"Priest Artigas may, perhaps, regret the harm that he did," Hell says. "Yet Priest Artigas neither denied nor accepted responsibility for his actions. He mentioned only that subset of them he planned to continue committing to his superiors in the Church of Iomedae, and did not during his correspondence with his Iomedaean superiors seek at any point to determine the status of the vast majority of his Evil actions. In no way did he change relations with those of the afflicted which he had continuing relationships with; he continued his previous policies to his soldiers except where he received explicit orders to the contrary, continuing to maintain his authority over them via the same methods he had used before. He could have sought out way to aid his victims; praying for the gods of Good to intervene for the souls, asking if his new allies had information on their present status that he could use to help them, donating resources to an agency that attempted to support victims of Hell like them, even asking his superiors if he ought to consider taking any of these actions - in re Hegenbach again. He did not. He simply did what he was told.

"What we see in Blai Artigas is a machine that obeyed orders, exactly as the devils in Hell do, not a man striving to redeem himself for his evil deeds. He did not redeem himself. He never thought to try."

“Objection; ‘continuing his previous policies to his soldiers except where he received explicit orders to the contrary’ consisted of playing chess with them until told otherwise. I’ll argue that it’s Chaotic and Nirvana will argue that it’s Good but I’m pretty sure you’re the only thing in the room with the giant distended scrotum to say it’s Lawful Evil.”

"This one was drunk on duty, sir."

"Really," said Blai, who has never quite understood why they have booze at the Worldwound at all. People say the soldiers would rebel, but its presence causes quite a lot of misbehavior too. "A troubling decision on your part, Noguera." Noguera's cringing and Blai hasn't even done anything to him yet. Vicar Rey was very insistent about avoiding infection being paramount if you need the subject alive, and he does need the subject alive, he's a fort resource, and one way you can make sure they don't get infected is if you can scare the shit out of them and never touch them at all. "The disciplinary handbook, if I recall correctly, recommends commander discretion on this matter, no doubt because withdrawing a particularly alcoholic soldier's access to the stuff entirely runs some risk of seizures at inconvenient moments and beating him bloody while he's drunk makes it much likelier that he will just continue bleeding, depleting more fort resources in the form of spells, and the handbook doesn't know in advance how important or unimportant the offender will be. The body's a delicate instrument, Noguera. I had meant to continue to employ yours in the defense of the world against hordes of demons. I do not think we can get a demon constructively drunk by feeding you to it. What was your alternate plan?"

"I'm sorry," says Noguera.

"Did you have a plan? You aren't meant to have a plan, as I'm sure you've been told a hundred times, you are meant to follow orders and act as a small part of the machinery of our Lord's will, but if you can't even do that perhaps you were attempting, however clumsily, some other end."

"No sir - I'm sorry sir -"

Blai doesn't think the man's an inveterate enough drunk to have a real operational problem if he's cut off from the alcohol ration - "Notify the kitchens that Noguera's to have not a drop for the next six weeks." (Noguera makes a little punched-out whimper: it's bad but it's not as bad as he was expecting -) "And," Blai goes on, and pauses... This part is supposed to be fun, says Rey's voice in his head, you are to be motivated by fear from above, and pleasure from below -

Noguera's still tipsy now. "As a nondestructive example of the effects of alcohol, against an opponent who will not eat you alive when you fail under its influence, we're going to play a little game," Blai tells Noguera.

"Stop preparing Detect Thoughts," Blai says.

"Sir??" says Grec.

"I said, stop preparing Detect Thoughts. The logistics of the fort must bend to accommodate the lost spells," since the neighboring forts don't have any clerics left either, it's not just him and his juniors at #11. "I need you on Infernal Healing and combat buffs, I need you available to cast scrolls that I would normally be maintaining custody of. If Asmodeus desired visibility into and control over the workings of our fort He had it and He has discarded it. Our objective remains the same, containing the demons. For the same reason I have dismissed the better part of the camp followers," they couldn't feed them all, whoremongering soldiers be damned, with the whole army thrown into a clericless tizzy, and so he has kept only the ones who also cook and gather snow to drink and sent the others accompanying a patrol to fort-hop until they catch a teleport out or a better-supplied patron, "we can no longer afford this other semblance of the ideal Asmodean fort."

