Ser Karnel Rabassa arrives by Teleport in Kenabres the next day, hoping to interview the adventuring party in question for the incident report, as well as any other parties with potential information on what the Church should have done differently. (Per the Communes the full story is somewhat more complicated — sufficiently so that they got a slightly nonstandard answer to their question about the vision — but they definitely still want the incident report.) Where can he find them?

So, funny story there.

This morning the Queen declared a new crusade, announced that they would be marching on Drezen, and appointed the Calistrian priestess as knight-commander. They have apparently already set out for Drezen, but they haven't made it very far yet, he could probably catch up. He looks kind of old but he's probably not slower than an entire army.

Well. Okay. That... is presumably going to be in a second incident report.

Before he goes off to catch up with the army, can he find anyone here in Kenabres to interview about the incident?

Yes! Absolutely! So, what happened was, basically everyone in Kenabres who could still fight went off to fight all the demons at the Grey Garrison so they could save the Wardstone, and when they'd been fighting for a while there was a giant flash of light above the Grey Garrison, and the adventurers who were supposed to be fighting at the Wardstone somehow made it back alive.

As for what actually happened in the Grey Garrison... Iomedae personally came down from Heaven and fought alongside them. Iomedae gave them a really cool magic sword that let them easily kill all the demons. Iomedae personally appointed the Calistrian as a paladin even though normally that wouldn't be allowed. Iomedae converted the Calistrian to worship of Ragathiel and then appointed her as a paladin. Iomedae sent the Calistrian a vision telling her the demons' secret weaknesses and she just killed them the regular way. Everyone's wrong about the miracle being from Iomedae, obviously the Calistrian got a miracle from Calistria. No, Sarenrae, everyone knows if you see a giant flash of light it's from Sarenrae. No, Asmodeus, someone tells him conspiratorially, he's just really sick of how the Iomdaeans can't stop fucking up. No, it actually was Iomedae but the Calistrian part is a cover story, obviously Iomedae bestowed the miracle on her actual paladin.

Most people agree that the demon they were up against was a lilitu named Minagho and that traitorous fucking bastard Staunton Vhane (the Queen should've hung him when she had the chance), but some people say it was actually a balor, or Areelu Vorlesh, or a thousand dretches all packed into a single room, or Deskari again, or all of the above at once.

He... sees. What do people know about the adventurers involved?

Well, first of all, there's the Knight-Commander, the one who got a vision. She calls herself Justice — that's the Taldane word for justice, if he didn't know. She's a priestess of Calistria. (No, she's a Calistrian but she's not a priestess, she's just a sorcerer who's really devout. No, she's an Iomedaean, Iomedae's holy symbol just looks different outside of Mendev.) She showed up in Kenabres around when the Wardstone attack happened (this person saw Terendelev heal her from some sort of horrible injury! At least, she thinks so, but it might've been some other teenager from down south). 

She defected from a Chelish fort and fled to Kenabres. No, she's an Andoren pirate who's sheltering under the treaty. No, demons killed her family and she's here to get vengeance. No, she's a whore, she only started fighting the demons because she had to to survive. No, she's just a regular adventurer fighting at the Worldwound for regular adventurer reasons. No, she vengefully murdered a bunch of people and now she's here because she doesn't want to go to the Abyss. ("She channels positive, I've seen her." "Well, yeah, obviously she channels positive now.")

She saved Horgus Gwerm's life ("for some reason"). She saved Irabeth's life. She saved Anevia's life. She saved Queen Galfrey's life but Queen Galfrey was disguised as Irabeth at the time so it's understandable that people got confused. She saved some guy from the Pathfinder Society's life but he's an asshole so he told her she still had to pay him a fortune if she wanted him to help with anything. She saved a bunch of whores at Count Arendae's mansion (also some nobles, but she's a Calistrian, obviously she was there for the whores). She saved this person's life. Also this other person. Also this other person but he thinks he'd have maybe lived anyway, he's not sure. Arguably she saved all of their lives actually, if the demons had overrun the Defender's Heart they weren't surviving that.

She killed Hulrun the inquisitor (and good riddance). She killed Hulrun the inquisitor (and if there were any justice in this city she'd have been put to death for it). She killed a whole bunch of demons. She killed Staunton Vhane. She killed Minagho. She actually killed Irabeth but it's okay because Irabeth was working for the demons. (Someone threatens to knock that person's teeth in.)

She fights with a spear. No, with a crossbow. No, with her sorcery. No, she dual-wields rapiers. No, she uses her sorcery to summon wasps to sting her enemies to death. Actually she does all of those things depending on what's best for the given fight, if you show up with just a spear you'll be in trouble if you need to fight anything at range.

Interesting. Do they know, does she say her name like this, or like this, or like this, or like this?

It's like this. Probably. 

Fascinating. It's a very Andoren name but that's the Chelish pronunciation, the dialect in Andoran is a little different.

What do these people know about her companions?

Well, first of all there's Irabeth, obviously. Irabeth is a paladin of Iomedae and in charge of the Eagle Watch. She's really cool, does he want to hear half a dozen stories about how cool Irabeth is? Anyways, they've fought together a bunch of times, including at the Grey Garrison. She... might or might not have been there for the miracle. If he pays close enough attention it kind of seems like she was not actually present for the miracle and people are just assuming she was because of how cool she is.

Then there's Ember. Ember's a sweetheart, everyone loves Ember. She sleeps on the streets during the winter and somehow isn't dead of it — people would let her into their houses, he has to understand, it's just that every time anyone makes the offer she asks them to take in some other homeless person, and either they end up filling up their house with other people, or they refuse and she won't sleep there. She's got some sort of healing sorcery, and she spends it freely on injured people, or sometimes injured animals. No one will admit to having seen her spend it on an injured demon but she's some sort of Sarenrite or Shelynite or something, she says a lot of weird things about the gods but people like that are usually Sarenrites or Shelynites. (This older man heard that Hulrun tried to kill her, but he thinks that's probably a rumor started by demon cultists to make Hulrun look bad. It's Ember.) Ember definitely went to the Grey Garrison with the Knight-Commander. (This person thinks the 'miracle' was actually just her sorcery. This person thinks sorcery can't do that.)

Then there's Seelah ("but I might've pronounced that wrong, she's from somewhere really far away"). Seelah's also a paladin of Iomedae. She's the horse kind and not the sword kind, probably, or at the very least she has a horse. One woman volunteers that the horse's name is Ragathiel and no one challenges it. Anyways, Seelah isn't as cool as Irabeth but she's still pretty cool, and even though she's a paladin she's hardly annoying at all. Some people think she was the person who actually got the vision from Iomedae, which would really make a lot more sense. (But obviously you can't have a paladin in charge of a crusade, they're too squeamish to do some of the things that have to be done, so the Queen brought on the Calistrian as a figurehead.)

There's some Desnans? People disagree on which Desnans. Someone heard the Desnans were from Tian Xia but they don't really look it. And of course there were plenty of paladins and archers and casters and so on who were with her when they went into the Grey Garrison, but a lot of them didn't make it out again.

...So, those are the normal ones.

Then there's the... other, more confusing... Iomedaean. He looks really really weird, like a tiefling but weirder. People aren't actually sure he's an Iomedaean at all but supposedly he's been seen channeling from a sword symbol? No one has actually seen him cast a spell. Maybe he's just really Splendid, and Iomedae picked him as a priest so that he'd be able to channel and save the wounded? During the battle for the tavern he was mostly just shooting arrows, though, he didn't do channels at all. He was pretty good at shooting arrows, though! This person thinks he's a weird-looking tiefling. This person thinks he lives underground, like the drow, but he's rejected his Evil heritage and is now fighting for Mendev to atone. This person thinks he's actually just a normal human but he was cursed by a demon to look like that. This person is, for some reason, pointedly reminding everyone that Shelyn does not teach people to murder the ugly, even though no one even suggested murdering him for being ugly.

Then there's fucking Woljif. Woljif is definitely a tiefling and definitely a thief. Irabeth had finally managed to lock him up, and by rights he should've hung, or at least lost a hand, but the Knight-Commander said she wanted his help and he'd be worse at helping with only one hand. People have a lot of nasty stories about Woljif stealing things but none of them are recent. Probably the Knight-Commander is sleeping with him, that's the only reason it'd make sense to spring him, he's kind of cute if you're into tieflings. (No, she's sleeping with the other tiefling. No, she's sleeping with Irabeth and Anevia. No, with Queen Galfrey. (That rumor is unambiguously illegal to repeat in Mendev, but that's not stopping people.) No, she was one of Count Arendae's whores until the mansion got attacked.)

Someone clarifies that Anevia is Irabeth's wife. He knows that probably sounds weird, since they're both women and all, but Anevia is under a magical curse that makes her change back and forth, and Irabeth is a paladin so she wouldn't abandon her spouse just over that. Anevia's travelled with the Knight-Commander before but she definitely wasn't at the Grey Garrison, she was back at the tavern with the civilians — that wasn't her fault, to be clear, she got cursed by a demon during the initial attack during the festival and now she can't walk right.

She is also rumored to have previously travelled with Horgus Gwerm, Fiducia Rathimus, several tieflings that no one knows the names of, someone named Camellia, this really obnoxious elf dude from Galt, and Queen Galfrey, but none of them were with her at the Grey Garrison. ...Except possibly Queen Galfrey, if she was disguised as Irabeth. Maybe Iomedae actually sent the vision to the Queen and that's why no one's admitting to it?

The Knight-Commander used to be working with a different wizard (way better than most wizards, people say, but — well, it'd be rude to speak ill of one of the only other countries that's taking the Worldwound seriously). That wizard died in the tavern battle, though. There's a rumor the Knight-Commander brought her back to life but it doesn't really make sense, she's not fifth-circle yet.

He has several additional questions but the fastest one is probably 'what circle is the Knight-Commander?'

Third. No, second. No, this person's pretty sure he overheard her talk about swapping out her Hold Person, and that's third, right? ...Is he asking about what circle she was during the tavern battle, or when she went to fight at the Grey Garrison, or when the miracle happened? 

He was primarily wondering what circle she was when she prepared spells on the morning of the attack at the Grey Garrison, but if she reached a higher circle during the attack that would also be useful to know. It's alright if they aren't sure.

...Probably third. But maybe second.

The other wizard was definitely third circle before she died. People think the other casters were weaker ("but paladins suck at magic anyways, it's not a fair comparison"). 

Well, he sees why they needed the miracle.

If third-circle clerics are enough to make a difference, Lastwall can almost certainly spare some, assuming that the attack in Kenabres doesn't precipitate a similar pattern throughout the Wardstone line. But it would be much worse to say that and then not provide them, so he isn't going to mention it.

