"But sometimes I get them - I don't know what that means if I can't get them -"

"Well, say that Aroden wasn't dead and was trying to reach ninth circle again in secret in Rahadoum. Then He would help you take Cheliax back, right?"

"...Is He doing that?"

"No! So you can't get His help."

"...Then why did you bring Him up?"

"You asked what it means if you can sometimes get help! That's what it means!"

"That there's someone you can imagine would help if they existed but they don't actually exist?"

Nefreti has a sip of tea. "I don't think there is any point to you asking about this. You cannot understand it."

"Okay. Fine. Will you help, now that I have Iomedae?"

"Yes."

"What can you do, so that I can plan accordingly?"

Nefreti frowns consideringly. "I can kill Razmir, though he'll be very very annoying if I do that. Alfirin and I together could destroy Lorthact and raid his false realm of its souls.  I can fix the seals on Tar-Baphon's prison." 

"...Alfirin, our chief engineer who's a first-circle wizard, can help you destroy Lorthact?"

"No," says Nefreti impatiently. "I can do half of Teleportation Circles. I can give quests to adventurers. I can't do anything about Arazni, obviously. I can tell you when all is lost. I can change how many boats there are, though not who the boats belong to, I'm not good at details like that."

"So you can destroy the Chelish navy?"

"Oh, definitely. The hard part is not destroying other boats that you will get mad at me for destroying."

"If we have someone accompany you and tell you specifically which boats to destroy, can you destroy those ones and no others?"

"The problem is that the best way to destroy a lot of boats is by moving the Eye of Abendago! But it's not very specific about which boats it destroys!"

"...Please do not do that. I was thinking meteor swarms?"

Nefreti makes a face. "I do not think that is worth my trouble."

She'll move the eye of Abendego but won't cast a normal common ninth-circle spell. Figures. "Well, thank you for helping. I will let you know how you fit into our plans when we have them."

"Yes," Nefreti agrees. 

Freedom Radio manages, with some finagling, to get the infrastructure up to take calls from listeners. The way they have this work is that listeners in locations with their own transmission-capable radios (which include many towns, at this point) can call in to one of several frequencies monitored by Freedom Radio's staff, and then if they have something interesting to say that frequency can play in the room Iomedae's in. Sound quality is an ongoing problem, but Iomedae thinks it's worth it for the opportunities to authentically talk to people on-air. 

They get listener questions about various heresies. Various rumors. A lot of people want to be on the air just to ask if anyone else anywhere in the world has heard anything about a lost loved one. Iomedae coldbloodedly figures a little human interest content helps with ratings but you've got to keep it limited, and does so.

        "When," one man says coldly to her after a few weeks of this, "is the last time you've talked to a normal human being who isn't part of your little rebel cell? Not counting the radio calls."

"Unfortunately that's secret," Freedom says. "But if you are saying that I am clueless and out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people I am inclined to believe you. I have led an unusual life, this last while."

       "You're oblivious. It's maddening. You think anyone takes issue with the Church of Iomedae because Her country's not run by the mob?"

"I sincerely take issue with it for that reason! Why do you?"

         "Because they hung my son as a cultist. He wasn't a cultist. His cousin was probably dabbling with some nonsense he should never have gotten into, but all my son did was not report his cousin to die, and anyone would do that."

"Certainly at least a lot of people would. And it's a hanging offense in Lastwall, and you think it shouldn't be?" Iomedae's insides feel cold. It's not the sort of question they asked when they were trying to decide what to think of Lastwall. It's not - strictly inconsistent with things she did read, things that made sense to her at the time - the regulations of her paladin order state that it could if appropriate to the situation put her to death, for concealing a capital crime, but that struck her as entirely just. And she didn't bother asking -

         "I don't know a thing about Lastwall. It's a hanging offense in Kenabres."

She doesn't even know where that is. "Well, I'll say I agree with you that if that's the whole of the situation I don't think it should be one. It - sounds like your son didn't trust that his cousin would get a fair trial."

          "Of course he wouldn't get a fair trial. Why would the Church of Iomedae care about fair trials?"

It's like the gut-wrenching feeling of a Wish trying to kidnap you, except this is in fact all her fault, for not checking. "Well, the reason anyone Lawful ought to care about a fair trial is that it's how you tell whether people are guilty, and the reason anyone Good ought to care is that it's how you ensure people don't live in terror, and anyone ought to care about making sure that people like your son are willing to go to the authorities, which they only will be if the authorities are fair and merciful and concerned for the wellbeing of everyone."

        "You're a silly little girl," the man says.

"Do you know of other cases where you think people have not gotten a fair trial?"

         "I have watched six hundred people hang since they stopped burning them and I promise you not one of them got a fair trial. Maybe got the chance to say under a truth spell that they'd never done anything wrong, if that was true, but who's that true of?"

"I don't know," says Freedom. "Certainly not me. Are you in danger, from having made this complaint to us? Should I send someone to -" No, she can't have him picked up and brought to Vigil, she can't, she doesn't know what avenues that gives Lastwall to make him recant but there have to be some - "get you money and resources you can use to flee to safety?"

         "If I cared what they did to me, I wouldn't have called," the man says.

"I am very grateful that you did. Now, you understand, I have to check if this is true, but if it is, then it's lawless and evil and we'll have to put an end to it. And listeners elsewhere, I want to ask you: is this true in your cities and countries? Are things unusually bad in Kenabres, or is that how the law works for everyone? We usually end at the top of the hour, but I'm going to stay on two hours more, tonight, because the more we know, the more we can change things."

But of course the people she has filtering the incoming channels will filter who she talks to - if Alfirin's smart (and Alfirin is a genius) she's tuned into one of those channels already, and can tell Iomedae later if that's what happened -

"Our priest's a good man, and fair. No one thought the Carter boy had killed his father, but they'd been heard fighting so he had to do a truth spell, and he wouldn't deny it, so the priest sat and talked with him a few hours and eventually he said he did it, in a fit of madness, and regretted it more than anything, and was ready to die and be judged for it, and the priest said that instead to repent he could dig out the whole pass between 'saville and Games, and have given our village as much as he'd robbed of it, and it took him ten years but he did it, and at first no one would talk to him when he came in for the channel at night but after a few years folks saw he was serious. It would've been fair to hang him but I think this way's better."

"I think so," says Freedom, wondering if the man really exists or if there's now an elaborate effort to lie to her underway. You'd really only need one person at a transmitter who's good at voices and accents and dialects.