"What would lead you to conclude your goals cannot be achieved through Good?"

"- If we have been trying for a thousand years and nothing is working or changing? If Asmodeus proceeds to win every fight with the forces of Good? I - would be somewhat surprised if that happens. But...not shocked, I suppose. I would still be willing to try for a very long time." 

"Do you think trying to be Good will be frightening for you? Frustrating? Angering?"

"I– let me think about that for a moment?" 

Leareth closes his eyes. Prods at the thought for a while. 

"Not angering, I do not think. I - might be frustrated sometimes? I imagine that would come up if I were collaborating with Good people who - wanted to rule out some tactic, but were not very skilled at expressing why the harms it would do were unacceptable and outweighed the benefits? ...I do expect it to be terrifying, honestly, to the extent that I would - have fewer avenues for protecting myself and making plans that were airtight against god-interference. And I am...not used to having allies who I can genuinely trust to be careful enough? But I think it would be easier in time. I hope." 

"Are there immediate changes you expect to make to your plans and conduct?"

“Yes. I had already intended to make very significant changes, from the moment I learned of Golarion’s existence. Invading Valdemar obviously does not make sense, anymore, and I had planned to redirect my organization’s resources towards helping with Cheliax. And obviously if we are working together then I will make sure their orders are to behave and work in ways that Good is comfortable with. I - would have done that anyway, even if I were not doing this. I will probably think of other things that I need to change once I have familiarized myself right your policies on acceptable tactics.”

"How will you know if choosing Lawful Good was the right thing for you?"

This is another question that feels confusingly hard to answer. "- I mean, I am doing this because I - think it will result in being in a better position to fix everything? So if that ends up happening then I will know my prediction was accurate?" 

"What does that look like? If we've won, and fixed everything?"

"...It would look like - nobody ever has to stop existing, if they prefer to exist - no one has to experience suffering in ways they are not endorsedly choosing for themselves - there is wealth and trade and the world is safe for people to live in and pursue their interests -" 

"Do you want the people who are fighting for that to see you as an ally, and to trust you, and to be correct in that trust?"

"Yes." 

He wants that so badly. In some sense it's the thing he's always wanted. For those people to exist - for literally anyone else to be really, genuinely, actually fighting for everyone to be okay - and for him to be able to work with them. 

She squeezes his hand. There's a warm glow - not like falling directly into contact with a god's mind, more like one brushing against them, very distantly, conveying recognition and trust and confidence -

- huh. He was not expecting it to feel like anything. He's not sure what he was expecting instead, just - not this. 

It's additionally surprising that he finds it reassuring - that he wants to lean closer into that distant brush, that he wants to keep feeling that glow of recognition.

It's surprising that, instead of being terrifying, it makes him feel safe. 

When he leans in closer it feels like there's more there. Recognition and - pride, and impatience, and determination -

- yes. He gets that. He's impatient too. It's been such an incredibly long time, that he's been - trying to do this on his own - and now it turns out there are problems on a scale he couldn't have imagined - and Aroden has been preparing to take back Cheliax for a century and it's frustrating that even if he moves as fast as possible - which he probably can't, actually, it would probably end up conflicting with some policy that the Good forces have - so it's going to take weeks to get his people into position to help. And then there's going to be so much more to do...

So much to do, a dizzying scope of it, and She would carry on alone - Leareth would carry on alone - Aroden did, carry on alone - but they don't have to -

It feels like someone throwing a warm blanket over his shoulders, a warm blanket of Iomedae, Her conviction and Her determination and Her recognition, a warm blanket that could just - be part of Leareth, if he wants it -

Aaaaaaaaaaaah why didn’t any of them warn him it was going to do this - 

He’s not scared, exactly - if anything it’s the opposite - but he’s very disoriented. He looks up. “Something very strange is happening? I was not sure if I should be expecting that? …Not bad, just, it - something -“

Rovira looks thoroughly confused, but not really alarmed by that. "If you would like to stop, we can do that." It wastes the materials, but it's important someone doesn't try to wade through an Atonement that's confusing or frightening them.

Leareth hasn’t pulled away from the warm blanket of Iomedae. He’s just doing the mental equivalent of holding himself very very still under it, in case it bites him if he moves or something.

“- No. I do not want to stop. I just - want to know what it means - it feels like…”

And he fumbles through a description of it. The warm glow that he expected to be terrifying because gods always are but wasn’t. That precious feeling of being-recognized. The warm blanket thing that started happening when he - what was he thinking about - he was thinking about how much work is ahead of him - of them - and that Iomedae wasn’t wrong, to be impatient, he understands it…

"She's inviting you to be a paladin," says Ignasi. "That's - what it feels like."

He is holding so perfectly still, physically as well. 

“- Does that usually happen? Nobody warned me! what does being a paladin actually mean? - I was, just, I was not - why -?”  

"That does not usually happen, most people are chosen while praying but not while seeking an Atonement specifically. I've heard of being re-paladined at the conclusion of an Atonement, if you lost it in a way that - you were able to properly atone of - why is presumably because She thinks it makes us more likely to win -"

It's probably unfair to these people to complain about them not warning him, even though Leareth is now feeling like he went into this process less than fully informed - they did say to think hard about it and ask all the questions he wanted, he's just not sure how this would ever have occurred to him to ask about - 

They probably don't know the answer to all of his many new questions, either. 

- is Iomedae willing to say why She thinks this will help them win? 

- falling, being caught -

"It's not good for your health, to speak to gods so often," she says, though she's beaming at him fondly.