Keltham: "They faked the soul sale."

Ione Sala: "Yes, I think by having her do a Permanencied Detect Magic -"

Keltham: "So Carissa would, in fact, be a hidden cleric, then."

Ione Sala: Wait what how does Keltham know that from -

Ione keeps a neutral expression, of course.  "Spoilers, can't say anything one way or the other about anything I didn't know two days ago."

Keltham: "How many of my other trope-based predictions have been coming true and being hidden from me."

Ione Sala: "I haven't knowingly run into Nocticula."

"Asmodia is a true 'asexual', and was 'the one who stands back and watches it all' in the sense that she was the Conspiracy's... Law-checker, consistency-checker, she had a giant wall with green, yellow, red, purple, and black writing for all the anomalies and inconsistencies in the fake universe they were constructing.  And was sort of insane about it.  As of two days ago, two-days-ago Ione says that she doesn't know what Asmodia's superpowers were, but Asmodia seemed to come back suspiciously healthier and less afraid after getting rezzed, which, contra to Sevar, is not usually what happens when somebody goes to Hell.  Sevar dropped hints about Project Lawful girls having an easier time in Hell, but claimed to not know anything herself, and pointed some fingers at Asmodia, who claimed to not know what Sevar was talking about."

"I'd definitely noticed a trend of all the Trope Girls having some reason to not be scared of Hell the way everybody else was, but as of two days ago, I didn't get any visible success on my prediction that Yaisa would get touched by a god and end up with some reason of her own."

"Ione-of-two-days-ago knows a bunch of your trope-based predictions came true while you were fighting with the Queen over Sevar, but they didn't tell that Ione any of the details, presumably because the Queen lost humiliatingly to you."

Keltham: "I didn't fight Abrogail at any point that I know about!  From my in-universe character viewpoint, after Isidre said there might be a problem, we had one very rational and sane conversation and resolved everything peacefully in order to deliberately avert all the tropes that I thought could've been invoked!"

Keltham: "Wait, no, that entire conversation with Isidre made absolutely no sense in terms of Conspiracy, of real Cheliax -"

"Ione, what the ass."

Ione Sala: "Ione-of-two-days-ago says she doesn't know what the ass, sorry."

"She expresses that the real story is probably fucking awesome, if you could figure it out, and a glorious humiliation of Abrogail Thrune that ought to get printed in every newspaper on the planet outside of Cheliax."

Keltham: "You sure that's not any spoiler leakage?"

Ione Sala: "I have a lot of practice with not letting spoilers, info my character shouldn't know, leak to Keltham.  Unfortunately."

Keltham: "...Yeah.  Fair."

"Peranza?"

Ione Sala: "Ione of two days ago was told that Peranza had some mysterious unspecified mental breakdown as a result of being taught dangerous techniques, did something inexplicable with her mind that an incompetent Security allowed her to go on doing for two rounds before setting her to sleep, Gorthoklek got called in - Gorthoklek is a pit fiend, plausibly the literal actual scariest and most powerful entity in Cheliax ahead of both Abrogail Thrune and Aspexia Rugatonn - and then Peranza got turned into a statue pending there being real chel ilani to take care of her."

She's - not going to say anything about Sevar torturing the Security, exhibiting him to Project Lawful.  It just seems like that would be - cruel.

Keltham: "Snack Service said not to make any decisions about Peranza-related issues, pending knowledge of a fact that only one person there knew... no, knew enough to deduce."

Ione Sala: "Super not saying anything about anything Snack Service related.  You shouldn't think too hard about it yourself, if you can help it."

Keltham: "I figured."

"...you want to just tell the whole story in something like a reasonable order."

Ione Sala: She will.

It's a story that makes entire sense to her, now, if not to him.

She has a lot of practice in not letting any of that show.

Keltham: Keltham has additional questions.

Ione Sala: She has all the answers, and can't speak most of them.

Keltham: Keltham asks Ione about her real life, before Project Lawful.  If there's anything there that seems - psychologically safe to say.  Keltham is, not really trying to get additional horrors piled onto him, right now, he expects to get enough horror during his next library expeditions.  He just - was wondering - about the real Ione.

Ione Sala: It is probably better that he not be told most of it.

She does tell him the story of how she found a sick bird she wanted to nurse back to health, and how her older brother found the bird and slowly tore it to bits, living, while Ione watched, and how that was the last time Ione let herself care about anything, because she understood that anything she let herself care about would be used as a weapon to hurt her.

Keltham: Oh.  She does understand, then.

Ione Sala: Yes.

Keltham: The romantic plotline is supposed to have Ione say, last time she let herself care about anything, until she met Keltham.

Ione Sala: Ione was not, in fact, permitting herself to care too much about Keltham, until she, and he, were both out of Cheliax.

And she cannot comment about whether or not her current state of knowledge would let her care more about Keltham, because of all the possible worlds where it would be a spoiler that she could or couldn't.

Keltham: Moot point; he's not advancing any relationships right now.  Ione, supposedly, already knows why not.

Ione Sala: "Keltham, if you're trying not to think this through too much right now, you probably shouldn't be talking about it."

Keltham: "Nah.  You can talk without thinking, and if I didn't know what I was doing on some level, I wouldn't be able to do it.  Though that does make it hard to decide what not to say."

Ione Sala: "Doesn't talking about it automatically cause your brain to reflect on it?"

Keltham: "Not if I decide it doesn't."

Ione Sala: "Add that to the list of ilani skills that Golarion, for now, will be better off without."

Keltham: Keltham emerges from Ione's bedroom eventually, looking a little less shell-shocked than when he went in.

Knowing that his Carissa was, so far as Ione-of-two-days-ago knows, almost real... helps, and hurts, at the same time.

His decisions would've been easier, past this point, if Carissa had in fact sold her soul, if the contract with Keltham had been fake, if Carissa had been headed to Hell no matter what, on the default course of things.

Prince Fe-Anar: His security looks considerably unhappier than when they entered the temple, and are pacing in the library not far from Ione's room though they do not seem to have been given an exact location. "Someone took the bait and kidnapped one of the impersonators," says Fe-Anar. "They probably know by now that they got an impersonator, but we don't know if they'll try again. The guard wants to teleport you right back to the Dome but I told them that's what Cheliax would do. They looked very offended."

Keltham: "Annoying.  Do you assert that the library in the Black Dome is much safer for me to browse than this library?"

Prince Fe-Anar: "Well, that depends whether Nefreti will intervene if bad things happen, or not. If she'll bestir herself to help, here's the safest place in the world. If she won't, then the Dome's much safer."

