"Not mages as you know them, exactly. I am a judge of the Order of Judges, which is not present in this city or this world. I can verify the truth of statements made to me, either in a context where someone is in my custody or by extracting a clear promise to be truthful. I can also determine appropriate and effective punishments that will be effective at discouraging further misconduct, including distinguishing offenders who are unlikely to stop short of death from others, and calm and intimidate suspect and unruly groups of people. This makes me unusually good at many tasks needed for securing peace and justice in the community, and I am told that you are the person I'd need to speak to about continuing that role here."

"Hmmm. Apart from the thing you're doing now, how can you verify these abilities?"

The mayor hmms. "I'll ask the sister about it. It would shorten some investigations if it works the way you say it does - what constitutes being in your custody, if it's intractable to get people to promise you honesty?"

"Generally, it's applied to prisoners already in custody; they are informed that a specific judge is now responsible for them, and once they are aware, that judge's truth sense applies. Refusing the oath for a specific matter is treated as evidence of complicity, so it's mostly come up with those already in jail or acting as witnesses in other matters in exchange for lenience. I'd be interested in investigating the limits."

"Refusing to agree to interact with strange magic here is not evidence of much," the mayor remarks.

"Yes, that's fair. We're the backbone of the justice system in most of the known world, there, so it's hardly strange magic. I'm not expecting it to be quite as smooth here."

"If people under arrest don't understand what you do, it may be that your power won't work that way either."

"No, on that count it's fine. There have been occasional cases of the suspect not knowing that the promise was made to a judge, and it stayed effective."

"By tomorrow morning I should have a statement from the Order about you and then we can try you on whoever's in lockup at the moment."

"All right. That would be a reasonably good opportunity to demonstrate the sentence-giving, as well."

"Do you have to pronounce that authoritatively to the prisoner in some way, or can you just relate it to someone else in another room?"

"I don't need to do it immediately at all; I could do it for several prisoners, and then relate my finding in the next room afterwards."

"Good. Not everyone who goes through lockup winds up being sentenced."

"Midday."

"Alright, then. Unless you have other things you'd like to discuss, I'll be going."

"Have a good afternoon."

Well, let's walk back to the compound, tell the person at the gate there will be a messenger, and then he should probably tell Kaja, too, if he can find her.

Kaja is doing swordstaff routines with some of her fellow paladins in the training yard. Apparently she can interrupt this to go see what Theod has to say when she spots him.

"Hi, Kaja. There's likely to be a messenger for you this afternoon. The mayor's office didn't let me demonstrate, and wanted your word for it first."

"Oh. All right, I can give them a sealed note. What in particular do they want me to verify?"

"The truth sense. I impressed him a bit already, but he's a politician and probably testy about his secrets."

"...He may just be worried that you're some kind of dark mage," she points out. "Paladins are immune to a lot of forms of darkness, so if I say you're all right that's another matter."

"That's probably more fair. Politicians always leave a bad taste in my mouth, so I'm probably being uncharitable."