Huh, a teleport strike-team! He hasn't eaten any of these recently.

Excuse me HOW did he just teleport inside the Worldwound and on top of A BALOR AND HIS ENTIRE ELITE BODYGUARD UNIT Teleport is supposed to put you in a 'similar area' and this shouldn't be similar to anywhere in Kenabres -

(he's trying to manage a third teleport very fast - so's Felip with his scroll -)

First priority is to murder the scarier wizard.

Khorramzadeh has a whip, vorpal sword, natural weapons, and is also about halfway from turning from an ordinary balor into a demon lord.

It wasn't much of a fight.

The protean lawyer, Ssathaa, thinks this is an open-and-shut case. Works poorly in every group he isn't literally in charge of, check. Devoted his life towards rebelling against his native government, check. Devoted his life towards rebelling against his native government out of a sense of revenge, which is one of Calistria's primary areas of concern, check. Rescued some slaves and also tortured a bunch of people so it's impossible to tell if he's bad or not, check.

This opinion lasts until the protean arrives in open court and counts eight lawyers including faeself. 

Clarence Darrow was briefly wrongfooted when he discovered, after a lifetime of agnosticism, that gods and afterlives (not to mention ontologically basic Goodness) really existed, but Clarence could never really be uncomfortable as long as he was in a courtroom. Quickly catching on to the nature of the legal system, he made Chaotic Good by the skin of his teeth after delivering a passionate two-hour improvised speech about civil liberties as mankind's last line of defense against an oppressive government, the right of all people no matter how evil to a vigorous legal defense, the death penalty as a violation of sapient dignity, and the role of trade unionism in checking the rapacious greed of large corporations.  

Since then, Clarence has quickly become one of the mainstays of Elysium's (excellent) legal team. It turns out that the single most important thing anyone can do to improve the world is to make disingenuous arguments at trials defending unconscionably evil people.  

He is very possibly the most self-actualized person in Pharasma's Creation. 

Kalpana was created to be one one of Shelyn's servitors, the dapsaras, devoted to dance and poetry and song. She spent many thousands of years entertaining the people of Nirvana, but over time she grew discontent. There were problems in the world, and she wanted to help! Providing respite for people recovering or doing more direct work was important, she knew, but it wasn't enough. She wanted to be someone serious! Someone lawyerly! Someone who wears black when nobody's dead!

So she applied to Nirvana's lawyer training program. She did very well in all her classes and got a certification. She's handled a few small cases-- Good artists and poets, mostly, where Nirvana's participation was mostly a formality. But she's very excited to be working on her first real case! A case where her actions can save someone from Hell or the Abyss!

She's very scared to have someone's eternal fate in her hands, but at least Clarence is there to head the legal team. All she has to do is watch the master at work, develop more real-world experience, and try to avoid saying something so stupid that he gets tortured for eternity.

Easy, right? 

Meanwhile--

"The King in Irons is dead."

For many reasons, Norgorber can't delegate as much as other gods, and so it isn't exactly surprising for Norgorber to make a personal visit to his Axis defense lawyer firm. Lozsar has even had a visit from him before. It still scares her shitless. 

"Yes, sir."

"In life the man couldn't take a shit without sending off a Commune to me about it, so I suppose I ought to send a lawyer."

"Yes, sir."

This is much less terrifying than it could be!

"You know, I think this is what our friend Abadar would call an incentives problem. Someone bothers me constantly when I'm alive, what do I do, I help them out when they're dead. Doesn't exactly get people to leave me alone, does it."

How is she supposed to respond to this.

"No... sir?" she hazards.

"Why are you so deferential. I'm not Asmodeus, you know," Norgorber complains. "I haven't ever tortured anyone for thousands of years for not calling me 'sir.' Or even hundreds. People don't need to be sucking up to me every time I tell them to do some lawyering."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

"I'm really very merciful," Norgorber says. "Like how I'm treating the King in Irons! He wouldn't stop annoying me his whole life, and what do I do? I send someone to take care of his afterlife situation! Not"-- Norgorber hastens to clarify-- "in a 'take care of this man's afterlife situation' 'this is a very nice afterlife you have there, shame if something happened to it' sort of way. Take care of it in the normal way. Go to this man's trial and give him the full Norgorber follower treatment."

"It is my highest priority."

"Excellent. Oh, and Lozsar?"

"Yes?"

"I like the King in Irons. It would be a waste for him to spend his eternity as a torch without even a chance to better himself. And I don't like it when my lawyers' incompetence means people I like wind up getting wasted. And you know what happens to people who do things I don't like?"

"Torture?"

"Of course not. Because we're in Axis, and that would be illegal. And I'd never do something illegal. So you should feel perfectly safe."

