"If I were Tar-Baphon at this point I'd also be contemplating more direct interference in the Empire. That might not have seemed to pass a risk-reward calculus a month ago, but now it really ought to."

"I think I can get us to a stable state around Ravengro in a week, maybe less. Less if Elie has Arazni's Wall of Stone."

"...what makes Arazni's walls of stone different from the ordinary kind?"

"Nigh-unbreakable and stops ethereal creatures. I can't do it with a limited wish."

"If you can't, I don't have any reason to believe I could. ...I could probably set some alarms in the ethereal." 

"Any wall short of that can be punched through with one Disintegrate. I can still wrap up in Ravengro but not in a week."

"What do you need from us?"

"I don't know what's costly. If you have spells spare at the end of the day you can drop by to build walls and drop a couple of Tsunamis. If you have nothing better to do we do still have running engagements most of the day. If we get an opening I may want to run a couple of clean raids - in and out in two moments, is the rule for those - make his people more reluctant to leave home."

"My time is valuable but my spells mostly aren't. You may direct me where you will."

"All right, let's go inconvenience our enemies." She takes Alfirin's hand; Elie's not in fact vetted to Teleport her.

"Where to?"

“Four miles up from Fort Alden - Elie, you’ll want air, if you’re accustomed to relying on it.”

" – Is there a pressing reason to do this now and not in ten minutes? I didn't actually prepare for combat this subjective day."

“Not at all” except that now she’s holding Alfirin’s hand. She drops it.

Right. She's prepared for combat - she's almost always prepared for combat - but some of her spells went toward research and so of course she could still be more prepared for combat.

"I have spells usable but if I use them and then refresh immediately it probably gives away the game more than it's worth."

"I don't need to refresh, I have the slots free."

"I wouldn't show off the demiplane, just what you'd plausibly have anyway. I did place an expensive order for more high level pearls of power to cover for any of your demiplane benefits we fail to fully conceal."

"Ten minutes, then. In the meantime, the rest of you can tell me in a bit more detail about what to expect there - "

They run raids. Iomedae is accustomed to planning high-magic raids, and does them at almost the pace Elie and his allies kept during the Chelish independence war. They expand the front from Marian Leigh. Tar-Baphon still doesn't show himself; he's presumably planning something, but it might be to wait in Gallowspire and make them come to him. 

Similar pace, but in higher style. Besides, during the war they were cheating. 

Things don't go perfectly smoothly, but they go fairly smoothly. Two archmages to none is a notable advantage.

Things go fairly smoothly until Élie gets hit by a lucky glitterdust and then about fifteen curses all at once. 

Most of them don't take. Enough do. He feels drunk, the way being drunk felt when he was about seventeen, unused to strong liquor, and possessed of an absolute reckless disregard for human life. He has enough good sense to realize he shouldn't be anywhere near this battlefield – that he should be back at camp – but not quite enough to tell anyone what's going on or take his escort with him. 

Luckily his escort also noticed this and reports it immediately! There is then a brief but stressful search for where he teleported to, and then -

Alfirin get over here.

She's there.

"...What happened, do we know?"

"No, we don't." She is giving Elie a hug. "I pulled him to the Forbiddance because I was afraid he'd Teleport off again but I think I am quite understandably annoying him immensely right now." Between the having pulled him into a Forbiddance that was not Chaotic Good and the hug.