"A pit fiend can grant a wish once a year, and - there are hundreds, maybe thousands of pit fiends, but sending them to Golarion or using them for His own wishes is very expensive for Asmodeus. Cheliax only has one pit fiend at its disposal, and I do not think they can call upon others for wishes."

"So they probably can't try again for a full year?" It feels almost too good to be true. "We could have good vests by then, probably."

"They likely cannot try again for a year… It was a good broadcast. The rest of the day is yours, once those materials are safely stowed. I will see you tomorrow."

Iomedae is pretty sure that she made a bunch of important mistakes here and owes Lastwall a complicated apology but she's not in fact perfectly clear on what precisely the mistakes were and probably figuring that out is a prerequisite to apologizing properly. And it'll keep, for a day. 'I will see you tomorrow' is not 'you did not screw up', it's 'you don't seem to be in any state to be reasonable', which is probably true. "Tomorrow," she says.

…and then she'll probably spend the rest of the day in Alfirin's arms, crying a lot. The crying changes in nature once the Heroism wears off but she cries before and after that.

Alfirin holds her. It was a really scary twelve hours but now it's over, and she's okay, she's okay, she's okay, and she's here here here and Alfirin is not going to let her go.

"I'm pretty sure I did something importantly wrong but I don't know how to explain what it was," she says eventually.

"Mmm - do you know what you did wrong and just can't explain it or do you just think you did something wrong but don't know exactly what…?"

"A little bit of both? Some bits I know, but I don't know how to explain, and I don't think the bits I know are the full thing but I don't know what the missing bits are. I can try but it's going to sound very stupid, probably, when it's half-formed like this.""

"I think you should try, and maybe I can help you figure out the right words and the bits you don't know once I've heard it. And I'm curious."

"All right. So, in one story, you show up in a world with knowledge of industrialization, and you find a buyer and you sell them all your industrialization. I think in this case the - obligations that you have towards your buyer - are pretty limited. You should warn them about health hazards and side effects that come up, and so on. But you can leave if you happen to feel like it, you probably don't need to worry all that much about whether they're going to like the consequences for the stability of their government though I don't think it'd be all right to actively conceal it. That's not the kind of - trust - that exists between a seller and a buyer. You can have side jobs working for their rivals. You can - call for the overthrow of their government. And they probably won't save you, unless they're getting paid for it.

Different story, you show up in a world and are embraced as the long lost heir to their throne, which they promptly put you on, and everyone in their kingdom will die for you. I think it's all right to leave, if someone does that to you - or, it might have bad consequences, but the analysis is about consequences, not duties. But if you stay, if you accept the role - if all of these people will die for you - then I think it's different. I think you have to - actively try, to be doing right by them, specifically -"

"And you're worried that - you're caught between those stories, we're bringing Lastwall industrialization and also - you're - sort of their god - they have not put you in charge, though."

"They have not. But I don't think it's comfortably just the first story. I don't know how they learned Cheliax was planning this. But - it was quite likely a big risk, to tip us off, a risk incurred by someone who is in danger of Hell if they get caught, and more likely to get caught because I lost my sentence midway through. And if it it'd worked, today, if Cheliax had been smart enough to do it at an unpredictable time, they would have put a lot of people into terrible danger to get me back. 

Partially because I know too much. Partially because you'd pay them. Partially because I'm sort of their god. Partially because it's their honest best guess of the best way to fix the world. I don't know. But - when I decided to do a radio episode refuting Asmodeanism, I wasn't thinking 'a lot of people may well die and some of them may go to Hell, defending me from the Chelish retaliation or otherwise caught up in it, and that's worth it'. And I wasn't thinking 'I have some duty towards Lastwall to protect their agents and not put them at unnecessary risk, but other things are more important.' I was just - acting like I could do whatever I wanted, if no one had actually told me to cut it out. I was tracking whether I thought it would work. But not - whether everything I was gambling with was mine, and if it was mine how we'd ended up deciding it was mine."

