Asmodeus has a spending advantage

He does. He's the most powerful of the gods, except probably Pharasma, he monopolizes Lawful Evil and subsidizes Cheliax and...

Something Tessane said, when they interfered with Tar-Baphon:

"The brat's claimed that what's good for the Crown isn't usually good for the country, but even then I struggle to see how this serves the Thrunes. Or the Church."

The war's been weird. Gates of hellfire, attempts to wish-kidnap, paying off Geb, threatening to have to pay off Tar-Baphon...

It's not the Crown that's fighting this war. They'd cut and run, or die swinging in the wind. But the Church... Asmodeus is pouring in far more resources than the mortal Church can possibly be getting him.

They're not fighting Cheliax. Not just in the sense that they want to free it and at this point a lot of Cheliax is going to submit to that without a fuss as soon as they can.

Asmodeus is directly invested in preserving the Crown.

This is a war to exhaust Asmodeus.

Well, now he's back to being terrified actually.

He'd been thinking about ways he could aid the Reclamation with relatively small risks to himself. He is no longer thinking about that.

If people ask him about the war this week, the thing he says repeatedly is "It looks to me like Asmodeus is personally willing to spend enormous resources to keep His country secure," and if Tar-Baphon comes up again, "He seems to be willing to expensively contract with unpalatable allies to keep His country secure, also."

Neither he or his counselees are having a restful week.

He's still listening to the radio, though.

A dragon attacked them under cover of smoke, and they drove it off with gunfire same as the pit fiends, though (he infers) less quickly because it was an ambush.

They teleported the army again, and the Eastern army attacking Andoran is now squeezed between two armies and going to be cut to pieces rapidly.

No further news of Lastwall proper, which makes sense as Cheliax doesn't have the teleport capacity to seriously attack it.

Razmir makes more attacks but he's put down again, this time probably for good. And Cyprian has invaded Razmiran, so he probably won't be back even if he's still among the living.

Ravounel has risen in revolt and seems to be holding the passes. Pezzack hasn't successfully rebelled, but they rioted and the mayor's probably running scared.

...There's something odd about how Freedom described that. She was phrasing her praise and encouragements very carefully.

He goes over the wording a few times, and notices she never actually encouraged anyone to do anything similar elsewhere. Given her past "how to murder an evil priest" episode, that's... odd.

He sends a messenger to Tess's townhouse the next day.

Most esteemed Archcountess Jeggare,

I'm analyzing some interesting public statements you may have heard, and there might be a legal question involved. Do you know much about the incitement to crime laws in other countries? Lastwall, Nirmathas, and Andoran, mainly, but possibly Galt, Taldor, or maybe Rahadoum or Osirion? I would consider it a personal favor if you shared any such knowledge.

Yours,

High Priest Theopho of the Runes

High Priest Theopho,

I have significant skill in those matters, though of course I will not claim mastery of fields I have little occasion to practice. To my knowledge Lastwall's law on the subject is very narrowly drawn and clear-cut, Nirmathi law is extremely ill-defined and probably doesn't specify it as a cause of action, and both old Taldane and modern Galtan law are very broad and easy to bring a charge against anyone, primarily used to suppress dissent against their emperors. The rest I'd have to examine in more detail.

If you would care to attend me in the evening some time this week, my slaves will be told to expect you. Bring notes on the statements, if you have them.

Sincerely,

Archcountess Tessane Jeggare

Well, he hardly needs an excuse... (Though he does hate interacting with her slaves. Or anyone's, but it's usually easier to avoid.)

Nothing about how she changed her patterns of speech makes sense for any of the Avistani countries. Especially since most of them are in a state of war with Cheliax and would consider the rioting and burning of the mayoral mansion to be permissible sabotage.

Rahadoum wouldn't care either. (He wasn't sure, beyond the base Code of Laws he never interacted much with the law in Rahadoum; he was a model citizen.) Osirion, though, would. But he heard her criticism of Erastilian marriage norms and while Osirion is not as bad as he had been thinking when he was leaving Rahadoum for the last time, it's very much worse on that front than traditional Avistani society.

Why would Freedom suffer through Osirion?

He's nearly asleep, at home, when it comes to him. The Dome. Famously impervious to magic, even to the archmage level. Notably, including wish-kidnapping.

Well. There's a distinctly war-relevant fact that it's unlikely the Queen knows.

Is he going to tell them?

After a sleepless hour or two, he decides 'if they ask, yes'. But he's not going to volunteer it, and they probably won't ask. He'll work out an excuse for not volunteering it, if they do - something like "I thought she was no longer a priority since the war proper began, but kept analyzing for the sake of curiosity" should be enough.

It takes extraordinary courage, to look Asmodeus in the eye and say that He can't have your country.

And he doesn't have it. And knows it. Gods, she manages to poke him in the guilt surprisingly often.

And then the army arrives in Westcrown. Overland, not by teleportation circle this time. He offers to accompany the lord-mayor, but the man's never liked him (probably because he can tell Arvanxi is thoroughly corrupt and unprincipled) and refuses.

He considers burning a scroll of sending to tell Lord Marshal Cansellarion who to maneuver in a parley and offer to broker local governance that are relatively trustworthy, he does have two in reserve. But... Asmodeus is still willing to escalate, probably. He won't feel safe until there is no longer a Most High outside the Worldwound treaty zone.

