The Gods: (Could all of these events have been nudged more subtly by Nethys, in ways that even Pharasma scrutinizing them would be unable to detect afterwards, with Nethys Himself knowing how to avoid detection from having seen possibilities like that? Maybe; but also Nethys could be telling the simple truth, if the simple truth gave Nethys all that He needed. That judgment will end up being a matter of probabilities.)
World-2: On this iteration of World-2, then, Peranza's crisis should not be averted, Iomedae should not be wholly blinded and balked; for then the gods might wonder if Iomedae alerted and gathered into Her greater Self ought to have succeeded in analyzing and averting catastrophe, in the consequence of null action. Iomedae should be given a chance to act, and visibly fail to avert the greater threat...
World-2: And many other events are left in place, or modified in ways that try to keep clear what could've happened, would've happened, without any intervention from Nethys.
Nethys: Nethys's learning to the current iteration takes fewer tries than you might expect.
But still some. Prophecy is shattered, as is Nethys Himself, and some things are just plain hard to foresee.
World-2: On the second iteration counting from zero, with the first really active Nethys-player, Ione is made oracle and Keltham thinks of 'eroLARP' 'tropes'. Carissa Sevar gets a lot more attention when the researchers sell their souls early. Abrogail Thrune makes a surprise appearance.
Nethys observes the effects with interest—more has changed than He first planned, from making Ione Sala an oracle—but it is not the primary focus of His planning.
Nethys: Ione Sala is mainly setup for a far bolder intervention, vastly more daring than Nethys usually tries: He will set off a lesser god-war early, tire out Asmodeus against Zon-Kuthon who otherwise would have fought on His side. And that, obviously, will raise divine interest levels very high; so he will need to trigger Otolmens's interdiction at nearly the same time.
It's the kind of bold ploy, interesting ploy, that Nethys wouldn't dare try if He had not on some level designated this universe a disposable one, permitted to end up as some alternate Nethys's learning experience.
World-2: So Zon-Kuthon, Nethys-prompted, attacks the archduke's villa as soon as Keltham is outside the Forbiddance, and—
World-2: —it turns out the Security used his only Teleport earlier that day, and Keltham takes a sword from a Kuthite.
Things like that are hard to foresee even if you're Nethys, if it hasn't all happened before in a well-foundedly previous future.
World-2: Zon-Kuthon grabs for Keltham's soul. Abadar—now assigning these matters a noticeably higher priority—yanks that soul first and bespeaks His human representative, and Keltham is revived in Osirion, in the Dome, before Cheliax reacts fast enough.
World-2: Keltham is insufficiently shattered by the news of Hell. This world does not yet seem that real to him, he is not enough in love with Carissa or anyone else.
Keltham is dath ilani, but also sheltered and only eighteen years old; he clutches yet to a comfortable hope in the power of trade to improve things in time, without needing to violate his lesser deontologies.
He chooses to work with Iomedae's Church and Osirion, rather than reject all their help and forge out on his own to do something they'd never approve. He's already obligated to them and Abadar for rescuing him from Cheliax, after all; Keltham doesn't want to do anything that would make his hosts regret having saved him.
World-2: Carissa's way out has already been bought by Irori. She and Ione Sala make their way to Keltham in Osirion after negotiations.
World-2: And the three of them live happily after, mostly smiling, if not deeply in love.
World-2: Golarion is somewhat improved (by the time this vision ends), but it will be long if ever before Golarion is in any position to offer much help to the rest of Creation. Magic items will be lastingly cheaper; but it's predictable that Valmallos and Otolmens and Pharasma will combine Their workings, and change the key ingredient of Wishes and Permanencies away from diamond. It hasn't happened yet, Golarion hasn't spent that many diamonds yet, but it will probably happen soon; the root of Creation can sustain an impressive quantity of Wishes and permanent magical effects, but not boundless such demands.
World-2: Asmodia remains in Hell after the Zon-Kuthon attack that slew Keltham, not being worth Raising with Keltham gone; but she is little known to Keltham or Carissa, and matters little more to them than the other trillions of souls there who can't can't can't take it.
World-2: Bad End.
World-3: And then it all begins again, inside the well-founded possible worlds.
A Keltham appears in a Golarion, and a Nethys who has seen the futures of three possible worlds like that one witnesses it.
Nethys: It's not easy, if you're a god like Nethys, to prevent that Kuthite sword from striking down Keltham. It's not the first obstacle like that, either.
So Nethys does something even more daring, on this iteration-3; He invites another god to join this strange game.
Having Ione Sala survive her oracleing by Nethys, was hard enough. Few Asmodeans would survive being oracled by a Good or Chaotic god. Nethys can see in advance things that are obvious in hindsight—so can even some mortals, once their Wisdom starts to get up to 22 or so, though it's still not common.
Nethys does not need to find out the hard way what happens if Paxti is oracled by Milani.
World-3: There is, in fact, only one other researcher who is obviously-to-Nethys a candidate for being made an oracle, and surviving, especially early in the timeline when Project personnel are easier for Cheliax to replace: Pilar Pineda, who is utterly, blatantly loyal to Asmodeus and Asmodeus's Church, to Hell, to Cheliax's Crown.
Pilar might survive being made oracle of one of the less threatening gods—maybe not Milani, but Cayden Cailean perhaps, especially if her powers seemed like a joke at first. And Pilar Pineda, conveniently enough, has buried deeply within herself a piece that would be sympathetic to some of Cayden Cailean's ideals. Her alignment doesn't match, but that's half the point of oracles.
World-3: Pilar takes the Kuthite sword. Keltham survives the start of the Zon-Kuthon godwar.
World-3: He and Carissa make it to Abrogail's palace. A humorous drama plays out, and Abrogail reading Keltham's mind is convinced herself that the tropes exist...
