Why did it have to be locusts? Abramo despises locusts.

He will send the historian, whatshername, as the forlorn hope to distract the enemy; she does not seem particularly useful for anything else.

It is perhaps fortunate that Ember came along on this, even if it was "an experiment". The vulnerability curse combines nicely with Burning Hands against swarms of insects that are otherwise fairly resistant to our magics. And the Deep Slumber curse is a one-in-three chance of instantly knocking out a Royal Guard.

Seelah does not like to complain, but maybe the civilian whose cries attract more demons would have been a good opportunity to practice the virtue of triage!

Sorry. Best guess was that the echoing, "building-up" quality was some sort of attack and leaving him there would have been even worse.

Otolmens observes that the VULNERABILITY CURSE requires a specific target and is not useful against SWARMS.

Curses!

That appears INACCURATE. The problem is that there is only one CURSE. If there were curses PLURAL then they might affect more than a MINUSCULE portion of the SWARM.

So by exchanging Seelah's sword for a heavy mace, and some other, similar changes to our equipment, we can get vastly more efficient at fighting insects; it turns out they squish much better than they slice. Obviously Abramo totally foresaw this problem and absolutely made the change before entering the canyon. 

As for the Vescavor Queen, it has spell resistance up the wazoo, but oddly enough no damage resistance. Between Smite Evil and Smite Chaos, it does not put up that much of a fight.

She did however have an insider who placed locust-attracting items in our gear.

Cultist traitors among the crusaders? Oh, what a surprise. This is Regill's surprised face. Yes, it's just like his regular face, that's because he's constantly being surprised by this sort of thing. 

One would think Nurah would have some sort of comment on her role as a distraction for the locusts, but no.

Oh well. We can all level up. Woljif can learn Fireball, that'll be useful the next time we encounter a swarm enemy; at least if they're not resistant to fire. Swarms seem rather difficult in general.

Horgus Gwerm shows up again and offers to finance mercenaries. 

Abramo has slightly lowered his standards for what it means to be rich. Horgus Gwerm still does not make the cut; he's not bankrolling even a single legion for this campaigning season. Nonetheless all contributions gratefully accepted, even from nouveau-riche impostors with delusions of grandeur.

Although we overcame the Leper's Smile, the delay gave the demons time to move up a strong blocking force - too strong to risk the casualties of overcoming it; Abramo has only this one irreplaceable army, while the demons can call on all the infinite Abyss. Which makes speed all the more important - but if it can't be done, it can't be done. The Urals Line was never taken either, in spite of all the blood shed in those mountains; it was outflanked to the south. Abramo will take the lesson, and send his scouts out to probe for a flank.

(The Eurasian War, in Abramo's timeline, did not have a long period in which the main armies had no fighting front; consequently it did not develop strong strategic-bomber forces. So Abramo does not think of attempting to treat Drezen as Dresden was treated, in spite of the coincidental similarity of names. In any case he has no air force of any kind.)

This is more like the war Abramo knew, though on an absurdly tiny scale: The scouts, patrols, and fortified outposts define something like a recognizable front line, with a crusader salient running along the Sellen in the direction of Drezen. Abramo knows what to do, in such a war, when your enemy brings up strong forces and your offensive runs out of steam: Halt, dig in to consolidate your gains, search for the weak points that moving troops to block you must inevitably have created... and mobilise, recruit, produce. Abramo has now had time to study the geopolitics of his new world; "infinite Abyss" or not, it is clear to him that the nations of Avistan could easily retake Drezen, if they put their backs into the effort. The Fifth Crusade is nowhere near the limit of the resources that could be mobilised in its support, if the state capacity and the political will existed. 

It will, of course, do no good to point this out; Abramo is hardly the first to realise it. What is needed is a means of creating that political will. And in this, as in other things, there is no substitute for victory. Abramo will go hunting.

We meet the kobold bard Crinukh. A night ambush allows us to learn that Schir are no longer much of a threat when the party is not restrained by the need to conserve spells; Nenio's Phantasmal Killer drops the first one in its tracks, and from there it's a rout.