Ione Sala: "This is my library," says Ione Sala's voice from somewhere, "and Kelthamnappers, other than myself of course, are not allowed in my library."

Prince Fe-Anar: "Great," he says, "in that case stay all day, I suppose."

Ione Sala: (You don't have to be omniscient to guess Keltham might have an interesting conversation right after leaving, or shelve yourself someplace out-of-sight but in hearing distance to hear it; and it's actually Nefreti who defends the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye.  But Ione has heard any stories about Maniacal Scientist Verrez at this point, and she's grasped the dath ilani concept of a 'fingersnap'.)

Keltham: Keltham's next task, before his renewed Prestidigitation fades and he forgets her name, is to go try setting up initial wizard lessons for Mirna.

lintamande: She'll presumably want day lessons, six days a week, bring your own lunch, for the next four months; that's what the price covers. That won't get most int-14 people to a reliable mastery of cantrips, if they're starting without any math or magic background, but it'll get some there, and get others far enough they can keep practicing on their own. If she's not literate she'll need to learn to read first.

Keltham: ...Keltham supposes he can imagine wizard lessons taking that long, if you don't have any Chelish Security officers overlaying illusions of what they can see with soul-bought Arcane Sight, and you only know Golarion's concept of early wizard math, and you've never played any mathy video games or done any computer programming, and your INT is 14.

How much do reading lessons cost?

lintamande: Not much by comparison; four gold will cover a month, and a bright student ought to pick it up in three.

Keltham: ...here's sixteen gold, and if Mirna doesn't need it, educate someone else who does.

(Three months for an adult to learn how to read... that's what happens when your written language isn't a pointwise isomorph of your spoken language's sounds, Keltham supposes, but it may also illustrate some fundamental problem with their process for teaching things.)

lintamande: They'll do that. The classes are popular, there'll be a taker even if this particular woman isn't one. 

Keltham: "Fe-Anar, I'm confused about how Osirion doesn't think it's worth 12gp to educate INT 14s to read and then another 50gp to get them started on wizard lessons.  It seems like the sort of thing that'd get paid back in greater tax revenue later, if Osirion got a loan to make that investment now, unless interest rates are way higher than Cheliax let me know about."

Prince Fe-Anar: "I imagine usually their households wouldn't be able to spare them for several months. We run schools for boys but a lot of parents don't send them because they need their boys at home for work, and that's much younger kids whose work is much less valuable."

Keltham: "All right.  I'll take that as a general sign that things are in an awful equilibrium rather than Osirion's government being stupid."

"And I'm not going to try to roll any solutions to it, because in a short while they'll have to refigure the system anyways to account for people getting loaned temporary +4 intelligence headbands while they're learning" or the larger system containing this one will have been destroyed.

Keltham: Next up, there's a topic Keltham wants to look into while he's in Nethys's library.

Ancient gods.  Where'd they come from, according to the library of the temple of the god of knowledge.  Does eg Sarenrae really care about human beings, or are they just a kind of strange object in Its utility function.  Are any of the ancient gods known to really care about human beings the way that human beings care about each other, and not just as a kind of thing that can be configured to generate more utility in many different ways, some of which the humans enjoy more than others.

Does Abadar - seem to ever care, at all, about people, as something other than trading partners?

Are there any hints about the once-human gods being forced into subservience to the ancient ones, or making concessions to those ancient gods in exchange for being permitted their godhood?

(Keltham is also going to be paying attention to any information he runs across about Rovagug, Pharasma, Achaekek, Aroden, the Starstone, or Outer Gods, but does not want to make it very obvious that he's researching those subjects.)

lintamande: There is plenty of speculation about what the gods care about, but most of it is irresponsible, the better half of it admittedly so. The gods cannot communicate with the Material very well; they can be judged by who they pick as clerics, because that's definitely somehow related to what they fundamentally are as beings, and they can be judged by what their messengers say. Sarenrae, it is said, was an angel before She ascended, and you can go ask a lot of angels what they value in the universe, and that's probably the best you can do. 

Angels say all kinds of things, when you ask them what they value in the universe. 

For every child there is a moment when they realize for the first time that there is something it is like, to be someone else. And that's it, I think, that's the whole thing. There is something it is like to be the most damaged, angry, frightened person in all the universe, there is as much to them as to everything I've ever known or will ever know. When they hurt, they hurt exactly like I do. 

In Nirvana, there is a little spring, full of sunlight, where otters play, and dive, and eat clams, and recite poetry, and practice magic, and write stories and read stories and rejoice in one another. I cannot tell you what I value in that little spring, let alone in all the universe; but my answer, so far as I have one, is that if you wanted to understand Good, and could look anywhere, I would start there.

Sometimes, two people look at each other, and see that they can trust each other, and see that they can grow in each others' arms, and desire what's best for the other wholly and uncomplicatedly, the way a child who has not yet learned to be ashamed of her desires desires her mother's breast. That is how Shelyn loves us, and the universe ought to be the sort of place that that love would build, were it unrestrained.

In every person there is a whole world, and they ought to explore it as far as their legs carry them, and then learn to fly, and then learn to Teleport; that's what Good is. 

Good is desiring for another person that things go well for them, by their own lights; growing up is just learning how to do that for every single other person in every moment with every breath without it hurting too much to bear.

Abadar and his followers wish to bring the light of civilization to the wilderness, to help educate all in the benefits of law and properly regulated commerce. He expects his followers to obey all meaningful laws, but not those which are ridiculous, unenforceable, or self-contradictory. He is also a great proponent of peace, as war inevitably leads to the degradation of trade and the stifling of prosperity for the general public. He advocates cautious, careful consideration in all matters, and frowns on impulsiveness, believing that it leads to the encouragement of primitive needs. Abadar discourages dependence on government or any religious institution, believing that wealth and happiness should be achievable by anyone with keen judgement, discipline, and a healthy respect for all sensible, just laws.

Abadar is not one of the gods with a track record of adopting specific pet humans He then makes absurd sacrifices for, though some gods do do that; Aroden seemed to have particularly close and sustained attachments to the greatest among His mortal followers, and a number of them He eventually promoted to demigods or similar before Iomedae, of course, attained full godhood in Her own right. The first time Abadar has bestowed attention, power and mentorship on mortals in some form other than promoting them as His priests or sending them visions is the current situation in Osirion.

