Kaja wipes zombie gunk off her swordstaff on the grass. "Where did you come from?" she calls back. "And what manner of creature are you?" She clucks Ragnar to her side and produces a handkerchief and starts cleaning gook off his beak.

"Earth," he squeaks. "United States, Washington. I'm uh - a peryton? Aheh. Am I on Earth, please still be on Earth..."

"Nnnot a dark thing," he says, carefully, and he lands. He tucks his wings back where they came from (they disappear neatly) and starts riffling through his pockets for something. "C'mon, c'mon, please, I am obsessive about preparation, I should have i- yes!" He cackles, as he retrieves a - little book. "I am not screwed!"

"I am Kaja di Ragnar," she mentions, "Paladin of the Order of Winter Light, at your service, and who might you be?"

"What is a runecaster?"

"A person that draws runes to do magic." Pause. "Do you have magic? Your friend over there doesn't have a medallion, but considering he's a griffon, I'm kind of figuring that you've got some? Somewhere? The zombies were also a clue."

Kaja scritches Ragnar under the chin. "I'm blessed of the Winter Light but am no mage. Ragnar is only an ordinary griffin, apart from being mine. And the zombies were once men and women that died under a dark moon and were not buried with the proper safeguards."

"Yyyyours?" questions Darren, unnerved. "Um. Pardon me, what? You own him?"

"I wouldn't prefer to describe it that way. He's my mount and my boon companion and my guide to the Winter Light."

"Not as such? He's as blessed as I, he's certainly smarter than a horse or a dog. But he doesn't speak or philosophize or contemplate his own existence. Are griffins made differently in your land?"

"They are people. That are sentient and talking and capable of philosophy and contemplation of existence and - well, just happen to also be griffins." He peers at Ragnar. "He looks like a griffin."

"He is," she says. Scritch scritch. Ragnar caws. "It would certainly be interesting if he could talk to me, but we get along without. How did you get here?"

"I um. Was trying to make a teleportation spell." He coughs. "It worked. Just - not - apparently I missed and got 'plane shift' instead of 'teleportation.' Or something."

"I have never heard of such a thing happening to a mage, but I've never had much contact with them," muses Kaja. "Will you prefer to make your own way or do you want to follow me and Ragnar to the city?"

"Following, going to go with following, I am really not ready for - um. Fighty things. And then I'll work on trying to get home."

"How far will your wings carry you at a stretch?"

"In - what measurement? Actually, wait, no, how are we speaking the same language?"

"The Winter Light allows it. You'll have trouble with non-paladins."

"Okay. Great. That's - that's great. I am going to channel my inner duckling and follow you around, or another paladin that can translate if you find strange, otherworldly creatures freaky. Uh - on flying, pretty far, but I'm not sure on the specifics because I haven't had to fly long distances before. Probably a few hundred miles?"

Darren tries not to think about how heavy an armored paladin would be. Answer - probably heavy. Poor griffin. He shifts fullform, and follows. He is now a winged stag. Kaja might find this a little freaky.

Kaja says, "Can all of your kind change the way you do?"

"Yes and no. I'm doing it by a magical medallion that lets me assume human form. That's the standard for mythical creatures, with exceptions for natural shapeshifters and certain species that don't have medallions. There's - another method for perytons specifically, but um. It's kind of terrible and I don't ever want to use it."

"By what measure are you mythical?" wonders Kaja.

"By - human standards. Perytons and griffins and the like are thought to be myths. So, mythical."

"But here you are," she says. "And none too reticent about your nature. How can they think it?"

"Uh. Well, it's - the medallion is there for a reason, the mythical creatures are all kind of - in hiding. It's very depressing, actually, I would like for it to stop."

"So why not show yourself?" she asks.

"Because I'm worried about how humans would react to another sentient species showing up. It's - not guaranteed to be good, and there's only one of me."

"You're not a dark thing - you said, and I believe you, I think - and you're a mage."

"I'm not a dark thing. We - don't have those at home. Humans at large think that the world is without magic entirely, and that they're the only sentient species on the planet. So learning that both magic and other sentients exist would be rather frightening for them and cause some upheavals, and while yes, I'm a 'mage,' I'm not - all powerful."

"An entire world clean of dark things? How?"

"I mean. We have - evil? There are bad people, still, I've met a few. But no zombies that I know of."

"Zombies aren't the only dark thing."

"Oh? Okay, then - what are the other dark things...?"

