She appears in a marble courtyard, out of sight behind a half wall on the upper balcony which stretches around the perimeter.  Elaborate pillars hold a roof over the balcony, but the courtyard itself is open to the sky.  

Below is a pen with about a hundred people.  Many are wearing stained or worn clothing, and most are crying.  There are more men than women and range from young teens to people with graying hair.  Guards in full armor watch over them.  

Opposite of the pen is a simple altar with a few men in blood-stained aprons and long gloves.  One of the prisoners is being held down, their shirt torn open and blood on their chest.  A butcher throws something in a pile.  It looks like a heart, but the person on the altar is still struggling.  Someone who might be a priest examines the struggling prisoner.  

On the far side of the balcony closer to the altar is a sitting area.  Three of the five throne-like chairs are occupied by men in embroidered robes.  Two look bored, though one look positively giddy at the spectacle.  

- The fuck.

She's not where she was - she doesn't know how to douse but magicals have a sense for it and it takes her maybe half a second to figure it out - there's no witches in her area but -

Fine tuning so her dousing will pick up all emotions takes a sub-process of her brain a few seconds while the rest flips through what's happening.

She's used to brutality. Used to people with power taking everything they can, and sometimes it's in the service of something greater but very often not - 

She's a person with power, now.

With her quickly improving emotion sense: is there anyone not in her line of sight, or anyone whose emotions don't line up like they should, or any unusual groupings of magic? (It'll be worse, she thinks, at story-magic than at the hope-magic of magicals or the despair-magic of witches, but nuances are easy for her to figure out, now.)

(Four seconds have passed since she appeared.)

There are a few people clustered to one side of the balcony between her and the nobles, ducking out of sight behind the same sort of half wall that's hiding her.  They're fearful but determined.  Another group with similar feelings is on the roof.  Four of the guards feel especially nervous, excited, and hopeful.  

Something clearly magical is going on with the prisoner on the altar.  Part of his magic seems to be clinging and crawling towards the priest's hands as if pulled by a magnet.  

Some of the guards (both the strangely excited ones and the regular ones), the nobles, and the two sneaking groups all have magic.  It's definitely neither magical girl nor witch magic, and feels seperate from the people carrying them.  Some kind of magic item?  There are a dozen distinct but similar varieties.  All of the guards have the same three types.  The sneaking groups have four different types.  The four excited guards have the three guard-types and the four sneaking-group-types.  The nobles share two with the guards, and have five varieties unique to themselves.  

So not on her planet. They look human... Could she be in a spirit world? Or - she remembers a theory, vaguely, about the many spheres, each containing different inhabitants. Could they have different magic? In which case the serpentine monster that brought her here is likely a demon from a different sphere, moving sideways...

She doesn't know if their magic is strong enough to seriously injure her. Her soul gem rests at her waist - not the most obvious place to aim, but a broad blast at her chest could get it. She wraps the gem in fabric to muffle the glow, figuring that it's possible they're unfamiliar enough with magical girls to not aim at it - but there's no point in offering a clearly magical shiny as a target.

It doesn't feel like she has any innate healing. Her magic's keeping her body maintained, but - healing effectively will be a skill to learn. So it's possible she'll be injured past her ability to heal without going dangerously low on magic.

...If this sphere lacks witches, then cleansing her soul gem might be a problem.

Maybe there's some skill she can learn with converting magic types. Which means ingratiating or otherwise establishing herself - the hidden people seem to have the most magic granted to common troops, and she's not sure she trusts anyone noble to share.

Plus, ripping people's hearts and magic out seems unnecessarily cruel.

The hidden groups probably have their own plans, but she's going to need to establish herself as on a particular side quickly...

She's not sure how they'll react to telepathy. And it might be best to hide her dousing abilities for now...

She practices flash-stepping very quietly behind her cover for a few seconds. It's far from mastered, being a more difficult skill than dousing, but she gets the basics enough to fling herself far faster than human eyes can follow - tracking her own movement like this will be hard - and next to the priest and the altar. She spins, raises a shimmering barrier of latticework arrows around the prisoner - it's crap, she needs to practice, but hopefully it'll disrupt whatever effect - and kicks the priest (not so hard it'll do more than badly bruise) away, then spins to slam her bow into the men in aprons.

