"The holy book's not going to claim to be a referendum on Alfirin's essential character, but it should contain a record of the work she has done for the last thirty years."

"I'm just giving political advice, here," says Arnisant, "which is that you don't want to let future Alfirin undermine you and you don't want to sound like you have a soft spot, what with how you're going for being the goddess of not having any soft spots."

"The holy book will probably have been a very carefully worded combination of all of these considerations," she says tiredly, "and when Lastwall decided to cut Alfirin for, uh, being the sort of thing that whether or not it was a mistake will inspire imitators to mistakes, someone - who it sounds like we all bet is future Alfirin - decided to replace it."

         "I am genuinely surprised you let them cut things for being embarrassing," Pereza says. "For being - actively incorrect, for encouraging an impression that, as a god, you realized was a wrong one -"

"I think probably the line between 'bad for the Church because it's embarrassing' and 'bad for the faith because it gives people misapprehensions' is in many individual cases unclear. I am disappointed and somewhat concerned, but - not with anyone alive today in either timeline."

              "Except Alfirin, maybe," says Karlenius. 

She nods. "Maybe we will soon learn more. - Alfirin, before you head across you should petrify or something our Baphomet cultist, in case your departure breaks Dominates."

"Mm? I suppose we don't have a good workshop for him back on that world, and he might have allies who'd try something, so I guess leaving him petrified here isn't losing that much time."

"Karlenius, you're on redeployments for Barstoi and figuring out item reassignments, pull in whoever you need, I know it'll be annoying.  Arnisant, I'm not relieving you in general command yet because I need to tell Aroden all of this and I think that conversation's reasonably likely to be incapacitating, if He wants to take a close look and He'd better, what with how I'd like the Age of Glory to actually work in this timeline. Alfirin I assume you want to learn all the future's spells and then figure out which ones we're offering everyone else, which we're selling, etcetera."

       "And who's assigned to fret over you the whole time you're wobbly from speaking to Him," says Karlenius, because Marit's the person who'd usually insist on that but they can't have no one insisting just because he's out.

"I do not actually require that service," says Iomedae tiredly. "He does check before He incapacitates me if anything bad is going to happen as a result. Marit just doesn't trust Him."

"Yes, of course. I'm happy to take on the difficult task of learning nine hundred years of magical innovations." Iomedae has apparently just been spending days justifying her trust in Alfirin and Alfirin's not going to make that situation worse by volunteering to fret over her in front of a historian and a couple of spies.

She'll fret from afar.

Some guards will show the delegates to their rooms and tell them they have permission to explore the camp, or for that matter go off to see the world, though they should have someone with them if they're poking around camp to avoid miscommunications. 

The spies aren't going to poke around the camp yet. De Luna would like to interview people about the ways spellcasters are used in the Crusade. Mirdeliendë would like to negotiate a permanent transfer to this world, ideally a swap with another fifth-circle wizard as this leaves Lastwall no worse off and the Crusade somewhat better off. She seems very impatient about this.

The Crusade is happy to enable this permanent transfer subject to concerns about secrecy. They can get her a contract to have in mind as the framework in which she'll work as their wizard even if the details are still being worked out.

De Luna will find that six people accuse him of being Marit.

And Cleric. Mirdeliendë will also be working for them as a Cleric.

De Luna does not mind being accused of being Marit, (He isn't) but he's curious why they think that! Can they tell him more about Marit?

...cool! They are delighted to have Mirdeliendë as a wizard and cleric. ...of Aroden, presumably. They do not have a contract for that but can get one drawn up.

....they know perfectly well that De Luna is Marit and are NOT GOING TO FALL FOR IT YET AGAIN.

...OK but he'll just. Tell them that he's not Marit. Because he's not. His escort will also tell them that he's not Marit, right?

His escort thinks this is incredibly hilarious and will point out that Marit would also have instructed the escort to claim that Marit was instead De Luna, a historian writing about the Shining Crusade.

He is really not sure how to not mislead them into thinking he's Marit since apparently just telling them won't cut it -

He can swear on it he supposes? He swears he is not Marit. He doesn't really expect it to help.

Anyways, from their perspective he's either a historian authorized to ask questions about Marit, or he is Marit, and either way he's allowed to know about Marit! Can they tell him more about Marit?

