"Why not partner with the abolitionists in the effort to stop it and liberate people from the slave-ships at sea?"

" - well. We have some …tactical differences with them."

"What a way to put it. The Church of Abadar insures merchant ventures, and condemns piracy, and loses money every time it happens. Are your tactical differences and some awkwardness on your balance sheets more important than the essential freedoms of thousands of people herded like animals across the Inner Sea on ships your church insures?"

" - you think we should stop insuring slave ships?"

"Yes!!!"

" - we generally do not only insure practices that we approve of. We abhor war, but will still let people take out loans to fund it. The loan price has to do with the odds they will pay the loan back, not with our opinion of how they'll spend the money."

"But see, then, how you tie yourself up in knots! You insure the ships, and so you don't like it when people sink them, even though you agree that those people are fighting among the most important evils of our world. Don't you think it's an uncomfortable situation, to profit so much from things you abhor that you get annoyed when people start ending them?"

He snorts. "Uncomfortable? Sure. It seems very uncomfortable."

"I think you could, as a principled matter, offer the loans and also be quietly pleased when the ships become uninsurable because the people who oppose this evil are too numerous. But I think you could also, as a principled matter, charge more for services that enable things you don't want, because it's  - not a situation of a surplus being split between you - or, the  abhorrence of what you're enabling changes what's a fair price, by quite a lot -"

"I think there's also a worry that any - organized or political exercise of discretion by the Church calls into question our neutrality, which is among our most important assets in resolving disputes - between countries, say - peacefully."

"The Church runs a country."

"And that was - controversial."

"- say more?"

"...I am not actually sure that'd be a good idea."

"This is Freedom Radio! We speak the truth, no matter how much trouble it causes. Anyway now you've gone ahead and teased it, and the whole story is rarely worse than a partial one."

" -you know, it's mostly just what I've already said. The institutional Church of Abadar was surprised by the plans to sponsor the pharaoh of Osirion, and it was a serious concern that it would give the appearance of ending our neutrality in geopolitical matters. The Church in Osirion is independent from the Church outside it, to partially assuage such worries."

"Very sensible," she says approvingly. "And, see, I think more reassuring than not saying it. Well, thank you for coming on the show, Archbanker. May we build Axis in this life, and then improve it in the next one."

"The Church said they'll try to tell me in a month or so if they got new priests out of it. I expect they ought to. There must be plenty of people who'd never had it explained before."

"I'd expect so. It was a much better explanation than most people are going to have heard - I was listening, of course. You did great, as always."

Iomedae hugs her. Kind of wants to kiss her, actually, which is a new feeling. She's not sure if paladins are allowed to do that or not. She doesn't really want to ask anyone in Lastwall - maybe she can fold it into her on-air interview with a priest of Iomedae, in three weeks. "I wore intelligence not splendour for it. I should really see about getting both, at this point - I feel odd about spending huge sums like that, because Lastwall hasn't asked me to give back all the money they paid me, but I know their situation is moderately dire and I'd quite plausibly be glad I did give them the money, I just don't know how to know, and I don't know if they'd ask if it's actually severely dire or if they consider themselves honor-bound not to."

"You could just ask. They're paying me more than half in ownership of the industries, because I think they're shorter on gold than they are ownership in the industries. The gold's mostly for - you can't even buy the best headbands, so it's mostly for if I'm wrong about whether they'll respect my partial ownership when we leave -"

She nods. "I guess I should ask. I - I've been so busy that I don't know that it was an error not to try to get to the bottom of it, but I don't really understand them at all, as people. …I guess I'll learn about them on the air in three weeks. It'll be very authentic. The audience will love it."

She laughs. "I suppose that's one way to get your questions answered without having to change up your schedule at all."

"I was also hoping to sneakily figure out what paladin rules I'm supposed to be following on-air but I guess that might leak information."

"Hmm. On the one hand, you don't have to ask in a way that admits that you have no idea what they are. On the other hand, it's maybe broadcasting key facts about you to Cheliax. I can see how it's a hard call."