He's somewhere vaguely resembling a courtroom. Where the magistrate would normally sit, there's a masked creature that looks something like a skeletal black bird.

Five other beings are also there.

There's an archon, somehow managing to rotate its inner rings in a friendly manner.

There is a large dog, giving him a soulful concerned look. 

There's an arbiter inevitable, resembling a multicolored metallic sphere with a pair of metal wings.

The devil is a robed figure appearing almost perfectly human except for the horns and eyes.

And the figure in the Abyss’s box is similarly almost-human, but Blai being a Worldwound veteran can immediately identify her as a succubus. Wearing a chunky but low-cut knitted poncho, her hands are occupied with a set of needles trailing a scarf with a checker pattern on it.

She smirks at the decedent.

Oh no. Why is the dog concerned. Why is there a devil here, that's not allowed, clerics of Iomedae can't be evil, obviously it would be open and shut if he'd died a couple of years ago but now - well it's possible She renounced him in the last few seconds when he was out of spells and wouldn't have noticed? - is that a demon? Did he manage somehow to fuck up all the way to Chaotic Evil?? How did he do that? Did he forget to thank the man who sold him breakfast this morning. He might have done. He can't remember. He is dead and he will never eat breakfast again. Shit what if it's not that and actually he did something just absolutely unforgivably appalling while in the River of Souls and now he can't remember it and that's what they're here to judge him for. What kinds of conduct get you flipped from probably-Lawful-Neutral all the way to Chaotic Evil while you're just floating along in the River of Souls? Did he eat someone? Is he missing time in which he ate somebody's soul???? Are all these creatures reading his mind right now. They probably are and the time he was screened for wizarding potential the Academy wizard made such a face at him and said he had a miserable hurricane of a mind not even bright enough to be put to use and now that poor concerned dog is having to listen to all of it just to do its job. His or her job. He cannot identify if the dog is a male or female dog from here and the only way he knows to check this in dogs would be incredibly rude. If he were even capable of moving his visual perspective and he basically isn't. He also definitely can't tell on the inevitable or the archon but probably, unless (as is entirely plausible) he's mistaken, you present as a clockwork item if you would rather be an it. If he offends the angels will they stop trying to win his soul? His own feelings might not matter at all but other people's are sometimes operational constraints. Wait, what is even the operation here. Is he supposed to be aiming for somewhere in particular? Does he have any influence over this process? Iomedae might want him for something and She's in Heaven but if instead She renounced him and he can't remember it and that's why there's a deMOn oVER THeRE?? then maybe he should not take up space or budget or whatever limited resource Heaven has? The archon can probably judge that better than him but WHAT IF it promised to do its best at this trial and only THEN learned that apparently he is interesting to DEMONS and now it can't go back on its commitment, then he might have to do something to get the ideal result without the archon forswearing itself, only he has no idea what. Should he be worrying about Nirvana and Axis's budgets too? It doesn't seem like the correct answer would be to try to go to an Evil afterlife, because in the long term more souls in an afterlife increase its capacity and power, but this time might be a special moment in history with Heaven and possibly also all its friends and allies being overstretched. Maybe the responsible thing to do would be to go to Axis and ??earn Axisdollars?? and ??donate them to Heaven?? Is that even a thing, for some reason seminary did not cover this. Fuck, they are going to go over his entire time in seminary, that's going to SUCK and that poor concerned dog is going to get MORE CONCERNED. What if they don't even get to make arguments because they pull up a zoomed in scry-image of him standing over an elderly halfling with a knife asking Vicar Rey technical questions about the use of cauterization to prevent inconvenient infections, and then the bird skeleton - whose gender he ALSO cannot discern! Are they doing that on purpose?! - is like, I don't know why I even bothered to gather you here today, that's really about all you need to know here, and then he goes to Hell and he has wasted all the Good lawyers' time. And also the Axis lawyer. If that's a meaningful consideration maybe stalling would be helpful in some situations but his non-evil lawyers outnumber his evil ones so it is not appropriate at this time. Unless he is forgetting something. Something important. Like having eaten somebody in the river of souls. He probably didn't do that but only probably.

"Do you know your name?"

"Blai Artigas." He was actually kind of attached to the Select part but MAYBE he ATE SOMEBODY and has been renounced, it's not like he could tell from here. Probably even if you get to go to Heaven they have a different title system.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Judgment." AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

"Does it sound to you like we are speaking in a language you understand, using words that you are familiar with, at a speaking speed you can follow?"

BUT THE BIRD IS THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS SPOKEN. WHAT DOES IT MEAN, "WE". IF THE AXIOMITE WERE SPED UP BY A FACTOR OF SIXTEEN AND SPEAKING TIEN HOW SHOULD HE KNOW "So far."

"Do you understand that you had, while alive, the capacity to take actions, and that those actions had effects on the world and on other people?"

"Yes." It's a terrible system and Iomedae had some words for Pharasma about it.

"Do you understand that the purpose of this court is to determine your alignment and which afterlife you are assigned to?"

"Yes." HERE COMES THE FULL COLOR PICTURE OF THE HALFLING OR POSSIBLY THE CONVICT.

"Very well. In that case, we will proceed with opening statements." There's a sound that, to Blai's ears, resembles dice rolling, though he doesn't see any dice. "I have randomly selected Heaven to deliver the first statement. You may proceed when ready."

what was that noise. is he going to be assigned to an afterlife at RANDOM - oh it's for statement orders.

"This case is complex in its details, but simple in its essence. While he lived, Select Artigas' actions had effects on the world and other people, and those actions were in the main taken in accordance with Law and advanced the cause of Good."

"Whether you measure by hours or by impact, the primary activity of Select Artigas' life was service at the Worldwound, an activity widely recognized as Good for both protection of innocents and opposition to the forces of the Abyss, in re Diritias, and as Lawful when done under the aegis of a Lawful military organization, in re Bethador. He ran his fort with a keen strategic eye, optimizing for repelling demonic incursions without wasting resources or exposing those under his command to excessive risk. Select Artigas was both more Lawful and more Good in his administration of the fort than others in similar positions. He did not siphon off fort resources or permit others to do so, even in cases where his orders could have been interpreted to permit it. He meticulously obeyed his appointed superiors and the regulations to which he was subject. He was unusually lenient and even-handed in his choices of punishments. When given a great many opportunities to do Evil, he ignored the vast majority, which is a higher Good than never having had those opportunities in the first place--in re Fortax."

"And then, of course, we come to more recent events. Asmodeus evidently determined Select Artigas to be unsuitable as one of His clerics, and Iomedae determined him to be suitable as one of Hers. The choices of the gods are not finally dispositive in this court but should be given all due weight, in re Ortz. Upon being thus appointed, Select Artigas sought out instruction on Iomedae's doctrine and Her church's priorities with the intent of serving Her effectively. He destroyed the fort's scroll of Malediction, the one prominent case in which he destroyed what some would consider a valuable resource, and did so for no gain other than denying it to the forces of Evil, which is Good under in re Alethoc. Through both transitions he continued to operate the fort to the best of his ability, demonstrating that he did so for its own sake and not out of hope for any infernal reward. Shortly before his death, he joined the Chelish Constitutional Convention, an institution whose purpose was to develop a post-Asmodean form of government for Cheliax, a mission he took on without hesitation despite his fears and which ultimately claimed his life. 

"It is evident that Select Artigas has thoroughly turned away from the service of Hell and committed himself to the cause of Good with his heart, as he had long before done with his actions. He belongs in Heaven, with his allies and his goddess."

"Thank you. Hell?"

Okay but what if the archon is just SAYING that though. What if it doesn't want him anywhere near it and it has to say all that nice stuff anyway. What if he goes to Heaven and then everyone there hates him forever!

