...Korva.  That's what was holding her here, with old bargains broken, and Keltham gone, and her unknown purpose ended.

"Think I can figure out how to get most of my questions into a Commune, and I wouldn't really want to trust most of those questions to outside assurances anyways, but three questions I have that don't fit or that I need asked first."

"One, what exactly did Abadar buy from Asmodeus about me, and what did Abadar pay?"

"Two, what exactly are the procedures for terminating your process in Axis?  Is there by any chance a cooldown procedure that lasts a hundred years during which your mind starts to change already, or do you have to talk to a mind-healer and get their approval, or does Axis figure that anybody under their first thousand years or beneath INT 25 isn't competent enough to make that decision?  Do I get to terminate myself, as myself, unaltered, and move on to the next reality, as soon as I get to Axis and request that?  If I overshoot on Good to be certain of avoiding Hell, and end up in Heaven instead, does that change things?  This story has made clear that if I'm not sufficiently paranoid, the story considers itself entitled to burn me."

"Three, does a Commune let a deity read the mortal's state of mind in order to get the questions' real meaning?  And if so, do they get a bunch of my side-thoughts or memories or whatnot."

"Oh, and if whatshisname the Abadaran seventh-circle from Absalom is still here, I need to talk to him again about possible information hazards to Osirian priests of Abadar."

"You'll want to ask the pharaoh to send you a letter with the closest to a precise translation for mortals as can be got, but I was told that He paid, approximately, for you to not end up soul-trapped/maledicted such that we couldn't resurrect you, or prevented from leaving Cheliax or reaching Osirion, or tortured or enchanted or mind-altered or traumatized into not being someone who we could pay to teach us about Abadar. 

There are thousands of cities in Axis; their laws are different from each other. They're not hard to get between. I can't imagine they impose a lot of nonsense - also, are you sure about this 'next reality' thing, it seems quite likely that doesn't work -"

"In Aktun, if you want to cease to be, you can do it yourself with weapons readily available for purchase," one of the priests volunteers. "I - really think that's a bad idea."

"Do you know about Heaven?"

"No."

"Commune does involve your god reading your mental state in order to understand what questions you're asking. You could have someone else ask, if you were worried about that."

"Though obviously Abadar wouldn't use things he learned from you during negotiations against you, that's not - being someone it's safe and good for humans to trade with," adds the priest.

"And you can send for the fellow from Absalom by handing a letter to any of the staff - they're in the uniforms, so you can pick them out -"

"Commune always counts as negotiations?  Are you sure?  How do you know?"

"With humans, Abadar has to interpret His obligations broadly, because any finer distinction He makes will be lost on us. Every communication we have with Him that's not specifically and legibly intended some other way is treated like it's negotiations, even if our own intent in our hearts is muddy, because that way negotiations can happen even if someone hasn't any idea how to specify them."

"Sounds reasonable.  I have just had, some, really unpleasant experiences of late, with not making too much of a social fuss, and wanting to not set the bar too high for my hosts telling me it will be okay, and accepting surface appearances that I should really be safe unless something incredibly exotic and complicated is going wrong behind the scenes.  You know?  That's just a kind of reasoning, a way of thinking, that has now been demonstrated not to work for Keltham in Golarion.  I either check every possible case, and don't just, go along with what sounds reasonable, or the story burns me to teach me not to try that again."

"You are acting very reasonable, and can ask as many questions as you want. You can get those assurances in writing, if you want, with citations to theological texts, though I don't know the citations offhand."

That's probably about as far as Keltham can go in establishing an apparent explanation if he later Atones to Neutral Evil Keltham is not thinking about that in words right now.

Keltham will send a question in writing to the pharaoh, about what Abadar paid for, about whether Abadar paid for an expectedly-sufficient effort or for ongoing correction by Asmodeus as required, whether (in the former case) this outcome was within Abadar's requested specs, whether this outcome was within Abadar's expectations, whether any other gods contributed to that negotiation and Keltham also owes them anything, in what currency Abadar paid Asmodeus and if the amount of it can be at all quantified.

And then Keltham will go talk to whatshisname, the seventh-circle out of Absalom, if he's still here, and otherwise any high-ranking priest of Abadar who's from Absalom or failing that not-Osirion.

