"We were planning for that to come out in a battle where it'd provide an edge, which it did. Malyas almost certainly has - clones, or something Tar-Baphon cooked up that works the same, I've stripped off his sunblock before. And the escorts are - supposed to get killed in your place where relevant, that's the system working as intended. If you have a hard time moving them around with you we should get you some more practice with it."

"I think the real problem is that I'm not used to operating in conditions with this many powerful spellcasters. There are probably fewer living 8th circle wizards in my time than were on the battlefield today. I'd say it will take time to relearn my instincts, but of course I'd rather just handle everything correctly when next I have to." 

"That is a little harder to handle with more practice scenarios. In principle with the demiplane we could let our own high level casters have a brawl and not have this leave the Crusade defenseless for too long, except I don't want that many people to know where it is." There's still no criticism in her voice. Criticizing one's archmages doesn't seem particularly likely to have good results, and she doesn't in fact have a clear enough picture of what happened to guess if he's blaming himself too much or too little.

"We can go through it moment by moment if you like. The only mistake I know you to have made is being caught by Jalanara and - I don't know if that was an avoidable mistake or just bad luck."

"That would be helpful. We can do it in the demiplane." 

Nobody seems inclined to blame him for what happened. It's unsettling. He has limited experience with anything that even loosely resembles a military, but he's pretty sure that in most of them, mistakes are punished. Of course, he's an archmage and they'd have every reason not to want to alienate him – but he'd much rather face their open anger and disappointment than let it fester because they think they can't afford to let it show. 

"Élie - last time we stupidly misjudged Tar-Baphon's capabilities and then bungled the recovery on the battlefield, we got Arazni killed. You want to make a mistake as bad as I've made recently you would have to get at least two of the people in this room raised by Tar-Baphon. 

And we have to keep working on this, so we do."

"Heh. Am I that easy to read?"

"She's calibrated on me."

"And I've been there, except my mistake actually was irrecoverable and actually will just make the world vastly worse for probably the rest of time. I don't want to say 'you'll learn', like it's nothing, but you'll learn, because every mistake just leaves more to do, or fewer people to do it, or both, and it does still have to get done."

"I really think it was something of a collective mistake."

"Oh, I know, I did also yell at Aroden about it."

"Please don't worry that I'm inclined to abandon the work any time I make a mistake. 

– And don't worry that I'll leave in a huff just because you've told me I've made one. I'm a responsible grown-up archmage. I like to think I can handle my own ego." 

"Oh, I know you won't. But I also can't imagine you need a lecture, and I still don't know if you made a mistake or not. It's usually a good idea to have your escort near you to keep the dragons and nightwings and so on off, but it isn't always, sometimes the mobility's genuinely worth more."

"Oh, that's the other thing – I don't need to cast a spell to Dimension Door. I just – do" 

He demonstrates. 

"But every person I take along comes out of my range." 

"Do you want a smaller escort? Just Karlenius, he can keep most of the same things off you and it'd be easier to move him with you."

"Doesn't he have better things to do?"

"There isn't, in fact, that much more important than keeping our archmage who doesn't have clones and might be complicated to raise alive."

"We might try that, then. And I might want to get spell immunity to Dimension Lock." 

"And maybe we can get you into a few more skirmishes before your first real battle, so you can notice anywhere else your instincts are for different situations."

"...my first real battle?"

"...You know, in some ways it's a relief that overthrowing Hell's country did not require any real battles. They tend to be bigger than this morning's skirmish."

"And last much longer. The last substantial engagement we had between both armies lasted a full day. I expect that if we go for a straight assault on Gallowspire from here it'll be months of fighting without more pause than the sun gives us, unless Aroden does an oddly specific miracle. ...and he probably won't, if we stand a chance of winning without it."

"I've seen real battles – I mean, battles with large forces – but 

– like I just said, I think there were more eight circle wizards on the field this morning than are alive on Golarion in my day. Or dead, as the case may be. Nobody has the resources to keep powerful spellcasters active on the field for hours, let alone a full day."