The young woman with a brightly shining aura of Lawful Good arrives outside Vigil by Teleport (from a scroll) in the midmorning about a month later.

Carissa is dreading this. Also looking forward to it! She expects to be wildly more competent at the end of it, and that's - the point of doing things at all rather than hiding under a rock and hoping to not be worth killing. She is not actually worried that Iomedae's church will execute her over the objections of their own god, or for that matter that they'll hurt her in any respect that leaves her weaker. That would be stupid, and Iomedae's church isn't going to be stupid. She does expect that they will be wildly unimpressed with every single decision she has made in her entire life, and in a hurry to make her into a competent servant of their god who isn't so much of an idiot, and this is an aim she intends to cooperate with entirely but that doesn't mean she doesn't find the prospect daunting. 

In a church of Asmodeus you wouldn't have the interview for something like this in a torture chamber unless the subject was a flight risk, even if the subject very obviously was going to require correction right afterwards. The interview would be conducted in a comfortable office, between civilized people, with guards at the door lest anything become uncivilized. Which it won't, because Carissa is well-behaved and loyal and valuable and here to be corrected.

The Church of Iomedae has much less of a file on her, of course, and might feel less interest in compromising security for civility's sake, but she's here voluntarily, that has to count for something. ...she should've brought her old file, is what she should have done. Presumably the Church of Iomedae and the Church of Asmodeus value somewhat different aspects of a person, but it'd still be a useful starting point for her file with her new Church. Not one that makes her look particularly good, necessarily, but hopefully one that makes it clear she takes correction well.

She doesn't have it, though. She'll just have to explain everything herself and not think too much what kind of file they're drawing up except to make sure all the obvious things they'll need to put in it are there.

"Please state your name and business and present your passport if you have one."

"My name is Carissa Sevar. I am a second-circle cleric of Iomedae and am here to learn ...who Iomedae is and what She wants. I do not have a passport."

They get a lot of Chelish people these days seeking catechism but this is the first one they've had that's...already a cleric of Iomedae? The aura checks out -

"Do you know your current alignment?"

"I Atoned to Lawful Neutral on the third of Erastus and got chosen on the fourth. I don't have a way to check now but it's not as if I have been doing a whole lot of Good since then and if I hit anything else She'd have to drop me so presumably I'm still Lawful Neutral."

Come to think of it it's kind of remarkable she kept Law. A lot of spies don't. Though she was - doing her very best to obey her god, which is a pretty Lawful thing to do even if your god commands you in things that are arguably crimes. Right? - this is among the matters on which she will seek instruction. 

"We've sent for someone more senior to talk to you. You can either wait here or come inside and wait in the guardhouse. The guardhouse is under forbiddance so I expect you would prefer to wait here."

It probably wouldn't literally kill her. Probably.

Does everyone in Lastwall who isn't powerful enough to register an alignment still know that they're still Lawful Good because otherwise their own buildings would scour them from the world? That's pretty impressive. She's surprised Cheliax didn't work that way - well, maybe Egorian did, how would she know.

"I'll wait here. Thank you."

Some time later a young woman, about Carissa's age, comes out to speak with her. She and one of the other guards carry out a pair stools, and set them in the shade of the wall.

"Believe it or not, we don't get a lot of totally uncatechized clerics. In point of fact, you're my first. What domains do you have?"

"- that's a really good question. I don't know. Do I have to - pick them deliberately - I may have just failed to do that because I didn't think of it -

- I am sure it's Iomedae and not someone else because She appeared to me in person and Aroden recognized Her and said it was Her."

"...what? She appeared to you. In person. And Aroden said it was Her. Can you start from the beginning?" She had been planning to make small talk and verify Carissa's clerichood before digging into how she wound up a cleric in the first place, but if Carissa brought it up and... it sounds like there's quite a story there... she should maybe just get to it.

"I know that that's not supposed to happen! I'm really sorry about it!"

- from the beginning. Carissa is not incompetent and can obey orders. 

"I'm a fourth circle wizard. I served three tours at the Worldwound. I was Lawful Evil. On the third of Erastus I atoned. On the fourth of Erastus Iomedae chose me. Not while I was praying, actually, while I was contemplating whether, if I did save up to get the people I'd sent to Hell out, that'd mean there were fewer people in Hell or just that more was being spent on diamonds, of which there's only so many. 

