Like it's full of fog, mostly, and the walls aren't there! It's very weird in a cool way to see stuff right in front of me that I can't interact with at all. My brain is taking information from a fourth spatial dimension and projecting it into the same three dimensions my eyes can see and it's so awesome!

✨✨✨

They spend the rest of the time before Galfrey's announcement reading together, which is so pleasant she almost forgets to be nervous.

In that case time will fly (or, possibly, crawl but in the best way) until the appointed hour arrives. There's a soldier from Nerosyan sent to escort her, and when she arrives at the stage she'll see a number of familiar faces with the queen. In addition to the advisors she met with earlier, she can catch sight of Jhoran Vhane, Rathimus, Irabeth, and of course Queen Galfrey; the woman smiles at her arrival. 

"Are you ready?"

When she stands up to follow the soldier she realizes that Dressing Room has totally redone her outfit.

Brenda's armor, while still clearly intended less for ceremony than for combat, is elegantly embossed and polished until it gleams. The clothes underneath are legally and culturally suitable for a non-noble military officer, but one with a massive clothing budget and a very tasteful and intelligent tailor to absorb said budget. The soft green and white fabric drapes in elegant lines that flatter her four-arned figure and draw the eye to follow her movements. The boots are fine leather and hug her calves in a way that makes her legs look longer, with heels thick enough to add a bit to her height but not tastelessly or obviously so; they also encourage her to take longer, more confident strides. Her cloak of resistance, being a magic item, is unchanged, but she's now wearing a second shorter cloak atop it, green embroidered in white and silver with the image of an owl holding a sword*.  Her hair has been artfully piled atop her head in a way that reveals the elf ears, deemphasizes the cat ears, and shows off the headband. 

Brenda can't actually see all the changes, but she can tell they're extensive. And unlike every previous formal event she's had to dress up for, nothing has poking tags or obtrusive seams or gets in the way of her movements. It feels like Dressing Room cheering her on. She smiles at the queen and everyone else, pleased to see that Rathimus agreed to join. "I'm ready."

*Vert, an owl close guardant maintaining in its talons a sword argent, if you know the jargon and want a clearer mental image. It's not overtly heraldry, it's plausibly deniable, but it's also a design nobody else in Mendev or any nearby country happens to be already using. The narrator is indulging herself.

Then they can walk out onto a wooden stage! The area around them is packed, with only a thin line of soldiers keeping people from spilling up onto the stage itself, but it's not just limited to the square in front of them. There are people on the nearby rooftops, packed into nearby streets, and in one case flying above the crowds, all craning to get a good look. It feels like half the city is out this evening, and that's before counting all the out-of-uniform soldiers visiting from Nerosyan in attendance. If it hadn't also been kept clear by soldiers, it seems likely the backstage area they met up in would have been similarly flooded. Most of the attention isn't on Brenda yet, what with her not having been announced as knight commander, and it can't really compare to the magnitude of crowds Brenda might be familiar with from super bowls or presidential inaugurations, but even so there's a somewhat intimidating amount of eyes tracking her every move and craning for a better glimpse of her.

Oh geez. She had apparently been thinking of this situation as analogous to giving a presentation in class, but an important feature of giving presentations in class is that everyone else is either thinking about their own presentation or totally checked out and only the teacher is actually paying attention. This is more people than were at her entire middle school and a lot of them are paying attention.

She smiles and makes eye contact with one of them for a little bit, then moves onto a different one. She still doesn't look people in the eye by default unless she's really focused on them, but when she chooses to it's not mysteriously terrible anymore.

"People of Kenabres!"

The moment she speaks, the murmurs and chatter die down, and the eyes of the city focus on her.

"Four days ago, Kenabres faced down the greatest challenge in all of Mendev's history. No less than Deskari himself sought to break your spirit, but despite his terrifying power, and despite all the armies of the abyss he brought with him, he failed. Kenabres still stands as strong as ever, and I could not be prouder. To everyone who stood and fought, to everyone who helped others hide and escape, to everyone who, when the demon cultists came recruiting, stood by your gods and country - thank you, from the bottom of my heart. All of Mendev owes you a debt of gratitude for your heroism.

"Thanks to your efforts, what he hoped would be the start of his final victory is now the site of his greatest defeat - no, his greatest defeat so far. For like Khorramzadeh before him, in seeking to take Kenabres, the demons have overreached. Their greatest army is scattered, their leader humiliated, and their promises shown once more for the hollow lies they are. Were we content to rest on our laurels, this would merely be the start of a few years of relative peace while they rebuilt and regrouped, but we of Mendev are not ones to aim our sights so low. Instead what this success offers us is an opportunity to push the demons back and make this victory the first of many. That is why... it is my duty and honor to declare the fifth crusade underway! To lead our brave crusaders upon this mission, I have asked for and received the assistance of the very same hero who has accomplished so much here in so little time. Kenabres, please welcome Knight Commander Brenda Banner!"

Now she has the crowd's attention, and their very enthusiastic approval. The cheers hit almost like a wall of sound, but with her powers it's not enough to even feel mildly uncomfortable, merely emphasize the energy behind it.

It's a good speech. Makes this whole thing feel badass, and the people of Kenabres absolutely deserve all the nice things Galfrey's saying about them.

