Can they say they will tell somebody as soon as they notice strain?

That doesn't really sound like how demons work. Does it, Nenio?

...Sure, they can say that.

"Some types of demon, the most common being shadow demons, do have the ability to possess mortals! However, it would be a highly unusual coincidence for the possession to end less than a minute after the possessed subject attempted to stab another individual, so that explanation seems highly improbable. Furthermore, most forms of demonic possession can be detected with Detect Evil, unless the possessor has a way to conceal their alignment aura."

There's paladins around - if you're trying to use a Zone efficiently like this you need multiple people on hearing the affirmations of separate streams of participants - did they notice anything?

They did not detect Evil near him, no.

So yeah, sounds fake, he will get a trial but it's not going to be a particularly complicated one.

When he sees they're not buying it he will even helpfully switch to telling them all they are powerless fools caught in Baphomet's maze and too stupid to see it!

See, didn't have to specifically aim the enterprise at cultists to flush one out.

All told, there are a little over a hundred people unwilling or unable to affirm the statement, not counting the people he worked something out with, though presumably some of the remainder simply managed to throw off the spell. (There's a sense in which this is good news! Most of his advisors thought it was going to be higher!)

It should Abadar willing be lower next month. Abadar if you can guard monetary shipments in progress please pay Blai back with the greatest possible percentage of money showing up in future months so his work in making it get where it belongs is not ultimately in vain. Maybe all the thieves could have unavoidable urgent errands at crucial moments. He will send letters and do Continuing Not Being A Thief Education trying to make this as doable as possible with the smallest amount of divine intervention.

Demotions are issued. Competent honest people get busier but he is happy to issue them assistants if there's anyone they'd want and trust or take unrelated tasks off their plates.

Some of them request specific people as assistants.

...The Sarenrites are wondering if he has a policy around Sarkorians. Apparently there are still a handful of Sarkorians living on the Abyss side of the Wardstone line who, somehow, aren't dead yet, and some of them were among the demon cultists they fought yesterday.

Do Sarkorians require special handling apart from the cultist handling?

Well, not necessarily, he's allowed to execute them, but it seems kind of unfortunate to execute someone who grew up thinking of the most powerful demon around like a really terrible baron and was thinking of their actions yesterday as protecting their home from invaders...

(His advisors mostly say that while of course the Sarenrites are doing important work here, demon cultists are demon cultists, and being soft is just going to get more people killed.)

Does Ember want another arm of the experiment?

Of course!

"Knight-Commander, with all due respect, are you sure it's prudent to delegate disciplinary decisions to an elf child of her... persuasion?"

"It's experimental. If she actually has the ability to discern this kind of thing reliably it will be a tremendous savings on several axes and since I don't know quite what kind of caster she is I cannot look up in a book whether it's likely she has come by such a power."

"And if she doesn't, you'll be setting cultists free to report back to their masters!"

 "Prophecy is broken, I don't see how she could possibly know for sure no matter what sort of powers she has."

  "Sir, don't you think it sends the wrong message to demote honorable men trying to serve their country just for trying to make ends meet, while also letting go any cultist with enough of a sob story to convince a child?"

"She doesn't need prophecy. She would need, effectively, part of the function of Atonement, a completely normal fifth circle spell which only works when the subject is sincere and functions in the absence of prophecy. I have not to my knowledge demoted any honorable men, and don't know if Ember even thinks she might have the same discernment about Law as Good, but if you want me to expand the experimentation in that direction I will be willing to entertain the idea."

  "It's a little late for that, don't you think?"

"Similar situations will probably come up again."

  "I suppose if you're already replacing all standard procedure with the judgments of a child you might as well extend it." It can't be that hard to fool her.

"Mm-hm. You're dismissed."

Ember looks notably more downcast than last time when she reports to him about the Sarkorian prisoners.

"Hardly any of them want to hurt people, but they're used to living somewhere very dangerous, where they can't trust anyone, and it's hard for some of them to believe things are different. And some of them are scared for what's going to happen to their friends and families who aren't here, and I don't think you want to hurt their friends and families, but I don't think they're wrong to be scared. ...Is there any way you could send some of the prisoners somewhere else?"

"Despite bird girl's pessimistic recounting of her experimental results, she did identify several prisoners unlikely to exhibit recidivism!" Nenio can point them out.