Meanwhile, the prediction markets in the plane of Axis have suggested that the triallawyer* best placed to win the bounty provided by various interested parties to the chief instrument of the plane's obtaining of the soul of the King-In-Irons, in the event that this obtaining takes place as the result of a successful trial**, of those lawyers interested in the bounty, is The-Sound-Of-The-First-Peal-Of-A-Cathedral-Skyscraper-Bell-Raised-To-The-Glory-Of-Aroden-When-He-Lived***, or Peal for short. Peal is exceptionally interested, and highly trained at the vitally important art of Interacting With Chaotic Entities, and has a six percent above par**** win record. Nonetheless, Peal will be keeping in mind the secondary bounties available for those who fulfil the mortal's preferences (the mortal has an excellent history of repayment of debts, positive and negative) and for depriving hostile entities in the Evil alignments of the soul in question (most placed, of course, by a variety of Good entities and Axis charitable associations), should this be impossible. Peal has spent the time the soul of the King-In-Irons spent traversing the River of Souls loading the new case information and refreshing key case laws, and is wholly prepared to attempt to maximize its own utility via this trial in full accordance with all appropriate Law.

(*: You cannot seriously be proposing that this is the same profession as drawing up contracts anywhere in the multiverse, can you?)

(**: Two syllables***** in Utopian.)

(***: Five syllables! Utopians are fine with long names, see?!)

(****: This is a cultural translation of dubious precision.)

(*****: It's really sort of arguable whether Utopian has syllables that really correspond to human syllables, but, you know, by analogy?)

The Abyss hasn't sent a lawyer. The Abyss doesn't send lawyers. Sending lawyers is doing things, and the Abyss doesn't do things, entities within the Abyss do things.

Instead a four-armed, dragon-scaled and -winged, Abyssal lawyer has... shown up. Still covered in blood, from the demons crying out for FLESH that he had to shred to get to the court. Few in the Abyss will gainsay a tyranny demon's right to go where they will, but there's always someone willing to push it.

It'd be boring if there wasn't, after all.

The armies of Heaven are long on paladins, very long on people who wanted to be paladins, and even longer on people who spent their entire life following the rules and looking after their neighbors and being kind to their children. They have really a lot of those - which isn't to say they don't want more, of course, but they have a lot. What they're short on is people who grew up Evil and loudly declare themselves to be Evil while donating fortunes to the Church of Iomedae because it is the most efficient way to accomplish their goals. There's comparative advantage things, here. 

Adjudicator Telthenor is highly experienced, which does not mean he always wins, it means he always gives Asmodeus a hell of fight. Nobody always wins.

(Which, as Iomedae would say, is one of the reasons they really want the King-In-Irons. There's people who can get good results by being convinced that's bullshit. Well, for a while.)

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?

Heaven does have this mild preference that its allies not make extremely disingenuous arguments, but at least this time it's someone who is explicitly Chaotic doing it!

Besides, he might not be joking. Let's see his case.

Making non-disingenuous arguments has a cost measured in lives! Heaven should be less precious. Iomedae wouldn't approve.

"You may be thinking, 'Clarence, but Cayden Cailean is the god of carnival, the set-aside time for revelry and the inversion of hierarchies and the violation of social norms and profanation of the sacred, which creates time for rest and joy, and opens space for people to question these things in their normal life. I have read through all the information about the decedent's life and I don't think he had fun once.' Granted. That is not the aspect of Cayden Cailean with which the decedent resonates.

"There is another aspect to Cayden Cailean. He is the god of bravery. But what kind of bravery? Is he Trudd, god of the strong who use their strength to protect others? Is he Kurgess, god of pushing your limits and seeing what you can do? No!

"Cayden Cailean is the god of a teenage girl with a husband who hits her, who flees in the night with no plan because anywhere is better than here. He is the god of a slave who jumps off a ship because death is better than losing your freedom. He is the god of peasants assembling with pitchforks and shovels to defend their town against bandits with swords and bows. He is the god whose clerics, for two thousand years, have led the efforts to rescue people from Nidal, who have gone in again and again knowing that they would get caught and Maledicted to Xovaikon, because some things are more important than your own life. When someone prays, Somebody up there help me, I'm so scared, Cayden hears.

"He is the god of desperation and of hope and of some things mattering more than your own life. 

"He is the god of a man who read Lawful Evil and still waged a one-man war against Asmodeus. He is the god of a man who does not hope for Elysium-- does not hope for Heaven-- does not hope even for Axis. Read his mind, my esteemed colleagues. He hopes only to make the Abyss, where he might have a chance to scrape out a territory against millions of demons older and crueler and more cunning than he, which which he will continue his war against Asmodeus.

"Many do Good with hope of reward in the afterlife, and that is noble. But the King in Irons-- no less than the Caydenite who infiltrates Nidal-- does Good with no expectation of reward, and that is the most Good of all. In re Rabia al Basri. --I have copies. It's not a standard cite.

"Yet."

...um. Wow.

