…Leareth feels like he wants something about this to be different, but he isn’t sure what, and figuring it out should - probably not be his highest priority, here.

:- I am going to go do that, then: he says softly, and rolls away from Carissa to stand up.

Evidence on the hair hypothesis.

Leareth is pretty sure that he handled that badly. Which is how he feels about the majority of his interactions lately with Carissa. 

He turns to head for the door, and then stops. :- I want to give you a hug? But I am not sure if you want that or if it would help:

She pops out of bed and comes over to hug him. I don't suppose there is any point in trying to convince you that if you want to do things you should do them. Probably it would just interfere with aligning with Iomedae properly.

:…I think that in general I do just do things when I want to? In this case, I - what I actually wanted was to…try to make it up to you that I keep handling all of our conversations very badly? And so I wanted to hug you if and only if you wanted me to?:

She's so confused about what he means by the claim he's handling conversations badly! Is he not achieving his goals? What are those goals?

She will take a hug, though.

Well, most of the point of having conversations is communication, and Leareth feels that he keeps  accidentally communicating different things than he intends to. He doesn’t want to try to get into it right now, though. He’ll probably just fail to communicate that concept too. 

He hugs Carissa, and then turns away and leaves the room and heads back to the shrine-room to look for the paladins again.

They're conferring over some of the maps, and praying. 

Ignasi smiles warmly at Leareth. "Did you think of any more questions for us?"

“Do you have any kind of manual or write-up of policies and tactics that Iomedae’s church thinks are acceptable for Good to use, versus not? …I do not need to read it beforehand, I have already made my decision, I just would not want to violate the agreement I am making by accident because I had not checked.”

"We do, and we would be happy to go through it with you."

Nod. “I appreciate that.” He glances around. “So - how does this work?”

"You should make yourself comfortable, it takes about an hour. Rovira will intercede for you in prayer with Iomedae - She doesn't usually directly respond - and ask you some questions to make sure you're - thinking along the right tracks, ready to make these commitments. At the end we'll be able to see if it worked."

“Do I also need to be - having certain kinds of thoughts during that time, like the way that I did to contact Iomedae originally?”

"Praying to Iomedae is a customary thing to do but the Atonement should work as long as you want it and are able to answer the questions, they're meant to be - sufficient to produce the right mental state alone, without prayer."

Leareth nods.

Meeting room two is equipped with chairs. He sits down. 

- Belatedly remembers that he also still needs to get the run-down from Zahra on Malduoni’s plans, but that can wait. 

He closes his eyes, and thinks about why he wants it to be true, that this is now a world where Good is the strategy that can coordinate with itself, and that’s why they’re going to win and going to fix everything…

Rovira takes his hand and prays, too. She is mainly thinking that, as a practical matter, ideally as much as possible is done by them here in Velgarth so Iomedae can do as little as possible. That means helping Leareth get to the point where he's thought through everything and is sure, and seeing him fully, so that Iomedae can see him too.

She doesn't ask any questions for about ten minutes. Then she asks, quietly, "Can you tell me about an example of a time where you... conducted yourself in a way that was Evil, and harmed people, and made it harder for the forces of Good to welcome you into our ranks?"

Leareth considers this. What’s the most vivid example, here, of the thing she wants…?

“- A few decades ago I provided a powerful and dangerous magical artifact to a man who I knew was Evil, and…not even Lawful.” Though he didn’t realize until after the fact just how far Vedric Mavelan would go, in breaking his agreements. “He wanted to conquer a small neighboring kingdom, for its reservoir of unused magic, and I wanted his country’s alliance, for their mages. The weapon was…fueled by blood-magic, and when triggered it would - summon demons from the Abyssal Plane to attack and kill its target and all of their blood relatives. The man used it to assassinate the entire royal family, so that he could step in and be welcomed as a rescuer rather than a conqueror. Which…meant fewer deaths, in the end, than would have happened with conquest by force? But I am sure it was Evil, and it - certainly harmed many people.”

"Do you think you would make a different decision today, in the same situation?"

“I am not sure what you mean by ‘in the same situation’. The entire point here is that I am not in the same situation and never will be again, if - if it is true, that Iomedae cares about what I care about and thus there is a god on my side. If I…were somehow sent back in time and had no memory of Golarion, then - I am not sure? In the particular place the plan did not even work to accomplish my goals, so with hindsight it is easy to say I regret it and would make a different choice…”

"...so, if you had believed that you had allies who cared about what you cared about, then you wouldn't have done that? And in the future, if an opportunity to achieve your goals by feeding hundreds of innocent people to demons comes up, you won't do that?"

“Yes. And - at the very least, in future I would not do it without speaking to my allies? I do not want to swear that a situation would never come up where even your people would agree something adjacent to that was reasonable…”

He stops. Frowns. “- On reflection, if I had been laying the plan the year it happened, instead of decades earlier, I would likely not have done it. Because in the interim I had met Herald Vanyel, and - hoped that he might someday become an ally.”

"If you were speaking about this decision to the people who were ripped apart by demons, what would you tell them, about what you wish you had done differently?"

That question feels unfairly hard, somehow. Leareth closes his eyes, thinks hard for a long moment. 

“- I think I would want to tell them that - I wish my decision process had been different at a much earlier part than the one where I made the artifact. I wish I had believed - I wish I had lived in a world where it was true that it would be possible to achieve what I wanted for the world without conquering any countries or hurting anyone…”

"Do you think that we can make it true, if we are focused on that?"

"I could not make it true on my own - I tried very hard, for a long time... But your church, with Iomedae's help, and with whatever aid I can bring - probably?"