"I think I got all the laying around doing nothing done for this month, we can definitely get back."

"What about laying around doing things?"

Cynthia starts heading home, walking out to her main room and sitting on the couch. "So, how was your first day, Sana? Hopefully you didn't have to do anything too tough. And Sofia, I'm hoping you didn't have to clean up anything too nasty? Are you feeling like you're happy with your new jobs?"

"It was mostly... surprising? In a good way, though. The biggest difference is that... I'm safe here.

And I actually did way less than I would have done at home, the elderly person just wanted hugs, and telling me his stories, we didn't have any sex at all.

And... communication is extremely different. People just show all their emotions all the time here, and they will ask you for things instead of demanding them.

And the dude I blew off didn't grab my head at all, but was very... passive about it? Granted, one of his arms was covered with something looking like stone, but his other was free so..."

"Nothing I hadn't cleaned before, but this time I had the Magic Blue Cleaning Liquid, and the gloves which are super easy to clean! And Henry was so patient with me, he never hurt me, even when I was asking silly questions or making mistakes."

"...oh wow, and you consider those pleasant surprises? It shouldn't be a surprise that you're safe at work! And of course the person you're putting your mouth shouldn't be grabbing your head unless you've negotiated everything in advance. And so goes for you, Sofia, not being hurt for making mistakes isn't something you should even think to mention! I'm not letting whatever hellhole you came from keep hurting totally innocent, ordinary people like you! ...if I had the ability to do something about it."

"Yes. That. We should talk about... that."

"Because it is a Hellhole. In a very specific sense."

"Do you remember when we first met? I thought you may be an outsider out of Axis. But you kept not understanding my words, and a Lawful creature would not lie about that, so I stopped thinking about it but I think that know that we know each other better and have a bit more trust I can try explaining and you won't dismiss it fantasies or confusion on my part."

"Axis is one of the afterlives. Which are places your soul goes to when you die.

There are nine of them:
Heaven, Nirvana, Elysium,
Axis, the Boneyard, the Maelstorm
Hell, Abaddon, the Abyss.

When people die, they get Judged, and depending on whether they were Good or Evil, Chaotic or Lawful, they go to different afterlives.

I'm pretty sure if I died today I would get sorted Evil but neither Chaotic nor Lawful."

Cynthia puts her hand under her chin. "How in the hell would you be sorted evil? You seem friendly enough."

"I'm... not the same person I was yesterday.

... you two are the first people who've seen me cry since I was too young to have the self discipline to Not Do That.

Funny thing what not living in constant fear of your mind being read, of being killed and sent to be tortured for eternity for disloyal thoughts can do to a person."

"But make no mistake. The reason I would be Judged Evil is because I have done evil. I have hurt people, I have always put my needs and wants over the ones of others. I have stolen and intimidated and blackmailed.

Being friendly has nothing to do with it. The reason I've been at first deferential and then friendly with you is that I knew you had my future in your hands."

"And then you showed me trust.

You showed me a world in which everyone I've met was more Good than each single person in Cheliax.

And yet your country is more advanced than anything I've heard of from my world.

You've given me shelter, food, opened your house, taken care of me and Sofia.

Again and again, never making my choices for me, never second guessing my opinions."

"Showing you were truthful hurt by our pain.

And slowly... I stopped pretending to be friendly.

Because I understood you were not pretending."

"And trust me. I would be able to tell if you were pretending. People from Cheliax don't show their emotions, ever. And yet my work is precisely to understand what they want. And whether they're dangerous.

Because if they're stronger than you.

You -

You don't get to decide what happens in the bedroom.

Unless your words are what they need to hear, and that takes experience to get.

And while you are getting that experience. There is no one to protect you."

"Oh... oh... oh..." Cynthia blinks and nods, before choosing to give Sana a hug, careful to have her consent first, of course. "I'm never gonna let them hurt you like that, again. Or... anyone else, maybe? But how? There are lots of skilled soldiers here, but... we need more than that to help."

"Soldiers can help, a wizard will always lose against a thousand soldiers.

But.

A wizard can kill a hundred soldiers with a single fireball. And then shoot again six seconds later.

I'm sure your world has better soldiers, better armors, better weapons.

But you remember when I told you about our schools?

The ones that take in the brightest, regardless of their background?

They are for teaching new wizards. Our army has hundreds of them. And some of them are even more powerful than that.

It's rumored that the most powerful of them can literally stop time.

Would your world win? Maybe.

But are you ready to sacrifice a million of your soldiers for that?"

"And this is their humans, they say a pit fiend is the general of their armies. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me do this in order."

Their armies. Funny that.

"There are 15 billion of us. I think that one in ten thousand of them, if not more, would be willing to sacrifice their lives to save those of many, many others. Yes, I think we are willing to sacrifice those soldiers. And we'd never let their wizards have 100 people close enough to hit. And in the hands of a truly capable shooter, 6 seconds is a lot of time."

"That's...

You truly are a planet of Good people, aren't you?"

"So. Back to afterlives.

There are nine corresponding to all the combinations of Lawful/Chaotic/Neither, Good/Evil/Neither.

Hell is the Lawful Evil one, and is controlled by Asmodeus, the god of tyranny, torture and contracts.

One hundred years ago Cheliax was the center of the faith of Aroden, a God of humanity and civilization. Lawful but not Good nor Evil. One hundred years ago Aroden was supposed to return to Cheliax and bring an age of prosperity. One hundred years ago Aroden died.

His clerics stopped receiving spells. The sky was clouded. The crops failed. People died. Entire countries were devoured by a tornado that is still going on today.

Cheliax fell into a civil war, until the Thrune family... " her tone changes, sarcasm and disdain palpable "oh-so-gloriously saved us, and by sealing a pact with Asmodeus got power, put an end to decades of civil war and brought back Law and order.

Now. This is what I learned while living in Cheliax. So it's going to be filled with lies and half truths, but one hundred years later, you can still see the scars. Most churches of Asmodeus still have an eye here or there.

They say that He will conquer the world, and all afterlives, because He's the most powerful of all gods. It's probably a lie. But one hundred years later, my country is still under the yoke of Hell, and none of the Good gods have done anything about it."

"If it's true that the general of the Chelish army is a pit fiend, and it may be, that's a creature that can cover a battlefield in hellfire, fly, control the minds of his enemies.

And maybe it's a lie, it would be one of many. But maybe it's not, and suddenly it's not a hundred soldiers dead, it's the whole battlefield set ablaze.

We... you may be able to win, but not by charging headfirst.

I don't want to see good people dying without a plan."

"There will be no battlefield. What's stopping us from freeing all those people isn't the armies of Cheliax, but the fact that they have no way here. We don't have to kill their pit fiend, only leave him behind us. Just so we know to prepare: could he fit inside one of our normal doors?"

"He could smash through it, ignoring the wall. Unless it's magically protected, possibly? I'm not a wizard."

"... but you went through that weird intermediate place first, right? Would he able to smash the wall in that magic place... and end up here?"