"We in Hell agree with Heaven on one thing," the devil says, showing a snake's tongue. "This case is indeed simple in its essence. Priest Blai Artigas has spent his entire life as a sterling servant of Hell, obeying its commands without ever questioning what they were. Throughout his life, he has killed, tortured, and tyrannized as Hell commanded him, with hardly a thought to the damage he did to others or to the moral aspects of his decisionmaking; in re Costel. He simply obeyed orders, in re Hegenbach. To him, slaying demons was no different from flaying orphans or vivisecting slaves; all were activities done at the urging of his superiors, neither done for the sake of goodness or evil, or out of a belief that good or evil would result; to both he displayed a 'depraved indifference,' in re Hewart. When Hell had no further use for him, his activities hardly changed a whit; he simply changed his slavish obedience to a new master. Hell concurs with Heaven that his obediences were Lawful, it simply disagrees about the statement that they can be counted Good. Blai is damned.

"Further, we wish to prove that no atonement occurred. Under Newton, five prongs must be met to determine atonement. As I am sure everyone here knows," except for the deceased, "these five prongs are feeling regret for previous actions, taking responsibility for previous actions, changing relations with those affected, attempting to repair the consequences of previous actions, and reliably and consistently changing behavior. This fifth prong is not, on its own, sufficient to ensure redemption, and as none of the other four are met. Therefore the deceased is Lawful Evil just as he was when he was a loyal servant of Asmodeus, to Whose serve he should justly now return."

Yeah that all sounds about right honestly except he is as of the last thing he can remember working for Iomedae and She doesn't want Hell to have him or indeed anyone or indeed to exist at all so hopefully the inevitable has something really good when it's its turn. Was he supposed to go find all those people he hurt? Why the fuck would they ever have wanted his personal attention even if they weren't mostly dead and past third circle help? What in the world would he have been supposed to do if he found one, let them punch him in the face? It turned out at the end there that he wasn't bad at not attacking people who were punching him in the face but it didn't really seem like a central example of the kind of thing an Iomedaean is supposed to do with their time if they can just not. Probably he is just too late to figure this out, they're not going to have Lastwall catechism class in Hell and he will never know what the right answer was.

"Thank you. Abyss?"

The demon has been so well-behaved so far. Hopefully they'll have an actual argument rather than just yelling "flesh."

"Your honor, while the most visible acts of the decedent's life tend to trend towards Law, this court has the ability to examine the less obvious facets of Avenger Blai Artigas's life. There are, frankly, too many cases where a seemingly open-and-shut case turned out to have been concealing some underlying but overwhelming tendency for me to have ever bothered counting them, but since this court requires citations, I'll pick, oh, in re Campbell. Now, my argument hinges on three basic considerations: 

Firstly, the man was a weirdo in Infernal Cheliax. He was a cleric of Asmodeus who, given the chance to punish his subordinates however he liked, played chess with them. Now, I'm not claiming--at this time--that chess is inherently Chaotic, there is a time and a place. Clerics of Asmodeus serving at the Worldwound are supposed to make their subordinates terrified of them! His were fond! 

Secondly, I assume everyone here has examined the contents of the decedent's mind? Does that look like an orderly, Lawful mind to you? Tropical storms aren't Lawful either.

Third and finally, the decedent is made of flesh, and from an overwhelming majority of demonically-attended trials, everyone knows that 'flesh' is chaotic evil."

"Thank you." If this psychopomp got annoyed about bad-faith arguments they'd have issues with more than just the demons. "Nirvana?"

WAS CHESS CHAOTIC EVIL ALL ALONG? SERIOUSLY?

What does that last part even mean. Is he in fact still made of flesh? Surely his body is in Cheliax somewhere awaiting burial if not already buried? Like in the afterlife there is usually a new body issued but does he have one yet -

All this time he believed Vicar Rey that his feelings did not matter and in retrospect that was probably stupid! He should have checked that with someone! He should have made a list of some kind, of all the things he believed because Asmodeans told him so and that he couldn't cross check with another source, and had it ready to read off to Feliu. That would have been such a good idea and he was so idiotic. What if he was supposed to have extremely specific emotional attitudes about things and the Acts just didn't dwell on it because it didn't fit in metrically!

"The decedent, Select Blai Artigas, consistently outperformed his culture of origin and the expectations others had of him. While he did, earlier in life, commit many evil acts, I have a handout for everyone graphing the number of evil acts performed by Select Artigas compared to the number of evil acts performed over the relevant lifespans of other Clerics of Asmodeus. While the alignment system is not graded on a local curve--Zon-Kuthon vs. Costel--consistently outperforming one's reference class can still be taken as a mitigating factor for evil acts, Zon-Kuthon vs. Lajariutza, as is coercion, in re Shen Qingqiu, and the consequences--for refusing to enter Asmodean seminary, or for refusing to perform any given evil act once in seminary clearly fall under the definition of coercion defined in Qingqiu. And while we certainly disagree with, well, all, of the Abyss's conclusions, their first point is, in fact, factually relevant, that he was a more merciful superior to his soldiers than was standard practice in Iomedaean Worldwound forts."

He sucks so much they have to compare him to KUTHITES to get him out of Hell? Wait, is that actually unfair, maybe he has bad information on Kuthites, maybe they're not worse than Asmodeans actually. It's not like he's met one. He has unfairly judged Kuthites and he will get to spend eternity regretting this in Hell but there won't be any Kuthites there to educate him on their religion because those go to Xovaikain. At least there isn't a creepy shadow here arguing to send him there. He has lots of cached cope to pull out about Hell should it prove necessary and absolutely fuckall about Xovaikain.

Wait, wasn't it a mistake to do the chess thing if it's not what the Iomedaeans did? Was he somehow doing something wrong by following the Lastwall handbook - or is "merciful" a bad thing? No, it's the dog saying it - in a completely unhelpfully androgynous voice - also who is Shen Qingqiu? Should he be recognizing all these names? Are they important??

"Thank you. Axis?"

"Let us turn first to the question of the petitioner's systemic alignment. Axis concurs with Hell and Heaven's arguments that the petitioner was straightforwardly Lawful. To touch briefly on the arguments to the contrary: firstly, the mere fact of being unusual is insufficient to prove that the petitioner is therefore Chaotic, in re Javert. Secondly, although it is true that the petitioner's mind frequently contemplates unlikely possibilities in a disorganized manner, the petitioner has adopted a number of Lawful habits to regulate this tendency, chief among them cultivation of obedience, which — as stated by the counsel from Hell and Heaven — is Lawful." This inevitable is not inclined to dignify the Abyss's third 'argument' with a response.

"We turn now to the question of the petitioner's moral alignment.

At this time, Axis neither concedes nor contests the claim that the Newton test is inapplicable. However, even if the Newton test is judged inapplicable, this fact alone would not make the petitioner Evil. The Newton test does not conclusively establish the petitioner's alignment one way or the other; rather, it establishes a framework by which the decedent's 'previous actions are not held against their present alignment.' Axis contends that, taking into account the defendant's actions over the course of his life, he ought most properly be considered Neutral.

During the petitioner's lifetime, he tortured and killed people in the service of Asmodeus. This was Evil — mitigated in part by the extenuating circumstances previously referenced by Nirvana, but nonetheless Evil. During the petitioner's lifetime, he served faithfully at the Worldwound, first as a cleric of Asmodeus and later as a cleric of Iomedae, protecting the world from demons. This was Good — mitigated in part by the fact that he spent most of this time acting in service to Asmodeus, but nonetheless Good. While this court has generally held that the determination of alignment 'cannot be reduced to mere balancing of consequences,' in re Bentham, in cases where petitioners are responsible for both significant Good and significant Evil, with neither being clearly more significant, it has commonly, though not consistently, rendered a judgment of Neutral, and it is Axis's position that such a judgment would be most appropriate in this case.

