"Oh, being introduced to Shelyn doesn't cost money any more than being introduced to any of my other friends. She's the goddess of love - all kinds, families and friends and neighbors, not just the sort where there's kissing - and of art and beauty, the kind people make but also birds and flowers and rainbows, and of redemption, through those things or any other means that can get someone to begin their process of healing."

She'll introduce complete strangers to all of her friends? ...Tanya clearly doesn't understand the local culture enough to parse that.

"I heard she also promoted pacifism?"

"Well, it's not very loving or redemptive or beautiful to harm anyone. It's not always avoidable, but if you're ever in a position where it's avoidable enough that you're wondering about it, generally we'd say not to."

"I'm a soldier. I've fought in war, and killed many people. I - volunteered, technically, but only because I'd be conscripted anyway and I saw no benefit to waiting. The war was defensive, we fought to save our people and nation, but ultimately even the most justified war is a business of harming people in the hope of averting harm to people you care more about, or have a duty to. If I evaded army service somehow, I'd be making someone else do the killing in my stead while endangering my fellow citizens. Does Shelyn have some advice here?"

Tanya hopes she hasn't just shocked this (civilian!) woman by turning the conversation to the bloody business of war. Ultimately, though, if the Shelynites deal with war by ignoring its reality and sometimes necessity they're useless to her.

A sad smile. "It sounds like you were told you didn't have enough choices to make any that would matter besides the choice to fight hard. That might be because you really didn't, or it might not. Even if the people who told you these things deserved your trust they might not have had the time and space to breathe and make sure they were taking care of all of their people, including you. I don't know where you're from, or how the war began - and I still won't know for sure how it began if you tell me because I don't know whether I should trust whoever told you. But you're not there any more, it seems. You can breathe now. What do you want to do now?"

She has a duty to return to the war, but she can't. 

What does she want.

"I think I want the things any rational, ordinary person wants? Safety, comfort. Living in a society whose values I appreciate, where I can feel proud of contributing to it and where I fit in and do contribute to it and this is recognized. There are many specific things I don't like here, like slavery and bounties on people that don't even specify which people and torturous public executions and prejudice against drow" - whoops, that got away from her a bit; this woman might be a pacifist but she is Taldan. "...I don't know where would be better, but I expect to visit other countries."

"There were two reasons I came to this temple. First, because I need money, and the easiest way to get it would be by adventuring but I - don't trust the people who put out bounties to decide who to target. I'm a soldier, not a killer for hire. And my friend suggested that some really prosocial, international projects are coordinated by churches, so I thought I'd ask here. If, say, there was a very dangerous monster that wasn't a person so I could just go and kill it without worrying - I'm sorry, I can do things other than killing, it's just that - none of the bounties were for capture." Surely a follower of a goddess of nonharm can see the problem with allowing bounties on nonspecific people?

"And then the other thing is that I was told, this morning, that I detect as lawful evil." (She lowers her voice.) "This obviously invites social opprobium. And possibly paladin attacks, I'm still not sure if that was entirely a joke or misunderstanding. And I was told that Shelyn also specializes in repentance, but I don't know what I'm supposed to repent of specifically, or how to make sure it's the right thing. I don't really want to spend weeks recounting my entire life for a confessor to identify the problem, or however that works." Presumably how it works is that the confessor identifies lots of problems all over the place, and then Tanya can theoretically do penance (not that she intends to) but she definitely can't repent.

"Most of the most dangerous monsters are people, with souls of their own who could make better choices, but who are using their cunning and their choices to be dangerous to those around them instead," says the Shelynite. "It would be better if it were possible to capture them and bring them in so that we could try to talk to them and see their souls to the Upper Planes in a deathbed repentance, at least some fraction of the time, but that is tremendously more dangerous to the adventurers who'd capture them, and the city they'd bring them through having done so, and so it is seldom attempted. It's a good instinct, I think - but if you are already at the point of reading Evil, it is harder, not impossible but harder, for choosing not to do something to budge you.

"You have three concerns: supporting yourself, and the state of your soul, and the fate of any monsters someone might hire you to fight. And any time you have more than one concern, and they're pulling against each other, you have choices. Which can be very difficult, but it's good news - especially if not having enough choices brought you where you are now by way of some vice the war brought out in you or whatever other misstep."