Instead of saying any of that, he's curious to know what they think about the Crusade. 

—The people he's talking with abruptly seem very nervous.

"We are all very grateful for Iomedae's blessing," one of them says, which is not remotely an answer.

Right, he can take a hint. Was there anything else they wanted to tell him about the Knight-Commander?

This person got her to bless a rock for him! Does he want to see the rock?

...Sure.

It's a rock.

He's not sure what he expected.

...One of them will eventually say, cautiously, that although of course she trusts the Queen's judgment, and of course the Knight-Commander is blessed by Iomedae, it's surprising to hear the Queen call for a crusade so late in the year, given how quickly the army will need to push on towards Drezen. And that from everything she hears, the Knight-Commander has done admirably well at leading a small party of adventurers during the city's crisis. And that she, personally, is staying in Kenabres to rebuild the city.

He's very grateful for everything they've told him. 

Karnel reports this over a Scry, and is instructed to catch up with the army and attempt to continue his interviews. The surviving Lastwall agent in Kenabres is travelling with the army already, but she's differently specialized from him. He is to continue making reports by Scry, and receiving updates in the same fashion, though not daily.

It really ought to be easy to catch up to the army. In practice, it is... somewhat more challenging than expected. He has a map, but the Abyss's taint has warped the landscape to the point of being unrecognizable, and half the time 'safe' routes turn out to depend on passages that have long since caved in or bridges that have long since been destroyed. He keeps having to route around the bizarrely frequent vescavor swarms. More than once, he catches up to the last known location of the army only to discover that they've already moved on.

He's not well-positioned to collect rumors himself, but he does receive some information via a Message over a scry. The Knight-Commander freely identifies herself as an Andoran adventurer; she has allegedly made references to 'growing up in Cheliax,' but there's a sense in which that's true of most people in Andoran, and it's not clear whether that's the sense she means. Most people involved with the Worldwound defense are at least vaguely respectful of Cheliax's contributions; by all accounts she is not, and is not particularly interested in pretending to be. She has additionally been overheard saying that the Queen is, quote, "actually surprisingly cool, you know, for a queen, like if you're stuck with a monarchy she's the best queen I've ever heard of." In addition to her primary holy symbol, she wears a leather cord with holy symbols of Milani, Desna, and Ragathiel, and an additional Calistrian symbol; she separately wears a holy symbol of Iomedae on her belt, though reportedly she has repeatedly expressed frustration at Mendevians treating her as if she were herself an Iomedaean.

Pay is timely, though it sometimes takes the form of items recovered from battles with the demons rather than actual money (the Church of Abadar is taking point on allowing people who would prefer actual money to easily sell these items, and no one is ending up with items valued at less than they would fairly be owed). Mendev has commissioned a number of emergency Teleports to bring additional troops to Kenabres (this is not in dispute, Lastwall's Teleporters were among those called in); excluding people who are clearly making things up, various people allege that was funded by the Knight-Commander, the Queen, the Church of Abadar, or Irabeth. In addition to her adventuring companions, the Knight-Commander regularly converses with a halfling scholar and a priest of Shelyn, though she isn't known to have adventured with either of them. Lastwall's informant has heard reports that she is having a sexual relationship with one or both of them, but doesn't think they're credible (particularly in the latter case — the Church of Shelyn strongly discourages prostitution).

Casualties thus far have been shockingly low; most people suspect that the demons are saving the full strength of their forces for Drezen. Baroness Gaunther, a Mendevian sorceress, is commanding that armies in the field; reportedly she is one of the only people in the entire Mendevian army competent to actually organize a post-battle channel. Her appointment was announced publicly by the Knight-Commander.

That is all useful information to know. He expects that his superiors have thought of the points he is about to raise, but is doing so for completeness:

It would be disastrous if the Knight-Commander's apparent political disagreements with Cheliax led her to violate the Worldwound treaty, and she seems unusually likely to do so. It is probably worth communicating with the Queen about possible such scenarios; he is less certain whether they should communicate with the Knight-Commander about this issue. He presumes his superiors are better-positioned to evaluate how much Lastwall can reasonably commit to a crusade run by a lawless Calistrian who may or may not have any interest in following the treaty.

It would also be problematic, though not to quite the same extent, if the Knight-Commander attempted to use her status to undermine the monarchy in Mendev. This is, unfortunately, more likely if the Crusade is unexpectedly successful. Mendev doesn't have a port on the Inner Sea, which could somewhat limit the damage in the worst-case scenarios; the more probable scenario is that the Knight-Commander will inadvertently destroy relations between herself or the Crusade and Mendev.

His impression is that the Queen has made several surprising decisions; he presumes that they have already ascertained that she was not under the influence of mind-altering magic.

Coordinating post-battle channels is generally considered a basic requirement for competence among any field officer in Lastwall. If Lastwall does send additional personnel, people qualified to do so could likely be extraordinarily useful compared to how much they would accomplish in Lastwall.

They had already thought of those points but appreciate him raising them anyway.

He receives another update a little over a week later. Quite a lot has happened. They are delivering this report out of order because the most recent event is straightforwardly the most urgent: the crusade unexpectedly encountered large numbers of hostile vescavors. The Knight-Commander and her Shelynite cleric led separate small strike teams, and were able to dispatch the vescavors with minimal casualties. The Knight-Commander's gear was reportedly sabotaged in an attempt on her life; technically speaking, she has not publicly accused anyone, but she has reportedly had a number of technically-private conversations in which she has expressed suspicion towards the Chelish government. Cheliax has been privately representing itself as displeased with the Knight-Commander, but Lastwall's intelligence agents assess it as very unlikely that they would unambiguously violate the Worldwound treaty; they currently think this was most likely the work of demon cultists, but are also considering the possibility that the Knight-Commander is straightforwardly lying about what happened. 

In an earlier instance of tension between the Knight-Commander and Cheliax, a Hellknight order sent a messenger to the Knight-Commander requesting aid and was refused. Various accounts are circulating of what, precisely, she said, but given that there were very few people present for the actual conversation it seems likely that those accounts are largely fabricated. The treaty did not obligate her to help them, and in fact helping them was not strategically indicated, but in conjunction with the Knight-Commander's established beliefs about Cheliax it seems like a concerning sign for her willingness and ability to maintain friendly relationships between the Crusade and Cheliax. (They acknowledge the awkwardness of viewing it as concerning while simultaneously believing that she made the correct decision.) One cleric has been aggressively trying to convince everyone that the Commander is Chaotic Good, was not previously Chaotic Good, and made Chaotic Good by 'virtuously' refusing to help the Hellknights; that cleric is Mendevian, so it doesn't seem like this is a coordinated plot by Andorens (and they channel positive, so it's not that they're secretly a demon cultist).

Apart from that, the Knight-Commander has reportedly found another wizard to replace her dead companion. This one is some sort of fox-person, suspected on that basis to be of Tien ancestry; adventurers do occasionally make the journey to fight at the Worldwound. There are unsubstantiated rumors that she is related to a member of the Mendevian nobility (also a fox-person), as well as rumors that she and the Knight-Commander are in a sexual relationship; there also continue to be many unsubstantiated rumors alleging that she is in a sexual relationship with several of her companions, senior crusade staff, and the Queen. Apart from that, her conduct has mostly been fairly unremarkable, though Lastwall's informant reports that a small Calistrian altar has been installed in the camp's chapel tent and it seems likely that she was responsible.

Points raised for completeness:

The new wizard was recruited shortly before the incident with the vescavors, correct? If possible, it seems worth investigating whether those might be connected; the Knight-Commander's adventuring companions would likely have had much greater access to her gear than others in the camp.

It seems somewhat surprising for a Mendevian cleric to be actively opposed to the Hellknights; Mendevians generally have a much more positive view of Cheliax and of the Order of the Godclaw than Lastwall does. It's possible they have some sort of personal grudge, but if it can cheaply be investigated it seems worth doing so.

He would ordinarily take the Knight-Commander's failure to appeal to Abadaran arbitration regarding her suspicions of Cheliax as evidence that she does not actually believe her accusations (technical-non-accusations?). However, considering Mendev's general administrative competence and her lack of previous command experience, it seems plausible that she isn't aware that this is a possibility she has. He concurs with their assessment that Cheliax is unlikely to be responsible.

Relatedly, it seems like the situation between the Knight-Commander and Cheliax has the potential to go extremely badly. He thinks it is probably worth it in expectation to spend significant resources on mitigating this if possible. It would frankly be somewhat surprising for an Andoran who completely hates Cheliax to volunteer at the Worldwound, particularly in Kenabres, through which Chelish troops frequently pass; the best possible scenario is that the Knight-Commander is just paranoid, but it is worth planning for significantly worse possibilities.

It hadn't occurred to them that the Knight-Commander might not be aware that Abadaran arbitration is an option. They would appreciate him raising the possibility to her when he has the chance to interview her.

He will do so. He's only a couple days behind her.

Okay, maybe more than a couple days behind her.

The next update comes via Sending, rather than Scry. Using the standard Lastwall compression codes, they can provide quite a bit more than 25 words of information, at the cost of losing some specificity.

There was some sort of attack on the camp; the exact details are unclear, as their informant appears to be dead. The Knight-Commander herself is confirmed alive and safe, but the extent of the losses is unclear. If he encounters a knight travelling under the name of Kitrane, he is ordered to do anything he can (so long as it is compatible with his oaths and with the laws of Mendev and Lastwall) to ensure that she is safely extracted, treating this goal as a higher priority than any other aspect of his mission.

He acknowledges this, though he expects he is unlikely to catch up with the army in time for it to matter.

A few days later, he catches up to... a small camp affiliated with the Crusade! Not the main one with the Knight-Commander, though, they went ahead to march on Drezen.

..........Is it a crusader camp, or is it a group of demons masquerading as a crusader camp?

It's a real crusader camp! Almost none of them detect as Evil, and the Evil ones read Evil less strongly than even a dretch.

Also, if he observes for long enough, he'll see a paladin use his Lay On Hands. (Or in this case, his Lay On Hand; he only has the one.)

No, once he's verified their apparent non-Evilness he'll approach the camp and ask about what they're doing here.

Oh, they're a field hospital for the victims of the gargoyle attack. ...He's got a holy symbol and fancy armor, can he help with that?

He can Lay On Hands, but he can't channel. (He's quite a bit more competent at fighting than you might expect just from that description, but the Goddess evidently did not consider it the most important use of her resources to personally sponsor him in becoming stronger.) He's heard very little about the gargoyle attack, would they be willing to give him more details? He does also have some relevant logistical experience, if the issue is getting enough of the injured into the range of a channel-

—Oh, no, the injured have all been healed up, or else they died before anyone could get to them. This camp is for the people who were captured by the ghouls.

