"The problem is that the best way to destroy a lot of boats is by moving the Eye of Abendago! But it's not very specific about which boats it destroys!"

"...Please do not do that. I was thinking meteor swarms?"

Nefreti makes a face. "I do not think that is worth my trouble."

She'll move the eye of Abendego but won't cast a normal common ninth-circle spell. Figures. "Well, thank you for helping. I will let you know how you fit into our plans when we have them."

"Yes," Nefreti agrees. 

Freedom Radio manages, with some finagling, to get the infrastructure up to take calls from listeners. The way they have this work is that listeners in locations with their own transmission-capable radios (which include many towns, at this point) can call in to one of several frequencies monitored by Freedom Radio's staff, and then if they have something interesting to say that frequency can play in the room Iomedae's in. Sound quality is an ongoing problem, but Iomedae thinks it's worth it for the opportunities to authentically talk to people on-air. 

They get listener questions about various heresies. Various rumors. A lot of people want to be on the air just to ask if anyone else anywhere in the world has heard anything about a lost loved one. Iomedae coldbloodedly figures a little human interest content helps with ratings but you've got to keep it limited, and does so.

        "When," one man says coldly to her after a few weeks of this, "is the last time you've talked to a normal human being who isn't part of your little rebel cell? Not counting the radio calls."

"Unfortunately that's secret," Freedom says. "But if you are saying that I am clueless and out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people I am inclined to believe you. I have led an unusual life, this last while."

       "You're oblivious. It's maddening. You think anyone takes issue with the Church of Iomedae because Her country's not run by the mob?"

"I sincerely take issue with it for that reason! Why do you?"

         "Because they hung my son as a cultist. He wasn't a cultist. His cousin was probably dabbling with some nonsense he should never have gotten into, but all my son did was not report his cousin to die, and anyone would do that."

"Certainly at least a lot of people would. And it's a hanging offense in Lastwall, and you think it shouldn't be?" Iomedae's insides feel cold. It's not the sort of question they asked when they were trying to decide what to think of Lastwall. It's not - strictly inconsistent with things she did read, things that made sense to her at the time - the regulations of her paladin order state that it could if appropriate to the situation put her to death, for concealing a capital crime, but that struck her as entirely just. And she didn't bother asking -

         "I don't know a thing about Lastwall. It's a hanging offense in Kenabres."

She doesn't even know where that is. "Well, I'll say I agree with you that if that's the whole of the situation I don't think it should be one. It - sounds like your son didn't trust that his cousin would get a fair trial."

          "Of course he wouldn't get a fair trial. Why would the Church of Iomedae care about fair trials?"

It's like the gut-wrenching feeling of a Wish trying to kidnap you, except this is in fact all her fault, for not checking. "Well, the reason anyone Lawful ought to care about a fair trial is that it's how you tell whether people are guilty, and the reason anyone Good ought to care is that it's how you ensure people don't live in terror, and anyone ought to care about making sure that people like your son are willing to go to the authorities, which they only will be if the authorities are fair and merciful and concerned for the wellbeing of everyone."

        "You're a silly little girl," the man says.

"Do you know of other cases where you think people have not gotten a fair trial?"

         "I have watched six hundred people hang since they stopped burning them and I promise you not one of them got a fair trial. Maybe got the chance to say under a truth spell that they'd never done anything wrong, if that was true, but who's that true of?"

"I don't know," says Freedom. "Certainly not me. Are you in danger, from having made this complaint to us? Should I send someone to -" No, she can't have him picked up and brought to Vigil, she can't, she doesn't know what avenues that gives Lastwall to make him recant but there have to be some - "get you money and resources you can use to flee to safety?"

         "If I cared what they did to me, I wouldn't have called," the man says.

"I am very grateful that you did. Now, you understand, I have to check if this is true, but if it is, then it's lawless and evil and we'll have to put an end to it. And listeners elsewhere, I want to ask you: is this true in your cities and countries? Are things unusually bad in Kenabres, or is that how the law works for everyone? We usually end at the top of the hour, but I'm going to stay on two hours more, tonight, because the more we know, the more we can change things."

