Desnia also leaves services heading the same way, carrying Pere. She’ll drop him off along the way. 

She recognizes the other religious delegate, though she doesn’t remember her name. A Calistrian, she thinks? 

She rushes a bit to catch up. 

“Good morning! I recognize you from the convention. I think we’re headed the same way, though I need to swing by the park before going in. How did you find morning services?”

She's wearing a handmade holy symbol of Calistria, it's definitely the obvious guess.

"They were fine, I guess. Lots of singing. What did you think?"

"They were nice? I liked the singing but not enough to want to come listen to it again tomorrow." 

"I'm not sure that I care as much about places being nice to look at as the Songbirds do - though I appreciate that this temple looks least like an Asmodean one out of the ones I've seen in this city." 

"I think I like some of the other types of art they help people with better than the singing, and I bet most of them are harder to do at a service like this. Singing is okay but this was kind of a lot of it."

“What are the types of art you like better than singing? Have you been spending a lot of time at Shelyn’s temple? I’ve spent spare channels there before but it was my first service.” 

"Painting is fun, and I've been seeing if I can pick up drawing, although I wouldn't say I'm any good at it. And a couple weeks ago I went to see a street-play, that was nice, I don't think I'd like acting but it was fun to watch."

She holds up her new holy symbol, carved from wood and freshly painted. 

"One of the Songbirds helped make this, he had some good tips for getting the balance right." Her old one always hung a little crooked. She hasn't really gotten used to the way the new one feels.

"Oh, I like whittling, and it probably makes sense to have a more open holy symbol." 

She flashes her bracelet from underneath her sleeve, on which a small butterfly dangles. 

"Can I just go at any time or do they have specific times that they help people with crafts?" 

"Sometimes they run group activities, but if there's nothing scheduled I think you can usually find a Songbird to help you out. Or, like, not any time, they do sleep, but if you went after the convention you could probably find someone to help you."

She nods, walks in silence for a minute still carrying Pere. Tries to remember what the Calistrian had said on the floor so that she can make conversation about it. She vaguely remembers approving of the things said, but no specifics are coming to mind. She was friends with Valia? 

Oh, she can do introductions, that’s a thing she can say and maybe she’ll eventually be able to keep all the names straight. 

“I don’t think I’ve introduced myself - I’m Voyager Desnia. I remember that you spoke a few times, but I’m afraid I don’t remember the details and I don’t recall your name - I wasn’t able to figure out childcare I trusted the first few days, so some of the things so went by in a blur. I’m looking forward to being able to participate more today.”

Pere gurgles happily from his mothers arms. He liked the pastries and the singing. 

"I'm Victòria! I've spoken about... uh, lots of different things, I guess. What're you hoping to get done at the convention?"

She spends a moment trying to spin up a more polished version, and then decides that clerics of Calistria are probably not the type of person she needs to sound more put together to. Possibly this cleric is evil because Calistria doesn't rule it out and because Cheliax. But that's a different sort of problem then the one where she doesn't order her words nicely enough. 

She shrugs. 

"I want Cheliax to be... less Asmodean. I think I expected people to be better faster, when Hell's rule was overthrown. And - I'm not sure what things get things going well, because things that sound good and seem like they should be good like Valia's speech end up with hundreds of innocent people dying and more people becoming murderers than before." 

Another shrug. 

"I want to tell people to please do Good things and not Evil things, whether or not whatever laws or rules or orders there are point at Good, but people are worse than I would have thought at telling which is which and I don't think I'm particularly good at telling them how to tell them apart?" 

That maybe was sharing too much? Or not answering the right question?

"Probably I'm going to join the Trade and Travel committee and push for something better with the internal passports and whatever else they're doing there. How about yourself?" 

"I don't want anyone to be able to just hurt innocent people for no good reason, just because the people they're hurting are weaker or less powerful. When powerful people try to hurt people anyway, I want them to get what they deserve, I don't want them to just be able to get away with it because they're nobles, or priests, or powerful wizards, or people who work for the Crown, or anything. I want all the leftover Evil nobles, and people like that, to be replaced with — adventurers, or something, decent people who can still fight monsters like the nobles are supposed to but who haven't done a bunch of awful things to the people they rule." Actually she wants the leftover Evil nobles dead, along with all the leftover Asmodean priests, but she doesn't think the archmage will let the convention overrule the amnesty, he wouldn't even let them kick out the actual priests of Hell.

