"Do you want me to immediately fire you?" Ky asks him.

Daeran visibly considers it, before shaking his head.

"No, living my life is one thing, but people like the prelate would be even more insufferable if I outright refused it. Besides, I don't imagine that would leave me free; my cousin doubtless has some other duty lined up to foist on me that I expect I'll like even less and that doesn't have the mercy of me answering to someone mostly tolerable. I reserve the right to complain incessantly about the injustice of it though."

"I wouldn't dream of stopping you! Conscription is just a prettier word for slavery, and if we can't think of a better idea, that may not leave us with other options but it's a failure of imagination and not of the folks who want to stay at home growing cabbages and holding babies."

That'll produce a bright smile from Ramien, though almost everyone else in the room seems rather more lukewarm on the sentiment.

"That business handled, we can move on to other matters."

The queen unfurls a topographical map of the wound, with Kenabres, Drezen, and the wardstone lines clearly labelled.

"Here is what our strategic situation looks like at the present. As I mentioned, the goal of this crusade is to assess the feasibility of retaking Drezen and, if it is not too unfavorable, to do so. Of lesser focus but still great importance are scattering demon armies, tearing down their fortresses, slaying their commanders; anything that will ease up the pressure on the wardstone fortresses or make the job of the next crusade easier to accomplish. You've all been briefed on your specific roles in the crusade, but ideally all of you will have a passable holistic view of the effort; between that and questions unwise to ask or answer outside of a sanctum, I've set aside some time on our agenda to accomplishing that."

Ky shakes out a roll of paper that wasn't there a minute ago and sets about dyeing the sheet different colors to copy the map. Does it have the whereabouts of any demon fortresses?

There are confirmed fortresses at Threshold, Iz, and Drezen, as well as a handful along Lastwall and Chelish lines, but most of the rest of the map is bare of them and instead has names of probably-still-active demon generals and a vague sense of their areas of control. One gets the sense that scouting the wound in detail is hazardous, particularly outside the area that forces at the wardstone line can support.

Unsurprising. She copies it all very meticulously. "How in-date is this map?"

"The Chelish, Lastwall, and Mendevian areas are up to date as of a month ago, and Numeria's bubble never changes. Information on Irrisen's line is anywhere between a year and a decade and a half old, but we would know if there was a breakthrough reasonably promptly. As for the disposition of the demonic forces, much of it is information garnered from the fourth crusade, but we've been supplementing it with news from captured demons and occasional scouting raids, so it's of limited reliability but judged sufficiently better than nothing to be worth including."

Ky takes notes on this, looks around at her staff to take their temperature on the subject. "What kinds of intel-gathering magic have we got at our disposal?"

Jhoran Vhane will field this one!

"At second circle, there's augury and lay of the land. The former is a somewhat unreliable source of information on the result of actions in the immediate future, whereas the latter gives you knowledge of the geography of your surroundings. When I cast it, I get everything in a six mile radius; I believe Ramien would get slightly less than that, and most other clerics with us significantly less. At third circle, there is locate object to find a specific known item, but it only functions within a few hundred feet so you need to have a general idea of where to look. At 5th circle, there is scrying and commune. The former is a lengthy process that allows you to spy on a known individual and see their immediate surroundings, while the latter allows me to ask a handful or yes or no questions of Torag in exchange for a moderately expensive amount of incense. Ramien again should have the same at that circle, but of Desna instead. Aside from that, there are a number of spells that can gather information on a target in front of you such as arcane sight to identify kinds of magic or true seeing which cuts through all illusions, and some spells not available to anyone in our force like greater scrying, discern location, and arcane eye that we might nevertheless be able to purchase scrolls of in limited numbers if there is a great enough need."

"So there are improvements to be had over wading into demon territory and looking around but not really overwhelming ones considering expenses."

"Some wizards have avian familiars that are smart enough to report back to their master, but the fourth crusade was in perennially short supply of them and if they were ever slain it noticeably weakened their master. As far as I am aware there are none in the forces I brought with me, but if you prove successful enough to attract skilled adventurers that will eventually become available to you. You can do a more expensive version of this with called outsiders, but this also has the issue that if they are slain they perish for good, so many are reluctant to scout the wound in any real depth. Otherwise, I did not manage to find any solutions superior to scouting detachments despite working to keep abreast of any developments in the field."

Ky nods.

If Daeran gets that ballad sung all over the world, maybe she can just wade into the worldwound in a hurricane of confetti all by herself -

Best not to get ahead of herself. Anyone else in the room have comments?

"I have one. Knight Commander, what's our policy on criminal and otherwise potentially politically awkward recruits? There are a lot of people that come to Mendev to fight demons in exchange for sheltering under the worldwound treaty, but taking them in can sometimes sour relations with the countries they're wanted by. I can push the line that this is perfectly legal and that if they don't want it to happen they should contribute more to taking back the wound, or we can arrange for them all to go to the wardstone lines and I'll be very apologetic about it to try and keep support coming in, but it would be diplomatically awkward to have to switch between them."

"The wardstone lines as opposed to what other position?"

"In our crusading army. Lots of them tend to have useful skills we might want, like wizardry, but there's the question of if getting them in our forces is worth the added hassle as opposed to hoping they free up some ordinary soldiers for us."

"Can you explain why it would be provocative to have them in the army by comparison to having them in the garrison? Naively I'd have guessed the opposite, I'd assume that vindictive sorts would want their outlaws in the less pleasant position but perhaps I'm just wrong about what that is."

"It's mostly a question of who they'd be annoyed at. The treaty legalizing it is old enough that anyone inclined to get upset at Mendev for it already is, while the crusade has a chance to be seen as a separate entity. I didn't make that distinction since as queen it was rather futile and felt I needed all the adventurers I could get, but you're not Mendevian and aren't already at loggerheads with House Thrune so you might get somewhere with it."

"Ah, thanks for explaining - I think it isn't very likely I'll be able to avoid being provocative to House Thrune for long, so we may as well field their refugees if it's legal to do so."

“Got it. Annoying Cheliax always plays well with Andoran and Galt, so hopefully I can offset any annoyance they feel somewhat with that.”

“I also have a question about what we want in terms of prioritization, but a somewhat more material one. I’ve got a relatively good offer on some extra warhorses lined up so we can beef up our cavalry scouting arm, but it’ll be expensive to move the extra grain in and I’d be less confident we could afford it if our Knight Commander couldn’t generate paper. Knight Commander, Captain Harmattan, Baroness Gaunther, Lady Irabeth; do you have any thoughts?”

“I’m disinclined to go for it. If we have extra weight allowances on the transports, it should go to food for the men to help keep up morale and extra arrows and gear to keep the forces we have in fighting shape. Having better mobility and intelligence is important, but less so than being better able to win the fights.”

“While I don’t disagree with those points, our forces are already a little lighter on cavalry than I’d like for the amount of travel this campaign calls for; I think it would be worth paying some hard to measure costs to firm up our status there, since every ambush spotted and path located directly saves lives and time.”

"Do we have trained riders currently between horses?"