"...Pardon, do you mean to say it's ridiculous to imagine you might want any of those things or ridiculous to imagine you're not asking for them?"

"It's not ridiculous to imagine I might want some of those things, but I would not demand them as the price for working together against our common enemy. And though I'm sure you'd try to pay me in diamonds, if we came to terms on that, I can't imagine you'd agree to an amnesty for past evils when you don't even know what those past evils are."

"I think we want some lawyers," says Heliu, "To write this all up, in language we all agree on, and make sure there aren't any loopholes or tricks before we commit."

"Go ahead, having it all spelled out formally should help avoid misunderstandings. But I'm not trying to trick you here and I'll swear to it."

"You could lie."

Someone noticed. Besides Alex, that is.

"If I'm willing to break my oath, how will a contract save you?"

"We'd at least have something to point to, to outside observers -"

She gives up and rolls her eyes. "If it pleases you."

"I think the most important element is actually - if it looks to us like you are abusing this agreement to abuse our people while we are committed to not using our knowledge of you to respond, then is the agreement void? What clarification should we seek before we consider the agreement void? The lawyers cannot prevent you from breaking your word, but they can make it clear under what circumstances we'd be breaking ours, and lay out some degree of breaking-your-word where we're allowed to respond. While ensuring that this conclusion won't be arrived at accidentally if you are mostly keeping to what you've outlined here."

"Sure, get the lawyers. I assume Lastwall has some and you're not contracting out to the Abadarans, but if you are and for any required arbitration I prefer the church of Abadar outside of Osirion."

"We can do that for arbitration, yes, and have our own lawyers to draft it."

"Are we in this room the only parties to this agreement, or is there anyone else?" Cansellarion asks. "Clepati, who already knows who you are, for example, or Morgethai since a lot of the ways we'd most benefit from open cooperation involve multi-archmage operations… or anyone else who we should avoid investigating?"

"Did you have someone in mind for that last category?" Of course he does, he's thinking of Lilia. She sighs. "Look, Alex, you never would have killed me if I didn't want you to. I'm not holding a grudge. Thank you for making it quick. Leave Lilia alone, she's had a difficult time of late and you can't say she hasn't earned your forbearance."

Well.  He was hoping she wouldn't notice his suspicions. Or that they were wrong. (He doesn't trust that she isn't holding a grudge. She's no paladin. She can lie.)

"You may want to ask Marit how he manages a smidge of subtlety while remaining Lawful Good."

Marit has absolutely no context on this.  He doesn't know who Lilia is, can only guess who Alex is, and is gathering that Alex murdered Alfirin recently, which - good for him, really.

"I do not think I could have been one of Iomedae's paladins, while mortal. - I could now, but I am cheating, now."

"...Okay, let's set that matter aside for now, unless, Alexeara, you think that impacts your willingness to work with her…"

"I was willing to work with her when I was suspicious, this doesn't change that much." He's not delighted about a deal where after the war he has to pretend he doesn't know Myrabelle's alive or where to find her, but it's not like he'd know that if they hadn't been negotiating this deal.

"It does worry me," Saiville interjects. "She spent - forty years? Serving the Thrunes, when they weren't yet established, when Asmodeus wasn't handing out bribes of the size he's been handing out lately. That does not fill me with confidence about her willingness to oppose it now."

"The Goddess said to treat her as an ally in this."

"Trying to dislodge Asmodeus thirty years ago wouldn't have gone well," Marit says.

"A fine reason to be patient. A terrible reason to help Him."

"It was necessarily the case that any deception good enough to convince the Asmodeans I was on their side would also convince you. I don't particularly regret it. It was clearly the right choice with the information I had available at the time, and even if I'd been much more careful I could not have predicted that you would acquire functional guns."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, it's a reason to work with you."