They're in... a building? Made of stone? No, stone and wood? 

There's a bunch of people around, wearing fragments of metal and leather armor and otherwise not much, and brandishing knives, though mostly up rather than in the team's direction. Most of them seem to have fairly fresh blood painted like tattoos. They're chanting, something bloodthirsty and repetitive (there's an eight-syllable pattern) that they, unusually, can't understand at all.

Oh, also the guy right at the center of the chanting men collapses with even fresher blood just as they show up, and the cultists turn around (still chanting) to face an opposite wall, from whence there are really loud gunshots.

Gun shots are bad. So are knives and blood. "Cover." He states quietly but firmly. Not willing to yell and draw attention. He tries to find some himself if there is any.

The rest of the team

follows

suit.

It looks like when this isn't a weird not-Stargate site it's a sand pit for a fighting ring, though the stands are empty. But there are some heavy wood tables with blood-red tablecloths on them.

They probably don't want to look under the tablecloths. At least it's recent enough that the smell won't draw their attention.

There are three men in black fur cloaks over chain, carrying recognizable primitive firearms; looks like a blunderbuss, pistols, and a couple double-barreled muskets.

Surprise and black powder, and good enough timing not to be fighting bloodletters, is carrying the day fairly quickly, and the man in the lead is looking toward where they came in. But he still has enemies to kill, and they're going to need to do the rest by hand, so they have a few moments.

Scant cover is still something so the team retreats to the stands. "Weapons tight, we don't know what's happening but hopefully this new group is friendlier than the last one looked."

"That is not a normal gate."

"Thanks Rodney. I did notice. It's just not my top priority at the moment."

And in fact the portal is disappearing; it looks like it was failing slightly the moment they got through, and is rapidly falling apart now that the chant is disrupted by bloody war cries and chanter existence failure.

The intruders don't make any attempt to take prisoners, and it's not long before the fight's over. One of the backup men climbs up into the seating to look for something (stragglers?), and the other regroups behind the leader, and mutters something, gesturing to his pistol.

"Whatever they are, they're not Khornate," he replies quietly, "Cover me."

He draws a still-loaded pistol with one hand and a large, engraved gold coin with the other.

"Chekist! Hands up, don't touch any weapons!"

Sheppard lets his gun fall to rest on it's shoulder strap and raises his hands before standing up. "I don't know what that is we're not exactly from around here." He speaks their language but with a strange and unfamiliar accent.

The rest of the team remains in cover.

And is wearing strange and unfamiliar equipment that distinctly looks fit like armor, the thing he dropped looked like a very strange gun...

And, while he absolutely will not admit to knowing this, there is absolutely no movement of the Winds around them. Less than for a normal human thinking, even.

"...It means I am an enforcer of the law," he says ultimately, "The four of you go stand against that other wall away from the ritual site. Any act by Chaos requires careful handling."

He lowers his pistol slightly, more symbolically than practically.

"Alright, we can do that."

He goes over there and his team follows. Their hands are kept away from anything that looks like a weapon but not so far away they couldn't reach them in a pinch.

"Vitaly, abandon the stands for the moment. Fetch the Lady."

The third man abandons his search and swings over a railing toward the doorway.

"Do you understand what was occurring when you appeared?", he asks. His pistol is now pointed at the ground, but he hasn't taken his finger away from the trigger, and the other man is watching warily and reloading his own pistol.

"We could tell it was some sort of gateway since we came through it and the blood generally indicates bad news but beyond that no."

"They were summoning daemons of the Bloody God. You are not that; you have gone entirely too long without attempting bloody violence. But that is not the only kind of daemon. ...Who do you believe yourselves to be?"

"I'm Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard of the Atlantis expedition. With me is Dr. McKay, Teyla and Ronon."

"Military? What king?"

"The Atlantis expedition is a collaborative endeavor by a number of groups. My rank is from a country that calls itself the United States but it's a democracy not a monarchy."

"You don't sound Tilean. Well, it's novel, I'll give it that. Where were you before you showed up in the interrupted summoning?"

"We were going through a rather different gateway to get back to our base under enemy fire but something went wrong and the passage changed color and we found ourselves here."

"Hmm... I am inclined to think you are genuine humans. But the Deceiver is good at his title, so I do not, actually, have the authority to let you live. Fortunately for you, I do have the authority to keep you under guard while I bring experts to check further. You may ask questions while we wait."

"We could take them," mutters Ronon perhaps too quietly to be heard.

Sheppard shushes Ronon with a gesture. "Well that's a concerning thing to say. I don't know who this deceiver might be but I take threats to my team's lives pretty seriously."

"As an officer should. Everything about Za - Chaos - is concerning. We're overdue for another Everchosen leading an army of the daemons, the lost, and the damned out of the Wastes, and summonings like this are meant to kill hundreds of our defenders before the war to weaken Kislev.  By slaughter, by disease, by trickery and spells, or by seduction and treason. Killing four innocents can be an acceptable price to be sure they've failed."

"I'm familiar with the idea. It may well be justified in this case but it's a very dangerous path to start down."

"You're about eight centuries late for that argument. Tell it to Khan-Queen Shoika when she was founding Kislev. We'd have fallen, oh, probably three times over by now, and probably the South with us. Mercy is a luxury, and I'm buying more of it than most. But unless you do something stupid you'll be fine until the Lady Witch finishes talking with you, and if you're really mortal men you should be fine even then."

"That's fair enough. We'll stick around for this Lady Witch of yours to check us for Chaos."

"So we're going to just indulge this?" Rodney whispers. "Trust our lives to someone who believes in magic?"

"Rodney," He says in a quelling tone. "Let's be polite to our hosts. You remember Chaya."

He can pick up on the skepticism better than you'd think. If they don't respond for a while, he'll consider what examples to give.

"In the city of Praag, which was conquered by Chaos for a few years, the dead walk at night unless they are cremated in a blessed fire, and the streets of the outer districts rearrange themselves while no one is looking. No witch or wizard can stand to live there because the residue of Chaos corrupts the soul and ghosts whisper to them on every street corner. The last time the Everchosen attacked, the dwarfhold Karak Vlag closed its doors to withstand a long siege, and when we finally won the war and checked on them, it was gone. The gates were blank stone and the mines were unexcavated; the watch towers had never been built, though many of the paths and stairs remained to show where they ought to be. The karak had stood unwavering for thousands of years and it was erased overnight. That's what it looks like when Chaos makes a serious attempt to soften us up. Our paranoia is more than justified."

"Well..."

"Rodney." John cuts him off. "That sounds like something it's worth being worried about. I respect you being cautious and appreciate you checking whether we are what you're afraid of instead of just trying to kill us."

It has not remotely occurred to him that they might think magic doesn't exist, or he'd probably have something to say about it. Some southerners don't really believe in Chaos, but even they have priests and the occasional mages.

So they'll wait in silence for a while, until...

...A woman in white fur robes with layers of frost on the shoulders and an oak staff with ice-like crystals and more frost sweeps in through the doors, with a man in light brown robes with sunburst patterns picked out in gold thread following her.

"Teodor. This is what showed up when the cultists were expecting Khornate daemons?"

