Yeah that's a unsurprising amount of complexity. She really does not like the idea Predain is ....putting....civilians in the woods in Tantara? How does that happen by accident?? They should feed them and write a letter communicating displeasure and the desire that this kind of conduct by Predain be addressed in the eventual peace settlement, but not saying anything that might be interpreted as 'deal's off' or even 'we're on edge more than you'd expect'.

Do gryphons want gory stories about the unnecessary breakdowns of ceasefires and the innocent people who died horribly as a result.

She revises the draft letter proposing peace talks, in a location of little strategic utility that both sides can Gate to.

Yeah the random civilians in the woods are utterly terrified and don't speak any Tantaran and even once they found an interpreter who speaks (terrible) Predaini, they're not being very forthcoming about how exactly they ended up there. It could at-all-plausibly have been on foot, maybe because something happened to their farm – which is plausible, the gryphons have, uh, sometimes diverted their scouting missions to go terrorize random farmers in Predain's territory, they're not supposed to but what can you do about gryphons. And it's the region where the river isn't actually a river – it sounds like it was diverted upstream for some kind of war-related tactical reason six months ago, with the result that the main channel dried up and stopped being a water source for everyone relying on it – so they could theoretically have wandered the whole distance from Predain territory without a Gate or a military escort. Though it's certainly weird and worrying. 

Gryphons loooooooooooove gory stories! They are (especially the very young ones, who come across as maybe equivalent to a human fourteen or fifteen-year old in maturity) perhaps less sold on the goriness being a bad thing than one might hope. 

She can get lots of advice from Urtho's generals on the peace talks draft letters. Morning turns to early afternoon. Nothing explodes. 

She will work on both the plans for the attack and the plans for the peace, then.

Nothing explodes. 

Until around sunset, at which point one of the Mindspeakers will very very urgently contact Iomedae – at this point, actually before she alerts Urtho.

General Judeth's camp is, uh, apparently...surrounded...by Predaini troops? Including several hundred of them, a couple of infantry units, who were definitely approaching them from behind and must have cut through quite a lot of Tantaran territory, presumably on foot because no one detected any Gates at any point, but it's pretty unclear how they possibly got past the line without being seen, it's been very closely monitored via scrying and nobody reported anything suspicious and it seems pretty hard to miss several hundred people marching. 

Can Iomedae please advise???? 

Well. Fuck. 

Iomedae's advice is that they Gate her in immediately.

They will do that! 

General Judeth is CONCERNED! Half of her mages aren't even here, they're at Korbast Pass, and a lot of the mages she does have here are the ones rotating off because they're exhausted! 

She is, however, already organizing everyone she does have who has enough in their reserves to scry - not a high-powered spell - and the gryphons are in the air. 

She's really confused! As far as she can tell the Predain troops don't include mages; their structure is somewhat different, mages operate in smaller specialized units rather than being integrated into the main army like Tantara mostly does things. Maybe the plan was to Gate the mages in on top of them but you'd have expected them to time that for before her scouts noticed the problem.

Maybe the plan here is just to engage them here so that they won't be able to send reinforcements to the pass, and they're doing a more conventional approach there? But they were definitely respecting the ceasefire lines on that side, and - still are? As far as scrying can tell? 

They are at this point almost certain that Ma'ar isn't personally here. 

It seems quite plausible to Iomedae that she is the target, here, either because Ma'ar means to kill her or because he means to see her capabilities in more detail before he decides whether to keep playing by the ceasefire rules or not. Though of course it's also possible that Predain is in internal disarray, or some truly stupendous misunderstanding has happened.

"Get the monitors here as well, from both sides. Tell them there has been a ceasefire, they are in violation of it, and that they are commanded to immediately surrender."

General Judeth will send that order immediately although she is kind of worried that their position here is not very defensible if the mages do join in the fight, which is the only plan that makes any sense on Predain's side - maybe they just mistimed something, coordinating the exact timing when the infantry units had a long march and may not have Mindspeakers with them is the kind of thing that can get fumbled, though in that case presumably Ma'ar is watching via scrying and will rectify the mistake quickly. 

Exhausted Tantaran mages are holding a massive barrier-shield around the camp while a lot of people who were interrupted in the middle of eating supper or napping very hurriedly don armor and organize themselves. There's an awkward standoff. 

