Nod.

And he'll — leave? Since they're letting him? (Shadow-wing the Great and Powerful is taking the opportunity to lecture him as they walk. "Next time, when I tell you it's a terrible idea to get tangled up in that nonsense, maybe you should listen?")

Listen to the bird, Nico.

What else needs his attention? Are people behaving themselves with other prisoners? How many of those are there? Any obvious frictions within units he should be looking at to see if reassigning people helps? Anyone have anything to report? Can the Pharasmin find the Sarenrites okay?

They have a few dozen prisoners. The Pharasmin knows where to find the lay-Sarenrites (they're not with the army, it would be a really terrible place to try to raise a child); it would be helpful to have an escort but she understands that it might not be possible. Other issues that have been promoted to his attention include:

• This paladin says this soldier killed a prisoner who was trying to surrender. The soldier says that the guy he killed was trying to cast a spell. (The paladin disputes this; the soldier says he'll say it under a Truthtelling and can't afford one.)
• This other soldier had a friend who was among the casualties on the other side. He's very confident his friend was a good person who wouldn't be a cultist and he's really mad at everyone involved with killing him when he was probably a prisoner or something.
• These Sarenrites would like to know what the plan is with the prisoners. Is the army making camp here such that they have all night to talk to them? Are they spending a few minutes per person such that they'll be ready to go when the rest of the army is? Somewhere in between? They will work with whatever situation they gives him the best they can but they'd like to know what they're working with.
• This prisoner claims he was Dominated and wants a Truthtelling. This other prisoner also claims he was Dominated and wants a Truthtelling but he's really obviously lying, come on, it's obvious when you hear him talk for two moments. This third prisoner... appears to be under the impression that the people he was working with previously were the crusaders and the people he's just surrendered to were the cultists? But he's also offering to do whatever they want, so even if he really believes that he's clearly not trustworthy.
• This unit is having interpersonal friction because the Taldan volunteers keep being weird about the Sarenrite cleric attached to it. This unit is having interpersonal friction because its previous commander was killed a week ago and the new one is a real hardass about their uniforms. This unit is having interpersonal friction because its members disagree about the 'send people who rape prisoners to the Condemned' policy and both halves have decided that the other half is full of terrible people. 
• Here is his share of the loot! He's the Knight-Commander, which according to the Mendevian army means he's entitled to the best treasures and such-and-such fraction of whatever else is taken, though generally the Knight-Commander then distributes most of them back to people who can use them. (In this case, the best treasures are a Wisdom headband, a couple Cloaks of Resistance, and an enchanted glaive.)

- The paladin cannot be lying, if they can still tell a captured cleric apart from a captured archer with their eyes shut. They could be mistaken, so the guy who killed the person who might or might not have been trying to cast a spell can get a slot in the next Zone.
- Would this soldier like to be reassigned to a group that did not personally engage his friend?
- Can the Sarenrites split up, so they can give some of them plenty of time with these prisoners and have those catch up later, and have a couple on hand with the main force for any smaller less expectable prisoner influxes that occur during the march?
- These people can all go in a Zone and if they pass that they can see about the Truthtellings.
- Would any other sorts of clerics like to volunteer to swap places with the Sarenrite, or would any other units like to absorb some Taldans? Some commanders are simply hardasses about uniforms, if he is asking for actually impossible or operationally interfering levels of starch Blai can talk to him but if he just really wants you to have your bars on properly then you should do that. The half who is against the Really Actually Don't Fucking Rape People Policy can be shortlisted for a remedial class.
- He's already been issued a Wisdom headband, is this one nicer? Either way the less nice Wisdom headband can go to Nenio he has no idea what that would do. Does Ember know what ability she casts from? If she does and it's not Wisdom then he has no strong opinion about who gets it and might actually want to keep it in Rathimus's possession for the moment to make their forthcoming Abadaran slightly cash-cheaper. Ember gets a cloak. The rest of the cloaks and the glaives he is inclined to treat as relatively liquid, leaseable to trustworthy parties who would like to be paid in magic items in lieu of their normal wage for the relevant period of time.