"There are other sorts of undead things, and woken shadows, and imps, and tainted beasts or sometimes people."

"I think there are - probably creatures that match some of those descriptions. We have demons for sure. So, I guess those would count as 'dark things.' But they don't show up very often and angels will tend to take care of them when they do."

"We have no angels. Just us paladins."

"Oh. Well. Um. You were doing a pretty good job from what I saw?"

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Iiii would probably just spend all of my time screaming in a higher pitch than I should be capable of, when facing down creatures of the dark."

"Well, the service isn't for everyone, certainly."

"My sister would probably be good at it."

"There is more to it than killing zombies," says Kaja, "but perhaps."

"Maybe just the killing zombies part. Since I don't know what else your job entails?"

"Griffins take a fair amount of maintenance - so do all the other possible mounts - and Ragnar's my sole responsibility. I have church duties and have to keep my vows and between missions there is training and prayer and reflection."

"What are the vows, if you don't mind me asking?"

"It's not a secret. In the order of the Winter Light we take vows of obedience, chastity, piety, and service, while we're active."

"... Well. Nevermind the paladin bit for my sister, she would be - bad at most of those."

"Like I said, not for everyone."

"It depends on the things."

"Well, I'm - mostly asking because if I am going to be stuck here until I can figure out how to get home, I might as well try and figure out a way to - aim my magic to try and stop the dark things from appearing."

"Well, I recommend starting by not using it to make or summon any, since sometimes mages bring them about."

"... How would making them or summoning them help in any way?"

"You might have to ask a mage who has done it," says Kaja.

"Okay, well, I don't know how to either make them or summon them, so, good news, even if I wanted to, I couldn't manage it without a lot of work. I was thinking more like - why do they happen, and is there a way to stop it from happening?"

"When it isn't mages, they sometimes arise or intrude on their own."

"Under what conditions? Do you know?"

"When I find dark things I am generally focused on killing them and not on the details of how they got there. So, only vaguely."

"Well, ideally, you find out what conditions cause them to arise or intrude, and then work very hard to make sure that those are prevented. A - cure for the ills, instead of treating the symptoms. Mind you, treating the symptoms is really useful and I'm not - disrespecting your job, I just - er. Would like for you to not need to do it."

"Unemploying myself is not my specialty," she snorts.

He snickers a very deerish laugh. "Fair!"

"The city's skyline can be seen from here," she says, pointing ahead to a settlement that is medievally devoid of skyscrapers but quite respectably steepled and sprawling.

"Ah, pretty," observes Darren, eyeing it. Yup, that's medieval technology all right. He is officially in a D&D setting. He continues to be okay with this. "Is anyone going to be weird about me being a peryton, or will they shrug it off as mages being magic?"

"If you land looking as you do you will be taken for a paladin's companion, although you're a bit small to carry an armored warrior," she says. "If you only sprout wings as you first did this may be written off as magery, and if you simply describe yourself as a peryton, ordinary people may think you are lying or a curiosity. I can give you a Winter Light token to carry when we arrive at my Order if you fear being taken for a dark thing."

"If you are a dark thing," she adds, "the token will burn you, and if you are going to be startled by that, I would rather fight you here than in the city."

"That's fair. But I am really quite certain I'm not a dark thing. Shall we land, then, and test my status?"

"The Order's enclave is there," she says, pointing at a white wall-circled group of rather churchy-looking buildings set around a flourishing courtyard. There are people and large mount-sized quadrupeds milling about. "I will give you your token, and then if you aren't burned I'll need a short while to stable Ragnar properly before I see what's next to be done with you."

"And if I am burned, you - uh, stab me with a sharp object. Right, no pressure."

Kaja raises an eyebrow. "Well, with the luxury of being in the middle of the enclave I might try to capture you, instead, but I will feel entirely free to stab you if you are a dark thing."

"That's very cheerful."

"I'm a paladin, not a philosopher. Dark things get stabbed."

"I believe you. But I am pretty sure I'm not a dark thing."

"I doubt very much that you are dark," she agrees. "Dark things would likely not follow a paladin straight to her enclave after catching her alone."

"Yeah. That. That's the sort of thing that gets dark things killed, I'm guessing?"

"Oh yes."

"Exciting. Well, no point in procrastinating about it. Lead on, let's prove that I am definitely not a dark thing."

