"If I were asking you to head a crusade against Cheliax, that would certainly be a concern. I am not convinced it is as serious a concern for a crusade against the forces of the Abyss. For all the many grave Evils wrought by Asmodeus, his followers do abide by the Worldwound treaty."

Galfrey can remember the horror she felt, when the prospect was first raised of negotiating the present version of the Worldwound defense treaty with the agents of the Prince of Hell, probable slayer of her first god, among the greatest enemies of humanity. She would not have done it if she had seen another way to stop the hordes of the Abyss from overrunning Golarion; even with the Inheritor's approval (for a treaty so important as this would never be signed without first consulting her via Commune) she spent years afterwards wondering whether the price had been too high.

But the Asmodeans have, in fact, kept their commitment, even with half their country tore away from them, even with one of the Inheritor's paladins at the head of Andoran. It has been a long time since she's wondered whether she was wrong to agree to that devil's bargain.

"Moreover, the Inheritor herself has chosen you as one of her own, and she would not have done so were you not worthy of her trust. Perhaps there are those who will still have doubts, but if so it is they who are the fools, just as it would be foolish for the powers of Heaven to refuse to welcome Ragathiel as one of their own."

"I'm not specifically worried about interfacing in this capacity with Cheliax. If you want to make me the Crusade's ambassador to Cheliax I would... probably need a Splendor headband... but not otherwise balk at the concept." This would probably get his local instance tortured for information but like whatever. "But for among Mendevians I don't even have a simple, rumor-friendly story of redemption. I am not a mortal Ragathiel, your majesty, I left Asmodeus's service in a way that involved no personal virtue whatsoever - relatedly I do not think there is any particular hope of extracting another one of me from the Chelish army, he's theirs and will stay that way - and I have noticed some reason to be concerned that among the people I've met here Iomedae's endorsement itself is not consistently the badge of trustworthiness than I would have hoped, understandable compromises having been made between security and amiability and also the state of lay catechism startlingly poor -"

She makes a thoughtful sort of noise. "What can you tell me about the other timeline, Select? When was it relative to this one? If it was in our future do you know whether there was a similar Crusade, and who headed it?"

"It had been the summer of next year. I do not think it was your future, because of the different background archmages and because I heard of no attack like the recent one on Kenabres. The archmage party conquered Cheliax, with the Glorious Reclamation's help - I think Ser Cansellarion probably also exists here but doubt he and his can do this alone. They closed the Worldwound. In between those two events something that I suspect may have been related to them was so expensive for Asmodeus that He dropped all of His clerics, possibly excepting the most valuable handful of which I was not one, in the same motion in one day. I know some of the archmages' names but I do not know if any or none exist here or if their success is replicable even as the same people, relatively little about their adventures made it all the way to #11 - I did find a healer whose powers match what I know about the Arch-Healer of the party, and am trying to retain her in case that's important, I don't know which of them were important and if it happens to be the strange sorcerer I have no idea how to find a match -"

Galfrey is not particularly trying to conceal that the piece of that she finds to be of greatest interest is the part about closing the Worldwound.

"If you tell me what you know of the archmages, I will direct some portion of Mendev's resources to determining whether those archmages exist in our world, perhaps at a lower circle." 

She folds her hands and leans forward slightly. "But Select — if you can stand before the army and say, truthfully, that you are certain the Worldwound can be closed, there are few qualities I would rather have in a Knight-Commander. The greatest force driving the people of Mendev from the Inheritor is not Asmodeus, it is despair — despair at the prospect that they are fighting for a hopeless cause. If you can make them believe a true victory is possible, that will mean far more to them than the Evils you have done in your past."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH HE DOESN'T HAVE A COUNTERARGUMENT FOR THAT ONE

"...there was an archwizard, an Élie Cottonet, Galtan and inclined to Republicanism, and his wife the Arch-Healer Naima, said to be able to cast Resurrections without the diamond and heal an unlimited number of people every day. - not, I think, to also resurrect an unlimited number. Their swordswoman took the throne of Cheliax and is probably one of the plausible claimants to that but I only know her regnal name, Aspexia III, not what she went by before that. They had an Inquisitor Shawil, an Abadaran from Osirion. I think Arch-Healer Naima is also Osirian. And there was the strange sorcerer I mentioned, one of the kinds that lags circles but her familiar is exceptionally powerful, I think it's a - cat of some kind - I don't remember her or the familiar's name. I might recognize the missing names if I heard them."

They probably do not have incredible prospects of locating a specific individual from a starting point of 'Osirian woman named Naima' or 'sorceress with a cat familiar,' but the Galtan and perhaps the Inquisitor are more promising. 

"Do you happen to know how their names are typically spelled in Taldane or Osiriani as applicable?"

