"I was hoping to ask you that," he calls back jokingly.

She is actually quite upset that a peasant would decide to swear at her! But she doesn't see any guards around, and Felip doesn't seem inclined to take offense yet.

A zookeeper is fetched and goes to unlock the door and let them out via a cunningly hidden gate in the side of the fence. "How in the world did you get in - what are you dressed as, should I recognize the film -" He has bright purple hair.

He files away "film" as something to ask about in a less embarrassing situation. "I'm afraid I don't know," he apologizes, "and am feeling rather lost. Where, exactly, are we?"

"The Shapto Zoo. Are you drunk or something, wandered out of a costume party?"

"We were at a party moments ago, but it was still early in the evening" he says, looking at the position of the sun in the sky. "Shapto is not a place I've heard of. Is it in Avistan?"

She is more interested in the man's hair. No illusionist would make it so obvious their victims were in an imaginary world. Have they been... teleported away or plane shifted, somehow?

"No, it's in Tapa. I haven't heard of Afistan, where is that?"

Should he tell them the tale of far-off Avistan? Unlikely. Or at least, this fellow seems unlikely to be the right person to read in to their situation.

"My home, and I fear I haven't heard of Tapa either. It seems like I should seek audience with the most learned of your wizards." Does this fellow seem like he wants to be their guide, or that he wants them to be someone else's problem?

Definitely someone else's problem. "...sir, I acknowledge that you are in full cosplay, but I am not part of your LARP and do not have a line I'm supposed to recite if you ask for wizards. Do you have zoo tickets or did you sneak in here somehow?"

"Neither. I suspect we were transported here by another." He's tempted to ask what a LARP is. "Whose menagerie is this, anyway?" Maybe that's their line of approach.

"Theeee Shapto Zoo is run by the Shapto municipal government at a small positive average return as an educational and scientific repository of animal and ecological knowledge and practice," says the guy with the purple hair, sounding rehearsed, like he says this twelve times a day.

"Well, thank you for your assistance in freeing us," he says finally, and then starts to walk away.

"If you don't have a ticket I'm gonna need you to leave the zoo. That's straight out that way, follow the white arrows on the paths, I'll page the security guards in case you get lost," or try to go look at animals without a ticket.

They will follow the white arrows, and he is quite interested in the security guards, actually. Does he even notice them, or do they look like the other guests of the zoo?

They're in uniform - gray uniforms with SHAPTO ZOO embroidered under a logo on the front of their right shoulders - and they've all got white or grey hair, while the attendees are not in uniform and have many hair colors. Mostly purple. Never, ever brown or black.

Unarmed? Where are they?

"Axis?" she mutters.

"Maybe." He'll try a Dancing Lights, and see what happens.

Everybody who was paying attention startles. "What the heck!" yelps a random orange, seizing her waist-high child away from the lights. "Holy shit!" shrieks a purple. The uniformed greys pull objects out of their pockets and move to clear the immediate area, everybody shooing very compliantly with only over-the-shoulder alarmed glances at the lights.

He'll make a short slashing motion with his hand, and the lights go out. "My apologies," he says soothingly. "I wanted to see if it still worked." Are they... going to let him leave the zoo?

Nope, he is no longer allowed to leave the zoo, he is supposed to come over here to the security office between the bears and the herons. Her too. "What was that," says the white-haired security woman who's directing them.

"A moment." He will subtly point at his wife.

It's not Axis, or it's a part where magic works and yet knowledge of it is suppressed. They probably won't be able to planeshift us back.

And in the meantime, we are strange creatures to them. There is a choice before them; to be timid or to be bold. Let us be formidable, then.

"I am a sorcerer," he says with finality. "I have several other spells at my disposal, the lights being one of the simpler and more benign effects. Is magic unknown, in your country?"

"I should say so! You sit tight and I'll have the place crawling with blues excited to help you out with whatever you need, how about." ("Blue" translates as the literal color and also as "aristocrat" and "civil servant".)