Hmm. When he encountered the monster it was summer and he was in Cheliax, which has more normal terrain elevation. Possibly he is dead and this is - Heaven? He wouldn't really have expected Heaven but it doesn't look like a city and Axis is supposed to be a city.

Also he kind of would have expected not to wake up in an afterlife wearing and holding all the same objects, that's strange but admittedly not something he had very specific forecasts for. Does he need the mace, is anything around?

There's some rustling in the tall grass, but it's just a small rodent that runs away when it notices him.

It's a bit past noon, by the angle of the sun. There's some variety in the coloration of the grass, if he's paying attention, fading from green to dark orange to a hint of purple. There are some large rocks and trees off in the distance. The field of view isn't great, though; he's in a bit of a hill valley right now.

He holsters the mace and, for lack of a better idea, follows the rodent's general direction.

If he follows it for a while, it'll take him over to its burrow by the roots of a tree, but conveniently this takes him within sight of a dirt path a way down the hill.

Well. it doesn't seem to want to invite him in or it would have a larger house. He steps onto the path and heads down that instead.

The path is wider up close than it appears from a distance. There are wheel tracks in the dirt, but no travelers in sight. If he picks a direction and continues down the way for a while, he'll eventually catch sight of city walls in the distance.

Even from afar, they're considerably tall—forty feet or so, and solid stone.

Wow. Is the city turtled up right now? There's no besieging army...

There isn't a military presence visible as he comes up on it, and the gates are open as he approaches, though he can make out the figures of guards.

Though—the defenses are clearly built for war, or something like it. The stone brick is well-maintained, but worn with signs of past battle, some sections newer than others. No arrowslits or apertures, curiously, and the same for the gates, which are doors of great solid metal, two carriage-widths wide.

That points toward Heaven. There are armies, in Heaven, and maybe they practice with fortifications sometimes, though he would have probably guessed that no such things would feature in interplanar warfare.

He approaches the gate open-handed.

It's apparent before he's close that the two guards at the gate aren't human.

They're reptilian humanoids, scales and claws and all, closest to lizardfolk but clearly not by their more pronounced skulls—dragonlike, they would insist if you asked—and closely humanlike body proportions. One of them has pale green scales, the other yellow. Armored, one holding a spear with a buckler on his other arm, the other with a sword sheathed and gesturing animatedly with his hands while he speaks.

They break from their conversation as Blai approaches, but the second doesn't draw his sword. Alert, but not suspicious.

The first says a few words in a language Blai doesn't speak.

"I only speak Chelish, Common Taldane, and," wow, he doesn't love admitting this in plausibly-Heaven, but, "Infernal."

Green-scales raises an eyebrow, clearly incredulous. He chatters something to yellow-scales. Yellow-scales shrugs.

Green asks a different question, this time enunciated slowly.

"I apologize, I don't recognize that language. Is there perhaps somewhere new arrivals are expected?"

Yeah, they have no idea what he's saying.

Green and Yellow exchange a few more rapid-fire sentences. Yellow laughs, while Green looks unimpressed. Yellow says something in an egging tone.

Green sighs and rummages in a pack at his waist to fish out and unfold a wrinkled bit of paper with official-looking script and an ink seal on it. He waggles it at Blai and says something in a questioning tone.

"I didn't prepare Comprehend Languages today." - actually all his prepared spells are still there, which probably should not be the case if he's dead, so maybe he's alive (which would also explain still having his gear), but that only widens the possibility-space for where he could be. "I can't read that script... can you read this one?" He pulls out the letter inviting him to the convention.

That's not any script he's ever seen, so the weird human probably hasn't been cursed to speak in tongues or something. Is this Drathian? He kind of thought Drathians would look more different. What's a Drathian doing here?

This is SO NOT HIS JOB but if he lets in some sort of crazy murder-human the Captain is going to kick his ass.

Green tells Yellow something. The latter rolls his eyes, but trundles off into the city.

Green points at the ground and says two words slowly.

...does it satisfy the lizardman if Blai peacefully sits on the ground?

...That works.

The guard will stand there uncomfortably, keeping an eye on Blai. If Blai cares to peek through the gates, he'll see—well, a city. The street is well-paved past the gates, and the buildings tending tall and of remarkably good construction. There are stores and such, and a trickle of foot traffic, with curious glances thrown at the strange human sat at the gate, but no one really stops to stare.

Most of them are the same reptilian species, in a small variety of colors, but there are also—Gnolls, if Blai recognizes them. Hyena-like humanoids, larger and half a head taller than most of the reptilians, which in turn are a modicum taller than the humans you see on Golarion.

It'll be a while before someone shows up.

It's surprising that gnolls make Heav- wait, no, he decided this probably wasn't Heaven. He will if necessary just sit here till he can ask for new spells, though if it's like, more than an hour, he will Prestidigitate himself a chess set and start playing against himself.

After a bit over half an hour, Yellow comes back with another... person... in tow.

His companion is a quasi-humanoid insect(?) monster(??) with four segmented arms, dark chitinous plating, and a carapace giving its thorax a slight hunch. Its head is that of an ant, with large mandibles, bulbous faceted eyes, and a pair of antennae. The arms are narrow and uncannily proportioned, yet end with eerily humanlike five-fingered hands; its two legs are six-jointed and wholly alien.

It's wearing a loincloth and a belt with sheathed blades as it skitters alongside Yellow.

"...hello."

The bug monster addresses him in the same language as the guards did—its pronunciation is remarkably unaccented relative to what Blai's already heard, given the presumable morphological differences between their voice apparatus. It manages to convey a tone of being mildly irate but not angry.

Well, he's not really sure what the bug is here for if it's not here to speak any of the languages he speaks. "I'm afraid I don't know that language. I only speak Chelish, Common Taldane, and Infernal."

It shakes its head at the other guards. Tries a few different languages, some of them quite radically different from any Blai knows and possibly not pronounceable by human tongue. (None of them are known on Golarion.)

He shakes his head at each one.

This is inconvenient.

Klbkchhezeim was not, in fact, summoned by Guardsman Dorrix for his expertise in languages. It is simply protocol to escalate difficult immigration cases to a Senior Guardsman, and Klbkch is one of the more reliable Senior Guardsmen at—not necessarily making problems go away, but at making them no longer your problem. Despite Guardsman Dorrix having taken all the correct actions, Klbkch nonetheless finds himself not too pleased to be saddled with a stranger who does not speak any language known to the Free Hive. Which is in itself strange.

At least the human is well-behaved and did not scream or attempt to flee.

Technically, this human is not to be barred entry to the city as his limited belongings do not qualify him for a customs process, and he has not otherwise incurred reason for detainment. In practice—as Guardsman Melys here has likely identified—allowing a human who does not speak the language into Liscor, unsupervised, will not result in desirable outcomes.

Why is he here? It is evidently non-urgent. It must be unplanned, given the lack of offering even rudimentary phrases in the Common. He does not appear visibly injured or distressed. Klbkch's mind jumps to "teleportation accident", but that is not an event that occurs in any regularity in real life to qualify as a legitimate hypothesis.

If he is here to cause trouble, there are easier ways than drawing to the attention of City Watch before even entering the gates.

A [Telepathy] at the Mage's Guild will run him four gold. The Watch Captain will likely not consider this a justified use of the discretionary budget. The Queen will certainly not consider this a justified use of the Hive's resources. He himself is not willing to pay four gold for translation for a stranger, never mind his nominal salary largely exist gathers dust otherwise.

