The guy in the fleshworks

What are the consequences, I just let him go and nothing happened

Does he have any special drops if i choose to kill him?

I did let him go, after all, this was not a trick for sure, he was imprisoned and at your mercy. And if you sided with Anasteria, you will recognize a lot of what he said being similar to her reasons for betraying the Aetherials. I assume, much like the Homestead trader or the witch about to be burned at the stake, or Angrim the smith, these are characters who will come back later in an expansion depending on your choices on how you dealt with them. Grim Dawn is a game where a lot of your actions have lasting consequences… something I quite like.

All Heretics must burn… even myself as a Taken inquisitor!

They just want to show you the Aetherials are rebelling to some extend. They have morals, and used to be victims in the war of the Gods, unlike The Ch’thonic who are pure evil beings under Ch’thon’s control.
I don’t know, I kinda like them.

But the Ch’thonics in Mourndale void rift want out as well

Those are decidedly not Chthonians.

If you mean the Bloodsworns, that’s more like a case of people just wanting a place to live and eat but then realize the people they joined are evil assholes who commit atrocities.

I let them go too, but later did remember that Direni told us the same thing about joining the wrong team too, and remember what happened next… Still I assume given how otherwise you never meet Chthonian cultists inside the Void, most of the cult members have no idea of the eldritch horrors they serve.

I agree. It also was already apparent from Krieg’s notes that the personality and behavior of the host does affect the Aetherial possessing it, as he started to torture and kill humans just for fun, something his superiors found wasteful and puzzling. It is quite likely those Aetherials who possessed already evil beings became even more depraved and stopped at nothing to achieve their goals.

They are full of shit exactly because you don’t see bloodsworn in the rifts, means only very devoted get there. And some clueless peasants wouldn’t be able to summon a demon of this calibre.

Fun fact: the “evil beings” by aetherial standards are poors. Atlas sure shrugged from this.

Well, some, like the Valbury Harbormaster, sure. But most of them were depraved rich people in power, like Krieg, Aldritch or Theodin Marcell (he was chosen because his family got connections in Malmouth).

Does it not reflect positively on the game and it’s storytelling when people start to have such discussions about it?
I really like how Crate only very seldomly presents us with easy ethical decisions within the game. It’s basically never “Just kill them all because they are evil.”.
Even C’thon has a motive, after all he’s been betrayed and slaughtered and now “just” wants his blood back…