She's aware of Clarence. Her law firm is actually assisting him on a case winding through appeals court, in which Hell is suing him for arguing petitioners were Neutral Evil. The partners hope it will overturn the precedent that lawyers need to argue for their own afterlife.

But this is the first time she's seen him work and she's in awe at a master. She never imagined that Chaotic Good people could be that good at scamming. 

Legal speeches are art!

What a beautiful argument. Such a shame that it isn't even remotely true; if he hadn't hoped for Heaven, he would have - well, done approximately what he did, a man does not give in to threats simply because the threatener is a god, but he would have carried out fewer acts of petty goodness and possibly would have fled cross-continent instead of doing to the Worldwound. Or cross-plane.

... Also, of course, anyone who can't understand the joy of a well-planned scheme granting you supremacy over your enemies is frankly ignorant of the greater things in life. It's not as though getting drunk is more fun than conquest.

Ah, one of the competent Good lawyers.

"The representative from Hell says that the decedent is Lawful. How, then, is he Lawful? Did he obey the laws of states he was in and acknowledge their authority over him? He did not; indeed he took great pains to tell those in power that he didn't accept their authority over him. Did he have filial piety? Certainly not; he had contempt for his parents. Did he loyally serve the country of his birth? No. Did he respect the normal hierarchies of society about which Erastil is so concerned? No. Did he keep his oaths? No. Not only did he break his oaths of loyalty to Asmodeus and Cheliax, it was the defining moment of his life that he did. Oathbreaking was one of his 'myriad daily actions': he made and strategically broke oaths in order to preserve a Neutral Evil alignment. In re McNulty: 'A Lawful alignment requires respect for Law in trivial matters and not only in great.' I will note that not only do the decedent's actions show a lack of respect for oaths but also defiance of the fundamental order of Pharasma's Creation, which is Chaotic in nature, in re Evans-Verres-Potter.

"What does the representative from Hell have to say for himself? The decedent's personal code. This court has historically been suspicious of personal-code-based cases for Law, in re Kiyamvir. The reason is simple. If the decedent disrespects his parents, disrespects his leaders, disrespects those in authority over him, disrespects the hierarchy of his society, disrespects the state, disrespects the natural order of the universe itself-- well, it takes one Abyss of a personal code to overcome all of that. 

"The fact that a decedent predictably behaves in a certain way has not historically been considered sufficient to establish the decedent as having a personal code, In re Lehnsherr. Cayden Cailean himself would be Lawful, if all that was required was predictably murdering slavers. The court must weigh alternate explanations for the decedent's actions. A code must not be a set of preferences, however strongly held; it must bind the decedent to do things that they do not wish to do.

"What, then, is the decedent's personal code? He acts in the best interests of his subordinates. He takes vengeance on their behalf. He would be loyal to an authority, if he found one that he felt was worthy of his authority. He refuses to betray those he thinks of as his family. 

"Ladies, gentlemen, and honorable entities, that is many things. It is a determination to do his job well. It is respect, and friendship, and cooperation, and loyalty. It is, in some cases, love.

"It is not a personal code.

"Of course the decedent thinks of it as a personal code. The decedent grew up in a society intended to convince him that love was weak and pathetic and shameful, and he fears being weak and pathetic and shameful more than anything else. He couldn't admit to himself that the reason he wanted what was best for his subordinates-- that he was willing to sacrifice what he saw as his interests to do right by them-- was that he cared for them, and in some cases that he loved them.

"If this were merely his personal code, he would have sacrificed his subordinates as soon as it was convenient for him to do so, as he did his so-called principle against oathbreaking.

"He didn't sacrifice his subordinates' interests because he took their interests as his own-- which, I need not remind this court, matches well to the definition of love laid out fifteen thousand years ago in in re Valentine."

This lawyer is out of his mind, but in a very strategically useful way. The King-In-Irons will remain silent.

"My esteemed colleague from the Maelstrom mentioned the Newton test for atonement. As we all know, the Newton test has five prongs:

1. Feeling regret for previous actions.
2. Taking responsibility for previous actions.
3. Changing relationships with those affected, such as by seeking vengeance or forgiveness. 
4. Attempting to repair the consequences of previous actions insofar as this is possible. 
5. Reliably and consistently changing behavior. 

"To the extent that all five criteria are met, a decedent's previous actions are not held against their present alignment.

"The decedent regrets his previous veneration of Asmodeus. The decedent takes responsibility for his actions to an almost pathological degree. The decedent attempted to change his relationships by fleeing Cheliax and by ending his relationships with previous Evil adventuring parties. The decedent attempted to repair the consequences of his previous actions through waging a war against Asmodeus. The decedent has reliably and consistently changed his behavior by waging war against Asmodeus. He passes the Newton test for much of the Evil he committed in his life.  

