It probably couldn't possibly. We thought we were going to change the world, build something unlike every warlord-state and Lawful the way the Empire could never be, a place anyone would want to live, on soil that they'd won fairly, with a government that was incorruptible, and it'd become the richest and safest and wisest and best place in the world. …we also didn't call it Lastwall, because we weren't at the time conceiving of it as a bandage glued over Tar-Baphon.

I can imagine, if you thought you'd really win - I think Lastwall is a lot of those things. Just - not the richest place in the world, because they're busy keeping Tar-Baphon locked up and holding the worldwound and are at war with Belkzen.

Yes. It's a lot to be busy with. It's not fair, really, to have left them with all that to do and then blame them because they are busy and tired with the doing. I think really it's just hard to miss your children's…childhood…and then not recognize the men and women they grew up into.

It sounds like it would be.

Aarind finds Marit when he's back from his teleport run. "Knight-Commander. I'm writing a failure analysis report for the incident between you and Galfrey, I already have Cansellarion's account and Seelah's, would you mind taking the time to give me yours?"

He's surprised. Why is he surprised. Because he thought that nine hundred years after you taught a civilization how to do a good failure analysis they'd stop failing - kind of stupid, when you put it that way.  " - sure. Who'll it be shared with, I may not want to share operational details about my spies in Nerosyan but it's relevant why they were inadequate."

"A copy is going to Seelah, to Cansellarion, to yourself, and to my superiors in Lastwall's diplomatic corps, who will probably pass it on to the rest of Lastwall's high command. Galfrey may be sent a copy but if you wish some of the contents of that copy that are based on things you said redacted we can do that."

"All right. I want everything relevant to the Crusade's espionage operations redacted." And he'll only share things where he doesn't care that much if they fail at secrecy, so it'll be a good test of whether they do. "Sit down, I need to look through my records." He pulls a book out of one of the handy haversacks on his person, breaks the seal with his blood, breaks the second seal by whispering something to it, and starts leafing through it. "- do you want to ask questions first or do you want my timeline first?"

"Timeline first, please."

He flips through the logs. He did this for his own benefit the day after the incident, so it's fresh and he remembers where all the things he wants to find are.

"20 Arodus, visited Nerosyan for the first time, spent about twelve hours, hired someone to give weekly reports by scry on logistics-related information, no luck finding anyone who'd summarize politics for me. Asked Daeran, who was formally assigned to me for that purpose but who had no interest in serving in it. 

30 Arodus, dropped some archons reporting to me in Nerosyan and in Vellumis and in outlying villages near Fort- near Vigil.

10 Rova, Nurah - assigned to me by Galfrey as a civilian administrator - discovered to have attempted to burn down the camp in the chaos of a gargoyle attack, admitted during interrogation to several other acts of sabotage and support of cultists. Sentenced to death. Sent Galfrey notice. 

12 Rova, Lastwall banished my observers there, I don't have it written down but I think I mostly gave up on trying to get geopolitically oriented until we'd taken Drezen. - I didn’t want to send them back better-hidden because I wouldn’t have done so if you’d killed them.

15 Rova, had Nurah executed. - I’d broadly been conducting executions in the field with the minimal waiting period, we had problems with escape attempts, but with Galfrey’s people I gave her time to respond.

6 Neth, Konomi was appointed to my staff council as my diplomatic representative to Nerosyan. Contemporary notes read 'I don't trust her and she's not going to be helpful. I have agreed to throw the parade for Galfrey she requested.'

14 Neth, Spent the night in Nerosyan and hired a couple more people to read me local circulars and tell me the price of grain and horses - I had the wrong threat model, I was thinking I wanted to know of large-scale troop movements, or if she was complaining about me in the press. I imagined paladins likely could not order assassinations of their allies at the Worldwound and that if I was wrong about that, my precautions against assassination generally were applicable. Wrong threat model, again, after a fashion: I think I was correct to believe Galfrey couldn’t successfully have me killed but for a catastrophic mess to result she did not need to.

18 Neth, noticed that my boots of Teleport, which I don't sleep in, had been sabotaged; testing on a summons demonstrated they stunned the user and dropped them in the middle of the Wound. I started an investigation and within a day identified Captain Harmattan, head of the staff council, who confessed - under a Dominate - that he'd done it as an act of loyalty to Galfrey. He'd attempted a few previous acts of sabotage that failed by coincidence before they came to my attention. I wrote to Galfrey, because he was her appointee. I think I just….totally failed to take it seriously as evidence about whether she was trying to kill me, once I'd confirmed he didn't have direct orders. 

