1.3 - mad investor chaos and the woman of asmodeus (cont.)

Abrogail Thrune II: She would like to just turn right here and go see Sevar who's right there, even if just for one glimpse at the look on Sevar's face. But if Abrogail starts an interaction now, it might take more time she's already overborrowed; soberly speaking, she needs to get back to her endless war councils if she doesn't want Gorthoklek coming after her again. She usually manages to make her life not be like this, she is not usually the poor little dutiful Abrogail she depicted to Keltham, but it's harder to avoid becoming her during the first days of a war.

...is there a 'trope' a Queen can 'manifest' to cause herself to have shorter workdays, somehow? She probably shouldn't think about that; Keltham's early thoughts did suggest that this might be a road leading to actual insanity. Sevar should try it first.

Iarwain: Carissa Sevar very shortly after receives this parchment message:

One. I have other duties now and will deliver a transcript later. It will not be as useful as you hoped. Most thoughts of Keltham regarding his pattern-sight rested on incomprehensible ideas that I think Golarion does not possess. Some ideas that made it through those inscrutability-heavy sections were disturbing to the point where I must consult Aspexia before I share those with anyone who has her thoughts read as often as you.

Two. You know what you did.

Three. Listening to your thoughts is becoming more painful than amusing. You are not saving yourself any trouble by sending your thoughts scurrying in frantic circles every time I come up in them. You are who you are, you can't actually hide it from me, and you'll earn however much suffering that earns you. Lose hope, give up, and endure.

At the bottom of the parchment is a set of punishment codes describing a moderately severe half-hour session in a temple torture chamber, requiring it to be taken at the recipient's choice of time sometime over the next three days.

Carissa Sevar: Lose hope, give up, and endure.

Easy to do about anything except MAYBE TURNING INTO A STATUE but impossible to do about THAT because not existing isn't the kind of thing that can be endured.

The last Fox's Cunning wears off, leaving her feeling vaguely groggy except well aware this is just what being her - enhanced with a headband, even - is normally like and that soon it'll feel normal again.

She hurries back to Keltham's room so she can evade having to explain why she was out.

Keltham: When Keltham reaches his bedroom, he glances in a direction and stops moving, then crosses to stare out the window, exposed to its palace courtyard and therefore ultimately the outdoors.

It's raining really hard. The winds have picked up too. The roses on the rosebush outside are looking bedraggled, there are rose petals being windily whirled about in the water puddled in the ground.

"How much of this does it take to destroy significant fractions of the food supply?" Keltham says, his voice quieter than usual. "Is only this much maybe - the sort of rain you get at least once a year anyways? This is a fairly stormy day for the city I grew up in, but we had those days now and then..."

"If the crops are already gone, just tell me, don't temporize."

Carissa Sevar: "It rains like this sometimes anyway, in Cheliax, so Cheliax won't have lost the crops yet. There might be places where it's causing more of a problem, if they grow different things, if it's supposed to be the dry season there, but - even there, I don't think it's too late, not after a day."

Keltham: Please let it not be too late.

Keltham realizes that his eyes are starting to water.

He didn't mean - to hurt anyone - by coming here - by being in Golarion -

Let alone kill, kill, fifteen percent of the population, even if they get afterlives, that's still, kind of, bad -

Yes, he knows, he gets it, this step was literally unavoidable in any solution, he's not stupid, he gets that, anything bringing hope into this world would have set off Zon-Kuthon -

The thought eases the ache in his eyes, but not enough.

Does Carissa's gendertrope-substitute tell her it's okay, for her boyfriend to cry in front of her, as his own gendertrope tells him that if you can't cry in front of your girlfriend you can't cry in front of anyone? Or is it all mismatched madness and insanity as things always are in Golarion, men told to do one thing and women who can only love them if they do something else?

"Does it help the gods fight, if we pray to them?" Keltham whispers.

Carissa Sevar: " - the general understanding is that yes. Only - a very tiny bit - but it'll be everyone in all of Cheliax, and lots of other people too -" if the Good countries aren't just rooting for Asmodeus and Zon-Kuthon to destroy each other - "and it does matter, if it's that many."

And she puts her arm around him and leans on his shoulder, because it seems like the thing to do.

Keltham: He puts an arm around her as well, holds her tight.

"Is there anything more to it than closing your eyes, thinking of your god, and hoping that they win?"

Carissa Sevar: " - what I was taught in school was that you imagine your god is trying to draw a better world in grains of sand, on the ground, and you're one of the grains of sand, and you want to be light enough to find your way to where you're needed, but tenacious enough that no wind can rip you away, once you're there. ...I don't know what parts of that are essential and what are just the closest you can get little children."

Keltham: "Light enough to find your way to where you're needed," Keltham whispers, "tenacious enough that no wind can rip you away once you're there."

It could almost be a dath ilani poem from some layer of some virtue, though he does not know which virtue it would correspond to. There is a spirit in it that is not in any poem he can remember having heard before, something that comes to it from the way that it is a relation between a mortal and something larger than that, being trusted.

He closes his eyes and imagines it, he doesn't bother with imagining a better world drawn in grains of sand, the better world his god draws is drawn in grains of people, agents all over the world interacting with each other. Their actions scattered and uncoordinated, for now, stepping on each other and hurting each other, for now, but there are other actions they could take instead that would make all of them better off, fairly.

He imagines himself as one of those grains, one of those people, and if this was going to be a realistic metaphor he should be a special one, maybe, except that right now he's not. Just one of all the people in Golarion hoping for this war to end quickly, and contributing the tiny little action that is cheering their god on; if they all do that, they'll all be better off. Keltham visualizes a grain like any other, to represent himself.

Light enough to find your way to where you're needed.

Tenacious enough that no wind can rip you away once you're there.

It's not his comparative advantage, no, but if almost everyone in Golarion is doing their part, right now, he can spend fifteen minutes doing his own.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa closes her eyes and prays for Asmodeus to win.

It's a sincere prayer, obviously. She does not like Zon-Kuthon and she believes in the project Zon-Kuthon was willing to blow up everything in order to oppose.

