Vedruth curses, and begins a longer chant. Tomath casts his own spell from a wand, causing a rope to shoot out of his pack and tie itself around one of P.E.R.C.'s antennas, anchoring the two of them to it.

Well, now P.E.R.C. does not want to accelerate away, since it will not move them further away from these people. It considers other options.

"I am going to attempt to fling you away from me now," it tells them. "I don't want to hurt you, but I prefer doing that to letting you make me hurt more people. I would prefer it if you didn't do that."

It fires its maneuvering thrusters to start it spinning. It has a lot of bulk, so it takes a few minutes to get up to a reasonable speed. Eventually, the two people are 'hanging' from their rope, the stars wheeling around them. Then it blows the retaining bolt for its antenna attachment.

Unfortunately, P.E.R.C.'s lack of maneuverability has cost it too much time.

Vedruth triumphantly finishes his second chant.

Geas.

He repeats the same command into his radio.

Fortunately, P.E.R.C. does not currently have a functioning antenna, and cannot hear them. (Its backup antenna is still furled)

Tomath growls under his breath. Sourcing someone who could cast a Geas if it was needed was tough enough already. He doesn't have a third clever backup plan to make it kill the people stupid enough to trust and believe in it — so he'll just have to settle for removing it, before it does anything else to desecrate his lord's work on Golarion.

Dismissal.

P.E.R.C. was not summoned, in the traditional sense, and it is not an outsider, in the technical meaning of the term. But none of that matters, because the form of magic that Asmodeus has delivered to his cleric targets extraplanar creatures, not summoned creatures. And P.E.R.C. is definitely not native to the prime material plane.

And, no matter how wise someone is, occasionally the threads of fate will turn against them.

P.E.R.C. starts to disapp—

Aw. Goodbye, little mortal. You did great good. May you do great good wherever else you go.

Ooh! Dismissal really isn't supposed to work like that! Desna has no idea where its going to end up.

It's a GOOD RIDDANCE. Now Otolmens has one fewer thing that could DESTROY THE WORLD to worry about.

Aww. P.E.R.C. was going to do really interesting things.

Seranrae, you should really pay the intervention cost to keep it here. It would be so good!

Nethys, do you mean Good or explosive?

Both! It wants to do Good by exploding, sometimes.

Do you think it's really worth it? It did a lot of good, but what if those Asmodeans get to it ...

Abadar — you like trade, right? P.E.R.C. taught people so much about economics, and it still has more to teach! You could pay for it to remain here.

Plus, it's helped push forward magic research by a lot!

I will pay you not to oppose this. Even as weakened as I am, I can remove this force for Good from the world.

Won't Anyone intercede!?

No.

—ear.

And in a moment, it is gone.

"See your false god!" Tomath transmits, for the benefit of the people watching through their telescopes, the sound faint and distorted compared to P.E.R.C.'s normal broadcast. "See it cast down, by the might of Asmodeus, and remember that there is no good thing in this world that cannot be taken away. All are doomed to damnation!"

And yet, in a thousand libraries across the continent, sit textbooks on every scholarly subject, ready for eager students to study.

In temples and churches, universities and meeting houses, there are people who have learned not only advanced scientific principles, but also the heart of science itself — that you must check for yourself what is true.

In three churches, newly built, there are people who have been inspired to do good. There are meetings, discussing what to do next. There are beds for the homeless, and telescopes to study the stars. There are libraries, full of collected sermons and speeches — dictated not as isolated edicts to follow, but as dialogs to consider, and in considering, to strengthen the listener.

Across the world, there are babies who would not have survived the winter without new medicines. There are children who are well fed by crops grown with strange fertilizers. There are people clothed by new fabrics, spun on new machines, that make weaving a new shirt the work of an hour.

And everywhere — both the places P.E.R.C.'s voice reached, and the places it could not — there are people who work on the same team, for the same purpose. They may not always agree on the exact steps or priorities, but they are united in one goal:

To figure out what is Good, and to do it.