"Cloudy, the usual light rain with a chance of lightning strikes, gotcha!"  And the ranger darts off to retrieve the rest of the maintenance team.

"When I suggested they might send a trainer, I guessed that their rangers would be more likely to be like our warriors. I think I was right."

"He sure doesn't seem as rigid as most of the Lawful fighters I've met. Let's see who else they sent."

Another, stronger ranger!

A strongly CG-aura'd person with Desnan symbology, and a similarly strongly-LG person!

Someone whose outfit manages to scream 'alchemist!', a metallic bird tweeting away on her shoulder while she fusses with a mechanical contraption that's radiating an aura like a Good cleric as it pushes through a snowdrift!

And a paladin, who looks like he's expecting a Demon Lord to show up and run him over, a trade he is entirely happy to make if it protects the Wardstone but boy would it suck.

"Welcome! Take seats, if you'd like. Thank you for coming and working with us, we've been waiting on planning any actual moves until we could talk with people who knew the Wardstones better."

"I'm Ata, Herder of the Steel Exiles clan, so I'm ultimately in charge of our people here. These are my two lieutenants, advisors, and serious threat response team. Estel is our training officer and general 'explaining how to do civilization to Kellids' expert; as you may have heard, she's a fifth-circle swordmage and teleportation specialist. Corl is my more traditional second-in-command and when necessary enforcer, also from Kellis; he's a fourth-circle shaman or priest, cross-trained with a more direct frontline combat role. I believe Estel's assessed all three of us as on par with an adventuring party with a sixth-circle wizard, so I'm the last third of the response team as well."

"Gravis Tennyson," he inclines his head respectfully because You Do Not Salute In The Field, seeing everyone else hesitate; "angel-bonded paladin specializing in defensive tactics.  Not a spellcaster, though, which might be why the Watch-Commander picked me of all people out of her close-protection roster, since I'm told you do want training advice.  I'm here with the primary mission of keeping our ritualist alive, in case something goes horribly wrong such as surprise demons, which is unfortunately never not a possibility and apparently moreso as of late," the - huh, a tiefling - finishes wearily.  (And also somewhat warily, though not of the various people he's speaking to.)  "I am primarily sworn to protect the Wardstones and those who maintain them, but insofar as it will not interfere with my duties I can offer some thoughts on training and how it compares to the Shieldwall's regimen."

And with the ice broken, Genevieve can cut in!  "I'm Genevieve Costanza; I work with Lastwall on secondment from the Order of the Foundation of Aroden's Dream - my apologies for the extremely long name, unfortunately it really does mean something specific - and I helped build up Lastwall's alchemicals section, although it's practically running itself, these days.  In addition to alchemy we do clockwork anima, mostly produced at the Order's Alkenstar works; I've brought a clockwork priest and a songbird with me today as examples of powerful-but-expensive and cheapish-but-often-useful.  Zahra, the Order's founder, also does some absurd thing with magical pigments that we are still trying to figure out how to replicate in a reliable way but produces Some Bullshit when it works out, for all that it's more in a 'surprise helpful adventurers' way, but I think she'd get a lot of inspiration from working with you and would pitch her on it if you think rolling the die on adventurer genesis is - worth it.  She's done a lot of work on that, I'm certain there'd be something she would wring out.  Though she's very...Arodenite.  Which is ironic, considering it's me saying that and you'd think that's one of the selling points on why I joined up in the first place, but I mean - she's not going to get why y'all do things the way you do them, even less than I do.  I at least think I share some level of valuing fending for myself with your forces, if what little I've heard and observed is leading me to correct guesses about your philosophies, though I approach that goal with my wits rather than brawn; Zahra is going to be so bemused at why there isn't a proper city here.  Not that she'll be - an ass, but there's something she just hasn't been thinking about that working out here would poke.  Anyway.  Tangent aside.  I do crafting and I'm here to trade lore and demon bits for lore and various crafts."

"...Alright, let's get a semblance of order in this, shall we," says the halfling ranger.  "I'm Vallora Bellis, blessed ranger of Iomedae; I focus on defensive skirmish and have trained others to that effect.  My apologies for missing the initial introductions, I thought I saw something that needed to be shot.  Reasonably confident there's actually no invisible quasit here, despite that, though you can never be quite sure.  I'm in overall command of our party, though with the number of warrants and people operating under allied contract we have in the group it's a bit misleading.  Still, if it's not directly about the wardstones - which should go to our priest - or about alchemical whatnot - which would obviously be Genevieve's warrant and indeed her entire purpose here, though in this case I do outrank her because she's not properly field-rated and this is the field - I'm in charge of everyone except our much-beloved Desnan mascot, who goes where she pleases and also where the Commander asks nicely.  Ciara," she turns to the Desnan, "anything to add?"

