Haste is often overrated in such matters. Legate Angelus gets his orders and a teleport back to Westcrown, and takes the overland route from there through liberated Encarthan to Vellumis with his staff. They're too many to teleport directly, and if it takes a few more weeks that is a small price to pay for arriving with the full gravitas of an imperial legate. And it gives him a chance to survey the newly liberated regions.

When the procession arrives in the city, unannounced though certainly observed en route, he expects to be greeted promptly by the knight-commander. Perhaps by one of her ranking subordinates, if she is trying to signal indifference or a lack of concern for the results of the audit.

She got notice when they crossed the border. Some kind of imperial delegation. She expects catastrophe in Oppara the minute the Emperor dies, but he should have a good few decades remaining in him; when last they discussed it he observed that if he did die early she'd just have to get him back, and she really would. She doesn't really expect problems while the Emperor lives. It took a while but she has him persuaded, now, that Tar-Baphon is not just another of the many problems with which an empire is constantly assailed, that the gods consider it plausible this world will become a grave-state under his eternal dominion. 

Given that she's not really sure what the delegation is about. And she's very busy; they're fighting around Vauntil and around Ravengro, this season, and it's not to her advantage to have it predictable in which of those locations she can be found, much less to have it guessable when she sleeps or when she's tied up with politics. The Crusade's based out of Fort Lorrin, these days; it's the fortress Arazni secured in line with all the lessons of the first twenty years of the war, and further secured by a Miracle they called in during Erum-Hel's reign of terror. She visits Vellumis a few times a month for military tribunals and meetings with her civilian administrators. She commands her civilian administrators to greet the imperial delegation with grace and dignity and does not actually say 'and keep them out of my hair, ideally' but it's implicit.

The head of Iomedae's civilian administration in Vellumis is Charantis Tevin, a dwarf who did supply logistics for the Crusade until the winters started getting too cold for her bones. She's not from Taldor, though the humans who speak of it make it sound very grand, and she vaguely approves. She is aware in any event that they are very rich, and are bankrolling the war effort halfway to adequately. She absolutely considers it her business to make sure that no one bothers Iomedae about any question that can be solved without Iomedae, and she will head out to go meet the imperial delegation with that share of her staff that doesn't mind that it's sunny outside. 

...Are any of those staff human?

Sure, some of them!! Charantis Tevin believes in hiring the best person for the job and is only a completely reasonable amount biased in favor of dwarves because of the fact she knows their families and can be assured they won't steal from her.  The share present here are actually larger than the share in the office overall, the humans being disproportionately in favor of sunlight. 

They welcome the imperial delegation to Vellumis and inquire as to what brings it here. 

Legate Angelus has been appointed by the Grand Prince Kydonus, First Citizen and Emperor of all Taldor, August Protector of Civilization, Duke of Absalom, et cetera et cetera, to take heed of the progress of this crusade in reclaiming central Avistan for civilization and in bringing the treacherous necromancer Tar-Baphon to justice, and to ensure that it is appropriately resourced for this cause. Where is the Knight-Commander?

How eminently reasonable of the Grand Prince. Charantis does not say that it's more reasonable than he's reputed, because she has a modicum of common sense. The Knight-Commander is presumably at the front, but Charantis has instructions to be as helpful as she can to the imperial delegation, and perhaps to help them organize their questions for when the Knight-Commander is next in Vellumis. 

The delegates are...fairly numerous. The civilian administration in Vellumis can put them up, but it'll be many to a room; Vellumis is a fast-growing city, on terms with the local druids too fragile for lumber, and only gets Wall of Stones when Fort Lorrin doesn't need them. 

Ah, one of those generals. The legate does not comment; that would be both rude and unwise, and he endeavors to be neither.

"Is Vellumis the largest of the liberated cities north of Maltuna?"

"Caliphas is larger," says Charantis.

"Caliphas far predates Tar-Baphon and had endured a relatively short time under his rule, and it's part of Ustalav by treaty," says one of her assistants, who is from Taldor and has more of an idea of what people from Taldor might care about. "Vellumis is the largest of the new cities founded in the liberated territories, right now, though out of campaign season Fort Lorrin has more."

"And is the administration largely here, or in Caliphas, or at Fort Lorrin?" The answer will, of course, be informative as to Iomedae's prioritization and long-term ambitions.

"The civilian administration is here. We collect taxes, we're paying to build out the port and clear the farmland, we've built temple-complexes for the churches of Aroden and Abadar and are working on some others, we're going to have a diplomatic quarter for people like yourself. 

The military administration is run out of Fort Lorrin.

Nothing's in Caliphas, really, as if the war goes well that'll be Ustalav's."

"We will of course desire to tour Fort Lorrin in time, then, though we can certainly get started here after we have settled in. When may we expect Knight-Commander Iomedae or General Arnisant to be at liberty to leave the front?"

"Well, they don't tell us in advance, because if Tar-Baphon knows when they're out he'll make trouble and force them back. The Knight-Commander's usually here a few times a month." General Arnisant isn't usually here, though she supposes a delegation from Oppara's the sort of thing that'd do it. 

"I am sure both of them are very eager to speak to you," adds the assistant who is from Taldor, "and to show you what they have built here, but our enemy knows well that his only hope lies in striking while our great heroes are occupied, and has devoted himself greatly to learning when they are. They also don't sleep much."