"...and the Convention is talking about lots of things, and it turns out that I have opinions on those things too, but that's why I came here. Getting rid of the passports would be good, there's not really a good way to stop nobles from hurting innocent people if the people they're hurting aren't even allowed to leave and tell the Queen."

She starts smiling brightly at the beginning of Victoria’s impassioned speech against innocent people not being hurt, and her smile only slightly dims at the mention of deserts. She’s good enough at reading people that she’s pretty confident that Victoria is sincere about it - and it’s so nice when people care about weaker or less powerful people not getting hurt - and it’s upsettingly rare! 

“Yeah, lots of people do want to hurt the people less powerful than they are, and they shouldn’t do that. I’m glad you care about that, too many people don’t!”

Bright smile. 

“I came here because I like Desna and I wanted all of the seats that were Hers to be filled by Her, and they weren’t all taken yet when I got here. I maybe will have more opinions about things today? Sometimes the proposals seem tricky or confusing and I don’t like that. But we banned slavery yesterday and I’m so relieved that people here are at least good enough to do that! And the slaves are free now, unless maybe that’s not how fast things go into effect?” 

"I don't know how long it'll take everyone to find out, there's lots of things the new Queen did that I didn't even know about until I got to the convention, but — I really hope they find out quickly."

She thinks for a moment. The law says that anyone who keeps trying to own slaves will be punished, but a lot of them are probably powerful nobles who'll just never even let their slips find out they're supposed to be free. "Maybe we should suggest to the Slavery Committee that they pass another rule sending people out to check whether there are still people trying to keep slaves and putting a stop to them if so — or just ask the paladins to do it, apparently lots of places have paladins riding around handling the courts." 

"I meant, I'm not even sure if the it's the law yet, or if there's a step where the Queen needs to approve the things we pass? I thought it was the law right away but then last night the Songbird... Laia, I think - said that the decree might have been premature? I know that sometimes when we pass things the Archmage adds extra rules like with the slander, or sometimes before we pass things like with removing other delegates or retroactive punishments so maybe there's a step before something is a law where they need to approve what we pass and it's not the law right away. But I heard the Queen and the Archmage wanted slavery banned so I'm hoping they were fast about it."

Another shrug. 

"But you're right that if it is the law there's still a lot of places that don't know about it yet, that's a good idea about the Slavery Committee. And that's right about the paladins, I've met a few." 

"When the guy with the scroll tried to read it on the floor, the archmage told him to go outside and read it there, but he also said the Queen was announcing the law as a decree? So I think it's definitely approved now. But I think probably if the convention tried to do something really awful, like if people voted to bring back Asmodeus or something, the Queen would say we couldn't do that."

"Oh, good! I stepped out right away when the vote total was called, Pere was fussing, so I missed whatever happened then, and then what Laia said made me worry that it wasn't in effect properly yet. And that makes sense but also I wish they'd tell us more clearly what kinds of things the Queen would think were or weren't awful. Like if we voted to become a Republic like Andorran the Queen would say no? Andorran seems pretty great to me but a lot of people seem to not like it very much but I don't understand exactly why. I don't think I'd even want a Republic here, the Queen and the archmages overthrew Hell so they're more Good than most people in Cheliax anyway, just, that was the first example of a thing that isn't obviously really awful but probably isn't allowed that I thought of."

"Yeah, I'm kind of confused about the things we aren't allowed to vote for. Like, we aren't allowed to vote that there shouldn't be Hell-priests at the convention, even though everyone knows it's bad to be a priest of a Hell-god, like, that's up there with 'don't murder innocent people.' I was confused about the thing about retroactive punishments too but I think that one might just be because the Queen is Lawful and doesn't want to break the amnesty." 

Yet another way that being Lawful is just worse than being Chaotic. Though actually, now that she thinks about it, the rule against retroactive punishments was probably good for Valia? But if they'd been allowed to pass laws that gave the Evil nobles everything they deserved they wouldn't have even needed the speech, and then Valia would never have been arrested.

"I think retroactive punishments isn't just about the amnesty - I think we also can't do things like punish slaveowners for having being slaveowners even if they did that after the amnesty. Because it wasn't illegal yet even if it was evil. Which... I don't know, maybe that's fine, it's not the worst Lawful thing - I just want to stop people from doing more bad things now because they still aren't choosing to be good even when it's a much easier choice and no one is trying to make them not be good. Even if they should have been good all along. But I want to know the things like that in case it changes what I want to work on because they're hard for me to guess?"

