"Have you seen the last century?"

"Mostly no, actually. Side effect of all of the everything. I have seen enough. I'm - grateful that you're fighting Hell."

"Did you doubt that I would?"

"Yes, actually. It's been nine hundred years. People change. And apparently Asmodeus is paying spectacularly well these days. - anyway, you know me. I had plans for if Iomedae was secretly evil."

"I knew you, yes. If I'd known how much Asmodeus was paying - I wouldn't have sided with him, ever, but I would have been much slower, and more careful about opposing him. Do you know why he's so invested, or is that as much a mystery to Heaven…or something we mortals don't get to know?"

"If you don't get to know it I wouldn't have been sent here knowing it," he says. "I hear you're a bit of an enchanter. …I think Heaven doesn't know either. They told Lastwall to try to find out. There are a few things we know and you don't. Without a country-sized power base on the Material Asmodeus is going to have to pay a bunch of penalties for being in default on his Rovagug-monitoring obligations, so we knew he'd be motivated to hold onto it, - but what we know of that doesn't, actually, add up to anywhere near the amount Asmodeus is spending here - all of the other planets are having a lovely year, for whatever that's worth -"

"That's not nothing. Did he have some other powerbase before - oh, no, of course, that must be new since Prophecy broke.

…Have you changed less than I imagined you would, or are you putting on a show for me?"

"Oh, most people find the changes fairly striking." He flutters the wings; the overall impression is like there's a smudge on the lens of your glasses. "I took it pretty slow. I have the not particularly uncommon preference for psychological changes to not happen to me unless I have reviewed them very thoroughly and favor them having tried them on and taken them off a few times. I'm happier, and I have less desire to see my enemies suffer, and I feel less bitterness when people are incompetent in ways that make my life worse, and I notice matters of law more instinctively, and I am unafraid all the time instead of just when there are paladins around. Haven't changed anything else on a persistent basis yet."

"I am glad that is working well for you."

"I have categorically refused to try on being more trusting even though several of my friends have said very gently that it seems maybe a little pathological. …I am trying to get a read on how much you've changed, but I can't say I have much of a guess."

"As a former friend I suspect they are right - that's not to say I feel any animosity toward you, just that we haven't spoken in centuries. I think I have changed…less than you would expect looking at how much a typical human changes in their lifetime and multiplying fifteen or twenty-fold. Not a surprising amount accounting for the fact that even normal humans experience less dramatic changes as they get older. I am sure I have changed for the worse in the last hundred years but I would not appreciate a lecture about it."

"I wasn't really planning to lecture you about it," he says. "Maybe it's true of some evildoers that they've never really heard much case for Good - maybe it's true of most evildoers - but you've heard anything I could possibly think of saying. I assume if you thought we were in error that you'd be willing to debate."

"I've heard most of it before, yes. I guess most people trying the lecturing don't know that. I may have some disagreements about what is - desirable, for the world - but it does not seem to me that debating that is among our most pressing concerns. Those disagreements aren't what anyone's planning to destroy me over."

Well that sounds like they've entered dangerous territory. "If there's anyone planning to destroy you presently I would expect they're either an idiot or an Asmodean," he says.

"I am sure She is planning to wait until I no longer serve Her interests but Iomedae was pretty clear about considering me at least an eventual enemy if I don't shape up."

"Well, if She's either an idiot or an Asmodean I think She's most likely not an Asmodean," he says, consideringly. 

"I did say She's not planning anything presently... It is possible though unlikely that She is instead spectacularly bad at communication."

"No, I'm sure She meant it. It'd be - indecent to accept your help were you wrongly assured we won't ever be enemies. Only I'm sitting here and it doesn't cost entire planets for me to spend an hour rather than a moment speaking with you and so it's terribly tempting to just go 'okay, but that's stupid, how about instead we're not enemies?'

And - she had that inclination too, right, which -"

"I was surprised she bothered to say anything - I might want to not be enemies, some day, but it does not seem like a reasonable thing to prioritize now."

"Well, it seems possible She disagrees about that, but if so she did not clarify to me why she thinks it's a reasonable thing for you to prioritize now and I don't actually have any guesses, from what I know it looks like we should all prioritize bleeding Asmodeus dry and surviving what He rains down on us in so doing."

"On that we're agreed. I don't think she meant for me to prioritize being less personally evil over poking Asmodeus in the eye, I am not at all worried about my safety from Her in the short term."

He nods. "Do you want me present while you do diplomacy with Lastwall, or should I stay in my library correcting someone's imaginative fantasies about how we won at Renchurch without an archmage?"

"I would hope I don't need you for diplomacy with Lastwall."

"Oh, I'm sure you don't need me, which is why I didn't ask that."

"I'd appreciate your presence."