"This is not a promising start," observes the Queen, "to persuading us that your secrets are all innocent ones."

"I'm willing to tell you what's in the bag." They have a Truth Spell up. He's worried at dawn someone'll ask Iomedae for a Geas but they don't have access to one right now. "The contents are not secret from you. I am worried that the contents will be stolen if the bag is searched."

"Well, go ahead and tell us, then."

"Most notably I have a scroll of Wish. Also one of Mage's Disjunction and three of Tsunami and -" actually a really astonishing number of spells, some obscure ones. He spends a long time listing them and then stops, without indicating that this is a comprehensive account of what's in the bag; it isn't, but the metamagic rods would require even more explanation than the scrolls.

"Why do you carry them and not Nenio?"

"I can cast from a scroll. I have training in it."

"- why do you and not Nenio have the Wish scroll."

"- I can also cast Wishes from a scroll. It's not harder than other ninth circle spells. I know the standard thirty safe wordings in Celestial."

"Who are you."

"I'm trying to think how best to establish that, your Majesty."

Alfirin hands over her mithril sword, and her cold iron sword, and her three mithril daggers, and her adamantine dagger, and her adamantine file, and her belt and headband and ring of protection - she asks to keep the ring of sustenance (and does not mention that it also does invisibility), and then, with some reluctance, asks for a change of clothes and for the men to turn around and removes her shirt. It doesn't appear to be very magical, but one of the properties that people present have seen it to have is shapechanging, and Galfrey's prisons probably don't allow their prisoners to keep magic items of shapechanging.  "It's a family heirloom," she explains as she hands it over, "And a little bit cursed. It would be a bad idea for anyone else to wear it if they're not also a descendant of my great great grandmother." Conveniently, all her scrolls are in one of the pockets nobody else can open; two fighters with a previously-undisclosed ability to read scrolls would be even stranger than one.

"You could say that I've been…around for a while…but not actively involved in Avistan's affairs in recent centuries. I understand why Queen Galfrey wants the Crusade's leadership to share Mendev's faith, and I want to - I thought very highly of Iomedae - but my experiences since I arrived here have been disconcerting.

When I arrived in Kenabres I did not have much context on the situation at the Worldwound or in Mendev, or on the priorities and interests of the Church of Iomedae. Hulrun asked me to find some Desnans who'd had advance warning of the attack and had trespassed in the Wardstone building. I found them. He murdered them on the spot.

He then became convinced that the mongrels - Lann's people - who'd been invited to join in the city's defense were demons, and started killing them.

I also learned from Ember that he'd had her and her father burned at the stake, though someone else intervened to rescue her.

From the library I looked up your holy books and learned that Iomedae's church publishes a notably incorrect account of the Shining Crusade and also that they'd gotten Arazni raised as an undead horror who is now forced to govern Geb and also that Cheliax is ruled by Hell itself.

If there is mitigating context on any of that I'd be interested to hear it. I do think it prejudiced me somewhat against your faith. "

"Well," says Cansellarion, "You've identified some of our church's greatest failures. Hulrun, for what it is worth, fell and was removed from his position. We really have no excuse for Arazni, though, and for Cheliax - we tried, we are still trying, but that's really not good enough." He feels like he should be able to give a better account than that.

It is probably close to the best available answer, aside from it all being some kind of misunderstanding, and he did check enough to confirm it wasn't a misunderstanding. It mostly just makes him feel more tired. "Probably sending fewer of your powerful Good adventurers to the Abyss would help. - sorry." 

Cansellarion does not know how to sufficiently respectfully and diplomatically say "Galfrey is unrepresentative of the church as a whole and wouldn't be a paladin if her country was not right on the edge of the worldwound" so he does not say it at all except maybe a little bit with his facial expression.

"Anyway. I didn't need to understand all of history to respect the bravery of the Mendevian people or to want to defend them, and my allies and I took back Kenabres, and I agreed to extend my service to you and your people. ...I should at that point have prioritized diplomatic relations with both Lastwall and Mendev more highly, but I failed to do so. I was finding a lot of cultists and I preferred to conceal as many of my capabilities as possible, something that wasn't compatible with identifying myself to people, and I considered it possible that the church was - corrupted in a systematic fashion, and that it was actively dangerous to try to cooperate with it as a Lawful institution." He is not at all sure this is false.

"Were the Church not lawful and willing to cooperate even with might-be enemies, you'd be dead," says Galfrey. 

"- did you miss the implications of the Wish scroll. I was at no point trapped and I was at no point afraid I would lose. If the Church was not lawful the forces of Good would be down a Wish! I am glad we're not! But it was never my life at stake." - This is not a very diplomatically skillful approach, is it. In his defense he is incredibly exhausted.

Cansellarion's face is getting very expressive. He and Galfrey are both looking at Aspex so hopefully this won't be a diplomatic incident?

Aspex suspects this is already a diplomatic incident but maybe not one anyone will think of blaming Lastwall for. 

"We only have your word for it that you can use the scroll," says Galfrey.

"- if I couldn't I'd have had Nenio carry it, obviously. I do not want to read even one of the lesser ninth circle scrolls just to prove I can but I can recite the safe wordings, if you have anyone on hand who can verify them. Besides that, I imagine you planned your operation on the assumption I was secretly evil, that being the likeliest case in which you'd need to carry it out, and as I am not secretly evil you didn't have the force you needed. - this is verifiable, if we want to waste some time and money. Get me a Stoneskin, smite me. I think it'll be pretty clear that you are not getting anywhere. I am to my knowledge Lawful Good. I have been to my knowledge Lawful Good since I had the strength to register as anything. I suspect it's because of my life spent lawfully serving the cause of Good."

"You still haven't told us anything about your history."

He was kind of hoping they'd guess, because they'd be likelier to believe it if they thought of it. "I served in the Shining Crusade, and that is where I became a powerful fighter and experienced in training soldiers and conducting combat operations."

Huh. She knew he was older than he looked but - "from the shining crusade" is both much older and much more interesting than she thought. She's kind of staring.

it is such a shame that he doesn't want her and only wants the wizard borrowing her body