Many, many years ago, Jean once told Raoulin about the hierarchy of virtues. Plenty of young squires start off with just the one artefact channeling just the one virtue. Sometimes it's not their own first or best virtue, because they get the artefact that is available and works for their skillset and their fighting unit's needs, but it's one they're at least comfortable with. Then almost everyone picks up their keystone artefact before they get knighted - the strongest thing they can do, channeling the virtue they chose to focus on most.

They sometimes have to correct the misconception that that's when you're done growing, when you find that focus virtue that gives you your trademark power; often that's closer to the halfway point. Knights traditionally choose seven virtues - not the same seven for everyone, but roughly seven and of course there's significant overlap between everyone's lists - and Raoulin has his own set of artefacts and powers working from the seven virtues he chose. It's the rounding out that helps a fighter find their role. A guy who can turn invisible is a guy who can turn invisible, while a guy who can turn invisible and summon horses and use truesight is a scout. Someone who isn't obsessed with just one virtue, who can see it in balance with all the others, is ready to teach it. 

Jean told him that once you're working with seven, it's not manageable to juggle a strong virtue you focus on and then six bonus things you try to also do on the side. You have to shift frameworks. Your focus virtue becomes a lens, a filter that shines light on every other virtue. A brave person can understand honesty as the courage to tell the truth. A loyal person can understand courage as a love great enough that it produces willingness to overcome fear. An truthful person could understand loyalty as commitment to oaths or being honest with oneself about how much you owe to your people.

When he's confused and has no idea what he's supposed to be doing next, Raoulin falls back on humility. It was a mental framework he struggled with and hated as a youth, and somewhere along the line he challenged himself with it enough that wrestling with it became his story for a few years, and then it became easy and comfortable. It's the foundation he can build other virtues on. It doesn't always steer him to the answer, but it rarely steers him wrong.

Okay, so assume she's smarter than him, knows more than him, and he doesn't have enough justification to conclude that she's definitely a demon misleading him nor to conclude that she's definitely a human teenager who desperately needs help. Assume Nicole's the better diplomat, Reynhard's the better fighter, the Baroness is the one authorised to make decisions as to who can or can't be told about magic, and so his main job here is to get things that they can use.

(They've been assuming they get to figure out what to do with her but even if she is just a human teenager she may well have her own ideas...) 

What do you do if someone very earnestly and honestly informs you there's nine afterlives?

That would be pretty important if it was true.

Does he know it isn't? He hasn't been to an afterlife. He hasn't actually really quizzed any fairies or dragons or angels about exactly how afterlives worked. To be honest he'd always thought he'd prefer it to be a surprise - whoever designed the afterlife clearly wasn't handing out too many clues, and maybe that was because he was supposed to focus on the life in front of him.

But if people could go to hell and fix it... well, yeah, sure, that's worth at least thinking about. 

"I'm... kind of confused," he admits. "I have never heard anyone say there were nine before. Some people here believe in zero, and some in two. How do you know about this? Have you been there? Can you take me?" 

"Raoulin," says Katherine, because she does not really think that going to hell was ANYWHERE in the ASSIGNED MISSION for this SATURDAY BAKE SALE CONVERSATION. 

"...uh, not now. If you have some way of knowing about the nine afterlives it should maybe be secret too, so - don't show it where people who aren't holy warriors could see, if that's okay?" 

Iomedae likes him. She likes anybody who notices that the afterlives are the most important thing, even if he does seem frustratingly fixated on not telling anyone about them - but it is possible to imagine that, somehow, it'd go worse here if everybody knew - she doesn't know enough about how judgment works to rule that out, and it's not like telling people things is reversible -

"I no can lie," she says, "but I have no strength to take people to Heaven or to Hell, and God will not give me that strength, if no should do that. I know there are nine because it says this in Scripture, because God did go to all of them, when he was a man, and wrote of what they are like. I know that Scripture is no a lie because God gives strength to the people who preach it..." Would that be persuasive, if it was really the first time she had heard it? No. It wouldn't be. 

"...I guess I do not know that God is not lying, but great men who see all the world and holy enough go to Heaven and to Hell do not say, oh Scripture is wrong, and other gods say, God like cities too much, God like war too much, God like laws too much, but not say, "God is lying", so they would all be lying also. And any person where I am from, they go to the priest when they are hurt, and the priest makes them not hurt, they go to the priest for water when it not rain, they go to the priest to have a baby and not die, and that does not mean God is not lying, or Scripture is right, but it - if you are trying to walk in the direction of Heaven that is the direction to walk in, right?"

Well that's certainly new. Raoulin scratches his head.

Better at least keep up appearances while he figures this out. He pushes a tray of badges and brooches and trinkets towards Iomedae. "Want to help set these out in nice rows while we talk?"

So many questions he wants to ask. Why can't she lie - is she fey somehow? What Scripture is this? Does God give her strength? Enough strength to beat him in a fight? What God does she worship that likes cities and war too much? 

Start from the assumption she genuinely knows more than him, and he genuinely actually wants to learn from her... 