...They don't suppose he's the kind of paladin that can treat diseases?

Unfortunately, he is not.

...What ghouls?

Wow, he really doesn't know anything. 

Okay, so what happened was, a bunch of gargoyles attacked the main camp in the middle of the nights, and they killed a bunch of people and carried off a bunch more to this old church that they'd been desecrating because they have no respect for the gods. And at the church they had a lot of ghouls, and they were trying to turn as many of the crusaders into ghouls as they could. And the Knight-Commander and her companions put a stop to it, and saved Irabeth and a bunch of other people (including this person, and this person, and maybe this person but he thinks the army might've managed it without her), except then there were still all these people who were sick with ghoul fever.

(Someone objects that the Knight-Commander didn't save Irabeth, Irabeth fought her way out by herself. Someone else explains that no, Irabeth actually revealed that she had been the Queen in disguise this whole time, and she'd gotten kidnapped on purpose so that she could be taken to their secret hideout. Someone else thinks that Irabeth died in the attack and the person claiming to be Irabeth is actually Anevia in a magical disguise.)

In any case, they cured as many people as they could — there had been this Abadaran priest who died in the attack, and his apprentice serves the Good gods so he took the priest's leftover scrolls and used them to cure as many of the sick as possible — but they didn't get everyone, so this camp stayed behind to treat as many of them as they could. In addition to the ghoul fever victims it's also got some people who were injured in ways they can't fix, like this one-handed paladin here.

He's sorry he can't do more to help. While he's here, though, he's been investigating the miracle of Kenabres, is there anything they can tell him?

Sure, they're happy to talk about it. Just that one, or does he also want to hear about the miracle at the church?

The miracle at the church? He hasn't heard about that one, can they tell him more?

They'd love to!!!

Has he read the Acts of Iomedae?

..........Yes. He's one of her paladins — probably it would be deeply insensitive to treat that like it means he would definitely have read the Acts.

In that case this person will skip explaining the Fourth Act to him and jump into his story!

So, one of the worst parts of the attack was that it happened in the middle of the night, when many people had already spent down their spells and channels; anyone who was injured during the fight against the gargoyles had very limited options for healing. If they could just hold out until dawn, the gods would be able to replenish their healing (and of course, the undead hate and fear the sun), but it wasn't at all clear whether they would be able to.

And then there was a great flash of light above the Lost Chapel, just as bright as the light during the miracle of Kenabres, and just then the sun began to rise, and all up and down the mountain everyone knew that the gods had stretched out their hands to save them.

This, says the speaker, is basically the same as what happened in Iomedae's Fourth Act, the one with the wraiths. Which makes sense, everyone knows the Knight-Commander is blessed by Iomedae.

What do the other people here seem to think of that?

Everyone who was conscious to see it seems to agree about the existence of the big flash of light. 

These people think it's a great story! They're very enthusiastic about the idea that the Knight-Commander was personally chosen by Iomedae, obviously if the Knight-Commander was personally chosen by Iomedae that means they're going to win.

This person doesn't think it was a second miracle, she's pretty sure that making there be big flashes of light is just one of the things the Knight-Commander can do. Everyone knows the gods hardly ever do miracles, they want mortals to do things for themselves rather than bothering them every time they have a problem. Besides, if it were really a miracle, Irabeth would have said so.

This person is pretty sure most of the details there were right, but he's much less sure about any of the interpretive work? Apart from the presence of the undead and the tide shifting at dawn, it doesn't actually sound very similar to the Fourth Act, and they're also pretty sure wraiths are a lot more bothered by the sun than ghouls are. 

This person thinks that dawn miracles are great and all, but what would have been even better would have been a ten-minutes-before-dawn miracle, when his best friend was still alive.

This person already thought the first miracle was a gift from the Everlight, but the second miracle also involving an enormous light as bright as the sun has just made her feel more confident! She's not entirely sure why the Everlight has worked two miracles through a Calistrian, but probably her plan involves the Knight-Commander eventually repenting of the Evil of Calistrianism (which of course, like most forms of Evil, is one people are often driven to for sympathetic reasons, and deserves compassion rather than scorn—)

What, does she think they should just sit down and forgive the demons, maybe give them a nice patch of Mendev as an apology—

He has no particular love for Calistrianism but did not actually intend to start an argument here; he'll redirect the conversation to safer topics. (Privately, he agrees with the assessment that if the Crusade leadership isn't declaring it to be a miracle, it most likely wasn't. He'll still take notes for the report, though, in case his assessment turns out to be incorrect.)

...In the end, he makes it to Drezen just in time for it to be opened to regular visitors with no particular affiliation with Drezen's army.

But hey, at least that means the crusaders won!

He's frankly a little embarrassed, but that's not going to stop him from doing his job.

Is there anyone he can speak to about getting an interview with the Knight-Commander? He completely understands if that is not possible; presumably she has a number of demands on her time.

Oh, he just goes to the citadel and tells them why he's there, and if it's important enough someone will let the Knight-Commander know.

...Alright, he will do that. Before he leaves, can he pick up any rumors about the Knight-Commander, her companions, or the miracle of Kenabres?

Always!!!

In addition to being blessed by Iomedae, the Knight-Commander is also blessed by Desna, who did a miracle to save her life in Drezen, and now she's followed around by magic butterflies. No, Desna and Calistria are lovers and that's why Desna sent the butterflies. No, the idea of her being a Calistrian cleric was just a bluff to trick the demons, she's secretly been a Desnan the whole time. No, the butterflies aren't Desnan, do they also think every random snake is Asmodean? Iomedae can send butterflies if she wants to. No, the butterflies are an illusion. No, Desna did a miracle, but the main point of the miracle was to purge the Sword of Valor of demonic corruption, the butterflies are just a side effect. Or, uh, the Tree of Valor? Whatever they're supposed to call it now. No, she's got butterflies the same reason Ember's always got birds following her around, animals can sense what's in your heart and they like to follow the virtuous. No, if that were true Irabeth would definitely be a horse paladin, right?

She's the reincarnation of Iomedae. It's obvious if you look at any of the contemporary artwork made during the Shining Crusade and adjust for the Knight-Commander's age. She's a Calistrian cleric rather than a Lawful Good paladin because Iomedae thought winning was the most important thing and you can't win if you get hung up with following all the stupid paladin rules. No offense to present company, of course, but, well, it's not like anyone would put him in charge of an army.

She's been secretly working with a DRAGON this whole time. 

She's been secretly working with Terendelev, specifically, this whole time (she faked her death).

A noblewoman came from Mendev this morning to demand that she hand over someone who killed her... brother? uncle? something like that, who's now serving with the Crusade, but the Knight-Commander is so committed to mercy and redemption that she insisted on protecting the repentant murderer-knight, even though the treaty probably would have allowed her to hand her over. It's really great that she believes in giving people a second chance as long as they're willing to change their ways!

...Is the Knight-Commander known for being particularly committed to redemption?

Well, she's got that Abyss-spawn thief in her party? But anyways, why else would she have spared that knight?

He doesn't mean to give offense, but he had heard the Knight-Commander was an avenger of Calistria, and in his homeland Calistrians are not generally known for their dedication to mercy and redemption.

...This person is pretty sure Calistria's the goddess of really hating demons and wanting to hurt them, but like, Chaotically. (As opposed to Iomedae, who's the goddess of hating demons and wanting to hurt them Lawfully.) 

That is not generally how Iomedae is understood in his homeland, but he didn't mean to interrupt. What else do people have to say?

She led the charge at Drezen! It was really cool! Then this person lost track of her though, there were kind of a lot of things going on. Someone thinks she killed a balor. Someone thinks she killed Minagho. Someone thinks she killed that rat Staunton Vhane. Someone thinks she killed Deskari. Someone thinks she killed Kabriri. Someone thinks she killed a whole horde of shadow-demons. 

Her adventuring companion Woljif was tragically killed in the gargoyle attack. No, he was thankfully killed, do you want thieves on the crusade? No, he wasn't killed at all, he just deserted, but what do you expect from a tiefling? No, he's alive and still with the Crusade, he's just in hiding, but don't say that where the demons can hear. (Wary glance at Karnel.)

During the Miracle at Kenabres she turned into a dragon and ate Minagho, and that dirty traitor Staunton, and possibly Deskari. Staunton came back as a demon during the siege of Drezen though, usually it would take a bit but he's just so awful that he became a demon right away.

She's actually been adventuring with the Queen the whole time, everyone thought the paladin Seelah was just a regular paladin but right before Drezen she revealed that this had actually been a magical disguise. (She didn't lie, obviously, it's not lying to look like a totally different person.) No, don't be ridiculous, the Queen teleported in from Nerosyan right before the Battle of Drezen. No, the person claiming to be the Queen was actually the new fox wizard girl in disguise. No, that would definitely be illegal.

Cheliax tried to kill her, twice, even though there's a treaty. (No, come on, obviously it wasn't Cheliax, it was just the demons. No, she was betrayed by Woljif. No, she was betrayed by Nurah, did everyone miss the part where she got dragged off to prison???)

Eventually he will head over to the citadel.

The citadel wants to take a few precautions before admitting him, mostly designed to make sure he's not secretly plotting to assassinate her or something, but then they will let him in. (Their precautions are less thorough than Lastwall's typically are, and probably insufficient to stop a dedicated cultist.)

...The Knight-Commander is actually out at the moment but she was supposed to be back later today, is he alright with waiting or does he want to come back later?

He'll wait. In theory, he could use this time to conduct other relevant interviews, or collect more rumors, but he doesn't think it's worth cutting a few hours from a multi-day endeavor when it might risk missing the chance to speak to the Knight-Commander.

Then eventually, he's informed that the Knight-Commander will see him now and escorted to another room.

The Knight-Commander is easy to identify, unless they're actively trying to deceive him, though she's not wearing a symbol of rank; there's only one person in the room with a Calistrian holy symbol, and also she's surrounded by butterflies. (Also, he would probably know by now if she were an orc, a golem, or a dragon, which narrows things down a bit.) She looks all of about sixteen years old. 

"Hi, I'm Justice! Welcome to Drezen, what brings you here?"

...Why is the Knight-Commander a teenager. Who thought this was a good idea — Queen Galfrey, obviously, but why—

He has a job to do. He can save his assessment of the merits of appointing a (Chelish? Andoren?) Calistrian teenager to lead the Fifth Mendevian Crusade for one of the appendices.

"It's an honor to meet you, Knight-Commander. I am Ser Karnel Rabassa, Knight of Lastwall, hoping to secure your permission to interview you as part of our investigation of the miracle at Kenabres, and potentially later events."

Something in her expression shifts, becoming a bit more — guarded, maybe? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem like she's particularly trying to hide it.

"I see," she says. "What exactly would that involve?"

