"I don't have any plans to do so at present, I know my limits, but at the same time, if an entity existed that could do so without fucking up the whole plane in the process, I'd recommend they do it.  Because I know of exactly one hypothetically extant probably-beneficial-to-have-around-on-net tyrant qua tyrant, notwithstanding the Roman originators of the term, and Asmodeus is not Lord Havelock Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.  And I doubt he'd be himself in that particular way if he were in almost any other situation, but Ankh-Morpork is an absolute cesspit.  The local Thieves' Guild gives you receipts."

"It procures information by being connected to a bunch of other similar devices that people have entered information into.  Or possibly Bar, in this case.  Probably Bar, even, if we are disjoint from our worlds' times while the doors are shut.  ...Speaking of, I'll take whatever you'd recommend, I suppose."

"I'm not sure I'm the person to drive out Asmodeus either.  I have my own story in my own world that isn't finished yet.  And..."  She rumples her hair for a moment with a finger, and winces, remembering.  "I know that fighting a witch before you're ready doesn't go well, and I'm sure that it goes even worse with a god.

"What's this god of tyranny doing to you, Conrad?"

She turns to the Bar.  "Can you give me - stuffed mutton, like they were serving in the castle when I was a little girl?" 

To Jane, Bar produces a pizza sized for a single person, with pineapple tidbits.

To Lila, she gets stuffed mutton. It is frighteningly similar to the way the castle cooks would have made it.

Lila breaks out smiling at the first bite.  Then she blinks back tears, remembering.  And then, after several more bites, she's happy again.

"I see. It's like a library, then, except much more convenient. I would kill to get one of those." This statement is not as figurative as one might like, given that it's coming from an Asmodean. He covers his mouth to hide his smile.

"Asmodeus is definitely-beneficial-to-have-on-net. He's the reason why my country, Cheliax, can afford to give me magic education. Hm. Maybe it's a translation error. I have noticed that you two are not speaking the same language as me. Asmodeus is the god of civic order, education and training, promise keeping, and having a place in society that's yours. Cheliax has many more wizards per capita than any other nation on Golarion, and it is a point of great national pride. Especially since low-level wizard spells, like Prestidigitation and Mending, have immense economic value."

Demonstrating is probably better than explaining, he thinks. He takes the hem of his long robe and makes a half a meter long tear in it. 

"I'll show you one of the spells we learn early on. It's called Mending." 

He moves his hands along the tear and chants, and the tear stitches itself back together seamlessly, as if it wasn't damaged at all.

Lila stares in surprise at his description.  "Our god of tyranny didn't do anything like that..."

She's even more shocked at the Mending.  "I wish I could do that - Can it fix magic devices too?"

He smiles genuinely. "Yes, with caveats. If the magic item is damaged, but not broken, I can repair it normally using Mending. However, it depends on the 'power' of the item. A wizard must have power – we call it 'caster level' – equal to or greater than the object in order to repair it. Otherwise, it won't work. The usual rule is that if the wizard couldn't have made the object themselves, then they can't repair it. I'm still a wizard student, so there's barely anything that I can repair. If it's fully broken, then Mending can repair the item, but it loses its magical abilities. There's a higher-circle spell called Make Whole that works the same way, but can repair fully broken magical items and restore their abilities, but that's a second circle spell. I, sadly, am still first-circle."

After a moment, he adds, "I should clarify that spells on my world are sorted according to their complexity and casting difficulty: from first-circle to ninth-circle. There is a special category of zeroth-circle spells, which are called cantrips. I can cast cantrips and first-circle spells. You're not considered a real wizard unless you can cast at least one first-circle spell."

There is a possible angle here, he feels. "Is it that your enchanted ring is damaged? I noticed it with Detect Magic – this is a cantrip that reveals magical items and gives a hint to their function. I couldn't identify it, though."