She shifts how she's holding Pere. 

"The Hell-priest is... the one who is a priest of Erecura? I think he said he wasn't Evil and neither was his goddess. I haven't actually - checked - to see if he channels positive but if that's true then it seems okay that he's at the convention? I don't care about whether someone is in Hell, I care about if they're Evil, and those aren't the same thing." 

"Well, I don't know if he's technically Evil or not, and I don't know if his goddess is either, but even if he's technically not Evil I don't think there's a way to work for a Hell-god without helping Hell. It's not like his goddess is a Maledicted paladin getting tortured, she's a goddess, if she weren't helping Hell Asmodeus would just kill her. And maybe Delegate Lebanel's just really stupid, or something, and not trying to help Hell, but — if a devil offered you a contract, and it seemed like a good safe contract that wasn't going to take your soul or anything, it would still be a bad idea to sign it."

She's not sure why this is abruptly stressful but it somehow it is. She doesn't actually know enough about how gods work to know if Erecura being in Hell means she's helping Asmodeus or what else it could mean and she suddenly can't really think about it or try to remember what was said in the conversation on the floor on the first day and - why is she like this?

Detect Fiendish Presence, it's fine if it makes Victoria wonder what's up with that, it's not like she hasn't done it a bunch at the convention already and Victoria seems like she cares about the right kinds of things mostly. 

Non-committal shrug. Focus.

"It does seem like a bad idea." 

Why does this feel as bad as the conversation with the formerly Asmodean priest yesterday, Victoria is way better than he is! Probably it's because she went into that conversation - prepared for it? 

Besides the casting of the spell, it'd be hard to guess what's running through her head. 

Victòria is not an Evil outsider, nor under lingering magical effects from an Evil outsider's gifts, presence, or spells, nor a cleric or paladin of a fiendish deity! (Nor are any of the other random people on this particular street.)

"—Huh, what's that spell do?" She is glancing at her bodyguard a little bit.

She can manage to be not pathetic about this, probably. One slightly deeper breath and then: 

"Oh, you don't know the cantrip? It's Detect Fiendish Presence. It lets you detect clerics of Evil gods and also devils and demons and things like that. It was really useful before the war, less so since all the Asmodean priests lost their spells, but I - sometimes cast it when the topic comes up, just in case. The Erecuran priest doesn't show up to it, but it was nice to be able to check. I don't know what I'd do if there was someone who showed up to the spell and they still were allowed to stay!" 

"Oh, that sounds really useful! Do you know how it works with Undetectable Alignment and other spells like that? He didn't show up to Detect Evil either, the Diabolism Committee checked everyone on the second day, but neither did Delegate Ibarra or Delegate del Mar and it turned out they were both just using magic to hide it."

"Unfortunately, I think it doesn't work on Undetectable Alignment, it's just more convenient than Detect Evil because it's only a cantrip and you can cast it as many times a day as you'd like. That's part why it was more useful before the war, since nobody was hiding their alignment and for stronger clerics you could pick up on their presence even if they weren't there right that minute. It's possible to Detect Magic for Undetectable Alignment but I usually don't."  

That is definitely incredibly pathetic of her and makes it even clearer than usual that she's been wasting a cantrip slot on this every day for no good reason because there's not much chance that it would ever have helped her and she shouldn't feel any better after casting it except for how she shouldn't be feeling as awful as she does for no reason when she casts it. It is probably good to stop ignoring this obvious point but she slightly resents Victoria for observing it even though it's very good of her to.

Nod. "Back home I knew who the priest was, there weren't going to be secret extra priests. But I wasn't really travelling anywhere, it makes sense it was different for priestesses of Desna."

She... could maybe push through this and try to think and explain her thoughts on why she had done things the way she had and how it had worked well enough until - it hadn't - but it doesn't seem likely to matter right now and also she's running late for dropping off Pere.

She nods back. 

"I actually have to drop my little one off right now, so I'm splitting off here - it's only few minutes out of the way if you want to keep talking, if not I'll see you around!"