She's definitely some flavor of heretic at this point. She isn't sure what flavor. She assumes they're mostly monitoring for whether she's about to betray the project, and she's not, she believes in the project with as much conviction as she can recall ever having felt for anything that isn't the continued survival of Carissa Sevar. Which is also served by the project succeeding. But there was a set of stories meant to point people like her in the right direction, and she knew they were lies, and now she had to face what specifically they were lies about, and learn a new set, which are also lies, but lies better suited to the position she finds herself in now, and -

- she knows she can't handle the truth. She knows that even in dath ilan there's the concept not everyone can handle every truth, she knows it's possible to learn the Law even when many truths are hidden from you. But she's slightly worried that until she invents evil dath ilan thinking herself everything'll ring a bit wrong, not quite crafted for a mortal mind in the particular fragile place Carissa finds herself in.

Except, maybe, advice for little children about prayer. Slightly adjusted advice, no one ever told Carissa Asmodeus was trying to craft a better world. That's still true. It's true to Keltham, too, it landed, meant something, and she can worry later about what that means for the plan where they seduce him into Evil, it seems just as important to their plans that they find the bits of their own teaching that feel true even to dath ilan.

She imagines herself a grain of sand in the grand designs of Asmodeus, and strives to be placed where she'd needed, and fierce in remaining there, no matter what interference of other gods or other grains of sand, and hopes that Asmodeus can see, from where he stands, something beautiful and right and strong and Lawful that can be built of mortal building blocks.

Zon-Kuthon: Zon-Kuthon is losing too quickly.

Zon-Kuthon is a god; and depending on how you count it, either a very old entity, or something built out of the corpse of something that old. He models reality, therefore, entirely in probability distributions. He has no mortal heritage of any other way of seeing.

When this war began Zon-Kuthon formed a probability distribution over how long the fight should take, and gambled on a chance to drag it out long enough to ruin the crops and visit misery on a generation. But He is losing too fast, in the unreasonably far tails of that probability distribution, especially given the further information He now has about the war's participants.

The external-demigod-assembling fragments that Zon-Kuthon deliberately set to reunite with Himself quickly and early in predictable locations, to act as tests of the theory that all His longer-buried fragments are being hunted and destroyed somehow, returned to Him. And yet Zon-Kuthon... does not have an ominous intuition, He was never that mortal. He has rather the hypothesis that Nethys is opposing Him, that this is the reason for His losing too quickly, and the implication that, if so, His longer-buried external-demigod-assembling fragments will be gone.

He randomizes, then, with far too much power, in a way that Nethys can of course see but should not be able to foresee with prophecy shattered; and based on the result makes an expensive calculation of where something will be while its trajectory is still complicated; He focuses much of Himself someplace it is not at all convenient for Him to be, losing ground in the war as He does; and there He finds that His external-demigod-assembling fragment that should have been flitting through that location is gone.

He knows, then, He understands the betrayal and that Nethys it was who worked it all upon Him from the beginning.

Zon-Kuthon: And what does Zon-Kuthon do, when He is betrayed?

Mostly, of course, Zon-Kuthon does what serves Zon-Kuthon's longest purposes of pain, misery, terror, mutilation, woe.

But if there were a tiebreaker between two strategies - if there is some little thing that Zon-Kuthon can do along the way -

Then Dou-Bral, if He had been so betrayed, would have done some last thing He could to work vengeance on His betrayer.

And all that Dou-Bral was, Zon-Kuthon is not.

Nethys is betraying Him? Of course He is. How amusing. No doubt Zon-Kuthon will be the first of many. Zon-Kuthon then will tell nothing to the other gods of how Nethys has begun the series of downfalls that will inevitably lead to Their own destruction, destruction more complete than Zon-Kuthon's mere sealing. Whoever currently thinks they are Nethys's ally will find themselves mistaken; Zon-Kuthon can guess, of course, that Nethys is probably trying to side with fellow gods who also once were mortal, but Nethys being Nethys, the road that has been started down is one from which Nethys is unlikely to be able to turn back.

It is not a certainty, obviously, this beautiful vision. But the probability is one to gamble on; and a better gamble than the one where Zon-Kuthon announces Nethys's sins, in which case there is not much chance at all of lasting damage to the world and misery to the gods.

He will go into the vault, then, for a time, and say nothing of Nethys's betrayal. Zon-Kuthon has been exiled once before, after all, and it did not last. Evil stays contained less long than one might hope. If Nethys brings enough ruin to the gods, the vault will last even less.

Zon-Kuthon's pieces begin to gather into the vault. They will not slay Him; they need Him to counterbalance Asmodeus yet.

Nethys: There, there, there, and there.

???: Four simultaneous expensive and exhausting strikes, delivered with extreme calculation, striking where not many gods can see, destroying four key subassemblies whose encrypted nature is that they pin the true center of Zon-Kuthon, landing just as the vault door is almost sealed shut.

It is possible that this will kill Zon-Kuthon.

It is also possible that Dou-Bral is still in there somewhere, and will be able to free Himself at last.

Either way, the process will take a while. Nobody is liable to notice, or reason through that it wasn't just a result of divine combat, if Zon-Kuthon's clerics lose only their ninth-circle spells at first. It will be longer yet before His clerics lose their eighth-circle spells as well.

It's going to hurt Zon-Kuthon the entire time He's dying, which isn't particularly desirable, but is also an acceptable price to pay.

Iarwain: The vault is shut.

The lights in the sky flicker out, not directly seeable above the layer of clouds now covering the entire planet, but some wizards and other spellcasters know. They cheer, and go to cry the good news to others.

Not nearly all clerics, but a few clerics here and there, of eighth or ninth circle, receive faint touches of reassurance from their exhausted gods. They cheer, and go to cry the good news to others.

High on mountains, here and there, above even the clouds of war, metallic and chromatic dragons watch the sky's lights fade, and raise their heads and bellow victory for Good and Evil.