(Oh, he's from Lastwall. She feels a little better about Lastwall's current priorities (if not their competence) given how close the demons got to just straight-up blowing up the Wardstone line, but her issues with everything they've done before that point still exist, not to mention all the additional concerning facts she's learned about their justice system since she started having to sort of be in charge of one. And he's a paladin, presumably of Iomedae, so she can't tell him anything really secret, not unless she wants to swear him to a bunch of totally unreasonable conditions about who he talks to. 

Also, she's not actually sure what an incident report... is.)

Right, he's in Mendev. "Are you familiar with the procedures of the Church of Iomedae in Lastwall concerning direct and abnormal interventions by the Goddess?"

Why do Iomedaeans talk like that. There's more than one Goddess!!

"...No. I'm not from Lastwall." 

"It is a teaching of our church that every intervention costs the Goddess resources, which she could have put to use elsewhere were her intervention unnecessary. When she performs an unusual direct miracle — that is, any miracle beyond simply empowering someone — we prefer to investigate the circumstances under which it occurred, in case with greater foresight we could have avoided her intervention becoming necessary, and write a report with guidance to hopefully avoid such circumstances in the future. We also write reports about major errors by the Church or by Iomedae's empowered faithful, with a similar goal.

I would like to privately interview you about the miracle at Kenabres, and I suspect also about the more recent miracle." Presumably it isn't Iomedaean, but it seems likely that Iomedaeans could have prevented what must be an exorbitant use of intervention budget on Desna's part.

Did they write one about Hulrun — that would be a great insult but it would not actually be a good idea to say it out loud.

Lastfolk can be frustrating, but she doesn't actually want them to be less competent. He's probably going to be really annoying but she kind of has to work with annoying people, if she kicked people out of the Crusade just for being annoying they probably wouldn't even have reached Drezen.

"If you want a private interview we'll want you to go through some extra security." She glances at Anevia. "But I should be free after that. Uh, and there's some things that might be relevant that are secret, sorry." 

"I want to talk to the funny knight too!!"

(The dragon is about the size of a housecat.)

That's kind of surprising and she's a little worried about what Aivu is planning to do, but she's not going to try to stop her from talking.

"Aivu showed up at the same time as the butterflies," she says to Ser Rabassa, giving Aivu a little scritch on her head. "She's from Elysium."

...Is the dragon also a teenager, or whatever the equivalent is for dragons?

Maybe Elysians are just like that. 

"I have no objections to you taking additional security precautions. If confidentiality is a concern, we're also willing to redact public records of the interview upon request, though of course it's perfectly reasonable to omit secrets of military relevance regardless."

Then he can go through the extra security designed to make sure he's not going to assassinate the Knight-Commander once they're alone together! 

Compared to Lastwall's procedures, they seem unusually worried about ensuring that he isn't, specifically, a Chelish agent. Lastwall takes precautions against Chelish espionage, but in general considers Cheliax trustworthy in the limited sense that it won't literally try to assassinate Lastwall's forces at the Worldwound.

"So, what did you want to know?"

"I was hoping to begin by establishing a timeline and very broad overview of events. My current understanding is that there was a miracle in Kenabres, attributed to Iomedae, involving a large flash of light and some form of empowerment against a group of powerful demons, and a second miracle during... the siege of Drezen?... attributed to Desna and involving illusory butterflies and a dragon. Is that accurate?"

"...sort of? Uh, did you skip over the last one on purpose or by accident?" 

"I wasn't aware of an additional miracle following the, ah, butterflies."

"Okay, so, after the butterfly miracle, which was also after we hung up the Sword of Valor — not actually a sword, I'm not sure how much you know about it — anyways, after that, we went after Minagho and Staunton Vhane." (She is not remotely trying to hide how much she hates either of them.) "And Nurah, but we didn't know Nurah was going to be there. Anyways, I prayed to Calistria before the battle, not even asking her for help, just letting her know what we were up to, and she sent... some sort of magic wasps?... that were buzzing around us like a shield, and also helping sting them whenever we got a hit in."

It was really cool. She's pretty sure even the Mendevians who like Calistrians are a little freaked out by wasp-based miracles but still. It's not like she sent divine locusts or anything!

...He has a new hypothesis for what the Goddess and Queen Galfrey are aiming for. If they've gotten Calistria to redirect a significant portion of her budget from "promoting extrajudicial murder" to "supporting the Fifth Crusade", that could plausibly be a worthwhile trade, or at least he isn't confident that it's not.

"Apart from that, was the broad overview accurate?"

"...mostly? It's missing a lot of the important parts but I don't think any of it was actually wrong, and I think maybe that's part of what you wanted to cover?"

He nods and turns to another page of notes.

"Can you summarize the events on the day of the purported miracle at Kenabres, prior to the miracle itself?"

"Alright. It's been a few weeks, so I might not perfectly remember everything, but... so, we were trying to take back the Grey Garrison, because that's where the Wardstone was, and we knew they had some sort of plan to use the Wardstone to explode all the Wardstones in the whole Worldwound. So we'd gotten a whole bunch of people together, and... I'm not sure how much detail you want..."

"What circle were you at the time? Do you remember what spells you prepared on the day of the attack? What about your companions who were with you when the purported miracle occurred?"

"I was third, I'd just hit third a couple days earlier. And Nenio was also third, she's a wizard, and Woljif was second, he's a wizard too, and Ember was also second, she's some kind of weird sorcerer. And Lann was still first, he's also a cleric, but he hadn't even been picked as a cleric until a few days before it happened, and Seelah had paladin firsts. Also a horse, she said the horse is usually later. I don't remember most of the spells I prepared but I'm pretty sure I had a bunch of Blesses, and I definitely had at least one communal Resist Fire because otherwise we'd've been in real trouble when the brimoraks showed up, and I must have had some way to cast Protection from Evil but I might've been doing it all with seconds so it could be communal. And then I think I also had a communal Delay Poison, for the dretches, unless that one was from a scroll. And for my domain spells I had True Strike and Aid and Dispel Magic. And Woljif and Nenio both had some Greases and some Webs. Apart from that I don't remember for sure — oh, Ember's got some sort of cantrip version of Sleep that only works on one person each time she casts it, that's most of what she was casting."

"Were there any spells that you recall wishing you had access to during the fighting at the Grey Garrison, prior to the fight during which the miracle occurred?"

"...well, more Communal Resist Fire spells would've been nice. More healing would've been nice, we bought all the Cure Light Wounds scrolls Fiducia Rathimus had but we'd spent a bunch of them already by that point. If we could've had Bless up the whole time that would've been helpful but there was never a point where we really desperately needed it, I think we even had some extra scrolls of it that we didn't use. There's more things that could've been helpful if we were higher-circle... I guess if we didn't have to worry about spell slots at all we could've all spent the whole time invisible, except some of the demons there could see invisible people... oh, we had Haste up the whole time, apparently there's a ritual for it, except it was powered from some of the energy the Wardstone was leaking so we could only use it that one time, but we didn't have a great way to keep time and there were a couple points where I was worried we'd run out. Oh, and Dimension Door could've been helpful if we'd had it, for getting to the Wardstone faster, but I'm not sure how much time it would've actually saved. I don't think we were really close to fourth-circle though, none of us had fourths the next day and we fought a lot of people. And there were lots of crusaders who died, it would've been nice to be able to raise them all, but we definitely couldn't have afforded Breath of Life scrolls even if Fiducia Rathimus had had them, let alone Raise Dead." Technically she could have raised exactly one of them, but she was saving Terendelev's second scale for an emergency.

"...Were you and your companions the highest-circle adventurers taking part in the attack on the Grey Garrison?"

"I think Ramien might've technically had fourths? But he and the other Desnans were putting all their magic into some sort of ritual to put some of the demons to sleep. I don't think anyone else had more than thirds, but there were some other people at third."

...So, allegedly, they had intelligence suggesting that the demons in Kenabres were planning to destroy the Wardstone line and their solution to this involved a third-circle adventuring party. He has a feeling that this is going to be a long incident report.

"When did decision-makers in Kenabres become aware of the purported threat to the integrity of the Wardstone line?"

Decision-makers? Doesn't everyone make decisions? Maybe that makes more sense in whatever he's speaking, she's pretty sure it's some kind of Taldane but not one of the ones she's used to, and her bracers do something like a Tongues but everyone knows that's not perfect.

"I don't know when exactly different people found out about it. Uh, in my case, I'd just gotten back to Kenabres — I fell in a big hole after Deskari attacked, and it took me a couple days to get out — anyways. I'd just gotten back to Kenabres, and the exit out from the hole put us in the Grey Garrison, and we met up with Irabeth and a bunch of people who work for her to try to clear it out. And then we ran into Minagho, and Minagho... gave us a whole speech about her plan, for some reason... and told us that she was going to keep us alive rather than just killing us right there so that she could see us crawling around the ruins of Kenabres being miserable about not being about to stop her, and then knocked us all unconscious. I know for sure me and Irabeth and Seelah and Lann and Camellia were there, and a bunch of other people that work for Irabeth were also there but I don't know all their names. And then I'm pretty sure Irabeth told the other people who were in charge of things in Kenabres, and I told the people I was recruiting for my adventuring party, and I think by the end of the next day pretty much everyone who wasn't hiding in a basement or something had heard? And I assume Irabeth had some way of checking that she wasn't just making things up to scare us but I don't know exactly how, but I also ran into some Desnans and this really old elf who also had a sense of what was wrong."

"When was this, relative to the eventual assault on the Grey Garrison?"

"A few days before? I don't remember exactly how many, sorry. More than two but less than a whole week."

"Do you know why the decision was made to rely on forces local to Kenabres rather than requesting outside aid?"

"...I think people tried? And it's just that no one else showed up who wasn't already near Kenabres."

He is really very confident that Lastwall would have sent a strike team for a situation of that severity. Strike teams are expensive, but that's not an insurmountable barrier! They were certainly busy in the aftermath of the attacks throughout the Wardstone line, but 'reduce forces in one area of the Wardstone line, thereby resulting in more people in that area dying, to stop everyone in all the areas of the Wardstone line from dying' is not a particularly complicated trade-off to make, and while their failure to make it did not in fact get everyone killed he should be assuming that it had or will have some sort of catastrophic consequence, possibly on another world, unless they were really astonishingly lucky in terms of the cost of the Goddess's intervention.

She can tell he's confident in that! Unfortunately she has to worry about not causing an international incident!!

"Do you happen to know what measures were taken to contact outside forces, particularly those affiliated with Lastwall or the Church of Iomedae?"

"I think they tried Sending but I don't know who all they sent it to, and there might be other things people tried that I don't know about? I know Ramien was asking around about adventurers people knew, but I don't know who he ended up asking. Probably Irabeth would know for sure?"

