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Iomedae in the Eastern Empire!
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"Then I'll ask for volunteers. Will the Empire torture them? I'd want to let them know that when considering whether to volunteer."

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"They will be read by a Thoughtsenser while under extremely restrictive compulsions." Which is, you know, exactly what they did with him, so it would be surprising if Iomedae objected. "For extended sessions. Maybe deprived of sleep, definitely kept in not especially comfortable conditions." Altarrin really cannot complain about the conditions they've offered him. "I think some people would consider that close enough to count as torture, but if Mage-Inquisitor Kastil is in charge, which I expect, he is not additionally going to use pain or injury in the interrogations." 

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"What I do for suicide missions is I get a group of people together, and explain the justification and how I expect it to go and what it'll be like if it goes badly and what it'll be like if it goes right, and then ask them to write down, on a scale from one to six, how much they prefer to go on this mission, where one is 'they'd do it for the fate of the world but desperately hope it doesn't fall to them', and six is 'this is what they feel like they've been called to their whole life'. For something like this I'd hold out for sixes but I'll get some, once I talk to enough people. Which I cannot do until we take Urgir. 

 

 

Aroden does not consider Himself owed our cooperation with not making Foresight messy. There are pragmatic reasons not to throw sand in the eyes of our allies, but He didn't ask me to keep my head down and He's never asked anyone to stop inventing and discovering things. 

Some of the gods are worse than Him. But, hey - today we learned how to throw sand in Their eyes, and that's probably going to be necessary for the eventual operation to kill Them."

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So she noticed it was bothering him. 

She sounds sincere. And he definitely did not get the impression from Aroden's holy book that He was against mortals inventing and discovering things. They call Him the god of civilization. They make Him sound like the god of...what the Empire was supposed to be all along, what he was trying to aim for and failed. Altarrin was provisionally willing to trust Aroden ten minutes ago and it shouldn't change anything, to learn that Aroden perceives the world mainly in Foresight (that's how gods work), or that He prefers - even if just for pragmatic reasons - that Iomedae be a little less noisy. He's nearly certain that 'be less noisy' is the explanation for why Aroden didn't want Altarrin involved in any capacity in Iomedae's war. And Aroden told Iomedae to be conservative, which isn't not telling her to keep her head down... 

It still doesn't change what he should do in the short run, since that's mostly constrained by his (few) options, but - it feels suddenly much more like he's not safe here. (It's frustrating, if not surprising, that his hard-won emotional equilibrium is still so fragile.)

 

And none of that is Iomedae's problem. She has more than enough problems.

(Iomedae talking about killing the worse gods is - mostly something he can't even process, right now.) 

He takes a deep breath. "I understand. If you really do have volunteers who feel that sharing Aroden's teachings to an Empire that will almost certainly execute them for it - in a world without afterlives - is what they have been called to do their entire lives, I imagine they will at least be very convincing." And it's - more careful than he would be, probably, in terms of verifying that the volunteers weren't being coerced into this. 

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" - they'll get afterlives. I'm not sending anyone Aroden hasn't chosen, and the ones He has chosen He'll claim like He claimed me.

I wouldn't expect it to be about Aroden's teachings, really, for most of them. I'd expect it to be -

 - right now, the Empire likely believes that I betrayed our negotiations to mind control you and force you to come here. I could have done that. I would never do that. Because that's the situation they believe themselves to be in, they're going to be - sufficiently desperate, in a sufficiently dire situation as they understand it - that they might accidentally enslave their entire civilization.

My people will volunteer to save them."

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...Well, it's the sort of thing that would sell him on it. It's - not entirely different from why he Gated to Iomedae's world, actually, it's not a thought he could explicitly think when he was deciding - he had to ground everything in serving the Empire, put the emphasis on 'Iomedae will be very grateful and want us as allies and leave Oris alone' but...he wasn't, based on what he knew at the time, very sure if Iomedae would try to return to Oris and fight if her own war ended up taking weeks more to resolve.

It shouldn't be hard to believe, then, even if it sounds unrealistically good or like it's selected to be convincing to him personally. That feeling is…probably mostly just coming from being rattled about Foresight noise. And centuries of habit, but those are easier to override when he’s already off balance. 

“I understand,” he says quietly. “I– could I have a minute, actually? I have - less than pleasant associations with gods wanting to avoid noise in Foresight - I am fairly sure much of - the Empire not being what I wanted - is because the gods of Velgarth were pushing for it to be predictable to Them despite having more advanced technology. You have already given convincing evidence for why Aroden is different, just." Shrug. "It was startling to hear." 

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"Of course."

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Altarrin closes his eyes. 

