"One, we're not trading like Asmodeans. The way Asmodeans trade is stupid. The way Asmodeans trade with their prisoners is to hurt them, or threaten them, or use Modify Memory to erase all our interactions up to this point and try again and again until you get me to give up the Wishes and headband. The way Asmodean prisoners trade is to, as I said earlier, at the first opportunity open my Gate to Hell and report everything about this situation to Dispater and destroy you. I didn't do my end of that. I'll explain why in a second. You're not going to do your end of that.

We will trade with each other like mortals with different goals who are, being mortal and hating each other and being in a ton of pain, very likely to end up assuming our goals are more different than they actually are, and who are actively correcting for that by trying really hard to mind the interests of the other and pass up on chances to destroy each other to our benefit even though they're wildly more appealing than continuing to try. I don't know if there's a god of that. I do think if that's not what we're aiming at then we're completely fucked. 

Two.

You want to destroy the universe if you can't get it remade to your satisfaction. I, obviously, think that's incredibly horrible of you; I distrust everything I learned from you, and from dath ilan, because I feel very fundamentally that if this is the product of those values then I don't want them inside me and don't want them shaping me. But I didn't, when I first realized that was what you wanted, report you and get you squished; I sold my soul to protect the Project girls and come here with - thirty Wishes, I tried for, thirty Wishes and two headbands. I understand my reasons, now. 

There's maybe a hundred billion people? So I should be willing to risk a one in a hundred billion chance of destroying the universe for anything for which I'd be willing to go to Axis, grab a person out of the incredible joyous brilliant meaningful life they've spent the last ten thousand years building, and feed them to daemons while they begged me for mercy. It would take a lot to get me to do that. But - I'd do it to fix Hell. 

Don't ask me how many people I'd grab from Axis and feed to daemons to fix Hell. I don't know but it's not many, not anywhere near enough to close the gap between us. But I'm not trying to close the gap between us; I'm not trying to ally with you. I am trying to use you to fix Hell and fix Abaddon and fix the current state of affairs where Asmodeus, and maybe other gods, are holding in reserve an option to destroy the world. I am, I think, feeding some people to daemons, in expectation, when I use you for that. I hate that. I hate you, for being someone I can only use by feeding people to daemons. But I don't have the option of using someone else. 

Also I'm really scared at this point that even if they squish you, the universe doesn't have another thousand years in it, in a configuration this unstable. We've got to fix it into something that no one has the power to destroy and that very few value-systems that are floating around all over the place would want to destroy. We've got to build our own Civilization. 

And - and there are people praying to me.

I think, if there were two universes, and in one of them I fed them to daemons by accident, trying to answer their prayers, and in the other one they came to me in Hell and were safe and found mercy - and I told them that the price of that mercy was that in the other universe I'd fed them to daemons, trying my best - I think a lot of them would forgive me, I think a lot of them would be glad -

If there were ten universes -

- the numbers don't cohere yet. Probably the numbers will cohere when I'm smarter. But that's where I'm at, that's why I haven't killed myself or Banished myself or Gated out or done a Sending to Ri-Dul, because, when my numbers don't cohere, and when I don't get another chance, and I have to just go with my best guess about what I can do here and I lose options every minute, I think I'm supposed to try to fix things, not to try to kick the can down the road until someone who agrees with you succeeds.

And I'm willing to commit to that, I'm willing to promise you that I'll stay here trying to use you to fix the world instead of trying to warn someone you're going to crush it. But I want you to promise me that you'll let me do that, that I'll have the freedom and autonomy to pursue the ideas I come up with for alternatives to destroying the world, that I'll be able to do whatever makes sense for ensuring Asmodeus would rather live in the world we're demanding than destroy it, and Pharasma would rather live in the world we're demanding than destroy it, and that I'll be allowed to make myself smarter, and that I'll be allowed to potentially compact with Dispater and potentially compact with Cheliax and potentially call in Pilar and do the other things I might need to do.

"Three. If you don't own me, you don't give me orders."

"Four. If you don't own me, you don't take my stuff."

"Five. If the universe might have a lifespan measured in weeks I will spend exactly zero seconds of them as a statue."

"Six - and, uh, this one Carmin thought was stupid, she was helping me work these out and explain them and make sure they covered what I actually needed, she thinks that it's not really reasonable for me to ask for this, but. 

