Abramo has WIS in the twenties and Perception likewise; he can take a hint when it's yelled at him by a demon-goddess who is clearly having the usual reaction of people encountering Ember's class ability Armor-Piercing Question while constrained from trying to kill her. He will shoo.

Good! It's not like Nocticula was affected by the dialogue, or anything! She's bored with this whole encounter and she wants to be alone to think dancing! With her whole court! And music! And maybe an orgy of... whipping, that always makes her relieved that it's not her being whipped anymore puts her in a good mood! Right right, whips and chains and Abyssal liquors and loud music and definitely not thinking about questions from mortals who aren't even a century old, that's the ticket!

Indeed, absolutely no thinking about what she is doing with her life existence. That sounds like it would be really...

...awful. 

Then we can finally and at last be out of the Abyss, all details of the subquest involving a dragon, a poop elemental, and a final confrontation with Baphomet (?) having evaporated from my memory while I was stuck Not Writing Ember And Nocticula. It wasn't as interesting anyway, mostly a lot of combat, and it appears to me that late-game WOTR combat doesn't have so much of the interesting resource-management and tactical-puzzle element as the early game does. It's not as much fun when you can just fling six-or-seven Storms of Justice, or other ninth-circle fight-finishers, in a row.

Oh, right. Places that aren't the Abyss have... air, fresh and sweet-smelling air, that doesn't constantly claw at your Will save and Wisdom with whispers of withering vengeance. That's... oof. Abramo hadn't quite realized just how much he was holding himself tense to oppose the constant draining Chaos of the place; not even the Evil so much, but just... it's not a very good place for a Lawful character to be. 

Or for anyone, he supposes. He wouldn't in a hundred years have thought to say what Ember did, to Nocticula, but... points were made.

All that said: Is his memory badly distorted by spending however-long-it-was, vastly too long even if it wasn't literal years, in the Abyss; or is Drezen not supposed to smell of smoke quite so strongly?

Nope, you're mistaken! Definitely supposed to be like that! Also, to have Vrocks hanging about on random street corners like Kenabres had dretches!

So yeah. Running the Resistance in a city occupied by demons after the regular army has gone somewhere else, and all that's left is guerrilla action, protracted struggle, and the ever-fading hope that things will get bad enough enough better elsewhere that the Inheritor can intervene here. If Anevia had a small amount of money for every time she's done that, she'd have two coppers. Which isn't a lot but it is the traditional offering to give the reapers in payment for the service of guarding the River of Souls, so it's good that Anevia has it, or would, if she was getting paid for this. Except of course whatever killed her would probably loot her body and not place the coins on her eyes at all. So it doesn't really matter.

(Anevia is possibly a little loopy with relief, or sleep deprivation. One of those two, definitely.)

Uh, glad to see you back, Knight-Commander. I mean Fiducia.

Lay on Hands: Remove Fatigue.

Thank you, Seelah.

The Queen, the army, and the Sword of Valor have marched on Iz. Drezen is overrun by demons again. It... may not be quite as disastrous as it looks. It would be worth it, right? To sacrifice Drezen temporarily, if you could win the war at Iz? Hard on the garrison, sure, but... that's how triage works out, sometimes.

Indeed. If marching your army off its base of supply through a wasteland that absolutely cannot be foraged in, for the chance of a decisive battle at the end of your march, which you might win without your arm of decision most powerful casters present, would win the war... then yes, it would be worth sacrificing Drezen. Or if it couldn't be held, but you could save something and retreat across the ocean, to save your army in being and keep the field against a locally overwhelming foe, yes, Abramo made that decision once. But... to be honest, he does not think Galfrey is the absolute finest Iomedae's church has to offer, in terms of making hard tradeoffs and triage decisions.

"A hundred years of experience ought to count for something."

Indeed it ought. Regill has approximately two hundred years of experience at the difference between "ought" and "is". That's why his surprised face is identical to his regular face. He does rather wonder why Galfrey chose to mention a single century, as though it were a long lifespan, in front of a party that included a gnome, an elf, and a presumably-immortal succubus.

Well. Second-guessing the Queen may be amusing, but it seems unlikely to have a high return on investment. This party has built up from small-scale guerrilla resistance to third-stage strategic offensive once before, starting with far fewer resources and a corrupted Wardstone. And it has fought dragons, demons, and allegedly Baphomet Himself. Street fighting against Vrocks and Nabasu who don't even have a corrupting Abyssal tailwind at their backs... eh. It sounds doable.

Nonetheless it remains true that one small special-forces strike team is not actually sufficient to retake a whole city, even one which would have some difficulty scraping together a five-digit number of inhabitants on a good day. We will need to encourage the human population currently scuttling around like rats in the walls and being conscripted into slave labor for the demonic war effort.

...and as supplies for the demonic war effort. 'Demonic' is a pretty good adjective here. They don't even have the decency to insert 'emergency' in front of 'rations'.

The Italian peninsula was occupied for most of the Eurasian War, even to the end; it wasn't liberated by the armies of Venezia-oltre-il-Mare, but by the diktat of the victorious human powers. The fighting fronts passed north of the Alps: into the shrinking muddy perimeter of Germany, around the Scandinavian ice-fortress that the Jackal's cat's-paws held to the end, and over the Atlantic into the Isles. Abramo couldn't do much to aid the Resistance there, from his base in Damietta; rifles and explosives smuggled across the wine-dark waters, and the occasional radio broadcast announcing victories in Egypt and India to show that the struggle continued, that was the most he could spare. The Italian people rose to the challenge nonetheless, just as the Russians and the Greeks did. When Abramo reaches into his memories of war, to look for propaganda suited to resistance against an overwhelmingly powerful occupying enemy, he finds it ready-made, needing only translation.

One early morning, before the sunrise,
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao!
One early morning, before the sunrise,
that was when the demons came.

Crusader army, oh take me with you,
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao!
Crusader army, oh take me with you,
and wash away my sins.

And if I fall there, in righteous struggle,
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao!
And if I fall there, in righteous struggle,
I'll face my judgement fearlessly.

And by my graveside, you'll plant a flower,
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao!
And by my graveside, you'll plant a flower,
to show I fought for what is right.

And all who pass there, and see the flower,
Bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao!
And all who pass there, and see the flower,
will say, ``for him the Summerlands''.

And if someone were to think quietly to themselves that the "bella" whom the singer wishes will fare well, is ambiguous, but that Queen Galfrey is notoriously a great beauty and she certainly did leave Drezen behind... well, Abramo's not an inquisitor, nor did he lead a police state. Nobody is getting arrested for thoughtcrime on his watch. Nor for lese-majeste.

He has demons to fight, and infrastructure to rebuild.