And then there is an Eighth.

Not, alas, the Lord of the Eighth. It would be beneath Him to seize the soul of this mortal and haul him back to the Hell he, for some brief hour, believed he escaped, exulting in his foolishness as though unknowing that this would make His vengeance sweeter - but not for this trial, will the Lord of the Eighth stir Himself, for many excellent reasons and among others that it would be a slight to the Pride of Asmodeus for any mortal to get His goat... but more than one of the chief servants of Asmodeus on this plane has cursed the King-In-Irons, not merely the mortal thralls but even Lrilatha and young Gorthoklek, for the costs imposed on their Master's plans and the pains they will suffer at His hands for the additional and unexpected expenses necessary to compensate for the resources the King-In-Irons has cost them, and that means that even though this mortal's soul should be theirs on perfectly ordinary grounds, it is still worth devoting more resources to obtaining it than it would a normal soul. The howls of pain, the shrieks of agony this one shall give when the claws of those whose work he has foiled tear into his soul! His own shrieks as he realizes he is remade to oppose all he is, and then his final, twisted fate - all these shall belong to Hell, and bring joy to Asmodeus, when the trial is complete, and so Khormessora, Font of Malice, Claw Of The Narrowest Word, has been designated as Hell's lawyer in this case.

Unless, of course, the trial ends... poorly. Khavmessora's rivals have spent centuries waiting for this to be the case, and for their chance to tear her apart and hear her screams as she suffers the fate of all failures until such time as she is again needed - for this is Hell.

Bring us food. Or be food yourself. What other message is needed, in the Pit?

And once they've all assembled, the judge says to the King in Irons, "do you know your name?"

"Indeed," he says (apparently calmly, after a moment's disorientation). "I am Alexandre Esquerra, King-In-Irons, bane of the works of Asmodeus in the world of Golarion, and I am, so far as the prophecy of gods can determine -" he smirks "- presently dead, and undergoing judgement at the hands of - a full court! How generous of you!" He's heard rumors, of course, but nothing more.

(He really really hopes that Felip got everyone else out while he tanked the balor, but there's nothing he can do about it now, and he can have fun while he taunts the Asmodeans.)

Niiiiiice. 

He can work with this.

Khavmessora possesses the ability to take a disinterested joy in the fact that someone will be tortured, even if she herself cannot carry it out! All this spite and bile and venom is only going to make him a more satisfying victim for Hell.

"Do you know where you are?" asks the judge.

“Before the judgement seat.”

"Does it sound to you like we are speaking in a language you understand, using words that you are familiar with, at a speaking speed you can follow?"

"Oh, most certainly."

"Do you understand that you had, while alive, the capacity to take actions, and that those actions had effects on the world and on other people?"

"In spite of our friend in the corner -" he gives Khavmessora an ironic nod "- yes."

"Do you understand that the purpose of this court is to determine your alignment and which afterlife you are assigned to?"

“I’ve got that,” he says drily. He’s heard that this was the system, and when he’s surrounded by eight lawyers and a judge it’s not hard to see that this confirms it.

"All right, then. Given the complexity of this case, I'm going to let each lawyer present an opening argument, then we can discuss areas of dispute, then closing arguments. Order will be assigned at random, as is standard due to the lack of a single currency with which entities can bid, Abadar vs. Maelstrom. Chaotic Neutral, you go first."

She really hopes that she doesn't have to go first for Good!

PERHAPS the Maelstrom OUGHT to adopt a single currency so they wouldn't suffer nearly as much deadweight loss! It's in the Maelstrom's interests too!

Well, this is going to be interesting. Why, exactly, is he Chaotic Neutral?

"For much of his early life, the decedent was a faithful Asmodean. He had an epiphany when tortured by a person he considered unworthy, which caused him to reject Asmodeanism. I will note that this is a fundamentally Chaotic epiphany. The decedent didn't conclude that Asmodeanism was unjust or unkind, and indeed immediately tortured and murdered his teacher. Instead, he simply rejected lawful authority over him because he felt that the authority was unworthy of him. For rejection of a Good or Evil authority to count as Evil or Good, respectively, the decedent must have an understanding, 'however faint,' of the morally valenced nature of the authority, in re Johnny Strabler. 

"The decedent fled Cheliax and joined a series of Evil adventuring parties. Throughout this time, the decedent's 'myriad daily actions' are marked by a perpetual distrust of all authorities and unwillingness to accept anyone having meaningful command over him. We see this both in his disrespect for local laws and his refusal to obey adventuring party leaders. Remember that Law requires an acceptance of the structures of legitimate authority and not merely a desire to be in charge yourself. As the judge pointed out in Hell v. Shivaska, to say otherwise would be to empty the Abyss entirely. 

"As the decedent grew more powerful, he decided to take revenge on Asmodeus. Revenge is one of Calistria's primary areas of concern. As is long-established precedent in this court, a deity having a subject as their area of concern is prima facie evidence of the alignment of the activity, in re Wilde. As revenge was the primary motivator of most of the decedent's meaningful morally or systematically valenced activities, this is a large point in favor of Chaos.

