She appears in a room lit only by candles.

Brenda appears directly in front of a bronze-colored statue, somewhat taller than Brenda, of something that bears an eerie resemblance to Godzilla with a human face. In front of her, in the center of the room, there's a glass coffin. 

Between Brenda and the coffin, a man is kneeling, having laid out an offering of fruits and flowers and incense. 

"My word!"

Oh no what if she's in a mausoleum or something and interrupted this guy paying respects to the dead. Is there anyone visible in the coffin, because if there is she is definitely being rude.

"Hello. Sorry to bother you? I didn't mean to interrupt." And then she looks around and sees the statue and wow, coooooool, is that just an art piece or an actual type of guy that exists here. But she should finish getting kicked out of this mausoleum.

The glass is the semi-transparent kind where it's hard to see if anyone's in it.

"Normally, Dagon doesn't grace me with his presence. Not that I have any complaints about this, mind you. I understand that He is a busy deity and possessing only a single physical form puts constraints on a man's schedule. Nevertheless I am startled to discover that my summoning ritual seems to have summoned someone who by all appearances seems to be a teenage girl." 

"I just did a thing to get myself sent to another universe and it might have hijacked your summoning ritual, I'm not sure if that's a way it can work. Dagon is--?" She gestures at the statue. 

"Indeed. --I am Ho Fang, and you may call me Mr. Ho. Please let me know how I can make you feel at home."

"Thank you, Mr Ho; it's nice to meet you. My name is Brenda, and I would love to learn a bit about this universe. I'm from a planet called Earth with no easily noticeable gods or interdimensional visitors, to give you some kind of basis for comparison."

"This planet is also called Earth, and many people aren't aware of the gods and interdimensional visitors. I take it you're human? Would you like to leave this gloomy place and have tea in the sitting room?"

Huh, an Earth with secret magic. Maybe if she had taken Stay Put her own Earth would have turned out to have always had secret magic. . . . Maybe she's still on her original Earth and just teleported, that would admittedly be a pretty funny joke on the Spirit's part. Or, just to round out the hypothesis space, this guy could be wrong, but when someone's summoning ritual has successfully summoned you it's a bit silly to not believe them about their magic system.

"Tea in the sitting room would be lovely, thank you."

He stands and begins to walk towards the door. "This way, Miss Brenda. --Don't look up or I will have a frustrating few hours and feel like a dreadful host."

Unfortunately for some subset of people, it is impossible for Brenda to respond to this instruction by doing anything other than immediately and automatically looking up.

On the ceiling are large, luminescent brush strokes that form the Chinese characters for "Father Ocean." They are shifting slightly as she watches. 

Oooh, pretty magic paint. Also she could not previously read any Chinese characters and now her wonderful shiny new Omniglot power is helping her figure them out!

She needs to stop looking at the ceiling so she can follow her host without tripping over her own feet, so she does that, wondering if she was supposed to not look up because the art is magically dangerous in some way she's immune to, or a secret she doesn't have enough context to figure out, or what.

He presses a button and slides a door open, which leads them out into a beautiful garden. 

"We are in the city of Shanghai in China, and the date is January 1, 1926, in case that allows you to place yourself relative to your home. You are of course welcome to the hospitality of the Ho family as long as you need it."

Does Brenda know anything about plant identification?

Being in 1926 is . . . kind of disappointing? Somewhere with a different calendar would have been cool and 2126 would have been cool and 3000 years agowould have been cool and 1926 is notably not any of those. But it's still pretty cool even before getting into the magic paint and possible gods!

She knows a fair bit about plants. She doesn't know every plant and especially not every Chinese plant, but she likes plants and she's read a lot of books about them.

Well, there's wolfsbane, and hemlock, and deadly nightshade, and castor beans, and oleander, and peyote, and salvia, and opium poppies, and coca...

"Where and when are you from?"

Well this guy has a very particular aesthetic, but Brenda isn't at all sure she wouldn't do something similar if she had a garden she could plant whatever she wanted in. 

"I'm from the US in 2004. 2004 is great, there are flying machines and people have been to the moon and you can have a conversation between Shanghai and New York in real time with video."

"People have already been to the Moon in our time. I suppose by 2004 they might have made it a more routine endeavor."

Oooooh. "I'm afraid it's only been a couple dozen people in my world. How many in this one? Did they get there by rockets or magic or some third thing? Does this world know of any space aliens? My solar system hasn't got any."

"I don't have the slightest idea how many people have gone to the Moon, Miss Brenda. Sorcerers can often go to the Moon, and aliens can take humans to the Moon in spaceships. --I am personally aware of dozens of species of space aliens, although of course most of them aren't on Earth at any given time. Some might argue that I am."

He escorts her to a beautifully decorated sitting room full of plush chairs and couches. He pulls a string near the door, and the sound of a bell rings. 

Eeeeeeeee SPACE ALIENS all complaints about 1926 being a boring year are retracted. "You're arguably an alien?" How do you be arguably an alien. Is he half-alien like Spock. That makes no biological sense but hey, new universe new rules.

"Does your universe have Deep Ones?"

A servant enters. "Tea and cookies for myself and Miss Brenda, please. Is there anything else you would like, Miss Brenda?"

Her new Friends in Places powers are informing her that drinking the tea is a more friendship-enabling option than asking for water. "Mostly just information! For instance, I have no idea what a Deep One is. Are they people from under the sea? We don't have those unless it turns out whales or dolphins are people."

"They-- we-- are a kind of aquatic humanoid that looks similar to a frog crossed with a fish, and that are immortal and have a natural aptitude for sorcery. Deep Ones are incapable of reproducing on their own. They breed with humans and produce offspring who look human until middle age, when they transform into their final Deep One form. I expect my transformation in another decade or so."

Immortal! Sorcerer! That is so cool! Is is socially acceptable to say that? Yes it is! 

"That's very cool, congratulations!"

She should Dragon Fairy Elf Witch him but she wants to do Alpina first.

"Thank you. Not everyone thinks so."

"Are there downsides, do you lose the ability to breathe out of water or something?"

"Fully transformed Deep Ones can walk on land, although it is usually unwise to do so-- Deep Ones can be killed. I think many have... a distaste for not being human, or for losing their humanity."

You also lose your humanity if you die of old age though people are allowed to want different things. The implication that it's dangerous to be visibly a Deep One in human society is less reasonable, and she resolves not to mention Mr. Ho's situation to anyone who doesn't mention it first.

"Well, I'm glad you're a species you're happy with and I wish everyone else the same luck. What other kinds of people are there?"