Vanyel helpfully makes his barrier one-sided so they can get across but not go back in again. He is finding this pretty upsetting. 

They're getting most of the civilians back through and then something appears in Leareth's Othersenses that is much more bright and magical than any person - it's not quite the thing Abadar is, but it's much much closer -

- the Archdevil Dispater, ruler of the second level of Hell, looks through the demiplane at them. 

:You should Final Strike right now: he tells Leareth, and when Aroden's spells reached out and seized you there was at least the half-second where it felt like you might be able to bat it away; this one is both stronger and carefuller than that, and reaches casually across the two planes that stand between them.

Leareth would not, on his own, have much if any hope of resisting that -

- but the compulsion laid on all of his mages is on him too, he had Nayoki do it to make it harder to break it himself, and it holds, and now he's standing perfectly still, expression slack, simultaneously utterly convinced that he needs to Final Strike right now and also unable to do anything. 

Aroden has been standing in view of the crowd, visibly looking like Aroden while the Companions keep going through the people, informing everyone as reassuringly as they can that Aroden will not harm anyone who surrenders or is captured. 

About half a second after the Archdevil appears, he's in front of the demiplane, and a small number of seconds later the demiplane is gone. 

Nayoki shoves several people out of the way to get to Leareth and then he collapses in a heap and she catches him. 

:I am not sure what that - being - did to him but it triggered the protective compulsion: she explains to Aroden. :I will try to set it right before I wake him: 

"Dominate Person lasts days," he tells her warningly, "if he were a human he'd only be able to send new orders on the same plane but I don't know what archdevils can do."

"Thank you for the warning." Nayoki is poking at Leareth's mind, trying to gauge how different and how much harder to dispel this looks from Dominate Person as cast by a human wizard, which she's seen in detail.

It's higher power, and more thorough, but it looks fundamentally similar to the thing Aroden can do, which is possible to remove with Golarion's Dispel Magic or Break Enchantment (and technically possible for a Velgarth mage to just snip, though this will totally kill the subject). 

Aroden casts Break Enchantment. (He has a lot of spell slots, and also a large number of Pearls of Power, so is substantially less limited on spells than his other wizards, and also better at enchantments.) 

Nayoki checks whether Leareth's mind is clear of it, and resets the compulsion, before waking him. 

He wakes up and is on his feet half a second later. :Wha– oh: He looks around at the closed portal and the crowd of terrified civilians. 

Yfandes is still trying to say reassuring things to them, although possibly a weird voice talking in your head is not inherently reassuring. What level of panicked do people seem? 

Well, see, they live in a state run by Asmodeus whose secret police will have them tortured to death for disloyalty and an hour ago they were told that there was a conquering army arriving and they should prepare to fight and get their families evacuated straight to Hell, and then the conquering army arrived and claimed to be led by Aroden, the Chelish god who died a hundred years ago, and then they were trapped in a magic forcefield and mind-controlled to leave Hell and come back and then the archdevil of the second level of Hell showed up and now weird voices in their heads are reassuring them that the conquering army isn't going to kill them, which it admittedly looks disinclined to do for the moment. 

So pretty panicked.

Aroden gives some orders and his troops and mages back off a little, leaving a corridor clear for the civilians, while the Companions send a quiet message that they should, if they wish, return to their homes. (It'll mean having them out of clear sight, and possibly soldiers will hide with common citizens and plot resistance, but also they should really have the noncombatants out of the streets for this, and they'll probably panic less as a result.) 

Leareth orders some of his mages to raise a couple more concert-Gates back to the garrison in Rahadoum, so he can bring over another five thousand of his troops to occupy the city. 

And he Mindtouches Vanyel. :We just had a close call and it occurs to me that if you had been in sight, the Archdevil ought have gone for you, not me. All of my people have a voluntary compulsion in place to stop taking any actions if under enemy mind-control. Would you and the other Herald-Mages accept this precaution?: 

Oh. Gah. Vanyel thinks about it for several seconds–

:Yes: Yfandes sends for him. 

So Leareth can do that. Meanwhile his Farseers scan the city, looking for pockets of organizing resistance. 

There are a bunch of those; this city had more time than Egorian once they learned the news.

Leareth divides up the rest of his mages with the newly-arrived soldiers and sends them out in groups, first to prevent those groups from spreading out and taking over more ground, then to try to drive them out of the areas they already control. 

Vanyel stays put, but once he's had his protective compulsion set up just in case more devils turn up, he can provide distance-casting support, using his Farsight to aim, and block the Chelish troops' movements with mage-barriers or try to take out their wizards and clerics, nonlethally if possible. 

People show up in Egorian - mostly not support troops in the war, but adventurers and observers for other countries, trying to figure out what's going on. They pick roses from the field of them and try to stay away from the soldiers and stop by the palace to see what the situation there is.

The Palace still has a lot of locals in it, but not really any resistance; the important people mostly teleported out before Aroden's troops moved on it, and the remainder are sequestered into particular wings of the Palace, held there by a mixture of weird magical barrier-walls and some mind control. A dozen of the strange not-sorcerers and a smaller number of high-level wizards are methodically combing through the Palace, disabling the traps laid by the fleeing forces as they find them. 

In between watching the entire city and directing troops toward any signs of resistance in the less-occupied corners, Taver contacts the observers from other countries, helpfully informing them that Aroden is alive and has returned to take back his country. 

They heard that. And saw the field of flowers. They have some questions. How is Aroden not dead. Can Aroden prove it's him. Where is the army from. Are people allowed to grab Chelish relatives and acquaintances and flee the country with them. Does Aroden want the help of Andoran or Galt or Taldor. Is Aroden also responsible for the Worldwound being closed now. Why can't Aroden's clerics get spells from him, if he's not dead. 

Taver has Aroden's advance permission to answer all of those questions. 

Aroden isn't dead because he was immortal as a human even before his ascension (this is public record) and because of that he was able to come back as an immortal human when he died as a god (Taver does not give any details on how). But he is still human, right now, albeit an extremely powerful caster for a human, and that's why his clerics still aren't getting spells from him. Aroden amassed his army in Rahadoum over the past century, in secret, so that he could catch Asmodeus and Cheliax by surprise when he was ready. He also has some allies from 'elsewhere' (Taver does not specify). 

Aroden did personally close the Worldwound once it was clear enough, and is responsible for turning most of the demons to stone so that the ward-stones could be moved in. Actually clearing the area around the interplanar tear enough that he could close it was nearly all the work of his allies from elsewhere, with support from Osirion and from Nefreti Clepati and presumably Nethys. 

People are definitely allowed to evacuate their Chelish relatives and acquaintances to other countries if they want. Especially since they believe Asmodeus has been ordering civilian evacuations to Hell in other cities, which Aroden is currently trying to head off.

Aroden will accept help in garrisoning the conquered cities from other countries if they're offering it; currently that's just Egorian, and they should run numbers past Taver first and then plan on arriving in designated areas. Aroden would also, at this point, be delighted to welcome the clerics of Good or Neutral gods to help with healing casualties and providing clean water, and other logistical aid and supplies like food or blankets for displaced people. When the battles are over, Aroden's allies can even help with transporting supplies and volunteers, so if people want to start organizing departure points in their own countries, they can run that by Taver too.

(Taver has an eidetic memory, but his attention is also very stretched, so he's passing all of this on to a soldier acting as his clerk, who's writing it down.)