"You have eight more hours to decide actually you'd rather work with Asmodeus. Or I dunno, maybe they'll offer you the choice a while longer."

Leareth nods. Thinks for a moment. 

"- You know, it is possible I would be more likely to usefully ally with Asmodeus if you agree to help me return to the north and my people. You are quite knowledgeable and persuasive, but - you are operating at a severe disadvantage, when it comes to convincing me, because I cannot take anything you say at face value; I have too little idea of what is propaganda versus the truth. But if I had time to think, to perform my own due diligence, and it were to turn out that in fact you are right about Asmodeus' prospects of winning everywhere anyway, then - I might in fact consider an alliance. Since, at the very least, I have some common ground with Him, and a shorter war, won faster, would mean fewer casualties and less pointless destruction." 

"That makes sense and is very obviously not a call I'm authorized to make."

"I am not sure what you mean by 'authorized', there. If you did help me, and then in a week's time I returned with you and offered Asmodeus my services, do you think you would be punished for what you did?" 

"I mean, not if you specifically insisted I shouldn't be? But if you didn't offer to help, then they would definitely be after me, and also I am skeptical it'd be an environment conducive to cultivating in myself the things Asmodeus will want in Hell."

"Why? Because talking to me prompts you to actually use your full intelligence and reasoning capacity, and Asmodeus would rather waste that?" 

Leareth is tired and his head hurts and he says this more sharply than he really intended to. He's irritated with Asmodeus. Being intrinsically bothered by the fact that mortals have their own desires and goals and values - have the ability to form plans and make judgement calls - seems like an incredibly inconvenient trait for a god to be stuck having. (Leareth doesn't expect this line of thought to be at all persuasive to Carissa. He's aware it's a pointless frustration.) 

"Because you, uh, hate subservience to gods and think people should fight them, and that it's better to be useless to Asmodeus than useful to him. I have not felt starved for intellectual opportunity in Cheliax, which gave me six years of specialized magic education starting when I was nine and then a ten-year tour of duty at the place where all the powerful adventurers go with an assignment to learn magic from them."

"That is not exactly the kind of 'using your intelligence' I meant." 

...And Leareth doesn't think it's actually true, that he generically wants to fight gods. Fighting gods is costly and inconvenient and tends to cause collateral damage. Gods are usually doing important work in the world; Vkandis and the Star-Eyed are included in this. He doesn't want to kill Them - he doesn't even want to hurt Them, he just wants to– 

Leareth catches onto that thought, pauses, and then mentally shrugs and lets it slip by. 

He just wants to talk to Them. And he has a plan for that. One which - maybe, just maybe - would still be carried out in his absence.

He was going to build a new god. Not to kill the other gods of Velgarth, just to - shift the balance of power. And give him - and all of humanity alongside him - a seat at the negotiation table. 

" - Asmodeus might be against that. I don't know for sure but I feel like if all the cows ran off and then came back and said they want a seat at the negotiations about what we'll eat for dinner I wouldn't be very inclined to indulge them."

"Really? Why not? I would." 

Leareth is thinking that he would actually be deeply relieved if that happened. He tries to minimize eating meat; thanks to Animal Mindspeakers, it seems quite clear that cows have experiences and emotions and can - and do - suffer. But, lacking language or much in the way of culture or the ability to coordinate a faction much stronger than any individual, they aren't able to advocate for their own interests. If they could, it would mean he could delegate worrying about that particular concern. 

"Because I would rather not make concessions to cows, since that will probably be expensive and inconvenient? I think this is the thing where you are going around having preferences about things that don't affect you again. You could simply not care about cows and be just as relieved."

"I think I could not do that, actually. ...I mean, I can and do choose not to be upset on an ongoing basis about cows - or humans - still suffering in Velgarth, once I have checked if I can fix it and confirmed I cannot there is no new information there. But - I am not even sure what it would mean, to...stop caring..." 