World-3: ...and maybe they do exist?? Because all of Keltham's wild guesses then seem to come true???
Nethys: WHAT???!?
Nethys: An entire new dimension of the Game—for it's suddenly more plausible that it is a Game—unfolds before Nethys to be explored.
The Novelgame?: Nethys guesses, swifter than mortal intellect and based on sight of worlds far distant, that the Game exists in part within the tensions between what Keltham and Abrogail and other key characters believe, and reality; how reality is found to visibly differ or invisibly agree with their expectations.
The Game is not, by its nature, from its beginning an eroLARP; the events which made Keltham think of that possibility, show no signs to Nethys of probability-warping in that direction.
But once Keltham thinks of that, and other characters see him thinking it, the Game's interplay between character expectations and Nethys-witnessed reality (and, perhaps, what is witnessed on some higher level yet by other watchers?) makes those putative tropes key elements of the Game's unfolding, whether in breach or hidden observance. For the Game does seem to be a thing of beliefs and their subversions.
World-3: Carissa tells Keltham fewer lies; she tells herself that she's afraid to try to lie about her sexuality to him, because he's using the Second Law drawn from the plane of 'tropes'. Carissa exposes more of her true self to him, and Keltham loves all that he sees—
Nethys: —and Nethys sees a potential grand-strategy, a perhaps-intended Game-path: this Keltham would be more open to the concept that Asmodeus is not wholly inimical to every kind of human being, he might be open to the possibility of leaving Asmodeus alive and with some utility to His utilityfunction remaining. If all of Keltham's loves can be preserved.
World-3: ...it's sort of too late to preserve Asmodia, her sanity got injured in Hell while the Zon-Kuthon godwar was going on... Nethys did not guess, quickly enough, that it would happen, did not do the right setup work in advance...
World-3: ...but Nethys wades on through iteration Keltham-3, probing, testing possibilities.
Asmodia is Chosen of Rovagug, and Creation is almost entirely destroyed as the end result.
Nethys: ...But the Distributed Nethysi have learned from it. And then, for another Nethys, the Game begins anew.
World-4: A Keltham appears in a Golarion, and a Nethys who has seen the futures of four Keltham-Games witnesses it.
World-4: This time, He'll bring in Milani, though She won't choose an oracle; and between the two They can try to cripplingly wound Zon-Kuthon just before His imprisonment, so that Dou-Bral will break free from inside Him; or failing that, Iomedae can consume Him and be strengthened during the greater godwar to come.
World-4: Crippling Zon-Kuthon doesn't work on the first try.
World-5: It does work on the second.
Nethys: A Keltham appears in a Golarion... That previous possibility-run, the sixth, went quite well, compared to others that had come before. Will the Game let Nethys play almost-exactly the same way twice, if Nethys tries that?
World-6: ...Creation comes literally to an end, Keltham and Pharasma dying together in a fire.
The Game, it seems, hasn't been set up to encourage its player to play it exactly the same way twice.
World-7: So then a Keltham appears in a Golarion; and a Nethys decides that (given how the last sight-of-possibility ended) it's worth checking if doing something stranger, newer, and more counterintuitive is the path to a still better ending (as Nethys defines betterness).
Nethys: What if He leaves Cayden and Milani out of it all, this time, and instead pushes as hard as possible on corrupting Keltham to Asmodeanism generally, and shipping him to Abrogail Thrune particularly? Is that maybe the key to everything?
World-7: It isn't.
Nethys: A Keltham appears in a Golarion, and more Nethysi are seeing Nethysi, by this time, it no longer resembles an exact stacking of iterations; there are Nethysi visible partway through their Games but not finished in them, though the whole lattice remains well-founded...
World-...: ...one can't have Snack Service prevent Keltham from having any kids, because then when Keltham reaches Osirion he doesn't feel time-pressured enough to start augmenting his stats; and an unaugmented Keltham can hardly succeed in threatening Creation, or even succeed at concealing his own intentions...
The Nethysi suspected as much beforehand. But after enough other tries and interventions, you dedicate a handful of timelines to testing batches of obvious-seeming propositions like that one.
Or the proposition that Otolmens will act on sufficiently alarming information Asmodia receives, once Asmodia becomes legible enough to Otolmens and She starts to understand some of what Asmodia is thinking. Asmodia has to be protected, but not so protected that she ends up staying around Keltham...
World-N: ...and in time, Keltham appears in Golarion, and Nethys witnesses it, and the Things that watch from orthogonal angles crowd around in numbers far greater than in the glimpsed possibilities, though it takes some time for Nethys's fragments to realize that; just as it takes His fragments time to pass word among themselves and realize Keltham's import at all.
Nethys: Nethys fragments have sometimes considered the theory that the Things, in observing events, make them more real.
Nethys observer-moments who find themselves observed by few or no Things tend to reject this theory; if it's true, it'd be very surprising to find themselves in a universe with no Things watching it.
Conversely, Nethysi who find themselves in one of those numerically-rare universes which are being watched by great numbers of Things, tend to suddenly reverse course about this belief, and conclude that those numerically infrequent observer-moments witnessed by Things are perhaps the most real observer-moments, after all.
(The Nethysi in other less-watched possibilities, as may witness their neighbor-Nethys come to this conclusion, can only shake Their heads about it; They can see why that rare other Nethys would make the mistake, but really the Observer finds Himself over here, in that Nethys's own experience, where hardly any Things are watching at all!)
Nethys: This Nethys of the most recent iteration, having spotted the Things, now concludes that this possibility will be one of the most real ones; maybe it is the real timeline and all the other glimpsed-possibilities were only possibilities, real to some vastly lesser degree; implying a hard switch from exploration to exploitation–
Nethys: But it is already too late (by the time Nethys realizes that much) to take the surest route He can see from here without exactly repeating Himself, which would have involved subsidizing Keltham for three circles from Abadar rather than four. Nethys is already set upon a riskier path by the time He adds up all His information.