• He can testify in the Zone that the guy looked like he was casting a spell. He apparently can't say that he's completely sure he wasn't mistaken.
• Yes!! ...He doesn't suppose there's any chance of the people who killed his friend getting in trouble for it?
• This Caydenite cleric was from Taldor originally and is willing to swap into the Taldan unit. 
• The first guy tries to get away with completely ignoring the provided wording and just saying "I was Dominated" but can't get away with saying anything about the Dominate being recent or at all connected to his decision to become a cultist. The second guy says under the Zone that the crusaders' army is nothing against the might of the Abyss and they should give themselves over to Deskari. The third guy seems really confused about what's happening but he can confirm that he really was serving the crusaders but he'll do whatever they want if they spare him, he sees now that the might of Baphomet is irresistible. Or Deskari but he's guessing they're Baphomites.
• They can do that but it would be helpful if he would leave a few archers with them, and also this particular Sarenrite paladin.
• The Wisdom headband is the weakest variety, these cultists definitely could not have afforded a fancier one. Ember's description of what she casts from is confusing but it's probably Splendor and not Wisdom. Glaives kind of have a cultural association with Baphomet at this point but there are a few people who can use them. (Sosiel is willing to lease magic items in lieu of his normal wage, if the Knight-Commander trusts him with the glaive.)

- If the guy can say that under a Truthtelling, then he gets his money back. If they buy the Truthtelling for him and he can't say that it looked like the guy was casting a spell, he goes to the Condemned and they can take it out of his pay. If he'd rather skip the Truthtelling and have more money he can go straight there.
- No, people's friends found in the company of cultists, like friendless people found in the company of cultists, are running a really very obvious risk of death in combat with crusaders and this one died. Hopefully being such a good person he will be easily able to convince the Judge it's fine; Blai hears people pray to Pharasma about this sort of thing.
- Great, Caydenite and Sarenrite swap places, lovely how that works out, thank you Caydenite.
- You are not supposed to fuck with the wording. The wording is intentionally narrowly scoped. The first two are definitely gonna have to be executed, the third one, uh, does a Sarenrite have anything useful in their toolkit for managing the criminally insane, probably they have to execute him too but he could be surprised.
- Granted.
- If Ember can't use the headband then he'd like Rathimus to hold it and maybe if he judges it safe to do so lend it to people who have things to think about, while awaiting a new Abadaran recruit. Sosiel's temper does not seem such that it's better to preferentially send him into the field with worse weapons, he can lease the glaive.

• He can repeat his testimony under an Abadar's Truthtelling.
• His friend was probably their captive! It's not his fault if he got captured by cultists!
• Wow the Sarenrites are really not sure about this guy. One of them thinks he would probably be fine if he were sent to some kind of monastery, but he doesn't know of any in Mendev that take in madmen. One of them thinks they should check him for enchantments, it would take a lot of them to convince someone of something that ridiculous but sometimes when people believe ridiculous things it's because they're enchanted. One of them thinks the Judge will understand that he was just confused when he was working with the cultists, but might hold it against him that he was willing to defect to what he thought were cultists. One of them has heard of a number of different ways of curing insanity and has strong opinions on which ones work, would the Knight-Commander like to hear them all?

- Great, sorry for the inconvenience, again prisoners should be maintained in a state where they cannot confuse people like that but it sounds like this was an innocent mistake and he doesn't want people hesitating to strike at perfidy when it does really appear to occur, since sometimes it does.
- This is not impossible but not something they can determine now.
- Sure, let's check him for enchantments, can Nenio find anything?

Squint — "He does appear to be! However, it appears that none of the enchantments are strong enough to leave more than a faint aura. It is difficult to determine the exact number of enchantments that someone is subject to using only Detect Magic, but some of the contours of the most visible one are quite unusual."

