herself to claim in their literal first interaction that Carissa is actually a Lawful Good person in denial about this fact. She - doesn't have a retort. She's pretty sure she still reads Evil and pretty sure that isn't a retort and she doesn't want Hell destroyed and - 

- and, okay, it's pretty easy to see why someone would claim that that's a Lawful Good kind of reason to oppose the forces of Lawful Good. 

It is still a reason to oppose the forces of Lawful Good.

"I'm sorry about the book thing, I sincerely did not get that it mattered to you," Cam mumbles into his hands.

"I don't understand in what sense that can possibly be true," she grumbles back.

"I am not reading his mind, because he wouldn't want me to, but I would not expect you to be surprised that people in a sufficiently hostile and precarious environment might, while not thinking too hard about specific opportunities for safety, generically try to accumulate latitude they only subconsciously understand their reasons for wanting."

- are you reading my mind? she thinks, stupidly.

Yes. I am, whether or not it was obtained specifically by reading your mind, not going to use the things I learned here against your interests, though we do, as you noticed, have some potentially competing interests. 

She's confused.

Cam happens to value not being mindread not only because his mind contains things he doesn't want used against him.

"Thank you for not reading my mind." If she isn't. She's Lawful but like, Kofusachi's not and he bowed out of the initial prayer early because of not wanting to be a dick about it? And Iomedae is also Good? What does any of this even mean and would he have figured it out well enough to be getting on with if he had spent less time on reading the proposal to foment robot uprising? He has no idea.

Iomedae cannot answer any of those questions for him because She is not reading his mind. 

"Can you help us set up an escrow account we can only draw on for legal fees and event-markets so we can continue working together on the Worldwound and so on?"

"Yes. If we cannot come up with something better than a legal fund which you both access to have vetted Axis lawyers write proposals for mutually agreed upon interventions, then I will propose to Cam some conjurations that will confirm to his satisfaction that such vetted lawyers can be found, and someone will make arrangements with them, and we'll do that. But since I'm here, I'm in fact going to see if there are further useful interventions so we can stop leaving the overwhelming majority of the potential value of this situation untapped.

It is my specific intent to attempt to persuade you, Carissa, that you should consider overthrowing the Thrune rule of Cheliax, and that many of the people who desire that desire it out of a love of your country, a deep appreciation for the rich and Lawful and powerful and free nation that it was before the Thrunes and can be after them and will never be under them."

"Cheliax is a Lawful nation."

"Every scrap of your righteous anger at Cam about your failed negotiations here is about conduct in which Asmodeans are encouraged to engage, unless they are Worldwound soldiers taught to be more lawful than that so as to not be too inconvenient to their commanders or too likely to outright break an actual Lawful treaty to which Cheliax knows it is in fact subject. You are right, in a sense, to feel that Asmodeanism is not Law in the form of it that is meaningful, that Law the beautiful and human thing is something Asmodeus reviles and undermines at every turn."

Oh, she thinks immediately, and is it Lawful Good, to go around picking at peoples' heresies like that, until they can't be good Asmodeans anymore and have no choice but to turn to you?

What processes Lawful Good gods use to select words to speak with mortals is, in fact, a complicated question, for some of the reasons you've thought of and some you haven't; I am employing processes I think you'd approve if you understood them, but without prophecy that's imperfect, and with people whose process of coming to comprehend Law at all would involve significant shifts in their values - such as you - it presents additional challenges.

The intuition you keep reaching for - that I am not a person, that I do not choose my words for the reasons everyone you have ever spoken to has chosen theirs - is of course true, and important, which isn't to say that any of the corrections you are trying to apply are in the correct direction. 

Axis exists, and even if you decide you want Heaven there are powers in it besides me, and the option of becoming your own power in Heaven if you think no existing ones get it sufficiently right.

Is she being offered backing in becoming a power in Heaven or is it just being tantalizingly waved in front of her nose. Just to clarify.

Iomedae's been spending a lot of cognition on tracking the psychology of this specific mortal lately and She is in fact still surprised that they're at 'am I being offered backing in becoming a power in Heaven' this fast.

It's that, more than anything, that decides her. 

I will back you in becoming a power in Heaven, if you sort yourself out enough that you'll be competent at the job, which I expect you will.

"I in fact want that lawyer."

"Talking through intermediaries seems wise and them being lawyers has advantages," Cam murmurs.