"I don't know if it'll be the most efficient use of your time, but if you can make clothing that would definitely be useful. Especially if it includes armor, but even if it doesn't there's always a use for more boots and gambesons and socks. I'll try and see if I can get you a list of how much various kinds are worth in savings."

"Which kind of not being observed, the one where it's secret enough we need to make sure nobody observes it or the kind that is impossible to do if you are? And I suppose relatedly, what kinds of observation? If it's the former, we might need to look into better scrying protections if it ends up being worth your time, while the latter is giving me half baked ideas of using it to figure out when you're being spied on."

"The second one, and that's very clever, I don't know if it can detect scrying but it should be an easy enough experiment to do. If I'm in a meeting I'd have to ask everyone else to look away for a moment, which would let someone scrying me know to do the same to fool me, but for something like reading confidential reports alone it'd be a good check."

"I'll make sure to inform whoever gets assigned as your guards, then. Asking to not observe their charge without an explanation will tend to make them nervous."

"Don't be so melodramatic about it - it's not like they'd be able to watch her all the time anyway. Besides, she scared off a lilitu. Any demon assassin looking to one up that wouldn't be slowed down by whatever guards you assign."

"While you are correct on the substance, that's no reason to go adding extra vulnerabilities. Anyone can be killed if they're sufficiently unlucky or caught off guard, which is why guarding against edge cases and not getting complacent is so important."

The prospect of having guards is kind of terrible, slightly because of privacy but mostly because it's making other people do work and take risks because she can't be trusted to not die. But also Harmattan is obviously right, so she nods. "Can't be too careful. Or, you can be, but you aren't right now at any rate. I have resurrection insurance for similar reasons."

"A sensible precaution. Ideally you never need it, but I suppose ideally we also start winning quickly and thoroughly enough that they get very motivated to try."

"Indeed. On that note, I should check that we have the same idea of what winning looks like. It looks like moving the army to Drezen, controlling the city and all the territory between here and there, and moving the Wardstone line in behind us to make the gains easier to hold onto?"

"Yes. If we can accomplish that, it will shorten both our lines and the Chelish lines by a significant margin, in addition to the morale benefits of retaking territory. That means less space between wardstones, so the barrier gets stronger and more troops are available for each section of the border. If we're truly lucky we'll be able to retrieve the sword of valor as well, but frankly it could be long gone by now."

Brenda nods, and makes a mental note to get a scroll of Discern Location, but doesn't mention it--she's not ready to talk about the scroll situation just yet.

"I know a lot of the reason we're moving now is that Deskari lost a lot of people and a lot of cohesion attacking Kenabres; does that mean we should be expecting our opposition to be more in the form of guerilla raids and less like another army looking for a decisive battle?"

"As long as we're quick about it, yes. They won't all be tiny groups - there are a number of demon organizations and forts that don't answer to Deskari in practice, and some of those will likely still try and interfere with us - but until we reach Drezen it shouldn't be anything like a peer fight."

Brenda has heard enough anecdotes about Vietnam not to underestimate guerilla opponents, but without a friendly-to-them civilian population for the demons to disappear into it probably won't get as bad. 

"Speaking of speed--Captain Harmattan, do you have a sense of how long it will take to raise the size of force you're looking for, and of what I could potentially do to make that happen faster or more effectively?"

"I'd like to spend three days at it. That won't get everyone we could from nearby Kenabres, but it should suffice for most of them, and frankly more numbers only does us any good if we can equip them. I could do it in two, but I think the tradeoff there is steeper."

"That's faster than I would have guessed--and makes me think it's fairly likely that it'll be worth me making some of the armor unless you have a bunch stockpiled, given that the alternative is having some imported on short notice."

"I can help you check that once we're done here, then. We mostly want chain - full plate is more protective, but it's heavier, requires special training to use, and needs to be individually fitted, which defeats the point of making it in bulk. If that ends up too far from clothes to work, though, we can see about what kinds of leather armor are workable."

"Sounds good; if anything chain should be more likely to count as clothes than plate. If I can see an example of what I should aim for that will help me make sure it comes out right." Dressing Room has so far been very good about giving her practical, durable outfits, but she doesn't totally trust it with armor of a type she knows nothing about and which will necessarily leave the power's sphere of influence.

"I don't have anything urgent myself, seeing as nobody is in a hurry to manage diplomatic relations with a crusade they don't know exists, but at some point in the next few days we should find some time to get on the same page instead of sending mixed messages."

Oh noooo calm down Brenda you have magic powers for this now. "Yes, of course. What sort of things that send messages are we going to need to do? Public announcements, meetings with specific governments, other things?"

"You've got a lot of leeway since you'll be presumed to be busy crusading most of the time and a lot of things can go through Mendev since they're sponsoring you, but most countries are going to want you to do things for them in exchange for their support and keeping the world safe from demons doesn't cut it outside of Lastwall. Galt will want things that play well back in Isarn or embarrass Cheliax, getting help from Absalom means making the crusade look like an attractive employer for adventurers, Cheliax will want things that make their own lines easier to hold or political concessions, and so forth. Sometimes we'll be able to do that with announcements that'll then be reprinted in broadsheets, sometimes it will be more involved. I'm here to help you handle that so you can spend your time knight commandering, but it makes my job harder if I tell Andoran one thing and then you're overheard saying the opposite."

"I appreciate that and I'm very glad I'll be able to focus on the military side. I do have a couple opinions of my own, which are that making the Crusade attractive to adventurers seems like good sense, and that I'd prefer not to give Cheliax a wooden nickel* but making everyone's lines easier to hold is more important."

*Idiom translated from a similar one in Hallit

"You could say that again. If we didn't need their help to save the world, I think most people would be happy not to give them the time of day."

"I'm glad to hear it; those are fairly easy messages to work with all told."

"Oh good. To get a sense of the stakes here, what sorts of help or hindrance are other countries going to be contemplating? And while I'm thinking about it, I'm going to need a copy of the full text of the Worldwound treaty; none of the books I've read yet had the whole thing."

"Obviously it will vary based on what we do and which country, but some of them are easy enough to guess. Absalom isn't unified enough that they can really be said to do things as a collective, but individual actors in the city might offer us favorable loans or rent us the services of their retainers or advocate in favor of our crusade in the public sphere or join up themselves. Oppara is similarly disunified and unlikely to approve of anything that involves directly transferring wealth, but we might be able to get some faction to send convicts here to serve their time or politically disfavored military units or the like. Andoran might send actual army units, but are unlikely to want to send a significant military force they can't get back in a hurry if things heat up on their border. If we were working with Cheliax their help would probably involve more coordination with their military and hellknight orders, spellcasting support, or leaning on Isger to formally join the crusade."