During the Age of Creation, Abadar was among the original gods who battled the Rough Beast who sought to destroy Golarion. According to the Windsong Testaments, after Gorum and Torag forged the shell of the Dead Vault, Abadar provided the perfect key and lock for Rovagug's prison, a key so cunningly made that only Asmodeus could turn it.

Abadar is credited with guiding the advancement of humanoid races towards the point where they could establish civilized societies of their own. 

The general understanding of the Osirion situation is that the end of prophecy made it necessary for Abadar to have the ability to pay mortals to do what He wants, if He's going to get any of His goals achieved. 

The context in which Abadar's best understood to do things people think of as sentimental is the First Vault. The story goes that the first time a mortal made, with their own hands, something of value to them, He was delighted, and when it was lost to the general difficulties of life in that time, He was horrified, and He made the vault so that the work of peoples' hands and minds would never be lost forever. Depending on the source, He may or may not let some people go in and get treasured things once they die.

Abadar strives to maintain agreeable relationships with the other deities, recognizing their influence is conducive to the further advancement of civilized life. In particular, he cultivates alliances with Iomedae, Irori, Shelyn, Asmodeus, and Erastil. Gozreh often opposes Abadar's actions, though Abadar only recognizes Rovagug and Lamashtu as true enemies. The god Aroden respected Abadar and consulted Abadar's The Manual of City-Building to aid in his establishment of the country of Taldor and of the city-state of Absalom. Abadar once opened channels to the archdevil Mephistopheles to cement an alliance based on the archdevil's interest in contracts but these negotiations failed.

No one really understands how the once-human gods relate to the never-human gods. There are vague half-references to Aroden having tried to make some arrangements before He ascended, before giving up and becoming a god. The once-human gods are definitely much weaker than the never-human ones; it's unclear if that's somehow intrinsic to being once-human, or the product of a negotiated agreement or just a temporary state of affairs because the once-human gods are weaker or what. 

Abadar was worshiped by the ancient Azlanti before Earthfall, who focused more on his aspects as a god of cities and gold, rather than of law. As the Azlanti built their first towns and sought others to trade with, he saw his cult spread and taught them to establish cities and seek more wealth. When the Azlanti became an empire, Abadar's faith became popular among merchants and politicians.

Abadar's church turned economy and finances into an academic school. Many temples served as vaults where the church's and the empire's wealth resided, and the government provided significant military and security support to the church. As the empire expanded, Abadar's church founded hundreds of cities and established trade across all colonies, and turned the formation of a stable economy and a network of merchants who could carry goods and currency across the entire empire into an art.

Keltham: Those sure are some nice testaments from angels.  Are those, by any chance, all angels who used to be human, who are being asked here, or has Keltham misunderstood the nature of angels?  Are there similarly humane-sounding statements from the sort of angels who were the same kind of angel Sarenrae was?

What's the story with Sarenrae having destroyed a city at some point?

Are there any ancient gods who seem to have really loved a mortal, in a way that shows they, like, understood that whole mortal business?

...do the books say what Abadar's alliance with Asmodeus is about?

lintamande: The book does not say if the angels used to be human! Not all angels used to be human or even used to be any mortal species, but there's not generally understood to be fundamental differences in priorities or outlook between angels that were human and angels that weren't.

....what counts as really loving a mortal? There's, uh, a rumor Desna and Cayden Cailean fucked when He was human and that's why he succeeded at ascending. Erastil is broadly understood to be a giant humanity fanboy who does things like attempt to have a gender on purpose because humans do it and attempting to have a wife on purpose because humans do it and attempting to conceive children on purpose because humans do it. 

After Sarenrae told her followers not to go near the smooth scar left above Rovagug's prison, they either misunderstood her or decided to ignore her, and went to build a city there. Rovagug was able to influence the city and the people in it, and did so, making the people twisted and Evil and working towards his own release. Sarenrae eventually sent Her herald to tell the people they were in terrible peril and needed to leave immediately. They murdered the herald. At that point She smote the city. Her Church generally holds that She didn't have a lot of options, but still regrets and repents of Her decision there. 

Asmodeus generally backs Abadar's work to build cities and civilizations, because humans are capable of more of the kinds of tyranny of interest to Asmodeus when they have social organization more sophisticated than a tiny hunter-gatherer tribe. Abadar trades with Asmodeus, though He does not recommend to His followers that they do so.

Keltham: Could be, Sarenrae didn't really have other options, and a Rovagug release was imminent and Sarenrae considered that bad or was obligated by other bargains made to prevent the universe's destruction.

Could be, Sarenrae knew that everybody in the doomed city would isekai-theory-of-immortality to somewhere else acceptable, if she smote it in a soul-destroying way, instead of going to an Evil afterlife.

Could be, Sarenrae knew that city would go on generating souls to go to Evil afterlives, until destroyed, and she took the Rovagug issue as an excuse to destroy an Evil city without the Evil gods interfering.

Could be, the angels who were never human don't think in quite the same way about everyone containing a whole world inside them.

Could be, the ancient gods don't have emotional relationships with even the most advanced fancy-headband-wearing 9th-circle wizards, for the same reason Keltham would have trouble falling in love with someone at INT 10.

Could be, the ancient gods just don't feel that way about mortals.

Could be, the thing with Desna and Cayden Cailean is completely true, and she really did love him and not just fuck him.

Could be, Abadar does like mortals and doesn't like Asmodeus; but, Asmodeus not being Zon-Kuthon, Asmodeus is not perfectly inimical to mortals; and Abadar trades with Asmodeus in the gap of that imperfection.

Or it could be that two ancient inhuman gods have a common interest in building cities, because it creates more trade and more tyranny.

...Keltham is about done here, and ready to Teleport back to the Black Dome, if the streets here are no longer safe to wander.

Lady Eulàlia Avaricia de Seguer: They got her her new trainees very promptly, probably because Keltham is recruiting just as fast in Osirion. She actually hasn't had time to rehearse her speech in front of a mirror, but that's fine, she doesn't need to. 

"Welcome to Project Lawful. The objective of Project Lawful is to use true Asmodeanism, the things Hell is forbidden to teach us, to invent the means to conquer the world. Most of the conquest of the world will be achieved with chemistry, the knowledge of the minute physical details of reality that enables alchemical reactions we didn't previously know how to attain, and with related principles of shareable experimentation. Alchemists conduct plenty of experiments, but alchemy is hardly richer for them; the benefits accrue to the individual, and not to Cheliax, which is their master and which merits the greater share of the benefit from their discovery. Dath ilan figured out how to ensure that experimentation benefits the state and not just the experimenter, and we'll be doing that. 

