Knight-Commander Marit
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That is fascinating if true and almost certainly worth the commune to confirm - For his part he trusted Aspex before this but it's a pretty surprising claim and he's not going to take it at face value unconfirmed.

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"As you predicted, I don't particularly believe this," Galfrey says. "How do you claim you could prove it?"

 

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"If I propose a test it can be one that I prepared for. You have lots of only lightly edited history of the Shining Crusade, you control most of the relevant territory, you decide how you want me to prove it. If you give my boots back I can Teleport into a lot of places that very few people now alive have accessed. If you have some book somewhere with obscure military codes, I probably know them. If Mengkare answers questions, I knew him. If you want, you can petition Lastwall to ask Iomedae, who if she did turn out right must be appalled at this whole fiasco.

Or not, if it's inefficient to be appalled."

 

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"Majesty," asks Cansellarion, "If the Goddess confirms that this man is who he says he is, will this be sufficient for you?"

The correct answer is obviously 'yes' in his opinion but Galfrey has not been reliably taking the actions that Cansellarion thinks are correct.

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Galfrey looks…harried. "I suppose. I can't think what one could reasonably hold out for at that point. You're not trying to set up for Daeran to take the throne?"

 

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"He doesn't want it and shouldn't have it, and nothing I want would happen if it was his," says Marit. "My understanding is that you alone can hold Mendev together right now, and I have no right and no desire to intervene in Mendev's politics even if I came to have a grievance with you. Which I don't right now, your fears were reasonable."

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"And the number of my observers on the Crusade who you've seized and executed as cultists -"

 

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"- I did offer that you could come observe the trials of any of them that you wanted. The people I executed as cultists were in fact cultists. I have probably at some point in my life executed an innocent person but never deliberately and not likely on this Crusade, we have reliable truth spell access."

 

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"Nurah was a cultist?"

 

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"- I think she was in a sense just ideologically opposed to Mendev and had common cause with the cultists thereby, rather than being moved by a deep dedication to Baphomet, but she really did arrange the vescavor swarm and burn half the camp during the gargoyle attack."

 

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"Harmattan?"

 

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"Sabotaged my equipment to try to kill me. He said he did it as an attempt to serve you. I," perhaps foolishly, "assumed that you did not intend to be so served. He also said he'd been behind several other acts of sabotage."

 

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"Cultist."

 

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"Someone I know in Drezen reports you leave your quarters invisibly at odd hours."

 

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"I do do that, in order to see what people are up to when they don't know their commander is watching them, and in order to conduct operations that require secrecy."

 

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"I've heard that in private you insult Iomedae and those who follow Her."

 

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"I have  - complicated feelings about Iomedae and those who follow Her."

 

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Galfrey can't seem to think of a followup question, after that.

 

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Well, that is not terribly surprising to Cansellarion, from someone who knew the Goddess before She ascended, and woke up - or something - to the world in its current state. "I will arrange for questions related to this to make it into the next commune. Is there anything else I should try to get answered at the same time, for either of you?"

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"I want the right to run my own communes," says Marit. "If you've improved the compression calculations from the ones I know, fine, teach me the new ones. If Lastwall wants to trade me a commune-qualified priest for one of mine who isn't, fine, or if they need us to run errands - but I don't like having Iomedae's word filtered through people I’ve never met and don't really have any reason to trust. She can send me to my death in the Abyss without the slightest explanation, if She wants. Her people - no."

 

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"We can trade you a commune-qualified priest - It's not just the question compression, it's also knowing that every answer uses some of Her limited ability to act on this plane - but if you know question compression I'm sure you understand that too. If all is as you say, sending you someone qualified should be no trouble."

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"Then there's nothing else." And to Galfrey, " - I am grateful for your willingness to reconsider, your Majesty. I hope to earn your trust."

 

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"I hope for that too," she says.


 

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They return to Drezen that evening. Marit is reluctant to swear everyone to secrecy - he dislikes that for information they would've come to possess whether their oaths were good or not - but he does ask them not to gossip about it. 

 

Seelah is relieved that everything was cleared up. Lann is deeply impressed by everybody's Law, which is sort of cheering in a distant way, a reminder that the baseline is not Iomedae's effortless god-Law but the muddled behavior of ordinary human beings. Regill is Regill, and presumably deeply unimpressed by everyone, but he returns to his duties without complaint. 

 

Alfirin he slips a Telepathic Bond as he's leaving, so they can debrief without being in the same room.

 

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