The Facestealer: I know the truth of what you are, Paladin. A true idealist, and thus more of a monster than I could ever be.
Paladin: You want to explain that logic, monster who steals the lives of people they kill.
Facestealer: Precisely. I value their lives, who they are as people. I take the time to know them thoroughly as I become them, so their family and loved ones never know the difference. So long as I exist, they in turn will live.
Facestealer: You, however, would strike me down. Kill their loved ones comfort in my presence, bring about a harsh new reality. For the sake of justice, for a person who only lives on through me.
Facestealer: Creatures of conviction like you perform a thousand little atrocities like this every day. Enforcing your ideals upon a reality desperate for its soft edges, you will make knives upon the feet of the world, so it cannot walk without tracking blood. Even when given the choice between those you love and what you believe is right, you would render them and all their experience and being to be annihilated upon the altar of virtue. Let their blood and souls feed empty notions of right, all so a beast of iron and stone like you can sleep comfortably.
Paladin: There is a grain of truth to what you say. But truth has no grains, only what is, and what isn’t. You murdered people to make their lives and identities yours. Destroying you will remove what vestiges of them you’ve hoarded for yourself, but spare all the lives that you would have stolen. I am a creature of ideal and conviction: I see a bigger picture, but unlike you I can find the threads that make the tapestry: they are all important, but your way would be to take the many pieces of the greater work and forget what they could make together. We are more than the sum our parts.
Paladin: You, however, are not part of that great work. But don’t be afraid: you’ll help me finish it.