"-I'd be interested in knowing who Detected as Evil, when Diabolism checked, if you have a list, but probably not right now. Also if there's anyone you missed whom you'd like me to check, I prepped it for checking who I'm leaving him with, but I can try to get them before it runs out." 

Also urgh the thing she said earlier made it sound like she could recognize an Undetectable Alignment if she tried but she doesn't know what it looks like, that's just the kind of thing she lies about reflexively and that's not the right habit to have here but it's hard not to. Maybe if she asks later if Victoria knows how, Victoria won't remember exactly what she said. 

Victòria turns to follow her.

"I've got a list of everyone who was holding their nameplate where I could see it but not all of them were. Most of them were nobles, about one noble in five showed up as Evil — that's including the elected nobles, we were checking at the entrances so I don't know for sure which ones were elected and which ones were sortitioned. If there's any nobles you were wondering about I can see if I remember. And one of the orcs who got sortitioned, and Delegate Iroria from the priests, and Lluïsa — I don't think any of the other priests or sortitions showed up as Evil but if one of them was dressing really fancy I might've mistook them for an elected. Uh, Lluïsa hasn't done anything that wrong, just, she did show up when we checked. And apparently you've got to be pretty strong to show up as Evil, so there's probably lots of other Evil sortitions and maybe some Evil priests, those're just the ones who I know for sure. Remind me later if you want the list of the nobles." Technically it's illegal to make a copy and give it to her and she's following the law right now, but she's pretty sure it's not illegal just to tell her.

“Iroria? Of Irori? I thought He was Lawful Neutral and clerics always matched their god in aura even if they didn’t in alignment? But she didn’t show up to my Detect.” 

“ - And thanks - I know some people are choosing to be better now and that doesn’t change the reading right away but it’s still good to know who still reads that way. And to be carefuller around them.”

She reaches the planned meeting spot with the bodyguard. 

Bijan is there. "Good morning Voyager."

She waves cautiously at the other bodyguard, then shrugs. "I don't know exactly how the spell works for priests, I just know she showed up as Evil. I guess she could be faking being an Irorite but I think they've got to be checking pretty closely, right?"

“Good morning, Bijan. Thanks for coming. I’m gonna Detect Evil now, before I leave him with you, just to be sure.”

She’s not sure how horribly rude that is but it is probably better than just casting without saying anything in case bodyguards are skittish about that. Victoria’s had tolerated her other Detect but maybe that was unusual or because it was just a cantrip. 

Detect Evil

"Suit yourself, Voyager." He's not evil.

Victòria is not detectably Evil!

After checking everyone and not getting any hits, she hands Pere over, trying not to break her concentration on the spell so that she can see if she can check some other delegates with it before it runs out. 

“Now, you be good while I’m gone.” She kisses Pere on the nose as she’s passing him over. 

“And I’ll come back and look for you and Pere here or the other place we picked out, I’ll try to make it out to check during breaks but otherwise I’ll be back at the end of the day. And come find me at the convention if anything seems worrying. Thank you.”

"You're welcome."

Wow, that's kind of bizarre — no, wait, probably that's normal when people actually like their babies. 

Pere is alarmed at being handed to a stranger, and makes some unhappy noises, though he doesn’t start bawling. 

Desnia turns away and walks towards the convention, not chatting more to focus on the Detect Evil. Does she get anyone that Victoria didn’t already check? Or get any different results? 

Dolor was not on Victoria's list, but sure does seem to be faintly evil now.

Desnia is pointing out to Victoria every time she gets a hit, so if Victoria remembers her list she’ll become aware of any differences. 

She continues the Detect.

Blink blink.

"...She didn't show up Evil last week!" Did she go murder innocent devilspawn during the riots or something?

Marit wasn't here last week! As you might expect, given that he's a paladin of Iomedae, he isn't Evil.

This woman is still not detectably Evil.

Antoni was faintly Evil last week, and he's faintly Evil this week too.

The slightly different Hellknight of the Chain is, if you're looking, also Evil. (Actually he's probably significantly more Evil than the other one, really, comes of having any authority whatsoever in Egorian for eight years. But not the way where it shows up stronger, he's still 'faintly Evil'.)

Faint Evil aura!

Overzealous lay-inquisitors who don't understand conditional probability should maybe try detect good sometime, if they can't get aura sight. Moderate Good aura if anyone ever bothers to look for it.

(It has detect evil as an innate sense and already knows all these readings.)

