"I'm very pleased to meet you in person! As a person? Of course, whether we've met at all really does depend on your definition of meet, since I don't go in much for organized religion – oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself – "

And he will explain how he got here, that Asmodeus conquered Cheliax, that he was born in Galt when it was a Chelish province, that he and his friends took it back, and that for hopefully obvious security reasons he doesn't want to talk too much about how things got so bad in the first place.

Iomedae recovers first. "Well. Welcome. I'm Iomedae, Knight-Commander of the Shining Crusade, this is Commander Marit, Commander Karnelius, Quartermaster Pereza, General Arnisant. My condolences on your world. Is there anything we can do to help?"

"My world was fine when I left it. What I want is to make sure that the same thing never happens here."  

"Anything we can do to help with that?"

He probably shouldn't say that the followers of Iomedae weren't much help the first time. 

"Not obviously. I know the events that most proximately enabled Asmodeus to take power, but not what caused them. Until I've learned more I really am reluctant to discuss it further. 

In the meantime, winning the shining crusade can't hurt." 

"Well, we're doing our best about that. - and should probably rethink some strategic concerns, actually, if you're expecting to be around to help."

"Magic's advanced some in the past millenium, so I should sit down with some of your wizards and figure out which spells I have more effective or lower-circle versions of – Fly off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are others. Of course, Alfirin and I can do teleportation circles. I don't know if you have mundane supply issues, but I've got a spell that does mass manufacturing and I've been working on applying it to magic item creation. And it's possible that I know more about the nature of the enchantments on Gallowspire than anyone else alive. I had to fix the seals on Tar-Baphon's prison lately and we had some time to talk, he's gotten lonely in there – I am very very sure I'm not currently being dominated, I've died and had myself resurrected since just to be safe. Nothing else immediately springs to mind." 

This leaves the crusaders somewhat speechless.

"....should I expand on any of that?"

"Can you say more about the spell that does mass item creation?" Pereza says. "Can you do - armor? Weapons? Horseshoes? Cooking pots? From what materials?"

"Any of those. It can handle any raw material, though it struggles with more than one material at a time. Up to 200 cubic feet of material per casting, when I'm casting it."  

"You can make weapons from - dirt? From stone? And they'll be - metal, and of good make?"

"Oh – no, it would have to start out from the raw metal, it just replaces the labor. I mostly use it for textiles, paper, and pocket-watches."  

"The crusade is always in need of armor and weapons and wagons. Less of textiles and paper and pocket-watches, though of course we wouldn't turn down clothing. Does it do shoes?"

"It does shoes."  

"Incredible! We would love some shoes. And - I don't want to increase the number of men under arms if the increase in supply options might be temporary, but if it won't be, we should really have half again as many men."

"It's a sixth circle spell right now, but I'll teach it to as many of your wizards as can learn it. I'm also sure it could be more efficient, getting down another circle is one of my ongoing projects – maybe the one I should prioritize right now."  

"- there's something very profoundly cheering, about thinking how much magic will get better in hundreds of years of invention and discovery, even in a timeline that it sounds like was terrible and we must avoid. I have no guesses how you should spend your time, but salute you."

"It is – and still, it's so much less than what it could be." 

Another thing he probably shouldn't say: he's slightly surprised she cares.  

If she notices him thinking it she doesn't indicate this. She'll catch him up on non-secret facts about the current crusade situation, then? They're just north of Urgir, which they've invested but not taken and probably won't - it's a dwarven sky-citadel with a hundred thousand orcs living there -

- aiming to get here by winter, of which the major logistical difficulties are this forest and the total lack of places to stop. 

Yep, he knows about the orcs, they're still there. What makes a place suitable for stopping?

Shelter from the elements, walls, and storehouses.

He assumes they've tried the obvious things, like making the forest not be there? 

"We'd have to wait for summer, and keep the Tyrant's agents otherwise busy, unless you mean something other than 'burn it to the ground'."

Well, burning it to the ground would be on his list of options, forests in Ustalav are generally hazardous to human health. But failing that, is this a problem that can be solved with enough teleportation circles?