"Makes sense! I'll avoid speculating about it. I'm curious what other large-scale things your church does but we can talk about something else if it's going to be too hard not to get near secret stuff."

"Well, a lot of it's the same thing any cleric does-- healing, purifying food and water, counseling people who need help-- except we're particularly likely to do it by running a tavern. Which helps, you know, there are a lot of people who're scared to talk to a cleric of Sarenrae or Iomedae, but they can talk to the guy who runs the bar down the street. There's a network of Cayden Cailean clerics who know what opportunities to do good there are, and they can match you with something that would help-- not just clerics, we help out all kinds of adventurers. If you're an adventurer who wants to do Good and doesn't know how, it works very well to find the cleric of Cayden Cailean at the tavern."

"An excellent way for things to be. I wonder if there are a few of your taverns in Lastwall--on the one hand we need more churches like a fish needs Fireball, on the other hand the more different perspectives the better."

"I think there's at least one. Even paladins need to loosen up sometimes. I bet it's in the holy books somewhere."

"Yeah, there's absolutely stuff in the holy book about not going insane from stress. We just mostly have taverns run by non-clerics." She has actually read some of the sayings of Cayden Cailean in theology lessons, though not all of them because they're not particularly organized and mostly applicable to the kind of people who read them not-for-class. "They don't give adventuring advice because everyone who wants to adventure independently leaves the country, but they sell good beer."

"That's pathetic."

"What, beer? Oh, you mean sanity. Not surprised you'd be against that."

"Alcohol is unhealthy and self-indulgent and makes you worse at work. 'We need fun in order to not go insane from stress' is a rationalization so that you can allocate resources away from fighting for Good and still feel like you're ruthless consequentialists. At least Cayden Cailean's worshippers aren't trying to pretend to be minimally competent."

"So the thing here is, Asmodeans, maybe not the actual empowered church hierarchy but most of the other ones, only do what they're at that moment being threatened or tortured into doing. Whereas Iomedaens are often trying to do as much as possible, which means thinking about how to arrange their lives to maximize the amount they're capable of, and it turns out that doing something enjoyable once or twice a month increases how much people are capable of more than the couple hours a month decreases it, at least if you want soldiers who can actually think."

Tetula realizes her hands are empty and takes out her drop spindle.

"I don't want soldiers who can think. Thinking is their commanders' job. Soldiers are supposed to reliably do what the hierarchy tell them, and they have a hard enough time with that when they aren't intoxicated."

"Obviously I would never be drunk on duty. And obviously you can't have your soldiers think or they'd realize that being Asmodean sucks." (Samora didn't think to bring any spinning because she's usually patrolling and can't do all three of walk, spin, and watch for threats at the same time. Note to self, she should make sure she has something to do next time she pulls a day of medical tent duty.)

"Yes, their preference to drink instead of work is one of the many examples of the weakness of mortals."

"I just do fun things and it works out fine!"

"Not everyone is lucky enough to enjoy fighting demons." Samora is a very lucky person in a lot of ways. "In my experience you do have to think ahead to what you really want sometimes, and put off what you want in the short run for what you want in the long run, but I wouldn't actually be a better soldier if I never drank. Just because the ability to sacrifice fun for effectiveness is a virtue doesn't mean you can get out of actually looking at how much fun buys you how much effectiveness and only making the trade when the tradeoff actually exists."

"I don't actually like fighting demons very much, I don't like killing beings even if they're Chaotic Evil and, you know, going to try to destroy the world. But most of the time when you're patrolling you're not fighting demons, you're just walking. The scenery here is gorgeous. I make up games to help myself pay attention, like trying to see how many different kinds of bird I can identify. And it's really nice when you go back inside and take off your armor and warm your feet in front of the fire-- my toes always get cold when patrolling, even with Endure Elements, is that true for you guys?-- and drink a cup of warm spiced wine. So patrolling is basically fun. Nearly everything is fun if you think about it the right way. Maybe even killing demons."

"Yeah, the killing isn't the fun part. The fun part is--when everything slows down and it's like you know what's about to happen before it does and what the people to either side of you are thinking and you're completely focused on what's happening right here right now. And getting back inside and warm is great too. I always end up with cold ears, not cold toes, but--" she shrugs. "Who knows why Endure Elements does what it does."

"I usually only get that in the medtent."

"I'm with Samora. The moments where everything slows down and you're completely focused on what's going on and you know exactly what you're doing are one of the best things in life."

"I only get that way in the medtent when things are really bad and I'm having to bandage people and drag them around to get everyone in range for a channel before someone dies. Usually it's just wait around, do a channel, wait around some more. Which is definitely also satisfying but in a totally different way from combat."

"The joy of combat is that in combat incompetent people die, which is unlike other areas of life, where incompetent people continue to live and annoy you."

"What, no, allies dying just sucks. Even if you're evil and don't care about the people themselves, it sucks on a purely practical level. If someone was so incompetent that it wouldn't suck if they died then they wouldn't get sent on patrols in the first place. Anyway, everyone is incompetent until they get a few fights under their belt and figure their shit out." Samora would know; she was a complete idiot when she was a brand-new first-circle.

"...someone's idiot nephew wants to be a great warrior so he pulls some strings, gets sent off to the front, turns out to like whoring more than he likes drilling, gets eaten by a babau. Unlike in normal life, where someone's idiot nephew wants to be a cunning and ruthless leader and so forces six people with actual jobs to waste their time entertaining his delusions."

". . . That sounds like a Chelaxian problem."

"Cheliax is better than Taldor because occasionally the idiot nephews annoy their uncle and get executed."