Unfortunately the vision is unable to clarify its status vis-a-vis being prerecorded or simply unidirectional, so her question goes unanswered other than by the image collapsing in a sensation not unlike waking up.

"Did anyone else just get a vision warning about what sounds like the attack from two days ago?" she asks her party.

There are headshakes all around.

"What was it like? There aren't a lot of ways to do that without being nearby, and you usually have to be asleep for someone to get you with a dream - unless someone invented a better version! Or maybe it was just a god, I guess."

She describes the vision in detail, both the visual effect and the somewhat-incoherent vibe, and quotes the wording exactly in case it's important.

"It didn't feel like a god," she concludes, "but I don't know what gods would feel like. Just that I would be surprised if they felt like that."

"Well I'm not sensing any lingering evil presence, and it'd be pretty hard to do that in a hallowed temple anyway. That doesn't mean it was current, and you'd think they'd mention it was a second attack if it was, but probably you should tell someone anyway just in case."

"I was thinking of trying to Sending her, but it might make sense to tell Ramien first."

Speaking of the opposite of devils, it's about then that Ramien makes his return.

"Thank you for your patience, it turns out it was nothing a lesser restoration couldn't fix."

"Oh good. And I'm glad you're back, because I'm suddenly in need of a dream expert." She explains the whole thing again.

"That sounds like the one we've been getting for a few days now, since before the attack. It's somewhat concerning that it's still being sent, though; most of the other warnings were one off affairs. I had thought that was just because the scale of the attack warranted it, but if that's not the case... I'll pray to Desna about it, and see if I can get some more people by the wardstone."

"Maybe it was prerecorded somehow? Or the sender is hiding somewhere and doesn't know whether the attack happened yet. Do you think it would be foolish of me to try to reach her with a Sending? I'd expect a warning like that to be more likely from a confused friend than from an enemy."

"That sounds safe enough; there's no known way to intercept a sending unless they're actively inside the divine realm of a hostile god, and while in theory a sufficiently powerful hostile person could use a sending to them as a target for a demand we're fairly confident whoever it is is on our side and it wouldn't work if you were in the temple anyway."

"Cool."She tells Alpina what just happened, spends a few time-warped seconds speculating with her, then attempts to Sending the vision-sender. Possibly she doesn't have enough familiarity with them to be a valid target, but it's worth a shot.

Brenda here. Got your message about abyss attack on Wardstone. Was it about the recent attack or a future one? Who and where are you?

Thank Desna you heard. The lilitu Minagho plans to corrupt the Wardstone, with an army to attack Kenabres, any day now. I'm- just a prisoner.

Oh yikes! Fortunately Brenda has infinite scrolls. (She keeps the people around her up to date on what she's saying.)

She attacked two days ago, got driven off. Do you want rescue? Where are you? Who's holding you, what people and resources do they have?

Be careful it's not a trick; she's a master of deception. I'm imprisoned in Drezen, but I'm not someone worth throwing your life away for.

Brenda doesn't have a response to that immediately; she relays it to the party and frowns.

"What sort of trick is she worried it is, if she's telling the truth? Where is Drezen?" She should buy a scry of Minagho anyway; it's about time to check if she's kept her word and start in on taking her down if not.

"Drezen used to be a crusader city north of here, inside the border of the wound. Minagho helped conquer it back in I think the second crusade, and now I think some bigshot demon is in charge there."

"As for what Minagho could do as a trick... Any lilitu is an expert at mind control and illusions, to say nothing about their skills at lying or disguising themselves as a mortal, and in Minagho's case whatever witchcraft she was able to make use of. In many ways they're like a succubus but more so. I don't think she'd be eager to make return any time soon after how much you and Terendelev terrified her, but she's a good enough at deception that I can't be totally sure of it, and of course some of her subordinates could have slipped away as well to ensorcell people. That's why Terendelev put the eagle's watch on duty at the wardstone, since Paladins are relatively resistant to that sort of thing, but I know Hulrun's been keeping an eye on the situation to be sure and I've been called over for some spot tests to make sure there's nothing for me to break them free of."

Brenda nods thoughtfully.

"Alright, let's think through the possibility space here. Branch one, the message-sender is lying. Most likely motive is to lure some or all of us into a trap. The trap could have been set up by Minagho, or by someone else pretending to be Minagho. It could be a straightforward ambush with no prisoner, or it could be an attempt to have us 'rescue' a 'prisoner' who's actually an infiltrator. It could be someone with no presence in Drezen at all, trying to get us to attack their enemies there; I'm given to understand that the demons are a bunch of warring factions. Could theoretically be a demon faction willing to make common cause with humans temporarily, but since we're stipulating they're lying it's more likely they just want two of their enemies to fight each other. 

