Irabeth is currently helping clear the city - they've gotten up as far north as the temples by now, the fighting still going house by house but now going much faster since there aren't any demons left strong enough to be a real threat - but they call breaks every few cleared buildings and at the next one Irabeth is free to speak with her.

Ky takes her aside for a private word. "I'm going to be the subject of an announcement soon," she says, "and wanted some local advice on how to speechify in reply."

"I'm not sure how much help I'll be, but I'm certainly willing to try. What are your goals for your speech, and what do you have so far?"

"It may need to double as a recruitment pitch, depending on how news travels. The Queen wants to call a new crusade."

Irabeth nods.

"I intend to join it as well. From the fact that you're giving a speech, I presume you've been offered a relatively high position? If so, I think you want to focus on something inspiring, but equally importantly short and memorable; the queen is very charismatic, and if you want something that'll stick with those listening without being overshadowed you'll want to make it as easy for them as possible."

"She wants to make me knight-commander. I did keep it brief but my natural inclination is probably too wordy yet - how many sentences would you say I ought to have?"

"Knight commander?  Congratulations! Those are some large boots to fill, but if the queen agrees you're up to it I'm sure you'll do a great job. In that case, I think you might want it a bit longer than I was thinking, but probably not more than a minute or two, and you should end it with something especially memorable. I'd still focus on quality over quantity, though, I think it'd be better to have a shorter speech than that you're happy with than something that long but sounds like you came up with it on the spot. If you need someone to listen as a sounding board, I'd be happy too, or I can round up a few of the eagle's watch if you want a better imitation of a crowd."

"I should probably practice it, shouldn't I." She looks over her notes. "Okay, here's what I've got.

"People of Mendev, my brother and I arrived here at what may have been the worst possible moment, featuring as it did a large-scale demonic incursion into your city pursuant to the failure of the Kenabres wardstone - or it may have been the best possible moment, allowing me to see the people of this city responding with incredible grace and courage to a crisis of heroic proportions. I have been privileged to meet and fight alongside many of the Mendevians who stepped up to the challenge and coordinated with friend and neighbor and stranger alike. Together we beat back the invading force and covered my approach to the wardstone to repair it. And today I am here to accept the command of the Fifth Crusade - to bring that wardstone and its brothers closer to the heart of the Worldwound, claiming back precious territory and essential safety margin from the hordes. I may be far from home, but I am fortunate to have found myself in such company, grateful to be positioned to author such deeds, and honored to find myself in command of such a worthy endeavor."

"- Iskander thinks it's laying it on a bit thick and he might be right, I don't know what plays well here."

"Hmm. I agree it's a bit much for a normal speech, and if you were just taking a supporting role I'd agree on cutting it. But Knight-Commander is the kind of title people associate with the acts of Iomedae; the position carries enough gravitas that I think you can get away with it, and then it's all upsides. Maybe get a second opinion if you want to be sure, but mine is to go with it."

"Any suggestions on whose opinion?"

"Klaem would be a good choice. He's from Taldor, which means he probably has a better idea of what kind of messaging will appeal to the inner sea adventurers we want to have show up, and I expect he'd be happy to help. Saving him from being burned to death was about as good a first impression as you could hope for, really."

"Oh, I hadn't caught his name at the time. Where would I find him?"

"The order of the flaming lance are about two blocks east of here. If Klaem is out of spells already he might have stopped, but his people should know where he is in that case."

"Splendid. Thank you very much."

The Order of the Flaming Lance is currently clearing a house alongside some mendevian soldiers, but they've already checked it for demons and are just doing a short examination with detect magic; there was apparently a bit of a nasty incident with one of the other groups missing a shadow demon and taking unnecessary casualties, so they've upped their caution before declaring the job done. As predicted, Klaem is happy to make time to speak with Kybele, seconding his section of the sweep to a subordinate.

"Irabeth recommended you as another pair of ears to check over my speech for a forthcoming announcement."

"Certainly. What do you want me to listen for, fact checking?"

"Absolutely, if you find any errors, but mostly for - tone, mood, cultural resonance - I'm very very foreign."

"Normally this is where I'd say so am I, but honestly it's less bad than it could be; plenty of people here still speak Taldane, even if they have an accent. What's the kind of message that you want to send, and who do you want to send it to? Are you prioritizing the Mendevians listening live? The churches of the gods? Foreign adventurers in Absalom? The governments of Taldor and Galt?"

"Oh, good question. How about I read you the draft and you tell me if it's drastically off for any of those?"

"Certainly. Obviously it won't be equally compelling to everyone, but I can see about identifying what tradeoffs it's making."

So she clears her throat and reads the speech.

"Hmm. So other people probably have a better finger on the pulse of how the locals will react; I assume from your comment that you've spoken with someone about it, and they seemed positive, so I'll focus on everyone else. I think this probably plays quite well in Andoran and Galt - not to the point that either government seriously steps in, but it's a step towards it for Andoran and I think you probably wouldn't get that from Cyprian unless you promised to subordinate yourself to Galt and establish a sister republic in the liberated territories. Cheliax and the church of Asmodeus are unlikely to be impressed, but you aren't burning bridges with them and anything that would impress them would be burning bridges elsewhere since they aren't terribly popular with anyone else. I expect it mostly doesn't get you anywhere in Absalom; if you want to motivate adventurers, you want to promise riches, opportunities to get stronger, or a good cause, and if they wanted the last one they'd go through Lastwall. That's nothing you can't fix with advertisements or sufficient wages, obviously, but I wouldn't expect this speech to contribute. The church of Iomedae in Lastwall will appreciate it and probably send you exactly as many forces as they were planning to anyway according to what is strategically indicated.

"In terms of other powers, in Taldor you're likely to get some praise for your noble intentions and maybe some token support. If you wanted to change that, you should spend more time talking up it as a glorious endeavor of civilization, thoroughly praise Iomedae since we consider her a national hero, and ideally have someone in their court connecting you with a faction that could use your words for some internal benefit and would scratch you on the back in exchange. To appeal to the church of Sarenrae, you would want to emphasize your goals of defeating evil and defending the innocent more. Osirion doesn't get involved in foreign wars, Ustulav lacks the capability to even hold their own section of the border without Lastwall, and the river kingdoms are currently occupied with Galt and too disorganized to offer much besides mercenaries anyway.

"Obviously some of these will come at a cost to how flattering and inspiring Mendevian crusaders find it, but whether they're worth it or not depends on what you want to get out of it."

"I'm given to understand that I very much do want adventurer attention and support. I can at least name-check Iomedae and defeating evil."

"That's always the trouble in wars, yes. There's no beating armies when it comes to combat, but when you need versatility or miraculous victories or rapid response forces and so forth it's hard to do without groups of elites. Especially high circle casters, and most of those aren't hanging around in armies. I wouldn't put too high expectations on the outcomes there, even the perfect speech isn't going to accomplish miracles and expecting it to is just setting yourself up for disappointment at a good performance, but at least on the margins I think that'll help."