Eventually his escort after a suppressed fit of giggles will explain that Commander Marit has a hat of Alter Self and a habit of wearing it and striking up conversations about topics where Tar-Baphon might want the relevant information and gradually enticing everyone to share military secrets with him, which is what 'I'm a historian with questions about how the Shining Crusade uses spellcasting' sounds like, though usually Commander Marit's more subtle. 

The escort will explain that he's only explaining this because he in fact knows what De Luna's deal is, but as they can't explain it to anyone else, he's going to have a hard time with this interview strategy in general.

Does Marit go around falsely swearing that he's not Marit? That seems very bad for his law!

No, but one of Marit's Called assistants could truthfully swear to that and Marit would definitely chew you out afterwards for telling someone military secrets just because they swore they weren't Marit.

What if he swears that he is a historian making a record of the crusade for the nation Iomedae plans to build, with Iomedae's permission, and that he has to the best of his knowledge never spoken to Marit or an agent of Marit, and that he is not trying to get anyone in trouble for being insufficiently paranoid.

....Tar-Baphon's agents would just do that and be lying. Like, that is indeed persuasive that he's not Marit or Marit's friends, but the possibility Marit was attempting to bring to salience with all his activities is that Tar-Baphon would be spying.

...Their operational security is commendable. Can he demonstrate that he is actually a paladin by laying hand on someone, or finding someone with detect good up? Or - probably he should just wait until he can next speak with Iomedae and ask her for something he can show people to convince them that he's actually just a historian?

This conversation has at this point attracted enough attention that someone present can confirm he is Lawful Good and not under any other spells unless he's ludicrously good at hiding them. 

They will tell him all their military secrets, in that case. 

Thank you! Finally! He'll write down some of their military secrets!

Iomedae goes to a room where she's alone and kneels on a pillow and closes her eyes and tries to make herself legible to Aroden, to look up at Him and everything He stands for and show Him the extremely confusing and horrifying set of things that apparently happen, in the other world, to warn him. To not attempt the Age of Glory at all or at least not until He knows how and why it happened like this. Hundreds of millions of people starved, the Worldwound opened, Cheliax conquered by Asmodeus, starving packs of beggar children on the streets of Almas, almost everything lost and betrayed - Arazni -

Aroden is not entirely surprised to receive this prayer, and...is somewhat relieved, both because it means Iomedae is aware that there are perhaps relevant questions with answers He would prefer to know, and because it makes it any amount less costly to speak with Iomedae more directly. 

(He could do it anyway, she is his paladin and very closely aligned, but He - generally prefers to avoid that.) 

...Anyway. What Aroden knew, before this point, is that there was a mildly-surprising ripple of noise and confusion in gods'-view prophecy, one that wouldn't have stood out much at all except for how He couldn't trace down its source - 

- and then, not very long before this particular prayer, there was a MUCH MUCH LOUDER AND MESSIER set of ripples, and at the point when Aroden sees Iomedae reaching for Him, and reaches back, He knows little more than that - 

(and, in the middle of the noise, the perception of one of His clerics, except...not...a cleric He never chose but who is - not only very clearly aligned with Him but equally clearly someone He chose once before -)

Aroden is so incredibly confused and He does not like it at all. He never has. 

(on a separate thread, because gods have a lot of attention, He is noting that Iomedae's thoughts contain the knowledge of another world and - maybe this time it's going to be a world with resources that will make a real difference, and be worth reaching for) 

....He prefers not to do this to His followers, but Iomedae can handle it better than most, and so - He is going to pull her in, as gently as He possibly can - it's all tangled together in her thoughts and He needs it clearer than that, the cause-and-effect laid out to the extent she understands it herself - what happened when the Age of Glory should have happened, in what order - 

(- and, Arazni, He - is still, in fact, capable of caring, if not more, at least differently about Arazni than He does about all of the sentient minds everywhere. But it's not yet clear what went wrong, to Him, in Iomedae's thoughts, just - horror, not fully translated across a communication-barrier that He wishes more than ever He had figured out how to cross more effectively - and it seems like not the highest priority, right at this moment, His sense is that it's not timed to when the Age of Glory went wrong...)