"I don't know. If there was a gate here I would at least have somewhere to start but as it is I don't even have that. I know Orlin managed to build a gate out of stuff from Earth but even if I knew how he did it I don't really expect the same materials are available around here. If you notice it doesn't look like this house even has internal plumbing let alone the technologies I would expect if they could purify titanium or make fiber optic cable."

"Could we not try to find a way to create a portal using what the locals call magic?"

"They seem pretty jumpy around magic and they don't seem to have had good experiences with portals so I would want to be on much firmer ground before we ask about that."

"They also call it magic, that probably means they don't understand it that well and even if they do they clearly don't have experience with incidents like this." His voice drops to a murmur. "Not that I do either really."

"What about the people on Atlantis, could they come find us? They have to know something went wrong with the gate."

"I still don't know what happened so I couldn't say. Zalenka is usually competent so there's a chance he'll figure it out but I don't have any way to assess how likely it is."

"Alright, it sounds like we'll be here a while then. Let's settle in as best we can. Stay a bit watchful but I don't think we need to be too worried about the locals. We'll keep watches as subtly as we can for the first week or so and reassess depending on what happens."

"Very well. I suppose we should choose rooms then."

Sheppard nods and they go to do just that and to look around the house a bit more thoroughly. They always move in at least pairs.

There are several more bedrooms, two studies (one small, one larger and with space for business conversations), a dining room by the main fireplace, a couple rooms clearly meant for sitting and meeting with people. The basement has a root cellar on one side and the barracks and weapons on the other, with a cleared space that is probably sometimes used for sparring; there's also an extra staircase to an external door, with a guard. (It's not nearly as obvious from the outside but he will politely discourage them from checking that.)

Rodney is correct; there is not indoor plumbing in the building, only chamber pots, though at least they have a dumping spot in an outhouse which flows into a closed sewer. There's a water cistern in the kitchen but no pump visible. (Yula shoos them from her kitchen before they can see much of it.) The windows are mostly waxed linen, but the street-facing side and fanciest social rooms have glass; all have strong wood shutters. There are many places for candles and polished steel reflectors.

All the hearths have fiery sunburst designs marking them, like the priest of 'Dazh', and the stone of their floors is scrupulously clean. There are also symbols of a bear head with a crown near the front door and in what probably used to be the master bedroom, and axes with a jagged lightning-bolt pattern for a haft are carved into the empty weapon rack and in the spots near the entrances which look intended for guards, at a convenient height for tapping with a hand as you pass.

"They don't seem inclined to make trouble. They asked permission to leave the house under observation, and weren't noticeably offended by me saying Teyla would have to stay inside. I was thinking two at a time? They've been sticking in pairs anyway."

"That should do it; go with whoever's leaving personally, keep an eye on it. I'll have a reply from Her Majesty before sunset tomorrow, but I expect she'll assent to my judgment and say we should keep them guarded for at least a week but not execute them. I'll visit them then."

"If she says otherwise, I'm not sure we can. From what I saw of their weapons they're guns, but strange ones, I'd want a dwarf engineer to make sense of them. And they have other things, probably more weapons, we haven't seen. And at least two and maybe the third are experienced fighters. If we actually ambushed them we might succeed, but they're - politely and subtly - expecting and preparing for that."

"Ah. That's not entirely a surprise... I'll bring some Maidens, if it comes to that. In the meantime... keep an eye on them, learn what you can, explain what they ask about. Other than how we check for Chaos and undead, if they're rude enough to ask. I trust your judgment, Tedya."

"I know you do, and I'm thankful for it, Tesya. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Have you settled in all right?", Teodor asks as he returns, as promised, while dinner is being laid out.

"I believe so. We are, I expect understandably, distressed to be stranded so far from home but the facilities here are well appointed. I expect we'll be comfortable for the duration of our observation period."

"I imagine I would be as well, even with trusted companions. Also deadly curious. Are there questions you'd like to ask?"

"I don't think we know what to ask at this point. Perhaps you could tell us more about this world and it's peoples. We have not encountered many species of people other than humans, are there more such species on your world?"

"Oh, yes. The elves I already mentioned; strictly speaking they're probably the same species but they had an extremely nasty civil war before humans had even forged bronze so they're arguably three different types. The third is Wood Elves, but there are none near Kislev and they don't often leave their forests. The Dwarfs are our best allies, in the mountains to the east; they're masters of the forge and a safer form of magic called runesmithing, and invented gunpowder long ago and taught it to us humans less long ago. They're extremely stodgy and keep grudges like aging wine, but they're as loyal as they are vengeful so it's well worth it. There are rumors they also had an ancient civil war with dark dwarves far to the east, but suggesting the possibility in their presence earns a grudge on its own. The men of the Empire and further south are largely the same as us, but the men to the north, the Norscans and Kurgan and other steppe tribes, worship Chaos and are mutated by it at much higher rates than here or to the south."