Klbkch remembers his first-contact protocols, but has not practiced them since before the exodus. He would need to adapt them, and it is tedious and not an efficient use of his time.

Then again, his Watch duties are largely not an efficient use of his time. And it will be a change of pace from settling noise complaints from snippy grandmothers.

He makes a beckoning motion, points at the tower of the guardhouse behinds the gates where it peeks over the wall, flaps his fingers in front of his mandibles, and gestures to and fro between himself and Blai.

Well, that isn't especially clear but Blai can... slowly get up and take a step forward?

Bugman walks back through the gate and gestures Blai to follow.

Okay. He will follow the bug man. If you don't want to go around flagrantly breaking laws in a strange place where you don't have the language, probably following people who want you to do that is a good step one.

He's taken around the side and into the gatehouse, up a flight of stone stairs, down a corridor and finally into a disused interview room. It's dimly lit, with an old table and a couple of chairs stacked in the corner. The city is visible through a barred window.

Klbkch sets chairs and gestures for Blai to sit. He produces writing materials from a drawer.

Blai sits and waits.

Klbkch will attempt to establish some vocabulary using objects around the room. "Yes", "no", "speak", "understand", questions and statements about location and identity.

He can give his name as Select Blai Artigas, sure, and where is he please?

He identifies himself Klbkch in return.

He sketches a map of Izril

and points out their location in the mountain pass at the neck of the continent. "Liscor," he says.

"Where are you from?" he asks Blai.

"Cheliax. Avistan. Golarion."

He has never heard of those. Puzzling.

"Liscor—city." He gestures out the window, indicating the city limits. "Izril—continent." He circles the continent on the map. "Cheliax, Avistan, Golarion?"

While Blai answers, he's going to get started on another map.

"Avistan continent."

"Avistan" might be a mangling of "Chandrar". Blai does not look like he is from the southern continent, but it fits with the unknown language.

His sketch of the known world is not as precise as his of Izril, but it should be recognizable.

He points. "Chandrar. Avistan is Chandrar?"

"No."

"Where is Avistan?" What was the other thing he said—"Where is Golarion?"

"Golarion is -" He makes a ball shape with his hands like he's holding a sphere.

Golarion is a... bubble universe? It is an incredulous claim, but—such things are known to exist.

"How did you travel to Liscor? Why did you travel to Liscor? Can you travel from Liscor to Golarion?"

(Hopefully Blai has picked up at least the general sense of the interrogatives.)

Have they covered "I don't know"?

Yep.

Yeah, he doesn't know. (In the last case he doesn't know the spell, in the other he's just clueless.)

If Blai does come from a dimensional bubble, being stranded by an malfunction becomes the more so likely. Though the rare dimensional collapse Klbkch has seen did not look survivable enough to leave a human this intact.

It may be worth a [Telepathy] after all.

After defining some vocabulary around trade, he says,

"The Mage's Guild will sell a [Telepathy] spell so you can understand language with one person for a half day. Can you pay?"

(They've roughly covered "day", "person" and "language"; "Mage's Guild" and "spell" are new.)

He is not carrying much cash because it turned out most cash was Evil. "...Day, night, day, I understand language."

It takes Klbkch a moment to parse.

"You have a Skill to understand language? You can do it tomorrow? After one sundown and sunrise?" He points at the sun to explain the words.

That is objectively a very odd Skill to have.

"Yes. Sunrise, I understand language."

"We can give you a room for one night. No pay. Sunrise, we will speak after you understand the language."

(All the words are known.)

Nod nod.

Klbkch will put him in the old stripped-down medical office upstairs. It's reasonably clean and has a cot and a door that locks from the inside.

Technically, Blai is free to go as he is allowed in the city, has committed no crime, and is not judged to be a danger to public safety. However, since it will probably be inconvenient if someone he is provoked into a dispute, Klbkch decides that he will not make particular effort to communicate this through the language barrier.

"I will return tomorrow?"

"Yes. Sunrise, half half half half day, understand language." An hour is not exactly a sixteenth of a day but it's close.

Klbkch is not entirely sure what that means. Hopefully it doesn't mean the Skill only lasts for an hour and a half, but it'll still be greatly useful if so.

He'll bring Blai a bucket of water and Watch rations from the store room in case he's hungry—it's nearing sunset, at this point—and leave him to it if there are no further issues.

Blai looks at the water, produces his travel mug, and then demonstrates refilling it with Create Water.

Klbkch is surprised, though if you don't know him it's hard to tell. The human has some form of [Translation] and a Cornucopia Skill? Or is it a magic cup—why is he showing him this—

"You don't need the water?" he asks.

Nod.

He nods to indicate he understands.

"It is here already," he says. "You can use it or not."

Nod.

Then Klbkch will leave him be and go report to the Watch Captain; at this point, not doing so would be an oversight.

Blai will Prestidigitate himself some chess pieces and play against himself for a bit till he feels like he could sleep, then do that.

After leaving instructions with the guards in duty, Klbkch heads across town to look for Zevara in her office.

"Watch Captain," he greets.

She's a tall, light blue Drake with a scar down the left side of her face. She glances up from a report she's editing as he enters.

        "The rumor mill says you have an interesting visitor."

"He called himself Select Blai Artigas. Melys caught him at the gate. He does not speak any language I have encountered. We established rudimentary vocabulary in common and he claims that he will have [Translation] available tomorrow."

        "That's not all."

"...The human did not recognize the continents I drew. He claims to be from 'Cheliax', 'Avistan', 'Golarion', 'Avistan' being the continent."

        Zevara furrows her brow. "I take that you've heard of those no more than I have."

"He may be claiming that 'Golarion' is a bubble dimension, but I am probably misunderstanding."

        "That's not a real thing. Is it?"

Klbkch is silent.

        "You don't think he's from some remote isle in Drath."

"It is possible," Klbkch acknowledges. "He does not know how he arrived here or how to return." But it would be surprising if it were possible to accidentally travel from Drath to Izril.

        "Well, if he follows the law and pays his taxes like everyone else, it's none of our business."

"He has been cooperative with our requests and, by my estimate, does not pose a risk to public safety "

        "What's his class?"

"He claims to have [Translation] and demonstrated [Create Water], or something similar. But he carries a mace."

        "[Adventurer]?"

"I am inclined against further speculation until better communication is established."

        "Fine. Recommendations?"

"Conduct an intake interview and release him."

        "He isn't currently detained, is he?"

"I lodged him in the east gatehouse with a note for the night shift."

        Zevara sighs. "That's fine. Do you plan on conducting it yourself? I don't want Relc running tomorrow's training on his own."

Klbkch's mandibles twitch. "I will brief Senior Guardsman Jeiss and introduce them."

        "Acceptable." She pauses. "Did the human react to your appearance?"

"Not to the extent one expects. He has very controlled composure."

        "Strange." She shakes her head. "Anything else?"

"No."

        "I'll request the report from Jeiss. Dismissed."

No one interrupts Blai through the night, though the gatehouse sees a trickle of traffic through the night, and the voices downstairs aren't rowdy but not exactly quiet either. Not enough to bother a deep sleeper, though.

Someone will knock on the door an hour after dawn.

What great timing, he just got his spells for the day! He gets up and opens the door.

It's Klbkch, accompanied by a scowling gray-scaled Drake.

"Can you understand our language today?" Klbkch asks.

"Comprehend Languages."

That sounded like a Skill.

"Now you understand?"

Nod nod!

"...but you can't speak it?"

Headshake.

The meaning is technically ambiguous, but Klbkch is going to take that he can't.

