This morning the Committee for Combating Diabolism used powerful magic to check that of our members who was drawn from the Chelish people, by sortition, to see if she was Evil and merely too weak to show it. Pharasmins can do this.She was not Evil. We also sought the advice of senior and experienced members of this body to identify those who are Evil and by magics hiding it, and we found two among our committee who were so guilty, one among the nobles and one among the elected.

Following this discovery, Delegate Ibarra, a member of our committee, confessed that he was secretly Evil, that he worshipped Norgorber, that he had burned children to death in their homes as part of his campaign to get revenge on someone who had wronged him, and that while that someone was 'Asmodeus' he would as happily have murdered innocents in the pursuit of his vengeance if he'd considered himself wronged by Erastil. 

The Archduke Blanxert stood firmly against removing Delegate Ibarra from our committee on these grounds. I know the Archmage Cotonnet stands firmly against removing anyone from this convention on these grounds. They are wise men and they speak of history and I have, perhaps, no right to disagree with them. But I disagree with them. I think it would be easier to do the very painful and complicated work that we have to do here if the unrepentant powerful Evildoers were, for a moment, excluded from the room. 

And I do not, in saying this, declare the Chelish people too Evil, too misled, to have a say in their own destiny. The opposite: I say, the Chelish people are not as Evil as they have been told. Good spreads; to Asmodeus a city is lost, once it has twenty Good men and women in it, for they will tell the word to their friends and tell the word to their neighbors and rise up as one. There will still be Evil, once all whose hearts are open have chosen the side of Good. But it will be outnumbered, and it will be cornered, and it will die by a thousand pitchforks and stones.

The people of Cheliax have celebrated the overthrow of Evil. But I fear that they have celebrated too soon. Evil is not driven from the halls of power, here, and it needs to be. We have not built institutions that Hell's servants cannot bend to their purposes. We have not even attempted to build institutions that Hell's servants are not at this very moment bending to their purposes. Some people fear becoming Galt. I have no desire to become Galt.

But Asmodeus never did take Galt back, and he tried. 

We're not trying.

We live still in the shadow of fear. We abandon all standards for ourselves and for others, we embrace having our laws written by the worst of men and their staunchest defenders, we fret that 'you should be here to do the right thing' is far too much to ask of our countrymen. We condemn our children to the battle we are too cowardly to fight ourselves.

The people of Cheliax have been induced by Hell to do evils of which we should repent, of course, but the ordinary people of Cheliax are not evil. The ordinary people of Cheliax are not damned. It is those in power in Cheliax who are Evil and who are damned. And while the Queen and her friends have put to death some of the worst of the lot, Evil is still in power, in Cheliax and in this convention.

Do our discussions of important measures for our starving people run aground in pointless bickering? Perhaps it is because half the nobles in this room are men and women who first gave their oaths to Abrogail Thrune, and who as far as the Judge can see have not repented of it. Perhaps it is because the Hellknights are unabolished and present and about their Hellknight work, and some of them still proudly worshipful of Asmodeus alongside Iomedae. Perhaps it is because we are caught up in debates about whether all the gods in Hell serve Hell and whether it is troubling to serve one of those. Perhaps it is because a delegate can confess to my face to horrible murders of innocent people, can assure us he does not regret them at all and has benefitted richly from them, and still the most powerful men in this country think we have no business desiring a committee without him.

I do not wish for the innocent to be afraid of the committee for combating diabolism. So I wish to be specific about who ought to be afraid of it.

 If you swore your fealty to Abrogail Thrune and still possess the lands, slaves, titles and riches that you stole under her auspices, and you are not repentant, then you ought to be afraid. If you are a devilspawn," she looks directly at Delegate Napaciza, "you need not be afraid because you are a devilspawn, but you should be afraid because you are an evil titled devilspawn. If you came to the conference cloaked in magic to conceal your Evil, with the intent to extend the suffering of the people of Cheliax, as Delegate Ibarra did, as he was not alone in doing, you should be afraid. If you burn children to death in their homes, you should be afraid. If you worship Norgorber, you should be afraid. If you worship any power of Hell, you should be afraid, and if you worship Asmodeus you should certainly be afraid.

Afraid of what? Afraid of me?  I am not powerful; any man strong enough to radiate Evil is strong enough to kill me in one blow.

Afraid of Elie Cotonnet? No, for he invited you all, and he has said that we are forbidden from requesting that you be expelled, or indeed from debating whether your deeds and your history ought to be an impediment to your participation. 

You should be afraid of the people of Cheliax.

 For they are not in the end different from the people of Pezzack; we are all one people. The people of Cheliax know what you did to them. They witness how you have prospered from it. The only thing that stays them from retaliation is the fear that they are, themselves, as guilty as you, and as damned. But they aren't, so your peace is a lie. If I were you I would repent while you still can. I would give up your lands and your titles and your slaves and your riches; I would cease to impede the functioning of this convention with your petty Evil dealings; I would go to the Worldwound where your victims cannot reach you. That is my advice.