Kaja directs Ragnar into a neat landing in the courtyard outside the stable, dismounts, bids him stay, and plucks from the outer wall of the stable a string of gray flat stones, pierced to turn them into beads and marked with white etchings of snowflakes. She unties the end, pulls off one stone, reties and replaces the string, and - one hand on her swordstaff - tosses the rock to Darren.

"Very good. Wait there, hold that, I'll put Ragnar away and take you to the Bright Sister."

"Sure," he agrees, tucking his wings away. "Uh. Is there any sort of - she sounds important, is there a way I should act?"

"Call her Sister, don't be rude," says Kaja. "You've taken no vows beyond that."

"Okay. I try not to be rude anyway. Thanks!"

Darren follows her, glancing around curiously and trying to figure out if he needs to dual-class into paladin or stick with being a runecaster. Probably stick with being a runecaster, he still does want to get home.

"Normally I'd take off my armor but I don't want to leave you standing around," Kaja says. In they go to a building and down a hall. "Are you likely to be able to earn your keep or are you a charity case?"

"That really depends on what 'earning my keep' defines. I can do magic things? Like - making scrolls for paladins, or teaching people how to do my kind of magic themselves."

"Scrolls that do what?"

"Uhh... the things I can definitely do with a scroll - invisibility, shielding, healing - that one would need multiple types of scrolls, considering how many things people can get hurt by - and some more actively offensive things, but I'm a little nervous about handing a scroll that sets things on fire to people I technically barely know."

"We're paladins," says Kaja.

"And there aren't any paladins running around where I'm from," points out Darren, reasonably. He doesn't bring up the ones from gaming. That would just be embarrassing and confusing for Kaja.

She shrugs. "Well, you'll want to talk to Sister about that, I guess."

"Yeah. The healing and shielding scrolls I'll make for you guys all day, though."

"We can heal ourselves and our mounts, but if they could work on other people..."

"They can work on other people," he agrees. "Probably easier for them to, honestly, it's a bit hard to say a chant when you're bleeding out, I imagine."

"Will our language gift interfere?"

"That - depends on how it works. How does it work?"

"...The Winter Light grants that we can speak to anyone in its service?"

"I mean - mechanically. You sound like you're speaking English to me, are you actually speaking another language and is it translating for you? Did it give you knowledge on how to speak English? Can you purposely speak another language, even if it doesn't sound like you are to me?"

"Oh. I just think of what I want to say to you and the words come to me, and when you speak I understand you directly. If we have to speak to mixed crowds our voices can overlay."

"... We'll have to test that. It - sounds like it would work, since you're actually speaking English, but I don't know. Technically you can chant in your native language, but it has - effects. Strange, unpredictable effects."

"We can only do this to people," she mentions. "If no one's around I just speak Cirth."

"Oh. Then that'll be fine. Do you know languages that aren't Cirth, or is there a way you can hear what I say in English as English instead of translated? Writing it down, maybe?"

"I can hear you," she says. "I just understand you instead of - not. I don't know any second languages."

"Then I can come up with the chant in English and relay it to you to say. Good, that's convenient."

"Okay, good."

"Yeah." Pause. "Actually - can you translate things I say to Cirth, too? That would make figuring out my own chants a lot easier."

"I imagine we could do that, yes."

"Then let's do that. If - er, you're willing to?"

"I don't have anything else to do until Sister finishes her devotions and opens the door, although usually that sounds like the sort of thing an initiate would do."

"Well, it wouldn't be right now, I haven't - I don't have any spells or scrolls ready to need chants for, and the chant is the last thing you do once you've drawn the runes themselves."

"Oh. We don't currently have any mages associated with the Order," she mentions. "I don't know if it's something Sister will want to do."

"Because mages - summon and make dark things?"

"Not all of them do that. But they just - work in a very different way from paladins."

"Well, I - don't know the way paladins work, aside from killing zombies. But, for my magic, it takes a lot of time commitment up front and good puzzle-solving ability."

"Being a paladin takes the time commitment but not the puzzle thing... We don't really employ a lot of support workers, it's all paladins and novices and retired paladins."

"Huh. All right. Well, luckily I can do the main work of creating a spell and the chant for it only once, and then just copying it as many times as I like by hand, whether it's mine or someone else's. So my magic is very good support workers."

"You aren't a prisoner here in particular, you know, you could set up somewhere else if you wanted to practice magery separately or if Sister doesn't want to bunk you in the enclave or if it turns out paladins and mages still don't work well together even when it's you... If you show a moneylender the spells I'm sure you could get a loan."

