If Joran Vhane wanted to live, he evidently chose the wrong sibling for his loyalty-unto-death; not to mention the obvious flaws in his tactics. Admittedly the man had made himself a very capable defensive build, but imagine trying to fight by himself right in front of his Abyssal forge, with no DPS to complement his, again, very good tanking! Or any way to call for backup from the many allied forces nearby - or better still join forces with Minagho temporarily, proportional-to-N-square and all that! Really now, this is just nontrivially suboptimal and also why the forces of Hell will eventually win. Lawful Evil may have some flaws but at least it can manage to concentrate forces with those it has interests in common with, even if it despises them utterly.

But actually, Regill thinks Staunton's "he wanted to live" is doing Joran Vhane an injustice; certainly Vhane wanted to live, but he also had a principle that he valued even more highly, which he followed to its logical conclusion. Regill respects that. Unlike Joran's worthless brother. Not, of course, that respect meant so much as a centiround's hesitation before hooked hammer crushed skull, when they finally wore him down enough for the killing blow. That would be unprofessional. But it does mean that Regill takes some personal satisfaction in doing the same to the worthless brother.

Um this is all very interesting but Nurah does kind of want to live? Can she get some of that "unconditional surrender" she heard about earlier?

Sigh. It is not actually very obvious that demons are meaningfully able to surrender as Abramo's laws of war understood the term - but Nurah isn't a demon even if she does show up Chaotic Neutral to Aura Sight, and many of the enemy are perfectly ordinary human cultists who are maybe not strikingly Lawful but can follow a basic incentive gradient. Nurah isn't entitled to the protections of a uniformed combatant, of course - well, they don't use uniforms here, but she was just blatantly gathering information on his side of the front under false pretenses, not to mention the sabotage. 

Yeah well no demons ever enslaved me!

Yes, yes. He listens to her ranting for a moment, but - she is not actually a sufficiently established character that this sets up any sort of conflict, nor does she have Woljif's roguish charm. (Not that Woljif's wink-and-grin, watch-me-perform-tiefling routine would have done him any good if he'd called in demons on Abramo's location.) He has nonzero sympathy for people born into slavery into Cheliax, which sounds more like a hellhole the more he hears about it, and nonzero (large, negative) sympathy for former slaves who decide to take vengeance on the world at large and don't even have the guts to do so openly. The actual question is, what if any obligations does he still have to her under the laws of war? Is he even required to accept her surrender? She's plainly no sort of lawful combatant, he definitely doesn't have to feed the bitch her, but what does he have to do?

The words "Regill, kill her" tremble on his lips for a moment... but no, he remembers. She's still entitled to a trial before being hanged. Fair enough; they can arrange a court martial tomorrow. Given the evidence it should not take very long. 

It turns out there's a lot of Crusade business to go through, now that he's proven he can command - and that Galfrey and the Mendevian establishment were perhaps not quite so gung-ho about handing over their real resources to random people who appear out of nowhere as it might at first have appeared. Well, good for them! Abramo knows how to fight this sort of war: Set policy, make sure the people implementing it understand and believe in it, distribute resources according to the priorities, check that nobody is mind-controlled by the enemy and also that the people checking that have themselves been checked... It's a little odd, actually, that he's fought two wars where that was important. His teachers spoke of morale and propaganda and the home front, of course, when he was young; but actual literal mind control somehow didn't make it onto the curriculum of a Venetian gentilhuomo. But no matter, after all the main thing they were supposed to teach him was to land on his feet and be ready for anything, and fight the war he found himself in and no other.

...and he's stalling, isn't he. Well then. Court martial. 

The case for the prosecution is very simple: The accused did, by her own admission, plant pheromone-scented objects on the strike force attacking the Leper's Smile, in order to attract additional swarms and hinder that force in accomplishing its mission; and additionally she did, after representing herself as an ally, take up arms and fight openly in the demons' ranks during the assault on Drezen. Both offenses merit death.