"The decedent had an ordinary Asmodean wizard childhood. He regretted his actions, made and executed on a reasonable plan to fix the situation, and attempted to repair the harm done. I think the standard Newton test clearly shows that he atoned. I hardly need to remind my esteemed colleagues that Newton applies to an atonement from any alignment to any alignment, in re Binghe, so the fact that the decedent atoned doesn't imply he isn't Neutral. The decedent seems completely indifferent to both Good and Evil. He performed numerous Evil actions, such as robbery, assassination, and working with an antipaladin without attempting to convince the antipaladin to fall. But he also performed numerous Good actions at significant personal cost, such as freeing slaves and waging a war with Cheliax. These actions both balance in terms of consequences and show that the decedent has no particular motive towards Good or Evil, but instead towards revenge, a Neutral concern. Therefore, the decedent is Chaotic Neutral." 

Well, he's not going to get the Maelstrom.

"For the entirety of the decedent's life," says Khavmessora, "he was Evil, and for practically the entirety of his life, he was Lawful. The representative for the Maelstrom does not deny that this was true for the first sixteen years; nor can fae. By the time he was eight, the decedent had helped stone a personal friend and mentor of his to death on the order of the authorities. At age twelve - roughly halfway between birth and full maturity, for his species, the decedent committed his first murder, incapacitating his victim - another child - with a Sleep spell, and transporting him to a butcher's shop he knew would be empty, where he dismembered the other boy - an act of 'conscious, calculated efficiency;' Abaddon v Mortimer, -1212. Abyss v. Boy, -14009, 'it is not span of life but maturity of mind that makes a youth capable of moral responsibility'. At age sixteen he committed his second killing, enraging his victim and then strangling him while explaining that this was his duty to Asmodeus, as indeed it was. Both of these actions were legal under the laws of his nation, as per id quod vos capto; both were exemplary Asmodean behavior, as they removed rivals for power unworthy of promotion and guilty of violating Asmodean laws, sit infirma pati. 

It is true that by leaving Cheliax without permission from his superiors and by his acts of theft along the way, he violated the law; if he died immediately after arriving in Andoran, my colleague for Abaddon would have an excellent case. But the decedent at the time conceptualized it as, again, his duty to Asmodeus. To quote the decedent, 'If the law of Cheliax fails, I will supercede it with the law of Asmodeus.' Again, 'We are commanded to subjugate the inferior, and it happens that the King of Cheliax is my inferior.' See Axis v Kiya, -7813, "it is not a violation of Law to decline to recognize laws as legitimate," and Hell v Gruk, -3040 "Betrayal is a neutral action except insofar as independently Chaotic actions were taken to carry it out." To reject these precedents and claim that seeking to conquer Cheliax from Infrexus is Lawless would be to equally condemn the present queen of Cheliax, not to mention Infrexus and every Thrune monarch before him, not one of whom was ever considered anything other than Lawful Evil in life or in death after the earliest years of their childhood. And these words were not spoken in Cheliax! They were spoken in Andoran with its fabled 'freedom of religion'. If he wanted to pray to Sarenrae, he had the opportunity with no legal sanction; he has not ever done so once in his life, nor has he prayed to any god for any purpose other than obtaining resources and support to aid him in his foremost goal, the conquest and subjugation of Cheliax.

"After the decedent departed Cheliax, he then proceeded to, again, act in a sterling Asmodean fashion, taking control of adventuring party after adventuring party and directing them from the shadows, as Asmodeans are commanded to do where direct command is impossible. He violated no written compacts, broke no laws whose authority he recognized - as he recognized the laws of Asmodeus - but achieved his goals through the use of intimidation, manipulation, and enchantment spells, as well as overwhelming force. During this period his 'myriad daily actions' showed his thirst for power, desire for control and domination, and eternal search for a superior on the mortal plane worthy of him. Repeatedly, he passed up jobs he expected to be financially rewarding because he desired to cooperate with leaders who he believed could be an effective master to him; repeatedly, he discovered they were less competent than he, achieved dominion over them, and used them to achieve his purposes, as Asmodeus commands. As the decedent said, 'Were I to find one man truly worthy of a throne, I would have no need to seek it myself.' Nirvana v Aniol, -6311, 'willingness to sacrifice for a cause is evidence of devotion to a cause, irregardless of whether the sacrifices were productive.' Even when he concluded Asmodeanism was false, this caused no change in his behavior; he continued seeking dominion over others and continued quoting from the Taldane translation of the Asmodean scriptures, addressing a town his party was raiding with 'The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.' During this period he committed more murders, more assassinations, and more torturous subjugations of his inferiors, all the while claiming to 'Obey the laws of Asmodeus better than Asmodeus himself.' 'The flaw in it is not that it makes too many exceptions but too few, for it does not say you should not try to conquer Asmodeus,' and I can name you ten or a hundred precedents that say that 'attempting to obey the law more than your superiors do is a Lawful action,' Heaven v Siro, 2643. It is also during this period that he knowingly and with knowledge aforehand recruited an antipaladin who did not at any point fall, and repeatedly encouraged his subordinates not to take any action that would lead to the antipaladin falling, 'because it would hardly be to my benefit for him to be weaker.' 'Encouraging others to do evil is itself an evil action,' Abyss v Martinus, -13112.

