This scout's leg got messed up too badly for a channel, he should go on the next boat downriver to get a Regenerate from the Queen. This person saw one of the new guys in scary black armor wearing a pentagram, Baphomet's holy symbol, and when he reported it to Anevia she blew him off, probably because she's a cultist or enchanted or something. The guy who was complaining that the Hellknights were assholes has apparently started loudly informing people that the Knight-Commander doesn't want people saying that the Hellknights are assholes.

The scout has leave to go. It is permissible to loudly announce that the Knight-Commander doesn't want people saying that the Hellknights are assholes. Everyone should know and inform any of their friends who might not know that the pentagram is used by both Baphometans and Asmodeans.

Why does Asmodeus use Baphomet's holy symbol? Wouldn't it make more sense to pick a different one so no one gets confused?

"Asmodeus had it first. Baphomet adopted it to confuse people."

Seems like it would be more confusing if he used a sword-and-sunburst, but he guesses no one ever said demon lords were smart.

Well, this way he can also show up the same to Detect Fiendish.

Oh, that makes sense.

When his scouts return to report to him, they have bad news about a couple of the routes the army was considering (the terrain on that route has shifted and is now completely impassible, that other route passes through the territory of some balors currently at war with each other), but fortunately there's a detour that won't add very much extra time to their travel. Also, while investigating the detour, they saw some more of those creepy mask guys who say "I am the answer, but what is the question"??? The scouts are not really sure how those guys are surviving in the middle of the Worldwound.

The proposed detour would take them quite close to the location Nenio identified as the likely point of convergence for the masked figures! Perhaps they could take the party to investigate, so that her encyclopedia can be more comprehensive.

Blai does not know what's up with those guys either but they do not obviously seem dangerous so far. An excursion to see what they are like when they are at home, if that is their home, seems acceptable.

Hooray!

In the evening his Abadaran reports to him that that person offered him a bribe to lie to the Knight-Commander about whether he was embezzling, and that other person previously provided the Knight-Commander with an incomplete list of his subordinates authorized to make purchases while representing the list as complete, and that third person was perfectly willing to show him his records but the records had really blatant disparities, mostly in the form of records that list multiple purchases and a sum that's allegedly the total of all those purchases but is actually a completely different number. He would also inform the Knight-Commander if he'd investigated anyone and failed to find cause for suspicion, but so far that has yet to happen here.

The Knight-Commander wishes he were more fucking surprised. Is the third guy maybe just really bad at arithmetic or are the discrepancies all in a convenient direction?

The third guy could conceivably be bad at arithmetic, there's a skew in the direction of the errors but not an overwhelming one. 

Would it be very time-consuming for the Fiducia to check his figures going forward? The Crusade does not have an overabundance of people who have ever taken an actual math class in their lives.

The Fiducia can provide an estimate of how much of his time it would take (not that much, presuming that the Knight-Commander doesn't assign that guy more responsibilities). Would it be remotely viable for the Knight-Commander to arrange for individuals he knows to be honest to be taught how to do arithmetic?

His estimate for how long it takes a person to go from zero to adding a column of figures like this accurately for a person of only ordinary intelligence who does not start out necessarily able to read is... years... but if the Fiducia has any way to pick out people who might be quicker or teach them better than the educational background he's seen before, that would be welcome information.

The Fiducia thinks private lessons are usually faster than trying to teach arithmetic in a school the way that's popular in Osirion or Cheliax, and has observed other people having some success turning literate people who can't do figures into literate people who can, but teaching isn't his personal area of expertise.

Since Woljif is already on teaching Lann and Seelah to read how does Thall feel about math tutoring.

"If they want to learn I can do my best? But I've never taught anyone else math before so I might not be any good at it."

"I appreciate that."

He will go notify the one who is bad at math that he appears to be bad at math, and the other two that they are to be reassigned to positions that do not involve handling money.

The guys he's reassigning are indignant! They went through his Zone of Truth, what was the point of doing that if he was just going to treat them like criminals anyways?

"...it was intended to be clear at the time that while a Zone can reliably convict it cannot reliably exonerate. It seems you made your saves."

Is he accusing them of being criminals? This is outrageous. If he keeps reassigning people over minor little procedural differences he's going to run out of people.

"Bribery and falsifying records do not strike me as minor."

"Anything can sound bad if you describe it in such dramatic terms."