"...Thank you."

She has a look.

The document begins by enumerating the parties present at the meeting. Many Celestial deities are present, including Aiyuna, Goddess of Good Tools, who apparently invited a group of mortals including Griffith of Erlonn aka Griffie to attend the hearing in her box. Depictions of the deities and other Powers in their boxes are included, and the depiction of Griffith matches Griffie's appearance, aside from some outfit details and various stress biomarkers and expressions. Charon, Horseman of Death, Szuriel, Horseman of War (apparently being female doesn't make you not a Horseman?), Trelmarixian, Horseman of Famine, and Apollyon, Horseman of Plague, are also present. Appearances aren't everything, but the Celestial deities sure do look a lot friendlier than the Horsemen or Asmodeus do, with the possible exception of Szuriel, who looks like a flawless angelic embodiment of victory itself.

It may also resolve a bit of Saira's confusion that celestials run the Upper Planes and can be divided into angels, archons, azatas, and agathions (with archons running Heaven and azatas Elysium), axiomites run Axis and assemble inevitables to serve it, Asmodeus rules Hell, the Horsemen rule Abaddon, demons live in the Abyss, and proteans live in the Maelstrom.

The meeting itself begins with a discussion on the topic "Are there more lost threats waiting to reappear?" Zohls, a celestial deity of investigation and truth, some axiomites, and Asmodeus collectively present the case that the chance of something in the Rhoswen incident's reference class occurring without advanced notice in the absence of interference well before the point of incursion is below 1%. They then note that the Celestial who'd received reports which would have allowed for advance notice of the issue was killed by daemons (servants of the Horsemen) in between learning of the issue and reporting it.

This and other evidence of daemonic interference prompts a topic change to "What Charon is up to". Charon and his colleagues claim that the attack on Heaven that disrupted the report that could have prevented the Rhoswen incident was unrelated, and that Szuriel had only sent an Obcisidaemon to lurk in the Verduran Forest (the site of the Rhoswen incident) due to some vague prophecies of war and attempted genocide.

The Horsemen then question Griffie and eir coworkers (the "Resolute Reclaimers") on the incident. (Details on the negotiation over questioning details can be found in Appendix 3 part A of the report.) Ultimately, while the Horsemen are permitted to interview the Reclaimers face-to-face, the Reclaimers are permitted to have four deities of their choice accompany them, and select Aiyuna, Immonhiel, Torag, and Magrim.

Szuriel asks aggressive questions to confirm that a war and a potential genocide occurred in the Verduran Forest, which is approximately confirmed by Reclaimer testimony. Griffith takes the tactic of refusing to speculate on any event ey did not directly observe and otherwise attempting to answer questions with precise honesty. During the testimony, it becomes clear that an Obcisidaemon is formed by fusing the deaths of victims and perpetrators of genocide. The Reclaimers call it suspicious that the Obcisidaemon only targeted an information-containing noncombatant, Kenchlo, which Charon said occurred because it recognized Kenchlo as having received illegal aging reduction, with the Obcisidaemon merely enforcing the lawful penalty for such. Charon also explains the forced aging of a number of other individuals as having been an implementation of the lawful penalty for forcible as opposed to consensual aging reduction, while attempting to make jabs at Griffith over the Erlonnians' currently-unimplemented death sentences.

Charon then prompts the Reclaimers to summarize their understanding of the Rhoswen incident, while accusing them of lying. The Reclaimers make various claims about the historic nature of the death-related Aiquzall faction, and point out that being attacked by a team of daemons oriented towards destruction of their information on death in old Aiquzall is extremely suspicious. Szuriel repeatedly attempts to provoke the Reclaimers into unconstructive rage, portraying them as willing to lie in court to weaken the Horsemen, et cetera, with statements illustrating her nature as a goddess of war crimes.

Subsequent witnesses receive less hostile interviews and outline a broad summary of the incident: The warnings never transmitted to Heaven were on an obelisk with mysteriously flickering wards. A mad druid unknowingly modified himself to be able to penetrate the seal on Rhoswen's realm when prompted by a dishonest book received at an estate sale, and subsequently penetrated the seal and was manipulated into partially releasing her, cutting off the Verduran Forest and surrounding areas from contact with other planes. The Reclaimers retrieved the wardstones, brought them into Rhoswen's realm, and resealed her, returning with books, the mad druid, Kenchlo, paintings, Rhoswen's captives who had been polymorphed into birds, and less relevant goods. While contact with other planes still was not reestablished, a massive team of daemons ambushed the group, and the Reclaimers coordinated the partially-successful effort to fight them off, summoning a Jubjub Bird in the process. (This is noted in the report with some dismay, as the Jubjub Bird testified at the meeting, subjecting all attendees to its supernaturally loud screech.) Eventually, contact with other planes was restored.