"So, you've probably noticed in America - actually in all the places I've ever been or heard of - we don't have the same Scripture, and nobody has seen heaven or hell, and we don't know about nine afterlives and the priests here can't make rain or fix your hurts. Why do you think we don't have any of that? Did we make God angry, or is there something wrong with America?" 

Sure, she can lay out trinkets in nice lines. "They know God here?" she disagrees while she does so. "They not know all the same stories of God, but they know he was a man, and that he fight Hell, and that he can come back from dead. They know devils and Satan and they know you should be honorable and good. When they say of Scripture it is different because in different lands people see the same thing different ways, but I have no heard them say any thing that is wrong.

In America priests don't heal people. I ....do not know why." One guess is that it's because they're Evil. That guess is very salient right now. She does not really want to suggest it. "...I think there are things wrong with America, like how they make holy warriors foster childs. God probably angry America do that."

"...I can imagine that would make God angry, if he really wanted you to be a holy warrior but instead you were stuck being a foster child."

"So you think it's different people seeing the same thing in different lands, when some people think there's nine afterlives, and other people are certain there's only heaven, and other people think there's hell or purgatory, and some people think there's no afterlife at all? Those seem like some of them might be wrong, to me." He is not going to use the phrase 'cultural relativist', he vaguely remembers something like this from college but it's definitely better to stick to Iomedae's own words here. 

“People who think there is two is wrong, but - say you had lots of horses, and you showing them to Jenny and ask how many kinds of horses. Jenny not ride horses, Jenny maybe says oh there are two kinds, girl horse and boy horse. Sir Gabriel is a knight, he says this horse for farm, this horse for killing, this horse for car, this horse for make more horses. If someone says, when you die you go to Heaven or Hell or Limbo, they are not wrong, they are just not knowing all the kinds. …if someone says when you die you go no place, they are wrong, or lying. Or a” lich of some kind, but she has no idea how to say it in English - “or they killed many people to hide from God.” 

"Well... I don't know if Sir Gabriel likes horses, but I'm a knight, and I quite like horses, and I've been to all sorts of places and read lots of books and killed - I think killed devils, if we're understanding each other correctly?"

(There's straightforwardly no way they're getting through this conversation without telling her anything, but he can stick to making it sound like he's personally magic in the ways she seems to expect are normal, and refrain from telling her the truly dangerous things concerning archaic morality or the true nature of the "reenactment" society she's hanging out with. Though Katherine is still shooting him evil glares, so damage control.) 

" - though you really must not tell people that, please, it's secret."

Reduced evil glaring. Deep breath. Raoulin scratches his nose a few times; it helps him think better.

"Anyway, I'm not sure if you'd consider me the sort of person who ought to know all the types of horses, but I've never encountered anyone who thought there's nine afterlives. Maybe some people who think there's nine gods, but never nine afterlives."

Unpacking the concept of murdering people to hide from God can be a problem for later Raoulin actually! Iomedae seems to be good friends with God and luckily unlikely to kill people in order to hide from him. 

"I think if you're right about there being nine afterlives, you might be the only person who knows about it. So either there's a very important reason why you're the only person who knows, or everyone else decided to keep it secret. And - hmm, if it might be secret, should you be telling me?"

(Did they adequately cover the concept of 'secret'? Raoulin is acutely aware that Iomedae is being expected to use lots of words about five minutes after learning them...) 

Iomedae is following his argument. She's just fundamentally very suspicious of it. Men are served by truth; devils are served by lies. People who know what Creation is like can make plans from their knowledge; people who are ignorant can't. Surely more people go to Hell if they don't know to fear it - and anyway, people here do know about Hell, just not about the fact there are three kinds, which really doesn't seem like the part which might be where important secrets lie. 

Obviously if you are fifteen and have a disagreement with a knight about whether something should be secret the knight wins. But that is because he can kill you, not because Iomedae is persuaded. 

"I not think good reason for it to be secret. Maybe there is a good reason I not think of, but - maybe the devils lying. Devils lying a lot. And - America is rich enough to fight Hell, if America knows to fight Hell. If you say, no tell anyone, then I not do that, because you are knight. But I think you are wrong."

Well, mission accomplished! He has successfully established that magic should be secret, and everything else is probably downstream of that; now she has enough context to understand why they might want to secretly talk to her, plus nobody is going to be worried about needing to wipe her memory if she agrees to just be quiet about magic. Figuring out exactly what she is and where she came from can wait so long as she's not an urgent threat to the entire masquerade, and it'll be a damn sight easier once they've established communication channels. 

It still doesn't sit right with him to tell her that she ought to just accept something she thinks is wrong purely because he's an authority figure. Mission does not feel accomplished.

"It sounds like - you think God made the world in a good way? If you are honourable you get heaven and powers from God, and if you aren't you get hell and don't get powers, so it's better to be honourable, because justice is...." oh darn what words can he even use here, "Because justice is part of how the world was made? If that was how things worked, I would agree it shouldn't be secret at all, because the truth would make everyone want to be good."