I hadn't been going out or talking to people since the regime change, except for the Atonement, which I flew to as a gas with a Nondetection up. There were paladins in the streets and I wasn't sure if they had orders to arrest Evil people on sight or not. There were a lot of rumors and it was hard to know which you were supposed to believe and it's particularly dangerous to die confused about who you work for, right. I wasn't even entirely sure that Iomedae's church was allowed under the new government until I went out after I'd gotten the Evil off and saw the holy symbol on the old downtown church. I went in and got a holy book and read through about the part where Aroden sends Arazni to help with the Shining Crusade and - I didn't really think I understood, honestly, what Iomedae is about, it felt like I was missing something -

- and then the visions started. A man's face, and a sense of - intense curiosity and great importance - the man doing magic, walking around, laughing, with another man...

- it's expensive for the gods to speak to us. I wanted that to be - sufficient, I didn't want Her to have to waste more resources giving more specific orders. So I went around trying to figure out who the man was, and whether anyone else was getting the visions, drew portraits and showed them to people -

It was the Crown Prince. Aroden's heir, who people say is his son, though people say all kinds of things most of which don't make any sense. The sorcerer from the other world. 

So I figured that Iomedae wanted me to learn more about him.

I took all my magic items to pieces to make myself Nondetection and Glibness - it's not a wizard spell but stabilizing things in magic items is easier than stabilizing them as spells, right - and I used my cousin's test scores which were much worse than my own to get a laundry job at the new palace in Westcrown and I reached out to an old acquaintance for the spell Enchantment Foil and bluffed the Zone of Truth for new hires. And then I, uh, got a plant familiar of a similar species to the plants that were used for decor in the palace and designed a custom magic item of Nondetection so he wouldn't show up as a living being and I got updates from my familiar about all conversations happening in the Mage's Private Sanctum'd conference rooms of the palace. ...this is known to His Majesty, now, I'm telling you nothing presently secret, though I think he's leaving it to Iomedae's Church to figure out how to punish it. 

I planned but didn't go through with an operation to sneak over to Velgarth, the world Leareth is from.

I befriended and questioned a Velgarth native eight year old girl.

I got a second cleric circle from Iomedae, in the middle of this, so I figured I was on the right track, though most of the things I learned were about past events, nothing like that the Crown Prince - Leareth - nothing like that he was a danger to Cheliax or to Aroden. I thought I might be expected to assassinate him but it seemed barely conceivable I wouldn't be executed if I completed my mission whatever it was successfully and then surrendered to report it, and that seemed much less likely if I'd prepared and smuggled in the means to assassinate the Crown Prince, so I didn't. - I could have. I can do Slaying and Greater Slaying arrows as little pins that fit in your hand.

I learned how his kind of sorcerer can see the presence of people, and Batty - my familiar - appeared dead - that was their hypothesis, dead rather than 'subject to a good Nondetection' - so I started developing a magic item based on Misdirection to make Batty look like its neighboring cactus friends instead, and I made one for myself to make myself look like the other servants."

She's taking notes.

"You know that's - never mind, finish your story, I'll save my thoughts for when you're done."

"I assume I did a lot of things wrong and I desire to serve Iomedae better and I will happily submit to the correction of the Church," she says very seriously and then keeps right on going. 

"On the second of Arodus I got caught. All of the magic precautions actually worked flawlessly, but" (resentfully) "the Pharaoh of Osirion is very perceptive and even with Glibness up he told His Majesty he was suspicious of me and then His Majesty tried to mindread me, which failed, and - doesn't usually fail, right, he's an archmage - and then He had me arrested, and very gently questioned, and - no one had explained anything to me, though they were astoundingly civil in their lack of explanation - I assume Lastwall being a functional state with a real government would've in fact taken me to pieces but Aroden's not scared of anything, He's Aroden, and He was beginning to suspect the reason I was there - 

- and then Iomedae showed up - well, I'm sure all She did was make it look like She was there, but - it looked like She was there, and it was impossible to be afraid. Aroden had just been saying that He was going to go to Heaven to yell at Her, and She said this was, actually, cheaper.