"I have seen Archmage Cottonet's name spelled -" He spells it.

"Thank you."

She pauses for a moment, then speaks again.

"Select, if you are not willing to serve as Knight-Commander, I will not attempt to compel you to. But I truly believe there is no one better-suited for inspiring Mendev's people to victory."

"Might I know, your majesty, if you have a second choice in mind?"

"The benefits to morale of having a Knight-Commander who was present for the strange occurrences in the Gray Garrison cannot be discounted. If you are unwilling to serve in that role, I would most likely offer it to Ser Seelah, though if there was another present that you believe would be more suitable than her I would take your recommendation under advisement."

Seelah is absolutely lovely but she can't read yet and he's pretty sure she has no command experience nor is she obviously the sort of person who is wasted without getting some pronto. Daeran is Evil, like, now, still, and there is probably political complication about him being a count. Nenio is definitely insane. Woljif and Thall both have criminal histories even if Thall's are something of a mess. There is absolutely no way Finnean will happen and if it somehow could he would not recommend it. Lann also can't read; he might be the best pick of the lot but people sure do look at him in a way and he would need a lot of getting up to speed. Why is his adventuring party such a mess. Why couldn't Irabeth have been in the room, she'd do great.

He takes rather a while contemplating this, and then says, "I will need my responsibilities more enumerated but if you must have someone who was witness to that event and believe that my bizarre history is not an insurmountable impediment I will accept."

She smiles. "Mendev is honored to have you."

She summarizes the responsibilities of the position. Within the limits of the Worldwound treaty, he will have final authority over the Crusade's budget, logistics, personnel assignment, discipline, and recruitment, as well as large-scale tactical judgment calls, though he will have advisors to whom he can delegate day-to-day affairs; once they capture Drezen, he will also have responsibility for prioritizing between subsequent strategic objectives, as well as the administration of Drezen and any other conquered territories, though she expects to be able to send him additional advisors once Drezen is secure. In some ways, it rather resembles his duties as a fort commander, albeit with higher stakes and vastly more discretion. In practice, it is likely that he will also need to dedicate some of his time to solving problems suitable for an adventuring party or a small strike team, though of course he is welcome to delegate those to the extent feasible.

Where will that budget come from? Is the Crusade going to be an independent treaty signatory or under the Mendevian umbrella? Who are the advisors? Are the captured territories also to be under the Mendevian umbrella and if he delegates them does this involve creating noble titles or anything like that? Should he maybe just read the entire legal code of Mendev, does she have one on her? If he irretrievably dies, or is not doing a good enough job to be worth retrieving, or is abducted by archmages from another timeline who want him to participate in their constitutional convention, who will pick up the command? Has she informed neighboring Worldwound treaty signatories of her intentions here? Is there magical equipment he can have access to from the start such as wands of Sending or a crystal ball? Is the supply infrastructure to Drezen going to spring into place acceptably?

The Crusade will have funding from Mendev, but is permitted to raise additional funds from outside sources if desired, and of course may sell any loot acquired during the course of its advance. It will be under the Mendevian umbrella, with some minor adjustments in comparison with the previous crusades to account for the fact that it is not in fact being led by the Queen of Mendev; the captured territories are also under the Mendevian umbrella, but he is not authorized to create noble titles. Mendev does not exactly... have... anything like a single book in which all of its laws are recorded, though he is also not expected or required to enforce all of them; Mendev expects magistrates to apply good judgment about the many ordinary behaviors that are strictly speaking against the law. His advisors on the march to Drezen will include Baroness Gaunther (his head general and advisor on military tactics), Captain Harmattan (another military advisor, but more focused on personnel management and troop discipline), Wilcer Garms (his quartermaster, who will advise him on supply and logistics until they take Drezen), Nurah Dendiwhar (an expert on Avistani history and geography), Sosiel Vaenic (cleric of Shelyn and liaison to foreign non-Iomedaean churches), and both Tirabades; she also intends to ask Count Arendae to consult on diplomatic matters, but has not yet confirmed his appointment. Many circumstances under which he might die irretrievably would also kill many of his plausible replacements, but in the event of a disaster that kills just him Baroness Gaunther will have temporary command until Galfrey can make a more permanent appointment. If he's kidnapped by archmages from his timeline he should definitely see if they can be persuaded to close this Worldwound too. She was waiting to inform the other signatories until after she had appointed a Knight-Commander, but will do so posthaste. From the outset, he will have access to the magical equipment that the army brought with it to Kenabres, including a wand of Sending, a unique Mendevian relic/musical horn capable of bolstering the spirit of any who hear it, a lesser Extend metamagic rod, some pearls of power, several bags of holding, and some wands, potions, and scrolls of lower-circle or more situational spells; he will also be issued equipment for his personal use, including a Wisdom headband, a cloak of resistance, and a Ring of Sustenance. (Blai may get the impression that Mendev is substantially poorer in magic items than Cheliax.) The supply infrastructure should be relatively manageable; the route to Drezen goes up the West Sellen initially, and then a much smaller river that flows from Drezen into the West Sellen that should still be usable for transportation. The greatest issue with supply will be ensuring the integrity of their supply lines once the army has crossed through the Wardstone barrier.