"The decedent didn't merely refrain from Evil, but also engaged in active Good. He freed slaves. He rescued people from Cheliax. He denied Cheliax valuable weapons and magical items. He killed people who were causing harm to others, in the reasonable expectation that it would cause less harm to be done. He attempted to minimize the harm he caused to innocents, and his actions were consistently justified on a straightforward Leurodorfell analysis. The portion of his life that the decedent is straightforwardly proud of is consistently Good."

Normally at this point he would spend an hour or so talking about the various people the decedent had benefited at significant personal cost, but last time it happened Hell sued and apparently this is considered "prejudicial" and it "provides no information since freeing slaves is already known to be Good." Whatever.

"And the rest? What of the decedent's banditry? What of his suppression of tax revolts? What of his theft? The Newton test has never required that a decedent immediately become fully Good, but has acnowledged that, due to mortal frailty, atonement may be an extended process of gradual learning. In re Skywalker: 'the court takes into account a sustained trajectory towards a particular alignment that a reasonable entity would expect to continue.' The decedent has shown a gradual disillusionment with Evil over the course of his life. For example, even before he initiated his war with Cheliax, he consistently rejected work that involved harm to the weak and vulnerable and sought out work that involved challenging the powerful. Though ruthless, he was never cruel out of carelessness or for emotional satisfaction. Later, he only accepted work that he sincerely believed would advance his war with Cheliax and thus, as I previously discussed, would have Good consequences on net. Even later, he gave up all work other than his war with Cheliax. 

"The decedent doesn't think of this process as growth towards Good. When he thinks about his aversion to harming the weak, he thinks 'it's beneath me' and 'I want a challenge' and 'peasants don't have useful resources' and 'I don't want to waste tools that might be useful to me.' When he thinks about his aversion to cruelty, he thinks 'being carried away by emotion is pathetic' and 'I am too much in control to let something happen that I don't approve of.' The decedent grew up in an Asmodean society and believes that mercy is weakness and weakness is wrong. And yet the decedent has always been merciful.

"Hell and the Maelstrom both make much of the decedent's association with an antipaladin. I will point out, from my previous argument, that the antipaladin was the decedent's friend. When the decedent says 'it would hardly be to my benefit for him to be weaker', what the decedent means is 'I am attempting to pursue the best interests of someone I care about.' Navigating friendship with an Evil person is complex even for a cleric of Iomedae. And yet true friendship has long been seen as Good, in re Aristotle, in re Lewis, as is specifically refusing to abandon a friend who is Evil, in re Derek Black. I do not suggest that this renders the decedent's actions Good, but I consider it an ameliorating factor.

"In short: the decedent grew up in Cheliax. Zon-Kuthon vs. Lajariutza,  -5257 AR: making it harder not to hurt people makes it more revealing of the petitioner's personal character when they refrain from hurting people. Over the course of his life, he maintained a 'sustained trajectory that a reasonable entity would expect to continue' towards Chaotic Good. In the last years of his life, he behaved in a straightforwardly Chaotic Good fashion, setting aside his rationalizations that he is Lawful Evil. A straightforward Newton analysis suggests the decedent is Chaotic Good. Thank you for your time." 

None of this is true but he can't deny it without hurting his afterlife. An unfortunate puzzle.

Heaven is glad Clarence is on their team.

These are astonishingly weak arguments hidden behind good rhetoric. If even Elysium's best lawyer can't do better than this...

Heh. Heh. Heh.

Showoff. 

Oh no it's her turn! She says what Clarence told her to say:

"Nirvana concurs with Elysium, but considers the decedent to have sufficient respect for his personal code that he qualifies as systematically Neutral. In particular, we believe that openly telling governments that he doesn't respect their laws is Lawful in nature, in re Potter Gale. However, it doesn't outweigh his refusal to follow the laws of any government, however legitimately constituted, if those laws told him to do something he didn't want to do. Thus the decedent is systematically Neutral."

Disbelievingly: "open defiance of the law is Lawful now?"

"We will have order in the court and no interruptions."

Then she says the part she came up with herself. 

"I think Elysium neglected one important aspect of the decedent's life. The creation of art is prima facie Good, in re: Keats and other citations too numerous to list. There is an often-overlooked aspect of In re: Wilde, which is the judge's finding that a life sufficiently devoted to the aesthetic counts as an artistic creation in and of itself, that is, a form of performance art. I propose to this court that the decedent's life was sufficiently lived for the aesthetic as to count as an artistic creation. I submit as evidence the decedent's standard speech when he grants slaves their freedom, which I believe shows his commitment to beauty. The decedent was known to value the elegance, showmanship, and presentation of his plans as much as their chance of success. 

"Art is particularly Good when it 'points to the Good that is beyond itself,' in re: Keats. The decedent intended to express numerous Good values, such as the empowerment of the oppressed and the futility of Evil, and to counter Cheliaxian propaganda through his actions. 

