"Asmodeus isn't a big god here in Absalom. I've got Asmodean Teachings, and Towards an Asmodean State, and then it'd be - harder to assure you you're getting a twelfth of the book, say, if I sold you The War That Made The World - about the sealing of Rovagug - or On Earthfall And How Civilization Survived It, which is largely about the gods who perished in Earthfall though it does discuss all the other ones who were around - or The Death Of Aroden -"

That's five books with noticeable sections on Asmodeus, Lawful Evil, or Hell.

He'll take those, sure.

Any more?

A wordless vision of a cloud of density -

There's fewer alignments than countries!  Alignments are relevant in all the places including Absalom!  There should be more books talking about Lawful Evil in this shop then there are books about Cheliax or Nex!

"Oh, I don't know how I forgot it, Guide To Devils And Indentures. For people thinking of selling their souls. I'm sure I have a copy somewhere, the Church releases updated versions of that regularly - hey, wizard fellow, can you spare an old man a Locate Object, I genuinely have no idea where I filed Guide To Devils -"

"Didn't prepare it," says Fennelosa irritably. 

"Should I go look for it?"

A possible lie is that the Church formally disapproves of non-Church writing about Hell, because so much of it is incredibly wrong and misleading, sometimes hazardously so. What do you think, Asmodia.

He's going to consider the likelihood that Conspiracy doesn't want there to be any books, versus his prior expectation that Ordinary would manage not to have those books for any reason.  Then he's going to look at the reason and see if it's a surprisingly good one or a surprisingly bad one, and I'd say that one leans surprisingly bad.  If there's people running around writing books personally critical of the Queen, is he going to buy that everybody just fell into line about the Church not wanting people to write about Hell?

Well, there's a lot more access to information about the Queen than to information about Hell! And the Queen doesn't have power in Absalom but all Absalom's churches collectively do, and might agree not to spread nonsense.

Message:  One more book -

(and one the Conspiracy would have obvious reason to prepare)

- is not worth a lot of searching, no.  Keltham was hoping there'd be more like 20 books about comparative major gods, somebody's pet theory about the nine alignments, that sort of thing.

"Well, you'd best take that up with the churches, son, because I'll stock the books if they change their mind. Same goes for pornography, actually."

"The Churches object to there being books about gods?"

"The Churches object to books purporting to describe the gods and the afterlives which aren't issued by the Churches, because of how most authors will make up lots of details to fill out thin bits of the books and then you'll get lots of people believing nonsense. Now, I think there's a case to be made that maybe the gods should learn something from the kinds of stories about them that people want to tell. If people desperately want to believe Iomedae sends songbirds as signs, maybe She should start! If they want to believe Norgorber only does crimes that don't hurt people, maybe He should mind that! If they want to believe Sarenrae marked their enemies with an irrevocable blood taint back in the time of Rovagug - well, I guess I see how that one's no good. But you could only ban that kind of thing and leave the nonsense be."

"Have you by any chance got Church-issued books about each of the afterlives, then?  And are Asmodean Teachings and Asmodean State both Church-approved?"

"Yes, they are, that's why we carry them. Asmodean Teachings has a lot about Hell, some places it's published in two volumes where one is called Asmodean Doctrine and the other is called Hell. I can get you the approved books for most of the other afterlives except Abaddon, Norgorber's church doesn't bother putting one out and I've never bothered looking farther. It's not exactly a bestseller."

It would explain why Ione couldn't find books of comparative theology either.

It also sounds an awful lot like an excuse.

And if the Conspiracy isn't trying to deliberately misdirect Keltham's attention - and they weren't that clever, at the first point when books of comparative theology started not being in the archduke's villa or the Ostenso library - then it implies that the Conspiracy is trying to hide something about afterlives, gods, and theology.

It feels like the worst news of the day, so far, worse than Ione not being in her usual place in the library, to the point where he should wait for it to stop feeling bad before he tries to put numbers on it.  This can't be that improbable in Ordinary, right?

