Fucking abyss, this is too many things and she doesn't know what to think about any of them. Okay. One thing at a time.

"I am fine with testing the people in this room, as long as I don't have to pay to be tested and the test is not obviously life threatening, like paying a paladin to shoot an arrow at me. But a divination, sure. At least I can know whether to take up a cleric's time asking for counsel." Nobody has come out and said that they think she's evil yet, although she almost definitely is, and she has the impression that this very much isn't trivial to fix. But there's nothing to be gained by hiding from the eye of Iomedae, when it's on you. Iomedae is going to fucking see what you're doing, and decide whether you are or aren't worth killing.

Honestly, her fear of Iomedans is growing by the second. It's a shame. She used to think so highly of Lastfolk, and in many ways she still does. You can't say they didn't win, or that they aren't just as practical as she thought, or even that they take cities the exact same way as other armies, but - the feeling of living under their eye is exactly the same, in the end. Worse, even, because they think you can actually do it, and apparently the penalty for failure is that they just kill you, if they have time? Even Asmodeans didn't check the whole population for chaos, or for good, and kill everyone who failed inspection. Possibly because they couldn't, but still. All the same fear, but in red and white, this time.

Zara will do brilliantly in red and white, at least.

Whatever. Asshole noble put her on this damn committee and she's going to make polite suggestions. Just needs to think them through one at a time.

Is it good to remove lords who are evil? Well, if you can replace them with ones who aren't, but there's the rub. Almost anyone who rules will turn evil, even more than almost everyone is already evil. There will be people in the line of succession who aren't evil... but most of them will probably be children. Children don't rule alone, she thinks; other people manage things for them. The so the realm will end up managed by people not covered by the rule.

"Archduke, I - worry that a rule which removes any evil noble may in practice lead to many titles being held by children too young to have an alignment, and their lands being managed by people the law does not have such authority over. You know better than I how often this would happen in practice, I'm sure, but I worry about a system which doesn't have a way to prevent it."

Finally, someone with some fucking sense. At least now he doesn't have to be the most "pro-diabolist" (anti-mass-murder) person in the room.

"Regretfully often, under current conditions; I would suggest that this proposal or any like it not actually be implemented until there are more Good people in Cheliax capable of taking on the burdens of nobility. I know that replacing the Evil nobility of the old regime is already a great priority of our Queen. Part of the business of this committee ought to be proposals for where she might find people to replace them. But I do think that something like this ought to be the law eventually; if we had followed such a law in ancient times, the Thrunes would never have been in a position to seize power."

"I channel positive, so according to everybody else at my church I can't be evil, but I could be close, or could've been evil a few years ago, and be none the wiser. And I wouldn't've known what to repent of, and still don't know what I may or may not've been repenting of. I wouldn't be so sure that's not true of some definite evil people."

"I think if you have nothing to repent of then there's no reason at all to presume you might have been Evil; people don't catch it like the chills. And...I think the committee is too pessimistic that most people are Evil, that Good ones to replace them can't be found. That is an Asmodean lie. Most people are honest and decent; tainted by evil, maybe, but not consumed by it. Most people who are Evil have killed and tortured and raped and enslaved the innocent for their own benefit....I suppose an additional benefit of checking everyone as soon as possible is that we can put these fears to rest, if I am right they are in error."

"You were in Pezzack. I have no difficulty believing that evil people are a minority in Pezzack. But almost nowhere else threw off Thrune rule by itself."

"No. The rest of us ran. We didn't have an Iomedaean priest to serve as a leader - the one Good man I knew to be good, as a child, was burned. We fled the country and we made war from outside its borders, and now Asmodeus is beaten, and now we're coming home."

She's not sure most people are evil but she has no trouble believing most nobles are, whether or not they started that way. But if they keep killing off evil nobles that's not really a problem except for all the people who have to suffer under them, and it's not better if you just leave the first evil noble in place. (She's also not really sure what the Pharasmin's channels have to do with anything, obviously Pharasma is going to give her priests magic that helps them deliver babies and fight undead.)

"I think we can probably discuss that after we figure out if there are evildoers hiding on this committee. —As a reminder, the archmage said we aren't allowed to kill each other. So if it turns out you're Evil and didn't know it, you should just come out with it, so everyone else knows not to listen to you." Probably most Evil people won't care if they're leading people astray? 

"If you're not Evil, you have nothing to fear."

Silent Image.

Victòria doesn't actually have any idea what Hell looks like, apart from what she's heard in sermons. Her illusion has black-and-red stones, vaguely reminiscent of human faces, blanketed in fire. In the center of the illusion, a smaller devil is being held down and whipped by two larger devils. She'd like for the stones to be screaming, but her magic doesn't do sound.

She looks around to see how everyone else reacts.

"I believe you may've done it wrong."

"How about everyone draws what they saw," says Valia as calmly as she can, "so we can catch out liars and so no one can just imitate what they heard someone else saying."

... The thing is she's not frightened? Aspexia del Mar considers a not very realistic picture of devils to be much less impressive than the demons her mom has as bodyguards. "Fair enough!"

"—that's a good idea. I can also read, if anyone here is literate but not good at drawing."

They have paper here. She watches for anyone trying to obviously sneak a glance at anyone else's paper. Probably no one here is that stupid but you never know.

Alexandre Esquerra, King-In-Irons, has an appropriate spellcraft for a fifth-circle wizard. More, actually - he's an arms and armor specialist. He'll wait to critique the plan until it's done, but his sketches will include detailed anatomical notes on what she got wrong about the nature of torturer devils and how to do better next time.

Ester is not very good at drawing but she can do an outline with the devils.

He flinches, but only slightly; this isn't even a Vision of Hell, it's just a Silent Image composed by someone who's only mostly been comprehensively lied to about Hell. He doesn't point out that it's a trick, because that's probably the point: see who pretends not to be frightened.

He draws the scene he saw.

Valia is frightened, but she's not a coward and she's not a liar. Perhaps she is destined to be maledicted and that is why she saw a vision of Hell. She sketches it.

Fine, she's evil and the Phrasmin is - wait. Not lying about her channels, how would a Phrasmin manage it?

Whatever. Have a shitty devil drawing.

Xénia avoids sighing. She doesn't know what the trick is, but there is one; Xénia is very confident about how she reads. She'll point this out if the Calistrian does something else after, but for now, she'll draw.

(Aspexia isn't watching other people's papers. She's watching other people's eyes. If their gaze turn towards the same devil-shapes she does, the same soul-faces hers do, that means they're looking at the same thing. Many people can control their expressions, but very few can control their eyes.)

Alicia can draw a devil. She has art supplies on her, so it's a pretty good drawing, even if her sketch work isn't as good as her singing. She's pretty sure that was a silent image, anyway, she recognizes those somatic components.

"Right, okay, let's show them." Valia turns hers out to the group. "A priest of Iomedae can't be evil so I think your spell tests something else."

She looks around at the papers. "That was a test. Calistrians don't actually have a spell like the one I described, but I do get a spell most days that lets me make people see things that aren't there. All of you drew devils, so everyone here is either a good person, or clever enough to notice that was a test. —We should still check other ways when we get the chance, in case it was the second thing."

"- Second thing, Avenger Victoria. That was Silent Image, the world's most common illusion spell. You'll need better tests in the future if you want to catch spellcasters."

"—I don't know very much about magic. I'm sorry if it wasn't a very good test."

"It'll work well on anyone without magical experience, poorly on a cleric or wizard. Sorcerers vary."