"Erastil chose a priest in my village after the revolution, and he liked to say that Erastil had given him these gifts so that he could strengthen his community, not so that he could profit. The only payment he ever asked for was the cost of the materials for his spells. But that's a relatively rare perspective."

"—And it's not the sort of thing you need to worry about too much as long as you're basically trying to be fair. Sometimes people get — scared — that every little thing they do is going to be Evil, and there are some little things that are Evil, but as long as you're trying to be fair with your prices and you're not taking advantage of people it's not wrong or Evil to sell your spells." 

That's probably another Evil to atone for, before joining the Cult he had managed a lot of variations of 'even though it'd be trivial for you to save his life you demanded he give you everything he has'... more than they had actually, he had ready made contracts to squeeze the peasants for money long term.

The priest of Iomedae sounds really practical, he should try to find one to talk to.

So if charging too much money is Evil... can he report them for that?  He could get used to living in a Good country!

"Who do we report heresy to?  Like if someone is being a Mammonite?"

He can recall one of the examples from a few days ago specifically mentioned that someone cheating others in business was not found guilty of being a follower of Mammon.  But it is overall still a relevant question, with so many accepted and actively approved Churches he isn't sure which one handles reports of heresy.

"—Laws about heresy are one of the things that's really different between Andoran and Cheliax. In Andoran it's illegal to deliberately serve the Evil gods, or other powers of the lower planes, or to proselytize for them, but that's basically the only thing that's illegal heresy. —There's some extra rules involved if you're trying to publish anything, or give a big public speech or something, but they don't apply to things you're just thinking, or that you're saying to your friends or family or anything. 

Apart from that, the main things countries other than Cheliax call heresy are saying things about the gods that aren't true, or saying things that are true, but that make the gods that are popular in those countries look bad, or that would make people not want to serve those gods, or sometimes if they make the gods look good but make the people in charge of the country look bad — usually they call that last one some other crime but I think Taldor sometimes calls it heresy. But — if someone in Andoran's saying things about the gods that aren't true, and it's not because they're proselytizing, it's probably because they're confused, and they're probably confused because of how Cheliax used to lie to everyone. And it'd be better if they weren't confused, but it's not their fault that Cheliax lied all the time. And then lots of countries think it should be illegal to say true things if they make Iomedae or Sarenrae or whoever is the most popular god look bad, but in Andoran people mostly think that's stupid, and I think so too.

And so then — the laws we have about religion aren't special, you don't need to go to any sort of church to report them, you can just tell the town watch like it was any other crime. Uh, there are some priests who work for the watch, but they aren't a separate thing. Like, in the cities they pay Abadarans to cast Abadar's Truthtelling — uh, that's a special kind of truth spell that only Abadarans can cast — and then there's also some paladins who've sworn a bunch of specific oaths about how much they'll tell the watch about what you tell them, and so on, but you don't need a priest of Iomedae to tell you that someone who's going around saying 'everyone should worship Asmodeus' is proselytizing for Asmodeus."

Nod. "One of our friends thinks none of the gods are worth listening to, and he'll try to convince anyone who'll listen, and he's never gotten in trouble for it."

"He got punched in a bar fight once."

"Fair. He's never gotten in trouble with the law for it."

"That wasn't the only thing he said that conversation, anyways, I'm not sure which one actually got him punched."

Settling heresy with bar fights actually seems really sensible to to Mateo, and the proper sort of thing for a Caydenite to do (he doesn't know any Caydenite theology yet, but he is already starting to identify as one).

He glances over at Sinashakti's preparation of unseen servant and thinks about how they will use it to safely set off any trapped symbols in the bag of holding.  An unseen servant should count enough like a living creature to safely set off a symbol (such as a symbol of pain)... assuming standard triggering conditions.  But maybe a skilled wizard could manage more nuanced conditions?  He hasn't ever used a symbol spell before, even the lower circle symbol spells are more expensive than he can afford just for the sake of practice.  Also, if it is a more obscure symbol spell... it could have a long duration of activation making it annoying to wait for the spell discharge (actually pretty plausible)... the spell itself could have no apparent effect on unseen servants (somewhat possible)... the spell could maybe have longer than the 60 foot range he is expecting (very unlikely)?  Actually, mentally reviewing the math on the ranges, to keep the servant active, Sinashakti will be within the edge of a 60 foot range.  He could open the bag and immediately retreat?  Actually most symbols are burst effect... they could put the symbol in the rope trick, and then get clear of the rope trick's opening, while staying within the unseen servant's range but a burst won't bend around a corner.

"I am going to use my empty slot on an unseen servant also, thinking it over, it is quite possible we will need two of them, like if one trap destroys the first unseen servant and we want to ensure there isn't a second.  Also, if the bag is trapped a symbol of pain or similar to it, we could be waiting around for it to finish discharging for two hours or so.  Just something to keep in mind"

Oh great this is about to turn into a bunch of wizard talk.  He'll come up with another question then!

"What do people in Andoran do for fun?  It seem like a torturous execution is the most excitement most small villages get around here.  And the cult was big on torture.  I was a bit too squeamish and soft to really enjoy it myself."