"Yes, Lady Kajetana. They claim to be men who were traveling through some other kind of portal while under attack, and surprised to be here instead of returned to their home. They appear to be completely unfamiliar with Za and say they're from a land without kings."

"Hmm," she says, looking at the group of them.

The temperature in the room is sinking slightly.

"Hello, it's nice to meet you."

"That may be. You're supposed to be soldiers, so what are the woman and the clerk doing here?" Her tone is aggressive, just short of accusing.

"In my culture women are just as likely to be warriors as men. I also help Colonel Shepard with negotiations and as someone who had prior knowledge of many of the peoples we met in our travels."

"And Rodney's knowledge and skill with technology and science has gotten our team out of quite a few tight spots over the past year."

It may be noticeable that 'science' doesn't translate terribly smoothly in this language and what he said was more like 'engineering and study'.

"Sounds like a culture that would be strong for four generations and then run out of people. Traveling where? How?"

"My people have survived since the ancestors left ten thousand years ago. Our team travels between worlds using the Ancestor's gates as we seek allies and resources to fight against the Wraith."

"By what names are the 'ancestors' known? What are their gates? Are the Wraith ordinary hungry ghosts, or if not what are they?"

"My people call them the Ancients, and many others call them the Gatebuilders. We believe they called themselves Alterans. They were in most respects humans but they had enhanced minds and special powers since then they've all either died or ascended. The Wraith are kinda like vampires. They feed on people's life force instead of blood though."

"Explain 'ascended'."

The men with the guns are visibly more nervous. There's still nothing pointed at the team, but fingers which had slipped from triggers have returned to them.

Apparently he shouldn't have said that. Maybe something about the Ascended sounds like this Za or Chaos that they're afraid of.

"The ascended are... strange they have strict rules about interacting with beings like ourselves that are still physical so my people have only met them a handful of times. They aren't physical beings like you or I they're something stranger."

(Yeah there's a maximum of three humans who have ever done something like that who weren't Chaos, and one of them was the only thing that's arguably worse. Good luck!)

"But they were born human. How did they begin the... path to ascension?"

Yep definitely shouldn't have opened this can of problems.

"Whether they really counted as human is a matter for debate. Regardless, we don't know how they ascended just that they did." Technically he knows how Daniel ascended and he's read the reports that Orlin was helped along in returning to that state but nobody knows how the Ancients did it in the first place.

"Who, when, and what were the last times someone tried to emulate them?"

"When one of my people named Daniel Jackson was on the edge of death an ascended named Oma Desala helped him through the process of ascending. That was three years ago."

"Consequences? Costs? Side effects on the surroundings?"

Her grip on her staff shifts, and the air in the room starts getting significantly colder.

Sheppard carefully avoids wincing. "I don't think there were any. There weren't any mentioned in the reports I read. Someone was trying to heal him and he somehow appeared to a friend mentally and asked the friend to have the healer give up and then his heart stopped, he glowed from within and he turned into a strange mass of golden light. Which then went to the nearest gateway, activated it and passed through."

"It is a bad idea to lie to a witch."

"I'm not lying. That's what was in the report I read."

"I don't think he is, strangely enough. To be clear: none of the terrain nearby changed in color or flora, no one involved or animals nearby acquired sudden physical deformities or mental derangements, and the normal laws of reality still appear to hold on the site and near the gate and around everyone involved, such as the healer and the friend? No sudden epidemics began shortly thereafter? No one was seized with a desire to preach a new religion or prophecy?"

"No, I definitely would have heard about that and I've been in the room the report said it happened in since. It was more or less the same as all the hospital rooms I've been in in the past. I used the gate too and it worked normally relative to the other gates I've used."

Suddenly her smile entirely disappears, her demeanor abruptly changes, she starts sparking with electricity, her eyes glow like St. Elmo's Fire, and sudden wind seems to appear from nowhere at her back despite the door being closed.

It's unreasonably terrifying, even to people who are used to dealing with terrifying things.

"And you are very sure of that?", she asks in a voice that sounds like it belongs to someone five stories tall.

Rodney shakes with the effort needed to avoid curling into a ball.

Teyla frowns in concentration as she pushes the foreign influence from her mind. "Kindly refrain."

Ronon growls. "Get out of my head." His hand twitches towards his weapon.

Sheppard winces and shakes a little too. His voice is rough, "I'm quite sure. Now would you please stop doing that?"

There is now a gun pointed toward Teyla.

"Teisiya?"

"Not yet. Could be a witch herself." She narrows her attention to Teyla. "Daemons throw off that terror easily. Mortals do not. Speak quickly, maybe-witch."

"Years ago, a wraith experimented on a number of humans in an attempt to make better stock for feeding on. They weren't successful but what they did achieve was giving those humans the ability to sense their presence and hear when they spoke to each other. The other wraith fearing this strength tried to wipe them all out but a few escaped and I am descended from one of them. I've learned to resist the influences of the Wraith using that ability and what you were doing felt similar."

The Winds are swirling around the room, mostly the crystalline web of the Tempest but also the traditional Eight.

Around Teyla, inside that web as she holds it away? ...Some Ulgu, for minds and deception, but more Chamon, for logic and metal, creeping up from the hidden metal weapons to her head. Not a hint of Aqshy, no fire or more importantly anger.

Which is far from infallible, but Teisiya isn't often wrong either.

Wraiths, vampires which do not feed on blood and run breeding programs on their serfs. That matches none of the known bloodlines, but other bloodlines are believed to exist in distant lands, and these men already claimed to be from them. And Kislev does not refuse immigrants for being Sylvanian - really, they're better citizens than a lot of southerners. Keep her under observation for a few weeks to be sure she's not feeding, but as a consistent story it's reasonable.

But it's also a potential cover story for being Tzeentch-touched.

She would bet on her being innocent or the Changeling. (Suspecting the Changeling is a fool's game; it will always look exactly as innocent as it wants to until it reveals its trick.) But she is not good enough at reading people to beat a Lord of Change.

...At least she has one other thing to check.

"Cousin Khmelny," her voices rumbles, before she lets the indoor storm drop. "...Please invoke Dazh's gaze." 

"Gladly, Lady Kajetana," the man in the brown robe says, and stands just outside the main doorway, in the sunlight. He swings something that looks like a thurible-lantern, the flame clearly visible burning low but clear. He takes a small mirror out of a padded bag and turns it so that a ray of sunlight is reflected at the faces of the Atlantis team, going back and forth, though focusing on Teyla. He chants unintelligibly.

It will be a tense few minutes.

Teodor is back to not pointing his gun at anyone. Teyla's still the main one he's not pointing it at, though.

Teyla and the rest of the team relaxes when the guns are no longer pointed at her and when the fear aura withdraws.

None of them speak, speaking too freely is what made this situation worse.

Eventually the priest outside stops chanting and swinging the thurible and mirror.

"I sensed nothing trying to hide from Dazh's sight, my lady. And I felt Him watching."

"...They can live. Under guard for the time being. I'll send the Tzarina a hawk. Let's get this place emptied of the living before we start smelling rot, and let the priests cleanse it."

