"Yes, of course."  He didn't exactly volunteer for Chelish patrol babysitting, but he's pretty sure he made a volunteering sort of face before being picked out for it.  Or maybe it was just that predictable that, unlike just about everyone at his home fort, he wouldn't mind the assignment.  (He's been too happy to mind most things, ever since he got a title that means something. He knows it's kind of disconcerting to all the people who are doing this because they have to, rather than because it's the most fulfilling thing they could possibly imagine doing with their lives.)

"We have a room for them, right?  Which one?"  He'll make sure he knows where that is, and then wait at the gate for them.  Technically his assignment is just to accompany them during further travel, but he might as well get everyone else out of having to talk to them, if they're going to look like that about the prospect.

Once the usual checking-for-demons has been handled, the gate guards admit a standard-sized patrol mounted on the shaggy local ponies, with a flurry of damp spring snow.  The cleric is fairly easy to spot, in a Qadiran-style knotted headscarf and Chelish uniform coat with the insignia carefully picked off, Nethys's divided mask on a leather cord around her neck.  She half-slides off her horse and stays hanging onto its neck for a couple moments, in the general bustle of dismounting and checking in and handing off the mail.

She looks like she needs help--  No, you don't touch a woman wearing a Qadiran headscarf--  The conflicting impulses take half a second to resolve into stepping up next to her and asking "Are you all right, Learned? Do you want to come inside?"  (His accent is very obviously Taldan.  ...Which might not make her comfortable, but he can't exactly do anything about it.)

He is not, in retrospect, sure what sort of cleric he was expecting, given that Asmodeus dropped all of them, but – he would've thought it would still be someone Chelish.  She looks so out of place here.

Do the rest of them look like they're worried about their cleric half falling off her pony, or are they too Chelish for that?  Do the rest of them look all right, for that matter?

The rest of the patrol looks- well, tired but tired like anyone would be after a long day's ride, not swaying on their feet exhausted.  They're not giving off any obvious signs of being worried per se, but if he's looking for it he can tell that one soldier is in easy catching range and the squad leader is keeping half an eye on her from where he's talking with the purser's assistant.  

The cleric takes a bit to realize she's being spoken to, but then glances up at him (she's a full head shorter, dismounted).  " 'M fine.  Where'm I channeling?"  Her Taldane is thickly accented, but not quite Qadiran-sounding- Osirian maybe?

Oh good.  "Indoors!  And after you've sat down and had something warm to eat, unless you're in a hurry.  Nobody's an emergency here."

He would like to see her, and preferably the rest of them, inside before wasting conversation on any other topics, if she's amenable to that.

She nods, and pats her horse a couple of times before handing off the reins and following him in.  "I can get myself too- oh.  But of course in Mendev you know that, I do apologize."

"My fault – yes, of course you'd rather do it quickly and feel better.  This way, then."  He shows her to a chair next to the channeling podium, and sends a soldier to ring for a channel.  (They do have their own cleric, but there's always going to be something an extra one can help with.)  "It'll only be a minute - and I assume we should wait for your men too?"  It seemed like it to him, but there could be something more complicated going on.

"Mmhmm."  She'll let herself be guided and dig a mug out of her bag to create herself a drink of water while they wait, the squad following in a couple of little clumps as they finish up in the courtyard.  " 'S no trouble t'wait if anyone's some ways out, we're none'f us injured."

People do start showing up rather quickly – some training injuries, someone burned while cooking, a few people with nothing obvious wrong with them, maybe they just have headaches – but there's enough time for the conversational basics he skipped earlier in favor of getting everyone in out of the cold. 

"In the meantime – I'm Marcus Aemine, a paladin of Iomedae."  He's been told he near visibly glows when he says that, and is trying not to do so much of that in front of (at least somewhat?) Chelish people, with mixed success.  "I'm supposed to help you interface with the rest of Mendev, since we were told you wanted to travel further than this fort – is that right?"

"Pleased to make your acquaintance.  'M called Khalida."  She gives him a small smile.  " 'n yes, I would far enough south to somewhere that's overland supplies one may purchase- this may be Kenabres, I know not 'f there's smaller towns closer."

Well, she doesn't seem to find Iomedae's name objectionable, so that's good.  "Yours as well, Learned."  He smiles back, and takes a second to detangle her next sentence.  "Some, I think, but it depends on what you're shopping for.  We'll go through them and see, in any case.  Is it just you going, or some or all of the men as well?"

"We've still discussed this- they are cautious, but I think with a paladin I should be well chaperoned, yes?"  She directs this partly at the nearest of her squadmates, who rolls his eyes at her just slightly.  "For myself, I seek mainly ink and such spell supplies as that, but I've requests from several among the fort as well."

He looks a little amused at the eyerolling.  Chelish people aren't turning out that hard to read, at least with a non-Chelish one in the group to get the tone of the situation from.  "In all honesty I wasn't sure how all of you feel about paladins.  But I do intend to take my escort duties seriously, and being guaranteed Lawful can't hurt."

"I know not in the general, but- we're all here for the Worldwound, yes?"  She glances around to see if anyone is still trickling in for the channel.  "This is... truly everyone?"

