"It is not impossible. Among people who'd rather go to an afterlife where they can learn, work, trade, see other people, and choose their master or have none at all, it almost never happens. But probably some of that is because people, dispreferring Hell, choose not to as a side hobby torture and murder people. I expect if you wanted to go to Hell you could manage it even while saving the world. I'm less certain about if you are serving Asmodeus's long term schemes but the thing you're directly doing is just Good. I would not expect people to be damned for that, if it wasn't obvious that Asmodeus had orchestrated the situation - and it sounds like it is not obvious."

"...I've not ever heard it raised as a theory before. I suppose the veterans I meet are those who return, and it's possible that those who stay in the military long term are mostly not evil." It's kind of weird to think about but she's not actually sure this one is wrong.

"In societies not ruled by Asmodeus, most people put some thought into not being Evil. Even if they have goals that are best accomplished by Evil means, they usually do not want to be eternally tortured for all the same reasons they do not want to be arrested and executed by the government, and so they try about as hard to avoid both of the two things."

None of the societies Iolanda is aware of do this, actually, but she can tell this is the small child catechesis lecture adapted for very stupid foreigners, and accordingly it has some correct answers. "That makes sense. What else helps a person avoid being evil?"

"- so, most people are not evil. Most things are not evil. In most societies, the bandits will be evil, and the murderers, and the armies because armies are often hard to distinguish from bandits and murderers from the perspective of people whose villages they're passing through. But almost all of the work of an ordinary life is not evil, and in places not ruled by Asmodeus it is unusual for people to go to any evil afterlife, and they are generally people who - betrayed their society, or used its strength to go do a bunch of slavery and torture and killing that did not need to be done.  I would not normally say 'it is very easy to not go to Hell', but - it's really not very hard, if you are not in the devoted service of Hell already. 

It seems like probably the Church of Asmodeus would choose to be misleading about this, if they had a population captive enough that being misleading would work."

'Most things are not evil' doesn't really seem like a very useful followup to 'you should put some thought into not being evil'. Admittedly Iolanda has done her fair share of slavery and killing and torture, but not, like, gratuitous slavery and killing and torture? ...well, okay, a few instances of gratuitous torture. It's not like gratuitous torture is one of her top three hobbies or like it would be a big ask to give it up out of politeness or anything. "I was just trying to get a sense of what putting some thought into not being evil would look like."

"It looks like not killing people or torturing people or abusing your slaves or taxing people into starvation. If you have a long history of doing that, it looks like actively doing things that improve the lives of other people, until on the whole you've done around as much good as you did harm. Defending them from monsters, fighting just wars, feeding the poor. A lord who gets into a feud with a neighbor in which twenty, thirty people die before they settle something or one side wins will read Evil, now, and if he's wise he'll go on Crusade, or leave some of his lands to the Church for the benefit of the poor, or both those, and work his way up to Neutral again before he dies. It goes faster if you regret the Evils, but it is not actually required. Axis is happy to have people who would be murderers if it were in their self-interest but aren't because it isn't."

'If you have a long history of killing the wrong people, kill the right people instead.' This doesn't seem like very reliable advice for stupid people to follow, but okay.

Iolanda mostly kills the right people, really, doesn't abuse her slaves, and obviously already defends people from monsters. It sounds like if she wanted to deliberately stop being evil, she would mostly just need to avoid taking part in southern entertainment, and apparently... feed some poor people? To even things out? This sounds a little bit implausible, but she has to admit this is not something she finds a lot of time thinking about.

"I mostly kill monsters and help with law enforcement. And handle border defense, I guess."

"Helping with law enforcement is probably Good in a civilized society and extremely evil if the laws are Asmodeus's, since He would intentionally make evil laws to try to damn people."

"It sounds like I'm unlikely to do very much of it in the future either way."

"Yes. Working out which things you are doing is Evil might be important to you, if you want to do anything meaningful or interesting with your eternity, but it's not very relevant to us. Being a bad person isn't a capital crime and you aren't going to serve Asmodeus in the future we'll almost certainly let you go. I am mostly interested in it because I want to make sure everyone gets religious education adequate to avoid it in my world, and you are an exception to a number of principles I thought were fairly universal, there."

