"I don't know what it's like to be Abadar. He keeps trying to tell us, and not really succeeding. I suppose that I think - the fact He keeps trying - the fact He keeps the things we make with our hands - suggests, to me, that whatever it's like to be Abadar, it's not at all indifferent about whether humans end up getting to grow up and be rich."

"Noted."

"I admit to being surprised that - just trading honestly yourself is enough to be a cleric of Abadar?  I would've expected that you had to consider yourself aligned with Abadar's interests at least a little."

"I think - Abadar's interests are interests almost every human shares. He wants the world and the people in it to be prosperous, He wants people to have longer lives so they learn more and are more informed, He wants there to be courts of law, so that the resolution of disputes is predictable and not violent. It is hard for me to imagine a person who shares little to nothing of what Abadar wants but still deals fairly."

"I think you are sliding at least a little into arguing Abadar's case, and what I need to know here are the mechanics of staying a cleric."

Shrug. "It is hard for me to distinguish between 'you need not be aligned with Abadar' and 'you need to be slightly aligned with Abadar but in a way humans near-inevitably are'."

"There isn't abstract knowledge about this because of how it works for other clerics?"

"Clerics definitely have to be at least somewhat aligned with their god! The question is whether trading fairly counts as being sufficiently aligned with Abadar."

"I hope it does not work that way, then, because it would be horrifying that Abadar can't just make most people clerics, unless he can and that's how you know."

" - Abadar can't make most people clerics and most people don't in fact value trading fairly even with entities that can't stand up for themselves. - also you do have to be within an alignment step of Him, I assume you know that."

"I've been told, but I'm definitely not going to shape my life based on what some ancient alien arbitrarily defined as 'Lawful' or 'Chaotic' or whatever, and if that breaks my connection to Abadar then too bad."

" - that's understandable and I wouldn't expect you to do differently, I just didn't want you to be taken by surprise. Anyway, I think people who want to trade fairly, with everyone, even entities that you could just give orders, even entities that are too stupid to understand the deal, are very rare, and Abadar usually clerics them."

"It shouldn't have been that rare, is what I'd like to say, and yet now I'm thinking about how maybe you also get kicked out of that category if you - give orders, to somebody who you could just give orders, because fewer children end up in Hell that way.  I wouldn't break an oath, wouldn't break a compact, for that reason, because then all possibility of coordination falls apart, but - an unfair contract that doesn't send enough children to Hell?  I'm - not sure, any more, about - where I fall - on that -"

"Does it count for anything in Abadar's sight if you only deal unfairly with, things that deal unfairly with other people?  Only shit on somebody in a compact using asymmetrical information, if they're the sort of person who, threatened other people, kept a slave..."

"That's a question where I'd want to reflect before giving you counsel, rather than giving the first answer that comes to mind.

I have some thoughts that would shape an answer, but don't constitute one.

Abadar does deal differently with Asmodeus than with Iomedae, but Asmodeus knows that, and I think that might be important.

I think that a person who gave themselves license to cheat others if the others were sufficiently badly behaved would end up deciding nearly everyone counted as badly behaved, because it was convenient for them to believe and they could find enough justification.

I think that dealing unfairly is a habit, and not a good one to get into.

I think that Abadar, if He wanted, could look at any mortal, including you or me, and see something that makes us objectively not an entity worth trading fairly with, but He doesn't, and I'm glad He doesn't."

"I don't think he'd have been able to see anything like that about me when I arrived in Golarion.  Dath ilan, doesn't hurt people, like Golarion does, doesn't present them with choices like that, we don't set things up so people can benefit from being unfair."

"Now - I don't know."

"Maybe I should only be trading with Lawful Evil people who know to expect Asmodean contracts from me, so that this story can't force me to betray them like I got betrayed.  There would be a literary symmetry, if, after the first arc was about my getting betrayed, I got all set to guard against that happening to me again, only to find out, surprise, I've got to do something to betray Osirion after they were actually nice to me..."

"I think that you are - damaging yourself, damaging your ability to accomplish your goals - by the way you're trying to force a conclusion about this, and you should probably give it a rest for a few months until you feel more grounded and less like you're in a story that is trying to orchestrate specific dilemmas. And I think that doing awful things to avoid being forced into doing awful things is a terrible, dumb plan."

"Is teaching Osirion for free and not accepting any payment from non-Evil students, or maybe only taking money from my compact with Cheliax, and buying magic items and scrolls from - Razmiran, say, under advance warning that they should comport themselves as if trading with an Asmodean rather than an Abadaran - an awful thing on a level where I should not do that just to protect myself against having to betray a trading partner?"

"....no? We will probably...track how much we would have paid you, to pay you if you later decide that this isn't actually achieving whatever result you hoped for."

"I cannot physically stop you from doing that but I wish you wouldn't.  If I survive all this and stay in Golarion, I'll have enough money for myself, period, and I don't think Abadarans would spend excess money beyond that very differently from the sort of things I'd spend it on.  I mean, except in the sense I know some better investments, and if that's how it works out, you can hire me as an investment advisor at that time."

"But I think that, given the way this story has been playing out, you are not helping me achieve my goals by shortsightedly trying to set me up in an environment of - people trying to be nice to me.  You aren't seeing the - way things would be expected to play out, in the future, given how they've played out in the past, after I materialized in Golarion at a point in space and time that was clearly selected to set particular future events in motion."

"The more you set up a story situation where you are trying to be nice to Keltham, the more you are, under some possible ways this could be happening, potentially setting up a plot twist where you do not get what you hoped for about that."

"If the only way Osirion could defeat Cheliax was to lie to you and treat you badly, then Osirion will lose to Cheliax, because it won't do that. It's not about being good to you producing some good result, it's about that being the way that every person should relate to every other, whatever it gets them."

"I am not suggesting Osirion do that!  I am trying to avoid a situation where anybody ends up doing that by not having these sorts of expectations around for the story to break!"

"I don't think that reasoning like you're in a story is a good idea even if you are. I think it's damaging and self-fulfilling, and there are many possible stories. But I'll feel better about it if you give yourself some time to start to recover from your experiences in Cheliax first."

"Last story arc had an invisible clock ticking the entire time, when I was telling myself that I could check the remaining shreds of checkable Conspiracy probability later after I had more knowledge and was more acclimated to Golarion.  There are processes going on in the world right now, Cheliax snowballing on manufacturing headbands, it's not even a reasonable surprise if I get told afterwards that, sorry, actually every day mattered."

"Yep, time matters for many of our going concerns. But also, you are worse than useless right now, so you should take your time even though time matters," Temos says flatly.

A very reasonable interpretation of the evidence Keltham has given them.

"Your advice is noted.  Now if you'll excuse me, it has just occurred to me I need to go schedule a conversation, one that needs to happen literally as soon as possible to cut off an obvious Chelish path to victory."

"You are, again, released to discuss all of this conversation with Osirion, exercising your own judgment about how to treat anything potentially infohazardous."