"Further, in re: Califia clearly establishes that BDSM is a Chaotic Good activity, with Hell's representative saying that two equals playacting dominance and submission is 'an inexcusable insult to the glory of our lord Asmodeus', 'a perversion of that tyranny which Hell holds most dear,' and 'a blasphemy against the very hierarchy of Hell Itself.' I propose that this ruling be extended to find that parodying Asmodeanism in a way calculated to insult and blaspheme against Asmodeus, such that it causes him shame and humiliation, is itself a Chaotic and Good activity. What could be more of a parody than using Asmodeanism as a justification for overthrowing the tyranny of Asmodeus? What could be more of an insult to Asmodeus's pride than for a mortal to call himself Asmodeus's superior-- and to use Asmodeanism as the justification for doing so? 

"Therefore, the decedent is engaged in Chaotic and Good myriad daily actions that Elysium failed to mention." 

When Nirvana sends lawyers they're not sending their best. 

She wonders if in re: Wilde is going to be overturned in appeal for this case. Probably not. Maybe next time a Norgorber cleric is facing judgment she can try to argue that con artistry is a form of art and therefore Good. 

That could be worse. Hopefully Heaven is intelligent enough to send someone competent.

"'Ladies, gentlemen, and assorted honorable entities,'" the tyranny demon mocks, "we are gathered to judge a thief, bandit, robber, murderer, torturer, and oathbreaker. I've no doubt that some of you lot will try to claim that all that's Lawful and Good. It isn't. In re Barrow, in re Willie, in re Babylon. We are here to judge a man who Charmed a farmer into letting him into his house then slit his throat while he slept to steal his purse. We are here to judge a man who robbed and murdered his way across his homeland, then did the same thing to a different country the moment he crossed the border. And we're here to judge a man who never really stopped doing any of these things. My 'colleague' from Hell has explained all the murdering he did, starting when he was a child, but - as far as I can tell - her argument that this was Lawful murdering, instead of the normal Chaotic kind, it's not based on them being his slaves, it's not based on him being under orders, it's just that murdering someone is perfectly fine in Cheliax as long as you get away with it. You can carve a kid into pieces and as long as you hide the evidence well enough, nobody gives a shit. And here I thought it was a Lawful country!"

"Now, this isn't a very complicated trial. It's about someone who spent his life killing people. Mostly he killed people who he disliked, but he didn't dislike them because they were Evil, he disliked them because he had a grudge against them. He was fine with working with a demoniac antipaladin of Socothbenoth, Demon Lord Of Getting Away With Shit By Being Funny, Whose obedience is 'ruin someone's day socially without them knowing you did it!' He was a cultist of Norgorber, and was completely fine working with a Norgorber priestess who was a paranoid, mad, murderous enchanter, alchemist and thief just because it worked out for him. He prayed to Baphomet because Baphomet hates Asmodeus and he hates Asmodeus and so that meant they could be besties, which mocks the idea that he ever followed the laws of anywhere - Absalom bans demon lord worship. Hate is Evil; in re Hall, in re Mount, and hate was why he did, well, everything. Hate and greed - Abadar v Mammon, in re Wilde - and pride - Asmodeus v Aroden, in re Wilde.

"Now, there's people who say that he 'redeemed himself', in re Newton. And I say - sure! He atoned, in re Newton. From Lawful Evil to Chaotic Evil. He regretted working for Asmodeus because Asmodeus screwed him over, he "took responsibility" by screwing Asmodeus back over, he "changed his relationship" with Asmodeus by trying to murder his mooks, he tried to repair the consequences of his actions by killing Asmodeans, and he sure changed his behavior from working for Asmodeus to working against Asmodeus. But holding a grudge isn't actually enough to atone - in re Binghe, you can atone from any alignment to any other alignment. He repented of being an Asmodean, but to repent to a Good alignment you have to actually try to do good. Did he try to resurrect his old dead mentor, who he helped stone to death? Nope! Did he try to do something about the souls of his murder victims? Abyss no. He tried to fight Asmodeus because he hated him. Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Evil."

"My colleage in Elysium says he did good. Maybe he did a little! But he sure didn't try. Last year this court tried we tried Cloden Dever for being evil, we decided his 'myriad daily actions' made him Neutral Evil, and he went to Hell. He died because the decedent decided to set the mansion he was in on fire. Why? Because a Chelish noblewoman owned it - or, uh, had owned it before the decedent killed her! Was that Cloden? No, he was one of her slaves who was locked in a room for punishment. Alex here broke into the cell, murdered his guards, saw him there chained to a wall, and went out to go kill Asmodeans. He didn't think about Cloden Dever. He thought about murdering Asmodeans. This is just one example of him putting his desire to hurt Asmodeus over any desire to save slaves - every time he raided a Chelish estate, there was some Cloden Dever, some slave or serf or paid hireling who'd never done anything to him, who never signed up for a fight and never wanted to fight, and who the decedent made "collateral damage" because he didn't care enough not to. Has he saved slaves? Sure! He's hired them to spy on their masters, promised them their freedom if they did, and then not gone back on it. You can be Chaotic Evil and sometimes keep your word - especially if it gets you something. Which this did, because seventy percent of these slaves kept working for him afterwards. He figured he'd get something out of freeing them, so he did. Ask him what he sacrificed for Good, and you've got nothing that was an actual sacrifice."

