And a smile, which usually manages to give the impression of being hard-earned but very sincere. "I don't know what to think of this, and it may be a long time before I fully believe it. But taking it at face value, you've done some extraordinary things under very difficult circumstances, and I am honored to know you and hope I can be of assistance to you."

Korva thinks she might feel some genuine positive human emotions about this, which is uncomfortable, so instead she switches her knight commander diplomacy persona on as hard as she can.

"Likewise, of course. I hope our journey here can ultimately be beneficial for both of us."

Then she’ll leave.

And go find Alfirin, because imagining what she’ll have to say isn’t in fact as good.

"So the first thing to keep in mind is that your future church is probably going to be less disappointing than it sounds, if this is a plot by Geryon, causing you to lose faith in your own future self and church is in fact worth the amount of investment this would have taken. We should think about - whether you want to commit to limits on how much you will change your plans for your church based on new information from the supposed-future.

Second is that Heleer is not going to live another nine hundred years naturally, and did not himself seemed surprised about the fact that he's around and active nine hundred years in the future, and I think he's hiding something. Which - could be fine, lots of people are hiding things that aren't important relevant information for the crusade, but given how he's tied up in all this - It's something to look into.

Third is that, fine, you're right, Areelu Vorlesh could be me, but the worldwound would have to be a side effect of - putting Abyssal rifts on every layer of Hell - or something like that - If you are worried about that we can have a longer talk about what I would consider worth tearing open a massive gate to the Abyss for, but - it really does seem unlike me barring some extremely unusual cases where somehow that's the only way to get something extremely important -

Fourth is that I'm actually still more worried about Tar-Baphon than the abyssal rift and we shouldn't risk much chance of victory here to help out there.

Which of those would you like to deal with first?"

"Agreed on the first one. It doesn't feel all that implausible but that's why it'd make a good lie. I think I want to intend to not change things substantially, beyond, say, writing some essays even more carefully, unless we can go to the other world ourselves and check it out. But I also want to ask Aroden, including before settling firmly on how far I'll change my mind.

I don't poke the powerful wizards who obviously have secrets all that much, in the ordinary course of things. I suspected Mengkare was actually a gold dragon, and - his business, really. But it may be worth asking some more pointed questions, or trying to investigate some other way.

I don't think I'll enjoy and don't think we need to highly prioritize an argument about how much you might change in nine hundred years if you're still around then. That could - also be an objective of the manipulation, actually, to convince me of something about that. 

Tar-Baphon is more dangerous in that he is an intelligent adversary strategically trying to defeat us, and demons aren't, though demon lords somewhat are. An Abyssal rift sounds like the kind of thing that if it got bad enough could affect Rovagug's containment, and I'd think the gods wouldn't let it get that bad except they've apparently let it hang around for a hundred years. I agree based on what we know it's not worth you or I going through, but it seems conceivably very high stakes, and the question of how the Age of Glory went so wrong much higher stakes than that."

"An individual demon lord is an intelligent adversary strategically trying to defeat us. A dozen demon lords are...not. I expect the worldwound to be somewhat self-limiting just from demonic infighting, even if you leave aside that - Obviously even if the material powers like Taldor and Shu don't wake up and throw more resources at it the gods will step in before it gets bad enough to risk Rovagug's prison. I was interpreting the relatively limited scale of divine intervention as evidence against the seriousness of the problem."

"- if Aroden died there was almost certainly just a major god-war."

"Obviously, but the gods have prophecy, there's not going to be a god-war that lasts a century and the victorious or surviving collection of gods is presumably still some subset of the gods we know, who seem sufficiently in favor of the world existing that even after the god-war You and Asmodeus are cooperating on it. Unless that's not You."

"Mmhmm. My default is - someone to figure out whether it's Me, as a first priority, and what else we're missing, and then - I do think it'd be worth sending some soldiers off-season, if it's what it appears to be. It'll strengthen them and maybe be a useful cultural corrective to the disaster of a Church, assuming I can sponsor them where they're out of Aroden's reach. 

...probably this isn't real, still, and most of our thought should be dwelling there, except I have less idea what to do, in those cases, aside from ignoring it."

"I am actually with Heleer on this one, assuming the legend lore and other checks go through as expected we're getting to the point where - it's probably not entirely real but also not entirely fake - I would be more inclined to think it's a real other world, and whoever planned this just - picked one where your church is unusually bad to draw some people from."