"Um!  I'm looking forward to working with you for a little while and I hope we can be friends?"

"Oh, and, um, proper introductions, Ciara Volare, fifth-circle cleric, obviously I worship Desna, I go where I want and sometimes where I want to go is out here to help, but I'm kind of pants at fighting?  It's important so if it's necessary I'm not going to just - run away on somebody, I wanna be clear, I'm just - not of the proper temperament, was that what you said that one time?  I prefer talking!  Talking is good!  But hard to do with demons..."

The surprisingly young-looking catfolk allows herself a small pout.

"Much good is done by not fighting," nods the enormous armored bluish-skinned man with a massive mace who looks like he was born on this planet solely to fight and was described as the herder's 'enforcer'.

She nods.  "Yeah."

Genevieve is also nodding in considered agreement.

It's the Obvious Iomedaean Cleric's turn to speak, and she is in fact an Obvious Iomedaean Cleric.

"I'm Bonnie; technically my parents named me Tiffany but it never stuck.  I'm here because I know how to do the Wardstone ritual and because I'm good at making demons regret seeing me in case they think now's a good time to try something, though that's not a bet we're actively making, just one we've got enough slack overall to hedge against.  's sorta like - what was it, Valora, tripwires?  You hook 'em up to a bell, and it works like an alarm but it's all mechanical.  Just in case.  's so if a big demon we haven't found out about shows up, we hold long enough to be reinforced.  You'd have more people than just us out here if there were big demon armies on the horizon like that and we knew."

"We're not anticipating trouble either, but I appreciate being ready for trouble, nonetheless. Something bigger could show up, and we don't have defenses against snooping that would work if something strong tested them, so they might be able to time it."

"I doubt we'd have a city here even if Kellids wanted one," Estel says to Genevieve, "there just isn't the population density. They're adapting, and we may have a proper town made of tents in a decade, but people change slowly. And, well, no one knows quite why even the runts of Kellis are taller than southerners and as tough as veteran soldiers, but they think it comes from the 'old ways' and I can't really contradict them."

"That's why we used a source of randomness to determine some things on our end, though you're right that if they're spying on you somehow they could probably try some shit just from deducing we're here.  We do try to keep under divination wards, though."

Genevieve, meanwhile, replies to Estel: "I mean, yeah, I'm pretty sure they're right about that, just off the top of my head.  You gain power beyond the regular limits by pushing yourself beyond what you can easily overcome; that's well-attested everywhere someone's checked.  And - this culture exemplifies that mindset.  From what I've heard, which is at best thirdhand information, but I don't think I'm wrong about the - valuing overcoming what you 'shouldn't' 'be' 'able' 'to'?"

"Certainly an appreciated value, though perhaps not the chiefest. Other traditions have no obvious tie, though - revering spirits rather than gods, following and taming the great beasts but never 'domesticating' them." (the word is obviously foreign and borrowed in his mouth) "And yet - I have seen the Ulfen, west along the coast, and they seem more like adventurers by culture and nature, but still a head shorter than a True Kellid even as children."

"That I think I am inclined to attribute to Druid-Like Something-Or-Other, albeit...well, this isn't actually my field of study?  No matter how well-read I am, which is very, I'm an alchemist, not a - theurgologist.  Not to be confused with a theurgist.  ...I think that that'd be Zahra, actually, who - makes a study of how faith works.  Things like how to inspire.  Which isn't quite the same thing as studying individual faiths, because it - takes a step back from the individual practices, and looks at things like what rituals of various faiths have in common.  Useful when you're..."  She wibbles a hand, "trying to build a religion from scratch to accomplish a very ambitious goal like making the conditions for another Aroden's starting to exist."

"...not that we actually think it's likely a genius will show up, but.  One really must try, if one can, to encourage people to grow into the selves they want to be in their heart-of-hearts.  It's - a very Good act.  And while Aroden was Neutral...he wanted Good things, y'know?"

"...'vive, maybe get into the weird theories once we've sorted everything else out?  Is there anything else you or we need to know, Herder Ata?"

"Don't worry, I occasionally get distracted by pondering it as well. But yes, now is not the time. About how long should we expect the ritual to take?"

"It depends; this is usually one of the quicker stones to reinforce, but I've had to do days of effort before, and on the shorter end I've completed one in fifteen minutes.  It's a mindset thing. as much as a ritualism thing."