About an hour after that there's a whisper. "Hey. - don't make a big fuss about hearing this, but you can reply by whispering back, if you want. You're - not Chelish, are you."

...right. Magic. Kyeo will never get used to magic. "No," he whispers.

"The Chelish are - not good people to listen to. Do you want to get out of here and go somewhere else?"

"Uh, one of them has been paying to feed me," he says dubiously. "I don't have any money."

"We can feed you. And we won't want your soul for it either."

"I don't think I have a soul. - what are you going to want for feeding me -"

"- we feed people if we can because it is wrong for people to go hungry! And we're curious about your world."

Well, that seems better than "you can save money by living like a soldier even when you're at home" as an economic philosophy. "Where would I go?"

"I can come over and take your hand and teleport us out of here."

"I can't shoot the gun any more, it's out of charge. If that matters."

"Probably take it with you anyway so the Chelish don't reengineer it. But it's fine. We'll take care of you."

"Are you paladins? She mentioned paladins."

" - yes. I mean, I am personally a wizard. But I'm with the Order of Folded Steel, which is a paladin order of Iomedae. We fight evil. We...noticed you out there fighting the demons, today."

"They seem like a problem! Uh, okay, I'll go with you if you can - magic me wherever -"

And something takes his hand and then he's somewhere else, in new barracks that look much like the old barracks.

"Got him," someone says triumphantly, and there's a thump and then he's not invisible; he's a man older than Kyeo and of the same ethnicity as the Chelish.

"Hello," says Kyeo.

"Hi," says someone else, armored and also of that ethnicity. "Welcome. I'm Eliar. I'm a paladin of Iomedae - I don't know if you've heard of -"

"He asked," says the wizard. "Of course, I'm sure he got the Chelish version."

"Right. Uh, Cheliax is Evil, and they lie to their people about everything."

"She said something about paladins not letting people starve. If that wasn't meant to be flattering then... it failed."

"Probably it wasn't."

"Some of them do make it out, eventually."

"But probably it wasn't meant to be flattering."

"In Cheliax caring about people is considered a weakness. And - vaguely disloyal, I think."

"What does that have to do with people starving?"

"Well, not letting people starve would be a kind of caring about them, and thus fairly suspicious. - I'm really not an expert on Cheliax, mind. We're not allowed to evangelize to them and they're not allowed to talk to us and we'll be killed if we actually go there, so."

"...I see." He doesn't.

"Why don't you sit down, I'll get us dinner," the wizard says, and leaves.

"How did you get here?" Eliar says. "Were you, uh, aiming to go here?"

"I don't know. I hit my head and don't remember the circumstances. I didn't know this planet existed and my ship was not exploratory."

"I'm so sorry. Have you done a Sending back to your ship, to let them know you're here?"