Daeran hates to admit it, but. Even fucking Hulrun was better than this. Hulrun was a bigoted swine and he killed a lot of people who were not in any way cultists, and for all Daeran knows he made more cultists than he killed because nobody wanted to be on the same side as that amount of crazy, and as far as Daeran could make out what Hulrun meant by "the law" was "don't do anything the world's most paranoid inquisitor could possibly find the slightest bit interesting", but dead gods help him Hulrun at least knew what concepts to point to when he wanted to convince someone. He paid lip service to any law that wasn't his own personal judgement but he had some idea of what he was paying lip service to. 

And Galfrey - Daeran has never ceased to be amazed at how well his cousin does out of doing Good, and how blind she apparently is to the immense privilege (that's "personal law", for those of you whose education didn't run to classical languages) that her court systems uphold, but... fine, he will admit that Galfrey doesn't deliberately go out of her way to destroy everyone's faith in the workings of the system that benefits her. A low bar, possibly, but one his cousin does actually pass because for all her privileged blindness she's not a fucking idiot.

Unlike these here paragons of Chaos. Daeran's as amazed as anyone, but it seems that it is actually possible for him to reach depths of hatred and loathing even more intense than what he feels for the performative "Law" of Mendev. He thought he hated the way everyone competed to be the most rigid, judgemental, hypocritical signaller of Lawfulness ever to benefit from the system they upheld? Ha, ha, joke's on him. (Of course it is; why else did Pharasma create this abortion of an alignment system, if not to personally annoy Daeran?)

Actually it's because three is the best number, squaring is the best operation, and sorting is life.

Daeran thought he hated performative Law until he saw what performative Chaos looks like.

He's glad he's Neutral Evil. That means he gets to go to Abaddon when he dies and his soul will be eaten and he won't have to deal with either stupid side of the Law/Chaos spectrum any more.

Alushinyrra is awful, of course. What else could anyone possibly have expected? (Yes, this is Regill's surprised face. Not at the Abyss being terrible, but that anyone would possibly say so in a tone hinting at surprise or indignation.) Obviously Evil without discipline is terrible. (So is Good, for that matter, but the failure modes are different.) When Hell hurts someone - which it does, Regill knows that perfectly well, you needn't put on your surprised face - it's with some purpose in mind. Not so much to make them follow orders - even the demons do sometimes manage that much - but to make them better order-followers; to inculcate the habit of discipline and obedience, to put the whip into a soul, not a back. 

This place? It hurts people from sheer slovenly lack of capacity to do anything else. 

Savalemekh's alleged "plan", for example. A plot spanning decades, corrupting generations of crusaders, hurting the mongrels terribly, and for what? If Asmodeus had done something of the sort - if Regill had! - then He would have gotten some strong and loyal followers or cat's-paws out of it! What did Savamelekh get? Debuffing Lann for long enough that the killing blow was landed by one of his companions; and Wenduag. (To be fair, Wenduag did indeed have little kitty-cat paws. Too bad about the utter insanity.) 

Feh. Regill can't wait for Asmodeus to conquer the universe and put these entities to some sort of useful work. Paving stones, probably, that's about their speed; but better that, than lying about pretending to be beggars.

Iomedae help us. It was all a scheme? All those cut-short lives, all that dysphoria and sorrow and starvation... All those people who had to face their ugliness from birth, because the instincts that say what beauty is, didn't change when the bodies were twisted into... this. All that, so Savalemekh could...

...could what, even?

Lann feels like crying; he feels like vomiting (even after Savalemekh is dead and his black magic is no longer twisting Lann's corrupted blood in his veins); he feels like... taking a knife, and cutting off this fucking horn and the scales and letting all the stupid, demon-corrupted blood out. The only reason he's not doing that is, then the demon would win. Lann can't abide that. Or himself. Or anything, really; but Savalemekh's stupid, awful "plan" least of all. He'll have to live, if only to salvage... something. Anything. From this mess.

Words aren't his strength, and what Lann feels right now is more of a scream than anything that could be put in words. But if he had to choose one...

Yeah, the gnome is right. "Awful" is pretty descriptive.

Law is better than Chaos and Good is better than evil, news at 11 reading from the Acts of Iomedae daily at noon. The Abyss is what you get when you start with 'Lawful' and take out a huge L. But it does have one thing that Heaven doesn't, to wit, opportunities for victory over evil. You can fight evil when it comes for you and yours, and make a stand and drive it back from your walls and your farms, and that is a good thing to do and victory of a sort. But to defeat evil...

...you must hunt it down in its lair where it licks its wounds, and come for it, and force evil to make a stand and try to drive you back from its walls.

Isn't that right, Minagho?

Even in this fucking hovel in the bowels of Alushinyrrae? It wasn't enough for you to drive me from Kenabres, and from Drezen, and from the Material Plane, and to kill Staunton whom I loved, and destroy all my awesome plans, and take my treasures and minions and everything I had built and was going to build? Even here? What does a lilitu have to do, to make you leave her alone?

Have you tried repenting your sins, and asking forgiveness, and showing your sincerity through good works?

Have I tried having my brains, personality, and actual literal soul scooped out of my body by a passing goddess, and casually replaced by a completely different person? Have I tried dying and having my body possessed by someone who thinks they are me, but views all my decisions with horror and guilt? Well, no. By definition, nobody living has tried that. Since the person it happens to, literally dies.

I hated Arueshalae, for the record; and she hated me. Comes with the territory when you're both Powers in the Abyss. But you are not her. She's dead, and good riddance, and you're... some kind of parody walking around in the shell of her body. And you ask me if I've tried dying, to get what I want, which is to be left alone?

No. Because I don't want to die.

And neither did Staunton, or all your victims in Kenabres, or Drezen, or Mendev... or Brimorak Minion #231 whom you threw in our way when we confronted you at the Wardstone and you ran like a coward... or anyone, really. And that's... kind of tragic, and if Lawful Good could Just Win we wouldn't kill you, we'd put you somewhere you couldn't hurt anyone else and then you could be as evil as you wanted forever. But in the world as it is...

...in the world as it is, Iomedae is goddess of triage as well as victory. And it is the nature of triage, that the worse the battle, the more casualties are consigned to the third category: No Priority For Treatment.

And incidentally, while Minagho is a named character and has had a major role in this story, that does not actually make it worth spending more resources including attention on her, than on any other triaged person. Brimorak Minion #231 had hopes and dreams too, and a name, and so did the other 230 whom Seelah did not promote to the tiny amount of anyone's attention that even a number implies. 

Smite Evil.

Good riddance, as she said. Even the Abyss is a little better, for not having Minagho in it.

...or Arueshalae. The old one, that is. She wasn't wrong about that.

For what it's worth, the incredible amount of intervention budget required to make a succubus repent her sins is... uh... not a high-value use of those resources, let's say. Iomedae would not have chosen that method of making the Abyss a little less awful. If She wanted Arueshalae dead Iomedae never wants anyone dead. If Iomedae had believed that removing Arueshalae was a high priority She would have just sent a high-level strike team for the assassination. 

And then this Arueshalae wouldn't exist, or be tormented by the guilt of what she did.

Expected value isn't everything, Iomedae. Sometimes you need to add some high variance to your outcomes, or what's a Heaven for?

Heaven is for winning the war on Hell, is what. And a god's reach ought not to exceed Their grasp.

Well, you can't spell 'Lawful' without taking an 'L' and adding 'awful', as a local mortal recently pointed out with a slightly different valence.