"That's appreciated."

Teo cocks his head toward Teisiya and then nods back to her once she does. "I'll take the guard duty, better than explaining to someone else. Vitaly, check for anything that needs isolating; the rest of us, let's get out of this charnel house. Dragmil, lead the way; the place near Morr's Gate isn't too far and should have space to be hospitable."

His posture changes; it's not that he isn't wary, but it's the wariness of regular army alongside mercenaries who are only about 90% likely to stay bought, rather than presumed enemies.

He'll wait for them to start moving and bring up the rear.

This is far from ideal but what else is new. They follow in an orderly fashion.

Ronon rolls his eyes and looks a bit disdainful at their captors' weapons.

Rodney looks about nervously but also with some interest. His eyes keep drifting to Teisiya's staff.

Teyla adopts a neutral slightly curious expression.

They get outside and find themselves in: a medieval city. It's a port, and cold; there are small patches of snow under shady eves, and you can smell the sea. It looks like they're in a fairly poor district and mostly nonresidential.

Dragmil leads them south, or at least toward the sun. Away from the water, though glimpses to the west will probably notice that the city and land vanish into ocean.

"Anything you'll need within a few days beyond what any men would? We have to guard you for everyone's safety, but you believe yourselves to be friendly and Kislevites take hospitality very seriously."

"May we get garments out of our bags? We came from a warmer place."

"Most places are."

He pauses a bit, considering the bizarre gun and inexplicable other tools, and decides they are probably already armed in ways he won't notice. He probably won't be able to tell if they get more, but this won't make it much worse.

"Go ahead, there's a good place to stand aside at the next crossing. Please don't take out any more weapons while you do."

"Of course, we would not wish to trespass on your hospitality."

When they reach the crossing everyone except Ronon gets out a thin looking jacket made of an unfamiliar material and puts it on beneath their heavily pocketed vests.

"I appreciate it. Hopefully we can clear things up, but everyone's going to be on edge until we do, especially since you're carrying a lot we don't recognize. ...What's that fabric?"

"It's called nylon, at least the outer layer is. The inner layer is made from down feathers and something called polyester. Both nylon and polyester are made from a type of oil though a complicated manufacturing process."

"Sounds expensive just to replace a fur coat, but I suppose it also looks much lighter."

They take a turn and they're on a wider street, with a relatively clear vote to the city walls (stone) and gate, over all the carts in the road. There's a small group of taller, thinner humanoids with very tall pointed hats (that mostly cover their long pointed ears) and fancier fabrics walking the other way. Everyone is giving them a wide berth, and they're returning the favor.

"Yes well, the being lighter is pretty important. It's also less expensive than it might sound because of economies of scale."

"If you don't mind me asking, who are those tall people over there?" He doesn't point, his cultural training says pointing is often rude.

"Asur, also called High Elves or Sea Elves. Best magicians in the world, best sailors in the world, live for centuries mastering every art of peace and war if they don't die fighting the other kind, faster and stronger than humans... And they won't let you forget any of that for a moment. Their embassy district is in Erengrad, east of here. Best avoided."

"Huh, I'll keep that in mind."

"Unless they're also extremely good liars they also maintain the Great Vortex that drains all the unused magic out of the world and sends it back to the lands of Za to keep it from turning the entire planet into more Za. You can see it in the sky from nearly a thousand miles away, so it's probably doing something useful. Three of their greatest mages arrived to join the Great War Against Chaos in my grandfather's grandfather's time, and taught the southerners to train wizards of their own, and we'd have lost badly without that. But... many people admire them. Or envy them. Or both. Very few like them."

"...Also, now that I think of it, they'd probably kill you. Because they would rate the risks at least as high as Lady Kajetana did, and consider the cost of four innocent human lives much lower."

"Good to know. Avoid the elves."

"S' a shame. They sound like they'd be interesting to spar with."

He chuckles. "Maybe I'll see what I can do. Especially if..." He checks over his shoulder to be sure they're well clear of the elves. "...their cousins show up and are behaving badly. Though that wouldn't be a spar."

"I'm usually up for one of those too."

"We don't get many Druchii this far east, and when we do they're usually trying to pick a fight with the Asur. And they're... I could describe it, but I'll just say they're the vilest pieces of shit ever to walk on two legs, and that includes many daemons and beastmen who are literally crafted by Chaos to defile all that is good or natural in the world. Druchii are nearly as bad and claim the whole time that by torturing you they're demonstrating they're a superior form of life. So, you know, I'll see what I can do. And you'll have company."

"Fair enough."

"Let's just see about getting settled in before we sign up for any fights."

"And we see why you're in charge instead of him. It's not far now, anyway, this next right and then two blocks."

Ronon grunts in acknowledgement. He could restrain himself if he was in charge, probably, but it is convenient this way. Sheppard makes the right call most of the time.

"I suppose I'll find out soon but can you tell me anything more about where we'll be staying?"

"Merchant's townhouse the crown confiscated when it turned out he'd been embezzling, smuggling, and supplying criminals he was probably aware were actually loyalists to the vampire tzarina we had a century ago. Big enough to hold a garrison of agents like me and be a local headquarters at need; not quite secure enough to be called a safe-house. It's been used to keep a suspect southern noble under guard while our diplomats negotiated to avoid an embarrassing execution, a decade or two before my time."

"That sounds nice enough." Nowhere near as nice as Atlantis but he's been through survival training.

He had the vague sense they were probably wealthy from their initial appearance, and this isn't the first time that's been reinforced.

They come into view and he gestures to the place. It's reasonably nice, for the 1600s or whatever they call the century here. Big solid log construction with a brick foundation, decorated with various carvings and colorful eaves, slate-shingled roof. There's a stable. Three chimneys, which looks moderately high if they've been keeping track.

If half of the space is for housing people rather than running a business it could comfortably house ten.

"Huh, that's bigger than I was expecting. How is this going to work, are we under house arrest or do we get to leave under supervision for short periods?"

"That should be fine, but I'll need to ask the lady witch about what limits she'll set for the first while, and she's a busy woman. And probably not Miss Telya until we better understand your Wraith."

"Of course. We'll manage with whatever restrictions she sets."

"I am sorry it's necessary."

They file into the building. It's nicely appointed for the general tech level, decorate and warm without being soot-stained. Large fireplaces and brick walls of the chimneys giving off heat in several bedrooms, most of which have two beds. The basement has barracks beds (unused currently) and open space with weapon racks that were probably-hastily emptied. There are guards at all the entrances, and also on a couple high balconies.

"Thank you for giving us such a well-appointed place to stay while we're under observation."

"Yes, thank you." Sheppard turns to his team, "I guess we'll pair up for rooms, Teyla if you're okay rooming with Ronon, I'll share with Rodney."

"That will be fine Colonel."

None of Teo's guards will show any signs of objecting or taking offense.

"We only have the three servants for the building; I apologize for the inconvenience but it's hard to find help with enough integrity to not be bribed."

Usually to let things in that shouldn't be, rather than out, but the principle is the same.

John blinks in surprise. "I'm sure we'll manage. What uh, what are their responsibilities?"

