"That sucks, man." Privately Orlando is thinking it sounds like the cool kind of thing that happens to Real Grown-Up Adventurers (tm).

    "It is a good place to be though."

"How can we help?"

How should he communicate this...  oh, he thinks he has enough words now that they've given him the right preposition!

"Andoran... coins for" (taps his sword) "?  Coins for magic?"

"You can be an adventurer for hire! If you're strong enough, someone's always hiring in the city."

    "Or you can just sell the spells. What kind of caster are you?" Anton notices Pharazon's look of frustration; he clearly doesn't know the language well enough. "Wizard, sorcerer, cleric... something else?" he prompts.

"For hire?  Someone?  What kind of someone?"

(Yes, language magic is really handy at giving him new words!  Asmodeus has really helped him here!)

"If you want to fight monsters, the government organizes patrols and bounties and so on. And the Consortium is always hiring up north - they're the ones on the forest border, they fight monsters and fey and druids and so on."

    "If you want to fight Evil you can join the army or go to the Worldwound or join a party raiding across the border."

"Or if you're good with ships you can help chase slavers - we do that a lot in Andoran, we sink the slavers and rescue the slaves and set them free - there's a ton of public subscriptions for it, it always has funding."

"What monsters?  Slavers?..."  He moves to pulls out his paper (which isn't yet full) but on second thought decides to not sketch different animals and dragons from Middle-Earth just yet.

"... Worldwound?"  Not many connotations came through the magic, but the ones that are there sound absolutely disturbing even though he doesn't think he's interested in "fighting evil."

"Uh... depends on how strong you are? Spiders, owlbears, goblins, river drakes, werewolves, giant eyeballs..."

    "There are no giant eyeballs." 

"I talked an adventurer who fought an eyeball."

    "Maybe it was a giant and his eyeball."

"It was floating. Anyway... The slavers are - Cheliax sells people into slavery, to Osirion or Taldor or somewhere else out East, and they ship them by sea, and we catch them on the way there."

    "The Worldwound is - I thought everyone in the world heard about the Worldwound - it's a giant portal to the Abyss that opened when Aroden died. Way up north, past Isger and, like, four other countries, it's really far. Demons keep coming out of it and they want to kill and eat everyone. Lastwall and Mendev are holding the border, they're Iomedae's countries, full of paladins. A lot of adventurers go there, because it's very Good to fight against the demons. And also, you know, stops everyone from being eaten. I don't know if they pay people, though."

"People collect donations for Lastwall, it stands to reason they'd use them to hire adventurers."

Spiders, some sort of bears, goblins... those all sound normal; he nods along.

But - "... giant floating eyeballs!?"  That's weirder than anything he's ever heard of!

He shudders at the Worldwound.  If it hasn't gotten exaggerated in the rumors, it sounds horrendously dangerous... whatever demons are and whatever the Abyss is.  And... the way they talked about teleporters earlier, perhaps "it's this far away" might not have so much meaning in this world?  "You go worldwound?  Fight demons?  And - who Aroden?"

It's not half as weird as some other stories floating around taverns!

"I wish we were going to fight demons in the Worldwound, we'd get stronger so quickly," grumbles Orlando.

    "No! Bad Orlando! Stronger first, then Worldwound," Anton says firmly.

"Yeah. That. Anyway. Aroden's a god - was a god - who was supposed to come rule Cheliax a century back, but He died instead. Which caused, uh, pretty much everything bad that ever happened. Including the Worldwound opening."

    "I guess maybe it didn't cause anything terrible in Casmaron, if you haven't heard about it."

... A Vala who died?  Who was supposed to come rule over the place that's now being ruled by Asmodeus?  Whose death came right before disasters?

Put it that way, and it sounds very much like Morgoth.

"... Maybe?  Not know?  Gods fight; Aroden dead?  You wish Aroden...?"

This provokes a heated argument.

"The gods fought alright, it's even called the Godwar, but now they won't say who fought whom or why."

    "Well obviously Asmodeus -"

"Well obviously he'd say that regardless of what really happened!"

