"I'm not sure about stepping on your foot, but I can try to tell you if I think you're making a mistake!"

She is absolutely never going to do that but she can make an appropriate... nodding gesture?

"Thanks. I really appreciate both of you."

And she thanks the Archbanker as well, and then they can head out to the main temple, where she will inquire into whether there's a slightly lower-circle priest around who might want to sell them two Restorations and anyone, circles or no, who can renew their insurance (presumably more expensively).

This is Absalom, the city of the gods. They can get her two restorations without a problem.

The insurance is a bit harder, since negotiating about rates would require talking to someone who knew more about her situation and its risk factors, but since Rathimus is apparently getting a telepathic bond here he can just help her work out the rates with Sevandivasen at their convenience. (It's a lot less big a jump than she might think, they were already pricing it in as a high lethality activity). The time they spent at the church wasn't quite enough for her people to finish their shopping, but they're pretty efficient and it's not the much longer afterwards either.

All told, it's a little over an hour's time since setting out before Brenda makes it back to the Crusader camp, teleporting in for the second time that day.

Are the prisoners she rescued before everything went to shit doing okay? Does anyone want to meet with her about anything?

They're doing about as well as can be expected, all things considered. They've also managed to get a positive ID on some of the other people she rescued - apparently they're from a group of independent crusaders known as the Sunrise Sword that's currently deployed about sixty miles southwest of them. They'd been already been dealing with the attacks for a few days by the time the ones she rescued got took, and had apparently been struggling with the fact that their enemies seem all but immune to nonmagical weapons, cold iron or otherwise, unless a paladin gets involved.

She still doesn't understand what was going on with that, and she's going to need to go back in there and investigate some more. She suspects, thinking about it further, that the skeleton guy isn't directly involved, or at least isn't the main guy in charge there, because he didn't brag about it and because he was off in an out of the way corner and complained that he couldn't leave. So there's something else going on, and if she is sneaky enough and focused enough she might be able to find out what. Also possibly one of the prisoners will have overheard something useful, enough to give her a hint about where in the dungeon to look if not enough to figure anything out from directly.

The freed prisoners are in an isolated tent by the main medical pavilion; ghoul fever isn't that infectious as diseases go, but if someone's walking around with open wounds it can sometimes make a jump and that's hardly an unknown occurrence in the medical pavilion. They're also fairly sure the prisoners weren't also infected with demon plague or filth fever or any of the other myriad diseases that plague the worldwound, but it really is a case of better safe than sorry to keep them under observation while they convalesce. The healer on duty when she arrives is a paladin, who's not quite strong enough to be outright immune to all disease but is strong enough that he doesn't really need to be concerned; he can take her inside after detect evil comes up blank on infiltration and a check doesn't reveal any open injuries.

There's a bit of a ragged cheer from the Mendevian half of the room when they see her; the others don't seem to all recognize her on sight, but they warm up consideringly once the ones who were lucid enough to know that she's the one who rescued them tell their fellows.

It's pretty great that she can't get sick and doesn't have to worry about it. She's moderately embarrassed by the cheering and considers what she might later be able to DFEW that would specifically make her able to not blush.

Is everyone doing alright? She still hasn't solved the mystery of why the demons are stronger lately but she's going to keep investigating; if anyone has any information that might be helpful she'd love to hear it but mostly she hopes they all recover quickly and completely.

Some of them are feeling various degrees of drained from the disease even after they got lesser restorations, but all their other physical problems could be fixed with a channel and the mood in the room seems pretty optimistic.

"Sarenrae's blessing on you, knight commander. Have you heard any word about our comrades? They were already driving us out of our camp when I got snatched, and I fear the worst."

"I'm sorry, I haven't. Is there anyone you'd like me to try a Sending to?"

"Sarvan - ah, Captain Munir, or Lady Inaya. If anyone managed to regroup after the attack, they'd be there with them."

"Thank you. I'll check up on them and tell you what I hear."

She will in fact go to her tent and do this! Captain Munir first. 

This is Knight-Commander Brenda. Found some of your people in the Lost Chapel, got them out. Some others dead or ghouls. What's your status? 

A sending from an unknown person. Best to not give away anything they wouldn't already know, if this is an enemy, but be as helpful as he can otherwise. 

Forced to retreat south, regrouped with losses. Encamped with Godclaw, but supplies low and understrength. Frequent night raids from the sky, only magic weapons injure.

Better than them all being dead! She reports this to the prisoners, along with her intent to see what help she can provide them.

They're very grateful! It hasn't been even two hours since they were basically certain they'd be turned into ghouls, and now most of their other comrades are probably going to be fine too. Brenda will get a few more effusive thanks on top of the ones she already got earlier.

(It's really lucky there was a crusade declared right now. It's not that they didn't know the risks of operating inside the wound, but even being worth the risk doesn't change the fact that most disasters like this aren't recoverable - if it had happened a month later they'd be lucky if half their people limped out afterwards.)

Is Quartermaster Garms available to discuss the question of sending the Sarenrites additional supplies? (Several of the large randomized anonymous donations should have showed up by this point, so she hopes he'll be favorably disposed.)

He is!

"The hardest part is going to be getting it to them, of course. We've got plenty of supplies - other than magic arrows, at least - but arrows, food, backup equipment - that's all heavy and bulky stuff. It sounds like they still have a cleric, though, so it's not as bad as it could be."

"Can't just have me teleport back and forth with a wagon a bunch of times? I guess if it's dozens of wagonloads that's still pretty slow . . ." Maybe she can bring Nenio back and forth with her and they can try to rederive the rest of general relativity from what she remembers and both ends will think the other is just really good at packing/unpacking. "I assume all our bags of holding are already doing important things and getting more would take too long to be worth it?"

"Everything I've heard says you can't take a wagon with you when you teleport - I've heard stories about loading up beasts of burden and then teleporting them, but even that wouldn't match a wagon for volume without a lot of trips and a lot of unloading and loading. I expect we can wrangle up a some bags of holding, but that won't be more than a few hundred added pounds a trip."

"How about if I pick up the wagon? It really seems like it ought to work if I'm unambiguously carrying it, if there was a volume limit then dragons couldn't teleport."

"I- yes, I think that would probably work. I'll see about getting some carts loaded up for you to take."

"Thanks!" She is maybe starting to like this whole 'having employees' thing. It's nice, when you have only half of the ability to do something, for there to be someone else who has the other half and also wants the thing done.