"I see."

"I am extremely unfamiliar with local security procedures, don't know what spells might be cast against me, don't know what spells you would cast in response, if you want me on the floor you need to shout 'Fall down!' and not just the name of a spell that any idiot knows means I should fall down.  Let me know if there's anything I can do to make your own lives simpler or easier."

"Someone might attempt to kidnap you, in which case they'd need to be within thirty feet of you or more likely need to touch you. Someone might, given that constraint, just try to kill you figuring they can resurrect you later, which still requires getting within the building, which is shielded to make that difficult, though there are expensive measures we haven't taken and will probably now take, given the added prompt that they're needed. If people are casting spells when you had no reason to expect spells to be cast, getting out of their line of effect, which is to a first approximation their line of sight, is a good idea if you have time. If there's anything else you need to know we can yell it.

I can also create a telepathic bond between you, me, and up to two other people. which we could use to communicate telepathically and in a manner that isn't subject to eavesdropping by any known method aside from forcing a member of the bond to divulge what was said. Everyone in the bond hears everything spoken into it. That'll last for two hours, so it's not particularly worth doing right now, but if there's anything that might be a sign of trouble I will do it. If there's anything that unambiguously is a sign of trouble I will likely grab you and teleport out to safety."

"If the telepathic bond requires my consent, please prioritize showing me, soon, a couple of books saying," purporting to say, "how telepathic bonds work and what they permit.  Is there anybody besides you who I should have on my list of people who are allowed to grab me and teleport me?"

"There's one other person who looks," illusion, "like this - do you have Detect Magic -"

Keltham will try gainfully to distinguish these two faces from all other Chelians!  He also tries to figure out how to avoid revealing whether he has Detect Magic right now, without lying of course.

"Don't rely on my correctly using Detect Magic soon, it's questionable how well I'll be able to cast or hold onto anything in my first days.  In a few days that might be a secure assumption though."

"All right. There's a wizard spell called Arcane Mark which wizards can use to create a distinctive magical signature for themselves or various objects. It's imitable, but they'd have to get very near us to see what to imitate. Once you can Detect Magic, you'll want to get a look at us and learn those, which would make it very hard for anyone to impersonate us to you."

"Have you got something for reflexes, to help him catch cantrips -"

"If nothing's gone wrong by the end of the day I can Haste him. - hey," he adds to the priest, "have we gotten any signs Asmodeus expects trouble, did you get combat spells -"

             "- no, but the High Priestess got Forbiddance, she mentioned -"

" - ah huh. Okay."

"Question mark?" Keltham mistranslates what was supposed to be a much shorter speech-act.

"Forbiddance bars all planar travel into or through an area. It's incredibly expensive. I think we'll go ahead and do it, though, with your leave, if Asmodeus thinks it's a good idea and your god also thinks there might be trouble."

"I meta-level think it's a good idea if you object-level think it's a good idea.  I have no grasp of pros and cons myself; the judgment is in your hands."

If Keltham got a teleport spell in one of the higher-circle ones he has no grasp of yet - then that will require some plotting later, he guesses, and oh well; it doesn't seem worth making himself more vulnerable in the other possible worlds.  They do not actually need his permission.

"All right." He nods to the priest, heads off. 

Current plan is breakfast, followed by basic wizardry / spellcraft.

She can try to explain catching a cantrip during breakfast. "So if you cast any of your first-circle spells you'll notice the act of casting deforms them and releases the spell, there's nothing left. But if you cast a cantrip, it's intact - you're releasing it, but you're not breaking it. You just have to try to draw the energy back to you. My notes from school should have some exercises..."

She would really really love to read Keltham's mind but they're only having a few very high-level people do that, now, lest he notice.

"Tomorrow I'll ask my god to load up on those, possibly, but for today it sounds like I only have limited tries.  Let's give me all the advance prep we can pack into a limited time - since I do need to try today - and then try it.  I'll save one for the end of the day and Haste, though, it sounds like."

"Sounds good. I can also demonstrate them for you, though I'm not sure how much good that'll do when you can't have Detect Magic up to watch." This will save some time for the writing of a book about Telepathic Bond, anyway. 

Keltham will watch Carissa, do any other advance prep she suggests, and then try with Resistance.  Oh, and also eat breakfast.

Breakfast is a wide variety of the same sorts of things as were offered for dinner yesterday. 

He does not catch Resistance, though it feels like he can tell what motion it would be.

All right, Keltham is going to wait for wizardry lessons, and then... hm.  "Is there a spell structure for a more powerful version of Detect Magic that you can show me?"  Keltham isn't all that happy about revealing that he got that second-circle that looks like it might be a more powerful Detect Magic - more out of security principle than any specific suspicions or plans - but he's not going to cast an unidentified spell just yet; and using the more powerful Detect Magic might save him some time, so it is important to identify.

"Greater Detect Magic? Yeah, that's a thing. Second circle. Have you got it? Looks like -" Illusion.

"Yup."  Keltham is pleased he is making any progress on being able to see by sight what a spell structure does!  "I'm thinking next I try my hand at some basic wizardry stuff, fail a few times, then cast Greater Detect Magic and watch you catch some cantrips and maybe even specifically catch a Read Magic one, if you've got that or somebody does, and then try to catch my own, and then try some more basic wizardry things before Greater Detect Magic runs out."

"Unfortunately you won't be able to cast Read Magic while using Greater Detect Magic, because Greater Detect Magic requires concentration, and you can't cast a spell while concentrating on another one, you lose the one you were concentrating on. You probably will have the same problem trying to catch my Read Magic but I'm happy to let you try."

"Is there an expensive thingy that lets the user look at things with Detect Magic without concentrating, which I can borrow for a day for purposes of learning basic magic twelve times faster, if that's the known result?  Though I can also just try my hand at the basic wizard things first."

"Yes there is, it's very expensive, but you can ask someone to put out feelers. I'm not sure anyone has measured how much it speeds up learning magic because usually magic students' time isn't valuable enough for that to be even remotely worth it but you're right that here it is, if we can arrange it discreetly."