"Yes, we are." That gets a serious nod.

"And I think so, yes.  ...Ah, they have a cleric.  Nearly all Mendevian forts do."  And of course the Chelish ones mostly wouldn't, would they.  "So it's just whoever got injured in the last few hours, and not seriously enough for immediate healing."

"Ah, of course."  She nods and gives him another small smile, quickly counts heads for her squad, and climbs up to the podium.  She closes her eyes briefly and raises her holy symbol...

...it's the barest trickle of positive energy, any less and it wouldn't be perceptible at all, but it's definitely there and it's healing.

And back down to continue the conversation.  "I interrupt myself- I know not how other forts may feel about paladins, but we've come together all from Eleven, that's the one with the Iomedaean commander."

"Oh!  I haven't heard about that.  How did that... happen...?  --Ah, and let's go get you all something warm to eat before I bury you in questions."  He leads the way to the kitchen – it's not a mealtime right now, but they knew they were expecting guests, there should be something.

"I- should think, um-"  She glances at the squad leader as they head for the kitchen.  "Mysterious are the ways of the gods, but certainly there's a great deal of evil to fight here?  He'd been already chosen when my party arrived, I fear, I've only been in the north a few months."

And the squad leader doesn't look like he's nearly as talkative around strangers as the cleric is.  "My congratulations to him, then!  The ways of Iomedae are not usually very mysterious, I think, and of course it makes sense to empower someone committed to the fight against demons, but... you sound like he was an Asmodean before that, not a new arrival like you?"

And they can all get bowls of the leftover stew, though it's not exactly warm, and some bread to go with it.  (Marcus gently reprimands the cook about the stew, which should really be hot, for people they knew would be coming in from all day spent in the cold.  This elicits subdued muttering about Asmodeans and what a waste it is to try to be pleasant to them like they're normal people.  "The Learned is obviously not an Asmodean, and I'd be surprised if most of the men were, at this point."  "You know what I mean. That doesn't count."  "It's never going to start counting if we don't treat them like it could.")

"Mmhmm."  She hesitates, but if there's something else she was going to say she's distracted by their arrival at the food. 

Bread!!!  Monch monch cronch.  (Wow her standards have gotten low.)  She pretends not to notice Aemine's conversation with the cook- the men are obviously not going to complain about something as petty as lukewarm stew, and she looks like enough of a baby already, she's not about to be the only one.  She does discreetly warm hers up a bit with Prestidigitation once they're settled at a table, though.

...right, making conversation.  "And yourself, how did you come here?"  That's probably not rude for a paladin, they're probably all here on purpose?

"I grew up in Taldor, realized everyone I knew was wasting their lives on meaningless nobility status games, and decided to go somewhere I can do something that matters.  It turned out Iomedae approves."  Grin.

"What about you?  You're not at all who I was expecting as a Chelish cleric.  Although I suppose this year all Chelish clerics have to be surprising in some way, really."

"Oh, I'm not myself Chelish- I suppose my poor Taldane makes that clear."  She ducks her head briefly and gives him a small smile.  "I'm from Sothis originally, a few months ago my party were- adventuring in the tombs when a trap went wrong.  I know not what it intended, but it landed us three days north of the border."  It's probably unbefitting for a priestess of the god of knowledge but she's finding herself really reluctant to tell the charming incredibly earnest paladin why they were in the tombs.

"Your Taldane is charming, you just sound like you learned by reading old books."

"Three days north of the border, oof!  What a place to end up.  Of course it could've been worse – three days on the other side of it, for example – but still.  Did you even know where you were?"

She's pretty sure she also has a terrible accent, from the range of snickers if nothing else, but if he's too polite to bring it up she's not going to demur and make him double down. 

"Oh, not at all!  We had Endures up for the desert or we should've been dead, and I'd hidden my spellbook that morning so I could call it to me, or we should have died on the second day, and we had a camel at first but not the Endure to spare for it, but we just walked south, in case of we found the Worldwound or Tian Xia before freezing, but we knew not if we hoped for this rightly."

Oh she absolutely has an accent, but he can understand her fine when she's not muttering in exhaustion, so it's just interesting-sounding.  (It's great how many ways there are for people to not sound Taldan.  Of course the prevailing opinion in Taldor was that any other accent was a sign of inherent inferiority, which is what pushed him pretty far in the opposite direction.)

"Well. I'm glad it all worked out all right, when it so easily could've not.  And – you decided to stay, since you were here already?"

"Well, I hadn't yet been chosen, that was a few days later, but once then it was obvious- in truth, I suspect Nethys may've also affected the trap, so unlikely was it to send us where I should be needed instead of merely killing us?  But of course I'd no idea at the time."

"Oh!  That's very likely, if He only chose you afterward.  Though I can see what you mean about the mysterious ways, now." 

And he really shouldn't be talking only to her, even if she's by far the most talkative one of the bunch, so the next question can be for the rest of the squad.  "And so you ended up with two Good clerics?  ...Or positive-channeling ones, in any case."  Nethys isn't Good, and while Iomedae's people generally are, the ex-Asmodean might be an exception if anyone would.  "I'm glad the gods have been so helpful to you.  How is the fort doing, with everything that's been going on?"