Venn nods. "I'll think it over." 

She heads back to their room. "I think something happened to their healing situation. The second-in-command invited me to stay here instead of at the garrison, and he was casual about it but he's nervous - I'd say they're not desperate now, but if things don't get better, they might be." 

He raises an eyebrow. It's a hunch, he can tell, but Urdina's hunches are really good, when it comes to people. But...

"...Are you actually volunteering to stay here and help them out? Well-run or not, it is a Chelish fort." 

She thinks about it and then nods, her face unusually serious. "If that's ok with you, sir. For a few days, while I figure out what's happening here. I think it could be pretty important." 

He closes his spellbook. "Alright. ... if you're right, I think you can do a lot of Good, here," and he knows her well enough to know she could have suppressed that pleased smile, but it's still charming, "I'll go talk to the second-in-command." 

He goes looking for Grec. 

Grec's not in the mess right at that moment but he comes down the stairs a minute later.

He'll head over. "Do you have a moment?"

"- what is it?"

"Urdina mentioned you'd appreciate it if I left her here for a few days, instead of having her on secondary standby back at the garrison. I can authorize this, but wanted to check in with you first" and he's not going to say and be sure she'll be treated well because that would be unprofessional, but he's thinking it.

"- yes, absolutely, if it's just her we'll want to move her into a smaller room but we'll be glad to have her. When are you expecting to pick her up?"

Hmmm. "Well, her senior bard is starting a two week shift, so unless something happens to him she's not urgently needed back for at least that long. I expect I'll Sending her in a few days to get a status report and go from there. ...Don't send her out on routine patrols if you can help it, it's not a good use of her talents and she's supposed to be on reserve duty." 

"Understood, we can keep her in the fort."

He nods. "Good, thank you."

And if Grec doesn't have anything else, he'll do the mildly-dramatic heel-turn cloak-swoosh that Urdina did an impromptu lesson on a few months ago when they'd all had a few pints because she was right, it is fun.

("Swoosh, wizard, swoosh," somebody mutters under their breath.)

He pretends not to hear them and heads back to the room. "Alright, Urdina, you can take your standby shift here, at least provisionally. I'll Sending you in a few days for a status update, but you'll be on your own until then." He frowns. "Are you sure about this."

She gives him a Lastwall salute (which is a little bit of a joke because neither of them are in Lastwall's chain of command and she always moves like she's wearing full plate when she does it) but her voice and face are solemn when she says "Sir!"

She snorts. "...don't do anything too stupid, kid. They might be in trouble, but they're devil-worshipers, the lot of them. You can't trust them just because they're Lawful."

...She turns to Demonscourge and nods seriously. "I'll try not to. Thank you."

She'll pack up her things and report to Grec.

Grec has in the interim figured out what room to assign her to. "And you're welcome to look in on any of the classes and drills posted unless the instructor can't abide you," he adds before hurrying off in response to some gesture of beckoning from the kitchen end of the room.

Venn drops her stuff off and then will look for a schedule of classes and drills posted (she's not especially interested in the drills, but maybe something interesting will surprise her.)

Coming up soon: treaty review, Common Taldane practice, archery drill, topology circle, stellar navigation, demonology, snow shelter construction, basic patrol skills.

Okay, she's actually curious enough to check out... all of those besides Taldane practice and topology, though she may not stick around for some for very long. Are any of them at the same time?

(She'll also dip into the mess hall for flavoring and gossip whenever she gets the chance.)

Basic patrol skills is right on top of treaty review but otherwise they're scattered around.

The gossip continues thin and quiet until Grec takes report from a neighboring fort's outgoing patrol, and then he goes and tells four different people things, and they all run off to tell other people who are not in the mess hall things (in one case bringing along a porridge delivery), and then it gets a little louder. People quiet down when she gets close, but:

"- them too?"

"Why not back when -"

"But tomorrow -"

"- going to send -"

"- the Commander?"

...she focuses on that last one without being obvious about it. What about the Commander, exactly?

"No, I haven't seen him either."

"You think Grec's -"

"No, but..."

Huh. She hasn't seen the commander. She hasn't seen... any of the Chosen today, actually.

What does that... mean? She's not sure, but it sure seems worrying.

She keeps listening in, and checks out the classes, too. Treaty review?