"I'll ask Senyora Cadena, sir," the apprentice says, and when they've stepped outside, he goes off to find her, leaving Theopho alone.

He's puzzled. In a good way, honestly, so he's keeping his face as still as he can manage, but puzzled. There's a fire in a small tube, rapidly burning. Then the slug of lead moves, propelled at least as fast as a crossbow bolt and, somehow, flies far enough to kill at a mile of distance.

How could it possibly do that? Fire doesn't convey motive force. Sparks, a bit, but those have no momentum, they blow in the wind. Does it matter that it's small? Is it somehow creating a tiny fireball?

...a tiny fireball...

Theopho has never been an adventurer. But he did teach classes, and he was a generalist, so that included evocation. And so he did, on occasion, have to explain to young wizards the difference between a burst, a spread, and an emanation. Fireball is the standard example of a spread - an effect that will fill a ball if it can, but if cast near a turn in a corridor can and will spread around the corner. Or if you cast it at the end of a narrow hallway, extend remarkably far the other way.

If you did that in an incredibly narrow, small space, where there was only one direction it could move...

And the powder smell reminds him of something. Of bat guano and sulfur.

That doesn't mean he understand a whit of how they make that happen. It's not magical, he did check, so they can't possibly be making the material components turn into a spell inside the shaft of the weapon. Unless they're doing some absurd ritual magic, he supposes, that does exist, though he's never heard of it south of Irrisen or west of Ind.

But he's pretty sure he just realized a significant piece of how they work.

And he really doesn't want to let that on.

The smith who's been responsible for examining them returns, as does Senyora Cadena.

"You want a pinch of the fire-powder? What for?"

"To have something to compare to. Possibly use as a focus for divination, try to find something something with locate object or something. I don't think it's likely to work, but if you can spare it, I might have something to share in a few days."

"Ma'am?"

"I don't think I can allow that without authorization, High Priest Theopho."

"Understandable. It's probably not worth the time to seek it, unless you have a breakthrough on other aspects of the weapon."

"Thank you for your assistance nonetheless."

So he goes home, with a great deal to think about.

Chief among it, that this clearly has absolutely nothing in common with radio. Unless there's some fundamental alchemical property involved in making radio broadcasters or receivers work, which could be true for broadcasters, he supposes, but that seems unlikely.

Which suggests that whatever Arodenite enclave turned out these people, either their genius inventor is multidisciplinary or they have several.

Honestly this cult/cell/monastery he's imagining is getting very implausible. Either they accidentally raised the greatest inventor since, who knows, probably Nex, or they hid an enormous number of talented kids and several of them turned out to be prodigies, or someone's figured out a way to reliably turn arbitrary children into prodigies, which seems like it would take divine intervention or at least the intervention of a significantly greater archmage than Morgethai.

...Clepati could maybe do it, if she wanted to. But there's not much he'd say she couldn't do if she wanted to. And this definitely isn't her. Not enough has exploded.

Okay, actually, maybe he shouldn't dismiss Morgethai entirely. Teaching is her specialty, has been since before the godfall. What would she need, that she doesn't obviously have, to make a project like that work?

Wishes and spellsiver, probably. And lots of both. Whatever it takes to manufacture prodigies of invention and creativity, it would be astounding if it was easier than enhancing intelligence - and wisdom, probably - to the heights of mortal capacity. Might explain how they have such an astoundingly Splendid young woman on the radio.He does some math and decides that under plausible assumptions she'd need at least six years of crafting days, entirely hidden from view, to be able to shape young potential prodigies into genius inventors. In addition to vast quantities of money, in wish diamonds and spellsilver. Two dozen people who grew up wearing the best nonartifact headbands money can buy and wished to the gills to boot, and that's just the ordinary quantified flavors of intelligence and wisdom. Inventors need broader creativity and intuition, and raising children as geniuses probably would help but he'd bet you'd need more work on top of that.

None of that seems achievable in the century since Aroden's death, and to his memory she was never particularly an Arodenite to start with. If there was an Arodenite wizard - not an archmage, necessarily, but sixth or seventh circle - who came to her with a plan when Andoran broke loose, and he did the crafting other than accumulating wish scrolls... that starts to look plausible.