"The decedent is Evil because he never cared enough not to be. And the decedent is chaotic because when you spend your entire life on treachery, theft, and flat-out ignoring any law you dislike, you're chaotic. That's my opening statement."

Ah, he sees that worshipping Baphomet Carefully Outside Absalom City Limits did in fact pay off.

Now this was the opposition she expected to run into.

Oh, sure, he gets to include humanizing personal stories. 

She takes notes on a piece of paper. 

"Greetings." Peal salutes Peal's fellow lawyers. "By the judgement of Axis, we believe Alexandre Esquerra, known on Golarion as "King-In-Irons," the decedent today, to be Lawful Neutral.

"We do not believe him to be unambiguously Lawful Neutral, and it is wholly understandable that others of our colleagues have come to differing conclusions." Because they are arguing disingenuously or are also Lawful. "Nonetheless, on net, we in Axis believe him to be clearly more Lawful than Chaotic - see Pharasma, in re overcrowding - and neither Good nor Evil."

"The chief problem with my honored colleagues' arguments is the lack of a balancing test. The decedent has done Evil. The decedent has also done Good. The decedent has made attempts to atone for some the evil he has done, but not full-hearted, clear attempts to atone in a direction unambiguously Good instead of Neutral, and while concur with the honorable representative for Elysium that he has wholly atoned for his entire life prior to fleeing Cheliax, and made clear signs of regret, repair, responsibility, reparation and change, he has not done so in all respects, as his actions during his personal war with Cheliax were far more mixed. He regularly took Evil actions - theft by violence, fraud, murder by stealth, killing, manslaughter, subverting testimony - for Good ends, paying large costs in collateral damage. There was a god of that, and that god was Aroden, considered Lawful Neutral since millennia before his ascension. In re Janos, in re Horseriver, in re Wulfenbach, were all cases where the Arodenite activity was justified insofar as the decedent was correct and good resulted from this evil; when the decedent was wrong - in re Cromwell, in re Philip, say - the decedents were, despite their good intentions, found Lawful Evil. The universal precedent is that there is a balancing test. How much evil, for how much Good? Axis concludes that, on the grounds of the harm the decedent caused the Lawful Evil empire of Cheliax and through them their Hellish overlords, that sufficient Good was done to balance the Evil, but not sufficient to make the decedent Good, especially due to his Neutral motives for these Good deeds - in re Flashman, "good deeds done for wholly selfish reasons may make the decedent Neutral, but not Good."

"On the other hand, we believe he was much more clearly Lawful. His Law was, chiefly, an Asmodean sort of law, driven by respect for the letter, but although Axis has contested the precedent, this court acknowledges Asmodeus and Mephistopheles both as Lawful and, by this precedent, so too must the King-In-Irons be. He worshipped Baphomet while resident in Absalom, but not while located in Absalom - only in pocket dimensions, international waters and while Teleported outside Kortos. He informed his subordinate, Aspex Oriol that the worship of Socothbenoth was illegal in Absalom, and that Aspex should therefore do his morning prayers in a rope trick, in the full knowledge that this was asking for a favor from someone who gave few of them, and by doing so gave up resources he could use to accomplish his goals. I highlight these in particular not because these are exceptional cases, but because they prove false the claim that he did not care for the law. He did - but only his law, not that which others attempted to impose on him by force." 

"His devotion to contractualism is important in establishing his Law. He held from an early age that the sole justification for authority was founded on the consent of both parties founded in their rational agreement to the bargain for the sake of mutual benefit, which is a fundamentally Abadaran perspective, especially given the youth at which he accepted this and the attempts by Asmodean Cheliax to annihilate the ideal." Peal really, really dislikes Asmodean Cheliax. "When his teachers informed him that the power of Asmodeus over him was founded purely in the power of Asmodeus and the contract between Asmodeus and the King of Cheliax, he nonetheless continued his belief in the contractual nature of power - that his service to Cheliax was justified solely in an implicit agreement by both parties to benefit the other, only breaking with Cheliax after he concluded that they had first broken their end of the bargain. He then consciously and knowingly rejected the authority of the Chelish state to bind him; In re McGuire, in re Olson, 'there is no bright-line distinction between a bandit and a state, nor is it Lawless to judge an ambiguous entity to belong to either category', in re Spooner, 'the belief '[the state]... has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man', is not sufficient to render the decedent Chaotic.' The decedent did not obey the laws of Andoran, Cheliax, Molthune or Isger because he did not believe they were legitimate since at no point had he agreed to any contract binding him to acknowledge their authority. The decedent did read and obey all of the laws of Absalom - which the majority of citizens of Absalom do not do - because he did sign a contract to do so. This is abnormally Lawful behavior, by mortal standards." Because mortals are really, really, really Lawless. "He further warned his subordinates to be careful to follow the laws of Absalom - and, shortly before the day of his death, Mendev and Gundrun - so that they would not by violating these laws as his subordinates impose costs on him." 

