He sinks up to his knees in hot and powdery ash, breathing air thick with choking smoke and glowing embers.

It's hard to breathe and even harder to see.

So much for ‘not drop you somewhere that just kills you’. Well, no, he isn’t dead yet. Priority one, breathing. Lisandro tries to cast air bubble, get a pocket of nicer air for himself.

A useful spell--for the next few minutes, Lisandro will breath without difficulty.

Seeing still proves difficult; it's like being in a blizzard. 

Well, he doesn’t have a spell prepared for that, but there’s still ways to figure out where this is. Is there a ground beneath him. Does he feel lighter or heavier than usual? How hot or cold is this ash storm? All important questions when on the wrong end of a teleportation type spell.

He feels the same weight that he has. The ash storm feels quite warm--the air temperature is above a hundred degrees, and the ash on the ground is warmer than that. If he stood here with his hands in his pockets all day long, that would plausibly kill even him, but a wizard of his power is in no pressing danger just from this environment. 

Even if he uses a protection spell, it’d only last an hour or so. Save it for when he starts feeling the pressure. For now, let’s see if there’s a way out of this storm. 

overland flight, extended with a metamagic rod

Can’t see and there’s probably winds about, terrible conditions for flight. He cruises upwards at low speeds, hoping the dust gets thinner.

There's a powerful updraft, which he could use to ascend quicker at the cost of control--something to keep in mind for later, perhaps.

The air cools rapidly as he ascends, and the dust does thin.

From a few hundred feet in the air, he can see that he was standing in the middle of a vast wasteland , stretching in all directions--undoubtedly the aftermath of some recent and terrible forest fire. Here and there, near or in the distance, some charred and limbless tree-trunks stand taller than he flies.

Wastelands in all directions, not good. Good to see a forest though, they usually come with breathable air and life compatible enough to eat. Anything look alive here?

As he ascends and rotates in the air he notices a flying creature at around his altitude--shaped like a manta ray, lazily swimming in the air. The top of it is covered in lush greenlife and stone buildings. The ray is far away, but obviously immense. 

“Most interesting!”

He gets closer and now it’s time for his favorite divination spell: commune with birds

Time to see what the local birds think about that ray creature and the buildings it’s carrying. 

The local birds regard the ray creature as Home. The buildings are inhabited, although not by birds. (In the main, anyway--there are some lucky birdies with rafters to nest in, protected from the elements.) Instead, they're inhabited by humans--who the birds regard as terrifyingly large, fast, and strong.

There aren't any birds in range without strong opinions about the ray, but they take its existence for granted as a background fact of life.

First conclusion here, the ray creature must stay around this area. It’s a constant in the lives of the birds, not something just passing through. It’s always edifying to get their perspective on things.

Flying up to this ray creature, let’s see if it’s as hospitable to him as it is to the birds. 

The ray creature proves as placid as it believes itself to be invincible; it doesn't seem to take notice of him at all.

Nearer to the ray, he can see that the slow beating of its vast wings--more than three hundred meters from tip to tip--seems to quell the airborne ash in its vicinity (rather than, say, to stir it up). Now that he's nearer, he can tell that in addition to the woods growing on its back, and the bustling town with its stone keep and tall towers, there are also plowed fields. The fields are worked by humans, or by winged humanoids, in roughly equal proportion, but there are no kept animals--people pull the plows themselves, or carry other heavy loads, and everyone he sees moves as if hasted.

Hard to get livestock all the way up here, presumably. Wonder how the non-winged humans did. At some point he needs to say hello, but first…

The haste effect! A most interesting and useful one, even if it’s only being used for peasants working the fields. Let’s see if that’s a spell, some other magical ability, or something entirely different. detect magic

For the moment no one's noticed him, but that's liable to change if he gets within 60 feet of anyone--unless he turns himself invisible or something to that general effect.

He’ll get within 60 feet, be noticed, and start paying attention to whatever they say to him after a bit of staring at a hopefully interesting looking haste effect. 

Detect magic isn't picking up anything from this woman in the field on the outskirts of town.