He takes a few more notes. Underlines Irabeth's name multiple times on his paper.

"You've mentioned this 'Ramien' figure multiple times — who exactly is that? Is he available for an interview?"

"He's a priest of Desna, I met him the first day after I got back. But he's back in Kenabres, he stayed behind to protect the city so the demons couldn't just come back and take it over as soon as we left." (And even if he weren't she wouldn't tell a random Iomedaean where to find him without asking, most of them seem to recognize Hulrun was in the wrong but it'd be stupid to trust a stranger about it.)

Nod.

"Before we get into specific details about the miracle, could you tell me a little bit more about your background and that of your companions, particularly any qualities that might have made Iomedae especially likely to work the miracle at Kenabres through you rather than any of the others present?"

"Sure — uh, what specifically did you want to know? I assume you're not looking for my entire life story, we'd be here for hours..."

He thinks for a moment. "Could you tell me more about your selection as a cleric? It is generally believed that it is easiest for the gods to work miracles through their own followers, and particularly their own empowered, which is part of why this miracle is especially surprising."

...Huh, as reasons for Iomedaeans to be surprised about it that's more reasonable than some of the things she's heard when people think she isn't listening.

He can get the version of her life story pitched towards Lawful people who she isn't sure realize that Asmodeanism is awful. It's not how she'd talk about it with one of her friends, but he isn't one, and it makes it sound like she used to be a better person than she actually was but the things she could say instead aren't really better, just bad in different ways. (If she'd known she was going to end up in charge of the Crusade, this would've been secret, but as it stands there was no way to keep it secret from Cheliax by the time Galfrey appointed her, and they're the ones she'd've actually wanted it secret from.)

"I was born in Cheliax, and raised by Asmodeans. I know many people here are grateful to Cheliax for the work they do holding the northern border, but as a country to grow up in, it's — awful. They torture farmers and midwives to death just for being priests of Erastil or Pharasma, and send them to Hell while they're at it if they can find a fourth-circle cleric for the Malediction, and if people aren't careful they can be strung up just for putting another god before Asmodeus even if no god's given them any powers at all. In some places they'll whip children if they don't show up for school, even if the reason they didn't show up is because they were helping to take the harvest in. I was in Kenabres for all of about half an hour before Deskari's attack, and in that half-hour I was shown more kindness by the good people of Mendev than I was ever shown in my childhood.

I've heard that in Lastwall they think no one should be above the law, no matter how powerful they are," not that she believes for a moment that it actually works out that way in practice, "but it isn't so in Cheliax. There was a man I knew growing up, who knew that the law would never touch him, and took advantage of that to do — things he might have hung for, if he had been an ordinary man, to any girl who happened to strike his fancy. If a man tried that sort of thing on this crusade, he would be tried for it, but as it was there was no way to stop him under the law. 

So I put a stop to him myself, and the next day Calistria made me her priestess, and I was lucky enough to make it to Andoran, which is probably the only reason I didn't die of it." (The details of how she escaped are staying secret, her friends back home aren't even theoretically protected by the treaty.) "........Is that the sort of thing you were looking to know?"

(The Crusade's diplomatic staff would really like it if she would stop telling everyone how much Cheliax sucks!!! But it's not their highest priority, even if she were perfectly respectful of Mendev's allies Cheliax would still be pretty upset about Queen Galfrey appointing a random Andoren teenager who is specifically at the Worldwound to shelter from them after coming back to Cheliax to do more crimes. The bigger issue is that when she says things like that, Mendev's nobility might take her as saying that she disapproves of their privileges, as if they're anything like what Cheliax is doing.)

...That is not actually particularly helpful context for understanding why Iomedae would have decided to work a miracle through her specifically rather than through the multiple empowered Iomedaeans.

He had not previously been aware of the timing of her arrival and is noting (in his personal code) that someone should really make sure that she didn't secretly orchestrate the attack. It seems improbable that she could have concealed being a demon (or a cultist) for this long, but she does have a built-in excuse for the Chaotic aura.

"Why did you decide to come to Kenabres?"

"—That one's partially secret, sorry." There's a non-secret version but she hadn't specifically thought through a non-secret version for Lastfolk.

...That is not exactly reassuring!

"What about the backgrounds of your companions, particularly the empowered Iomedaeans?"

"—Well, I don't know how much they'd want me telling you, you should get the full stories from them, but... so, Lann's a mongrel, which're the descendants of the first crusaders, they live underground but they're not mostly evil and they mostly worship normal gods. Anyways, Lann found out about what had happened up on the surface and he wanted to come help fight. He wasn't actually chosen as a priest until after we'd gotten back to the surface, which would've been less than a week before the miracle —I don't know if that would've changed how hard it was for Iomedae to send him a vision.

Seelah's a paladin, I don't know exactly how long she's been adventuring but she's definitely been a paladin longer than Lann's been a priest. But there's not an obvious reason it couldn't have been her."

She used to be a thief, but Justice used to be an Asmodean, which is a lot worse than stealing, and she's Chaotic, so it really seems like any reason not to pick someone because of being a thief would've also applied just as much to Justice.

"—I have some guesses about why it was me but I don't know if any of them are right, and most of them probably won't make sense until I've explained what actually happened."

(Does he seem inclined to ask about her other companions, or did he really just want to know about the Iomedaeans?)

"Was there anything that would make your other companions particularly likely or unlikely targets?"

"...well, Nenio's got some kind of curse that makes it hard for her to remember things, there's a lot of reasons she might've been a worse choice — uh, we did all end up affected by the first miracle, I was just the only one who got a vision. And she's True Neutral, I don't know if that makes a difference, but I was still Chaotic Neutral back then and that's farther from Iomedae... Woljif — was — also Chaotic Neutral, and... I liked him a lot as a person but I can come up with a lot of reasons why Iomedae probably wouldn't have wanted to send him the vision. And Ember's" (how does she say this in a way that a paladin who doesn't know Ember won't hold against her) "not very religious, it would've been kind of mean to her if she'd been the one to get it."

(And if it was from some god that wasn't Iomedae, the obvious guesses being Desna or Calistria, that'd help explain why it was her over Lann or Seelah, and apart from alignment all the reasons not to pick her companions would still be just as true.)

"To confirm, Woljif was detectably Chaotic Neutral at second-circle?"

"Yeah, he'd got some fighting experience in addition to the wizardry, and in his case I guess that meant he started detecting a little early."

He finishes his page of notes and turns to the next one.

"Can you describe the miracle itself? Just the bare facts for the moment, hold off for now on speculation."

"So, we'd split up into a couple groups, with Irabeth's group holding off the demons while my party went to try to fix the Wardstone. —I forgot to mention earlier, besides the six of us and Ragathiel, that's Seelah's horse, we also had Finnean with us — Finnean used to be an adventurer but he got cursed to be stuck as a weapon." (She visibly finds something about this uncomfortable.)

"Anyways, we got to the room with the Wardstone — with most of the Wardstone, it was kind of sideways" (hand gesture) "and the tip of it was in another room, but we hadn't been able to get anywhere with just the tip. We didn't see anyone else there, which was really surprising" (wait, is that the sort of thing he wanted her to leave out?). "So we were on guard for an ambush, but when we tried walking into the room to touch it, that just... worked fine, no one stopped us."

"When I touched the Wardstone, I had a vision of what exactly the problem with the Wardstone was, that they were going to use to blow up all of them. The exact details are secret, sorry." She has no desire to help Mendev keep it secret that the Wardstones are full of miserable indentured angels, but she really doesn't want demons to hear about it and decide that actually it would be a great idea to capture another Wardstone and start torturing the angels inside. "And I could see a few different ways to fix the problem, and I sort of... reached for one? It's sort of hard to describe, it was a little more like channeling than like casting a spell but it wasn't very much like either."

She pauses for a second.

"So then, when the vision went away, two things happened, sort of at the same time. The one I think was technically first was, there was a big rush of magical energy from the Wardstone, and some of it went outwards and took off the roof, but some of it went... inwards?... to me. And then — it's sort of hard to describe, none of these are exactly perfect — you could say it felt a little like I was... a cup, or something, that someone had just poured an entire lake into, and the lake spilled over the edges and into everyone else I was with. Or you could say it felt a little like I was under a Bull's Strength and a Bear's Endurance and a Cat's Grace all at once, and a Haste besides, but honestly that's kind of understating it. Or you could say it felt like a sharper version of the feeling of being picked as a cleric, if you somehow took away the part where you feel your god reaching out to you, and you know them and they know you. Or you could say that part did feel like channeling, but the thing I was channeling was magical power, and also I wasn't doing it on purpose, it was sort of just happening to me.

The other thing that happened was that Minagho and a bunch of demons showed up. Not like they ran into the room, or teleported in, like they were there, they'd been in front of us the whole time, more like they'd been invisible and un-hearable and hadn't been taking up any space. Which normally would've been pretty scary, but — I could feel in my soul that we were stronger than her, at that moment. And she started complaining about how Iomedae had pulled some sort of trick to let us get in without her noticing, but she was going to kill us all anyways. And she and her demons attacked us, but they could hardly touch us, and we were tearing through most of them in a single hit." Wince. "And we almost got Minagho, too, but then Staunton Vhane ran in to be like 'surprise, I've decided to betray you for the demons because I'm mad that people don't like me,' and he bought her a moment to teleport the two of them away.

And then the power mostly faded, but a little bit of it stuck around, and since then all of us have been able to do something a little weird, maybe except for Finnean, it's hard to tell. For most of us it just let us cast way more spells, but a couple people wound up with weirder things. And then on top of that, I could sort of feel the ability to... shape it, a little, but I don't know exactly how to describe it, except that it feels the same way the butterflies feel. ...Also, for some reason, a little bit of it went to Camellia and Count Arendae, who weren't even there," (and who kind of suck as people) "and when I met Songbird Sosiel the next day, a little bit of it sort of... hopped?... to him too, except not in a way that meant I had less."

He has in fact been entertaining the possibility that the miracle didn't originate from the Goddess in particular, but frankly even if it didn't it seems like there must have been a truly astonishing number of failures leading up to that point. Either she performed an enormously costly miracle, or she was saved from having to do so by the intervention of some other allied deity, but 'ability to persuade other deities to perform miracles at their own expense' is not exactly an unlimited resource, if one that can less straightforwardly be reallocated; in either case, the fact remains that this situation was almost certainly preventable at costs that the Church would have endorsed paying even before knowing the outcome. (And of course, for all the other Good deities frequently have questionable prioritization, they do still serve the cause of Good by their actions, and a miracle this costly will carry real costs no matter who was sponsoring it. ...Unless it was Calistria, he supposes, but it sounds like she prefers her miracles to be more obvious?)

