Andreu Drevnic moves to the front of the line to speak - an unassuming, middle-aged man - and then turns an unflinching gaze on Theopho and speaks with a voice of divine wrath that carries clear through the room. "I have served Hell as has every man under Asmodeus's whip, but I serve it no longer. I move that if the young man who claims to worship the Queen of Dis does not hereby foreswear all fealty to her and all infernal powers, that he be expelled from this Convention as an enemy of it and of all the gods of Good." Expelled out into the streets and expelled from the protection of the archmage. 

Oh good! She wanted to say that, she just didn't know the words. 

She doesn't know much about whatever this man's god is but that all sounds very fake. Probably he's going to be executed for advocating diabolism but she guesses maybe the terrifying wizards are waiting a bit since they just said not to kill each other?

"I did not say 'diabolists'. Not one of those who fought the Thrunes by your side was Evil, you say, and yet, as I believe I heard you acknowledge, you spent the century in Axis, not Heaven. I think you were either willfully blind or terribly naive. I am as Good as you, as is my goddess, and unless you can prove me wrong or petition Pharasma to change her judgment of Erecura's alignment, I will insist you cease to refer to me as representing something I hate as much anyone in this room."

"I do not consider Her an infernal power, and will happily swear never to serve any such. Under truth spell, and I will repeat the rest that way as well if anyone doubts it."

Liushna recognizes this man as Tibex's friend, and also he's said useful things today. 

Unfortunately there is...absolutely no way her speaking up on his behalf actually improves his situation. Even if she really understood the issue at hand, which she does not. 

So she'll keep her mouth shut right now, but she will not be happy about it. 

So is this guy a diabolist trying to trick the people by offering them committee spots? Or is he a threat to the nobles being accused of something to get him out of the way?

Enric looks to the cleric section to see how they’re reacting. They probably know who Erecura is and if she’s really evil or not. 

Valia barely knows who Erecura is, but - "Dis is in Hell. Devils are deceivers. Any being that dwells in Hell serves Evil, in the great war between Evil and Good, and if you imagine you can serve a Hell-being wisely or well then I think it is you who are willfully blind and terribly naive. Or lying to us. That worked once, when people were too frightened to think, but Good people do not need to be frightened, not in Cheliax where Good has triumphed. You have been given the opportunity to repent of serving the Queen of Dis. Do not squander it in favor of trying to convince a people who have seen the devil's lies at work that this one can be trusted."

"Erecura is the planar and moral exception of all exceptions... No, this is pointless, most of you don't have the knowledge to trust my Law not to be Asmodean. Fiducia Agramunt! How much for Abadar's Truthtelling, here and now?"

"Today nineteen silver."

"Done. Apply it to me, if you please." He will count out the silver from his pouch and prepare to fail his save.

Fascinating. Does Alexandre want Theopho alive?

Because Truthtelling isn't perfect. There's an obscure spell a handful of third-circle song-sorcerers* have that wizards can't stabilize that beats it, even aside from elaborate nonsense with illusions. All it would take was a single announcement - offer to get his own truthtelling - and that wouldn't save Theopho.

But he thinks he does. Theo is, after all, making this more interesting. Let's let this roll.

(*: Such as Pedra Casal Lachanessa, faithful readers! See screw you, abrogail thrune, and the god you rode in on for more details. - Administratin' Aevy)

"I alleged not that you are an Asmodean, but that the deity you represent resides in Hell and consorts with devils. Do not imagine you successfully distract from that allegation by answering a different one. Deny that you worship any being of Hell, if you want to satisfy us."

Fiducia Agramunt gets up and begins to make his way down to the floor; it's touch-range and hopefully they'll have made up their minds about whether there's a meaningful dispute by the time he gets there.

There we have it, an answer from a cleric of Iomedae. That was a close one, almost fell to the temptation of power and position. At least the diabolist is getting a truth-spell ready so he can repent and forsake the power of hell. 

He steadies himself. "Worshiping Erecura does not make Hell stronger, nor does it strengthen any Evil power of Hell, or indeed any power of Hell; I claim it unjust to consider her a power of Hell, rather than one merely in Hell, who would be elsewhere were she sorted as every other ascendant and mortal is, or were she permitted to choose the location or plane befitting her nature."

