remedial goodness for Chelish archdukes
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"That makes sense.

...in places not ruled by Hell, any one of those things you have mentioned would be very shocking. I suspect nearly none of them are - good for people - but some are probably good compared to what everyone would otherwise be doing, or the one place where they can experience at least some of the good, and so probably trying to unwind all of it would do enormous damage." 

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"What's it like in places not ruled by Hell, then?" She is kind of struggling to imagine what non-shocking behavior would consist of, if every single one of those is shocking.

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"Men and women do not sleep with each other until they are of an age to marry, and then they get married. Many women and some men join religious orders instead of getting married. Occasionally a man who is married will have a mistress, but his peers will think less of him for it; sometimes a man who is not yet married will see prostitutes, though if it were known of him it would make women more reluctant to marry him. Reasonably often young people will while intending to be chaste until marriage fall short of that, but if the girl gets pregnant they will marry.

This is not just Lastwall. Some of the students at seminary were from other countries where this was also the expectation, though sometimes with less judgment of unfaithful men, and most with fewer religious women."

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"Oh." Well that's certainly good to know, if pretty concerning. And - baffling? She's not going to look concerned or baffled. "Does that go for everything?"

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"...for everything?"

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"I mean, is it only evil if it could get someone pregnant, or - like, when the Archduke wanted to be sure he told nobody to go into anyone else's rooms at all."

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"... relations from which there is no chance of pregnancy are not evil, if both people are choosing freely. If they're not choosing freely it's still a major problem."

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"Oh! Okay. I think what people are actually doing with each other varies. But, you know, I couldn't tell you for any particular person."

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"And I don't really want them to feel like the Church is prying in a - prurient way rather than with concern for whether everyone is free to refuse, which I'm fine prying about. And - I do think that at least sometimes people are being good to each other and it's bad for them to be told that even that is evil, even if it's....not ideal."

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"Okay! Sorry, that makes more sense. And the choosing freely is just - like you said to Genoveva after the first sermon, right? That it's better if people are happy?"

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"Yes. People can do another quite a lasting and serious harm for a little temporary enjoyment, and they shouldn't."

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Nod.

"Do you know where you're going to start? With talking to people about it?"

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"Not really. Ideally with people who would like to talk to us. I guess we can start with an announcement at tonight's sermon that we intend to do this and why and see who is willing to talk to us first."

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He is glad that he took only Estel. It's only Estel who sees the inside of the baron's dungeons with him. There are three people being - well, one of them is being passively tortured to death in a way that he recognizes. Another appears to be slowly turning to stone, trying to scream and incapable of it; he suspects that her voice box has been damaged somehow. The third is clearly alive, and in pain, but he doesn't have even that much guess what transformation he's being made to undergo. The baron - now in the body of a young female elf - is bending over one of them, in the middle of some surgical procedure.

Narikopolus tells the baron that he assumes all of these people were lawfully convicted by his wife, the title holder, of serious crimes under Queen Aspexia's law. The baron, of course, confirms it. Then Narikopolus slits their throats, one after another, with his dagger, and tells the baron that his wife's right to execute justice in her lands is revoked.

 

Estel reports that the wife is charmed, and is aware of the charm. The town is being run primarily by her oldest living son; the baron himself has been ignoring it. The people are terrified, though not unusually so. The general store is still selling transparently Asmodean books, though nothing on the official ban list. 

He has a talk with the baron, at the end of which he does hand over his shopping list. He is still to go to Absalom, and bring back what they need to Kantaria. (No clerics here, either; Narikopolus encourages him to find another for his own barony, if he can.) Then he will go to Taggun Hold, to relieve another teleport wizard on Worldwound supply. The new regime has done them the courtesy of having many needs, and those who can fulfill them will survive.

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"Do you think he'll come back from Absalom?"

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"I really couldn’t say. I think if he planned to flee he probably would have done it by now, but maybe he wasn't aware of our change in circumstances. I can’t hold him here if he wants to be elsewhere, in any case.

Would you want your badge back, if I offered it to you?"

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"I would be honored. But we're very far north, and I'm not especially suited to mountain defense."

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"No, I want Olegeur on mountain defense, but then someone else will have to do what he does. I doubt everyone else is taking the situation appropriately seriously, and I don't want to make the Queen do the work that she tasked us with."

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Mm. 

There are many men who still need to fall, then. And when the Archduke's men determine who they are, there will be positions free, at which point the Archduke will be positioned to promote men to fill them. 

Estel misses investigating people, really. She stopped when she had Josep, which was also when she suspected she was nearing fourth circle. She hasn't considered her soul in decades, but fourth circle used to bring crown scrutiny, and Estel prefers not to be overly scrutinized from that direction. But right now the crown can barely watch the Archduke, and there's clearly much more to fear from weakness than from strength.

And it's nice to be of value.


 

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Today's sermon is about the situation of the Empire early in the war against Tar-Baphon. It is not really about Goodness but maybe it'll be useful to people to have an idea of what Cheliax was like long ago. There was an archduke Narikopolus, a good man whose many virtues are sung in Acts, so that part at least will probably be popular (though Narikopolus himself is out). 

 

After the sermon he'll explain that they would like to before they replace the rule against having sex with your slaves check which relationships are effectively happening at knifepoint and if viable alternatives exist. They recommend that everybody participate in this but are not going to start out by requiring it. It'll involve talking with both parties separately and together. 

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He's not actually going to ask in front of everyone, he has some dignity, but if you volunteer early can you get out of the rule early? Even if everyone else doesn't?

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" - that seems reasonable to me but it's the Archduke's rule so I can't make promises on his behalf."

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"Okay, then, I volunteer.

 

.....do you have to talk to both of us together?"

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"- why do you want to avoid that?"

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Because it sounds REALLY EMBARRASSING, obviously. Also he thinks she's, uh, kind of less invested and he's pretty sure they can absolutely end this relationship by making it sufficiently inconvenient, even though he totally almost died to defend her honor and stuff.

"Well, I don't know if she will. And - if it's just both of us separately you can just go ask her, right?" And... she might still be really annoyed with him about that, actually, maybe that isn't a good idea either. "You were only worried in the first place about me, right?"

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