"I keep thinking about the Communes in particular. That's -" It's been a big priority of hers, actually, to leave her Church with the knowledge she herself uses, of how to best utilize Commune so your god at the same cost can have more influence. Branching trees of questions designed so each one resolves as much uncertainty as possible, including by grouping questions; structures that actually use the fact the spell gives three answers rather than two, and habits of mind that make your intent plain to your god so they can cheaply contemplate the questions you're asking.

It is depressing if the result is a church that tells its clerics not to talk to their god because they don't know how.

Iomedae just kind of trailed off but Alfirin can read the pattern of her thoughts well enough. "I suspect something got lost in translation there. It's - odd, how Your church is supposedly backing this crusade but doesn't have a representative among their leader's companions. Apart from paralictor Derenge."

"It really is. And presumably intentional, if this is some kind of trick, because an actual representative of my church could give me a straighter account of what I'm doing and why. 

I'm probably going to send Marit back with them, if they figure out repeatable transit."

"He's the right person for that."

Marit is sitting in an armchair in the Magnificent Mansion, trying to look not intimidating or worth remembering, though the fact of the matter is of course that he'd judge anyone who believed it. 

Well, here's this Marit guy who works with Iomedae. She's apparently supposed to ask him questions about the crusade? She's honestly finding herself with an embarrassing lack of curiosity about the Shining Crusade, though. Her younger self would be disgusted with her. It's probably just that unlike most of the problems she runs into, it looks like this one might be handled, and she's... well, pretty used to everyone promising aid to her and then the aid taking the form of a couple dozen soldiers and a handful of potions. It's important to expect more than that from people, at least when you're literally in the middle of diplomatic negotiations with them, but that doesn't mean it isn't exhausting. But her army is made of those handfuls of dozens, and it wouldn't be if she stopped collecting them.

It is, also, important to try to learn what you can about the problems you run into in the course of adventuring inside the Worldwound. Even when that's exhausting, too.

"So, Commander Marit... how is your crusade going?"

He looks faintly surprised by this question, actually. "It's very hard to say. Tar-Baphon controls much less territory than he once did, and commands fewer undead."

"Well, that sounds like progress. My default assumption is that everyone is always in possession of just barely enough forces for their own objectives, if that, and therefore nobody ever has enough to commit to anything else. Half of what I end up doing is solving secondary problems so that people run out of excuses not to help. People usually aren't up against Tar Baphon, though, so I don't know that that approach is very useful here."

"I suppose I could ignore all previous experience and ask what forces you expect to be able to lend us even without your own problems being solved."

"It seems to me that the key three unanswered questions there are how difficult it will prove to transit between worlds, what happens to paladins when they go to a world where their god is dead, and how likely we end up assessing it as that soldiers we send you won't come back."

"All great questions. Unfortunately, I came here specifically looking for someone who could help answer the safe transit question, far more than I came here looking for large scale military aid, so I don't feel very equipped to speculate right now."

"What would you ask, then, in my position?"

"My guess is that Iomedae is going to send me, once a method of interworld transit is devised, and I'll check if your Iomedae turned out right and if so we'll ask Her the best disposition of forces and then execute on that, whether it involves sending half the army or no one at all. If your Iomedae didn't unambiguously turn out right things get a fair bit more complicated. 

In your place I think I'd care about - whether we're going to think Iomedae turned out right, though I'm unwilling to tell you what I'll be checking to decide that, and what range of options we should present Her with if She's acceptable, where we can perhaps get you help significantly more tailored to your needs if we know to ask for it. It'd be good to have a range from 'minimally costly to the Shining Crusade' to 'devastating to the Shining Crusade' and at each level of cost to us figure out the maximum benefit to you, so that we can ask about that.

And it'd be good to have a plan for if Iomedae turned out wrong, though in that case a lot of details are going to depend on how She turned out wrong, exactly."

"That sounds like it depends a lot on questions of resources that both of us might not want to share with just anyone. Regill, off the top of your head - ?"

"Officers capable of instilling discipline and basic skills in new recruits, even if they never see active combat. Mendev has people, but it lacks the resources to turn displaced farmers into soldiers. Food and fuel, to tide the army over through the end of winter without losing men to hunger or cold. Basic equipment, including nonmagical armor and weapons. While we can, of course, put troops to good use, the crusade's most urgent needs may not compete directly with those of the Shining Crusade at all."

"It would be fairly surprising if we couldn't supply much of that, yeah. Would a rod of greater extend spell double your mansion-based food supply or do you have that already?"

- do we have anyone who casts - ?