"If I can't support myself, I won't be able to address the other concerns. I do have other avenues for making money but - none at present that is free of risk or of moral concerns. I expect it would take me months, at least, to learn some new trade, and detecting as evil might also get in the way of that. And I don't have any good way to bring someone in, even if they surrender, short of marching them at gunpoint. ...that's not quite true, I can fly and I have a complicated slightly risky way to take someone else flying with me, but if they tried to attack me in the air all I could do would be to drop them to their deaths." And ruin Belmarniss's hammock. "I'm sorry, that's not the real problem. The real problem is that I don't trust the local authorities to always conduct a fair trial if I bring someone in, or to give me the right target when they sentence someone in absentia. I realize it's not a solution to just refuse to deal with criminals and public threats. But I don't understand how this system works, whether it's working well and I should actively support it. That's why I wanted to hear your take on pacifism" - whoops, no, Tanya can't ask her if she thinks the state is targeting the right people! That might be some kind of sedition or even treason! It's easy for Tanya to talk about not trusting the authorities, she doesn't live here and can fly away anytime she wants! And she can't use Shelyn as a job advisor; she definitely can't retrain as an artist.

"...and whether there were any big projects that were definitely good that I might contribute to," she pivots. "I can fly pretty quickly, so they don't have to be local at all."

"The classic and obvious solution to that problem," says the Shelynite, "is to go to the Worldwound, and sign on to a fort that will have you fight only demons, not cultists. But if you're not sure even about killing demons, or if you're worried you'll be told someone is a disguised demon when they're not and don't have someone you'd trust to tell the difference, picking up a new job might be just the thing. Not all jobs require a lot of training. There are always orphanages that want minders and households that want maids, if you mean to give up adventuring, and it doesn't take months to learn to do either. They will not pay as well, but it would never come up that you'd have to harm anyone."

...alright, she is probably right that some kinds of menial job that even a young girl can perform exist and pay well enough to live on. (Possibly barely that, most young girls don't live alone.) Tanya doubts those particular examples would accept a foreigner with no references, even if she hid being a mage, but it's true that there's probably something. Tanya aspired to more because - well, because she's used to aspiring to and getting more than living in poverty without a realistic chance at improvement, that's half of why she enlisted early - but. But what? She shouldn't significantly risk herself just to live well, should she? It's a correct perspective, and one she was lacking for some reason, so she's grateful for that. It doesn't mean she'll necessarily do it, but she should keep it in mind as a live option.

"Thank you for reminding me there are always some jobs I can get, even if not necessarily those. That's - something that's good to keep in mind, and I wasn't. Can you tell me more about the Worldwound? I heard it was a place where people from the Abyss invaded this plane, like Hell invaded Cheliax at some point. Do you mean a defensive fight against invaders is more definitely good or moral? Or that the rules of engagement are better, I heard they have those? I really am curious about your view on pacifism, if you'll share it, for people who don't have any - evil to make up for." Do they have good deeds making up for evil ones, or just hardship to oneself undertaken as penance? Besides repentance, and apparently paying churches but that probably counts as a good deed (it certainly counts as a hardship).

"Hell backed a side in a civil war, partly because it's easier for them and partly because they are specifically interested in corrupting the living so that more of them will go to Hell upon Judgment. Infernal Cheliax is very bad but it is also complicated. The Worldwound is different. The Worldwound is a hole in the world that allows demons straight out of the Abyss to walk through without any of the power they'd usually need to travel so far.

"It may not be impossible for Evil outsiders to be redeemed. Shelyn holds out hope for her brother, not a fiend but a god, who once was Good and may be Good again one day. But the chances are so remote that it is - safe, at least from the perspective of your alignment in the eyes of the Judge, to fight demons just because they are demons. The trouble with doing this - and here we come to the idea of pacifism - is that it is not a thing that most souls are for. If there is a gaping hole in your roof and the hail is coming in, you can patch the hole with a serving platter, something that was never meant to be part of a house like that, something that could have gone on for a century holding fruit and bread none the worse for wear, to protect the children from the hailstones, and it is good to do that, and it may be the best you can do, and you will not have a serving platter in good condition afterwards. The process of shaping yourself to fight, living your life like that, is bad for you. But sometimes, it is good for the world, and sometimes it is more good for the world than it is bad for you, and it is your choice to make, and in Paradise all those harms will have time to heal."

Tanya ardently wishes for peace.

She was never happier than during those brief hours when she though she had beaten Being X and clawed back peace with her own hands. She was never more devastated than those days after learning she had failed after all.

But Tanya knows very, very well that you cannot get peace by refusing to fight when you are invaded.

She is not a citizen of whichever country the Abyss is invading. She is not even a citizen of Taldor. She can fly halfway around the world in a day if she has to. She can settle far away from this Worldwound and not let it trouble her.

Nobody wants to fight in an existential, total war on behalf of another country.

"If the main argument for pacifism is that harming other people is bad for you - beyond the, uh, alignment effects - that makes sense, thank you." Most people run their decision-making and altruism on empathy, soldiers are trained not to be empathetic towards the enemy, and that presumably carries over. It's not a system of ethics or even a decision-making rule; for better or worse, Tanya isn't at any further risk of loss of empathy.

...

