"I also wanted to know more about Drezen - is it structurally intact, will it have any supplies in it the demons wouldn't have looted for whatever reason, how big is it..."

"The walls and most of the buildings are likely to be in ill repair, though I doubt we'll be lucky enough that the gates are easy to force. You can expect a lot of slapdash and low effort work for the parts they bother to repair, except maybe the center citadel if Darrazand or Aponavicius ordered it for appearances. It was first designed as a city for war, to hold against the demons without a wardstone; there are two rings of immense stone walls that guard the edge of the city and the elevated inner ring, and it could house nearly ten thousand souls at its peak with the food storage to withstand months of siege. In the day the approaches were kept clear of obstruction to improve the lines of fire, but I'd bet against the demons having kept that up so there should be some protection as we approach. If we retake the city, repairing the temples and houses will be significantly cheaper than building them new, but it'll need work rather than being ready to move in in a day. As for supplies, it's hard to say; the demons and cultists living there need to eat and to have arms to fight with, but whether they'll be fit for consumption or of good enough quality to be worth using is doubtful."

"And what can you tell me about Darrazand, Aponavicius, anyone else we're liable to run into early on?"

"Darrazand is a Balor; thankfully not as mighty as Khorramzadeh, but still incredibly dangerous. Like all balors, he's immune to lightning and fire and all but proof against any weapon not blessed by a cleric or wielded by a paladin, and any direct magic not cast by an experienced wizard or cleric. He can teleport around freely anywhere within the wound, dispel most magical effects, create firestorms and mind control anyone who isn't a paladin or veteran adventurer not covered by a protection from evil who he gets in close enough with. According to our intelligence, he recently ousted Aponavicius from Drezen, but in case that's in error Zuhra Aponavicius is a particularly deadly marilith, highly skilled as a combatant and commander even by the standards of their kind. She lacks most of Darrazand's powerful magic, but is also capable of teleportation and is even more deadly in melee combat. I fought her once in the fourth crusade and barely made it out alive. None of either's subordinates are even half so dangerous, thankfully, but I can't rule out Minagho deciding to give you more trouble to repay the defeat you dealt her and I imagine you understand the danger there."

"What's the intel source?"

"The same one that warned us of the attack on the wardstone; one of Desna's agents has been spying on the demons for us, and the goddess relays their messages in our dreams."

"...huh. I guess it's demonstrably better than nothing but that's really weird coming as I do from a place where Desna is unknown, is there anything else you can tell me about it?"

"Certainly. We only ever receive messages through dreams where it's hard to make out details, but they usually take the form of a woman set against a backdrop of stars relaying us a short message of the goings on amongst the demons. Almost all of it has either proven accurate or unfeasible to check. The message doesn't just go to empowered Desnans, though she does seem to have an easier time reaching her clerics; both Aranka and Thall dreamt the message in the lead up to the attack when they were sleeping at the temple. As for details beyond that, we haven't received any, but it is not unusual for The Great Dreamer to act via such portents."

Ramien then frowns slightly.

"Unfortunately, it's not solely good news I can relay here. For the past few nights, including after the wardstone was cleansed, we've only been receiving the same message on repeat. I hope that's simply because She felt it was important enough to make sure it got through, but I am somewhat worried that whoever this is overreached themselves with that message and was caught."

"What is it?"

Ramien closes his eyes, and then recites the message as he remembers it.

"Hear me, dreamer, and take heed! The hordes of the abyss march on Kenabres! Their target is the wardstone, and they must not be allowed to succeed. Otherwise, the result would be disastrous..."

"I got that one too, but not since we got the wardstone cleared."

"I'll take that as a positive sign then, but the only sure answer will be whether new visions appear or conspicuously fail to."

"Any other in-date intel from that or other sources I should hear about while we're here?"

"Many of them have been obviated by now, but there are a few that might still be relevant. There are rumors among the demonic forces in drezen of more powerful varieties of normal demons showing up, and not in the usual way of Vrolikais being a further evolution of Nabasu. Our best guess is that this is about Abyssal Huntresses, which are a particularly deadly coterie of succubi that we're told have also been operating in the wound unusually often in recent months, but the source of the rumor could also be something else entirely or nothing at all. There's also been some clashes between an ash giant tribe and Baphomet's forces in the stonewilds, which might mean added demonic casualties or some ash giants pressed into service under Derrazand depending on how that ends up going. "

"Ash giants, I read up on different demon types but not those."

“They’re enormous humanoids, about ten feet tall fully grown. Not particularly bright on average, but not so much so they can’t work tools or produce capable tacticians. The ones I’ve fought against made use of tamed giant spiders and disease in combat, which aren’t especially effective against demons, but they’re still enormously strong and hard to put down. I’d bet on an ash giant against a babau or an incubus any day, but superior numbers or a few greater demons could make it go the other way.”

"Any possible help from that corner, or does it stop at incidental clashes with the demons? Any other local populations that might be worth reaching out to?"

"Hmm. I don't speak the local giant dialects but I might be able to find someone there who can speak Hallit and can negotiate, and if we're spending teleports on it getting a casting of tongues wouldn't be that much more expensive. I'm not sure how far we'll get, though, ash giants are pretty famously insular and hostile to outsiders, which is a good thing when it comes to them clashing with demons but less helpful to safely making deals with them."

"Is my and Iskander's language magic limited to Hallit or is it more general, I can't actually tell from the inside."

"I'm hearing you in Taldane, so I assume not. Did you not cast the tongues yourself?"

"It was on us already when we came to and must have been cast during our missing time."

"Huh, I was under the impression that tongues was one of the ones you could only make permenant on yourself. I guess there's always scrolls, if you can get a 6th circle wizard to scribe it for you, but it was always prohibitively expensive when I looked into it. Congratulations then, I suppose."

"Thanks, I just wish we remembered what happened! Anyway, this is mostly only useful if the giants can read, since things bottlenecked on us personally are going to be an issue sooner or later."

"Tongues doesn't work on writing, do you have comprehend languages permanently too?"

Apparently this is what it takes to surprise Nurah, because there's a hint of jealously in her voice before it vanishes.

"Ahem. Most giant tribes are not especially literate. There are exceptions, but fewer of them among ash giants and I don't think we have any particular reason to believe this group is an exception. We might be able to get a message to them that way, but it would be hard enough to negotiate anything significant via conversation that trying it in writing sounds like a struggle."

"Well, I must, since I can read - I guess I haven't actually checked if I can also write in local languages, I've been taking my notes in Scythian." She tries it. "- nope. I will have to actually learn some Golarion languages, I guess. I'd still like to keep an eye out for anything suggesting we can negotiate usefully with them, they must know the terrain, but if it'd be complicated and expensive I'm certainly not confident enough to suggest any unusual outlay of risk or resources."