She waves. Tosses a couple little folded paper stars she produces out of nothing to people.

"One hundred years."

The queen's voice carries across the square, and all the murmurs and whispers quiet themselves to hear her speak.

"For one hundred years, we have fought tirelessly against the hordes of the Abyss, and for one hundred years we have held the line. When the demons first poured out of the rift to menace innocent Sarkorians, we were there to put the lie to their hopes for easy victory. When the archtraitor Areelu Vorlesh took to the field herself to defend her creation, we dealt her a defeat so thorough she has yet to risk returning to the field in all the years since. When the balor lord Khorramzadeh sought to unite the disparate demonic legions to break the encirclement and conquer Golarion, we shattered his ambitions under him and dealt him the greatest humiliation of his life. And now, Deskari himself felt he had no choice but to take to the field, and by the heroism of the defenders of Kenabres even the personal attention of him and his strongest lieutenants has come to naught.

"Know this! Despite their personal strength, the demons are weak. They do not understand our love, our loyalty, our friendship and our pride, and so they can never defeat us. Faced with overwhelming odds, demons will scatter to the winds as soon as there's nobody there to keep them in line by force, but true crusaders will fight on to the last to defend what we hold dear and triumph over impossible odds. And beyond that, the gods themselves aid us in our holy mission, and theirs is a strength that the demon lords cannot rival; Deskari and Baphomet skulk in their fortress realms, only daring to sneak out for brief moments or else face total destruction. But it is not merely enough that we stand here, behind our fortresses, and keep the demons where they are. Our children, and our children's children, deserve better than to inherit a world under constant attack, and by our deeds here and now we can deliver that world to them. That is why I stand before you today, to declare the start of the fifth crusade!

"There were many heroes of these last few days, from the valor of the eagle's watch in hunting down demons to the quiet moments of bravery, where ordinary people stood up for their neighbors and drove off cultists or sheltered each other from attack. Of these, however, the greatest came from Kybele the Curator. Despite being a newcomer to Mendev, she acted fearlessly at great risk to herself to save the innocent and slay demons, and she not only organized the battle that saved the wardstone from demonic treachery but drove off the Lilitu and her minions with the aid of heaven itself to support her in her righteous deeds - as once did the Inheritor herself. It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce that she will be the one to lead you, as the Knight Commander of the Crusade!"

As the speech progresses, Kybele can feel her fame start to rise, but when the queen makes her announcement the square erupts in cheers and the new energy rushes in like a torrent. People clap, and stomp their feet, and raise their fists to the sky. It takes a full minute for the noise to die down enough for Kybele to speak her part, and when she does their attention is palpably on her and excited energy still fills the crowd.

She almost laughs but confines herself to a fierce grin as she steps forward.

"People of Mendev, my brother and I arrived here at what may have been the worst possible moment, featuring as it did a large-scale demonic incursion into your city pursuant to the failure of the Kenabres wardstone. Or it may have been the best possible moment, allowing me to witness the people of this city responding with incredible grace and courage to a crisis of heroic proportions, from Iomedae's own paladins to every worker keeping the meals coming. I have been privileged to meet and fight alongside many of the Mendevians who stepped up to the challenge and coordinated with friend and neighbor and stranger alike to confront evil. Together we beat back the invading force and covered my approach to the wardstone to repair it. And today I am here to accept the command of the Fifth Crusade - to bring that wardstone and its brothers closer to the heart of the Worldwound, claiming back precious territory, lost treasures, and essential safety margin from the hordes. I may be far from home, but I am fortunate to have found myself in such company, grateful to be positioned to author such deeds, and honored to find myself in command of such a worthy endeavor. Together we can build the strength and the unity we need to triumph."

This will also get her plenty of cheering! The fame jump is not as large as the last one, but one might get the sense that she's already about as famous with these people as she can possibly get.

After Kybele's speech, the queen also introduces the other people on stage who have apparently also agreed to roles in the crusade. There's a woman called Baroness Gaunther who is there to assist in commanding troops, Captain Harmattan for troop procurement, Nurah Dendiwar as chief diplomat, Forgemaster Joran Vhane as head of the armory, Voyager Ramien as their head cleric, Quartermaster Wilcer Garms in charge of supply, and Sir Irabeth Tirabade as Kybele's second in command. Only the last gets comparable excitement to Kybele's, but none of them seem openly unpopular amongst her audience. After the speeches conclude, alcohol is brought out and many of the crusaders and civilians disperse a bit to party.

Ky wants most urgently to meet those of her co-workers she hasn't met yet though she also sends Iskander to circulate and introduce to her anyone particularly neat he meets. She will at near-random offer a hand to Nurah to shake. "Delighted to meet you!"

"It's a pleasure!"

The woman is remarkably short, but not proportioned like a child; her voice is cheerful and warm.

"I must say, it's not every day that you get to meet a prospective hero as they're just getting started. As a historian, it'll be an interesting change of pace, although perhaps not as good as if I'd arrived a few days sooner; everyone's already had plenty of time to talk to each other and blend their recollections together. I hear you're a fellow lover of books?"

"I am! My first line of work was as a librarian and I've not quite left it behind yet."

"I can relate to that. When I was younger, sorting and cleaning and later copying my master's book collection was one of my favorite tasks, and I think if I had had the option in those days I would have done it full time and never looked back. These days I spend more time making small talk and pretending to be an incredibly interested listener at parties than writing or reading, which is something of a travesty, but at least there's the sense of accomplishment when things finally come together."