I don't know anything about the faith of Iomedae but I know you're not supposed to screw up your gods' instructions so badly they have to show up and offer additional ones. I - I told Her She shouldn't, that I shouldn't be indulged in weakness like that, and She said She was there for Leareth.

Who had, at the start of Erastus, asked Iomedae to use Her abilities to see the hearts and minds and priorities of everyone in Cheliax to find him a wife. A Chelish wife, because no one else understands what you're even trying to undo. And She looked at all of the possibilities, I suppose, and sent me a vision, and Aroden and Leareth had guessed by then that that's why I was there but were hesitant to tell me, lest I - take it as not a choice - and I said I wasn't worried about that because he wasn't stupid - 

- there's no point in taking a wife who doesn't want to be there, right. Obviously he could've fucked me if he wanted, and that was among the strategies I was considering to get more intelligence on him, but the only reason to marry a woman who hates you is for a strategic alliance with her family, and mine aren't nobles! If you ask a god to find the best woman to marry you you're obviously not looking for the most entertaining thing to chain to your bed. ...also Leareth and I are both barely up to Neutral but Iomedae's Lawful Good, right? I'm not going to be precious about whether his girls want to be there but I don't really expect Iomedae will help out when that's what he's in the mood for. She was a paladin when she was human! Paladins hate sex!

- anyway. I asked Her why the roundabout method and She said that if She'd asked I'd have considered it and decided to obey her, and that this was better, we'd like each other better for it and be happier. And I asked if Leareth was up to anything I had been supposed to discover and She said "He has a long and complicated history and he is as worthy of you as anyone can be, and you'll be safer with him than anywhere else, and it will be good for the world, and maybe for the whole universe."

And I said "Is being your cleric always like this."

And She said, "I don't think it would be good for your ability to run a country if there were this much drama all the time. 

But if it was going to be good for your ability to run a country, then, yes, it would be."

And I said that I - hadn't even succeeded - and She said that She'd have sent help, if She needed me to overthrow the government of Cheliax, and that the thing She'd wanted, I'd attained. Which was, presumably, Leareth being impressed and intrigued, which he was. But it didn't seem responsible to agree to marry him on the spot so I asked for a month to learn about Iomedae, and was granted that, and then I came here. - I'm almost definitely going to marry him but I thought I'd seem awfully naive if I agreed without even knowing what Iomedae is about."

"...Oh. OK. To start, it actually sounds to me like you handled all of that well and - usually one of the first things we want to clear up with ex-asmodeans is that nobody in Iomedae's church is going to punish you for making mistakes, and we're not going to torture you no matter what you do. I - or realistically probably someone more senior than me - can teach you our church's policies and best practices for doing good in the world, but you're not going to be punished for not knowing already, and if you would rather serve good in your own way, you are free to decline those lessons. They'd be advice, not commands. If you would rather not serve Good at all, if you would prefer to just live your life on your own terms, you're free to do that too - I don't expect that is what you want, because Iomedae does not usually choose as Her clerics people who don't want to do good, but it's an option you have, that a lot of Chelaxians have taken, that I think you might not have known that you have."

"That doesn't really sound appealing at all - most of them are scared and keeping your head down is smart when you're scared. But I'm not scared because things really kind of can't get more ridiculous and it'd be pretty pathetic, at this point, to decide I'm not going to do any Good unless someone threatens to kill me about it. 

- and like you said, Iomedae wouldn't've chosen me. And I'm really glad she did.

I think I need to learn your rules because unless I'm going to be secretly Hers I'm going to be the most prominent person in Cheliax who is, so I need to do it properly. And probably your rules ...work...or you'd have different ones? 

I am confused about how a church hierarchy functions if no one in it commands other people in it. It sounds....chaotic."

"The church hierarchy is in fact a hierarchy, and people in it get orders from their superiors. But you're not in it yet. You'd probably be welcome, if you decided that was your calling, but if you're accurately representing yourself here you haven't sworn any oaths to Iomedae's church. Don't go and swear any oaths about it right now, of course, it's a big decision and one that you should think carefully before making, and it sounds like you have some other big decisions to make and it's considered unwise to make too many momentous choices too close together."

"- Iomedae sometimes picks people She doesn't want in Her church hierarchy? I guess it might be geopolitically awkward in my case."