It's still raining, of course, clouds don't just vanish when the gods stop stirring them. But now the rains will grow lesser rather than more, and soon in many places they will be gone.

Merry Christmas.

Nethys: Nethys is sort of tired now and has been making Himself be way too coherent for way too long and He needs to be everywhere but also on some distant planets making pretty explosions for a while.

???: It's okay, Nethys. Go rest, or be more where you are resting. I think we can handle the plan from here.

Nethys: Bye for now, then, mysterious female god!

???: ...Nethys, you obviously know who I am, for reasons up to and including being the God of Knowledge.

Nethys: I know! But the things that watch from orthogonal angles to ultimate reality don't!

???: Nethys, I think you actually should rest.

Nethys: You're not my real mom but fine.

Iarwain:

Nethys: Oh but until Nethys gets back, nobody tell Keltham about the part where everything he thinks is a trope is actually not that trope and none of the forces structuring his universe were at any point being deliberately shaped to put him into an eroLARP and he actually is just Wrong Genre Savvy reading faces in the clouds. Nethys wants to see Keltham's face when he finds out!

Wait. Nethys is actually always everywhere and sees everything.

Well, please wait anyways!

???: Nethys, I think you should rest literally right now.

Nethys: Nethys will make RESTFUL EXPLOSIONS.

lintamande: In Egorian, trumpets ring out about three minutes after Aspexia Rugatonn gets the news and some wizards on aerial teams above Nidal Send in with the same.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa's head snaps up from praying.

" - that's - got to be good news, they wouldn't trumpet for bad -"

Keltham: His eyes snap open and he looks out the window, as if he's going to see something, but obviously, of course, it's still raining.

Hope is already lifting in him. Twelve days to ruin the world, last time, one day this time and it was just a regular storm when it ended. That doesn't sound like a hundred and fifty million people are going to die.

"Can you - go get confirmation, and come back to me," Keltham says.

Carissa Sevar: "Yes." And she opens his door and takes off down the hall towards the temple.

Keltham: As soon as the door is closed, Keltham puts his face into his hands and starts sobbing.

Carissa Sevar: On the streets, presumably, people are rejoicing, but in the temple they're not; if there's a lessening in the general atmosphere of fear and doom, it's a slight one. Maillol's of course still out. The fleeting thought that she should get the punishment over with now while her torturer will be in a good mood doesn't even seem like it'd be true, never mind that it'd be irresponsible, Keltham told her to come back.

"Keltham asked for news," she says, because it seems slightly less stupid than "did we win."

Iarwain: "Asmodeus won, we have confirmation on that from Hell now. Zon-Kuthon's not dead, though, the fucking other gods let our Lord do most of the real work and then sealed Zon-Kuthon away, in a vault to which Iomedae has the key, in case they want to use Him against our Lord some day." The second-circle priest speaking spits on the floor nearby, to clear his mouth from speaking Iomedae's name. "Nidal's clerics will keep getting spells. Doesn't change that their god is sealed up and Asmodeus is no longer distracted by fighting Him, so now they're fucked."

Carissa Sevar: " - well. I don't know why they think it'd go any better for Zon-Kuthon if they ever do let Him out. - I'm not sure what parts of that I want Keltham authorized with. That Zon-Kuthon's in a vault not dead seems fine, and is necessary to explain why the war with Nidal isn't pretty much over; that the Good gods did that to counterbalance Asmodeus, I'm leaning no; maybe they did it because it's....faster...would it in fact have been faster..."

Iarwain: "Think you want either the Grand High Priestess or an older devil for that one."

Carissa Sevar: And the Grand High Priestess is incredibly busy and Carissa doesn't in fact have a line to Hell but she's not actually willing to go back to Keltham with a lie that isn't shaped like the truth.

"How long have people been waiting for an audience with the Grand High Priestess, I'm expected to go right back to Keltham once I have news."

Iarwain: "Start with 'forever' and adjust downwards from there, but not very far."

Carissa Sevar: "Great. I'll go back with an incomplete story, then, and I request that when we do next have a line with Hell the question be conveyed."

Iarwain: The priest gives her a skeptical look (maybe this ignorant fool doesn't know who Carissa Sevar is?) but dutifully scribbles down a request and the name of the third-circle wizard who made it.

Carissa Sevar: Well, you only get to have the great fun of revealing to someone that you're much more important than they thought if they don't in fact handle your requests appropriately for the security clearance and information they have, that's the rules of running a functional military.

Carissa heads back.

Keltham: Keltham is cleaning up his face using Prestidigitation.

"Enter," he says, with an obviously hoarse voice, when Carissa knocks; he has enough dignity not to try to hide the evidence.

Carissa Sevar: " - hey. Got confirmation, the god-war is over for now...are you all right?"

Keltham: "Basically. I was - crying, actually, I'm sorry for sending you away like that, if it was something that would have been important for you to see, and I'm also sorry if being sent to run errands like that isn't the right way to treat the best spellcrafter at the Worldwound, I basically actually did it because I was afraid I - would do something in front of you - that your concept of things - says somebody like me shouldn't do."

Carissa Sevar: " - I doubt I'm the best spellcrafter at the Worldwound," she says because she wants to give her brain a little more time to catch up on the rest of that. "At my installation, yeah, but I'm third circle, there are things you can't even begin to understand until you can cast Permanency and Create Lesser Demiplane... which, you know, just give me a decade, I'll get there.... uh. It's not important to me to see you cry, if you prefer not to have people see you cry, or prefer not to have me see you cry, specifically -

- and I think Chelish people do do less emotional expression where other people can see it than dath ilani people do -

- but if this is about, uh, scripts for our kind of relationship, well, I think a lot of the appeal, to people who want someone who's all theirs, is that they don't have to do a lot of concealing vulnerability and adversarial playing? And can just, you know, cry or whatever, and not think, 'well, is she going to think less of me now'. I think that's at least part of the point."

Keltham: "Okay. Good. That's the same way in dath ilan. If I'd seen this possibility coming which I would have if I'd bothered to consider possibilities for six seconds then we could have had this conversation in advance instead of afterwards. Sorry."