"This leaves his most serious offense against the Law: He did, in full knowledge of the significance, decide and attempt to break oaths to his employees, repeatedly refusing to pay them their contracted wages, and, later, paying them additional bonuses to make up for the lost wages. This was part of a deliberate program to weaken his Law, and he did so in the belief that it would prevent him from going to Hell. While my colleague from Hell is technically correct that all of his contracts with non-adventurer employees included the right of the employer to dock wages for a 'failure to perform' judged solely by the employer, he nonetheless attempted to knowingly and deliberately oathbreak for the purpose of not being Lawful, rather than invoking this clause.

"Nonetheless, Axis does not believe that these specific Chaotic acts suffice to make him Chaotic, or even unambiguously Neutral. He was careful never to do this where it would be destructive to the interests of his employees, he ceased to do this two weeks prior to his death, and he always paid the money later; moreover, not only did this not affect his trustworthiness on larger issues, but his employees did not expect to be paid on time every month, and many were shocked that he came as close as he did. We do not believe that his lifetime of devotion to the law above and beyond the standard of Lawful Neutral mortals is sufficiently overcome by these few acts, Chaotic though they were, and we therefore believe him to be Lawful Neutral."

Why is literally everyone in this trial going for gods. As far as she can tell, the viewpoint of the court is that the King in Irons worshipped half the pantheon, including dead ones. 

The decedent is extremely charming. She has to keep a perfectly straight expression and not be charmed about reading and following all the laws of Absalom and the single most Lawful way to break oaths ever.

Is paying all your employees' wages on time Good? ...probably not but that's really not the way a Nirvana representative should be thinking.  

... Alexandre thinks he understands the situation. Fundamentally, it's everyone else against Hell, because everyone else hates Hell and knows the only thing Alexandre cares about is destroying Asmodeus. They don't need to like each other to want to set a rabid dog on His servants, and so the only thing they need to do is get him Any Alignment That Isn't Lawful Evil, and then they loose him on their shared enemy and he does what he does best. If he's Lawful, he's clearly Lawful Neutral; if he's Chaotic, it doesn't matter if he's Evil...

He's all right with this.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and honorable gentlebeings."

"Heaven concurs with the arguments made by Elysium that the decedent is Good, and with the arguments made by Axis that the decedent is Lawful. His devotion to fighting Evil even in the expectation of a complete lack of any personal benefit from it - in the expectation of Malediction - is clear and strong evidence that he is Good, and his devotion to his self-appointed duties and to his contractualist code is also evidence that he is Lawful."

"It does, however, think that notwithstanding these arguments, there is a stronger argument that the decedent is, specifically, Lawful Good, which has not been formally raised in this courtroom. five of the eight barristers here have all concurred, and the sixth now concurs, that the decedent atoned for his childhood loyalty to Asmodeus, though they do not all agree to what alignment he atoned to. Heaven believes that it can shed some light on this troubled subject.

"In the opinion of Heaven, the decedent is Lawful Good because less than twenty-four hours before his death, he donated more than eighty thousand Absalom pounds in freehold property to the Church of Iomedae, then left to spend the rest of his life battling demons under Iomedaean authority to protect the world from destruction. We submit that this was a 'reliable and consistent change of behavior' to behavior which was, during the remainder of his life, wholly and solely Lawful Good."

"First, it is established that knowingly and deliberately providing resources to a cause is an action morally and ethically aligned with that cause; in re John D, in re Engels, in re Mhalir. The decedent's gift was given with a true and justified knowledge of what the Church of Iomedae's priorities were, having previously read both the Acts of Iomedae and the legal code of Mendev, and the decedent correctly believed that these resources would strengthen the cause of Iomedae, as they did. Therefore this was both a Good and a Lawful act.

"We expect the representative of Hell to make the claim that the decedent had no other use for this money, but this is false. A priest of Abadar could have been hired to sell the property and keep the funds in trust for the decedent, should he survive, as he expected to. Instead he donated it directly to the Church of Iomedae, which is well known as one of the leading forces opposed to all Evil on Golarion - not merely Hell, but the Abyssal and Abadonian forces that he had previously aligned himself with. While we cannot speak for his internal mindset, this action of the decadent's, and those that followed, showed that he 'changed relations, attempted to repair relations, and reliably and consistently changed his behavior' with regards to his Abyssal affiliations, three of the five prongs of the Newton test."

