She can easily take form in this office; it's not like it's in another god's domain.

"It's a lovely city," she says. "Darker than I'm used to, but that's the local charm, I gather."

He isn't a priest of any existing deity anymore, and can't defend himself against this powerful stranger. On the other hand, she's presenting herself as a civilized powerful stranger.

If she's going to kill him, he hopes she has the good taste to make his death painful. He wonders if he's still headed for Xovaikain, should it come to that.

"It was lovelier a week ago," says Arrats. "Who do I have the pleasure of receiving?"

"The Suwa Daimyjōin. Takeminakata-no-mikoto. Yasakatome. Yasaka Kanako. The trouble with being a god is the names and epithets one accumulates over the centuries, you know."

"I'm afraid I planned my visit here rather rapidly, or I'd have adapted to local customs beforehand."

So, some kind of opportunistic scammer angling to be a new "god" in Nidal.

That's hardly civilized at all.

"Am I to kneel and worship you? You're... a sixth circle wizard, are you?" he guesses. Calmly and politely, of course, the same way he would have were he still any circle of priest of any god.

"Oh, you're already proving useful. So this is that kind of world. I confess, I'm used to being recognized as a god on sight. Tell me, were a local god to appear before you, what would you expect? And I know they're not fantastic conversationalists, I met one or two in passing."

"I received a vision from the Midnight Lord once," he says. "Unmistakable, exquisite pain, directly to my mind. To my soul, I assume. I was insensible for weeks."

It was more than once, but let's play our cards close.

"Is this more to your liking?" she carves into his mind. She hopes it's painful enough... this is meant to be a conversation, and "insensible for weeks" is not consistent with her timetable.

"Where I'm from, this would be considered boorish. And it hardly allows you the affordance to reply."

She gives him a powerful migraine and dissociates him slightly. This is not her medium at all, and she probably wants to undo it shortly.

...maybe she has the rudiments of civilization after all. Though there's plenty of non-gods who could do this as well.

Arrats smiles. "At the least, you're a more interesting being than I gave you credit for. Please forgive me, lady..."

"Lady Kanako will do nicely, if it's how you'd address a foreign god. I'm not here to stand on ceremony if it's troublesome for you, but the proper forms do make a conversation more civilized."

She's playing this by ear, having only a cursory understanding of Nidalese culture. Shadowy torturers at the surface level, but there's an underlying drive to be urbane, sophisticated monsters she thinks she sees here. Artists of torture, not brutes. She honestly won't be able to keep up at all if it comes down to showing off skill at torture; she has none. Still, the opportunity here is immense.

"We've not had occasion in millennia to address foreign gods," says Arrats. "It's unheard of for nearly anyone to address gods face-to-face, in fact."

"Your local gods are poor conversationalists, yes. But you know, I don't hold with the idea of being an unseen, impersonal deity. That's a crutch for gods too weak to appear in all their power and majesty. Think of it; your shrines, your idols, they're not monuments to your glory, they're not reflections of your divinity. They're the bare minimum for any commoner, anyone but the most rarefied philosopher, to have an idea of you to direct their worship towards at all. In fact, careless, absentee gods may find their idols accumulating the worship for themselves!"

The best sales pitches have some sincerity. A lot of sincerity, in fact.

"I've never heard of a case like that, my lady. The Midnight Lord received the worship of all Nidal perfectly well, as far as I know. He certainly granted my spells without difficulty."

"Of course, our metaphysical truths may vary. My condolences on the loss of your god, incidentally. I truly hate to see the faithful bereft, and I apologize on behalf of my compatriots."

It's not false, even if their god was apparently very creepy.

"Your compatriots? Are you insinuating that you know how our god died?"

"He was the first casualty of an expedition from another world. The world I come from. I'm not aligned with the expedition, but I know the people involved. Zon-Kuthon was transformed back into Dou-Bral, is what I've heard, though I confess I only know a little about the former and nothing about the latter."

"He lives, then... but He abandoned us?"

Can she subtly cure his migraine now, or would that be offensive under their torture religion? She won't. He doesn't seem too impaired.

"My understanding is that the values of His... two selves... are inimical. So it stands to reason that He would abandon his faithful on changing from one to the other, if you were pleasing to Him as he was."

"Nidal will endure somehow. We've been abandoned by the gods before."

"And I'm sure it's no surprise for a foreign god to have showed up now, after all," she says.

(Actually, it seemed more "completely outside the realm of possibility" to him than "surprising", but probably the owner of the fanciest office in Pangolais isn't chosen for imagination. Maybe torture-related imagination.)

"A country like this won't go godless for long. I'm probably not the first."

(She's definitely the first. Well, unless the local gods can get very sneaky with whatever their metaphysics are.)

"We survived Earthfall thanks to the Midnight Lord."

"And how many lands can boast they survived Earthfall?"