Khemet sends over everything they know; it was a specification over ultimate outcomes, no ongoing correction, this outcome He increasingly thinks was not within requested specs, though not outside the range of possible outcomes of a mortal running around doing things even if they're not being manipulated and harmed. Nethys also contributed to Keltham getting extra spell circles; Abadar thinks Nethys did this for omniscient Nethys reasons (that it would predictably lead somewhere Nethys wanted) and not as a bargain with Keltham (and also it's unclear if the extra spell circles have in fact been a service to Keltham; they may have been relevant to the timing of the godwar and to [human aspect of Abadar speculating here, it's not the kind of thing the god aspects track] Sevar's promotion to lead the Project). Abadar paid Asmodeus in resources the gods use for intervention; it was perhaps 50-100x costlier than making a first-circle cleric. 

Temos Sevandivasen is happy to speak again with Keltham.

"I've run across a thought that I'm worried is an infohazard to Osirian priests of Abadar, as in, would break their connection to Abadar if they learned it.  I do not have a lot of information with which to guess whether thoughts like that are silly, because I don't know what breaks a cleric connection, or how fragile they are," or what people could correctly, narrowly, specifically infer if Keltham's own not thinking about that.

"Can I talk with you about that under a safe presumption that if the info actually looks dangerous, it doesn't get back to Osirion, including indirectly by you telling others in Absalom who leak it?"

"Yes, absolutely."

Which implies, though not perfectly, that Security isn't listening to this conversation.  Good general info to have.

"The address I originally used to call up Abadar implies that he's the god of - a specific, obvious, overdetermined thing if you know the math of that thing, the god of agents voluntarily coordinating to move to multi-agent-optimal equilibria, and fairly dividing the gains that result.  Abadar is the god of doing that because it's in your utilityfunction, your values, not because it's useful.  The god of playing honorably, even with trade partners who can't enforce that by being able to predict you and refusing to cooperate if they predict you'll defect."

"What's going on in Osirion with their treatment of women is unambiguously not that.  It may be keeping both men and women out of Hell or the Maelstrom, though I don't really understand why, but Abadar's not the god of keeping people out of Hell, Iomedae is."

"What Osirion is doing may be, I don't know personally, but it could be, actually the right thing they need to do in that situation, to keep people out of Hell or the Maelstrom.  But to the extent you understand Abadar's math it's unambiguously not Abadar's thing.  The women aren't receiving a fair share of the gains they're producing and the economy isn't being run on a basis where it - starts from agents doing their own best acts as individuals- not starts temporally, starts as a baseline for negotiations - and then they decide to coordinate together to move to a better place than that and split the gains fairly."

"If Osirian priests already know that, or if learning that won't break their connection to Abadar, then this can be a short conversation."

" - I think they know they're falling short of what Abadar wants, but - trying to move more towards it. I suppose it might be a problem for someone who realized they aren't trying to move more towards it, that they'd prefer this, but - I'd expect them to have more faith in Abadar than that. Certainly I think this would have occurred to Osirian leadership, even if they can't nail down precisely what Abadar is."

"All right.  That sounds like I should maybe, not expose all of the top Osirian priests all at once, but like it's probably going to be okay."

"This may not be the last time I run into this issue.  What does it take to shatter the bond with Abadar, if not the realization that you're deliberately serving Good over Abadar's interests?"

" - well, intending not to trade fairly with people, I'd expect. Cheating them, deceiving them. Abadar doesn't pay us to take His interests as our own, even if He is paying us for advancing them, but - He does need His priests to be people you can expect won't put their goals ahead of trading fairly, whatever those goals are."

"And if somebody still intends to keep to their honest trading, but realizes they're just straight-up not on Abadar's side anymore, apart from that?  They've gone full Aroden or Iomedae, keeping whatever bargains they make themselves, but only promoting Abadar's interests insofar as it serves the interests of mortals or helps end the Evil afterlives?"

"I wouldn't worry that Abadar will reject you for that, son. His interests are His lookout, not yours; if you deal fairly with all who would deal with you, then that's the really important thing."