"When it looks like almost everyone who's been faced with a tradeoff has erred in the same direction, it's worth thinking about whether we might be making the same mistake. That's all."

"After the war, you want to learn a swordmage scaffold, drop on by and I'll show you. It's genuinely more flexible, for some kinds of spells!"

He shakes his head. 

"I would like that very much. But – is your plan to not let me watch you fight until then?"

"You can watch whatever you'd like! Tar-Baphon has certainly seen it."

Élie is reasonably sure he could just see whether Marit is doing is the standard swordmage scaffold or not after watching it enough times, which means Tar-Baphon probably could too, but that seems rude to point out. 

"Well, I'll let you know how much I can rederive." 

Marit doesn't prepare spells where anyone can see! He doesn't, in fact, think you can tell what he's doing by watching the spells go off! He's also not sure if there's even a standard swordmage scaffold or if all swordmages are doing their own thing. Tar-Baphon does not in fact seem to know exactly what Marit's deal is, though it's entirely possible this is because he isn't there in person and doesn't care very much about Marit. 

"Absolutely! It'd be very useful if most wizards could pick up spellstrike, even if they prefer to generally stay out of melee."

A spell going off takes six whole seconds, which is plenty of time to get a look at the scaffold. At least if you have good spellcraft. 

"Do you think the headbands – or amulets, realistically – would be a good use of my time while we wait on the teleport logistics to be worked out? You'd understand the constraints better than me."

"My guess is that your time is best spent figuring out how to make sure Tar-Baphon can't take you or Alfirin down even once he realizes everything depends on it, or a way to bind Tar-Baphon if we don't get lucky enough to render him unconscious on the battlefield, or a reliable way to do that."

" – Assume I'm taking reasonable personal precautions." Because Alfirin certainly is and he can crib from her. "The bindings you used the first time are primarily divine magic, not arcane. Some of the infrastructure around them is arcane, and I do have thoughts about how to improve it, but my best guess is that recreating the initial binding in a form I could cast would be a major undertaking."  

"We can bind him if we can take him down alive. But it makes me nervous that that sounds like - luck, the first time around. Maybe it was divine intervention rather than luck, but I don't want to count on it."

"I wonder if – hmmm. This is probably wildly inefficient and I'm not an expert in it by any means, but the first thing I'd try is seeing if I can adapt any of the techniques I know for containing interplanar rifts. I doubt I have any particular advantage at thinking up ways to knock out Tar-Baphon, but give me some time and materials and I can build a very strong box." 

" - containing interplanar rifts, huh. I guess that's something it could be incredibly important to know how to do."

"It comes up!" 

"That's a real shame!"

" – but what must you think of me. Here I am, sharing details of my past when I've hardly met you." 

"Oh, there's several possible interpretations, really, but one of them is that once you've solved all your problems you purchase luxuries such as 'bragging about how you solved all your problems'."

"I wish I could take credit for such prudence."

"You don't strike me as an incautious man, really. And you've said a lot here that you didn't say to Iomedae when you first arrived."

"Oh, I'm incautious by nature. If I have good judgement, it's only through bitter experience, and even then I'm a slow learner. Besides, now that I have power, I mean to forget my lessons just as soon as I can." 

"Huh. I mean, the best decision-level policy depends on your resources and constraints, but the best guiding policy is - the same no matter how powerful you are, or ought to be, right -"

"When I was fifteen, I didn't allow myself to think about my beliefs or values except for one hour once a fortnight determined by a dice roll. Obviously, that's not how I want to live my life as an adult. You could say I have the same guiding policy, which suggests different actions now that I have different resources, but it's more natural for me to think of the thing in terms of which habits of mind I choose to cultivate – and I very much prefer to cultivate the habits of openness, now that I can afford to." 

"I think the most natural framing for me is - one set of priorities, different constraints. But that's probably picked up off Iomedae, who is of course trying to do a very specific thing that isn't what everyone might want."

"I didn't bring up my childhood because I want sympathy. It's just that it's quite hard to think clearly about what one's priorities should be when one can only consider them for one hour every two weeks. Obviously most situations are less extreme, but I believe the point generalizes. When one is always in the habit of looking for plots, and wondering whether one's friends are really one's enemies, then one tends to find plots and lose friends. Whatever the truth might be." 

Marit thinks that you just solve this by being, or arguing with, Iomedae, who has made herself entirely of the question what one's priorities should be, but he's noticed enough about their guest to guess that he'd find that profoundly the-opposite-of-reassuring, so he just nods, and wishes him good luck with that, and departs the paladin-baiting to get back to work.

Yep, Élie does not find it especially reassuring when followers of Iomedae pull that one! 

But Iomedae had to get it from somewhere, right? So he's going to teleport to Absalom and see if he can't find a temple of Aroden.