A paladin approaches with a plate of tiny sandwiches. "May I sit here?"

Paladin!  Or at least a well armored cleric!  

“Uh, um, yes, of course!”  He stammers.

This could be a great opportunity, if he can avoid any too bad accidental heresies.  The temple has been too crowded for Fernando to get any questions answered.

"Thank you. I'm Ser Goés, and yourself?"

“Fernando, elected delegate to the constitutional convention.”

There is some pride in his voice at his position.

"I'm one of the Iomedaean delegates now. Where are you from?"

Now?  Oh wait!  If the convention isn’t a test, did a select of Iomedae really accidentally trigger a riot?  Best to avoid the subject.

“Sirmium, I moved around a circuit selling spells to smaller villages that lacked a dedicated laundry wizard or cleric.”

"Ah, I've been riding a circuit most of this last year myself - assizes in the Heartlands. And I suppose you must have been well-regarded to be elected by your customers?"

“More of being a familiar face throughout the county than any particularly strong well regard I think.”

It was probably a combination of hatred and the popular misconception that the convention was some combination of loyalty test and collective punishment, but no need to come out and admit it.

"How did they take to being offered the chance to vote?"

“Oh, uh, well… I think a lot of people assumed it was some form of collective punishment they were picking a sacrifice for?  I didn’t, obviously, that’s why I put my name forward.”

You'd think he'd have run out of surprise at some point. "- well, even if you were nearly certain they were mistaken that has to have been nerve-wracking," Elorri offers.

“I think I was doing fine until after I got to Westcrown”

…and met that Sower.

“and realized the scope of what we are doing at this convention.”

That part happened an hour ago.

“Do you know how the Judge looks on collective actions that affect an entire country?”

It would be nice to get some Good for the slavery vote.

"I know it's - reportedly very hard to do it unerringly. Ser Codwin of Andoran remains in good standing so I would expect it's not impossible but it's a terrible burden to put on people who never asked for it and do not have a god's hand assuring them of warning before they must account for themselves."

“Ending slavery seemed obvious enough, I was surprised the vote wasn’t overwhelmingly in favor.”

"In terms of the policy itself, yes. But intention matters as well as effect, and this is double-edged; it can save you if you mean well and make a mistake but it can also do the opposite. I worry there may be someone in the hall who contrived of their vote as a way to destroy people."

“Well, uh, wouldn’t destroying Evil enough people, like slaveowners, be Good?  Or at least neutral, you know, a necessary tradeoff?”

He is listening carefully for any hint of disapproval, or worse, plans to report Fernando for heresy.

"The ways in which that is sometimes true are complicated." He didn't think they were two years ago! He's revised his standards! "In terms of the intentions to hold in your heart as you vote to release halflings from bondage, no, that shouldn't be about destroying anyone."

Well, this is useful advice for getting free Good points and/or avoiding Evil points, Fernando just needs to avoid too strong a heresy the Paladin has to report him.

“Huh, I wouldn’t have thought it worked that way.  Is generally focusing on helping people as your intention the most reliable way to earn Goodness and mitigate Evil from intent?”

He needs to focus his intent on helping wizards in debt and not destroying the Wizard Schools to maximize his Good points.

"So - much information about this is fuzzy, as you may know, since it's so costly for the gods to explain it and then once they've done it there are many ways to misunderstand. I think that if you hold the action constant, what you describe would help, and it might be good to keep in mind for a simple choice like a vote where you must decide yes, no, or abstain; but in most situations you are not holding action truly constant."

So it’s not helpful outside the convention, but at least he can maximize Goodness earned while he’s here.

“I had another question if you don’t mind… it might be one of the fuzzier ones?”

"Please go right ahead."

“Do you know what the non-evil interest rate for loans is?  Or how to calculate it if it changes?  Or if it’s too fuzzy at least rules of thumb to keep it non-Evil?  I assume it’s greater than zero since Abadar is Lawful Neutral?”

"I don't have a lot of finance knowledge. I can tell you that the church of Iomedae works with the church of Abadar without hesitation whenever it's called for, and I don't think we would do that if we were thereby doing Evil or even supporting the Abadarans in doing Evil. I think Abadar falls short of Good not because His methods don't improve things for people - they can and often do - but because He's concerned intently with the means he prefers, trade, and still prefers it in situations where the results would be better another way. Goodness requires aiming at an end, the support of people in all their variety toward security and happiness."

Well, that answer is useless.

He tries to think of anything else he wants to ask… a few questions seem too obviously incriminating if Fernando’s guessed wrong.  He could try asking his loan question a different way?

“Does Lastwall have indentures?  How long do they last?  Does it ever have loans or indentures turn out as long as someone’s entire life?”

"I've never actually been to Lastwall; I'm Molthuni. Indentures where I grew up are limited term."

“Well there are a lot tricks for extending indentures, sometimes nearly indefinitely, that seems like an obvious thing to put a stop to through the convention.  I’m not on the slavery committee though.”

And maybe it will mitigate the Evil from the people he’s sold into indentured servitude.

Fernando’s voice has a hint of guilt and shame if Elorri has a keen ear for it.

"Tricks like what?"

He should not have brought this topic up.

"Seemingly reasonable actions or conditions the indentured person has to fulfill, which of course they can't in practice.  Or actions the contract holder can do that lets them add on time.  Sometime in the contract language itself, sometimes in the law." 

He'll choose examples not related to his own tricks with loans.