Why wouldn't that generate some spell development? Sure, it's insanely dangerous, but he has to believe they'd get the students of a wizard academy to be wizard inventors at higher rates. Probably they did, and whatever useful things they developed are being held back as additional tricks to play if Cheliax gets used to the absurd not-crossbows.

It might be easier if someone tried to take adults who were moderately-creative inventors and enhance them into geniuses. But... he doesn't believe it. Even if they were an Arodenite project, and that's not too hard to imagine swaying some inventors to do, that leaves Freedom. She doesn't seem like the children of a conspiracy of hidden inventor geniuses desperately trying to make weapons to take down Infernal Cheliax. She's Arodenite but not just Arodenite, and her particular view of the world seems... relentlessly optimistic and Andoren, for someone raised in what would effectively be a secret military project even if there weren't any actual military officers involved.

He can't point to anything that rules it out. But reading people is literally his job, as much as the advice he gives, and this is making more salient that he would bet his house that she wasn't raised under military discipline.

We're winning, of course, but there's no point pretending that everything's going our way; no one's going to believe that. If you claim that the war will be won without horrible losses, then when there are horrible losses people might go 'why am I fighting in this war'? So you have to be straightforward. Many people are going to die. We're going to win, though.

It's unsurprising she believes it. But honestly? He does, too.

And I'm sure at this point a lot of you are wondering, can't Cheliax steal these weapons? They've tried! But what makes them powerful is that we have ten thousand of them, and the ammunition for them, and by now House Thrune has discovered it can't make them or make ammunition for them. You might think that they can learn how, since people did learn how in the first place, but remember that only slaves, desperate people, and stupid people work for House Thrune, and many of the slaves are now contemplating escape. Invention is the business of free people, defending free countries. Cheliax will be a place of invention once again as soon as it's free.

Yes, well, you can thank me later, he thinks. He could have somewhat solved the problem for them, but then, he is also somewhat free. And of Chelish people, probably among the freest, really. Carving out a space in Hell's stronghold to live his life by his own choices and strength, like Erecura before him.

She may abandon him soon, depending on how this goes. He hasn't asked, and wouldn't even if he could. If he has to break with Her, he will, with regrets but not hesitation. He was a wizard and a Rahadi first, after all; if he was the sort to be dissuaded by 'my goddess will disapprove', he wouldn't have come to Her in the first place.

Three days ago at dawn, the Glorious Reclamation teleported their whole army to outside Kantaria, where they engaged and very easily defeated the army of the archduke of Menador.

North of the woods, then. And teleportation circles, so they have two archmages. They're... just looking to destroy the Chelish armies? He supposes they can walk their way around the Barrowwood toward Egorian.

But that's not all of the big news I have for you since yesterday's broadcast. Listeners in Rahadoum have been telling me that Rahadoum has now struck out to retake its northernmost territories from Cheliax. Under ordinary circumstances, Cheliax would probably be able to beat back the Rahadoumi - but right now, they can't afford to send any help south, and I'm not even sure they can afford for the navy and the forces stationed around Corentyn to be tied up dealing with this.

He is very glad he's listening alone, because he cannot suppress his grin. Good for you, boyos! Throw a few fireballs for me!

But then what he comes back to, an hour later on the transcript, is this:

Now, you're probably thinking 'it's possible to Teleport whole armies? I didn't even know that could be done!' because that's what I was thinking when I first heard the news.

What the void? How do you raise her among geniuses, something that takes advanced wizards even if it's not the archmage plot he considered earlier, and not have heard of the major war magic of the archmages?

Well, that rules out the whole Morgethai wish-pile theory. And... constrains all the others way more than he'd have thought. Damn, he really is running out of plausible ideas.

It's not long before the next bombshell, and for once this one doesn't come from Freedom's mouth. There's been a disturbance to the Great Seal of Tar-Baphon, and Lastwall accuses it of being from the seal in Westcrown being interfered with. Cheliax denies it, of course, but no one believes it and everyone else involved thinks it's them.

The official story is that there was some internal cult and the spymaster didn't catch them soon enough, for which she has been removed (and probably executed).

Theo briefly considers visiting the fort in Westcrown where the Imperial Lesser Seal lives and offering to inspect it, as a Lawful Neutral priest and wizard who could reasonably inspect it and who people outside Cheliax might trust more. This is true, and it would in fact be hilarious, since they'd have to pretend to believe the official story and find some other excuse for why he wasn't allowed to check the seal, but he is mindful that he really ought not taunt the Church or Crown more than his existence already does on its own.