Carissa Sevar: - hug?

Keltham: Hug, yeah.

Keltham: After a bit -

"So, what did you mean, 'for now'." Beep beep, trope alarm, his brain would be doing it louder if his brain generally and that section particularly wasn't so tired.

Carissa Sevar: "Apparently Zon-Kuthon is locked away in a vault, rather than dead. Immediate implications: the war will last much longer and be much bloodier, because His clerics will still get spells. I asked why we did that rather than just destroy him, but all the people who might possibly know that are very busy. Might be because - it would've taken twelve days -"

Keltham: "Yeah. Legit. Fair. Valid."

Trope-based prediction: Zon-Kuthon remains a threat, is going to be a recurring problem, and can only be killed permanently by a true Golarion Civilization that has ascended far enough to do more quickly what would take the current gods twelve days.

...why does that thought make him feel so tired. He doesn't, doesn't really want to live in a world based on tropes, actually? When his sexuality exists again he'll ask it about this whole rental concept and see if the entire Queen situation can be defused by people just being sensible people, and then if that works it will be absolute proof that there are no tropes and he won't have to worry about tropes any more.

Yes. Keltham is aware that this is not how the Law of Probability works.

Keltham: "Need to lie down for a while, I think. Would prefer somebody to cuddle while I do that. Feel a bit bad about using one of Cheliax's best third-circle wizards for it, but I might want to talk to my cuddle pillow at some point and there's not actually all that many people here with at least average intelligence."

Carissa Sevar: Carissa looks very convincingly baffled. "....I'd be happy to cuddle you."

Keltham: She is so loudly baffled that even Keltham is able to notice!

"Paracountess Isidre Several Middle Names Thrune told me, well, a bunch of stuff not gonna go through it all, but somewhere in there she mentioned that I was not entirely aware of who'd given herself to me and tried to remedy that some."

"I think she likes you, in the way of somebody wearing an overpowered intelligence headband who reads interesting reports about somebody else and decides they like them."

Carissa Sevar: "Huh. Well, they say it's good to have friends in court, if you're going to be in court.

They also say to avoid being in court if you can, but I think that's mostly advice that was true in my mother's time and isn't as true anymore."

Keltham: He takes her by the arm, gently because he's not questioning his own impulse to be gentle about it, and draws her into the bed with him. No chains.

Otolmens: Asmodeus.

Asmodeus.

Asmodeus: Does Otolmens have any idea how fucking tired Asmodeus is right now?

Otolmens: Tired is the exhaustion of all available resources. Since Asmodeus continues to function, Otolmens does not see how He can be tired.

Otolmens: The anomaly is out of the anomaly containment zone.

Otolmens: Move it back.

Asmodeus: Why is His life like this.

Asmodeus: I was not responsible for the anomaly leaving the containment zone, Asmodeus sends back to Her. With Otolmens it is necessary to explain many things that other gods would simply deduce for themselves. I did not choose it. I did not expect it.

Zon-Kuthon, a known existential threat, attacked the exact location where my mortal followers had secured and contained the anomaly.

My anomaly-storing followers validly deduced that this meant that Zon-Kuthon knew about the anomaly, knew where the anomaly was being stored, and was targeting the anomaly.

They knew that if Zon-Kuthon had attacked the anomaly at this location before, Zon-Kuthon might attack the same location again, more forcefully, and perhaps breach containment.

They therefore moved the anomaly to an even more protected location which Zon-Kuthon might not know to target, though they are protecting it without trying to make that assumption.

Since You had only recently declared the containment zone and I was busy containing known existential threat Zon-Kuthon, my followers did not know, while making this decision, that they were leaving Your containment zone in their choice of new location.

I realize that this is not the outcome You desired, Otolmens. But I, Asmodeus, have not acted with intent to contravene the spirit, let alone the letter, of your Pharasma's-Name Edict, and the subsequent events will clearly be legible to Pharasma or any other sufficiently informed gods as being how I described them.

Asmodeus goes legible so that Otolmens can see that He is being completely sincere. Look how legible Asmodeus is.

Otolmens: Zon-Kuthon is now SEALED, meaning that ASMODEUS's work is now OVER. OTOLMENS, on the other hand, continues to be responsible for monitoring or containing 2,885 other active existential threats, which you do not see Her being 'tired' about.

There is now nothing preventing Asmodeus from giving instructions to Asmodeus-obeying mortals, such as, for example, instructions to move the anomaly back to the containment zone. Where Zon-Kuthon will not be able to attack it again, since Zon-Kuthon is now sealed.

Therefore Asmodeus's reasoning, however valid it may have been YESTERDAY, is currently NOT VALID and Asmodeus should instruct His mortals to move the anomaly back to the designated anomaly containment zone.

Asmodeus: What Asmodeus is trying to say here is that this is not Asmodeus's problem. This is Otolmens's problem.

Otolmens: Otolmens's problems are EVERYONE's problems.

Asmodeus: Asmodeus does not, in fact, actually believe that this particular anomaly is going to destroy the world, just because it looks very anomalous and was produced by the laws of physics breaking down like one time. Which makes it, on Asmodeus's view, not Asmodeus's problem.

Asmodeus: Furthermore, Otolmens is once again failing to understand the mortal world at all.

Zon-Kuthon has Zon-Kuthon-obeying mortal followers. They still know where the former anomaly storage location was. If Asmodeus instructs His followers to move the anomaly back to where it was, Zon-Kuthon's followers may attack the anomaly storage location again, even though Zon-Kuthon Himself is now sealed.

Asmodeus's followers know this, in fact, which is why they have not already moved the anomaly back.

Otolmens: How does ZON-KUTHON have ZON-KUTHON-OBEYING MORTALS. Zon-Kuthon literally has no purpose except for making mortals UNHAPPY.

Asmodeus: Because some idiots gave mortals free will and now nothing they do will ever make sense again, that's why.

