"What was the first point at which you had contact with another priest of Iomedae, either a lay priest or a Select?"

"- after my own selection or before? I had met paladins at the Worldwound," and reconstructed his personality around some single-digit number of total hours of exposure to them! "before."

"Who had you met, what kinds of interactions had you had with them?"

"I don't remember all of their names. Both adventurers and permanent Worldwound-posted individuals of many types occasionally came through the fort for various operational reasons and some were paladins and most of the paladins were Iomedaean. They were usually not talkative." They usually pitied the soldiers and despised Blai and it was visible from yards away. "I learned some basic things that were justifiable as logistical communication about operational constraints, like that they were not allowed to lie and that they did not consider the Order of the Godclaw to be Iomedaeans in good standing because they considered simultaneous worship of Asmodeus and Iomedae invalid."

"I see. And after you were selected by Iomedae?"

"I don't actually know if Commandant Terzić is a Select or a paladin or a lay priest or just a martial officer, it didn't come up in our correspondence. In person it was here in this temple. I think Iustin may be the first one I spoke to but it was very brief, he handed me off to support staff to assign me a room."

"Were you aware that there were catechism classes that you hadn't taken? Were you interested in taking them?"

"Yes. Extremely. I did not think it was wise to leave my #11 - my fort - to seek them at Crusader's Fort when I believed my only task was to continue to operate #11, and there was no time on the way to the convention, the teleport route goes through Taggun Hold and I had to walk the rest of the way. The urgency has only appeared to increase since then and earlier today I approached Ser Cansellarion to ask him if I might accompany him the next time he teleports to get started on that."

"What was your initial impression of Select Wain?"

"...she's young. Not a child and of course she's been longer Selected than I have but - energetic and inexperienced. She resonates with different - features of Iomedae - than I do, ones that I don't understand intuitively. She can't read and liked me to read to her."

"Did you have concerns about her ability to perform her duties and represent the Goddess at the convention?"

"She's arguably even less catechized than I; I'd had time to read through the whole Acts and she couldn't have even had she owned a copy. I had imagined that after a few more days for things to settle down something might be arranged to educate us both together here in Westcrown - I sent a letter asking for someone to meet me here for that purpose, you can see my copy if you like, but never got a response - but I did not expect it to become a problem so early or so dramatically."

"When was that letter sent?"

"I posted it just before I left Fort #11, so that would have been... a month and a half ago."

"We'll try to figure out what happened to it. DId you hear Valia's speech on the floor?"

"Yes."

"What was your impression of it?"

"I - actually found it very difficult to concentrate on it."

"...difficult to concentrate on it?"

"Yes, it... I have been assuming you're aware of my previous background, is that correct?"

"We are."

"And for some reason for much of the speech I was dwelling on seminary even though that was twenty years ago, I'm not sure why. I had been planning to revisit it under less chaotic circumstances, maybe with Valia that evening, but I was murdered on my way home."

"Were you expecting riots in the streets of Westcrown that night?"

"No. I was aware that I had been denounced in a pamphlet but Valia's speech postdated that publication and I didn't realize that the various pressures would build up like that on that day."

"Did you take measures in response to being denounced in an earlier pamphet? Did you discuss your security with anyone?"