"Staunton, darling, if you're so eager to get close to me, you could just say so! Waves of Fatigue."

And then she stars clawing at the crusaders. (She is pointedly not attacking Staunton.)

A crusader drops — another crusader drops — Seelah drops —

He doesn't have any spells left. He just keeps swinging as long as he can.

—He drops the cultist in front of him—

—Lann down, he was staying outside of claw range but not the cultists' channels—

"Now, now, be more gentle with my toys!"

Minagho takes a couple of lazy swipes at Blai—

He loses his grip on enough of his blood that consciousness follows suit.

Blai comes to in a dark room. He can feel a mattress underneath him, only slightly lumpy. To one side of him is a window; it's not dawn yet, but the sky is just barely starting to lighten.

"Select Artigas?" says Anevia's voice, softly. "Can you hear me?"

"- ye- yes?" Report - no, he can't order random people to report -

"Glad to hear it. It's about an hour to dawn. Irabeth's trying to sort out logistics for who's going to prepare what, and she needs to know if you're willing and able to go back out into the city today. —We can get you more details on the situation if the answer's yes, just might be a little while."

"I expect I am but I would at some point very badly like to report in about how I can possibly be in Kenabres at all and where I ought to be instead to someone who can do anything about it. I assume every Sending scroll was blown through yesterday and the day before but is there no one in the city who can simply cast it -"

Nod — right, it's dark, he might not be able to make out specific gestures.

"First things first, if you need to talk we should get out of this room, there's a couple other people sleeping here that we'd rather let have the sleep."

She guides him to the door and slips outside. This room is much larger, and as far as it's possible to make out in the dark there are a large number of people sleeping in this room as well, but Anevia keeps talking in a low voice.

"I dunno if anyone will be able to help you, but Beth can take your report if it's really urgent, she's in charge here at the Defender's Heart. We've got... Fiducia Rathimus, fifth-circle Abadaran but apparently not the kind that can teleport, gods only know what he was thinking. He's got some sort of complicated Abadaran scheme for coming up with Sending targets, if you've got a good one you can ask him how it works. And Voyager Ramien and Prelate Hulrun are both strong enough to cast it, but both of them are missing, maybe dead."

"I don't understand why a fifth-circle Abadaran wouldn't have, yesterday, contacted Inquisitor Shawil or one of his designees and expected to be paid for the tip."

"Who?"

"- he's of the archmage party? Him and the Cottonets and Aspexia III, I can't recall her nonregnal name, and their sorcerer whose name I also don't know...? I take it that Deskari himself and his tagalongs don't need such conveniences but they put it about that they closed the Worldwound even if the names didn't make an impression -"

She was there when he told Hulrun he was supposed to be in Menador, and it's not that she doesn't know the Chelish government sometimes lies to people but that's not the sort of lie that makes any sense. 

"—I've never heard of any of those people, unless Rugatonn's going around calling herself 'the third' now for some reason. And the Worldwound's still open. Who told you it was closed?"

"Not Rugatonn, she presumably died in the Four Day War. It came to my fort in a bulletin. I was in command of #11 until I sought discharge to accept an invitation to Archmage Cottonet's Constitutional Convention, he's apparently a Galtan Republican and the new Queen's indulging him. The adjacent forts had the same." This makes it really obvious to anyone who knows Worldwound forts that he's Chelish but oh fucking well! "I am very confused. I don't have my bag with my letters in it or I would show you, I woke up wounded on a stretcher being brought into Kenabres with monogrammed bracers of Tongues instead of most of my other possessions and I don't question that they're the more valuable item if someone cared to make me this trade but I can't explain it at all."

They definitely do not put clerics of Iomedae in charge of Chelish Worldwound forts. If he's a cleric of Iomedae he can't lie about that, and she doesn't think he could be faking it at this point, but this story makes no sense.

"—Cheliax is ruled by Abrogail Thrune II. She's been in charge for about four years now, before her it was Infrexus. I guess it's theoretically possible the demons killed her in one of the parallel attacks, but I can't imagine whoever replaced her would be in favor of Galt, Republicanism, or constitutional conventions. I haven't heard of the Four Day War. I — am also confused, and I think Beth's going to want you to confirm it under a Truthtelling — I'm assuming you don't need a summary of how the treaty applies to your situation, but let me know if that's wrong."

"Well, I know what I expect the treaty to say, but perhaps we should go over it, just in case. What year is it?"

"4713. What year do you think it is?"

"I was expecting it to be early Desnus of 4714. The Four-Day War was in Pharast of 4713."

"It's the middle of Arodus. We definitely would've heard by now if there'd been a war in Cheliax all the way back in Pharast."

"I would certainly expect so. Yes. So. I have no idea how I got here or what of my expectations yet hold."