As an additional source of guidance, we may look to his dual empowerments as cleric. The decision of a god to select an individual as cleric is not 'intrinsically decisive in all possible circumstances,' in re Oluche, but it is nonetheless indicative of alignment, and in particular strongly indicative of non-opposed alignment, as per ... approximately every trial concerning a cleric, but if you want a standard cite try in re Minrah, 1184. At the time of the petitioner's death, he was a cleric of Iomedae, which is weakly indicative of both Law and Goodness and strongly indicative of non-Evil. He was previously a cleric of Asmodeus, renounced simultaneously with the renunciation of the vast majority of his clerics on Golarion, which is likewise weakly indicative of both Law and Evil and more strongly indicative of non-Goodness — though Axis acknowledges that this is consistent with the possibility of him attaining a Good alignment after his renunciation by Asmodeus."

"Thank you. If there are no procedural objections at this time, I now open the floor to further arguments."

The inevitable sounds so soothing that Blai spends a blissful several seconds completely failing to worry about anything it said at all, his mind as blank as a fresh sheet of paper, and then he instead starts worrying that there are going to be procedural objections and it will turn out that he blearily sold his soul for a glass of water one of the sleepless nights he spent in the Crucible that he can barely remember because of the sleeplessness and all of this is for nothing.

"Procedural objection: Hell is a cunt." 

The archon briefly contemplates moving for a preliminary ruling that the decedent is Lawful just to see if the demon goes away, but decides to preserve their Nirvanan colleague's potential to pull brilliant if somewhat disingenuous maneuvers out of the courtroom's absence of air. Blai being ruled Neutral Good would be an acceptable outcome, albeit very silly.

Is that procedural? Who is Hell supposed to send if - right, that's a demon, he should not read too much into things demons say.

"That question is irrelevant to the trial," the devil says smugly, raising a pin with "Maelstrom vs. Abyss -12,526" engraved on the head to the judge's attention and then lowering it.

(he brings one of these to every trial with a demon. It's really much faster than saying it every single time.)

fuck he really hopes the smugness is about getting to talk back to the demon and Blai's just set dressing

"I concur. All parties are directed to refrain from immaterial insults, and may be sanctioned if such behavior continues.

If there are no other procedural objections, the floor is now open."

he's gonna go to hell and it's gonna suuuuuuuck

"Point of order: Abyss v. Maelstrom -12,526 hinges on the demon being blatantly misbehaving. I have only been deliberately antagonizing Hell, which for a demon is downright saintlike."

"As much as this court appreciates the fact that you are meaningfully participating in the trial, my previous directive stands."

She flumps back into her seat, crossing her arms and pouting dramatically. 

What is even the point of a trial where she's not allowed to say whatever she wants even to Hell??? You'd think these people didn't care about attracting advocates who aren't just drooling dretches. 

The psychopomp didn't even tell the demon she couldn't insult Hell! She can insult Hell as long as she's doing it in ways that are material to the case!

That's still going to result in less total hell-insulting, and demons don't have to be reasonable. 

"Hearing no further objections, the floor is now open."

Did he miss a class on trial procedure such that he should be able to make objections? Would he even be allowed? Why is he even conscious for this -

"While we believe Select Artigas to be Lawful Good even considering all his actions, Heaven does not concede that the Newton test does not apply. Indeed, we hold that it applies to the majority of his evil actions, in particular but not exclusively the torture. Let us consider the five prongs in order. Select Artigas regrets the harm he was coercively pressured to do to others. He has made no attempt to conceal his actions or evade the social consequences of same; the mere fact that no institution has chosen to punish him is no impediment to a judgement of responsibility, in re Way. He has changed his relationships with those affected, inasmuch as he had relationships with them at the time of his amendment. Hell misquoted the fourth prong in their opening statement; it is "attempting to repair the consequences of previous actions insofar as this is possible", and Select Artigas has done so. The fact that he had significantly fewer victims than a typical Asmodean cleric and a significantly shorter relationship with each one on average can hardly be held against him, nor was he expected to seek out people he reasonably believed had no desire to see him to deliver a symbolic gesture of apology, in re Green. And even Hell has admitted by implication that the fifth prong, reliably and consistently changing behaviour, applies. I therefore move that all the decedent's instances of torture be excluded from the consideration of this court."

You can do that? Just skip all the torture parts?? That doesn't sound like it would be a thing???

"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.

"Please answer the question, Priest Blai Artigas."

"No, I did not consider it; I only recently learned that praying does anything for anyone other than the person praying and what I then learned about that did not include effects on other people's souls and particularly did not include differential effects based on whether those souls were one's own victims in the past."

"Did you ask anyone you spoke to regularly about whether there was anything you could do to help your victims?"

"No."

"Did you ask the Iomedaen you exchanged letters with if there was anything you could do to help your victims?"

"No." Paladins are often condescending and act as though no one else has any common knowledge or common sense but he thought they didn't do that amongst themselves so he wasn't imitating it, and he thought that it would be obvious to Tezrić loosely what being an Asmodean priest implied and he could have ordered suggested it but maybe Blai was supposed to inquire proactively????

The devil will incline its head. Mission complete.

"As my colleague has just thoroughly demonstrated, the decedent was unaware of any feasible methods for making restitution and lacked the resources to become aware of same. We, with our superior information, can think of options the decedent did not, and doubtless others can think of options we did not, but until and unless Nethys comes before this court that is simply a fact of life."

"Turning to the question of responsibility: the legal definition of responsibility for the purposes of the Newton test is that the decedent must accept that they committed the evil acts in question, that the resulting harm was a consequence of their actions, and that they are morally at fault in the matter. I believe the decedent has already demonstrated via their thoughts that they meet this criterion, but I am entirely willing to go into the matter further if the court wishes. Are there in your view any further ambiguities, your honor, on that or other prongs?"

Sure. Let him into heaven because he's too stupid to be fully on top of handling the consequences for his actions. If it works it works. (It's not gonna though.)

"I'm inclined to agree that he satisfies the definition of having taken responsibility for his actions. But, while a lack of any feasible options for making restitution would be a sufficient explanation if he had in fact considered making restitution, attempted unsuccessfully to make restitution, researched ways to make restitution, or even consciously considered the question of whether attempting to make restitution would be reasonable considering his other priorities, it's not clear to me that he did anything of that nature. Do you dispute this as either a factual or a legal matter?"

"I dispute it as a legal matter. Do you consciously contemplate every step you take? Do you do a cost-benefit analysis every time you adjust your pencil? Do you consciously consider the possibility of ascending to godhood every week just to check if it's possible yet? It is possible to arrive at a reasonable belief without ever sitting down and saying 'now I will form a belief on this matter'. The decedent had a justified true belief in his lack of restitution options; I argue this should be considered sufficient."

Should he not be thinking about how that argument kind of doesn't work? It seems like it would maybe be in his best interest to not think about that but he's doing it anyway. Converting to a new religion should reasonably invite all kinds of reevaluations of one's conduct, and if he made a mistake in passing over this one while pursuing "reading the Acts cover to cover" and "implementing Lastwall discipline" and "running the fort instead of running to Crusader's for education" and and and - then he made a mistake.

"...Do you have any case law whatsoever that supports your proposed interpretation of this prong?"

"I do not. I saw an opportunity to set a new precedent in a grey area of legal epistemology. If you decline to do so I will not pursue the subquestion further." (Translation: yeah, alright, it doesn't work, but you miss all the shots you don't take.)

Well NOW he's anxious about various outsiders saying "in re Artigas" at each other whenever it's convenient for all eternity.

"In that case, I'm ruling that the Newton test is inapplicable, though of course you may continue to raise elements of the test as mitigating factors.

I believe we were also waiting on an argument from Hell about how defending the Worldwound is Evil?"

Were the Rovagug cultists right all along - no, probably not, they're Evil...

"You misunderstand me, Your Honor. Hell acknowledges that defending the Worldwound is, as a matter of well-established precedent which it has no desire to overthrow, Good in the majority of cases. But nonetheless this same study of existing precedent has lead it to the inevitable conclusion that it was not Good in the specific case of Blai Artigas.

