"Yeah, that tracks. Containing demons to protect the world does a lot of good."

"It can't be common to be formally non-Evil. The fort has a Holy bow, and if you pick it up and you're Evil, you notice that it objects, that's just worth it if you're a good enough archer to begin with and you're shooting at the right kind of demon. Though I guess it's not impossible people were routinely picking it up and finding it didn't mind them and they just didn't tell anyone for fear they would be promptly ordered to torture a camp follower to death."

Her eyebrows lift slightly as she processes that one. "—right, because being able to take an objective measurement of someone's moral character, in a society ruled by Hell—hm. Don't like that."

"You'd have to make someone shoot the bow a lot to be sure of this any way besides them saying so. Alignment detection spells only work on people who are strong enough. There are a couple of oblique ways to get this information about weaker people but mostly only if you're prepared to risk killing them - types of damage that are choosy - or I guess you could make them pick up the bow while you were reading their mind but we did not in fact make a practice of that."

"Yeah. It's still... a disquieting implication, even if it's obvious in retrospect, that... the existence of the objective measurement means that it can be an institutional target, that people can be made to conform to if they're observed to deviate."

"Clerics can be up to one 'step' away from our gods, but - it is understood that Neutral Evil people will get the choice to appear in either the Chaotic Evil or the Lawful Evil afterlives, the Neutral Evil one having offended Pharasma, and that they'd choose Hell, so Lawful Neutral is the - threat model, for Asmodeans - but there wasn't really a lot of checking. Serving Hell is a pretty Evil thing to do."

"But they're not just resting on their laurels in that regard, are they? They're actively trying to get people to do more evil than they otherwise might."

"Yes. I think less at the Wound, there are other obligations there. And they exaggerate the practical availability of both of Detect Thoughts and Malediction."

"Malediction?"

"Fourth circle spell for sending someone to Hell in a way that bypasses Judgment. In practice pretty much reserved for people caught defecting in a way that would normally call that into question, like if they were clerics of a Good god or committing espionage for a broadly Good-aligned power."

"Hm! Don't like that."

"#11 had a scroll of it but I burned it, after."

"Very reasonable."

"You can cast it backwards. But I doubt anyone else is in the same position as me, I've never used one, and demons could have gotten ahold of it to send people to the Abyss while I looked for another re-clericed former Asmodean."

Thoughtful nod.

"...some people can use scrolls they should not normally be able to use, but this applied just as well to the wizards in the fort not all of whom I was not particularly certain of, as anyone who might have been de-clericed and feeling repentant about it without having the circles from another source."

"Did these considerations occur to you before the burning, or after?"

"It occurred to me beforehand that if I had ever Maledicted anyone I could have tried the scroll backward and that its continued existence was a risk, but the rest of it I don't remember thinking about explicitly."

"It seems like the right call in the moment even if you'd been missing something that might make it a good idea to hold onto, because it sounds like any world where it's a good idea to hold onto also entails putting it under better guard somehow to cut the downside risk, and if you don't have a clear path in mind to making good use of it that's resources probably better spent elsewhere."

Nod.

"But it also seems useful to think through the other considerations afterward. I'm really looking forward to that wisdom enhancement spell, it seems like it'd make that kind of thing easier."

"I couldn't plan on having it available, I was the only cleric for miles, but it would've helped, yes. I made do with a lot of Guidances."

"Yeah, the more I think about it the more I can see why you'd pick up that Guidance habit. Being just a little better at most things you do over the course of a day is a good gig if you can get it."

"It's a very common generic preparation but I'm perhaps unusual in having it every day."

"I guess there's always the question of what it's trading off against. Still, though, it's pretty good."