There's a frisson of magic over the Wound.  It's not visible without a Detect but there's some twinge in the air, and Blai puts down his quill and casts the orison to squint at the slowly resolving divination-transmutation.  He grabs his Light-ornament, still glowing to let him write his letter, and steps out of the office - it's here too - "I need Grec at once!" he calls, it's unlikely the man's in earshot but if he's not somebody'll fetch him.  There's a soldier on interior patrol duty - you don't need to do interior patrols as religiously as the border patrols, but it's not wise to have corners and corridors that are reliably unobserved at any particular hour.  The soldier salutes and starts running.

The divination is looking right at Blai.  It's looking at everyone.  The transmutation gets sharper, stronger - Blai's Guidance pops -

- the running man goes grey, grey like granite, his red-decorated snow-visibility uniform with him, and the momentum carries him forward and he falls to the floor, crashing with a sound like a rockslide, and there's stone fingers and stone hair and chips of stone wool and stone fur flying everywhere.  There are shouts, from lower down in the fortress, and Blai tears his eyes away from the petrified soldier to charge down the stairs.

Statue on the landing.  Statues in the corridors.  Statues at the observation posts.  A live man, one of the martial officers, flinging himself out of the privy without his pants all the way done up yet, looking around wildly in alarm.  "Sir!"

"You sweep the barracks, gather anyone still moving in the mess," snaps Blai, and he keeps looking for Grec.

Grec has his own room, a couple floors down from Blai's tower suite.  He's in it, caught with his eyes wide and his hand mid-gesture.  Blai leaves him in his chair.

Down on the ground floor in the camp followers' quarters there's two whores and a cook who aren't stone, but one of the whores is dead, crushed beneath the man she was with when he was petrified, suffocated under his granite weight before anyone noticed her.  The horses are all fine.  A fraction of the officers are all right.  Blai's the only Asmodean cleric who made it.  None of the wizards came through.  Two of the visiting adventurers are still moving, and the only mercy to having ninety-eight percent of his men wiped out is that at least they don't think this mess is a Chelish plot to kill their sorcerer and their druid.  Who could have possibly done it remains a mystery, let alone who would.  Blai gets everyone who can still walk into the mess hall, waiting for some pattern to emerge.

Out of nowhere: "Aroden," says the surviving camp follower in wonder, falling to her knees.  "Aroden," echoes the adventurer cleric, a Gozrehn who Blai officially declined to suspect of having been born in Cheliax; she's helping, after all, and there's a treaty about that.  "Aroden!" says the cook, clutching her skirts.

Blai didn't hear anything.  It looks like the adventuring fighter and ranger didn't either, but they're looking at the Gozrehn for answers and Blai doesn't have a better idea.  "What about Him?" asks the fighter.

"He's returned to claim Cheliax and his allies are on their way to close the Worldwound," says the Gozrehn, distantly.

"Are you telling me," says the fighter, "Aroden showed up and - what, turned everyone around the Wound who - pinged evil, I guess - to stone -"

The Gozrehn nods.

"That's a lie," says Blai, "it can't be Aroden -"

"Because He's dead," chimes in one of the sergeants.

"I'd believe He turned out not to be that dead after all," says Blai.  "Stranger things have... but not like this."

"Why?" asks the Gozrehn.

There's a statue standing over the stewpot, holding the wooden spoon that keeps bits of meat and rice from sticking to the bottom of the giant cauldron that feeds the fort.  There's a statue at a mess table holding a handful of stone cards; it's no longer possible to tell if he had a good hand or a bad one, the cards turned to the same grey as the rest of him, but he was smirking across the table at his friend.  Statues in the barracks, night-shift patrollers caught asleep.  Statues on patrol, halted in their hunt for a demon they might have been about to find and kill to shake off its stun - all the powerful demons will easily make a save that Blai managed to pass even in their sleep - and any moment the demon will awaken and smash them to pieces.  Every fort on the northern border will look just like this one, down to the suffocating whores and the half-and-half adventuring parties and one apparently-nonevil cook chanting Aroden's name over and over again -

"Aroden was Lawful," says Blai.  His voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

"So?" says the fighter.

