The temple person is wearing a brown robe with black accents and using his Umbra form. He might be young, most people look fairly young in this world but he acts like it. He has that reaction that people have when they learn of his current mortal status. Alarmed with a whole lot of pity.

"Oh, of course! Blessing from the gods. This is a temple to Umbra," he points to a pair of statues, one he already might recognize as the Ventari deity, meaning that the other is the Umbra deity, "we have an Umbra pool to which you can get in on the waiting list. Do you mind sitting while I talk about the other forms and where you can get them?"

"Certainly," Garrus says. He folds his wings and sits. 

The young cleric explains that Ventari is the form granted by the god of the same name who saved them from the machinations of the evil Voragera deity that caused the water to harm people. He is probably going about a bit much on the mythological side of things, but he does explain that Voragera forms resemble fish much in the same way that Ventari resemble birds. Umbras follow the underlining humanoid pattern - some people compare them to nocturnal animals but the cleric says they are incorrect - with the marking traits of deep-blue skin, vivid usually-golden-eyes, fine black hair, sharper senses and make immediate shadows more pronounced.

"I definitely want an Umbra form."

He's kind of curious about Voragera forms, too - the Turian inability to swim has bitten him in the ass on more than one occasion. But he gets the feeling that this priest is not going to be a great source on that kind of thing.

"What are the other forms besides those three?"

There are many! He has seen a lot of people with the Brontos form (purple-or-blue skin often-white-hair, often-yellow-eyes and capable of shocking people with a touch) and Aestes form (red skin, fireproof and breath fire), because they are pretty common around the region. There is also Petram form that comes with small plates around their bodies and horns made of stone-like material, they are quite durable. Adamets have iris, hair, nails and scars that look made of metal. Hiberas have white-or-blue skins with white fur around their bodies and elongated canines.There is various art around the temple that provide some visual aid. Those are the common forms that he can find in this broader region, but foreigners have their own different forms some of which he has spotty knowledge. There is a gray-ish one that's supposed to be anti-magic and generally resistant. Far up north they have a plant-themed form. There is supposed to be a light-themed form that compliments Umbra's form, but it might just be a legend.

"Huh. And- this might be a strange question, but are these forms - discovered, somehow? Do the pools occur naturally, or are they created?"

"The gods created the pools and gave up a piece of themselves to do so, which is why the forms are the same as the gods," this is said with the self-assured wisdom of someone that's part of a clergy in a pre-industrial society. "Though people debate if the gods are still creating new pools or if we are finding them in places no one checked before."

"I see. And- one last question, if that's alright. Are people born with magic, or do they gain it like forms? If the latter, where would I get some for myself?"

"Oh. A bit of both? Individual forms can die and when they do you automatically shift into another. If you do it right, and it isn't that hard to do it right if you're careful, the form that died is 'feed' to the form you shift into and become a mage power tied to that form. There are also people called shift-dancers which are born with some magical power that usually affects all their forms and is often, but not always a meta power. There was someone who could broadcast their pain no matter what form they were and someone who can retain the sensory aspects of a power regardless of their form. Sometimes it's negative, like Nana Yana, who didn't get the de-aging aspect of shifting but her aging was slowed down and her magical powers got stronger as the form got older. Shift-dancers can shift forms faster and less painfully and they are born with their abilities."

"Sounds like a pretty good deal for them. I don't suppose you can reacquire forms you've sacrificed?"

Headshake. "It's not impossible that someone got a mage power for that, but I haven't heard of it. That's the sort of thing only a shift-dancer with the right dance can do."

"Inconvenient. Still, I think I like the sound of this magic. Are there temples of Brontos and Aestes in town as well, or would I need to find pools on the surface?"

"Not in town, but most pools have temples," he gives the location of some sufficiently close pool-temples for the relevant shapes.

He gets on the waiting list for the Umbra form. Time passes, as it does, and he spends 24 hours sitting in a pool of acid, as he must. (To pass the time, he sets up a program for his omni-tool to remotely play an audiobook over his auditory implants. He gets through the first three Harry Potter books, which Shepard had occasionally referenced. He kind of likes them.)

He loves the Umbra form. He's a sniper at heart; flying is nice, but enhanced senses and the ability to accumulate shadows is just delightful. If he ever gets back home, he'll be an one hell of an assassin.

If the Reapers haven't killed everybody already.

Even that thought can't dampen his spirits for long. He wants to see about getting magic. He takes the hike to the nearest Brontos temple and asks about their waiting list.

This temple accepts donations for people to get higher on the waiting list. Which otherwise takes month. He can make the money with a couple of monster bounties. Helping him with sacrificing the form to get magic is free.

Bribery! Excellent. Reminds him of good times on Omega, of which there were none.

Most bounties are easy, now that he's gotten the hang of using a sniper rifle while flying. He makes a generous donation to the temple.

"Just to clarify," he asks before he goes into the pool, "how's this sacrifice business going to work?"

"Once you have the form you're going to take you to another room. In this temple we prefer using a magical poison that's easily burned off by shifting into another form, but can kill a form if left unchecked for a few minutes. It causes paralysis which can be disconcerting but changing will fix everything. Remember to shift into the form that you want to empower or the power is going to be stuck to whatever form you didn't mean to shift into."

"So, wait until paralysis sets in, then shift Umbra. Got it. Will I know right away what power I got?"

"Yes. You might not be good at using it right away. Don't test it inside the temple."

He strips and enters the pool for another 36 hours of searing agony and pre-spaceflight Earth literature. (He likes this Harry kid. Kind of reminds him of an adolescent, male Shepard. Mostly the chronic inability to obey direct orders from authority figures.)

Once he emerges from the pool, looking very purple and feeling faintly ridiculous, he gets dressed, goes into the adjoining room, and drinks the poison. Paralysis sets in pretty quickly, and he shifts to Umbra as he feels death approaching. 

The change is meaningfully different, not painful, but he feels something inside him wither and melt away. When he takes the Umbra form it's like the broken pieces off the last one came along and burn inside his veins... and now he has a power. There is a sensory component, which tells him about the flow of electric currents and their location relative to him. But that's not all, the currents feel like something he could pull without touching.

Hell yes.

He thanks the temple staff for their help and heads out to test this power.

There aren't a ton of electrical currents to work with in this world, which is moderately inconvenient. But he's got enough copper in his backpack to construct a basic circuit to test out this "pulling" thing. So he sets up a current, and he pulls.

The pull attracts nearby ambient electricity and it burst out and through his basic circuit.

It's like having Overload back! Except it can probably target organics!

He reclaims the copper, then checks in with the Aestes temple. Do they also take, ahem, donations?

What an offensive to propose!

(Yes, under the table.)