But of course the people she has filtering the incoming channels will filter who she talks to - if Alfirin's smart (and Alfirin is a genius) she's tuned into one of those channels already, and can tell Iomedae later if that's what happened -

"Our priest's a good man, and fair. No one thought the Carter boy had killed his father, but they'd been heard fighting so he had to do a truth spell, and he wouldn't deny it, so the priest sat and talked with him a few hours and eventually he said he did it, in a fit of madness, and regretted it more than anything, and was ready to die and be judged for it, and the priest said that instead to repent he could dig out the whole pass between 'saville and Games, and have given our village as much as he'd robbed of it, and it took him ten years but he did it, and at first no one would talk to him when he came in for the channel at night but after a few years folks saw he was serious. It would've been fair to hang him but I think this way's better."

"I think so," says Freedom, wondering if the man really exists or if there's now an elaborate effort to lie to her underway. You'd really only need one person at a transmitter who's good at voices and accents and dialects.

"I don't see why you shouldn't hang a man, for not reporting a den of cultists. The cultists will summon demons or something and kill everyone. They ought to be reported, and if you're not reporting them you are probably at least sympathetic to them. The man was in the wrong, and it was for the good of the whole city if he was hanged for it."

"I would say that the cultists certainly ought to be reported, though it's not surprising they wouldn't be, if they won't get a fair trial. And I would say that anyone who doesn't report them to a fair court has done wrong himself. But I wouldn't say he should die of it. That's justice, maybe, but it's justice done in a way that weakens the fabric of society rather than strengthens it. 

Now, maybe when we learn more of this situation we'll learn he did more than not report them, hid evidence of their crimes, and that'd be different. Or maybe we will learn he was a sworn officer of the law, and still did not act, and in that case I think they'd be right to hang him. But in the case described, what I hear is a legal system that people don't believe to be just, punishing them for acting like they don't believe it's just, and thereby further degrading their faith in it, and I don't like it at all."

Eventually they go off air. If Iomedae's listeners are to be trusted (a big if) there is substantial variance in readiness to put people to death but Kenabres is much worse than anything anyone else described.

Iomedae sits there. She probably shouldn't sit here. She should probably do something. She just can't quite think what.

Alfirin's there, when the broadcast is over. She pulls Iomedae in for a hug. "I think things are different at the worldwound than here but we can leave right now if you want." she whispers.

"No, we can't," Iomedae whispers back. " - well, you can." She does not technically have orders not to run away to Andoran but she knows many of the war plans and Cheliax could capture her from Andoran and Cansellarion would objectively be risking everything, if he let her.

"Your oaths don't let you out if the religion is secretly evil?"

"I don't even know if this was secret," she says miserably. "I didn't ask what they kill people over. I wasn't expecting them to be all American about it. I have no idea how merciful it is reasonable to expect people with these resources to be. …if I think an order isn't lawful, I should not obey it, even if it’s not in the category I was trained on, but 'I don't like how often this radio caller claims you execute people' doesn't make an order to stay in secure locations where Cheliax can't steal me unlawful. Not that I've been so ordered, but I expect to be if we try to leave."

"And you're supposed to not run away from orders you expect to receive."

"Yes. I could go request an emergency meeting with Cansellarion, and ask to leave, and be patiently talked down from it, but I know what he'll say and it seems very self-indulgent to waste his time on actually saying it."

"Okay. I don't think we should leave now, even if you were free to - I just didn't want you to be worried we were actually trapped. I have a scroll. I can probably read it before it explodes on me."

"...I love you so much." Iomedae hugs her. "I also don't think we should leave. I'm just - mad at myself, that I didn't think to ask whatever I would've needed to think to ask to learn this."

'I asked some of the workers, too - I really don't think it's normal here. It still seems very evil to me, to execute people for not informing on their neighbors - but for all I can tell that could have been one rogue priest, and if it's more widespread we can do more about it here than in Andoran…"

"Yep. I am curious whether they'll say anything about it, and if so it'll be 'that's a rogue priest' or 'that's fine, what are you upset about', but - mostly I'm just thrown off because I'm reminded how high stakes everything is, and how hard it is to have the whole picture of what's going on."

"Mhm. We checked a lot of things but we didn't check 'is it a capital offense to not inform on your neighbor' and - It's a reminder that we could be missing a ton of other things."

Iomedae does not bring it up at the next strategy meeting but it's a bit of a pointed not bringing it up and she's not a hard person to read.

Alfirin's the only one here that listens to every broadcast, these days. "Is there something wrong?" Xiomarra asks, eventually.

"Sort of depends what one thinks is wrong, doesn't it," says Iomedae. ('no one brought it to their attention' rules out both 'this is something it was important to them to conceal' and 'this is something that people expected they'd obviously intervene in').