"Ideally we'd want two or three more forts along the way so supply caravans from Kenabres headed up the river would have a safe place to sleep, or better yet move the wardstone line up to the Sellen and have the entire trip be covered, but in terms of what's feasible it makes the most sense to have the Kenabres garrison handle that leg of the journey. The city is hardly the economic powerhouse it was before the last attack, of course, but as long as it has Terendelev and the Prelate there it would take truly overwhelming numbers to storm it by main force."

Nod. "Do you have a sense of how far it's a good idea to get before moving the Wardstones up? And would having  access to unlimited castings of Wall of Stone change the answer?"

"The main problem with moving the wardstones is not how far in they go - moving them will will make the logtistics of supplying them harder, of course, but it'll be manageable if the transit is safe and if the Sellen were secure for boats that would help still more. The reasons we haven't moved them all in already are threefold. Firstly, there are forts where they currently stand and would not be at their destinations, exposing them to more risk both in transit and upon arrival. Secondly, a wardstone in transit cannot bear much strain without shattering the barrier, so demons would have an easier time breaking through the line until that was fixed. And thirdly and most importantly, without a way to clear the intervening space of demons moving the wardstone line risks the whole affair - any demons that now found themself on the other side would be free to wreak havoc in Mendev, or else assault the barrier forts from the behind, where there is no barrier to defend the soldiers within. Walls of stone alone only mitigate the first, but they would mitigate it enough that I expect it would make such movement much more practical."

"Hmmm. Clearing a large area of individual demons isn't something I'm well suited for; I can fly around and scout but I can still only cover so much area at once. I can arrange for the Walls of Stone, at least, and if we want proper forts that people can live in rather than giant versions of a child's sandcastle I'll arrange to talk to an actual architect." Maybe a military architect, if those are a thing; someone who can look at her vague memories of nineteenth century star forts and say if they're suitable for a situation with demons instead of cannons. "Anything else we should go over today?"

"Nothing urgent." 

She's not thinking of anything that would qualify besides the knight commander getting it in her head to lead from the front next time, and she doesn't want to borrow trouble there; Brenda has seemed eminently reasonable about the matter so far and she'd prefer not to put the idea in her head by warning against it if it isn't already. Apparently sometimes you just win the battle so thoroughly you don't need to adjust your plans much in response.

For the most part, the advance northwards over the next two days goes as planned. Nobody else dies as a consequence of their injuries or sickness, though not all of them are going to be fighting fit soon without more than just channels, and while the twisted wildlife of the wound is a constant hazard encounters with isolated demon bands tend to end in the demons fleeing, and if there's any failures it's that some of them manage to get away instead of being shot out of the sky or run down. They're making good time towards the Leper's Smile canyons, supplies are plentiful, and morale is high. 

Which makes it all the more shocking when one of their easterly patrols is goes missing with all hands, and the followup patrols don't find any bodies, human or otherwise. There's not that many things that can take down a dozen armed and armored cavalrymen without a trace, especially not when one of them was a paladin.

Well shit. Time to get her party (herself, Seelah, Wenduag, Nenio apparently the mystery isn't tempting enough, Ember, Arueshalae) together and investigate! She's been able to hang third circle spells since the battle--only three at a time, but they're faster than asking for scrolls and it's okay if they're combat spells.

Whatever it was that attacked the scouts doesn't appear interested in an immediate encore, so they're free to investigate in safety.

"There was definitely a fight here. The horse tracks stop out of nowhere, and there are some signs that they didn't cover up. I can see some half broken arrows over there that whoever did this must have either missed or not cared about."

"Wenduag is right, there definitely was a fight here, but I can't find any tracks leading away. Unless someone was using a very uncommon sort of magic for demons, that means they flew off."

She doesn't consider the possibility that they could escape on foot without magic, since the chance of them managing it is low enough to be laughable.

"Even if they killed the horses and then carried them off in pieces, that's a lot of weight to fly with. The arrows are concerning too; the blunting on the cold iron heads isn't right for it to be from hitting the ground after skittering off, but cold iron cuts through most demons too easily for that to be the cause either. Either the demons behind this are very powerful, or they're clever enough to use magic or armor to make up for what they lack." 

"I doubt there was anything special about that patrol; if they got away clean once they're likely to try again. I should get wands of Sending for more patrols so the next one can call for backup. . . . And also Sending this patrol and ask what got them; they might not know exactly what the demons did but they'll know more than we do."

If you send out scouts with expensive gear then it’s even more painful when they die in an ambush unless you can retrieve it after. But she doesn’t have a good sense of how valuable those kinds of wands are, and anyway obviously Brenda can get them back if she wants to. 

“For people who have been kidnapped by demons… even if they’re still alive, they might not be in a position to respond to a sending. Or they might have been charmed into lying to you, or something - I don’t think it’s a bad plan, but you might want to make sure you’re sending the Paladin or use scry instead.”

"You think they captured them alive, and didn't just take the bodies so we couldn't Raise them easily?" Or to eat. "In that case I should definitely scry them first, and be quick about it. I hope you're right." Dressing Room means never not having a scrying mirror when you want one. She has all their names, so might as well try for the paladin first. Where are you, Arcturo, on this plane or any other?

The scry goes through the first time. The room in question is dark, but Brenda’s darkvision works just fine through the scry so it just renders the scene in black and white. He’s chained up against a wall, suspended off the ground, and in what looks like a lot of pain; she can see two other members of the patrol in the same room, in what seems to be even worse condition.

There’s no obvious identifying features of where they’re being held, just a bunch of unremarkable stonework.

"Yup, this is a rescue mission now." Thank goodness she got that scroll of Discern Location; she knew it was going to be important eventually. 

Storeroom #12, Lost Chapel, The Wounded Lands, Avistan, Golarion, Prime Material.

"Has anyone heard of a 'Lost Chapel'?" Someday she's going to be an archmage and she's going to invent a version of Discern Location that does a compass heading to complement the existing version.

None of her party members have heard of it, but the name and stonework is at least suggestive of it having once been built by mortals.

She tries a Message through the Scry but it doesn't go through, so she switches to Sending. This is the Knight-Commander. I intend to rescue you. Do you know how far you were taken or which direction? Are you in a city? 

He jerks, slightly, in the scry.

In the mountains, long flight. Turning them into ghouls, they-

The sending cuts out halfway through before he uses up all of his available words, but with an effort of will he sends what he has instead of letting the whole thing slip through his fingers.

She relays this to the party and bites her lip. "I can try teleporting off the scry image. It would probably work. Maybe one chance in three or four it doesn't, and then we'd probably still end up somewhere close. Or we might explode. Does anyone have a better idea?"

"Nope. And I'd rather explode a bit than get turned into a ghoul."

"There's a ranger spell for tracking people through the sky, but I'm not quite strong enough to cast it yet."

"That's going to be really cool when you get there." In the meantime: teleporting! They all join hands and she reads off a scroll-page and--