Keltham will take the standard set of Church books then.

On to fiction.  What's has the proprietor got with magic, gods, afterlives even if a Church had to approve the book, people going to magical academies, mysteries that hinge on facts about magic or at least involve technical discussion of those, people going to afterlives and coming back, a character goes to a temple for training at some point, romance novels with Chelish protagonists or love interests -

...also anything that would be.  Like.  Fun to read if you had high Intelligence and Wisdom.  But that's a separate question so long as he's here.

Magic's easy, he can recommend a solid dozen works of fiction that are about adventurers having terrifying very much magic adventures, and this is a series of teen adventure books about a cruelly treated wizard's apprentice, and here are some court intrigues that involve magic spying and murdering and so on. 

They have precisely one Chelish romance novel for alter-Cheliax. He drags it out. "If you like this one let me know and I'll arrange copies of the rest of the series, there's - five or maybe six by now?"

He's much more at ease trying to recommend books Keltham might like. He's curious what books Keltham has liked in the past, whether he likes serials, whether he likes books to be about redemption and moral dilemmas, whether he likes them to be about people getting hurt and then slowly recovering their health, whether he likes books about attaining enlightenment, whether he likes books about elaborate revenge....

Keltham may send back later, at some point, for those.  He's - not quite in the right mood for it now.

He'll take a couple each of adventurers and mistreated apprentice and court intrigue, a dozen books about redemption and moral dilemmas if that many are available, a couple of hurt/comfort and attaining enlightenment, and whatever the proprietor thinks is the most intelligent book about revenge.

Any novels set in Galt?

If there was one novel in Cheliax there should not be ten in Galt!

There's .... two about people who fled Galt when the revolution started, one in which they're now in Taldor and one in which they're now in Absalom?

Good enough.  Not novels the Conspiracy could've prepared, unless they were covering an impressive number of bases.

Purchase it all if the price is reasonable, haggle briefly if required, I can and will buy much fewer of these books (ping back for instructions which ones) if he tries to gouge us on it.

...Keltham is trying harder now, not to think of his next steps.

Abrogail sends that she thinks she can do a better job of reading Keltham's mind even if he is trying to conceal his thoughts.

(She does not add that things are looking increasingly serious to her; that would be policy advice.)

Things are definitely increasingly serious. Not that she was in any sense not serious about them an hour ago but Keltham is trying very very hard at this and the Conspiracy is a thin layer of paint, in many places. 

Carissa would be very grateful to have Abrogail and not an eighth circle wizard from the front reading Keltham's mind.

She's wearing Carissa's old headband, now, and boosted to +4/+4/+4 in Wisdom and Splendour as well.  It's not nearly two-thirds of her Crown, but it's enough that she can be useful.

...Keltham is planning to try an expensive proprietor, the sort who'd need defenses against people coming in and taking their stuff using mind control.

Great. 

(It's not great.)

What's the time estimate to mock up a magic shop in a much-cheaper shop they could pay the proprietors to clear out of? It can be mostly illusions, but they need to beat Keltham's determined effort to disbelieve them as illusions. He's likely to want them to hold items up to the scry for Detect Magic, which can be faked with Magic Aura, and he'll have endless questions about the prices -

- no, wrong line of thought -

- find an actual Absalom magic shop. Use an illusion to make the purchased storefront immediately and exactly resemble it. Copy their security situation. Copy their customers, if they presently have any. 

And tell her how long they need the bookstore to stall.

"Two gold per, my time is valuable and I'm going to get annoyed if you haggle about it too much, I can leave half these behind and make sure you get less pay overall even if I end up having to pay you an inflated price."

     "The textbooks sell for three."

"- what, really? Why?"

      "Diagrams, maps, visual aids have to be copied by hand. And there's a lot of diagrams in there."

"Huh. Fair enough."

Keltham does not presently seem suspicious of this; a lot of his attention is going towards thinking of things that are not his next action.