But to everyone else my advice is, be unafraid. This is our country. We are a strong people, a brave people, a good people. Asmodeus always feared us, and all the riches of Hell still left his grip so weak one theatre-hall of people could shake a city free of it. 

Valia Wain is going to get herself killed. 

This would not, by itself, be a problem, except in that it eats into Naima's precious resurrections. But Valia Wain is going to get herself killed, and the rest of the convention is going to realize that it won't stick, and they'll do what scared animals do and start eating each other alive. 

He wasn't in the assembly for Lucien's last speech. He was in Mut and didn't read it until four months later. It wasn't that they hadn't heard – the other Galtan exiles knew within weeks, which he knew because there was dancing and drinking and singing in the streets – but back then he'd go for months at a time studiously avoiding any news from home, and then go up to Alexandria and buy all the newspapers he could find and read them at once and get very drunk and regret it the next morning. He knew Lucien was going to die. So did he. He said so, the last time they ever spoke. He should have hated him – but he didn't, and he couldn't, and anyway it was so unlike him. Lucien was always so careful – 

He was really unravelling, towards the end. Losing faith in his goddess, in himself, in Galt. If he'd been in his right mind he's never have gotten up on the Assembly floor and said that their work would be finished if only the body could be purified – the last infernal remnants removed – the innocent had nothing to fear – but nobody, by then, could seriously believe that they were innocent. They tore him apart before carrying what was left of him to the final blade. 

Lucien could always make him feel small. It was that way he had of believing so strongly and firmly and purely that people are good. Nobody else believed things the way Lucien believed them. He's met any number of paladins since then, and he still thinks it's true. The lot of them are cowards in comparison. None of them could stare into the absolute blackness of the human spirit day in and day out and keep faith in the persistence of virtue. Lucien did. The people were good: meaning, that if the people want something manifestly harmful to the nation, the people must be misled. The devil was among them. He must be found, and caught, and  – 

He'd argue in response: people aren't particularly good, nor are they particularly bad – not even in Galt. They're venal and silly and selfish and short-sighted and ignorant, virtuous one moment and evil the next, and on the whole they've never concieved of such a thing as the general will, but a nation made of such stuff was good enough to expell the infernal tyrant from Galtan soil, and it would have to be good enough to build whatever came afterwards. Anyone hoping to build a republic of angels must wait until he gets to Heaven. Lucien wouldn't laugh, or berate him – just look back with such an absolute and shining purity of conviction that he wanted to wither and die, weak vacillating creature that he was. It was impossible to face Lucien when he was like that and not feel like he was right and you were nothing at all. 

Well, not so impossible: he did it. He'd spent the next five years wondering if he'd done the right thing, but he did it. And then he'd gone and called a convention against everyone else's better judgement because he believes now what he believed then: that we oppose Asmodeus because we hate tyranny, and not the other way around. People – even venal, silly, selfish, stupid, ignorant, evil people – deserve to shape the laws that rule them. Gods know he'd done his best to give them that. He refused to dictate even when they begged him to. This thing was theirs to ruin or not as they saw fit. He'd only tried to do one thing, and that was to stop them from spending all their time trying to kill each other – which is, of course, the only thing any of them actually want. 

He could say something right now. But what would it accomplish? Valia has made no threats, called for no murders. She's doomed herself and her cause, but that's the only way anyone ever learns. He'd know. 

Xavi believes he does not belong to Asmodeus, probably, and will not go to his Hell when he dies, probably. He does not believe "you need not be afraid because you are a devilspawn". Not that it's true nor that she means it.

Valia does not understand Asmodeanism. She is Iomedae’s, and there is no mercy in her; perhaps Pezzack was on the rim, and did not see. But the truth is that Asmodeus is everywhere, and our only salvation is to pray for mercy, for we are, all of us, His chosen people. Sarenrae save us all.

Aspexia-Isona suspects that she's evil and doesn't want to lose everything and be driven into exile, and, thinking about it, she thinks she's evil because her grandfather eats people and she's assisting him, and if the evil wizard guy who is on a personal crusade against Asmodeus is evil even though he's fighting Asmodeus, she is probably evil.

And... she doesn't think she should be kicked out of the country? She thinks she's mostly trying to do the right thing, it's just that this is hard. Definitely she takes lots of risks saving people from monsters and bandits. So probably the very good speech is false.

... Yeah, Voshrelka is skeptical of the benevolence of anyone who stands before a crowd of people and says, 'The innocent have nothing to fear.' The innocent have everything to fear, just like everyone else, they'll all be painted with the same brush in a war, no matter how pretty this girl's words are. Maybe she thinks she's being good and kind and merciful, but 'viciously attack everyone working to make peace' or 'distance oneself from anyone who has ever felt sympathy for an evil person or their actions' is really not going to get anyone to peace anytime soon.

