"None. I'm sorry. We were planning to get to it, but it's been a busy few years."

"I can only imagine. But that means it's not obvious from the god-angle either." She looks thoughtfully at her maps. "If we had no choice but to try to take him down inside three sidereal days what would you try?"

"I'd want to know more about his strengths and weaknesses – there are a lot of details about him that didn't survive. I do know how it happened in my timeline."

"...Gods. You're right that we do need a plan for that but we should try very hard to avoid using it. Skip most of the conventional war and bring all our best straight to Adorak. See if, for the cost of a wish or two we can turn one of his servants - we could maybe, with a couple wishes, steal Taldaris' phylactery and use that as leverage - and then three sidereal days can be a month's worth of spells for our top casters and maybe that's enough. In broad strokes."

"How did it go down in your timeline?"

"Does your General Arnisant have an artifact called the Shield of Aroden?"

"Yes."

"Tar-Baphon tries to summon Arnistant's heart into his claws, probably using a Wish. The spell hit the shield and shattered it. Instead of the heart, Tar-Baphon ended up with a fragment of the shield, which merged with his flesh and burned him with holy fire. It weakened him enough for one of the Arodenite priests to hold him in Gallowspire long enough for the Great Seal to be put in place." 

He doesn't remember which of the generals is Arnisant or if he's in the room now. Either way it seems unnecessary to add that he doesn't survive.  

" – I'm sorry. I wish it was something easier to replicate." 

"...That also, uh. Sounds like the sort of thing that gets into the histories and is not, strictly speaking, true."

"Either way it's not really something we can aim at on purpose. - is it told that way in my holy book, I was really planning not to have any lies in my holy book."

"Just that way, that's how we know." 

"I withdraw my objection, assuming that you intend to, as a god, adequately chastise any of your followers who embellish the holy books to tell a better story."

"Well, I should presumably be taking significant input from Elie, since he knows how it went last time" and doesn't seem pleased, "but I sure intended to not let anyone embellish!"

"I know how it sounds, but I do think the account is reasonably accurate. At least, it also has the embarrassing failures, which I take as a good sign." Which he does respect, personal opinion of the church of Iomedae aside. 

"If we have any embarrassing failures still scheduled I'm sure we'd all love to hear them in advance."

"I'll tell you if it looks like you're steering into any, but I have to imagine the course of the war will be rather different from here on out." 

"Embarrassing failures after I ascend are also in scope! Presuming - actually, I should have asked this first - should I do it?"

"I don't know the alternative, but I certainly think so. The interests of reasoning beings in this world seem much better served for having your church in it." He has his issues with her, but that's not one of them. 

      "You were in doubt," says Marit, a bit teasingly. 

"Apparently Hell rules part of Taldor for a bit! I - assume from how Aroden's been doing that things move slower than they intuitively feel like they ought, that the points of leverage are more distant and more annoying, but - but it really does feel like things shouldn't get worse - and now we're disrespectfully close to speculating, Elie, I'm sorry, we'll stop that."

The Mage's Private Sanctum that encompasses their tent admits Arnisant, who'd been out in the field. 

         "Elie says," says Karlenius, "in his timelineTar-Baphon tries to summon your heart into his claws, with a Wish, and the Shield shatters and strikes Tar-Baphon and sticks in him and that's how we win."

" - how specific," Arnisant says. "I'll do my best, of course. Not only are there worse ways to go, it's hard to think of better ones. ...you'd better make one extraordinary statue of me afterwards."

         "One? I'd say at least ten. And I will personally ensure that the statuists are working from portraits from when you had a hairline."

"All right, heroes and martyrs, glad we're all having fun, I've just signed you up for so much work on teleport logistics and it all needs to be in downtime so Tar-Baphon doesn't suspect anything."

"Oh, I was just here to grab my ...backup amulet," says Arnisant, at that, "I'll be back out in the field."

        "Oh, I see how it is," Marit calls as Arnisant departs. "We will die for the cause but not bookkeep for it."

                         "The true slogan of the crusade," Pereza says. 

"Hey," Iomedae says, "I do at least as much bookkeeping as dying."        

"Pereza, has Curiosity ever disappointed you with his bookkeeping?"

"Not once, Archmage. If I had to have him or the Knight-Commander, for the bookkeeping, I'd pick him in a heartbeat."