The search for a flank takes us past Chilly Creek, where we visit Jernaugh, the cleric of Erastil, as promised. And also a hydra who happens to be attacking the village just as we arrive. Hydras are not that tough, as it turns out.

Neither are dire wolves, but there's something weird about a village with this amount of predatory wildlife right on its threshold.

There is clearly Something Going On here with the Icy Rill and the dolls, but it's beyond Abramo's ability to unravel in the time he can devote to it. He'll have to leave it for the priest of Erastil.

The search for a flank bears fruit. The main road to Drezen, south of the dry riverbed, is blocked by powerful forts strongly garrisoned by demons. But by fording the small stream that runs into the Sellen, one can find a place where the cliffs have been eroded into something practicable for formed units and their logistics train; and this is guarded by a relatively weak force of cultists, who scatter in the face of a Hellknight charge, allowing Abramo's army to advance onto the plateau on which Drezen stands.

It is not a sure thing; nothing in war is certain, and there is no information on the interior of the plateau. But it is a victory and a way forward, and Abramo milks it for all it is worth. He gathers the bards he's been having Daeran recruit.

I was told those were here to chronicle my deeds in the crusade!

And they will assuredly do so, when there are any to chronicle. Meanwhile they can make themselves useful by spreading Abramo's translated propaganda; it has a catchy tune.

Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song!
Sing it with a spirit that will start the gods along!
Sing it, so the demons hear us, several thousand strong,
as we go marching through the Worldwound!

Hurrah! Hurrah! The Fifth Crusade are we!
Hurrah! Hurrah! We'll set Sarkoris free!
Sing the chorus with us from Kenabres to the sea,
as we go marching through the Worldwound!

How the mongrels shouted when they heard that joyful sound!
How the cultists gabbled which our inquisition found!
How the filthy zombies even started from the ground,
as we went marching through Kenabres!

Hurrah, hurrah...

"Abramo's lawful crusade boys will soon give up the ghost!"
So the vile Deskari said; a foul anarchic boast.
Looks like he forgot, indeed, to reckon with our host
as we go marching through the Worldwound!

Hurrah, hurrah...

Unlike the "Battle Hymn of the Fifth Crusade", this has a direct call to action: "Sing the chorus with us, from Kenabres to the sea" - and it makes that call just as the news of victory arrives from a front that has not moved for a decade. Suddenly the Fifth Crusade is on everyone's lips, from Absalom to Zirnakaynin. And though it will take a while for recruits to arrive, as they have to physically walk across the face of Golarion, the donations are managed by the church of Abadar and move at the speed of capital.

Very rapidly, that is. Even by the standards of Abramo's world, which did not have Sending, a worldwide currency, and a borderless bank run by people whose god will demonstrably smite them if their fingers grow sticky. Even the Banco di Venezia, which set the quite literal gold standard on which Abramo's world ran for half a millennium, would have struggled a bit to meet that standard!

Unfortunately, the plateau does not have any roads that both go in the right direction and are passable by formed military units. Abramo hides his dismay as best he can. He was never the sort of war leader with a genius for operations or tactics, any more than he is a great man of his hands. Logistics and strategy and propaganda to hold together a fragile coalition against an enemy with literal mind control, those are his strengths. And if the Manuale di Tattica mentioned what to do after the step "pin the enemy front and send the reserve company around their flank" fails to find a flank, he cannot now bring the text to mind.

The Hellknights have a proverb that may be applicable.

"If you're going through Hell, keep going".

Yes. Abramo looks through the scouting reports again - and finds some hope. The reported garrisons are strong, yes; too strong for the army he had, when he first reached the confluence of the Sellen. But, while there are many adjectives that can be applied to the demons, 'organized' is not one of them, nor is 'proactive'.

Abramo, being of the mid-twentieth century, will not think of the obvious corpspeak-is-demonic joke here; anyway it's more associated with Lawful Evil.