Thea continues to read faintly evil.  

If they bothered to detect law, they would see a definitively stronger aura of law.

The spell expectedly runs out before they get through too many people. Desnia's glad that she has the faces, even if Victoria is going to give her a list of names from her other try later. Easier for her to keep track of this way. 

She would've probably thought to use up the rest of the spell this way on her own but it seems especially useful to know who has changed. She appreciates Victoria even if she's still internally flustered from the earlier conversation. 

" - newly Evil seems worse than still Evil, why are so many people still doing Evil now," she says about Dolor. 

"I don't know. I think — a lot of the nobles are trying to say they're not being Evil anymore but what they actually mean is that they're still being Evil but they'll get mad if you don't pretend they've stopped, maybe she's the same way."

“I’m sure you’re right about lots of nobles still doing Evil, some of them definitely are, it’s just that the alignment isn’t enough to know that, you need to actually check what they’re doing now. But if someone just turned Evil, that means they - did a bunch of Evil just now, doesn’t it?” 

Nod. "I guess maybe she was using a spell to hide last week, and this week she didn't bother. But it's still not — if she was killing innocent people during the riots — I don't know why someone like that wouldn't have been Evil before too, but—"

It feels like there are rocks settling in in the middle of her chest. No one would've — should've — would've taken advantage of Valia's speech to go kill innocent people unless they were already Evil. Except last week — maybe she was Evil in her heart but she hadn't done anything really bad yet so the spell didn't know. Or maybe it was unrelated and she did some other Evil thing that's not actually as bad as murder, she shouldn't assume it was murder. But it really seems like that's the obvious guess, that she joined up with one of the mobs stringing up every devilspawn they could find or cutting down servants and children instead of Evil nobles or murdering Liushna or Enric or — or — well, Enric wasn't actually dead — that's not really the point, the point is that she doesn't know for sure she's a murderer.

She shrugs. 

“I don’t know why either, but - I’m often very confused about why people do Evil things the way they do. I don’t - think we should do anything about it right now, except looking and seeing whether we catch people at Evil things directly, but it’s - good to know who to keep eyes on.”

"I think mostly people do Evil things — very Evil things, I mean, not the kind of thing everyone did under Asmodeus — because they think it's their right to hurt anyone who's weaker than them. And Asmodeus lost but there's still a lot of powerful Evil people running around who no one has put a stop to yet, and as long as they can get away with hurting people they're not going to stop. ...And she looks like a soldier, so."

"I think - that's a thing that Asmodeus taught them, that it's their right to do that, to hurt anyone weaker than them. And - they shouldn't have learned it, they shouldn't have listened - but - if they go on believing that until they die, that's Asmodeus winning. And - sometimes people do stop. Apparently even priests of Asmodeus sometimes stop. Kind of." 

She wants to hug her baby and reassure herself that he's still there but he's not actually. This is... not fine but she's... still kind of able to engage with this so she's going to keep going a little longer and then she will take a few minutes to try to reorient herself before the convention gets started. 

"And of course - if we could just stop the people that are hurting people from hurting anyone else we should do that but it's somehow horribly complicated even if it feels like it shouldn't be complicated." 

"I know people sometimes stop, and — that doesn't make what they did okay but — I agree that it's more important to focus on the people who are still hurting people."

She's thinking about Chosen Artigas again. She still doesn't understand how Iomedae could choose someone like him but she's pretty sure she wouldn't have if he were still going around torturing innocent people to death. And — that's still four innocent people—

—If she kills him she'll die for it. That is not, actually, stopping her from picturing herself torturing him to the brink of death three times over, healing him up, and doing it properly a fourth time. Hurting him until — until he's gotten what he deserved, until she's made things right, until he's started desperately pleading that he was wrong wrong wrong to serve Asmodeus and then quite a bit after that — bringing his victims back to life somehow and handing them flaying knives and telling them to do what they wanted—

Imagining all the ways she'd hurt someone if she could was a lot nicer when it was — a plan, for something she'd do someday, even if she couldn't do it yet.

"But people also keep telling me some person or another has stopped, and is trying not to be Evil anymore, and then they go try and get an innocent person killed for no good reason or something. Saying you've stopped doesn't mean anything if you keep being Evil."

She nods in agreement. "Yes, actually stopping is what matters, not saying that you've stopped." 