A flicker of memory, or no, not just a memory, something more than that. 

- a tower - a sky full of stars - lights in the world -

- worth saving -

- never to die - never to give up - never to walk away - 

"Well. I guess I would choose to not ever think about cows, in that case."

"That would not solve the problem, for me. Because as you noted, I have preferences about things beyond myself, not only about my own wellbeing and emotions." 

Leareth isn't sure where else to go from here. He's tired and confused and - and maybe there's a right answer to whether he should work for Asmodeus, or come to think of it what he should say to Carissa to bridge the inferential gulf between them, but he's not seeing any next steps right now. 

"Translation spell's going to run out pretty soon anyway. I'll still be able to understand you, because ones that do comprehension are easier.... and I guess you'll still be able to read my mind. But you can sleep, if you want. Shouldn't be that much longer."

"If you give me permission, I could also use Mindspeech and save you the need to cast a comprehension spell. ...But, yes, I - think I want to sleep for a little while, now." 

"I'll cast the comprehension spell." He might be able to Mindspeak his allies, which is a problem she does not want to deal with right now. Moving them both over when the Rope Trick runs out is going to be stressful enough.

"Fair enough. Is there any chance you have a blanket I could use?" 

Leareth attempts to gauge, from Carissa's surface thoughts, how much longer the Rope Trick is going to last - is she anticipating having to move him before she hears back from her allies? 

Yes, she's expecting to have to shove him in the bag and make another and carry him into it. There won't be five minutes of flying in the middle, though.

"I don't have a blanket."

"Nevermind, then. ...Please do wake me before we have to move again, though." 

Leareth checks whether the geas is going to let him lie down, or whether he has to ask permission separately for that. 

It allows that. 

She stares at the wall and is annoyed by the pain in her wrist. 

She should not feel any sort of responsibility for Leareth being tortured eternally; if there is an argument that'll convince him to side with Asmodeus, someone more experienced will make it, and if there's not, then she couldn't very well have thought of it, could she. But it's frustrating because she feels like if he were actually considering his choices here the obviously superior one is to help them win the war.

Leareth spends a little while lying very uncomfortably on the floor, shivering slightly - it's not that cold, but his reserves aren't replenishing thanks to the complete lack of food and his body is running very low on fuel - and pretending to be asleep while he watches Carissa's surface thoughts. 

...It doesn't actually tell him anything new, that Carissa does, in fact, have preferences about things that don't affect her directly. As many as several of them shaped like what most people would consider ethical principles. It just still doesn't get him anywhere, because she's - inoculated against the entire concept - she sees it as a weakness, a flaw resulting from being merely human... 

He tries to stay awake for a few minutes, so he can have some uninterrupted thoughts, but he fails to think of anything new, and forming thoughts at all requires pushing against a growing resistance. The only avenue he has toward improving his ability to think is sleeping, so he lets himself actually fall asleep. 

She doesn't wake him up until four hours later when it's time to move to a new location. She anxiously checks the area, first, for representatives of Iftel or Valdemar or Leareth's people or some other ridiculous involved party.

She cannot see anyone in the area. 

In fact, a dozen Adept mages are spread out across twenty miles of forest. None of them are among Leareth's most essential personnel - Nayoki wouldn't risk sending anyone critical into Vkandis' territory - but all of them are experienced and well-trained, and eight are also strong Thoughtsensers.

The closest is within a half-mile. Detect Magic doesn't reach anywhere near that far, but Velgarth mage-sight - at least when intensively trained and additionally boosted with a specialized artifact - can pick up loud magical signatures within almost a mile-wide radius. 

The closest Thoughtsenser is two miles away, but his range is nearly fifty miles and he's paying very close attention. 

If Leareth dreams at all, he doesn't recall it. 

He's deeply asleep when Carissa wakes him; he still wakes almost instantly, but his head feels pumped full of glue. 

"Wha...? Where–"

Oh, right, still a goddamned prisoner.