"Well, I can tell you for certain those people were wrong. Plenty of people are wrong, even ones who are going to Heaven, not to mention the ones who only think so. It's easy for people to convince themselves it's Good to hurt anyone who makes them angry, but it isn't."

"Okay, so if it's not just which chariot team you're on - I've picked up the Holy bow, I know it hates me. If I didn't have to go find nonevil people to feed soup to, all this time, why?"

Oh, that is such a good question.  "I don't know. If you tell me about what your life's been like, I might have guesses."

She leans back in her chair. "I grew up in Sirmium on a farm, I didn't have any brothers left after the flu came through so I learned to shoot and such, my stepfather didn't like me so when the baron was rustling up a bunch of bodies to throw at the demons it was go or marry the prick down the lane with two bastards and a beer gut, and here I came. Long march. I started east of here but got swapped two years ago. I teach demonology because apparently a lot of people can't keep the damn things straight even though they all look different, you wouldn't think that was exceptional and I'm not wizard-witted and yet."

"That sounds like a completely normal life to me."  And a sad one, but it's not as if it's uncommon for people to lose all their siblings or have few good choices in life, and he doesn't think it'll do anyone any good to remark on it.  "I could've heard that story in Taldor or Mendev, and have no reason to think anything wrong with you. But... I think probably a normal life in Cheliax is different than in countries not under an Evil god, and neither of us knows what's different because we've never seen the other version."

"Like... Do you know what I mean when I say this fort feels very different from the other ones on the Chelish line?"

"Commander's more uptight and doesn't play favorites 'cause he doesn't like anybody enough to think of it."

Snort.  "Yes, that too, but... To me it felt like in the other forts mostly everyone was miserable, and hated or at least disliked each other, and was spending most of their free time making each other miserable in turn. And here it's much less like that. Do you think that's right?"

"It's pretty miserable? It's the Worldwound."

"Sure, but is it less miserable here than where you were before? Are people assholes to you less often?"

"I got a promotion pretty soon after I got here."

"Huh. I'm pretty sure it'd be an obvious difference to me no matter how many promotions I'd gotten."

"Well, my basic guess is that all of life in Cheliax is set up like the other forts, so everyone's miserable and afraid and constantly hurting each other for no reason, and you're so used to it that you barely even notice – but it might still be enough to make most people Evil, living their whole lives like that."

"I mean, there's people who are worse than other people. You saying there aren't other places? We swung through some other places in the long march."

"Other places people mostly don't hate each other. But they do hate you, or sometimes all foreigners, so it'd be hard to tell the difference."  He doesn't look happy about this fact.

"So....?"

"So they probably don't end up Evil, if they're only unpleasant to some people they don't see often, not to everyone they know."

"But it probably isn't just that, really. D'you want me to just go over all the bigger Evil things I can think of and tell me if you've done any?"

"Sure, why not."

Nod. "Ever killed anyone not a demon? Not always Evil, but the details will matter. ...Slaves count, and orcs and so on, and if you were ordered to that still counts. And babies, even before they were born."

"We weren't rich enough to have slaves. I shot a man trying to steal our sheep once, he got away but I guess he might have died of it later. I know people who've aborted but I never got pregnant."

Nod. "Shooting someone in defense of your livelyhood is fair enough, when you haven't got better options, and most people don't."

"Ever tortured anyone, or maimed them or anything like that, or beat them, hmm, badly enough they'd have trouble walking or doing other basic things?"

"I've whipped people. But the Commander has too and he's going to Axis."

"Yeah, that one's going to be fine sometimes too, it depends on the circumstances and the reasons. What were yours?"

"People being insubordinate or lazy or late or whatever."

"At the forts, when the rules said so, or do you mean something else? Were you ordered to, or deciding on your own?"

"I had some discretion once I was - now hang on, you can’t run an army letting people walk all over their COs."