19 Neth, I conveyed my letter to Nerosyan personally, disguised, and left a couple more spyglass archons, reporting weekly, still in place, didn't learn of these plans.

23 Neth, Executed Harmattan. Galfrey hadn't written back to me but I did get confirmation from my operatives in Nerosyan that she'd learned the news. 

10 Kuthona, Karsalis - a civilian administration Galfrey sent me - discovered to be a second-circle cleric of a Chaotic Evil entity, interrogated, confessed to being in the service of Baphomet. Wrote to Galfrey. I have a copy of the letter somewhere, it was not spectacularly diplomatic, I was irritated with her for having sent me all these people. I have trial transcripts, too, for each of these, though Karsalis refused an Abadar's Truthtelling.

18 Kuthona, executed Karsalis. 

25 Kuthona, Galfrey conveyed her plans to participate in the Fane operation. I note that I don't like it. I think I failed to follow up on that feeling because the sentiment appears ….fifteen…twenty…twenty-five…thirty….thirty-five…forty…forty three times in my notes in the month of Kuthona. We set the date for 8 Abadius.

27 Kuthona, I invited Cansellarion to fight with us. He’d done so previously on 16 Kuthona, at the Ivory Sanctum. 

7 Abadius, Galfrey and her guards and Cansellarion arrive, we met for operational planning.

8 Abadius at dawn, casters prepare spells, we break the seal to the Fane, and are engaged more or less continuously in combat through shortly before midnight. We return to the entrance out of spells above second circle, out of healing, moderately injured, and find Galfrey's people guarding it. At that point it was obvious what was happening before she started talking. She made the case we should go to the Abyss to track down whoever is organizing the demons. I refused. I was - preparing to win the fight, I think, and so distracted during the conversation. I remember wondering who we were even trying to convince, and if she’d agree to have one of hers stand aside for Seelah and Ember… I told her this was an assassination. She told her guards to arrest me. 

Litran objected and proposed arbitration. Asking for that had occurred to me in the same moment but it would’ve gone over worse, if I’d asked for it. I asked for Abadarans. Galfrey refused that, but agreed to Cansellarion. I - wasn’t sure, honestly. I hadn’t had any interactions that inspired confidence in Iomedae’s paladins, and I was pretty sure I’d win if it came to a fight. And Galfrey plainly thought he’d side with her. 

I debated it internally, agreed to Cansellarion, dropped my sword. He spent a while reading the relevant documents, and told Galfrey that she could neither order us into the Abyss nor deny us access to Drezen. Galfrey inferred from his explanation that she could deny us access to Drezen if she removed me from my position, and did that. We had some arguments about everyone's contractual obligations under these new circumstances and about where my company would go, until Ember pointed out that I was being an idiot because letting Galfrey’s country burn down would be…bad…even if her fault, and I hadn’t actually tried every option I had to salvage things.  I think it was uncharacteristic for me to need Ember to point that out. At that point I tried apologizing to Galfrey and asking if we could make things right. Litran proposed we leave the Abyss. I think this was essential to a successful resolution, it was making us stupider. 

…why didn't we have Planar Adaptation. I could’ve had it personally if I’d purchased it… on 10 Arodus, when I went shopping in Absalom, it was for sale, I didn't buy it because I didn't expect to end up in the Abyss, and then once we were in the Fane I would have had difficulty leaving to get it without betraying my capabilities and using most of my powerful spells. We could’ve had it as a group at least for most of the day if we’d directed Sosiel to prepare it, but we didn’t realize the Fane was relevantly in the Abyss until we were in it.

Conversation continues in Nerosyan. We get Galfrey to agree to a Commune to check my story, and to reinstate me if it's true. We return home 9 Abadius midday."

"When you refused Galfrey’s order to enter the Abyss, why did you do so? Did you believe the order to be an illegal one?"

“I refused because I was confident her intent was to kill us all and I hadn’t promised to obey her. I didn’t have any guesses what Iomedae’s church considers an illegal order these days - I asked when I was writing the Crusade charter, and didn’t get the sense it was an established category of Mendevian law, and Hulrun’s subordinates certainly possessed no such concept. I assumed she either had some rationalization for why this was legal, or was in fact just pretending to be a paladin; even if she’d declared that Mendev had passed some new law the previous day that gave her this authority, I meant to refuse. Once I had time to think it was plain the Worldwound treaty shouldn’t permit it whatever Mendevian law had to say, but it was at least two moments before I was thinking that clearly.”

"So, you did not consider yourself bound to follow her orders because you had not made any commitments to that effect, and that was the deciding consideration? Did you tell her this at the time?"