 In dath ilan, where this chemistry was first discovered, every child is raised from a young age with a grasp of the mathematical foundations of what they do and why. Keltham attempted to teach that to us, out of some kind of conviction that there was where the true secret of dath ilan's wealth and power lay. The mathematical foundations of the universe are certainly interesting, but where they bore fruit was in the areas I have spoken of -- chemistry, and experimental methods for ensuring that Cheliax can prosper by the discoveries of its alchemists. Had we the luxury of all the time in the world, it would fall to us to attempt to coax the other elements of Keltham's teaching to bear fruit.

But we have no such time. Keltham has fled to Osirion, where he will be teaching eager Abadarans all he knows, and warning all the world that Cheliax has cheap spellsilver and knowledge of the principles to invent more from there. The war is coming soon, and if we are unprepared for it we will be annihilated, by the self-righteous forces of Good that loathe any power that does not bow to them. You will not have the luxury of mastering ilanism in a meandering way from all its foundations dath ilan teaches to children; you will master chemistry quickly and cleanly, you will learn the experimental methods, and all the rest of ilanism we will develop as necessary to enable further achievements in industry. The core problem before you is how to make spellsilver cheaper to make, and possible to make without the attention of high level wizards, and how to use alchemy to cause much larger explosions, and to prevent them.

Along the way, some of the tangential bits of ilanism will prove necessary to master, and you'll be trained in them, but we are not trying to do Hell's work. We are trying to defend our lives, our souls, and our homeland, and if Asmodeus wills it we'll learn more about the deep true nature of the world along the way, because we require it for His service."

Asmodia: "So, like, the part where the Queen told us to produce new ilani and scale up manufacturing, we're all going to pretend we haven't heard that?  Because if we did hear the Queen's priorities, what she thinks Cheliax needs next, and then ignored those because they'd be inconvenient, that'd be, you know, impolite.  Just trying to grasp what story we're supposed to be coordinating around, if Abrogail Thrune drops by and asks what we're doing."

Asmodia asks it of Avaricia at a time when only the old members of Project Lawful are present; Asmodia is not doing anything that could be interpreted as overt sabotage of Avaricia while Avaricia still seems to be overtly working for Cheliax.

Lady Eulàlia Avaricia de Seguer: "I don't think that dath ilan arrived in their present state, in the first place, by sitting in their libraries contemplating the nature of reason. They tried to build things. They developed ilanism in the course of trying to achieve things. Having done so, they distilled it into some form you could teach children, but we don't have the starting point they distilled from, and we don't have much time, so it's idiocy, to try to do this in the manner that the fully developed dath ilani Civilization did it. Instead, we'll have to do it the way they invented it in the first place, which is in the course of trying to solve real problems. 

Should Her Imperial Majestrix stop by to see what progress we're making, it is my hope to report to her that we've made progress both on chemistry and on identification of which elements of ilanism are necessary first, which in their absence hold people back in useful invention and industry, and which come much later or are, perhaps, a distraction dath ilan installed for some reason other than their producing high-achieving people. I anticipate being able to make such a report despite the fact that the bulk of Project resources are being expended by you on nothing in particular, a decision which I would not dare to presume is the product of deliberate treason except for how you keep saying that you're a traitor and want us to lose."

Asmodia: Asmodia restrains the impulse to tell Avaricia everything she's actually doing wrong, like, if Avaricia was actually trying that, she should be giving her new minions freer rein, telling them to write down in advance how they planned to think about things methodologically, and seeing which of them if any produced results that way.  Avaricia has, in fact, grasped the idea of writing down possible experiments and predictions, and letting her underlings propose those; to Asmodia's observation she hasn't taken it to the meta-level.

But this, indeed, Asmodia does not say.  Asmodia does not, in fact, want Cheliax to win, but Asmodia suspects that part is not mainly down to her own choices, at this point.  However, Asmodia definitely doesn't want Avaricia to win.

"Yep, I want Cheliax to lose, but I also know that it's in my best interests to be able to honestly testify that I did my best work at any point up until Keltham comes back for us.  And the fact that I'm being honest with myself about that, lets me figure out what actually is in Cheliax's interests.  That's why Sevar prefers it that way.  Avaricia's thoughts twist and turn until whatever's best for herself is sincerely believed by her to be what's best for Cheliax.  She can't choose not to betray Cheliax and her superiors; she doesn't have an internal option that looks like that, because she doesn't have internal labels on the traitorous parts."

"Hence the saying:  Better a bad slave than a muddled one."

Lady Eulàlia Avaricia de Seguer: "Saying it doesn't make it a saying. And declaring that you're honest with yourself doesn't make you so. I could keep going in this vein; you have a habit of declaring things and then pretending they're true. But if they are, then I suppose all the valuable insights will come out of your team, and your methods adopted more widely; and if, as I suspect, you're deluding yourself and blowing hot air and trying to run an organization in such a disorganized fashion it wouldn't work even among ilani, well, then it'll be good someone tried doing something different from that."

Asmodia: "Asserting lots of things with higher Splendour doesn't make them true either, even if you point to the other person dramatically and declare 'declaring things doesn't make them true' in every other sentence.  It's a cutting accusation you can level just as easily at true declarations as false declarations, making it no evidence under the Law of Probability, all Splendour and no Validity.  For me to argue in such a way, of course, would be betraying Cheliax by throwing 'entropy' and random noise into our deliberations.  As a bad slave, rather than a muddled one, I have the option of choosing not to do that, you see."

"Well, just keep in mind, neither the Most High nor the Queen will be fooled by the part where you tackled a lot of easy problems using methodology that Keltham already explained to you and afterwards made out like you're a genius.  Though I suppose all that Splendour has to be good for something, like selling whatever easy results you get as being incredibly difficult ones.  Yes yes, my declaring this indeed does not make it so; nor will whatever you declare in response be true only because you say it."

Asmodia has a hidden card here; she does not know any details of the Shadow Project already working to develop reserved Chelish advantages, but Asmodia knows that it exists.  Whatever Avaricia claims to be the results of her own genius and methods will be inevitably surprise-compared to however far the Shadow Project gets in equivalent time.  Avaricia will be compared to a more rigorous metric of controlled experiment than she is expecting, and that little internal twist that leads her to oversell her results will not, in fact, impress her superiors.

