"What are darkspawn?"

"The Chantry says they were created when the Tevinter magisters who entered the golden city were hurled back to Thedas. They're twisted, tainted humanoids who usually stay underground, but during a blight they swarm to the surface and kill everything in their path. Not like animals, either, they mutilate the bodies of the men and children they find, leave every settlement they come to a - festival of carnage, or something. If they can drag women underground before they die or kill themselves, they can transform them into broodmothers by force-feeding them filth and the bodies of their comrades. They become so swollen they lose the ability to walk, can barely sit up under their own weight. And they rape them, I guess, and produce more of their kind to ravage the countryside. Those are darkspawn."

"Why are you in charge of fighting them?"

"I was conscripted by the ancient order responsible for fighting darkspawn and ending blights, and then most of my superiors were killed. I'm not claiming I'm the only person who can fight them, though, I'm just the only person who has access to the treaties needed to finish gathering our forces."

"Your society conscripts women?"

"Not often." Like, this is kind of a weird part of this to object to, but the military and the wardens are in fact both majority male, so.

"Alright. I'll see if we can get this case seen to today, at least, then."

"Thank you," she says, with genuine emotion this time. "I appreciate it."

"If you're lying, you know, it's better to tell me now. They'll use spells and they'll be able to tell, and it's worse to be lying once you've wasted their time and several spells."

"Oh good, and here I thought I'd have to actually convince people of my very implausible story. I'm not lying."

"It is a very implausible story."

"I wasn't consulted on it before it happened."

"Well, you're lucky you're in Sothis. Most places aren't so thorough."

"I believe it."

The people who cast the spells come in a bit later, gold-robed, and cast two of them. The first one feels like a punch to - something; it makes everything a little hazy and uninteresting and unimportant. The second one doesn't seem to do anything at all.

They'd like her to repeat her story.

Gladly.

Did she see any of what was written on the alter? Can they see her burns from the lightning? Why did they decide to go back to the house where they'd been summoned earlier? Does she remember where she talked to a guard in the night?

She doesn't remember what the markings looked like and didn't know how to read them. They can see her burns, they haven't healed up much. She... didn't have anywhere else to go and knew it was currently unoccupied? One street over to the left as you leave the house, she thinks, near the tavern.

They confer.

Does she, if released, promise to obey the law and be humble and grateful for the grace of the pharaoh and stay out of further trouble?

....well she doesn't know all of their laws, and feels really uncomfortable promising that without knowing whether any of them are, like, 'if people in fancy hats come to kill you you should sit still and let them do that' or are otherwise terrible?

" - look, I can't release anyone who doesn't promise to try to follow the law. I especially can't release anyone whose deity is chaotic and who doesn't promise to try to follow the law. If you don't know what it is you can go to a temple, maybe, and ask them for lessons in law? We aren't ourselves set up for them."

"I will follow all of the laws I know about."

"And you understand you're responsible for following all of them, whether you know about them or not, and had better go and make yourself familiar with them?"

Sigh.

They don't have better options.

"Yes."

"Alright. You can go. And you can pick up your possessions at the door."