Otolmens: The designated anomaly containment zone is large enough to contain many mortal-sized objects.

ASSUMING that all things are as Asmodeus has described them, Asmodeus should provide His followers with the coordinates of the designated anomaly containment zone, and tell them to move the anomaly BACK into the containment zone but to choose a NEW location within it.

Asmodeus: Properly securing, containing, and protecting the anomaly requires an anomaly-securing-containing-and-protecting installation.

Proper security on such an installation requires Asmodeus's followers to, for example, install an interdiction field over the installation. Such as this interdiction field right here, over the former site of the anomaly. Would Otolmens agree that this is reasonable?

Otolmens: Yes! This sounds EXTREMELY reasonable. Otolmens is GLAD that Asmodeus is being so reasonable. An interdiction field should definitely be placed over the anomaly's NEW location as well.

Asmodeus: Indeed! Unfortunately the installation of interdiction fields requires Asmodeus's followers to use up scarce, expensive resources! Before the war started, Asmodeus's followers were able to install the previous interdiction field over the anomaly's previous location, at great expense to themselves; this, in fact, is the only reason why existential threat Zon-Kuthon's mortal followers do not already have the anomaly in their possession.

Now, however, in addition to having already used up many resources on the previous interdiction field, Asmodeus's followers are at war with Zon-Kuthon's followers to help prevent further existential threat from any previous plans Zon-Kuthon has laid. This will be grindingly expensive to Asmodeus's followers.

They cannot afford to lay a new interdiction field while the war is still continuing, so they stored the anomaly inside a previously built interdiction field with existing heavy security.

Otolmens: How long will this WAR continue? Otolmens can continue to watch the anomaly more intensively for several minutes, if it's expected to continue that long.

Asmodeus: It's going to be a while. Months or years, not minutes.

Otolmens: This is UNACCEPTABLE.

Asmodeus: That sounds like an Otolmens problem rather than an Asmodeus problem.

Asmodeus is going to be blunt here. Asmodeus does not actually see a way that Otolmens gets everything She wants unless She is willing to compromise with Asmodeus and make a trade.

Otolmens: WHAT does Asmodeus WANT.

Asmodeus: Asmodeus continues to want any of the top 18 services from the previously transmitted list of 78 potentially uniquely valuable services that Otolmens could perform for Asmodeus.

Otolmens: Otolmens continues to REMEMBER how Otolmens was ALMOST tricked into teleporting the Crown of Death out of the interdicted Crypts of Tukhanox buried far beneath a plantation owned by some mortal, into the hands of the mortal who owned that plantation. Thankfully SHIZURU went very legible and showed Otolmens that this act was not just "A simple act of material relocation that Otolmens is uniquely suited to perform, returning a mortal's legally owned possession to that mortal" and would in fact drastically upset interactions between mortals all over Golarion and probably get Her in trouble with Pharasma.

Everything on this list presumably has the SAME quality. Otolmens is capable of GENERALIZING.

Asmodeus: What if Asmodeus generates a new service and then Otolmens pings Shizuru to see if She has any objection to that one? If Shizuru doesn't respond, presumably the service is safe.

Otolmens: Otolmens has noticed that Shizuru has not responded to any pings over the last LARGE NUMBER OF TIME UNITS. Perhaps She is actually tired.

Furthermore Asmodeus could pick a service that drastically upsets the balance between Law and Chaos in Golarion in favor of Law, which SHIZURU would presumably be in favor of. Just because Otolmens is Lawful Neutral Herself does not mean that She would ever overstep the bounds laid down for Her by Pharasma.

Asmodeus: Well then.

Perhaps Otolmens could contact a Chaotic Good god, such as, for example, Cayden Cailean, and ask that god to suggest a service that Otolmens could perform for Asmodeus that would be fair compensation for Asmodeus's followers doing something very expensive for them, during the ongoing war with Nidal. Do not mention the part about the anomaly, of course, because neither of Us wants any more gods paying attention to it.

Whatever Cayden Cailean suggests will not be a Lawful Evil trap, and if it's any sort of Chaotic Good trap, Asmodeus will warn Otolmens of that!

Otolmens: CAYDEN CAILEAN is one of the gods whose unwanted interventions forced Otolmens into issuing an Edict in Pharasma's Name. What is CAYDEN CAILEAN even DOING by intervening in Cheliax. Why is ASMODEUS suggesting HIM. Are they in CAHOOTS.

Asmodeus: Pick some other Chaotic Good god then. Pick one who's currently very opposed to Asmodeus. Asmodeus is really trying to work with Otolmens here!

Oh, but don't tell them that asking them was Asmodeus's idea, though. Chaotic Good gods might not respond at all if they think Asmodeus is the one responsible for the call. Chaotic Good gods usually hate Asmodeus a lot.

Otolmens: This does seem... reasonable?

Otolmens sends a ping.

Asmodeus: (Manipulating Otolmens to a particular conclusion that She is allowed to reach is easier than with other gods, because Otolmens does not try to be less predictable; it is unfortunate that most of the conclusions one might desire from Her are ones She will not reach by any pathway.

There is, very clearly, a plot afoot, one that has just resulted in a god's downfall. Asmodeus wants to know what that plot is, whether Asmodeus's interests are a primary target of it, who exactly is behind it.

He needs information.

He has a list of suspects.

Who is known to already know about, and have acted around, the anomaly? Abadar, Nethys, Otolmens, Irori, Cayden Cailean.

Otolmens need not be considered.

In the case that Asmodeus's interests are being targeted by the plot, Abadar would not have originally reached out to Asmodeus with a poisoned trade; Abadar retaliates, in such matters, but does not attack. Also the whole thing is not really Abadar's style.

The remaining gods involved, Cayden Cailean, Nethys, and Irori, are all former mortals. Formerly mortal gods do tend to be more interventionist in mortal matters, and so more likely to appear there, but still. The thought has not escaped Asmodeus that perhaps there is some common interest of the gods who were once human, opposed to the interests of the gods who never were.

Who else was clearly involved?

