Actually theorising will have to wait, there are other survivors.

That boulder looks like a job for... a basic knowledge of Aristotle? 

Smart! Clever! 

Thanks. I don't suppose you've got any healing magic, being a cleric and all?

Abramo has no idea he's a cleric! And doesn't believe in healing magic, he hasn't had time to absorb Terendelev's and Hulrun's casting into his belief system yet!

Then I guess it's an improvised splint and hobbling.

Incidentally, who the devil is Iomedae, and what's a paladin? The locust-thing mentioned her (?) too - not in a friendly way. Abramo will provisionally classify her as an enemy of his enemy. 

...Abramo really admires that full plate, by the way.

Full plate is awesome!

Also that chest looks familiar, check it out for your weapons.

Abramo is a mature married man of more-than-fifty and absolutely does not make any quips about checking out chests covered in full plate; he is also a skilled politician and doesn't allow his eyes to so much as flicker in that direction. 

...actually, is he still married? "Until death do us part" were the words, and while death doesn't seem to have had quite the effects he expected, it is not very obvious that he'll be seeing Livia again, or their children.

That problem will have to wait. Anyway Seelah is like one-third his age. He can check out the chest - wonderful, a crossbow. A bolt-action rifle would really suit him a lot better; or a Mark III Ferrata armoured car with the pintle-mounted machine gun. It's still better than nothing.

Oh, and the cloak is azure and gold, cool - the family colors. He'll put it on, this cave is not warm.

Rocks fall, nobody dies.

Except for the young gentleman at Camellia's feet. Not that she knows anything about how that happened.

There appears to be a war on, these things happen. Let's move along.

Sounds good! How does Abramo feel about giant centipedes?

Ok insects that size are not actually possible - you know what never mind, Abramo will just file that in the "Check it out later" file along with dragons, demons, and humongous locust-things that seem to be in charge of a bunch of regular-size locusts. Actually centipedes seem kind of related to that last one, and also kind of hungry. If he fires the crossbow does he hit anything?

He absolutely does! The centipede he was aiming at, even!

Ok so they're still pretty squishy in spite of being That Size, good to know. Abramo feels surprisingly calm about the first time he's personally been in combat for twenty years; it's a lot easier when the things you're shooting at can't shoot back and have neither faces, families, or jobs that contribute to the economy you're ostensibly fighting for control over.

I'm picking up Terendelev's scale purely from meta-information not diegetically available to Abramo, here. Incidentally, Abramo also doesn't know he's a caster.

Oh, and giant flies as well? Wonderful. At least a fly that size is unlikely to spread feces to anyone's food, although on the other hand it seems intent on cutting out the middleman from its diet which is Not Really An Improvement.

See the thing about giant flies is, they're much easier to hit with a sword than the regular-sized version.

And Abramo can shoot another centipede; he's rather pleased with his marksmanship, actually. 

Also, in this flickery half-light he's not going to notice Camellia's pointy ears under the long hair; but if he did so he would have Additional Questions for the Investigate Later file.

Abramo thinks you don't usually get monitor lizards in caves? But ok fine this ecosystem evidently includes dragons and flies whose wings definitely cannot support them, a lizard in an unusual habitat is nothing. Abramo's just going to ignore the dissociation and probe for a flank while Seelah does the pinning frontal attack, in the best Manuale di Tattica style.

Yeah look these are the tutorial monsters, if you can't handle them this isn't the right timeline for you.

Abramo has not particularly been given a choice about which timelines he experiences! And also he doesn't have access to like three-fourths of his combat abilities because he doesn't get to see the tutorial popups!

Nonetheless can we timeskip this a bit?

Abramo will gladly timeskip past his reaction to Lann and Wenduag! (Although on the plus side, his Additional Questions about Camellia's ears, which he still hasn't noticed, can now drop right off the agenda.) They remind him of the animal-human hybrids that were universal features in the rites of Jackal's cultists, the infiltrators meant to corrupt and weaken the Republic. The Egyptians cleaned up the images for human consumption, when they used them to depict their war with the thing; the cult tapestries were fantastically disturbing, fit only to be burned. But - they were real once, those hybrids; the archeologists have found the mummies, far up the Nile Valley where European armies never reached before the twentieth century. A servitor class, created by the settlers of whom the Jackal was the last survivor; made with human DNA... and all referred to alike, as "subhumans". The same term it used for Abramo's kind. So... they were its creations and its victims just the same as Abramo's race; they are all subhumans together, no matter his visceral reaction on seeing those animal parts blended into a human body.

Being a skilled politician, he does manage to keep it off his face.