I think you're Keltham, and I want to call you Keltham, and not get told you're not Keltham, and I think I do have obligations to you, because I hurt you, and I can try to fulfill those obligations to you, by solving as many as I can of the problems I caused, and getting you the things you need to be okay, and not betraying you even though I have at various points been really tempted, and you don't have to agree with me about any of that but don't tell me not to see it that way."

"We are in a situation that is decision-theoretically complicated.  That's the part you're not seeing.  Carissa, I was raised to understand things that are, from a Golarion perspective, insane and twisty and complicated and stupid and turning on arcane points of math, and from a dath ilani perspective, twisty in a simple funny way, like a, not-professional story that an average person wrote for fun and their friends to read, a story where all of the points are obvious in retrospect as soon as you actually think of them, and then, if you're a dath ilani character in that story, you have to try very hard not to think about those points, because the information has negative value to you in a way that threatens to destroy all possibility of an ending better than destroying the multiverse.  We can't be equal partners in this, and the reason for that isn't that you don't know decision theory, you have the capability to reach INT 29 from where you stand and then you would understand the ass out of the decision theory, you would see the whole thing immediately, maybe without even my explaining it, from that level, and once you saw it - you would be - forced, by being the sort of entity you are, down a path that -"

"This isn't, the actual problem, but an analogy, would be if you were a sort of entity that responded to threats, and so, as soon as you started having any power, here, Asmodeus would laugh and command you to go do as He said or He'd destroy every paving stone in Hell to spite you, along with Abrogail and Pilar and every soul that ever prayed to you.  Except I cannot, even, tell you for certain that it is like that, that I am trying in a way to protect you from yourself.  Because you are an alien and maybe, the way you think, it's actually valid that Keltham is something you should just turn in to Asmodeus to be squashed." 

"So I am trying to - thread a very narrow needle - a narrow storyline that I wish I hadn't seen, and that I'm worried I've now ruined by telling you, when we met, that I no longer considered myself to be Keltham - nor wanted to be him again, because it's too painful to, to destroy a city, when you have feelings, about that -"

"Carissa.  I need those Wishes, and the headband, and once I have those things, I think, I'll be back on track.  And there are things that I can honestly trade to you for those, and things I cannot honestly trade to you for those.  I can trade making sure that in a week of realtime you get Wished up on all six stats yourself, and giving you all the headbands and enhancement spells I won't need.  I can trade you telling you the real story, as soon as I do have the headband and Wishes, and offering you the access to try to do harm reduction on what you see as the harm from my plans.  I can trade you that you never have to take my orders to do anything positive, just, promise not to do a lot of things."

"But the one thing I cannot do is give you anything like the power to, call a halt, shut things down, or try to fix the multiverse on your own authority, because we are in a situation where - from my perspective, possibly even from yours though I don't know - you are the wrong shape of entity."

"This isn't a demand but if you shut up about dath ilan it'll require less self-control from me to talk to you like a civilized person. 

I think 'try to do harm reduction on the harm from your plans' is the thing I'm asking for. I just want - really broad latitude to do it. Not just talking to you, if it reduces the harm from your plans to me to go close the Worldwound or compact with Dispater or return to Cheliax then I want it agreed I'll get to do that. But I'm not asking for anything that doesn't fall under that. If you can give me that, then we're set."

"You cannot - give anything to me, in order to protect yourself from yourself, or we are back in the land of metaphorical Asmodeus annihilating every paving stone in Hell just to spite you personally.  We should assume, for these purposes, that we are actually on different sides, and you are not with Iomedae's side in this, let alone mine.  As may very well be the case."

"Given that - why would you make that compact?"

"Or - what is the compact?  I don't understand."

"Speaking loosely and not committing specifically to these phrasings, you give me a couple hundred of your fucking Wish diamonds and tell me all of your plans, immediately and clearly and in detail with no more fucking around or being deliberately misleading, so that I can figure out how to do harm reduction. I give you these fifteen Wishes, and we can time-share the crown, and I swear not to try to oppose you, or recruit people who will, or blah blah blah I forfeit the ability to steer this by trying to get you deleted from reality instead of by trying to have you implement the best possible version of your plan in the most receptive possible world.