The treaty at the Worldwound is very easy to sign on to informally.  You just - help at the Worldwound, at all.  Fortress #11 is too out of the way to get a lot of random runaways, but Blai sends and receives a lot of mail, and he knows what you do if you're posted near a permanent settlement and somebody runs in looking for shelter.  If you think you can use them you ask them if they saw any demons on their way in.  If they answer the question, either which way, they're helping.  They're covered.  If they fuck around on duty their own command can punish them, but the treaty doesn't let you interfere with your neighboring Worldwound defenders - obliges you to help them, in a lot of situations - this petrification stunt is not the cooperative ideal that Blai rode through the snow to Remove Disease every day in a den of people who hated him for -

"Aroden was Lawful.  We have a treaty," says Blai, and Blai's feelings don't matter but this is rising to the level of an operational constraint.  Law matters, the treaty that would have let Aroden have a world to come back to if He was going to do such a thing matters, not turning a fortful - a score of forts full! - of men who sheltered under that treaty into a museum - matters -

"It was probably Areelu Vorlesh or something," whispers Blai, but the adventurers are ignoring him, now, and the officers aren't listening closely enough to hear him either, and the cook is crooning Aroden, Aroden, like there would be anything left worth worshiping, if the god died and came back without his Law.

There's a frisson of magic over the Wound.  It's not visible without a Detect but there's some twinge in the air, and Blai puts down his quill and casts the orison to squint at the slowly resolving divination-transmutation.  He grabs his Light-ornament, still glowing to let him write his letter, and steps out of the office - it's here too - "I need Grec at once!" he calls, it's unlikely the man's in earshot but if he's not somebody'll fetch him.  There's a soldier on interior patrol duty - you don't need to do interior patrols as religiously as the border patrols, but it's not wise to have corners and corridors that are reliably unobserved at any particular hour.  The soldier salutes and starts running.

The divination is looking right at Blai.  It's looking at everyone.  The transmutation gets sharper, stronger - Blai's Guidance pops -

- the running man goes grey, grey like granite, his red-decorated snow-visibility uniform with him, and the momentum carries him forward and he falls to the floor, crashing with a sound like a rockslide, and there's stone fingers and stone hair and chips of stone wool and stone fur flying everywhere.  There are shouts, from lower down in the fortress, and Blai tears his eyes away from the petrified soldier to charge down the stairs.

Statue on the landing.  Statues in the corridors.  Statues at the observation posts.  A live man, one of the martial officers, flinging himself out of the privy without his pants all the way done up yet, looking around wildly in alarm.  "Sir!"

"You sweep the barracks, gather anyone still moving in the mess," snaps Blai, and he keeps looking for Grec.

Grec has his own room, a couple floors down from Blai's tower suite.  He's in it, caught with his eyes wide and his hand mid-gesture.  Blai leaves him in his chair.

Down on the ground floor in the camp followers' quarters there's two whores and a cook who aren't stone, but one of the whores is dead, crushed beneath the man she was with when he was petrified, suffocated under his granite weight before anyone noticed her.  The horses are all fine.  A fraction of the officers are all right.  Blai's the only Asmodean cleric who made it.  None of the wizards came through.  Two of the visiting adventurers are still moving, and the only mercy to having ninety-eight percent of his men wiped out is that at least they don't think this mess is a Chelish plot to kill their sorcerer and their druid.  Who could have possibly done it remains a mystery, let alone who would.  Blai gets everyone who can still walk into the mess hall, waiting for some pattern to emerge.

Out of nowhere: "Aroden," says the surviving camp follower in wonder, falling to her knees.  "Aroden," echoes the adventurer cleric, a Gozrehn who Blai officially declined to suspect of having been born in Cheliax; she's helping, after all, and there's a treaty about that.  "Aroden!" says the cook, clutching her skirts.

Blai didn't hear anything.  It looks like the adventuring fighter and ranger didn't either, but they're looking at the Gozrehn for answers and Blai doesn't have a better idea.  "What about Him?" asks the fighter.

"He's returned to claim Cheliax and his allies are on their way to close the Worldwound," says the Gozrehn, distantly.

"Are you telling me," says the fighter, "Aroden showed up and - what, turned everyone around the Wound who - pinged evil, I guess - to stone -"

The Gozrehn nods.

"That's a lie," says Blai, "it can't be Aroden -"

"Because He's dead," chimes in one of the sergeants.

"I'd believe He turned out not to be that dead after all," says Blai.  "Stranger things have... but not like this."

"Why?" asks the Gozrehn.