    "Anyway, yeah, I wish Aroden didn't die."

"Because it opened the Worldwound and started the Hellwar and drowned a country?"

    "Because He was a good god!"

"He was the god of the Chelish Empire and the Taldane Empire and there's nothing Good about either of them."

    "Well not now obviously but He'd have fixed it!"

"Guys. Guys, let's not fight." In front of the mysterious stranger and everything.

    "Maybe He was an alright god but gods shouldn't rule people, every single other god that rules a country is Evil."

"Abadar's not Evil."

    "OK, fine, but no god that rules a country is Good."

"It can be good for a country to be ruled by a god!"

    "Oh yeah? Who voted for Abadar?"

"He overthrew an empire to free Osirion, that counts!"

    "How does it count if you don't do an election afterwards?"

Well, he hadn't meant this to be controversial!  That tells him something in itself - something good, probably, for his chances of getting somewhere.

"Gods fight... many gods both sides?  No people fight?"  That's not how he heard it, at all.  Maybe it's not the same war.

"And who Abadar?  If gods not rule - how people, gods --"  He doesn't have the words, and maybe leaving the end of the question vague will get a better answer?

"Probably lots of them fought, yeah, if Asmodeus or someone could solo Aroden then probably it would have happened earlier?"

    "Aroden definitely had allies. Including Iomedae."

"People didn't fight in the godwar, how would you even do that, the gods weren't here -"

    "People fought for other reasons, like in the Hellwar, but that was after He died, not the other way around."

"Abadar's the god of trade, travel, merchants - His sign is the balanced scales -"

    "He's also the god of banking and usury in other countries but we outlawed that."

"People rule in most places anyway? Like, Iomedae doesn't rule Lastwall, she just gives a lot of them their magic powers. And probably gives them advice and stuff. But Lastwall elects their leader."

    "Only when the last one dies, though, they're not a real democracy like we are."

"People rule most countries, not gods. Does a god rule in - Numenorian? Who is it?"

Then he's not Morgoth.  Probably.  If they're understanding it correctly.

Pharazon shakes his head.  "No god.  No electing.  No god giving magic."

Meanwhile, Miriel has also noticed Wanda nearby.

As soon as she doesn't look deep in conversation, Miriel runs over to her.  "Wanda!  Pharazon now pray!  Magic!"

"That's incredible!" What are the chances? Or - did the gods select both of them back in Geb, and helped them leave it?

"Who did he pray to?" She thought Miriel said Pharazon didn't like Sarenrae. "What god?"

Miriel doesn't have any language magic active (her second casting is tingling in the back of her mind uncast), but she gets Wanda's emotion!  And the question "who".

Shrug.  "Pharazon -" shrug.

"We should check."

Pharazon is - over there, talking to some out-of-towners Wanda doesn't recognize. She walks over.

"What do you mean, no god giving magic?"

Oh, he's telling them about Geb. Opening up is probably a good sign, even if he doesn't seem to trust Wanda. Or maybe it's Miriel he doesn't trust.

Wanda will - stick around where she can clearly hear the conversation but isn't introducing on it in a socially awkward way. If they wanted privacy they wouldn't talk loudly in the inn's public room.

Shrug.  "People talk to gods; gods not talk to people.  Now - many people say all gods evil; not talk to gods.  I not talk to gods when in Numenor.  Now -"  He theatrically holds out his hands.

Oh, good for him.

Oh, good for him.

It's probably very easy to become convinced that all the gods are Evil, if you grow up in Geb. And aren't a natural Sarenrite. Some amount of bitterness and spite - and paranoia - is only to be expected!

"Wait, are you from Rahadoum? They outlawed worshipping the gods and being clerics."

    "Maybe there's another country like Rahadoum in Casmaron?"

Wanda considered the Rahadoum theory but rejected it, because Rahadoum was ruled by Cheliax for a while and they probably speak Taldane, and more importantly because Miriel agreed her home country was ruled by a skeleton king.

What will Pharazon say?