"Who exactly are Camellia and Count Arendae? Were they with Irabeth, or somewhere else entirely? Do you know if they would be available to be interviewed?"

"Neither of them were at the Grey Garrison. I don't know off the top of my head where they were, but probably the tavern we were running things out of, Count Arendae's house had gotten smashed up by demons. Uh, Camellia's another person I met underground after Deskari showed up — not a mongrel, as far as I know she's from the surface. She basically spent the whole time we were underground complaining about having to be around the rest of us 'peasants' rather than other rich people, which, we weren't about to leave her to die just for something like that, but that's not the sort of person I want to go adventuring with, you know? She was there the first time we met Minagho, but so was Irabeth, and Irabeth didn't end up with special powers. As far as I know, she's something sort of like a priest, except that rather than getting her spells from a god, she gets them from nature spirits, and some of the spells are more nature-y to match, and also she can't channel.

And then Count Arendae's a nobleman — after Deskari attacked, he decided he was going to throw a really big party, and then the party got attacked by demons, and me and the people I was with showed up right as the demons were attacking and saved him and some of the other people. He's some kind of healing sorcerer, he didn't actually want to come on the Crusade at all but the Queen made him — they're cousins a couple times removed, he might inherit if she dies. Him I've barely adventured with at all, we were together for a couple minutes at the Lost Chapel but then he went back to the main camp."

She is genuinely unsure whether he has any positive qualities beyond 'didn't hand over Aranka to Hulrun' and 'not nearly as bad as the nobles in Cheliax, unless it turns out that he really did murder his whole family, which he might have.' Nobles anywhere are mostly going to suck more than regular people but at least in Mendev they generally manage to, like, fight demons without someone making them and act like they care at all about doing the right thing.

"Both of them are in the city but Count Arendae might not want to talk to you, he really doesn't like Iomedaeans."

...From that description it almost seems reasonably probable that the Queen is actively trying to get the Count killed, except that she's a paladin, and in general paladins can't secretly assassinate their relatives. He supposes possibly she had sufficient cause to order him onto the Crusade regardless, even if she separately views his death as beneficial?

"You mentioned earlier that you had some guesses about why it was you in particular who was the focus of the miracle?"

"So, my best guess is that for some reason, I was the only one who'd actually be able to fix the Wardstone. That makes sense with some of the other things that happened — like, for example, when we were underground, me and Seelah and Lann and Camellia found this sword that used to belong to the angel Lariel, and I had some sort of magic vision of his death, and I can do a little magic with the sword that Seelah wasn't able to. But that still doesn't explain why the sword and the Wardstone work for me and not for anyone else."

Inconveniently most of her guesses about why are secret, or based on things that are secret.

"It's also possible that Seelah and Lann would've chosen a worse way of fixing the Wardstone, or a worse way of shaping the power from the explosion afterwards." Or that the miracle wasn't from Iomedae, and whoever sent it really wanted to make sure that someone who would definitely care knew about the trapped angels so that they wouldn't have to just be stuck forever and ever.

"I don't know how hard it would be to guess that the Queen would call a crusade because of the miracle, if that's something the gods would've been able to guess it's possible there was some reason I'd be a better Knight-Commander?" Admittedly that's also pretty confusing, it's not like she knew anything about Knight-Commanding when they left for Drezen. "Which — I mean, Seelah and Lann are great and all, but Lann's spent most of his life living underground, there's a lot he doesn't know. And anyone who was going to sign up to fight if they heard the Crusade was being led by one of Iomedae's paladins would've probably come to fight anyway, seeing as the Queen's also a paladin, whereas people who" (want to be absolutely sure that the Knight-Commander isn't going to randomly murder children for no reason? care about doing the right thing but not at all about being Lawful? follow a god that Iomedaeans don't get along with? have talents that are kind of weird and want a commander who'll appreciate that?) "find it reassuring for their commander to be Chaotic Good might be more likely to volunteer this way. Uh, it's also sometimes helpful to be able to lie to demons, I'd be worse at my job if I couldn't ever do that, but I don't know whether Iomedae could've done a miracle if that's what she was aiming for."

Or maybe Iomedae has noticed that closing the Worldwound is the sort of thing that could easily give Cheliax a big advantage, if you go about it wrong, and cares more about that than you'd expect from talking to any of her people that weren't born in Andoran. Or it's supposed to be a message to them that they should care more about stopping Cheliax, or that they should be less obnoxious about Calistrians, or that it's really great that Lastwall doesn't have slavery and Mendev should consider copying them. Or there's some sort of complicated god reason why it was easier to send her a vision, like maybe she's secretly Iomedae's really distant relative or something. Or maybe she was worried that people wouldn't want to serve under Lann because he looks weird.

Or it just wasn't Iomedae at all. If it were from Desna or Milani or something, let alone Calistria, it's pretty obvious why they'd have picked her over Seelah or Lann.

It seems like it would have been really quite an extraordinary risk for the Goddess to employ a plan that relied on a single specific person surviving the attack on Kenabres and happening to be present at the Wardstone, though possibly there is still some feature of the Knight-Commander that made it possible for her to repair damage to the Wardstone more easily, or to a higher quality, or at a lower cost to the Goddess. He wouldn't have expected previous visions to especially make a difference — if anything, he would have expected the opposite, given the risks of prolonged contact with a god — but it seems likely there is some feature of the situation that neither he nor the Knight-Commander has identified as relevant. (The specific details of the possibilities she saw for repairing the Wardstone seem highly likely to be relevant, but he presumes them to be classified.)

The speculation about people who find it reassuring for the Commander to be Chaotic Good seems rather questionable; certainly there are people who would find that reassuring, and it could partially explain the Drezen miracle attributed to Desna, but she was self-admittedly Chaotic Neutral at the time. It seems unlikely that there are many soldiers who strongly prefer to serve under a Chaotic Neutral Calistrian rather than a paladin... well, perhaps not in Mendev? Certainly he's heard about the sorts of complaints soldiers from other countries make about Lastwall's disciplinary standards.

He also would not expect that Iomedae was able to foresee that Queen Galfrey would call a Crusade unless she was already planning to at the time of the miracle, but for all he knows she was. It would admittedly be a confusing decision but he is given to understand that she sometimes makes confusing decisions.

"May I see a demonstration of the magical properties of the sword, assuming that you won't be expending limited resources that you expect you might need before they can be renewed?" He doesn't really expect it to be helpful but it might be cheap to test.

"Oh, it's not limited, I can use it as many times as I want."

She manifests the sword — it looks more like it's made of light than of metal, and doesn't really look solid enough to cut anything — and thinks of the angel Lariel. In his last moments he was torn between punishing Evil and saving his friend, and some tiny part of both those desires made their way into the sword.

It glows, just for a moment, and a little pulse of magic washes over the pair of them.

"—It also makes it a little harder for people I'm fighting to see, even if I don't know they're there, but, uh, there isn't exactly anyone around to demonstrate on." She could probably slide into the right mindset to use it offensively on him but it seems like it'd make the rest of the interview really awkward.

It feels a little like a Virtue.

He doesn't actually have any guesses for how that would have contributed to the miracle of the Wardstones but he diligently records it anyways.

"So, to summarize—" He reads back her description of the miracle. "And your best guess is that the miracle was directed at facilitating the repair of Wardstone and the prevention of its use as a weapon, while also preventing demonic forces from immediately recapturing it and reintroducing the issue with the Wardstone, with possible additional benefits as regards the Crusade itself? Is there anything I'm missing?"

"—Well, it might've also been supposed to kill Minagho, rather than just stopping her from taking back the Wardstone? Another moment and we'd've had her, I don't know how obvious it was that Staunton was going to save her." She hadn't liked him, and certainly wouldn't have trusted him, but presumably at least one god disagreed with her until he actually swapped sides.

"Are there any actions that members of the Church of Iomedae, or the government of Lastwall, could have taken to avert or mitigate the situation that necessitated the miracle?"

"...Yes?" Isn't that true of... pretty much everything ever... and it's just that the vast majority of things are things that Lastwall doesn't care about? "...do you want me to list all of them I can think of?"

"Yes, please do."

Well, okay then.

"Some Desnans noticed the issues with the Wardstone before Deskari even attacked, and had a dream telling them he was going to attack, and they warned Hulrun, who was one of Iomedae's inquisitors and had some sort of important role in the city. And they had a guess for how to fix the Wardstone, so they tried that too, and rather than listening to them about the attack or helping with the Wardstone Hulrun got mad at them and tried to have them killed. And then Voyager Ramien tried to protect them, so he tried to murder him too.

I don't know how hard it would have been to fix the Wardstone before the attack even happened, but if it worked the miracle wouldn't have been needed at all. I don't think all of us who were in Kenabres could've stopped Deskari's attack even if Hulrun'd done everything he could to prepare, but we might've been able to save more people, and have more people for the fight to take back the Wardstone. But even if it hadn't helped at all, I think basically anything would've been better than trying to murder some of the only people who'd actually tried to do anything about the problem.

And then apart from Hulrun, one of the other inquisitors could have pointed out that murdering innocent people was bad and suggested that he do something else, or Iomedae could have taken away his powers, or she could have taken away his powers decades ago for torturing Ember's father to death and trying to do the same to her, even though she was just a little kid."

...She pauses for a second to try and see whether he actually wanted her to point out things the Iomedaeans did wrong or whether he wanted her to say that actually they did everything right and the only problem was that other people didn't just blindly follow them.

He really does want to hear what she thinks the Church did wrong! It's so much harder to write incident reports when no one he interviews is willing to assign any sort of fault to the Church or its representatives. 

(He does privately suspect there is more to the story than what she's told him. He would generally expect the Goddess to renounce someone who had genuinely attempted to torture a child to death; it is an important teaching of the Goddess that there are harms that cannot be avoided at any cost worth paying, but intentionally killing a child by torture seems particularly unlikely to be one of them.)

"So then, apart from the Desnans, there was also this wizard in Kenabres who tried to warn them about the problem with the Wardstone, and no one listened to him either. I... don't know if anyone even bothered to tell Lastwall? And I'm guessing you didn't have anyone strong enough to fight Deskari regardless — he basically killed Terendelev right away, I hit him with a crossbow bolt and it barely hurt him at all that I could see. But if you do have someone that strong, and you'd sent them to Kenabres, then we wouldn't have needed the miracle, or at least it would've been a lot smaller. 

And then, after the attack, it would've been really helpful for Lastwall to send a bunch of powerful adventurers over to help with all the demons in the city, or to already have a bunch of adventurers there — in the whole city the only person I know was from Lastwall was a priest of Erastil, and I'm pretty sure he came to Mendev on his own. I assume you were one of the places people tried Sending to, and — I mean, even before we knew what the demons were going to do with the Wardstone, Terendelev was dead, Deskari'd thrown the Wardstone across the city, it would've been helpful just to have another adventuring party as strong as mine was and I'm sure there're lots of adventures in Lastwall who are stronger than any of us was back then."

