"No. It would've been a good idea, but I could feel I was - getting emotional - it felt like such an impossible task, if all the ilani stuff wasn't even true, if we couldn't even test theories, if the answer to every proposed test I put to him was always going to be 'reality already proved me right' - and he hates it when I don't conceal my feelings well enough - I think it's not actually just that he doesn't take it into consideration, I think he sort of anti-takes-it-into-consideration - like, if you have feelings, about him destroying the universe not even to stop Hell but just because he thinks it's what the plot said to do next and he thinks if he doesn't do it the plot will give him even more incentive, then that definitely means you should be ignored, so, I didn't say any of that, I just said, 'You taking six months vastly improves the possible outcomes here!', I was, trying so hard, to be ilani,"

"You can - ask to pause, you know, when it seems like he's saying something horrifically immoral, ask for both of you to cool off -"

"Should've done that. But instead - uh, instead, when I said the thing about improving the possible outcomes, he said 'Nnnnooo, my being unable to take the blatant hint presented by the storyline about needing to resolve this before my children get ensouled, causes the story to be even harsher about giving me a time limit.  Retroactively, I'd expect, but that doesn't make a difference here.'

- and I - it just felt so clear, that, he'd already made up his mind, that he'd already made up his mind about this thing that was insane and not true, that he was not processing it as some probability that could update - you can, you know, be a coherent mind that cannot change its mind in response to any evidence, the math's not hard - and I could just see it, him going ahead in a couple of weeks because it was impossible to convince him that that wasn't what the story told him to do, and then Pharasma crushing him like a bug and Rovagug eating the world, and, and even if his plan is a good idea, we won't succeed without throwing some serious resources and effort at making sure the version of it we're doing is a version that has any hope of success, if we've consulted with entities that understand what we're trying to do, if we've, I don't know, Wished up more smart people smart enough to look over the wordings and understand the physics -

- it just felt so clear that for this not to be hopeless, for us to have even the slightest shard of a chance of success, it couldn't be something we were rushing blindly into in a couple of weeks. There are no victories down that road. I don't know, am I insane?"

"I would definitely expect much better results from a plan that we spent years working on than from a plan that we spent weeks working on. Though the countervailing factor is of course the element of surprise. Right now, lots of people suspect Keltham might have a crazy plan to let out Rovagug or something, but they mostly figure that even a very rich, very traumatized, very creative teenage boy who is a first-circle wizard can't actually let out Rovagug, and so they're not immediately throwing unprecedented resources at stopping him. If he starts demonstrating capabilities that suggest he's not at all best modeled as a first circle wizard, then they'll react very quickly."

" - oh. That'd be - the problem with my first pass plan to solve this, then. 

- I was thinking about how to cut this knot, and I realized, if Cheliax is destroyed, then no deadline. That's it; it's that simple. No babies, no war with Osirion, no Project Lawful trying to invent superweapons of its own. We have the three Wishes Keltham didn't use, and Osirion has their own Wish scroll. Instead of trying to argue Keltham out of something he cannot change his mind about - no Cheliax, no deadline. And Keltham, you know, he trips himself up on all kinds of complicated questions about whether destroying Cheliax is really and truly in his own not-threat-shaped best interests, but I just don't want the universe to be destroyed, and I could Wish a hole in the world where everyone I love lives, and then the universe is less likely to be destroyed."

"Iiiii think probably changing Keltham's mind about things is not actually literally impossible."

"I was trying to do it!! By every rule I know about!!"

"Yep! And still, you failing does not very strongly suggest that it's impossible."

"- you know, if you were Chelish, you would hurt me, when you said that, for being stupid, and I think I strongly prefer that."

"Too bad, kid. Look, I think convincing Keltham to take more time is a good plan. I suspect it is not actually impossible. If convincing Keltham to take more time actually requires destroying Cheliax, then yes, we should do it. But - you two talked for...about an hour and a half."

"But what if I can't convince him and then trillions of people die because I was not good enough at convincing people of true things."

"It sounds like you are so, so, so scared, all the time, and that's why the slightest thing going wrong talking to Keltham drives you to extreme panic, because when you're this scared it's hard to deal with any additional scary things happening. Because you genuinely might have to destroy your home country where you grew up, not even to save the universe but to save a couple more months we can spend on trying to save the universe, and that's awful."

"How do you - be this scared, and keep going -"

"The Church of Iomedae is actually kind of useless on this topic because Iomedae, being a paladin, even as a human could not feel fear. And most of her followers are paladins and also can't feel fear. I've mostly been just, you know, imagining, if we have to explain ourselves, later, to Iomedae, to our grandchildren, what extremely reasonable questions will they have."

"...probably Keltham's going to tell me I am 'not allowed to get paladined for the fear immunity' because that's 'just as stupid as the plan to blow up all of Cheliax today just to be on the safe side' but I am suddenly tempted to Atone Lawful Good and pay Abadar to paladin me."

"Prayer is disallowed on base, yeah. I wonder if a useful habit for you, talking to Keltham, would be saying 'clever tempting solution that probably doesn't work', before presenting your strikingly clever ideas you come up with on the fly which are quite good, as ideas you come up with on the fly, but still usually don't work, as is predictable for ideas you come up with on the fly, so then you and he don't get drawn into debating blowing up Cheliax."

"He actually handled that very reasonably, just suggested we take a break and said he didn't want to be in a role of shooting down every idea I had. ...I just wish he'd been acting like that about my ideas to test if we're in a story that wants us to rush ahead while manifestly unready."

"If he had been, what would he have said?"

"I genuinely feel terrified at the idea of testing what happens if we ignore the children-based incentive to move quickly. This is already a situation where one of my deepest oldest and most important values, my own personal children not being born into a nightmare universe where they may end up eternally tortured in Hell, has mysteriously turned out to be at stake. I find it terrifying to imagine what might show up next if I prove unable to be moved by those stakes. The experiment would totally give us valuable information but it might well give it to us in a format so horrible I don't want to contemplate it, like 'now Carissa is in Hell and being tortured to insanity by Asmodeus personally and I have to act while there's something left'."

"...worth it, though, if it improves our odds."

" - I think in some important respects you're a very admirable person, Carissa, but if that were to happen the odds of this going well are just worse."

"Because of Keltham's own personal shortcomings! - that's not fair but I wanted to say it anyway to make myself feel better."

"Every person I've ever met has fracture points, Carissa, at which they can't keep moving forwards no matter how much they calculate that they ought to."

"I don't. - also not fair, also just said it to make myself feel better."