"Asmodeus in a vacuum is horrible; I do not know enough about Golarion's overall situation to be able to do comparative theology off the top of my head.  ...And if Asmodeus is the only exemplar of those virtues I will eat my nonexistent hat.  There's an entire Lawful spectrum, let alone the literal Lawful plane.  If they don't practice evidence-based application of human resources, then they're not behaving in accordance with some pretty fundamental imperatives of life and intelligence, and I don't think that's a very Lawful thing, do you?  Not to mention that Asmodeus believes that your position in society is 'ground beneath someone's boot', if you have not proven worthy of being an instrument of his grinding others beneath you.  And that's not in line with promoting sapient flourishing, which I believe to be the most utilitative use of time for most sapients."

To Lila, she follows up on the offer of Mending: "...If your ring's magic is broken, I can very likely fix it, given time.  I'm good at making magic sit up and do tricks."

"No.  it's another thing - a magic crown.  It's back in my world, not all that far from the door really.  I don't know everything it can do - Fraddir was the one who really knew magic; he made it - but it could do a lot.  I tried to use it to fight the witch... but he damaged it.  A lot.  And me too.

"The ring's all I've got left, and it... well, it can make me invisible."

She purses her lips at Jane's speech.  "Er, well, I can imagine all sorts of Law that can work within themselves if you want them to and you don't care about being Good."

"...I am also very good at unraveling others' magic on the fly.  If this witch is still a problem...well, you have my sword.  ...Metaphorical sword, not an actual sword, but you have it."

"Sure, you can construct a whole bunch of systems of law to lead to whatever goal you desire.  Asmodeus's goal is a boot stamping upon a human face for eternity, and laws promulgated thereby, and the enforcement of said laws, are in service to that end.  Anything benefical that comes out of it, such as increased numbers of wizards...I highly doubt that such benefits outweigh the cost of the boot, which in this case includes rather a lot of torture."

"I don't know what you mean about evidence-based application of human resources, but that seems to me like what Asmodeus does in Hell. In Hell, which is the afterlife that Chelish people aspire to, we are-" tortured "trained to be the best versions of ourselves. Which is great. They don't do that in Axis."

Conrad has a non-heretical respect for Abadar, though he still thinks that Asmodeus is better, of course.

"Abadar also promotes civic order. He's Lawful Neutral. Very concerned about cities and wealth and trade. Although I am not so fond of his country. It's very sexist. Non-spellcaster women cannot hold property, and have a curfew. If they want to walk around during curfew hours, they have to have a male chaperone. Cheliax does not have that. And it educates both boys and girls equally. That's what Asmodeus being the god of-" slavery "education and training is all about."

To Lila: "I see. If you want, I could talk to my teachers to see if one would be willing to repair the crown. What properties did the crown have before it was damaged? And as for your ring...we have those in my world. Rings of Invisibility. Very useful indeed."

Oh my Abyss. They're going to be Good people with an aversion to torture, aren't they? Sigh.

"I don't really get the boot metaphor. Asmodeus does not have boot-stomping in his portfolio. Yes, we do do punishment. That's how you keep people in line and motivate them. Is that so bad?" Punishment is unpleasant, yes, but how are you going to get students to study harder otherwise? 

She jumps up, beaming, at Jane's offer.  "Thank you!  Barvid definitely is still there on his usurped throne - please come help -  I kept hoping someone would come save us, but I never imagined it'd be like this!"

"...Asmodeus is straight-up not a knowledge deity.  You cannot make the claim of Asmodeus being a deity of education and training with any seriousness.  However you are acting in the grand tradition of Asmodean trickery, so, good for you, I guess!  ...Abadar, you are not acting in line with your incentives.  Women being part of the economy means that there is more trade.  What the actual fuck."  She allows herself a facepalm, in between snarfing down pizza slices and sipping at her drink.

"Punishment is not per se an ineffective stimulus, but on an evidentiary basis, humans and humaniform personalities respond better to rewards, rather than punishment; positive rather than negative stimulus.  Punishment can especially have some severe failure modes of vicious cycles where you are punished for failing and recovering from punishment means that you cannot invest effort to succeed that would work if you were but able to do so.  And tyranny is in fact mostly boot-stomping."

...And this is clearly her Serious Business Face, as she sits up straight, attention turned to Lila.  "...Alright.  Tell me everything you know about Barvid, and I might need to fetch some specialist equipment but assuming that there's no sneaky immortality thing that needs hunting down...?"