"Unusual in what way?"

"The magical aura of a spell as seen through Detect Magic essentially serves as a sort of echo of the spellform. This is how it is possible to identify the school associated with a given aura. I would not normally expect these contours to correspond to a stable spellform, but evidently they did!" Her tone is one of excitement and not at all concern. "Do you think you could find anyone else subject to the same enchantment that could serve as a basis for comparison?"

........any other prisoners acting weird as fuck?

The other prisoners are all acting... normal for demon cultists, at any rate.

...One of them does show up to Nenio's Detect Magic, though. "Wonderful! You have surpassed my expectations, select boy!"

"This one isn't presenting as irregularly."

"Perhaps if I interview both of them more information will become apparent."

"If you can be reasonably brisk about it; we do need to move on at some point."

She sighs heavily. "I will endeavor to do so."

People have a few more matters that they would like to raise to his attention while Nenio does this.

• One of the paladins just caught someone pinging Evil who didn't yesterday and rather than informing anyone privately he immediately confronted him as a suspected demon cultist. Evil guy denies being a demon cultist or Evil. Evil guy is additionally the son of one of the southeastern barons. His staff would like to know if they should do anything about this, such as bringing him in for questioning, or no.
• One of the surrendered cultists announced that he's repented of ever serving Baphomet and gave the Sarenrites a list of names of supposed cultists to give to him. The list includes several of his advisors, including Irabeth. He did not really seem to be telling the truth but they're assuming he wants the list regardless just in case.
• One of his unit captains heard they're doing an anti-corruption initiative and wants to report that Fiducia Rathimus is charging more than triple the price for a Truthtelling than the one the Abadaran back home charged. She knows his last longer, but it really doesn't seem like that justifies this steep of an increase!

- One highly plausible explanation for a new ping is that the person was already Evil but was not strong enough to detect before; is the guy at roughly that power level?
- Yeah he can keep the list on file and treat the names on it as possibly at all correlated if a couple of them turn up bad.
- The increase is probably not about the duration and instead about the greater number of possible uses for a Truthtelling; he's probably trying to calibrate it so he will have one left for emergencies most days, and that indicates a higher price on busier days with more going on.

• It's harder to tell with swordsmen but it's at least not obviously false.
• ...but it's still the same spell regardless of how many things it can be used for?

- That is probably all but someone should corroborate the reading and encourage the guy to reflect on why that might be, and people should keep an eye on him. Being passively Evil is bad but it is not itself criminal.
- This is getting into complicated Abadaran theology but suffice it to say the behavior is not suspicious or objectionable. However, while he's thinking about it, can Rathimus make wands? Seems maybe called for.

• The guy continues to insist that he's not Evil but he's not, like, actively assaulting the paladins about it.
• Rathimus never picked up wands. He can do scrolls, and is willing to scribe Truthtelling scrolls for materials plus a fee if he has extra Truthtellings, though that does take time and might trade off with having the slot he'd be spending on it available for use if something comes up in the evening.

- Does the guy who insists he is not Evil have... any countervailing explanation for why he might read Evil.
- Blai recommends that Rathimus learn to make wands but obviously is not in a position to order him to do so. If there is anyone around in his command who already knows how he's willing to rent them out to teach the skill, he thinks it would have a good ROI.

• Maybe the paladins are lying. Maybe someone cast a curse on him to make him look Evil and he didn't notice. He's a good person, he does his duty and defends Mendev, there's no reason for him to be Evil.
• No one in his command knows how to make wands. Wand-makers are mostly not on the front lines and separately mostly not Mendevian, they can't really afford to have their powerful casters take time off to learn.

The paladins can't be lying because they are paladins. It is not out of the question that he might be cursed. If Nenio can spare a second they can check that. Doing his duty and defending Mendev are definitely not in and of themselves causing him to read Evil but if he has personal vices of some kind he might want to think about that.