 

This is not actually a new pressing reason to think he's in danger, he reminds himself. His safety might depend more than he prefers on not being inconvenient or costly to Aroden, but it kind of already depended on not being inconvenient to Iomedae or the Knights of Ozem, which mostly amounts to the same thing. And it's frustrating, feeling like he's not allowed to try to achieve anything he cares about because a god would be inconvenienced, but it's not that much of an additional limitation. It was already true that he lacks context to make effective plans here, it was already true that he needed to earn more of their trust in order to be allowed to use magic yet alone fight for them, and it would already have been risky to the crusade - and to Velgarth - to use him in the upcoming battle and potentially draw Tar-Baphon's attention and suspicion. It won't be forever. 

He still feels trapped, but...the place he's in is fine, actually. And if he's still this jumpy and easily shaken, he probably could use a couple of days of not involving himself in any emergencies, until he's had a chance to sort out his emotions and go over his decision-making, and can actually trust his own judgment going forward. 

 

Altarrin doesn't try to get all the way back to 'fully relaxed'. What if he starts crying again. It doesn't feel like he has a reason to but he wasn't expecting to randomly cry in the bath either. 

He opens his eyes, calmer. "...I am glad they will have afterlives, I was not sure if that was very expensive for him." And perhaps only worth doing for someone as critical as Iomedae, someone in whom Aroden had already invested enough that He couldn't afford to lose them. Altarrin vaguely suspects he's thinking about it wrong, there, framing Aroden's decision process in a way Iomedae would disagree with. "It - definitely increases how alarmed the Empire will be, if they are chosen by Aroden and granted repeated-miracles from Him, and not just followers of Him, but if they understand that going in..." 

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"There are those chosen by Aroden but not granted repeatable-miracles except healing and fearlessness. I think it may be expensive for Him, if the local gods oppose Him, and He'll - do it anyway, because - it would also be very expensive not to, in less tangible things. It's a cost that's worth paying under some circumstances, to be a leader who'll abandon your people not because you can't save them without losing even more of them but because it'd be expensive and you might have a better use someday for those resources.

Sometimes you have to do that. I do a lot of that. But I would expect Aroden to be willing to pay a great deal to not do that, and - He can afford to, what with how Golarion now has resources sufficient to beat back Tar-Baphon."

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Altarrin nods. 

(He has...some sort of feeling...about fearlessness apparently being a standard repeatable miracle. He wonders if Iomedae has that one. It would explain kind of a lot about her, actually.) 

"Can you return them to life here, at that point? Or is that too much of an additional expense? Would more diamonds help?" 

He also has some sort of feeling about the deaths on his own hands - the mages he sent to assassinate Iomedae, mostly - but Aroden has no kind of claim on them, and the Velgarth gods are unlikely to want to just hand over their souls for resurrection. 

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"With enough diamonds we could do that, yes. Much more cheaply with their bodies, if those aren't destroyed. 

- the fearlessness Aroden grants me is possible to share with my allies. It's useful in war. I haven't done it in your presence because - from your perspective it's not clear you ought to be unafraid. But I can, if you'd like."

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...Does he want that. 

He's - not sure. Iomedae does have a point, that he's not exactly justified in being unafraid, but...he's also probably not justified in being nearly as afraid as he is right now. And either way, it's not like being scared is helping. His safety doesn't depend on his own paranoia, right now. 

(That's - probably a lot of the sticking point. He generally can't expect to be safe except by his own actions and contingency-planning; he's really not used to grounding his sense of safety in - being under the guard of very powerful people who may not, yet, fully be allies, but who at the very least are definitely not incentivized to let anything happen to him. 

- but that's what he wanted, that's the entire reason he took this stupid gamble, he wasn't sure he could trust Iomedae's motives but he was sure enough to bet on it, to Gate to another world and let himself be taken prisoner. It's not gaining him anything, at this point, to nonetheless be afraid of her. It's not like noticing his uncertainty or making backup plans for the worst-case scenario relies on feeling scared, if anything he's better at it when his emotions are under control and he can think clearly.) 

 

"Is it - something I can decide whether to block out?" he says. "Or is it involuntary on my side?" 

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"It's a choice on your side. It makes it - easier to be unafraid, rather than impossible - I do have a version that makes it impossible but that one I only use in combat."

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He nods, slowly. "I - am not sure to what extent being afraid is justified, right now, but it is definitely not helping. I - would not mind if you shared the fearlessness, if I can choose whether it affects me."

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She smiles at him. The smile conveys, somehow, that it's a complicated world but one in which everyone and everything who wants things to be better than this is not alone.

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Altarrin leans into it, and - 

 

 

- it's not like the emotions-calming spell, which kind of shut down everything. It feels like, rather than the absence of an emotion, not-being-afraid is actually its own startling new emotion. It's like taking a step back and his hand finding a shielded wall behind him that he hadn't expected to be there; it's not the bad kind of surprise but it still manages to be weirdly disorienting. He has that strange dizzy feeling, again, of - not being quite sure what it means to be Altarrin, in a world where he isn't alone. 