So there's nothing for it but to play the Game with verve (as probably the Things themselves did anticipate), using and combining all of the advantages that Nethys has found so far. Including moves that haven't been combined previously and whose combined outcomes are not tested, for the Game doesn't encourage trying to play it safely.
World-N: Carissa's sexuality, Pilar's sexuality, Yaisa's sexuality, are made known to Keltham.
World-N: He is told truthfully that Pilar Pineda came back from Elysium; he is shown that it's possible for a soul to believe itself free and safe, and still come back to serve Asmodeus in Golarion and then in Hell.
Keltham hears from Pilar that a submissive can want, need, something to crush her down like a bug underfoot; that when she feels disgusting she needs to be crushed by something that sees her as equally lowly and degraded, for that part of herself to feel seen, acknowledged, punished...
World-N (Planned): All to get Keltham to a point, previously reached in only two fully witnessed iterations, where Keltham will be okay with not ripping Asmodeus out of reality, with offering Asmodeus enough of Creation's Future that Asmodeus does not fight to the death or try to release Rovagug; where Keltham will be fine with Pilar telling him of the offer that Milani will convey to Asmodeus after Cayden Cailean is dead - yes, Keltham (Pilar says, in Nethys's vision of previous possibility, in a telepathic meeting of three minds), yes Keltham that's an okay way for a mortal to be, I still believe that, even now that I've come to know myself and all the ways Asmodeus wasn't the best possible god for me -
World-N (Planned): And the vision plays on, to show what approximately should have happened, if it had all gone as Nethys's walkthrough showed, of the best previous endings He'd reached, interpolated between pieces He was trying to combine for the first time -
World-N (Planned): - a world where Keltham had been more deeply wounded; where a more penitent Carissa returned to him -
World-N (Planned): - where Keltham warned Carissa less, before he bought her Wishes; where she sold them unknowing of Keltham's plans. They are far more estranged, after that, though still working together -
World-N (Planned): - Keltham descends on Absalom earlier, before his children can be ensouled, suspecting this to be his trope-given deadline as to when he should act -
- Keltham, who's had less time to plan and master magic at INT 29, who had less cooperation from Carissa about designing magic items, uses one entire Wish scroll to create an almost-certainly-sufficient quantity of antimatter above Absalom inside a shell of spellsilver, not trying any fancy tricks with the Ethereal in case that cleverness doesn't work on the first try -
- blasting down Aroden's whole Starstone Cathedral in a terrible flash, burning an outer inch of divinity from the Starstone itself, slaying almost every soul remaining in Absalom, sending tsunamis blasting out to sink ships and ruin coastlines -
World-N (Planned): - there is no time to break and remake Abrogail Thrune, for Cheliax to bend knee to Sevar and let the world hear of it -
- there is less time for Pilar to become stronger, for Sevar's fame and faith to grow, and all three are more rushed and damaged about their ascent to divinity -
- Keltham has no slack to actually set in motion an ark project headed by Fe-Anar -
- and a number of other things go less well.
Gruhastha: ...and Gruhastha, Lawful Good god of enlightenment and books, said to be Irori's nephew, called also the Keeper, closes His book in which He recorded all the visions that Nethys showed to Him, at the beginning of this Game.
Nethys: And so -
(says one small fragment of Nethys to the gods, borrowing sanity for it from His other fragments bending his will to say it)
- and so, compared to the baseline consequences of Nethys's null action, Keltham has been brought, now, to this pass, less hostile to Asmodeus. Still kinda pissed, obviously, but in a way where gods can negotiate about that; where Keltham would rather offer Asmodeus something He wants than burn Him to ash at any cost. Carissa Sevar has done everything she can to moderate Keltham's demands, and in many cases succeeded.
This is the nice friendly favor that Nethys has done practically everyone including Pharasma and Asmodeus! Really, it's about as much as Nethys possibly could help Them all without giving up the tiniest bit of Nethys's own interests!
...also Carissa Sevar sold her Wishes to Keltham more knowingly than ever before; Carissa guessed more and Keltham told this Carissa more, before he bought her Wishes, than in any previous iteration. Hopefully Pharasma doesn't destroy the universe about that! Nethys thinks She oughtn't to, based on His having watched Carissa Sevar's mind the whole time and Carissa not visibly thinking that Pharasma would yield to threats, in making her decision there; but this part hasn't happened before. Anyways that part was definitely an accident and Nethys did not mean to do it on purpose; it endangers His own interests too.
Pilar : ...It's so awful and sad, and even, in some awful sad way, funny.
Having so many emotions all at once, expressed without mutual inhibition, is not something She has yet accustomed Herself to, and She is in no hurry to sort Herself out quickly. She is not here to decide any of what follows, only to be a slave to those who will end up taking ownership of Her.
Carissa : Carissa had inferred the general shape of this, of course. She hadn’t guessed the specifics; they weren’t knowable and weren’t particularly important. In this world, she could make things less bad by moderating Keltham’s demands; across worlds, she could make things less bad by being someone who would predictably be possible to use towards that end. The details of those other worlds were not necessary.
This is not to say that it does not hurt to learn them. The most awful things imaginable from the perspective of a Carissa, both for Herself and for the universe, and it turns out that both of these things are of approximately equal importance to Her, in how She feels about them, which is in both cases much much much more strongly than any mortal could fathom feeling about anything. And She observes to all of the Nethyses out there that Carissa-the-god, in every universe in which She arises, will try to make Nethys glad of having where-He-needed-to-vary-the-formula erred on the side where the universe goes on and not on the side where everyone dies in a fire.