Sigh.

The case for the defense is... mercy. Redemption, if you like. The defense stipulates the facts presented by the prosecution. But... everyone makes mistakes. Everyone needs mercy at some point. Everyone deserves a fate better than the Abyss - where, by the by, a high-level caster like Nurah will surely turn into a powerful demon to fight on the enemy's side. Nobody wants that, right? So, let her work her passage. Find her guilty, remand her to the care of the church of Shelyn, let her redeem herself with good works. Somewhere far away from the Worldwound. And when she comes before the Judge she might make Elysium, and be a force for beauty and art for thousands of years to come. She has talent; let us not destroy it, let us put it to use.

Hey is my actual literal lawyer going to talk about the fact that I was literally a slave and did everything to take vengeance for that? Or does 'Lawful' just mean that you never have to take motivations into account?

Sosiel rubs his face tiredly.

"Yes well... and additionally the defendant had, in fact, been rather considerably wronged by some of the parties to the Worldwound defense." He carefully does not look at Regill. "None of which justifies her actions, but - may add some weight to her plea for the mercy of the court."

But, actually, Good is not the same thing as too fucking nice to ever defend oneself against people who, apparently, think that the Crusade is responsible for things Cheliax did, or who don't care who did it just as long as they get to kill someone.

Yeah, no.

Woljif was accused of petty theft, and Abramo was willing to conscript him for the war effort which is, arguably, some percentage of a death penalty although sitting in a cell waiting for the demons to break in was not exactly conducive to Woljif's most sapiently-flourishing life either. But... petty theft. This here is sabotage, espionage, probably not strictly speaking treason but only because Nurah never swore any formal oaths about the Crusade; war crimes. Not Staunton's ambiguous was-it-or-wasn't-it mistake with raising the banner against orders, not that "mercy" worked out that great for Staunton; just straightforwardly fighting for the other side while out of uniform and pretending friendship. It's not a case in which the Law as Abramo understands it allows any clemency. 

"Death," he agrees softly, avoiding the impulse to look away from Nurah because if he's willing to kill her he should be willing to look her in the eyes as he does. He's not under the illusion that accepting her surrender was doing her any sort of favour, or that there's anything he can do for her now, but what he can do is to keep in mind that she's still human, however awful, and that might help the next person accused of something like this. The Law, in its majestic equality, hangs subject and object alike but judges ought to keep in mind that they are not the same. If only for their own humanity.

Nurah does not go with dignity; she's terrified and doesn't mind who knows it. She thought surrendering to the Good side would, like, work! She cries, screams, begs, and occasionally rants about coming back as a powerful demon and eating them all because a high Splendor isn't the same as having any sense of which forceful statements have even a small chance of advancing her goals. 

Mendev doesn't do long-drop hangings and a halfling has a much higher head-to-body ratio than a human; it takes a long time for the noose to choke her enough that she finally goes still.

It shouldn't bother him, just because he knows her face and has spoken to her quite civilly. He's ordered any number of faceless soldiers to deaths just as bad and he doesn't even know about them, and they hadn't even betrayed the Crusade and the cause of civilisation on Golarion. 

Nonetheless he has little appetite for dinner.

Speak of the tiefling, and he appears! 

In charge of a band of cultists, no less, though he does manage to restrain them from attacking Abramo. 

Right, well. As previously mentioned, Abramo is willing to hear his side of it. He's not the sort of Lawful that goes about shooting people on the basis of hearsay and eyewitness accounts from a confused night ambush; that way madness lies. Or Hulrun, which is much of a muchness. On the other hand he did just hang someone for sabotage, so he's not promising to be particularly merciful, as such. Just... a hearing.

Can't say fairer than that, guv. Not to a tiefling who's never gotten a fair shake, anyway.