"Is this in a way where you can understand our words as spoken and can therefore learn the language faster, or where you hear the words we speak in your own language? Please nod for the former."

Nod, though it's not really great for that.

"How long does this effect last? An hour, half a day, one day, one week?"

"An hour." A bit shy of one but it's close.

Inconvenient.

"I am Senior Guardsman Klbkch, of Liscor's City Watch. This is Senior Guardsman Jeiss. You are in the city-state of Liscor, located in the continent of Izril. You are not currently under arrest and have the right of entry to the city by default.

"However, I believe it is in your interests to establish a common understanding with the City Watch. If you allow Senior Guardsman Jeiss to interview you for one hour, during which you may also ask reasonable questions, the Watch will loan you this map of the city—"

He unfolds it from his pack and presents it; it's not particularly high quality but has the major streets, market districts and important buildings marked.

"—to be returned after a maximum of one week to any Watch facility, which are identifiable by this symbol above the door."

He flashes his badge.

"Is there anything you did not understand?"

No, that all made perfect sense as far as it went. Headshake.

"As I have other duties, I will leave you with Guardsman Jeiss."

He nods to the Drake.

        "Yeah, let's get this over with," Jeiss yawns. "Come on, let's get a room."

He'll lead the way.

Blai follows Jeiss. Will Jeiss take a handshake once they have the room?

Yes, this is a contextually slightly weird but culturally normal thing to do!

"Share Language."

...

"Woah." Jeiss blinks, testing out the new language taking up residence in his brain. "Neat skill—spell? skill?"

No, not a "spell-like ability", what in the hells?

"Uh, okay. That makes this easier. How long does this thing last?"

He's not sure he likes it??

"It's a spell. It lasts twenty-four hours while the one that lets me understand is a lower circle but lasts not even a full hour. I can't dismiss it early, I apologize if it was unwelcome."

"It's fine" he dismisses. "So you're a wizard?"

He sounds a little skeptical. Doesn't look like a wizard. Or maybe this is what human wizards look like.

"I'm a cleric. I didn't get very far trying to learn wizardry."

...

"What was that first thing? Didn't translate."

"I... am an empowered servant of the goddess Iomedae. Many but not all wizard spells are also cleric spells and vice-versa."

Jeiss looks distracted for a moment, then shakes himself awake.

"Uh, you're a—" he squints and lapses back into common "—servant with wizard spells?"

"No, I have divine magic that I receive from my god, it's 'servant' in the sense that I enact Her will in the world as best I can not in the sense that my occupation is much like that of non-clerics you might call servants."

.................................it takes a few seconds for Jeiss to recollect his thoughts.

"Uh, I don't understand the first part of what you just said." Did he get enough sleep last night?

"I am a spellcaster. A different kind from a wizard."

He kind of thought that a wizard was the same thing as a spellcaster, but whatever. (He doesn't quite bother to interrogate the nuances.)

"Right. Where were we. This thing lasts twenty-four hours, you said. But yours only lasts one?"

He shakes his head.

"Klbkch drilled me on this whole question tree but I've forgotten half of it by now. Let's start with you, no point wasting time. You're a spellcaster, you said. Tell me about yourself. Where are you from, what do you do..."

"I am from the country of Cheliax and until recently was operating a fort at the edge of the Worldwound, a recently-closed portal to the Abyss through which arbitrary numbers of demons could enter the Material. I was transported here on my way to the capital city, Westcrown, where I was invited to participate in a constitutional convention as one of the religious delegates."

The Abyss?? He's pretty sure he's not interpreting that correctly, and he doesn't think "demons" is the ones in Rhir, but just to be sure—

"Where is Cheliax? Where's the Abyss?"

"Cheliax is in southwestern Avistan and the Abyss is another plane, the Chaotic Evil one."

"A Chaotic Evil plane." The words for "chaotic" and "evil" are being rendered weirdly, there, but first of all: "Congratulations on the closed portal, I guess?" He kind of thought those were fake things made up for stories, and he's still not sure they aren't, but a peek at the truth stone in his palm says the human at least believes it. You learn new things every day.

"And where is Avistan, again—Klbkch drew you a map, yesterday, but he's not sure what you meant—"

"Avistan is a continent on the planet of Golarion, which doesn't so far as I'm aware have continents shaped like those on that map. I was not instrumental in closing the portal, that was a party of archmages, I just prevented demons from crossing the border."

If you serve in a war by fort a fort you still helped win it! But also—

"Planet?" There are many weird concepts tangled up in the world, but saliently, "Golarion is a ball... world?"

"Yes. This one isn't?"

"No?" Jeiss has never really thought of the world as an object with a shape before. "Do people just live on top? Is it small?"

"It's very large, and down is toward the center of the ball, so all of the surface of it is the top."

It takes a moment for Jeiss to wrap his head around "down is toward the center of the ball". He glances at the truth stone again. Blue.

"That's... interesting? And you're from Avistan, a continent on this 'planet'. You know how you got here?"

This is maybe one of the more surreal experiences of his life.

"No, that part confuses me. For a while I thought I might be dead and that this might be one of the afterlives but I don't think the place is consistent with that guess. I was attacked by a monster but it would be a very strange property for a monster to teleport its prey to another plane."

"...Afterlives?"

"Planes where the souls of the dead go."

"Aren't the souls of the dead... dead?"

"Their bodies are dead but their souls go on to Judgment via the River of Souls, and then the appropriate afterlife."

Truth stone? Blue.

"So they're, like, ghosts? How do they get to—the River of Souls? What's Judgment?"

Is this a necromancy thing. He heard that people in Chandrar pickle their dead people and reanimate them in a zombie city or something. He's kind of skeeved out.

"No, ghosts are disembodied souls that remain active on the Material. The River of Souls is the conduit from the Material to the Boneyard where souls are sorted. Judgment is the decision made by Pharasma or one of Her psychopomps as to the alignment of the soul - Lawful or Chaotic, Good or Evil, neutral on either or both."

Jeiss switches back to common, in case it's the translation: "You're saying you ship all your dead souls to this 'Boneyard' and then off to different planes based on how evil or lawful they are."

How do they tell. And what do they do with them?? The human said he thought he might be dead, which means they're being reanimated??? Are they tithing their dead to 'Pharasma', presumably some kind of archnecromancer in charge of this whole operation?

"It's not... volitional... in fact some people go to considerable lengths to avoid letting their soul get there. It happens by default."

Ok??????????

yeah the Watch Captain can do whatever she wants with his report, he's not touching that with a ten-foot stick.

"Uh, well, you're not. Dead, that is. You were talking about a monster? Can you sketch it?"

He has a pen and paper if Blai wants to.

"I can try." He draws a portalsnake.

"Is that disc a part of the monster, or is it just holding it? I guess you might not know."

"I don't, sorry. It seemed pretty firmly attached but it was moving around and trying to attack me the entire time I was able to look at it."

Jeiss scratches his chin.

"Never seen or heard of anything like that, but I won't have heard of half the monsters in Baleros either. I can hand this off to the Adventurer's Guild and see what they make of it. And it landed you here when it hit you?"

"A little bit of a walk from here, but yes."

"Not much we can do about that, huh. You don't know how to get back?"

If he wants to get home, his best bet is probably getting to Wistram, but Jeiss is going to not suggest that because Pharasma sounds like bad news and their Archmage of Death wasn't exactly happy fun times all around.

"I am not powerful enough to cast Plane Shift."

"Do you plan to get powerful enough to do that?"

Hopefully he means [Archmage] powerful, not "Level 15" powerful.

"It's not obvious that I can. It takes circumstances that are hard to arrange even in the world I'm familiar with and most people who try fail."