Charantis has worked closely with Iomedae for long enough to find lying irksome. Of course they're not very eager to speak to the delegation; it'll be time consuming and useful only in that it'll persuade Oppara to continue paying for their own survival. She nods along anyway. "They don't generally let civilians near Fort Lorrin. As soon as you do that, there are a hundred ways for spies for Tar-Baphon to get in. It might be possible to make an exception, or you could do a tour by scry and have whatever else you're interested in brought here."

"I can see why that might be a concern, in a territory held by Tar-Baphon in living memory. Has the original civilian population fared well, or is it mostly new settlers and pensioned veterans?" Vellumis is a new city, but not one designated an imperial colony. It could just be that the Grand Prince is waiting for peacetime to make the designation, or it could be that Iomedae does not want a lot of colonists from the imperial heartland who are not used to obeying her orders.

"This territory was occupied by Tar-Baphon's orc forces out of Belkzen and then by the dead raised in the wake of their passing," says Charantis flatly. "I'm sure there are a couple of original civilian survivors somewhere."

Tragic, unsurprising, and thoroughly in the past. He nods. "Thank you. Perhaps we might be shown our accommodations? It has been a rather long journey from Westcrown."

She'd be delighted. They can be shown to the diplomatic quarter in progress, which is intended to be suitably impressive for any provincial capital, white stone and arches in the modern Chelish style, but which is unfinished. There are three rooms available in the one completed building, and four beds wedged into each of them. "Or I've got better if you can tolerate Torag's Forbiddance," says Charantis, who is close to certain that they cannot. 

He is an agent of the Grand Prince and of Law and Civilization, and not an agent of any church or god. It would be inappropriate for them to quarter on sacred ground, though he appreciates the spirit of hospitality in which the offer is made.

The Forbiddance would cook them. She smiles politely and wishes them restful sleep and tells the servants to be attentive, the Empire should see that Vellumis is well-managed. 

And then she goes back to her office; there's not less to do in the day because there are also delegations wandering around.

The forbiddance will most certainly not cook all of them, but it's best not to show that yet. If the corruption is hiding behind the churches, better to let it sit there thinking itself undetectable while the legation familiarizes itself with the more open parts of the crusade.

Iomedae's letter of charter for her crusade - and it's her crusade, unambiguously now - obliges her to set up governing authorities and bring civilization and the rule of law to the territory she has conquered. She has actually gone ahead and done this entirely with the Church of Aroden's money, not Kydonus's, as she would prefer that her territory not become the northernmost province of the Empire. Most people in Vellumis haven't thought very hard about how she means to bring that about; she's Iomedae. It'll happen because she wants it to happen. 

Vellumis has, then, Church-funded, all of the things a fledgling state will need, including an intelligence service and diplomats and courts and a port authority and an in-progress inquisition of the Church of Iomedae, undeterred by the lack of a goddess Iomedae.

This hadn't previously struck Charantis as an awkward situation but now she can see how it might be one.

They're not going to hide it though. She advises Kovets, the spymaster, that it might be good to have more of an idea of what the delegates are up to, and then sets all this aside and spends the rest of the day working on their planned priorities, which are land assignments and aqueducts and law enforcement.

Kovets also served with the Crusade before retiring. He is from Oppara originally and sees, uh, more cause for concern in this delegation than anyone else apparently did. He thinks that ideally he should've been informed two weeks ago so that by the time they arrived he already had the answers that everyone is shortly going to want. He is not a man prone to speaking loudly or passionately but he observes to Charantis that it must be a great strategic objective of the enemy to undermine Oppara's faith in the crusade.

And then he starts trying to figure out who this man is and who sent him and on what theory.

Oppara is laughably easy to spy on compared to Tar-Baphon. People have important conversations speaking aloud, sometimes outside Private Sanctums. It's rare for anyone to have permanent See Invisibility, and a Nondetection from a seventh circle caster using some prayer beads and a ley line is practically reliable at evading detection. The challenging bit is that it has to be done without Crusade resources and also without the Church of Aroden's, so he can't just have eight Greater Scries solve all his problems for him remotely. He can call in personal favors from some retired people, though.

Legate Angelus is a remarkably (in that people remark on it) honest man, though his continuous membership in the latter class is disputed. He's served three successive emperors, which suggest both an unusual degree of savvy and that he is much older than he appears. It was a pretty broad alliance of interests that pushed for him to be sent to Encarthan; Some want the Empire to be at peace, some want to reprioritize Imperial resources to other fronts, some want to embarrass the peace faction, the imperial navy wants to make a point about warships not actually being that expensive when compared to land campaigns. A handful of governors want to make sure Angelus is busy so that they'll be audited by more pliable legates. Really, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone of note in Oppara who doesn't think it's a great idea.

At least the Legate probably doesn't literally work for Tar-Baphon. Though there's no question who would be an enthusiastic backer of peace factions in Oppara. 

Are there people in Oppara idiotic enough to cheerfully accept a peace if Tar-Baphon offers it - 

- he doesn't need his spies to tell him that, actually. 

'Was this Kydonus's idea' is perhaps a more important question. He wouldn't be playing at 'force a peace', he's not one such idiot, but he might be playing at 'make it hard for Iomedae to pry Encarthan loose'. 

Does this legate have an observable alignment? Observable permanent spells up? 

The legate has a faint aura of Law and no permanent spells. He has some magic items - a belt for health and a headband for wisdom and splendour which are easy enough to identify, and some others that are less common - but no permanent spells.