"Cook, maid-laundress, general man-of-all-work who handles repair, stocking hearths, and most everything else. Except horses, when we have them. ...What were you expecting?"

"I hadn't actually given it much thought. We generally don't refer to people as servants in my culture. The same work generally needs to be done but there isn't quite the same implication of it being lower status."

"I suppose we could have guards do most of it, but it's very different training. It's not like they're serfs, Vlad has a sword in his coat like any man and Bogdia and Yula have all the rights of my sisters."

He keeps managing to stick his foot in his mouth doesn't he. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. The word servant has more negative connotations where I come from."

"It seems you come from a very strange place. Even most servants have servants, in the cities, if only a doorman at their lodging-house."

"I think in this case it's just a difference in the words we use. But yes, there are a lot of differences."

"As you say. We'll give you some time to rest; I'll be back by dinner."

They're fairly close to the arctic circle and it's late spring, so it probably isn't obvious how long that will be, but it's a couple hours.

Once he leaves Sheppard switches languages and turns to Rodney. "Alright Rodney, I'm already afraid I know the answer but I have to ask, can you get us home?"

"Sure, just let me get out the Stargate I carry on my pocket. Oh wait, that's not a thing. I appreciate your confidence but if there's a way at all it's not going to be soon and it's going to be a lot of work."

"I did say I was expecting that. What do you need to start figuring things out."

"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."

"Would that we were so lucky with everything else malign. Vampires and Druchii are much better at keeping order, at least when they have a strong leader available."

"It would be nice yeah. From what you've said it sounds like things have been stable for a while though. Lots of conflict but not much progress by either your people or your opposition am I understanding that right?"

"Not exactly. We're losing. Slowly, but any ground we lose, it's almost always permanent. There's been some good news in the last two centuries, the empire training wizards and some victories for the dwarfs that have made them more able to help everyone else, but we're still losing."

"Well I'm sorry to hear that." Both genuinely for their sake and also because his people are now involved in this mess. This doesn't seem like a Eurondans situation or even really like a Genii situation. "I guess the sort of magical pollution your friend asked us about is why you can't take back territory?"

"Mostly. There's a system to remove it, drain it into the Vortex, but we barely know how to repair it properly, and can't expand it to take land. We're not even sure the elves still know how to do that, and they're not telling."

He's a little surprised at Teodor mentioning something about that important. He considers talking up how good Rodney is at fixing things but decides that would be pushing things too fast. He would be suspicious if someone unknown offered to do work on Atlantis's shield. "Well that's unfortunate. Hopefully you'll find a way to change that."

Well, it's not like anyone hostile doesn't know it. Not the kind who plan things, at least.

"It would be nice. I don't know, maybe the wizards will figure out something, there are quite a few of them and they're not as busy as our witches. Maybe dwarven runecraft can help now that they aren't constantly under siege. It's more likely than the gods saving us, at least."

"Are there any books about the system available to the general public or books about uh... magic in general?" The word magic seems uncomfortable in Rodney's mouth. "That is assuming books are common enough for them to be available to the general public at all."

Shepard grimaces a bit at the question but it's out there now admonishing Rodney won't help.

"As far as I know there are no books on the Waystone Network on this continent, beyond maps of where we believe the important waystones are, which is not something I should share with you until we're very sure I'm not giving Chaos new infomation. Books are expensive and books on magic typically kept very private because self-taught magicians usually get corrupted by Dhar one way or another. I can probably get a copy of Winds, Ice, and Beyond, that's what most crown agents on the cultist front read to get a handle on the basics. ...Male magic-workers are illegal in Kislev, but it's unlikely any of you three have the necessary talent anyway."

"I'd appreciate that. Do your people have printing presses? Those usually make books cheaper. Especially with movable type."

Of course this is where Rodney is going. This is... probably fine. It's not like he's explaining how to make nuclear bombs.... again.

"I'm familiar with the concept but I don't think anyone's gotten a reliable design yet; some Imperials have been trying recently."

"I know a thing or two but I haven't personally worked with any. They're outside my core specialties."

"If you're interested in trying to build one here I'm sure I can find some trustworthy artisans to help; I think books being common enough to afford them even in the villages would be good for people."

"Books are great. I can't promise I know how to make it perfectly but I'm willing to try. The price of books would also depend on how expensive paper and ink are though."

"Neither's cheap to make, but enough that we were paying attention to the idea. Anything else we should try to speed up on inventing?"

"Internal plumbing. You seem to already have covered sewers which is very good, that helps a lot with cutting down on disease but internal plumbing is even better. I guess it's the kind of infrastructure project you might not be able to afford though."

"Yes, that's about cost. Kislev City, the capital, has plumbed most districts, and the richer houses have it here in Erengrad, but we haven't been able to do much more. A few cities in the south are more thorough; in their capital and their main university city, supposedly it's everywhere that's built legally. I don't think we can afford to match them unless we get another generation without an Everchosen attack. ...Or maybe after one, if the cities need rebuilding."

"That makes sense. Do your people know about the importance of washing their hands after doing dirty activities like working with raw meat?"

"...Not as any kind of principle. Cosmetically, obviously. What's the result?"

"It's possible this isn't entirely true for you since you have that... uh god of pestilence but on the worlds we've visited before most disease is caused by incredibly small organisms which damage the body in the process of breeding inside you. Washing your hands can wash those organisms away and by doing so stop diseases from spreading."

"Hmm. It is commonly said that all disease and deformity originates from Chaos, and most doctors are less useful than a priest. But I have heard of a ...mechanical perspective, that supposedly works, from the far south. Only in the last century or two, and it hasn't spread quickly because no one trusts doctors or surgeons to choose their own rules. I can at least bring it to the attention of the Cult of Salyak; she's specifically a goddess of healing and mercy, and they run pauper's hospitals. I think they'll find out safely, if anyone can."

"Yes, well, I hope that helps. For the same reason it's important to make sure that the place where the sewers lead to isn't a place people get water from. I'd hope that was just common sense but from our own history it seems that it wasn't."

"...Probably you mean something more complicated than 'don't drink fouled water.' Distance along a shore? I think it's generally noticed that it's probably better not to take drinking water downstream of someone's sewer, but that doesn't mean no one does it. Here it empties out into the bay, at least."

"It's a matter of concentration. So the farther along the stream and the smaller the portion of the fouled water is to clean the safer it is. There are ways to treat fouled water that kill the organisms in it but I don't know exactly how they work. Where Sheppard and I come from it's an entire field of study. Boiling water will generally render it safe but that's a lot of work to do for every bit you choose to drink, alcohol can also have the same effects but I don't remember exactly how strong a drink needs to be for it to be basically safe."

"Those parts we know, though if there's a principle underlying them I suppose that might be useful. ...The size of the fouled portion being relative rather than absolute would be surprising, possibly for supernatural reasons; I've seen substantial reservoirs made diseased with a fairly small contamination we didn't catch in time. We might be able to do something with the knowledge nonetheless."

"The body is the best place for the microorganisms to breed but it isn't the only place and so especially for still water it's possible for a relatively small contamination to breed into a much larger one."

