Chapter 30: Ch30 Retributive vs Restorative vs Reformative Justice

When Dontas came back, he had Highthorn with him as well as the designs for the mine cart in his hands. “I have brought the plans, Lady Astrid, as you asked. I also saw Highthorn on the way and brought him along, since the next thing to discuss was crime and laws.” Dontas said, handing the papers over to me.

“I am excited to be working again. Leading people is always so fulfilling.” Highthorn said, looking prideful. It was a good sign that he hadn’t lost his drive after being cast out last time.

I wasn’t sure if he meant to, but it seemed like he didn’t want to be my guard. Which was honestly good to hear. I didn’t really want him in danger. “Great to hear. Let’s get going.”

We made our way to the mine cart tracks, and everyone was aghast. They must not have realized what ‘complete’ meant. Maybe they did, but it was just still hard for them to process. Complete to me meant glistening clean walls that shined from the glow lights above. Everything had a fresh new sheen like a newly made book. I mean the area is brand new, why wouldn’t it sparkle? 

I looked at the designs, they were super detailed for such a nonintricate project. There were designs in the library for artifacts that had fewer details. I used an advanced conjuration spell from “Conjuration For The Lazy Archwizard”

The cart started forming together from the bottom up, each material coming into existence in front of us as the spell progressed. The sparkly sea-foam-colored pattern I had chosen to start with came together nicely. I had chosen it since it matched my first dress here. When making the seats, I had chosen to make them extra comfy like the reading chair in my room.

“What do you all think?” I asked inquisitively. They all looked amazed at what I had created.

“It’s wonderful!” Lukias and Meeri shouting at the same time. They looked at each other and smiled really quickly before turning back to look at me. I had definitely caught something there. The other council members nodded in agreement.

“We need a better name since it isn’t mine cart anymore,” I said, realizing the old name didn’t really fit and may be misleading.

“Well, it’s like a car on rails, so a railcar?” Guye insightfully said. If he kept it up, I may allow him into the library, since it seems he has the correct temperament.

“That's great! Let’s stick with that!” I exclaimed, giving him proper acknowledgment. That is something I needed to do as my council members started speaking their minds more and accomplishing tasks. I couldn’t wait for them to disagree with me in order to have my back!

“Can we test the railcar out? Will it fit all of us” Firth asked, picking up on the name change immediately.

“Yes, I made it big enough to seat forty people so we could keep pace with the influx of people coming, but we can attach more seating carts later,” I replied. “There is also the storage cart on the back,” I said, pointing to the long cart that they had designed.

Mais went around it and inspected it. “This will be fantastic for trade. Can it handle being cold?”

“Like a chilled cart? If so, then we can add that later once we get gems for it.”

“Enough of that. Let’s get in!” Peri exclaimed.

We all got in with me going in first. I sat up in front in case something happened. “Once everyone is in, all you need to do is just push your mana into the car like you would for a gem.”

I could sense their mana go in. I tapped the green go button once all the council was putting in what they could. The railcar moved forward at a moderate pace. It was too slow though to test maxed speed with just a few of them, so I added a little. Causing us to propel down the tracks at maximum speed.

We then took off roaring down the tracks towards the kingdom. Everyone inside tensed up. Maybe I should lower the max speed. For me, though, I was enjoying the nice comfy seat and decided to make it one of my main reading spots. I could remain social at a distance. The speed didn’t affect me since I can go much faster than this device.

After just a few minutes, we made it to the other end. All of the council let out a sigh of relief as we came to a stop. They would get used to it so I wasn’t worried, plus I didn’t think anyone else could pump in as much as I did.

“Wow! That was so fast!” Minnette said, getting up, legs wobbling a little.

“Yes, it takes so much getting used to, but once people start going back and forth, the low travel time will be useful,” I replied.

“This is amazing. We can send so many goods back and forth. I thought this was going to be a bottleneck, but not now!” Mais added.

“People could have an excursion into the kingdom as a day trip,” Kobric tacked on.

“We could get people to the kingdom in an emergency! Until we get a healing stone.” Guye said.

They all said their ideas as they got off and I followed. They looked around and at the stairways that led to a ceiling that had yet to be opened.

“Firth, I want you to tell the king that we will be opening in five days. They need to be ready for us to open up by then.” I said, looking at him, wanting to get things moving.

“Yes, Lady Astrid. I will pass your will along.” He replied.

“Everyone ready to head back? We have so many things to do and I want to read.”

They all laughed at the last remark I made like I was joking. We got back on and sped back to Astraville but this time they handled it much better. I tossed on a warning sign to brace yourself for high-velocity travel. Once back, we made our way to the council room to discuss the law situation. It was one of the things that I had been gearing up for since the traitor incident.

“I want to start by saying that some of you may have your own opinions on crime and punishment, but here are mine first. In the library, it was rather easy to handle because the bear guards would just remove you if you did anything that broke the rules. It worked really well, but that can’t really be implemented here because we live in a society, not a private club. I have done extensive research and have the general path that I plotted out. Non-retributive justice with a focus on restoration of the persons harmed and reforming the misguided individual to prevent recidivism.” I said, feeling like I had blathered on for long enough.

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They sat there thinking about what I had said. I thought about leaving the room to give them some time to discuss

“I like your choice, but I am not sure what you mean by non-retributive?” Lukias was the first to break the ice.

This was going to take a while to break down, but it was very important to handle correctly. “Like no eye for an eye or worse, no eye for a body. Meaning just because something was done to you doesn't mean you get tenfold back unless prior agreements have been made.”

“What would a prior agreement look like? If we put it in and people came here and signed for it, then wouldn’t that be fair?” Peri questioned, sounding confused.

