"Oh, ah, I'm not sure exactly how to explain it. I suppose if I don't currently know what I ought to be switching to in its place I can invite you to sit in should it come up in the near future, that probably won't do any injury to the associated tone of the interaction that the Iomedaeanism won't by itself."

She stops, visibly thinking about it.

(Iomedae chose him! She likes him! ...and yet. There are still a lot of ways "watch me punish someone else using a novel technique that I invented as an Asmodean cleric" could be pretty unpleasant, honestly?)

"Hmmm. Would you be willing to demonstrate now? I could be your prospective punishee."

"......I'm not sure how that interacts with not being able to lie. You are not in my command structure and also have not done anything wrong."

For some reason, this makes her giggle!

"Empowered Iomedaeans are allowed to say 'to accomplish some mutually agreed-upon goal, we are both going to pretend that some alternate set of facts are true for a limited duration, though of course either of us can indicate verbally that we are uncomfortable and want to stop pretending at any time'. Scenario roleplay is an important way of teaching!"

(That's not how she knows this, but if he doesn't ask she's not going to clarify~)

"This came up in a class about - something? Pretending someone was enchanted to drill the process for that or something?"

...Ah, fuck. 

"Uh. For me, this came up came up when I was having interesting sex with a paladin who I am very sure still had her powers afterwards." She looks and sounds embarrassed but she is not going to lie to him about how she knows facts about his new God. "But it's the same principle, really - we agree beforehand on the set of facts we are mutually pretending are true, and on a set of codewords that we can use to pause or end the interaction immediately."

"...I... see. That's... elegant."

She can tell he's flustered, but he's hiding it well enough that she doesn't know how flustered he is.

She smiles apologetically, but doesn't say anything - probably better to just let it slide.

 "Want to give it a try? Our codewords can just be 'pause-now' and 'stop-now' - simple easy to remember." She enunciates pause-now and stop-now both like they're single words, with a firmness in her voice that is not usually present.

"All right. I still need a notional malfeasance."

She nods. "Hmmm... Oversleeping on a patrol day? Repeat offense, maybe?"

"Shall we just make up details as necessary?"

She nods. "Works for me! We can 'pause-now' as needed to problem-solve if something seems off."  She stretches her arms over her head briefly, and then returns them to neutral. "Ready when you are."

He settles into a more severe attitude.

"Prestidigitation." A chess board begins taking shape. "This is the third time, Urdina. Why do you think we have a schedule at all? Decoration?"

oooooooh.

Venn's demeanor and body language shift almost instantly - now she's a meek and contrite soldier, afraid of the wrath of Commander Artigas she's only heard weird and scary rumors about.

"I'm sorry, sir. I - I didn't mean to - "

"Oh, I believe entirely that your intentions had no connection to the outcome. The trouble is that this is the characteristic of an incompetent, and as this is the third time, specifically an incompetent who is not improving." The pieces finish forming up on either side. Venn has the white ones, but Blai advances a pawn anyway. "Make a move, Urdina."

Venn winces at his words but the protest dies in her mouth. She looks in confusion at the board. "Sir, I thought white moved first?"

She reaches hesitantly for a pawn.

"Oh, usually. But white slept in this morning." While she's moving he gets a bishop out.

She finishes moving her pawn up, and then looks at his bishop and reaches for one of her knights.

(This is great.)

He intercepts her knight with the bishop. "You see," he says, "we space out the patrols such that it is rare for a demon to have enough time to shake off the stun and flee the area, before someone can arrive and take it out. Perhaps you have come by the impression," he gets another pawn pulled forward, and then one of his knights, "that a few minutes here and there, a missed patrol now and then, do not much matter? After all, you so seldom come by a stunned demon."

"No, sir, I know the patrols are important, sir," Her meek persona is too stunned to make another move, at the moment.

"Make a move, Urdina. Or if you'd rather, you can tip over your king to resign, but then I will simply set up again. Until your lackluster performance gets you devoured by a nabasu, you are here and must take some action."

She swallows miserably. "Y-yes, sir."

She starts playing chess as fast as she can. She is not good at chess even when she has time to think and with a handicap - Blai rapidly checkmates her.

(...oh no. This is hot. Why is this hot!? She's not usually into humiliation!)

He sets up again, and again White oversleeps, and he takes pieces mercilessly. "You see, the demons can see. They can hide out, invisible or otherwise concealed, within the barrier where we are not venturing, and watch. And they can find holes. And they can notice patterns, just like I can notice that you keep exposing this rook," he takes it. "So of course you seldom find a stunned demon. You only find the stupid ones flinging themselves across the ward at a random time and place, hoping that by random chance you happen to be on the next squad due. The smart ones?" He checkmates her again. "Figure out when you are assigned, and know that this gives them extra moments, and choose that time, and perhaps one day they are already awake when you arrive, and they keep you alive long enough to see if the next patrol finds your screaming to be a useful hit to morale." He checkmates her again, crushes her king to powder, and sprinkles it like snow over the rest of her remaining pawns. "But you don't have to be smart, Urdina. I can work with a moron. If the moron follows orders and reports for her assignments."

"Y-yes, sir. I understand, sir." She's trying not to radiate misery with her body language, because presumably she's a Chelish soldier in this situation and they don't do that. (unfortunately she is finding this unexpectedly very hot and that is making it hard to not play her character the way she would if this were a different kind of roleplaying experience...)

Her lip quivers. Her eyes are downcast. Her shoulders hunch forward, accentuating her chest.

"You are to report to your CO that he's authorized by any means necessary to get you out of bed as early as two hours before your patrols begin if it doesn't happen to be convenient to him to duck in with any less margin than that. You are to be in bed unoccupied and silent no less than ten hours before your patrols begin, to accommodate this. And I am never to hear of any patrol of yours embarking late again, even if it's not your fault, because you are going to be up very early and have plenty of time to help your squadmates into their armor and make sure none of them are trying to get eaten by a nabasu. Do you understand me?"