Absolutely every time Blai says anything he is convinced in his soul that it will be the moment his soldiers will fall on him and tear him limb from limb. They could do it. Grec alone could do it right now.

"Yes sir," says Grec. "- I had already caught one man out, though, sir, I was about to tell you."

It's a Law puzzle, isn't it. He can solve a Law puzzle. "I will forego my chess game today, Grec."

A silence. Grec's always been very straitlaced. He's never sat down with Blai to play before.

"I'd learn how if you'd like, sir," he says.

"I'm afraid the Lastwall handbook I am consulting does not list chess as an acceptable punishment for oversleeping," Blai tells the archer. A convict soldier, some seventeen-year-old who stole a horse and had all his limbs still able to twitch when they were done with him, sent to live out his life up north just last year when things were normal. "It will have to be the cleaning detail. Perhaps particularly apt given the servants being understrength. The entryway always needs it."

The young man looks crushed, but doesn't speak aloud. Blai suspects, though without Detect Thoughts he doesn't know, that it's him who leaves the note, the reckless unsigned note - Does Iomedae hate chess?

Well, he's not an Asmodean any more and he may be patching together scraps of every paladin he's ever met and the handbook he's now read four times, but he is confident enough to act on the belief that this part is no longer supposed to be fun.

"While it is true that inquiring after the status of his victims and seeking to aid them would have been a Good act, the fact that he did not prioritize it over other Good works is not sufficient to render Leurdorfell inapplicable. The standard of making restitution insofar as is practical must account for opportunity costs. At the time of his repentance Select Artigas was not especially well positioned to aid his former victims and was absorbed in more urgent priorities. Foregoing one opportunity to do Good in favor of another is not Evil as long as one's prioritization is reasonable, in re Ricardo; I know that wasn't a Newton case but the logic still holds."

"As for the matter of relationships, my argument was narrowly scoped to the matter of torture. Blai's torture victims have no continuing relationship with him. While I do reserve the right to make similar arguments regarding other evil acts, dragging everything and the kitchen sink into a single argument is typical Hellish obfuscation. It is possible to meaningfully atone for some evil acts and not others, and Hell should either dispute my specific point or concede my specific point."

"Finally, casting obedience to an organization as Evil per se regardless of the alignment of that institution is absurd. Questioning one's superiors is only morally required when one has or should have had a justified belief that one's superiors are behaving immorally or UnLawfully, in re Pattle. The church of Iomedae's reputation and its conduct towards Select Artigas were not such as to engender any such belief and his acceptance of their priorities was no more similar to the actions of a devil than those of an angel."

"Yes, sorry, did Hell just try to argue that it was Evil to keep holding the Worldwound?"

(The demoness has actually physically fallen out of her seat laughing.)

BLAI DOESN'T THINK THIS IS FUNNY AT ALL ACTUALLY

"Restricting ourselves specifically to the question of torture performed by the decedent, does Hell believe the Newton test to be applicable?"

"Our weekend exercise this time will be your first solo assignments on the topic of torture," says Vicar Rey.  "Eight assorted subjects are available for you to divide amongst yourselves.  I'll be grading Vicar Vilar's students and he mine, on your efficiency at producing the most cooperative and pathetic state possible by Starday evening - I recommend leaving them able to talk until this point - and then over the course of Sunday your ability to draw out your subject's death in a flashy and miserable fashion, including passively, as you will still be attending church services.  Over such a limited time period there's less need to worry overmuch about infection.  I know some of you are on surer footing with the minimally bloody methods we've been over previously like the water cure but when you mean to end the day with a man dead it's a distraction from the classics, the 'showier' options, the things you break out if you ever need to torture someone in front of others.  Tools are provided but you are permitted to improvise."

