but if—

Some people have heard about Carissa Sevar's supposed compact with Asmodeus, and even if you believe that, the compact definitely doesn't say anything about Carissa Sevar being able to save souls already in Hell.

but if—

There's no way that Asmodeus would ever allow it.  And there's no way that an ascended mortal could ever take Asmodeus.  Iomedae isn't that powerful, Irori isn't that powerful—

Not yet, but Iomedae is more powerful than She was six seconds ago.

Irori had always meant to accomplish such feats with the aid of His students, after inspiring others to also ascend.

There's even a ridiculous version of the rumor that has Carissa Sevar somehow doing something about Abaddon and the Abyss!  No respectably cynical person would ever let themselves be seen believing it for a second!

There's souls less lost than that, who frequent His taverns; the respectables can be left to their cynicism.

But it's really not believable!

It does not need to be believed.  Only to be heard.

...So the skeptics repeat it, they describe what it is they are skeptical about.  Thus the rumor is heard, and spreads.

And unlike most such rumors, it is concrete and falsifiable: it foretells a sign, which is the sky-lights of a godwar, and it names a day and hour.  Even those untrained can appreciate that kind of epistemic courage.

Don't believe it?  Fine, don't believe it.  Cayden Cailean is not a god of forcing people to believe things.  Only tell your friend (your friend, not the authorities, there will be many other rumors to reach spies alongside that one); say it to your friends in the same drinking session that recounts lewd stories of the orgiastic rites practiced by Sevarists in Kelesh; laugh about those stories, but laugh with them also about the story that names a day and hour to look up to the sky and hope.  You don't believe it, but surely many others do; and won't they feel stupid, come the day, ha ha?

Even a god as weak as Cayden Cailean can work a phenomenon like that on Golarion - for some short time before being caught - if He's willing to spend down His strength on it to the danger point, and sentence Himself to inevitable death for treaty-violations.

So almost nobody believes the tavern-rumor.

Yet many carry in their heart a burning coal that refuses to resolve itself completely and burn out.  And some such do hear that rumor, and think, in some tiny part of themselves:

But if—

And the rumor says that when that day and hour comes, Carissa Sevar doesn't ask you to promise her your allegiance or your soul in death, she doesn't ask that you turn away from your own god forever—

—only asks your best wishes, your faith, your hope, your prayer, only for a few minutes, if you lost anyone you loved to somewhere they'd rather not have gone, if there's anything in you for them that isn't full despair, if you read of Aroden and mourned His dream of a world better than this, know that even the gods have their trials and Carissa Sevar will soon face Hers; and all you can do for Her in Her trial is pray that She ascends, to harrow Hell and Abaddon and Abyss—

And then the day and hour comes, which few were fool enough to even mark,

When the awful light flickers again in the sky, visible even by daylight in those parts of the globe that hold day,

And a hundred million mortals who heard, who laughed, who scorned, who didn't want to feel even one spark in their hearts and be predictably disappointed later, look up, to the sky, and see—

Even then, they mostly don't believe it.
But it doesn't hurt much, doesn't cost much, to spend a few minutes in prayer, if it's true.

Because if—

Yet among those who felt a spark of hope even at the rumor, there is born then a blaze of desperation:

The replacement mayor of a town filled with justifiably sullen tieflings proclaims an emergency moment of prayer;

An emperor on another continent, who knows himself for damned, orders every major city within Teleport distance of his mages to worship Carissa Sevar;

A priest of Sarenrae from further yet who stayed up past midnight to see, now rings frantically the bell of Her temple, to summon Sarenrae's faithful to pray to a Lawful Evil goddess, just in case, just in case;

A nine-year-old boy, whose father told him his mother went to Hell, kneels by his bed and sobs for Carissa Sevar to save her;

His father is busy gathering cattle in to the fold, and he cannot delay in that work, but he weeps and prays to Carissa Sevar all the same.

It's all that almost everyone on Golarion can do, those mortals who know anything at all of what's happening, if they don't just want to stand and wait in the hour of their own doom.

Carissa Sevar finds the fragments of Herself / the fragments of herself find Her, and She is whole then, and a god.

It's with mixed emotions (perceived more clearly in their parts, Her parts, than ever before) that Carissa sees the gods have not done the last thing They might have done to stop Her, have not destroyed Absalom, or even Golarion, where it stood behind Her.  There was a sense in which that path being probable would have been a very bad thing; if that was an outcome expected by Nethys, Keltham and the others would not have attempted this strategy, and Golarion would have been destroyed by Rovagug. 

But also They are all off the path Nethys foresaw, as is even clearer from where She now stands; and perhaps Golarion could've been destroyed helpfully, not as Keltham's distraction but to preserve Creation. From what She knew when She ascended, it was possible. And She'd hoped for it, and it is not so.

She is reaching now for a glimpse -

- and then for a whole and stable view -

of the god-negotiated levels of the world -

- She sees how Nethys and Cayden and Milani have been twisting and bending those alongside the mortal layers of reality to bring them all here to this, and She doesn't see any ways out, now, though of course She looks -

The mortals are still praying to Her, empowering Her in a way that's injurious to their own interests on one level, and also part of a greater strategy that leaves the people of Golarion better off, and also asking Her to do something She deeply wishes to do but which is not in this instant Her first priority.

She spares little of Her attention to her feelings from Her other priorities, but even a little of a coalescent god's attention is a great deal, and She could not be coalesced if She was leaving parts of herself behind.

So Carissa Sevar mourns / and nods across time / and accepts a debt to be repaid -

And in mortal Absalom, the Starstone is visibly much diminished in size and brilliance; for Carissa Sevar has seized of it almost all the power that Aroden did not take for Himself, and nearly all of Achaekek's remaining energies beside.

Keltham comes forth, then, laid around with protective spells so that he will not immediately evaporate in Carissa Sevar's mere presence; and he lays his hand upon what remains of the Starstone.

NO.  Absolutely NOT.

In a way, Carissa Sevar is more aligned to Otolmens than any other god's purposes here.  Otolmens should have been allowed to squish Keltham, and everyone else should not have stopped Her.  And yet, straight through Her as a fact that does not change, an oath she swore / time-crossing decision that she made, standing halfway between mortal and goddess, because the alternative consistent pathways through time were even worse:

I will not let you destroy Him.

More and greater gods, then, answer with larger pieces of Their attention when Otolmens Herself adds to the call, for this whole business is becoming quite worrying.

Their blows rain down on the goddess Carissa Sevar, seeking to extinguish Her piece by piece wherever She shields Keltham.

Carissa Sevar is above all the greater goddess of survival at any price, and to extinguish any piece of Her own selfhood would take a divine effort more serious than this.