He can still offer his help once they're in the city itself, which they won't trust much but will probably still take, he can pass a truth spell.

Then he sees cloudkill leaking through the windows of Citadel Rivad, followed by three pit fiends prostrating themselves before the Reclamation army as they open the gates.

And not the bottom-floor windows, either.

Cloudkill does not work that way.

On reflection, perhaps he should, additionally, be terrified of the Glorious Reclamation. Anyone who can do whatever just happened there can probably make his life unpleasant long after (what would otherwise be his) death.

With mixed feelings that most of them probably can't detect, Theopho does in fact offer his assistance reassuring the populace, pointing out people who can be trusted to follow contracts in an Abadaran fashion if they agree to do so, and generally serve as a guide to the soft power centers of the city of Westcrown. Also to sell them positive energy channels but he rather suspects they are in much less need of those than his previous visitors.

He assumes he'll have to explain why a priest of a power of Hell is cooperating with the invaders. His answer is that one of Erecura's commandments is for her priests to thrive in hostile circumstances and build themselves their own places to thrive by their own strength, and based on whatever they did to Citadel Rivad he's pretty sure this counts. Also, he has asked in the past and his temple is not desired in Egorian proper, and where else would he leave for, really?

Also he frees Tibex and his family! And promises them three months of free rent in their current quarters minimum, if they don't want to immediately leave.

He also visits the Lebanel Manor partly to let his parents know how he has chosen to respond to the invasion but mostly to offer assistance finding housing and ways out to their freed slaves - he suspects the Bellflowers will be overwhelmed, not having previously had the need to specialize for volume. He's not sure yet whether he wants to say his temple is somewhere to check in for any freed slaves in general looking for paid work, housing, or ways out of the country, but he's going to ask Erecura for permission and suspects she'll approve.

Augury confirms that doing it will bring weal. He goes ahead and makes it known that freed slaves and people looking to hire, house, or transport freed slaves on fair terms can contact the House of Runes and he will arrange to connect them. (He hires some people to help with this.) This is arguably risky if Asmodeus retakes control, but it gives him joy and doesn't undermine Church or Crown any more than having the city free of them already does.

He keeps wearing his protective headband. And he keeps listening to the radio. Despite his fears, it all seems to be going well for the Freedom alliance. There's a plague, but they have new medicine and have imported a lot of clerics and the plague is, while exotic and suspected to be demonic, being held back, and beaten back from the army entirely. Yet another genius from the pool of geniuses they seems to have under wraps.

He vaguely contemplates whether he wants to ask who invented the guns and radio and medicines, if they manage to pull out a solid win. He's not sure he will.

These days he listens to Freedom on his balcony, in the open air, though he still has a second set taking dictation because why not.

the forces of the Glorious Reclamation trapped her soul and finished conquering her country. …really a lot more good news than bad news, there, I guess. Anyway, the fighting in Egorian is over, the fighting around Ostenso is over, the neutral arbitrators responsible for determining who is in charge of Cheliax for the sake of determining who has the command of its Worldwound forts has determined that it's Lord Marshal Cansellarion

...that's it, then? It's over? Asmodeus finally folded rather than keep reraising?

He can't quite bring himself to believe it. That's not how tyranny works. But... he'll try.

I can tell you more of the truth, now, about where I’m from. I’m from Cheliax, from the archduchy of Menador, but when I was fifteen a magical accident picked me up and dropped me somewhere else. It says in The History And Future of Humanity that all of the stars in the sky are other suns like our sun, and about them are other worlds like our worlds, full of people both more and less alien than you would imagine; and it is on one of those worlds that I found myself, and saw the things that Golarion could grow up to be. I know that republics can work, I have seen a place where they do. I know how rich the world can get, and how fast the world can get that rich, and I’m going to see it done here, in our lifetimes, for the benefit of our children. It will take a million hands and a million minds and a million inventions, and we have them. 

And I can tell you now about airplanes. On Earth, you see, the world I visited, there are no wizards and the gods empower no priests, and all their great beasts are long dead, and so you might think that people could not fly. But people want to fly; it’s in our nature. If the world doesn’t hand us the strength we invent it ourselves. They jump off cliffs with cloth wings - don’t do that - and rise in baskets powered by heated air - tune in next week if you want to learn how to do that. 

Airplanes are built out of purely mechanical parts, there's no magic to them, and built well they can fly a Teleport's length in less than two hours, and fly across the oceans to the distant continents in six. I've been wanting to build them for ages, but while Hell had my homeland in its clutches other matters had to come first. But now, we're going to have airplanes. You'll see them in the sky sometimes, like a bird whose wings don't move, soaring eight miles up in the sky because the air's thinner there and that lets them travel faster.

Okay in his defense he was never fucking going to guess that.

I want to congratulate you, people of Cheliax, even if the only thing you did in the war was hide away and survive it, even if you served your evil queen until she met her evil end. You are free, now, and being free means it's your choice what to do from here. You can do profoundly stupid things with your freedom if you'd like. But you made it here, to this crossroads, and I'm glad for you, and I am eager to see what you choose to make of your lives from here, and I really do believe that most people choose goodness, and progress, and airplanes and blazing ambition, when they're free to choose at all.

He gets a glass of whiskey out of his cabinet and toasts Freedom. "I'll do my best not to disappoint you," he says to the air.