"I guess. And even if Aroden was trying to make it happen faster, He's - dead. So." Does the paladin of Iomedae seem to want them to do anything? Iomedae is honestly fairly intimidated by the paladin of Iomedae. He is the second real paladin she's met not counting herself and he's armored and taller than her and watching her like - like she became a god in this world, only she's not actually sure she is qualified. 

He mostly seems to want them to follow him through the city's citadel to a room with tables and chairs and maps - He kicks out the people who were using it already, apologetically. They don't question it. "Is there anything you need? Should I send for the other people you should meet now, or do you have more questions for me or other things you want to address first?"

Iomedae has seen satellite imagery and cannot be intimidated by a room full of maps. She feels a little better. She can't think of more questions but looks inquiringly at Alfirin.

"We're going to need a lot of paper and - probably someone to take dictation." Alfirin's handwriting is not great and it's going to be worse without ballpoints. "But I can't think of anything else right now. Except a round map but that's less important."

They did a practice of this two weeks ago. It isn't easy to know if it'll work the same for real - they could hardly bring in someone who'd pretend to be from Golarion and relevantly ignorant - but they know the first two days of what they want to say, at least. "I can't think of anything else either."

"So send for the people now. And paper."

Cansellarion does so. He introduces the others as they arrive. Jan Zima, Lord-Watcher - that's the title for the leader of their country, he's not a king and got his position by merit not blood - Veena Heliu, precentor-martial for magic, and… a bunch of researchers who Veena will introduce because Cansellarion doesn't know their names. And some secretaries. Veena and Jan are shooting Cansellarion questioning looks. The researchers seem mildly curious.

Iomedae was not expecting to meet the rulers of any countries. At least, certainly not out of the blue like that, with them walking into the conference room; she had expected that once they'd accomplished some things they might get presented to the Emperor, like people sometimes are in legends.

But no, here he is. It's terrifying. She's suddenly deeply curious how they define merit but it - doesn't matter. She's not going to be any good at politics. The thing she and Alfirin have spent four years studying and planning for is bringing technology here, and she'll just have to hope that Evil gods can't pick paladins and that if she's doing Evil in helping these people her god will renounce her. …possibly there are other things she could do but she doesn't know what they are.

Are these people waiting for her to speak. Oh no. Her stomach is doing somersaults.

 "Almost five years ago Alfirin and I were transported in some kind of accident to another world," she says. "It has almost eight billion humans living on it, and no magic that they know of, and rumors of things the gods did a long time ago but no empowered priests anymore. They are very very rich. Only one person in a hundred works on a farm, but they can feed all the rest, and clothes and books are so cheap that they are thrown away, and it is very rare for anyone to die of disease or of monsters, though also none of them are heroes out of legend. Any person can talk to any other person, anywhere on the world, with a nonmagical device they can buy for two weeks' wages in America. They have horseless carriages that go on great paved roads around the land, and they have flying ones that take millions of people every day to any big city in the world. The big cities are very big, they know how to build buildings a hundred stories tall. 

They have weapons that can kill a man from a mile away, without magic, at not much expense, and weapons that do not take much training to use but that can kill a bear, or shoot through armor. They have weapons that are scarier than those, that can burn whole cities and poison the ground where they stood, but I am probably not going to teach you how to build them because I think it might be better not to have them here.

So Alfirin and I figured, we would learn all of the things they know how to do on Earth, and we would commit them to memory, and practice teaching them, and then we would take our own lives and if my god saw fit He'd direct His church to bring us back so we could tell you everything and make this world rich and also beat Tar-Baphon. Only apparently it's too late for that, and my god is dead, and Asmodeus rules the Empire where I was born. I still think the things we taught ourselves will probably help, though. 

…I'm Iomedae. Sir Cansellarion said that this world has an Iomedae who became a god but I - if there'd been a book in the libraries of Earth about how to become a god I'd only have read it in my free time, probably, because this was our best guess about what needed doing. And there wasn't such a book, and I really don't know anything about being a god, and I wouldn't want anyone to imagine I did. Alfirin's actually the one with the better memory for all the tricky engineering processes."

Alfirin swallows, and gets down from the table where she was sitting. "Are there any questions about that or should we start explaining technology?" she asks, nervously. Somehow this is scarier than pulling the trigger was, which is objectively ridiculous and insane of her.