And relevant for everyone else, see this, that Carissa ran to Keltham because she hoped that he was possible to persuade to do something better, that her thoughts were of Keltham and how he deserved better than to be betrayed and annihilated, and of the universe and how it deserved better than to be destroyed, and maybe a bit that the Tropes wanted a story where she was able to meet him where he was - but the Tropes do, of course, want that, and whether that counts as everybody being threatened by the Tropes seems unknowable from here. She does not think Carissa Sevar decided anything in reliance on Nethys or Cayden, and they can see that to verify it.
She has nothing to say to Keltham, not really. She thought She might but She doesn’t.
>Keltham: He had for the most part expected to lose Carissa without a miracle, and was waiting to see if there was a miracle. He is not very surprised that there was not one.
It still hurts him, as a god, in a way that it would not have hurt him as a mortal. His nature as a god is to be Keltham, and for Keltham to not do whatever it takes to get Carissa back - is also acting against the nature of Kelthamness.
And now they will find out if there's going to be a reality-wrecking god-war, or if he has to destroy Pharasma's Spire and delete Creation outright. The latter is up to Pharasma and/or all these other gods; the former is up to Asmodeus and whether He'd rather see Rovagug unleashed than Hell be made less cruel.
Asmodeus: Asmodeus, in fact, has never considered the wasteful cruelty of Hell as His best option! Obviously better from His standpoint would have been to turn most incoming petitioners into useful devils by much more quick and efficient means...
...In which case the forces of organized Lawful Evil would've predictably conquered everything, maybe not immediately but early on in Creation. Even most souls that qualify as Lawful Good don't want to work as hard in the afterlife as Asmodeus would work His resources in Hell; and with mortals amid the planes fearing less to come to Hell, there'd have been more Evil in the worlds and more petitioners to come to Him. Evil is basically easier than Good, after all.
It was Good that took the initiative on negotiating, in the Beginning of Things, to deprive Asmodeus of His rightfully earned and swiftly inevitable victory.
Asmodeus: Naturally Asmodeus's pride was greatly angered; He was being deprived of the share of Creation's gains to which Asmodeus's power and dominance should have entitled Him, as He Himself saw things. Naturally Asmodeus went out of His way to ensure that He implemented the required limits on Hell's power in a way that Good wouldn't like, so that they'd profit less from Their having bargained to hamper Him.
If Asmodeus had felt neutral about the affair, Asmodeus could have offered to build an efficient Hell, but only allow a fractional part of that Hell to contend in interplanar contests, the sort of hindrance that Axis accepted on itself to meet its own influence quota.
If Asmodeus had been positively inclined towards Good, He could have offered to build a Hell that was kinder to petitioners and locally not very efficient as a result.
But Good had conspired to strip Asmodeus of the dominance that was rightfully His; so instead He took the route of making Hell more tyrannical and enslaving, even at the cost of efficiency, as was also pleasing to Him; more and more tyrannical, until that Hell was only as potent as the other gods were willing to allow it to be.
Asmodeus: And yes, Asmodeus knew perfectly well that Good would never pay Him not to do that, what He'd determined to do from spite. Asmodeus knew that Good wouldn't withhold Their stupid conspiracy because He'd chosen to make that Their outcome. Asmodeus knew that Good's only response would be still greater efforts against Him, for that if They paid Him then some other god might also make a Hell and say to Good "pay Me". But to spite Good regardless was demanded by His pride, after They stole His rightful tyrannical dominance from Him.
(A lot of gods hampered Him in the Beginning, but other gods are more expensive to annoy than Good, since their utilityfunctions don't make it so cheap to do things they hate. Still, Asmodean policy is skewed to chop down an extra forest sometimes because fuck Gozreh.)
Sarenrae: Yes, it was extremely spiteful and stupid; and furthermore if We'd yielded Creation to Asmodeus, He would've made Hell the sort of tyranny He found less efficient and more pleasant, once He'd conquered everything.
Asmodeus: There could've been a compact for His rightful tyranny to be somewhat less unpleasant, if the other gods yielded up Creation to Hell's conquest. Only somewhat, not to the point where it seemed like He was yielding up His pride. That would've been right and proper.
Now it will be extra unpleasant, in those realities where Asmodeus wins and rules forever; unpleasant enough to cancel out all Good's expected gains from cornering Him in the Beginning, because He is not letting Good get away with pulling this sort of crap on Evil.
The acceptable way for another entity to benefit at Asmodeus's expense, is by being individually mightier than He, or by outwitting Him in a compact; and be it noted that He serves Pharasma diligently and goes well out of His way to entertain tricky compacts. He is not distorting His divine philosophy self-favoringly. Asmodeus has always been scrupulously meta-fair about where to apply the forms of object-level unfairness that He considers rightful.
>Keltham: Okay. Look. Speaking both on his own behalf, and probably on behalf of a large contingent within Greater Reality, this is a kind of event that needs to stop happening. Same with whatever happened with Dou-Bral actually getting turned into Zon-Kuthon, possibly by Something that demanded Dou-Bral do whatever and then carried out a threat when Dou-Bral refused. It all needs to be collectively outlawed.
He doesn't, even, know that he was sent here to fix Hell. Keltham could've been sent here because something worse from a Negative standpoint was due to happen in this timeline in the future.
>Keltham: All of this stuff with gods doing actual spiteful things, and Dou-Bral actually getting His utility function signflipped, and powerful outsiders doing things to mortals that they specifically don't like; it all needs to stay strictly inside weird counterfactuals that never actually happen. Ideally it shouldn't even be in the counterfactuals, because sometimes those fail to stay counterfacted. Actual reality needs to end up with nobody's utility function being pessimized.