What Conrad is saying sounds good, but it's like he's coming at it from a weird angle.  It's like you're teaching someone to read by talking about the artistic symbolism of the letters:  it might work, and the symbolism is there (just ask Reverend Pedmas), but that's not the important point.

"That sort of training's good.  Our stories should make us the best versions of ourselves - I mean, not just us, but everyone.  But there're better and worse ways to go about it... and if you resist, you're going to have bad things happen - well, if your story doesn't divert to a different sort of story entirely; I'm not sure how that works - but that doesn't mean the antagonists who make the bad things happen are Good."

"Barvid was a general in the kingdom of Liray before he vanished and - he must've gotten into witchcraft.  Now he's saying he's merged with the spirit of the ancient witch Nimrod; Fraddir says he couldn't really do that - dead spirits don't stay around, at least for us humans - but he's not sure.

"But he somehow got Liray's armies to follow him, and he conquered Maranon and killed King --"

Lila chokes on the next words.  She wipes some tears from her eyes, and then continues in a whisper.

"I'm the Princess of Maranon.  The Queen now, really - they did crown me; I took the Oath.  Barvid didn't know I was alive; nobody knew Fraddir and Selma had taken me in the chaos.  He'd put a spell over the whole country, to make it harder to fight him - but we could do it anyway, especially if he didn't know about us.  But now he knows, and he knows who I am, now that we tried to fight him.  With the magic crown Fraddir made.  That Barvid's broken."

Her voice drops even more.  "He killed Fraddir.  And he almost killed me."

"But I can, though. Knowledge is not one of the domains Asmodeus grants, but he cares a lot about training. I feel that your information-bracer is giving you bad information. You said that anyone can write to the library, no? It's probably a bunch of biased Good people writing the descriptions. You really ought better than to trust whatever comes out of the mouths of Iomedae's paladins," he says to Jane. It's taking a surprising amount of willpower to respond to them and not just eat the stew. It is so good, and he is so hungry.

He was about to retort by saying that Asmodeus gives out rewards for good performance too, although the reward for top performance in Ostenso was the privilege of getting to whip the lowest performing student. Which...was fun, but Good people have different tastes for what's fun and not-fun, most likely.

As for Lila, "Good doesn't mean doing good. Lots of Good people and gods have done terrible, terrible things. Sarenrae, a Neutral Good god, once smote a settlement of one of her followers. Asmodeus has never done anything like that. I wouldn't say that the Evil gods promote human flourishing better, but Asmodeus certainly does. Evil has to do with acting in your self-interest. Other people would say that's bad, but Good people have a nasty habit of assuming they know better about what would be good for you. The difference is that Lawful people are able to cooperate – they can bind themselves to promises and not act on something they previously agreed not to do, even if it might be in their best interest in that moment. Indeed, that's part of Asmodeus's portfolio. That's why He is able to coexist with the Good gods, which is something that no other Evil church has been able to do."

Oh. Oh. That explains the fancy dress and magic ring and magic hair. He's been talking to a Princess...er, Queen. Shit. 

He hastily gets out of his chair and kneels, with his head bowed.

"My sincere apologies, Your Majesty. I did not know that I was talking to a royal. Please forgive me."

The business about Asmodeus god of tyranny is now sounding like the bad part of politics.  She wishes she knew who to believe and what they aren't saying - she'll have to be able to figure that out, once she's back on her throne.

"That isn't quite what I've heard about Evil," she says cautiously.  "I've heard Evil tends to like to hurt people even when it isn't really in your self-interest.  Or is that another thing that's different with Asmodeus?"

"- And please, stand up, nobody's been bowing to me for years."  Except at her coronation, but that was for the ceremony.

"...If you would like a hug, Lila, I think I would like to give you a hug.  I give good hugs.  Supernally good hugs, even.  ...And I hate that I have to, pry, into this painful thing that's happened...but if you know anything about how that magic works, can tell me what defenses Barvid has, what tactics worked and what tactics failed...I need to know that, to plan a successful strike against him.  ...How did he even get the army behind him, did he bribe the generals, was it mind control, were they really pissed off at the King for some reason...?"  She seems rather uninclined to stand on particular ceremony, at least; she was a little bit surprised, but not very.

