"Right. Anyway, she wanted to murder a whole city of people for immortality, and one of the reasons that's a bad idea is that it's a lot of people who have now gotten turned into your enemies, and some of them were you lot."

"Well, yes. Quite. Of course, we didn't know about the blood magic ritual until it was all almost over, but she did try to frame my wife for regicide and one tends to take that personally. ....Not that I'm not a regicide myself. Technically speaking. It's the principle of the thing." 

"You only want to be wanted for regicides you really committed? Or is it about whether the King had it coming. Are there any Kings who don't have it coming."

"Mostly the former. There are some kings – well, there are some kings it's more trouble than it's worth to do anything about. We did put the old one back in charge." 

"I've never heard anything bad about him. ...never heard anything bad about our Queen either, of course, and somehow I doubt she's on your list of rulers not to bother with."

 "I mean, I think we disagree on the valence of serving Asmodeus – " 

"I suppose. What would your ideal country do with people who serve Asmodeus, it seems like if you try to stamp us all out you stop being Chaotic and Good pretty fast."

"Ban the organized faith, of course, but if individuals want to worship in private and on their own recognizance...try and talk them out of it? Build a culture of respect for liberty and the mortal spirit? I don't think it would be a serious problem. It's not a popular faith in parts of the world where you're given a choice. And in the end if someone really wants to consign themselves to hell, it's an unspeakable tragedy, but there's not a whole lot the state can do about it." 

"In parts of the world where you're given a choice, by which you mean the organized faith is banned?"

"Plenty of places have freedom of religion. I live in Absalom, it's legal there, and the church barely has a presence. Almost nothing if you don't count Chelish expatriates. As religions go, it's really not very appealing! But we were talking about my ideal country – and even given all that, I just don't think it's worth it." 

"And here we are talking religion again, instead of how you stopped the mad queen. I assume she did not just go fight a bunch of mid-level adventurers. When trying to conquer countries one should really be prepared for intervention by mid-level adventurers."

"Well, no. After we resurrected the king, we smuggled him into the Acadamae, and he got them to agree to back him in re-taking the palace. So we snuck in first and rescued his cousin, the heir apparent, who was being held hostage, and while that was happening we got the chance to explain to the leader of the local Hellknight order that the rightful monarch had been resurrected, which made things much easier when everyone was storming the place – and at that point, I suppose we just got lucky. Our party went to investigate the castle vaults and managed to find her inner sanctum, the place she teleported herself to when she was injured. As indeed she did. If she hadn't been severely weakened we'd never have managed it." 

"Huh! Congratulations. Did she try to bribe you. That is what I would do if I teleported to my sanctuary and it had a bunch of adventurers in it."

"Oh, it was all over much too quickly for that. At least I think so." 

"...you think so?"

"...traded those exact memories to a Caulborn. Long story. My party had to fill me in later." 

"- really? What was that like?"

"Weird. They're fascinating creatures, you know, their whole species is a telepathic hive-mind and collectively they know almost everything. I think they – eat? – memories. Draw sustenance from them in some way, certainly. Naturally I don't have the clearest memory of the precise moment it happened, but I do know that it felt like being very slightly hollowed out. And that there were more slurping noises than I really felt comfortable with." 

" - wow. I think it'd drive me mad, not knowing things I ought to know, but I guess we forget lots of things anyway... do they pay well. Caulborns."

 "They pay in arcane knowledge. Depends on how badly you need to know."

"Oh no, now I'm tempted."

"I could – I couldn't let you copy the spell, really. It'd probably be better for me if I didn't have it – my friends definitely think so – but I can't say I regret it." 

"What, are you protecting me from myself? I'm going to Hell! If that has any advantages it ought to mean people stop protecting you from yourself."

"Oh, if it was just for your own sake I'd do it gladly. But you seem like the practical type, and you have goals I wouldn't like to make it easier for you to achieve." 

Gesture at the Worldwound. "I want to stop it from eating the planet. I guess that serves Asmodeus but it serves a lot of other people too."