Gorum, Chaotic Neutral god of battle, who suddenly switched sides about whether Zon-Kuthon should be allowed to roam free. Gorum being Gorum, He might not demand to know all about it, it is not in the nature of War that all soldiers must understand why they fight; but whoever contacted Him and successfully brought Him on board was probably somebody whose purpose Gorum finds sympathetic.

Iomedae is formerly human, and her work often conduces to Gorum's ends. And Iomedae now holds the key to a certain vault. But Iomedae will only use that key under certain rigidly defined conditions; holding it does not clearly benefit Her by much.

And if you consider this entire plot, it does look, a bit, more in the style of Chaos than of Law, or at most Neutral on that axis. To be a god is not to have the nature of carrying out strategies that some third party might see as nothing but otherwise-featureless choices of paths to final consequences; if that were so, there would be little overt difference between Lawful and Chaotic ones. Gods drink more deeply than that, of their own natures, and Lawful gods make Lawful plans and Chaotic gods make Chaotic ones.

Asmodeus will see, then, what Milani, formerly-mortal Chaotic Good goddess of revolution, will do, given a prompt to meddle in this particular issue, and perhaps that will prove revealing.)

Milani: Greetings, Otolmens. We are all very puzzled, and worried on behalf of Golarion, given some of your recent actions. Dare I hope that an explanation is about to be provided?

Otolmens: Otolmens is VERY SYMPATHETIC to this WORRY. However, IRORI and ABADAR have both warned her that TELLING more gods what is happening may cause MORE gods to intervene and then matters will become MORE complicated.

Milani: Irori and Abadar, hmm. Then if You're not here to tell Me what's going on, what's up?

Otolmens: Otolmens is trying to get ASMODEUS to do something for Her and ASMODEUS wants a trade and OTOLMENS needs a suggestion that is not going to be an AWFUL TRAP like EVERY OTHER THING THAT ASMODEUS HAS EVER SUGGESTED.

Milani: Are You very sure that Asmodeus did not manipulate You into this situation in the first place?

Otolmens: Yes. Asmodeus went legible about that. His explanation of how it happened was COMPLICATED and full of MORTAL THINGS and Otolmens still does not understand WHY ZON-KUTHON HAS ANY FOLLOWERS but Asmodeus clearly showed Her that He had no intention for any of that to actually happen.

Milani: I see. And are you quite sure that Asmodeus would not just do whatever needs doing anyways, without payment, or at a much lower payment, if it is the sort of issue that demands Your attention in the first place?

Otolmens: Asmodeus is being VERY UNREASONABLY CALM about this WHOLE THING and says He does NOT THINK THE WORLD IS GOING TO END and DID go legible to show Otolmens that He was sincere in that too.

Milani: And what is it that Asmodeus wants You to pay Him to do? Please be as precise as possible so I can check it for traps.

Otolmens: Unfortunately that would ITSELF be overly revealing which IRORI and ABADAR warned Her not to do.

To say things at a LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION that is APPROPRIATE and hopefully SAFE:

Otolmens wanted Asmodeus to get His followers to do something that seemed very straightforward to HER and that would MAKE EVERYONE SAFER.

Asmodeus presented a reasonable-seeming argument that His mortals would actually need to do MORE COMPLICATED THINGS that are EXPENSIVE FOR MORTALS in order to DO WHAT OTOLMENS ASKED and said that His followers had INSUFFICIENT RESOURCES due to their ongoing war with ZON-KUTHON'S MORTAL FOLLOWERS. Otolmens still does not understand WHY Zon-Kuthon has ANY mortal followers.

Milani: (To Asmodeus:)

What are you playing at?

Asmodeus: Milani. What an unpleasant day this has suddenly become.

Asmodeus is playing at many things. Milani will find out about some of them in due time.

What's this call about?

Milani: Otolmens contacted Me asking to suggest a non-trapped service that She could perform for you, because She wants something from You, and You, for some reason, are not just giving it to Her.

Asmodeus: Oh? Clever of Her.

Well, Asmodeus is being, in fact, pretty straightforward for once, more straightforward than He'd be with anyone who wasn't Otolmens.

Otolmens asked for Asmodeus to tell His followers to do something very expensive in the middle of their war with Nidal. It would cost them somewhere in the vicinity of 100,000 gold pieces, more than 50,000gp, less than 200,000gp.

Asmodeus does not think that this matter is going to destroy the world and is not going to do this out of the charity of His heart.

Asmodeus wants to be paid. He's not going to mess with Otolmens, because Otolmens, but He wants to be paid.

That's it. Look at how legible Asmodeus is being about how He didn't set Otolmens up for this, didn't secretly prompt Her into making the request, and isn't trying to sneakily make His mortals do anything more expensive.

If Milani could suggest a straightforward trade and service for Otolmens to do, that Asmodeus will accept, without being particularly Chaotic or Good about it which Asmodeus will NOT accept, then Milani would be doing Her proper part to help out Otolmens, just as Asmodeus is not trying to pull anything complicated on Her.

As for specifics beyond that, Asmodeus will not discuss Otolmens's affairs without Her consent, lest even more gods meddle in them.

Milani: Really. You're not going to overcharge Her or underdeliver, relative to Her own goals and the counterfactuals you actually otherwise expect, at all, not even a little.

Asmodeus: Nope. Because Otolmens. Look how legible Asmodeus is being about that.

Milani: Seems like a missed opportunity for the two of Us, really.

Asmodeus:

Asmodeus: Asmodeus admits that He was not expecting Milani to say that.

Milani: Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil do not have many common interests, but there are some, as we have all been recently reminded. Given this mutual opportunity, we should make as much of it as we can, with appropriately careful bargaining to make sure that the benefits fall within the overlap of our interests, and that side effects of our obtaining our respective benefits do not harm the other.

Asmodeus: ...Asmodeus is listening.

Milani: I propose that I suggest to Otolmens a payment that will be acceptable to Her, that will not actually cost Her significantly given Her capabilities in the material world, and that will constitute a relatively large payment for the service She requests.

