"I'm afraid I don't have a copy of the handbook on me," Blai says. "But I remember this part pretty well, it seemed - very important, when I read it. An illegal order is an order that is out of the scope of the authority of whoever is giving it. Up to and including the Goddess herself, no one is allowed to oblige you to betray an oath, swear an oath, commit a crime, disobey a legal order without meeting the conditions for procedurally overriding its giver or circumventing an enchanted commander or the like, do things that serve no lawful purpose, involve yourself in any capacity with a punishment severe enough to require court martial without the court martial itself ordering this, or do anything that they are only allowed to oblige under a specific condition like 'wartime' or 'when the order-giver has a particular clearance' if they cannot provide adequate assurance that this condition holds. Again this is the Lastwall handbook definition, the Church organization proper may have some different handling, Mendev may also, but a Sarenrite cleric who offered confidential counsel clearly would be betraying an oath, to reveal what she learned."

"Fascinating. Of all the people I can recall interviewing for my encyclopedia, you are the first to mention this concept. Perhaps the state of theological education is even worse than I thought."

"Or maybe they're just not a thing around here. Like, c'mon, if some Baphomite swore they'd never tell anyone their cultist buddies' plans, there's no way anyone would just stop trying to get him to talk."

"At some point I would like to write to Crusader's Fort about that example, it's a good question."

"I've definitely heard of people who work for the Inquisition in Kenabres ordering people to swear oaths. ...and lots of other things, but mostly they weren't on the list."

"I doubt that they are supposed to do that, but Mendev may have different rules than the ones in the handbook I had access to."

People say the Inquisition used to burn children alive. Ordering prisoners to swear they won't escape just doesn't seem like a big deal compared to that. (Though for all he knows, that's just a rumor, the Prelate sure didn't bother to ask him to swear anything.)

"That problem could be straightforwardly solved through application of the arcane arts. For example, reading the prisoner's mind or making use of a Dominate Person spell could both oblige them to disclose information."

"Don't go giving them ideas. ...There's not really that many wizards around here anyways, I don't know how many of those spells inquisitors get." People say they can read minds or tell when you're lying or force you to confess every crime you've ever committed, but people will say all kinds of things.

"I don't know either. At any rate, illegal orders are about - orders, in the context of a relationship where that would sometimes have special force. It may not apply at all to prisoners, especially those who didn't even actually surrender, though there are other standards for the treatment of prisoners. A paladin Fell the other day for that reason."

Nenio leans forward. "Really? What can you tell me about that? Do you know if anyone has attempted to keep records of the rates at which paladins Fall after various actions?"

"I was not present and have only what I overheard. It sounded like he lost his temper and struck the prisoner. I think Osirion has some loosely related statistical projects in the works but not that one to my knowledge."

Scribble scribble scribble. 

...Huh, are surfacers not allowed to hit prisoners? You learn something new every day.

"Why did the Goddess even choose someone who was going to hit a prisoner?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Is it really so shocking to hear that Iomedae's faithful are simply mortals like the rest of us?"

"Yes!" She hesitates. "I mean — I've made mistakes in my past, lots of people have, but she wouldn't have chosen me if I was going to keep doing them!"

"Falls of empowered persons in general were as I understand it vanishingly rare before the Age of Lost Omens, when they could check what someone would do. Now they don't have advance information on that, only a guess about a person's character and what pressures they are most likely to meet. It's also plausible that She's not spoiled for choice and needed more force on the ground in the short term; this is a pretty dire situation and She might be willing to burn trust on it."

"...The Age of Lost Omens?"

"Nenio, even I've heard of the Age of Lost Omens." 

"...you know, after prophecy broke?? Do they call it something else in Tian Xia?"

"I do not recall whether I have spent any portion of my life in Tian Xia!"

"How do you forget that?"

"Presumably it was irrelevant to my scholarly endeavors. Though I suppose I will need to find an alternative source of information about Tian Xia for my encyclopedia..."

"You may be taking too narrow a view of what is relevant to your scholarly endeavors." Her patterns would make more sense if she were aiming for experiencing the wonder of discovery on an hourly basis with recycled facts. "The present age is Lost Omens. Before that time prophecy worked both in the form of mortal spells and divine foresight and now it tops out at roughly Augury."