"Against!!"

"I didn't mean to call a vote yet, Avenger, and yes, we're aware you are."

"—Sorry, I didn't realize we weren't voting yet."

"That seems a reasonable wording."

"Putting it that way means he can take his chances if he'd rather, yes?"

"And be killed on the spot and his soul sent to Judgment? I think so, but let's make it 'Right to have execution conducted by Final Blade by request of the convict', when available and so on, just to be sure. I'm sure there will be Caydenites who have good reason to think they're celestially bound even after committing major crimes." And Calistrians, but those will probably be wrong, most of the time.

“Would lords want to keep powerful evil people prisoner for months, waiting for a final blade to arrive? Seems like it would always be easier to kill them.”

"Usually not, but lords are people, who can have grudges. For example, I'm sure there will be Avengers of Calistria, someday, who take revenge for great wrongs that were technically legal, in ways that are very much not legal themselves, frequently against the local lords, and then are caught, duly convicted, and executed. Most Avengers like that will be bound for the Abyss, but not all. And if the lord thinks she will get the Maelstrom or even Elysium, he might Final Blade her out of spite."

“I could see that happening. Sounds like, even if we say people can choose final blade or judgement… either way, might get the opposite of what they wanted.”

She looks incredibly skeptical of the idea that Calistrians would generally end up Abyss-bound under the described circumstances but that's about the sort of take she'd expect from a noblewoman who thinks it was morally wrong for Pezzack to rebel and keeps trying to act like it's bad for bad things to happen to bad people.

"I definitely agree with not forcing anyone to be Final Bladed, if that wasn't obvious."

"Declaring a right isn't a promise we'll get it for you, Delegate Porras. I don't think any government in history can promise that, for most of these things. It's a promise that we'll try, and that if you don't get it, we'll do something about it."

"...well, if someone ends up trapped in a Final Blade against their will, the only thing we can do about it is punish the person responsible, you can't resurrect someone from one of them." She's pretty sure. She read a bunch of Galt-related pamphlets after yesterday and they seemed to mostly agree on that, though not on whether the soul was stuck or destroyed or something else. "So if we're allowing them at all, we should make forcing the Final Blade on someone against their will a capital crime, even — or especially, really — if it's a nobleman who's responsible."

"We can't free them yet."

Anyone who forces a final blade on someone gets the same final blade?

He’s spent too long listening to the Calistran…

"Yes, they were always meant to hold souls for the future, not annihilate them like a daemon. It's impossible to get souls out, they say, but I think it's the kind of impossible that archmages learn to do easily if they have the time to research it."

"I think we should have the vote. On the right to have execution conducted by Final Blade by request of the convict, when one is available or when the convict can be held and conveyed to one, safely for those around him? I vote aye."

"Still against!"

"In favor."

"In favor."

“Abstain.”

"In favor."

"Aye." It seems like the sort of rule that will be flagrantly broken sometimes and rarely be caught, but probably better having it than not.

"Five to one, one abstention. Passes. This has taken a while-" which is bad news for the topics she expected to be contentious "-so I think I'll call the session here. See you all tomorrow."