He waits a day to hear the more detailed story, and it does not make for a good day.

Would even Abrogail Thrune dare to try to unleash the greatest horror in the history of Avistan just to distract one of her many, many enemies? Is it possible someone in Cheliax did it without her knowledge, and if so, what does that say about the state of her regime? Considering how much everyone in Cheliax lies all the time, wouldn’t you think they’d be better at it by now?

Whoever manipulated one of the lesser seals did so in order to introduce a vulnerability in the greater one. A vulnerability which might permit Tar-Baphon, while he remains trapped, to extend his influence back into our world.

"And the third seal is kept in Westcrown, in Cheliax, ruled by Hell and presently at war."
"Cheliax would have to be very foolish to imagine that Tar-Baphon’s release would serve them long."
“And they are very foolish”

Are they insane? How in the Abyss would Cheliax bring Tar-Baphon to the negotiating table, let alone secure safety against him? The Crown is often arbitrary, cruel, fractious, but... this just seems stupid, which is a criticism he's honestly rarely tempted to point their way.

The next few days are no better, because private counsel with a priest of advice and secrets is something a number of influential people want, reassurance that the accusations aren't true, or reassurance in the case that they are. And he has nothing to offer. "Were it not for the Crown's assurance that they weren't involved, I would be certain that they were responsible," he says repeatedly, "Even though I have no earthly idea why that would benefit the Crown, Church, or even House Thrune in isolation."

He visits Tessane. Partly to vent, partly to let off steam, partly to ask her what she plans for the near future. She's just about as helpless as him when it comes to possibilities which aren't treason, as it turns out. Offers to get him out of the city, she lives in her townhouse but there is an archcounty estate nearby. He refuses; he says he has responsibilities and doesn't want to even appear to break his agreement with the Church. (She doesn't believe him, of course.)

The city is tense. They can somewhat limit who's listening to Freedom, and somewhat limit news from the front, but when the front moves whenever a couple archmages want it to, which apparently they do, that's tricky enough on its own, and it doesn't really work.

It's usually mostly fairly wealthy and influential people who come ask him for advice. These days it's just the wealthy ones; the influential ones are increasingly staying clear of the cities, or else finding excuses to stay in Egorian itself, and the ones who only have wealth can't afford to, for multiple reasons.

Freedom misses a day. No one fills in, and Theo is very distracted most of the day until he observes that there have been absolutely no triumphant announcements and by now there ought to be. Well, there have been triumphal announcements, but the kind that are telling people what to believe (War on Andoran, war on Lastwall, Almas burned, the invader's army burned) rather than ones which are actually gloating about success. (And they didn't say Azir burned, so on net he was slightly relieved.)

She doesn't miss a second day.

an attack before dawn on Almas, Vigil, and probably also some other places

Felandriel Morgethai, and she doesn't take it very kindly when people mess with her city, and she's a much more impressive archmage than Razmir is

Cheliax almost certainly thought that they could take Morgethai out, and leave the forces of Good without one of their most powerful defenders. It didn't work, and now they're in deep trouble.

Well, that's certainly all true. Cheliax finally got their archmage and he ran away. If he's even still on-side.

if you cast Disintegrate on the walls of Vigil they'll laugh at you. So who did Cheliax enlist to try to break the unbreakable city? Well, the person who built it.

That actually makes him start visibly. He saw Arazni, once; back when he was researching lichdom theory, he naturally spent time in Geb - perfectly lovely country if you don't care about the zombies, really - and she doesn't make many public appearances but that's not zero. And he knows exactly how impossible it is to get Geb to care about anything other than Nex, or to let Arazni do anything on her own.

And then the Goddess cut Arazni free of Geb.

Gods damn.

So Asmodeus has a spending advantage, but that's not at all the same thing as a power projection advantage. He can spend astounding sums to bribe Geb to send Arazni to Vigil, but Iomedae can show up and say 'would you rather not work for Geb' and there goes that. He can spend astounding sums to bribe Razmir to try to kill Morgethai, but if it doesn't work on the first few tries Razmir will decide it's not worth the money. He cannot buy alliances built on anything more than convenience and assured selfish benefit, and he doesn't have any friends.

He listens to this, and nods along, but then it calls back to something he's been feeling for weeks now, and he gets distracted...