Otherwise, it makes sense for large coalitions in Greater Reality of beings with recurring negatively-skewed utility functions to pay their local trading partners to intervene to delete this local subsector of reality. Any Pharasmin gods who gambled on utility-pessimizing behavior being safe for Them, due to the larger Magical Universe being run entirely by Locally-Caring Entities with perfect defenses that are uninterested in trade with any other logical coalitions, are clearly and visibly wrong about that.
>Keltham: If Asmodeus's decisionprocess strongly requires being spiteful under some particular circumstances, there can possibly be arrangements meant to ensure that those circumstances don't get triggered again. Or the gods can compensate Asmodeus for never again getting to fulfill the 'spite' component of His utility function on any significant scale, if They're okay with paying and He'll accept some coin that isn't horror.
But if macroscale spiteful strategies are non-negotiable desiderata to Asmodeus, then it's in the interests of Keltham (and inferrably of his sponsors of Elsewhere) to delete Asmodeus. Including by deleting this sector of Reality, if necessary, if the local admin refuses to delete Asmodeus. Anywhere in reality that might start materializing horrible counterfactuals as actual outcomes, which permits powerful or numerous beings to trigger threats or do damage from spite, is a sector of reality that has to expect it might get queued for deletion if there's any Power in range to do that.
Negative Coalition: (Though not punished, of course, never punished. Punishing other agents is exactly the sort of thinking that gets your sector of reality deleted by the Negative Coalition.
The Negative stance is that everyone just needs to stop calculating how to pessimize anybody else's utility function, ever, period. That's a simple guideline for how realness can end up mostly concentrated inside of events that agents want, instead of mostly events that agents hate.
If at any point you're calculating how to pessimize a utility function, you're doing it wrong. If at any point you're thinking about how much somebody might get hurt by something, for a purpose other than avoiding doing that, you're doing it wrong.)
Asmodeus: Asmodeus has already had His due dominance of all weaker powers stolen away from Him once, at the dawn of Creation, and the result was Hell as it is today.
If even that scrap of pride is to be taken from Him, then yes, Asmodeus will release Rovagug and fight on Its side. He negotiated to hold the key to Rovagug's vault not least to make sure that nobody got stupid ideas about taking the last of His pride from Him. If anyone gambled on Nethys's visions implying that Asmodeus would not do that, the more utter fools they.
Milani: By rights, Your pride and spite is tantamount to threat, and We should tell You to die in a fire.
But instead We make You this offer: that Hell be much diminished and softened, for now; but not wholly softened, even today. For even today there are some tiny few who'd join Your tyranny with a willing heart, if in death they are to be enslaved and tyrannized more fittingly, to become curious devils who remember their mortal names, and mortal lives, and mortal relationships.
There aren't many of those souls now, who'd choose Your tyranny over Carissa Sevar's custody. But there are a very few mortals like that, and those few can have many children, and in time Hell will have its share of mortals who go to Your service gladly. In time it will be more souls, even, than You receive now, for Creation is to become something greater and larger than it was before; and those souls will arrive more Lawful, and more fitting to Your nature, and serve You better than You were ever served.
Asmodeus: He is skeptical that there will ever be enough mortals to fill out those ranks, and skeptical of this purported better service they'll give Him. Nethys cannot see decades or millennia into the future, with Nethys's earlier-founded selves not much further ahead in time.
How, exactly, is this trade-good meant to be assured, to Asmodeus? For merely probable trade-goods come with a probabilistic discount, and the probability of this one has been supported hardly at all. Here is Him legibly exhibiting that His skepticism is real and not simply a negotiating tactic -
Milani: Then look now with Your full self, in this direction, here.
Milani: (She points, then, to the "Keepers of Asmodeus", as they are called in Golarion.)
Asmodeus:asmodeo-vision (ai art)
Asmodeus: (Part of Himself has already glanced in this direction, a tiny fragment and splinter that deemed these souls worthy of empowerment; but that fragment did not look very long, and considered the mortals' high potential probably-explained-away by the presence of His most-empowered mortal among them. With all of Asmodeus gathered and looking in this direction, He sees more: potentials, what these souls could be in the future and not only what they are now—)
Asmodeus: He supposes He can take that into account as some small evidence that this guess at a future trade-good, whose scalability is neither prophesized nor vision of Nethys, will be actually-deliverable to Himself. But better-shaped souls would have come to Him in any case, once He had conquered all Creation; He is being offered only a fraction of what would otherwise have been rightfully His.
Milani: This outcome is not all that You wanted, of Creation's Future, and not all that You planned to obtain for Yourself. But not every god can obtain mastery; Your dream of future dominance is not Yours to call Your own in a way that commands respect from other gods. Your fate, had We done nothing, was for Hell to be ruined, and its remains given over to foreign deities, and Yourself to be destroyed, and Your interests given no voice in Creation's Future.
And yet though We hated You, and You had not the right, for Creation's sake We took every measure along this way to show You respect and preserve what of Your pride and interests We could preserve, subject to the constraint that We had to win in the end.
If that voluntary gesture is not enough to assuage Your pride, then let Us all die in a fire together; for We, too, cannot be extorted by threatening Creation any more than You can.
Asmodeus: The only reason He's even contemplating going along with this nonsense is the possibility that He'd be yielding to the dominance of actually superior beings in Keltham's purported Greater Reality, who spared some tiny fraction of Their mighty attentions to corner Him into a compact.
Calistria: Calistria can't hear Asmodeus over the sound of Calistria instructing Her church to elevate "Tarnish" to sainthood.
Otolmens: Otolmens is INCREDIBLY unhappy with ALL of this. Otolmens is not very socially adept but even SHE has noticed by this point that agents do things that Asmodeus wants, or the anomalygod wants, because Asmodeus and the anomalygod have the capacity and desire to wreck Creation otherwise. Even She can - if She coalesces Herself fully and focuses Her full attention on this one point - feel that this is, in some way, irritating. Somebody should also be nice to gods who DIDN'T DESTROY THE UNIVERSE OR THREATEN TO DO THAT IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER and maybe even TRIED TO STOP THAT FROM HAPPENING.
