"Yeah, that's good with me."

Jana and Friedrich go and grab their bags, settling them on their backs, and Jana settles her rifle over one shoulder, fingers staying wrapping around the strap.

She leads the way out of the clearing they're in, onto the road. Friedrich chatters some as Jana seems to need time to settle, seems unnerved somehow.

"She isn't often visible while we travel," Frierich says quietly to Melissa - Jana can hear them, but she's pretending not to. "It'll take her a moment to get used to it again, and figure out a way to teach you our language without doing it the really hard way of dropping what she's doing and pointing at things until you have enough words to actually talk."

Melissa follows.

"I can probably figure it out that way well enough. If she'd prefer it; I have a good memory."

"It's more about what's easiest. Better if you're at least reasonably capable of speaking the language sooner rather than later."

"Definitely," Jana agrees, tilting her head back at them, while the word is understandable, echoing underneath it, also perfectly understandable, is the word as Jana said it in their language. It continues as she carries on: "Better if you're able to talk to people without needing a translator, that can gain unwanted attention." She smiles slightly. "Let me know if the overlay is irritating and we can find another way of doing it."

"No, the overlay is cool! So is 'the irritating overlay' grammatically correct? 'The attention is unwanted?' 'Find another translator?' 'A translator and a overlay is able to talk?'" (She says the example sentences in the new language.)

"Last one sounds off," Friedrich says (and the overlay's extended to his words now). "'Although I'm not entirely sure how I'd make it better..."

"Do verbs change with who they're about?"

"You have singular and plural, but nothing indicating gender. I will, they will. I walk, they walk." Jana smiles as she demonstrates.

"'The translator walks? I talk, they talk?'"

"Perfect," Jana says, shooting a thumbs up over her shoulder. "We'll get you talking like a native in no time."

She pauses scanning the road ahead. "Contact coming," her tone has gone flat. "Going dark to scout. Effect should stay in place."

And then she vanishes.

"Well this isn't awkward," Friedrich comments, and the effect does indeed stay in place. "Would you like to hear a little about magic theory as we know it?"

"Absolutely!"

"Alright, so, first thing: we don't need any tools to do magic. I'm not as good at some things as Jan, but that's because there's two types of magic user. I'm what's known as a 'Learned' and I started learning far later than most. You'll fall into this category when we get to doing practical stuff. Jana's what's known as an 'Innate', she has an element that is...part of her, for lack of a better word. Means she has more raw strength, but at least half the reason she has a problem being visible is because her element wants to be used." He continues with a basic run down of what they know - how elements interact with each other, how much easier it is for a Learned to learn more elements than an Innate, and just how bendable the elements can in fact be.

Melissa listens raptly. "Can you make magic objects with it?"

"Depends on the element. Elements like shadow can't so much, air, not so much. I've heard of some people who've built...machines, and imbued them with the elements they used to help build them. But that's...not really mine and Jana's bag of tricks."

"Huh. Big thing magic does back home that you hear about is objects. Like chests that kill people who try to open them. What kind of machines?"

"Some industrial machines," Jana says as she reappears, "and some that seem more geared for war. It's a group of priests. If we do cross with them, nix the magic talk."

She's not quite looking at either of them, more focused on the potential problem.

"...Okay. Do priests not like magic?"

"They've accepted that people are going to learn it, whatever they say," Jana responds. "But no, they don't like it."

"Innates they are fairly sure are the 'spawn of demons'," Friedrich adds. "Though you do hear rumours. They might not do anything too bad, but if they hear us talking about it, they're sure as anything gonna preach."

"This place is weird. ...And are demons the same thing here as back home? Back home they're - monsters, no one's ever seen one and lived to tell about it, but an outskirter told me they sometimes wander into the outskirts, and you can hear them screaming when they're close. If you move they'll hear you and come kill you."

"We're not entirely sure we trust what the church says is true."

"What he means is that all we have are myths and legends from when the 'gods' supposedly walked the earth. There were supposedly demons then as well." She shrugs. "There's no evidence either one existed and humanity is capable enough of being evil without creating excuses for itself."