"He loses the magic if he doesn't use it. Comes back tomorrow either way."

The injured guy takes his head-wrap off and recovers enough to say, "Happy to be in need of service, then."

"We need more clerics in this world, honestly. I wonder how many priests believe strongly enough to be clerics about it..."

"That's an interesting question, I don't know enough about your religion here to have a guess. It's not just about the strength of the devotion, it has to be toward the right sort of thing, too. It wouldn't work for me to just be a fan of Fharlanghn if I didn't care the way I do about travel."

"Christianity is - originally - about love and kindness. The story goes - Er, there's a lot more than this, but this is the bit I'm remembering - God, Yahweh, sent his son to Earth to spread his message, and after a while Jesus was condemned to death by a cruel governor. He could have escaped by a miracle at any time, but he was willingly hanged upon a cross in order to cleanse humanity of sin and preserve them from Hell, then was raised from the dead three days later. There was something about Judas- Sold his location to some guys who wanted to kill Jesus, but Jesus forgave him anyway, because he didn't want Judas to go to Hell even though he'd betrayed him and gotten him condemned. All of Jesus's teachings were about tolerance, kindness, helping others. 'Course, lots of people use the bible as a blunt weapon against whatever they don't like an' call it moral depravity-"

"What about saints? They get miraculous powers sometimes. Maybe they're what happens instead of clerics, around here?"

"I dunno much about saints to be honest."

"That sounds like the right sort of thing - not too far off from a few of the gods we have at home, actually. What do saints get?" he asks the second speaker.

"Uh- The Red Saint, Harold of Grimory, was blessed with holy light that kept him from falling in battle no matter how many wounds he took so long as he was defending the faithful- John the Baptist cured lepers with a touch... Jesus could heal limps and blindness too, and save mothers badly off from childbirth... St. Basil of Caesarea ran hospitals and soup kitchens and was blessed with wisdom and insight, they say... I'm not thinking of any others off the top of my head. Sunday School was a while ago."

"Some of that sounds like the kind of thing we see at home when a god gets personally involved, not just with your average cleric. I wonder if... I heard once that clerical magic works the way it does in my world because the gods made it to, since it's easier to let people choose to take up clerichood than for them to need to intervene every time. I wonder if things in the two worlds are more similar than they look and that just never happened here."

"If God really exists He's not making it very obvious."

"Faith is half the point you nitwit-"

"Hey now hey," a third man interrupts. "No insults. State your arguments calmly."

"All the stories of miracles are things that happened long, long ago and could be made up."

"Too many people saw it, believed, passed on the stories for there to be nothing behind them."

"Rumors can spread out of control and be proven false later-"

"From Volans et al 1896-"

"That study again, it was one guy-"

"-Statistically speaking, with over a decade of data, on the Zee voyages blessed by a Priest returned more often, report casualties and horrors less often, report lucky breaks more often-"

"None of the other academics agree that that's conclusive evidence God is real."

"What other explanation would you propose?"

"Morale. Wishful thinking. Selection, ships that seek blessings being more cautious-"

(They continue arguing.)

It's a fascinating discussion and always good to get people thinking about how things work in the world. He listens in for a while, though he might end up going back to his cabin before the debate comes to any sort of conclusion.

He can get more religious stories and confirmation that most modern chapels try to act like community centers and charities, while others are more... Extreme. There are sects that more resemble dangerous cults than a Good church. He can get a discussion of the New Sequence, the "revised" bible and Christian story that attempts to fit the High Wilderness into its understanding of things (somewhat poorly). He can get a dozen horror stories of the terrible things on the Zee, and a few anecdotes about how faith protected people from them from the terrors.

The debate comes down generally on the side of 'maybe God exists or maybe not, but Christianity is clearly not right about everything even if it has some good life lessons in there'. Individual positions vary, of course. Dusk has fallen by now and people are yawning.

None of the evidence is conclusive, as far as Raafi can tell, though he's sure his world's scholars would have more of an idea of what to make of it.