"How'd you wind up in diplomacy?"

"There aren't a lot of ways to really make a difference in Mendev without being able to fight, at least if you aren't wealthy or from the right family. Your options are mostly to hope a god picks you, go into the bureaucracy, or become a diplomat. I've always been better with words than paperwork and never been lucky enough to have a god pick me, so it was a pretty natural choice, and between you and me flattering the egos of the nobility is mostly the same no matter where you go so a lot of my previous skills carried over."

"I wouldn't have thought 'domestic servant' was an ideal background for a diplomat, but now that you point it out..."

"I suspect it comes from a lot of people not having a great sense of what diplomacy actually looks like in practice, just seeing the treaties and so forth that result. I still do sometimes have a bit of a hard time because I'm not part of the nobility's old boys' club, but the vast majority of the work is forging personal connections with your counterparts and establishing backchannels and learning how to phrase things so you can communicate valuable information without offense, plus learning to interpret it from your counterparty. Lots of times when a conflict seems inevitable because neither side will back down it's because both sides had a need to posture but lacked a way to communicate their actual position without undermining that, and so had to come to blows. Of course, you do also see your fair share of second sons there to blow off the work and party, but usually at least you can get somewhere by making a positive impression on them and then mostly talking to their staff."

"Do crusades always have their own diplomats? Who are you likely to be talking to?"

“It varies. The shining crusade of course had its own diplomatic corps on par with any of the major countries, but they were a state in all but name until the end of the war when they became a state in name too. Of the mendevian crusades, the first wasn’t really organized enough for that to make sense and the third happened almost entirely in Mendev’s territory, but the second and fourth did some diplomacy and it’s a common thought that the various inadequacies of the fourth crusade’s diplomatic efforts were one of its bigger issues.

“As for my role, that depends on how things develop. By default I’m to be your point of contact with Nerosyan, in case some noble starts making a fuss of you sending your supply lines through their territories or you need to lobby for more funding or so forth, but if you decide to reach out to Andoran or Galt or Taldor or… Cheliax for funding or assistance, it’s probably a good idea to have someone who at least knows where to start. And of course I’m also here to answer questions on Mendevian politics in general since you’re not a local but it would be impolitic to make that an explicit role in the crusade command structure.”

"I appreciate it! I've been reading as fast as I can but there's so much to pick up."

“There’s just not enough time in the day, even after I ended up caving and splurging on a ring of sustenance. I can’t imagine being Knight Commander will be any less busy than my own duties either, so I’ll do my best to keep you informed without making you drop everything else on your plate so I can give you a three month crash course on the basics.”

"What's a ring of sustenance?"

"It helps take care of your biological needs, like making it so you don't need to eat or drink and can get by on less sleep, but of course that makes it easier to overwork yourself and doesn't effect anything besides biology. After I first got mine I spent a month miserable because the only time I would end up eating meals was when I was meeting people over dinners, though thankfully that at least was easy to fix."

"Huh. I'd really like to need less sleep but 'get by' doesn't sound like the most glowing recommendation."

"The way the magic works, it's supposed to make you only need two hours of sleep to get the benefits of normally sleeping eight hours, but it's not a perfect substitute since it doesn't do anything about how tired you are 22 hours after you woke up. You can move around your sleep schedule, but that gets to be a hassle when you want to be asleep in the middle of the day when you need to do something, so I mostly end up drinking tea when I work in the evenings and calling it good enough. And if you're not careful, your extra time can turn into extra workload and then you have even more stuff to get done but you have to do it tired. I'm told it's also troublesome if you have other rings you want to wear, but not being an adventurer I don't have that problem."

"Gosh. Thank you for catching me up on what will probably be the first of many ignorances. Can you introduce me to the others - I've yet to meet the Baroness or Captain Harmattan or Wilcer Garms."

"I don't know the captain or quartermaster myself, but I can introduce you to the baroness at least. Her family's lands are on the south end of Mendev, which usually implies they're less enthusiastic about expanding the war effort, but she's something of a patriot and neutral good besides, not that the latter is surprising for an Aasimar. She caught the tail end of the last crusade and has done some campaigning at the barrier in the years since, supposed to be pretty good at taking the fight to them across the barrier when they overexpose themselves, so it's an easy guess why she's the queen's choice for crusading. She  has some sorcery, but mostly the impressive thing about it is she can bless people like a cleric, since she usually fights in close. When she stops by the court, she's a staunch member of Queen Galfrey's faction, but she usually deputizes one of her cousins for it."

As she talks, Nurah leads Kybele over to where the Baroness is speaking with Ramien, a glass of wine in each of their hands.

"Baroness! Allow me to introduce our new Knight-Commander, Kybele. She's looking to get better acquainted with her new colleagues - perhaps this calls for the story of your face-off with a rift wyrm?"

The baroness covers her face with the hand not holding her glass, though it fails to completely hide a grin.

"Please no, Nurah, it was bad enough back when it first happened and it was all anyone was willing to talk about. I'd rather talk about literally anything else."

The woman then turns her attention to Kybele, and straightens a bit.

"It's good to meet you, Knight-Commander. I don't suppose there's some topic you are dying to ask about so I can pretend I forgot all about Dendiwhar's suggestion?"

"Oh no, I'll have to warn Iskander not to ask you about it either. What's your second-greatest exploit, then?"