There's a statue standing over the stewpot, holding the wooden spoon that keeps bits of meat and rice from sticking to the bottom of the giant cauldron that feeds the fort.  There's a statue at a mess table holding a handful of stone cards; it's no longer possible to tell if he had a good hand or a bad one, the cards turned to the same grey as the rest of him, but he was smirking across the table at his friend.  Statues in the barracks, night-shift patrollers caught asleep.  Statues on patrol, halted in their hunt for a demon they might have been about to find and kill, petrified while it waits to shake off its stun - all the powerful demons will easily make a save that Blai managed to pass even in their sleep - and any moment the demon will awaken and smash them to pieces.  Every fort on the northern border will look just like this one, down to the suffocating whores and the half-and-half adventuring parties and one apparently-nonevil cook chanting Aroden's name over and over again -

"Aroden was Lawful," says Blai.  His voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

"So?" says the fighter.

The treaty at the Worldwound is very easy to sign on to informally.  You just - help at the Worldwound, at all.  Fortress #11 is too out of the way to get a lot of random runaways, but Blai sends and receives a lot of mail, and he knows what you do if you're posted near a permanent settlement and somebody runs in looking for shelter.  If you think you can use them you ask them if they saw any demons on their way in.  If they answer the question, either which way, they're helping.  They're covered.  If they fuck around on duty their own command can punish them, but the treaty doesn't let you interfere with your neighboring Worldwound defenders - obliges you to help them, in a lot of situations - this petrification stunt is not the cooperative ideal that Blai rode through the snow to Remove Disease every day in a den of people who hated him for -

"Aroden was Lawful.  We have a treaty," says Blai, and Blai's feelings don't matter but this is rising to the level of an operational constraint.  Law matters, the treaty that would have let Aroden have a world to come back to if He was going to do such a thing matters, not turning a fortful - a score of forts full! - of men who sheltered under that treaty into a museum - matters -

"It was probably Areelu Vorlesh or something," whispers Blai, but the adventurers are ignoring him, now, and the officers aren't listening closely enough to hear him either, and the cook is crooning Aroden, Aroden, like there would be anything left worth worshiping, if the god died and came back without his Law.

There's a frisson of magic over the Wound.  It's not visible without a Detect but there's some twinge in the air, and Blai puts down his quill and casts the orison to squint at the slowly resolving divination-transmutation.  He grabs his Light-ornament, still glowing to let him write his letter, and steps out of the office - it's here too - "I need Grec at once!" he calls, it's unlikely the man's in earshot but if he's not somebody'll fetch him.  There's a soldier on interior patrol duty - you don't need to do interior patrols as religiously as the border patrols, but it's not wise to have corners and corridors that are reliably unobserved at any particular hour.  The soldier salutes and starts running.

The divination is looking right at Blai.  It's looking at everyone.  The transmutation gets sharper, stronger - Blai's Guidance pops -

- the running man goes grey, grey like granite, his red-decorated snow-visibility uniform with him, and the momentum carries him forward and he falls to the floor, crashing with a sound like a rockslide, and there's stone fingers and stone hair and chips of stone wool and stone fur flying everywhere.  There are shouts, from lower down in the fortress, and Blai tears his eyes away from the petrified soldier to charge down the stairs.

Statue on the landing.  Statues in the corridors.  Statues at the observation posts.  A live man, one of the martial officers, flinging himself out of the privy without his pants all the way done up yet, looking around wildly in alarm.  "Sir!"

"You sweep the barracks, gather anyone still moving in the mess," snaps Blai, and he keeps looking for Grec.

Grec has his own room, a couple floors down from Blai's tower suite.  He's in it, caught with his eyes wide and his hand mid-gesture.  Blai leaves him in his chair.

Down on the ground floor in the camp followers' quarters there's two whores and a cook who aren't stone, but one of the whores is dead, crushed beneath the man she was with when he was petrified, suffocated under his granite weight before anyone noticed her.  The horses are all fine.  A fraction of the officers are all right.  Blai's the only Asmodean cleric who made it.  None of the wizards came through.  Two of the visiting adventurers are still moving, and the only mercy to having ninety-eight percent of his men wiped out is that at least they don't think this mess is a Chelish plot to kill their sorcerer and their druid.  Who could have possibly done it remains a mystery, let alone who would.  Blai gets everyone who can still walk into the mess hall, waiting for some pattern to emerge.

