"I hadn't really thought about the part about giving Asmodeus more soldiers, that does sound bad."

Maybe you could work something out where you try and give them what they deserve before they die, and then execute them by Final Blade. Only if you don't declare people have the right not to be tortured during their execution, though. And it seems hard to get it right without killing some of them by accident. And sometimes you won't have a Final Blade. And it doesn't really feel satisfying — but maybe that's less important than not giving Asmodeus the tools to hurt innocent people? ...That wasn't really Alicia's main point, she doesn't think.

"I never had a brother or anything, but — most of the people who hurt me when I was a kid were other kids punishing me when I did badly on an assignment? And I don't want to hurt them about it."

(...Should she? She just thought of it as a normal thing everyone does, barely even the kind of thing that needs avenging, but maybe that was wrong? But it's not like she hasn't repaid them for it, not out of vengeance but just because she was also a student.)

"And that seems kind of similar to what was going on with your brother? But—" Okay, apparently she doesn't trust Alicia enough to outright confess to murder, no matter how justified and no matter how pardoned. "—but the person who hurt me the worst anyone's ever hurt me, I wanted him to hurt for it, and every time I saw him I was angry at him, and when he died I was happy about it. And I don't wish I hadn't wanted that, and I don't wish I hadn't been angry. And I think Delegate Ibarra is the same way, unless — unless I were saying his victims counted less because they aren't me, and that sounds awful. You're — you're angry at him, aren't you—"

"Yes! And it's not like I wouldn't - I mean, it's not like if we were at an entirely different constitutional convention I wouldn't kill him to stop him, if it weren't for the fact that I'd fail horribly and die and that even if I succeeded he'd get brought back. I'd do it even if I didn't have a final blade available. You don't need to just - let someone go around murdering people, because they might regret it later. But if he gave himself up to the church of Iomedae, if he promised he'd give them every teleport and every other spell he could prepare every day for the rest of his life, if he stopped hurting people and was trying to make up for whatever evils he could - I'd do my best to convince people that he should be left alive, no matter how angry I was, even though it would probably be really hard."

"Even if — even if he gave himself up, it wouldn't feel right for him to just get away with killing innocent people. And if the other man I just mentioned had given himself up — I mean, he couldn't have, because we were still being ruled by Asmodeus — but if, I wouldn't have wanted people to just — act like, since he was working for Iomedae now, it didn't matter what he'd done."

"It does still matter what they did? A lot of people start trying to repent when they get old and realize they're going to face the judge, but unless they weren't very evil to begin with or they die killing a pit fiend or something, they often don't even make it back to neutral. And you don't have to trust them either. If Lord Cansellarion told me a bill that looked good was secretly evil, I'd vote against it and tell everyone I knew to do the same, but I wouldn't do that for Ibarra even if he repented. It's just that the good they're doing also matters."

"So it's like, you think it's worth waiting on letting them get what they deserve, because in the meantime they'll be helping people?" That doesn't really sound like what she was saying earlier but it makes some amount of sense.

“Not exactly? That’s - there might be some god I haven’t heard of that says that, but it’s not what I meant, I think it’s a sad thing when someone is trying to do better but doesn’t succeed in time because repenting is hard. I just mean that you don’t have to ignore everything bad they did before. Like if a schoolteacher beats a kid to death, even if they’re sorry and trying to make up for it you shouldn’t put them in charge of another class of kids.”

"Are there people who think you should put them in charge of another class of kids??"

“Not in Westcrown, that I’ve heard? Unless you count the evil nobles. After the war, though, when I started telling people about redemption that was one of the more common kinds of misunderstandings people had.”

Evil nobles want to put schoolteachers who beat children to death in charge of schools?? No wait, probably she meant the thing where there are still a bunch of Evil nobles in charge even when they served Abrogail Thrune and Fireballed streets full of innocent people. Although she wouldn't really be surprised by an Evil noble wanting to put a teacher like that back in charge, either.

"Well, I definitely agree that you shouldn't do that. I think what's still confusing me is — obviously I'd rather Delegate Ibarra stop hurting innocent people. But that's not something I want for his sake, it's something I want for the sake of the people he'd be hurting. And I don't see why you'd want him to end up in Elysium or wherever at the end of it, apart from I guess the fact that if he ended up serving an Abyssal power that could be really bad."

"I do want it for his sake, or at least I try to listen to Lady Shelyn when she tells me that doings things for the sake of bad people is still important. Given the choice I would send him to Nirvana instead of Elysium, since they're... more prepared for getting people who are currently evil, and for helping them grow out of it, but I don't see why the Maelstrom wouldn't be fine if you couldn't get them somewhere good that was ready for them. Or, maybe not the Maelstrom since they could hurt other people there, but I think it's impossible to break the laws in Axis so it might be safe? I'm sorry, I don't know as much about the afterlives besides Nirvana and Hell as I'd like."

