"That just seems like going .... 'gravity THINKS it's in charge here, but it doesn't own me, I own me, I'll jump off a cliff and show gravity who is in charge!'"

"Yes. Obviously you do pick up a Fly first if you can."

"That's - but - if you haven't picked up a Fly first you don't do it! Because - and at least then you're only risking yourself!!! This is more like throwing a bunch of innocent people off the cliff to show how much you won't let gravity spite you!!"

"Well, I agree today I wouldn't do it. But when I was Keltham's age? Absolutely. If Pharasma doesn't like it She should've been a better god."

"What changed your mind?"

"That is a question I've given a lot of thought without a satisfying answer. Some of it is just - witnessing enough horrors to realize on some important level that bad things are actually bad even if my logic for doing them is impeccable. I do not think that'll work on Keltham, since most of the horrors he's witnessed are Hell, and fixing Hell is in fact a pretty reasonable thing to go on an insane crusade about.

And some of it is my wife and children, and more recently my father being in Axis and substantially more - whole and wise and happy - and, hmm, I have the impression that well is somewhat poisoned for Keltham."

"To be clear, I am also optimistic that we are jumping off this cliff with a Fly spell up."

"He's going to destroy the world! Even in what he considers a good scenario Rovagug's going to probably eat everyone in the world!"

" - so, we're not destroying the world, there, right, the problem is that Asmodeus can't stand losing and so will destroy everything rather than suffer a hit to his pride, and we can't just let ourselves all be hostages to Asmodeus. We should say to Him 'fuck you, go ahead and try'."

"But then we'll die!"

"Well, you can't just do whatever people want you to do because otherwise they'll kill you!"

"Not only can you do that very nearly everyone who isn't Osirian royalty is doing it constantly!!!"

" - okay, setting that aside, today you wouldn't do it, right? Why not?"

"You know how it used to be that daemons would eat souls out of the River of Souls?"

"Yes. Asmodeus put a stop to that. - did He actually even do that. It was one of my favorite facts about Him."

"All the gods agreed to put a stop to that. But anyway, outside a place like this, if you ask people how they feel about that, they're all appalled. If you ask them if they wish we'd let the daemons go back to doing that, they're terrified. They don't want that at all. Now, Keltham would point out, once people go to Hell, they often want to die. But I guess I figure - if pretty much no one wants the River of Souls fed to Abaddon, then even if some of them after they go to Hell do want that, they don't get to have the other people not in Hell murdered on their behalf. I'd feel differently about that if there were a sizable contingent of people who did wish all souls got eaten when you die. And there's not none - some Rovagug cultists showed up to join Keltham, they're mostly like that - but it's a really unusual stance, much rarer than going to Hell is."

"I'm not sure that really touches - very many of my intuitions about this."

"Well an intuition of mine is that it's very different to destroy a lottery people wouldn't've agreed to participate in on behalf of the losers than to destroy a lottery people did agree to participate in on behalf of the losers. And while I'm very much enthusiastic about cancelling the whole stupid lottery I bet we can come up with a smarter way to do it, in time."

"If you have ideas for a specific smarter way -"

"I'd have to be a lot smarter than I am but I was thinking about making - something that does what Pharasma does. Shield us from the interference of the other Outer Gods. If Civilization had that then we really could tell Her to go die in a fire, and I'll be the first to do it."

" - well. Let me know if that gets to the point where it needs spellcraft."

"Will do. Now, you had some kind of crazy plan that involved invading Osirion?"

"Yeah, I need to check several of my assumptions with Keltham and convince him in some way that doesn't rely on reasoning about what Nethys and Cayden are up to but, uh, I think Asmodeus might be powerful enough to save Golarion, if He wanted to, and if His triumphant forces are in the middle of conquering it and also making huge corrigibility discoveries then, well, He'll want to. Is the broad outline. I realize this involves, uh, everyone you love dying horribly, but so does unleashing Rovagug, and this way could conceivably be temporary."