"If you know which people say that they've stopped but haven't - I'd like to know about that, if what they're doing is against the law maybe we report it to the paladins, and if it's not against the law but still Evil - well, that's what I meant about things being confusing but maybe I'll be less confused if I have someone to talk about it with?" 

"Most of the ones I know about are the leftover Evil nobles, they say they've stopped and they keep giving speeches about how people shouldn't be allowed to call them Evil, but then they go around lying to get innocent people killed or trying to get everyone to vote for Evil laws or — there was one last week who chased another delegate around the convention hall with a sword just for insulting him. And then also Delegate Ibarra, but apart from using magic to avoid Detect Evil he wasn't really trying to pretend he's stopped."

"All of that seems like the kind of confusing Evil that I keep being unsure what to do about. Lying wasn't illegal before and now it might be incitement or slander but I don't remember exactly what makes things incitement or slander. Is threatening people illegal yet? Maybe a committee should make threatening people with weapons illegal if it isn't yet - unless... maybe that counts as incitement of oneself somehow? Did Ibarra say he did anything specific that he did since the amnesty or did he just say that he still didn't care about not being Evil?" 

She sighs. 

"All this about trying to figure out what law does or doesn't say is annoying because - I care about being Good and not about Lawful and even if laws aren't evil they feel kind of... missing the point? But also I just keep feeling confused about what to do and if I'm not sure what to do than maybe following the law makes sense in those cases and - there's things that I can do more easily if I'm not on the run for breaking the law and so I should probably only break it if it's really important. And also the Queen and the archmages are Good and saved so many people from Hell and made everything better so I want to do nice things for them and - following the law is kind of like doing a nice thing for the Queen?" 

Even if it didn't make everything as much better as she would have thought, before. 

"If I started chasing someone down with a sword I'd expect to be prosecuted for attempted murder. I talked to a paladin the other day who thought maybe if someone pointed that out to the archmage he'd agree, but he's really busy, I haven't managed to actually talk to him." She frowns. "I think it'd be hard to make a law against all threats or even just all weapon threats without banning lots of things that are fine, but maybe there's a way I'm not thinking of.

And I don't know exactly which Evil things Delegate Ibarra did when but I heard he was Fireballing crowds of innocent people during the riots. —Though actually I heard that about some of the nobles too and it turned out to be that they had Evil people working for them who were doing that, so I guess that could be what happened with him as well."

She's somehow so bad at law that she forgot that attempted murder was still a type of crime. 

Though she's not clear on how - close someone needs to get or how hard they need to be trying or how clear the intent of murder needs to be to count as attempted murder. 

"If the paladins agree then I don't understand why one of the paladins isn't trying to do that themselves, then, I thought they could enforce the law. - And yeah, banning things that are fine is a problem, I don't know for sure if I want more laws without knowing how to fix the thing where people use them to do bad things and not good things and I don't know how to write laws in a way that that doesn't happen. Also, I left town after the riots, so I didn't hear about what Ibarra did during them. 

- The convention is starting very soon and I want to collect my thoughts before it starts - let's talk more afterwards, I can meet you back at the temple, I go there in the evening sometimes to spend my spare channels." 

Nod. "Sometimes I end up with evening plans but I'll be sure to tell you before I leave the convention if anything comes up, is that okay?"

Victòria is waiting just inside the sanctuary at the Temple of Shelyn that evening, with some writing supplies out.

Desnia arrives at the temple, holding Pere. Spots Victoria and walks over. 

"Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long. What're you working on?" 

"I was writing a note to a paladin but I finished so now I'm practicing drawing so my next letter to Valia will have better pictures. Speaking of which, is it alright if we stop off at the temple of Iomedae after this so I can drop off the note?"

She’d honestly somewhat rather not but for stupid reasons which she’s going to ignore because they’re stupid. 

“Sure, that’s fine by me.” 

"You wanted to do a channel before we head out, right? Is now a good time or would you rather wait for more people?"

"Seems a bit emptier than usual right now, so maybe I should see whether the temple of Iomedae needs them more if we're going there anyway. Since paladins can't channel and they don't have many clerics and even fewer now that Valia is gone. You've sent her a letter? Have you heard back from her yet?" 

(Oh, so paladins are a special kind of priest of Iomedae that can't channel? Victòria is kind of confused about why Iomedae wouldn't just make everyone a regular priest but maybe there's things they can do that normal priests can't.)