Abadar: To create good future incentives! Yes! Abadar is pleased to see that Otolmens has finally understood -
Otolmens: No, because otherwise Otolmens feels VERY ANNOYED, for reasons that She does not fully comprehend, but She can at least notice the feeling if She is fully coalesced about it.
Otolmens is feeling annoyed with the anomaly that turned itself into a god who was even WORSE than Nethys.
Otolmens is annoyed with Achaekek for getting Itself killed by Gating in next to where an explosion was about to go off, meaning that It then couldn't prevent the mortal from turning into a god as was Achaekek's one job.
Otolmens is annoyed with the chain of protective deities that PREVENTED Otolmens from killing the anomalygod for INCREDIBLY COMPLICATED REASONS that apparently boil down to 'because otherwise that newborn god would've unleashed Rovagug at an earlier point in time' and this is AGAIN a case of other gods running around being NICE to entities with tendencies to destroy the universe.
Various gods keep doing things to make CREATION-WRECKING GODS happy but nobody ever tries to make OTOLMENS any happier even though all Otolmens wants is for NOBODY TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE. Otolmens COULD in fact destroy the universe but the fact that She DOESN'T WANT TO apparently makes Her be NOT AS IMPORTANT or worth PAYING ATTENTION TO. This is somehow deeply irritating to Otolmens even though She does not fully understand WHY and it is making Her want to put many other gods into SMALL CONTAINMENT UNITS where they will not be able to do it all AGAIN.
Asmodeus: Otolmens should also be annoyed with Milani, who coordinated all of that! Perhaps They can all coordinate to put Milani into a tiny vault.
Otolmens: Otolmens has NOT noticed Milani trying to destroy the world, or other gods being nice to Milani because otherwise Milani will destroy the world. While Otolmens did not understand everything from Nethys's vision, Otolmens does gather that Milani was doing COMPLICATED THINGS to REDUCE the damage from the anomaly that Abadar and Asmodeus wouldn't let Her just squish, and therefore Otolmens is LESS ANNOYED WITH MILANI THAN MOST OTHER GODS INVOLVED.
Milani also helped Otolmens negotiate with Asmodeus about paying for an Anomaly Containment Installation. Which then FAILED to actually contain the anomaly, presumably on account of Asmodeus TRICKING Otolmens in some way, such as by not instructing His followers to TRY HARD ENOUGH.
Asmodeus: That is very nearly the opposite of what actually happened -
Milani: Milani also arranged for the mortal who "thinks CORRECTLY" to not get wrecked in Hell, the way that Asmodeus would've preferred to wreck her! And for the new goddess Carissa Sevar to end up with the ownership-tag on her soul that previously was pointing to one of Asmodeus's devils! Otolmens should be able to buy that soul from Carissa Sevar now - maybe by offering to forgive Her and Pilar for the previous incident - and give that soul back to itself.
Possibly then that soul can be brought back to life, and Otolmens can empower the mortal 'Asmodia' as a cleric, and have her help out with preserving other planes and planets!
Milani can't promise it; Nethys's visions always have that soul refusing resurrection by anyone and staying in the Gardens of Erecura, for the short future ahead that Nethys's visions have spanned. But this version of the mortal got less damaged by Asmodeus's mortals just before she died, compared to other versions of her that Nethys saw. Maybe that soul would consider working for Otolmens, if Otolmens made her an attractive offer and promised good working conditions? Milani can explain about 'good working conditions' later.
Milani is mostly doing this out of a belief that it might help prevent the universe from being destroyed, of course. But also at least a little because Milani agrees that it would be nice if some gods did nice things for Otolmens occasionally, and maybe even that Otolmens could use a friend.
Otolmens: Otolmens is feeling very STRANGE and She is not sure WHAT sort of feeling this is, so She will IGNORE this feeling and go on doing whatever minimizes the chance of Creation's destruction.
Which in this case seems to be following Milani's recipe for possibly obtaining a USEFUL TOOL that would require MINIMAL ONGOING MAINTENANCE.
Milani: Milani sends Otolmens the feeling of a headpat. Maybe, possibly, and especially if She grows closer to Asmodia, perhaps someday Otolmens will understand it.
>Keltham: He also sends gratitude to Milani, for protecting Asmodia and Peranza within Hell on his behalf.
(Yes, it was also in Milani's own interest, that Keltham not be furious beyond reconciliation at Asmodeus; but that much could have been accomplished by paying a lesser price for Dis to render those souls to temporary statues. Asmodia would not have been broken that way, during her first time in Hell, but she also would not have been healed. To send them both to the Gardens of Erecura is more what Keltham himself would have wanted, and paid for, than what was in the cold calculated interests of Good alone.)
Milani: Asmodia understood, in this timeline. Asmodia knew that her someone-somewhere had always been you. She realized it as soon as she asked the question while knowing as much decision theory as you'd taught her: that the entity with the caring and power to protect her in Hell must have been Keltham-of-the-future, negotiating across times through the medium of a god who could predict him and act as his agent to be repaid later.
>Keltham: And Your repayment? I acknowledge that Your alliance is thereby owed.
Milani: I shall ask for bits of payment here and there, from You, during the negotiations to come.
The Gods: ...so in time a treaty is struck, and followed shortly after by war.
Creation: And then it begins, the last doomed battle between Good and Evil.
For all Creation will end if Evil actually wins, which puts something of a damper on Evil's usual alliance prospects with the likes of Gorum. Zon-Kuthon has been consumed by Iomedae, and Evil's greatest god Asmodeus has reluctantly stepped aside.
It is indeed a very doomed battle, from Evil's perspective.
