"Everyone has the right to rebel, Select Wain. I cherish the spirit to do so; it is said my family sword was once blessed by Cayden Cailean himself and when I wavered on what was the right course, for Kintargo, I would touch the hilt, and know that if it went cold in my hands instead of warm, I was stamping out the impulse that He loves, and making  a mistake. That, more than just the wishes of the people who elected me, was how I kept my purpose clear."

"What they do not have is the right to get everyone they know killed, most of them decent people by nature who nonetheless, because they have lived in Infernal Cheliax all their lives, will be damned to Hell forever. Weaken the hold of Hell, encourage the spirit of rebellion, make your city and countryside places where rebels can find purchase, to draw them off to fight elsewhere or slowly amass a large number who could overthrow a city and hold it. Do not get your people burned to ashes in Hell to make yourself feel virtuous. Pezzack might have been a wonderful thing, if it succeeded, and I imagine Iomedae was optimistic. What you actually achieved, though, was a great many people in Hell early, who could have escaped it if they lived and found the little sparks of Good in their life that good leaders can encourage. Ones they would have found, had they survived the Four-Day War. There is no Good to be found in a field of ashes."

Now Valia is almost too angry to think. The one city in Cheliax that was free and safe - hungry, nervous, but free and safe - when the archmages came, and the Archduchess slanders them for her own evil purposes? She dares call their revolution a failure because people died in it? 

"Your ignorance, Archduchess, is understandable given your many other duties but may mislead the poor people of this convention. Our rebellion succeeded. Pezzack freed itself; the Asmodeans blockaded the port as they were unable to root us out. We were hungry, but the strix came to our aid, and the woods came to our aid, and the gods came to our aid. We ruled ourselves by vote. There was, and is, much Good to be found in Pezzack. I invite you to visit some time and witness it; the free people of Pezzack have long considered the people of Kintargo our kin, and admired their courage in the face of the cowardly collaborators who rule them."

✨ Valia is so cool ✨

"I received my own reports, not filtered through Asmodean superiors. You lost an enormous number of people and achieved nothing that would not have been achieved by waiting. If you call that a victory, I say you need to study Iomedae's domain of strategy."

"They couldn't have known an archmage was going to come and save them! If everyone just sat around hoping that someone else will save them, and no one ever took anything into their own hands, then Evildoers would just keep being in charge forever."

Also she still doesn't understand why everyone is so obsessed with counting how many people go to Hell. It would be really bad if someone was super Evil but got to go to Heaven anyway!!!

What is the Archduchess thinking? She wants to intervene and say "Archduchess, I fear you might be misinterpreted as saying it was wrong for the people of Pezzack to rebel because the archmages happened to sweep in shortly afterwards, but as I understand your point it's really that..." but she can't actually think how to complete that sentence.

Joan-Pau started running to the podium as fast as possible halfway through that exchange, and made it right after the last go-round thanks to the power of Expeditious Retreat. "May I remind the distinguished delegates," he said, "that the President of the Assembly has banned duels?" He ends it in a slightly teasing voice, and hopes for a ripple of laughter to break the mood. And snap out of it, President of the Assembly, whatever you're up to.

"Archduke Jilia is Good. Select Valia is Good. Both of you contributed to this war; Valia forced the Asmodeans into a costly siege of Pezzack, Jilia inpeded Thrune plans for Ravounel to such an extent that they imprisoned her. If either of you wishes to claim the other is evil, my good friend and cousin Knight-Captain Feliu Tauler is a blessed paladin of Iomedae, and I will gladly volunteer his services, knowing that he would do the same to me -" another attempt to cut tension "- I mean, for me, in this situation, as a reliable witness to confirm the lack of any detectable Evil aura. Disagreements about which strategy is correct should not cross the line into personal insults, and as the President of the Assembly likes to say, we are all reasoning beings and adults, and we should act like it.

"I think that this conversation is missing a few important points. Asmodean soldiers and their Asmodean allies are currently in control of significant parts of Druma and parts of Molthune. There are Asmodean clerics in Cheliax, and I do not mean this in the sense that they may have fled into hiding after losing their powers, I mean this in the very literal and straightforward sense that three months ago one of my barons' castles was held by his former confessor and eighty well-armed Fists of Asmodeus, and if I was a couple circles lower it would be still." Sorry for the slander, Feliu. "When we talk about turning our attention to our own inner evils, there are very legitimate, very real, and utterly unambiguous evils inside our nation that all of us can agree we need to solve, such as necromancers, vampires, a fortified compound of Belial cultists that my good friend Archduke Xavier still has under siege, and entire counties of the empire that are burned-out wrecks, that we will not deal with them by bickering, and that when we have strategic discussions it is usually the case that someone's strategy is suited to solving one problem and someone else's for another. All of us should calm down, think about which of the things we are saying result in us achieving valuable strategic goals that it serves our interests to obtain, and while we are doing this I motion that we switch to some extremely boring, unexciting topic, such as the judiciary, if the President of the Assembly will permit it."