Branch two, the message-sender is telling the truth. And not a mind-controlled sleeper agent who thinks she's telling the truth, I mean, though there's plenty of room for ordinary mistakes. In that case, who is she? Could be a demon imprisoned by another demon faction who's decided the enemy of her enemy is her friend, whether out of desperation or because she genuinely prefers the mortal way of doing things. Could be someone from this plane who got captured and brought there, or tried to infiltrate Drezen and got captured, or someone who has been trapped there since the city fell.

There are plenty of other possibilities, of course, but I think that covers the most likely ones. Are there any I'm forgetting that you think are plausible enough to go on the list? Also, should we be having this conversation somewhere with a little more privacy and a big chalkboard?"

"I think it's rather unlikely that the demons have anyone listening in here - even if it doesn't fully keep them out, they don't tend to like sticking around on hallowed ground - but I see no reason this can't happen indoors. I don't exactly have a chalkboard, though, so if that's a necessary component I should get out some paper."

He leads Brenda and her group inside past the main hall to an office in the back.

"Apologies, this is a little more cramped than I'd like, but we don't have a lot of places that are both private and designed to hold six people and their writing supplies. I am fairly sure whoever has been sending those visions is on our side, because we've only been getting them in the temple and it's mostly just been clerics getting them. It's hard to affect clerics in general, and clerics under the effects of protection from evil are even harder, but even beyond that the dreams of one of her clerics in ground sanctified to her is one of the places Starsong has an easy time interfering. The last big case I've heard of someone trying something along those lines ended up with her killing the demon lord responsible, so even they mostly tread lightly there. There's also the fact that all the visions we've gotten have turned out to be accurate; it's hard to see what Minagho would get from this that's more valuable than not warning us about the attack in the first place, to say nothing of the other factors.

"The sender being mind controlled is a more concerning thought. Our best guess was that the person sending these messages was an Azata that Desna had sent to aid us by spying on the demons, but a sufficiently powerful demon can still control one of them if they catch them. I definitely wouldn't make any plans to do something reckless about it without further information; if she's not being controlled, then she warned you it wasn't worth it, and if she is then it's a trap."

He looks somewhat sheepish.

"For my own part I did start considering the logistics of a prison break on Drezen once you mentioned it, but I can at least teleport out and I probably wouldn't do it without a commune first."

"Oh, believe me, I am definitely also considering the logistics of a prison break on Drezen. Especially if the goddess wouldn't pass on a message from a demon enchanted to think she was a captured azata. She said it wasn't worth it but we know more about our resources than she does. My understanding--please correct me if I'm wrong--is that doing anything overt would require more force than it's feasible for us to pull together, so it would have to be by stealth. Fortunately Nenio here is an illusionist, and more importantly we have someone on the inside. I have unlimited Sendings, so the prisoner can in theory tell us everything she knows about the situation in Drezen, where she's being held, and what kind of guards and defenses they have." (At twenty-five words each way per ten minutes with someone who doesn't show any signs of knowing information theory, which is terrible, but maybe if she does it alone in a room Time Enough For Love will let her fudge it a little.) "A Commune also sounds like a good idea. Can you tell me a bit more about how those work and how much information of what kind you can get with one? I don't know yet whether we should do it before or after the probably several hours of Sending conversation."

"Most likely yes. It's possible I might be able to get some of my colleagues to assist, but a lot of the stronger Desnan clerics don't spend much time on Golarion and we don't really have an equivalent to Iomedae's Lastwall so I wouldn't be counting on it. As for illusions... plenty of the stronger demons can see through them automatically, but if Nenio has a talent for it that could go a long way with everyone else there. How did you get unlimited sendings, was there an Oolioddroo you managed to copy? No, you were using scrolls - nevermind, the how isn't especially important. Commune is a 5th circle spell that lets me ask a series of questions to Desna that she can answer yes, no, or unclear; I can get nine in a go, but stronger clerics can get more. It's normally fairly pricy to cast, but the material components are holy water and incense so that's probably less of an issue."

"I can probably help with the incense if I get a look at some to copy, but I can't do anything about the fifth circle spell slot, so we should still try to cram everything we need into nine questions. That would let us choose between five hundred and twelve different plans, so it really ought to be enough if we plan it all out in advance--probably want to start with a couple questions about who the prisoner is and how much time pressure we're under, maybe one about whether our current goal is even a good idea, and then go into the plan tree. Do you have to ask all the questions at once, or is there time to discuss the answers in between?"

"You can't pause a commune in the middle, but they do get asked in sequence, so I could do something like ask if they're an azata and then use one set of questions of the answer is yes and another if it was no. I've only got the one free slot at 5th circle today though, so if your sendings are free it probably makes sense to get as much info as possible beforehand."

"Makes sense. For reasons of me having, stop me if you've heard this one before, an extraordinary ability*, I might be able to shave some casting time off the Sendings if I'm alone during them. If this is an okay spot to do that, I can come find you guys when I think I've gotten everything I can get or you can come find me if it's getting too late in the day?"

*Brenda has now read enough arcane texts that she knows the jargon for "weird power that doesn't shut off in an antimagic field".