Out of nowhere: "Aroden," says the surviving camp follower in wonder, falling to her knees.  "Aroden," echoes the adventurer cleric, a Gozrehn who Blai officially declined to suspect of having been born in Cheliax; she's helping, after all, and there's a treaty about that.  "Aroden!" says the cook, clutching her skirts.

Blai didn't hear anything.  It looks like the adventuring fighter and ranger didn't either, but they're looking at the Gozrehn for answers and Blai doesn't have a better idea.  "What about Him?" asks the fighter.

"He's returned to claim Cheliax and his allies are on their way to close the Worldwound," says the Gozrehn, distantly.

"Are you telling me," says the fighter, "Aroden showed up and - what, turned everyone around the Wound who - pinged evil, I guess - to stone -"

The Gozrehn nods.

"That's a lie," says Blai, "it can't be Aroden -"

"Because He's dead," chimes in one of the sergeants.

"I'd believe He turned out not to be that dead after all," says Blai.  "Stranger things have... but not like this."

"Why?" asks the Gozrehn.

There's a statue standing over the stewpot, holding the wooden spoon that keeps bits of meat and rice from sticking to the bottom of the giant cauldron that feeds the fort.  There's a statue at a mess table holding a handful of stone cards; it's no longer possible to tell if he had a good hand or a bad one, the cards turned to the same grey as the rest of him, but he was smirking across the table at his friend.  Statues in the barracks, night-shift patrollers caught asleep.  Statues on patrol, halted in their hunt for a demon they might have been about to find and kill, petrified while it waits to shake off its stun - all the powerful demons will easily make a save that Blai managed to pass even in their sleep - and any moment the demon will awaken and smash them to pieces.  Every fort on the northern border will look just like this one, down to the suffocating whores and the half-and-half adventuring parties and one apparently-nonevil cook chanting Aroden's name over and over again -

"Aroden was Lawful," says Blai.  His voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

"So?" says the fighter.

The treaty at the Worldwound is very easy to sign on to informally.  You just - help at the Worldwound, at all.  Fortress #11 is too out of the way to get a lot of random runaways, but Blai sends and receives a lot of mail, and he knows what you do if you're posted near a permanent settlement and somebody runs in looking for shelter.  If you think you can use them you ask them if they saw any demons on their way in.  If they answer the question, either which way, they're helping.  They're covered.  If they fuck around on duty their own command can punish them, but the treaty doesn't let you interfere with your neighboring Worldwound defenders - obliges you to help them, in a lot of situations - this petrification stunt is not the cooperative ideal that Blai rode through the snow to Remove Disease every day in a den of people who hated him for -

"Aroden was Lawful.  We have a treaty," says Blai, and Blai's feelings don't matter but this is rising to the level of an operational constraint.  Law matters, the treaty that would have let Aroden have a world to come back to if He was going to do such a thing matters, not turning a fortful - a score of forts full! - of men who sheltered under that treaty into a museum - matters -

"It was probably Areelu Vorlesh or something," whispers Blai, but the adventurers are ignoring him, now, and the officers aren't listening closely enough to hear him either, and the cook is crooning Aroden, Aroden, like there would be anything left worth worshiping, if the god died and came back without His Law.

There's a frisson of magic over the Wound.  It's not visible without a Detect but there's some twinge in the air, and Blai puts down his quill and casts the orison to squint at the slowly resolving divination-transmutation.  He grabs his Light-ornament, still glowing to let him write his letter, and steps out of the office - it's here too - "I need Grec at once!" he calls, it's unlikely the man's in earshot but if he's not somebody'll fetch him.  There's a soldier on interior patrol duty - you don't need to do interior patrols as religiously as the border patrols, but it's not wise to have corners and corridors that are reliably unobserved at any particular hour.  The soldier salutes and starts running.

The divination is looking right at Blai.  It's looking at everyone.  The transmutation gets sharper, stronger - Blai's Guidance pops -

- the running man goes grey, grey like granite, his red-decorated snow-visibility uniform with him, and the momentum carries him forward and he falls to the floor, crashing with a sound like a rockslide, and there's stone fingers and stone hair and chips of stone wool and stone fur flying everywhere.  There are shouts, from lower down in the fortress, and Blai tears his eyes away from the petrified soldier to charge down the stairs.

