Laeirthe is admittedly vaguely osmosing the alignment definitions and then guessing wildly just as much as Merrin is, but he kind of feels that while her underlying personality would on its own perhaps tend more toward the "Neutral Good" thing - especially on a planet where the Lawful parties include Asmodeus - it remains the case that this version of Merrin, the one deeply shaped by the Civilization that raised her, is very likely to be - how did alternate-Estha put it? - "Extremely Lawful, Deranged Good"? And so she should, perhaps, ask what gods can cleric Merrin per the rules if that's the case? Maybe get some clarity on what the rules are, that seems useful in general.

It might still not work but, like, maybe if she can get Pharasma's attention at all but isn't actually clericable-by-the-rules, Pharasma can forward notes to a different god? That probably doesn't work but it's worth trying all of the things that probably don't work, given the lack of any ideas of something that probably does work. 

Yeah. Okay.

(Merrin's opaque social intuition is not giving her amazing vibes about Estha's level of okayness, but he did answer the question and was even more helpful than he could have been, and she doesn't think it's within his incentives to make stuff up about the other gods in order to cause all of her plans to fail? She separately doesn't feel like he's lying but she should not trust that sense at all, with him, whereas the part about him having reasons to lie or not is perhaps at all possible to put any weight on.) 

"What if I'm Lawful Good? What gods would I be eligible for then, if we assume that they could hear me? - I realize it probably won't work, I think it's still worth trying all of the ideas we can think of and I don't see how it could make our situation worse by not working." 

Who isn't heretical to talk about...

"Abadar is the ancient Lawful Neutral god of -- trading with people as if power differences did not exist -- sometimes called the God of Walls and Ditches, or God of Banking and Insurance -- concerns: merchants, the crafting of mortal legislation, cities in the form of buildings that collect rents and roads that facilitate the movement of goods.  I don't think He is powerful enough to see through to this place but He is no enemy of Asmodeus.  I have sometimes thought that dath ilan as it spoke through Cultural Adaptation has somewhat of Him, though my Mariona had nothing of Him that I could see."

"Erecura, Lawful Neutral, ascended mortal rather than truly ancient, but perhaps uncanny enough that She would see where other young gods would not see.  God of secrets and secrecy, the foretelling of the future not only by prophecy alone, of thriving wherever you find yourself even in a hostile environment... it might seem to apply to our exoplanet, but in truth I have a hard time seeing you ever being Hers."

Ah, so he is explicitly avoiding bringing up any gods that his horrible doomworld doomcountry would actually disapprove of. 

For once, Laeirthe agrees with Merrin that it does not in expectation seem like a good idea to press the point, at least not just yet. Estha might get desperate enough - and get over the doomgod breakup enough - to volunteer it eventually.

In the meantime, Laeirthe is not incredibly hopeful that there exists a Lawful Good god of Why Don't We Solve This Hell Problem, given how there continues to be a Hell Problem, but they might as well try praying to a hypothetical such god. Honestly, even if Merrin is a bad deal to make a cleric, if it's even conceivably possible to convey the fact that dath ilan exists to someone who isn't actively trying to make the equilibrium worse on purpose, that would be worth quite a lot of effort.

And it's not as though Merrin is expecting to have a shortage of time to think. She'll be doing a lot of repetitive physical tasks, again, and it does not really seem like Estha is going to be a sparkling conversationalist for the next little while. 

Laeirthe would suggest asking Estha for more background on the alignment definitions, but on reflection it seems quite likely that the doomgod's Governance teaches people definitions that are kind of insane, and even if Estha was smart and reflective enough to notice that and on some level recognize what was on the other side of that distortion - which he might be! Merrin should give him some credit for not being stupid - it seems like right now he will not especially be feeling an affordance to say that. 

...Sure, okay, Merrin can try all of the named gods and, if none of that works, start attempting to get the attention of hypothetical gods. Great plan. 

(She's worried about Estha, but it's a muted thread that she's currently pushing to the back of her priority queue. It's probably kind of insane that her emotional response to the whole situation is feeling bad that he's sad rather than, you know, more about the TRILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN HELL. She really, really needs to do some actual processing, and it's possible that after that she'll be blindingly furious with him instead. ...It doesn't seem that likely, Merrin is not very good at being and staying angry with actual humans with faces rather than Problems in the abstract, but she doesn't feel like she knows her endorsed position yet. Also she cannot think of literally anything...supportive?? to say?? that would not be some flavor of agonizingly awkward??? She doesn't speak his culture and she's not going to have the opportunity for a Cultural Adaptation now.) 

She should probably not just get up and leave to go do tidal window calculations without saying anything at all, however much it's abruptly tempting to declare the conversation Over and unilaterally make it so because she doesn't really expect Estha to try to stop her. Merrin can almost certainly outperform that in terms of awkwardness. 

"It does seem more true that my planet would get along really well with Abadar than that I would," she says. "Though I - can occupy the mindset, I think - I'll try. ...I can honestly see a lot of ways in which the situation I'm in might be Erecura's area, but, yeah, I have to say, I'm really tired of secrets - and hostile environments - and I'm not delighted about committing to that being my thing." 

Speaking of being tired of secrets... Laeirthe? Kalorm? Can the Internal Council of Merrin give her some input here? 

She wants to...? Hmm. 

Well, it's a gamble. So is everything. Laeirthe's read is that probably alternate-Estha will not feel obligated to try to strangle her in her sleep when his god already ditched him and seems pretty unlikely to be bothering to continue observing the situation, and might not even be able to given Estha's predictions about how hard they are for gods to see out here. 

DO IT DO IT she might even get him to make a face, it would be so funny. 

Okay. Gamble it is. 

"I need to go figure out my next tidal window for harvesting food," Merrin says. "It's not critically urgent, I'm going to end up going in the middle of the night, so if you want to talk, I'm around, but I'm kind of figuring you don't." 

She stands up. "...Just so you know," she says in exactly the same conversational but slightly weary tone, "my stretch goal here is still to find a way to keep you out of Hell. I don't expect you to think I can succeed, and in fact I have no idea how yet, but it's what a," wow all of the translations the Share Language is offering her for the Baseline word for "protagonist" are really weird and don't really seem to be the same thing, "- it's what an ambitious person from my world would do. I'm not asking for your help, I'm just - tired of secrets, I guess." 

She's still keeping some, obviously. But not that one. 

Without saying another word, Merrin turns and heads off to one of the side rooms that she's sort of half set up for working in.

(Look on the bright side! Even in the worst case, where all of Merrin's brave plans turn out to be futile, she'll still have months to weave an entire set of furniture for a private office for herself before she dies of micronutrient deficiencies. Assuming Estha doesn't try to murder her in her sleep because Asmodeus wouldn't like her stretch goal, but she's in agreement with Laeirthe that it seems like that would involve...actually believing her...and also more active engagement with the situation than he seems inclined toward, right now.) 

WHAT, she didn't even stick around to see if she could succeed at getting alternate-Estha to make a face, HOW COULD SHE ISN'T SHE CURIOUS 

(Fond exasperation) Shut up, Kalorm. 

Merrin's still got a ways to go, if she can't even call herself a "legendary hero" in the other her's native language with a straight face. 

Go away, Kalorm, she's got math to do.