The cathedral is both large and crowded. The windows (With the old glass removed and only half replaced) let in plenty of light and air (and rain and snow, but today the skies are clear); The walls are adorned with sheets of cloth in white and red (To call them tapestries would be generous). Crowds of workmen and militia and injured people and penitents flow past and through each other on their own separate missions; Occasionally a glimpse of white-and-red robes or a pressed white uniform can be seen through the mass of bodies.

Excellent. Valia will endeavor to make herself useful. Do the injured people need Iomedae's healing? She's got that! Water? She's got that too! 

The no-longer-injured people thank her! Some thirsty people thank her too! One of the people in robes takes notice of all this.

"Hello. We have a schedule, actually, so that people know when to come in for healing, and we can do it efficiently, get the most people for the channels."

"Oh, that's sensible. I told people dawn and dusk at home but they all knew me, it's probably more trouble in a place this big. Is there need for a schedule for water? I've never run out of it but I haven't tried doing it all day."

"No, no schedule for water - You're new in the city?"

"I got word to attend the convention. I'm Valia. From Pezzack."

Pezzack rebelled and was still holding out when the war happened. It makes sense that the Goddess would have elevated a cleric there. And being properly Chelish she'd be eligible for the convention. "Great. You're just in time, the convention's going to be held in the big building in the square just west of here, starts tomorrow. We've rooms here if you don't want to find other lodgings. You're - familiar with Iomedae's teachings? You've read the Acts?"

"I'll room here, if I may. I - can't read. I know that Iomedae is the Good goddess of destroying Evil, and that Good's for lots of other things but you've got to beat Evil first to have any of it, and that we can only see a little tiny bit of the battlefield and that's why we listen to Iomedae. I know that because I thought it already and then I got powers when Pezzack rebelled."

Well, illiteracy and not having read the Acts is far from ideal, in someone representing the Church, but she's clearly got the right spirit. And he trusts Iomedae's judgment, of course. What's the worst that could happen?

"Alright. Quarters are through that door over there, up the stairs. Grab any open room, we've got too many right now, or any empty cot in the women's barrack - no, you can't read - you can grab an open room now or someone can show you which one's the women's barrack after seventh bell. Anything else you need?"

"No. Are you going to be at the convention?"

"No. Chelish citizens only, I'm from - uh - the worldwound, I guess, but before that Cassomir. That's in Taldor."

Valia has only the vaguest conception of where Taldor is. She knows about the Worldwound. "Oh. Well probably there'll be someone there from the Church who can read. Can I be signed up for the first channel of the day so I don't miss any convention?"

"Yes, we'll put you in the first spot tomorrow and then maybe some of the evening slots after that when we know what time you'll be back from convention business. Ah - I'm Iustin, what's your name?" He would not have remembered if not for needing to write her down in the schedule.

She already said it but takes no offense whatsoever. They haven't defeated all the Evil even in this city yet, so it follows that he's very busy. "Valia. Valia Wain, in places that want two names, because my father made wagons."

"Oh, right, of course. We've got another delegate here, somewhere - " he looks around " - oh I don't see him. Might be in the back. Blai Artigas, robes, dark hair, beard. If you want to talk about" handwave "convention stuff. Good luck, Goddess go with you, I'm very sorry but -" and Iustin is gone into the crowd again, off to deal with some everyday emergency or other.

Blai can read, evidently, and is frowning at his copy of the Acts.

Oh good. She isn't clear on what a convention is but it seems like it might be useful to be able to read. "I'm Valia. Are you Blai?"

"Yes. Select Blai Artigas. Can I help you?" He likes that phrase. Nobody would have been caught dead saying it before but it's so pleasingly all-encompassing yet noncommittal.

"I was told to come here for the convention, as a priest of Iomedae, only I haven't any formal training." Blai looks like someone who's had formal training. "Do you know anything about what happens at a convention? I talked to a person who said it's to make sure there's no Evil in the government of new Cheliax, and I can do that, but I don't know if it's going to be - fighting, or writing - I can't write - or giving speeches. I'm all right at that."

"What I've gathered is that the new Queen's companion thinks that it's no good if a Queen hares off to do whatever seems like a good idea at the time, and she needs advisors the way all monarchs have, but this companion believes that in fact she needs them so much and in such quantity and variety that you need to gather several hundred people and some of them at outright random, and make them into an advisory body, only to allow us to return to normal life at some point in the process we will be trying to write down all of our advice for Her Majesty to consult later on. And she is humoring her companion on this matter, or else agrees outright, I have heard both theories. I am not sure how we are supposed to do that as a matter of process, since I do not think you can - write down advice in marching formation, that being all I know about doing anything with several hundred people."

"....well, I guess if I think of any advice I'll have you write it down? ....I think the Queen should destroy all the Evil in the realm, put all the diabolists to death and all of the devils, and she should announce it that if you die cleansing the realm of Evil then you'll go to Heaven, so all the people who are too scared to do it will realize it's actually scarier not to. And I think it should be legal to run theatre productions where you show that Abrogail Thrune is - pathetic and doomed and being tortured forever. And we should burn all the schools down and free all the students. And we should give all the churches to Iomedae and Erastil and ship all of the nobles' fancy jewelry and things to be sold to fund Good causes..... oh! and the strix aren't actually monsters so they shouldn't be put to death with all the monsters. I think the Queen knows that because she was there but it'd be an awful thing to get wrong."

He has a notebook, though it's mostly for keeping his correspondence chess straight and it will soon be taxed if she has much more advice than that. "Strix.. aren't... what is it she was there for?"

"A bunch of adventurers came and broke the blockade on Pezzack while they were fighting the Thrunes. I think they thought they'd need to free Pezzack but we'd done that already." 

"Oh." He writes down strix aren't monsters anyway. "There's a passage in the Acts suggesting that just being Evil isn't a good reason to go kill something. I believe it generalizes pretty well beyond orcs but I'm not sure how well it generalizes between different - forms and proximities of a creature just being Evil."

"Well I don't think we ought to follow the demons back to the Abyss and kill them there, that's not a line of battle there's any hope of moving. But you're supposed to kill monsters in Cheliax, one imagines. ....maybe you're not supposed to go scour the forests?"