"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."

"...Maybe. How does Molthune stop magistrates from doing that sort of thing? What happens if a nobleman or a priest or a powerful wizard commits a crime, or accuses someone else of a crime that they didn't actually do, or if someone tries to bribe the magistrate?"

"Zone of Truth is the standard means to determine if someone is lying. In isolated enough territories it won't always be used in court cases because we don't have enough priests for the entire realm, but the magistrates who judge them are put through Zone themselves once every four years when their term comes up for renewal, and if they're found to have accepted bribes, or overlooked crimes, or perverted the law, or ruled unjustly for personal or political reasons they're sentenced to hang, unless they plead off to the mines. The spell is beatable, but not if you do it regularly and they watch for people trying to cheat it with magic. You can't stop a powerful evil wizard or sorcerer from enchanting the magistrate, but the government tries to keep enough of an eye on all the powerful wizards to know if they try something."

"I think I lost track of what you were arguing. I think we both want there to be some rules about what magistrates can do, saying they can't take bribes is a rule, and you just... think there don't need to be as many? Because you don't need as many if the magistrates aren't Evil?"

Enric wants to let Victoria do her thing, but also he is now confused and a bit worried. "Are we arguing about whether there should be things they can't do to people, just in general? I thought that was the whole idea behind rights?"

Honestly Jilia is not sure Xavier is right about the 'not a paragon' thing, she's met ordinary Taldane nobles on trips to try to arrange more shipping trade with Oppara. She's had negotiations with Nidalese recaptors which were more pleasant. Not a paragon of their current, hand-picked high nobility? Maybe. But she's not going to joggle his elbow.