The gods, or at least the one who's their god the Judge, apparently hate the Abyss (and Hell and... whichever the third one was) and think everyone there is 'evil' and so it is not ethically problematic to kill them. Apparently it's only ethically fraught to kill people who might otherwise repent? Whatever, Tanya isn't interested in untangling their religious doctrines. 

Does that mean everyone who has 'evil' to make up for (and is an 'adventurer') goes and invades the Abyss (or Hell) and kills some random people, and the Worldwound is just a convenient shortcut for sending people on penance pilgrimage? It's of a piece with everything else she's seen here, everyone defaulting to attacking whole species at the drop of a hat. but something still feels off. Belmarniss told her to question her preconceptions more, so she'll do that.

"Please excuse me if I'm mixing things up. The Abyss has demons, and also the souls of evil people sent there by the Judge, and the demons are in charge of torturing the souls as their punishment? And it's the demons who are invading? And they're evil separately from the fact that the souls sent there are evil - or because they torture the souls, I guess?" This is some kind of Christianity (well, also Buddhism). Those don't usually have invasions by or of Hell, but they also don't have three different afterlives for sinners.

"There are other reasons but most of the other reasons do not apply very compellingly to specifically Worldwound service aimed at specifically demons," clarifies the Shelynite. "You are... mixing some things up, yes. The souls sent to the Lower Planes are the ones judged Evil, but there's esoteric magic for fouling up the workings of Judgment which can send even innocents there, and within the window of a possible Resurrection it is never out of the question that someone licitly judged Evil could be returned to life and redeem themselves, and I would not even consider it too incredible if I heard a story about someone bodily removing a petitioner from one of those planes beyond that window and enabling them to change without their technically being mortal again. But the planes themselves are malign. A soul too long in the Abyss eventually becomes a demon. The place is invariably tortuous not because demons are diligently doing their jobs assigned by some power that wants every soul there tortured, since although demons do enjoy torture and indulge in it when they have the opportunity they are not that thorough - but because the Abyss, per se, is wretched to be in, bends its occupants towards evil and chaos, and lacks the supports that any but the most extraordinary sort of individual would require to become a better person so that in the end those who are not devoured and annihilated are instead transformed."

They can magically attach bad karma sins to someone to send them to Hell? And also raid Hell to rescue people? And they can bring the dead to life some other way - that sounds far too abuseable, Tanya has no idea if it's real or what equilibrium it leads to and doesn't really want to admit this publicly so she'll ask Belmarniss later. She is going to have so many questions.

(And they don't have reincarnations by default? Apparently? Tanya isn't sure Earth does either, she has no real evidence it's routine and Being X is a lying liar.)

...

Anyway. Demons are the damned who spent too long in the Abyss, which is an inherently corrupting environment. Putting all the lawbreakers in one place with no supervision will reliably do that even on Earth! In other words, it's an eternal super-prison with no guards or parole except for raiding adventurers, and the older inmates lord it over the newcomers. (Infinite punishment for finite crimes is wrong but religion always does that.)

Now the inmates have managed to escape / invade the mortal world, by opening a permanent portal instead of using expensive one-off spells (because they are not hopeless at logistics) (unlike Hell, apparently) and/or because they have better technology. The locals naturally don't want their executed criminals to come back. The ex-criminals naturally want to get revenge, commit more crimes, et cetera. This war was probably inevitable once someone figured out how to open a portal. 

This does sound like a justified, defensive war. One all the nations of Golarion have an equal interest in, because the demons come from all nations and likely won't settle for conquering just one. That's assuming she takes everything she's told at face value. It's also very easy to interpret this as wartime propaganda, backed by some churches declaring that killing those people isn't evil after all. (Tanya isn't even talking to a priest of god the Judge, assuming he has priests.) 

If it's not propaganda, then Tanya obviously hates this system but at least she's on this side of it - oh. "Can you tell me about Hell? Is it - symmetrical, with people sent there becoming, uh, devils because it's a place that - bends people towards evil and lawfulness?" Being 'bent' (incentivized?) to become more lawful sounds like a good trait for a place to have, but not if the laws are evil.

"Hell - puts out a lot of propaganda, on this continent," says the Shelynite. "In a way the Abyss does not. So you should be more careful trusting what you hear about it. But I think that like all the Outer Planes it pulls in the directions of its alignment and can eventually turn petitioners there into the corresponding sort of outsider, yes. It is generally put about that it is centralized under a single god-king, Asmodeus, whereas other planes have no single head. It is organized into layers - there's nothing fundamentally the matter with that, Heaven is too - and the popular understanding is that the first layer, where new souls arrive on death most of the time, is mostly just on fire and the soul must take actions to travel deeper and might persist being merely on fire indefinitely if they refuse to do so, such as because they do not want to partake of the workings of Hell."

Oh, it is "mostly" "merely" "just" on fire.