Statue on the landing.  Statues in the corridors.  Statues at the observation posts.  A live man, one of the martial officers, flinging himself out of the privy without his pants all the way done up yet, looking around wildly in alarm.  "Sir!"

"You sweep the barracks, gather anyone still moving in the mess," snaps Blai, and he keeps looking for Grec.

Grec has his own room, a couple floors down from Blai's tower suite.  He's in it, caught with his eyes wide and his hand mid-gesture.  Blai leaves him in his chair.

Down on the ground floor in the camp followers' quarters there's two whores and a cook who aren't stone, but one of the whores is dead, crushed beneath the man she was with when he was petrified, suffocated under his granite weight before anyone noticed her.  The horses are all fine.  A fraction of the officers are all right.  Blai's the only Asmodean cleric who made it.  None of the wizards came through.  Two of the visiting adventurers are still moving, and the only mercy to having ninety-eight percent of his men wiped out is that at least they don't think this mess is a Chelish plot to kill their sorcerer and their druid.  Who could have possibly done it remains a mystery, let alone who would.  Blai gets everyone who can still walk into the mess hall, waiting for some pattern to emerge.

Out of nowhere: "Aroden," says the surviving camp follower in wonder, falling to her knees.  "Aroden," echoes the adventurer cleric, a Gozrehn who Blai officially declined to suspect of having been born in Cheliax; she's helping, after all, and there's a treaty about that.  "Aroden!" says the cook, clutching her skirts.

Blai didn't hear anything.  It looks like the adventuring fighter and ranger didn't either, but they're looking at the Gozrehn for answers and Blai doesn't have a better idea.  "What about Him?" asks the fighter.

"He's returned to claim Cheliax and his allies are on their way to close the Worldwound," says the Gozrehn, distantly.

"Are you telling me," says the fighter, "Aroden showed up and - what, turned everyone around the Wound who - pinged evil, I guess - to stone -"

The Gozrehn nods.

"That's a lie," says Blai, "it can't be Aroden -"

"Because He's dead," chimes in one of the sergeants.

"I'd believe He turned out not to be that dead after all," says Blai.  "Stranger things have... but not like this."

"Why?" asks the Gozrehn.

There's a statue standing over the stewpot, holding the wooden spoon that keeps bits of meat and rice from sticking to the bottom of the giant cauldron that feeds the fort.  There's a statue at a mess table holding a handful of stone cards; it's no longer possible to tell if he had a good hand or a bad one, the cards turned to the same grey as the rest of him, but he was smirking across the table at his friend.  Statues in the barracks, night-shift patrollers caught asleep.  Statues on patrol, halted in their hunt for a demon they might have been about to find and kill, petrified while it waits to shake off its stun - all the powerful demons will easily make a save that Blai managed to pass even in their sleep - and any moment the demon will awaken and smash them to pieces.  Every fort on the northern border will look just like this one, down to the suffocating whores and the half-and-half adventuring parties and one apparently-nonevil cook chanting Aroden's name over and over again -

"Aroden was Lawful," says Blai.  His voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

"So?" says the fighter.

The treaty at the Worldwound is very easy to sign on to informally.  You just - help at the Worldwound, at all.  Fortress #11 is too out of the way to get a lot of random runaways, but Blai sends and receives a lot of mail, and he knows what you do if you're posted near a permanent settlement and somebody runs in looking for shelter.  If you think you can use them you ask them if they saw any demons on their way in.  If they answer the question, either which way, they're helping.  They're covered.  If they fuck around on duty their own command can punish them, but the treaty doesn't let you interfere with your neighboring Worldwound defenders - obliges you to help them, in a lot of situations - this petrification stunt is not the cooperative ideal that Blai rode through the snow to Remove Disease every day in a den of people who hated him for -

"Aroden was Lawful.  We have a treaty," says Blai, and Blai's feelings don't matter but this is rising to the level of an operational constraint.  Law matters, the treaty that would have let Aroden have a world to come back to if He was going to do such a thing matters, not turning a fortful - a score of forts full! - of men who sheltered under that treaty into a museum - matters -

"It was probably Areelu Vorlesh or something," whispers Blai, but the adventurers are ignoring him, now, and the officers aren't listening closely enough to hear him either, and the cook is crooning Aroden, Aroden, like there would be anything left worth worshiping, if the god died and came back without His Law.