"Yes, I know, but - um. If paladins committed to helping people and saving people from 'dark things' I kind of want to give you first grabs at the new magic type so you can use it for rescuing and healing people after fighting dark things. If you are assuredly not evil. You aren't evil or careless or anything, but you're an individual, I don't know your group itself."

"We're not evil!" she exclaims. "We're paladins - if we break our oaths the Winter Light leaves us."

"So I need to - judge whether or not the Winter Light is, in itself, a force of good that I can support."

"I'm not in the least sure Sister is going to like you," remarks Kaja.

"I'm not - calling your order terrible, I'm just - being thorough. I am in a strange place, with strange people, dealing with large-scale organizations that I have had literally no dealings with prior to today, and have only had introductions to through one person. If the Winter Light is genuinely what you say it is, then I am going to work very hard to make sure that it can send people with upgraded equipment, not because I'm begging for a place to stay, but because it's the right thing to do, and then try to find out if there's a way for dark things to stop existing entirely. So if she doesn't like me, and tells me to shoo from this place for not immediately believing you and trusting in something I've had no interaction with in my life, then - I go throw lots of healing scrolls around and start up a magic school, I suppose, and try to help people out that way."

"Well, how do you want it proved?"

"Observation, asking people that are not associated with your order for their opinions, talking to other paladins and learning what their methods are. That kind of thing."

"Paladins are not accustomed to having our - non-evilness questioned," she warns.

"... To the point where it's insulting?"

"Well, non-paladins impersonating paladins is a hanging offense, so they might also think you were threatening them."

"Oh," says Darren. Pause. "Sorry for accidentally insulting and or threatening you."

"I'm all right, just - I don't think anyone would like it if you went around quizzing the other paladins, let alone Sister."

"Right. No quizzing, then."

"I think I see where you're coming from, so - if you want to ask me questions you can..."

"Thanks. Uh - are dark things universally evil?"

"Sort of tautologically, yes. Not all of them get the chance to do much before we get them."

"Okay, and - are they different brands of evil? If so, what are they?"

"What do you mean brands...? Like, a lich and a woken shadow have very different abilities."

"I mean - there are multiple ways to do things that I consider evil. There's - straight up murdering innocent people, which is pretty obvious, but then there are things like convincing other people to murder innocent people, or breaking someone psychologically while leaving them otherwise unharmed - that sort of thing."

"Liches sometimes torture people. A zombie just eats them. An imp might take over their mind, a woke shadow does nightmares and whispers things to people who can't get them to leave them alone."

"Oh, charming. Yes, those guys need to go away. Do paladins just fight dark things, or occasionally people that do evil things, too?"

"We aren't allowed to kill human beings, so we have to be very careful if we try to fight them, and reserve it for situations where we're sure we can stop them without killing them or are willing to give up our blessings to do it."

"Well, some of the undead can still speak."

"But they're - dark things, right? I mean things that are not dark, but aren't human and can still think and speak and philosophize."

"Imps can speak too - no, it's only humans and animals and dark things."

"... So technically killing me is okay?"

"Well, I don't know if it would make me stop being a paladin, but I'm not going to do it if you don't hurt anyone."

"Thanks. I meant for causing you to stop being a paladin, I kind of figured you weren't going to kill me by now."

"Yeah, I don't know. I've never heard of a peryton before today."

"I feel special. Also, kind of glad I'm not a griffin, no offense to griffins, but it would be weird if people could mistake me for a mount."

"I mean, other orders far away use different creatures we don't have this far north, I wouldn't be stunned if some of them looked like you..."

"... Oh, that'll be fun. Okay, probably should not hang out in fullform that much, I don't want to impersonate a paladin, or a paladin's mount."

"Impersonating a mount is not a hanging offense."

"Heh. I'll avoid it, anyway. Spirit of the law instead of just the lettering of it, and all."

"I'm pretty sure the law is to protect people from false assertions that somebody's not a disguised dark thing, or false promises that a paladin is there to protect them and by the way would you like to make donations to the Order, neither of which a mount could do."

"Aha. Well, then - I will probably still avoid being in fullform that often, because can you imagine some of the explanations? 'Ah, a paladin's mount, one must be nearby!' 'Actually, no, I'm a peryton and also I can talk and shapeshift and am not a dark thing.' 'Aaah! MAGIC!'"

