"That seems as hard to fathom as a planet being billions of years old. But you're probably right. Then we probably don't have any myths of creating the world, just the people on it."

"I'm not seeing why those two would be related."

"If they're not that old or far... no, you're right, that doesn't follow. Asking dragons is probably infeasible, though, and humans don't."

"It's a little surprising you don't have legends about that, we have a bunch of contradictory legends on our world together with the explanation we've come to after a lot of study."

"I mean, there are legends about the Coming of Chaos, where the gods fight them back and protect the world for their followers, but nothing before that I've heard. Whatever the world was like before that, I'm not sure we'd recognize it now; no magic, none of the threats that shape the world."

"That does sound very different."

"Maybe Greenskins, actually. I don't think we knew Greenskins in those days, they say they only came west out of the far eastern mountains and across the Dark Lands later, but they probably existed and caused trouble for someone. But daemons in the north and beastmen in the forests, no."

"It's interesting, greenskins as you call them are one of the few creatures you've mentioned that we don't have stories about. We have stories about things called orcs and goblins but they're always distinct and they don't grow bigger through combat like you mentioned."

"Still usually found in hordes destroying everything in their path, though?"

"The stories vary, they're usually antagonists but they aren't usually inclined to destroy everything. In one of the more famous stories they're depicted as having a kingdom."

"I wonder why. Maybe the others don't match as well as you're thinking they do? Probably not, though."

"There are a lot of stories. It's possible we just haven't heard the right ones to match the Greenskins. Also... the way the translation system seems to work is by picking the most similar words if they exist."

"You know, I spent about half a second worrying about why you look foreign but speak Kislevarin fluently, right at the start, but it wasn't Dark Tongue so it was a future problem and the lady witch didn't take issue so I dropped it. It has a usual way it works?"

"We don't entirely understand it, but the gateways we travel through teach us the languages of our destinations. We've studied it a bunch so we understand a lot of what the effects are, we don't have nearly as much understanding of how it does it."

"Should I worry it will wear off in a few weeks? Or become contagious?"

"The effect is something the gateways do while people are passing through them, it can fade after several more trips to places with different languages but it doesn't fade with time, there was a three years study with some volunteers. There isn't any mechanism for it to be contagious."

"Well, hopefully when you get back you now know the other half of the gateway isn't needed, and then never have to use that knowledge again." He'll let Teisa know but it doesn't sound all that worrying, they were already going to limit exposure to what these people said in case of weird Tzeentch bullshit.

"That makes it more of a mystery since we thought it was using the other end to get the information."

"...Okay, that's a bit worrying. We should... probably monitor all four of you for signs of insanity the way I suggested for if and when you look at the portal data."

"Honestly that's understandable. I don't feel any different but mind effecting stuff can be subtle. It always makes a mess when it comes up."

"I appreciate the understanding. It's probably nothing, but assuming it's nothing every time it probably is, is a fine way to get royally screwed."

Rodney nods. "That's how probability works; birthday paradox and all that." He pauses, "Sorry, the birthday paradox is a way we teach children about how enough small chances add up to be large chances. It seems really unlikely for any two people to have the same birthday but if you bring enough people together it's effectively inevitable."