Honestly, it could be worse. Yes, a zealous prosecutor could lay a charge of cowardice in the face of the enemy, for running in the night battle - but Abramo is not convinced he would convict. It is not as though Woljif was ordered by a superior officer to attack, and refused to do so; or ordered to hold a position, and ran from it. No, he was cut off from the chain of command, made his own tactical decisions as the man on the spot, and (all right, this is a little charitable) arrived at "break contact to reestablish situational awareness and gather force for a counterattack". It need not be the ideal, staff-college answer, to be a perfectly reasonable response to the situation as he found it; and - man on the spot. One ought not to second-guess one's subordinates, when not in direct tactical command of them.

As for being captured by the enemy, why, half the army is guilty of that; if that were a crime, he'd have to put Galfrey in the dock, and Irabeth next to her. It's true that many of the others managed to escape in fairly short order, but although it is a duty to attempt escape, one cannot well require people to win. And in any case Woljif appears to have quite successfully infiltrated the enemy organisation and neutralised them for some time. If the demons hang him for a saboteur and spy that will be well within their rights, but Abramo's not going to do their work for them! And he's brought back valuable intelligence, too. Abramo's not proposing to give the man a medal, but - well, in all honesty, men have been mentioned in dispatches for rather less fraught infiltrations.

He does take a moment to consider the looks of the thing; he's aware that he's not entirely immune to Woljif's roguish charm, and needs to be careful not to show favoritism. But really - if Woljif has spent some time undercover, infiltrating enemy cultists, that seems perfectly reasonable? Nobody will think twice about the tiefling rogue doing such work while the Hellknight and the paladin fight in the front line, or think that Woljif's neck wasn't at risk. It's not even necessary to give the impression that Woljif had been ordered to infiltrate anyone; "captured in the night ambush" and "escaped by his own talents" are perfectly true statements.

Incidentally Abramo does wish to register another complaint about the dialogue options again; he does not think it is particularly Lawful to state that nobles have privileges and Woljif should be grateful that Devan addressed him politely. If we're doing that sort of thing then the Lawful approach is that power has privileges and Devan can be grateful that Woljif didn't gut him, thanks kindly. And also the actually Lawful thing is to be polite to everyone because that way you are acausally trading with everyone else who follows the same approach that's the mutual-cooperation equilibrium and gets you more expected politeness in return across your lifetime. It's obvious if you understand decision theory had a gentleman's education in a polity with, like, actual gentlemen.

Also the ridiculous things the devs call Good and Lawful as regards Woljif's mythic powers - look, if Abramo were going to advise anyone to give up unusual powers of uncertain provenance because he was unclear about the spiritual consequences of accepting them, he'd start with the beam in his own eye. Since he's not doing that - well then, he'll take the "Evil" option of advising Woljif to keep the powers, and choose carefully what to do with them. He needs to stay out of the Lawful "Good" region anyway, Abadar is one thing but he doesn't trust Iomedae to keep Her divine hands off his prior obligations. Abadar understands contracts.

The months turn, as they do. Abramo, child of sunny Italy and owner of many vineyards and olive groves, had been under the impression that the weather when he arrived had to be the depth of winter, and is displeased to learn otherwise. As he was removed from his timeline before nuclear weapons could freeze Great Power competition into a Cold War, he does not particularly have that concept close to mind, nor does it occur to him to call anything a "frozen conflict". But it's only the accident of timing that stands between him and these jokes.

The informant who told them of the attack on Drezen has more information for them, regarding the strangely powerful demons that occasionally attack patrols. But they need to interrogate this old hag, who lives in such-and-such a location. And prevent her from teleporting out, by ringing this bell.

Fair enough, the succubus's information has been good in the past, and she kept their agreement that one time in the dungeon below Drezen. Abramo doesn't precisely trust her, but he's willing to follow that lead - eyes open and Protection From Evil raised, of course.

Then they can have a bit of a fight through the old abbey to get to the bell!

Dismissal is currently very effective against these midlevel demons.

Then they will eventually reach the hag, take her down fairly easily - she'd be much more formidable with some minions to tank for her - and... ah, um.