They file into the next room to look at the subjects.  There's an orc with one arm, a handful of old halflings, a twitchy woman who might be feebleminded or just prematurely senile, a six year old half-orc girl with a cleft lip.  They're all shackled.  Marti goes straight for the six-year-old.  It's not strategic, Blai thinks, how "cooperative" can a six-year-old possibly be after being tortured all day - but of course the larger game is getting Asmodeus's attention and maybe it's a good choice for that.  Imma elbows Blai, tells him to go get her a halfling; he gets two, one for her and one for him, her pick which is which.  Imma takes the spindlier one.  She's a short, slight girl, relying on Blai (correctly pegged as an obedient-dog sort of boy) to keep her from getting pregnant at this most awkward of times, by having him stand nearby and look solid and imposing and run minor errands for her to make everyone clear that he'd stand in their way.  It won't take much force for Imma to break the spindly halfling's bones, Blai supposes.  He winds up with a chubbier one and it's staring at him and probably having opinions and even when he's killed it it'll go on having opinions in Hell.  It is unquestionably pathetic to care about that but he can't stop it from running through his head.

They all get their own little chambers to set up in, with barred windows sufficient for the teachers to look in and screams to carry, but it'll prevent soft torturers' voices from being heard in adjacent cells, unpracticed attempts at a terrifying torturer's stare from reaching additional victims.  Blai's student number is four so he is in room four.  He's about to pick up his halfling and carry it - he can't tell if it's a male or a female, it's still got clothes on and the facial features mostly resolve to "wrinkly" - but Imma's dragging hers and she knows more about what to do than Blai does, Imma has the right instincts for the Crucible, that's what he's getting out of protecting her is someone to copy.  He pulls and it struggles to keep up with the heavy chain around its ankles.

Presumably it is having opinions the entire time but he forces down the part of him that is agonizing about that and sets it up on the provided rack as though it's a strangely heavy doll.  It doesn't try to plead with him.  It isn't screaming yet.  It's making it very easy to imagine that he's just installing a grim decoration in this bleak stone room.  It would be plausible, if it were a room belonging to Vicar Vilar personally.  He likes racks.  Gave a rather impassioned lecture on how great racks were during previous torture-themed lessons.  Great full-body accessibility for detail work and extracurricular indulgence, both passive and active torment options, low open wound risk, great for putting on a spectacle if you're punishing someone in front of a crowd.  It would make perfect sense for Vicar Vilar to want a rack with a halfling on it in his parlor.

Then he's got it all set up and he has to start, either vicar could be watching through the window right now and he doesn't dare turn his head to look, the only thing worse than being watched would be allowing it to be visible that he checked if he was being watched.  He's supposed to be Asmodeus's and Asmodeus loves this kind of thing, the strong (His already-chosen clerics) dominating the weak (the students) to force them into grinding the negligible (the subjects) into the ground in blood and agony.  It is permissible to be Asmodeus's abject slave instead of His eager imitator, even if the eager imitators somemtimes get to skip a lot of the rumored worst parts of the Crucible's educational system, but the abject slave is still the kind of tool that can think, that can carry out orders, that can do these things without requiring someone constantly breathing down their neck about it, that can lighten rather than merely alter their superior's responsibilities.  He cannot turn to check if someone is watching him through the window, that is not allowed to matter, he has his instructions and has to start now, now, now -

He backhands the halfling across the face.  It makes a startled unf sound.  It is very obvious that it has had worse before.  If he can't achieve more than that he is going to come in last in his class and if you come in last in your torture class which is for torture then they don't hand the best(-at-torture) student a normal whip and call it off at ten lashes.

Blai picks up the first thing he sees on the tray of provided tools and he gets started.

