"Why? I'm not saying you have to sell it, I'm saying - I'm sure Ramien would be happy to take you in, there's a temple of Sarenrae I haven't been to -"

"I really don't mind! I'm used to this, and other people probably need to live in the church a lot more than I do."

She notices the look on his face. "Please don't be sad because of me. I'm really, really alright. I'm not hurting, so you don't need to hurt either, alright?"

OK. OK, fine, he won't tell her to her face that she's hurting when she insists she isn't, even when all his instincts are screaming otherwise. But -

"I think not hurting is not enough. You need to be happy. You need to live with family and friends, with people who love you."

"Most people need shoes and houses to be happy. Maybe you're some kind of snow elf and don't mind walking barefoot in the dead of winter, I don't know, but - I see you living alone on the streets, where crazy people think they can kidnap or kill you and no-one will notice you didn't come home, and - I don't think I'm wrong to be sad about it. Maybe you don't think it's terrible or worthy of my pity, but I think it should be better than this."

"Maybe you're right! You seem pretty wise. Do you live with a family?"

This started out as a purely emotional reaction but is rapidly beginning to feel like a spirited philosophical debate with someone who cast silent detect anxieties ten rounds ago and has just suckered you into conceding the match.

What can he even say in response to that?

"You're right, I don't. I chose not to, twice over. And - I wouldn't be happy sitting at home, knowing there were people out there I could be helping but wasn't."

"But you don't have to follow my path! Because you're" - a defenceless child - "a healer, and you can still do that while living a normal life." Although he has no real idea what witches can do besides, apparently, healing people and putting them to sleep (and opening Worldwounds).

Lann thought he had a reasonable understanding of surfacer societies, but the events of the last hour have sorely disabused him of that notion.

A healer is valuable. The tribe would make her take care of herself even if she, somehow, lacked that natural impulse.

Outsiders, who are not members of the tribe, can be turned away or even attacked. The people here had... some reason for killing her father and trying to kill her too, and maybe he can't judge because he doesn't know what it was. But then they let her live among them, and to cast spells on them, for forty years, without either treating her as one of their own or driving her away. That's - he can't think of a way that would be right.

"I don't really understand your reasons," he says, "but why doesn't the city do something? What kind of chief tries to kill a healer, and when the healer forgives him for killing her father, doesn't even try to make her feel welcome, so she doesn't go away again to another city? Even if there aren't enough houses for everyone, there can't not be enough people to take care of each other!"

How to explain a city in Mendev to someone who lived all his life in a tight-knit little village?

"You asked me why I killed Hulrun," he says, and leaves it at that.

Oh thank Abadar, finally, there's the inn.

He can't trust the paladins not to try to imprison and judge him for killing Hulrun. He should let the others go on in, and maybe circle around and come back disguise selfed as a refugee to buy some stuff and hear the news, and find a house to spend the night in.

Unfortunately for his plan, Seelah is in the yard and when she sees them she runs on over.

"I'm glad you're here and unharmed! Did everything go well?"

"He killed Lord Hulrun Shappok," Camellia says viciously, and storms off into the tavern. 

He what?!

Gods, this day. Gord has officially had enough.

"I had two excellent reasons," he says flatly. "The first was that Hulrun went mad and tried to kill us. Ramien can attest to that."

"For the second, I'd like you to meet Ember."

"Hi!" Ember says brightly. "Your hair is very pretty!"

That tone of voice, so innocently happy, almost shocks Gord out of his prepared rant tirade sermon of righteous wrath, but he plunges on anyway.

"Ember came to Kenabres with her father when she was a little child, back during the Third Crusade. She's a witch. So, of course, Hulrun's Inquisition burned them alive." He doesn't know if Hulrun was personally involved, but the man first rose to fame and power burning people in the Third.

"One of the people who did it had a change of heart at the last moment and saved her from the fire when she was only half burned. He then leaves our tale, because the Inquisition doesn't brook traitors."

"Ember has unlimited magical healing and she uses it to help everyone she meets. Sane people, even if they weren't Good at all and had no concept of gratitude and just wanted to win, would make her feel welcomed and loved. Put her up in a temple, maybe, where people can come to her to be healed. Make sure she eats three warm meals a day and sleeps in a bed."

"Nobody did that, because if they had and the Inquisition noticed, they'd burn everyone involved." Although that explanation doesn't really hold for Ramien, and Gord is going to ask him later what the actual fuck.

"So she spent forty years wandering the streets barefoot. Alone. Healing people, because she's a good person."