The first of the Predain monitors can be contacted and transported in within three minutes. She's very sure that these units are NOT supposed to be here and in fact does not have the slightest idea how they could have GOTTEN here or under whose orders and they should, in fact, have known perfectly well about the ceasefire. She's a strong Mindspeaker and can find the minds of the unit commanders and demand to know what in the world they think they're doing, without actually having to venture outside the barrier-shield. 

....Uhhhh. They're claiming they had orders from Ma'ar to march through Stelvi Pass and surround this camp? 

(She's very confused, and she is so incredibly scared and mostly not showing it.) 

- the obvious implication there being that General Shaiknam was turned and works for Ma'ar and wow Judeth is FURIOUS about that and - this is not good this is very very not good, his units were the closest reinforcements and it sounds like she cannot expect help from that direction -

- what does Iomedae advise that they do. 

"Tell them to lay down their weapons immediately."

The terrified Predaini monitor will relay that in Mindspeech. Maybe Broadsending that to everyone, she's going to give herself backlash really quickly trying to hit several hundred people but this seems IMPORTANT. 

Scrying-report over the next thirty seconds: there is definitely some confusion out there but for the most part weapons are not being laid down. 

(There is an angry gryphon scout party circling above their heads, which perhaps makes letting go of one's weapons seem significantly less appealing.) 

"Order to gryphon wing, they're to stand down get back inside the barrier–" 

...someone just shot down one of the gryphons. 

The rest of the gryphon wing is very angry about this and they are super not going to stand down. 

The Predaini monitor is still repeatedly Mindspeaking everyone she can reach telling them over and over to lay down her weapons and her head is pounding and she is pretty sure that she's going to die here.

She could have prevented that, if she'd done this sooner, but she's thinking. 

She can wait. Try to negotiate some more, try to herd them back towards their own border, try to get a direct line of communication with Ma'ar. 

That goes well, if this is really some unfathomable misunderstanding.

That goes badly, if this is an intentional provocation, or  -- and this is what she fears more -- a distraction. Ma'ar wants Urtho's Tower, Urtho said, and must never get it. She has no trouble believing that. She has some trouble believing that the betrayal of one of Urtho's generals, the sudden presence of hundreds of troops advancing on Tantara's positions, is unlucky.

Shaiknam. Acting in confused self-interest, or mind-controlled?

The cost of erring in one direction is hundreds of thousands of lives. In the other - 

"I am going to disable or kill every soldier holding a weapon outside this camp," she says to the monitors, her voice very precise, and to Judeth, "keep the monitors alive."

And then she draws a sword that glows terrifyingly brightly and moves too fast to see -

- except in that the light (dancing across the woods outside the camp) leaves a confused afterimage on the eyes -

- which insist that some of those strokes of light must've been there at the same time as some of the other ones. 

None of the injuries would be lethal in a place with Golarion healing. She's not even sure that's a kindness, but it's an option. 

It's not a fight; none of them can scratch her. 

......Wow. That's - actually the most terrifying thing General Judeth has ever seen. 

(WHY isn't Ma'ar Gating mages in? This doesn't make any sense -) 

This is the worst thing that could possibly be happening and the Predain monitor does not for one second believe that they're going to keep her alive. 

:I'm going to: she manages to squeeze out to General Judeth, :try, to contact, Ma'ar, if he's, in range -: And probably be useless after that, she's already verging on backlash, but - 

- reach - 

He's not close. He must be several hundred miles away. It's maybe the furthest she's ever Mindspoken anyone and it hurts and it feels like stretching out her arm until the bones and ligaments threaten to come apart, and her fingertips just, barely, brushing her goal without finding purchase - 

It's been less than five minutes since General Judeth's warning went out. The troops on-site do not, in fact, have Mindspeakers, and a certain other message was still making its way to Ma'ar. 

He feels the feather-light brush on his shields, and reaches back, flinging his own strength in to stabilize the connection - how far is that...? 

:What: 

The monitor is, at this point, barely clinging to consciousness as well as barely hanging onto the Mindspeech link. She isn't especially coherent.

:Did you - order - this...?: 

:Did I order what. Where.: 

She can't remember the placename of where they're supposed to be. What's the general's name, she can't remember that either...

:Camp. Woman. Blonde: 

...the connection fades out and the monitor collapses in a heap. 

It's been about twenty seconds since Iomedae headed out with a sword. She's disabling people at a rate of about one per second. The gryphons are going after some of the rest.