"I can put up Aura Sight. I don't know what you think it is, like, ideologically."

"At its core, good is wanting people to - be happy, to have things that they want for themselves, to not be hurt, to grow into their best selves. Wanting the things that you want for yourself, that you might have imagined that you are pathetic for wanting, but wanting them - in the general sense, maybe not in the particulars - for every person, everywhere. Does this make sense to you so far?"

It feels faintly ridiculous, like, you can't have one side of a geopolitical/deipolitical dispute just declare that they're the side that is in favor of everyone getting everything they want for themselves. 

"Lots of people want  - slaves. Glorious victories in battle over other people. Kingdoms."

"Yes, it's difficult for everyone to have everything that they want, because people's wants are often contrary to other people's wants. But - without getting into the complicated cases for the moment - A lot of people want simple things that there's no reason everyone can't have, at least in theory. Enough food. Peace. Love. Security. Beautiful things. To have their children survive and grow into adults. If you imagine that Good is the cause of wanting everyone to have peace, love, security, beauty, and freedom you'll be wrong but not very wrong."

Carissa looks somewhat skeptical that any of those are a worthwhile thing to want.

"Wizardry. Flight. - not having to fear Abaddon. I guess maybe I'll grant 'having your children grow up' except some people find they'd rather the brats die."

"It would certainly be good if everyone who wanted to be a wizard could be. If flight was so common that peasant children could get to try it at the county fair. Some people might wish their children dead but I think most prefer their children to live, if they have the opportunity."

"Nobody should have to go to Abbadon." She was kind of counting that as part of 'security' but she's not going to press that point.

"Then I don't know that we disagree except about - how important those things are? They don't really seem all that important to me. - Abaddon's important. But freedom and beauty and so on - don't seem very important to me."

A small smile.

"Well, in that case you're in luck I suppose. Because the things I listed as Good there - love, beauty, freedom - Iomedae's a Good goddess but she's not the goddess of any of those. She's not a goddess of nice things. She's the goddess of prioritization, of looking at the world with all its horrors and saying 'There will be time enough for love and beauty and joy and family later. But first we must make the world safe for them.' And not just safe from mortal war, and sickness, and crop failure. Safe from Evil, from the powerful forces that want to hurt people, to destroy them or enslave them or grind them into powder. Safe from Abbadon and the Abyss and Hell."

"Right, see, that makes sense. So what is the plan to fix those, then?"

She laughs.

"If you want the whole Plan that's a bit above my rank. Do you want my wild speculations, or should we skip to trying to verify your identity so you can come inside the city and speak with someone with a bit more seniority. Though the Lord-Watcher probably doesn't know the plans for the invasions of the lower planes either, unless they're a lot more imminent than I'm imagining."

"I assume step one was to break prophecy by faking Aroden's death? So that we could use Golarion as a staging ground without all the other gods seeing us? - probably instead of wild speculation we should do the identity verification. I do not actually know a convenient way to do it " having already admitted I can do tiny unnoticeable magic items of Misdirection and beat truth spells with Enchantment Foil. "- you could ask Aroden -"

"I assume so too, I thought you were asking about steps three and beyond. What spells did Iomedae give you today?" Someone else is already figuring out what to send to Aroden. Another someone else is presumably trying to work out whether they have any ways to get around all the magical trickery Sevar can do, plus whatever other tricks she (if she is lying) presumably has that she hasn't told them about.

"I asked for and got three of Adaptation for your dialect and an Owl's Wisdom for reflecting on what I learned here. - I also have two of those prepared as a wizard. And then Lesser Restoration." For recovery after her punishment, should it be permitted.

"All reasonable choices. It would've been somewhat more convenient if you had Paladin's Sacrifice, Iomedae's the only god who gives it to clerics. If you're still here tomorrow you should ask for one of those. In the meantime, please come with me, we'd like to ask you some questions in an antimagic field."

She's scared, but she's Chelish, so it's not really going to show. "Of course. - I'm not expected back for a month. I wasn't sure how long this would take and it didn't seem like something to rush."

It doesn't show, but Carissa's neither the first wizard nor the first Chelish person Tivath has talked to, she kind of expects it.

"Assuming you're telling the truth, we're not going to hurt you. Just ask some questions when we know you can't have glibness up."

"Everyone's been very concerned with not hurting and not frightening me, except Iomedae Herself who clearly thought it was fine if I had a terrible time so long as our goal was achieved, and it was by far the most reassuring thing about Her."

She will accompany her in, though.

"Saying 'We're not going to hurt you' is free."

"Aroden was insistent he wouldn't have tortured me even if I'd in fact just been spying for Hell or for Taldor, and you can't convince me that conveniently doesn't affect peoples' willingness to spy on him at all."

"I didn't say what would happen if you're lying about everything!

...It won't be torture, though."

This is the EXASPERATED FACE of someone who decided very recently she WANTS IOMEDAE TO WIN and is possibly STILL CONFUSED ABOUT WHY ONE WOULDN'T USE TORTURE TO ACCOMPLISH THAT.

"If we needed information from you, and were going about it in a hostile way, we have more effective ways to get it than torturing it out of you. I don't know if there's some other goal you're imagining torture would help us accomplish. It's not actually a very good tool for goals that aren't 'make people suffer'."

" - scaring people so they do what they're told?"

"If we wanted you to do something for us, and didn't do anything to convince you besides torturing you and promising more if you didn't help us, are you saying you wouldn't betray us the moment you had the chance to escape?"

"I wouldn't! I'm aware this is actually possible to conceptualize as a weakness of character, but - 

- I could've left, right. Once I hit third circle, if not sooner than that. I would've had - pretty good odds."