As for the Sevar loyalists, Asmodia is indeed not giving much in the way of orders, which she supposes looks to old-school Asmodeans like 'nothing being done'.  But Asmodia has identified better roads as the actual next key step in Chelish economic progress - because roads enable more surviving children to go into more towns, instead of requiring towns to be higher density until more people get sick; and roads allow professional specialists to travel to more places.  Asmodia is trying to figure out cheaper ways of roadbuilding despite Keltham not having described any such, which is, in fact, a more difficult task than anything the Project or Shadow Project has ever tried before.  And Willa Shilira has her own ideas and her own newly recruited minions taking orders from her; and the two of them have written down in advance their disagreements about methodology; and the ilani are, unlike some Asmodeans, actively helping one another and not just obeying orders.

Lady Eulàlia Avaricia de Seguer: "You miss one thing, traitor, probably because being a traitor you can't even think of it. I'm not trying to impress my superiors. I am trying to preserve my country. I am not playing for a pat on the head and a neighboring county; if we don't beat Keltham, we all die. 

Also, roads are a stupid project, because Osirion's across the fucking sea, you fucking moron, and unless we win that the long term doesn't matter." This seems like a good place to depart with the rhetorical high ground, so she'll do that.

Asmodia: "Gonna be hard to win that using a slightly more advanced version of our ilani eight-year-old chemistry.  What with Keltham just destroying the entire country if it starts a war, using the actually dangerous knowledge that real ilani have.  The way, you know, Keltham said under truthspell that he would.  You may forget that fact because it's not convenient to you, but I guarantee the Queen and Grand High Priestess think about it very regularly."

Departing in the middle of the argument may mean you can feel like you won, because the other person doesn't get to fire back at you.  It doesn't actually stop somebody from articulating the real counterargument in front of an audience, after you've left and can't argue back.

Security: This sure is an interesting confrontation for the fate of Cheliax!  Maybe Cheliax's soul too!

Obviously, in a case like this, the right thing for a Security to do is stay out of it and just do their jobs, so as to make it a fair contest won by the side with better research methods harass whichever side they think deserves to lose!

Unless you're a Sevar loyalist, of course, in which case you know Sevar wouldn't approve of that sort of thing.

...this does create a certain unfortunate asymmetry, in a Project which now has a number of incredibly unsavory sex offenders extremely reliable Asmodeans on its enormous Security roster.

Asmodia: The Security does not, quite, dare to rape Asmodia, because Sevar is coming back and also because Cheliax is not quite that kind of country.

It does manage to ruin her day and Asmodia can now fairly and evenly say that this event has decreased her research productivity, to Cheliax's detriment.

Afterwards she'll go tell Elias Abarco he's got a disciplinary problem.

lintamande: Elias Abarco is not, particularly, a neutral observer in the Project's splintering. Sevar doesn't like him, see, so it's to his advantage for there to be someone who does. 

"Oh, good afternoon, heretic and traitor. Welcome to no longer being on a super secret extra special project with the top Security in all of Cheliax assigned. It's not going to get better from here. If we go to war, it'll get worse. Do you want advice, or do you want to strut around highmindedly demanding that Cheliax be a completely different place that works the way the half-extrapolated dath ilan in your head works?"

Asmodia: "I mean, I don't actually want Cheliax to win, but I thought it was still in my interests to make my best possible showing on my side of the Project, while Cheliax inevitably ruins itself because current Asmodeanism is enormously self-destructive.  If you've got advice saying that it's not in my own interests to serve Cheliax even that much, I'd be fascinated."

"Otherwise, it seems to me that my current fork is between 'Abarco does his job' and 'Asmodia goes from here to Maillol being able to honestly say that she did try the one person whose job it was, before bothering her superior, and got told that Abarco was putting his resentments against Sevar ahead of Cheliax's interests and the Queen's orders'.  If you have a different take there, let's hear it."

Asmodia isn't speaking sharply, but she's not bothering to try to hide how angry she is from Abarco's level of Sense Motive.

lintamande: "That's not what you were told, and I would not recommend lying to Maillol about it. What you are being told is that you are going to need to become more competent if you want to successfully navigate having a power struggle over your Project, and you're going to need to either become vastly more competent or shut up about how you want to see Cheliax destroyed if you want Security to lay off you.

I do not, myself, have an infinite supply of competent staff who are trustworthy Asmodeans and not subject to corruption by all the nonsense around here, and the ones that do are bothered, by a strident little traitor running around saying how much she wants us all to die, and they are right to be bothered, and I'm not going to burn it out of them. I can, and will, keep them in line for a competent Asmodia who is doing the work of Hell, but if you're having tantrums I'm not going to expend further political capital to protect you from the fact those tantrums cost you support that you presently require."

Asmodia: "You know, if I had clarity on that being what my superiors wanted from me I think I'd just do it.  It really ought to be Maillol to make a call like that, with Sevar gone.  But if you on your own recognizance want to tell me that shutting up about certain truths is the price Cheliax needs me to pay for Cheliax's research projects proceeding unhindered by Chelish security, I will do it, because you have the power to hurt Cheliax's interests and I acknowledge that."

"If I do that, are you going to tell your people that Asmodia has been brought to heel, and to lay off the researchers so long as they're doing research and not speaking any heresy in front of them?"

lintamande: "I could be persuaded to tell them to lay off you personally, if you stop speaking treason and order your little following to stop as well."

Asmodia: And then of course they wouldn't obey her, if the benefit of that order is only Asmodia's personal protection.

"Abarco, all the researchers - on both sections of Project, for that matter - need to be working without Security harassment.  That's what's good for Cheliax.  Selective harrassment is not going to give Cheliax the fair experimental data that Cheliax requires about the relative productivity of different research methods, and if I try to adjust that by asking the Sevar loyalists in Security to harass Avaricia's section exactly equally with the per capita harassment we document ourselves, that's not good for Cheliax either.  If you say we can all stop speaking treason and then you'll bring Security into line for all of us, that works fine.  Giving you that much control doesn't significantly hurt Cheliax in the time it takes Sevar to get back."

lintamande: "So, firstly, I'm not sure it's true, that the girls will all do their best work if they're treated like precious porcelain dolls. That's how Sevar ran it, but you'll notice that didn't actually work. On most projects, if you fuck up, you get hurt, and if you don't arrange yourself protection, you get hurt, and if you don't have the slightest idea what game you're playing and just run around making enemies, you get hurt, and the people who have any potential at all manage to handle themselves. Sevar didn't come up in an environment where nothing bad happens as long as you behave yourself.

