"That's, uh, kind of concerning. —Anyways." She looks at Fernando. "What you're doing now would definitely count, if you were doing it in Andoran. They might let you off easy but only if you could say you wouldn't do it again. But there's lots of ways to fight Asmodeus without, uh, specifically going out of your way to serve Baphomet."

So, some of that he can't use.  Andoran seems to go easier on you if you're pathetic, like a desperate mother or slave or halfling.  He can't exactly turn himself into a halfling or whatever.

Some of it seems... kind of obvious?  Like of course you shouldn't be an idiot and pray to Urgathoa for a removal of or protection from disease... maybe she can target other people instead of you but praying for that is obviously Evil!  And punishing someone for cheating people in business dealings is what a sensibly lawful (i.e. not Cheliax) should and would do.

Andoran goes easier on you if you can show repentance.  That fits with what he has heard third hand.  Fernando can't exactly summon up feelings of repentance, but he can conjure up a little doubt about most of his life decisions with only a little bit of introspection, and with the right framing that is kind of like repentance?  He hasn't heard of the framing "lack of virtue" before, but he can kind of guess and with a few weeks to learn Good theology he could probably get it right.  He can practice right now... torturing Asmodean priests into breaking oaths... is a lack of solemnness, because it is really really funny?  No wait, it's a lack of mercy... except Good is allowed to kill Evil, that seems kind of worse than torture?  He can probably just ask at some point on the exact dividing lines.

But the more important question is a bit bigger in scope.  There is no point in betraying Baphomet (for real, and not just enough to pass a truth spell) if he's ultimately bound for the Abyss anyway.

"Do any of you know how long it takes someone to make Neutral from Evil?  Or like, if it varies, if you have a ratio in tortured Asmodean priests to years of giving all you can afford to poor and living in solemn self abnegation or whatever the maximally Good earning way is?  Just a very loose estimate would help.  And if you could also make an estimate of years of freeing slaves via piracy for someone that just made Neutral to eventually make Good?"

Hopefully the last part isn't just propaganda against Andoran and that really is the national past time?  He wouldn't want to risk it while he's still Evil himself, but it seems like a reasonable way to improve the Maelstrom to Elysium and if he dies then the Maelstrom should be tolerable.

"It's sort of hard to tell, there's a spell that can show someone where they're going but only priests of Pharasma get it, but from what anyone's been able to tell it definitely depends. It took me a few months to start channeling positive after I got to Andoran, but I don't know exactly when I switched over. ...And, uh, I hadn't been torturing people for Baphomet. People'll sometimes say very loosely that you need to do as much Good as you did Evil, but it's not like there are... numbers... for how Evil it is to do any particular Evil thing.

Uh, in terms of things I know can make a difference — it takes longer the more Evil you were beforehand, obviously. It's faster the more Good you're doing, like, I think it helped that I was a priestess, there's loads of ways to help people if you're a priestess. It matters whether you actually care about doing the right thing or whether you're just scared of going to Hell. It hurts a lot if you're still doing Evil — you don't have to be perfect, but — you can think about it like — a Good person wouldn't be looking for excuses to keep doing Evil things? And so if you are that suggests you're not really serious about doing the right thing, you don't deserve to be treated like someone who's actually trying, and it means you've got more to make up for. And then there's lots of other things people say might make a difference, but those are the ones that people mostly agree about."

Justice is pretty unimpressed with people who are just trying to get out of Hell, but it's not like she wants Asmodeus to have their souls. This guy shouldn't have that problem, at least, the only way he's going to Hell is if he gets Maledicted there.

"How much do you know about afterlife trials?"

“Uh… your God and any other God that has a use for you argue over your soul before a judge of Pharasma, winner gets you sent to their afterlife?  Alignment detection indicates which way the judge will be strongly leaning towards, barring particular good arguments for one God over another?”

He had kind of assumed the judge sends you to the God’s specific afterlife domain but, now that he’s seriously considering betraying Baphomet, he admits to himself he’s not quite sure about that?  Even devoted worshippers of Dispater or Mammon still end up in Avernus, right?

That's closer than she was expecting from someone Chelish, so she really can't complain. "That's on the right track. Each afterlife can send a representative — supposedly Nirvana sends one to every trial — but as far as I know they don't have to be connected to a god."

