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Fort #11 is a normal Chelish worldwound fort. It has patrols going out on the half-hour along the wardstone line, coming and going from the neighboring forts, which are for historical reasons not actually numbers ten and twelve. It has training exercises in shooting straight (or raying straight, if you're a wizard), and how to build a fire out of desiccated demon corpse bits and worldwound plants, and how to make a snow shelter, and how to talk Common Taldane if a foreigner shows up or you run into one, and what spells work well on demons, and how to dig cold iron arrowheads out of dead dretches, and refreshers on military regulations and treaty obligations you may have forgotten, and security protocols for managing the risk of succubus etcetera infiltration, in case you're ever in a situation where you need to do those things. Commander Artigas has a reputation of being, not notably cruel - maybe even notably not cruel, depending on how you interpret rumors about some kind of special punishment he can only do if he has three miscreants on his hands at the same time - but certainly never lax, never taking bribes to look the other way or letting something slide just because it'd be inconvenient to reshuffle things to cover someone's correction. He trades units with neighboring forts whenever it's expedient to do so, collecting the personnel and their files. He accepts the platoon Carissa Sevar is attached to with little fanfare when his fort is understrength, and delegates assigning them rooms, and already has their duty schedules drawn up.
" - she's making time and a half on all her magic items, and then some. I wouldn't sabotage that, I get a cut."
"Do understand, Fortuny, that I am not convinced that you wouldn't do something just because it would be incredibly stupid, especially if it would require you to exhibit any self restraint. You're making her worse. It's your move."
He can't think how to salvage his strategy and will just do something else. "In the long run pressure's good for wizards. Makes us stronger. Push her hard enough and you get more out of her over a year, even if she needs to get the fuck over herself and figure out how to handle it."
"Do you think I made fourth circle by having everyone spare my precious feelings and make sure nothing got in my way? She's having a better time than any wizard ever has at wizard school."
"I do not run a wizard school, Fortuny. I run a Worldwound fort. If you want to invest in Sevar's long term arcane potential and spend resources already elsewhere promised to do it you need to clear it with me, not with your dick."
"I haven't spent resources already elsewhere promised. She is ahead of schedule."
Only one move in response. "If you've been accounting around her making double pace, I'll back off her, so she can keep double pace. But that's a favor so you can pad your paycheck more; what is promised to the Wound, the Wound is getting, and has been at every point, except because Sevar decided to waste her own spells on herself, which is her decision you should absolutely make her bleed for."
"The location of Sevar's blood is no longer your concern. I am exchanging you to #15 with platoon #54 tomorrow, your personnel file will contain the phrase 'equipment sabotage' and a recommendation that you not be given any direct reports. I'm promoting Grec because clearly circles do not an officer make. Checkmate."
That is a bizarre and frankly stupid position to take! He's sincerely completely baffled!
......oh, Artigas is himself fucking Sevar. Go figure. "I understand, sir," he says, amused.
Carissa informs future superiors that the fort commander makes a point of learning about her sex life. They draw the obvious inferences and mostly leave her alone. She crafts things.
It is not against regulations to be under the impression that the commander is fucking one of the wizards, and it has no evident operational effects, so it doesn't matter. Presumably she's capable of noticing that he's not fucking her if ever she thinks to herself that she needs to know if the rumor is true.
Grec is a no-nonsense sort in Artigas's mold, only second circle but good at keeping track of personnel and interfacing with supply logistics.
She much preferred having a fourth-circle wizard around who she could learn from but she acknowledges that losing this was her own fault for failing to stay on top of her work.
Artigas does make a point of hosting adventurers who are in the area, and sometimes they are wizards, or have cool stuff for Carissa to look at. There's also Fiducia Boian's party, who do not advertise their exact expected date of arrival but usually swing by #11 sometime in Gozran; Fiducia Boian is a fifth-circle Abadaran cleric and has the party to match. Artigas shows him around personally except when for procedural reasons he needs to look at things without supervision, which everyone is instructed to give him their absolute cooperation in doing, and if anybody is caught in a lie to the Fiducia under Abadar's Truth, which Boian is permitted and encouraged to use as often as he finds necessary to assess the worthiness of the fort, they will be deprived of their alcohol ration and moved to night shift at a minimum.
Unpleasant shifts are an appropriate punishment for being very mildly irritating and wildly lenient for anything real. It is really an incredibly irresponsibly lax fort but it's none of her business and like everyone else present she is its beneficiary and so shuts up about it. There are worse things than a commander who can't be bestirred to actually punish people, at least as long as you're allowed to make up for it by torturing them yourself, and she is!
Fiducia Boian stays for six days, watching operations and reading records.
He wants to know if the rumors are true that Sevar's sleeping with Artigas.
"I'll find out from him if you don't. Seemed out of character and I need to know if he's cracking up."
"I have absolutely no understanding of what moves him to interest in my sex life but it doesn't seem to be a personal interest."
Carissa takes out her frustration about the whole thing coming up again on a bunch of the actual fortress whores.
The well-being of the actual fortress whores is not a command priority except in the sense that he's known to be stingy about ordering new ones if they go through them faster than expected and people might object to her making that a likely problem.
Uh huh, and what're they going to do about it? She's the most powerful wizard around now.