So it's like the Christian hell after all, except - "you say it is probably propaganda, but why would Hell put out propaganda that it tortures people? I assume that is what being on fire refers to, and not being reincarnated as a new and exciting kind of fire elemental." It sounds more likely to be anti-Hell propaganda.

Tanya has a principled objection to ethical systems that say she should burn in eternal fire. She didn't believe the last one, but she promised Belmarniss to keep an open mind. However, as Pascal demonstrated, you shouldn't believe nonsense just because you're threatened with torture!

"- well, if they said it didn't torture people, then anyone with Scrying, or who managed to wedge a devil into promising honesty, could learn otherwise. They do say things about it being lesser or more tolerable for favored servants of Hell, I think, but they can't compete with Axis on pleasantness and don't really try."

Well, there goes Tanya's hope that this woman thought the flames of Hell were likely church Heavenly propaganda.

She can look into the scrying business later. Assuming for the moment that it's true - "everyone who learns they are presently judged evil must hurry to correct that situation. I expect I'm one of many to pass through these halls, and I don't imagine myself special." Wait, is it offensive to suggest Taldor has many evil people? "The recommendations you gave me are probably carefully chosen already and won't benefit from my questioning them. And if my soul is meant for anything, surely it is not for eternal fire." Wait, is she trying to convince the woman or herself? Damn it, she hasn't even gotten her name and now it's probably too awkward to ask.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't ramble. Can you please explain to me how - or why, if that's the right question - killing demons invading at the Worldwound would make me... not evil anymore? It doesn't seem to involve repenting of anything in particular, or - is the idea that it's so good to kill them that it doesn't even matter what rules of engagement it's done under? That - it doesn't matter what I think is good or even lawful, right, only what the Judge does?"

"It is cheap and works fine to repent of Evils you have done. I recommend it," says the Shelynite. "But it doesn't sound like you have a very clear sense of what they are, to repent of them, so the other thing you can do is to shift the balance of what your life has worked towards, and present yourself, at Judgment, as someone who was firmly resolved to working on the side of Good, to protect the people those demons would have harmed. It does matter what you think is Good and Lawful - to a point. It matters what you intend. To a point. But not to such an extensive point that people cannot damn themselves while full of very fervent explanations for why they could not do otherwise."

That's well and good, and has a clear symmetry to it, but. "I served in a war I thought justified, to protect my fellow soldiers and countrymen - and myself, had I been a civilan - who would otherwise have been harmed. But now I learn I'm apparently condemned for something I did during the war, and I don't even know what or how the judgement is made. You can see how I'd be wary of signing up for more of the same, without even the benefit of military college to teach me the rules of engagement this time." Not to mention that the recommendation comes from supposed pacifists! 

...there's no reason to be upset with this woman. Not only is that shooting the messenger, Tanya didn't give her the information she'd need to give any other answer. If the temples coordinate international projects that benefit everyone, and Tanya presents herself as a soldier, naturally she'll be directed to the international military coalition.

Tanya hasn't decided yet what else to share about her knowledge or abilities, that might earn her a reference to another project, but this woman isn't the right person to share anything with; Tanya doesn't even know if she's an ordained priestess or what.

"I'm sorry. I asked something of you that you couldn't give me. I came here hoping to learn something about - a socially acceptable approach to pacifism, but the only skills I told you I have are for war. I will think about what you told me."

"In the meantime," Tanya has actually thought about how to try to recompense and/or leave her with a good impression! "Your temple is very impressive. I can fly, and I took the liberty of making some recordings of how it looks from the air." Behold, detailed illusions of the temple of Shelyn, by itself and as a small but striking part of the city! Tanya even sets a small sun on its daily cycle to illuminate it from different sides. (She had to infer most of these angles, so they may catch her out if the west side does something unusual when sunlit.) Artists love to admire their own work and to see others admire it, right?

"If this interests you, or anyone else here, I can stay a while to show it to people. I can also take someone flying; I don't have my usual gear for carrying another person but I could come back another time if you're interested, or we could rig something up." Hopefully a simpler contraption than a hammock; she just needs a sturdy platform with railings to move up and down.

"Oh, that's so lovely, thank you!" beams the Shelynite. "We'd love to have it up for as long as you'd care to stay. I'm only acquainted with the kind of taking someone flying where you'd cast the spell on them, yours sounds different...?"

"I can't make someone else fly. I can fly myself" - she demonstrates - "and I can lift someone or something, but it's difficult and unpleasant for them if I try to carry them. But if someone stands on some kind of lightweight platform with railings, I can lift that. ...or if they just sit on a chair, if it's sturdy enough and ideally they're strapped in to prevent accidents. If a passenger falls off the chair I could catch them in time but it'd be bruising."

"...Huh. I'm sure someone would try it as a novelty but if we had a chair set up that was sized for grownups I suppose we couldn't offer it to halflings and children."