"Aye."

“Aye.”

"Aye."

"Unanimous again. Thank you. Anything else before we finish up for the day?"

"—Oh, I almost forgot! I asked the azata about the skeletons thing and it said raising criminals as undead to make them work the mines is definitely Evil — uh, it didn't think Delegate Requena i Cortes was being Evil on purpose, exactly, it said he was doing, uh, a thing that a lot of mortals do where they really want something and they have a way to get it by hurting people so they convince themselves it's not really that bad to hurt people. And that this was a, the words it used were 'horrible tragedy,' but that you probably weren't like Delegate Ibarra or anything. —I'm not sure if you already heard about that, I tried to get some people to pass a message along, when I — wasn't sure I'd be able to tell you myself — but I don't know if they actually did."

Well, looks like that’s getting picked back up from off the table. Will this be every day of rights committee? Enric knew the azata would take his side though, never heard of an angel being in favor of skeletons.

"Avenger, I do not, did not, and did not say I did, support the law. I said it was law in Molthune, and explained why. I acknowledge it is Evil; I did this during our last conversation as well, as you may well recall." We are being recorded, here. "But I cannot say that the duty of a legislator is to avoid ever doing Evil. It is said in the Acts of Iomedae that she kept an hourglass in the main training hall of the Knights of Ozem, whose every grain of sand - thirty thousand of them - was a person dying, and turned it over every day to show the Knights all the people in the world they had failed to save. The Judge may not count those I fail against my soul, but my duty is not to the judge but to all the people of Cheliax alive today and all those who will be born in the future, and I do not think we can simply do nothing that an angel would tell us was wrong without far more of our nation's citizens living and yet to be born finding themselves impoverished, slain and damned than if we had been willing to accept that sometimes the least bad option would make a paladin fall. Let us avoid doing evil because it will betray our responsibilities, because it will damn our people, because it will increase suffering, not because Pharasma disapproves."

"Delegate Requena i Cortes, when you were a child in school, did they have the student who did the best on a test or an essay or sometimes just a normal homework assignment whip the student that did the worst? —Just yes or no is fine, I have somewhere I'm going with this."

"They did not."

"In Cheliax every school I've ever heard of did that. And I assumed that was just — normal, that they did that everywhere, that you couldn't have a school if you didn't do that. But it turns out that actually it isn't normal, in places that aren't being ruled by Asmodeus. When I mentioned it to the azata it, uh, freaked out and told me I should leave the country. 

And I think your skeletons thing is a little like that — uh, not exactly like that, I'm not saying people in Molthune are anything like Asmodeans, but — I think it is something that sounds to you like it's basically normal, and so you're not really thinking about whether you could just not raise anyone as undead. Lastwall gets its metal from somewhere." If it turns out that Lastwall is raising people as skeletons she's going to feel really stupid but Lastwall is Good so she's pretty sure they aren't.

"Feliu told me that in Molthune people thought they needed to do the skeletons thing so that they could make weapons to kick Asmodeus out of Cheliax. Except first of all, their weapons weren't even what kicked out Asmodeus, second of all, Asmodeus got kicked out already. We don't need metal weapons to fight Asmodeus anymore, we won, there's obviously still a lot that needs to happen but having lots of metal weapons won't fix all the broken laws, or make the orphanages not suck, or save the souls of people who count as Evil even though they haven't done anything really bad." Technically it could help with the Evil nobles but she has enough sense not to say so.

"And it also sounds like you're thinking of it like — whipping a child, where there's sometimes a good reason to do it, and not like sacrificing someone to a demon, where everyone knows you should never do it to anyone ever. Or, uh, I guess maybe you don't think there are things you shouldn't do to anyone ever. I think most people who are trying at all to do the right thing think there are things like that, I am literally a priestess of the goddess of vengeance and I think there are things like that — uh, I'm not saying you aren't trying to do the right thing, just, like, there are people that aren't and I wasn't counting them. Anyways. I think the skeletons thing is the sort of thing you shouldn't do to people ever.

...but I also think that, even if you don't think it's that kind of thing, uh — I'm not sure if I understood your last point right, but — I think you'd have to do the courts really really well to make it so it didn't... cause a lot of suffering and betray a lot of people? Like — I don't know how to explain this right, it might be a stupid argument — but if you say that people who do bad enough crimes get executed, then if the magistrate isn't an Asmodean or something they're not going to have very much reason to want to convict innocent people. Like, maybe sometimes they'll get bribed to do it, or someone powerful will accuse an innocent person of a crime, or something like that, but that won't happen most of the time. Whereas if they can send the innocent person off to be raised as a skeleton in the mines, it's kind of like... they're being bribed every time to find them guilty? Maybe that's silly, I don't know. And there's ways around it, like if the paladins stay around, or the Queen enchants all the magistrates in the country to follow the laws, or we make the magistrates say under Truthtelling whether they decided wrong on purpose and execute them if they say yes, but I don't want to count on any of those things." Maybe she'd've counted on them before the Judiciary Committee got taken over, but not now, not when she basically has to count on paladins knowing about all the ways powerful Chelish people get away with hurting innocent people.