"God - my God did not make the world, and he does not think it was made right. But - we no can fix it if we no know how it is."

(So would you still want to be good and honourable, if the world was made wrong? What if being wrong could give you power? What if being good sometimes got you sent to hellish places? Would you trust everyone else to be good, too, or would you try and make sure nobody knew about the material rewards of Evil unless their commitment to honour was already absolutely certain?

These are the questions he wants to pose, because frankly it seems like - if she could speak English better - she'd have interesting things to say about them. But they're exactly the sort of things he's forbidden from saying to people before they've proven what their answers are.) 

"Wait," Katherine frowns. That was the least Christian thing this girl has said, and she's said a fair few things that were remarkably not-Christian. "Your God didn't make the world? How'd the world get here?" 

"A god made the world! In Taldor we call god made the world Pharasma. Other places call god made the world other names. But I not a holy warrior of Pharasma, I holy warrior of Aroden, the god who was a man, live here long time ago, live in Heaven now, write Scripture. Died sometimes but came back."

Katherine frowns and runs through her vague memories of studying just enough Classics to feel like she knew a fraction of what her persona ought to. Vaguely Greek sounding? Maybe? Maybe Persian? 

(Time traveler? It's another option that explains a lot.) 

"What other gods are there? Zeus, Hermes, Aphrodite? Or uh.... Ahura Mazda? Mithra? Uh... Brahma, Ganesha, Lakshmi?" 

(Raoulin doesn't think Hinduism involves holy warriors going to hell to fight Satan but he really ought to start bringing more nonfiction books along on his wilderness hikes.) 

"I not know those names but the gods called different names different places. In Taldor call Erastil for farms and Jaidi for marriage and Pharasma for babies and dying and Nethys for magic and Abadar for money and Aroden for the things men build. And Asmodeus, for Satan."

Huh. Well damn. She's been played.

Katherine had been pretty on board with the various hypotheses floating around - that maybe the kid was a time traveler, or from a fey realm, or a demon trying to infiltrate humanity - but she'd dismissed as uncharitable the thought that perhaps the kid was a prankster, faking for attention. It felt like a mean thought. But now she's certain. 

It's not unusual for foster kids to have been through a lot, it's not particularly weird for this teenager to have some mental health issues, and she supposes that if you already picked up swordfighting lessons somewhere (fencing club maybe?) then pretending to be a game character is probably a great way to get attention. 

Katherine isn't that into TTRPGs, but she's in the SCA; she can't exactly escape being surrounded by nerds. She played a cleric of Nethys in a one-shot once and immediately concluded that Pathfinder was overly complicated and went back to 5e. Now that she's prompted the right way she vaguely remembers an Iomedae, too, so presumably the kid named herself after the goddess. (It isn't like she hasn't met multiple nonbinary kids that wanted to go by Loki.)

Well. They almost broke the masquerade for a kid running a very successful scam where she pretended to genuinely believe she was a Pathfinder paladin. The baroness is going to say so many swear words when she finds out.

(Raoulin may well have said too much. Damn it, she hates memory editing people, but this kid in particular kind of brought it on herself.)

"So fictional gods," she says tiredly. This is not very courteous of her but she is quite annoyed.

It wouldn't even be the first time she's encountered someone faking less English proficiency than they really have, just for the sake of being annoyingly deep in persona. Luckily, she thinks she remembers just about enough... "Raoulin, elle ment, ce sont personnages d'un jeu. Ne parle pas que vous ne devriez pas."

"I don't know 'fictional.' says Iomedae. "You know the gods here?"
"

Katherine rolls her eyes. "Yes, this is probably one of the nerdiest groups on the planet, we know the book you got those names from. They're fake. It's not funny."

Raoulin has absolutely no idea what's going on but Katherine seems really quite annoyed and he doesn't want her to snap at the foster kid... kind of regardless of whether she's justified about it.

(She's not lying about having trained with swords, at least. And she just... seems so genuine. He really has no idea how damning it is for Katherine to have recognised - a video game, he's guessing? - but there's no need to be mean. There's rarely a need to be mean to newbies or children.)

Very gently and carefully, with a pacifying hand held out towards Katherine: "I think what Katherine is saying is those gods are make-believe. People said they exist for fun, but just for fun. Is this a fun game, Iomedae?" 

"...I don't know makebelieve. I don't know fake. I...most of the gods are fun, I think? Not Asmodeus. Asmodeus is very bad. Aroden is fun. Aroden like America, like bake sale, like -" she gestures at the event tents. "Paint, Costco, plows."

Katherine is, in fact, going to snap at the teenage foster child if she keeps pretending that she has absolutely no idea she's naming characters from a role-playing game. She's annoyed at herself for not recognising it sooner - the name Iomedae should've clued her in, but pronounced differently to how she'd expect and without the context of those other gods, she hadn't caught it. She's currently getting annoyed at Raoulin for continuing to take this seriously, and snapping at him... isn't going to be productive. 

"I'm going to go talk to the Baroness," Katherine announces.

She snags another blueberry muffin and marches off.