4.22 Hate Speech

This is the updated edited version as of August 12, '25

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Bernt could feel a blood vessel pulse in his temple as he worked to keep his mana network under control. He wanted to show this man what it meant to make an enemy of him. He was a paladin, sure, but he’d seen that Noruk didn’t protect his chosen ones from danger. Hannis had been a high priest, and he’d died in a cultist’s trap. A fire trap.

But, he could feel how much this asshole windbag wanted to goad him to violence. The paladin’s manner, even his facial expressions were too over the top to be sincere. He didn’t need to understand the specifics to see that he was the one standing in a trap now. While setting the man on fire might be gratifying, it would not help him appear innocent in front of these people.

Bernt was so preoccupied keeping his breathing steady that he failed to keep track of the man’s next words. He was caught off guard, then, when he simply walked off of the floor and sat down in the front row.

Was that it?

Bernt glanced around in tense confusion. Was he supposed to make a counterargument? The old man hadn’t even brought any evidence! He opened his mouth to say so when another voice cut him off from behind.

“What is this farce, Tolland? Did your queen put you up to it?” Bernt turned to find a large man in the green raiment of a priest of Eyeli pushing past Doreen and striding out onto the floor, eyes alight with anger. “The purpose of this Conclave is supposed to be saving Besermark from an enemy the likes of which humanity hasn’t faced in four centuries, yet you stall and distract us from our cause to chase idle rumors in front of the entire assembly!? One need only look to what ends you are working to see that someone is pulling on your strings, puppet!”

Bernt was gratified to see a look of shocked surprise cross the old paladin’s face as the hall erupted into shouting once more and the speaker waved both arms high above his head for silence. He hadn’t expected such a forceful response.

To be fair, neither had Bernt. He flinched when someone touched his arm and found two temple guards standing on either side of him. One leaned in politely “requested” that he accompany them to a more secure location. He would be comfortably detained until the accusations against him could be tested against the judgment of the gods—whatever that meant.

Later, he would say that he knew he had powerful allies in Norhold and in Halfbridge. Besermark wouldn’t let something like this stand, and the Temple of Ruzinia would support him, especially Torvald. He needed to give them the opportunity to respond. In the moment, though, all he knew was that he couldn’t let this come to a fight. Fighting a temple guard would end badly for him no matter his innocence or guilt. Not only might he lose, but it would turn all the temples against him. Innocent people didn’t go around attacking paladins doing their job.

So, he let them march him out of the room, up two flights of stairs and down a long corridor to what looked less like a prison cell than it did spare sleeping quarters. Or it would have, if there hadn’t been two more temple guards dressed in Noruk’s colors standing in front of the door. Not sure what else to do, he entered and sat down on the freshly made bed as the door clicked shut behind him.

He sat on the bed for a minute and just stared at the locked door, trying to process what had just happened. It didn’t feel real. He’d been outside just a few minutes ago. Would they let him speak to the others?

With an irrational stab of panic, Bernt remembered that he was supposed to report to Minister Jesra to let her know how the Madzhuris retaliated. Could he send messages out? He patted his pockets, realizing as he did so that he was still wearing his new bag over his shoulders. They hadn’t taken anything from him. That was strange. Shouldn’t they have checked him for weapons? Did they forget?

But, he realized, it didn’t matter. His spells were far more dangerous than anything he could do with a weapon. There weren’t any obvious wards here to prevent him from blasting his way out. For all he knew, they wanted him to try something. He wouldn’t attempt to escape for the same reason he’d let them take him here in the first place. Not only would he likely lose against a paladin acting in good faith, it would also do that Madzhuri paladin’s work for him, painting him as a threat and an enemy.

Grimacing, he reached into the bag and pulled out a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. Maybe it was a waste of time, but maybe he’d get lucky. Jesra’s scrying anchor was still up at the Temple of Ruzinia, waiting for his next message. She’d be able to engage the guild, if he could get the report to one of the Ruzinians, and the Beseri military would likely get wind of the situation soon after.

Writing the report calmed him down somewhat. Jesra didn’t know about Jori unless she’d done her own research on him, and even if she had, he doubted she knew anything about his relationship to the military. Putting things into context for her ultimately did the same for Bernt, reminding him of the larger picture. It gave him a chance to look at things from a broader perspective. By the time he finished, he realized that the Madzhuris were making a mistake.

He wasn’t sure exactly what Tolland, the old paladin, had been talking about regarding Jori’s case, but he guessed that they didn’t really understand what either of them were offering. The paladin—and probably the Madzhuri government—thought they were just embarrassing the Beseri government and maybe the Temple of Ruzinia. Depending on how this story was portrayed to the public in Teres, it really might cause a scandal.

The temple district in Halfbridge had never liked Jori or him, and they would jump on this the moment they heard about it. He doubted things would go much differently in Teres.

But that was only part of the picture. He wasn’t just a random Underkeeper anymore, and Jori wasn’t just his familiar. Both of them had, in their own way, made themselves into irreplaceable military assets. Maybe if the accusation had come from a Beseri authority, or at least a priest of one of their own temples… but it hadn’t. Instead, foreign actors had taken him into custody just days after he’d signed a contract that would significantly strengthen Duke Renhild’s garrison against the Madzhuris.

The nature of their accusations only made it worse. Jori’s activities in Besermark were a matter of record, after all. She was practically a local hero in Halfbridge, and there was a paper trail proving that Bernt wasn’t a warlock—rogue or otherwise. There were reputable witnesses, not least Torvald himself, who could attest to his character and loyalties, and there simply wasn’t any real proof that he had anything to do with any cultists at all. It was pure slander, held together by half-truths and exaggerations.