She hopes it's few, or none. It probably is, this is a reliable sort of cold read.

"Even the survivors of lost Azlant begged us for shelter in those days."

(Is that really true, he wonders. It's a matter of historical record that Nidal weathered Earthfall quite well, anyway.)

"Indeed. In many ways, this country is a relic from antiquity. The most advanced civilization on the planet, one could argue."

"A good fit for a deity like me. I took that charming little personality test your world has as well; I'm Lawful Evil, just like your former god, though my partner came up Neutral Evil."

If he has Nidal's next patron god in his office, which, he reminds himself, he probably doesn't, it's a good opportunity to get in on the ground floor.

"So that's what you're here to propose? But I'm not important, merely wealthy, why visit me?"

Nice try, kid, but this is clearly a torture theocracy, and if she's lucky this guy is on its second-highest rung.

"I had my pick of the Umbral Court, of course. Why you? I like your decor."

It's ostentatiously gruesome, but at least it's ostentatious.

"Forgive my boldness, but why worship you rather than another god?"

Good, got him. Ideally he feels clever about insinuating that he's entertaining pitches from all sorts of patron gods, even though Kanako just planted that herself.

"I am the god of the mountain forge. I am the god of progress and technology."

This is a good time for a light show... since she's already a little bit in this guy's mind, an industrial revolution collage wouldn't go amiss. Not a shiny one as is typical for this sort of pitch, but a real grimy one from the early coal-powered days, she thinks that'll go over better here specifically. Though in case he's looking with his eyes, some floodlights are nice too.

"I will bring you enduring wonders. I will show you this city darkened not by shadow but choked in the smoke of mighty factories. I will build the new Azlant here, and make Nidal the envy of the world."

He doesn't recognize all this Victorian England smog (artist's renderings) he's being shown, but it's impressive. This could be the future of Nidal, he thinks for a moment.

Or rather, it's big if true.

"Lady Kanako, is this your domain?"

Nothing that could reasonably be called her domain is a smog-ridden hellhole, but it seems like she guessed right about the Nidalese aesthetic.

"What I have shown you is just the beginning of industry; what my partnership can accomplish within a year," she evades. "My domains are grander still."

Some imagery of acceptably Brutalist industrial parks; she has a thriving cult in this place, it counts enough as a domain. Not really Nidal's aesthetic, but she can keep it as grimy as possible. It doesn't have to be perfect, just imposing. Skyscrapers too, a little vertigo helps.

"Your partnership?" he asks.

"My partner Moriya, a curse god, provides heavy miracle work; I handle detail work and client development. We share faith; we share a priesthood."

Of one, but that's plenty, especially when she's a demigod who performs some of the miracle work as well. Last she heard from Suwako, who's been puzzling out the local metaphysics, Pharasma had "thrown an incomprehensible shitfit" at the concept of two gods with different alignments sharing a cleric, but they don't even know how to do that yet so it's not a pressing issue.

This guy probably expects divine magic from her, and she's going to have to grant some of her own style of miracle instead, which is the trickiest part of this sales pitch. Worst case, though, she can refine the pitch for whoever has the second nicest office in Pangolais.

(On a separate channel:)

Hey, do you know what Earthfall is? And can we give a guy some miracles in a bit? I think I can close it if we do.

No idea what Earthfall is. We're good on miracles, and I might have an angle on how to smuggle some faith. I'll tell you later.

Calistria, what's Earthfall?

[incomprehensible divine buzzing]

Someone threw a rock at the planet a while back. Uh, a cursed rock. I can't tell if there's any relevant details, I'm not getting good enough resolution on how these gods communicate yet. Probably just your ordinary cursed-meteor myth, you know how it is. Why, need a meteor?

Not today, thanks.

What miracles do you even give someone in a torture cult.

You probably shouldn't be this confused about a god's theology when that god is talking to you, but she's really being vague.

"I was a seventh-circle priest of Zon-Kuthon," he lies (he really wants Maddening Oubliette!)

(Divine tight-band:)

help what's a "seventh circle"

Leaving out the absolutely fascinating technical details because I know you're working, it's the seventh out of nine tiers of miraculous power gods grant their followers! Seventh from the bottom, it's a high one. Calistria says that guy's lying and only had the fifth, not sure how she can tell... I think she's mad at their old god over something. The real higher-ups are all really deep in hiding, I guess... so, some mishaguji then? Everyone loves mishaguji.

Can you make them dark and shadowy and stuff like that? They have this aesthetic sense down here... black smoke would be great.

"That sounds a couple circles high to me," she says indulgently, "but I don't put numbers on miracles like that, myself. It's my view that you would make a more credible representative of my interests with command of some powerful serpents of shadow and curses; I have a mind to grant you this boon, conditional on beginning to spread my faith in this city... as I have many other domains to attend to, you'd have to take some initiative, of course."