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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.
Well, eventually Grec tells her he's hearing complaints and if he keeps hearing them the commander's going to hear them.
And do what? He didn't even torture her over stealing spells from the fortress and that was operationally relevant!
"Right, but he'll reassign you to someone who will, if you can't keep your nose clean under his rules. I've got letters from two third-circle wizards and more seconds asking if there's a slot here, why should we keep you if you can't do what you're supposed to do in the first place?"
Carissa considers outsourcing your torture to be cowardly and contemptible. "I have followed every rule meticulously. The complaint is that sometimes the whores are out of service because they have been employed, as they are supposed to be, for stress relief. Yes?"
"If somebody puts two bolts at once in his crossbow and then looks at me like he has no idea what I'm complaining about and says that he aimed them, as they were meant to be, at a demon, it's not cute. It's not cute when you do it either."
"I have no specific desire to be at this particular fort. I will follow its rules while I'm here and if I'm reassigned will follow the rules where I'm reassigned. If we're handing out forts based on the dearest fondest desires of everyone's hearts now then I guess you'd better waste Asmodeus's resources rushing whoever dreams in their heart of this fort here. If you want to give me new orders about the whores, fine. 'pathetic people are whining, change your behavior until they stop' is not how to run an organization."
So, Grec actually does have the authority to torture her for insubordination. Artigas is a stickler about infection risk and also about her productivity so he goes with "you can prepare spells in a stress position if you're not a complete loser" just like they did with him at school.
Is he also going to convey new orders about the whores or are we sticking with 'pathetic people are whining, change your behavior until they stop'. Because she will change her behavior but by tracking down whoever complained and making it clear that won't be tolerated.
She's also banned from the whores till further notice. What does she even need them for, she's a woman.
She just likes seeing people suffer and there is not a separate staff available for torturing when in a bad mood. Perhaps he can correct this oversight.
Grec does write in for one more third-circle who wanted a slot at the fort, since they have the budget for it without Fortuny. The new guy doesn't talk to Carissa at all; he's a very head-down sort and mostly associates with archer units, supplying them with Good-aligned Abundant Ammunition on top of the standard Endure Elements and Infernal Healing, and spending his third circle slots on Phantom Steeds or Invisibility Purges during patrol.
Some time later a notice is posted - in the mess hall, the entryway, the barracks wings - that Cheliax is under attack by the soi-disant "Glorious Reclamation" allied with a party of archmages and they should expect some supply disruptions as forces are reassigned. Artigas is cutting rations - not to half, but to seven-eighths, for now - and the new archer-unit wizard is required elsewhere and doesn't come back from his next patrol, having been obliged to continue on to meet a teleporter wizard and be redeployed. The orders of those who remain at the fort remain the same. Hold the Wound.
Asmodeus is stronger than any of those things and Carissa holds them in contempt for attempting it. They will learn from their mistakes in Hell eternally. Whatever.
Yeah, no, a week later the notices are replaced with new ones saying that Cheliax has been conquered by those guys in what they're now calling the Four Day War, orders remain the same, hold the Wound. One of the junior clerics tries to desert his unit and get on a chain of patrols that would in theory eventually let out in Kenabres, and Artigas has him hauled back, summarily convicted of desertion, and executed.
Carissa is not particularly inspired to desertion. The Worldwound is probably the safest place to be. The new government also won't want the world overrun by demons. She is deeply confused but Asmodeus permitted this so it's presumably part of His plan. The thing to do is just to keep one's head down and work every waking minute and not come to anyone's attention no matter what.
Things proceed almost normally, for some time, and if one's head is very down one might not even notice the change in tone of the various mutterings. Rations remain at 7/8.
"Sevar, a minute," says Grec, one morning, when she's in the middle of preparing her spells.
"This isn't going up on the wall because it's delicate, but everyone's going to find out.
"Every cleric in the fort woke up without spells this morning and I've heard from the patrol that just came back from #15 that theirs did too."
We are all worthless before Asmodeus but he exerts himself to claim us anyway.
Except apparently He - doesn't? It turns out there was actually such a thing as 'too worthless', and -
"We're going to lose the Wound. Sir." Clerics are extremely important.
"Probably. Meantime - Artigas remains in command, and I told everybody in my chain who's less of an ungrateful bitch before I told you. If you fuck with him you'll die. I don't care about the other priests but he probably does and I will if he tells me to."
Is he somehow under the impression that Carissa would ordinarily murder the fort commander, but not if she's told that she'll get in trouble for it?
"Has the commander claimed that I am insufficiently grateful? If told what to be grateful for I will be very diligently grateful. I am not a traitor to Cheliax."
"Most people don't have to be told to be grateful that he likes chess instead of torture and prefers not being eaten by demons over not being petty and wasteful, you imbecile. You'll want more Infernal Healing and a Phantom Steed. If you want to pull a miracle out of your ass and learn to make wands this afternoon that'd help. You are under orders to lend your coat to anyone on patrol who's smaller than you and wants it over their normal one, if we have to send out un-abjured patrols, and you may sit in the kitchen to warm up while coatless if the kitchen staff aren't moved to complain."