"It has long been established that a decedent who kills others must have intended good by it for the action to be judged good. See Leurdorfell, 2096, for the most famous case. Other trials have established that Good consequences resulting from an action are not sufficient if there were no good intentions; Setach, 2013 will do as an example, establishing as it does that a serial killer who specifically chose wicked criminals as victims because she believed this would result in no investigation for their deaths still committed Evil by so killing them. Torran, -4961 establishes there is no fundamental distinction in this between demons and wicked mortals in this matter. Therefore for it to be Good for Priest Blai Artigas to defend the Worldwound, he must have done it for Good reasons. And yet at no point in his life did he ever express any Good reasons for defending the Worldwound. He did not express a desire to kill demons to save their victims, did not attempt any alternate methods of achieving Good goals other than killing his enemies, and, when asked, said only that he was here to do his job. And do his job he did, exactly as he would have against any other enemy and for exactly the same reasons, and that the enemy happened to be a demon is luck. He did not even seek out any evidence outside the Asmodean command chain to confirm it was correct to fight the demons, that they actually were beings of pure chaos and evil that threatened the world! Blai Artigas was indifferent to whether or not his enemies were Evil, Marthasagor -3088. And as we all know, Leurdorfell establishes that this indifference is more than enough to make the killing Evil, and Hegenbach establishes that a man who just follows orders to do evil is still responsible for the evil done by these orders."

"No doubt the delegates from Heaven and Nirvana will say that he bears responsibility for the choice to enlist in the army and then to request a combat posting. Hell wishes to remind them that this is a presumptively Evil act, in re Taizu, in re Pete, Susumu v. Gorum, and that therefore the burden of proof rests on Heaven to demonstrate some specific Good goal that Blai believed himself to be pursuing, and to inform them that Blai Artigas did not, during his service express such a goal."

"Therefore Blai Artigas is, himself, Evil."

And the devil inclines its head and waits for the response.

"This is ridiculous. Of course he didn't have to express such a sentiment; everyone in his extended culture-sphere knows that hold the Worldwound means prevent the planet from being overrun by demons. It's unnecessary for a decedent to explicitly express or even verbalize to themself intentions and context that is that baked into their model of the world! In re Vorloupulous, in re Parren, in re Tabris--do I need to keep naming cites or is that enough to go on." 

"In re Vorloupulous, the individual confessed to forming an illegal army. In re Tabris the decedent was asked why she was organizing a defense, and said, quote, 'otherwise everyone on the continent will die.' This is not a high standard, Nirvana, and if Blai Artigas cannot meet it that is a flaw with your defendant, not with the law.

"As for your point regarding his shared cultural knowledge, I quote in re Archimedes, 'there is no level of obliviousness regarding obvious facts for which a genuinely incapable individual can be culpable.' In re Vorbis a theocratic ruler managed to conquer a large part of a continent and die without ever realizing his god didn't want him to. In re Casey establishes that this applies for ignorance of Good as well as ignorance of Evil. The historical precedent is quite clear that detail-focused, socially unaware mortals are capable of acting without ever seriously considering facts which 'everyone in their extended culture-sphere knows' to be relevant."

"While I can hardly claim not to enjoy epistemological tangents, this one isn't dispositive. Select Artigas demonstrated repeatedly in thoughts and actions that he intended to prevent the demonic invasion of Golarion. He chose his personnel deployments, his patrol schedules, his item expenditures and spell preparations and tactics, with the aim of preventing demons from overrunning or bypassing his fort, with minimal expenditure of costly resources that could otherwise be used for the same purpose elsewhere. A man indifferent to the Good he could achieve in this work would not have been so diligent at it, or so skilled."

"Also, he volunteered for a Worldwound posting specifically."

Vicar Rey returns from her meeting in an icy mood.  "They want more clerics for the army.  If the army had half the Law of an imperial retriever puppy they wouldn't get themselves bloodied so much and they'd still have the ones we sent them last time!"

"I'll go," says Blai, half on impulse, half wishing for a life that closes around him so rigidly that he cannot possibly make a mistake.  And Vicar Rey is usually - safe to make things easier for.  Not safe in general, but it won't specifically draw extra attention, in a bad way, if you offer to fetch her tea or run her letters to their recipients; he's been filling his time with a lot of that in the quiet moments, while he and the rest of his Crucible cohort are shadowing her to learn the in-practice ropes of the clergy.

"Huh," she says, after a pause.  "Yes, I suppose I can see it.  I'll send you and demand one each off Oliver and Sala and two from the New Cathedral and that's all they're entitled to for the year, they can take better care of their things if they want the things to accumulate instead of going through them like firewood..."

If Blai thought there were a lot of obscure clerical titles people could have there are again as many in the military, but that's just memorization.  He can do that, he can count pips, he can march and wear armor and swing a mace, he can do pushups and run laps.  He follows orders.  He does not complain about army food, not when the rations are short or when the biscuits have bugs in them or when he's blinked too many times at the drill sergeant in a bad mood and had a scoop of fireplace ash dumped in his trencher on top of the porridge.  It's not Hell.  It's not even the Crucible.

They get their assignments after they've been through their paces, and the girl Sala sent, Diana Toset, looks like she's going to commit insubordination about it.  "The Wound?  I'll never have my own city church like that," she mutters to herself, or more likely to Asmodeus, pacing back and forth in the training yard.  "Circles, sure, as many circles as I can swallow the demons to earn, but my Lord, there is more to power than circles!  Raise me high and I will build You a cathedral and crucify a man before it in Your name every day!  My lord, not the Wound!"

Blai didn't get the Wound; he got the Ash Regiment.  He doesn't really get what's wrong with the Wound.  Unless you happen to really want to head up a big church in a big city, apparently.  Still.  Someone's got to man the Wound.

"I'd trade you," he offers - because if she notices on her own, before he says anything, that he's heard her prayers, she'll have every reason to go out of her way to destroy him; because she'll owe him a favor, and he doesn't know what he'd do with one but it's generally the kind of thing you're supposed to accumulate; because if he somehow wound up with a big city church he certainly wouldn't know what to do with it, and he's heard you can just stay in the army forever, at the Wound, until you lose a limb or your life, instead of the expectation being a few tours and settling down in a village to terrorize them.

"Would you really," Toset says, rounding on him, snide -

"Write up the request and I'll sign it.  I can't change matters if you've got a black mark from Personnel but if they're only making up the numbers... you'll owe me a favor," Blai adds, you have to be clear about that or they'll pretend that they never realized you weren't just taking leave of your senses long enough to give them a gift.

"Only if they swap us.  If they won't I don't owe you shit."

"Fine."

She writes something in her lovely loopy handwriting and he scribbles his name under hers and she marches off.

He goes to the Worldwound.

"An argument that proves too much," Hell says. "Your fellows in Heaven tried to claim that competence at an assigned task where failure would be punished - both by the man's superiors and by nature - was inherently Lawful Good at in re Climent, Genis and Guim in the last two years alone, and every one of then was ruled Lawful Evil at trial. 'Diligence and ambition are not traits fundamentally belonging to any alignment, and the task to which they are assigned determines their moral valence." Asmodeus v Aroden.

"Priest Blai Artigas joined the army because he wished to submit himself to a more disciplined, regimented life in greater obedience to authority than would be possible with an independent assignment, a Lawful and perfectly Asmodean desire. As for his decision to volunteer for the Worldwound,, requesting a postion with a good opportunity for bloody violence is not usually a good sign as to the moral character of the person doing it, but his chief considered motives when volunteering for this task  were to obtain favors from his allies and to further submit himself to discipline, order and obedience, also Lawful, also perfectly Asmodean. Neither of these is a Good motive."

