Yep, that sounds like an alternative-universe with problems. 

Merrin is aware that she (in decisiontheory terms, in some sense) asked for this by stubbornly refusing to manifest her full Protagonist Nature for anything less, right? 

(Laeirthe is not that confident in any hypotheses of how the situation works, and is also aware that this is probably not a helpful direction for teasing Merrin right now.) 

no because Merrin cannot thing of a single protagonist action she could take about the Alternate-Universe Doom Timeline while trapped alone on an exoplanet with Evil Estha who might do something very bad and scary if she doesn't react in the way he wanted her to

Focus. 

None of that really felt like remembering a thing in the past? It felt like the other Share Language spell, just - looking for vocabulary she had never had reason to try to think of before. Maybe she should have deferred less to Estha’s argument about cognitohazards and done more linguistic introspection on the other language he Shared. 

Hmmmm can she get any other context on ‘Golarion’ or the ‘Worldwound’ from the spell? 

…Come to think of it, she should be casting a wider net here. Can she get anything else on the "Law" thing and, uh, whether there's a term for the opposite of it and what connotation that term has? Because she had been rounding it off to a dath ilani concept but she is, now, confused, because that whole conceptcluster is, uh, not one she would put alongside "worthless souls get tormented until they collapse into unmoving agonized blobs that get used as building material" because. Um. What the flaming shit. Who came up with this worldbuilding and WHO DECIDED TO PUT AN EROLARP IN IT

Same for 'Evil', actually, is there an antonym to this ""virtue"" of being selfish and triumphant in hurting others? 

Plausibly they cannot actually get this sort of information off a purely linguistic-translation-effect spell, but it seems rather important to know if Asmodeus has existing enemies on this 'Golarion' planet. Who they might, for example, want to go ally with. 

That would be #Chaos#, wild uncoordinated useless pathetic self-defeating, the Enemy.

And #Good#, prosocial helping others, self-sacrifice, also useless and pathetic and self-defeating, the Enemy.

These are #alignments#, by the way.  Souls have them.  Gods have them.  The sparkly-best alignment is Lawful Evil!

...Staring at all these meanings with boosted WIS 24, noticeably above dath ilani average, is liable to have Merrin noticing that there is a certain amount of hollowness and mandatory-belief about them.  The connotation of Lawful Evil is not so much 'this is the best alignment, anyone would be proud to have it' but 'this is the alignment one is required to think is best; be proud to think the correct thoughts about it'.

LOL obviously the best alignment is #Chaotic# #Good# and Estha just really sucks. 

....Thanks, Kalorm.

(Merrin means that. She doesn't agree, necessarily, but - it does a lot, to have that perspective in her brain.) 

Hmmmmmmmmmm. 

Now what. 

They should perhaps figure out what the actual updates are to be made from all of this new information, taking advantage of all this awesome boosted cognitive capacity, it's great, Laeirthe is still experiencing his thoughts moving slowly but it feels like he can think a normal number of them.

Since the update to be made is OBVIOUSLY NOT that Merrin will, what, meekly go back to #Infernal Cheliax# with alternative-doom-universe Evil Estha and work for #Asmodeus#? Right? 

The part of Merrin's mind that is motivated above all else to find the path that leads to the least social friction does, in fact, consider it for a moment? She could tell Estha that sorry she doesn't actually specifically remember anything but she believes him and will do whatever he thinks is reasonable? 

...and immediately runs into a wall, because - no. That is not actually a path available to her. There are some things that Merrin can decide to do even if she feels kind of aaaa about it and this is not one of them. 

.....possibly she needs to do some amount of processing regarding the fact that alternate-Merrin...did, supposedly, work for the unilateral dictator of #Hell#. For some reason.

That seems like it might, perhaps, maybe, reveal some negative traits about herself that she did not previously know. 

Well, yeah. Merrin is apparently at all times filled with the desire to be told what to do by authority figures who will approve of her for it, and she finds it paralyzing when authority figures disapprove of her in a scary way, and she runs away from the very concept of being a heroic protagonist. 

It does not, to Laeirthe, seem that surprising that if you put a Merrin in an alternate-universe Doom Timeline and surrounded her with only authority figures who were Evil and would approve of her for Evil things and punish her in scary ways for any hint of reluctance, you could get a Merrin to do a lot of things. Not to enjoy it, but to grit her teeth and do it miserably anyway. 

Apparently you can also get an Estha to do it and claim to enjoy it. Is Merrin going to form a new negative judgement of her Estha, the non-Evil one, on those grounds? 

....No? 

Like, arguably she should, but - it seems likely that a lot of people would do bad things, under sufficiently adverse circumstances? At least with whatever cognitive enhancement she's under right now, she feels like she can see the moving pieces there, which parts of Estha's motivation system one could lean on to produce that outcome. 

And it doesn't feel productive, right now, to be upset and mad at someone she's never going to see again (who also might never have existed, but taking the premise that he did and was distinct from alternate-Estha.) 

And she's - okay, she is absolutely forming a negative character judgement about this Estha, in the sense that she does not trust him and is scared of him and expects that letting him pursue his goals will make things worse according to her values, but she also - 

- is it a good idea to think this thought, right now, it feels like it's going to hurt and she was doing so well at keeping the emotions over there on the other side of a glass wall -

What does Merrin think? If it's cognitohazardous in some way then maybe now isn't the best time, the interpersonal situation does not seem incredibly stable. 

...No, that's not why, it's just that it's upsetting. 

Forget everything about "Estha" who she remembers knowing from a Civilization that might or might not have even existed. 

