The woman who opens the door is perhaps fifty, with short pepper-grey hair and a bat familiar snuggled in the front pocket of her robes, apparently asleep. 

"Two questions, I'll ask the lower priority first.  It's been purported to me that there's probably no children in Hell because early damnation is very rare.  I think I'm obliged to pursue learning whether that's true.  Include Boneyard kids.  Is that answer already known to you?"

"I know a little bit about it. The Church of Sarenrae probably knows more, really. 'no children in Hell' sounds wrong. It might be incredibly rare for children to be damned at trial  - probably is - but they can be Maledicted. I've heard of a case of people tracking down and Maledicting a paladin's family. There were children, there."

"This was - recent?"

"About a decade back. But the youngest was two, so - still in Hell now, if that was specifically the question you wanted answered.

And I've heard of at least one cleric of Asmodeus who, if he's prepared Malediction and not used it, stops by an orphanage. So as not to waste the spell, right."

"Thank you. I should've thought of - the second, at least, being something someone'd do."

"Is this an extant cleric of Asmodeus, or has somebody already taken care of him?  Also, Boneyard-child damnations?  That's half of Golarion's soul output."

"Oh, we killed him and trapped his soul in a rock at the bottom of the ocean. My understanding is that Boneyard kids lean Chaotic pretty hard, it's just pretty easy to be Chaotic Evil there and kind of hard to be Lawful Evil, what with how Hell doesn't, in fact, control the laws. But I assume they get the occasional one, there are a lot of kids in the Boneyard."

"But those are the ones who, with tons of choices, are choosing Lawful Evil because it appeals to them, yes?"

"Because Lawful Evil appeals to them? Yeah, presumably. Because Hell's going to work out for them? Fuck no. Even if you're Lawful Evil to your very core, Hell doesn't actually value that, and it won't actually work out for you in the end. Not for Abrogail Thrune, certainly not for some Boneyard kid."

"I know that. I'm working on it."

"Well, if you work on it, one thing I'd keep in mind is - if you kept every kid out of Hell, that'd be - a fraction of a percent. It'd be great work, absolutely the worthy work of a lifetime. The man who identified and killed that particular Asmodean cleric is one of the greatest men I've ever had the honor of knowing. 

But most people in Hell kind of suck, and, turns out, being on fire doesn't hurt any less if you kind of sucked, or if you were a grownup, or if you knew what was coming. It burns the same. It destroys you the same. I don't want there to be innocents in Hell. But if you got them all out, I'd have, you know, 99 percent plus of the issues with Hell that I have right now."

"I didn't just mean I was working on the kids."

"Extreme priority question, moderate urgency.  This deals in what are now, I guess, my previous plans, which Carissa Sevar has not yet been read in on, so don't mention info about that in front of her."

"In the version of the story where only Asmodeus has Rovagug's key, instead of all the gods who cooperated to seal Rovagug, there was a supposed prophecy about some threat that Asmodeus would let out Rovagug to consume, hoping Rovagug would consume the threat, instead Rovagug consumes everything."

"This obviously makes no sense as a predictable divine error, and it would make more sense if the prophecy was about Asmodeus facing a decision-theoretic threat such that Asmodeus's reply was 'die in a fire'.  Asmodeus, not the other gods, because Asmodeus has more pride than other gods and will burn down more branches of reality in which some other god would accept making a concession."

"Carissa, who knows a lot more about Asmodeanism than either of us, worries that if I corner Asmodeus he'll release Rovagug."

"I'm not authorizing you to reveal my prior plans to the general Church of Iomedae over this.  But if you have reason to believe that's not going to happen, given the plans I previously had, I need to know about it.  Presumably Iomedae already had plans for cornering or extinguishing Asmodeus without Rovagug getting released as a result.  Can you find out how that would work?  Is it evidently something that would apply only to Iomedae or not to me?  Is it something that would evidently apply to both Her plan and mine?"

"I expect Iomedae would, when She moved against Asmodeus, have a coalition of the gods that She was confident was sufficient to either prevent Asmodeus releasing Rovagug or beat Rovagug back when released. I don't think She has such a coalition right now."

"That's... not really a great answer, from what I model to be your perspective.  Further details requested if you can get it by any means short of reading the Church in on my plans, you have basically unlimited budget but ask me for approval of anything above a hundred thousand gold pieces."

"It's not a great answer! But if Iomedae has a secret plan I doubt She's even told Her church. I'll see what I can do all the same."

"I'd say thank you, but, you know."

"Carissa, with me."

He heads off towards the next bend in the hallway.

She ignores him. 

She's pretty sure that the part of her which wants to ignore Keltham is a stupid part but if you squish a part every time because it's stupid then you might not notice if it ever wasn't stupid.

He turns back to look at her.

"Is there a reason you're not following?"

"Yeah, I didn't feel like it."

For a second the man smiles.  It looks to be involuntary.  He looks like Keltham, when he does that.

"TARNISH!"

She's not going to resist punishment, or anything, but she's going to continue not moving.

"Dare I hope that I'm here to hold her down while you hurt her?"

"That would have been a relationship outcome far above my expectations.  No.  I need you in position to disable Carissa if she tries anything."

"Carissa.  There's a lot of entry processing we didn't do with you.  Most people here have sworn oaths not to oppose my plans, as a condition of being allowed to possibly reduce harm from them, with a few exceptions like Tarnish who consider themselves more aligned.  When I was - wearing a Splendour headband instead of Intelligence - and finally meeting you again - I did not - want to confront you over things that - might not have turned out to be necessary."

"But it is not actually something I will permit, that you use your Wishes on yourself, and keep your headband, and go around being INT 29 while I am INT 24.  You've already made an observation of vital importance to reducing the chance that I destroy the world, and I'd like you to make more of them, but the level of danger you represent without serious constraint is unacceptable."

"My 'best-alternative-to-negotiated-agreement' is statuing you at least until I am fully augmented with Wishes of my own.  Possibly until I've obtained at least a +6/+6 artifact headband of my own.  Do you want to offer me an alternative to that?"