"Well, usually She picks people who are already in the church hierarchy, or planning to enter it. But sometimes She chooses people outside the church who She expects will do good with the powers granted and in those cases they don't always join the church after. The queen of Mendev, for example, is one of Her paladins but is independent of the rest of the church."

"Right. Okay." Carissa has only heard bad things about Queen Galfrey of Mendev but that could be Asmodean propaganda. "I probably don't want to join under the circumstances but I will in any event not decide immediately. 

I do - want correction from the Church regardless because I want to get better at serving Iomedae."

Lieutenant Tivath has had a lot of practice being comfortable when ex-Asmodeans ask for 'correction', and she's gotten better, but she still doesn't like it. And by the standards of urban Chelaxians she's downright atrocious at hiding it.

"Of course. Do you want guidance on theology or on practical matters like how best to infiltrate the court of Cheliax? I can help with the former, but if you want the latter you're going to have to wait for someone who knows what you did wrong. You did better than I would have, in that situation with no help."

"Theology! I'm not really planning to do more operations like that. It was very expensive and fairly stressful. Am I supposed to be requesting it with some other phrase."

"No, that works, I was just unsure because your story was more eventful than most people's. I can start with the basics, or you can tell me what you think Iomedae's deal is and we can go from there."

"She and Asmodeus don't get along and She claims She's going to win and two months ago that didn't look very credible but it does now. She is specifically down on Hell. She cannot use people who have gone to Hell and been shaped to Asmodeus's purposes for very much Herself.  

She was Chelish, and human, and fought Tar-Baphon and ascended, but this is actually surprisingly little of Her deal, they're not preaching against necromancy all that much. 

She gets along with Aroden. She was a paladin of His.

She, and Aroden, and everyone who works for both of them, is really against torture."

"OK. Do you know what good is?"

"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."

"And why didn't you?"

"I thought Asmodeus was going to win."

"So you didn't think it was really a chance to escape. And how long was it, again, between realizing that Asmodeus' victory wasn't inevitable and deciding to work against Him?"

"I don't know that I had actually decided to work against Him when Iomedae picked me. - I guess I was trying to get people out of Hell. But only because I thought they'd do better somewhere else, if there were going to be anywhere else.

I'm not planning to run out on Iomedae as soon as it looks like selfishly a bad idea for me to serve her, or as soon as She can't make me. The palace operation wasn't - selfishly a good plan for me - I expected I'd probably die horribly."

"I didn't think you would. Because She has more going for Her than a threat of torture." They're there. The room with the antimagic field is a prison cell. Tivath goes in first.

There really isn't that much to be scared of. She is Iomedae's, it'd be wasteful for Iomedae's church to kill her, and Aroden'd notice eventually and be annoyed with them.

She knew, when she was coming here, that she was putting herself in the power of her goddess's church, because she wanted them to improve her. It is stupid and pathetic to have reservations about plans you've decided to embark on. 

It isn't as scary as Aroden. Somehow, though, instead of the sensible thing where nothing else will ever be scary in comparison, it's like the fact that happened yesterday is making this worse. Mortals really are contemptible.

She'll follow. 

There's an inquisitor present, outside the antimagic field, who asks Carissa to repeat the story of how she came to be Iomedae's cleric and the future queen of Cheliax. He interrupts somewhat frequently, to ask for clarification about some details, from her visions or Iomedae's appearance to the particular species of her cactus familiar. At the end he asks if she's been lying or trying to mislead them at all.

She hasn't! That seems like a terrible idea!

If they let her out of the antimagic field she can do an illusion of what Iomedae looked like. She looked like a Chelish woman, older than Carissa but not old, dangerous and stubborn and proud and quite pretty but not at all in the way every pretty person Carissa has ever seen was pretty. She has more descriptive vocabulary for the armor. 

After the questions she can come out of the antimagic field and do the illusion, and cast one of her cleric spells (It doesn't matter which one), and channel positive energy (The inquisitor cuts his left arm to enable this).

Illusion!

Channel! Lesser Restoration what with how it's the only spell she prepared that couldn't technically be a wizard spell (though it should look different, and she's not making the gestures to cast it as a wizard.)

That seems to satisfy him. They would like to assign her a liaison while she's here, does she want Tivath or someone else?

She likes Tivath and has no reason to prefer anyone else.

