She likes the look of the Lord's Banner of Swiftness! (The Gate-via-Elysium plan might obviate it for longer repositionings, but it's a good fallback if that doesn't work and will also help with situations where they don't know where the demons are and need to traverse some ground looking for them, and with moving the Wardstones without taking them off the plane.) She'll do some more research about how Rings of Delayed Doom work but doesn't want to put in an order for one yet.

Though, hmm, would her army be able to benefit from a Lord's Banner of Victory at the same time as the Swiftness one? If so she'd be interested in buying one of those should it become available, or she might get one made on her home planet. (Brenda's brain noise generator informs her that any banners she uses are Banner's banners. Heh.)

There shouldn't be anything preventing both banners from working at once, though the banner of victory has a somewhat smaller range of effect. She does have one available, but if Brenda has access to a sufficiently skilled crafter on Golarion and is willing to wait she believes that the method for making them is relatively well known there.

In that case she will depart the shop with one banner--

and the ability to do THIS, which is So Immensely Cool. Wheeeeeeeeeee flying and being amorphous!

And sobering up because Rathimus is still here and she should neither lose track of him nor act like a fifth grader.

"Was there more shopping you wanted to do here? There are a number of stores selling scrolls, but of course there are also such stores in Absalom or Isarn or Opparra."

"And it sounds like those places will have them cheaper. Do you think it will be sufficiently easy to get a scroll of Gate on Golarion? That's the highest circle scroll I want to get quickly."

"How difficult it would be depends on how much haste you want and how good our timing is. If Felandriel Morgethai has one available, it would be very easy, but if she doesn't you would need to wait a few days for her to scribe one or get a less friendly ninth circle like Razmir involved."

She explains her idea for moving the army to wherever it needs to be without traversing the intervening space by means of a Gate to Elysium and back. "So I'd like to have one ready by the time everyone is mustered and ready to go, but it's possible Ramien will point out some reason it won't work or Baroness Gaunther will want us to go on foot to get in some skirmishes. It might make sense to check in with them over repeated Sendings, but at ten minutes a casting it would probably be faster to get a scroll of Plane Shift in Absalom, talk to them and possibly Felandriel Morgethai face to face, and come back here if I need to. What kind of 'less friendly' is Razmir, is the risk that he'll charge more or sell me a defective scroll or attack me for asking or what?"

"Razmir is an archmage who, some years back, took over a country in the river kingdoms and started claiming to be a god. He's very touchy about people not giving him the respect he feels he deserves, but those of the church who have dealt with him say that if you're at least willing to talk around it he usually accepts it. The bigger problem with dealing with him is that he doesn't reliably think things through, which is particularly bad in combination with him having enough personal power to escalate things very quickly without assistance and having a strong dislike for being seen to back down. The church was itself victim of one such incident where he decided being low on liquidity was a good reason to nationalize the banks and seize all of their assets.

"If you were to trade with him for a scroll of gate, I think it would probably go fine, but I can't in good conscience actively recommend it. Most of the time it would go fine, but you'd be taking on a tail risk of him deciding that he could just kidnap you for all your money and magic items instead."

Bleh. On the one hand, Friends in Places will probably help. On the other hand, she can probably afford to get the scroll from Axis. "I'll see if Felandriel Morgethai has one."

And he can take her hand and transport her back to the material! Fortunately he gets Almas, though they end up a fair ways from the university; it's usually easier to target cities on the material from Axis, but that doesn't mean it's reliable enough that there wasn't a chance of needing a teleport.

Nice! (She really needs to get a scroll of Teleport.) But first they can go see about finding Felandriel Morgethai's secretary or mailbox or whatever she uses to handle being an extremely busy person. Hopefully she'll be able to get back to them on the question of whether she has a scroll of Gate today regardless of the answer.

Felandriel Morgethai is the Provost of the university of Almas, which is necessarily a public facing institution that requires interacting with the rest of the world relatively frequently. Not being an idiot she doesn't stick around on the material in predictable locations, and not being made of spell slots she doesn't use Astral Projection, so instead she has a secretary to forward her things like a normal person.

The number and quality of Brenda's magic items on display might be enough to get her a meeting with said secretary on a reasonable timeframe, but it also might not; fortunately a 6th circle cleric of Abadar definitely is, and they have a relatively short wait before they get a meeting with the woman. It is not generally known whether or not Morgethai is usually watching her, either with a scry or other magical method, but it's generally considered a smart choice to assume she might be rather than try things you'd rather she not notice, like attempt bribery or coerce her secretary with magic.

She's not here to try any of that! She'd like to buy a scroll of Gate, if one is available or can be scribed in the next few days.

"I'll let her know."

She doesn't appear to do anything, but about half a minute later Brenda gets a message. 

"What do you expect to use it for? Keeping that secret isn't a deal breaker, but I charge more for scrolls when I don't like how they'll be used and I'd have to check to make sure it wasn't a purchase on the behalf of someone I refuse to sell to."

"It's for my own use, for the Fifth Mendevian Crusade at the Worldwound. I'm the Knight Commander."

It's a good thing that this conversation isn't happening in person, because it means there's nobody there to see her blink in surprise. 

"Right. I'll need you to confirm that under Abadar's truth, but that shouldn't be an issue. I assume your companion has it prepared? I'll send Gallipsiwhoop over to pick you up once that's handled."

"I do."

And then a foot long dragonfly is hovering in the room with them, ready to observe the enchantment go through.

She fails her save and repeats herself.

Gallipsiwhoop confirms that they're not messing with the spell, and then leads them down a hallway to where Felandriel Morgethai keeps the portal to her demiplane. They each have to say the forbiddance password aloud to get through unharmed (particularly given that Rathimus is neither chaotic nor good). The rest of the defenses are temporarily disarmed ahead of their passing or are triggered on things they aren't, like devils. Then they're through a portal door and... in a house. Here and there there's evidence that this entryway also doubles as a killroom in case of emergencies, but past that it's a quite pleasant building looking out onto a meadow in the woods. 

An elven woman with silver hair is waiting for them there, and Gallipsiwhoop flies over to perch on her arm.

Felandriel Morgethai is obviously powerful and very cool and somewhat intimidating purely on the basis of coolness, to say nothing of the power. (Though it doesn't help that Battle Demon pipes up to inform Brenda that if she wanted to fight her the best place to do it would be Not Here.) But the other magic instincts keep humming in her head, saying that strange archmages are just friends she hasn't met yet, so she smiles.

"Hello; I'm Brenda. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance; thank you for meeting with me on short notice."

"It's good to meet you as well. Terendelev says that there's a good chance your assistance saved her life, and that's not a resume that many can lay claim to. Are you actually only here about a scroll of gate, or was that claim meant for the ears of my nosy neighbors to the west?"

It's so weird when people she hasn't met have conversations about her when she isn't there. "I am primarily here for a scroll of Gate, but there may be other things we can do for each other. I'd also buy a scroll of Discern Location if you have one, and if you have any diplomatic questions about the Crusade I'd be happy to answer them."