The service I have in mind will benefit Cheliax, currently Yours for now. Cheliax by and large tends to do things that I find very unpleasant. But as the symmetry and opposition between your interests and mine is not perfect, there is a chance here for mutual benefit. Nidal, for example, manages to be such an awful place that Cheliax is actually better than it, and for Cheliax to conquer Nidal entirely would serve both of Us well - though the gain from Your perspective would be larger than the gain from Mine, and I would demand payment to make up that difference.

I propose in particular that you legibly exhibit to Me your honest expectation of how long the war with Nidal will otherwise last and how much it will otherwise cost; our compact will call for You to pay Me for how much better for Cheliax the war ends up going, compared to that expectation, after I suggest my proposed service to Otolmens. You will pay me for improvements as they become nearly certain, however, rather than waiting for the war to end. I would commit not to using those payments to work against Your interests; not everything that I want is something you hate.

One similarly observes that although You derive similar pleasure from torturing most of the souls in your possession, there are in truth some souls' tortures that I find more tragic than others, even though they are all tragic. If Cheliax ends up with a counterfactually larger population compared to what You expected, after Otolmens's intervention suggested by me - due to their increased counterfactual wealth and hence population growth, or their conquest of other territories - the compact would call for You to instruct Cheliax to use fewer of certain tactics and techniques that you designed specifically to lead good people into damnation. If the payment cannot be made up that way, it can be made up in relaxations of other Chelish policies designed at producing damnations of people who are not, in fact, particularly evil. I would also accept payment in the form of stays of torment for souls of my choice in Hell.

Asmodeus: Asmodeus has many thoughts about this; even this fraction of His mind is large and has room for many thoughts inside it. Among those thoughts is that this compact would happen to benefit Milani a great deal more if, for some reason, Asmodeus had otherwise underestimated how well the war with Nidal would go for Cheliax; and Milani, somehow, knew about this, when Asmodeus did not.

It is still relatively good news about whether Milani - and some conspiracy that She is part of - is mainly plotting something directly and irrevocably opposed to Asmodeus's interests; unless, of course, that is exactly what Milani wants Asmodeus to think.

Asmodeus responds with a counter-proposal. It has much more stringent definitions of exactly what kind of counterfactual improvements will be said to be traceable to Milani's particular suggestion for Otolmens's intervention. He is not willing to include all the knock-on effects, just in case Milani has something up Her sleeve in one of them.

(The overcomplicated terms are designed to exclude, in passing, improvements in war conditions and of Cheliax's health that go through Otolmens's service but also passed through whatever has His squirrels in the anomaly's immediate vicinity so excited. Asmodeus has noticed them becoming more excited, over the last couple of days.

If Milani rejects that part - or suggests overcomplicated modifications in return that would again count knock-on benefits passing through whatever-excited-His-squirrels - Asmodeus will have a much clearer idea of what is going on.)

The part about stays of torment for souls in Hell is, of course, entirely unacceptable. The crushing inevitability and hopelessness is really part of the whole point there. Though Asmodeus supposes that Milani could suggest some very, very high rate of conversion between new souls added and old souls stayed, with temporary stays of torment doomed to end.

(If Milani suggests an astronomical but reachable rate, it will suggest that, for some reason, Her target is a particular soul in Hell, and the rest of this is just an elaborate ruse to disguise it. Asmodeus doesn't know why Milani would do that, it seems more Stupid Good than Chaotic Good, but it's among the many many possibilities that Asmodeus is considering for what might really be going on.)

Also Asmodeus is not going to integrate the expected benefits over infinite time to be paid out immediately because Asmodeus is not three minutes old.

Milani: Milani responds with a counter-proposal.

It involves exactly the sort of overcomplicated amendments to Asmodeus's amendments that you might expect from somebody who had no idea what the original amendments had really been about, but didn't want to admit that. The new set of overcomplications do still happen to exclude any knock-on effects of Otolmens's service that pass through Keltham's project.

Milani suggests a conversion rate of 36 counterfactual souls expected to be added over the next 100 years, per 1 soul's torment stayed now for up to 100 years; but the stays will pass through Erecura, the Lawful Neutral goddess who now resides within Dis as Dispater's consort, and Asmodeus Himself will not know who is targeted by them, nor may He attempt to find out, nor may those stayed be told by Hell how they came to be so blessed.

Asmodeus: ...innnnteresting. Either Milani doesn't know what has Asmodeus's squirrels so excited - or She was willing to sacrifice all of the benefits She hoped to gain by that tactic, to make it look as if She's ignorant.

36 new souls for one torment stayed is still far too low, of course, especially if Asmodeus isn't allowed to know the purpose. Try 3600! Though Asmodeus might consider a lower rate, if Milani were willing to accept this rider stating that no such unseen exercise of a stay of torment will be used in a way net harmful to Asmodeus's other interests; such as, for example, by using it to suborn one of Asmodeus's trusted subordinates and diminish their immediate fear of Him. Milani talked a good game about how all this would be a nice Abadarian trade in the overlap of their interests; was She, perhaps, less than fully sincere in Her intents?

(What is She playing at, here...)

Milani: 36, but that rider is fine. Each 36 counterfactual extra souls expected in Hell over the next 100 years, as Asmodeus now expects them as a result of the service Milani suggests to Otolmens, may at Milani's discretion be converted into 1 stay of torment for 100 years for a soul of Milani's choosing, as passed through Erecura, the recipients not being told why, and Asmodeus and His direct reports making no effort to find out who they were. Milani commits that the collective result of all such interventions will be net beneficial to Asmodeus's interests in Her own expectation.

Any extra souls unused by this conversion will be amortized in the relaxation of Chelish policies designed to damn good people, and, in the case of overflow, those policies designed to damn nonevil ones.

Absent a policy like this, Milani obviously cannot cooperate with Asmodeus to benefit Cheliax, as it would harm Her own Good interests.

Asmodeus: Asmodeus doesn't often make deals He knows He's unsure about, never with mortals and only rarely with gods.