She hit Deskari with a crossbow bolt????? At first circle???????? ...Probably she means she got it to make contact with his body, not that she actually got it to do anything.

"...I guess the Queen could've also teleported in? She was bringing an army down from Nerosyan, though, if she'd gotten there in time that would've been more helpful than just her. I don't know how hard it would've been for her to have someone else bring the army and just teleport ahead, if she could have done that it would've been super useful for her to help fight the demons. Uh, for that and for Lastwall sending over people after the attack, we probably would've still needed a miracle to fix the Wardstone, but they could've been helpful for fighting the demons that were guarding it. But I don't know for sure whether that would've meant a smaller miracle."

The Queen is not actually part of the formal hierarchy of the Church of Iomedae, in the sense that they do not have the authority to give her orders. (It would be extremely diplomatically awkward if she were sworn to obey orders from a foreign power.) Nonetheless, they do sometimes give her recommendations, and she occasionally implements them.

......Possibly the Knight-Commander is confused about what it means to be part of the Church of Iomedae. He would have expected someone to explain it to her, but he is in Mendev.

(She's a paladin of Iomedae! What else would it even mean to be part of the Church of Iomedae?)

"I've got some ideas for how you could've gotten more people to volunteer to fight, so that we'd've had more adventurers in Kenabres without you having to go out of your way to bring them over, but that's a bit of a side point — do you still want me to list them?"

"Let's circle back to that once you've given your other thoughts, unless that was the last thing you had to say."

Nod. "In that case... depending on exactly what the gods were going for, we might've only needed a smaller miracle if the Queen had just had Staunton Vhane executed back when he got Drezen captured, so that he couldn't just show up and help Minagho escape. I'm... not sure how accurate the story I got from his brother was... so I guess in theory he might not have deserved it back then... but it's not the way I'd bet." 

To hear Jhoran Vhane talk about it, Staunton's problem had basically just been that he was the dumbest person alive. Justice isn't sure she believes that anyone is actually that dumb? It's possible he was mind controlled, people don't deserve to die for getting hit by a Dominate if you can avoid it, but in that case she'd really expect Jhoran would've just said that.

The dwarf gods seem kind of bad at picking priests, or at least bad at not taking away their powers when they obviously should, but that's not Iomedae's fault.

...That sounds like a complicated story that he would rather hear from someone who is not a Calistrian.

"—oh, that reminds me, it probably wouldn't have changed anything about the miracle but it would've been helpful if one of the paladins hadn't gone and decided to be a Baphomet cultist halfway through the first time we were fighting in the Grey Garrison. Or if Iomedae had picked someone else rather than a guy that was going to join the demon's side." 

?????

Is that... a common issue... in Mendev?

Maybe she... misinterpreted someone as being a paladin when he was actually a swordsman with a holy symbol?

"Can you be more specific about what happened?"

"...well, we were fighting our way out of the Grey Garrison, and we ran into a group of Baphomet cultists, and one of them knew him, and the cultist was like, 'why don't you consider becoming a Baphomet cultist, that way you'll get to live,' and he was like, 'sounds good to me! Hail Baphomet!' ...And then we killed all of them, so that didn't really work out for him." 

"How did you verify he was a paladin?"

"He had a holy symbol, and I'd seen him Lay On Hands to heal himself, and afterwards the other paladins were complaining about him."

"...Have you observed other similar incidents of paladins or other empowered of Iomedae defecting to Baphomet or engaging in similarly harmful conduct?" He would have liked to more directly ask about whether they were engaging in conduct that Iomedae forbids, but he doesn't particularly trust her to know.

She pauses for a moment, then starts listing off incidents, with a shorter pause between each of them. "...Well, I already told you about Hulrun, and then there were a few other people helping him, but I'm not sure if they had powers. The day after I made it back to the surface, I ran into some people who were planning on murdering Ember and doing some sort of ritual with her blood so Iomedae would bless them, but I'm not sure if they were paladins or just rich. Some of the priests with the Crusade support slavery, or think it's good to torture prisoners — as far as I know none of them own slaves or are actually torturing prisoners, but Iomedae didn't renounce Hulrun, so I'm not completely sure. —Oh, and I don't think Zacharius the so-called 'martyr' was ever a priest or a paladin or anything, but it turns out he secretly turned himself into a lich.

I'm skipping over all the times people started fighting for succubi, I'm pretty sure those were all mind control, but let me know if you wanted to hear about those."

Dear Select Metochites, he's sure you're very busy, but could you possibly spare a single unempowered lay-priest to explain to the people of Mendev that Iomedae does not prefer that they engage in blood sacrifice

"If you're confident they were under magical influence, you can skip those, yes. Who else was present for the other incidents?"

"When I ran into the people trying to murder Ember I was with... Seelah and Lann for sure, and Woljif, and obviously Ember was there, and the people trying to murder her, but I think not Nenio... yeah, definitely not Nenio, I remember it was already dark when we ran into her. The clerics wasn't just one time, if you go to the barracks you could ask around until you find someone? And when we fought Zacharius that was me and Seelah and Lann and Ember and Nenio and Sosiel."

More notes.

"Were there any other actions that Lastwall or the Church of Iomedae could have taken to avoid the miracle at Kenabres being necessary or reduce the necessary expenditure?"

"Iomedae could've come up with some other way to make the Wardstones work that wouldn't have had the same issue? Lastwall could have found a way to close the Worldwound earlier? I'm not sure how hard either of those would've been."

It seems difficult to assess whether the former would have been possible given that he doesn't know how the Wardstones work, but it would obviously be horribly rude to press her on it.

"I guess technically if Seelah or Lann already knew exactly how to fix the Wardstone, or if they had already done a bunch of adventuring so they were strong enough to just fight off all the demons without a miracle, that would've also helped?" Is he going to think she's calling Seelah and Lann weak? "—But that doesn't really count, both of them did a great job, it's just that Lann had only just been picked as a priest. ...I guess it might've technically been possible for Iomedae to just give them some extra circles."

"Was there anything else, or did you want to share your suggestions for how we could increase recruitment?"

"I think that's everything, but I'll let you know if I think of anything else that I forgot." Pause.

"Lastwall rightly forbids slavery, but Mendev has not chosen to follow her example in this matter. In Andoran, there are no shortage of adventurers who were raised in bondage, and they are no less courageous than you or I. If Mendev were to follow Lastwall's example, I'm sure that many among them would gladly volunteer." (And also slavery would be illegal.)

Lastwall would in fact also prefer that Mendev abolish slavery, but this is not a domain in which Mendev is particularly inclined to listen to them.

(The Crusade's diplomatic staff would really prefer she drop the issue! It's not nearly as bad as how she keeps saying things that could be interpreted as implying she's opposed to the traditional privileges enjoyed by Mendev's nobility, but it's definitely somewhat hampering their ability to raise funds from Mendev's elite!)

(If they want her to stop telling people that Mendev should abolish slavery, they can abolish slavery, problem solved.)

"So then — to hear people talk, Crusader's Fort gets more volunteers than just about anywhere at the Worldwound. And then, before the Crusade, Kenabres got the most of anywhere in Mendev — I don't know if people've been exaggerating, but I've heard stories of forts that didn't even have anyone who could channel positive. I don't know whether you could've just asked people at Crusader's to go somewhere else, but there's people who died because no one who was running around helping people after Deskari's attack had Fly, and that's before getting into other forts."

(...Possibly she should ask some of the Crusade clerics if they'd rather go to some other fort for the winter? It's not like Drezen actually needs this many channels, and they're not going to have as much to do with the army once winter comes. Drezen's kind of far from the rest of the forts, though, they'd need... some kind of escort? Her party was travelling around the Wound at third circle but most of their clerics aren't at third. And that's if the stories she's heard are true, which she's really got no idea about.)

His understanding is that Lastwall has proposed some form of this (albeit with somewhat more understanding of geopolitical considerations) and Mendev has, understandably, decided that they would prefer not to deal with the sort of nonsense that Crusader's has to put up with. If they genuinely have forts without any clerical support, it might be worth inquiring again? Mendev hates anything that seems like Lastwall trying to interfere with their politics, but they're generally fairly willing to accept Lastwall providing support to Mendev's Worldwound forts.

Does she actually want to pick the next fight — yes, obviously she does, that was a stupid question. Is it actually a good idea to pick it — well, if he's even slightly reasonable the worst that happens is that he just doesn't listen, but she's not sure if he is. He... hasn't seemed to be getting upset when she's pointed out other things she thinks Lastwall is doing wrong? And... probably even if he decides she's just being selfish or something, he's not going to decide that everything else she's said is also because she's being selfish, it's not like she's ever been a Mendevian slave.

"It also seems to me like Lastwall could get a lot more priests to help with its forts if it had fewer laws against Calistrians. Mendev's got plenty of people who've been hurt very badly by the demons, who've lost parents or siblings or children or friends to them, and sometimes Calistria sees their desire to avenge the wrongs the demons have done and gives them the power to do that. Some of them marched with us to Drezen, and we're lucky to have them. And I don't think Lastwall's got nearly as many people who've been personally hurt by the demons, but I'm sure you've got some, and most of them are probably too Lawful for her but I doubt it's all of them."

...The problem is that Calistrians frequently do extrajudicial murder. Even those who don't often engage in deeply imprudent sexual relationships, and frequently bear children outside of wedlock. The Knight-Commander is not actually a counter-example here, given that she literally confessed in this very conversation to extrajudicial murder (admittedly of a sort that could have been avoided if Cheliax decided to emulate Lastwall's code of laws, not that it ever would).

"—Empowered Calistrians are permitted to enlist at Crusader's Fort," he says, though he's mostly been trying not to interrupt her, because it does seem like a rather material factual error.

"...sure, if they don't mind never being allowed back home."

They could always renounce her when they've finished their period of service — the Knight-Commander is obviously not going to find that convincing.

If they could somehow promote specifically and exclusively forms of Calistrianism devoted to vengeance against demons it would probably be worth it — in principle they could effectively function like a more Chaotic, more Evil, less disciplined, worse-at-prioritization variety of Ragathielites — but he can't actually see a way to get only those forms of Calistrianism.

Okay, this isn't making things obviously worse but it also isn't working.

"...If you'd rather, I could make an argument from what I think Iomedae would've done." Mostly she doesn't, on account of how people should do things because they're the right thing to do and not because they're what Iomedae would have done, but he is an Iomedaean and sometimes they care more about that.

(She would not make this argument to someone whose moral reasoning she respected but she's presuming his suspect until he shows otherwise.)