"And I know this is going to sound kind of pathetic, and I know it's not the sort of reason anyone should be making laws, but — you seem remarkably decent for a nobleman, and I might be wrong about that, but if I'm not wrong I wouldn't want you to accidentally end up in Hell and be tortured forever because you were trying to make it allowed to turn people into skeletons." Wow, that sounded incredibly pathetic. Why did she say that. "...If you weren't actually saying that it should be legal to turn people into skeletons for doing crimes then I'm sorry for thinking you did, I thought that's what you were saying on the first day but maybe I misunderstood." 

(From her tone of voice it sounds like a sincere apology. It has not even slightly occurred to Victòria that Delegate Requena i Cortes might be worried about his comments from previous days making it into the record. He made them in a room full of people and didn't even tell them it was secret, that's not how anyone handles things they don't want people finding out about. As far as she's concerned it's totally possible that she misunderstood him for complicated noble politics reasons.)

"But — uh, I know I just said a lot of things" some of which were incredibly pathetic "at once, but — mostly I was trying to say the first thing. That if your country is raising people as undead all the time, it probably seems normal, the way it seemed normal when I got whipped for doing badly on a math test. And rather than saying 'turning people into undead is super Evil, but they do it in Molthune, we've got to get metal from somewhere, we'd better put in a special exception to our right to not be made into an undead,' we should figure out a way to not be super Evil, and take it as seriously as you'd take a country sacrificing people to demons, where you wouldn't just say that as long as they're getting something useful out of it it's the least bad option." Victòria has never heard of a country that lets you sacrifice people to demons so hopefully Molthune doesn't either.

Aaaaa! She's actually kind of proud of Ferrer for a bunch of thoughts in there, but aaaaa!

"Archduchess, may we break?"

"I think that both the Archduke and the Avenger made very good points just now, and this is an important isssue, and also when I said that we would benefit from a paladin of Iomedae on the committee this was at the top of my list of issues where I want their input. So yes, I would like to set it aside and break for the day."

"I am prepared to break." He'll start gathering papers, but not stop talking to Victoria, "Avenger, I understand. And I appreciate that you do not want me tortured forever." Is the official recording over? He's ready to keep talking. "I have responses to all of your points, which seem well-thought-out to me, but to start with I think the chief case for it being possible to make it legal to make undead - though, of course, only after due process of law - is that reanimating powerful Evil wizards and clerics as undead is one of the only ways to render resurrection of them impossible, I think the only way for spellcasters who have already been killed."

(Both Jilia's staff and the Convention's have indeed put away quills, and they are clearing everything else away.)

Victoria is right about this, and it sounds like she’s doing better alone than he would if he tried to help. His own arguments and suggestions about the problem go on the table for now. Those two are doing something more complicated than just skeletons, now, and it seems like it’s getting better not worse. 

Enric is proud of her. She stands against evil without hesitating; it’s obvious why Iomedae’s cleric worked side by side with her. He’s also scared that she isn’t being careful. She isn’t watching her words to never say anything about people, or thinking about when the scribes are writing things down, or noticing that Jilia just tried to give everyone an excuse to back off. Even if Aroden is protecting the convention, that isn’t for life. Eventually she’ll get herself killed. 

"Before about a week ago I thought of bringing people back from the dead as, like, the sort of thing that happened in stories." Meaning that she doesn't know how if he's leaving off non-skeleton options that are almost as good. Maybe she can ask someone else for more details — no, wait, most people will totally assume she wants to know so that she can murder people. "Do you know what Lastwall does when they execute powerful Evil spellcasters?"

It really seems like there should be options that don't involve skeletons at all. Final Blades, she guesses, they talked about that last time, except then you're putting people in Final Blades, which — maybe it's better than them going to work for Asmodeus, maybe it'd even be okay if you tried hard enough to give them what they deserved before you executed them — but still isn't something she'd just suggest.

"If they capture them in advance, they petrify them. If they don't, I suspect they either use necromancy or destroy the body and hope they aren't up against a cleric powerful enough to resurrect someone without one - almost no clerics are, but Asmodeus had an exception and Zon-Kuthon might."