She doesn't feel uncomfortable in the "painfully loud" sense, or even in the "too much noise can't think" sense, but she can and does feel uncomfortable in the "I'm an impostor" sense. She smiles and waves and feels like a puppet sewn by Dressing Room and operated by Friends in Places, which is fine, way better than the alternative.

She remembers that she could theoretically use her once a day teleport to be hundreds of miles away in another country, and feels a bit better; remembers that Alpina said she wasn't being insane and feels a lot better.

The queen lets the enthusiasm continue for a few more moments, then sets about introducing the other officers of the crusade. None of them get quite the same level of enthusiasm as Brenda did, but the crowd still seems excited about the whole affair.

"Tomorrow, we will set about our preparations. But for tonight, let us celebrate!"

Once the speech is finished, the crowds disperse a little, making their way to the varying stalls and pavilions set up for distributing drinks and hot food, listening to music, or games. The atmosphere is somewhat reminiscent of the day that Brenda first arrived in Kenabres, but there's no missing the fact that there's simply more people out and about, and people are paying her significantly more attention now.

It's a nice reminder that at least the city isn't being attacked by demons. She hangs around near Irabeth and the other senior staff and does whatever they're doing, presumably "make small talk with various people".

That depends on who she wants to imitate! The queen is doing a meet and greet, but Irabeth found Anevia and set off in the direction of the dancing, Gaunther and Wilcer Garms are getting started on their drinking, and Jhoran Vhane is in the middle of making himself scarce.

Following the queen around would be weird, and she's immune to alcohol now, so how about she tries a drink?

Nope nope tactical error this tastes like hand sanitizer and it would be rude to visibly get rid of it. Fortunately she can just have one hand occupied by drink the whole evening and not be much impaired in the hands department. She'll go listen to the musicians.

She has a few choices that she can flit between, depending on what mood takes her. At one point she'll catch Aranka performing, and Nurah seems to be spending some time in the area, but there aren't any crises grabbing for her attention and while people definitely recognize her it's not in a sense where they stop partying to crowd her.

Then she can spend a while peacefully enjoying the music! And also at some point find Rathimus and express her appreciation for his decision to join the crusade, and find Irabeth and express looking forward to working with her.

"You are quite welcome. Abadar is generally against war if there is any other option, but both he and I are in agreement that demons should not be permitted free reign on Golarion. I also expect that my role in facilitating transactions will be helpful for this crusade; were I unable to go myself, I would have made sure to recommend a colleague."

There's also the other matter, but he's not mentioning a word of that in a public forum like this and the other reasons are more than enough to justify his decision.

Yup. They can talk business at a time that isn't now at a place that isn't here. She says she looks forward to working with him and drifts off to see if Nenio or Ember or Seelah is at this party, or if not to simply wander and people-watch until it's a reasonable time to leave.

Seelah is at the party! She's enjoying a few drinks with her friends, and cheerfully introduces them to Brenda. 

"So, Knight Commander, huh? It's a big job, but I bet you'll do great! Demons won't know what hit 'em."

"Thanks! It's exciting to get to do something that will make a real difference in the long run."

They pass the rest of her time at the party chatting, a word which here means "Brenda gets Seelah's friends to tell her all their cool adventuring stories". Eventually Brenda leaves and goes to bed in her new command tent, and a long time after that she falls asleep.

Starting shortly after dawn, the crusade encampment is a bustle of activity. People and wagons run to and from the city, transporting people, food, weapons, and other supplies to their proper locations, and some of the junior officers seem to be taking this as a chance to get started early on drilling unit cohesion for the troops they brought with them and the new recruits. About an hour after that the clerics and paladins finish up their prayers and join them, which would make it even busier if it weren't for the people that then take the opportunity to attend a morning service. 

She watches a bit of the drilling on general principles, trying to be unobtrusive about it without, like, hiding, and then goes to meet up with Rathimus once the Clerics Are Busy hour is over. She should probably go to a religious service herself at some point, just to see what they're like, but not today; today is only going to escape being solid meetings thanks to Time Enough For Love.

Due to the suddenness the crusade declaration, Vissaliy Rathimus has elected to spend most of the next few days at the temple of Abadar so as to finish handing things off to his successor. With any luck, Abadar will pick them once they're on the job, since even being a first circle cleric is very valuable in this line of work. As such, he is very easy for Brenda to find.

Even if she wasn't the crusade's knight commander, Brenda Banner is a valued client and trade partner of his. Since she does have that rank, it just makes it an even easier decision to make meeting with her the priority. She'll get waved on tthough without having to wait, and less than a minute later he finishes securing the files he was working with and is ready to meet with her.

"Knight commander. Do you anticipate this meeting will require particular secrecy?"

He has more scrolls of private sanctum if it's needed, but while he would love to conduct all his meetings under it for plausible deniability security has to balance efficacy with cost.

I'm the future she'll be able to save him the scroll, but only for meetings she's in. "I expect it will, yes."

And once they're fully secured: "Now that I'm running a crusade I need to get serious about money. I want your help selling diamonds in Axis until--probably there's some other commodity I should switch to before the point where they're literally using diamonds as board game pieces, but until the price crashes or I have enough that we don't need to cut corners. And unless you object I'd like to set up an arrangement where the church charges the crusade a flat fee per recovered dead person and sources their own diamonds, potentially but not necessarily from me, so it's less obvious that we're using a lot of them and not importing any."