He turns in with the sun; he'll need to be sharp in the morning, after all.

The night is uneventful, aside from something howling(?) in the distance for a while.

Captain Abernathy is up bright and early, cleaning his rifle and humming cheerfully.

Raafi finds him when he's done his devotions. "Good morning!"

"Good morning! Ready to go hunting, I hope? We can be on our way this evening, I've taken care of my other business."

"Mmhmm! I'll want to talk magical strategy with our companions before we go, but I'm ready. Are we bringing someone from the crew along?"

"Four is already rather enough, don't you think? Any more and we're even more obvious to the quarry. Besides, they're enjoying shore leave."

"Works for me. I'm ready to go when you are, then."

"Tally ho!"

They meet the Remingtons by the same tea place they met yesterday.

"I understand Raafi wanted to discuss strategy before we embark," Abernathy says diplomatically.

"Mmhmm, you should know what tricks I have available. The tricky one is two spells - one that can blind a target at range, and the other silences all sound within twenty feet of whoever or whatever it's cast on - if we run into something too big to handle, that gives us a clean getaway, but we won't be able to talk and I can't cast anything else with the silence spell up, so you need to know about it beforehand. I also have some divinations - three that'll look forward half an hour and tell us whether something is a good or bad idea, and two that look forward a week and give advice about something - I'm thinking we can use one of those to find our quarry, and I'll save the other for if we run into a complication - if we run into trouble and you have an idea that's risky to try you should tell me so I can check, though, is the upshot of those. I also have a spell that makes stone, in whatever shape I want - if we're attacked in a way that my other spells don't cover I can make us a fortress that way, and I don't want you to panic about it not having a door, in that case; I have a separate spell to make one when it's safe. And then I have a number of boons and blessings to cast when it's time - I can do the fire ward now or in the field; it lasts five hours, I'm not sure how long you're expecting to be out there. -oh, and I do want to cast Status now, that'll last until evening and it'll let me find you if we get separated and tell if you're injured."

"I'm not at all used to this talk of spells, I do admit," Mrs. Remington comments. "My instincts say that our odds are best if we stand and shoot, in most cases. Nothing in these woods wants to get shot any more than we want to get bit. I do know that what we're hunting sees infrared, if that's relevant? They can see warm things, essentially."

Abernathy comments, "It'd be silly not to use them but I don't want to rely too much on magic. It'd be unsporting. Anyway, we should hold off on the fire ward until we have some sign of the quarry in the area."

"I wonder if you could create interesting landscaping or sculpture with the instant fortress?" Mr. Remington muses.

"Not art, I don't have that much fine control. It's fine for bridges and things, though, I can make any rough shape I want. Anyway I'm sure we won't use half my magic, it's just that if we run into trouble there won't be time to explain."

He casts the Status spell, and offers the resulting glow around.

Everyone touches it, with varying levels of dubiousness.

Mr. Remington says, "I got a lead on which part of the Reserve there have been Heater Lizard sightings. It's about an hour's walk from here, then off-trail."

"Sounds good to me."

He follows along, occasionally seeming tempted to stop and look at some flower or tree or animal track but generally keeping up and staying alert.

They mention it's good to make noise for now, to keep anything watching them from getting too curious. They ask him about his past travels as they walk.

Eventually they come to a section of cliffy jungle that also has what looks like some kind of geothermal pools. They smell of sulfur and are full of hot water, at least. 

"I suppose the Heater Lizards must like the water."

"It could be coincidence, we're not naturalists..."

"Seems plausible, at least. Do you know what their tracks look like?" He starts to look around; he should be able to find tracks fairly easily if there are any.

"They're large and four-limbed, with three forward toes and a back toe, middle front toe and rear toe clawed. And heavy, about as much as a horse or a tiger."

"Mind the gap here," Abernathy says, carefully stepping over a crusted-white fissure in the ground.

There are some tracks that look like that visible as they navigate between thermal pools. Two old and one newer.