"That is our guess too. The gods don't know all of what happens that far in advance, and news of a world where Asmodeus wins such a victory is of interest to all of them. The civilized gods can all share what they know, as long as one learns it, but Asmodeus has to kidnap someone. Why do you suppose his man took no one else? Would you have refused?"

"I don't know. I suppose I would have asked questions."

"Who should I talk to for a more complete history, who got the best education -"

"Iolanda knows the most in general, of course, though I don't know if she has much focus on history. Oriol knows whatever they teach you in ten years of public school, which probably isn't better but might have more history."

"What's public school?"

"Just regular free school. For all the freemen who aren't aristocrats. They do reading, writing, mathematics, history, religion, and a little bit of physical training. Smartest ones go to the wizard preparatory school at age twelve, I guess that's also public school."

"Huh! Who's paying for it?"

"The crown."

"I wouldn't expect the crown to have enough, in taxes, to have schools for all free men. Are they doing that instead of fighting wars?" That would be very commendable and also a very odd thing for Asmodeans of all people to have been the first to do. "Or are very few men free?" That would make more sense.

"Most men are free and most children attend school. We still fight wars. I don't know what the crown's books look like."

"Who're you at war with?"

"The Abyss, like I said. And recently the eastern provinces, though that's been colder for the last few years."

"It was surprising to me that Oppara hadn't stepped in to - well, frankly probably to just kill every living thing in the region - that's not what I'd do, but it's what I would expect them to do, if a province gave itself over to the worship of Asmodeus."

"What's Oppara? - the whole country's Asmodean, not just Menador."

"Oppara is the capital of the Empire - did something happen to it, I suppose that would explain the nonintervention - when you say 'the whole country', from where to where do you mean?

"Cheliax is - top of the inner sea up to Menador, and then in the west up to the ocean, and in the east until you hit Taldor."

" - right now all of that is Taldor. Menador is part of Taldor. Canorate is part of Taldor. Vellumis is part of Taldor, Elidir is part of Taldor, Westcrown is part of Taldor, the Aspodells are part of Taldor, Augustana is part of Taldor..."

"I don't know all of those. The ones I know are part of Cheliax. Except Canorate, that's in Molthune. Cheliax used to be a part of Taldor, I think, but it declared independence. ....almost sure that's a separate event than the civil war, but I'd want to double check."

"Do you happen to know when it became common for many free men in Menador to be orcs, or of orcish descent? Did that happen with the Asmodeans, or earlier?"

"I'd expected to see them in your fields. Though among the freemen you don't often see people more than a quarter or so orc."

"I think I would have previously expected that if anyone tried to enslave orcs they would kill everyone in the dead of night and run off. At least often enough it was not a wise thing to do. I - am not really sure what I should learn here. If we forgot about the rule by Asmodeus and I had only learned that orcs could be perfectly ordinary Menadorans I would regard this as one of the best things I had learned in a long time. But that's rather confounded by the rule by Asmodeus. I - do you understand why people in places not ruled by Asmodeus feel so strongly about it?"

Shrug. The answer he expects is true is that Asmodeans do things differently than them, and people hate anyone who does things differently. The Asmodean church is also in various ways unpleasant, but -

Oh, hey. The problem with this line of conversation is that previous attempts down it have felt uncomfortably like Iomedae is demanding he develop religious convictions so she can refute them, but he can say something else here.

"In my experience Asmodeans don't actually like the idea of free orc-blooded Menadorians, except that they like freeing slaves who win enough battles in the colosseum. But if they're going to free then they also immediately want them as far away as possible from themselves, so they give them some land in northern Menador and tell them they can be ruler of it if they can defend it. Some full blooded orcs have become minor nobility by starting there. Do you not take slaves at all, here?"

He's going to be mildly surprised if the Asmodean church is actually a strongly positive influence on orc-blooded men's position in society. He doesn't generally think of them that way at all.

"The Empire takes slaves. And has ways for them to win their freedom, though I don't know many specific details. Menador probably will take orc slaves, once the river's safer and there's somewhere to sell them. Maybe it is one of those things where over hundreds of years more examples build up, which permits more people to notice it can be done. I will make sure the Crusade, where it's handing out land for service, would offer it to orcs, though we don't have very many."

"I do know about the process of taking mountain orc slaves, if the situation is in fact that you'd prefer to but you haven't figured out how to do it without them killing you."

"- I expect that someone would value that information. Paladins are generally believed to not be able to take slaves at all, because we cannot do Evil things and under nearly all circumstances taking slaves is evil. Taking prisoners of war isn't, and in the mountains it seems like it might be more of that, depending, but - I would still expect that most of the evils that are a consequence of slavery would result unless someone was being exceptionally careful to avoid them."