"So, are you going to kill the kid?" I asked.
"I'm definitely going to kill the kid," replied Carl.
"Carl, no," said Melissa. "You don't need to kill the kid."
"We absolutely need to kill the kid," replied Carl. "And you need to be on board with that."
"I'm definitely not on board with that," said Mike. "There has to be something else we can do."
"This kid is a conduit," said Carl. "She's the channel through which the chained god will return to the universe. She's the key to the lock holding it in its extradimensional prison."
"We don't know that for sure," said Melissa. "All we have is what those cultists told us. We don't know that they weren't lying."
"We were torturing them," said Mike.
"I was torturing them," said Carl. "I don't recall you doing any torturing. Way to let down the team, by the way."
"Okay, you were torturing them," admitted Mike. "And they were evil. How do we know that they weren't just lying to us to further their own cause?"
"It might be that the death of the child is a component of their ritual," added Melissa. "You could be directly aiding them by doing this. Maybe they want you to kill the child. Have you thought of that?"
"We've seen them use murder as a ritual component before," said Mike.
"This kid is absolutely complicit in the plot. We heard her say it herself. She's a willing participant in what I remind you will be a world-ending apocalypse!"
"She's a child!" said Mike. "How old did you say she was?"
"About five," I replied.
"She'd go along with whatever her personal authority figure said. She doesn't have the mental or emotional maturity to make an informed decision."
"Anyway, even if she did it wouldn't be the first time someone has willingly sacrificed their life for a cause," said Melissa. "You'd do it."
"I absolutely would not," rejoined Carl. "I need to be alive in order to rule the world under my dark master's subjugation. My death would in no way further any of my goals."
"But it might further your god's," added Mike.
"If that's the case, let him kill me himself. I see no reason to throw my life away."
"Okay, maybe you wouldn't," said Melissa. "But that doesn't mean that no-one else would. Different religions value different virtues. Self-sacrifice and martyrdom are admirable in some cultures."
"I'm more than willing to personally sacrifice anyone who wants me to," said Carl. "When I sacrifice someone, their soul is claimed by my god, and not by the one they serve."
"So sacrifice is soul theft," said Mike. "That's really nice, that is."
"That's why it's a source of power," Carl continued. "Souls are currency for the gods. The more souls a deity has, the stronger they are and the more influence they have over the material world. If I sacrifice a follower of a god, I weaken that god and strengthen my own."
"That still doesn't justify murdering a child," said Melissa.
"It does!" said Carl. "If I sacrifice this child, whatever plans the chained god had for her soul are squashed. If her soul is necessary to secure its release, I'm taking that away. I'm giving her soul instead to my dark lord, who will probably just eat it. The chained god will never be able to use her death for any purpose."
"And if she does turn out to be innocent?" asked Melissa.
"My dark lord will have no problem with that," replied Carl. "The souls of innocents are sweeter, or something."
"That's horrible," said Mike.
"My dark lord is evil. Had you forgotten?"
"You know the worst part of all this?" asked Melissa.
"What?" asked Carl.
"You've almost convinced me to let you murder a child," she said.
"Good," said Carl.
"Not me," said Mike. "I'm still not convinced about the whole souls as currency thing."
"It's the entire purpose of religion," said Carl. "Look, when you die, your soul goes to your deity, where it serves for an eternity doing whatever it is that your deity decrees it should do. That could be sitting on clouds playing harps, or it could be an eternity of hunting wild beasts, or it could be being used as cannon fodder in great interplanar wars."
"Or being eaten as a snack," said Melissa.
"Exactly," replied Carl. "Gods always want converts, right? They're always seeking more souls. Why do you think they might do that?"
"Because they are concerned about the welfare of those souls and want to reward them for the dedication they showed in life?" asked Mike.
"I'm sure some gods do want that. Regardless, what does the god get out of it?"
"What's wrong with eternal reward being an end in itself?"
"It's naive, that's what's wrong with it," replied Carl. "Worshippers are what give gods power. If gods had power independent of the people who worship them, what would be the point of worshippers? A god with no worshippers is a dead god, or at most an impotent one."
"But surely it is the act of worship itself that gives the gods power, rather than the souls of dead worshippers?" asked Mike. "Otherwise what would be the point of religious ritual?"
"It's both," said Carl. "The rituals of worship are important, yes. But so are the souls of the dead. Ever wonder why deathbed conversions happen?"
"But surely there's an argument to be made," chimed in Melissa, "that the existence of worshippers simply extends a god's power and influence on the material plane?"
"It certainly does do that, yes. All these effects are not mutually exclusive."
"So a god with few mortal worshippers..." she began.
"Has to get its power from the souls of the deceased," finished Carl. "And that's another of the effects of ritual sacrifice. The god takes a soul from someone who wouldn't otherwise be willing to give it."
"I'm still not convinced," said Mike. "All gods can't be as cynical about souls as you claim."
"It doesn't matter," said Carl. "The good gods can do what they like with their souls. It's the evil ones that we're concerned with right now. And I can tell you with the authority of a theologian that evil gods definitely use souls as power."
"We saw how a murdered soul opened the gate to the realm," said Melissa.
"Like an entry fee," said Mike.
"Right," said Carl. "Think about the artifacts that we were initially sent to look into. The dagger, the book, the ring, the cap. All of them were carefully designed to corrupt people into evil, nihilistic behaviour. Do you think that it was the behaviour that made them valuable to the chained god? Or was it the corruption itself?"
"You're saying that the artifacts were designed to corrupt souls to make them more useful to the chained god in some way," said Mike.
"Yes," said Carl. "The chained god doesn't care about anything but escaping its chains and destroying the universe. It doesn't care what people do in the material world, because it's just going to wipe it all out in the end anyway. It just wants people to be tainted. Maybe it needs souls tainted with evil deeds in order to escape its prison."
"But that means that we're all tainted with that corruption," said Melissa.
"But we haven't acted on it," said Mike. "You haven't. I haven't."
"The other guy has," I said.
There was a moment of silence.
"This is why it's so important for us to do this," said Carl. "We three in particular. Everybody else who touched those artifacts is already dead. We alone carry the chained god's corruption, which gives us a unique power over it."
"Or maybe it gives it a unique power over us," said Mike.
"So," I said. "Are you going to kill the kid?"
There was silence at the table.