Songbird Cuoco is right there. Tanya can, with enough effort, cultivate the virtue of asking someone what they think instead of trying to play it all out in her head.

"Cuoco, can I ask you for some more personal advice? Belmarniss, you're welcome to stay and listen if you like, I don't know if it'd interest you and you might be missing some context but I'd be happy to fill you in."

"Of course, what's on your mind?"

"Some context for Belmarniss. The last time we talked you asked me whether, if I could contact Germania, I would follow the army's orders. That's - a crucial question, obviously. It's easy to decide not to if it would be harming them to keep following their orders, because they don't know about Hell and all the rest. I took an oath of military service, and Select Oliva said I shouldn't break it lightly, but the oath already says that the highest goal is serving the Germanian nation. An officer in unforeseen circumstances is expected to make their choices, and this is an extreme case but I think it would be justified to disregard even direct orders if I was sure I knew better."

"But I noticed that I - don't want to just abandon Germania. I hate the idea of turning my back on my men and everything I fought to defend. If I imagine asking Iomedae what most serves overall Good and her saying we shouldn't contact Earth at all, or that the Iomedaean church should only work with nations that are neutral in the war while Germania is destroyed, I - I would very much want to help them anyway. And I can't work with the Iomedaeans before resolving what I would actually do in that case, because maybe I should resolve to serve the greatest Good and just do whatever they say. Or I could ask them to help me help Germania if it can be done, and everyone would profit, but - wouldn't that be betraying the idea of Good? I don't know how to - seek to help other people, and also endorse spending significant resources on any causes besides stopping people from going to Hell. ...Or the Abyss. And I'm already betraying, or planning to betray, so much that - it feels like the only thing that justifies anything besides putting Germania first is, again, Hell and the good of others, but doesn't that mean I have to fully commit to it?"

"Did you know, the Iomedaeans have a rule for their faithful that they must find something fun to do and do it, at least once a month? I might have mentioned that before or not, I'm not sure. Iomedae attracts the kind of person who, without that rule, would tear apart everything that makes having a life, the kind of thing that they want to save and support when it's other people having it, different from spending a life like it's a silver piece. She picks a lot of paladins, and if they get far enough along they never fear again, not a moment in their lives, and they may feel every privation in the world but they never face the dread of it going on like that until they die, or the alarm that they may lose some capacity key to their happiness which would take another lifetime again to rebuild in Heaven. So they have this rule, to compensate. For the kind of person who finds Iomedaeanism right for them - and you might well be one - this works, pretty much well enough most of the time that they haven't, say, updated it to 'every two weeks'.

"If you don't even have that, if you are contemplating burning down everything you care about in your commitment to the side of the angels, you are diving into the sea in a storm to rescue a man overboard without a rope.

"I'm not sure if you should hold to your affection for Germania - I know little about the place - but if it's all you have right now, if you are at any risk of needing to abandon it, figure out what will keep you from drowning in that. Line that up first."

"I am very aware of the importance of morale! I'm trained in it! And I can't foresee what I'll feel like even a month from now. But if I choose to keep my - affection - for my men in Germania, not even because I want desperately to help them but in order to keep up my own morale, that would be selfish, not Good. It - I worry that it would undo what little progress I've made, these past few days."

"If I decide to work with the Iomedaeans and not contact Germania, I will be functional enough to deliver on that promise. I know myself well enough to guarantee that. I might be a little less effective, a little slower and stupider, because of my - affections - but the decision won't hang on a few extra percent of performance efficiency, so it wouldn't matter. That's not the problem. The problem is - I don't know how to approach this decision in a principled manner. How to give anything less than a hundred percent of myself and have some reason behind the specific number, beyond just that I felt like it. Good doesn't need everyone to become perfectly selfless, but - being selfish was my specific mistake. When I was being Evil. My sin, if you like. I can't, I feel like I can't be even a little bit selfish safely. And helping people I know over those I don't is a kind of being selfish."