"...I admit I am curious to hear your analysis." It's not like Iomedae is particularly known for working with Calistrians! If she wanted her country's laws to be more favorable to them, she could have set it up like that in the first place!

"Right, so, have you read the Acts of Iomedae?"

Why do people keep asking him that — probably because the Mendevian understanding of Iomedae apparently includes 'blood sacrifice to gain her favor'. "I have."

"There's a section of the Acts where Iomedae talks about going to the high priestess of Sarenrae for aid, and — it was honestly really confusing the first time I read it, because she was treating it like the sort of thing she needed to justify, and it seemed like a pretty normal thing to do. But apparently it was really controversial at the time, because Taldor and Qadira kept getting into wars, and Qadira was Sarenrae's country, so people in Taldor didn't trust her, and some of them would've been really upset if she hadn't explained." 

(In slight fairness, Qadira really sucks. A country run by Calistrians would definitely still have some problems, she's not saying it would be a good idea, but at least slavery would definitely be illegal! But Taldor's kind of ridiculous about it, supposedly there were several decades when not only was it illegal to be a Sarenrite but it was illegal to have an uncensored copy of the Acts because it was too favorable to Sarenrae.) 

"But even though a lot of people in Taldor hated Qadira and hated Sarenrae, Iomedae was still willing to ask for the high priestess's help when she needed it. Because — just because Taldor didn't like her, or her priests sometimes broke the law in Taldor, that didn't mean Sarenrae was Evil, or working against them, or that working with her was going to somehow let Sarenrites destroy Taldor. Of course there are limits, even if a demon lord hates Deskari we still wouldn't take their priests" (not that Lastwall sees any issue working with Hell to hold the northern border), "but — Calistria's not Evil. You and me and the Lastfolk whose hearts cry out for vengeance against the demons are all on the same side against the Abyss, and there's no sense in exiling them because you're afraid of what they might do."

And, you know, maybe Lastwall could send the Crusade literally any troops whatsoever. She wasn't really annoyed about that before the conversation but now she kind of is. (If they've decided everything they were already doing is too important to lift a finger to help, it's not like she expected better from them, but if they don't want to send troops because she's not a perfect little Lawful Iomedaean paladin they'll have it coming if the Crusade fails.)

(The fact that she's a Calistrian was probably a factor, but he suspects that a larger factor is that his commanding officers expected that the Crusade was doomed. ...It may be worth taking some time to assess that, while he's already here, given that they did at least manage to retake Drezen.)

"—It seems to me that if the Goddess wished to endorse a different legal structure surrounding Calistrianism, she could have simply done so?" 

There's something just slightly different about the way she's smiling at him. "It is our right-by-birth and our destiny to surpass our gods."

That doesn't actually make sense in context! If she's making an argument about what the Goddess would have done it can't rely on needing to surpass her! He will dutifully note the Knight-Commander's position but he doesn't find it especially convincing.

...It bothers him kind of an unreasonable amount that she misquoted the line. It's 'birthright', not 'right by birth', and she skipped the entire part about surpassing their fathers.

Well, her father was an Asmodean wizard that she never even met, it's not like it's hard to do better than that.

Also the version she read had been sort-of-translated out of archaic Taldane, 'right-by-birth' is correct for the version she was working from.

"Did you have any other suggestions for recruitment?"

"There's some parts of the Worldwound treaty that could've been written differently but it's not like you can change them now. I think that's it — no, wait, I remembered something else. I don't know exactly how you decide who to let into the crusader college in Lastwall, but Irabeth tried to study there and you wouldn't let her. And it'd be sort of weird if she was the only person who got turned away without a good reason, and probably some of them decided to go do other things rather than be crusaders, but I don't know for sure." 

Nod. "In that case — I'm given to understand that there was a miracle attributed to Desna during the siege of Drezen. Can you describe the circumstances under which it occurred?"

"Sure — we'd been fighting since just after dawn, and we were all pretty low on spells and healing, but we'd been saving some of it for later, we knew we'd probably have to fight Minagho at some point. Anyways, we'd found a passage to the main citadel, and my party, minus Sosiel, who'd pretty much run out of spells, went to sneak in and try to find the Sword of Valor. I forget if I already explained this but the Sword of Valor isn't actually a sword, it's a magic banner that stops the demons from teleporting and weakens them. Anyways, we found the banner, and we went to go hang it up, and it happened pretty much right when we were hanging it — is that the sort of thing you wanted to know?"

"Was this before or after your fight with Minagho?"

"Before, but not right before, after we hung it up it took a little while to find her."

"Can you describe what happened?"

Nodnod. "So, as I was going to unfurl it, I could feel — something like the power left over after fixing the Wardstone, or from fighting that demon at Lost Chapel, only — stronger? More intense? More tied to me in particular? I don't know exactly how to explain it. And I could tell there were a few different ways to reach, so I reached for—"

—the first time she met the Eagle Knights, realizing that she wasn't alone-but-for-Calistria, that there were other people who cared, people who wanted Cheliax free of Asmodeus, wanted to bring justice to the Asmodean priests for what they'd done, who thought that the sorts of things that Asmodean nobles got up to weren't okay and were willing to risk their lives to stop them — her first weeks in Andoran, realizing over and over that she was free, that no one was coming to punish her if she read a pamphlet mocking Codwin or disagreed with something a priest said — the moment Calistria had chosen her, the first time it had felt like anyone was really on her side — the belief, burning bright in her chest, that Hell has no right to force people into slavery, to torture priests of Erastil to death, to hurt the weak and powerless, and that she could put a stop to it — her very first mission, before things started to go wrong, channeling for a group of newly-freed slaves — the hope that one day, some day, even if she doesn't live to see it, all Cheliax will be free — staring down Hulrun, thinking about what he'd done to Ember, and telling him that if he wanted to kill an innocent man he'd have to go through her — finding the woman she thought was Yaniel, and cutting her free, and running off to chase down the people who'd done that to her — warrior-azatas, risking their eternal fate to wrest souls from Hell or the Abyss, because Asmodeus shouldn't have them and nearly everyone deserves better that what he'll do to them — Arueshalae, imprisoned in the dungeons of Drezen for choosing to fight for the side of Good, free at last—

—that wasn't, actually, all that she was reaching for, but the rest of it was in some indescribable way in another direction—

She can't, actually, say all that to someone from Lastwall.

"—freedom and hope and that sort of thing. And there was a gust of wind, and these butterflies appeared, and the Sword of Valor changed from looking like Iomedae's sword to looking like a tree, and that's also when Aivu showed up. Aivu's the dragon, you met her earlier, she's from Elysium. And ever since then I've been a little bit of a song-sorcerer, and sometimes I can make it so that the Worldwound can go regular plants again instead of being like, well," (she wiggles her hand a bit), "and I've picked up a couple other tricks that're secret."

If the goal of the miracle was purely the liberation of Drezen, it sounds like Desna did wildly more than what was actually necessary. Desna spends her intervention budget more freely than Iomedae, and sometimes in confusing ways, but something like this is far beyond what would be typical of her. The obvious guess is that she wasn't just aiming for the liberation of Drezen, that she wants to be sure the Crusade won't declare its goal accomplished. The most unique component of the miracle (and least applicable to the conquest of Drezen) was most likely the plant-magic; perhaps Desna is hoping they can push the Wardstone line substantially inwards?

(Or Desna could be playing for Cheliax — it makes sense, from a certain angle, that Iomedae and Desna could both have been angling for that — but while some forms of song-sorcery (not to mention the aid of a dragon) could be helpful, and the visible sign of the goddess's endorsement could potentially make it easier to gather allies, making plants grow in the desolate wastelands of the Worldwound isn't obviously applicable.)

...He also has some factual confusions, which are probably more urgent to clarify. "The demon at Lost Chapel?"

"—Right, so, the short version is, when we were getting close to Drezen, we got attacked by gargoyles in the middle of the night, and they carried off a bunch of people to this old church to try to turn them into ghouls. And during the initial attack, one of them, some sort of shadow-demon, said something about how someone'd been talking about me, and we were supposed to be equals, or something, I don't remember the exact wording. Anyways, at Lost Chapel, once we'd fought our way up the mountain and through the chapel, we ran into him again. And Staunton and Minagho were also there, and they were talking like he was really scary and definitely going to destroy us, and I was sort of wishing I'd asked Nenio to cast a Haste, except then he was... kind of a pushover? Like, Ember just made him fall asleep and then Seelah cut off his head. Except, for whatever reason, it felt like... the cup where I was keeping the leftover power from the Wardstone was expanding, and I could hold more of it? And after the fight me and all my companions, and also Camellia and Daeran, had all picked up some sort of new trick, except Woljif. —Woljif died during the gargoyle fight and we weren't able to get his body back." Technically they don't know he died, but their only reason to think otherwise is Nurah's word, and Nurah was secretly working for the demons.

That does seem confusing. An ordinary nabasu could be affected by a Deep Slumber, but it seems unlikely that a single nabasu would be particularly threatening to a well-prepared party of their circle, and his understanding is that more powerful nabasu are typically also too powerful to be affected by a Deep Slumber even if they get really unlucky. Possibly Minagho and Staunton were bluffing? But in that case he would have expected the Knight-Commander and her companions to face more resistance.

"Was there anything to indicate whether that was also the result of divine intervention?"

Headshake. "I've been assuming it wasn't, it didn't really feel like it the same way, and there wasn't anything like—" Gesture at the butterflies.

...They did possibly get a miracle from Desna while going back down the mountain, but as far as she can tell that was unrelated.

In that case he's going to focus on the almost-definite miracle; he's curious about the events at Lost Chapel, but he assumes the Knight-Commander's patience is finite.

"And the Sword of Valor is the banner currently hanging outside the citadel? Has anyone been able to verify what school of magic, if any, the change originated from?" Direct miracles don't usually leave obvious traces of a specific school of magic, but various other possible causes would, and it's relatively cheap to test.

"Nenio says it's not an illusion, but she couldn't say what it was instead."

"Just to confirm, when you mentioned 'Nenio' earlier, this is the same Nenio?"

"...y...es?" She's pretty sure Nenio isn't a common name??? Maybe it's a common name for fox-people, she doesn't know.

"My apologies if the answer was obvious, Knight-Commander, I'd heard conflicting assertions, some of which suggested that she had died in Kenabres."

"—she did but I brought her back. Not fighting Minagho, this was at the Defender's Heart."

...He is sort of curious about how but the Knight-Commander really obviously doesn't want to talk about it. He would have expected that if anyone had a Raise Dead scroll it would have been used earlier, but perhaps none of the plausible candidates had an intact body.

"That makes sense. Returning to the miracle in Drezen, what happened after the miracle?"