The maimed human shackled to the altar doesn't move, but when the spirit thermometer is placed under her tongue and Areelu pushes her jaw closed it stays in place.

"21^st of Pharast… second variant… what's your name again, for posterity?"

Her name is one of the few pieces of information she is technically permitted to share with the enemy, even under duress. Is she going to answer that question? Not a chance.

"Suit yourself, Random Mendevian Crusader."

Areelu jots down some cursory observations in a lab notebook, although her thoughts are a thousand miles away.

"If lightning is applied to a copper helix, then the lodestone is the piece that moves, opposite to how it works if you pass the lodestone through the helix. Lightning and lodestone-motive force aren't transitive, they're two sides of the same coin. So the lightning reaches the external wire… lightning from every radio channel reaches the wire, the sliding arm modulates the length of the helix to select which channel to pass through the crystal to the earpiece, and lodestone-motive force vibrates the earpiece in synchrony. Do you know what I don't like about that explanation?"

She's praying for salvation as hard as she can but it's not working – Areelu Vorlesh is still talking to her about radios.

"If I take a stone and throw it at the wall as hard as I can, the stone hits the wall as hard as I threw it. Yes, it loses some energy to the air, but the stone in this analogy is lightning so your imaginary objection is overruled. If I hold it near the wall and Shatter it with the same force, it doesn't hit nearly as hard as my throw – and I'm a mage, not a warrior. Picture an expanding Fireball and you'll see why. Whatever the diameter, the surface area is the circle constant multiplied by the diameter squared. Lastwall's radio towers emit a signal that reaches for miles. Omnidirectional low-potential lightning at that scale is impossible."

She snaps the notebook closed, frowning.

"What other medium could it be using? Heat, sound, light… those ought to be noticed. Soundless sound? Invisible light? Perhaps the radio towers are transmuting light's property of perceptible-to-eyes into perceptible-to-metal. The lead glance may serve some arcane purpose, then, although I don't expect to conclude that radio's success is due to mystical crystal powers."

"I could imagine modulating an energy gradient between two coterminous planes, but the spellpower needed to do it simultaneously in so many locations strains my credulity."

The mechanics of the radio broadcast are a puzzle best left for another day, since there are dire implications more germane to Areelu's way of life. The technique for building the radio receivers was first sold by the church of Abadar out of Absalom, and Radio Free Avistan was already on the airwaves by the time reports from Abyssal spies began to feature the devices. The broadcast towers themselves are easy to locate, and while they're obvious targets for sabotage they were constructed in relative haste. At no point were radios tested on a smaller scale with individual crusader units – whoever created them obviously didn't care to reserve their use for military applications – and their origin has been laundered through Archbanker Sevandivasen and his cronies.

This in and of itself is not conclusive evidence, but there are other portents. For one, a literal black cloud of fly ash hangs day and night over Vigil.

"Perhaps your goddess is less inept than She appears," she muses. "The cost of divine intervention must have been lower than I anticipated."

"Praise the Inheritor," her test subject agrees, breathing in short gasps between each word. Multiple amputations will do that to you.

"As many treasures as a single mind can carry, straight from the halls of ancient Azlant? It's unlikely to be much better or worse than that."

In the short run, cheap metal and abundant radio will even the odds against Deskari. Demons are not entirely incapable of coordination or industrialization, but it does take a certain amount of tyranny for even minimal effectiveness. Other foreign technologies are harder to predict. Iomedae must believe that the balance favors Law and Good, else She would have done nothing, yet Asmodeus must disagree, else He would not have permitted it so easily.

(It is usually folly to predict the beliefs of gods by the ways They behave. Pharasma concerns Herself equally with all worlds in Creation; most others are similar. Trying to anticipate anything about Nethys is pointless, unless it involves preparing for an explosion. However, Asmodeus invested Himself greatly in the fate of Cheliax, and Iomedae's limited sphere of influence is centered on Golarion – neither would have permitted the other an obvious advantage, so the advantage must be subtle, even from a divine perspective. Zon-Kuthon and Abadar must be similarly perplexed.)

Whether the cities of the future will more resemble Aktun or Alushinyrra is less important than the crusade's imminent recruitment drive for skilled craftsmen. It's time to step up infiltration efforts on behalf of her patrons, at least while the need for operational security trades against their need for manpower.