"Helping people isn't selfish," insists Cuoco. "It may be many things, but not that. And - I don't know exactly how old you are, but you look very young, to have this much confidence in what balances you can learn to strike and what extremities you can push yourself to, especially in the long term."

"If I have a choice between helping different people, because I can't work on two things at once or because contacting Germania would have some additional effects, and one group of people is hypothetically much more in need of help - because there are more of them, or they're in greater danger, or something uncontroversial like that - but the other group consists of people I know personally, then I could be making the choice for selfish reasons. A disinterested person only wishing to do Good would choose the first group."

"My age is - unfortunately a slightly complex matter. I'm biologically fourteen, but I have forty-seven years of lived experience because I was reincarnated from a previous life while keeping my memories. I have no reason to keep the details a secret from you, but I think they would enormously and needlessly complicate the discussion. That, in addition to six years of military service, gives me the confidence to say how I'll perform in future scenarios. I'm sorry for misleading you with my appearance; it would be impractical to tell everyone the truth up-front but I should have explained it before now, because you're right that it's a relevant concern."

"...gracious," says Cuoco.

"I kind of think you had chances to bring that up before now with me, at least," says Belmarniss.

"...my point is mostly that you do not have an obligation to be a disinterested person," Cuoco says.

"...I did have the chance to tell you. I didn't because I didn't think it was relevant in any way, and - I'm used to hiding it, because in Germania no-one would believe either the claim or the story behind it, and if they did it wouldn't benefit me... or so I thought at the time, so I told no-one. That might not be true in Golarion, but I never really thought about it before now. I didn't decide not to tell you, I simply didn't consider whether I should. I'm sorry if you would have wanted me to tell you. I'll give you the full story if you want to hear it. It's not a lead to letting other people reincarnate instead of going to an Evil afterlife or anything useful like that. ...I should have Iomedae or someone confirm it, but you can scry dead people and raise them to life, you would have noticed if some of them were reincarnating instead." The first Earth Tanya lived on is sending dead souls to Being X and whoever he works for and that's much better than giving them to Pharasma and shouldn't be messed with, unless Being X forwards them to Pharasma eventually but possibly even then. Whether the second Earth is set up the same way is hopefully something Iomedae can tell.

"Cuoco, you're right that I don't have an obligation to abandon Germania. In fact I have an obligation not to, as far as Law is concerned! But the way I understand Good - the way I'm trying to be Good right now - is by noticing that everyone is better off the more people are Good, and being the kind of person who cooperates and enables that. That logic leads to an obvious conclusion, that I should do the most Good I can. If I deny that logic, and I don't know what to substitute, I - might still do Good but not for Good reasons. I'm not used to having to act for the right reason and not just in the right way, and this was the simplest, most obvious way to think about it."

"If my only choice was between helping Germania and doing nothing, of course I'd try to help them, and that could be Good. But - I spent the last six years trying to help them, even if I was doing it for selfish reasons at the time. And then it turned out I probably harmed them instead by helping them do Evil. If I was transported back to Germania right now, armed only with what I know, I... probably couldn't keep them out of Hell. So if Iomedae says helping Germania is far from guaranteed to end up being Good, while there are some unambiguously Good and important causes I could be helping with instead, then - I don't know how I could excuse it. And if she doesn't say that and I try to do both, I still don't know how to - allocate my time and effort, or ask the Iomedaeans for help in exchange, in a principled way. Maybe I could ask for a lot and the deal would still be beneficial for them. But if there's a rule for making such trade-offs, any kind of guidelines or pitfalls or advice or something to be aware of, then I want to know it, because - it's still not obvious to me, that I'm doing the right thing."

"There's a time limit on resurrection, people could reincarnate after that. Prophecy existed for most of history, people who weren't in fact going to be scried or raised could be reincarnated. I don't know it to be a thing that's happening but there'd be plenty of space for it to hide in," says Belmarniss.

"If you are really forty-seven I am - less skeptical, that you can approach it this way without burning out horribly," says Cuoco slowly. "I still wouldn't advise it, but... people do it, and succeed at it."

