Her best guess is that that's correct, but it's possible there's some more elegant solution that she would have learned at the War College. (With the caveat that it's still better to avoid that situation if possible, even if it's permissible; the reputational benefits of Lawfulness are not always sensitive to facts like 'was the person refusing to accept surrender in fact under your command'.)

Absolutely, yes.

Can she go over the other matters now, like the confidentiality one?

Yes, of course.

As with surrenders, the most important principle is to follow through on any commitments he makes; unlike surrenders, it's very common for untrained people to mistakenly make commitments that they are not in fact capable of keeping. For example, sometimes people will commit to not changing their behavior whatsoever based on information they learn, then discover that they aren't actually sure how they would have behaved if they weren't aware of that information. Even less expansive commitments, such as commitments not to reveal information in any way, sometimes run into issues with the fact that most people have imperfect control over their facial expressions, tone of voice, and so on.

The standard confidentiality agreement the Eagle Watch uses is "I won't willingly disclose this without your permission unless I learn of it unrelatedly, except to the Goddess." 'Won't willingly disclose' is generally understood to mean that the person making the promise won't tell anyone, won't deliberately communicate it through other means (including actions taken downstream of it), and will attempt to avoid giving it away through e.g. body language, but not to include a commitment not to be mind controlled or unwittingly mindread, nor a commitment to be perfectly capable at controlling facial expressions, actions that might give it away, etc. If someone wants additional reassurances with regards to the 'without your permission' clause, it's perfectly fine to provide assurances with regards to not securing it via mind control or other coercion, but Irabeth has generally found that offering those assurances unprompted is actually less reassuring. (Even without the clarification, he should still refrain from securing 'permission' via mind control.) In principle it's theologically permissible to conceal information from the Goddess, but in practice it's extremely hard to actually do so (although it's generally understood that if you have committed not to use it in a certain way, she will respect those commitments).

Lastwall confidentiality training includes lessons on providing more advanced or complicated assurances, such as committing not to use information that someone provides you against their interests, but doing this perfectly is generally understood to be extremely difficult.

There's some degree of tension between honesty commitments and confidentiality commitments. Irabeth's understanding of the orthodox position is that if someone asked Select Stasia (for example) 'do you know whether there are any former cultists in your congregation', she should reply with something to the effect of 'none that I'm permitted to disclose' whether or not anyone has in fact confidentially disclosed being a former cultist to her. In practice almost no one actually remembers to include caveats like that every time, but it's still good to include them at least some of the time so that including a caveat isn't equivalent to revealing the answer.

Questions about this?

He actually has a lot of fine detail he wants to know about this but does make sure to among all the other stuff probe on the "not using information against the provider's interests" branch.

Many people have concerns about sharing information that can't be resolved solely by promising not to share that information. For example, if a thief discovers mid-robbery that the person they're stealing from is a cultist of Baphomet, they would obviously want to be able to report that without the Eagle Watch arresting them for that specific theft, but they also wouldn't want Irabeth to take their report as an excuse to start tailing them, even if she never technically shares anything she's promised not to, or to use the information about their methods to beef up security, or to adjust the patrol schedules in a way that would inconvenience them. (Confidentiality for criminals is sufficiently relevant to her job that she'll use it as an example even without specific prompting.)

In theory, promising not to use information against the provider's interests can solve this — it covers essentially all their concerns about how the information is used, it limits how much they have to reveal while negotiating for confidentiality, and it leaves you better off by making people much more willing to share information with you. Unfortunately, most people are very bad at actually living up to those commitments, even if they're sincerely trying; it can be difficult to know whether decisions you make months later are being slightly influenced by the information they gave you, and it isn't always obvious what they would consider to be against their interest. Supposedly archons are much better at this than mortals, but there aren't exactly a lot of archons in Kenabres.

The Eagle Watch is sometimes willing to commit not to using information against someone's interests in specific ways; without specific training, it's a good idea to either limit those commitments to the sort of thing you can be confident you aren't doing, or add qualifiers about not using the information for a specific purpose to the best of your ability. Commitments the Eagle Watch is willing to make as a matter of course include not prosecuting someone for specific criminal activity unless they learn of it some other way and not investigating someone (or their family or associates) unless their sincere best judgment is that they would have investigated them even without being aware of the information disclosed; they are generally not willing to commit to not patching holes in their security, but they are willing to compensate people for informing them of such holes. 

...is that the sort of thing he wanted to know?

Yes it is! That's very helpful!

Does she know things about the state of and what is most taxing upon Heaven's budget? He was told not to cast Commune (he can't cast Commune anyway) but he doesn't know how summonings and callings figure in, for instance.

She is... aware of the concept that Heaven has a budget... which is a more solid understanding of the concept than most of the Mendevian crusaders have.

Her understanding is that summoning spells are not usually particularly expensive, and that calling spells are much more so. She's not sure how much of that is some fundamental difference between the spells, how much is the fact that callings typically last much longer, and how much is differences in the tasks they're assigned to. People say that summoned creatures usually refuse to answer questions about Heaven, and it being expensive is an obvious guess for why, though it also seems plausible that they wouldn't want to risk being cut off mid-explanation. Supposedly there were many called angels among the forces of the First Crusade; she's not sure how that fits in. 