Cagey about his class and levels. Fair enough.

"What do you plan to do now? Do you have a profession?"

"Not... exactly... I was on my way to participate in the Constitutional Convention and was hoping that by the time it was over I'd have an assignment from the Church. The standard clerical occupation is healing."

The Church is the Guild of whatever he is, probably?

"You have healing skills?"

"Healing spells, and I can channel positive energy in a thirty foot burst."

"Positive energy is—healing energy?" he guesses off the connotations, before it occurs to him, "Hey, can you teach those healing spells?"

"No, they're not like wizard spells, they're granted by my god. I could... read people the Acts of Iomedae and see if any of them resonate with it, I suppose."

"It's class-exclusive?" He feels like he's missing something, but he's going to give himself a headache at this point. "The Acts of Iomedae are a special tome or something? Lots of people would give an arm and leg for a class like that, even if you can only do it once a day. I knew a [Marching Sergeant] in the army, could give his whole squad [Fast Recovery]. Most popular guy in the camp."

"The Acts are a book, which I have in my bag. I'm not sure I'm following everything you're saying, but I absolutely cannot guarantee that anyone will be capable of becoming a cleric, and in fact Iomedae is choosing fewer people than usual right now because She's very busy."

Well, the good classes are always hard to pick up.

"Iomedae is—your Guildmaster?"

"Iomedae is my god."

Jeiss suddenly has a blinding headache and his eyes are closed.

"- are you all right? Do you need healing?"

"I'm—" what was he doing "—I'm fine, just... sorry, what were you saying?"

He can hear the blood pounding in his ears, but he checks his sword, still in its sheath, he's in the middle of an interview, he's fine. He straightens and tries to calm his heart down.

"What happened to you?? Are you enchanted or under attack or -"

"...I don't know. I don't know why anyone would try to curse or enchant me—" Unless it's an area effect and he's caught in the radius.

He stands up and leans out the window, "Weir! Everything fine down there?"

        "Yes, sir! Is something wrong?"

He turns to Blai. "Did you see what happened?"

"You just doubled over suddenly. Do you have enemies who might be targeting you through a scry, or -" He's now looking around the room for a scrying sensor.

Truth stone? Yeah.

"I don't wish I were important enough to have enemies trying to kill me through a [Scry]." And he's never heard of that happening. He's no [Mage], but he's pretty sure that's not how magic works? "And my [Dangersense] isn't going off. It's gotta be a... flash migraine, or something." He sounds doubtful even as he says it.

"If you're sure."

"What were we talking about? I've lost my train of thought."

"I was explaining that Iomedae is my god."

He is going to slightly black out against the wall here, don't mind him.

"—Iome—is—?"

Yeah, no, there's a time to power through and a time to go to pinch his nose and stop thinking for a while.

"Are you sure you're all right?? I only prepared Share Language once today but I can do it again tomorrow if you need to put off dealing with me to go lie down or - something -"

"No, no, it's..."

He winces. It's like trying to get a dumb kid not to touch a hot stove, except the kid is his brain and even thinking about thinking about it is... yeah, the metaphor falls apart a bit.

"It's—the thing you said. That's causing it? You hit by some kinda [Chant of Madness] curse or something?"

"I suppose it would not necessarily be obvious to me if I had but this has never happened to anyone around me before."

Jeiss eases back into his chair, not thinking about stuff not thinking about stuff

"Maybe something's wrong with the language spell?"

"That would be plausible if I were a wizard but I don't think it would come up in - in - this case."

"Yeah, not going to ask about that."

His head has stopped hurting as much, but his heart's still pounding like crazy.

"I'm sure someone from the Mage's Guild will let you give them a heart attack for research but, well. Is it important, that I understand... that topic?"

He's playing it down. As embarrassing as it is, it's definitely going in the report that the human can incapacitate a high-level Guardsman with a few spoken words—possibly a contact spell and a few words.

"It... explains a lot about me but if you will take my word for the things it explains I don't think you strictly need to know it."

"Well, I'd need to know what things it explains to know one way or the other." Pause. "Also, I have truth detection."

"Oh, that's very useful! Is it on always? We don't have that where I'm from."

"The Watch uses a mixture of skills—" he frowns, switches to common. "The Watch uses a mixture of Skills and truth stones. Did those come out different to you?"

(A Skill is—discrete, an extraordinary enhancement or ability?)

"Yes, one sounded like - the same thing as knowing how to keep accounts or whittle, and the second sounded more like a supernatural ability like channeling energy or breathing fire. - I cannot breathe fire personally."

"That's..." Half right, but missing the point? "Well, there are things that can breathe fire and so on without 'Skills'—'Skills' are what you get when you level up?"

"Many supernatural abilities develop when people level up; monsters tend to have them innately if at all. I don't think of them as fundamentally different kinds of thing but I acknowledge there might be a natural dividing line there."

That's a weird thing to say but Jeiss doesn't feel like playing a cultural guessing game.

"Right. Anyway, you were talking about things to explain about you?"

"I am a spellcaster but not a wizard. I am - motivated to - uh - be law-abiding and generally harmless to anything that isn't a blatantly Evil monster. I have an object I need for both casting spells and healing. And a book that is important to me that - might give you a headache to read, I suppose. I think that is approximately it."

Now they're back on track.

"You said people with your class usually heal? Do you plan to offer your services in Liscor? Are there any limitations, side effects, requirements, anything the Watch should know about?" Like headaches.

"I do not at this time have any plans, I'm waiting to hear more about what the expected conduct is. Standard healing is good at injuries but not other deleterious conditions; I can prepare separate spells for things like disease, blindness and deafness, and the aftereffects of poison and such."

"You'll have customers," Jeiss says. "Healing potions don't—sorry, you can cure blindness and deafness?"

"Yes. It's third circle so at present I can only do it once per day, and not today because I didn't expect it, but that would improve if you have Wisdom-increasing magic items or if I become more powerful in general."

"That's going to sell like hotcakes. I've, er, never heard of a magic item that increases Wisdom?" Why is that so specific. "I've heard of artifacts which make you smarter, but that's legendary stuff."

"Items increasing Wisdom or Cunning or Splendor are all about equally available on Golarion but if they're not here I will do without; I don't know how to make them myself."

Jeiss shrugs. "You want a rundown of the laws of Liscor?"

"Please."

Liscor General Law is applicable in the Liscor Area (this includes a few nearby small towns and surrounding territory). As a sample:

• No murder, stealing, et cetera.
• Assault includes the use of nonconsensual use of Skills or magic on other people.
• Deception and manipulation via skills or magic is legal in some cases and illegal in others.
• Venues are allowed to restrict entry by species or specific persons, unknowing infringement is not prosecutable but you must leave if asked to.
• Impersonating law enforcement or military is illegal.
• Self-defense with reasonable force is legal, including up to lethal force.

Liscor has extradition arrangements with most major Drake cities and their greater areas.

There are more specific regulations around certain classes and trades:

• Necromancy is blanket illegal. (Hopefully this isn't an issue, Jeiss thinks to himself.)
• Practicing alchemy without a license is legal, but selling your work without a license is.
• Falsely claiming to be a member of any Guild is illegal.
• Certain adventuring activities are illegal without the required Guild ranking; approximately: you can't intentionally pick a fight with monsters more than one rank higher than you, and faking your rank to get higher-ranked jobs, access higher-ranked areas, or deceive others into joining your party is illegal.

