"People don't seek out luxury because it makes space in their minds and their lives to be Good. They seek out luxury to fill the space that exists in their minds and lives, to let them avoid filling it with anything meaningful. They do not want silks because the experience of wearing silks strengthens them; they want silks because then others will be impressed they have them. They do not drink expensive wine because it tastes better, they drink it because it is expensive. They do not use their sobbing servants for archery practice because it is relaxing, they do it to show off how rich they are and how evil they are - if America does not have nobles you may be underestimating how terrible nobles are -"

"Oh, I probably am. I have read books but it's not the same thing, and also Asmodean nobles were presumably even worse than all of the nobles in other places. ...and my family was among the Chelish nobility, a very long time ago. I do not know precisely how that prejudices me, but I am sure it does."

"I do promise no one was using their servants for archery practice. I would remember that. We also had no cinnamon, and not much of what I think you'd call plenty let alone what you'd call luxury. Instead I would say that the injustices were mostly the injustices of - an excessively narrow conception of what it is to do right by someone, and no - routes of escape for those who were in fact being wronged."

"I do find it slightly surprising that the Goddess does not renounce someone for being the wealthiest person in Avistan."

"Hmmm. The argument being - that it cannot possibly be good prioritization of my funds, for me to sit on them in the fashion of an avaricious dragon, and that the Goddess ought to be as unlikely to pick rich men as She is to pick dragons? Or that it is an active Evil, to be rich, in a world like this one, and paladins are supposed to be incapable of persisting knowingly in Evil?"

"Both of those things, I guess. And just that - if I had a lot of money, I would spend it on the most important things I knew of. It is hard to imagine any reason not to do that, when we're talking about so much money that you wouldn't even notice it was missing."

"What should I spend it on?"

"The...Church? Their job is to figure that out!"

"Ah, but what if I think I am cleverer than the Church, and will do a better job?"

"I don't think that's a sin."

"A lot of people would absolutely say that that is a sin, though mostly not to me in particular, but if you have mostly gotten your theology education from the radio I suppose you wouldn't have heard from those people, because I don't agree with them, and because they tend to believe it for reasons that also inspire them not to argue with me on the radio."

"You might be wrong to think you are cleverer than the Church. I guess you probably are wrong, because they have lots more practice and lots more people and are very wise. But - I don't think it can be a sin to just take your best guess and act on it until someone else convinces you that their best guess is better. We would never have had any success, in Pezzack, if we felt like we'd had to wait for the Church's approval of all the particulars. I - noticed wanting it, sometimes, wishing someone would tell me 'oh yes, just do this and you'll have done the right thing' - but Iomedae is too busy to do that, and it is in any event Asmodeanism that wants everyone kneeling in place waiting for orders."

"Indeed....the Church has a lot of people but I can also hire a lot of people myself, with my enormous pot of money, and I can even hire the Church's people, if I want to, and not end up at a disadvantage for expertise....to be clear right now I am mostly spending my wealth on more factories and more researchers and more things that will make even more wealth, not on any kind of charitable endeavors. But I am doing what I think will make us strong enough to fight Hell the fastest."

"I apologize, then. That's a pretty good reason to be the wealthiest person in Avistan."

"Don't apologize! You are making me feel very at home. In America people are not as hesitant to criticize each other. And when I was young I ran up to everyone who passed through town and demanded to know why they hadn't personally done anything about Hell yet and this is really wildly more unfair to people than posing the question to the richest person in Avistan. Though I do think that if you were surprised I had a good answer then you have turned yourself around a little oddly."

She mostly hadn't been thinking that far ahead! It seemed both true and important so she said it. It is not, as she observes, really surprising that she has a good answer, since Iomedae in fact hasn't renounced her. "What...answers do people give, in not-Asmodean Cheliax, if you run up to them and ask why they haven't done anything about Hell?"

"Only bad people go to Hell, dear, you don't need to worry about that so long as you're well-behaved."

" - but that's obviously not -"

"Yes, I found it very unsatisfying. But really I was the one being rude. It is not fair to people to ask them complicated questions without having established some grounds for them to believe all possible answers are safe and that they are also allowed to not indulge the question."

"It seems kind of unfair to people not to expect them to do the right thing even when it's dangerous! Was it unfair to give radios to Pezzack, having as you did no grounds at all to think you could protect us from the Asmodeans yet? People were caught with secret radios, and died horribly and were condemned by the Evil priests to Hell, for those radios, and still those radios were the best thing you could have done for us."

"You know my answer, I guess, because I made the radios. And I would have done it even if I had no army, even if I could never offer anyone any safety, even if the Chelish army and navy would not have been distracted when Pezzack rebelled. But still I think that my behavior as a child was - an impulse I have in no sense grown out of, but foolishly shaped, and wronging people where it could only ever achieve anything if it strengthened them. I chose my words carefully on the radio. I think there are many possible things I could have said that would have been enormous wrongs to the people risking their lives to hear me."

"And many things you didn't say soon enough. You didn't tell people how to kill priests of Asmodeus until the war started, and we didn't know the range on their channels."

"Yes. Some decisions like that I made on purpose for reasons that I know now were wrong, and some I made on purpose for reasons I still believe, and honestly a great many that I didn't think about, because too much was happening at once, and I was scared and busy and had no habit to draw the thought to my attention nonetheless. I did think about under what circumstances to direct people in direct rebellion against Asmodeus. We wanted that to mostly be timed for once the war started, because any rebellion crushed before the war even began was no toll on Hell's resources and many dead innocents. ...I know that in Pezzack you did not exactly get a choice of when to fight."

"We were planning to fight, but - we were planning to wait a little longer. We figured you'd say on the radio, or someone would come from Kintargo and say they'd rebelled. But then when they started it - everyone knew already what we'd meant to do when the moment came.

You could've said, here's a priest's channel radius but I don't think it's the best moment yet, if you've got the option of waiting."