"For instance, the contract providing for the master to pay for healing for the indentured, but it adds on a lot of time, implicitly assuming the healing is implausibly expensive and the indenture's laborer's worth for each day implausibly low.  And it doesn't have an exception for the master themselves inducing the injury that needs healing.  So periodically the master beats the servant near to death, then pays for their healing, and can keep it up nearly indefinitely.  For another example... by law, time spent pregnant or recently post pregnant doesn't count towards the indenture.  But the master can compel work during this time anyway.  And inducing time pregnant is in fact trivially easy for the master, and the indentured servant has no way to protect themselves."

"Those are just two examples.  For a more recent example... there are probably tricks with swapping value between paper and metal money that could be applied to indentures. I know for loans at least... my wizard school recently had a too-generous offer of refinancing I shouldn't have trusted.  There are enough tricks out there I wouldn't confidently bet on anyone's ability to list them out and ban them individually, as opposed to simply making blanket bans on any attempt to extend indentures.  If we try to stop it at the convention... probably some Abadarans will complain, but I don't trust them not to be Lawful Evil by valuing the letter of the law over ignoring blatantly twisted laws that push people away from happiness and security."

"I'd want to talk to an Abadaran and understand their concerns before dismissing them all as Evil. But, yes, those tricks are Evil and only barely Lawful, and a blanket ban on indentures extending beyond their original term seems like a reasonable and simple safety."

That... feels like a success?  He'll finish off the rest of his meal and sit in silence for a few moments.

Elorri's going through his sandwiches in one bite each - they're very little. "Do you plan to go back to the area you're from, after the convention?"

“I’ve been trying to work out what regions my spell will be most valuable in.  And maybe travel passes will be abolished by the convention.  I think there is a glut of wizards and a shortage of clerics.  Port cities and cities on the borders have Abadarans and clerics of other Gods moving in, and they have some spells overlapping with wizards which drives the price down further.  I’ll think I’ll try somewhere inland maybe?  I don’t know if that will be in Sirmium.”

Or he’ll abscond to Absalom as an entirely new species.  But he’s not admitting that to anyone.

"I mean to settle in Cheliax for the foreseeable future but if my duties allow my choice of location I'm unsure where I'd do the most good."

“I didn’t ask if you’re a Paladin or a cleric...  There is a shortage of healing and clean water almost everywhere.  I guess not in the bigger cities with foreign clerics.”

"I'm a paladin; Ser means paladin and Select means cleric. So, some healing, no water."

“Right, I’ll remember that.  Paladins have lay on hands and it is like a cure spell, right?  Even that is in high demand.”

"I usually haven't been able to discharge all of them or even all of them less an emergency reserve on circuit, but hopefully if I can stay in an area longer people there will come to trust me more."

“If they trust you enough to tell you when pregnancies are due, that’s an obvious strong need for healing and you could make sure you’re in the area at the time.”

"I think more Pharasmins are popping up over time, which - helps less if they're evil but they will probably prepare some cures."

That’s bad for his ability to sell infernal healing at a decent price… he needs to figure out how to avoid areas that have clerics covering their healing effectively.

“Have you seen any estimates on how long it will take the virtuous Gods to select enough clerics to cover everyone’s essential needs?”

"It'll be faster as potential clerics learn more catechism to know who they resonate with and start to believe that the infernal pressure is let up enough to discover who they want to be without it. I found myself delivering a surprising number of Erastilian sermons to that end - well, one short one, but over and over in different places. I don't think we'll have the coverage of, say, Molthune, in the next five years. Maybe twenty depending on how much the gods respond to need and not just suitedness."

Excellent, plenty of time to make money to pay off his debt!  He tries not to let his happiness at the long duration show.

“Twenty years, huh… are you going to keep riding circuit that long?”

It kinda sucks to be Lawful Good, but then again Lawful Evil sucks for everyone except the very top.

"I'll go where Ser Cansellarion assigns me but if released I... probably wouldn't choose assizes as a long term occupation."

“That sounds reasonable to me.”

Indeed it’s the single most normal thing he’s heard about or from a Paladin.

”What do you plan for if released?  A more comfortable city church posting?  At a smallish city?  There’s a near constant demand for counseling here in Westcrown…”

"I think I'm best specialized for being part of a team that operates near a forest responding to monsters, but I do expect to do my share of counseling wherever I may land."

“Is that kind of like adventuring?  Are you aiming for a certain set of abilities you get with enough experience?”

"It's like adventuring, yes, I spent a while as an adventurer before I signed on with the Reclamation. I actually have most of the interesting paladin abilities now, they get better with more circles but mostly not qualitatively, and that's not the point anyway; I could do a lot of good fighting forest monsters even if none of them were going to be dangerous enough to ever net me another mercy or spell slot."

“A mercy?  I’m uh, not familiar with the exact details of Paladin powers.”

"Extra things that get added to lay on hands. Mine makes people less tired."

“Fascinating.”  

It genuinely is, he didn’t realize Paladins got extra effects on their healing.

He’s finished his food… he needs to get going.

“Do you have any committees to be getting to?  I need to check which ones of mine are canceled.”

"I'm assigned to Judiciary, which I believe is meeting today." Last tiny sandwich.

“Good luck!  I hope you can figure out… some just ways of doing things.  I don’t think the Queen has enough slots to get all the judges in the country with enchantments to ensure fairness, even if it sounds like doing that resolved at least one case fairly.”

This is getting dangerously close to the Valia Wain question.  Fernando is trying to feel out around it carefully.

"I don't know Her Majesty's resources but it's a difficult topic under any regime."

Difficult topic… okay, subtext received, he’ll steer back away from Valia.

“Indeed.  Well, I suppose I’ll see you around at the convention?”

"Of course."

And off they go to their difficult topics.

He’ll count this conversation as a success… if he isn’t arrested for heresy in the next week.  He’s pretty sure he won’t be?  Paladins have to be straight with you, so Ser Goés wouldn’t have pretended it was fine if he was going to be arrested?