They're going to burn down the city.

On one hand, this city is so obviously evil. It's hurts to walk down the streets. The buildings are being redecorated but the big ones still feel evil, like they were designed to loom over you so you remember how worthless and small and scared you are. The whole place stinks too, and with this much filth it's a wonder they haven't all died of a plague. There's too many strangers, too many people hurting each other in all the ways people do in cities... If the whole den of evil goes up in flames, everyone would be better off.

Except, on the other hand... when you burn something down you burn everyone inside too. You don't really get a chance to get all the women and children out before you start a fire. 

...

Carlos finally agrees to read from the pamphlet.

"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 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."

"You should be afraid of the people of Cheliax."

The sound of those words still burns like a fire in his chest, but they're not as convincing when they're spoken in a squeaky voice, at the end of a long day of committees.

Enric might be the sort of man who goes to burn down the house of the specific baron he and most everyone he knows have been tormented by for years, when his family and neighbors form a mob. He might be ready to stand up and fight if a cleric of Iomedae is standing up in front of him telling him that now is the moment to throw all the evil nobles out of the room where the laws are being made. When someone chosen by good gives a speech like that, a decent man has to stand and fight when called. When his neighbors and friends and family are calling on every man to finally kill the tyrant, a decent man has to stand and fight. 

But, when a guy you've met a week ago reads something off a pamphlet... a peasant has to have some standards on when to join a peasant mob, can't pick up a pitchfork for just anyone.

"I'm with Marcus here. It's not as simple as the pamphlet says, we should try to stay here."

"Oh you think you know better than a chosen of Iomedae?"

"A pamphlet that says the words are from a–"

"I was at the convention, that was her speech. "

"There's people the pamphlets say are diabolists that aren't. I asked a cleric of Iomedae, I think it was Blai, about that Theopho guy and it turns out he's–"

"He's on the list too, a cleric in the army of Infernal Cheliax. You took the word of a cleric of Asmodeus, but won't trust the word of a cleric of Iomedae?"

"I saw him heal people, the channeling way that only good clerics can do?"

That does prove it, right? Enric is suddenly unsure.

"Clerics of hell can heal with devil blood. Everyone knows that."

"Not the way good clerics can, not a channel every hour that heals a whole room."

"It doesn't matter, he's not the one we're out to kill anyway."

"Wait who are we out to kill? It's still my boss, right?"

"Even if you're going by the speech, she said the only ones who should be afraid are evil nobles with titles and land from the Thrunes. That's not the same as–"

"Stop! Getting! In the way! We have all the nobles in one place, this is finally our chance to be done with tyranny forever. You were talking yourself about how one of them is trying to make the queen hire necromancers to force the dead to work the mines. We can find that guy."

"Last I heard of him, he was summoning an angel to ask it about whether revenge is good. If he's working with an angel, maybe it thinks it can turn him back from evil? So we shouldn't kill him, or anyone, unless we're sure."

"Enric. Do you want to let them drag all of Cheliax back to hell? Because that's what's going to happen unless we do something about it! I'd rather have a country where no evil noble has the power to hurt anyone. Ever again."

That's... hard to answer.

What they did back home was worth it, to stop the baron from hurting anyone ever again. For the last year, there were no taxes and rents; none of his neighbors went hungry. There were no random beatings in the name of the law or in the name of respect. No one was a slave or a serf, the man with rights to do whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted, that man was dead. His wife and most of his servants too but– it was worth it. It had to be.

He's getting along with some people at the convention, and will pray for them all to be safe. But he can't look anyone in the eye and say it isn't worth it to take the best chance you have to kill a tyrant, even if there's other people caught up in it too. Not when he's done the same thing himself.

"No answer? if you want to be on the wrong side of history–"

"Lay off. I know I'm going, if he wants to stay that's his loss.."

"Still staying too, you're all going to get yourselves killed."

"We die martyrs, we go to the Summerlands. Do you know where you're going?"

"Yeah! Select Valia said that in Pezzack half the city died to throw off Asmodeus, but they were good to do it. Only the evil nobles would rather have the fires of hell than the fires of justice."

He's... probably going to go with them. But there's still that sick feeling. He doesn't want to go out and fight again. There's people back home who need him alive...

"I was on committee with Valia. I don't think she's asking us to die. We just... talked about how to make sure evil people didn't run the courts. Not like we were killing all the evil people tonight."

"Now you just sound afraid. You know any cleric of Iomedae is always in favor of fighting evil. She just couldn't say in in the convention because that damned Galtan, Elie, was forcing her to stay quiet. So stop making excuses." 

"That's wrong. The archmage isn't damned, he's–" Aroden, No, can't say that, "he's the one who saved us all from hell, him and the queen. Shouldn't we try to fix the country their way? They deserve that much, at least, for setting us free."

"The only reason we needed to wait for foreign wizard to save us, Enric, was because some of us didn't have the spine to get out there and do it ourselves. Maybe if people like you stood up instead of hiding and looking for every possible reason to ignore the goddess Iomedae calling us to fight evil, then we could have thrown off hell years ago."

"You want to say that again?"

"What, like you'll do something about it? I just said, you're a coward. I'll say it again. You're a coward and you'd rather let the country be dragged back to hell than stand up and fight for good. We're going out to fight, we're saving our country, we're going to heaven. You're hiding here, quiet and scared, and you'll spend forever as a paving stone in hell, just as quiet and just as scared. I bet the whole time you'll regret that you cared more about your own life than your soul, or your country, or–"

Someone rushes to check on the man Enric just knocked to the ground and, and,

"He's breathing."

Thank Good.