"...If there's only a couple clerics that strong, could the archmages and the Queen just kill them?"

"Not in Nidal. Iomedae herself and the whole Shining Crusade asked about Nidal and were told they'd fail and it wouldn't be worth it. The Everwar was the whole Chelish Empire at its height trying, and the best they could do was forcing them to terms after a century even without their undead sorcerer-priest-kings intervening in their defense. Which they didn't, very suspiciously, and then the culture of Chelish nobility got slowly more tolerant of Evil until the Age of Glory failed and Nidal came in as a Thrune ally. And for once I believe their church when they say that was the intended result."

"Everywhere else, well, gods can elevate new ninth-circles. Also powerful wizards have ways of cheating death without those spells, at least the archmages and probably some seventh-circles."

Enric notices that this is a very different reason to make undead than because people want cheaper metal weapons. He suspects trickery. 

Victòria has also noticed this. 

"I think probably I need to learn more about magic before I can say for sure what we should do about Evil wizards." It'll be easier to persuade people not to do the skeletons thing if she has a non-skeletons proposal that isn't stupid. Maybe she can ask Lluïsa, Lluïsa is a wizard, and Lluïsa was defending her against the people who thought she was a murderous radical so hopefully she won't assume Victòria wants to know so that she can do murders. 

"But even if we can't come up with any other way to stop Evil wizards for good, I don't think — last week we were arguing about whether everyone should have a right not to be turned into a skeleton, or everyone except criminals, and even if we can't figure out another way to stop powerful spellcasters we should say 'no skeletons unless they're really powerful Evil spellcaster criminals,' not 'no skeletons unless they're criminals.' Most criminals are not Evil spellcasters. ...Also I still think we should try to find something else to do with the Evil spellcasters before we just assume it has to be skeletons."

He brought it up last time!

"For a moment, let me see if I understand your arguments correctly - am I correct that you are viewing this from the perspective of assuming that magistrates will seek to do evil because of the inherent wickedness of people in power, and must be restrained by the law?"

Well, almost everyone is wicked, so probably, but getting useful resources out of finding people guilty probably doesn't help things.

Not picking fights about this at this moment.

Wickedness is a nice way for him to phrase it, it covers the people who have done a lot of horrible things but technically don't count as Evil for some stupid reason. She frowns thoughtfully.

"...I think a week ago I'd have said that was exactly right, about people with power being wicked, or at least some kinds of power, whether or not they started out that way. But I think I was wrong about that, I don't think that's true of everyone anymore. Like, it turns out the Queen is Good, not just in the sense that it was really good to kick Asmodeus out of the country but in the sense that — she won't have people executed just for making her life inconvenient, even if they aren't powerful or important and even if no one would blame her or think she did anything wrong.

But — I don't know how to say this right, but — I think magistrates under Asmodeus tended to be a lot worse than normal people? Because they were all appointed by people who sucked a lot, and they were enforcing Evil laws, and obviously they were Asmodeans, and also if you take the sort of person who gets chosen to be a magistrate and give them the power to hurt innocent people if they want they're... just obviously going to hurt a lot of innocent people. And probably there's a way to find different magistrates that suck less? But I don't know how you'd make sure you didn't get anyone who sucked, apart from paladins or mind control or those sorts of thing.

And, like, ideally we wouldn't just want magistrates who aren't as wicked as actual Asmodeans, we'd want magistrates who won't take bribes, and won't automatically rule one way just because a nobleman or someone else powerful wants them to, and won't just make up reasons to convict people even if they really don't like them. All of which are also wicked, even if they're not as wicked as just deciding to have someone tortured to death for fun even though you know for sure they're innocent, but I think they're... the kind of wicked thing some people will do whether or not they're in power? If that makes sense? And — I don't want to have any magistrates who'd do that sort of thing, but I don't want to assume the Judiciary Committee will definitely come up with a plan that stops that from happening." The paladins wouldn't do it on purpose but they might not manage to stop it from happening by accident.

"...and no matter what kind of magistrates you have, I still think the law should — I mean, I don't know what kinds of rules you're thinking of when you say 'restrain' — but there should be some things they aren't allowed to do. But you'd need them even if the magistrates were basically just normal, you'd just need more if some of them might really suck. ...Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, I think so. And - I think I agree with you of today and disagree of the you of the week ago," he says, "but I think that you may still be underestimating the level of decency among normal people outside Cheliax; I for one am hardly a paragon among the nobility, and Asmodeus deliberately appointing wicked magistrates to damn his populace seems to me one case where experience in Cheliax may serve as a poor guide for experience where Asmodeus is not attempting to damn the entire population."