Last night, my sister and her husband and sons were murdered, their house burned to the ground. Under Asmodeus my sister was a Mammonite banker, and I do not seek to defend her, pardoned though her crimes may have been. But her children were not. Her older son was three, and the younger scarcely a year old, born after Asmodeus was driven from Cheliax. They were innocent, as surely as anyone can be.

Last night, priests of Iomedae were strung up in the streets, their corpses looted and defiled. Last night, whole city blocks burned to the ground for no other reason than lust for violence. Last night, children were torn limb-from-limb and their bodies fed to dogs and carrion-birds.

Under House Thrune, we were forced to repeat the lies of Asmodeus, to accept whippings and deal them out, to forsake the bonds of family and friendship in the name of Hell. I do not miss those days. I do not love Asmodeus. From the day I turned sixteen I prayed nightly that Iomedae would one day drive him back from Cheliax, though I knew that in doing so I endangered my own life. I have felt no greater joy than the moment when I learned that the war against him was won at last.

But under Asmodeus, we had peace.

I look out my window and I see the very streets of the Abyss running with the blood of my people and the ash of its fires. I hear the wails of families torn asunder, innocent and guilty alike. I feel my heart well up with anger that I cannot suppress, and I wonder whether I could stay my hand if the killers who murdered my family were in front of me. Our people have turned their souls, not to Goodness, but to the vilest depths of anarchy, until they — until we — can scarcely be distinguished from demons.

If this is the price of freedom, then perhaps it would be better if we were still Asmodeus's slaves.