There's just a person who she pulled out of a river and spent like a month in dath ilan reckoning doing a survival project with, and she cares about that person, and she is. Um. She's not sure of this guess but it seems likely that if #Asmodeus# could send him spells, here, then he's still...in the system...and she is kind of inferring that if he dies on her horrible exoplanet he would end up in the #Hell# #afterlife#?

And that would be really bad? And Merrin isn't sure but it seems possible that from here there is literally no path within her power where that doesn't happen eventually. And that thought is really upsetting, okay, it's - she's not enough of a protagonist for this, she doesn't understand why any of this is happening but especially why her specifically, it's not fair, she wants - she wants not this - 

...At WIS 24, Merrin is actually able to step back from that line of thought, and examine it, and note all the ways in which it's incredibly reasonable and normal to find it upsetting, and also all of the places where she's not, in fact, very sure that she understands how things work, and also all of the ways in which it's not a good time to be really upset. 

Now what, but actually? 

(Merrin has been staring down at her hands rather than make eye contact with Scary Evil Estha, and so far he's apparently been leaving her alone to "try to make her Will save" but probably at some point he's going to interrupt.) 

Well, what's their situation. 

They're on another planet. Asmodeus can apparently send new spells to Estha, but that in itself does not actually give them a way back. Estha decided to bring forward this whole dramatic conversation at all because he...thought it might be what the Outer God wanted, for him to convince "Mariona" to serve Asmodeus again? Not because he had a specific idea of how Merrin's decision would give them a way back to Infernal Cheliax. Estha was expecting he might stop getting spells entirely, unless something changed. 

...Prooooobably Merrin's current reaction is, in fact, a hint that whatever the Outer God was going for, it wasn't that? Since it's insane to expect that to work? Estha didn't even try to be persuasive! He literally just shouted at her! 

shouting can be very persuasive if you're terrified of conflict though

...But, yes, Merrin observes that even if she had remembered everything about her ""old"" ""life"", unless some of that involved completely rewriting her motivation system she...does not think she would willingly choose to go back to working for the god of tormenting people? Because hurting people who don’t want to be hurt is bad? And, in fact, she doesn’t remember anything and so it’s not persuasive at all.

She has no idea what that could possibly mean for what the Outer God does want, or what it would take to give them a way off this planet.

Really? No ideas at all? Even with all this lovely thinkoomph-enhancement?

"Mariona Durán.  If you are trying to think your way to a Will save, put that on hold and just assert yourself.  Want and demand to pierce through all illusion and see the truth.  Finding a specific flaw you are certain of is good for a circumstance bonus, but it is not necessary and it may or may not be possible, to pit your wits against the Outer God's handiwork directly.  To stop wanting to be lost in the dream is the most likely keystone of this curse, I think, if it has any at all; but even then the core of a Will save is not what you want but what you choose."

Well, that doesn’t bode great for successfully fishing for more information on alternate-Merrin’s backstory while he still thinks they’re earnestly trying to do what he commanded.

Options from here: they could try to lie? But the only aim Laeirthe can think of right now that would be best achieved by convincing Estha that his scheme worked, is to get Estha spells for another few days, and that’s plausibly bad by Merrin’s goals and values. They don’t want to leave this planet by going straight back to Infernal Cheliax. That does not seem like a very effective route toward fixing the Very Scary Problems. Also, Merrin is not very good at social deception and finds it very stressful and it would be terrible for her ability to think, and that's assuming they can successfully lie to Estha. The lie is one he wants to believe, which might make it easier, but still. 

Yeah, no, Merrin does not think she can pull that off even if it were a good idea to try. 

This is so awkward. Merrin is aware that this is a very silly element to be focusing on, here, and there are much bigger problems, but it's so agonizingly awkward to stand there in front of someone who is clearly very invested in this, and tell him to his face that it's not going to work because Asmodeus sucks and so, no, she actually doesn't want to do the thing he wants of her. 

(She does think she wanted pretty desperately to believe true things about herself – to notice, if her memories were lies – and it didn't work, and she doesn't have a strong sense of why not.) 

Maybe Laeirthe can give a try at the wanting to pierce through the illusion and see the truth. He really very desperately wants to accurately understand the situation! The epistemic uncertainty is viscerally distressing! 

Also his (fictional setting) ""episodic memories"" contain actual mentalistmagic mind control and he can pretty straightforwardly engage with the premise that perhaps some of that is affecting him right now and he wants it to stop - 

Well, either you failed that Will save; or there wasn't anything to save against; or Creation has some awful prejudice against using brains as group housing and won't let your headmates roll Will saves!

...It's almost certainly one of the first two.  Creation is very tolerant and will at most demand that you take a feat about this sort of thing, not rule against it entirely.

Well. Doesn’t seem like it’s working. 

(Is Merrin surprised that it didn’t? She…doesn’t feel surprised, apparently. Nothing that they’ve learned in the last few minutes feels like it refutes the stupid alternate-universe crossover plot hypothesis, or even feels like it updates away from it. Honestly, Doomworld Timeline AU with the same characters But Evil feels like it has to be a trope.)

However. Now she has to admit it didn’t work. To someone who was being really scary and also is…going to be upset, probably, because this was his last-ditch final desperate hope. 

She can’t even talk her social anxiety down by reminding herself that nothing that bad will happen even if she says the “wrong” thing. She doesn’t know that! He’s apparently evil on purpose! 

…Does Merrin perhaps need help with this one?

What, help how? Moving her mouth for her? Does that even work?