"Photograph? Picture taken with a camera?"

"Camera??????"

"A camera is a little box that takes photographs. If you don't have the vocabulary for either of those, I'm not sure how to explain it better."

Hiraga will launch into a scientific explanation of how cameras work!

That's baffling and not even in a helpful way.

If Blai just - holds out his hand - will either of these men take it.

Sure, Hiraga will take it.

"Share Language."

"How did you do that?" he says in Chelish.

"It's a cleric spell. I asked for it this morning. I had meant to get along farther with Comprehend Languages alone so I would know who the best recipient would be but it did not seem likely to work."

"It would be helpful if you could explain 'cleric' in more detail. It appears to be similar to the Italian word 'priest' but it seems like some of the connotations are different. As far as I knew before today, it is very rare for a priest to speak in tongues or grant others the ability to speak in tongues." 

(In Italian:) "Roberto, did it sound to you like I was speaking the same language as Select Blai Artigas?"

"I think so."

"A cleric is an empowered servant of a god, in my case Iomedae, who is not better described as something else, such as a paladin. There are in some religions such things as lay priests who don't receive divine endorsement in the form of spellcasting but I haven't met any before."

(In Italian:)

"Roberto, have you ever heard of an 'Iomedae'? He claims to have been granted miraculous powers from a god by that name."

"I have not."

(Back in Chelish:)

"Depending on how broad 'spellcasting' is either all priests here or almost none can do it."

He glances nervously at Roberto, then back to Blai. "It would also be helpful if you could tell us more about 'Iomedae.'" The most obvious explanation is that Iomedae is some sort of very obscure demon but he wouldn't normally expect a demon-worshipper to admit it outright to a pair of priests.

"Iomedae is the Lawful Good goddess of defeating evil; I've also heard Her interests glossed as 'triage' though that description doesn't come up in Her holy book. She was a paladin of Aroden some hundreds of years ago and ascended to godhood after spending decades in His service."

(Italian:)

"Roberto, same question but for 'Aroden'?"

"I haven't heard of them either."

If he takes what Select Blai Artigas — oh, now that he's thinking about it with the language, it's clear that "Select" is a title — if he takes what Select Blai is saying at face value, the obvious hypothesis is that Iomedae is another name for Jesus, with Select Blai being part of some very strange splinter sect. Or she could be a folk saint, but then the claims about her becoming a god are stranger. Or it could be something else entirely; none of his guesses are entirely lining up.

"I only know there to be one Good god," he says in Chelish. "He is known by many names but Iomedae is not one of them. What sorts of teachings, miracles, and so on are generally attributed to her?"

"In mortal life Iomedae fought in and later led the Shining Crusade against the necromancer Tar-Baphon and most of the Acts in Her holy text are related to that, though I can read you the index if you want more detail. There is definitely more than one Good god; in addition to Iomedae the other major ones widely known in the area where I came from are Erastil, Shelyn, Sarenrae, Desna, and Cayden Cailean. The last is also a former mortal."

(He checks these with Roberto as well.)

"Neither of us have ever heard of any power with those names — there is a river in Eastern Europe called the Desna River, but as far as I know the name is unrelated. ...I am curious about her holy book" and he suspects Roberto is even more curious "but I don't know if it's the most important thing to discuss. We were initially sent out, among other things, to ask you some questions about the circumstances of your arrival in Rome but I'm not sure if that is either, I'm honestly very confused right now."

"I was ambushed by a monster but I had no prior knowledge of monsters that teleported their victims, let alone such distances."

That's not not necessarily any weirder than a burning bush, but it's still pretty confusing.

"Witnesses reported seeing you appear out of nowhere in the middle of a city street. Does that match your observations of what happened after you encountered the monster? —Also, would you like some context on the pair of us? We tried to explain yesterday but that was before we had the language."

"That does match my observations, yes. I would appreciate context."

"The two of us are priests of, ah, God — I am not sure that came through with the same connotations it would have in the Italian. We're both miracle examiners working for the organization that heads our religion, the Vatican. Our primary duty is to investigate purported miracles to determine whether they were, in fact, miracles. We were initially called in to investigate a report that you had miraculously appeared from nowhere. ...I suspect we were selected for this assignment largely because we were already in Rome. Under normal circumstances, I specialize in natural philosophy — that did not come through with the intended connotations — and Roberto specializes in ancient documents and codebreaking.

I don't expect that to have cleared up all or even most of your confusions. I'm happy to answer any questions you have."