"It sounds to me like preparing spells is not entirely theory!  And--"  There's something about the concept of being careful that she sounds like she might be missing, but can he put that intuition into words...  "If you're going to discover new things, some of them are going to be new dangers nobody knew you needed to be careful about, are they not?  Though of course you cannot avoid that entirely."

"Yes, but it's not- I don't-"  She huffs a frustrated sigh and scrubs a hand across her face, groping for words. 

"It's- if spell research is as going out on patrol where the demons are, I- went in a corridor I knew led outside before I was yet ready to patrol, thinking the door was closed?  And instead it was open and there was a demon in the corridor?  But I can't be forever careful of every corridor, I should go mad."

"And certainly we don't want that!"  Grin.  "I do see what you mean."

"I would think there's a way to be more careful in... just the corridors you haven't yourself seen before, that could be unexpectedly dangerous even if you've heard they're not?  But maybe magic is too full of new corridors for that to help."

"Mm, a bit, but I do see- there's corridors I haven't been down, but I know they lead to within the fort, and corridors that share a wall with the outside that might have a door in it?  ...this imagining becomes complicated."  She laughs a little bit.  "I do intend to have a large snow drift behind me and not a wall, the next time I experiment, just not every time I hang a new spell.  And Mage Armor, if I can manage the ink for it."

"That sounds like a good plan to me."

"So, where were we... That Infernal Healing is Evil for both the caster and the recipient, somehow?  I am so confused about how that could possibly be the case.  Could you tell if your experimental inverted version would've been that still, or Good for both, or something different?"

Shrug.  "Well, the caster is obvious, and I don't see why accepting aid from an Evil spell shouldn't be?  But no, perhaps if I knew much more of symmetric spells and it happens that it's stable enough to hang?  And were I third circle so I might have Arcane Sight up and really look at it while I worked.  But as I am, I may only guess."

Confused frown.  "It's not obvious at all to me why it's Evil for the caster.  Or why accepting aid from it should be Evil, either – I know it's normally that way, but normally Evil spells are... obviously Evil the normal way..."

"Well, it's- one can't always tell just from the spellform unless one really studied it, but there's the devil's blood?  Sometimes spells just are- I mean, an Abadaran couldn't cast Protection From Law even-"  she wrinkles her nose, thinking of an example- "even he were legally at a Worldwound fort, and someone had unlegally summoned a devil to attack him in violation of the treaty?  And lied to the devil about it.  And he knew the night before they would do so."

"I would not... assume bleeding a devil to be Evil either?...  Ah, don't mind me, clearly I know nothing about how this works.  I didn't realize Evil spells were magically Evil instead of just normally so – or Chaotic ones, either.  Since they are, I suppose that makes as much sense as anything, but if it's only magically Evil rather than horrifying in some way then I don't see why it should be illegal."

"Oh, stabbing them isn't, never fear.  It's if you're doing a thing with the blood, that spell is most likely Evil.  Um... I don't actually know why, especially not only in wizard speech."

His last sentence gets an uncomfortable shrug.  "Well, I don't know if it should either, but... I don't know that it might not?  News takes some time to get all the way north, no one is yet certain what the new laws will be.  ...Eleven uses the Lastwall handbook and that doesn't forbid it, which may be a sign the new Queen won't either, but it may also be that they never thought to forbid it as they've enough Good clerics to cover healing."

"Iomedae holds quite strongly that you should not kill people just for being Evil, nor consider them criminals.  And it's just plainly not Lawful to hold people responsible for breaking laws you've given them no opportunity to find out about."

"... So if you were to be governed by Lastwall, I could confidently tell you it would be fine.  But you're not, and I shouldn't just assume."  Sigh.

"Mmhmm.  Well, I myself won't be regardless, I'm yet officially, um, independent adventurer under discretionary agreement.  But- yes."  She sighs.  "...and I haven't any devil's blood at present anyway,"  she adds as an afterthought. 

"And my next question is whether it by some bizarre mechanism counts as an Evil act, to have Infernal Healing cast on me.  I truly wouldn't think so, but I should... perhaps write Lastwall about this, before I consider any travel plans."

"Oh shit right- hey Ferrer!"  she calls over the wind, "Ever hear a paladin needed Infernal Healing?!"

"Nah, they mostly got their own!" he calls back.

Cambra likewise doesn't know, although he seems marginally more puzzled by the out of context question. 

"So not a guidance one way or another, then... it's a pity we couldn't ask the first fort, I expect they'd know if anyone should."

"Oh, you're right, we should ask at the border forts on the way back.  Or you should ask and write me if you get an answer, on the Chelish side, since they'd be the most likely to know.  Although of course it might be that everyone figured it was too risky to ever try, so I should write Lastwall anyway.  ... What a bizarre question to have, though."

"Although- were I placed to choose, I'd only do it if the paladin was down and like to die else?  Oughtn't it make a difference, to not have the chance to choose or to agree beforetimes?"

"Well, I would think so, but you tell me it magically makes the target read Evil regardless!  Or might it only do that if they agreed?  That would be... differently bizarre."  Confused shrug.

"In any case it is better than dying, so you're right about what to do, should the question ever come up."

"Well, not that it should make a paladin Evil if they agreed, that agreeing is an act and unwillingly benefiting is a- misfortune?"

He's only half listening to her for a moment, because--

"...Yes, and that is a terrible position to put a paladin in, and I'm just..." a sigh, his tense frown relaxing into a more pensive one, "not going to try to make it work, I would be terrible at it."

He should really explain what he's talking about.  "I realized immediately after I spoke that what I said was agreement already, and perhaps I would've been better off not saying it or at least not confirming it, but I feel like I'd go mad trying to live that way."

"Oh shit- then certainly I won't.  -I have Stabilize every day anyway, I shouldn't need it if the question did arise.  ...I do apologize."

"No no, it's not your fault, you said a completely reasonable thing.  It's the fault of Creation for being set up in this... paladin-trap... way, if indeed it is."  A deliberately slow breath.  "I do not prefer death over Falling by strange magical technicality, and it would feel wrong to refuse to say that just to avoid being held responsible for the result, and even more wrong to... cooperate with a situation where refusing to state reasonable principles gives me better outcomes."  So he is instead just not going to do that. 

"Oh."  Gods, apparently paladins really are just that Good, all the time.  And that Lawful, she's never heard someone refuse Pharasma in a Lawful way but that's definitely what he just did. 

"I'm sorry.  I as well mislike this."  And it's good to know his preference but she privately resolves to keep it from ever coming to that.  "I suppose you'd still go to Heaven, at least, once you did go."