And then she turns and looks straight at the nobles, nocking her bow - which is of a kind she's been practicing with since shortly after she learned to ride. She's about to fire, but the nobles will have a second or three to react before she puts an arrow through the gleeful one's eye. (She's also keeping her emotion sense leveled at every threat in reach, ready to dodge or jump if someone attacks her.)

A person in each of the hidden groups noticed her, but hadn't had a chance to do more than tap their teammates on their shoulders and mention that a stranger with unknown teleporting powers just appeared.  They pause, but don't have a chance to decide what to do before the fighting starts.  

The guards advance on her when she kicks the priest, but are distracted when the other guards attack them from behind.  The four disloyal guards are outnumbered ten to four, but they have surprise and extra magic. A few take to the air, levitating themselves.  Most begin to grow extra muscles, their armor hinged to account for that ability.  The rebel guards both grow and their skin changes to a metallic texture.  

The gleeful noble and one of the bored ones take to the sky, fearful and trying to escape.  They don't fly especially fast, but are making a loop close to the roof where they will be hidden from view after only a few more seconds.  The third noble stands and fights, calling up a stream of fire to burst towards her and the stumbling butchers.  

The hidden group on the balcony stop ducking and take out their crossbows, aiming for the noble who chose to remain.  The group on the roof step up to the ridge of the roof and aim at the two escaping nobles.  

Unfortunately for the two escapees, Narangerel is very good with her now magical bow. The gleeful one won't get even halfway to the ceiling without some serious defensive magic. The other she'll shoot, too, and - she's seen other magicals use bindings like rope, but that's another new skill and she doesn't know how expensive it'll be - she'll shoot the last noble as well. 

A half second's pause, to see if they're downed, before she flash-steps up and out of the way. Best not to present a stationary target.

The three nobles go down.  

The remaining bolts are aimed towards the guards.  They take out a pair who were attempting to clear the roof and go for help, and one of the ones still fighting. The guard battle is now four vs four, with the metallic rebel guards having the clear advantage.  

Skin also shifted to metal, the rebels on the balcony leap down to the ground floor and start heading for the now-singed altar, pulling out long knives to finish off the butchers or priest if nessisary.  The ones on the roof begin re-arming their crossbows and keeping watch.

The prisoners, no longer fearing the guards, begin pouring through the gate of the pen and making a frantic path to the closest exit.  

She'll put a barrier over the priest - she wants someone to question - and once the melee's died down jump down to the prisoner on the altar, drop the barrier around him, and - start trying to figure out how healing works. Unless he has a healing factor of some kind, which'd be convenient.

The rebels approach the altar.

"The stranger is making these barriers?" one asks in a foreign language.

"Yeah.  I guess this confirms she's undead and not just using charge-stones," another replies.

"Man, this is why we don't have undead on our missions.  See if you can remind her that it's just her instincts telling her to protect the necromancer, and that he really needs to die.  I'll go collect the charge-stones."  Two peel off to go loot the nobles, leaving one walking towards her and two going after the butchers.  

The prisoner's chest wound is completely gone, leaving a fair bit of blood over unscarred skin.  He's also slightly singed but the barrier deflected most of the fire.  He's disoriented and clutching his burns, but otherwise perfectly fine despite lacking a heart.  

Most of the prisoners who had been in the pen are now out of the building, scattering.  There's shouting from outside as people notice them running.  It won't be long until reinforcements arrive.  

"Hey, it's really important that you drop the barrier.  I know it looks like he's really interesting and worthy of protection, but that's just his magic messing with your mind."

She's still analyzing their language. Apparently no one referenced by her wish has instant language acquisition. Pity. (She'll heal the burned man.)

Telepathically, to just the person talking to her: "This is this the magical before you. I don't speak your language yet. I wish to question the person under the barrier. My telepathy is directed only; I do not pick up on thoughts not directed at me."

Also telepathically, to just the priest: "I have questions. You look like you have answers. I can possibly be convinced to leave you alive and unharmed. Do not talk until given leave. Answer by intending to talk to me. Where is this place, and what were you doing?"

