"Knight-Commander, might I recommend that you permit your forces to sleep before we attempt to reunite with the army? Many of them have been awake for nearly a full twenty-four hours, and the wizards will need to sleep in order to replenish their spells."

(He's framing this as a tactical suggestion, but the truth is that he would like to get some rest.)

(He was on a horse, why is he the one complaining?)

"I think we'll be fine toughing it out, even down a couple clerics and paladins."

"Staying long enough for the wizards to get their spells back will make it take substantially longer to get back to the main force, by more than the time it takes them to sleep..." What have the wizards got left in pocket, are they in fact capable of defending themselves on the march back or do they actually need to park in the outpost for eight hours to make it safely.

Woljif still has most of his spells! They won't be much use against anything that can fly, and he hasn't hit third circle yet, but his Grease and Web castings could still be useful against some of the routine demons they might run into.

Thall spent most of the fight summoning Lyrakien azatas with his second and third circle slots, but he went down before he ran completely out, if they end up wanting more summons. (He hasn't managed to teach either of the other wizards the trick for doing it at second, even though Nenio is definitely better at math than he is.)

According to Nenio's notes, she spent a few of her spell slots on experimentation in the evening before she learned that they were going to be going on an adventure, and separately she ran out of Haste during the fight, but she's got a couple slots left at lower circles.

(The other support casters attached to the army are mostly out or close to it; they were mostly lower on slots to begin with.)

Hm. Does Derenge have an opinion.

"This position is considerably more fortified than most we are likely to encounter on our journey back, but considering that your unit consists heavily of archers, it should be possible to manage the risk of flying enemies without extensive support from your arcane casters. However, my assessment relies on the assumption that your forces will not be too exhausted from sleep deprivation to march, even with magical assistance."

Yeah. And they might encounter the army while the army is marching and he doesn't want to stop them just so they can all be in the same camp.

They can park in the outpost long enough for the wizards to sleep, along with anyone else who cares to sleep though they should do it in shifts.

Excellent.

Some of the Hellknights have slept for at least a few hours; they can help cover the ones sleeping now.

Dawn comes at the usual time.

Blai has another third-circle spell slot.

Yeah. He's been busy. Here is a sitrep. Here's what he wants for marching back to rejoin the army and whatever might come up after that. He spends most of the rest of his prayers contemplating the idea of asking the Hellknights to launder a transfer of his counterpart but of course Iomedae is not going to tell him whether to do that or not. It's still nice to have some obligatory downtime in which to think about it.

Predictably, Iomedae indeed does not tell him whether or not to do that.

From the sounds of the discussion as the hour ends, Blai isn't the only one with new slots. This Sarenrite cleric just hit third, this paladin of Iomedae has an extra slot at first, and so on. In the absence of explicit direction they have mostly made reasonably sensible decisions about what spells to request.

Great, he loves it when people make reasonably sensible decisions.

He prepped a Create Food; one casting should cover something for everyone if not a whole day's worth of meals. They were in a hurry to get here and he assumes the outpost is not provisioned for this many. He will take requests.

This person wants fried potato slices with cured pork. This person wants lamb dumplings. This person wants fruit, any kind of fruit, he knows in theory the Worldwound diets are supposed to have enough that they won't outright get sick but he's spent the last months craving more constantly. (And so on.)

Yup, he can do all of that and a pie for himself. He'll just have to guess for the sleeping wizards what they'll want when they wake up.

Does the Paralictor have a minute for a word privately?

Of course.

"By any chance," Blai says, "do you know the commander of #11?" They haven't met in person in his timeline, but who knows about this one. ...well, Derenge, which is why Blai asked.

Regill knows the names of every fort commander on the Chelish line and several on the Mendevian line. "Chosen Blai Artigas. I haven't met him personally, although I am familiar with the fort's general reputation."

"For somewhat sensitive reasons, I want him where I can see him. How difficult do you imagine it would be to get him assigned to the Hellknights?"

It seems unlikely the last name is a coincidence, but Regill's presumption is that he's a relative. (One might hope that Iomedaeans would not make personnel decisions on that basis, but Regill has enough experience with the Mendevian variety that he certainly doesn't have high hopes in that regard.)

"That depends. The Hellknights are selective about who we accept into our forces, even as armigers. We do not conscript Chelish soldiers into our ranks, as we have found that such recruits frequently lack the necessary discipline. If he were invited to undergo the trials necessary to become an armiger and granted leave to do so by his superiors, do you expect he would accept?"

"I think he'd be reluctant to leave his fort without somewhat more enthusiastic pressure than mere leave to do so, but not out of any particular aversion to the idea of being a Hellknight."