Secondly, you're going to find you have many fewer loyalists, if one of the prices of being a loyalist of yours is having to behave oneself like a fucking paladin.

Third, I don't have the staff under geases. I'm not authorized to kill one as an example to the others, not when we're preparing for a war on a third front. And I don't want to be seen to be siding with the traitors, which problem you'll only mostly solve by ceasing to vocally be a traitor."

Asmodia: "Are you telling me that you won't solve this problem or that you can't?"

lintamande: "I'm telling you that you're an adult, and you're going to have to solve your problems at least partially yourself, by not painting a target on your back, rather than by running to the nearest grownup to demand that you not be obliged to defend your own interests. Or, you know, get Maillol to order me to babysit you and the girls, which he hasn't."

Asmodia: It's hard, then, to control her anger enough to speak flatly.

"Believe it or not, Abarco, I am somebody who could, almost have been an Asmodean, in the sense that, I've realized after working for Sevar, I don't want to be in command, I want to be second-in-command, I want there to be somebody who gives me orders, and I want to be truly loyal to that person in exchange for a comfortable life.  The part where I just do my fucking job really well and then I actually get protected, I admit, is the un-Asmodean part.  But if Cheliax can't manage to use somebody like me while facing somebody like Keltham, then Cheliax is fucked!  If Cheliax can't manage to stop fireballing itself in the dick for the six and a half rounds required for Sevar to get back, it's not going to fail because Keltham turns a circle of the country into ash, it's going to fail - more embarrassingly!"

"You know, Abarco - no, sir, because I actually am asking you for advice, right now, sir - if you're giving me real advice, it would help for me to know what is the fucking plan, sir, how is Cheliax supposed to win like this?  If even here on the Project we're just, indulging, all the most self-destructive aspects of the human misinterpretation of Asmodeanism, because devils wouldn't do this, sir, they'd cooperate as effectively as ilani would, at least the ones powerful enough to have names - and I don't know how to do that but I'm trying and I don't have any orders telling me to try something else, sir!"

lintamande: "A very reasonable question.

I don't know the plan. I know what I see, and I can make some inferences from that, but I don't have the whole picture any more than you do. What I see is: we are going to lose if Keltham sets up in Osirion to invent weapons to deploy against us. We can't get there that fast ourselves. I thought we might invade Osirion the day they took him; why give them any more time to be ready? We didn't. One possibility is that it's worth the delay to wrap up in Nidal first, but Nidal's going to be a liability at least for a couple of years and we don't have that long. Another likely-looking possibility is that plans are underway to assassinate and soultrap Keltham in the next week or two. Then we're not fighting Keltham, and we're just trying to conquer the world against the world's inevitable, half-assed efforts to coordinate against that. The third possibility is that in the assessment of our superiors, Keltham won't actually be able to make headway in Osirion and won't stop Cheliax from growing in power.

We aren't going to invent weapons good enough to be decisive in a war that happens in the next few months. I notice that you're not even working on weapons at all, and I do suspect that's because you're a traitor. So the question is which of the projects happening here has the most potential to turn into a valuable contributor to Cheliax's conquest of a Keltham-free, or Keltham-ineffectual, Golarion.

Cheliax is expanding spellsilver production, and I expect they think that Sevar, even if she comes back broken, won't come back too broken to make her little item manufacture aids. Soon we'll control territory we've never held even in our glory days - Nidal - and we'll be rich beyond the imaginings of our ancestors, and our soldiers will be well enough armed and equipped to achieve whatever objectives they're next pointed at. 

From the fact that our superiors did not tell us to run this project like we're Lastwall, or even like we're Osirion, and from the fact Sevar is being tortured horribly for a length of time that people really don't come back from, I think they're not too impressed with the progress made under Sevar's leadership. I can only assume that's why they're entertaining all you unbearable teenagers. And friction like this does give people the chance to demonstrate that they're either competent to operate in Cheliax, or that they aren't; that's worth a couple lost days, under some assumptions about how we win here.

You're not supposed to break, Asmodia. You're supposed to grow up. You're not supposed to put up with self-destructive behavior; you're supposed to punish it. You're not supposed to squabble with Avaricia like a couple of five year olds yelling 'not me, you!', you're supposed to crush her. This is a test, and I think they have those in dath ilan."

Asmodia: Asmodia opens her mouth to demand angrily how much Abarco wants to bet that Sevar doesn't come back whole, because, to break Sevar would be stupid beyond imagining -

- but there's reflexes installed into ilani, to not bet before being sure of their odds, and Asmodia realizes with a vertiginous horror that they might be that stupid.  Because the fourth possibility is that nobody has any plans, and that nothing makes sense in the first place.

Her mouth operates on its own, as Asmodia tries to deal with this sudden inner panic.  "How the fuck am I supposed to crush Avaricia, sir, leaving aside the question of how that serves Cheliax?  Get one of Sevar's loyalists in Security to buy a scroll of Plane Shift and send her to Abaddon?  Because I model that as actually pissing off our superiors, and anything short of that just makes Avaricia angry and escalates a war between Project factions that Cheliax can't win."

lintamande: Shrug. "Personally if I were trying to crush Avaricia I'd start by seducing her, but that's just me. You're the genius ilani, and it's your test, not mine."

Asmodia: "Translation:  There isn't actually any way and you know that.  Do you have any actual advice for me about how an adult deals with this situation, sir?"

lintamande: "It is my sincere hope that you continue ignoring and willfully misinterpreting all the good advice you get, for the rest of your short life, until you crash and burn and go to Hell, traitor. I have no further advice."

Asmodia: "Then you're fucking useless to Cheliax, and I hope that Sevar, who isn't going to break because that's not how any tropes work, sends you off to endure whatever punishment she got so you can break within your first hour, sir."

lintamande: At that he lights her on fire. 

Asmodia: Asmodia would like to say that she stands there stoically and takes it, but in fact after a round she cries out and tries to put herself out.

lintamande: "Oh, you're really going to enjoy Hell, traitor," he says, and lets her put herself out before her clothes are destroyed entirely, since they do in fact still want her working on the project and all.

Asmodia: Then she'll head over to Maillol with her clothing half-ruined, a nice walking metaphor for the state of the Project with nobody in control of anything.

(Asmodia had, in fact, estimated that her future job would be easier if she could say, here's what happened when I tried talking to the one person whose job it was -)

Ferrer Maillol: "Asmodia, your superiors are not stupid.  Abarco wouldn't have lit on you on fire if he wasn't confident that a transcript of the situation wouldn't justify that decision to me, and you getting yourself lit on fire on purpose won't particularly impress me."