Could Belmarniss be right? Wouldn't the secret leak at some point? Wouldn't any of the gods want to tell mortals, that Hell (and Heaven) aren't forever? That scrying people in an afterlife causes them to be in that afterlife, so you shouldn't do it if there's any chance it'd be an Evil one? Is the whole story of devils and demons being made out of tortured souls a lie, or at least something that applies only in some cases? Why would any of them be different? Tanya was finally coming to terms with the Golarion version of the afterlives, which was at least self-consistent, but she doesn't know how to reconcile it with her own experience and that seems like the kind of thing that might in fact matter.

"...you may be right that there's something to learn from this. It was a mistake not to share my story before and I'll do it now. If you don't believe it, or - don't trust me about all the details - well, I can't prove any of it, but you deserve to hear it."

"I was first born - that I remember - on a planet different from Golarion. Let's call it Earth One. It had advanced technology, magic did not exist, gods did not grant powers or do any public and verifiable miracles. Humans were the only sentient species, no other life-bearing worlds were known, the concept of planes was unknown. There were many contradictory religions; some said that people went to Heaven or Hell - with only two or three options, not nine - according to different rules from those known here. Some said everyone reincarnated, possibly as an animal, in a better or worse life depending on their actions in the previous one. Some said other things entirely; many religious beliefs were certainly made up as a matter of historical record, and it was plausible that all were."

"I lived an ordinary life, and died unexpectedly at the age of thirty-three. My next experience was being disembodied and having my thoughts read by a - being. He did not give a name; let's call him Being X. He said several contradictory things. He implied he was responsible for different Earth religions, which were, again, mutually contradictory about both the nature and role of gods and the afterlives - I can provide more details about that if it seems relevant. One of those religions claims dead souls normally reincarnate, another that they go to Hell or Heaven."

"He complained that fewer people believed in and worshipped the gods - or a God - than in the past, when it was near universal. He read out of my mind that I thought it was a result of the progress of civilization. People led more comfortable lives, there was less war, we learned how to understand and control nature, and so there was less need to explain the unknown by positing gods or to appeal for their help. That was the going theory on Earth at the time, anyway. Being X said he would reincarnate me somewhere where all these conditions were reversed to make me worship him. I - didn't get the impression he really understood me, or humans in general, or that he was even reacting to me in particular rather than taking out his anger on a random dead soul. In any case I have no evidence anything he said is true."

"I was reincarnated on a different planet. Let's call it Earth Two. It was physically the same as my first one; the solar system and the stars were the same too. Its history and nations were also similar, with one obvious difference: magic existed. It's plausible that all other differences between the histories of the two Earths were due to this, but of course I had no way to test that. It was also, according to the calendar, about a century behind the time I died on Earth One; history, politics and the state of non-magical technology approximately matched the year, but there were enough differences between the worlds that I saw no straightforward way to exploit this. My best theory was, and remains, that the two Earths are in separate - universes in some sense. It seems more likely than that there are two almost-identical planets, and stars surrounding them, some ordinary distance apart from each other. I don't know if it would make sense to think they're on different planes, in your conception of the universe."

"I became conscious at the age of a few months, and I had all my memories, but I couldn't move or speak any more than other babies can so I couldn't do anything for another two years. I was in an orphanage, and the caretakers were an order of nuns from a religion that would have considered my story an utter heresy. There was no adult it would have made sense to trust with it, and no obvious reason to share it regardless. So I pretended to be an incredible prodigy. At age seven, a routine population-wide test identified me as a mage with high potential. All such are conscripted at the age of majority. I had no great prospects in life and wouldn't benefit much from going to public school; I thought a military career would be a good thing, and volunteers are made officers, so I didn't want to wait. I found a loophole in the military rules that obliged them to accept the enlistment of anyone who could pass the military academy's entrance exams, became a cadet aged seven, and graduated at nine. And then, of course, the war broke out."