“That is too extreme for most situations, especially at the single incident level. For instance, if a treaty is broken between countries, that tenfold may be necessary. Like, say the kingdom attacking us. I would take tenfold from them or may call it an act of war, but let’s hope we never get there.” I took a breath before going on to the small example. “If someone steals some mushies or a small item, we don’t starve them for a month. We instead do something like have them work on the mushy farm for a week or we have them help with the transportation of goods to get the stolen object value back. We would also look into why they were stealing in the first place.”

They seemed deep in thought, so I wanted to pull out a more relevant example to hopefully clear up the confusion. “Highthorn, may I talk about you as an example?” I said, turning to him. His situation is the perfect example of what not to do.

He seemed rather uncomfortable twisting a little at the mention of the incident.

“We already know you attacked her and she took you by her side so no one cares,” Firth said, sensing Highthorns’ hesitation.

“Yes, Lady Astrid,” he said to me after regaining some confidence. He had been worried that others may be upset with him.

“So as you may know, when I returned to the world, I was fired upon in confusion and it caused a lot of trouble for Highthorn since he was in command at the time. That being said, for starters, I seemed like a threat for appearing on the royal ground that had barriers. So honestly he was in the right, but there are laws against attacking important people. That being said, I wasn’t hurt, so no harm was done. Maybe he needed to be sent back to training or have to rewrite the law book so that he would better understand them.” I said, taking a few deep breaths.

“Even if I was hurt and or killed, then maybe you could penalize him, but as I said, given the situation, exiling would have been the max punishment as I see it. What is completely unacceptable is exiling his family who did nothing wrong. It sickens me that they almost sent a family with innocent children to likely die because of something completely out of their control!” I explained, getting a furious tone getting louder, making my point loud and clear. To emphasize the point I did as many leaders I had read about had done. I hit the table. There was a small cracking noise. That went a little far, I need to watch how much power I am putting into those strength enhancements.

He winced before replying.“Yes, we too don’t like punishing the family of criminals directly. It is a horrible idea, but many people here want to do the same to the traitor here who may have hurt those children but really because they have disgraced you.”

That was a good point. I had forgotten about the traitor's punishment, who was still paralyzed. My stomach turned when they said others would punish the innocent for someone unconnected to disgracing me. They worship me too fervently! “So affecting the children and the at the time refugee is a far bigger reason to deal harshly with him. What I have a big problem with is the children and partners getting affected. That is one of the reasons I don’t want people calling me goddess because I really, really don’t want people punished for ‘offending me’” I said, using air quotes being far too sassy.

They all frowned shoulders slouching, realizing that they were causing me stress directly. I hoped I wasn’t causing them a crisis of faith. Some of the more pious people that came to the library often had breakdowns when they read books that directly contradicted their view of their deity. Going to the church and figuring out how best to solve this whole ‘Being a deity’ thing was something else I should probably hurry up and figure out.

“That being said, how is he doing, and what about his family?”

“Well, he is currently being forced to consume liquid food in his current state, but is still mostly paralyzed. His kids and wife are locked up in their house. The guards bring them food.” Firth said.

“WAIT YOU LOCKED THEM UP!” I yelled, enraged. I could feel my blood start to boil. I wanted to fly there and let them out immediately. 

“No no, Sorry I misspoke. They locked themselves in there, scared of being attacked. The wife seems rather guilty after having been opposed to me. We have guards there to make them feel safe. We are worried about their children, honestly.” Firth said as fast as he could, like a rabbit running from a bald hunter, they just pranked.

I sighed in relief. “Okay” Thank goodness I had waited for an explanation. I didn’t want to shift the culture here as well as the kingdom.

“We just don’t know what to do to get the truth,” Peri stated posing another problem.

“I could interrogate him using advanced info gathering,” Highthorn said, sounding confident in his methods. That sounded rather worrisome. I would have to ask him later what those advanced methods were, but they sounded like torture.

“That is not needed. We can just set up a zone of truth. Whatever is said in there though needs to be kept confidential unless it needs to be used for the investigation.”

“That sounds very useful. I wish I had had that.” Highton replied, sounding slightly let down when his shoulders slumped. I felt the same way. The traitor had jeopardized the lives of many children. 

“Why keep it under wraps?” Firth asked.

“For privacy’s sake. Once you ask the subject in the zone a question, they start spewing everything they know and a lot of unneeded or unintended stuff comes out. We are only trying to solve crimes or stop them should we become aware of something happening. That being said, if I catch anyone abusing it, then I will punish you myself. I don’t want people to live in fear of all their personal secrets leaking out.”I said icy venom leaking from my voice.

Everyone shook a little at my threat, seeming surprised. I may have gone too far with that, but countries that spied on every aspect of their people’s lives always failed faster than they could recover. Most countries had several protocols for using a zone of truth. In fact, many archwizards refused to make them so they wouldn’t be used on themselves one day. They were possible to block, but that took preparation and no one here other than me had that ability.

“So if we find out the wife was in on it, then what should her punishment be? Also, what should we do about the traitor?” Lukias asked.

“Well, if she was then the same as the husband, but I want to hear their story first. Someone else can take care of their kids. Just say it is my wish that someone takes care of them as their own and I am sure someone will do it. I can heal up the husband so we can proceed with the investigation. As for the punishment, it is a heinous act that almost caused the death of loads of children as well as possibly starving everyone here. It is death penalty worthy by every book on the subject I have read. I am not for the death penalty though, so I want to just make them mobs in my dungeon. That way they can live or die by their own hands.”

Everyone looked shocked."You have a still working monster dungeon inside of your library?" Firth said.

“I cleared it like my first thousand years there. It’s the only way to get access to certain restricted books. Also, it makes for great practice and exercise. Anyways, let’s get back on track. We should interview the mother first, then I will heal the husband and see who is at fault and why they did it.”