"I want two silvers," says Yaisa. 

"Done."

Keltham is now feeling wobbly for a different reason, which is that he'd thought Yaisa's price was inclusive of that sort of thing... well, hence having a first week to work out things like that, he guesses?  He is not very willing to go above his present price, before his wages go up, possibly even after they do -

He's just going to think about this later.  There are proverbs about this kind of jarring clash of financial expectations even when people aren't aliens, and it's important not to let them run over your feelings too much.  This probably wouldn't even feel so jarring if he hadn't otherwise mentally overworked himself the previous day.  Possibly Yaisa literally was just trying to make him feel more comfortable.  Carissa sure was.

"Thank you everyone," he says, instead of anything more complicated than that.

"I do have to ask, why peeling grapes? Do grapes even taste better peeled?"

"Many dath ilani, including myself, slightly dislike the texture of the peel, compared to the grape inside.  Not to the point where we wouldn't eat grapes, or would try to peel our grapes.  But yes to the point where if somebody is being gratuitously nice to you and completely optimizing your experience they could do that by peeling the grape."

"I'll do that," Meritxell says immediately. "I wonder if it can be done with prestidigitation, or does that make it less satisfying."

"Cheating was still technique last time I checked."

Fierce smile.

Carissa flags down a Security and requests grapes, and wine, and fancy chocolates. It's for Keltham. (Alter-Carissa has no authority to request this but she can ask.)

'Wine'?

"It's a formulation of grapes that is mind-altering! I expect you're going to have a thousand questions and not want any but I'll have some."

"I can compress it down to one question actually.  Ione, is anything ill-advised liable to happen if Carissa has some mind-altering grape juice?"

"Not by Project Lawful standards, let's put it that way."

PL-timestamp:  Day 17 (13) / Late Morning

Keltham, now feeling a bit better - he asked Yaisa to stay over, a few extra minutes, after the rest of that was done - heads into the project office to see what's up.

Also, did scrolls arrive for scroll practice?  Keltham was supposed to do that at some point, and then he could stop worrying when he doesn't have emergency spells occupying valuable spell slots.

Seems like a good day for Keltham to get his scroll practice and to meet a representative of Lawful Good, which they've been pushing off because it's a risk but which Carissa is very sure would by this point have happened in alter Cheliax, and, well, they're not going to get any more ready.

In Maillol's personal opinion, how stressful is it liable to be talking to a Lawful Good person of Golarion?  Keltham knows how to talk to Lawful Good dath ilani but those people are all... sane.

"Tried hard to push for somebody you'd be able to like, or at least tolerate.  I won't know if that worked until you tell me."

...all right, Keltham's going to go try this now, in lieu of having it hanging around his mind, making him feel slightly guilty about forcing somebody else to wait.  Like, presumably they're getting paid something per hour of waiting time, but Keltham doesn't want to feel slightly guilty about making their government pay them to wait.  His mind is still any amount of tired, but social doesn't require the same kind of focus as math lectures or chemistry experiments.

Gerhard Bakker is a tall man who looks simultaneously quite old - his hair and beard are brightly white, and his face very wrinkled - and quite spry. He's wearing a suit made entirely of metal, apparently without any trouble moving in it, and he's been waiting for Keltham standing, at the window to the office they put him in instead of resting in the rather sumptuous velvet chairs.

"Boy," he says warmly, and clanks over to the chairs, and sits.

"Man," replies Keltham, likewise sitting.

Most people that old in dath ilan, if they're getting to the point where they have to wear power armor to walk around - Keltham's brain has assumed automatically that's what this is, magical edition, since why else would an old person be wearing a heavy-looking metal suit - are having health problems to the point where their life is sad and not that great and they're heading off into the cold shortly, to wait for a Future with more cheerful days.  Most dath ilani do that well before they require power armor to walk around.

Later he should try to figure out if this is a Conspiracy update somehow.  The obvious thought would be that the afterlives are fake, but he kind of did see Pilar looking pretty stabbed and dead... well, that could've been an illusion.

"I am here representing Lastwall, and representing Iomedae, who chose me for the war against Evil fifty years ago, though now her blessing rests in younger hearts that can do more with it. The purpose of this conversation is that I may be useful to you, not that I may learn things from you.  Cheliax agreed somewhat reluctantly, to permit me to come here and speak with you; one of their conditions was that I promise not to pass on to my Church and nation more than you, they, and I all think are wise - and that I return not at all, if in your judgment that's wisdom. I am old, and if this is the mission that sends me to Heaven then frankly my wife will thank you for not letting me drag my feet about it any longer. 

Do you have questions for me."

Oh.

Yeah, that makes sense.  Dath ilani do that too, when they're getting about ready to leave modern Civilization anyways.  Missions like that.  Keltham has never met one of those people before.

He might actually be Lawful and Good.

"I'm Keltham out of dath ilan, a planet of a single Civilization, which society, I'm told, was by local standards Lawful Good.  There were no alignments there, and no gods, and no clerics, and no magic.  We had to make our own afterlife."

"What do you mean, the war against Evil?  Where I come from, making war on Evil would not be called Good."

"Good and Evil both live in every human heart; Pharasma might weigh the balance of them, and a Detect Alignment spell might tell us which predominates, but a person has rarely been born in this world who has only Good or only Evil in them. In other places it is elsewise.

Iomedae is the god of the war on that which has no concern for our values and cannot be bargained with. 

The creatures born natively of the Abyss, which pour through the Worldwound into Golarion, are Chaotic Evil, and not in the way that humans who read Chaotic Evil are Chaotic Evil; their values are Evil, not some blend of Evil and Good. An Evil human, even a Chaotic Evil human who values none of the habits of coordination that can build civilization in the absence of Good, won't generally murder someone for a copper piece; demons would. The native inhabitants of Abaddon eat souls, and this they do because the souls are tasty.

It is said that long ago, when the asuras native to Hell ruled there, it was similar with them, and Asmodeus alone possessed the skill to bargain with them across that gap, so much wider than the gap ordinary bargains must cross; and when He purchased the asuras's departure He had the backing of Good, for his promise to make His devils out of the living. But it might be said falsely; the gods hold information about the god-agreements of the ancient past very dear, and it was long before Iomedae's time.

In Cheliax I think the telling of uncertain-stories about ancient god-agreements is discouraged, lest people remember something false and run off with it; but while I do not confidently assess that the risk of that, with you, is none, if you are of a different Civilization entirely then it is beyond my wisdom to guess your errors, and the best I can do is tell you things that lead people often to error, and warn you that they often do that."

Keltham is internally a bit unhappy he didn't get a chance to talk to Oldguy before, obviously, Oldguy read Keltham's transcripts, including for example a recent report clearly filed by Broom specifically; and Keltham notes to himself that everything here is being Rephrased to the Alien's Terms so that it Appeals To Keltham, and, this being Golarion, it is possibly getting skewed along the way.

"Several questions, but first, I note that saying 'even a Chaotic Evil human who values no habits of coordination won't kill for a copper piece' is, one, obviously shaped to talk to Keltham specifically, two, something that sounds visibly false since not killing for a copper piece is exactly one of the habits of coordination, that you don't destroy a lot of someone else's value in exchange for a tiny gain yourself.  Consider not trying as hard to rephrase things in the Alien's own terms and saying things you think are more plainly true and letting me do some of my own work of translation.  The more you try to talk in my unfamiliar conceptual language, the more liable you are to say things that parse out false in my language."

"Next, what exactly was Good paying Asmodeus to do back in the beginning of things?  Make devils from the living as opposed to what, the dead?  I didn't parse that part."