She says something to him in a language that he doesn't know.

Meh. Okay then. Time to get by without language for a bit and then prepare tongues tomorrow morning. 

“Hello. I am speaking to you in a language you don’t know. You’re speaking to me in a language I don’t know. The content of my words don’t matter, the only information conveyed is the lack of ability to convey information. Make sense?”

She can rephrase that and repeat it back to him in her own language.

Good, that’s established. Does the haste-ish effect make her speak quickly also?

Oddly enough, it doesn't at all. 

She gestures for him to come-follow-me, takes hold of her skirts, and then practically teleports away from him, moving fast as a pegasus at full-tilt.

Lisandro will, in a display of restraint, only use one of his miniature dimension door teleport jumps to catch up when he falls too far behind. 

When she notices that he can't keep up, she slows dramatically.

Language barrier or no, it's plain to see she's bewildered.

Oh no. He’s going to have to do so many impressive wizard things to make up for being slower than everyone. Even still, it won’t fully even it out. He hides the little butterfly pin he sometimes wears to show Desnan sympathies.

Theres still plenty of duration on overland flight. He keeps following, hovering instead of walking.

Now she's looking at him like just in flying there he's breaking her heart.

She leads him to the center of town. As Lisandro flies along, he attracts eyes and questions, which his guide answers in the local language. 

Many of those eyes, looking up at the wingless flying man, shine with delight and curiosity--until they hear the guide's answers. Then they look at him with pity.

Near the center of town, incongruent with the tall townhouses and stone temple-or-castle-or-something, there's a thatched hut in an advanced state of decay. From how they array themselves outside it, everyone's expecting Lisandro to go inside.

No eye contact with anyone. Lisandro comforts himself with the fact that tomorrow he’ll prepare phantasmical horses that can outpace a hasted man on foot, and just spend the whole day riding. 

At least there’s an obvious challenge to accomplish. Just you wait, whatever mysteries this hut holds are about to get unraveled by wizardly means! To do that, one preparation before entering: arcane sight

The inside of the hut is dark and musty. Incense is burning. The bulk of the room is occupied with housing an immense cauldron, and the equally immense--she's got to be eight feet tall--old woman who's stirring it. She wears a wide-brimmed hat and has a long wart-covered nose.

Lisandro's escort follow behind him, slightly nervous, and says something that he doesn't understand. The witch beckons him draw nearer.

Arcane sight doesn't pick up a single spell-effect, but does pick up a number of enchanted items--they're difficult to identify, like nothing he's seen before, although he could probably learn how they worked if he had some time to play around with them. 

Lisandro has never been as good at figuring out spellwork as a wizard of his circle should be. It’s basically all clumsy hacks or borrowing from more talented wizards. A serious wizard would probably guess what enchanted items from a completely foreign tradition do after a look with arcane sight, or at least be able to tell a school of magic. 

He will hover closer, but looking suspiciously at the cauldron and ready to disappear if she does anything sudden. Can’t really tell if this is going to be friendly or hostile, though his instinct says probably not an enemy. 

Your escort speaks with the witch, and the witch casts an unfamiliar spell--to arcane sight, it's Divine and fifth-circle. She doesn't need to touch you for it.

"By the blessing of the Creator, you can now speak our language," claims the witch in her language.

“Can I, now? Good.”

He’s still cranky about the pity. 5th circle? What wildly-less-efficient share language spell is this? Or is it permanent in which case can he watch if prepared and see if it’s possible to make a wizard version?

Your guide's tongue trips over itself as all her questions come tumbling out.

"How can you fly? Where are you from? Why are you so slow? Are you not max level?"

Language placed into my mind by way of 5th circle divine spell, what does ‘max level’ here mean?

"Max level" is as strong as a person can get from winning fights. 

Level 99.

“I am a wanderer from somewhere else, somewhere presumably very far from here. Flight is one of many spells I am capable of. Where I am from, most people are as slow as I am. Lastly, I am far from the height of my power.”

She looks very relieved to hear that last part. "If you were ninety-nine, and... well, your speed growth would have to be terrible, and there'd be nothing we could do about it."