Given testimony at the meeting, the Erlonn Leshies (Griffith's family) are given a 50 year reprieve from lifespan enforcement, and the bird-shaped polymorph victims are exempt from further retroactive aging.

The non-Reclaimer witnesses, Rhoswen-related risks, and issues with pre-historic data are discussed before the meeting ends.

It does not really occur to her to take their appearances as evidence of anything but their own aesthetics and... biology... or something?

Saira gets paper and pencil after not very long and starts taking notes, a quick sparse summary of claims and a list of questions:

Basic concepts: What is a horseman? What does it mean to be a goddess of something? Why are the mostly-caralendroid-aesthetic-y ones mostly Celestials except Szuriel? What is a druid?

Need further evidence regarding: Who are Aiyuna, Immonhiel, Torag, and Magrim? What have they done? Summoning - how does it work and can it be demonstrated safely here?

Want clarification about: weird planes, prophecy, Obcisidaemons, polymorph, Aiquzall, Rhoswen, supernatural loudness

Eventually she gives up on the book, feeling substantially more confused than she did before.

"Hey. This is really dense and I have a lot of questions but want to spend some time playing jacks or something first? I've just kind of absorbed a lot really fast."

"I haven't heard of jacks, but that sounds broadly reasonable. And that's an Axis report, isn't it, those are always dense. …that's not a general-audiences Axis report, how did—question for Bar, not for you, really. Could you explain jacks?"

A napkin appears in front of Griffie. "I have access to unpublished documents directed to all neighboring outworld powers, seeing as I am one."

Griffie chuckles. "Heh, fair. Thanks for sharing with Saira."

Griffie pats the countertop before turning back to Saira.

"It's just an example, it's a thing you play with a ball that bounces and some things that are a convenient size to pick up - I mostly suggested it because it seemed more likely you'd already know how to play than, like, the Garden of Seihra-Gara or Sets."

"I don't play games of dexterity much and would be curious to hear about the games you listed if you're, uh, up for that, they both have intriguing names. Also this might be a good time for you to get your free drink, Bar does good recommendations."

"I'm waiting on the drink until I get more evidence it's not a trick of some kind. Otherwise, yeah, it'd be a great time. Anyway, one's a board game about adding things to a landscape and the other's a card game where you take turns adding cards to piles based on thematic similarity. The board I used to play the Garden on had music and stuff, I don't know if we can get one like that here. If we can't then Sets is more fun."

"This is the point where I would offer to conjure you water, which is trivially cheap for me, if it weren't for the fact that I conjure Elemental Water, which would be … not poisonous to you, but unhelpful to ingest. Anyway, Bar, can you loan us a Garden of Seihra-Gara board with special effects, or failing that a Sets deck?"

"I can loan you a Sets deck, and while I can't loan you a Seihra-Gara board with all the special effects, I can actually sell Griffie an emulation of such a thing that runs on eir tablet."

Bar lists a price that Griffie considers fairly reasonable and Saira wouldn't find shocking either.

"Huh! They have a discrete-storage, er, computer version, that's neat. Bar, charge my account with you for that and send my tablet the relevant file, please."

"Huh. You do format conversion like that?"

"There's already emulation software extant for Griffie's tablet that can bridge the distance between the interface this implementation of Garden of Seihra-Gara was designed for and the interface Griffie's tablet has, so in this case, yes. All nonmagical computation can be simulated within all other nonmagical computation systems that meet certain common criteria, and while efficiency issues are often involved, they won't make the game unusable in this case."

"Someone designed a - never mind, I need a break. Anyway. So how you play is..."

She can provide Griffie with a tutorial, which turns out to be redundant because the game has its own.

Griffie finds the game fairly fun and entertaining! Ey has a good understanding of plant welfare that somewhat matches to the abstraction appearing in the game, and finds it aesthetically pleasing, though the sound effects are a bit simplistic. Also, ey loses the first few rounds due to unfamiliarity.

Pff, like it's for winning.

It's sort of for winning but Saira doesn't give a fuck.

"I like the magic version better but this is fine. You're more fun than the person I used to play with."

"I'm flattered! Tell me more?"

"I feel like I do less... unpleasant decisionmaking outside the game, and like talking to you better."

"Ah, so, social qualities, not gameplay qualities, though this is a pretty social game as far as I can tell, so the two do somewhat mix."

"Yeah. It's popular with the clans - not as a two-player thing, I assume, but you can do several - and if something's popular with the clans you can bet it's a delightful proxy for politics."

"Whereas we're alien to each other, so all our politicking has to be text not subtext, and also we're more doing the type where we decide whether we want to trade at all, not the type where we're trying to figure out exactly who gets to capture how much of the gains from something. Less incentive for unpleasant bluster that way."

"I don't think we're really deciding whether to trade based on politics, we're already both at 'sure if there's anything we can actually give each other', right?"

"I thought you were more at 'sure, if Griffie's not lying'? I guess I don't have the best model of politics here."