This isn't where Raafi went to sleep. He'd set his bedroll up on a comfy patch of moss under a tree, and now - he still has the bedroll, at least, and his pack, but the tree and moss are nowhere to be seen, replaced by a strange metal room with still, stuffy air and an implausibly clear night sky out the window.
"Hello?" he calls, getting to his feet.
"Happy to help!" He pats his holy symbol sort of like he's seen other clerics do. "Is there something nonsuspicious that could replace the bananas?"
The symbol-pat gets a little grin from her. "Dates would work, or figs; we don't usually import them but we could."
"That sounds like we're ready to get started - we can take a squad of the palace guards with us and set up one of the warehouses as a distribution center for the city, first, if that sounds good to you?"
(Oh no he's cute.) The prince will lead the way out, then, through more sandstone hallways, pointing out various features of the palace as they pass them, to the barracks where they pick up half a dozen scimitar-armed guards, and out through the courtyard into the plaza, dominated by a fountain topped with a marble sculpture depicting the fields and houses of Kaprela with water flowing through and ringed with variously painted kiosks manned by people in variously fancy attire. The fountain is a bit crowded with people who've come to carry water home from it, and a few of the kiosk-minders have small clusters of visitors, but there seems to be relatively little traffic aside from that in a space designed to be busier.
They continue on their way - the prince points out a library a few blocks from the palace in case Cam wants to visit later - and soon come to a suitably empty warehouse.
Which Cam strolls through, whistling, filling it up to the ceiling with neatly palletted foods.
The prince watches, arm around Raafi's shoulders, slightly awed. "It's really just that easy? Your world must be incredible."
"Why thank you, the audience really makes it all worthwhile." He takes a small bow, stumbles midstride. "Still not used to these wings, they're heavier than my usual..."
The prince reaches over to steady him when he stumbles. "Your usual? More wonders from your world?"
"I made these wings, same as the food! I made my last set too but they were in a style that wouldn't have the right connotations here so I swapped them out."
"That is incredible." He makes a slight show of looking Cam up and down. "Is it all your work, or was there just not much to improve on to begin with?"
"Oh, the rest of me is basically how I naturally am except much lower maintenance than it used to be. Probably some subconscious adjustment for vanity over the years but my mother recognizes me."
And they make their way to the scions' lodge. Like most of the buildings they've passed, it's made of stone; unlike the rest, it's built out over the river, or at least where the river should be, supported by a pair of stone pillars now visible where they rise out of the riverbed. The water itself only begins a few feet past them, where a pair of men in their late twenties lounge chatting between stands of reeds. "Ho!" the prince calls to them. "Come in, I have good news!" And they make their way out of the water and up under the building, where they climb a ladder in.
The prince and his companions continue on to a more conventional door, and head inside; the entryway here is decorated with reeds, with a mother-of-pearl plate easily a foot across engraved with gentle waves and reeds set into the far wall. They only have a few seconds to look around before a tall woman in blue robes with a smaller version of the mother-of-pearl holy symbol hung around her neck comes in - "Prince Maziar? Kaleem said you have news?"
"I do! Some of it is confidential but our famine problem is solved."
"Oh, thank the gods." She leads them into an office just off the main hallway, where she leans against the wall to let the three of them take the available chairs. "I expect this is your work, Traveler Raafi? What have you found for us?"
"Oh, Cam gets all the credit really. It's a very long story, but he's a conjuration specialist like our world has never seen and aspiring cleric of abundance, I'm just helping."
"Thank you! So what's confidential," she asks the prince, "that seems straightforward enough."
"When word of him gets out we expect it to touch off a god-war."
The priestess winces. "With who? Abundance doesn't seem controversial - I suppose the dragons would want him...?"
"The Piper. It's a very long story."
"I thought you were friendly with the Piper," she directs at Raafi, dubiously.
"I'm friendly with the Lady, too, and I know who I'd rather see take a city. I don't expect it to come here, in any case."
"That's fair. So we don't want the scions to know, the catfolk would get it out of them sooner rather than later - do you have a cover story?"
"Just that one of our trade attempts worked out. I think we can get away with letting everyone think it must have come in by a different route than the ones they're watching at least for a little while."
"With Raafi here that should work. For the scions, at least, you'll have to ask Fahami if you want advice on rumors."
"Speculation isn't dangerous. Or shouldn't be."
"I'll trust you to know what you're talking about," she says, as much to the prince as to Raafi. "So what's the plan?"
"I'm thinking we'll fill the east end warehouse with food, and you can call everyone in to distribute it."
"Simple enough," she nods. "If we have messengers, anyway."
"I have most of a wand of Sending."
"Or that, all right. Prioritization?"
"You'd know better than I would where it's needed."
There's a few more quibbles to work out - are they giving food to their crucian and quese'en neighbors who've been gathering on Kaprelan land for river access (yes), are they going to try to send anything to the catfolk (not without a much better cover story and even then it's probably not worth the risk), what about various diplomatic issues between the noble houses (resulting in a brief and mostly incomprehensible exchange with the upshot that there will be only a little bit of favoritism on that basis) - and then they can go to the warehouse in question while Reedbearer Amaani starts calling scions in.
"I assume the merfolk all migrated?" Raafi asks on the way. "Should we do anything about that?"
"We haven't been worrying about it; there's not much we can do from here. If you want to check on them I'd certainly appreciate it."
"I can," he nods.
"There were some in - the river?" Cam guesses. "And they didn't have enough room?"
"And they didn't want to be trapped here, if it got too low to get downstream safely. Reasonable of them, but it's odd for the river to be so empty."
The river, if Cam happens to look, is not actually empty; they're being watched by a trio of what appear to be human-sized and roughly human-headed crabs or perhaps turtles, out in the middle of the water.
Cam blinks politely at those, thinks but does not say "carcinization!". "Who're those folks with the shells?"
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