"As the decedent's power grew, his aims did not change; at no point did he attempt to atone for his evil deeds. Instead he continued to attempt to take control over Cheliax, by war, infiltration and stealth. After swearing an oath to abide by the laws of Absalom he 'obeyed the written letter of the law while violating the spirit', which Hell v Mordia, -2041 establishes a quintessentially Lawful Evil activity, deliberately protected large numbers of Evil individuals while encouraging them to do Evil but to obey the law, and deliberately attempting to provoke a war between Cheliax and Absalom. During this period he carried out far greater scale of murders, thefts, tortures and assassinations, killing both personally and through orders given to his his subordinates dozens of nonevil individuals who 'were no threat to him, bore no enmity to him, but merely happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,' Abaddon v Oroz, -3640; at no point in this process did he attempt to 'find alternatives to these deaths,' as the Leurdorfell balancing test suggests. Aniol says that willingness to sacrifice for a cause is evidence of devotion to a cause,' and at no point did the decedent sacrifice the slightest grain of expected success in his plans for any other purpose.

"The representative for the Maelstrom wishes us to believe that, because his motives were 'vengeance', this was a Chaotic activity; 'Vengeance is not necessarily a Chaotic activity, and its systemic alignment depends on numerous factors', Calistria v. Ealdeez, Ruapceras, Aroggus, Eiseth, Dranngvit and Ragathiel. He also repeatedly convinced individuals he had promised them rewards, then refused to pay them, citing the precise words of his bargain with them, which Mammon v Abadar, -3992, establishes to be Evil but not Chaotic."

"At the end of this period, concluding he could not gain further benefits from a direct war against Cheliax, he attempted to exploit the wording of the Worldwound treaty to serve his own ends, and, as he put it, 'Caring nothing for the war on the Abyss except what I may gain from it -' the similarity to Abaddon v Kormy, 1818, is noted for the record - he attempted to flee to the Worldwound in the belief that the laws there would be more favorable to him than those in Cheliax. At this point, it is possible to argue that he sought redemption, though he denied it, repeatedly describing the plan to his subordinates before carrying it out as 'Merely the latest stage in my attempt to conquer Cheliax' and 'for my own benefit, of course, why would I care for that of anyone else?' It is nonetheless possible that his actions, had he lived, might have affected his alignment - but they did not, as he was killed shortly afterwards. 'We do not judge what might have happened, but what did,' Nirvana v Szzazitash, -9918. And what did happen was a ruthless campaign of theft, arson and remorseless slaughter for 'the sake of my hatred,' as the decedent phrased it, broken only by training others into more efficient weapons of Evil that they might themselves carry out these deeds. That was what happened - and that is Evil, and, due to the manner in which it is carried out, Lawful. The decedent has, as he declared, 'walked the path of Asmodeanism better than near any in Cheliax', and it is the duty of this court to grant Hell the right to show him what well-deserved rewards he has earned for his excellent service."

He'll give the devil an ironic bow.

Clarence lights a cigar. (The cigar he smokes is, in fact, part of his body; he feels so keenly that he must have a cigar that he automatically instantiated one as soon as he landed in Elysium.)

"It is long-established precedent in this court that the deity that a decedent worships, or claims to worship, is only moderate evidence as to the decedent's alignment. 'No service which is vile can be done to Good and none which is not vile can be done to Evil,' Abyss v. Emeth -2855. Surveys by both Nirvana and Axis show that nearly all petitioners are confused about fundamental details of theology, with only 13% being capable of assigning all of the twenty most-worshipped deities on Golarion to the correct alignment. The decedent believed himself to be Asmodean, granted. The decedent is wrong. 

"My esteemed colleague"-- he gestures at the Maelstrom representative-- "is wise to cite in re: Wilde. In a case such as this, the decedent's myriad daily actions point in any number of directions, which is how we wound up with a full house. Do we assume True Neutrality? No! We must examine more closely the fundamental nature of Good and Evil, Law and Chaos. And though there are innumerable heuristics we can use as guidelines, in this I follow both my esteemed colleague who argues that he is Calistrian and my esteemed colleague who argues that he's Asmodean. We may use deities as models which capture details of the nature of an alignment which 'though not explicitly articulated, may yet be dispositive,' in re Mozi.  

"Ladies, gentlemen, and honorable entities, the decedent is a Caydenite.

"I would go so far as to say that if the decedent had ever managed to read within one step of Cayden Cailean, he would have been clericed immediately."

What.

The lucky drunk?