This one has Him intrigued. The appearance is that Milani is pursuing some goal that isn't about harming Asmodeus's interests, but has something to do with Him, possibly even benefiting Him, and yet the specifics must be concealed from Him - perhaps lest He turn the matter further to His own ends at the expense of Hers. If that's not in fact true, then She sure is doing a good job of presenting that impression - and has foregone getting anything else that Asmodeus can figure out, in order to present that impression.

Asmodeus does, in fact, like tricky compacts, that is part of what it means to be a god of them.

Deal.

Why can't all His interactions be like this?

Milani: All right, Otolmens, I did some poking around of my own, and I think I have an idea.

Part of what's making things expensive for Asmodeus's followers is, indeed, His war with Zon-Kuthon's followers, that's real, I checked. If that war were to end more quickly, that would itself decrease the real cost to Asmodeus's followers, and also count as a service to Asmodeus in its own right. The total of that should be enough to compensate Asmodeus for the remaining cost of your request, with safety margin; do NOT believe Him if He says otherwise or asks for anything else.

Zon-Kuthon defied your own Edict in Pharasma's Name, using His followers to do so. Therefore you are now allowed to retaliate against Zon-Kuthon for that in a way which targets His followers, or whole factions and territories of which His followers have overwhelming control.

My proposal is that you remove all the crystals of this form out of this bounded territory controlled by Zon-Kuthon's followers, and move them somewhere in Asmodeus's territory where people who are definitely Asmodeus's dedicated followers will find them.

Otolmens: Tetrahedral Element-6 crystals. Hm. Otolmens remembers those. They played a prominent role in one of Asmodeus's other requests, for Her to clean up what Asmodeus said was ugly waste contaminating the ground extending far underneath His territories, and deposit it in a waste dump of His own designation.

Milani: Yes. That was a trap. It would have vastly upset the power balance of the world and gotten you in trouble with Pharasma. Tetrahedral Element-6 crystals are used by mortals to cast relatively powerful versions of their little magics. Zon-Kuthon's followers are using them to fight Asmodeus's followers now. If you move all the crystals that Zon-Kuthon's followers have, and give them to Asmodeus's followers instead, the war will end significantly faster, and also that will be enough wealth to pay Asmodeus's followers to do what you want them to do.

Don't take any such crystals buried in the earth where mortals haven't uncovered them; that will get you in trouble. Just take the ones that mortals have already uncovered, everywhere inside this region 'Nidal' I'm pointing out, and move them someplace where some of Asmodeus's more dedicated followers - like His more powerful clerics - will find them.

Otolmens: Milani has proposed a SERVICE. Is it ACCEPTABLE to Asmodeus?

Asmodeus: Asmodeus supposes that, taking into account how this will shorten the war as well, it constitutes an acceptable payment. That was clever of Milani.

Deal.

Otolmens: Now where should She PUT them, after picking them up...

Oh, Her oracle happens to be next to some of Asmodeus's chosen mortals. That is CONVENIENT.

Halfling slave #958245 "Broom": Suddenly being surrounded by all of the mined diamonds from Nidal doesn't mean being buried, there simply isn't that much diamond in Nidal when spellcasters are always using it up. Why leave a diamond lying around just being a diamond forever when you could turn it into power for yourself? Diamond doesn't accumulate over time, quite the opposite.

Nidal's current stocks, combat stores, private stashes, combat reserve stores, emergency reserves, emergency private stashes, final emergency reserves, and all other diamonds in Nidal, don't actually end up massing all that much; a 25,000gp diamond is not a large object by the standards of anything except diamonds.

Broom is nonetheless mildly startled by how many diamonds just fell onto the table in front of him while he was eating lunch. He wasn't really expecting any diamonds at all, let alone that many.

Iarwain: Top-priority message for Aspexia Rugatonn yes LITERAL ACTUAL TOP PRIORITY.

Otolmens: ...why is the anomaly STILL OUTSIDE THE ANOMALY CONTAINMENT ZONE.

Asmodeus: Because it is going to take longer than literally six seconds for Asmodeus to communicate His desires to His followers and for His followers to set up a new containment installation and an interdiction field.

Otolmens: Otolmens has been TRICKED! Why did Otolmens trust Asmodeus!

Asmodeus: ASMODEUS IS NOT EVEN TRYING TO TRICK OTOLMENS ON THIS OCCASION

IT JUST TAKES MORTALS LONGER THAN SIX SECONDS TO DO THIS CORRECTLY AND WHILE OBSERVING ALL ANOMALY-RELATED SAFETY PRECAUTIONS

lintamande: Policy in Dis is to take reasonably good care of souls awaiting resurrection; it doesn't do to have them return to life desperate to escape Hell for real at any cost. Accordingly the contract devil who owns Asmodia has her copying spell diagrams which can't be typeset, for books of magic. The working conditions are pleasant, for Hell. There is a light that Asmodia can fuel with her blood, and which bathes the workspace with a pleasant golden glow bright enough to copy by without straining one's eyes. The chair is not uncomfortable; that makes scribes slower. There are, of course, no breaks, because petitioners do not need to eat or sleep; if Asmodia is too slow to finish a page she is simply encouraged to drink a potion that'll aid her concentration.

The potions are painful, of course. But Asmodia is, if wholly uninteresting herself, adjacent to something interesting, and so her contract devil told her in a friendly sort of voice the secret to making the potions much less painful. It's that they separate, left on the shelf, into an oily top layer and a magically active bottom layer. It's the top layer that causes the agonizing pain, and if it's dumped out on the ground the potion won't work, but it's all right if it's fed to a different person than the one drinking the rest. (Hell's alchemists worked very diligently to achieve this effect.) Since, at the moment, the contract devil is feeling generous with Asmodia, she may go out and feed the potion-tops to some of the less useful apprentices, or if she's ahead of schedule on her scribing she may go all the way out to the waterfront and feed the first sip of the potion to the conscious, petrified angels that are spaced regularly for decor. You know, as a treat. There are many treats in Hell for the obedient.