The Lastwall researchers have a ton of questions but recognize that it's not actually their job to ask or know about this part. They keep them to themselves.

(Lastwall's leadership also has questions about this part, but not ones they think the girls know the answers to.) "Just start with the technology," says Jan. He's trying to be reassuring with his tone but when speaking to disoriented teenage girls he's really not any good at it.

"Okay. Iomedae and I don't know what you already know, because we're from eight hundred years ago, so if I'm explaining something that's not new you should tell me and I'll skip to the next thing. The first thing is that you need lots and lots of steel, for making the machines for making everything else. That means lots of iron and coal mines and - I don't know the Taldane word. Are there wizards here who can cast the spell to make us know modern Taldane?"

Heliu can call someone in who prepared share language.

"Limestone," Alfirin says, once she has the vocabulary. "Iron and coal and limestone. The limestone is - it removes the bad parts of rock coal, so that you can use rock coal and not charcoal, because it's easier to get lots of rock coal. I'm going to explain how to make a Watt engine, which is a type of machine that can operate a pump by burning coal, because a pump to get water out and air in is important for making deeper mines and you can start building them before you have a whole steel manufacturing chain set up…"

They can keep going in this vein for a very long time. Iomedae expected the nervousness to get better by a few hours in, but it actually doesn't; it's just unbearably stressful the whole way through. It doesn't help that she now has a language in her head that is the Taldane of 900 years in the future, crisper and cleaner and with wildly more vocabulary than she ever had with the Taldane she spoke growing up. It feels like it's crowding it out, like she can't remember how to speak her own Taldane anymore. Which is fine since no one speaks it anymore except her, except that itself hurts, though it seems like it really ought to be a very small hurt alongside everyone she knew being dead and Aroden being gone and her homeland being ruled by Hell. 

For the most part it's not worth trying to cheat with magic at precision manufacture, which you're going to need to master the slow way, but there are various things that would be really nice to have a little earlier than you'd otherwise get them, such as radio, so they have those presented a little early in the logical progression because they're probably not that hard for a determined tinkering wizard to iron out. 

After …some number of hours…Iomedae doesn't think it's a small number of hours…Alfirin looks like she's flagging a little bit, and Iomedae herself feels like she is made of paper. "Maybe we could take a break?" she says hopefully. Is it rude to suggest this in front of the President/Emperor of an entire country? Probably.

The researchers, who are trying to learn and take notes and not just lecture, would also kind of like a break.

"Of course," says Zima, "How long do you need - oh, of course, you were just raised, you don't have rings. Let's adjourn for dinner and resume tomorrow morning." He directs an aide to find two rings of sustenance if they're going spare or even if they aren't, and another to reserve a couple of guest suites and then make sure some food is brought to them - real food, for people who eat.

"We'll share a suite," says Iomedae. "- also we do not eat meat if you torture the animals a lot. Cows are fine because they are harder to torture and one person cannot eat all that much of a cow."

One suite, then. "We do not torture animals. Why would anybody do - Why would anybody outside Nidal do that? Does Earth have a Nidal?"

"They learned you can make meat very inexpensive if you breed the animals to not die if raised as cripples in very small cages," says Iomedae. "You should probably consult with your gods before you do that. It does make meat very cheap but I am worried it is Evil."

"It seems possibly Evil," Jan agrees. "We'll have someone ask Erastil if it ever seems like a possibility, He'd answer and asking Him questions is usually not a waste of resources that could be better spent elsewhere."

Iomedae would in principle be kind of curious about that claim which seems to implicitly contain some other ones but she is too tired to be curious. She wants food, and a bed, and a hug. In her imagination of how this would happen, Aroden sent a vision to her father as he was important enough he could pay for an important priest to confirm the vision was real, and he was there when they woke up. Also she was dressed. Also everyone was very proud of them and praised their cleverness. Also Aroden wasn't dead. 

"Thank you," she says to the President/Emperor, and after that hopefully she can just go where she is told.

They are told a place to go, and brought food which contains meat, though in smaller proportions than in the meat-containing foods they are used to, and then left alone.

Alfirin hugs Iomedae as soon as the door closes. "It makes sense that they brought the President and their Secretary of Magic to listen but it was really scary trying to - teach a bunch of adults, including a president and a cabinet member."