In the city proper, there is also Liscor City Law, which describes offenses such as loud noises or bright lights after certain hours, offensive smells, unauthorized gatherings without notice to the City Watch, obstruction of streets and public spaces, public nuisance, et cetera.

Other towns in the Liscor Area may have their own town laws; Jeiss doesn't remember them all.

The City Watch is allowed to arrest and hold you for up to fourteen days on suspicion of crimes. You must comply with requests from the City Watch to this end. Anyone can attempt a citizen's arrest but you are not required to comply and it is possible to counter-sue. Adventurers do not have special arrests rights in this regard.

Most laws are punishable by fines and restitution to victims. Harsher offenses are punished by exile, from the city or the Greater Area or in rare cases from Drake lands altogether. Repeat offences may be punishable by maiming but never single offences. Capital crimes are treason, practice of necromancy, aggravated murder.

Slavery, long-term imprisonment and corporal punishment for the sole purpose of pain do not feature in Liscor's civilian legal code.

Blai is not a citizen of Liscor, and cannot commit treason. Citizenship confers certain rights such as protection from monsters by the Watch and entry to the city. There is a process to apply for citizenship after a minimum two years of residence in Liscor.

Non-citizens currently have right of entry to the city by default, but this may be withdrawn at the Watch Captain or the Council's discretion, on an individual or general basis; even without having committed a specific crime or sentence.

"Does necromancy here refer to specifically the creation and control of undead or does it refer to any spell of that school?"

Ohhhh dear.

"More like the creation and control of undead? And some types of desecration of the dead and blood sacrifice, I think." He's not a [Mage], he's not sure what a school is, exactly, though he's heard of the term. "If you give examples I can guess if they count?"

This is going to be about the mandatory necromancy thing, isn't it.

"Some combat spells are of the necromancy school. There is one that preserves a corpse - usually for conjuration-based resurrection, not for necromantic reasons, but the preservation spell is necromantic."

"Conjuration-based resurrection?" Jeiss chokes. "Can you do that?"

Headshake. "It's fifth circle, I'm third."

It's Tier 5, I can't cast more than Tier 3, is what Jeiss hears.

He rubbing the truth stone.

"This is well-known, where you're from? You've seen it cast?"

"I've done it myself, but from a scroll, and I don't have any scrolls with me."

Truth???

"I didn't think [Resurrection] was real," he says, a bit dumbfounded. He's not that sure he's not being enchanted, right now, but it all feels a bit unreal.

Then a terrible thought occurs to him.

"How does it work?" he prods.

"It calls the soul back from however far it's progressed to the afterlife, if it is willing to return, and restores the body to a condition suitable to hold it."

Uh huh. There's the sinking feeling.

"Is the resurrected person..." he searches for the words. "The same? After coming back?"

"They come back weaker, but that can be fixed with another spell. - these spells, both the raising and the restoration, require expensive diamonds, the raise dead yea big," pinch, "and the restoration diamond dust, yea much," pinch, "but it sounds like that may not be the limiting factor here, so perhaps they would be relatively inexpensive if I did manage to gain the necessary circles."

That's not what he was trying to ask, but still good to know.

He's not sure how to ask this.

"How does this fit into, whassitcalled, Pharasma's project?"

"It doesn't work on deaths of old age, which is Her primary means of obliging all souls to be judged. I believe Pharasmin clerics will perform raises the same as other churches when the situation calls for it."

Niggling confusion.

"So Pharasma takes your souls eventually, but lets you take your time getting there. Does the [Resurrection] spell come from her?" It's sort of making more sense. "And is this not considered necromancy?"

"The g- uh - all clerics can cast it if they are powerful enough even if they are not - associated with - Pharasma in particular. It is conjuration, not necromancy; the two schools have different auras when viewed."

Well, who's Jeiss to say otherwise. Not like the Necromancer couldn't cast a [Fireball] as good as any other [Mage], and the Terandrian stories don't read like they thought [Resurrection] was necromancy.

"Well, if you can level enough to deliver on that, you'll have [Wall Lords] and [Nobles] knocking down your door from all over Izril. The whole world, honestly." He snorts. "I don't know if it'll work here, though. We don't have a Pharasma or River of Souls."

"If that's the case I don't know if it will work, though being higher circle opens up other spells too, if you do have things I should be fighting that would level me up."

"Well, you can't join the Army, but if you level from combat, you can sign up with an adventuring team. The Adventurer's Guild here is small, it's more of a human thing to go off picking fights you don't know you can finish, but if you can heal without a potion there'll be plenty of guys fighting to snap you up."

"My experience is mostly in combat, though I'm not actually sure, if I'm the only cleric, whether it makes more sense to risk my life trying to get better spells versus setting up somewhere safe doing what I already can."

"If you were a Drake citizen I'd have better advice for you." Jeiss shrugs. "Five in ten adventurers die before they make it to Silver-rank. Three in ten quit. Serve in the army and you have better odds than not of passing Level 15 before you retire, and it's by far less hazardous to your health." It's delivered like a familiar spiel. "But you have better options than most. If your healing's as good as it sounds, a Gold-rank team would be stupid not to take you, whatever you're used to working with. And those guys are very good at not dying." Or they wouldn't have made Gold, obviously.

"How does 'level fifteen' correspond to spell-circles?"

"Third circle, maybe?" He thought Blai had Tier 3 spells himself? "But that's just where people start deciding to go home, you know, some [Soldiers] plateau in their tens but plenty make it past twenty if they stick with it." Oh, wait: "Are your circles the same as our circles? Uh, [Fireball] is a third-circle spell."

"I think it is third circle on Golarion, too, though we don't have anything nearly discretely measurable enough to divide each circle into five of anything... So even if I could join the army it is not obvious it would help given my present strength, if people there plateau there."

He didn't really understand that first thing Blai said but his policy today is not to dig too deep into confusing things Blai says.

"Some people plateau there," Jeiss corrects, "but people plateau in and out of the army, and practically all of our strongest people came out of the Army, so I personally think it's just that people don't die of being middling in the army so you see a lot more middling [Soldiers] than middling [Adventurers]. But they won't take a foreign human so it's a moot point—also, I'm not sure the numbers work out the same for [Mages]; I mostly worked with the martial types in my time."

"If you say so."

"Got a bit carried away there, didn't I," Jeiss concedes, scratching his ear. "Attaching to a Gold-rank team might be the fastest way to level, but I don't know where you'd find one around here. Maybe down in Pallass. But I'm not your boss. You'll make a perfectly good living hanging around casting healing."

"Do you have a guess how many people might want to be healed in a city this size in a day?"

"Depends on how much you're charging for it, no?" He thinks for a moment. "Low-grade healing potions, not for combat, cost a bit under a gold a pop? So that's what you're bidding against."

It occurs to him that Avistan might not be using the Drake standardizations.

"That's a flask half again as big as this." He shows the eight-ounce one he carries. "A gold is a good day's earnings for a lot of people*, though of course it varies."

*Jeiss' sample size is skewed.

"And how big is a gold coin minted around here?"

He shows him a gold coin.

"It's not pure gold," he mentions. "Same for the silver and copper. And a lot of cities mint their own coins, so you'll see variations even in Liscor, but it's all worth the same, mostly, though some shopkeepers will haggle on it."

"Okay. And how much is a loaf of bread?"

"Three to five coppers, about? It's two hundred coppers to the gold, ten copper to the silver."

Huh, gold must be... about twice as rare here? Or he's bad at judging coin sizes, it could also be that, he hasn't handled much gold since Cheliax did paper money. "Do you have an idea what it will cost to rent a large room with space for plenty of people to wait to all be healed at once?"