"Moreover it is established that accepting the authority of agents of a deity to issue you orders is both Lawful (insofar as it is accepting authority, in re Urk) and aligned with that deity (in re Gug). The last act of the decedent's life was to travel to Mendev with the intention of, first, fulfilling his relations to his employees by finding them a safe refuge in Kenabres, and second, placing himself under the authority of either Iomedae's Mendevian or Lastwaller paladins at the Worldwound, with the explanation that he intended to align himself to 'whichever of them needs me most'. We observe that this is an Iomedaean act, in that it is cause prioritization for the sake of maximizing Goodness at personal cost, but it is chiefly relevant because it demonstrates that he had already mentally - though not physically - accepted the authority of Iomedae's priesthood over him, corroborating evidence for this being his reading the Acts of Iomedae and the legal codes of Lastwall and Mendev before traveling there. Therefore under Urk and Gug, his attempt to travel to the Worldwound to atone for his crimes is an act both Lawful and Good. That he failed to accomplish the killing of any demons is irrelevant, first because of the well-justified nature of his belief that his action would have a positive expected outcome (in re Hope), and secondly because subordinates formerly under his command successfully carried out his plan, and are presently serving at the Worldwound."

"We further wish to raise a third point related to this. Nearly every one of the decedent's subordinates, and all of his subordinates of noticeable physical or magical power, were Evil. Many of them are presently battling on the Worldwound, as a sole consequence of his actions, and thereby taking Good acts under Lawful authority. We therefore submit that the decedent, as one of his last acts, attempted to redeem thirty-nine evildoers, and that statistically speaking many of these attempts will succeed, saving souls that would otherwise have gone to Evil afterlives and causing them to instead go to nonevil afterlives. This court submits these as important Lawful Good acts, in re Matthew, and holds therefore that the decedent has therefore successfully atoned of his life's evil deeds, and, based on the last acts of his life, is Lawful Good."

Wait, is the angel saying that that dumb last-ditch plan actually worked?

No, it just thinks his plan worked well enough to back. Heaven trusts him enough to give him the rope to hang himself. Well, we'll see who hangs...

She ruffles her papers. She tries not to contemplate her god's displeasure.

"Abbaddon substantially concurs with the analysis of Hell and the Abyss.

"My able colleagues have mostly left aside the issue of the decedent's early life. The one thing that all of my able colleagues can agree on, it seems, is atonement. He atoned! We don't know what direction he atoned in but we're absolutely certain that he did. 

"I present a representative incident. While fleeing Cheliax, the decedent cast Charm upon a farmer to convince the farmer to let him stay. The farmer, who believed deeply in the virtue of hospitality, would have done so regardless, but the decedent didn't even ask before resorting to mind control. The family had little enough, but they planned to go hungry to give the decedent enough to eat. He was injured, and they dressed his wounds. The farmer even offered to trade blankets with him, because winter was coming soon and the decedent would be cold on the roads. 

"I remind the court that a decedent's actions under Charm Person reflect how they'd treat anyone whom they cared about, and the farmer's generosity was "a product not only of mind control but of his own values," in re Ben Beastson, -2352.

"The farmer asked no questions. The decedent had no reason to believe that the farmer would report him to Cheliax, or even suspected that he was on the run. 

"The decedent slit the throats of the farmer, his wife, and their three children, and fled into the night." 

"No reason?"

He rises to his full height and gives the karuzmek an absolutely deadly glare.

"Any viciously scarred, half-starved youth who arrives at a farmer's house in eastern Sirmium with a spellbook, a dagger and a travel pass for five counties away is on the run, and any farmer who treats a guest like his beloved family and cannot say why knows that the cause is Charm when the morning comes, and what to do to escape the stake. I took the option that would destroy Asmodeus most effectively, which was the option to survive, and I did it because I was powerless and it was the best option available to me to become powerful. By Norgorber and Calistria and my luck that is not a choice I have had to make since I crossed the border, and those five corpses I have make Cheliax pay for just as I have made them to pay for all the other blood they have caused to be shed in the province of Hell that is all that is left of the greatest nation in Avistan."

"It was necessary to slit the throat of the child, then? It wasn't that you valued your convenience over an innocent live? It's the result of a brutal cost-benefit analysis that Iomedae Herself would approve of? Say, how many children do Iomedaeans murder, I just don't know..."

Her palps tap on the table in thought.  

"Iomedaeans in Cheliax die. I lived. One of the many, many reasons why I have never claimed to be one - nor anything but an enemy of Asmodeus."

"You didn't keep your word. You didn't do right by those who had done right by you. You gave up everything that Law and Good were so proud of you for having. To live."

"I gave my word?" He raises an eyebrow. "I broke all my oaths of fealty to Asmodeus, yes. I could hardly keep them if I wanted him dead. I don't believe that I ever promised not to kill my hosts. But you're right, I value my life more than Goodness or Law. I can fight Asmodeus without one, and not without the other."