"Being a paladin takes the time commitment but not the puzzle thing... We don't really employ a lot of support workers, it's all paladins and novices and retired paladins."

"Huh. All right. Well, luckily I can do the main work of creating a spell and the chant for it only once, and then just copying it as many times as I like by hand, whether it's mine or someone else's. So my magic is very good support workers."

"You aren't a prisoner here in particular, you know, you could set up somewhere else if you wanted to practice magery separately or if Sister doesn't want to bunk you in the enclave or if it turns out paladins and mages still don't work well together even when it's you... If you show a moneylender the spells I'm sure you could get a loan."

"Yes, I know, but - um. If paladins committed to helping people and saving people from 'dark things' I kind of want to give you first grabs at the new magic type so you can use it for rescuing and healing people after fighting dark things. If you are assuredly not evil. You aren't evil or careless or anything, but you're an individual, I don't know your group itself."

"We're not evil!" she exclaims. "We're paladins - if we break our oaths the Winter Light leaves us."

"So I need to - judge whether or not the Winter Light is, in itself, a force of good that I can support."

"I'm not in the least sure Sister is going to like you," remarks Kaja.

"I'm not - calling your order terrible, I'm just - being thorough. I am in a strange place, with strange people, dealing with large-scale organizations that I have had literally no dealings with prior to today, and have only had introductions to through one person. If the Winter Light is genuinely what you say it is, then I am going to work very hard to make sure that it can send people with upgraded equipment, not because I'm begging for a place to stay, but because it's the right thing to do, and then try to find out if there's a way for dark things to stop existing entirely. So if she doesn't like me, and tells me to shoo from this place for not immediately believing you and trusting in something I've had no interaction with in my life, then - I go throw lots of healing scrolls around and start up a magic school, I suppose, and try to help people out that way."

"Well, how do you want it proved?"

"Observation, asking people that are not associated with your order for their opinions, talking to other paladins and learning what their methods are. That kind of thing."

"Paladins are not accustomed to having our - non-evilness questioned," she warns.

"... To the point where it's insulting?"

"Well, non-paladins impersonating paladins is a hanging offense, so they might also think you were threatening them."

"Oh," says Darren. Pause. "Sorry for accidentally insulting and or threatening you."

"I'm all right, just - I don't think anyone would like it if you went around quizzing the other paladins, let alone Sister."

"Right. No quizzing, then."

"I think I see where you're coming from, so - if you want to ask me questions you can..."

"Thanks. Uh - are dark things universally evil?"

"Sort of tautologically, yes. Not all of them get the chance to do much before we get them."

"Okay, and - are they different brands of evil? If so, what are they?"

"What do you mean brands...? Like, a lich and a woken shadow have very different abilities."

"I mean - there are multiple ways to do things that I consider evil. There's - straight up murdering innocent people, which is pretty obvious, but then there are things like convincing other people to murder innocent people, or breaking someone psychologically while leaving them otherwise unharmed - that sort of thing."

"Liches sometimes torture people. A zombie just eats them. An imp might take over their mind, a woke shadow does nightmares and whispers things to people who can't get them to leave them alone."

"Oh, charming. Yes, those guys need to go away. Do paladins just fight dark things, or occasionally people that do evil things, too?"

"We aren't allowed to kill human beings, so we have to be very careful if we try to fight them, and reserve it for situations where we're sure we can stop them without killing them or are willing to give up our blessings to do it."