"I don't know what's in them but we do carry tablets intended for treating small amounts of water for use in the field. My survival training suggested boiling water instead if possible though, both because it was supposed to be more effective and to conserve supplies."

"We'd appreciate a look at them, probably, but if it's a specialist matter for your people, and none of you know any of it, I wouldn't say it's a priority. I don't know offhand who I'd want to look at it, unless we asked the dwarfs."

"Fair enough, I'm not actually sure what other technologies would be helpful. I'm fairly familiar with the history of weaponry on my world but that's something I'd want to wait to share until we know each other better. I'm also not sure how applicable it would be to the battles you're fighting. We didn't have magic when we were using the sort of guns I saw you holding earlier and I imagine that changes what is and isn't useful."

"Yes, that's understandable, though I'm very curious about the design of your guns, with the small bore and tall stock and all. Against most enemies our weapons are much the same as against other ordinary men; for others, mostly daemons or half-ascended Chaos worshipers, blessings or symbolic significance can have more impact. Winged Lancers pass down their arms over the generations and this makes them, probably, a little bit blessed, and so their charge is more effective against daemons than a new man's lance. The same with the Ursunite bear riders, and the Ungol's family bows, and so on. Cannon hit harder, of course, but something about the nature of daemons sort of throws off the damage as being contrary to their nature, like they are a story that only consents to be ended in certain ways."

"That sounds frustrating to deal with." He wonders if Wraith stunners or Ronon's particle Magnum would get around that. He doesn't see a reason why the firearms would.

"Extremely. Weight of fire, or enough ordinary sword blows, can bring them down. Other than the very greatest they're resistant, not immune. But fighting daemons is much worse than beastmen or greenskins even if they're in smaller numbers, and would be even if their weapons weren't more deadly. ...Also anything strong enough for its god to give it a name will be back and fighting again in a century, even if we kill it. But honestly we just try not to dwell on that part."

"Enemies that refuse to stay dead are always annoying. Thankfully I haven't had to deal with any that literally can't be killed though."

"Bringing anything here from the Realm of Chaos takes either an army overland with sorcerers, or something like what you saw when you arrived, with human sacrifice and ritual and all, so sending them back is a reasonable victory. But you see why we're not inclined to optimism."

"Yep that would do it. I've managed to wiggle out of enough tough spots that I've learned it's important not to give up hope but it doesn't seem like you've done that."

"Strong wills and fatalism, at least, don't make us stop trying. Actually, what you said reminded me: What can you share about the Wraiths you mentioned? They're physical, and vampiric, but called 'wraith'?"

"That's what we call them at least. I don't know what they call themselves. We haven't had occasion to talk with any. I think I mentioned before that they feed on people's vitality somehow. I'm not really sure how it works but someone in the prime of their life can change to looking like someone at the end of a long life in less than a minute if they're feeding as fast as they can."

"They can also restore people to youth, it's something they do rarely to reward the humans who become Wraith Worshippers. Or as part of torturing people."

"Eugh. I've never heard of our vampires healing their victims, though I suppose I wouldn't be shocked to hear they can. Do they feed often?"

"I'm not sure. Nobody is really able to safely observe them enough to know. What we do know is that they hibernate sometimes for centuries at a time when they've taken too many of us and there aren't enough to sustain them. Sadly their last period of hibernation ended a bit over a year ago."

"Hibernate collectively? That's interesting. Vampires here can sleep - well, 'sleep' - for very long times, especially if they've been killed and are recovering, but outside a major Vampire War that kills several leaders, almost never as a group."

Though he's not particularly believing her, as the one person here who is potentially hostile even if this isn't a Chaos trick. It's still data.

"They leave watchers awake to warn them of any threats and to ensure we don't forget about them, to ensure we don't ever believe ourselves safe or get powerful enough to challenge them. Until Sheppard's people came I didn't believe anyone could stand against them."

"Because of inadequate weapons? Numbers?"

"The Wraith are stronger individually but that can be overcome. Their true power is in their darts, and their larger starships. Most of the peoples of my galaxy don't have aircraft or weapons that can damage even a single dart and en masse they are even harder to defend against. And if a world developed enough to fight the darts, a cruiser or a hive would simply bombard them from orbit."

"To be clear, wraith darts aren't projectiles; they're flying craft that can shoot bursts of fire, for lack of a better word, and use culling beams to simply disappear people on the ground beneath them to be rematerialized later inside of their hives where they don't have a chance to fight back."

'Peoples of my galaxy', and they still weren't beating the vampires. That's sort of terrifying.

"Are the culling beams understood to be magic?"

"No they're technology, they operate on the same principles as ring transporters, Asgard beaming and to a lesser degree Stargates." 

"Interesting. There's not much magic in your galaxy, is there? Even your souls have less than normal."

"It's something of a matter of debate but most people who know about them consider psychic powers to be magic. And there isn't really another good way of describing the uh... ascended." Rodney, Sheppard and Teyla all wince slightly at the last word.

"...I owe you an explanation of that part. As far as I've ever heard, there are three humans at most who have ever transitioned from being made of flesh to magic. The imperial god Sigmar, possibly a goddess from even further south called Verena, and the First Necromancer, Nagash, who sacrificed whole cities to power his transformation. Unless you count Daemon Princes, former men who served Chaos loyally and thoroughly enough to be rewarded with mutating gift after gift until they got the ultimate reward of being made a daemon who cannot die. Those, there are hundreds of, and tens of thousands who attempted it and got turned into mindless gibbering horrors instead along the way. And they call it a couple things, but the 'path of glory' and 'path to ascension' are the main ones."

"That makes sense. It's always hard when there's that kind of overlap."

"It's come up a lot in your traveling?"

"It's not the most common kind of misunderstanding. But it's one of the more challenging ones to handle when it does. I think odd marriage practices happen more often and those are also thorny to untangle."

"Would giving examples be amusing, or annoying?"

"I haven't personally encountered them much. There was one particularly strange case where sharing a slice of cake was their equivalent of a marriage ceremony. Argos was tragic in other ways but my people fixed it."

Should he ask? Yeah, probably. "What was the problem in Argos?"

"A person named Pelops was experimenting on the people there at some point he left but he left behind a device that made people age unnaturally quickly. They were born, lived and died in just 100 days until we shut down the device."

"Gods watch over us. That's... well, I've heard things as bad in their own ways, but not obviously worse, and that's a nastily exclusive category."

"Yeah. It's one of the things that sticks with you."

"At least you fixed it. I wish I could say the same, but most horrors I've run into there was only one relief on offer." He touches his belt where a scabbard usually hangs.

"Yeah, I've had to do that a time or two myself. It's never a good feeling."

"Absolutely. Doesn't help to dwell on it, though... Are you all four from different parts of your galaxy?"

It's probably not useful to hide the truth here. "We're from two different galaxies actually. Teyla and Ronon are native to the Galaxy we call Pegasus which is where we all were before we arrived here. Rodney and I are from a different galaxy we call the Milky Way, it has its own threats but at least it doesn't have the Wraith."

"Better to have one thing at a time. And you moved between galaxies with those 'stargates'? Which aren't even magic?"