The witch is more interested in how flight is one of the many spells he's capable of. "Is flight characteristic to your class, or to the book you use?"

Which reminds your escort to ask, "What class are you?"

“I think the way people grow powerful from fights here is different from where I come from. We do not become faster, we get more spells and spells of greater power. I am not sure how this translates to your language and the categories you make, but I am a wizard.”

"...We have a class called Wizard, but they definitely get faster with levels. But they don't get stronger spells, you need a better spellbook for that... if you only have a basic spellbook, you can only cast basic magic... unless you're promoted as an Archmage, obviously, but I assume... it's kind of hard for me to focus on anything other than your low stats, because I'm assuming that if your speed doesn't scale with level your HP and VIT don't either and it's just really spooky to me that you're so fragile! Is that why you never maxed your level out, is it not as important for the classes you know?"

“My type of wizard is different from the one you are used to. One difference is that we are slow to share detailed information about our capabilities and weaknesses. Especially weaknesses.”

"...Yeah, that's a big difference, I'd say. I've never been a Wizard before, obviously, but it isn't a unique or hidden class. You can buy Scipplay staves at the store." Both she and the witch are looking at him with some suspicion and some awe. "So you're a pretty big cheese, where you come from?"

“If you can just buy one at a store, I’ll have to take a look sometime. The enchanted items here are all different from the ones back home. As for myself, back home I’m often the most important person in the room but never the most important person in the city.”

"Ah, that makes sense of a great many things. Now I get why you wanted to keep your level low. ...But how'd you wind up without an escort way out here in the Hellfire Wastes?"

What are these people assuming? Lisandro braces for some hopefully entertaining misunderstandings along the way. “Entirely by accident. My specialty is spells to travel between distant places; I made a mistake trying to create a new one.”

"Trying to create. A new spell."

“The type of person we call wizard in my home and language, we try doing that sometimes. It is almost always a bad decision but that does not stop us.”

It takes the two women in the hut a moment to process the implications of this.

"Is your spellbook a craftable item??" demands your astonished guide, voice rising steadily through the sentence.

The witch whistles, long and low, shaking her head and blinking. You get the impression that if she wasn't already seated, she'd be looking for a chair to collapse into. "The next war will be ugly."

“We could just keep this conversation from leaving the room, if the way my type of magic works would start a bloody war.”

"The Creator wouldn't have devised your class," says the witch resignedly, "if he didn't intend its use."

Okay that’s probably true from a certain point of view, depending on who you count as having ‘invented’ wizardry. But also not really how this works. 

“We’re having some misunderstandings here. I need to ask some very basic questions about how magic works here, and things like classes and levels and crafting items.”

"Should I fetch..." your guide trails off. "Well, I could always fetch people if we turn out to need them, and it'd be harder to un-fetch them. Ask away."

Lisandro nods. If there is to be secrecy, as few people in the room as possible. 

“Classes first. How would you explain what classes are and how they work, to a young child who had not yet learned anything else about them?”