The rebel doesn't think questioning him is a good idea at all.  "He's a necromancer.  They're dangerous.  They influence undead to be more protective and obedient towards them.  Whatever protective feelings you're having are just his magic interacting with yours.  You just saw what they were doing.  How would you feel if it were someone other than him tearing out people's hearts and torturing them?"

The priest continues staring with wide eyes.  "This is the place where we excecute criminals.  For each execution we first turn the criminal into a mage - heartless husks in the guise of the dead.  They're evil, but we have been chosen by the gods to keep them contained, and in exchange for our service are provided with gifts to empower the empire."

To the rebel: "There are no protective feelings. I have no particular care about killing him or not, except that he is briefly useful to me. If it was some other stranger, I would feel the same - that it is unlikely he has a sufficient excuse. If it was someone known to me to have good judgement, I would hold off my own reaction until I had heard their explanation."

To the priest: "Evil how?"

Some - indeed, most outside the People - call the witches evil, for one. And witches and magicals alike are certainly dangerous to the unwary. Neither 'evil' nor 'dangerous' is a category Narangerel feels compelled to call persuasive. She also doesn't object to executing criminals, though such a large number at once and the level of official awareness and glee shown feels strange - the feeding of criminals to witches is a solemn and sparse affair, and those unworthy of being subsumed are given no attention by the nobility.

The rebels are clearing up, taking what appears to be jewelry from the guards and nobles - rings with large diamonds set so they lay against the skin when worn.  The ones carrying the noble's rings depart immediately, each flying up and carrying off one of the roof rebels.  The others begin to leave too, leaving only the rebel who had been talking to her, who is tossed a few spare guard rings.  He's hesitating, not sure whether to try and talk to her or just grab the prisoner and fly away.  

"There are gemstones known as magehearts, which take control of a body when the spirit that once inhabited it is gone.  They manifest supernatural abilities which must be drained by a priest or the mage will use them for evil.  The previous kings of this land, and many of the foreign lands around us, have been infiltrated by these undead abominations.  They kept slaves, kept harems, made war, caused famine, opressed the people who unknowingly allowed them to walk among them."

To the priest: "That sounds like something to investigate, then."

To the rebel: "I don't mind leaving with you. But I wish to keep him alive for now to answer my questions. I can render him unconscious if him seeing where you go is objectionable."

The rebel isn't entirely sure he's happy with her knowing where they're going, but acknowledges that she's probably powerful enough to follow them and needs to be recruited if possible.  "We'll be going to my temporary safe house first.  Just keep him quiet."

He picks the prisoner up and carries him away.  Each of the rebels had gone in different directions, and are already out of sight having ducked into alleys and between buildings in the city beyond.  

To the priest: "You've been very helpful. I'm bringing you with me, for now. Stay silent."

Levitating him behind her is much more expensive than having him just walk but seems less likely to result in him trying to run. 

She doesn't know how to do anything fancy with illusions yet, so she'll just keep the priest close - and muffled - and follow the rebel with an "Alright" to him.

The destination is only a few buildings down, closer to the sacrificial hall than the other safe-houses due to being the one a prisoner might wind up getting carried to.  They land in a dead-end alley and the rebel begins fiddling with the foundation of the building.  What initially looked like part of the wall was a secret door, three feet tall and five feet wide, leading to a ladder downwards.  

Inside was a tiny room with a low ceiling, and four people crowded it considerably.  The only furniture was a single simple bed and an end table with two sets of clothing, a cheap tallow candle, and a sack of travel bread.

"My job here was to explain things to the new mage, then if they seemed interested in joining us bring them to one of the more permanant safe-houses for our leader to talk with. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."

"Explain this world to me. I arrived here suddenly, from somewhere entirely else, not under my own power."

"I don't know everything about the whole world, or what's different from wherever you come from instead.  Tle is supposedly a giant sphere of rock, with continents and oceans and stuff on the outside, and orbited by a sun and two moons.  I don't know why the scholars think it's round or how things don't fall off the bottom.  Probably the gods, somehow, or the scholars just being all metaphorical or something again.  