The spirit thermometer is removed, read, and replaced. Her own saliva tastes metallic and cold.

"Hold still for this part. If you move around while I'm drawing the symbols, I'll have to rip the skin off and try again."

That won't be difficult. Her body is paralyzed below the neck.

Areelu begins her inscription on the crusader's bare skin using a mixture of pine tar and fiend blood, still thinking out loud.

"What forgotten or undiscovered lore might Iomedae wish to purchase for us? More efficient methods of spellsilver production? Unlikely – the benefits would quickly accrue to everyone, eroding her church's first-mover advantage. Aroden's single-caster Teleporation Circle? Harder to make mischief with than the other lost ninth-circle spells, but I and Razmir could use it as easily as Felandriel or Nefreti. More cheaply acquired too, if Nex or Geb happen to know it, so we ought to discount the possibility somewhat unless it's part of a package deal or more complicated plot."

She pauses, drawing the next character with silent concentration before speaking.

"The greatest wizardry that mortal Iomedae encountered during the Shining Crusade was doubtless the Whispering Tyrant's endless capacity for adding more undead slaves to his personal army. She wouldn't want to teach anyone that specific trick, but the underlying spellcraft knowledge enabling that feat of necromancy would be quite valuable. Other schools have similar unsolved problems: extending Foresight further into the future, or Bilocation into Trilocation, or calling the greatest of outsiders with Summon Monster, or creating demiplanes that are antimagic for some but not for others, and so on. Wizards from other worlds…"

She loved a wizard, once, who was endearingly obsessed with the weather. During their evening hours he would regale her with facts about cloud formation and wind fetch and the biannual storm season in his homeland of Katapesh. His passion for the subject was infectious, and ever since then she'd remembered a few tidbits about meteorology to liven up conversations in the field. He wasn't an expert on the weather out of necessity, but because it captured him in a way nothing else could.

Areelu Vorlesh, she thinks, has some of that inner fire. Something that motivates her beyond obeisance to a demon lord or a dark hunger for cruelty. She's not a Sarenrite, but…

She speaks when her captor falls quiet, enunciating slowly around the thermometer, and does her level best to ignore the pain.

"Why are you doing this… to me…?"

"Let me answer a question with a question, Random Mendevian Crusader. How do you feel about Freedom Radio? You must have listened in once or twice."

"My name is… Maree. Freedom… sounded intense… swore to… honesty… useful things…"

"Honesty! And 'the truth can do very nearly everything', I remember that. I agree completely, and I hope fortune smiles on her show when it can."

Success?

"Truth is not a servant of Good, Maree. Truth is its own masterless monster. It thrills me to know that the unvarnished facts will soon be plastered across the continent, uncontained and uncontainable. I anticipate a great deal of freedom and personal empowerment as a result; what you might call Chaos and Evil."

"People… are… Good…"

"People follow incentives, and the universe incentivizes misdeeds. House Thrune rules Cheliax from atop a mountain of lies, but everyone rules by killing all challengers until being killed in turn. They'll learn from the radio how to rescue dying infants, and they'll learn how to cast Bleed. Rescuing dying infants is — harder, and less useful."

Her voice is strangely calm as she says this. However she originally planned to end that sentence is lost.

Maree's planned response is interrupted by a white flash of pain. In lieu of speech she activates Detect Evil, ending it quickly before Areelu Vorlesh's aura can stun her.

Areelu Vorlesh detects the Detect Evil (and detects as Evil).

"Gods?" she says. "Any system can resist entropy with outside assistance, but only a fool would put their trust in a god. For every cleric of Good is a cleric of Evil – ah, I'm simplifying things I oughtn't. Still, the gods honor what They will, but the universe is a more predictable mistress. Slay your foes, overcome great odds, and the world rewards you. To those who have and grasp for more, more shall be given, which is why the First Consul of Galt vanquishes three duchies before breakfast every day while Molthune still hasn't retaken Nirmathas."

She's rapidly losing her ability to pay attention. It feels like she's burning up from the inside, fire racing through her veins and scorching her belly. Her skull aches. Something about Galt?