"If you present me compelling evidence that my worship serves Asmodeus, Dispater, any of the other archdevils or the myriad powers that serve them, I will be grateful for the painful lesson and cease. For that matter, any other Evil power, god or demigod. Or that it weakens any of the gods of Good. I do not believe you can do so, because none of that is true, and so I will not give up a practice which has brought Good into Cheliax."

Lluïsa's mood is drifting from "constitutional conventions are neat!" to "constitutional conventions suck!". She mopes, entirely internally.

"You will not cease worshipping Dispater's whore unless someone present happens to have proof on hand that Dispater benefits from it. I do not withdraw my insult, then."

Okay that part seems unnecessary. At least by how Theopho tells it, this Erecura is a decent lady who got married off to an evil man and has to live in his house. That happens all the time, Enric has friends whose families married them to the wrong people. Or, even if Erecura is evil but still, you don’t call a married woman a whore like that. 

--This isn't fair. 

"One would hope that an archduchess would be above ignoring someone's arguments in favor of using words like 'whore' as though they meant things they don't. Whether worship of Erecura is still appropriate in a context where she's no longer the least Evil thing available is a matter for whatever committee on religion is set up, not personal insults after the President has already chastised the convention for their use. Can we please get back to discussing business?"

He'll give Nuria a polite nod and a brief ghost of a smile. At this point he's content to wait for the Fiudica.

If they kick out everyone who looks like they're probably related to Hell some way, he won't get paid, which sucks, but probably people get to 'kick out' before 'kill', so it might be helpful fo timing.

...she probably should not say that she's against allowing people to return home - she didn't even realize this was true until a second ago - but she is also beginning to suspect that they are actually going to write a constitution here?? And there's nothing like watching the nobility try to paint pressuring everyone they dislike to leave as something kind to make her want to fight to keep every single one of them here.

Well, except everyone deciding to lynch the second-most reasonable voice in the room. That might actually do it. She raises her placard. Her heart feels like it did in Egorian, during the fire, too full of blood and about to burst.

"I would like to speak to my fellow delegates appointed by lot. I am sure I am slower than many of you, and that many of you already know what is happening, but are more careful than I, and know that to speak is to put oneself in danger. But if the priest of Erecura will put himself in such danger, to allow our quarter of the convention to speak - because that, and not his goddess, is what prompted this attempt to silence him - then let one of us with him have enough courage to make plain what is happening."

"I have lived all my life in Cheliax, not as it was in the Duchess's day, but as she left it. My sister was executed for primary worship of Calistria. I am not so brave as her. I have compromised with evil many, many times, to protect the children that she left behind. All of you - slave or free, man or woman, rich or poor - know that this is true of everyone in our quarter of the room, because all of us are still alive. The good Duchess may never have consorted with one who set foot in hell, but I have. I grew up there. All of us grew up there."

"I do not know if the cleric of Erecura means good or ill for any of us. I do not know if the Duchess of Chelam means good or ill for any of us. But I know that the good duchess invites us to go home to farms still owned by true diabolists, who no one puts a truth spell to. To ruins that no longer shelter our children. To leave all decisions regarding our fates to a handful of people whose hands are stained only by blood they shed at the behest of no devil, no schoolmaster bent over frightened children with a whip of spikes, no master who held your life in his hands, no mind reading cleric who laid your very soul bare as he searched for any scrap of sympathy or spine. And I know that she invites us, too, to expel from our midst the only person in this room who has suggested a rule that requires that anyone making decisions must hear the pain that they left us to shoulder, whether or not there are enough of us to make them listen."

"The cleric of Erecura invites us to speak. Demands that we speak, because he was here, and understands that we know that to speak is to die, and that this is the only way that we can be heard. Knowing that this might still be true, he spoke. If that is called diabolism today, as it was called 'primary worship of other gods' two years ago, then let us be brave enough to burn for it this time. I oppose expelling the Erecuran for his deity, and oppose extending a well-meant invitation to return home, so that others may debate without us which of us to burn for our imperfect courage."

Liushna is not sure she's ever respected anyone this much in her life. 

Theopho silently stands up, turns toward Korva, and bows, deeply and slowly. When he stands up, he is, for a moment, entirely smiling.

There is absolutely no way that a random commoner made that speech but whoever fed it to her did so very cleanly. The diabolist has allies.