Her understanding is that more-or-less any form of unusual direct intervention is very costly. The way people in Lastwall act around direct interventions was one of the biggest surprises to her, actually — in Mendev, nearly everyone sees interventions by the Goddess as something to be excited about, and in Lastwall the attitude is very much the opposite. She's heard plenty of Mendevian crusaders claim to have been saved by a miracle, but nearly all of their stories can be explained just as easily by good luck. (The Desnans sometimes claim Desna sends them dreams; she's not sure whether it's genuinely not costly for Desna, she's choosing to pay the costs, or the Desnans are mistaken.)

Communes are either expensive enough or complicated enough that the Church requires clerics to go through a class before performing them. It... involves math in some way, to hear people talk about it? No one in Mendev has been through the training, that much is strategically relevant.

"The letter I got did not give even a cursory explanation but it did put me somewhat on alert for whether other things that they didn't think to mention might impose costs. - I suppose Iomedae might be... less... budget constrained... here? Having not recently had an expensively good year."

Wince. "Kind of worried she's having an expensively bad year right now. Before Deskari's attack, the Church hadn't specifically told us there was anything we needed to stop doing to save on budget, but that only goes so far."

"Well. I've done my best to give Her a complete report on the situation but if you can think of anything else that I might be placed to accomplish...?"

"I'd like to think you're here for more than just getting us through the next week, but that might be too much to hope for." Long pause. "Truth be told, the situation's been getting less sustainable for as long as I've been alive. Even before Deskari's attack, it wasn't clear whether we'd be able to last another few decades."

"I don't make a lot of sense as someone to send. There are surely many people who had a better angle than I on the closure of the Wound even if the archmages themselves couldn't be diverted."

"If you're here by the Goddess's hand I presume there's some reason she picked out you specifically. ...Admittedly, I don't have any guesses about what that reason was."

Nod.

Does he have any more theological questions? If not, she has another logistics task for him to look at (she's debating whether to divert a patrol to construct an improvised passage across one of the chasms to the west, which would enable patrols to more efficiently reach that part of the city but also enable cultists and non-airborne non-teleporting demons to do the same).

Seems like it wouldn't be very hard for a demon to bash down, or worse render subtly unstable, an improvised bridge.

The risk of them doing it subtly is probably dispositive here; she'll skip the bridge.

If he doesn't have further questions, their supply of logistics problems is quite large; they're not in particular danger of running out, though with Blai's help they can at least get through the particularly urgent or important ones. (Does he have opinions on party composition for a raid on the Tower of Estrod? Additional incentives to encourage civilians to turn over any potions they happen to own to the forces defending the city? First-circle spells that would have been particularly useful yesterday, that she should instruct the forces here to prepare?) Anevia joins them after a couple hours, though her focus seems to be much more on analyzing the intelligence their patrols have gathered than on logistics per se. Irabeth takes a handful of reports during the night, from patrols of tieflings and aasimar and the occasional half-orc; at one point a patrol claims to have spotted shadows near the market square, and Irabeth sets aside her current work to do frantic calculations on whether their mitigation efforts were likely sufficient or whether she needs to wake up anyone who still has channels and send them on a nighttime patrol.

If Irabeth happens to remember what circle Phantasmal Killer is he can make a reasonable guess about what kind of team they want to clear the tower. It is hard to think of anything they can part with for the potions - maybe escorts to people's houses to get them checked for stray dretches or something, if the inefficiency in the schedule is less important than the potions and people might have potions that aren't stored in their homes? He didn't keenly feel the lack of any particular spells.

Blai still has one channel but if it will wreck the Keep Watch he will defer to Ser Tirabade's allocation.

Phantasmal Killer is (she consults her notes) fourth circle, she's never heard of anyone getting it lower. Channeling in itself doesn't necessarily break a Keep Watch but sending him to fight a den of shadows certainly would; she expects it isn't worth it, though in part because situations where the patrol's precautions weren't effective are likely to be sufficiently dire that sending another patrol after them won't make a difference.

Then he will remain.

Does he happen to know whether his party members have magic weapons? It's relevant for whether to assign them to clear out the shadows.

Blai's own mace seems to be performing as usual and is very lightly magical. He has Detected Magic a couple times today (though few enough that he might replace it with Stabilize at dawn) and none of his party seemed to have magic weapons.

It would be really convenient if Count Arendae were in her chain of command and she could simply order him to accompany some other party to deal with the shadows, but alas. Eventually Irabeth concludes that if the Count is willing to accompany them, it's worth temporarily reallocating magic weapons to Seelah, Camellia, and Lann until the shadows are dealt with, to be returned to the Defender's Heart afterwards; Blai should allocate some second-circle slots to Lesser Restoration. 

People start to gather near the Fiducia's altar shortly before dawn.

He joins the rest of the flock in prayer, of course. Dropping Detect Magic for Stabilize. Didn't wind up using either Communal Protection from Evil so he'll drop one for a Lesser Restoration, and one of the Bursts of Radiance too. ...he has a new third circle slot, not that surprising. Re-upping the expended first circle slots, he used most of those and didn't keenly wish he had something else - well, he spent the Air Bubble on a cure but it'd be handy in some plausible circumstances and it's also good to have something he isn't too precious about burning for a Cure. He used the Communal Resist Energy, he'll take another one of those, and for his next third circle slot... Greater Hide from Undead? He'd really want it if he were hunting shadows but he's only doing that if Count Arendae accompanies them. Fallback here would be, he supposes, a summon, nice and versatile... He'll optimistically go with the Greater Hide from Undead, even if he's not in the shadow-hunting party it'll last a full hour now probably and he can cast it on whoever is going.

Here are the spells he requested!