"You are missing the point. I do not claim that his diligence and ambition were inherently Good, but that they demonstrate that Select Artigas' motive was to hold back the demons. Had his motive been solely to avoid personal danger from the demons or his own hierarchy, he would have acted differently. The task to which his diligence was applied was protecting the planet from demons, and he knew it."

"Now, to the question of the Select's reasons  for volunteering in the first place. As you say, the bloody violence doesn't enter into it," says the archon with a dismissive spin of an inner sphere. "As for what did, one must look not only at what a decedent seeks out but at what they seek to avoid." Perhaps especially in this case. "What Select Artigas feared, worse than the prospect of maiming or death, was being given a church in a village or a city where he would be expected to tyrannize civilians. Of the tightly constrained set of options available to him, he sought out the one with the least pressure to do Evil, which is Good under in re Poitiers. And he was, in fact, coerced into fewer Evil acts at the Worldwound than he likely would have been at a different posting. He went for one Good reason, worked hard for another Good reason, and obtained significant Good as a result."

"Had his motive been to obey his hierarchy, as it was, he would have done precisely what he did. Obedience to your superiors' will and to their commands is Lawful and amoral; if these superiors are Lawful Evil, it becomes serving Evil, which is Lawful and Evil." 

"What Priest Blai Artigas feared, worse than the prospect of maiming or death, was independence. Autonomy. The necessity of making his own decisions. Priest Blai Artigas desired slavery and feared freedom, and so enlisted in the army to be enslaved and was sent to the Worldwound to avoid an independent posting. He sought out the assignment with the most discipline, which is Lawful and neutral, in re Diaz. He went for a Lawful and Neutral reason, worked hard for a Lawful and Evil reason, and good achieved but not intended is irrelevant to a trial, in re Leurdorfell."

"...Okay, but this is stupid. Fighting at the Worldwound is Good. You can argue that it is less Good when done in the service of Asmodeus, but it's still Good and not Evil. If Hell actually had a case then they would be claiming that other actions taken by the decedent were more impactful than his Worldwound service, not that the Worldwound service itself was evil, because that's a terrible argument that's not going to work." 

"Hell has further arguments, Your Honor, when the status of this one is resolved." In every trial Hell is obliged to argue that the things the decedent did were evil. This is how trials work. Is the dog new?

how long is this thing supposed to be?! can they just split the difference, let the axiomite have him, and get it over with

It's going to go until they all run out of ideas or the judge tells them to stop, because while it's primarily about Select Artigas it's not entirely about him. It's about attempts to set favorable precedents and the process of learning what works and what doesn't and how outsiders of other alignments think. Also this archon suspects the devil is aiming for a long trial to delay or avoid some unpleasant activity in Hell; it's happened plenty of times before.

"Is this court willing to reach an interim finding of fact that Select Artigas was among other complicated mortal desires deliberately intending to save innocent lives and prevent the destruction of civilization on Golarion and that he acted on this goal, or do I need to make a detailed factual proffer? In the latter case I would like to enter a standard request for extended speaking time under in re Jacksmith."

"Please make the factual proffer." Mortals manage to avoid thinking about some truly incredible things. "The request for extended speaking time is granted."

If everyone conjured a twenty-foot scroll and let it unroll across the questionably extant courtroom floor every time it would be funny in isolation, it would have become extremely tedious millenia ago, so the archon doesn't do it. They just start talking, a list of dates and actions and verbatim quotes of sentences Blai said years ago and didn't consciously remember having said . . . 

"I invite you to repeat that, Sergeant."

The sergeant wisely remains silent.

"Were you inadequately briefed?  Do you think that our job is to sit in this fort like it's our parlor, concerned with demons exclusively if they knock and bother us, in particular, out of all the people in the world?  Permit me to correct you: the fort is our base of operations and our operation is holding the border.  If a demon got past the wardstone line I don't care if it left you a fruit basket before flying off in another direction, you assess your force and you give chase if you can and call for reinforcements if you cannot.  You do not, hours later, return from your patrol and report that you saw a demon go looking for the nearest encampment of defenseless noncombatants whose only duty to the situation is to occasionally be hireable to help construct new forts when the ones we have fall under the mismanagement of idiots like yourself."

"Yes Chosen."

"Do you prefer to walk to the Commander under your own power or should you like to oblige me to drag you?"

He walks.

Blai doesn't see him again for a week.

"Grec, a Sending scroll.  - two."

"Sir?"

"Do your ears work, Grec?"

Grec runs, and comes back with the scroll.  "Should I -"

Blai is still holding the spyglass.  "Yes.  Our contact with the eastern border, priority is that an apparent balor's heading that way, fit what you can about its entourage, and then Crusader's Fort so they know to prep a strike team." Crusader's has all the good strike teams, every independent adventurer in the world would rather go through them than through Cheliax...

Grec casts the scroll.

Practically all the good clerics were already called to an incident near Kenabres.  They're scraping the bottom of the barrel when they need to control a demonplague outbreak in an unrelated location.  But you don't need positive channels to prepare Remove Disease and Create Water.  Blai's just hit third circle and when an outrider comes by #11 he climbs aboard the Phantom Steed and spends hours riding to a Mendevian outpost to cast Guidance on everybody constantly and heal one person of the sickness per day.  Nobody talks to him.  He supposes he can't think what they'd have to say.  But there's the treaty, so they know he's there to help, at least, and have to feed him -

The defenses near Kenabres are among the most important - sure, if something gets past #11, it has more or less free rein, but most demons still need to travel to get places and #11 is not near anything.  Kenabres is the throughpoint and fallback city for every Mendevian and several other forts' supplies and communications and recruitment, because only Cheliax supplies by teleport.  So if this briefing is right, and they're no longer sending any Chelish units through Kenabres even when they're destined for marchable positions and carrying relatively time-insensitive goods like soap and paper, they're leaving a catastrophic manpower gap and that's more of an emergency than anything that happens at #11 in a typical decade.  If there are not Chelish units marching through, staying in, spending at, being on the ground in emergencies for, Kenabres, then the demons are going to notice and so will the merchants.  If Kenabres is assailed and impoverished and can no longer supply their forts up to standard, they'll have desertions and starvation-related illnesses and they'll run out of arrows and then #11 will be fine because every demon with an ear to the rumor mill will go that way, nearly diametrically opposite, and it will be no credit to his management of his post that #11 will go indefinitely without a major incident if the reason they're doing that is Kenabres's infiltration and the consequent logistical nightmare - you can't take comfort in a barrel not leaking out of your corner if that's because it's busily spewing all its water out of the other side -

He gets busy on a return letter to his superiors; he goes through three drafts, trying to come up with an appropriately politic way to say I don't care if Queen Galfrey personally spat in your face in front of a thousand people, you can't stop routing people through Kenabres over it.  He writes to the insurance adjuster, Fiducia Boian, who is considerably likelier to see his argument.  He asks everybody who might know if there's someone he can write to in Kenabres asking if there is some statement from a random Asmodean priest on the opposite side of the Wound that would help but nobody has a name or even an office - the place has a count, but not a useful count - so he settles for making Grec also write similar missives of his own, to their superiors, whose pride and on-paper efficiency and deals with the clever teleport-logistics innovators will mean absolutely nothing if the Wound border bursts like an inflated pig's bladder and spills demons out across the entire world -

The archon goes on in the same vein for what feels like hours and might actually be hours, in chronological order covering twenty years, and finishes up with, "I hold that this evidence conclusively demonstrates prototypically Good ends, to wit, the preservation of innocent life, deliberately pursued and achieved across twenty years of myriad daily actions."

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh he thought people talking about their lives flashing before their eyes were being strictly metaphorical and not referring to an archon reading aloud every thought you've had in your entire life to, among others, a demon

If it helps, the demon got bored and stopped listening a couple of minutes in, and is currently constructing a series of origami figures of Asmodeus having variously undignified, violent, or otherwise undesirable acts perpetrated on him by Baphomet.

That does help, actually.

