Clap clap clap. She was really shocked at how Valia figured it out, but once you saw her logic it all hung together really elegantly.

"Perhaps it is a fool's errand, to stand here and speak after Select Wain has said her piece - but I shall try regardless, for one of the greatest tasks Lady Shelyn places upon our shoulders is to spread her word even to those who refuse to believe. Mephistopheles, have you considered not being evil? It's bad for your soul, and bad for everyone around you, but most importantly it's bad for you. And I figure, hey, if we have you here and the president refuses to let us kick you out, maybe you didn't actually know this? Montero, the same goes for you too. You should both stop hurting people and try helping them instead."

"I was fifteen years old the first time I killed a man. 

I did not plan to confess to murder, when I woke up today. I expect that the same queen who has handed a county to Abrogail Thrune's spymistress will put me to death for killing a nobleman for a crime a commoner would hang for. But there are more important things than my life, and if I must give it so Cheliax can be free I will do so.

I do not think I am braver than most of the people in this room.

Inside all of us, there is a voice that cries out for justice. That says the strong have no right to abuse the weak. That watches as the servants of Asmodeus walk among us and pretend to be just like anyone else and says — this is wrong.

Asmodeus tried to silence that voice. He failed. Now it falls to all of us to listen to it, even when it's difficult, even when it feels like it would be so much easier to let Abrogail Thrune's spymistress run the convention and enshrine her tyranny into law. We must have the courage to stand up against every servant of Asmodeus, from the lowliest lord to Mephistopheles himself, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of all the ordinary people of Cheliax."

"Honored delegates. It is true that I am Mephistopheles. However, so are many of you. Luckily for us, it is not illegal in this country to be Mephistopheles. To venerate or proselytize for an infernal power is prohibited. But I do not venerate any infernal power, and I am not here to spread the word of their faiths, or indeed to spread any true claims about anything. I am eager to participate in Cheliax's experiment in Republicanism and if you annoy me I will see to it that your loved ones suffer all the more in Hell."

Honestly her best option here might be to just sit here and hope everyone missed the part about her what with the reveal that Mephistopheles is here.

"Just because it's legal to be Mephistopheles doesn't mean it's alright," she snaps at, apparently, Mephistopheles. (It's easy not to be moved by threats of your loved ones suffering in Hell when you haven't yet realized either that you have loved ones or that you don't actually want literally every Lawful Evil person to be eternally tortured in Hell.)

"I move to amend the laws of Cheliax to prohibit being Mephistopheles."

"I second the motion."

Well, this is going to go badly for her. And for Cheliax.

"Somewhat redundant, Select, Avenger. Mephistopheles, you are not a citizen of Cheliax and not eligible to be elected to this convention. Go back to Hell."

"As you insist, your majesty. Can I make a few constructive criticisms of the constitutional convention first?"

"We do not take advice from archdevils."

This is an omake! People don't have to be reasonable and I want to hear what Meph is going to say.

"Of course you may!"

"Everyone should be anonymized by powerful illusion magic! Ballots should be secret! Delegates should all wear long swishy cloaks! The metadata should all deliberately fuck with the readers!"

"So we're doing the exact opposite of all of those suggestions, right."

"That might be what He wants us to do."

...Now that she's thought about it she kind of wants a long swishy cloak but she absolutely does not want to listen to an archdevil about it. 

"I'll see the overwhelming majority of you later!" he says cheerfully, and leaves.

We've all forgotten about Carlota-related claims that were made, right?

No.

Though it probably says good things about this regime's willingness to accept druid insurgents responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, so.

This druid's cool with it, though apparently she needs to be very careful of the witch hunters here in particular, because they're surprisingly good at their jobs.

But this is an omake, so Voshrelka isn't going to do something sensible like 'stay silent and listen,' she's going to do what's most entertaining!

So she gets up to sit next to her.

"Hey. You did great work and I am cautiously optimistic of this regime's success. Want to be warcrimes besties?"

"I've never had a warcrimes bestie before but I admire your work too! In the other omake you had a really impressive kill count!"

"Thank you, I actively avoided attracting any attention or doing anything of any worthy note to get away with it. It's why I'm still unfortunately level 6. It's very unfair."

"You should try risking eternal torture constantly for a couple of decades! If I stretch myself I can cast a seventh circle spell now and that's worth a lot of worlds where I am being eternally tortured. ... I should disclaim here that Carlota disagrees with that assessment."

"In a way I was, but it was in a kind of far off way that didn't really earn xp for levels, you know? Vague knowledge that if anyone knew what I was doing they'd damn me to Hell for it doesn't really fill out the encounter charts. Eh, maybe it'll go faster now that I have a face, voice and backstory obvious to the readers, I hear those help a lot with leveling."

"Do you think I should give a big speech defending my choices or just hope that everyone forgot about me in the hubbub about Mephistopheles?"

"Oh, definitely wait and spend this valuable time drafting the big speech to make it hit as hard as possible. That way you can still pull it out if it becomes relevant."

The Duchess of Chelam who came back from Axis used to be the infernal spymaster? If you can do things like that and not be damned for them, he's definitely going to be fine.

"As you say."

Lisandro is out. Grabs his sortition and his familiar, and— Teleport. 

He’ll play for normal stakes like ‘6th circle or an early death’. Not ‘6th circle or Malediction’. 

Oh no.  If Mephistopheles is right here - well, not literally right here anymore, unless he still is in another body -

- Between an archmage and an archdevil, it's no contest which one is scarier.

Gerard will be busy repenting of ever being anything except a loyal Asmodean.  And then he's going to go get a long swishy cloak.