"Thank you." Leareth tries to moisten his lips, without much success. "May I change position." 

"You can sit up. How is this made?" She waves his protective artifact at him.

Leareth sits up. It makes the lightheadedness worse. 

"I told you the basics already - I can try to explain some more detail, but it may not make sense without training in our approach to magic, and I do not have the design memorized or a copy on my person. ...Also I think you ought know that I will become impaired at answering your questions if I go much longer without any water to drink. And I would appreciate an opportunity to relieve myself, at some point." Though, conveniently, he's dehydrated enough that needing to pee isn't that urgent. 

"I'll keep that in mind." Leaving seems very dangerous, right now. 

Sensible of her. Leareth sighs, though, letting a hint of disappointment show, along with fear and sheer exhaustion. It might actually work in his favour, for Carissa to think he's more, what was the word she thought - more pliable than he really is. 

"What do you expect will happen after this?" he asks. "Will your superiors retrieve us and bring me to Cheliax?" He's not expecting her to actually answer but she may well think something informative. 

"How about you show me how these things are created, and then I might tell you about our plans."

"All right. I am not sure your magic could easily replicate it, though. ...Do you have paper I could use to draw diagrams?" 

"Yes." She can get him some paper. "You can write."

So Leareth spends the next twenty minutes explaining the basic design for a shield-talisman against magical attacks. It's the simplest kind, conveniently. He sketches out some diagrams as visual aids, to the best of his ability; his hands are shaky, more from low blood sugar than nerves but he's not not scared. And he's bleary enough that he can't recall a lot of details. (He doesn't try especially hard to jog his own memory on it, either.) 

She'd honestly prefer to feed him but it doesn't seem worth leaving over. She tries her best to keep up with the magic conversation, at least. It seems like she can't do this, not easily, probably not without developing a new spell. 

"I expect our people will take you back to Cheliax tonight," she says eventually.

Leareth appreciates that she's not letting him go hungry as some kind of deliberate deprivation to make him more cooperative, but her intentions don't change how he feels, which is like shit. 

"And then what?" he says wearily. "They throw me in a dungeon for some less friendly interrogations?" 

"I think you'd be a valuable ally, if you'd rather that."

"I am aware I would be a valuable ally to - well, almost anybody who could convince me to help them. ...I am, however, unsure if your Asmodeus is someone I wish to help achieve His goals." 

"They don't have to let you go back once you die, you know."

Leareth isn't surprised. With what he knows of their magic so far, and what he's inferring about Asmodeus and His character, it fits.

"Really? What would they do instead?" Hopefully Carissa's thoughts will tell him whatever she's not willing to say. 

"Send you to Hell. Where you'll serve Asmodeus. So if I were you I'd just skip some steps and serve Asmodeus."

"If I judge I do not want to serve Asmodeus, I will still not want to serve Him if I am in Hell, you know." 

"In Hell it really, really does not matter what you want."

"- See, if that is true, this does not lead me to believe that Asmodeus is making use of human souls in a way I would deem effective or approve of! In which case I would not want to go to Hell, but I also would not wish anyone else to go to Hell, which one assumes would be the result of working for Asmodeus." 

"You'd rather they just get no afterlife at all? Hell is the most useful a human can be to a god, which is the best deal humans can get, and no one cares at all whether you approve of it, and thinking like that is a great way to get tortured until you stop having opinions."

Well, this isn't going to go anywhere interesting unless he can push Carissa into talking about the actual crux of their disagreement here. And her answer here seems...pretty close to that. 

"In my experience, no, it is not the best deal humans could get. It seems to me like a rather terrible deal, in fact. I aim to do much better. ...On behalf of everyone in Velgarth, not only for myself. - On behalf of you as well, if I can. Since I think, personally, that torture is bad and I would prefer a world where nobody is tortured even if they think they are agreeing to it because it is the 'best deal they can get'." 

This seems likely to get a strong response of some kind, and so Leareth pays especially close attention to Carissa's thoughts. 

- wow. 

She's had conversations sort of like this at the Worldwound but - it seems different coming from someone who is already in Chelish custody, someone who isn't relying on 'well, I'm going to Heaven and Heaven might not fall to Hell' but on ...what is he even relying on -

"It...makes sense that yesterday you were aiming for better?" she says, though it doesn't really. "But, uh, at this point it's just delusional. Your people aren't going to find you."

"I think you may be underestimating my people. But - in any case. Perhaps it is too late and I have already lost. That does not mean I am going to willingly help Asmodeus, now that we have established that he tortures people and does not care at all about what they want." He shrugs, lightly. "And perhaps something else will happen. Perhaps there are others in your world who do not work for Asmodeus' goals, and would rather kidnap me themselves. I am not sure, just - it would be very premature of me to give up now." 

"...but you are? Giving up. Not giving up is - figuring out how to work with what you've got. Not pretending something else is going to happen."

"Well." Leareth smiles thinly. "It is true that I have very little to work with. I do, however, have some hours to talk to you, and that is a resource that I have learned from experience not to neglect."

He looks her in the eye. "We could leave, you know. Your people have no idea where we are. Your magic is sufficient to get us outside of Iftel, and you know what my resources are. I would like to see Asmodeus try to get through my organization. Personally, I think this would be in your interests, since your god and your country are clearly not treating you especially well, nor making the best use of your obvious skill and intelligence."