"I'm satisfied. I'm going to take it as read that among the many complicated mortal desires of the decedent was a genuine desire to prevent the world from being destroyed by demons, and that whatever his other motivations, this motivation was Good."

THANK you. 

The devil will, of course, contest all these points throughout! Blai wasn't trying to fight evil or defend innocents, he was trying to - obey his orders! Successfully accomplished his assigned mission! the effective defense of the barrier as he'd been ordered! Protect the reputation of Cheliax as a Lawful trading partner! Maintain discipline in his force! As he repeatedly said, everything he was doing he was doing because he'd been appointed to do it!

- Fine. 

"Hell acknowledges that Priest Blai Artigas, as well as the tremendous Evil he did by contributing to the triumph of the armies of Asmodeus through efficient use of their resources on the front by which he had been assigned, and the rehabilitation of their reputation for fair dealing and efficient work, did indeed have Good intentions and cause Good consequences." The forked tongue again flickers.

"Nonetheless, it is Hell's case that these deeds were not Good, in re Gettier. As established via the precedent in re Torran, individuals who set out to do Good with no realistic justification that their actions are Good, and who does not obtain one, are not ethically credited with the Good consequences of their deeds. In order for consequences from Good actions to be considered to the decedent's credit, the decedent must have had 'a realistic justification that these actions were good.' And Priest Blai Artigas did not.

"Indeed, a survey of worlds across the universe establishes unambiguously that humans who believe that they are going to fight beings of pure evil are right only 1/10^11th of the time. In re Straffer establishes that the belief that 'your enemies are motivated by a desire that you and people like you suffer' is 'not epistemically reasonable for a mortal to hold without the strongest justifications' and therefore 'no significant mitigating factor for the evil done by killing others.' The majority of individuals at the Worldwound have these justifications. Priest Blai Artigas lacked these for the vast majority of his career, and there was no significant change in his actions afterwards towards being more willing to kill demons when he gained this information."

"Why did he lack these justifications? Because Cheliax lied to him, and he knew Cheliax lied to him. He went to school in Cheliax. Every year, the state of Cheliax rewrote the history books assigned in class to claim that the majority of the previous year's contents were false. Priest Blai Artigas knows this, and therefore had sufficient evidence to make him believe that anything Cheliax wished to inform him of it did so not out of a desire that anything he believe be true, but merely to whatever served their interests, in re Sevar. If the demons had, instead of being inhabitants of the Abyss, been refugees from a devastated world seeking only to evacuate and find a new life (as occurs nine times more regularly than longstanding rifts to the Abyss) who Cheliax had wished to paint as demons, Priest Blai Artigas would have done taken the same actions in obedience to his commanders, and (in re Landen) had it judged only a mild mitigating factor in the otherwise Evil nature of his service.

"What evidence to the supernatural evilness of the demons did he have that would not instead have suggested them to be normally evil mortals, that was not deliberately filtered or controlled by Cheliax? None. He did not exchange uncensored letters with Iomedaeans. He did not travel to Mendev or Crusader's Fort at any point. When he encountered travelers from Crusader's Fort, he did not bother to check if they agreed with him that demons were entities from the Abyss, plane of ontological Chaos and Evil, certainly not with truth-detection spells or anything else sufficient to overcome them lying. He never met any Mendevians or Irrisenni until the final year of his service, and upon exchanging letters with an Iomedaean cleric, did not consider asking him if it was wrong to kill demons. He assumed his orders expressed true reality, even though nothing else Cheliax had ever told him implied that they would not lie, and indeed as though Cheliax does not regularly give equivalent lies to all soldiers fighting on every front about the Chaotic and Evil nature of their enemies.

"In other words, though Priest Blai Artigas may have desired to do Good, and though he may have achieved Good, he did not have a valid epistemic basis for believing that this was the case. He is therefore Lawful Evil."

Is that - he's Detected Evil on demons a lot of times, they read much more strongly than any normal person - would refugees act like that? Like, he'd probably have gone to the border and held it even if the things that came out of the Wound didn't act like demons, but he might have ever noticed that rumors of their interest in enchanting and devouring people were greatly exaggerated, if they were, over twenty years, except this devil appears to think it might be convincing to the judge to propose otherwise, so maybe he wouldn't have? He - would have expected different behavior from orcs and the Nidalese than from the demons, but he didn't actually compare - does anybody actually have a way to check - well, wizards do, Detect Thoughts'll probably distinguish a demon from a Nidalese from an orc actually - he admittedly cannot call to mind a time when any of the wizards the fort has had over the years identified a demon infiltrator with that spell specifically and then also happened to mention in Blai's hearing exactly what the demon was thinking in any more detail than "trying to pretend to be Abello" - but if they were in the habit of lying to him about what people were thinking that would reflect a broader issue than one of determining whether demons were evil. He supposes nothing guarantees he didn't have that broader issue! Maybe no one in his entire life has ever told him the truth about anything especially other people's thoughts! Maybe his own mind is perfectly pleasant to read, like a really lively bit of comic poetry, and that one wizard was just being snide for fun!

"First of all, if you got that to slide, Nirvana would be using it as an argument for the diminished moral responsibility of everyone who grew up in infernal Cheliax for the next several decades. But you won't, because it doesn't hold water."

"To begin with, consider the subjunctive objectivity of probability. You and I, with access to universal survey data, can say that our prior for a random war involving humans also involving beings of pure evil is 1 in 10^11, but Select Artigas formed his priors on Golarion, where the probability is 1 in 50 and, for wars involving extraplanar beings, 1 in 3. On Golarion, the existence of alignments and the Outer Planes is common knowledge; the existence of planar rifts only slightly less widely known. He need only have acquired enough evidence to overcome the prior he could rationally have formed, and this he quite thoroughly did."

"You say that the government of infernal Cheliax lied frequently. They did. They did not, however, lie randomly. In particular, they did not have a habit of concealing the Evil consequences of the acts they required people to perform. See any of the diminished-moral-responsibility cases that went Hell's way in the first generation after the conquest, but in the interest of brevity I'll pick in re Borman. Select Artigas reasonably believed that the government would tell him whatever it served their ends to tell him, which included evidence that his own actions were Evil when relevant. For a practical demonstration of this principle, they made no attempt to convince their armies that the rebels in Andoran and Galt were demons." 

"Add to this the evidence of Detect Evil and Detect Chaos, the inability of any demon to request and keep a truce even when it would have been in their interests to do so, the readiness of demons to betray each other. Add to this the presence of Iomedaens and Good adventurers at the Wound. Add to this the fact that even when Good individuals attempted to persuade Chelaxians to defect from Cheliax and/or Asmodeanism, they made no attempt to persuade them not to fight the demons. Add to this the behaviour of demon cultists apprehended at the Wound, who reliably Detected as Evil and made no attempt to persuade anyone that the demons were not beings of pure Evil and Chaos despite being those demons' allies."

"If the demons had not been beings of pure Evil and Chaos, concealing a fact of such magnitude from everyone at the Wound would have been utterly intractable. All truths are interconnected; information leaks from even the most tightly woven conspiracy. Instead, every observation Select Artigas made, including direct observations of the world unmediated by other humans, supported a coherent world-model in which the demons were Chaotic Evil, and it is not in any way a coincidence that this model was substantially correct."

"Objection! Heaven wishes to claim that the prior probability should be 1 in 3 for wars involving extraplanar beings. This was not a war involving extraplanar beings, in which killing every mortal who attempted to flee would be an act of Evil, but a war purely against extraplanar beings, and his sole known example of such a one was the Worldwound. He did not have the grounds to form this prior."

"Objection! Heaven wishes to claim that they made no attempt to convince their armies that the rebels in Andoran and Galt were demons. The correct question is not did they use the specific example 'demons', but whether or not they attempted to dehumanize them and to claim that they were purely evil and chaotic, which Hell did persistently throughout both conflicts."