"The next detail may be the most important one. Being X or someone acting like him intervenes overtly on Earth Two, though still rarely and not in publicly obvious ways. I only have evidence of him doing so in my own life, but that also affected others and it would be conceited to think I'm the only focus of his attention. I never reported this to my superiors, because - I thought at the time I wouldn't be believed, and that it wouldn't have served Germania, and I might even have been right about it but the reason was that I was being selfish. Self-centered."

"It happened when I was assigned to weapons testing. A brilliant engineer had developed a revolutionary new computation orb - you can analogize it to a magical item, although the comparison isn't exact - but it was too complex to use safely. I tested several iterations and they were more likely to explode me than the enemy, so the project was canceled. On the last day, he showed up claiming to have had a revelation from god - the god of the locally popular religion, claimed to be the only god in existence, omniscient and omnipotent and perfectly good and also sending sinners to Hell - that if we prayed to him for a miracle, we would be able to use the orb. I did. It worked. Other mages couldn't do it, so it was written off as requiring exceptional aptitude. No more orbs of that model were produced, and I was given the prototype. It's not the one I've been using, to be clear, that's a normal orb."

"The way it worked is that, as long as I kept praying and loudly praising god, I could safely use that orb. It was much more powerful than any other, a clear advantage on the battlefield. But in exchange, my mind was gradually corrupted and overwritten with a belief in - nonsense, really. It didn't actually match the local religion in any deep way, only superficially, enough to avoid sounding heretical. Eventually I began losing time. I would come back to myself and only have other people's word and written records of what I'd done under the influence. Never something that would harm my career or the army's interests, even though it made me sound like a religious lunatic. So I stopped using it. I couldn't discard or destroy it, since it was army property and it could save my life in an emergency, but - I haven't used it in some years. I hope never to need to again."

"It was, I now know, another way in which I harmed my fellow soldiers. By telling them that their god was real and on their side, and that since he was implicitly good so was fighting the war."

"I don't know how I came to Golarion. Whether Earth Two is a planet some distance away, on a different plane or in a different universe entirely. I didn't reincarnate, I traveled with my body and belongings, which is some evidence that it's a planet like Golarion and, therefore, that the souls of its dead go to the same afterlives. I was hoping Iomedae would be able to tell, or whichever god I ended up requesting a Commune with. Until then, I've been proceeding on the pessimistic assumption that at least the dead of Earth Two can go to Hell. Possibly so can those of Earth One. After all, I don't have any direct evidence that anyone was ever reincarnated other than myself. Being X implied it, but Being X is a liar."

"That's the abbreviated version of my story. I acknowledge that it is utterly strange and hard to believe. I can't prove almost any of the details, and I don't know what ought to be done assuming it's true, except for taking Being X into account when making contact with Germania."

Tanya stands with her hands clasped behind her back and waits for them to pass judgement.

"Wow," says Belmarniss. "I'm not sure what that implies but, like, probably something?"

"This suggests that whatever Germania's other qualities it was chosen for you by someone you do not trust," Cuoco points out.

Tanya also has no idea what any of that implies!! (That is, perhaps, not a valid reason not to have mentioned it sooner.)

"That's true, but I don't see any inferences to be made from that. Everything I know and think about Germania is what I learned for myself while living there. If we take Being X at his word, he wanted me to experience suffering and war and have to beg him for help, and that doesn't obviously say anything about Germania because - whatever our other sins - the war starting wasn't our fault. The way that other nations attacked us, one after the other, seemed to make no rational sense... I'd love to blame Being X for that, but I know enough history to tell that - unfortunately - humans are capable of idiocy on their own, so he may have simply chosen an existing world that was on track to fight a world war. ...unless he's behind most of the wars ever fought on either Earth, I suppose, but I don't see how to test or act on that besides asking a local god. Which I will."

"Yeah, I am so curious what they will have to say about that now. Wow."