"You took a risk, and it felt like a risk just to you, but it's not, because Lastwall is relying on you - for all their reasons - and they put other people at risk to protect you. And then you made a mistake, today, and put those people more at risk - and you feel guilty about not thinking about those other people, and about making the mistake that endangered them more - am I understanding right?"

Well it isn't very complicated when Alfirin says it. "I think so. And then on top of that I feel like - I haven't been treating with Lastwall like people-who-are-taking-risks-to-protect-me, and I guess I wish I had been."

"What would be different if you were treating them that way?"

"...probably I would avoid picking political fights that make them uncomfortable during strategy meetings. I'm right, and it feels very satisfying, and like speaking truth to power and so on, but - it's boldly speaking truth to power if they're tolerating it because they want me to work for them. It's …something else…if they're sending people out to die horribly for me and politely tolerating my political opinions is just kind of small besides that."

"Yeah…I don't think they'd want you to be nicer to them on the radio. But probably fewer strategy meetings with mentions of women covered in chocolate sauce. At least until after the war."

"I wasn't being deliberately - I was absolutely being deliberately provocative but only because it was essential to the point and I couldn't think of another way to make it. But - yeah."

"If you don't actually think they should reform their government right now - I don't - then the point can probably wait? It's not like our leverage is going to disappear when the war ends." squeeze. "Are you mad at yourself for thinking the risks were just to yourself or for not noticing how risky it was?"

"Both? And for not noticing it was an important question."

"Hmm. About that, I think - I have a sense of what an Abadaran priest might say, here. And I don't know that what they'd say is exactly right but - it's in the right direction, from where you are now. I think they'd say that Lastwall is paying us a lot for what we're teaching them, and part of that has been paying us in money, and part in…stock, except that I don't know that they have the concept, exactly - and part in security. And we should know how much they're paying us in security, because it matters how much they're paying us in total, but we shouldn't be reluctant to take risks just because Lastwall's protecting us, or - we should but - if we do they owe us more in not-security pay? Or something? I think I've lost track of exactly what the Abadaran in my head is thinking. And what I said there was probably wrong, but - the opposite mistake from the one you're maybe making already?"

"Hmmm," says Iomedae, and leans into Alfirin because Alfirin is very good and comforting and it's easier to think in her arms. "I think - Lastwall could be a place that was paying us partially in security and partially in money, and we could have a contract with them where they don't get to make demands about our making ourselves easier to secure except by changing how much they charge for it. If we were dealing with Abadar's church we'd do that. It's a fine way to treat people, if everyone's doing that. 

I guess I - I don't know. I could say something which isn't what you were saying which is also a reasonable and principled thing to say, which is that Lastwall has a whole lot more information than I do about the tradeoffs they're making and can just make the ones they want to make, and that it's a bit odd to try to analyze the situation in terms of my not taking enough ownership of their risk-related decisions which they presumably endorse. It's not like they didn't have plenty of opportunity to ask me to make different ones, even. If that was how someone felt about it I don't think I could argue with them. But I don't like it. And I especially don't like it if they're - trying to be trustworthy, trying to do right by me in a manner other than technically fulfilling the terms of our agreement - and I'm not doing that back. And I think the way I'd most want to relate to people is one where I check all the tradeoffs being made on my behalf that my decisions affect, instead of having all these consequences of my actions off in the background where I can't directly interact with them? Where I don't consider my duties done if no one's actually complained to my face."

"I mean - I think the Abadaran would say that Lastwall is paying us in security and money and - goodwill, maybe? And just… in denial about it? - I guess it's not important, exactly. I think… you should ask Cansellarion, maybe, whether Lastwall is trying to do right by you, or whether they're just trying to keep to the agreement we have, or whether they're - hm. Helping you out because they think that if you can do more things you'll do more things that they like, or - mmm - I don't know exactly how to say it - using you as a tool to do the things that you and they both want done - if it matters for how you're going to treat with them to be - fair. I'm sorry, those words don't feel quite right, does it make sense what I'm saying?"

"Yes, I think so. It feels a bit arrogant or something to realize I've been probably not treating Lastwall the way I'd like to and try to address this by making more awkward demands of them but I think you're still right."