"Hell will defer answering the advocate for Nirvana until such time as the judge deems it appropriate," the devil smugly says with the flicker of a forked tongue. "Your Honor, Hell believes the test applicable. The vast majority of repentant evildoers pray for the souls of their victims. Priest Blai Artigas could have prayed for their souls. He did not. A nearly as vast majority of repentant evildoers ask their spiritual counsellors, or, if they have none, their friends, if there was anything they could do to help their victims. Priest Blai Artigas did not. Hell does not seek to overturn in re Ricardo, for it does not claim that it these actions were the most good thing Blai could have done. But the five Newton tests are not about Iomedaean optimization. The second through fourth prongs are specifically about a mortal does for those he has wronged. in this case Priest Blai Artigas did literally nothing. He could have made many small and inexpensive gestures, and did not."

Is he going to Hell for NOT HAVING FRIENDS???

No, no, you're going to Hell for having the right instincts for a cleric of Iomedae! That's much more just!

"Hey, Judge, could you please make Hell answer Nirvana's question?"

"Please do so, Hell. Briefly, if possible, so that we can resolve the Newton argument soon."

"I am afraid that I cannot do so briefly, Your Honor," the representative of Hell says, "as it is the centerpiece of Hell's case in this trial."

"If the centerpiece of Hell's case in the trial is 'holding the Worldwound is Evil,' then can we just declare him Good and move on?"

"Only in the specific case, not in the general. Should I proceed, Your Honor?"

"I'm not inclined to pre-emptively rule without even hearing the arguments." Someone's already brought up in re Campbell this trial. "If this is likely to be a long argument, I'd also prefer to resolve the Newton issue first; does anyone have additional points to raise with regards to that question?"

"Axis currently assesses it as likely that the applicability of the Newton test will turn on features of the petitioner's state-of-mind, including features which may be difficult to address without consulting with him, even with complete access to his memories. We move to have the petitioner testify as to the three prongs under dispute, namely 'taking responsibility for previous actions,' 'changing relationships with those affected, such as by seeking vengeance or forgiveness,' and 'attempting to repair the consequences of previous actions insofar as this is possible.' Axis specifically wishes to hear testimony as to whether he did anything he conceptualized as meeting these criteria, even if this court has not identified it as such, and his rationale for not doing so if not."

"Granted. Petitioner, you are reminded that you are under a truth effect, which as currently implemented will prevent you from knowingly making false statements."

He's not even allowed to TRY to make knowingly false statements! Probably! Unless the rules are different for clerics than they are for paladins! "I - they're dead, unless I'm - forgetting someone? I didn't think there was a relationship to change. I can't - couldn't - well, still can't - scry them or raise them or anything." Converting certainly changed all the relationships that he did have but they were almost one hundred percent local to his fort. "It crossed my mind that if I had ever Maledicted anyone with that scroll it would be a good case for an exception to the rule that clerics can't cast against deity alignment because you can use another casting to undo it, if you were the caster in the first place, but that didn't come up."

"And did you ever consider praying to any god to help the souls of your victims?" Hell will ask, because they do have the record of his actions to confirm he never actually did it.

"- does that work?"

"Almost never," says Hell smugly.

- does it work especially well for your own victims somehow? It would sort of fit with the using-Malediction-to-undo-Malediction trivium if it did but it would be so weird if - surely everybody who's rescuing souls is at capacity? Or at least the ones who hear from Iomedae(ans) are, maybe Chaotic rescue operations are moved on the margin by extra prayers... Who would they leave behind instead if they heard him praying about somebody from seminary? If for instance Imma's halfling never got Imma praying for it because Imma, say, died still a cleric, or lives on but has never given it a second thought, or something - he has no idea, they didn't communicate after he was deployed - then that doesn't mean anything about the ideal amount of resources put into saving Imma's halfling relative to Blai's, that figure's going to depend almost entirely on the halflings themselves for qualities that neither seminarian was really in a position to observe... or maybe Imma's halfling counts as his victim too because he was... in the room and could have mercy-killed it? Because he picked it out for her? But there are surely lots of people in bad afterlives who he has never interacted with even that much and they don't deserve to be passed over because Blai doesn't know they exist...

...also the devil is perhaps not under a truth effect so maybe it just literally never works at all, can't rule that out, he'll believe it if the archon says it.