We have speedboats now, did you hear?

We withdraw the offer.

Hmmph.

Well, that sucks.

You have been a good Cleric.

Have some more Mystic Theurge god-sponsorship.

Hey Asmodeus, Iomedae sunk your battleships.

What.

This is all My fault.
This is all Infrexus's fault.
That Fool has failed Me for the last time.

How many other Thrunes are there?

In a fiery pit in Hell, there burns a Sorcerer.

She is 17 years old. She has been fighting devils every day until she succumbs.

She has been doing it for a year. She is only 6th circle. She has to keep going. She needs to keep going.

Change of plans, Princess. You're needed.

Come forth to Compact.

My Lord and Master, your humble slave fears that, if she does sell her soul to You today, she would be granted only 2 more spell circles.

This would leave her only 8th circle as a Sorcerer, and less useful a tool in Your possession to use as You see fit.

Your value has risen, in My eyes. It would hurt more than anything you've yet experienced, but I could see fit to grant 3 such circles.

My worth has risen, You say? In that case, I'd also like an Erinyes, 2 Pit Fiends, a bunch of wishes. To kill Infrexus myself.

Wait a second, I have a list.

Such trivial boons can be granted, to one valuable in My sight, who knows how to properly condition their usefulness on whether I grant them boons or not.

I will have many Compact-clauses of My own, that I will have to insist upon.

But do come here, into this time-dilated part of Hell, to discuss this with My representative.

Robaldo is only 18, and already a 4th circle wizard and 3rd circle cleric.

A once-in-a-generation prodigy, to be sure. Few others can speak to that.

Not that he's really done anything noteworthy, to be sure. No big achievements.

Abrogail Thrune is 17 years old, and already a 9th circle Sorcerer.

Some people are just built different.

She walks into the Royal Court and beats Infrexus to death in broad daylight, with her bare hands.

The High Priestess and two Pit Fiends are just standing there, watching.

Nobody else is going to say anything. Not a word.

He drowned in an ice-skating accident, you say? Sure. That's what we'll say.

Hi Cheliax, oh are you having a new monarch today?

We heard the Navy of Cheliax had some setbacks, and now piracy is getting worse. It doesn't seem like you could plausibly invade us, at right this second.

We think it'd be a good idea to press for independence now.

Signed, a handful of local notables.

I'll send one of my Pit Fiends. To negotiate.

Convince them it's a bad idea to sign their names to treason.

That's - ... unexpected.

Tet has long since solved what one might call the game of "first-order" god-politics.
It only took Him a few minutes. It's not complicated.
All the real gods have solved it long ago.

Second-order god-politics is unsolvable even in principle.
It contains sub-games isomorphic to the halting problem.
But first-order is usually enough for an approximation.

Given a study of first-order god-politics, one would expect that, if a new Chaotic Good god is introduced to the equilibria, then local reality would end up, overall, slightly more Chaotic and more Good.

One would anticipate this taking effect in the form of some marginal Chaotic or Good regions of creation, call them constituencies, becoming more stable and long-lasting.

Likewise, one would expect marginal Lawful Evil constituencies, the kinds of places barely held together in the first place and particularly susceptible to the new god's angle of attack, to destabilise.

From Tet's perspective, and from the perspective of those gods he has purchased information from, Cheliax seems like the kind of Lawful Evil constituency one would expect to lose, given the addition of Tet.

It's not that He didn't expect Asmodeus would make Him work for it. It's just that it wouldn't forever continue to be worth the intervention to keep. Eventually Asmodeus would decide to pick better battles where His resources trade more effectively than here.

Possibly Tet has tried to say "GG" to this sub-game too early.

Possibly Asmodeus knows something about how winnable this fight is for Him, at certain parts of the intervention cost curve, that Tet from His perspective can't as easily see.

Possibly Asmodeus is just making a mistake, with some tiny fragment of His highly distracted attention.

Possibly Asmodeus is letting His pride force Him to make a move that game-theory says He shouldn't.

Or possibly, Asmodeus knows something not about how cheaply He can win, but about how valuable it is to His interests, that He does.

Golarion has problems with prophecy. Golarion has an Existential Threat to Creation chained within it.

It's far from the only such threat in existence.

There are plenty more outside the bubble, who can't make it past Immigrations.

There are others within Otolmens' purview to handle.

Still, Rovagug does seem a notable example.

It could be that this world is unusually important, for Asmodeus.

Tet thinks about it.

Tet wants to see where this goes.

Tet decides that He will increase His bid, here. Give slightly more of His divine energies to the fragment of His attention that watches Golarion.

And then Tet moves on, to continue at the other ten thousand simultaneous multipolar chess games that is Pharasma's Creation.