"...like what?"

"That people mostly do not want to go to the evil afterlives, and intentionally take actions to avoid the evil afterlives, at least the kind of people who are capable of intentionally taking actions to avoid other undesirable consequences of their actions such as 'being executed' or 'being exiled'. That people don't serve Asmodeus, broadly, and when they do they either have an extremely elaborate rationalization of how they'll escape Hell or are pursuing lichdom. ...that Menadorans have common sense."

"We are not an especially treasonous people."

The only people left are the ones who couldn't think through the implications of swearing themselves to Hell, or who were willing to do so falsely. 

She should not say that. "If you had told me that some part of the Empire fell to Hell it is not the part I would have guessed," she says instead. "Though it sounds like half did. ...or half of our present strength, I guess I have no idea how far the Empire will extend in nine hundred years.

How does the wizard schooling work? They gather everyone in villages to look for talent, and then apprentice them all?"

"Every town or village has a local school. Every school has a teacher, usually themselves a wizard. Every child attends school from the age of six. Every year, a wizard capable of casting Detect Thoughts stops by and determines the intelligence of the children aged eleven or twelve. Those who score above the cutoff - perhaps three percent of children in the nearest three counties - are taken to Kantaria's wizard prep school, where they study for the next four years. Those who pass their classes then go on to study at the Alabaster Academy in Kintargo as adults, where they become real wizards." Menador's wizard prep schools are considered something of a national embarrassment, relative to those in the rest of the country, but it's hard not to feel warmly about them just the same. They're not depressing places, just supposedly being outpaced by everyone else.

"...the entirety of Cheliax answers to the Thrunes. Taldor doesn't because it hasn't been the same country in... six hundred years?" And she's not sure anyone even wants them anymore.

"The split dates back six hundred years? Do you know anything about it? The northern Empire - Isgari, Moltuna, Encarthan - is also ruled by Asmodeus?"

"Is..ger? Isger is effectively ruled by the Thrunes, yes. If you mean Molthune, that's a separate country and I didn't know it was ever part of Taldor. Encarthan I only know as the name of a lake, but - I guess I'm not confident I would know if the lake used to be an area of land?

I believe the split was around six hundred years ago and was achieved by Aspex the Even-Tongued. We have a holiday about it, and - it feels like a real and ancient holiday more than Loyalty Day does, I guess, which is a different day and is about the Thrune Ascendancy. I won't say the Thrunes never try to alter history to suit them better, but I'd be really quite surprised about Signing Day not commemorating a real event."

"The Empire before the war with Tar-Baphon ruled as far north as Ustalav. Right now the lake is contested. In any history where I become a god one presumes we win that contest. It makes more sense that the Empire would fall if first it split." Not very much sense, but she's not expecting anything that emerges to make it make much sense. "How are they paying for the schools, do you know? How many men live in a day's walk, in Menador and in the Heartlands?"

"Kantaria is a town of about three thousand, including the students. And..." she calculates in her head for a few moments, "Probably about double that number in villages within ten miles, and maybe twenty thousand within twenty? Maybe more, I'm not certain how much of that radius is forest. The county is around forty thousand, but I don't expect its borders are the same as today. Menador is among the least densely populated regions of Cheliax, of course. Egorian is a city of more than a hundred fifty thousand, and I expect the rural population is at least three times as dense around it."

"Egorian is a city founded after the succession?" 

The History and Future of Humanity says that population density goes up as a place gets more civilized - people get better at farming the land and arranging reliable Plant Growths, and trade means that a bad harvest in one corner of the country doesn't have to starve its people, if they can buy food from some other place with a good harvest or get temporary leniency on taxes. This makes societies much richer. It's harder for monsters to prey on dense settlements. You can have a cobbler in the village, rather than one who comes by twice a year. 

Would that be sufficient to afford - probably you'd want some old woman whose children were grown, because those don't command much pay, and if you were gathering all the children under eight then you wouldn't be forgoing all that much useful work on the children's part -

"...right, sorry. Egorian is the capital of Cheliax but I believe it was founded after. I don't know what cities are around right now. The ones with wizard academies are Kintargo, Egorian, Westcrown, and Ostenso."