"...I mean, if you want more suggestions, I'm happy to give them? ...Admittedly it does seem like it might've been pretty hard to make the entire Crusade unnecessary, if that's why she did it."

Ideally he would like suggestions if and only if they are good suggestions, but unfortunately asking people for only good suggestions is neither a reliable way of getting suggestions nor a reliable way of ensuring the suggestions are good.

"In the interest of time, is there anything that would have been significantly helpful with the Crusade, either prior to or during the siege of Drezen?"

She blinks slowly.

"...well, Lastwall could have sent... anyone. You're — not the first person from Lastwall but the first person sent by Lastwall."

"I will pass that along to my superiors, though I don't know whether they'll send troops." It is in fact completely possible that being a Chaotic Calistrian teenager who is wanted for murder in a country that's a signatory to the Worldwound treaty will pose an issue, though it's certainly possible that it won't. "I'm not empowered to promise resources on behalf of Lastwall, but if there are other resources that would be particularly useful, I can pass that information along."

"I mean, more soldiers and adventurers and money and so on would always be nice. Especially if any of the soldiers are" remotely competent "capable of passing on some basic advice about strategic positioning. Uh, let me think." Pause. "Nenio just hit fifth circle but we haven't been able to get ahold of a Teleport scroll for her to copy, if you've got one, or one of those mini spellbooks with one spell, or anything, that would be super helpful. We could pay for the scroll if that's an issue. Honestly there's lots of magic items that sound like they'd be super useful that no one here is selling but we might be able to solve that once Nenio has Teleport? But obviously the full list would give away a lot, if Lastwall ends up deciding it can help it probably makes more sense to work something out then? And if you've got research notes we could see about how to close the Worldwound that might also speed things up."

One of the Knight-Commander's companions is a fifth-circle wizard and they haven't managed to procure a scroll of Teleport??????

"Does the Crusade currently have... any... Teleportation capacity?"

"—The details of that are secret, sorry."

(One of the Queen's people is handling Teleportation runs for supplies. Arsinoe gets it as a domain spell, but Arsinoe's never been to a bunch of places that'd be really useful to have, and doesn't want to try teleporting off a mental image.)

"I understand." More notes. "You mentioned the need for more adventurers — if you aren't too busy with your duties here in Drezen, have you considered Teleporting abroad to recruit once you have the capacity?"

...Okay, she clearly took some sort of issue with that suggestion. Is she... really bothered by Lastwall not dropping everything to help the Crusade? Does she not have the funds to pay the sort of talent she's looking for?

"...so, let's say I showed up in Vigil to try to get people to join the Crusade. Or" what else is within a hop and actually supports her point — she doesn't actually have any idea what the laws in Numeria are — "Canorate, or Isarn, and I... give a speech, or something, saying 'hi, I'm Avenger Justice, Knight-Commander of the Fifth Mendevian Crusade, we're looking for adventurers'—"

"—Lastwall does actually have procedures for diplomatic visits, though they may want you to verify your intentions under lie detection, and of course if you make, ah, a public speech, it would need to be compliant with our laws."

She hadn't actually realized that! (And it probably does make sense to talk to people from Andoran in person if they can come up with a Teleport route that Nenio can actually do, rather than just relying on Sending, though of course a lot of them are busy with important work. And she could try Absalom, they've got a lot of adventurers and an entirely different set of stupid laws about religion than most places.)

"Would that cover Arueshalae too?"

"Arueshalae?" That is definitely not a Mendevian name but he's not sure where it's from instead.

"Oh, I guess I didn't mention — she's a repentant succubus, she tried to warn people about Deskari attacking Kenabres and the demons imprisoned her for it, she was really helpful in Drezen."

The Crusade is being infiltrated by a succubus???????

He is trying not to blatantly panic about this, that's the sort of thing that gets the succubus to go after him before he can make a report, but he's not particularly good at deception.

"How were her intentions verified?"

"...a bunch of things that are mostly secret, but I got a Desnan back home to do a Commune about it — she says it was Desna who helped her choose not to be Evil anymore, so I figured she'd know if she was really telling the truth. And obviously we checked, like, whether she detects as Evil, and she doesn't, that sort of thing, but it's not like that's hard to fake."

That is not literally as bad as it possibly could be, but it's still much more likely that the succubus has enchanted the Knight-Commander into misremembering (or for that matter, lying on its behalf) than that Desna actually intervened to redeem a succubus. Karnel has read multiple separate incident reports relating to incidents in which succubi pretended to be sincerely seeking redemption in order to manipulate Worldwound defenders into serving their aims; it isn't their most common ploy, but it's far from unheard-of.

"Is the succubus in Drezen at the moment?"

"Yeah, she usually hangs out near the temple. She's the one with the wings and the weird-looking lizard. Uh, she was there for the miracle Desna did, but not for any of the other ones I mentioned."

Noted! He will stay far away from the temple! (And consider the possibility that the succubus has manipulated the Knight-Commander's memory of it, though some parts do seem objectively verifiable.)

(...Possibly Desna was aiming for the Knight-Commander or her party to notice that the idea of her redeeming a succubus was highly implausible? But he would have expected her to have better ways of achieving that goal.)

If he leaves right now to try to address the succubus situation, is that going to be better or worse — almost certainly worse. The Knight-Commander has enough circles that she could plausibly just kill him, and might be under orders to do so if he seems likely to intervene; conversely, he doesn't have a good way to contact Lastwall until they next Scry him.

...She asked him a question, and he should answer it. "To answer your original question, I would not expect Lastwall's laws to accommodate a visit from a succubus. I do expect it to be possible to arrange a diplomatic visit wherein you attempt to recruit for the Crusade." (Presuming that she is no longer under the influence of a succubus, but that ought to be achievable.)

She supposes that isn't surprising.

"I understand. Was there anything else?"

"—Yes, actually. I've been asked to inform you that in the event you suspect another party of violating the Worldwound treaty, such as by illicitly staging an attack on your forces, Abadaran mediation is available to determine whether they in fact did so."

So she should assume that... if Cheliax wants to go after her, they'll either have some way that's technically not against the treaty, or they'll have a plan for beating Abadar's Truthtelling? Probably the first thing.

"Thanks for letting me know."

She's being noticeably cooler ever since the succubus came up — which makes sense now that he thinks about it for more than half a moment, presumably that's how the succubus wants her to feel. It does suggest that she might end up being forced to target him before he can communicate with Lastwall about the matter.

"If I have additional questions for you, is coming to the citadel the best way to contact you?"

"Should be fine, yeah, unless I'm out adventuring."