"We also have ships that can make the trip now, but yes we first did it via Stargate. As for whether they're magic, everyone tells me they're not but I wouldn't know if they were."

"Ha ha," Rodney says sarcastically. "The Stargates are an incredible piece of technology, we're at least decades if not a century from building any ourselves. We do understand a lot of what they do though, even if we're still working on the how."

"The dwarfs would hate it. Maybe not enough to keep them from studying it, but their craftsmen and Engineers are... obsessive, by human standards."

"Unfortunately, we're rather far behind in general so we get by with a mix of gifted tech and things we have either completely or incompletely reverse engineered. Nice as it would be to develop things from scratch our enemies won't wait around for us to do that."

"Humans are willing to do that. The dwarfs have the best technology in the world, but... in an emergency they'll field weapon designs that only had fifty years of testing instead of three hundred. If at least one master of the guild will speak for it."

"I rather doubt we'll get along then."

"Rodney."

"Yes, yes, I'll play nice if it comes to that."

"You'll want to try, eventually." In the optimistic scenario where this is all legitimate and we concede that it is. "If you want to repair, or make more of, your guns and equipment, they look more like dwarf-make than anything else. ...Also they have the only way of manipulating magic mechanically. Runesmiths trap it in metal and stone, and of course it's not complete until it works precisely the same way every time. There are men who approach them in a few endeavors but they're very good at what they do."

"I think Sheppard knows more about servicing our guns and how our ammunition is made but yes. It sounds like if there's any hope of safely getting home it'll need either their cooperation or maybe that of the Elves and you said they might just kill us."

"Well, there's trying to trap some Skaven warlock-engineers, but I think I mentioned how their devices tend to take out dozens of people nearby if they misfire. And corrupt the area with Chaos even when they work."

"I did say safely."

"Indeed. But at least they're not stodgy."

"That may be, but I'll take stodgy over hostile any day."

"Wise man. But yes, likely it would be the dwarfs. They're very resistant to magic and so worry less about hidden Chaos taint; if it's subtle enough to hide, it's usually far too subtle to affect them."

"I suppose that makes sense. I still haven't quite wrapped my head around the idea though."

"Should I give you the very short busy man's summary of how magic flows and pools, or will you just wait for the book?"

"I'm curious even if Rodney would prefer to wait. It sounds like important information for living here."

"Sure. So, magic flows. We call them the Winds because they're more like that than anything else. There are eight winds, each of which is attracted to a different thing - Chamon to metal, weight, and logical thought, Ghur to wild animals and sometimes savagery, Aqshy to fire, heat, and strong active emotions. They all come out of the Realm of Chaos at very high altitude, flowing through the upper atmosphere, but a few hundred miles north of here there's a long ridge, and as the ridge drops, so do they, like a waterfall - though Azyr, which likes the sky among other things, mostly stays up. It is dangerous to use more than one Wind, in your life, because magic used sticks to your soul - you have fainter souls than most people, I think, which probably is metaphysically interesting - and if more than one Wind mix, they turn to Dhar. Dhar does not flow. It pools, and it seeps into everything. It can empower any kind of magic, so it's very seductive, but it seeps into your soul even moreso. And Dhar is the essence of Chaos; it resists being controlled or told what to do. Every type of magic changes the soul, and through it the mind and body, but Dhar can do a great deal more, is much more likely to rip breaches into the Realm of Chaos and cause something entirely unexpected to happen, and generally cause problems for you and everyone nearby. Chaos-sworn sorcerers and beastmen bray-shamans aren't immune, but it's not nearly as bad for them."

"Which is a nice tidy model with four glaring outliers. Divine magic, generally understood to be filtered through the gods and use their own intelligence to protect us, but that's more or less fine. Necromancy, which is a form of Dhar mixed with Shyish, the wind of death, and behaves much like Dhar but not quite. And the Ice Witches. The Ice Witches use two types of magic, the Father's Lore of Storms and the Mother's Lore of Frost, both of which, by means which have certainly never been explained to me, turn the Winds into something else. I understand them to be in some way crystalized or filtered using the connection to the Ancient Widow, but it's quite secret. The main practical impact is that where a bad miscast for a Wind-Wizard might rip a hole into Za, the same thing for an Ice Witch will more often freeze the whole area, and a catastrophic one can freeze a whole battalion to ice instantly, the witch included. And Runesmithing, which traps the Winds and works entirely differently than any other form of enchantment."

"So magic comes from outside, both outside the self and somehow outside the world and then you draw it through yourself to use it. That sounds very different from my experience and the reports Sheppard has shown me. Where we come from such powers always come from within."

"Absolutely. There's an inborn gift some people have for seeing - or other senses - the winds, and if it's strong and trained, to touch and manipulate them, but even the best are just using outside power more flexibly and efficiently."

"Circling back to Runessmithing if it's so much more stable than other ways of using magic is there a reason only the Dwarves use it?"

"It's only permitted to a specific clan, the descendants of the ancestor who invented it, and they swear oaths never to teach it to anyone else when learning. Also it takes their characteristic excess of precision to be safe but we'd probably try anyway if they let us."

"Well that's inconvenient. I might be able to figure something out if I had examples to work from but if that will get them swearing oaths of revenge it might not be worth it."

"If you can actually learn without a teacher... I can't say they'll be happy, but they would be unlikely to declare a grudge. They do sometimes sell or gift runework to men, most of our greatest heirlooms are dwarf runesmiths returning favors owed. Best get one to explain dwarfen religion before trying, though. They worship their oldest ancestors as gods, missing but still out there living in material form somewhere."

"I admit I don't see the connection there but I can learn etiquette if that's what you mean."

"I don't, really, understand dwarf religious practice, but runesmiths are both clan and priests of Thungni and that probably matters to how much they'd be offended."

"Can you ask around and see if there's someone who does know more? Or I guess a dwarf that does if they wouldn't be likely to be offended by the question?"

"I can try, but I wouldn't be too optimistic. I don't think we have any flatland dwarfs in Erengrad and humans usually get confused by it; if it was important I'd want to be able to ask questions."

"That makes sense. I suppose any more detailed talk should wait until our quarantine period is finished. On a lighter note is there anywhere around the city you recommend visiting?"

"Frosthome, definitely. About as far away as you can get from here, in the city, but a living tower of ice is worth seeing. Probably the grand market, and maybe the Garden of Ursun."

"Those all sound interesting. I assume whoever will be escorting us will know where all those are?"

"Definitely. And it will probably be me escorting you, in any case."

"I'll look forward to the trip then. No rush on the exact timing I expect you have other responsibilities."

"My work is much like war. Short bursts of enormous stress and danger punctuating long periods of waiting. I might get pulled away suddenly if another investigation picks up a lead, but for the moment you four are my top priority."

"Ah, that makes sense things were more like that in some of my previous assignments. What time would be good tomorrow then?"

"I won't be far off, an hour or two past dawn would work fine. Or later if you'd prefer."

"How long is that from now? Cold climate tends to mean short days or else really long ones."

