"When the research harem reconvenes, maybe I'll try an Augury about what happens if I politely ask everyone who registered themselves as very interesting to stand up and explain their backstories to me, each other, and the rest of the research group.  Given the entire premise - which I emphasize is still rather less likely than likely - that would be the most obvious way to defuse any potential catastrophes, if it did not itself cause a catastrophe -"

"- shit.  What happened to Broom?"

(Broom went invisible, stayed out of the way as best he could, and is now in a nicely appointed palace room of his own awaiting a check-in from Aspexia Rugatonn.

Broom wasn't exactly considered unimportant earlier, but now that an attack from Nidal, on the site of an Otolmens event, has started a war among the gods, he rates a few more minutes of her time, in case he knows literally anything whatsoever.)

Carissa has been apprised of this but Carissa who isn't running this operation would not have been apprised of this. 

"...didn't see him in the pile of bodies. The - war among the gods - that's the kind of thing that maybe qualifies as a giant mess. The last one killed fifteen percent of the global population!"

Not the same tragedy it would be in Civilization, he has to keep reminding himself of that until Golarion becomes cached.

Keltham pokes her in the ribs, harder than he would if Carissa wasn't a masochist.  "That's for talking about fifteen percent of the global population dying while we were lying in bed."

(Dath ilani do strive to learn from experience literally at all.)

Deep elaborate bow, the most elaborate she can manage while in bed cuddling him. "I beg your forgiveness."

"I - guess I do have to ask earlier rather than later, under the circumstances - if the planet-scathing side effects of a godwar are the sort of thing where - we should stay dressed in case we suddenly have to evacuate the palace."

"Our chances of having to suddenly evacuate are probably much higher than usual but from a very low base."

"Is the fifteen percent thing like - definite, now that the godwar's started - or could it maybe just be a small one this time."

"We don't exactly have lots of examples. But last time most of the people who died died because - all around the world there were twelve days of really intense wind and rain, intense enough to wash out all the crops and uproot most of the trees, and so there was no harvest, and so they starved, and if this one is faster or - less rainy, I have no idea what makes godwars rainy - then maybe almost no one'll die. The lights aren't going to kill anyone."

"This war has at least my god, Asmodeus, and Nethys all allied and trying to take out Zon-Kuthon, but given why Zon-Kuthon did it, there could be any number of other gods allied with him.  Well.  Probably not any Good ones.  But - how does that match up to whatever the last god-war was about?"

"I think that's better than the last god-war, which was I think close to an even split - a god called Aroden had decided to make Golarion his divine realm, instead of having it in Axis, and rule it directly, and the gods were very closely divided on this plan, and He went ahead when He thought He had just enough support it wasn't worth it to his opponents to fight, and then - prophecy broke - there could never have been a godwar before prophecy broke, right, They'd see how'd it go and just settle accordingly -"

"Unless you're about to wreck so much of what a god cares about that there's nothing left for them to negotiate, so they try to launch a preemptive strike team at you, and, when that fails, go down fighting."

"Yeah, that does seem to be the other circumstance under which you'd have a god-war. But it's hard to imagine He'll have many allies, it's not like many gods have much common ground with the god whose values are inverted. So maybe it'll be a quick one. The war between Cheliax and Nidal will probably last much longer, but is vanishingly unlikely to oblige us to evacuate."

"Heh.  So, nothing Civilization would consider scalable weaponry, then.  Where scalable weaponry is weaponry that you can go on making more destructive if for some reason it needs to be even more destructive."

(Nobody plays realistic Alien Invasion Rehearsals.  They'd be too short and depressing.)

Carissa feels a quiet chill, even though this isn't new information, they knew dath ilan had vastly superior weaponry because it has vastly superior everything. "Nothing like that. There's a place in Garund where there's a wasteland for hundreds of miles because two ninth-circle wizards fought there, but it isn't actually dangerous to travel through, it's just that magic behaves weirdly and plants mostly don't grow. There's opening something like the Worldwound but Nidal and Cheliax are both Lawful and committed to not doing that, and anyway it's very very difficult and still doesn't just straightforwardly scale up.

- I would know, I think, if there were something that a reasonable number of people knew about or that had ever in history been used, because people at the Worldwound pay a lot of attention to our options however speculative for closing it. There could of course be secret things. 

....and one time some people crashed a moon into the planet, so, uh, there's that. I guess."

"Small moon?  Or are we talking like a couple of billion years ago?"

"Small moon. It was ten thousand years ago and it would've ended life on the planet if not for divine intervention of various stripes; it did annihilate both the civilization that dropped it and the one they were fighting with. There was no sun for many, many years, but with magic small populations can limp along without. We call it the Age of Darkness. ....there is a remaining moon and I wouldn't exactly put it past Nidal if they're losing everything but the Crown and Church will have thought of this."

...it's started to feel like somebody is recounting a colorful fascinating backstory for atmosphere, rather than something that actually happened, which potentially indicates that he's under enough internal stress to produce derealization; the whole point of history is that it actually happened.  Civilization may have hidden much of it, but for what remains, in the recent and far more distant past, the whole point is that it's not just another story.

"Yeah, that's around as much damage as Civilization could do to a planet and they might need a few months of lead time to scale it that far.  Well.  It's as much damage as they could do, using methods that people like me are allowed to know about, but..."  But why talk about that or think about it, if you're not a Keeper.  Except - there are no Keepers here, out of dath ilan, just Keltham, now.

"I think I should stop talking about this, Carissa, at least for the night.  I may not be able to simultaneously handle the aftermath of nonsimulated violence and also - thinking about what my being here may have set off."

" - makes sense. I'm sorry. Did you have sex questions that are very narrow in scope and won't get into world history at all."

"Well, at least ones I don't expect to interact much with world history.  But we should first do some manner of snuggly thing, no, not sex, to get my brain out of its current place."

"Does testing out the chains count as sex."

"Well, so long as you're not expecting too much, I suppose whatever happens to you will happen.  I am trying to hear and absorb what you're saying literally at all, and if I've managed to do that correctly literally at all, I do grasp that's the point of the chains."

In a black stone room in a black stone skyscraper in the doompunk city of Dis, a contract devil is reading case law, as one does. 

Waking up from dying is not exactly like waking up from falling asleep.  Your memory isn't of a muzzy period that trails off and blurs into notness as you fall half asleep and then all asleep.  Dying is abrupt, at least if you do it the way Asmodia did - hearing a Security alert to cast resistances she doesn't have, no useful spells prepared at all, and then being swarmed by shadows moments after she'd reached her self-defense dagger.  It's very clear where your last life's memory ends.

Coming out of it is something like being drowning in the water and then clawing yourself onto shore and coughing out that water, and then, having just finished doing that.  Only without the whole part where you almost drowned, made it to shore, and coughed out that water, just the part where you'd finished.

Asmodia wakes up.

It doesn't take her very long at all to figure out why she's naked in a black stone room in front of a contract devil she met very recently.

Her internal screaming is very very very loud, but it's all internal, of course.