She giggles.

"Besides. Opposable thumbs? Pretty great."

"I use mine every day."

"Me too. Hooves are really not good for writing. Or making tea. Or opening doors."

"I bet they aren't. Of course, if you did have a paladin then he or she could do those things for you."

"Yeah, but I like being self reliant."

"Maybe you wouldn't like being a paladin, what with having to keep a mount, then."

"Ha. But what if I could be both the mount and the paladin? With my peryton status and all, I could masquerade as both."

"I don't think it works that way."

"You probably are not going to wind up a paladin. Most novices start no older than age ten."

"Huh. Any particular reason?"

"A lot of us are drawn from an orphanage that the Order has ties to. So the training program is designed for children."

"Is there anything in particular that stops adults from training to be paladins?"

"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?"

"Aha. That - makes sense."

"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."

"Next to a bunch of ten year olds."

"Yep."

"I think, for now, I'll politely decline. Maybe I'll change my mind later, but - those don't sound very appealing."

"You weren't invited in the first place," she points out.

"Point. Okay, politely not ask to be a paladin, then."

"I - got myself here, so I think I can, but I arrived here by accident. So it will take some work to get home."

"And in the meantime what do you wish to do?" asks the Sister.

"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."

"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."

"Peryton," he agrees. "It - I'm using a tremendously complicated magical artifact, if it's safely on my person and not stolen, I can be treated as essentially human with the delightfully useful ability to shapeshift into my natural form and back. Food and lodgings are essentially the same. I carry the tools I need to do my magic with me, I - basically just need paper and maybe a pen, later, if mine dies on me. What I can do is - more complicated. Healing, shielding, invisibility, and some more offensive stuff involving fire and lightning, but those I'm less interested in distributing, because they're - if you copy the runes I write down, and someone knows the chant, anyone can activate the spell."

"You don't need to know any more details of the craft?" says the Sister.

"You do if you want to make new spells, but - to use them? No. But it does have to be exact. Both the chant and the copying."

"How exact?" asks Kaja. "Can ten-year-old novices do it...?"

"Yes. I'd want to check over their work, after, and possibly offer corrections during, but - yes."

"It went fine," Kaja assures him. "I need to make a detour here to get out of all this mail, and then I'll show you the dorm - it's not luxurious but it's serviceable."

"Sure, serviceable is fine." Pause. "Wait. Wait. Do you have indoor plumbing?"

"...meaning what?"

"Er. Showers, sinks, toilets. I'm - getting the feeling the answer is no. Well. That'll be fun."

"There's a little aqueduct that leads from the water reservoir on the top of the retirement dormitory and when it's been rainy you can reach out some of the windows to fill a bucket from it," she suggests. "But otherwise no. There's a bathhouse and outhouses and wells and rain barrels." She gets to what appears to be her own little booth in a row of them that have their own building and peels off her surcoat, revealing wavy brown hair under the hood, and starts disassembling and wiping off and putting away various pieces of armor. It appears it's been designed to be donned and doffed solo without needing a squire.

"Yeah," sighs Darren. "No indoor plumbing." Pause. "... But also no electricity. I could show you electricity. If - I actually knew anything about how it worked. Crap, I need Wikipedia!"

"...My understanding gift doesn't work quite as well as you're trying to force it."

"Sorry. Electricity is a useful thing that powers lots and lots of other useful things. Wikipedia is one of those useful things, and it's - basically a very large library. That you can get at from anywhere that has electricity and inter- uh. A connection to the library."

"I'm still not sure why you want it so badly," she says, unbuckling her boots, "but all right." With her boots off she is now unarmored and looks much smaller, to the point where it's not visually obvious that she could stand up under all that metal, let alone wield a swordstaff with it. She pulls a new outerwear-thing that is smaller and less hooded than her previous surcoat, pulls it on over her uninteresting sub-armor outfit, and leads him on towards the dorm.

He fails to explain as he follows, "It would tell me how to distribute electricity, which - does so many things that I don't know where to begin. Large-scale life improvement, for one."

"What, you - touch it and you are cured of your hangover or you find that you suddenly have a lovely singing voice?"

"Nnnno, more like - you set up a machine that's powered by electricity, leave it alone for a while, and then come back later and retrieve useful items made by the machine. Sounds pretty mundane, but when it's making medicines or - or something, that can be really useful. Or, you have something powered by electricity that helps build things faster, and you have homes or shelters or boats or something built faster and better and you have more time for other things."