Asmodia: "Are you, in fact, going to order Security to lay off researchers who are trying to work, sir?"

Ferrer Maillol: "You know me well enough to know exactly how much I want to do that, Asmodia, but Subirachs wouldn't back me on it, and, let's be very clear here, Subirachs has a point.  Sevar's absence is an opportunity to shake out the Project and find out what its natural structure looks like under ordinary Asmodeanism when we're not trying to force anything.  If it ends up looking miserable, Security won't have a platform to stand on when Sevar storms back in and says she's rearranging things."

"And watch your fucking tone.  Last warning."

Asmodia: Asmodia will ask politely, then, about whether there's any sort of plan, or any sort of orders for her, or any advice on how an adult should behave in this situation given that, hypothetically, Asmodia was actually trying to do her job or even just be loyal to Carissa Sevar.

Ferrer Maillol: Give up, lose hope, and endure... for slightly less than a month.  It's not going to kill her, seriously.  If Asmodia can't handle this incredibly tiny amount of adversity she is genuinely not suited to hold power in Cheliax.

Asmodia: Asmodia no longer wishes to hold power in Cheliax.  She wants to serve somebody like Sevar, in some position of justly earned pride, and be protected by her superior in exchange for doing her job with pride and competence.

Ferrer Maillol: Every manager in Cheliax is holding their power in a position of service to someone above.  You don't get to serve with as much power as Asmodia was given, without being able to defend it.

Asmodia: So the new Cheliax doesn't get to have any competent researchers, unless those researchers are also able to defend themselves from their own Security on Chaotic projects?  No competent research managers, unless those managers have the separate and additional skill of being able to win a political game that looks frankly unwinnable?  Is the plan also that Osirion does this to themselves too, to keep that contest fair?

Ferrer Maillol: "The plan is that you shut up and do your job.  Try to win the game, stay quiet and endure for a few weeks, either's fine by me, but you're trying my patience, Asmodia."

"And the fact is, the Asmodean system isn't perfect, but it's better.  If you'd seen the useless wastes of space in other countries that get appointed by their superiors as pets, who don't have to be strong enough to defend themselves except by appealing to their boss, you'd understand exactly why Asmodeus's tyranny has to work the way it does."

Asmodia: "Sir.  I would like the same deal Ione Sala got.  I work for Cheliax as an outsider, Security doesn't light me on fire."

Ferrer Maillol: "Ione Sala had her curse.  What the fuck do you think you have in the way of leverage?"

Asmodia: "That I am, in fact, one of the Trope Girls.  That with Ione and Sevar gone, I'm the only person here who even begins to understand the theory of that, unless Aspexia Rugatonn takes personal charge.  That all this insanity is messing with the story in ways that the Most High should have needed to approve.  That Abrogail Thrune promised Keltham that everything he valued in Cheliax would still be here waiting for his return, which includes not only Sevar but me.  If I just stop working, now that the basic deal has been broken under which I was previously working for Sevar and the Grand High Priestess - you can torture me into starting again, yes, but it will, in fact, break me.  Which deprives the Project of my actual and effective research, and destroys the Queen's plan to have everything Keltham wants here for him, and also destroys my usefulness to Aspexia Rugatonn's plan to produce her successor -"

Asmodia stops, then, because Maillol is writing something.

Ferrer Maillol: It's an order of torment, to be taken at some point during the next week.  Exactly as bad as the most severe punishment Asmodia had during her time in Ostenso, which Maillol has looked up, before this; because he doesn't want to break Asmodia, but he guessed that this point in time would come.

"Don't get this taken any time you need to do something important the next day, or anything at all in the next few hours," Maillol says, because you would not think adults could need to be told this, but Carissa Sevar has expanded his grasp of the possible.

Asmodia: "You're making a terrible -"

Ferrer Maillol: "Shut up."

Asmodia: "I resign."

Ferrer Maillol: "No you don't, and get an extra thirty lashes some other day."

Asmodia: Asmodia takes the sheet of paper and walks out of the office, not quite able to control the trembling of her body; from anger, horror, and sheer seething hatred of everything to do with Cheliax.

She thought, going into that office, that she didn't have to put up with this, she has the Gardens of Erecura, and it's not like she wants Cheliax to have the benefit of her research...

...why was she still here?

Asmodia: ...Korva.  That's what was holding her here, with old bargains broken, and Keltham gone, and her unknown purpose ended.

Keltham: "Think I can figure out how to get most of my questions into a Commune, and I wouldn't really want to trust most of those questions to outside assurances anyways, but three questions I have that don't fit or that I need asked first."

"One, what exactly did Abadar buy from Asmodeus about me, and what did Abadar pay?"

"Two, what exactly are the procedures for terminating your process in Axis?  Is there by any chance a cooldown procedure that lasts a hundred years during which your mind starts to change already, or do you have to talk to a mind-healer and get their approval, or does Axis figure that anybody under their first thousand years or beneath INT 25 isn't competent enough to make that decision?  Do I get to terminate myself, as myself, unaltered, and move on to the next reality, as soon as I get to Axis and request that?  If I overshoot on Good to be certain of avoiding Hell, and end up in Heaven instead, does that change things?  This story has made clear that if I'm not sufficiently paranoid, the story considers itself entitled to burn me."

"Three, does a Commune let a deity read the mortal's state of mind in order to get the questions' real meaning?  And if so, do they get a bunch of my side-thoughts or memories or whatnot."

"Oh, and if whatshisname the Abadaran seventh-circle from Absalom is still here, I need to talk to him again about possible information hazards to Osirian priests of Abadar."

Prince Fe-Anar: "You'll want to ask the pharaoh to send you a letter with the closest to a precise translation for mortals as can be got, but I was told that He paid, approximately, for you to not end up soul-trapped/maledicted such that we couldn't resurrect you, or prevented from leaving Cheliax or reaching Osirion, or tortured or enchanted or mind-altered or traumatized into not being someone who we could pay to teach us about Abadar. 

There are thousands of cities in Axis; their laws are different from each other. They're not hard to get between. I can't imagine they impose a lot of nonsense - also, are you sure about this 'next reality' thing, it seems quite likely that doesn't work -"

lintamande: "In Aktun, if you want to cease to be, you can do it yourself with weapons readily available for purchase," one of the priests volunteers. "I - really think that's a bad idea."

Prince Fe-Anar: "Do you know about Heaven?"

lintamande: "No."

