As I walked down an old road by the Black Forest, a Mhaldorian harlot
approached me. She proffered me not just the wares of her trade, but a
doctrine that she referred to as truth, the Seven Truths of Evil.

As the harlot expounded her doctrine, I came to think that it was named
most ironically, for the Seven Truths of Evil amount to one great
falsehood.

The first truth of evil purports to define evil as ambition, or the
desire to advance sentient life. The rest of the truths make no mention
of evil, but focus on the virtue of strength, which it seems they seek
to conflate with evil.

Common sense, Achaeans, tells us that strength is not evil, but good,
for good is that which we want, and that which we pursue. When an evil
man says, "Good job," he means that the job has been done in the way
that he would wish it to be done. It is just so with moral good; moral
good is that which our spirits, our consciences desire.

Strength, as a moral value, we desire. Desire is the essence of
conscience, and he who eliminates his conscience eliminates his ability
to discern good from evil. Indeed, it is through the conscience, not
through its elimination, that the most exquisite suffering may be
endured, the suffering of a conscience defied.

The Seven Truths argue for the use of pain and suffering to advance what
they call evil, strength. A child who has held his hand in a flame for a
few seconds thinks that by experiencing this pain he has made himself
stronger. But a man knows that anything in flame turns to ash
eventually. In the end, pain and suffering create not strength, but
weakness.

I shall waste no more time with the tripe that goes by the name of
Truths. Let us rid ourselves of this scourge, Sapience. Harlot of the
West, forget your misguided ways, and drop the masquerade, for when you
pursue what you call "pain", you are in truth pursuing your own secret
pleasure and gratification.

Penned by my hand on the 10th of Mayan, in the year 443 AF.