Eventually, it would become obvious to the other temples that they didn’t have anything real on him. In the meantime, though, the story would spread. Beseri nobles and priests would be embarrassed, and things would generally get more uncomfortable for everyone associated with Bernt, Jori, or his projects. It was propaganda, meant to hurt Besermark in a way that mirrored what they thought Torvald had done to them.

But all of that relied on the idea that nobody would push back. They believed that the guilds and nobles would hang Bernt and Jori out to dry when they heard about this. A few weeks ago, Bernt would have expected them to do it. Now… they were underestimating his value to Duke Renhild and Archmage Dalbrand. More than that, they clearly didn’t understand what Jori, Ed and Iriala had offered the Beseri government.

In the end, all he really needed to do was wait.

***

“Too long have we tolerated the intolerable as the open hearts and good intentions of the people of Besermark were twisted and abused by nefarious actors.” Tolland of Matar cried out, his voice heavy with exaggerated grief as he took the floor again after High Priest Cranquist’s scathing response. Doreen still stood at the edge of the floor, waiting for her chance to speak and tapping her foot impatiently. Meanwhile, the paladin ranted on. “For generations the cults have festered, spreading their corruption to turn our sister nation to wickedness and depravity. First warlocks, then the monstrous races, and now even demons themselves! The leaders of this befouled country have abdicated their rights and their responsibilities to their people. The temples sit back as warlocks are left to police themselves and granted access to public life. Guilds and government officials build their institutions on their corrupted foundations. Every contract that is signed and every law that is written has their taint upon it.”

He paced around the floor of the Conclave, growing red in the face. “Now, we see what it has brought them! Nothing but ruin and death. Their cities are overrun with godless pagans and their own people turn against them. Our fellow humans, abandoned in favor of migrating monsters and demons, are lost, left to wonder and despair at how far they have fallen. Is it any wonder that the Duergar could strike at them so easily? Where are their leaders—those whose duty it is to safeguard and to guide humanity forward on the path laid out for us by the gods?” He gestured back toward the door at the back of the chamber, where they’d escorted Bernt out minutes earlier. “They toy with the forces of darkness, even as their people suffer! The question we should ask ourselves is not how the gods could allow Loamfurth to fall, but rather why they allowed it to stand for so long at all.”

Torvald looked over to Doreen, shocked at the man’s words. Was he trying to blame Besermark for being invaded in the first place?

The priestess was rolling her eyes and making a face. She looked exasperated more than worried. Song, who sat between them, watched impassively, his face like a stone mask. There was no telling what he thought of this mess, but Torval supposed it might not be as personal for him. His family was probably safe, up in the mountains across the sea.

“Sometimes, the cure for a disease can be more painful than the sickness itself,” Tolland went on, his voice thick with emotion that Torvald very much doubted the old man actually felt. “And still, it must be administered. The common people of Besermark didn’t make the rules that led them here—they were forced down this path by those who did. And yet, they did not rebel or throw off the yoke of their oppressors, even as the light of civilization began to dim in their cities, washed out by a tide of godless pagans, monsters, half-breeds and demon worshippers. And so, while they may be innocent individually, they will still be forced to bear the collective price of inaction.”

Muttering broke out once again, and several representatives, including Cranquist of Yetin’s Harbor, stood up to shout insults at that. The sight comforted Torvald a little. But too many people here were nodding in agreement. About a third of all the representatives here were from Madzhur and would at least somewhat share the high priest’s attitude toward Besermark’s relatively tolerant stance on both warlocks and the traditional enemies of humanity, specifically orcs and goblins. Madzhur, by contrast, didn’t even extend citizenship to dwarves and gnomes, classifying them as ‘permanent guests’.

The paladin went on, bloviating about the threats that faced Besermark from above and below, casually conflating non-human Beseris with the Duergar, the Tib’nar Orcs, cultists and, on one occasion, even demons.

It was clear just from scanning the crowd that this speech wasn’t really meant to persuade anyone. Even some of the other priests of Noruk were scowling down at him. They, more than any other order, held their loyalty to their country nearly as dear as they did their temple affiliation. As the god of war, Noruk did not tolerate cowards or traitors, and his paladins swore their allegiance to their country, not the temple. So, while they all tended toward military solutions for any particular problem, Noruk’s chosen rarely spoke with one voice—especially when their sworn allegiances came into conflict.

Tolland wasn’t really addressing the Conclave – he was speaking to his fellow Madzhuris, showing them through the crowd’s response that they were a distinct group in this assembly.

Kallrix, like Besermark, was a diverse country made up of multiple non-human cultures. In fact, the Kallrixian government had played a significant role in shaping Besermark’s own relatively tolerant attitude toward orcs and goblins. Illuria, for its part, was the greatest maritime power in the world. They traded with the elves, orcs, and even lizardmen. There were rumors that they had even made contact with alien peoples across the eastern ocean, bringing home exotic goods that existed nowhere else on the continent. While they were mostly a nation of humans, they couldn’t afford this kind of sweeping bigotry.

While humanity largely dominated the continent’s surface, only Madzhur, as the former heart of the Madurian Empire, was a purely human country. They were unique here – the odd ones out, even though there were more of them than of anyone else. Certainly, things were never so clear cut – there were tolerant Madzhuris and, as Torvald had often seen, plenty of bigoted clerics in Besermark – but Tolland was obviously trying to draw a line in the sand. The only question was, what for?

Torvald sighed. He needed to speak with his great uncle.