I explained why I'm making this compact, it's because my alternative is trying to recruit some force to squish you and I don't actually believe that squishing you produces a world that lasts the next million years let alone forever. Also, I think you're a wreck and not thinking very clearly and might benefit even by your own lights from an additional pair of eyes on your plans. And maybe this actually isn't what you want to do, and if it's not, I want to be in a position to notice. 

So between trying to squish you and trying to reduce the harm done by your destroy-the-multiverse plans, I'm picking the latter. I know we're not on the same side.

But I was never on the same side as Asmodeus, and I served Him for twenty-five years. I am pretty well prepared to do harm reduction for alien forces fundamentally opposed to mortal flourishing."

He leans back against the wall and puts his hands over his eyes.

"You are kind," he says.

"Thanks. Got it from you. Do we have the outlines of a deal?"

"We do."

"I propose that we - go time-dilated, if the portal is up, now, or plane shift if it's not, you promise not to banish yourself or kill yourself or do anything to torpedo my plans while we do that, interpreted, kindly, and then we work out terms, and - possibly we should use your Wishes immediately, depending on what kind of deadline you think we're on, about Hell getting word that you left - and to be clear, I would not be putting on your headband immediately after that, I'd be, trying gentler boosts first, and that time making sure I had maxed Splendour while I did that."

"I swear I won't banish myself or kill myself or torpedo your plans for the next subjective hour while we work out details. Time dilation and Wish use immediately sounds good, I take it I need to move fast to find a way for you to not destroy Cheliax and I'm rather fond of the place."

"I think just Egorian, on the default trajectory if there's no deal, but that unleashes a lot of chaos onto the world, just like a Chelish invasion of Osirion would."

"I think there's an opening here for me to assassinate Abrogail, Raise her, and then immediately present her with a contract in which she agrees not to invade Osirion, but details might depend on the rest of your plan. How best to handle Cheliax depends a lot on what we're angling for in the final negotiations. 

That scaffold-board you were making, is that meant to be an assistive device for casting from specific scrolls like my series of boosts to headband-making is for Spellcraft?"

"No, it's meant to be a structure with a visible substructure that behaves isomorphically to magical physics including the parts of magic that aren't usually visible, for purposes of pinning down magical physics, doing de novo spell design, and, ideally, it will help with Wish phrasings."

"- to be clear that is not particularly close to working, yet."

"Thaaaaaaat is so cool that it's an immense tragedy you're trying to use it for something horrible and I will not help you with it at all." 

Tarnish taps her lips, having been told to shut up some time ago.

"I'll try out allowing you to speak, once."

"He was much less of a wreck and thinking much more clearly when he wasn't around you," she says to Carissa.  "I think that what Keltham's actually trying to do is more aesthetic, but I'd consider it both beautiful and deserved if you distracted him enough with your constant sniping, which he permitted, that he accidentally destroyed the multiverse."

She'll just ignore the person who she's been specifically told is trying to hurt her. "The way Cheliax is going to learn I betrayed them is by raising Hadrian and Abarco, but that's a True Rez right now and they may instead have gone to Hell to question the devils. I went to the one fortress in Avernus I know of, and the Most High knows exactly which it is. If that's so, they know already that I ambiguously betrayed them, though I don't know how rapidly that'll be conveyed in Hell, nor do I know how much doubt they'll be in. With Glibness up I can maybe bluff a pit fiend about who I'm working for, even if they've heard otherwise, or we can depart if they seem suspicious and that tips the calculus about whether it's worth it."

"Wow, you can bluff a pit fiend with Glibness up?  That makes an entire one person in this conversation who could bluff a pit fiend with Glibness up.  I expect I will put Glibness up and use it to try to be completely quiet and expressionless throughout the whole thing."

"But we're wasting dilated time, let's head out of the Forbiddance and get this done."

Then she'll follow him out of the Forbiddance, and take his hand for the Plane Shift.

(The Grand High Priestess will at some point interrupt their negotiations, within the Rope Trick, to say that the portal is up; they need to take down that Rope Trick and put up another one right by the portal, so Tira can cast a Forbiddance covering the demiplane except the portal.  After which Tira can finally head back to Kelesh.)

Carissa is actually deeply curious about Sarenrae, now, but it seems like not the time and also like Keltham's minions might be something of a hostile crowd. 

(She has no idea why! She's the one who is trying to prevent everyone being murdered, of the people in this room!)