She's been on the other end of that, actually, filled with righteous fury and feeling justified in her wrath. That they are right to be afraid, and they deserve it and everything they get from the consequences of their actions. And you know what happened? A lot of people, most of which didn't actually hurt her or anything she cared about, died. They died beaten under the whips of their masters for not producing enough, and they died of desperation as they tried to escape the inevitable doom of a blighted harvest, and those that didn't scrabble desperately starved. It was perhaps still the correct thing to do at the time (Voshrelka herself is still unsure of this, she just knew she wanted to stop), but it was definitely Evil. This girl mistakenly equating the idea of righteousness to being right, along with a woeful naiveté and general lack of world experience, is this druid's main takeaway from the speech. Well, that and the reaffirmation of the idea that all humans are actually children, and that they really shouldn't be allowed to participate in any kind of politics until they've had at least a couple decades of sitting quietly and watching what exactly the grownups are doing.

This girl might be right about what to do (though, judging by the naivete, Voshrelka doesn't particularly think so), but she is going to get a Hell of a wakeup call about whether she is Good. Because: ha, no.

Voshrelka will be staying far, far away from this person. And pray to any decent god that will listen that she doesn't start a civil war. This druid would really like if this previously damned country could not be on fire for, you know, five minutes. Or two decades. One of those.

Llei would really like to be angry, but he is, in fact, afraid. He has a strong internal sense that he needs to kill someone, but he's pretty sure you can't challenge an illiterate peasant girl who is also an Iomedan Select to a duel because she said that you're an evil titled devilspawn, when the only part of this that isn't obviously true is the part where you are not, in fact, actually titled, and therefore have no license to give up the title you don't have.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

(Raimon isn't in the audience - he gets his two hour's sleep in during convention hours - but a boy's already rushing him a swiftly-scribbled report of Valia's speech, and the pamphlet will be out before the convention is over.)

Is this the nonsense you have to believe to get Iomedae to choose you? Cansellarion had seemed a very different sort of fool, but perhaps she was mistaken in her judgment about him, or perhaps this idiocy is just Valia’s own blinders.

You can’t make a good country with evil people helping write the rules? Sure, she’ll believe that, but only in the most meaningless way imaginable. You can’t make an organization larger than a dozen people centered on any virtue whatever, even if that virtue is as simple as being smart enough to not get yourself killed because you left the camp to take a piss in the night and didn’t even put on your armor.

What is the Church of Iomedae trying to accomplish here today? 

THIS. THIS IS WHAT SHE HOPED FOR WHEN SHE LEFT HOME FOR THE CONVENTION. 

Pezzack rules, and Valia Wain rules.

She's pretty sure this was ...already...the governing philosophy of the new regime? Otherwise why would they have killed her father? She applauds, in any event.

Twenty years ago Artur would have had any insolent child whipped for speaking like this. Of course everyone in Cheliax was evil! To say otherwise is blasphemy unto Asmodeus!

But right now, in a hallway stunned silent a moment, he is instead afraid. Afraid that when he makes it outside the mob will be there, and he will be in the hands of a thousand blood-frenzied children and criminals and ruffians, who aren't afraid of noble steel any more, and he will burn.

His sword's in his sheath, right? Good. No sense drawing attention himself, but Her Majesty can't accept this and the girl and her streets of friends won't hear that, and Sarria's son will not go down without a fight.

More meaningless human squabbles about things irrelevant to the Whisperwood, he sees.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Iomedae— he starts to pray, and then stops. What can he say? The Goddess already knows. The matter is in her hands now.

Permira's eyes are shining. Someone should have said this before, and now? Someone is.

He's pretty sure Aroden wouldn't have done this. Maybe he picked the wrong Inheritor.

(Séfora nearly cried, hearing that. She could see the blades rising, in her heart of hearts. She also has a brief, quicky squashed, thought about how she could find out if Valia is single)

A very good speech, but this is the wrong phase of the revolution for it. You need to rebuild, now, not tear everything down further.

...That's nice. 

Halflings were slaves in Cheliax before Asmodeus. He checked. 

He doesn't, actually, care, whether the human holding the whip is really actually Evil or not. He cares about the whip. 

Maybe Cheliax will become a place worth living in, and maybe it will do so on the basis of this girl's platform. That would be nice! He approves of it. He hopes it happens. 

It's not going to happen fast enough that he's inclined to make it his problem. He's getting his family to Andoran.

Korva thinks of a child, lying unnaturally still. A man with three small children, fallen after an orc slave gave him a blow to the head that crushed his skull. Children birched and bleeding, children lying in their shit, children sent to he mines for being bullies, or being annoying, or being bodies when the orphanage needed money to buy food for the others. And she thinks of the spiked whip digging into her back, tearing chunks of flesh away, not because she was good, but because she was unworthy to be one of the nation's magical elite, and if she died it would be no loss.

She's not evil. She knows this. But she doesn't feel good, either. She feels very small.

She... has no idea how evil she is. She thinks of herself as a basically normal person? Maybe she should talk to a priest at some point? Probably if the priestess of Iomedae is saying that they won't kill normal people it's safe to talk to a priest?

...she doesn't think she'd have joined a rebellion if there had been one back home. But it's not really that strange for a priestess of Iomedae to be braver and more good than she is.