"We might not know if they did, though — I don't think they do, just, I don't know for certain one way or the other. But it's kind of hard to imagine the Chaotic afterlives having, uh, that kind of rule."

She nods. "We don't know very much about how the trials work. But we do know that they aren't just adding up everything you've done in your life, they're trying to figure out what sort of person you are."

She traces a little branching path on the floor. "The way it was explained to me once was — we all choose what path to walk down, and some of those paths are full of Evil deeds, and if you keep walking down them they'll lead you to damnation. But no matter how far you walk, you can always choose to turn around and get on a different path." She mimes this with her finger. "Even if you've gone a long way down the path to the Abyss, so far that you never make it back to where you started, if you choose to turn around and put yourself on a different path, and you're committed enough to that path that Pharasma's court is very sure you wouldn't have just turned back around again, the court will judge you for the path you were on when you died."

“That seems less quantifiable and less assured than I would have hoped, but potentially faster?”

Faster if he can genuinely commit to a Gooder path, which he doesn’t think he can.

Also that explanation might be Andoran propaganda aimed as assuring their pirates that stop detecting Chaotic Good after murdering one too many slavers.

“There is one spell I’ve heard of… Atonement.  Do you know how affordable it is in Andoran?  And how it interacts with Pharasma’s court?”

"Uh, I know it's really expensive but I don't know how much, do any of you know?"

"It requires the same type of incense used in Commune spells, so the price fluctuates slightly depending on the growing conditions that year. It's consistently more expensive than a Cloak of Resistance, and less expensive than a standard headband."

"And it only works if you really mean it. I think the only time I've ever heard of someone getting one is Councillor Liberty, and she stepped down from the Council after — uh, she was a priestess of Milani, I think that's why she bothered with the spell."

"And the adventures who went up against the nightmare-faerie." 

"I think that might've technically been a different spell? I don't think they could've afforded the incense, and getting mind controlled is pretty different."

He doesn’t have a headband himself, the cult didn’t quite have the funds to buy one (even if it would have meant he could squeeze an extra spell or two in his scaffold) and his group hadn’t lucked into robbing anyone rich enough to have one.  Also, he thinks he see an obvious loyalty-test sort of perverse twist to the whole concept of paying so much for an Atonement.

“If you’re actually committed to Goodness, I suppose it usually makes more sense to donate the money to people in need of charity than to spend it on buying an Atonement for yourself?”

He’s pretty proud of himself for seeing through that little puzzle.

Nod nod! "Yeah, exactly."

Oh good, he figured out the right answer!  Andoran seems kind of manageable if the loyalty tests are about that difficulty.

He could move on to safer topics, like planning spell preparation for tomorrow, but they haven’t actually threatened him once, and he’s curious about other things…

“What exactly does your God (Desna, right?) in particular teach about Goodness?”

Why... does he think... she's a Desnan. She's... travelling? She's... in favor of people being free? He hasn't seen her free any slaves, or pass out any secret Good romance novels, or anything. 

...If they make it back safely Haven's going to think this is hilarious.

"—Uh, I'm actually a Calistrian." She gently taps her holy symbol. "I can tell you what sorts of things she teaches, there's plenty that's helpful for doing the right thing, but she's not technically Good, if it makes a difference. I mean, I do also like Desna, I know some of the sorts of things priests of Desna say, but I'm not a priest of Desna myself." Her girlfriend's a priestess of Desna but she doesn't really want to bring that up in the middle of enemy territory.

"I'm a Desnan as much as I'm anything. The regular kind, though, she doesn't give me magic."

“Oh, I thought you said you had Fly prepared, so I assumed Travel Domain, which I thought meant Desna or maybe Cayden?”

A Calistrian is actually better for him, she should appreciate torturing Asmodean priests to death out of revenge?  Unless he has actually been doing that Wrong and she’ll be extra offended?

“Uh yes, I would like to hear about both Gods if you wouldn’t mind.  It’s hard to get accurate information in Cheliax.”

Even his more recent theological education has been too pragmatic to cover non-Evil Gods.  (It was mostly focused on not offending allied cultists of other demon lords or allied Druids.)