(Those things she finds frustrating about Tivath are probably just Good things that no one has yet managed to convince her are correct and that everyone else in Lastwall will also do, like the not torturing her.)

Excellent. In that case he has new orders for Tivath, and a passport for Carissa, and the standard warning not to go any unauthorized places in Vigil, because there are forbiddances up and also trespassing is sometimes a capital crime.

As it should be. 

Carissa will take her passport and go wherever she is next expected and it's kind of ridiculous that she still feels nervous, after everything. Iomedae wouldn't feel nervous. ...because She was a paladin and literally incapable of fear. Is it a precept of Iomedaeanism that you are supposed to be like her and not feel fear? Now that Carissa thinks about it it seems like a reasonable precept for a religion.

There's not actually somewhere in particular she's expected right now. Given her questions and future position she has an appointment with the Lord-Watcher but that's hours away, the Lord-Watcher is a busy man. If Carissa wants, Tivath can also put in a request for a meeting with someone in the civilian government in Vellumis.

She should probably plan to spend a week in Vellumis but later once she is more fundamentally oriented about Iomedae and what Iomedae wants her to do. She has - a big gap in her present understanding of what Iomedae wants her to do, where Iomedae's interests are obvious at the level of analysis "have people obedient to Iomedae running prosperous and powerful countries in such a fashion as to produce Iomedaens" - any reasonable being would want that - and obvious at the level of analysis "conquer the Evil afterlives" - but pretty nonobvious at any intermediate levels. Presumably the people in Vellumis will know things about how Carissa should run a country so as to produce Iomedaens and if that's all Carissa is supposed to do then it's certainly enough to keep anyone busy but if there's - more - then she should go in knowing what it is, and she doesn't. 

...she'd also like to know things about the Lord-Watcher. She's not here with the aim of not embarrassing herself, she is ignorant and won't fix it while concealing it, but she does want to not cause a diplomatic incident in her ignorance.

About the position, or about the man in it?

The position is presumably 'Queen' except Lastwall calls it something different. The person whose word is law. ....if that is false then maybe she also wants a description of the position. But she meant the man.

Well it's not quite that simple. Lord-Watcher Zima is head of the army, not the state. His word is not law in civilian matters, and even in military matters - Lord Zima is probably in many ways much more constrained in what he can order than was Carissa's last worldwound garrison commander. Lastwall has the concept of illegal orders.

As a person - well, Tivath doesn't really know him personally so she's just going off mess chatter and what she can see of how well Lastwall's been run since he got the job - He's a crotchety old bastard, stricter than most commanders, but he's good at what he does. The joke is that he would've been a paladin, but they're required to have fun once a month and he couldn't stand that. He's less charismatic than you'd expect, whether you're imagining a head of state or a great general.

"What is an ...illegal order, if it's not an order your bosses' boss will get mad about, which wouldn't seem applicable here."

"I suppose you could think of it as an order the boss' boss will get mad about, if you say Iomedae is lord Zima's boss. But - She'd be very disappointed in us if She had to directly intervene because Zima was running around giving illegal orders. What we have is a set of rules and laws that the Lord-Watcher cannot just change by fiat, that we are supposed to follow and prioritize above any orders from our officers. The central examples are things like - don't murder civilians, don't torture prisoners - It doesn't come up very often, that someone in the high command gives an illegal order, but the reason it doesn't come up is that we all get lessons on how to recognize one and the high command knows that the order wouldn't be obeyed."

And Zima has a separate staff for when he needs to torture people or murder civilians, got it. So the paladins can keep their hands clean. 

" - are paladins really required to have fun once a month."

"Yes. It's considered to be unhealthy and to impair one in the long-term if one is always laboring for selfless Good and never doing anything for oneself. And it's an easy trap to fall into, for paladins, so among the duties that a Knight of Ozem has is to enjoy themselves occasionally. Less than once a month is the point where they start getting censured, many Paladins have more fun than that."

"Have you tried...finding your jobs fun...so you don't have to pick something else up on the side?"

"There's a temptation, if you are too invested in finding your work enjoyable for its own sake, to deluding yourself about whether something is really the best-for-the-world way to spend your time if it's the sort of thing you find intrinsically motivating."

" - that's why you have your superiors decide what you work on instead of deciding it yourself and picking something you like that doesn't serve your god at all."