"So all of your things are made by machines like that? And you don't have dark things - do people even have to work?"

"A lot of things are made like that, yes. The machines need the be maintained, though, and they can't make literally anything, and for very complicated things a person will need to - direct or move the machine to do the job properly. But it opens up a lot of avenues when you're not as constrained by human labor, like - oh, do you have the printing press, yet?"

"No?"

"Okay. Uh - it's something that can make lots of copies of a book, very fast. It takes time to set up each page, but once you've done so, you can print as many pages as you like. Thus, books, and that helps with literacy and knowledge distribution and the like. I think I can actually manage the printing press, I should do that."

"Sounds good to me. I'm not a huge books person but some people really like them." She lets them into the dorm. The dorm has mostly younger people in it, ranging from as young as eight to as old as eighteen, and the older ones seem to be on the topmost floor judging by the way she heads for the stairs and takes him up three flights.

"So I'm going to do that, along with the magic scroll distribution thing. And - other things, too, when I can think of them. I - am tempted to try to figure out how to distribute good medical practices and germ theory, but since I'm also going to throw healing scrolls at people like they're candy that might not actually help much..."

"Why?"

"Why am I going to distribute healing scrolls, or why germ theory probably should be widely known? The first one is because - healing. It seems kind of obvious. I'll give distributing germ theory a shot, too, because it can deal well in - prevention. Where illnesses come from, why hygiene is important, that sort of thing."

"I meant more like why it wouldn't help much."

"Oh. Well, because the healing scrolls would be widely distributed and would be fixing the problems as they come up, ideally. But, still going to do it, because people might try to sell healing scrolls. Which I am not planning to do, by the way."

"You're not?"

"No? I will want to make money, but not from healing scrolls that literally everyone should have access to if I can help it. I'll make that with - I don't know yet, some sort of magical thing. I'll think about it. Not the offensive magic, and not invisibility, that's irresponsible, and shielding is almost as useful as healing, so I kind of don't want to sell those when I could just hand them out..."

"I suppose you could take donations like the enclave does, if you're doing all that?"

"Probably. If I manage the printing press, I'd start up newspapers and make money off of that, but - haven't managed that yet."

"Newspapers are - what they sound like?"

"Yes. Tremendously helpful."

"Why's that?"

"Well, better informed populace, which is always a plus, but - if there is an important message that needs to be distributed, like, say, 'There is an outbreak of zombies to the east, people on that side of town bar your doors and wait for paladins' newspapers are really good at that."

"Darren. Hello. And - well, if the systems to distribute newspapers are good enough, someone can spot the zombies, go tell the newspaper distributor, who tells paladins and also writes the newspaper to tell people in the nearby area that might not know. It will probably not get there before the zombies do for some places, but others, it'll warn them. Which is better than not having those people know at all."

"No allergies. I - um, do have a magical medallion that I need to wear all of time, though."

"What does it do?" the sister inquires.

"Well, I am from - exceptionally far away, and I'm not human. Not to worry, I'm not a dark thing." He displays the token. "But, the medallion is what's letting me shapeshift to human, and opposable thumbs are really useful things to have. If I'm not wearing it, I am forced back into my natural form, which would be inconvenient in lots of cases."

"Understood. I'll make sure the novices know not to take it from you. Anything else?" asks the sister.

"Nope, nothing else. I'm shapeshifted really well, all other human things apply except for the medallion thing. Thank you."

"Do you need something?"

"Probably other sets of clothes. Soap. Questionably large amounts of paper. Uh - a toothbrush?"

"There's soap in the bathhouse... we probably shouldn't put you in novice uniforms. The sister will know if the dorm has anything else you can use. You can get paper from the church storeroom, although the brother or whoever's helping him will want to know what it's for. And I don't think we have toothbrushes."

"All right. I'll ask around, then. I'm sure I'll figure something out."

"Anything else?"

"Uhhh - what kind of food do you have, out of curiosity instead of pickiness?"

"It depends on what the kitchen makes. Breakfast is at dawn and lunch at noon and dinner at sundown in the mess hall - you can see it from this window, that one with the chimneys. I'm starving, I hope they have kale and pork and potatoes..."

"Okay, so it's not weird things I've never heard of before in my life. That's convenient."

"Were you expecting it to be?"

"I wasn't expecting anything, I was just - open to the possibility that you might start talking about eating delicious things I've never heard of in my life."