And to Conrad: "I said no such thing, and the particular source I am consulting is primary, the words of those who created the world of Golarion.  And don't fucking get me started about whether capital Good and capital Evil are lowercase good or evil, let alone the history of such, but Asmodeus cannot actually claim to be overall good for anyone but Asmodeus by any standard of the word.  Just lawful.  And laws, as we are all aware, are not actually morals.

"And yes, let's talk about self-interest and doing things to people 'for their own good', you sanctimonious propagandist, because you sure are having a wonderful little double standard where Asmodeus and his clerics making you fit his preferred shape is totally not the same thing as capital Good people deciding that they don't like torture and slavery!"

He stands up. Doesn't sit back down though. Him not showing respect earlier was excusable, given that Lila didn't arrive with fanfare. But it would be extremely rude to sit down again.

"That is one thing that's different with Asmodeus, Your Majesty. The non-Lawful Evil gods simply want to destroy or ruin. Urgathoa is the goddess of disease and gluttony, and Her cultists spread plagues in cities. Rovagug is the Chaotic Evil god of...well, ending the world. It took the combined forces of many gods, including Asmodeus, to imprison Him. Actually, nevermind. The other major Lawful Evil god, Zon-Kuthon, is also terrible. He's the god of envy and pain. They're just very into pain, for some reason. His followers castigate themselves and do other things to their bodies as obediences to Him. Asmodeus is only interested in pain insofar as it helps correct people, as punishment. Not for its own sake."

Hm. How to approach this topic in the optimal manner. "Yes, hurting people is Evil, as Evil means acting in your self-interest. But Lawfulness represents the spirit of cooperation and binding promises. The reason Asmodean churches are able to coexist with Good churches is because His followers obey the rule of law. If we say we won't do something, we mean it. I feel safe walking around Ostenso at night because Cheliax is Lawful." He feels like he's back at theology class again.

"Eh, as long as Zon-Kuthon's people don't hurt others who aren't Zon-Kuthon-ites, I don't care what consenting people do to themselves.  It's hardly my place to impose.  But nor is it yours."  She drops into an archaic register as she delivers what seems to be a quote, "Do what thou wilt, an it harm none.  And don't think that your dodge of 'how is Asmodeus deciding what's best for me different than someone else doing so' wasn't noticed, Conrad."

"I'll answer your question later, Lila. I think attending to Her Majesty's problem, which is affecting her whole kingdom, is more important. And I also noticed how you said that you were looking at the notes of the 'people who created Golarion'. Which, unless you're communing with Pharasma this instant, is impossible."

He bows slightly. "Please excuse us, Your Majesty. I would be honored to aid you in any way I could in your battle against Barvid. Is he a lich? I could also send a message to my superiors, if you think that you could make use of Cheliax's mage corps." 

"It depends on your interpretation of multiverse theory, Conrad, but I'm confident enough that my sources are about as primary as they've ever been, because they've given me no reason to doubt their accuracy yet, and they've pulled some spectacular shit off, over the years.  Regardless, yes, let's drop this, interesting debate, and focus on the thing that needs more immediate stopping.  Though I don't recommend recruiting Cheliax unless you fancy becoming a tributary."

"Yes, a hug."

She melts into Jane's hug.  It's a minute or so before she continues.

"He's got mind-control, on a small scale, in person.  I don't think - Fraddir didn't think - he could use it on a whole army.  It's got to be they were listening to their old king, or they were fine with conquering Maranon when they had a leader - that's what they said when they answered anything - or something.  They've become more cruel - not quite like those Zon-Kuthon-ites? - but that's what usually happens when you're dealing with witch-patron spirits.

"And... there were people who tried to assassinate Barvid.  But he has mind control.  Fraddir thought that was most of what he had save normal-powered witch magic - it would explain the low-powered spell on the country, and the chaos at the first battle, and pretty much everything.  So Fraddir built this magic Crown.  But it turns out that wasn't enough."