"I don't plan events or anything. When my sister got married they rented a place for the party down by Mason's Ave, that's a little upscale but not terribly expensive, and it was two gold for the day? It was... ten* times the size of this room?" The room is about 150 square feet. "But that's for a day's event, not long-term rent. You want a shopkeeper for that one. And it'll depend on where you want it."

*Jeiss is bad at space and numbers.

"Do you have an idea how I would go about employing someone to teach me the language, to free up the spell slots I'd otherwise use on it?"

"Do you want a proper language tutor, or just someone who knows their letters and has the patience to repeat themself? Eh, either way, I don't have the slightest clue—well, maybe the Scribe's Guild."

"I can at least start with the second sort."

"The Scribe's can post an advert for you if nothing else. I reckon you can get some unemployed kid to do it for free if you let them follow you around at work. You have a good class and some people think for some reason that they can pick those up if they hang around you enough."

"I... think that my... class... is related... to the thing that gave you a headache."

"Right. Forgot about that." He frowns. "Anyway. Where were we?"

"You said someone might want to do research related to that thing?"

"The Mage's Guild, yeah. That's me thinking it's magical. I don't know what if it's not."

"And these are all clearly labeled, I will find them if I walk around with Comprehend Languages up?"

"They're marked on the map Klbkch gave you, and more often marked with symbols than letters, but usually both. Mage's is the crystal ball with a wand, Scribe's is the quill and inkpot."

"Those make sense."

"Any more questions you want to ask me?"

"What are the other symbols? Which way is north on the map?"

"North is up." There is any text on the map so that should be clarifying. "There's legend somewhere there... oh, there's not. Must be from the first print. Where did Klbkch get this."

He'll give a quick rundown of the symbols, and give a blurb on each of the main districts: four main streets, northwest is the upscale part where the rich people live, and there's the fancy arts district with the Mage's Guild and the artisans; the Adventurer's Guild is nearer the center close to the city hall, where there's also the city administration and main Watch barracks; there's the Driver's and Runner's Guild opposite there and then it's mostly smiths and other trades, to the markets in the east; down southeast is the more Gnollish parts of the city; west you'll find the warehouses and exchanges, and there's the entrance to the Free Hive there.

They're at the Watch House at the south gate.

Blai makes a very rudimentary copy of the map with Taldane labeling on his own paper.

Jeiss fiddles with his scabbard and tries to remember if he's missing any questions to ask.

"Since you're the only person who I can have a full conversation with for the next day, if you can think of anything else that might be important... oh, also, I prepared a spell that can create food, and it makes far too much for just me, is there anywhere it would be appreciated?"

"Someone would probably buy it off you in bulk at the food markets? If you want to give it away, there's not really a specific place to do that... Beilmark would say look for Krshia Silverfang, [Shopkeeper] there—" He points on the map.

"I can't think of anything you'd find particularly useful. I'll be on shift at the Watch Barracks all day if you need me for something, or you can ask for me if you get in a dispute."

"I can't sell it to people who I can't explain it to, it will disappear if nobody eats it in the next day."

Oh, yeah, that's usually* how it works, isn't it? He nods.

"There's still a few questions I need to ask you to fill out my report, if you can't think of anything right now."

*incorrect, but the specifics of Jeiss' confusion are too long to fit in this margin.

"Of course, go ahead."

Does Blai intend to break the law while he's in the city, how long does he plan to stay in the city—Jeiss apologizes that this is a standard immigration question and not very useful here, and it's fine if the answer is "I don't know"—is Blai wanted for any crimes in the following jurisdictions, does he work for House Reinhart or House Veltras or House Terland or House Wellfar or the House of El or any other power of the north? Does he anticipate his presence in the city to endanger the safety of Liscor or its citizens?

Absolutely not, ?indefinitely?, no, no no no no no no no no, nope.

Checks out.

Jeiss signs and hands Blai a slip of paper.

"This is an entry visa. You don't actually need it to be in the city, but if anyone tries to give you trouble, this certifies that you're pre-cleared by the Watch. It's valid 'for the duration of your stay', so if you leave the walls and come back it's technically expired, but again, it's got no legal effect right now and the gate guards won't ask for or care about it. It's just to ward off busybodies taking issue with a human who doesn't speak common wandering around. I don't think you'll need it, but better safe than sorry."

"Is there a place where there are more humans? What do they speak there?"

"The humans are up north. I think they speak common, same as us? Most people speak it. The writing's different, though. Don't know much about them."

"Can you help me write a note I can show people asking if I may cast Share Language on them, so that I don't run into a problem where casting it would constitute nonconsensual use of magic on them?"

"Sure. Dictate it for me?"

"Uh - 'I can cast a touch range spell which will give you fluency in my language for the next 24 hours. If this is agreeable to you and there is not a better target for this spell available today please take my hand'."

He writes it down and gives it to Blai.

"Thank you. - as long as I have had this idea may I also have one explaining how Comprehend Languages works and one advertising my ability to heal and one to bring to the scribes to ask for tutoring in the local common?"

Jeiss will take dictation.

"For the food thing as well?" he suggests.

"Yes, thank you -" He dictates an explanation of how that one works including that it will all come out needing salt but he can customize the nature of the food otherwise.

Notes are produced!

He writes on the back of each one what it's for so he can keep them straight with Comprehend Languages off. "Thank you for all of your help."

"That's the job." He shrugs. "Hope you'll like the city."

And if that's all he'll let himself out and go find the scribes.

It's a straight shot down the main street from the Watch House to the Scribe's Guild. The streets are bustling with merchants and runners and clientele of all sorts. Stores dealing in clothing, equipment, food, potions, monster parts, all quality goods going for silver. The streets move fast: if Blai doesn't stick to the sides of the roads, he might get run over by a wagon.

He won't see a single other human. It's mostly Drakes, but he'll find plenty of Gnolls as well going about their business, especially as he gets to the city center, where children go playing in the parks.

No one stares at him, specifically, but he's noticed, definitely: for his species or for his foreign clothing, who can tell? There are some comments about whether the trade caravans have come early, or if he's an adventurer from up north, but it's just chatter, not addressed towards him. No one will try to talk to him except to tell him to get out of the way if he's blocking a path.

The Scribe's Guild is on an avenue just off the main street, a blocky building with the quill-and-inkwell symbol emblazoned above the doors. Beneath it is its name inscribed in several types of script.

There's not really any foot traffic. If you stand there for five minutes, you might catch a runner come in and out. The doors are chained open and no one's going to stop Blai from strolling in.

He has seen gnolls before and it is weird for them to be acting civilized but like in a good way. He sticks to the side of the road and walks in to the Scribe's Guild after anxiously cross-checking his notes to make sure the symbol is right.

There's a lobby and a reception desk manned by a violet-scaled Drake that's just about dozing off. There's a wall of cubbies and mailboxes and some closed doors with signs he can't read, and what looks like a waiting area, where a young (or just short?) Gnoll is reading some papers and jotting notes.

The Gnoll looks up when he enters, but goes back to her work. The Drake receptionist doesn't notice him come in.

"Excuse me," Blai says, approaching the desk.

The receptionist startles awake.

"Oh. Hey." He squints at Blai. "I don't know you."

Comprehend Languages has worn off but he can cast another one and hold up the card explaining it!

"Huh. What do you want?" He raps the sign on the desk. It's a price list for various copying, dictation, editing and publication services.

And he has a card for what he wants: language tutoring. Dang it, he doesn't have a card explaining that his financial situation is presently negligible.

"That's not a standard service we offer."