"Wouldn't that be interesting, though?" she muses.

"Well, yes. But also probably distressing while I tried to figure out what I liked and what I hated, and having no basis to compare without trying everything."

"Huh. Well, they might have kale and pork and potatoes, though it's summer so it could also be fruit and trout and squash."

"I know all of those foods! Hurray! Though I haven't actually tried squash, but I know it exists."

"There's different kinds, usually they get a mix and just roast it all together. Sometimes they can get interesting spices from the tropics to put on it but usually we don't spend on luxuries like that... Oh, and there is always porridge, left over if you're last in the meal order and everything else is gone or if you just actually like porridge or whatever they put in it that day."

"Haven't had that, either. But I know it exists. I'm going to be trying lots of new things, even without strange food I've never heard of."

"Okay. I need to go report in to my commander about the zombies and catch up on my devotionals but I'll be at dinner."

"Sure. Thank you for your help, and for bringing me here."

Darren gets to making the list of things he can very definitively do with his magic. He'll have to ask for paper, later, when getting the specifics of each spell, but for now he can just stick with his notebook of runes and cheatsheets. He's pretty sure he'll freak out a bit the minute he stops having things to do, but that hasn't happened yet, so he can stave that off for a while longer. Runes! Magic! Obsessively exact penmanship!

And eventually the sun goes about setting.

He notices this (after a delay) and decides he should probably go investigate dinner. So he goes to do that, notebook in hand. He could probably safely leave it in his boring room, but then that would mean that if he gets bored at dinner he won't be able to work on more spells, and that also someone might find it and take it. Darren considers it his most valuable object. It's staying with him while he's doing ordinary things like going to dinner, thanks. If he were going to do dangerous things, it'd be different - but he's not. He's surrounded by paladins. This is probably the safest place to be.

"Hi," says Darren, sitting. "I'm very glad you did it, considering."

"Ah, right, that - will be inconvenient. I should add 'learn the local language' to my list of things to do."

"I am indeed a deer with wings," says Darren, amused. "I'm guessing he wants to see me be a deer with wings?"

Darren raises an eyebrow. "Uh. I'm fine with showing him, probably not in a crowded mess hall, though. The ride - um. Maybe? I'm just sort of worried about being treated like a beast of burden, which I am not."

"No, I probably can if he's not wearing armor or secretly five hundred pounds or something, but - I don't know, I don't really know him, and I really don't want to get caught in a - 'Novices, novices everywhere, ride the fantastical talking and flying deer!' situation. Because I'm a person."

One of Kaja's paladin friends, the woman, says, "Clearly you are a person. No one would ride you without permission; we wouldn't even do that to another paladin's mount, and those don't speak."

"Thank you. Trying anyway wouldn't work out very well for anyone involved."

Kaja translates for Gunnar what he has missed. Gunnar pouts.

The food is pretty okay, if not very creative. The paladins and novice all clear their plates and Gunnar says something that Kaja translates as, "Can he at least see now, he wants to know."

Darren doesn't think he likes Gunnar that much, but maybe Kaja's translating him unfavorably. "Sure," he agrees, and he finishes his last sausage, gets up from the table, and neatly shifts to fullform. He is a pretty blue-grey deer with wings. Behold.

"I... guess I am?" says Darren.

When Kaja translates that, Gunnar seems to take it as permission to reach for Darren's fur.

Darren-the-deer sighs, and shifts back to human. "Well. I probably could have handled that better, I apologize."

"I'm sure there will be other chances," says the male paladin dryly.

"Probably," agrees Darren. "I'm perfectly fine with showing people, just not - randomly being touched or ridden by strange people I don't know."

"Show them from the air," suggests the lady paladin.

That causes him to brighten a bit. "Good idea, I should do that. Thank you."

"Reasonably well. I've mostly had my nose in a book the entire time, trying to get a proper list for scrolls I can copy a lot."

"Are you about done with that list Sister wanted?"

"Yeah. It's likely that I'll be able to do more things later, I'm putting down only the things I can very definitely do, not just the things I'm pretty sure I can manage, but haven't actually done yet."

"Maybe there should be two lists."

"Maybe, but the other one might get peoples hopes up falsely, if it turns out that I mysteriously can't manage something for bizarre reasons."

"Sister'll understand, she's very wise."

"All right. Two lists, then."

"Do you need help finding anything or any place?"

"Not yet, thank you though."