Kaja's swordstaff decapitates a zombie as Ragnar swoops down. She hears teeth scrape against the metal of her armored boot, but they don't get enough purchase to crunch through, and Ragnar's up again, wheeling for a better strafing angle. There's only three left. She barks commands to her griffin and he banks, flaps, dives.
"You probably are not going to wind up a paladin. Most novices start no older than age ten."
"A lot of us are drawn from an orphanage that the Order has ties to. So the training program is designed for children."
"No, some people do come in later, you'd just have to go through the program alongside a lot of ten-year-olds."
"And the ten year olds aren't accustomed to being - I mean, novices get a lot of the scut work, you know?"
"Yeah. So it wouldn't be all straightforward essentials on how to paladin, you'd be darning socks and washing dishes and mucking stables in between learning to handle a swordstaff and ride your mount and do your devotionals."
"I think, for now, I'll politely decline. Maybe I'll change my mind later, but - those don't sound very appealing."
The door opens, revealing a woman in a surcoat but no underlying armor. She's got to be at least eighty. "Kaja. And guest. Come in."
"Yes Sister. Sister, this is Darren, and he is from another country and has come here accidentally by magic. He can hold a token - show her your token - and he is a mage, but a new one and not the kind we're used to."
"It's nice to meet you," he says, pleasantly.
"Can you get home?" inquires the Sister.
"I - got myself here, so I think I can, but I arrived here by accident. So it will take some work to get home."
"Well, I was planning on making and distributing helpful magical scrolls to paladins and other helpful people. If I'm here a really long time, I can start teaching people how to create spells of their own, but copying ones I make and repeating my chants is pretty straightforward, even without knowledge of how it works."
"This would be of great value, especially if healing a victim of an undead attack can prevent them from rising themselves later on," says the Sister.
"It could save their life, certainly, but I'm - not used to dealing with dark things and undead. I don't know how their attacks would interact with my magic."
"If a zombie bites a living person - who isn't a paladin or protected by a mage - they soon die, even from a superficial wound, and become a zombie themselves," Kaja explains.
"... Oh. Okay, yes, I really need to find out if my healing spells can manage to prevent that."
"I believe," says the Sister, "I would like a list of what you can do, and what materials you require to do it, and what sort of accommodations one of your kind must have."
"Peryton, Sister," says Kaja, "is what he called it."