"Yes! That is why I am guarding a gate - well, now I'm a liaison officer, but yesterday I was guarding a gate. I have tried to find the intrinsic motivation and deep fulfillment in guarding a gate, and as far as I can tell it's just not there."

"Shoulda been a wizard. I loved my job even at the Worldwound and loving one's job was not especially common there." - there's more to say about that, but she suddenly finds that that, of all things, feels like betraying Cheliax to complain about. She regrets nothing she did to fight the Worldwound and resents nothing done to her there.

"I don't think I'd have been a very good wizard. Too wise, you see."

"Nefreti Clepati is a wizard and a cleric both. I have been thinking I will sneak into her tower and copy whatever it is she's doing."

"Nefreti Clepati in one sense has wisdom in spades, and in another equally important sense has none at all."

Carissa had formed a firm intention to not share with Lastwall any of the actual things learned through espionage and that means she cannot tell anyone that Nefreti Clepati and Aroden have a Complicated Relationship Of Some Kind even though this is some truly incredible gossip. 

She endeavors to not even let slip that she is tempted. She'll probably succeed, everyone here's very - something. "Oh, I figured she was in on it and only pretending to be crazy," she says, this being what she figured before she learned any secret things.

"I continue to be a junior officer who was not, personally, in on it, and if I were in on it I would not give up my co-conspirators so easily.

...But, also, I think she's probably sincerely crazy. The high priests of Nethys tend to be."

"I don't really know much about any other gods. I was at a big fort that got foreign adventurers - assigned there on purpose, because I can make anything I've gotten a good look at - but I avoided asking questions about religions. I know Nethys is the mad god of magic and that's about it."

"He's supposedly omniscient, and his high priests are also a little omnisicent and a little mad. And sometimes also ninth-circle wizards."

Carissa thinks that trade is worth it and she bets that Iomedae doesn't want her to make it so she won't. Grudgingly. 

"...I don't think Nethys hands out wizard circles, so much as picks clerics who are or will become powerful wizards."

"Oh I figured there's some line of ludicrously dangerous magical research that if you're clever enough makes you both go mad and attain new heights of power. I am all right with attaining my power the slow way by surviving lots of assassination attempts, though."

"No, I think the madness comes with the cleric circles. Nethys-spelled-backwards wasn't a wizard at all - He was the high priest in Iomedae's day, I don't know how his name is pronounced, I've mostly just seen it in writing."

"I further know almost nothing about the Shining Crusade, except that it won. ....and involved a lot of werewolves?"

"...It...might have? Ustalav has a lot of werewolves today, I wouldn't be shocked if it also had a lot of werewolves then... but no, the crusade was mostly against undead and I can't recall any mentions of werewolves. I wonder why Geryon picked that one."

"- I once made some frankly limb-endangering personal decisions with a very scary Hellknight in exchange for the opportunity to see Heart's Edge, and it's not undead-bane."

...

"Heart's Edge is being held by Hellknights? - Or maybe not anymore, but - where?"

Ha, great gossip that she didn't learn through espionage against the current regime at all. "Used to be at Citadel Dinyar. They're Iomedaeans, aren't they?"

"If you stretch it. They are - were - dedicated to containing the worldwound, which was one of Iomedae's interests among many, and decided to declare themselves to be followers of every god with an interest in containing the worldwound regardless of how little those gods might otherwise have in common. How did you get to see Heart's Edge? They weren't exactly being public about holding it."

"Half of my job was to flirt with adventurers who had fancy magic items so they'd show me the fancy magic items, and they couldn't take it too far because of the Worldwound treaty. So this guy likes me, right, and he was impressed at how fast I recognized all his stuff, and after a while he says he bet I couldn't do it for an artifact. And I thought, well, that's not an opportunity I'm about to pass up, let's get ourselves contract devils.

So, the guy bet me that I couldn't, in less than half a minute, identify all of the magical properties of a major artifact without any magic aid - I didn't have to take my headband off, and I didn't have to give up my armillary amulet, but the point wasn't for me to go around scrounging up good wine and heroism and so on, anyone can do impressive things they get to cheat at. The deal was he could check that I had nothing up and was wearing nothing, and I could cast Arcane Sight, take a look, and if I correctly identified every attribute of the major artifact in less than half a minute, then he bought me a nicer headband - I had the weakest sort. And if I missed any I became his slave for life. - it wasn't much of a gamble, I knew I could do it."