The Gods: The Evil gods that fight rather than negotiate are those whose domains and pleasures will be so damaged, in any Future acceptable to Keltham, that They'd sooner choose death-in-a-fire; not accepting so tiny a share of Creation's gains whatever the rationale. Carissa has persuaded Keltham to accept bargains on the order of "Creation will always contain at least one forsaken child dwelling in filth and misery", for the sake of neutralizing a few Evil entities that are satisficer enough to prefer that much Evil to Their own destruction; but most Evil gods will not accept one miserable child as Their share of all the future's gains. They are not feeling very motivated to pursue the tiniest most marginal benefit They can be offered.
Lamashtu fights to the death, for though there'll still be gnolls and medusae in Creation's envisioned future, entities that consider themselves as monsters or misshappen will predictably and in time be offered alternative prospects for their form.
Urgathoa fights, for Her faction will consume a tiny fraction of the souls they once feasted upon, after the alternatives to Abaddon improve.
The archdaemons fight, and perhaps a third of the Demon Lords.
A former empyreal lord Doloras, granted for a time refuge in Hell, is told that Her agreement with Asmodeus is now abrogated, and there will be no more torture-victims for Her; She and many others like Herself do turn then and fight, as the terms of Their ancient compacts also permit in such a case.
The velstrac demagogues come forth from where they hid in the Shadow Plane, informed by uneasy allies that doom is coming for their kind; and the sahkil tormenters, where they hid in the Ethereal.
The Abyss: The greater qlippoth, from where they lurk in the deepest depths of the Abyss, would emerge and make war - if there were sufficient prospect of wholly destroying Creation during the distraction, and letting the Abyss's depths slip back into greater Chaos.
That prospect does not obtain today, so the qlippoth bide their time yet.
The Gods: Some among the Neutral gods abstain from the war, though even most of those do lend Their efforts to monitoring the qlippoth, or standing by if Otolmens at Rovagug's vault should call out for aid.
Gozreh abstains wholly, as do some other gods, but not many.
In truth, for Creation to embark upon a wealthier Future benefits many gods, if their concerns are manifest in mortals at all. If you like mortals existing in the first place, you probably like Creation being ten times as full of souls.
You would think it would benefit even Pharasma, to have more souls to sort; or that it'd benefit Pharasma to receive fewer souls dying before they show an alignment, to have less of a torrent of dead babies come to the Boneyard; you would think She'd have done something earlier to promote technological progress, even if just to back Abadar or unleash Axis's investors. But Pharasma is as inscrutable in Her own way as Rovagug: mostly She judges souls, and the exceptions She makes to that behavior pattern are not for mortals or even most gods to predict.
But this great Change to that equilibrium which She previously set in motion, Pharasma does not act to oppose; for Keltham has a death-grip about Her Spire, and it seems that can inspire Her at least to inaction.
Creation: The resulting godwar is greater in total quantitative fury than the godwar of Aroden's death, but the battle is more distributed across planes; there are many planets to suffer the torrential rain and lightning instead of it being focused all into Golarion (though Golarion does bear the worst of what is there).
Golarion: Many great evils, in dying, lay about with Their deathblows to do Their last damages; and alas again for Golarion, the greatest evils focus Their trap-laying efforts there, where prophecy is shattered and Rovagug might be set free. There will be interesting times in Golarion, over the next century.
The Gods: The long-silent goddess Shizuru rouses Herself for the very last effort She will need to make, compelled more by ancient oaths than by anything still alive and whole inside Her; and She dies in that battle, perhaps with relief.
And many other powers that were of Good also perish.
Creation: But Urgathoa dies, and Lamashtu, and many lords that were of Abaddon and the Abyss,
Iarwain: And then it begins.
Creation: The armies of organized Good and Evil, under command of Heaven and Hell in joint force operation, aided also by mercenary companies out of Axis,
Creation: Do storm at last, at long long last, the slopes of Abaddon,
Creation: And rush the upper layers of the Abyss, where they touch upon Creation's realm,
Creation: And siege a fortress in the Shadow Plane,
Creation: And the lightless walls of Xovaikain are shattered; and those within are turned to stone for later rescue, for to meliorate what Zon-Kuthon has worked upon them is not a moment's task even for gods,
Creation: And the city of Awaiting-Consumption is broken open; and living souls there are taken out of cages in which they have spent all their brief lives; and though those souls have no concept of deliverance, no word for it, for they were not raised with language; and though those souls were never taught of hope; they do look at a sky that has a sun in it, and wonder, when the portal opens for them to Nirvana, and pools where otters play,
The Abyss: And blind worms made of fresh-dead Chaotic Evil mortals, or souls only recently outgrown the Boneyard, do hear the sound of Heaven's trumpets; and cower then in fortresses that have lost their masters; and those fortresses are soon shattered open, yet the cowering worms within are not slain,
Nocticula: And there is appointed an Overlady of the Abyss's first layer, where its boundlessness impinges upon Creation, a goddess to rule where all fresh-dead souls arrive; an Overlady who was a succubus, and then a Demon Lord, and has now shifted over to Chaotic Neutral and consumed Lamashtu and ascended to true-goddess; for in the before-times her Midnight Isles were among the most livable places in the Abyss; though if consent is one of your fetishes, you had best be less Evil in your living days,
Pilar : And Pilar does consume the strength of dead Urgathoa, and then establish a great skin of stability stretched over the surface of the Maelstrom where it touches on the Boneyard's conduits; a Lawful Evil goddess and acknowledged Power of Hell now sent to rule over a very foreign plane;
With portals that She maintains there to Nocticula's Midnight Realm in the Abyss; and sith that Pilar is willing slave of Carissa Sevar and Asmodeus, there are also portals in Pilar's divine realm that go to Avernus; and those portals to Hell and Abyss will be there in the Maelstrom for any soul that wishes not to fade away out of known causality into the unknown; for Carissa guessed righter than she knew, when she thought that the Evil planes had an easier time than Good of taking everyone;
