He takes Vynsiel off the trade routes, promotes a couple of people, does a second round of recruiting in Absalom, and assembles a C team for Catherine, and a few minor raids they can all do as coordinated-assaults practice before they hit Terendelev. Catherine gets Nenio, Daeran and Amadeus.

He asks Irabeth to do the Terendelev operation with them.

She winces. "And who are you leaving in command in Drezen?"

"Rosya, probably. I agree it's nonideal. I thought I'd ask first if you're up for it. ...if I'd had you for the Midnight Fane I suspect it'd have gone a lot better."

"There were plenty of smart people in the room," Irabeth says diplomatically.

"Mmmhmm. What would you have done."

"Well, guessing when you're not tired and know how it shook out is much easier than guessing on the spot, but I do think it'd have occurred to me to object as soon as the first person drew their sword that the Worldwound treaty thankfully doesn't allow any such nonsense and they'd better put it back before the Goddess has to tell them to."

"I want you there. I know the Chapel was... very bad for you, and I know that you're not interested in adventuring and spectacularly valuable at home, but if all goes well it'll be about a minute and if things go badly there are a bunch of ways they could go badly where it'd make a difference having you."

"You don't have to persuade me, Knight-Commander."

"If you are unpersuaded that is suggestive that I am wrong, so, in fact, I mean to persuade you, or be myself persuaded."

She makes a face. Thinks, for a minute, looking out the window, scratching the deep scars on her wrists that would need a Regenerate and aren't worth one. "I think you're right, sir."

"Great. Here's your assignment."

Cansellarion arrives the evening of the 23rd. That same evening, Aarind reports that the Goddess has approved the operation to destroy and resurrect Terendelev. Everyone checks that they have all the supplies they’re expected to carry packed and ready to go; Team leaders check the same for all their subordinates.

Lastwall has prayer beads they can borrow, and Marit has a wizard friend who with the prayer beads casts the most powerful possible version of Greater Magic Weapon, long-enduring enough it can be arranged the night before, as can Magic Vestment. Marit waffles on it and decides to in fact put up his Contingency - if affected by a hostile spell and not cancelled in the next moment by saying the cancellation phrase, Teleport him out to a safe location in Drezen - the night before, even though technically someone with good enough spellcraft who checks before he gets the Mind Blank in the morning will look at him and know he cast it himself. It’s no longer secret he can cast from scrolls, after all. 

Their weapons will be made more powerful and more deadly, their armor and shields more tenacious; they’ll be subject to Stoneskin and Protection from Arrows and resistant to fire and ice and lightning and acid; Magic Circles Against Evil will protect them from mind control and make it hard for the enemies to approach them. They’ll of course have Planar Adaptation. Cansellarion, who is fourth circle, will have Iomedae’s favorite spell, Greater Angelic Aspect, the protective aura from which renders him and anyone within twenty feet of him immune to Glitterdust and Faerie Fire, and will have Bestow Grace of the Champion, which will let Marit and Catherine smite Terendelev too. Nefreti Clepati sells good wine, and they drink it. Each team is telepathically bonded, and the team leaders share a bond with Marit.

It’s a reasonable stack of spells, though to Marit, who is accustomed to just having more magic at his disposal, it feels a bit thin. They don’t have Arazni’s Heroism, which Iomedae could make last all day. (Greater Heroism isn’t much worse but it’s in fact worse.) They don’t have Greater Spell Immunity against a random draw from the set of spells their enemies are likely to have prepared for combat. They don’t have a song-sorcerer doing all the absurd song-sorcerer performances that strengthen one for the field of battle, nor a seventh-circle priest of Erastil to give them all Barkskin. (Camellia could do that one! Too bad she couldn’t be persuaded to stop eating people.)

He has Sunhammer cast the Mass Invisibility and the Greater Heroisms and the Mass Bull’s Strength and Mass Cat’s Grace. He has Sunhammer do these disguised as the elf wizard who he disguises himself as for spellcasting, which will presumably be confusing to the people who know he’s secretly a wizard and have guessed that’s the wizard he secretly is but will probably be persuasive, to the people who don’t secretly know that, that he isn’t. 

“Who was that?” Cansellarion asks later, a little nervously.

Ah, he probably got through the Nondetection, and, being a paladin, determined that Sunhammer is in fact super Evil. “A Baphomet cultist that the Crusade arrested who is also a seventh circle wizard,” Marit says. “You’d really think seventh circle wizards would have better things to do than be Baphomet cultists. - on the Crusade’s code of law here I cannot loan her services out but you can pay the Crusade for them if you want to.”

“I see.” He is not very interested in buying the services of an enslaved evil wizard, and was mostly concerned about the possibility that Marit hadn’t noticed her alignment.

They have scried invisible scouts sent to Iz, in preparation for this mission. The teams come in scattered around the eastern edge of the city, each teleporter landing somewhere slightly different; They prepared for this and rendezvous in the square they were aiming for, which is wide enough to be picked out easily from the sky.

It’s actually quite hard to coordinate a group of silent, invisible, mind-blanked people, even with telepathy, even with practice. Marit calls out rendezvous points as they proceed west, and they wait for each team to check in before moving on.

Rendezvous point six, Ten o clock, four hundred paces, directly above the shattered blue - Marit mutters something aloud - tower. 

Everything okay, commander?

I thought I saw something at four o clock, on the ground, but now I think it was just a rock, confirm?

She sees the rock in question - no sign of movement around it. I see it - looks like nothing, glitterdust to confirm?

No, not worth it, he replies. It might allow them to identify a creature hiding there but it also might let a creature hiding somewhere else know that they’re around at all. First team at point six and a hundred feet elevation.

Second team at point six, fifty feet, says Regill.

Third team at point six, just above the roof, says Catherine a few moments later.