"It's late spring now, so that's, oh, nine hours, maybe ten?* It's Mesyavoyny**, about fifty days until the summer solstice. The last night where it got totally dark was a week ago, but we don't start needing to close the shutters at night for another three weeks***, and we're not far enough north that the sun stays above the horizon even at the solstice."

*It's just about sundown now.

**'Month-of-war'

***A week is eight days and the year is four hundred exactly. For the benefit of readers and possibly also characters who picked up the language through Stargate Nonsense.

"I think a bit later would be better then, it's been a long day but I don't know if we'll get to sleep promptly."

"That's fair enough. I'll come by later in the morning, then. Should I leave you to it?"

Everyone seems to have finished eating at this point. "I think so, apologies if there's a point of manners I'm ignorant on here."

"I'm sure if providing a house to foreign strangers but not letting them leave except under guard was common, we'd have etiquette of hospitality for it, but no, thankfully that's too rare for you to offend anyone. I'll see you tomorrow."

Sheppard chuckles at the joke. "Until then."

And once he's left Sheppard switches languages again and talks to his team. "Rodney, you're coming with me tomorrow, assuming that's alright with you and Ronon. How about you try to settle down soon I know you're not the best with early mornings. I'm pretty sure Teodor isn't going to double cross us but he's also not in charge so I want to keep to the buddy system."

"S' fine with me. None of those sounded exciting anyway."

"I suppose there might be interesting things at this market and regarding this living ice tower. Am I allowed to pull out the scanner or are we still keeping our toys hidden?"

"We've been open about having technology they don't but let's ask first before scanning stuff. They might be sensitive about it. If we have time in the morning you can take a baseline here might interesting to see if it can pick up this magic stuff."

"Good point, we wouldn't want to get the terrifying ice witch woman mad at us."

The team sets about winding down and preparing for bed. They agree on watches but they are as planned fairly discreet about it. And then it's morning. Do the staff seem inclined to make breakfast?

Breakfast? In this century?

They do set out a pot of herbal tea when the team gets up, though.

The team will eat some granola and plan to eat heavier at lunch. The tea is nice, is it caffeinated?

That is the local custom, yes. The tea is not, caffeinated tea or coffee are luxuries imported at great distance from Grand Cathay or Araby.

Then Rodney will mutter imprecations and swallow a small caffeine pill.

And the morning will be uneventful until Teodor shows up.

"Good morning. Anything amiss overnight?"

"No problems at all. The beds were nice too."

"Then I have no reason to wait before heading out."

"Before we go, Rodney has a scanning device, it's not magical but I'm also not sure if there's any etiquette about using such things."

"...Depends if it looks like a weapon or some kind of enchanted trinket or something else. Give me a look?"

Rodney opens his somewhat lighter backpack and pulls out a device.

It definitely doesn't resemble a weapon.

"More like a small book than anything, though the glowing surface is a little uncanny." And he doesn't see more than faint traces of Winds in it, though the Azyr is a surprise and it's more overall than a book or weapon would normally have.

"Be careful about pointing the narrow side at anyone, but I think it should be fine."

"I'll just be careful how I hold it then." He taps a few times at the device and then a few more. "You might be interested to know that there's several exotic sorts of radiation at levels I've never seen before here. Either that means there's something weird neither of us were expecting or it means that my device can detect these kinds of yours."

"I suppose that's optimistic for you being able to study it." And a little suspicious, but only a little. "Can you see the difference between the two of you and me?" 

Rodney plays with the device a bit more. "Yes, you seem to have a higher concentration of whatever I'm detecting than we do. Is that what you meant by us having, ah, fainter souls is I think the words you used?"

"It is. It makes sense coming from a world that isn't saturated in magic, I suppose, that you'd have less. I'm somewhat curious if you'll accumulate more from spending time here, but I have no idea how long that would take."

"I guess we'll have to find out. I'll keep an eye on that."

"I suppose we can head out, then?"

"I can't think of anything else we need to cover so yes."

"Right. Then let's go."

One other guard comes with, but neither guard is acting on edge. Maybe curiously, they're both wearing brown coats instead of black today, and not projecting 'intimidating'.

They head out west and north - "Our destinations are about due north from here, but the river's at its widest point so there aren't direct bridges and I'm choosing the route further from the elves." - through a district that wouldn't be called a slum but clearly is poor.

The people are mostly a slightly different ethnicity. Darker skin, darker, bushier hair, eyes slightly narrower. Shorter, if that's not just malnutrition. Some of the guards at the townhouse were from that race but most of them were the 'whiter' type, as are Teodor and the other one with them.

"Makes sense."

The skin tone thing is a slightly uncomfortable parallel but it's none of his business. Apparently they're acting as the equivalent of plainclothes officers.

Rodney discretely checks his scanner a couple times as they walk.

Not much on the scanner; people have souls, the balance of energies changes frequently in space and time. If it's tracking population statistics about the people he might notice something eventually.

As they get closer to the mouth of the river and slowly veer north, the distant sound of metal on metal and faint smell of fire and gunpowder will creep in. From further west. Also they'll see a narrow island to the north and a larger one to the northeast.

"Is this some sort of industrial district?"

"We're passing near the cannonworks; most ship cannons for this part of the sea are made and sold here. I'd rather pass it by."

Not that he expects it would actually be risky in any way to let these people with extremely sophisticated guns and near-magic scanner-books to see the current state of cannon production in Kislev, but if he was wrong he would feel very stupid and have to defend it to his lady and his tzarina.

"I would be surprised if you did. Seems reasonable to keep people under suspicion away from weapons foundries."

"Indeed. It's not like you'd learn much, I'm sure."

As they get closer the neighborhood gets better-off, and slightly more Gospodar (the whiter people). Also there's a much wider swathe of people of completely different nationalities. European-looking, almost universally, mostly the German-Austrian-Dutch cluster but there's some French and Spanish and a handful of Italians and Greeks. Nearly all of them sailors but a few look like merchants and some are sooty and smell like they've come from the gunworks.

They'll get pretty close before they turn due north along a boulevard and then a bridge. The narrow island looks significantly more wealthy, and up ahead the bigger island is both much more built-up and wealthier still.

Cities having wealthier and poorer areas is pretty much inevitable as far as John knows. Atlantis doesn't but that isn't really a fair comparison it was all built at once as far as he knows.

"This island is the old city, where most of the city government and royal influence sits. We can cut through the cloth market, if you want to see the oldest architecture; some of it dates back to before the conquest and founding."

"Sounds interesting. How long ago are we talking?"

"Nearly a thousand years now. 992 years from Tzarina Shoika's crowning is this summer solstice. Erengrad was conquered earlier that year, and the cloth market's mostly in Norvard, the Ungol city it was built from."

He guides them slightly east; there's another set of walls around this core city, which do not look ceremonial, though they're only very lightly manned.

"That's a long history there." Not too long compared to some places in Europe or China let alone Atlantis but he's American, they don't have nearly that kind of history.

The walls are a little weirder but they're not that different from the fences around important government buildings back home. 

"The Empire's twice as old, though they've had some very long civil wars and I'm not sure it's continuous in any sense other than the elector's weapons of office and their allegiance to Sigmar."

They pass through a gate, where the big gold coin comes out of a pocket briefly and gets them waved through.