"Okay, so, my main theory here is that the translation miracle is just... not working right... so interrupt me if you suddenly realize what I'm referring to." She takes a moment to recollect the explanation she gave her youngest. "When you're eighteen years old," that was a bad start, from the top, "on someone's eighteenth birthday, they can enlist in an army. At that point their class will be 'Tradesman.' Your commander can promote you to a different class, but at first they'll only be able to choose between Tradesman and Soldier. As a Soldier you won't be able to work a trade, but you will be able to equip your first weapon, which will be a shortspear. You'll train as a soldier until you qualify for a different class--likely a Fighter or an Amazon, but if you have high stats to begin with you might be able to jump right into Ninja, or, more rarely, Wizard. You shouldn't worry too much about what classes you do or don't qualify for from the start, because it doesn't make a huge difference in the long run, it won't take very many levels in the grand scheme of things before you qualify for whatever class you'll be leveling as--well, these days, I think they like to promote you back and forth between different classes every few levels, for better-rounded stat growth, but they didn't do that when I was a girl... when you're level 99, you can ask your commander to promote you to a different class whenever you want, if you qualify for it, which at that point is just about changing your alignment around. Most of us spend most of our time as Tradesmen, since Tradesmen earn Goth and the other classes only spend it... um, what else, oh, I guess I should list the classes that people have? Unless you're born with a unique class or gain a hidden one, typical classes you'll see are, uh, for women it's Tradesmen, who do trades, Sirens, who do Advanced Magic, Priests, who do Healing Magic Plus, Freyas, who use spears and armor and do Advanced Weapon Magic, Dragon Masters, who buff dragons, that one's pretty straightforward, oh, they use rapiers, and Dianas who use bows. For men, it's Tradesmen, uh, Sword Masters, who are pretty much what they sound like, Paladins, who use swords and shields and armor and Basic Weapon Magic, Cataphracts, who are heavily armored and use spears, Enchanters, who use dolls and buff golems, Beast Masters, who use whips and buff beasts, and Ninja Masters, who use claws or can use Advanced Magic, but they can't use spellbooks, they just automatically use whichever element their enemies are weak to, it's a mixed bag... is any of this clicking?"

“I don’t think this is translation error. That is not how it works where I come from at all. We don’t all have to join the army to get magic and power, I was never a soldier but I still faced danger and increased in circle. We also let people in the army practice trades, though maybe some places still separate the two.”

Most of the specific powers and abilities are confusing, but that’s to be expected from outsiders. Which means this probably is another plane. This is offensive to his sensibilities. He knows that in Cheliax they sort you into wizard track or cleric track or conscript, and that in Osirion they go all in on separating things by man and woman, but places that aren’t tyrannies do it more sensibly. 

At this she seems utterly aghast. "If you don't join the army, no one can promote you when you qualify for a better class!"

“I don’t need someone else to, I have always been a wizard since my childhood and just get better at being a wizard.”

He floats up in the air and does a flip, then continues the conversation while hovering.

"You can level to the cap in Wizard, certainly there's nothing to stop you, but why would you when you could promote to Archmage and level as one of those instead??"

(Oh, she forgot to mention Archmages with the other male classes. Well, she knew she was probably missing one, that's just life.)

The witch cuts in with, "He might have a unique class, or his people could be demihumans which can't promote. You should be slower to make assumptions."

You guide considers that, and then says, "Right, I think I should talk to my aunt and have her promote me to a leadership class. I'll come back straightaway and form a new unit you can join. Then we'll know whether or not you could change class."

This must be a translation error. Though Felandriel joining the army is an amusing thought. 

“If I were to join your unit and then wanted to leave, how would that go?”

Gonna take more than an offer of information or new abilities, to integrate him into whatever chain of command system this is.

"Well, I'm going to disband the unit once we've tested this, since I do have a dayjob and Tradesman isn't a leadership class. If you want to leave before then... you could ask?"

The witch decides that your guide isn't thinking of all the things which could go wrong and decides to list a few. "She could take your things and leave you with your class's base equipment."

"I could already take his things, I'm level 99 and he isn't, I doubt he could stop me."

"She could change your class against your will, and if you don't qualify for your current one anymore you wouldn't be able to change back. Or she could promote you into an undead class like Lich, and you'd be stuck that way forever."

"If I knew where to find a Ring of the Dead, I wouldn't waste it promoting someone I hardly know into a Lich!"

To the witch. “You. You get it.”

”I will not be joining any units at this time”

Your guide rolls her eyes dramatically. 

"If you like I'll promote as a Priest so you're assured of my Law.[1]"

-

1. This language has a word for Lawful, and has a word for Chaotic Evil, and has a word for Neutral. Those are the alignments, according to this language.

"It would take all of several minutes for her to flip her alignment," warns the witch. "In this age, people have the alignments they want, or that they need for promotions, but rarely the alignments they've earned."

Good on them, hacking whatever simple little alignment system they ended up with. 

“I don’t trust just by alignment anyway. I will, if you permit, stay in this city for however long it takes to learn more about this place. If I decide you’re trustworthy enough to be worth giving that power, it will probably take a long time.”