Tivath stops walking in the middle of the street and blinks stupidly.

"Aren't there artifacts that specifically - hide how they work - "

"There are artifacts that try.

- to be clear, I don't think it would've been a sure thing against literally every magic item any god has ever crafted. But - it's not as if the guy's order had lots of secret major artifacts and he could pick the one I'd do worst on. I was more worried he'd found some other way to cheat me in the contract, but," fondly, "he hadn't. He just laughed and said it'd been worth the shot and paid up."

Some hours later, the Lord-Watcher has half an hour free for Carissa, if she doesn't mind talking over dinner.

Dinner, it transpires, is in his office, and consists of cold sandwiches and a bottle of wine.

"Do you eat? Drink?"

"....yes, Lord-Watcher." Is it a trick question? Oh, probably people as important as them usually don't eat, because a Ring of Sustenance is worth it for the less time spent vulnerable and more time spent working. "I burned all my magic items for spying in Westcrown and don't have any at the moment. I was hardly going to ask to borrow some in order to go off and not answer the marriage proposal for a month."

He shoves a sandwich at her and pours her a glass, then takes a sip from his own. "Apologies for the sparseness of the food, then. I hadn't expected to be eating here today. The report says you're the future queen of Cheliax and you want to know the plan for the destruction of Hell."

"- I have kind of mixed feelings about the destruction of Hell, my friends live there.  A hostile takeover seems reasonable.

- Iomedae got me this job, and I assumed that this was because She could see I'd be appreciative and obey her church in every respect and do a good job of it, but then Her church was somewhat disinclined to tell me exactly what to do, and if I have to figure it out for myself I need to know the plan, in less broad strokes than 'conquer Hell' and more broad strokes than 'make Cheliax a country that produces lots of obedient Iomedaeans.'"

"Uh huh. I'm going to guess most of your friends in Hell would rather have Hell destroyed than not, if a nondestructive takeover isn't on the table, which it probably isn't."

" - well, I'm willing to ask them, but I would not have bet that way! A lot of people get very worked up about torture but it's not actually very bad. - I know it is not allowed, and I will obey Iomedae. That doesn't mean it's very bad."

"Idiot girl, people get worked up about it because for just about everybody it is very bad. Maybe you're unusual and don't mind it very much, but almost nobody's like you, and Hell's torments don't end. Give a decent conjurer a name to Call and you can see it for yourself."

Carissa should probably be trying to figure out the diplomatic ramifications of this conversation but that sounds hard and she did come here to understand how Iomedae's church sees things and it would be worse if they wouldn't tell her. "I'm pretty sure once you become a devil they stop torturing you all the time! But I did say I'll check." She won't say that maybe all Lastwallians are just weak. Diplomacy! "And I'm not saying Iomedae can't do whatever She wants."

"Most people don't become devils. Even those that do, it takes centuries. You're also still being very Asmodean in how you relate to Iomedae, but someone else can sort that out for you.

You want to know The Plan. Truth is, I don't know the plan. Here in Lastwall we didn't know Aroden was alive until around the same time the rest of the world found out. We're not even sure Iomedae knew, but if She did She couldn't give us advance notice. Our - Lastwall's - role in it was keeping Tar-Baphon sealed and preparing for the Age of Glory, and then when the Age of Glory failed to come our role was damage control on this planet. Now I guess it's here after all, kind of late and with a crapsack of an opening, but here nevertheless - My best guess is, what She needs from us now is to rebuild Cheliax and rebuild Lastwall to the point where we can hit Geb or Nidal with Aroden's help. Could be once those thorns are out of our sides it's easier to start hitting the evil afterlives from Golarion than from Heaven direct."

"- well, that's easy. I'd do that anyway." She doesn't ask what bone Iomedae has to pick with Geb and Nidal. Carissa is capable of pattern recognition. Iomedae dislikes the undead and also torture. "Are there going to be things She wants that aren't just 'make the country prosperous and strong and stop all the torture.'"