"This is the Setebre Empire.  We used to be a bunch of seperate kingdoms.  Then about 30 years ago a couple of the nobles discovered that they could create charge-stones, and one of them - the current Emperor, Ki'Farmel - realized that he could turn other people into mages instead and create charge-stones out of them.  That gave him a ton of extra magic, since they could keep repeatedly killing people until they got one of the good one-in-a-thousand mage-powers and tortured the mages to drain magic constantly instead of only getting to use the powers for a few hours a week like normal.  That's how they managed to conquer half the continent already, and parts of Soth and Garnethold too."

The priest, meanwhile, is kneeling up against the wall where he was left, muttering something that is probably a prayer.

"My world is a circle, as far as I know. Flat, with the spirit worlds above and below. I have heard some scholars believe there are many worlds like ours, with different traits."

"We have two kinds of magic, hope and despair, and we have had them for as long as the gods have spoken to humankind. A person who is filled with hope can make a wish, and then use the hope-magic. If that person then falls into despair, they become a witch, and wield despair-magic. We have one empire that I have ever heard of, and my people are not part of them. They rule a small fraction of our continent, and cannot grow past that because they cannot get their magicals to stop killing each other. Most of the world is ruled by magicals like myself, according to the gods' Messenger at least."

" - Should I be concerned about the priest's muttering."

The freed prisoner is attempting to pat the priest on the shoulder, and the priest scoots further away.  

"I guess the gods might be listening to his prayer?  Then again, if they can see everywhere they haven't done anything about us before they're not going to start now.

"We have a bunch of types of magic.  Mages are the big one, around here.  They're created when someone gets their heart replaced with a mageheart crystal, and gets a random power, weakness, and hunger.  The powers are almost always something useless or small, but one in a hundred is decent and one in a thousand is truly powerful.  The weakness is a time or situation that the mage's power doesn't work, and hunger is an object that makes the mage's power recharge faster so they can use more in a week without having to deal with the side effects of overcasting.  

"Necromancers are people who can manipulate the undead. Undead being mages, liches, vampires, ghosts... maybe others I don't know about?  They can't mind-control them like a full lich, they're just unusually persuasive and charismatic.  Vampires drink blood.  Ghosts are souls trapped in diamonds.  

"Supposedly there are magic artifacts.  Amulets, potions, stuff like that.  All the stuff on the street for sale is scams though.  They might be based off of something real, but I can't think of anything that is for-sure real.  

"Then there's the sorceries.  Sometimes a god will decide to give out magic directly to a person, usually their demigod children or the high priests.  Like mages they're pretty random, but demigods are usually super strength or beauty and priests are usually healing or translation.  I don't think this one has any."

"The priest claimed to me that this country used to be, and the neighboring countries still are, ruled by undead who are cruel to their populations."

"Ma told me about the time before the Emperor ascended.  Obviously no ruler is perfect, but things were better back then, she said.  There were border skirmishes but not constant war like now, with no one to work the fields because the Emperor wants to rule the world instead of taking care of what he has.  Most of the changes are just deciding things that were fine before were terrible.  Blaming the old kings for old droughts but claiming the new droughts are the fault of folk who marry the same gender, or more than one person, because the gods supposedly just happened to start suddenly hating that when the Emperor took over."

"People didn't used to live in fear, when the mages ruled.  Like, sure, if you stole something you'd get lashed or maybe lose a finger.  But The Ranch is hungry, and they do everything they can to get 'criminals' to fill it.  Half the people we rescue didn't even commit a real crime - they just had a shop that competed with the guard captain's relatives, or looked foreign.  Ma got taken when -when she wouldn't give away her bread for free to the soldiers."

"The Ranch?"

"It's a building in the palace complex.  The place they take people whose mage-powers are good enough to harvest, instead of killing them to get the mageheart back out to try again.  Mages are tied up and drained by shifts of necromancers, then the charge-stones are sent to the armies or the nobles.  They have about a hundred mages captive there.  

"Mages can use about five to ten hours of magic a week without bad effects, more if they have their Hunger.  Twice that and they stop being able to feel happiness for a while.  Four times that will usually get them bedridden with pain.  168 hours a week... I've talked to some of the rebels who raided The Ranch itself, and some that got a few people out.  It takes them weeks before they can even scream.  Fifty years ago, those people would have been considered blessed Heroes by the priests, like Raen'Soli... all of her statues were destroyed of course.  Can't have an 'evil undead' as one of the Champions of Iveus."