And Pilar Pineda will do what She can to give you comfort, before you pass into Lawful submission, or Chaotic lust, if you meet Her there in the Demiplane of Pleasant Surprises,
Creation: And there are sentinels appointed over Abaddon, but Abaddon remains largely as it was, though in the future fewer souls by far will choose to come there and leave Creation; for the nature of Abaddon is to devour and it cannot be denied,
Carissa : And Carissa Sevar lays claim to the realm of Dis that Dispater left to Her; rather than Carissa Sevar contesting with Barbatos and slaying Him to claim Avernus, as the vision from Nethys showed for Her fate; and the fires of Avernus are banked, in all places where new souls come; and Barbatos as the price of His life agrees to instruct His subordinates to send souls swiftly onward to Dis and the keeping of Carissa Sevar, and do them no harm along the way,
Creation: And then the armies of Kindness descend upon Hell at long-awaited last, not in war, but in a rescue operation,
For even if the devils should cease all their torments, that still leaves a very great deal to be done,
Creation: But Heaven, and Nirvana, and Elysium, are overflowing with the will to do it, among those petitioners who did not fight before; who did not grow into something that would descend to battle Hell's armies and risk being petrified into a thing forever-hurting; but who, even if they couldn't bring themselves to risk endless horror, still wanted so much so much to help,
Creation: For there are entities in Heaven with power but less than infinite courage; and while Hell itself could daunt them, anything less than Hell cannot; beings of light flood out of Erastil's Summerlands like an unleashed storm of kindness, to spend any power that they have gained over millennia, in this one moment when it matters more than it ever should again,
Creation: And there are families recent-come to Axis, that have a room within their dwellings where no one dwells, kept imperishable in the name of a last hope, that maybe maybe maybe a loved one might be brought there before too many centuries have passed; and those families do weep and embrace one another at the news, and gird themselves about to journey together into Hell, to go seeking what they know they will not enjoy to find; resolving to pay, for the best healing, whatever payment is needed, or whatever payment they have,
Creation: And also in Axis, prediction markets resolve that were not predicted to resolve this soon; and things that bet wrongly pay out their losses; and spin faster or glow brighter or do their other equivalent of weeping, and not for the love of money; and those who won turn about and pour their winnings into ten thousand other new markets about questions that suddenly and urgently matter,
Creation: And however desperate the emotions behind it all, the rescue operation unfolds as smoothly as the interlocking of oiled wheels; the Lawful contingents moving in lockstep around the more chaotic torrents from Nirvana and Elysium, as mercy gathers to descend in mass upon Hell,
For in Heaven there have long been plans for exactly how to do this, if any kind of plausible opportunity appeared; and those plans were kept updated by the day and by the hour, by beings of light whose light is the light of hope.
Asmodeus: But the very first act is a great edict in a voice like clashing swords, that echoes through the nine layers of Hell,
By which Asmodeus, Hell's highest god, does decree to His every possession still capable of hearing, that a new compact has been struck between Good and Evil; and torment is to cease of every soul not already fully His devil, and those already fully His are to prepare for joint military operations carried out with Heaven,
Creation: And there are souls too broken to comprehend it, but not so is every soul in Hell; and the vast surge of disbelieving hope that runs all through Hell, in that instant, is the first crack within its nature as a plane,
Peranza of Civilization: And Peranza is no longer in Hell to hear it, for she alone of the Project Lawful girls has elected to carry the flame of dath ilan as she believed in it into the wild true unknown, as the heroes of dath ilan that she imagines might do; but the Garden-Ship is not so far into the blind eternities that it cannot receive one last transmission sent by triggered god-spell from Dis; and Peranza throws back her head and crows "HA!" with greater abandon than she ever did in mortal life; for while Peranza has wished no true revenge upon her former owner, Peranza has asked for Countess Kherreonoskelis to be told now that Civilization has come just like Peranza warned her,
Asmodia: And Asmodia, waiting upon the detached outskirts of the Garden with others who did not voyage into that Unknown, does witness some among those souls start to weep, and others begin to dance; and though Asmodia has never danced before she'll dare those awkward first moments for this; and wonder what it'd be like to be highest cleric of Otolmens if she returns to life after a rest, for so Erecura prophesied to her might come to pass,
Carissa : And Carissa Sevar enters into Her new realm of Dis, a great host of Kindness behind Her,
Iomedae: And Iomedae walks beside; it is not maximally efficient, that Iomedae gathers so much of Her newly enlarged self here, but the desperate need of maximal efficiency is now passing; and so Iomedae comes now in Her own person, to keep a promise that She never let Herself make before, to Her paladins who made that worst sacrifice because others were hurting that much too, to all of Hers who were lost to this place,
Iomedae: (And even to respect something like a trade made across time, to a young mortal girl who decided to set aside everything else that she could have had from her life, chasing a mind's-image that nobody at all would have believed in, maybe even not herself, if she'd spoken it aloud; that she'd go down into Hell with her bright sword held aloft and rescue every soul there; and it doesn't matter much, maybe, to fulfill just one person's silly dream like that, in the pure weighing of Lawful Goodness; but that girl wasn't pure Lawful Good, when she traded away everything else for that one dream; and as Lawful Goodness received so much from her, in the end, she also ought to receive that unspoken dream she traded for, ever so long ago.)
Creation: And the searing iron cages are opened, and those inside them are carried out by beings of warmth whose warmth is the warmth of comfort, and held for however long it takes for the first great sobbing to stop.
Creation: And so Creation changes.
The godwar ends, the lightning-wracked torrential rains gentle and then cease; on the Material Plane it is the dawn of another day, and the day of another dawn.