"And the slavery and the serfdom and the censorship and the trade in souls and the boneyard babies and - The list is pretty long, actually. I can get it to you in writing. Positively, build a country where everyone trusts their neighbor and every neighbor deserves that trust. One with fair courts where the magistrates don't take bribes. One where people can worship any non-evil god they please. We would of course be happy to send you advisors if you'd rather not just rely on your memory of one old man's thoughts."

"That's more how I expected paladins to sound. Boneyard babies are dispreferred because they don't usually make Heaven?" 

"Because they don't usually grow up the way people should, often don't even learn to speak, just live miserable, bestial lives for about fourteen, fifteen years before Pharasma judges them chaotic evil and they go to be devoured or turned into some demon's plaything."

"What'd you think paladins would sound like, how'd Lastwall disappoint until now?"

"- I didn't know that boneyard children get devoured! If that's true obviously I am against it! 

DIdn't meet a lot of paladins, but they had been characterized to me as, you know, no sex, no fun, we're going to pick the losing side on principle and we're too virtuous to hurt people even when it works, and they didn't manage to convince me that was false. I liked the Hellknights who were Iomedaens but apparently they are not uncomplicatedly endorsed.

And I - the thing I liked about Iomedae was that She wasn't all tied up in a knot, She saw an opening to put someone on the throne and took it and it made for a terrifying month but I'd do it a thousand times over and She'd do it to me a thousand times over, She said as much, if that were what'd make me run Cheliax best, though she said it probably wouldn't be."

"And the things I said sounded like weakness or just like hating fun?"

"Hating fun, but also - wanting something? It would be odd if the things Iomedae wanted were precisely the things any reasonable monarch would do anyway. I was expecting to learn what she wanted in return, and 'no fun' is an answer. A paladin answer, but it makes more sense than no answer at all."

"Well, once you've done all the things a sensible queen would do anyways - and believe me, not every monarch is so sensible - and built a just society, I don't see any reason you can't have some fun. I'm sure there are ways. I wouldn't say that I've tried, myself."

"Because you'll be repaid in Heaven? Or just because you don't care about anything except doing what Iomedae wants?"

"...Sorry, that was a joke. I do find time sometimes for things I enjoy that aren't effective service to Good. It's not that much time, but that's because there's a lot to do, not because I don't enjoy things - In answer to your question, I'd say it's more that I care about other people being safe and happy too, and so I spend my time trying to help them be."

In a sense it's the most paladiny answer ever and in another she can't actually find any contempt in herself for it. They decided what they wanted, and they won it. 

"Do you trust Iomedae?"

"Huh. Not the sort of question I usually get - I suppose I do, though maybe a little less than I did last year. You know, I'm not actually a paladin, She never chose me and I never wound up swearing to any of the orders. But I still trust Her."

She wonders if people think less of you, in Lastwall, if you're not a paladin. Presumably not, if you can end up running the place. "I had been assuming She didn't want a paladin running Her country so you didn't have to follow all the rules, where they weren't enough to win. 

...less than last year because She and Aroden probably broke the world on purpose?"

"I think the rules you're thinking of are ones I still follow, so no - I'm just better at my job than any paladin I know.

I trust Her a bit less than I did last year because - either She didn't know about Aroden or She did know and She didn't tell us - maybe even actively lied to us - and either way it means She's a little less reliable than I would've said She was last year. I'm quite sure that if She did this intentionally, and mislead us intentionally, there was a reason I'd consider a good one behind it all, it's not like I think She betrayed us."

"Why are you quite sure that if She lied there was a reason you'd consider a good one?"

"Well, first of all it's the same sort of - trustworthiness - that Her paladins are supposed to emulate as best they can, and I've seen plenty of examples of that. And I expect you think She might have different rules for Herself and for Her servants, but - other churches, other histories agree that as a mortal She was trustworthy like this. There's also a more complicated theological explanation about the nature of Lawful gods and Lawful Good gods, and I trust it but Iomedae knows I can't explain it well. You'll have to talk to a theologian about it - it's written that She first heard it from an Abadaran, if you'd trust it more from someone outside Her church."

That is - probably worth fitting into this month of learning things about Lawful Good, even though she's getting a sense it's going to be a busy month. It seems like it'd probably also help with making sense of Leareth and of Aroden. 

"- thank you. I don't think I have any other questions that aren't about - implementation details. Do you have any for me?"

"I don't think I do. Iomedae go with you."