Fiducia Rathimus is certainly willing to sell him some Abadar'sTruthtellings for this purpose, presuming that he's capable of paying for them, but he's worried that some potential forms of taking a more active role could make it more difficult for him to credibly serve as a neutral arbiter in the case of a treaty dispute — not that he expects that investigating corruption within Mendev's hierarchy will impinge on the treaty, to be clear, but it's extremely important that there is absolutely no confusion whatsoever about whether he can in fact be a neutral arbiter.

"Because... knowing damning facts about the budget situation could contaminate your judgment if the Crusade came into conflict with... Cheliax or something?"

"I had been imagining situations like — someone I investigate turns out to technically not be part of the Mendevian hierarchy such that there are additional complications with prosecuting them, or someone I investigate later gets into a dispute with one of the Hellknight delegations and doesn't trust that I'll be impartial." He thinks for a few moments. "I expect that I could consult on the budget situation in general terms without it being potentially problematic, if it doesn't involve making judgments on an individual level, though I don't know whether my expertise would be useful to you under those conditions."

"I would appreciate that, when - general enough questions crystallize to that point. ...Fiducia Boian is going to have the same problem, isn't he."

"That seems likely. —Possibly exacerbated in his situation, insofar as details of the budgetary situation that he wouldn't normally be aware of might correlate with risk factors for situations that would require an insurance payout."

"Isn't he entitled to disclosures about those sorts of things anyway?"

Rathimus can go into quite a lot of detail about the procedures here! Fiducia Boian is entitled to disclosures on the following topics, and to review a wide range of financial documents without having any specific reason, or an even wider range if he has reason to suspect any of the following circumstances obtain. He is entitled to interview relevant persons on the following (similarly wide) range of topics, but it's not really possible to prescribe rules like 'anyone involved in corruption must proactively confess the exact details to the insurance adjuster even if he never asks them' and have them be followed. He is certainly aware of the high prevalence of corruption within Mendev (not that Rathimus has specifically asked him, but no one could plausibly reach fifth circle as an Abadaran and be capable of missing it). In practice, he does not necessarily review literally every single document he's entitled to — it wouldn't be feasible to review every purchase order for socks from every fort that's good enough at retaining their records to have one — but Rathimus expects that he's reviewed any high-level documentation that exists, anything that specifically seemed suspicious after reviewing the high-level documentation, and a sample of some of the documentation that he didn't specifically expect to be suspicious. If he were reviewing the Crusade's finances in even more detail than he usually would, it's possible that he would encounter evidence about Mendev's or the Crusade's insurance risks that he wouldn't have otherwise happened to encounter, significant enough that it would be difficult to be entirely certain that he wasn't accidentally allowing it to influence his judgment even if he attempted to prevent it from doing so, and — it would be doing wrong by the Crusade if the Crusade's attempts to work with the Church of Abadar to reduce corruption caused their insurance premiums to go up (unless it were for a reason like 'the process of doing so in fact made them more of an insurance risk').

"All right. So this work is mostly going to fall on the first-circle we mean to hire who won't have a competing job, with spellcasting support from you."

If Blai would like he's willing to give some advice about how to locate and hire particularly competent first-circle Abadarans. (He won't even charge for it, he values Select Artigas hiring a particularly good candidate for the job rather than an acceptable-but-less-skilled candidate.)

Select Artigas is capable of taking that as the ringing sign of support that it is. He will take down this information gratefully.

And then the army can set out! His captains and their staff have started to spread word of the new regulations; observable mood among the men is mixed, and the people who are upset are mostly trying less hard to hide it than they would in Cheliax, but it's not uniformly negative, and some people seem positively cheerful about the possibility of more alcohol.

When they're starting to get close to the vague area where they suspect the remnants of Kenabres's cults to be hiding, one of Blai's scouts reports that he and the people he was traveling with were approached by a raven who requested, by name, to speak to Knight-Commander Artigas on behalf of its master, a great and powerful wizard. Does he want to talk to the raven? Does he want them to kill the raven? They are worried about the possibility that the raven might be able to mind-control him, that sounds like the sort of thing an Evil wizard's familiar might be able to do.

...he doesn't actually know what Felandriel Morgethai's familiar is. He'll take a short-acting Protection from Evil if there's one spare, or else put up his own, and meet the raven.

"I am Shadow-wing the Great and Powerful, familiar to the mighty wizard Nico. He has asked me to convey that he will unlock the doors to the current refuge of Kenabres's cultists, which will allow your people to easily enter and overtake the cultist forces with few casualties, provided that you give your oath that his life will be spared and he will be permitted to depart from Mendev in peace."

Ah. Not Felandriel Morgethai at all.

Iomedaeans are supposed to be able to do this. But.

He does not have a good sense of his unit discipline yet and in facts suspect it may suck. This wizard might be powerful enough that a stray temperamental swordsman is no real threat to him but he might not; having a raven is not a very strong signal and neither is unlocking the doors a very substantial boast. So this might run aground in that direction. Blai would maybe like to tie the oath to a specific low casualty level - that might even get this Nico character fighting on their side - but that will be hard to assess quickly, let alone in a sensible order with either capturing or releasing the wizard. Blai does not control all of Mendev. If Nico steps on Hulrun's shadow on his way out, that's that, Blai doesn't have authority to countermand him or make promises on his behalf. Also this guy has clearly been hanging out with cultists to be in a position to make this offer, which does not speak well of his Law, so the offer could be rank bullshit.

Iomedae would pull it off but he is not Iomedae.

"I am not in a position to make that guarantee."

"He's a perfectly nice person, you know. Also if he dies I think I will die too and I've heard familiars don't get an afterlife."

"I attempt to accept surrenders when this is feasible, but I cannot make that guarantee."

"If you 'accept his surrender' would you then execute him? I do not think he is interested in delaying his death by a few hours."

"He'll be able to demonstrate his innocence, if he's a perfectly nice person," says Blai.

"I did not say he was innocent. If he were innocent he would not be able to make this offer to begin with. If you are set on killing him sooner or later I can convey that to him."

"I am willing to attempt to allow him passage out of Mendev conditional on realized success and low casualties. But the broad requirements of the required promise and the limited scope of the offer do not combine well."

"Given the alternatives it is possible he will be willing to agree to that if he doesn't think you're trying to be weaselly about it. What terms should I convey to him?"

"Well, how optimistic is he about the casualties we'll experience if we have his help?"

"That depends on your competence and the resources at your disposal. Furthermore, providing a detailed estimate would permit you to prepare to counter the defenses even without making any sort of guarantee to my master. However—"

Shadow-wing the Great and Powerful provides some estimates. Casualties aren't likely to be high regardless, they massively outnumber the cultists and this is not exactly an incredibly defensible fortress or anything, but they did at least manage to pick somewhere that would be obnoxious to Stone Shape into; if he's telling the truth, this plan would genuinely make it much easier to take advantage of their numerical superiority and reduce the casualties they'd take from AoE damage or archers while breaking in. They could further reduce their casualties if they leave the greenest soldiers behind and storm the hideout with their strongest forces, but Shadow-wing is guessing that he doesn't trust Nico enough to go for that.

He does not really trust Nico, no.

How about if they have fewer than... he picks an optimistic number... of deaths, and it transpires that the description he is getting from Shadow-wing is substantially accurate, then if they capture a surrendering Nico he'll have him released and not send anyone after him, although he will explain the deal to people freely so that he is not mistaken for being enchanted.

He will convey that. Is flying back here an acceptable way to communicate whether the offer was accepted?