It's at least a substantial improvement on the previous situation, where all of his thoughts were constantly being distorted, pulled toward negative interpretations, just by the background awareness that he can't Gate out right now, even though this is basically unrelated to, say, whether Aroden is going to crush him for being noisy in Foresight, or whether he can trust Iomedae's delegates. 

He lets out his breath. "Thank you." 

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"Of course. Have you eaten? Can I get you anything? Actually -" and she changes languages, though he can still understand her because he has Tongues up - "Marit, can you have someone bring Altarrin a Ring of Sustenance?"

And switching back to Jaconan, "It takes a week to have effects, but that's all the more reason to get it to you tonight. It means you can go without food or drink, and require only a few hours of sleep. I was wearing one when I died; they're very useful."

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"- I have eaten. The construct-servants are very helpful." 

Being offered a random powerful magical artifact is ALSO CONFUSING, though at least less startling with the fearlessness effect. He...should probably do something about the thing where he's repeatedly confused about Iomedae but he's not sure where to start. 

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"Aren't they just." She sighs. " - I am offering you a Ring of Sustenance because it costs less than a single one of the large diamonds you brought us, and if you decide - once you've had time to do some reading and talk to some people and learn more about our world - that you want to help with the crusade, that would be extremely helpful to me, and you'll probably recover sooner and decide sooner if you aren't living on rations and sleeping poorly in a city we just took by Miracle. I'm not seven hundred years old, some of my enemies are, and it's not something I underestimate. We would be very delighted by your help if you end up wanting to offer it, and it's worth arranging for you to have the chance to do that."

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It feels like they're having two slightly different conversations - like there's something not quite lined up, a gap he's not managing to cross. He's so tired. 

"Deciding whether I want to help you is not exactly a hard choice," he says wearily. "I already know enough to - make the bet that I can work with you and your people. I do not actually need to - entirely trust your motives, or be certain that your goals align with mine - to judge that I would prefer fewer people die in your crusade, and if I can contribute then I want to do that."

The difficulty here seems to mostly be that Aroden doesn't want him involved in planning because it makes a mess in Foresight. Which is understandable, now that he can look at it calmly; he certainly hated it when he was blocked from using mage-sight, and being unable to orient and make plans is probably not any less distressing for gods than for humans. For Iomedae, allied with a god and used to expecting His help in avoiding making mistakes, it makes perfect sense that this would be part of the tradeoff on making use of his abilities, separate from the risk of Tar-Baphon noticing it.  

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"....all right, then." It feels like there's something wrong, there, in this seven hundred year old archmage who has compressed his options down to 'help your crusade' or 'refuse' - Alfirin would approach it differently than that - but she's actually substantially impaired by the conversation with Aroden and doesn't know what to say that'd actually solve the problem. 

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Altarrin also has the sense that he's - still confused, still not looking at this from the right angle - he wishes he could borrow the headband, again, it feels like five minutes of conversation wearing it would be more than enough to make sense of Iomedae. It feels like it's probably not complicated, whatever he's failing to see or failing to orient to in the right way, it's just - unfamiliar. 

...Aroden is at the center of it, probably. Iomedae doesn't just follow Aroden, like people in Velgarth follow their gods; she collaborates with Him, and that feels...different...and like it shouldn't be complicated but he nonetheless doesn't really understand it. 

 

"Does Aroden often speak directly with people He has chosen?" he says quietly. 

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"No. It's - painful for mortals, and expensive for Him. We've spoken directly twice.

When - I was twenty-five, and trying to decide whether to launch the crusade, and I wanted Him to promise - that He understood, what I want, what I care about, and would never use me against my purposes. 

 

And when Arazni died. We tried a Miracle to fix it and that didn't work and I - asked Him how - how many Miracles it'd be - we used a Commune for that but He said "UNCLEAR" and that was pretty unhelpful under the circumstances so I, uh, yelled at Him, a lot, until He - said a bit more -"

 

Marit is frowning. He doesn't speak the language but he's presumably picking up that her speech is disjointed and that doesn't usually happen. :I want to push through a bit longer: she tells him.

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Altarrin has so many questions - there's a lot there that feels incredibly important to understand - and also he's not failing to pick up that Iomedae does not seem completely okay right now and her colleague is worried. 

"I am very curious about the first part but I am not sure now is a good time to ask," he says. "But you - I am not sure how one gets to the point of - even being willing to ask for a promise from a god." 

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“Well, that’s why it took until I was twenty five, He chose me at 15 and then I had to figure out if I could put weight on that or …not. He’s a Lawful god, the kind made out of commitments and possible for other gods to predict and trade with, but - not all the Lawful gods are safe for humans to try to trade with, because we aren’t ourselves the Lawful-god shape. It’s a narrower shape that is trustworthy in its interactions with beings not themselves trustworthy. Abadar, since that’s His whole thing, and Aroden, and I haven’t verified anyone else.”

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