Prince Fe-Anar: "Commune does involve your god reading your mental state in order to understand what questions you're asking. You could have someone else ask, if you were worried about that."

lintamande: "Though obviously Abadar wouldn't use things he learned from you during negotiations against you, that's not - being someone it's safe and good for humans to trade with," adds the priest.

Prince Fe-Anar: "And you can send for the fellow from Absalom by handing a letter to any of the staff - they're in the uniforms, so you can pick them out -"

Keltham: "Commune always counts as negotiations?  Are you sure?  How do you know?"

lintamande: "With humans, Abadar has to interpret His obligations broadly, because any finer distinction He makes will be lost on us. Every communication we have with Him that's not specifically and legibly intended some other way is treated like it's negotiations, even if our own intent in our hearts is muddy, because that way negotiations can happen even if someone hasn't any idea how to specify them."

Keltham: "Sounds reasonable.  I have just had, some, really unpleasant experiences of late, with not making too much of a social fuss, and wanting to not set the bar too high for my hosts telling me it will be okay, and accepting surface appearances that I should really be safe unless something incredibly exotic and complicated is going wrong behind the scenes.  You know?  That's just a kind of reasoning, a way of thinking, that has now been demonstrated not to work for Keltham in Golarion.  I either check every possible case, and don't just, go along with what sounds reasonable, or the story burns me to teach me not to try that again."

lintamande: "You are acting very reasonable, and can ask as many questions as you want. You can get those assurances in writing, if you want, with citations to theological texts, though I don't know the citations offhand."

Keltham: That's probably about as far as Keltham can go in establishing an apparent explanation if he later Atones to Neutral Evil Keltham is not thinking about that in words right now.

Keltham will send a question in writing to the pharaoh, about what Abadar paid for, about whether Abadar paid for an expectedly-sufficient effort or for ongoing correction by Asmodeus as required, whether (in the former case) this outcome was within Abadar's requested specs, whether this outcome was within Abadar's expectations, whether any other gods contributed to that negotiation and Keltham also owes them anything, in what currency Abadar paid Asmodeus and if the amount of it can be at all quantified.

And then Keltham will go talk to whatshisname, the seventh-circle out of Absalom, if he's still here, and otherwise any high-ranking priest of Abadar who's from Absalom or failing that not-Osirion.

lintamande: Khemet sends over everything they know; it was a specification over ultimate outcomes, no ongoing correction, this outcome He increasingly thinks was not within requested specs, though not outside the range of possible outcomes of a mortal running around doing things even if they're not being manipulated and harmed. Nethys also contributed to Keltham getting extra spell circles; Abadar thinks Nethys did this for omniscient Nethys reasons (that it would predictably lead somewhere Nethys wanted) and not as a bargain with Keltham (and also it's unclear if the extra spell circles have in fact been a service to Keltham; they may have been relevant to the timing of the godwar and to [human aspect of Abadar speculating here, it's not the kind of thing the god aspects track] Sevar's promotion to lead the Project). Abadar paid Asmodeus in resources the gods use for intervention; it was perhaps 50-100x costlier than making a first-circle cleric. 

Temos Sevandivasen is happy to speak again with Keltham.

Keltham: "I've run across a thought that I'm worried is an infohazard to Osirian priests of Abadar, as in, would break their connection to Abadar if they learned it.  I do not have a lot of information with which to guess whether thoughts like that are silly, because I don't know what breaks a cleric connection, or how fragile they are," or what people could correctly, narrowly, specifically infer if Keltham's own not thinking about that.

"Can I talk with you about that under a safe presumption that if the info actually looks dangerous, it doesn't get back to Osirion, including indirectly by you telling others in Absalom who leak it?"

lintamande: "Yes, absolutely."

Keltham: Which implies, though not perfectly, that Security isn't listening to this conversation.  Good general info to have.

"The address I originally used to call up Abadar implies that he's the god of - a specific, obvious, overdetermined thing if you know the math of that thing, the god of agents voluntarily coordinating to move to multi-agent-optimal equilibria, and fairly dividing the gains that result.  Abadar is the god of doing that because it's in your utilityfunction, your values, not because it's useful.  The god of playing honorably, even with trade partners who can't enforce that by being able to predict you and refusing to cooperate if they predict you'll defect."

"What's going on in Osirion with their treatment of women is unambiguously not that.  It may be keeping both men and women out of Hell or the Maelstrom, though I don't really understand why, but Abadar's not the god of keeping people out of Hell, Iomedae is."

"What Osirion is doing may be, I don't know personally, but it could be, actually the right thing they need to do in that situation, to keep people out of Hell or the Maelstrom.  But to the extent you understand Abadar's math it's unambiguously not Abadar's thing.  The women aren't receiving a fair share of the gains they're producing and the economy isn't being run on a basis where it - starts from agents doing their own best acts as individuals- not starts temporally, starts as a baseline for negotiations - and then they decide to coordinate together to move to a better place than that and split the gains fairly."

"If Osirian priests already know that, or if learning that won't break their connection to Abadar, then this can be a short conversation."

lintamande: " - I think they know they're falling short of what Abadar wants, but - trying to move more towards it. I suppose it might be a problem for someone who realized they aren't trying to move more towards it, that they'd prefer this, but - I'd expect them to have more faith in Abadar than that. Certainly I think this would have occurred to Osirian leadership, even if they can't nail down precisely what Abadar is."

Keltham: "All right.  That sounds like I should maybe, not expose all of the top Osirian priests all at once, but like it's probably going to be okay."

"This may not be the last time I run into this issue.  What does it take to shatter the bond with Abadar, if not the realization that you're deliberately serving Good over Abadar's interests?"

lintamande: " - well, intending not to trade fairly with people, I'd expect. Cheating them, deceiving them. Abadar doesn't pay us to take His interests as our own, even if He is paying us for advancing them, but - He does need His priests to be people you can expect won't put their goals ahead of trading fairly, whatever those goals are."

Keltham: "And if somebody still intends to keep to their honest trading, but realizes they're just straight-up not on Abadar's side anymore, apart from that?  They've gone full Aroden or Iomedae, keeping whatever bargains they make themselves, but only promoting Abadar's interests insofar as it serves the interests of mortals or helps end the Evil afterlives?"

lintamande: "I wouldn't worry that Abadar will reject you for that, son. His interests are His lookout, not yours; if you deal fairly with all who would deal with you, then that's the really important thing."

Keltham: "Hypothetically, suppose I take my profits owed to me under my compact with Cheliax, then turn their country into ash without warning."