Valia is late to her committee on excising diabolism because the paladin wanted to talk with her but that was probably more important. She does not, after all, want to offend the Queen and all the non-evil powerful nobles in Cheliax and she doesn't want people assuming that the Church agrees with everything she says, much less that the Church agrees with a bunch of things she didn't say but kind of implied.
None of that means they don't need to do plenty of excising diabolists.
He’s not even officially voted on to the committee yet! It sounds fine to him! (Although it is well short of the nuance and conditionals Axiomites will often include in their oaths, it’s fine by living mortal standards). So he gives a brief nod.
"...Can you add a part about Evil powers to the part about powers of Hell? It turns out there are Evil gods who don't live in any of the lower planes."
“I do not worship or venerate or act on behalf of any power that is Evil, or any power that resides in Hell, Abaddon, the Abyss, or Xovaikain.”
She takes a moment to consider her words.
“I don’t know of any other evil outer planes, but if you do, you can add them.”
That's more of them than Valia knew of! She thought there were three.
And all of that checks out under a Truth Spell?
Thea’s ready, but she doesn’t want to interrupt any last minute ideas, so long as they get them said before the actual casting.
"Everything I told you is true to the best of my knowledge. My primary motivations in presenting this information was to get revenge against the Sisterhood of Eiseth, protect other former acolytes of them, and to protect people in general from them. My intent with learning from delegate Ferrer was to understand Calistria and the boundaries between Evil and Neutral in revenge and it was an intellectual understanding I was after. I swear to only practically apply the teachings of Calistria I learn from delegate Ferrer in taking revenge on evil people who deserve it, and I swear I will only take revenge using these teaching I learn if I believe is it likely to make the world better in some way, and I swear if I do so if I will prevent harm from my actions to bystanders, counting children as bystanders. I do not worship or venerate or act on behalf of any power that is Evil, or any power that resides in Hell, Abaddon, the Abyss, or Xovaikain."
She speaks swiftly but smoothly to get it all spoken within the spell's duration. She remembers a few more minor thing while the spell's duration is still going.
"This isn't a trick. And the written information I gave you is accurate to the best of my knowledge. Sorry, almost forgot to mention written as well as spoken."
The truth spell does not waver.
"All right. I'll call a committee vote, I guess, to add addressing the cults of the Queens of Hell to our mandate?"
The truth spell wears off
"Thank you, I'd appreciate that. I wasn't actually planning on asking to join, since that was my main concern." And since Dia thinks this committee will be politically toxic one way or another.
"All in favor of figuring out how to address this cult, and I guess any cults we learn of like it, as part of this committee's work?"
“In favor. I think dealing with the worship of infernal demigods is obviously going to be included in our job anyway and I see no reason to stop at the archdevils and leave things half finished.”
"In favor." Murdering innocent people doesn't stop being bad just because you're doing it for some other Evil god.
"Looks like we all agree, then?" Can the murderer please leave now.
“There was one other small thing it occurred to me tell you all (well Valia in particular), but I don’t know you would trust it coming from me, and we already used one truth spell.”
Now, how to politely say some people are misunderstanding Valia and think she is planning on starting and leading a mob…
"Why didn't you tell us before the truth spell, so that we could've verified it?" (Because she's Evil and lying, obviously.)
“I already used nearly the full minute of the spell and covered all the important things.”
Now Thea is actually getting irritated. She thought she had earned some trust but apparently not. Or maybe chaos sucks at cooperating and Nuria and Tetula were exceptions? She glances at Valia.
"If you'd said it before the spell then when you said that everything you told us was true as far as you know it would've been covered under 'everything'!"
“I didn’t think of it then because I didn’t think of it as that important.”
But now she’s wondering if Dia was right and this committee is a lay-inquisition* about to happen.
She turns to leave. Hopefully Delegate Ferrer will still explain Calistria to her later.
(* Golarion equivalent of the phrase witch-hunt)
“If nobody else has an urgent matter to cover, I should like to hold a vote on inviting Lord Aspramunt to join the committee. I believe we there is always something to benefit from hearing from more voices, and having spoken with him I expect that to be all the more true here.”
And more importantly it gets them a noble that isn’t the archduke - who didn’t even show up today yet, praise be to Lady Shelyn - or the evil heiress.
“Hi everyone!”
He’ll hold off on defending his honor until the Calistrian actually attacks him. He doesn’t have any abjurations up so he should be fine?
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