"When she said I was under arrest for disobeying her orders I started to object that I wasn't sworn to her but Catherine objected first, in the same terms."

"I see - You've already identified some places you believe yourself to have erred, are there any others? Actions you think you could have taken actions to avert this?"

"Arguably would've been worth going along with the orders and trying to Plane Shift to safety as soon as we got somewhere where dimensional transit functioned. That's Seelah's take. I'm unsure. Obviously if I'd killed Galfrey that'd have been catastrophic for Mendev; I also expect if she'd succeeded at her whole little plan here she'd have fallen and that's not obviously much less catastrophic. ...maybe I'm wrong about that. I was in fact unaware it was possible for a god to extend their paladin as much license as it appears Iomedae has extended Galfrey. 

If I'd envisioned the prospective betrayal in detail the minute it was proposed on 7 Abadius that Galfrey and her team stay behind at the entrance - us badly injured and low on spells, them well-rested and having re-cast spells in preparation for that moment - then I think I would've been less distracted by tactical considerations when it happened and would've jumped faster to the most important points for deescalation - the Worldwound treaty, arbitration, the fact it wasn't a victory condition to be meticulously in the right and get fired - if they hadn't been paladins I think I would have in fact envisioned the possibility during pre-operational planning, and therefore had less to think about when it happened. Given that I was taken by surprise by it I don't think I could've realistically thought of the relevant things faster -" presumably he does not need to explain to anyone who has reached fifth circle the experience of being exhausted and injured and abruptly having another tough fight on your hands that you know may well kill you if you make any mistakes, the feeling of your heart pounding and your mind kicking back into fighting condition "- but I could've avoided being surprised.

I could've hired some more people to do the Fane with us. I did the math on that and it didn't quite check out, with Galfrey's people coming, but it came reasonably close, and a couple more unaffiliated parties would've been helpful, plus if we hadn't been so badly injured and depleted in resources then I think Galfrey'd have been more reluctant to resort to force. If I'd set the margin for hiring additional adventurer help for all major operations in the Crusade low enough to have had three extra unaffiliated people with us in the Fane - another priest, maybe of Abadar, would really have been ideal..." He pauses to do the arithmetic for a little while. "- I'd have spent an extra forty thousand Absalom pounds. No, I don't think that's worth it. At that price point I could've just used the Wish."

"Which of your subordinates were kept abreast of the diplomatic situation with Nerosyan?"

"None. - yes, I know. The Queen had sent me Lady Konomi as diplomatic advisor, who I did not trust at all, and Count Arendae who I do …trust in some capacities…but not this one. I updated Konomi and her staff only on things that I couldn’t avoid her knowing about anyway. She updated me frequently but never usefully, and I was aware that her reports were not likely to be useful."

…Aarind closes his notebook. "This is not topical to the failure analysis and won't be included in the report, but are there any other tasks that you are taking on personally without any subordinates who are at least kept informed?"

"Seems at least moderately topical to the failure analysis. I've been making all our magic item purchases myself without anyone in the loop, because I didn't want to make it clear where I was buying from and with what resources. Magical defenses, same situation, same reason. Intelligence in Ustalav. Let me check if that's everything…yep, that's everything."

"I would advise delegating more. At the very least keep your wizard in the loop on your magical defenses, it's probably mildly suspicious that she isn't." He opens the book again, "Now, back to this incident - Galfrey obviously trusted you in the first place, enough to appoint you knight-commander at least. How do you believe that trust to have broken down?"

"Three of the people she sent me turned out to be traitors who engaged in sabotage and murder or attempted murder, and I executed them. In no individual case was this an unreasonable decision as I see it - you're welcome to review trial notes - but in hindsight it seems likely that to her it looked like I was killing off the people she trusted - and the people who she wanted to have advising me. She was also surprised and alarmed by Count Arendae reaching fifth circle, when she learned of it during operational planning for Drezen. At the time I assured her that I didn't think Count Arendae possessed political ambitions or the skill to act on them, which I still believe, and she seemed reassured.

She also complained of reports that I do mysterious things invisibly at night, and that I speak disrespectfully of Iomedae."

"Those are true?"

Marit makes a face. "I don't worship her. - because it would not in fact have been helpful to her if I did. Mendev sometimes feels to me like any moment someone will say it's blasphemy to say that getting Arazni enslaved was a mistake, as that would be implying she's capable of making mistakes."

"I'm not criticizing, just checking whether Galfrey was getting true or false reports - We know that was a mistake, of course, though maybe you're right that the Mendevian inquisition...doesn't..." He frowns.

"Were there moments when Cansellarion or Seelah could have acted differently and averted or mitigated this?"