"On the topic of the judiciary! I think that laws should be short, easy to remember for ordinary Chelish people, outlaw as few things as necessary because either Her Majesty or future sessions of Congress will build on any laws we lay down and it's best to at least start simple, and provide as little employment for lawyers as we can humanly achieve. What does the rest of the convention think about this?"

She's not, actually, but she's trying. As is he, and doing a better job at his objective than hers.

Okay, maybe the Select isn’t able to effectively reach for allies and friends, but Thea wants to make an attempt anyway.  She’ll keep in mind the caution Dia advised and avoid exposing any weaknesses in the process though.

Right. Right. Probably it's going to be a problem that she called the Archduchess of Ravounel a coward and a collaborator. Even if it was true. Her heart is still pounding. "Let's go," she says to Victoria. She should eat something and pray and then probably apologize.

Nod. "You were really good up there!!"

"It's not - true that it would've been better for Pezzack to do nothing - we couldn't even have done nothing, because they cracked down before anyone had even done anything -" Now that they're off the floor she's crying. 

Huh. Trying to avert disaster and things coming to blows, are we? Sure. She'll help him out. She also doesn't want this to turn into civil war.

"A fair idea, but I think you would need to put the different laws in front of a variety of people before properly approving them, to avoid misinterpretation from those of different walks of life. I believe there was a call for a committee on courts and justice?" That happened earlier, she noticed, see, she's paying attention.

"Of course it wouldn't have been better for you to do nothing!! I think— nobles, even the ones that don't show up as Evil, mostly don't care if normal people are getting ground down into dust, as long as things are stable and peaceful. But they're wrong, it's good to fight back against Asmodeus even if some people get hurt.

...do you want a hug." Victòria has never in her life given or received a hug but she is pretty sure they're a thing in places that aren't being ruled by Asmodeus.

Yes, she wants a hug. "We didn't know, we couldn't have known, about the archmages, and it wouldn't even have helped if we did know -"

Okay, you know what, Liushna is also going to leave to go support Valia Wain. 

"Are you okay?"

"I believe a committee on courts and justice would be an excellent idea," Archduke Xavier says firmly. "- Also, Joan-Pau, the Belial cult's dealt with, Archmage Dujardin kindly offered her assistance and then crushed it single-handedly." Reportedly there was a giant invisible cat. "That particular crisis is over, though I'm sure another seven have turned up in the morning mail."

She is very much not okay but her instinctive response on seeing strix is to smile at them. With no teeth. Strix don't like it when you show teeth at them. "It's - it's fine. I knew people'd be upset."

Hug. "I think— even if you had known, and even if the Asmodeans hadn't been trying to kill everyone— it's still better that you got rid of them sooner. Every day that they were walking around in charge of things, burning innocent people to death and telling everyone they had to support Asmodeus, was— was wrong, and the sooner you stopped it the better."

"It'd have been worth waiting if it gave us - better odds. Or saved a lot more people. But you can't - you can't plan like that. The thing about rebellions is that they just kind of - happen. Because - because people are Good and when they see a chance they take it -"

"Even if you knew what you were walking into, it was still really brave and really difficult. ...I loved your speech." 

Sefora has moved around to be vaguely in the area where Valia ended up. She probably definitely has a lot of common with her group, and they should become allies. 

It's good to be among friends and not among nobles, who she's not convinced aren't an Evil institution even when they're not Asmodean.

"There was a proposal to form one, earlier," says Voshrelka loudly, absolutely trying to cover up the sound of people talking in the aftermath of the latest debacle, "but I think it got lost in the," chaos? "arguing." That's not really a better word.

... Look, she's trying, okay. Diplomacy is not her forte. Why is she even doing this. She hates talking. Oh, right, she's attempting to assist with plan: a fight doesn't break out in the argument room.

Well that was EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE.

.....noble fucker can have a point for helping the Archduchess. She really likes the Archduchess.