"Sure, that works for me. I haven't heard back yet but I only sent it yesterday, and it might take her a bit to find someone to read it to her."

"Then let's head over now." 

She start heading out again, still holding Pere. 

"Have you already spent all your channels for the day?" 

"—I'm Chaotic Neutral, I channel negative."

Ahhhh. She doesn’t externally react. 

That seems concerning? She’s kind of been assuming that Victoria couldn’t be Evil, but it seems like that was a wrong assumption. She’s… not Evil and powerful, at least. Desnia had checked this morning. 

She doesn’t really have strong reason to disbelieve the claim of Neutrality, but this means that Victoria’s not Good, and Desnia had thought she might be Good. She feels… betrayed, somehow, even though Victoria could have easily lied about channels for a while before it got suspicious, probably. She just had noticed that she wanted to be able to lean into trusting someone and Good seemed like a reasonable standard for trust.

Maybe Good was too high a standard - Desnia doesn’t even know for sure that she herself is Good - they might both be Chaotic Neutral together, and the only difference is which god chose each of them. 

Why are all the plausibly Good delegates former Asmodean priests or Songbirds that don’t want to talk to her. Why is everything so hard. She should prep Detect Good tomorrow, maybe. 

She should say something before it’s an awkwardly long pause. 

“Do you find negative channels to be more useful than positive ones? I’m not sure how Neutral clerics pick their channels.” 

A few days ago she'd have said that obviously negative channels are more useful. Sure, it's nice to be able to heal people sometimes, but you can just prepare healing spells if you think you'll need them, you're not usually going to need to heal a whole group of people at once.

And the thing about negative channels is, you can't pick and choose who you hurt. If, say, a pair of guards are trying to arrest you, and there are bystanders in your channel area, they're a lot less useful than if you can plan in advance and make sure no one innocent rushes into the room until after you channel. She's actually hardly ever actually used her channels, not since the day she got picked. She spent a couple of them on the road, when wildlife got too close for comfort, but she could've done that just as well with spells. 

And it's not like positive channels aren't useful. Raimon channels positive. Healing people who need it is nice to do, if you can. It'd help a lot with self-defense lessons, actually, if she could do more than just heal up two people a day. Once she makes Good she'll be stuck with positive channels, and that's not awful, there's lots of things she'll be able to do with them.

But it also feels like she'd be losing something, if she channeled positive, if she couldn't turn her first-circle spells into harm at a moment's notice. (Do those always go together? She thinks so, but she's not sure one way or the other.) It matters that she can hurt people if they deserve it, and trying to stab at them with her dagger just isn't the same. 

She doesn't actually remember picking, exactly, she just spent her hour of prayers thinking about how much she wanted to hurt every last person in her lord's family, and when she reached inside herself to feel her new powers, there it was.

And negative channels were definitely a lot more useful on the day Calistria picked her. ...Admittedly, there's no good way to fully explain that without admitting to a capital crime, but she doesn't have to tell the whole story.

"They were more useful for me the day I got picked. I don't know if they're more useful in general, I'd actually never seen a positive channel until I came here for the convention. Probably it depends on the circumstances? But it's not like there's a way to change it, once you've decided, except by becoming Good, which, I mean — obviously I'm trying to do the right thing—"

She’s good at telling when people trying to lie to her, is the thing, and it continues to be the case that Victoria isn’t really trying to lie to her, even if she doesn’t want to tell Desnia what the negative channels were useful for the day she got picked. 

She’s - there’s just been too much politicing today, and she’s tired even after taking a nap with Pere after getting him back. She’s just going to say words and trust Victoria but less than before and see what happens. 

“Oh, there isn’t a way to change how you channel? I don’t know how that works for Neutral priests, exactly, just the ones I’ve met when I knew how they channeled channeled positive. 

- Are you trying to be Good? It sounded like you were, before, but I’m not really sure how hard it is - I’m not even sure that I am, Desna’s power in me is what shows up to Detect spells.”

"I guess there could be a way I haven't heard of." Especially since she didn't even know there were Calistrians who channeled positive until last week.

"—But yes, I'm trying to be Good. I don't really know how Pharasma decides when you start counting, maybe it'll take years or maybe I'll wake up tomorrow with positive channels — but that's not really the part that's important to me anyways, the important part is doing the right thing."