"Even further past them in the Chaos Wastes, no one can live without direct 'blessings' from Chaos, and everyone is badly mutated and often fused with their armor or something similar. Beastmen walk on two legs, except centigors and a few beasts, but they have the features of other animals, mostly goats and bulls, and they serve Chaos directly as well. I met Lady Kajetana repelling a large Beastman attack on the Teeth of Ursun, which are a holy site and supposedly the anchor for a great deal of the magical protections on Kislev; they try to defile anything that is holy to any god but the Four of Chaos, and to ruin anything that resembles signs of civilization. Similar to Beastmen but distinct in a practical sense are the Skaven, who also usually go on two feet but resemble rats rather than livestock; they're enormously prolific and live underground, they have Chaos-tainted technology that scares even dwarfs, and we'd be in dire trouble if they ever stopped fighting each other for twenty years and attacked the surface in unison. Fortunately, as a matter of cultural and biological disposition they never will."

"Greenskins come in many sizes; orcs are slightly bigger than a man, goblins like a large child, snotlings like a toddler, and many variations; the ones who fight more and survive get larger and stronger, and almost always are in charge. They love to fight for the sake of fighting, and the bigger the warband, the bigger the 'WAAGH!' that attracts more of them out of their caves and stolen forts and empowers their shamans. We don't fight them quite as often as Beastmen but it's probably second-most, mostly over or through the mountains where the dwarfs aren't guarding. And then there's undead, which come in dozens of types, almost all either made from the bodies and spirits of the dead, or variations on vampires. Necromancy uses Dhar, the same dark magic Chaos does, but in a different way, which also pollutes the area but in incompatible respects. Most undead near us are to the south in Sylvania, a forsaken corner of the Empire where a long line of vampire counts have controlled the territory for... centuries, at least."

"There are also trolls, who heal rapidly but are very stupid, and giants, likewise stupid; Chaos and Greenskins enlist both of them. Halflings, who are mostly just small humans and almost all in the Empire. Ogres, who will fight anything they can eat and take pay in more meat; they stay bought until you run out of food, and they're very useful in the meantime. Various types of woodland and swamp spirits which probably aren't elves or apparitions of Chaos like dryads and fomor. Dragons, most of whom are just clever beasts but some of whom are smarter than people. Griffons, manticores, pegasi, unicorns, great eagles, winter wolves... all at least as smart as very dull men, though manticores are deranged like everything else badly Chaos-tainted. Demigryphs are probably more like clever horses. I've heard stories of lizard-men from the deep jungles of the far south but I don't really believe them. Royal bears are supposed to be the greatest of bears short of Ursun but even the Old Tzar never met one. Oh, in the southern deserts there's another type of undead, mummies and enchanted statues who don't seem to be psychically tainted by necromancy like the others."

"...That's probably everyone of significance."

"That is many more than I expected. I wonder what causes your world to have so many peoples compared to the others we've visited."

"The traditional answer is that Chaos mutates the world and its peoples, and the gods make some of the breeds stable and purify them of taint, and they then are their own true-breeding species from there. It would explain why so many are variations on the same general shape of a body, and something similar being true for the first vampires is... historical record, though very old history; that one was done on purpose, but used the mutating power of Dhar in its necromancy. Magic certainly changes shapes and minds of all who make use of it, so it's a good enough explanation. But if the gods made Men I don't know why there are so many of us worshiping so many gods in different places, and we all look so much the same."

"An interesting question. Speaking of gods. I don't believe we've encountered their like in our travels," unless you count the ascended she carefully doesn't add. "Could you tell us more about them?"

"Sure. In Kislev, we have three worshiped by name and a fourth who... arguably is also a god. Ursun is the Bear God and the traditional patron of Kislev; he's distant and cares more about bears than men, but he defends us when it counts. Dazh, whose priest you already met, is the Sun, and taught humans to start fires; he also insists on good hospitality. Tor the Thunder-God is a warrior god of storms. And the Ancient Widow is the spirit of the physical Land of Kislev; though no one really worships her, the first Ice Witches made a pact with her about a thousand years ago to bring their tribes here and defend it against Chaos; the Hag Witches also have a bargain with her but they don't talk about the details, and both types keep to those bargains. In the south they mostly worship the former human Sigmar, who founded their empire and became a god on his death, but they have a half-dozen others, none of which overlap with ours. Even further south they have another dozen. Gods live... somewhere, made of magic rather than material, but they can intervene in the world anywhere the Winds touch and probably other places as well. They usually pick priests who have similar temperament and priorities, and then those priests can invoke their attention and power, which is less flexible than manipulating the Winds like a Witch or Wizard but much safer. They rarely do anything without a priest except arrange coincidences, but rarely is not never, and at holy sites they don't need a priest but rarely act without disaster coming. The god's homes may be the same as the afterlives, or near them, but they don't say much and all the priests like to promise is that our souls won't feed Chaos when we die, and maybe if we're especially devoted we'll fight by their sides after death."

"...And then there's the Chaos Gods. It's at least bad luck, and possibly much worse, to name them, but there are Four - Bloody Eight, Pestilent Six, Sorcerous Nine, and Tempting Seven - the Realm of Chaos and most of the Chaos Wastes are divided between them, they're all madness incarnate, they fight each other endlessly, and they all want to devour the world and all the souls on it to empower themselves and create more daemons for the war between them. They're vastly more powerful than the mortal gods and if they united against us no one thinks even all the mortals and all our gods standing together could withstand them, but like the Skaven we are fortunate in that they are, probably literally, incapable of doing that. Even the partial ceasefires are terrifying every time, though."

"That often seems to be the way of those with malign intent. Cooperation is rarely in their nature but when they do cooperate they become much more dangerous."