This is a wealthy area, and much more the darker-skinned group (Ungols) than the Gospodar. The buildings are mostly not incredibly old, but the style is distinctly different; none of the onion domes and more curving roofs and rounder buildings which evoke a tent.

So he was wrong about wealth being strongly divided on ethnic lines. "Interesting building style."

"It's one of the few built-up places which is still mostly Ungol; most of them are still in the north and nomadic, or in tiny stanitsas; the other cities and towns are mainly Gospodar. Most of this isn't ancient, of course, but they match the style where they can."

There's still a lot of foreigners in the cloth market, and a lot of variation in the products.

He looks over the fabrics. He's expecting a mix of both higher and lower quality fabrics than back home but generally in relatively low amounts.

"Makes sense people tend to care a lot about preserving their culture."

It's a lot by contemporary standards, but yes, not relative to anyone with the Jacquard loom.

"In most ways we're one country, but yes, there are still large differences in other ways. The boyars* like it that way."

Going along the inside of the inner walls takes them east and north, into another district where the foreigners are rarer and the buildings more of a mix of styles, less rich (about like the small island) and still mostly Ungol.

*Hereditary nobility, as opposed to nominally-elected ones or the tzars

"I'm not surprised politics is like that."

"We're still better than some. Most, even. And the tzarina has been trying to elevate some of the Ungols to power, which would help. But it's not a place I'm proud of us."

They approach another gate and a lot more of the French-looking guys show up. Most are in relatively poor health even by the standards of those around them. A few have chainmail and steel helmets, better health, escorts of several others looking servile, and some of the haughtiest expressions you've ever seen.

"Speaking of the 'most', we're passing the Bretonnian Quarter now. It's mostly their lower classes who serve on ships and get here, but you can recognize the few nobility demonstrating their legal right to wear plate armor. Even when there's no danger nearby to make it useful."

"I wouldn't expect plate armor to be that useful with guns around. I suppose you don't have armor piercing rounds if you're still using muskets though."

"Rodney."

"Right, sorry. It's not like I explained how to make them or anything though."

"Guns are illegal in Bretonnia. Even cannons. The code of chivalry forbids them to knights, and peasants aren't allowed to manufacture things."

"That seems like it might backfire if the enemies you told us about are also theirs. Though I guess you did say that sometimes guns are less effective than they should be."

"I'm sure it does, but our enemies rarely have guns. And, to be fair: discounting the elves, Bretonnian knights are indisputably the world's best heavy cavalry. Their horses are treated better than their peasants, and their nobles do nothing but pray and train. Even before they earn the personal blessings of their goddess and live for centuries, they may only have one trick but it hits like cannonfire."

"Ah, living for centuries and endlessly practicing does sound like a good way to get very skilled at something."

"It's not that many of them that get it, but striving to achieve it is a cultural obsession. Also their horses were probably interbred with the elven magebred lines and pegasi, I assume that helps."

"Pegasi? You mean you have real flying horses? What does it mean for a horse to be part Pegasus?"

"Oh yes. Supposedly the Druchii have a bat-winged flesh-eating kind as well. Intensely magical, of course, everything larger than an albatross that flies is. I'd guess the heritage makes them lighter on their hooves and slower to tire, but it's subtle enough that I couldn't say. Maybe also making them cleverer and picky about their riders, but that may just be unicorns."

"We have myths about unicorns and pegasi on our world it's a very odd coincidence that they're real here. I guess flying horses could just be an artifact of translation but unicorns are stranger. Our myths say they're creatures of exceptional purity with a preference for morally pure people. Some of the stories also have them care about whether people have had sex but I don't know how common that is. I haven't read about the myths in depth. Oh and of course they have one long horn growing out of their forehead above their eyes. How similar are the real ones here?"

"...Much too similar for coincidence. They almost always reject men as riders and strongly prefer female mages, but there are no stories of any of those turning to the bad; fighting others who ride unicorns, sometimes, but not falling to corruption magical or mundane. Evil magic is said to roll off them and their riders like water, because of, yes, their purity."

"The preferring women to men is part of our legends too. I wonder where the common thread is. If our world actually did have those things I'm pretty sure it doesn't have them anymore and nobody's found evidence. On the other hand, it's possible that someone who knew our legends somehow had a hand in shaping your world. We also have stories about Elves and Dwarfs though there have been enough variations that I couldn't guess at whether a match is actually meaningful."

"If someone had a hand in shaping our world I would very much like to confront them and issue some complaints. If not some bullets."

"Ah, yes I suppose that would be fair."

"Leaving aside anger at our possibly-existent and almost certainly absent creator. It could also go the other way, our people occasionally finding their way to your world and bringing legends with them."

"Ah yes, we've established that travel between is possible. If there is a pattern, it's a good sign that there's a way for us to get home."

"What can be done by accident with magic can usually be done on purpose eventually, though getting there is unsafe enough it's rarely tried. I hope it works."

"Thank you, I hope it does too." Rodney is humble enough not to assert it will. This is after all an entirely unfamiliar field he has no grounding in. Some humility is in order here.

And on that optimistic note, here's the far shore of the island and their bridge.

"We'll be in the Grand Market as soon as we cross the bridge. They don't mind browsers who aren't buying, but don't interfere with anyone who is. And beware pickpockets, obviously."

"I'll keep an eye out." Sheppard agrees.

"Joy, pickpockets." Rodney briefly checks his pockets and moves anything important to ones with zippers.

As promised, the market is pretty grand. Lots of things are for sale; weapons, rugs, tapestries, tea, coffee, highly-guarded small magical trinkets, and many samples of other goods which the hawkers promised were present in much larger quantities nearby.

Also, a lot of buyers and sellers are... kind of shady. Constantly looking for people at their back, sizing people up as targets when they're not looking. No one seems to actually be attacking anyone, but it looks like they're constantly expecting attacks. Not the natives, generally, the foreigners.

That puts Sheppard on his guard more than the warning about pickpockets did. "A lot of people seem on edge."

"Pirates, mostly. They don't often pick fights here, it's a free port and they don't want to lose it."

"Huh, I don't think we have those, or maybe we do but they're just in other nations I'm not as familiar with."

"Free ports? It's not common, but for Kislev it was the solution to a puzzle. We're here at the eastern edge of the Sea of Claws, and its whole north bank is Norscans, who mostly worship Chaos and all raid over the sea. Kislev's coast is poor and barely worth raiding, so patrol ships are hard to justify, but we still need warning if they're massing in large numbers. Several generations ago, a tzar - probably a tzarina, actually, this is an Ice Witch decision if I ever heard one - decided to make use of the pirates, who are very unwelcome everywhere along both the north bank and the south, which the Empire defends heavily, but sail the Sea anyway to raid raiders and Marienburg, the port where the Sea opens up to the Great Ocean, which is the richest human port in the world. So they, and even some Norscans, have the freedom of Erengrad, as long as they don't get caught raiding Kislev, worshiping Chaos, or committing treason against the tzar. As long as they pay the docking fee, which is a modest charge in gold and a thorough account of recent sightings of ships in the Sea."