"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'). 

That sounds like something is wrong, and Iomedae does not want to talk about it here and now. Fine. She'll drop it for now and pull Iomedae aside after the meeting is over. "I'd like to speak with you in my office, alone. It should be about half an hour."

"Of course," says Iomedae. She's pretty sure that's more how getting scolded for not cleaning your room works than how international diplomacy works but she doesn't actually know what she wants here and not talking to them definitely won't get her it.

"If you don't want to tell me anything that's fine," Xiomara says as soon as they're behind closed doors, "But I'd appreciate you staying the whole half hour even if so, and not telling anyone what we did or didn't discuss. That said, I think something is troubling you and I'd like to know what, if you can and wish to say."

…she likes these people. She really really likes these people, and trusts them, they make sense to her, it's not impossible to believe it's the civilization she'd have built if she didn't know that it was possible to make democracy work. That's why it keeps hurting every time she needs reminding that, in fact, they run a military dictatorship - "I got a caller on the radio who wanted to make the case that the real problem with the Church of Iomedae is that they executed his son, for not reporting his cousin for being in some kind of cult. I don't know if that's what happened, I don't have a good way to check if that's what happened, not all the callers thought it was a problem even if that's exactly what happened, but it saddened me. America was so stupidly rich they hardly ever put anyone to death and I don't expect that but -"

"Did he say where this happened? Was it in Mendev?"

"Yes. Kenabres." She looked up what country Kenabres was in after the broadcast.

"Then… I would not be surprised to learn that that's what really happened. The Church in Mendev is a mess, the nobility of Mendev fervently resists every attempt we make to clean it up or even just explain theology to them - and they do genuinely have a serious problem with demonic cults. I don't know if I would manage to do better if it was me, there. I suspect I would but it's very easy to look from afar and judge a task far easier than it is when you're actually up close and doing it."

'ah, yes, that's the badly behaved cousin who executes people at the drop of a hat, awkward about him' - she's being unfair. She has insufficient context to be fair in either direction, here.

"That's not the law here?"