"Your salary? Certainly, let me just check that."

Wilcer Garms frowns, then goes digging into the papers in his temporary desk. Over the next few minutes he goes through several stacks of paper, but judging by the creases on his forehead doesn't seem to be having much luck.

"I'm not sure what the payscale is for the knight commander - it's not listed in the normal place or the charter, and there's not even anything in the legacy files from the fourth crusade..."

His voice trails off, filled with dawning comprehension.

"That would explain it. I don't think Mendev has ever paid a salary to a knight commander before, since up until now that's just been the queen and because Mendev's crown has been the one doing most of the funding for the crusades it would just have been her paying herself. Uh, I can authorize pay for you as a staff officer, but if you want more than that you might want to get it cleared with the Queen before she leaves town for Nerosyan."

"How much are the staff officers getting?"

"A hundred twenty crowns monthly, with ten more as allowances for those in the cavalry for upkeep of their horses."

"Is equipment like magic items budgeted separately?"

"Not directly. You can get purchases of items you use on crusade partly subsidized, if you can get your commanding officer to sign off on it, but the subsidy isn't that large - ah, as knight commander you would count as your own commanding officer, as well as for most of the other higher ranking staff officers. Aside from that there are also procedures for loans of magical items for a specific strategic purpose, like wands of glitterdust for wizards tasked with stopping invisible demons or potions of healing for high value combatants, but they don't just get to sell it when the crusade is over if they have charges left. Most of our staff officers will probably end up with enchanted weapons and armor, and maybe a few items or full plate for the ones with independent wealth, but unless you're like... raiding dragon lairs the really expensive stuff you see in high end shops mostly doesn't get sold at all."

"Damn, okay. Staff officer salary will do me for at least the time being, thank you."

"Not a problem. I'll try and speak with the queen about it; it doesn't feel right for us to be asking the knight commander to work for less than her subordinates. In the meantime we can see about compensation for the commodities you're supplying. I don't want to commit to a hard valuation right now, especially when we don't know what it'll look like in practice, but some back of the broadsheet calculations suggest your abilities at producing paper will save us easily twice what we're paying you in wages and five times that if you can also make enough paper to use as fuel. Maybe even more value than that, if it turns out that having you available means we use significantly more paper than we otherwise would, or less weight being transported brings down the price per pound, but that's even harder to evaluate. I'm hoping to get Rathimus or a colleague of his to weigh in how to split that properly, but at the very least a large chunk of that ought to go to you like how we still pay wizards for scrolls they make the crusade."

"I'll have to experiment with getting it to come out compressed or otherwise suitable for use in fires that last longer than five minutes, but it's probably doable."

"Inheritor willing."

He's certainly not going to suggest she go elsewhere if she has more questions or is interested, but his experience with most officers is that most of them are unconcerned in the nitty gritty details of making an army run, and as long as there's someone to delegate to are perfectly happy to not deal with it.

She peeks over his shoulder briefly but next on her agenda is to find Baroness Guanther and ask her about swordfighting lessons.

That's actually quite flattering. Gaunther is skilled at using a sword - any noble worth their salt is, and a half dozen other weapons besides - but insofar as her personal combat abilities get attention it's mostly for the fact that she can do magic while fighting. She can definitely take some time to help out Kybele with lessons.

Ky would like to also know how to do magic while fighting, but in truth her strength and speed have far outstripped her skill, and she isn't under the impression she can coast forever.

In that case, she'll start from the assumption that Kybele is largelly an amateur and apologize in advance for anything too obvious.

"The first thing I try and drill in people's heads - especially the ones that have watched too many plays - is to forget about hitting the other person's sword. Well made swords are very durable, and magical ones moreso, but if there's one thing that will wear them down relatively quickly it's hitting another piece of tough metal with it as hard as you can all the time. The other, equally important reason is that it distracts you from the main thing you want to be doing with a sword - hitting your enemy with the sharp bits. There's a time for deflecting blows, particularly to get their weapon out position to stop you, and you don't want to mindlessly attack and get hit bad yourself, but the whole reason to use a sword instead of just a shield is to hit the other person until they go down.

"The second thing I always aim to get people to remember is to not get dragged into a prolonged fight if you can help it. Even a schir is significantly stronger, more agile, and more durable than most adults, to say nothing of babau or inheritor forbid Kalavakus. This applies less to paladins or powerful adventurers like you, but it does still apply; if you're in a fight that comes down to a slugging match, odds are decent that you'll lose. Instead, your goal is to pick fights you can win quickly or pick them as a group, and if a greater demon like a Glabrezu shows up get out of the way so the archers can kill them with massed fire without you getting hit."

With those warnings given she can get Kybele starting on footwork and guard drills, with the goal that when it comes to a fight she won't have to even think about not leaving herself open to attacks.

It's really helpful! Ky has read books about swordsmanship but did not, before coming to Golarion, expect it to come up in her life.

Once she's run through the drills a few times, Gaunther fetches a wooden sword and dons some padded armor to show what the drills are supposed to help with - not as a replacement for the practicing, but because when you're dealing with adults it's more effective to show how letting their elbow drop makes them easier to stab than to just tell them to tighten their stance. It won't make her a master overnight, but the more she sweats in practice the less likely it is that she gets killed painfully and the crusade gets put out the price of a raise dead diamond. Getting her more practice dealing with superhuman strength is a harder ask, but she can at least make her practice blade magic for a few seconds at a time and give Kybele a better sense of how much more dangerous that makes opponents.

Ooh, can she try it on a paper sword so she can also experience the difference in practice?

Sure! As far as she's been able to tell it works on any kind of weapon and doesn't seem to cost her anything; paper should work fine if it's in the right shape.

Here is is! Swash swash.

It's a weird feeling; it's definitely interacting with the paper, in a similar dimension to scrolls or her bracers, but it's not really changing anything about them. When it wears off six seconds later, the paper doesn't feel any different from it did before, even after multiple uses. When she swings it at the wooden sword, it bites slightly into the material like a metal knife would, but doesn't do anything to protect the paper itself from taking damage.

The paper's remarkably hard in Ky's hand, but she does notice a little difference in the swing. "Interesting! It's different from the angel sword."

"Yeah. I'm not really sure why, but whatever it is I'm doing seems to be slightly different than normal weapon enchantments. It does mean I can still use enchanted gear, though, so I'm not complaining."

"Maybe you should see if Nenio - she's a wizard who's very scientifically inclined - can figure it out, I worry if she doesn't have enough to investigate productively she'll start gnawing on things that oughtn't be picked apart."

"You've already managed to recruit a wizard adventurer? You work fast. Sure, I can find some time to meet with them."

"She just sort of walked up and started quizzing people. I'm not positive she'll work out long term but I hope she'll be useful as long as she stays."

"That makes sense. Maybe it'll let me figure out what the requirements are for other people picking it up, that could be helpful. Now let's try with distractions this time; I want you to hold your stance while moving your paper around."