Well yes of course he'll try to appeal to the archmages if they show up but in case that doesn't work.

Do they have a procedure for moving a Wardstone once there is a suitable location to situate one farther in? How much budget is the floor he's guaranteed here since he has wildly no idea how he'll do at fundraising or looting? Since presumably the paladin-Queen knows how, can she explain how you administer a place under the auspices of a code of laws that you cannot access and are not expected to enforce, he's probably Lawful Neutral and therefore must hold on to his formal Law and he is not sure exactly how much leeway he has there though it's probably some? Would anything bad happen if he just used the Lastwall disciplinary handbook, his copy is missing in his mysterious transit situation with most of his other things but presumably another can be obtained and he remembers most of the important parts. As a fort commander he was routinely in the habit of exchanging units with neighboring fortresses more than most people, sifting through the Chelish army for those who thrived under his style of command, what is the process for dismissal if any of these people do not work well with him or with someone more essential/less replaceable than they are and would be better deployed in another capacity?

Are the magic items insured? Actually is the Church of Abadar aware of any of this. Should they maybe be the very next people to know. Does she perchance have priority access to a means of contacting Fiducia Boian or any member of his party to ask them to consult, Blai posted him a letter but that could take weeks to cross his path by patrolbag if it does so successfully at all.

They intend to use an adapted version of the procedure used in cases when a Wardstone needed to be moved outwards. Given the location of the fort whose Wardstone they intend to commandeer (she points at one in the far northeast corner), they will be able to send it downriver for much of the journey. She intends to contact Irrisen about potential use of mastodons in pulling it overland for the remainder of the journey (although Irrisen's forces largely communicate very little with the rest of the Worldwound's defenders, they will in fact hear a request from the queen of Mendev), but if that doesn't work it should still be possible to use oxen, just somewhat slower. The Wardstone will of course need to be under heavy guard throughout the journey, though it will be somewhat effective at repelling demonic assaults on the way. In the intervening time between the capture of Drezen and the relocation of the Wardstone, they hope to make use of the Sword of Valor, which their latest intelligence indicates is still within Drezen, to block teleportation by demons into the area.

The projected funding available from Mendev is adequate in principle to pay, feed, and supply the forces she's brought with her to Kenabres, and to cover the projected costs associated with transporting the Wardstone. If he can't secure external funding and/or a steady supply of loot, it is probably not sufficient to cover much in the way of additional forces, non-consumeable magic items, high-circle spellcasting services, et cetera. (Compared to a Chelish fort, they're saving a lot of money on healing and on transporting more troops to replace the dead; with healing channels, just about anyone who lives to the end of a battle will live.)

On previous crusades, she generally handled disciplinary matters by making it clear to her soldiers which matters she might treat as serious even on a first offense, and then applying discretion about which cases to actually discipline people for (as a straightforward example, a Sarenrite providing spiritual counseling to a condemned demon cultist might technically be committing a crime insofar as their efforts could be construed as aiding the cultist, but it would plainly be absurd to try them for it). ...She is not a theologian, and it is possible, now that she considers it, that this approach is somewhat dependent on the fact that she is the Queen, or the fact that she thinks of this as just the way that laws work rather than as a bizarre diversion from the sorts of legal code popular in Taldor and its former holdings. She has not read the Lastwall disciplinary handbook herself, and in Mendev it has a bit of a reputation for being shockingly harsh in some respects, but she would not expect it to pose problems with regards to Law if he communicates his policy in advance. She expects that Inquisitor Hawkblade has a copy.

In principle, he can dismiss any of his advisors for any reason or no reason at all, though in many cases he would be obligated to ensure they have an escort back to Nerosyan. In practice, it would be deeply politically awkward to dismiss nearly any of them; the standard procedure for avoiding that is to reassign them as an advisor on some other topic, ideally one with some connection to their skills or interests (though not necessarily one particularly important to the Crusade), and ensure that whoever he appoints to replace them is officially advising him on a related topic to the one the original advisor was advising him about but not literally the exact same topic. 

The relic horn is insured while it remains outside the Wardstone line, but Abadarans tend to charge unaffordable rates to insure anything during excursions inside the Worldwound. As with the other signatories, she was waiting until after she knew whether he was willing to serve as Knight-Commander before informing them. The fastest method she has access to for contacting the Fiducia is burning a charge from the wand of Sending, though there's a one-word code to confirm that a Sending to him was sent at her behest. 