Well... he's been accused of being squeamish a few times (they were actually a result of various mixes of boredom, sleepiness, and irritation at the victim's screams), so this isn't purely a lie.  But he is mostly figuring that Good people are squeamish about pathetic about torture and is trying to work that into the conversation as a fact about himself to establish.  He's been mentally preparing a speech about how they were going to torture the deserter to death and he didn't want to and that's why he defected.  It looks like the speech won't be needed?  But he doesn't want to waste all the partially mostly true facts he's prepared for it.

"Andoran doesn't do torturous executions, Asmodeus really likes it when people get tortured — uh, not having them is controversial, people aren't sure if you get more criminals that way." The Lastfolk say you don't but if you don't just assume that Lastwall is right about everything it seems kind of ridiculous? Lastfolk also like to say that hanging technically counts unless you do it the special way Lastwall came up with, which really seems like the sort of thing you could only believe if you'd never seen someone flayed alive.

Nod. "Besides that, people in Andoran do lots of different things for fun. Some people sing, or dance, or play instruments, or watch other people do any of those. Some people read books or poetry, or play dice or card games, or play other games like basilisk or prismati, or go out to the tavern with their friends. In the cities people watch plays, and concerts, and footraces or horse races or flying races, and illusion-shows or other feats of magic, and daredevil acts — things like crossing a tightrope over a pit of snakes, or juggling fire, or complicated trapeze stunts where if you miss by an inch you'll fall — and something a little like the games but no one does it except by choice, where people fight against summoned beasts, and public debates. Some of those also happen in smaller towns, but not as often."

"And archery contests, and lots of kinds of art, and going to see animals displayed from other places. And some people actually like going to church services." 

"I think there's two — no, wait, three — big differences from what people do for fun in Cheliax. First of all, people don't do things for fun that are just... hurting other people for no reason, like, there's operas in Andoran but there aren't, uh, operas where they frame an innocent person for a crime and force them to take part in an opera where they actually get killed. Then, uh, this is actually the third thing I thought of, people aren't — trying to make sure that what they do for fun makes them look like perfect Asmodeans? People can spend all their free time painting, if they can afford it, without worrying that they'll get accused of primary worship of Shelyn, or read books that aren't half about how everyone should worship Asmodeus, or get together with a bunch of their friends to sing songs without the priests worrying they're planning something. And then the last difference, which I think is maybe the most important, is — there's a lot of things that are more fun to do with people you like and care about than with strangers, or especially with people you hate. If you go to the bar by yourself it'll probably be pretty boring. If you sit down to play Hazard with some random strangers you've never met you're basically just counting. If you try to go do a group dance with people you hate, then even if no one tries to hurt you on purpose it's probably going to suck. But if you've got a group of friends together than even if what you're actually doing is pretty boring you can still have a good time talking to them, if that makes sense."

(He will quietly discuss strategy for using their Unseen Servants with Fernando while this is occurring.)

Dice and card games are fun, so that puts a minimum threshold on how boring Andoran can be.  He's not sure daredevil acts would stay interesting if no one ever got hurt, but if they are only half as good as the one time he saw the games in a city that is still pretty entertaining.

He's kind of confused by not doing any torture just to... spite Asmodeus?  Oppose Asmodeus in everything at all costs?  The leader always said you can't get at the true essence of Chaos simply by reversing Law nor can you can you be wise simply by reversing foolishness.  And now he's feeling a flicker of guilt that he had to kill leader...

"What sort of punishments do you have that aren't torture?"  And he immediately thinks of a follow up.  "And you don't need to torture people for Calistria?"

Opps... that one might be a little sensitive.  Well worse case if it's heresy the punishment is only a punch in the face, he can take a punch.  Is he supposed to fight back if she does go for a face punch?

That question was a little too much even as casual as they are being.  He'll pretend he didn't overhear as he continues his side conversation on how to handle the bag of holding with the Unseen Servants.

Well, she doesn't look inclined to punch him, at any rate. 

"—No, you don't have to torture anyone to be a Calistrian, even if you're a priestess. Calistria's the goddess of revenge but there's lots of different ways to get revenge — she might be bothered if I really really really wanted to torture someone to death but I decided not to for reasons I didn't actually care about at all, but if it's just — I care about lots of different things, and I decide to get revenge on an Asmodean priest by killing him and freeing his slaves and fighting to make it so Cheliax can be free someday, and I'm happy with that — then that's fine." She... might feel upset about letting them off with just death if her spear were secretly a Final Blade or something, but it's not like they won't get tortured more than almost anyone could possibly deserve no matter what she does beforehand. "You don't even have to kill anyone, lots of people who worship Calistria have never killed anyone."

"And then Andoran's got... let me think. Execution. Whippings and other things like that, those're allowed if they're not really excessive, there's arguments about what exactly should count. Fines, and they can make you sell off things you own if you can't pay the fine, there's rules about what exactly they can make you sell. Uh, labor sentences, technically, except slavery's illegal so anyone who gets sentenced to a labor sentence has to be allowed to say they'd rather be executed. Sending people to a monastery if there's one that'll take them, that's technically counted as a type of labor sentence but I think it might be different. Maiming." She pauses for a moment.

"Branding. Pillory."

"—huh, I don't think I realized we even had pillory, I've never seen it."

"There are a lot of requirements about how it has to be done. They're kind of a pain, so magistrates mostly don't use it."