"Is that — something you want for him because you want it, or something you want for him because you want to listen to your goddess? ...Not that there's anything wrong with listening to your goddess, just, I'm not a Shelynite." Nor, for that matter, would she listen to Calistria if she wanted her to do something wrong, but that's not really the point.

"I like to think that I had an instinct to it all along, but I don't think it'd be as salient, if something had happened to delay the archmages and I hadn't gotten a chance to read her holy books or talk with her priests. It's definitely not always easy. But if something bad happened to her, and she got all twisted up like her brother did and didn't believe in it anymore, I wouldn't stop caring."

"—Wait, uh, I apologize for my ignorance but what happened with Shelyn's brother??"

"He's Zon-Kuthon now."

"...Zon-Kuthon hasn't always been like that???"

"No. It was long enough ago that we don't have any real records of it, just myths and legends, but the Windsong Testaments say that he used to be named Dou-Bral, and was a god of beauty, love, and art like his sister. But then he went wandering near the ends of creation - some people call it the Dark Tapestry, but I don't think it's like a literal tapestry - and came back changed somehow, into a twisted mockery of everything he used to be and tried to ruin everything good he could lay his hands on. So Lady Shelyn fought him, took his glaive, and drove him out of Nirvana, but she wasn't able to defeat him for good before he escaped."

"Wow. I didn't know that could happen."

She frowns. "I think if someone did that to me, I would want people to try to fix it if they could. But if they couldn't fix it in time, and I started murdering innocent people or something, and their families wanted revenge — I mean, just because I didn't used to be like that doesn't mean they shouldn't get to hold me responsible for it?"

“If someone… dominated you and forced you to do diabolism, and nobody could just capture you or dispel it, it’d make sense to kill you and hope the judge was merciful. But it wouldn’t make me mad at you instead of whoever was mind controlling you - I think maybe I’ve lost the thread of the conversation, what I was trying to say when I brought it up was that I think Lady Shelyn helped me come to believe in redemption but I have my own reasons now too.”

Maybe it's like how Valia wanted to be really sure her speech didn't break any laws even if they were stupid laws, and not just because she didn't want to get in trouble. Or how she never really gave more than a passing thought to whores until she was chosen by Calistria, except that if she thought Calistria was saying "don't break the law" or "you should want good things to happen to people like Delegate Ibarra" she'd just ignore her.

"That makes sense," she says. It's still a kind of confusing thing to care about but at this point Victòria doesn't really expect that part to get less confusing. 

"...I was still wondering about — the thing the azata told me to ask a Shelynite about. About how to be okay, when the world is still full of — people hurting innocent people and just, getting away with it. It doesn't really sound like the sort of thing where wanting them to be redeemed would really help, because a lot of them... aren't even trying to be."

"The thing that works for me when things are so horrible I can't stand to think about them is singing, but you already said that didn't work for you. I think what we want to find is something complicated enough it takes most of your attention to do it properly, interesting or important enough that you actually want to do it, and then whenever it feels like the world will never be okay as long as there are evil people in it you do it until you can think straight again. How do you usually minister to people, is that something you might enjoy doing more often? Is it like, delivering safe food and water to poor women and making sure they have somewhere safe to sleep?"

She's not really sure what Chaotic Good Calistrian ministry looks like, so maybe this will be a disaster because she just suggested Victoria have sex with more people and she's not comfortable with that or something, but it's worth a try. Tetula seemed to spend her time hanging out at a tavern, and Nuria had her book deliveries, but that doesn't suggest a general pattern for Chaotic Good people.

That's a great question that sounds really hard to answer without admitting to crimes. Honestly, it sounds pretty hard to answer even with admitting to crimes. She hasn't done that many crimes.

"—I'm still figuring that out. Back home I taught girls how to defend themselves, and gave sermons, and made sure everyone there knew they couldn't get away with taking advantage of people just because they were weaker than them. But I've only been in Westcrown about a week, so I don't totally know what I should be doing here yet, I've been pretty focused on the convention."

Oh, self defense classes! She probably should have guessed that, it's like the good version of helping people get revenge because it stops the thing you need to get revenge for in the first place and reminds evil people not to try it in the first place.

"Self defense training sounds like it might work, if it's enough work to keep you occupied - some Shelynites teach glaive fighting for that but I'm not very good at it. After the riots last night I bet a lot of people would want to know how to make sure they stay safe. Since it's a couple of days before the convention starts up again, maybe you could do the setup work now and then you only need to make sure you spend an hour a day on it going forwards? Though I guess maybe make sure it helps before committing too much, it's a good thing to anyway but you're already busy."

"That's a good idea! ...I don't know if it would work for dealing with things being awful, since it's not like I could just go teach people how to defend themselves whenever I'm feeling that way, but it seems like a good idea either way."

"Maybe I should ask some of the other chaotic good clerics what they do for ministry that doesn't require scheduling, requiring scheduling doesn't seem like a very chaotic thing. Does Calistria have any things you can do alone whenever like Shelyn has art and music?"

For some reason Victòria looks incredibly embarrassed about this question!