Not at the "learning how to speak" level, which is a task most toddlers can rise to without a dedicated tutor.

"We can put out a job posting. It's a two silver a week, it'll be posted on the board over there—" he points "—the city hall, the east exchange, and the Merchant's Guild."

Does he have two silver, absolutely not. He shakes his head and backs out politely and heads for the mage's guild instead.

(Weirdo.)

The Mage's Guild is hard to miss, bigger and fancier than the already big and fancy buildings around it, right on the corner of a major intersection. This one has a lot more people coming in and out, but it's not difficult for Blai to get in. There seems to be multiple queues? One of them is shorter than the other two.

He still has his second Comprehend Languages up, is there a sign?

The queues are signed:

• General Inquiries (a bit shorter than the [Message] queue)
• [Message] Services (long queue, mixture of species in different attire; "HAVE MESSAGE READY IN ADVANCE / 5 SILVER NOT NEGOTIABLE")
• Member Services (short queue, mixture of Drakes in fancy robes and Drakes that look like they just got out of bed)

He's probably a General Inquiry.

It'll be a ten minute wait to get to the head of the queue. He's ushured to a reception booth where an impatient-looking Drake with a monocle will look expectantly at him.

Comprehend Languages explanation note.

The Drake picks it out of Blai's hand (gently but not very politely) and squints at it.

That's annoying.

"What is the nature of your inquiry?" he prompts, handing it back.

He will produce the cards on his ability to heal and make food.

That's cool but it's not an inquiry?

"Do you wish to employ the Mage's Guild as an intermediary to sell those services?" He asks.

- close enough, sure, nod nod.

The Mage's Guild mediates highly specialized, low-volume magical products and services, and justifies its hefty premium by its confidentiality and ability to guarantee the authenticity of products. It is unclear that any of these factors apply here. The Liscor arm also does not have agents with particular expertise the type of logistics this might require.

But also, his boss will not be pleased if he tells the human to ask the Merchant's Guild for consultation and a loan.

"I will have to contact an agent and schedule an appointment," he says, flipping through his calendar. His demeanor is noticeably more polite now. "Are you available tomorrow afternoon?"

...

He makes a resting-his-head-on-his-hands gesture and then a shrug.

"You're not sure?" the Drake guesses. "Is there a time which would work better? The day after tomorrow? Next week?"

These people are bad at Comprehend Languages protocol. Sleep-miming again.

"...You need to sleep?" He is so confused right now. "I can put out a call for someone with [Translation], but it's an uncommon spell; we may not have anyone with it today."

...he is going to draw the sun peeking out over a hill, and then the sun high in the sky, and then the sun going down again. With arrows. Does this help at all.

"I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you trying to communicate about your appointment availability, about your current situation, about the nature of your services, about the nature of our services, or something else altogether?"

He nods at "current situation".

It's obviously not "I want to sleep right now". Is the human staying somewhere outside the city which makes it difficult to keep an appointment on another day? No, that would be "appointment availability". He rewinds the conversation and tries to figure out what he's misunderstanding.

"You don't have a place to stay and need immediate funds," he guesses.

Nod nod!

That's a bit awkward.

"I don't have the authority to offer you a loan now. I could recommend reputable pawnbrokers..." Wait, there's a simpler solution. "If you visit the Adventurer's Guild, you may find adventurers with minor injuries who will pay for cheap healing. A couple of silver is sufficient for a night at a typical inn in Liscor, and a broken arm costs more than that at a [Healer]."

Is that on this map?

Yes!

Nod nod and off he goes.

"Don't you want an appointment?" the Drake calls after him.

- nod.

Oh, good, he was afraid the human would just run off.

"Three in the afternoon tomorrow, does that work? Uh, the bell in the town square rings every hour, as many times as the hour it is. Who do I put you down as?"

"Select Blai Artigas."

"I'll take that as the time being acceptable." He jots it down. "Will you need a [Mage] with [Translation]?" He flips through the handbook for how that works; this doesn't come up much. "No charges for the first meeting, future meetings will be charged for the agent, and the Guild facilities, and the translator separately."

Headshake; tomorrow he'll have a new Share Language.

"You're happy with the three o'clock, but do not need [Translation]; confirm?"

Nod nod.

"Excellent. Have a good day."

Now off he goes.

The Adventurer's Guild is also not hard to find and in fact located on the same major throughfare, a few blocks south.

For what Jeiss called a "small Adventurer's Guild", it doesn't look like it. It's three storeys tall, the span of two buildings, and built of solid stone brick. When Blai heads in, the place is loud and packed. It seems to be halfway a social as well as business venue; there are tables and chairs set out like a tavern, though the only flagons the clientele brought themselves. The adventurers are immediately recognizable: casters with their robes and staves, people with swords and bows and more eclectic weapons. There's a wizard showing off a cantrip to some a gaggle of easily impressed rookies, there are people are standing around the notice boards, arguing over jobs and haggling prices.

Gnolls are more heavily represented in here, though Drakes might still eke out the majority. No one stands out as obviously injured.

There's a green-scaled Drake at the reception desk who glances up at Blai when he comes in.

The reception drake can read the explanation of his healing abilities!

"Oh, that's sounds really useful, huh! Are you here to register as an adventurer, then, mister?"

...explanation of Comprehend Languages. He really should have elaborated on the protocol where you need to talk a lot if you are the only party in a conversation who can be understood.

"...Okay, so you're not here to register...? Do you want to sell healing?"

Nod nod.

"We don't allow peddling in the Guild directly, but there's a board over there to pin up advertisements for adventuring equipment, which is allowed. Oh, but you probably can't write, can you? I don't think I'll get in trouble if I do an announcement just this once, but for the future you should get a flyer printed."

Nod. Appreciative clasping of his hands together.

"I don't know how this will work, though. Do you have a, erm, place somewhere people should go?"

Not yet, no. Headshake.

"You're new in town, aren't you? I'd have heard of a human with healing Skills going around. Is this a one-off, and you'll be skipping town later? Or you're going to set up shop somewhere later, and it's just you're still working on the logistics?"

Shrug! Kind of up in the air right now!

"Okay, how about this. I can't middleman for you or let you borrow one of the rooms for staging. But if you register as an adventurer, trading Skills and equipment on an ad hoc basis is allowed. Being registered doesn't make you pay any special taxes or give you any responsibilities or anything, it just puts your name on our books.

"Then I can make an announcement about your offer, and you can individually negotiate with anyone who approaches you, and then afterwards you can, what was it called—blast the room with positive channeling? I don't know if you can make it selective, or if you don't mind if people who didn't pay you get the benefits too, but we don't have a separate room that big anyway."

Nod at being registered when it's clear it doesn't have responsibilities or taxes. Nod at blasting the room, headshake at "selective".

"Okay, how much do you want to charge?" Right, he can't speak. "Uh, hold up fingers for how many silver per head?"

...two??

The receptionist has no outward reaction to this number!

"Details for the registration... I'm going to put down 'undisclosed' for class category, level category and town of origin, since I'm not going to guess, is that alright?" And she'll confirm Blai's species and name and gender and file the registration.

"So what I'm going to say is 'Select Blai Artigas has a multi-target healing Skill selling two silver per person, which he'll activate on the next bell; he understands but doesn't speak common so I'm making this announcement for him, but please approach him directly for clarification and payment.' Does that sound good?"

Nod nod.

She makes the announcement.

A lot of people perk up at the price, but there's not a lot of takers at first. Most injuries get healed in the field, and if you can't afford it or don't want to waste a potion on something small, you're usually not hanging out at the Adventurer's Guild.