"Fundamentally, Hell objects to the claims of Heaven on the grounds that Priest Artigas had no evidence that orcs would not have behaved the same way. Priest Artigas did not carry out any raids into demonic territory and so never had the option of learning if they had families, nor did he ask those travelers who did what their observations had been." Because nobody is crazy enough to go into the Sarkoris Scar. "Orcs are commonly Chaotic Evil. Demons did request truces, always deceptively, but 91% of truces carried out by Avistani orcs were broken by these same Avistani orcs. Good individuals and organizations fight Chaotic Evil orcs and approve of others doing so. Orcish allies most commonly believe they are Chaotic and Evil, particularly on Avistan. Not a one of Heaven's observations would not apply to a collection of Chaotic Evil orcish refugees fleeing the destruction of their homeworld, and yet killing Chaotic Evil orcish refugees when they attempt to escape a tightening trap was ruled Evil absent reason to believe those specific orcs had engaged in Evil deeds, in re Blackmoore."

What is a prior probability. Was this covered in the Acts and he zoned out for it. Probably some demons have families in the sense that some of them used to be mortals and maybe the rumor that some of them split into twins if you cut them in half could be true even though he never saw it happen and demonic tieflings exist and perhaps there's even such a thing as demon weddings? Should he have been meditating on this truth whenever a demon beached itself across the wardstone barrier and he tripped over its invisible form on patrol? He doesn't actually think he ever heard anyone claim that the Andorani and Galtan rebels were not predominantly human. People said they were animals but that wasn't literal, or at least he didn't think it was literal? He heard Andorani referred to as 'elf-fuckers' but that was also not as he understood it literal, Felandriel Morgethai presumably has other things to do with her time, and at any rate nothing stops an individual who is one hundred percent human from fucking an elf if so inclined. Maybe Felandriel Morgethai isn't actually an elf and this was propaganda spread to diminish how impressed people would be with her for achieving an elflike lifespan without being undead. Is his trial going to hinge on Felandriel Morgethai's species. That would be stupid but there is no rule that something stupid can't happen. He's commanded half-orc soldiers and one three-quarter-orc soldier and they're basically normal soldiers, i.e. impulsive and dim and likely to be eaten by demons if they're not luckier than they are stupid, but better than nothing and capable of learning to follow orders and shoot things. He's probably commanded tieflings too but they usually don't advertise. Was Ortegas a tiefling all along, he NEVER took his hat off, maybe he had horns. Is his trial going to hinge on Ortegas's species. ...are there orcish homeworlds being destroyed such that the orcs flee to another plane and get killed there like the worldwound demons? What would that even look like - the border would be easier to hold, most random orcs aren't that formidable compared to a seasoned soldier, and prisoners would be worth taking because orcs make tolerably good slaves, so it would be different, but would it be importantly different - why did the devil specify Avistani orcs. Are Garundi orcs different in some way that matters. Does Garund even have orcs. Is his trial going to hinge on whether Garund has orcs.

This inevitable doesn't care at all about keeping people out of the Evil afterlives. What it does care about is people making bad-faith arguments. Right now it's at least mildly irritated with every other advocate in the room except for, somehow, Nirvana of all planes.

"Your Honor, these arguments are beginning to border on ridiculous. This court has found time and time again that the tendency of the government of Infernal Cheliax to conceal information from its subjects does not eliminate moral culpability for its subjects' actions in matters they were not substantively deceived about — in re Borman, as Heaven already brought up, in re Vidal, in re Alomar, among others — with the exception of cases where the decedent had a well-justified but mistaken belief they were being substantively deceived and acted accordingly, which is not applicable to the decedent's choice to kill demons at the Worldwound. Those cases have typically been used to establish culpability for people who committed Evil acts, while aware of the consequences of those acts and the fact that said acts were Evil, but they are not exclusively applicable to such situations.

Hell wishes to treat this case as comparable to in re Blackmoore, and to a broader hypothetical of orcish refugees fleeing their homeworld. This comparison is faulty for a number of reasons.

First, as a primarily epistemological point, there are nearly always visible differences between two substantially different worlds, even if those worlds share superficial similarities. It is nearly impossible to maintain an elaborate conspiracy of this magnitude so perfect that it appears literally identical to a world without the conspiracy, even to observers who have not made a concerted effort to disprove the conspiracy. Even in cases where Infernal Cheliax was genuinely attempting to hide relevant facts from its subjects, and even when it successfully did so, none of its conspiracies were that perfect.

Second, many of those differences were, in fact, observed by the decedent. It is true that Good organizations frequently support military action against orcs; it is not true that they approve of every possible military action against orcs, even orcs that they believe to threaten them, such as in the case of Iomedae's decision not to conquer Belkzen. —That is technically not precedential, if you want actual case law there you need in re Arnisant. Paladins do, sometimes, fall for killing orcs, in circumstances where doing so is Evil; the decedent periodically encountered paladins at the Worldwound, who engaged in extremely similar demon-killing behavior to the decedent and yet did not fall, a fact which he observed, even if he did not consider its full implications. Both orcs and demons typically mistreat their prisoners, on those occasions when they take prisoners, but the forms of said mistreatment are often different; orcs commonly enslave their prisoners, but almost never use prisoners as subjects for elaborate, torturous magical experiments intended to bolster Abyssal powers. Every demon the decedent ever examined with Detect Fiendish Presence either appeared to an Evil outsider, or was, detectably, using magic to mask its nature; this would not have been true of orcs, nor would orcs have universally appeared Evil to Detect Evil.

Third, and most importantly, the decedent was not, in fact, slaughtering orcish refugees. The consequences of one's actions are not the only relevant factor in determining the decedent's alignment, but they are a determining factor. If the decedent had killed orcish refugees while under the mistaken belief that those refugees were demons, this case would be much more complicated, but in fact he wasn't."

It's really good when the inevitable talks. Blai wants to play chess with an inevitable. That would be the best thing that could ever possibly happen to him.

"Hell, do you wish to respond?"

"Actually," the Abyss interjects, "I think that Hell is right and we should just rule that fighting at the Worldwound is evil." 

".............On what basis do you make this claim."

"Well, that's the claim Hell's making, and you didn't immediately throw it out on the grounds that it's stupid, and it'd be really convenient for me personally." 

"Do you have... an argument, or a relevant precedent, or anything."

"I think that most of the arguments that Hell has been making are stupid lawyerly weasel words designed to obscure the fact that they are proposing that fighting at the Worldwound is evil, and I'm being more respectful of the court's time by just saying it in normal words that take a normal amount of time. I'd offer you sex about it but not only do I not think you're stupid enough to fuck a succubus I think that's also separately just not allowed." 

The fact that the succubus spends any amount of time at all under any circumstances being more reasonable than Hell is really kind of a referendum on Hell if you think about it. These have to be the most evenly matched circumstances in the universe and obviously the inevitable is the best one unless he is supposed to think the archon is the best one but if the demon is not in dead last place that just kind of destroys every flimsy theological point for Lawful Evil that he's ever heard.

"Objection! Hell is not proposing fighting at the Worldwound is evil in all cases. Hell is proposing it is Evil in the case of Priest Blai Artigas, and others who, raised to expect conspiracy all around them in a society bent on damning them, never devoted resources to checking if its orders to them to commit dozens or hundreds of killings might possibly fall into that category."

The succubus raises an eyebrow. "Aaaand given the average alignment of leaders at the relevant tech level, this makes him special...how?"

"No states in Avistan except Cheliax and Nidal are engaged in an elaborate, carefully-constructed quest to control the information-environment of every one of their subjects to damn as many of them as possible, Your Honor." They lack the ability! And also the motive, but mostly the ability!

She waves a hand. "A matter of scale. The fact that the ignorance of your average Golarian is natural rather than artificial doesn't improve their epistemics that much."