"What you get without Hulrun is people like Ember - and me - helping you. What you get with Hulrun is him and Ramien fighting each other instead of demons."

"I killed him in self defence. But it's a good thing he died, for all the countless embers of the fires he kindled over the years."

"You shouldn't use my story to make people sad!" Ember objects. "People are silly, and make mistakes all the time. We shouldn't be mad at them for doing the wrong thing, when they're very scared or confused. We probably make a lot of mistakes ourselves! So I'm not mad at Hulrun, and I think you shouldn't be either."

How have the Sarenites not named this child a living saint yet?

"I don't want to make Seelah sad, Ember", he says as gently as he can. "I want to make her understand that keeping Hulrun in power, and following him, was a mistake that hurt a lot of people, and so she shouldn't want him back."

Seelah is wearing a slightly stunned look, like many people tend to when confronted with Gord's preaching for the first time.

"I'm not - I don't want to judge you for killing him. I mean, I'll probably judge you in the sense that I'll have an opinion about it, but I'm not enforcing the law by officially judging you for that, I'm not a judge." But the Inquisition is, so. Um. "If it was in self-defense, that sounds... defensible?"

"And I'm very much against burning people alive, executions shouldn't be torture, you won't find me arguing against that!" Seelah has a complicated personal relationship with burning alive as a method of death, but obviously she's not going to share that with Gord.

"I'm not asking you to judge me. What I'm asking you to do is go inside and tell Irabeth, and come back and let me know whether she will swear not to judge me for it. If she does, I'll stay and work together with you to drive out the demons and save more people."

"And if the Inquisition, or Galfrey's new appointment to rule the city, shows up and wants to fight us instead of the demons, again, I know you and Irabeth won't fight on my side but I need you not to fight on theirs either, and to not sell me out."

"Also, Lann and Wenduag are your ambassadors from the mongrelfolk, they're not - conditional on you accepting me. Unless they want to be, I guess. Although if you let the Inquisition execute them for also killing Hulrun in self-defense, I really don't think you deserve their help. Ember will probably forgive everyone and help everyone no matter what, but not all of us are so purely Neutral Good about it."

Lann is very unclear about Irabeth's actual authority or her relation to Hulrun or the Inquisition! They were sent to coordinate with her but that's just because they happened to meet her in the garrison earlier. He dearly hopes they're not making a giant mistake, but Hulrun is dead (and so are two of his underlings) and going looking for the Inquisition to apologize is probably not the best move? They'll talk to Irabeth first, in any case.

Ember's story sounds very terrible. Obviously she wants to help her, to stop it from happening to any other little girls, to make it right somehow.

But also obviously, she's heard only one side of the story. The Inquisition is empowered by the Inheritor, just like she is, obviously they can't be Evil and they also can't just be wrong or paladins wouldn't work with them and Iomedae wouldn't give them more power and send them new recruits.

She's going to defer to Irabeth, who is local and wildly more experienced, how about that. She goes to fetch her.

Hulrun's death is some of the worst news she could get right now. He was the strongest remaining anti-demon asset in the city, and he commanded the inquisition and the guards; taking him out and spreading the word that he had gone mad and attacked allies is liable to cause infighting and chaos.

This isn't to say Gord is lying. Perhaps Hulrun really went mad, or perhaps someone set him up. Or perhaps Gord is hiding some crucial detail, something that caused an already paranoid and desperate Prelate to go over the edge into assuming Gord was not just an enemy but one that had to be slain right away.

She's happy to give the oath required; it's neither her job nor tactically optimal to imprison a powerful potential ally pending judgement. The only question is whether she can trust Gord, but with Ramien and Lord Horgus Gwerm vouching for his words the balance swings in his favor. Whatever his personal opinions on the matter, he did fight in self-defense.

She'll swear not to judge or imprison or otherwise act against Gord (and everyone else involved), and to stay neutral between them and the Inquisition and other authorities, as far as the matter of the Prelate's death is concerned. She can promise this on behalf of the Eagle's Watch. She knows of no-one presently at the inn who she thinks is likely to try to assault Gord or the others over it, and if someone does so without legal authority she will enforce the peace and punish those who broke it, because keeping a unified front against the demons is their top priority.

Seelah dutifully relays back this message. She terribly wants to hear Irabeth's rebuttal to Gord but she can't bother her about it when Irabeth has a heap of notes on her desk and is probably working on the brilliant plan that will save the city.

Oh good. He'll - choose to trust that oath, despite his reservations. Because, unlike some people, he is professionally paranoid but not insane.

This has been a very long day and Gord is looking forward to relaxing and not spending all his attention on watching his back.