Sure. He appreciates the opportunity to speak with Keltham, and will be available if Keltham wishes to speak further.

That's not a candidate to become a cleric of Iomedae, and is in the interdiction zone anyway. But a fragment of Iomedae's attention sends a note of something-of-interest to a larger fragment; Iomedae is tired, and stretched thin, but it'll be seen by a greater part of her, eventually.

"I want to know whether an actual paladin would have said that thing about Lastwall not having rewards for command duty, as in, literally dispatch somebody in disguise to ask a paladin that.  If the real paladin gives a better answer, I want this fake paladin to regret their inadequacy."

"Sure, send someone. It didn't ring to me as the kind of thing the paladins I've talked to wouldn't say but I don't know if it's true."

"KELTHAM MADE FACES.  BAD FACES."

"Keltham is used to societies incentivizing Good but I actually think real honest paladin orders suck at that, because it's expensive and they're poor, and because they associate money with - greed as a motive - we'll check, but I think there's a Good society there that holds together and is really making that mistake."

"If Keltham decides we're the Conspiracy and kills himself to talk to his god because REAL LASTWALL WAS ACTUALLY THAT INCOMPETENT I will figure out the Law of Giant Explosions and DESTROY ALL OF LASTWALL."

"On the to-do list anyway, I expect. But by all means."

As usual, it's only after ending the conversation that Keltham realizes a tactic he could have used for finding good questions.

"Well, that was tiring at a time when I was already tired."

"I deserve a cookie."

"What now."

Keltham first hands Pilar a silver, before taking the cookie even.  "Inconvenience fee slash fee that I'm paying so that I notice when I bother you and don't do that without a reason.  Feel free to negotiate about that."

"I'm wondering if you've got any input on what Cayden Cailean thinks of Lastwall or Iomedae, or a city in Abaddon called Awaiting Consumption which I wouldn't ordinarily mention in front of you but you said you wanted to be a Keeper."

"I'm not my curse, I don't have input.  I suppose I could see if my curse wanted to volunteer information.  It almost never does, don't get your hopes up."

"Pilar?"

"Give me another few seconds here."

Pilar needs a go or a no-go on saying this, NOW, Keltham is noticing the delay, and if he asks what her curse was saying in the meanwhile Pilar may not be able to make up something that sounds quite right.

- go.

The curse may well just be trying to lull her into a sense of complacency and eventually betray her, she has nothing to go off but its promise that's not what it's doing, but she can't reason these out one by one on the spot and right now the standing principle she's using is to let the curse talk.

"Snack service says that Cayden Cailean is willing to accept outcomes that Iomedae wouldn't consider enough of a victory over Evil, and that's the ultimate root of the reason why Cayden Cailean is going in on this but not Iomedae.  Snack service also says that you're willing to accept outcomes Cayden Cailean isn't okay with, and that's the ultimate reason why, while Cayden Cailean won't hinder you, he'll only help you where your interests overlap with Asmodeus's interests.  Snack service says it's only allowed to tell you this because you'd reach the same conclusions yourself eventually, and it's just speeding you up along the way.  Snack service says Cayden Cailean wasn't feeling great about Iomedae's chances of doing something about Awaiting Consumption if you hadn't shown up.  Snack service says not to expect answers to any of your many additional questions."

"Do you have to put up with this sort of thing all the time?"

"No, this was pretty bad even for my curse."

It is in fact completely fucking routine but all that other stuff didn't happen in alterCheliax.

"Think you should get an additional silver here."  He's suiting actions to words already, of course.

"Thanks.  Have an additional fucking cookie."

Pilar wishes to note for the record that she bets that this is because of Sevar's remark about not generating any Grand High Priestess reports in four days, and it's happening after exactly enough of a delay that the tropes have preserved their plausible deniability.

Neither of them predicted that in advance, though. 

Nonetheless it is of course written up for the Grand High Priestess. 

One theory is that the Civilization they're going to build counts as a victory over Evil to Cayden Cailean, maybe because it'll have lots of sex and drugs? And not to Iomedae, who cares more about, you know, Hell. It's a nice reassuring interpretation. She wouldn't bet on it.