"...At this time I am not inclined to rule that fighting at the Worldwound is generically Evil in all cases. Does Hell — or anyone else — wish to rebut the arguments of Axis and Heaven that it is not Evil in this case?"

Cheerful shrug. 

"Indeed. Hell would be overjoyed to do this, as Axis is mistaken on multiple points. First, a conspiracy does not need to be perfect to be successful; that Priest Blai Artigas was convinced by the evidence for it is hardly evidence that he noticed it. Tremendous evidence is leaked in the vast majority of cases in which Hell's lies damn souls by convincing them to evil; it would hardly entertain Hell otherwise. The vast majority of good soldiers such as Priest Blai Artigas ignore this evidence and obey their orders, and Axis and Heaven have presented no evidence that the decedent did the requisite information to investigate.

"Second, Axis underestimates the unreliability of the basic knowledge about his person, his environment and his tools a typical Chelish person possesses, since they are systemically mislead about all these things in the vast majority of cases, a deceit that Select Artigas made no particular attempt to mend. He did not check if Detect Evil falsely detected paladins as evil, did not even check if Detect Evil as well as Detect Fiendish Presence detected all demons as evil, and, most damningly, trusted his superiors about the limits of Zone of Truth rather than investigate them himself. He at no point observed a paladin falling, did not interrogate any paladins to determine what would make them fall, did not even seek out books written outside of Cheliax for more information on demons or on paladins. He trusted the information given to him from his superiors. Detect Fiendish Presence is a spell invented by Asmodeus, as he would have known if he had bothered to learn, which should have made him doubt its effectiveness as a source of moral guidance and fiends. He never considered it."

"Third, orcs regularly torture prisoners to death, often using magic to do so, often for purposes of rituals. The majority of orcish prisoners are enslaved, but a large portion of demonic prisoners are also enslaved. The difference is smaller than Axis presents it as."

How are you supposed to interrogate a paladin about what would make them fall without it looking like you're shouting I'd love to break the Worldwound treaty over your head. Asmodeus invented Detect Fiendish Presence? Why? If it was for the Worldwound why wouldn't you make it Detect Demons And Their Cultists or something?

"Alright, I've heard enough about the question of whether it was Evil for the decedent to fight at the Worldwound. At this time I rule that it was not in general Evil for him to fight at the Worldwound. Does anyone have further arguments as to other elements of the decedent's conduct, or should we proceed to closing arguments?"

this has been going on for an eternity and when it's over they're probably sending him to Hell but it is so hard to hope that it goes on anyway.

"Hell registers a protest and states its intent to file an appeal," says Hell as if it didn't do that about twenty percent of the time.

There's APPEALS??

"Can Hell explain exactly what precedent it intends to attempt to overturn? Given that the final destination of the decedent is not subject to appeal." 

Oh. ...wait that means that when he goes to Hell he cannot be appealed out shit

"Hell holds that a probabilistic weighting of the available worldsets the decedent might have found himself in, as justified in Doilos v Hell, is the appropriate tool for weighting this situation," Because the Doilos test would damn Blai Aritgas, "and believes that future courts will uphold that judgement instead of overturning it."

"Your objection is acknowledged. We will now proceed to closing arguments."

There's the sound of some papers shuffling.

"The Abyss has been selected to deliver the first closing argument."

"I would say that Hell has said nothing but stupid bullshit, but in fact I am quite certain that Hell has said just enough things that aren't stupid bullshit that if I did say it Hell could smugly announce that I am technically incorrect. If Pharasma's courts actually cared about truth-seeking arguments, they would ban Hell, and possibly Nirvana, although I guess they could maybe just impose some kind of strict filter on Nirvana lawyers, I don't think this one said anything stupid this whole trial, I was surprised. Since Hell lawyers are allowed, the courts clearly don't actually care what alignments people actually are, and should give me this guy because I have a great rack." 

Because she WHAT. Either the Abyss can't win people this way and it's confusing they ever get even orcs and goblins or they can sometimes win people this way.

".................What a fascinating legal theory. Nirvana, you're next."

It would be amazing if Hell had to go after that statement instead. Oh well. "I find it highly relevant that Hell used 15% more disingenuous arguments than fall within a standard deviation of their average when arguing for souls that are ultimately ruled Evil." They have a graph about this which can be presented to the judge. "Even if Newton doesn't apply to this specific individual, his effort to change in Iomedae's service is still deeply admirable. Thank you for your time." 

You can... measure the disingenuousness of arguments? How does that even work.

Is this the kind of inexperienced lawyer that thinks you can win soul trials just by pointing out that your opponents are arguing in bad faith? Axis sees a lot of those. Most of them quit within their first dozen cases.

"Thank you. Heaven, you're up."

Closing arguments are in some ways the most unpleasant part of the trial; if one did one's best during main arguments and didn't have a last brilliant flash of insight they consist entirely of repeating things one has already said. Nonetheless, it is standard for trials to include them and so included they shall be.

"The decedent's life was dedicated to the service of Good causes, even when he was empowered by an Evil deity. He saved dozens, perhaps hundreds of lives at the Worldwound, and earned the favor of Iomedae. For the majority of his myriad daily actions, his motives, his methods, and the results of his methods were Good. His life bent the world towards Good. His Lawfulness is unimpeachable. He has earned a place in Heaven."

Lots of people save lives at the Worldwound and are as evil as they come. Unless he is not supposed to think that because that will cause more of them to go to Hell in spite of the fact that he is not a lawyer.

"Thank you. Hell?"

"Why, Hell says that it is time to come full circle. Blai Artigas is a cleric of Asmodeus. As a cleric of Asmodeus, he tortured four people to death and far more close enough to it. He lied, cheated, ruined the joys of his classmates simply to fit in, treated them as cruelly as they treated him. Then he spent the rest of his life engaged in a technically nonevil activity which was nonetheless the thing that the armies of Hell most wanted him to do. His Lawfulness is unimpeachable, and he tortured four people to death. For the entire part of his life that he got to live, his actions served Hell. Let him come to his masters."

Actually some of those four people were before he was chosen.

Did he just completely fabricate the entire thing where Asmodeus dropped him and Iomedae caught him, somehow, were the last months of his life all an implanted memory for some fucking reason -

"Thank you. Axis?"

"The decedent was a cleric of Asmodeus. He is a cleric of Iomedae. If, for some reason, we were to rely solely on the evidence of his two clerichoods, he would be straightforwardly Lawful Neutral; Axis believes this to be indicative of his alignment, but not conclusive evidence on its own.

But even if we discount this evidence entirely, his actions best support the conclusion that he is Lawful Neutral. His Lawfulness is nearly undisputed, and in fact no one in these closing arguments has actually attempted to dispute it. In terms of his moral alignment, it is true that he tortured and killed people in the name of Asmodeus, and that this was Evil. It is equally true that he dedicated years of his life to holding the Worldwound out of primarily Good and Neutral motives, and that he thereby achieved Good ends. Both the Good and the Evil he has done are significant and relevant, and when they are both considered, in the context of relevant mitigating and exacerbating factors, a judgment of Lawful Neutral is most accurate."

please please please please please PLEASE PLEASE

"Very well.

This case is unusual, though not entirely unprecedented, in many of its particulars. With that being said, considering the information we have about the decedent, his life, and his soul, I find that he is Lawful Neutral.`

This concludes the trial of Blai Artigas."

maybe he heard that wrong somehow and actually this result is bad? -

- is all Blai has time to think before his consciousness terminates and picks up again from an earlier point.

Axis is a great big beautiful city, and if it's not what he expected, it's only because he expected not to expect everything about it.

There's a park. There's a chess table in the park. It's just a few steps away. There's real physical pieces, in a drawer beneath the row of marquetry chessboards, a full set plus extras for pawn promotions and variants.

He should get around to finding where Iomedae's people in Axis congregate and see about entering their command structure, but it's been almost a month. He sits down and starts setting up, in case anyone comes by to play.