Shit. Can he still rule the cosmos?

"The important thing to me isn't becoming a God so much as getting to optimize the world and afterlife forever. I'd prefer not to have divine interference that keeps me from achieving that goal."

She nods.  "Don't worry about the preexisting gods.  We'll put you in an excellent position for that.  I've seen multiple worlds where the gods were interested in retiring, or all-but-retiring, and turning things over to someone who newly ascended."

"And once you've ascended and the other gods have retired...

"... well, I can't speak to anything beyond the universe; the people to talk to about that would be the Diplomacy Department..."

He gets to be supreme God, what a relief. Smile. Okay, this next part might have to be phrased carefully...

"You said Pharasma prevents your organization from reaching out to Golarion's Gods. Is she really that powerful?"

"I don't know whether she's powerful enough to stop them if they tried, or if they haven't pressed the issue for some other reason.  And it might be different for you or some other god from this new universe after you've ascended.  I could ask if the Diplomacy Team is willing to tell us?"

"That would be good. Did you know that Pharasma has sent billions of people to torture dimensions?"

"... No.  Those are afterlives?"

She read a mention that Golarion has some bad afterlives, but she didn't know how bad.  Though, she probably could have guessed.

"Yes. There are nine main afterlives, with a couple of minor realms for followers of specific deities. Of the nine main afterlife planes, three are moral emergencies. One plane is full of monsters that eat any souls that go there. Another turns everyone into monsters that only want to kill and torture and eat people, including each other. But the worst is Hell. Hell tortures its souls. If you go to Hell, you can be boiled in acid forever and never lose consciousness. Hell doesn't care about you. It doesn't care about your family, or your dreams, or your unfinished business. If you go to Hell, your most likely fate is being turned into a paving stone. A thinking, feeling paving stone. I've heard the paving stones in Hell are still able to scream. The powers of Hell prefer it that way. And Pharasma sends people there. She's sent about a ninth of everyone who has ever died. "

A horror to greet you if you fail.

Or, a tyranny to be fought and haply defeated by our Heroes.

Or, the stern hand of Justice upon evildoers.

Or, a grim dystopia to be resisted, to provide a background framing for our Heroes' welldoing.

Or... There are so many more ways this could be framed.  The Angel doesn't know Pharasma or which she's picked, or which the "powers of Hell" have picked (if Pharasma isn't one of them?).  But she knows which Lac has picked. 

She stares down at the floor, at the completely-inanimate paving stones beneath them.  "Horrors," she breathes - a completely sincere description.

Then she looks back up at Lac.  "And you want us, or you, to talk to Pharasma?  And you want us to be aware of this as we talk with her?"

He stares at the floor, then meets her eyes. "I want the torture to stop. Pharasma isn't a deity worth respecting. She's not someone to be treated with diplomatically, unless doing that helps end Hell even a minute sooner."

"We could hardly avoid treating with her unless we wanted to ignore her and her cosmos, or I suppose go to full-scale war with her... and the Will of the Multiverse is not someone to go to full-scale war."

She shakes her head.  It's not that she minds knowing they do diplomacy, but she can certainly understand Lac's feelings.

"But I'll write the Diplomacy Team and ask if they have anything to say."

She writes, more slowly than last time, expecting Lac to say something else as she does...

"Would the diplomacy team have an objection," he says with forced calm, "to my attempting a rescue operation on my home dimension, after ascension?"

She pauses, quill pen poised hovering in the air.  (The quill looks rather like the feathers on her own wings.)

"An objection?  No - or, I don't know, but I've never heard of them having objections before.  The bigger question is whether they expect you'd be able to." 

Hopefully he hasn't already fucked this up. "I don't know, exactly, what powers would be required, but becoming a powerful God seems like a start. Do you know what would be needed, in a situation like this?"

She shakes her head.  "That's the main thing I'm asking.  If there's anything else you want to ask...?"

"Does time in the new universe have to run at the same rate as in the rest of the multiverse?"

"No, and the different parts of the multiverse usually don't run at the same rate."

"I don't know how to fix Golarion, but I wouldn't mind having a thousand years for every day that Pharasma and Asmodeus get."

She nods with a wild smile, and plucks the quill out of the air.  The letter folds itself up into a bird, which flies up into the sky and out of sight.

Coordinator Sierra Foxtrot, to Psychopomp re Lac Miller
Re: Pharasma and potential interaction with subjects' origin sub-multiverse.

As stated in the materials you were given before being assigned this project, all interaction with your subjects' home multiverse must go through Pharasma or Otolmens.  We must conclude the Will of the Multiverse in Council could overpower them if They tried, but with substantial risk.

That said, this of course does not bind the universe of Villarosa.  Of course, the Worldbuilding Department would consult with our Department before putting divinities in a place where they would have the ability and inclination to interfere.  What response we might be inclined to give depends in part, of course, on which of your subjects is asking.

"They... seem to think there's more than one of you."

"What?"