A Gnoll has a sprained wrist. This Drake got bit by a bog snake (he says it quietly; it's clearly very embarrassing for him) and the venom will wear off in a few days but will Blai's Skill fix it? Someone asks if she can bring a friend who broke her thumb yesterday. Once the idea of fetching other people is raised, a few more people want to do that. This Drake's blind in one eye, can Blai fix that? (The eye's still there; from the discoloration around the socket it might have been acid damage of some kind.) Someone's got a bad knee that healing potions haven't fixed, how about that?

Blai pulls out his sunrise-sunset card for the blind in one eye drake and also draws... let's go with ten?... coins to go with it, since he won't be able to make food if he prepares Remove Blindness. Handwobble for the venom, it certainly won't hurt but usually won't suffice on its own. He can examine the knee to get an idea of whether it's going to be fixed by a channel or not if they'll permit?

After a few guesses the blind-eyed Drake will figure out what Blai means. He'll definitely pay ten silver—he'd pay ten gold, but he's not going to say that. Will Blai be here tomorrow? He can play the guessing game to figure out arrangements.

Venom guy's not paying two silver for a maybe.

Knee can be examined. There's nothing outwardly wrong. She explains it got "a bit crushed" and a [Healer] tried to set it correctly, but he wasn't very high-level and it still aches and she can't put as much weight on it.

Blai can be here tomorrow!

Blai is not sure if a channel will fix this knee. It might, but if it doesn't he can prepare a Lesser Restoration for her tomorrow.

Can the Drake with the knee pay Blai for the channel today iff it works, with the understanding that if it doesn't she'll buy the Lesser Restoration tomorrow? (She'll accept whatever price Blai names if it's less than 5 gold.)

People bringing their friends trickle in, all of them straightforward injuries. By the scheduled time for the channel, he has 11 customers.

Sure, that works for him. He's charging ten silver for the remove blindness and lesser restoration is a circle lower so... Uh... Six silver for the lesser restoration.

She'll take that, absolutely. She and the eye guy will try to arrange a time through the language filter.

When it's about time, the receptionist asks if she should announce that anyone who doesn't want to get hit should clear out.

(The friend-inviting thing is borderline on permissibility, but she's not going to raise a fuss and she won't mention it.)

Blai stands in the middle of the room, eyeballs to make sure that no one both paid and is more than thirty feet away, and channels.

It looks like almost nothing; it feels like something, though, even if you were technically not injured. A lot of people go in for superstitious or prophylactic extra channels out of the belief that routine magical healing is what makes adventurers tougher, or just because it feels nice, a wash of clean positive energy bursting straight through you and all your little irritations and aches.

...Wow.

Most healing doesn't feel like anything. Low quality potions might itch as they work, and they taste vile going down and sit heavy in your stomach, which is why you always go for the topical application if you have the choice. It certainly doesn't feel good.

There's a bit of light cheering and appreciative claps.

"Alright, everyone, quiet down," says the receptionist. To Blai, "We're good, but eesh, probably don't want to make that a regular thing, sorry. You can keep tomorrow's appointments but you really want to rent a store and put up flyers."

(Someone who's been inching up to ask if this is, like, going to be a regular thing deflates and slinks off.)

Nod, nod. Tomorrow he is going to prepare two Share Language because people here are not actually very - what's the word he wants* - Abadaran? - about getting on making sure that the healing reaches as many people as you can pack into a thirty foot sphere twice daily as would be convenient.

*It's "entrepreneurial".

"Anyway, I'm here most days if you need anything. Good luck with whatever you're here for!"

Nod nod.

Now armed with a pouch full of silver he needs to figure out where to rent a room.

The map doesn't indicate any inns. He'll be able to find some if he explores the side streets and picks up the context clues identifying them as such, and they have prices listed if he's picked up the numbers by now, between 1 and 5 silver a night depending on how sketchy he wants his sleeping arrangements to be. Alternately he can go find the Watch Barracks, which he'll have passed earlier and is marked on his map and not a long walk away.

He's not a member of the Watch! He can camp out if he has to rather than try to no-common-language-awkwardness his way into a place he's not welcome, but he's hoping he'll be able to identify a place with rooms and spend another Comprehend Languages on getting that secured and maybe also discharging his Create Food for the patrons.

Jeiss said he could find him at the barracks if he needed help!

If he can identify "largeish multi-storey building with dining on the ground floor and a per-night price sign out front" as a potential room supplier it will not be too difficult to find one.

But, since he can camp out if he cannot successfully rent a room, he does not Need Help. Did you consider that, narration?

That is a pretty obvious signal. He walks in to one of those and shows the Create Food explanation in case they won't even want the silver on top of that.

"You want to trade food for a room?" the innkeeper guesses. "Uh, sure, if it's stuff we can serve for dinner?"

Nod nod! Expectant look in case they're going to have requests.

She'll name some dishes, nothing too extravagant since she's not sure how far the Skill will stretch and doesn't want to set misleading expectations for the guests anyway.

"Sselit!" she calls into the kitchen. "A guest is covering dinner!"

        "What, you mean making it?"

"Yes, dear!"

        "What am I going to do with all this goddamn stew, then?"

"Just serve it for lunch!"

        "Sure just let me pull a [Field of Preservation] out my ass—"

"It's stew, Sselit. Put it in the cold room."

"You can do it now?" she phrases it halfway a question. "It's a quarter hour to dinnertime; people will be coming down soon. I have Skill to keep it hot."

She can point him to a rack in the back to populate with food.

Ten minutes of chanting ensue, aiming toward the things she listed even though he hasn't heard of most of them.

Is this some kind of human ritual??

The innkeeper is very culturally sensitive, though, and stand politely and not let this confusion show on her face. She gets a fork and gives one of the dishes a taste.

"I'll give you a free night every dinner you do," she decides. "Room comes with breakfast, other meals cost extra normally but considering the circumstances I won't charge you lunch and dinner. Laundry is five coppers a basket if you want it; there's one in your room."

Nod nod!

She'll show him to his room and give him a key, then.

Now he can put down his heavy bag. He comes back down to partake of dinner.

He's early since it's still fifteen before dinnertime, but the innkeeper will get him the food anyway. If he takes long enough, Drakes will trickle in from upstairs and the front door, but they'll only give him a second glance and not try to talk.

A Gnoll guest comments on the food being better than usual. The innkeeper deflects.

It always comes out needing salt but probably they have salt and added it after the fact.

Possibly the establishment isn't good at cooking to start with, possibly their cuisine just doesn't use a lot of salt, possibly it's been tweaked after the fact, possibly a combination of the above? The flavor profile is a bit uncanny-valley to Blai's human palate, not strongly tasteful but whole and hearty.

It's fine. He used to be second circle and then he ate Worldwound porridge and Worldwound pack-ox meat every day.

Before he leaves, the innkeeper asks if Blai wants her to not tell anyone where the dinner's coming from. Also, is he going to be with them tomorrow? All week?

Shrug about knowing where dinner's coming from; handwobble tomorrow (would she like some silver for tomorrow?), shrug for all week.

"Paying in advance for tomorrow?" she interprets. "That's fine. Check out by noon the day you're leaving, please, but you dont have to tell us in advance; we're not full up this time of the year."

Nod nod.

She'll wish him a good night and thank him for the food!

And he will go to bed, and wake with the dawn.

As he lies in bed, on the verge on slipping into unconsciousness...

[Cleric Class Obtained!]

[Cleric Level 1!]

[Skill – Enhanced Channeling obtained!]

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