"...it would be very reasonable of you not to trust this story because it's ridiculous and unprecedented. You might decide that I'm more likely mistaken, or have false or hallucinated memories of my meeting with Being X for some reason even if my past life happened as I remember it. And just like you said, I don't know what actionable conclusions to draw from any of this. But - in the spirit of trust and cooperation, I don't want to hold anything back without a very good reason."

If Belmarniss decides not to trust her anymore, Tanya will go to the Iomedaeans that much earlier. She's not, actually, under serious threat here. She would regret it happening but she won't regret telling her story, Belmarniss has the right to decide whether to associate with her in the face of all that. As well as Tanya having been evil for most of her life.

"It'd be kind of incredible if you were - a random person coming up with this out of nowhere? - but you have enough shit going on that this might as well be some of it? I don't have a specific commitment to it being a thing that can't happen when lots of other things clearly can happen without me knowing about them being possible."

"That's very reasonable of you! When I heard about Pharasma's judgement and the afterlives, and that all local religions agreed on that and spells could prove it, I simply assumed it was universally true without considering the possibility that it was only mostly true, because - I suppose I'm used to simple universal models of the world being true. Even the religions on Earth tend to have simple models, just mostly wrong ones. Golarion does feel like - very many things are going on, some of them rare or unique or esoteric or possibly completely unknown. I thought it was because I'm new here but maybe it's simply true."

...actually. "We can try scrying dead people too. From either Earth! Is that cheaper than Commune? Even if not, it's just money so we don't have to care about intervention budget or which god to tell about it. ...I mean, not that I can afford it, but if I work with the Iomedaeans and they think it's worth it it wouldn't be a big expense for an organization, assuming Iomedae doesn't say not to contact Earth at all because it's dangerous or Evil or something."

Why didn't Tanya think of this before? Well, she wasn't reincarnated this time, so it makes sense Earth exists in the same universe as Golarion. She assumed that everyone in a universe was treated the same way by the gods and went to the same set of afterlives, because that's what gods and Judgements are. And she didn't want to see people she knew in, probably, Hell.

Or at least that's what gods are according to the Christians: universal. But probably not Pharasma, and definitely not Being X! What was she thinking? 

"I'm an idiot, I really should have thought of this before. I expect someone would have pointed it out once we got to the point of considering Commune questions."

"Scrying should be less than half the price and I'm only not saying a tenth because it takes a whole hour to cast and there's plausiby a surcharge for that. It might take a few tries, though, it gives a save. It'll help if you can do an illusion of them and if you have any of their stuff."

"I can do illusions. I don't have any former belongings of dead people." Why would she have that - well, some people carry around a lock of the hair of a loved one, but Tanya is thinking of dead soldiers. And, uh, her grandmother from her first life? "Do people make saves if they're in an afterlife - well, in a non-evil one I assume they do. If they're babies? ...the illusion wouldn't show them as they look now, obviously."

"Babies have shit will saves - so does anybody who could really use an Owl's to the face - but you could still get unlucky. Dead people get saves like anyone else. A likeness will get them even if they're disguised or changed a lot."

"It occurs to me that if we're not sure it's working correctly or how it interacts with reincarnation, we could try scrying for my appearance from my first life. This will be interesting to test." Tanya is slightly cheered by the idea of concrete actions they could, conceivably, be taking instead of wrestling with philosophical questions.

"If we can find a person with a crystal ball that might be cheaper than commissioning the spell especially several times. - this conversation doesn't really benefit from taking up the Songbird's time."

"You're right, I'm sorry. Cuoco, I'm as always grateful for your time and your help. And your desire to help Belmarniss and the drow. Thank you."

"You're welcome, of course."

"What do you think?" Tabya asks once they're on their way back. "I hope something comes of all this, one day. Maybe one of Cuoco's correspondents will have an idea to contribute, or an offer of more help."

"I'm going to talk to Select Oliva again. Maybe he'll have better advice. Or maybe all the Iomedaeans are selected for being workaholics and not having any big personal goals, but they should still have an idea of how to work with people who aren't like that. Yet. I'll tell him about Being X too, maybe he'll have some insight or think it makes the situation more urgent or something."