Have any Wardstones traveled by river before and have any of them sunk to to the bottom of a river. Why would the demons leave a demon-teleportation-blocking artifact around in Drezen. Speaking of Drezen does she have any updates on Ser Vhane.

Does this include pay for the assigned advisors, for himself, for the adventuring party he was on the verge of dissolving but may need to form up more long-term, etc., or have enough flex to do so? He doesn't know how the other timeline's Wound was closed but it was archmages, not an army, and so he's going to need to be running around doing stuff until he has archmages, though he has also posted a letter to Felandriel Morgethai in case she can be tempted.

He hasn't met Inquisitor Hawkblade, is he with her contingent? What parts are understood to be harsh, he has not actually noticed a discrepancy in that direction from observing the behavior of the Prelate but it was an unusual week and maybe Kenabres itself is unusual also.

What does "politically awkward" cash out to? He was never good at playing politics, Chelish people who are good at that do not wind up as career Worldwound soldiers by and large. He can at least make up new titles for replacement advisors if necessary.

He might want to burn a Sending to get Boian on the scene fairly soon but he will at least need slightly more time to think about what to say to the Fiducia on the matter.

Wardstones have been transported by river before and did not sink; they're heavy, but not so heavy they'll sink a river barge. The Sword of Valor (which, despite the name, is a banner, not a sword) only blocks teleportation while publicly and visibly displayed, and thus is currently nonfunctional, but they don't have a good guess for why it's still anywhere in Drezen; leading guesses include 'they've found a way to make it do something helpful for them while it's in their hands,' 'if they risked bringing it to the Abyss it could unexpectedly be very harmful to them,' and 'sometimes demons are just incredibly stupid,' but they're not sure any of these are actually right. No updates on Ser Vhane at present.

The budget includes a salary for him and his advisors, though not for his adventuring party. (His salary on paper is fairly nominal, but he gets first pick of any captured magic items.) Whether the budget can accommodate his adventuring party depends on what sort of wages they accept; he could certainly afford to hire them at the wage he would pay an ordinary soldier, and probably couldn't afford to hire them indefinitely at the wage Cheliax would need to offer to convince a typical foreign third-circle adventurer to stay at one of their forts instead of leaving for Crusader's, but it's not like anyone in his party is particularly typical. (To the extent that his party is motivated by money, bribing them with captured magic items is often an effective way to recruit adventurers.)

Inquisitor Liotr Hawkblade normally lives in Kenabres, had travelled to Nerosyan for a secret research project, and returned with the army when they got word of what had happened to Kenabres. Mendevian soldiers who've spent time at Lastwall's forts tend to complain about the stricter rules on drunkenness, gambling, and sexual practices, though she's not entirely sure how much of the last one is 'stricter rules on fraternization' and how much is 'Lastwall, without exception, executes people for rape of prisoners.'

In practice 'politically awkward' generally means that they have allies in Nerosyan who would be offended by their removal, and potentially attempt to persuade others in Nerosyan to reduce support for the crusade, which could harm funding and recruitment. (To be clear, she's not accusing them of trying to sabotage the Crusade, but it's natural for people to view 'their political ally was removed from their position' as a sign that his judgment is poor, even if he was in fact correct to remove them.) (In Vaenic's case, he doesn't particularly have allies in Nerosyan, but it could make it harder to recruit from the foreign churches.)

Duly noted.

He is certain to have more questions. How long is she going to be around? When she returns to Nerosyan how quickly can letters turn around?

She intends to announce the Crusade to the army tomorrow and depart for Nerosyan the day after that, when the army sets out. If he sends the letter down the river from Kenabres it'll take about two days to reach Nerosyan and a little under a week for her response to reach Kenabres, with travel time increasing the farther the Crusade gets to Drezen.

What's the procedure for sensitive mailings, does she have trusted couriers who might be going back and forth regularly?

Anything so sensitive that it would be a disaster if it were intercepted should be communicated via Sending or other similarly secure means; there's an elderly priest in the capital, too feeble to send on the crusade, who survived everything that happened in Nerosyan and can handle Nerosyan-to-Kenabres sendings. Here's the password to use for indicating that a Sending is in fact from him. For messages that are less sensitive than that, he can entrust them to a paladin with injuries serious enough to require a Regenerate, accompanied by guards as needed (typically this is done by placing the paladin on a guarded barge returning to Nerosyan after supplying Kenabres), or if there aren't any paladins meeting that criterion he can entrust it to whatever paladin he thinks would be least valuable to have on the field.

"Understood."

"Was there anything else you wished to discuss with me tonight?"