It is a forest floor! It's slightly damp, very green, and reasonably flat with a few leaves around her.

Also a guy with a backpack who is for some reason holding a metal rod and – "Who the hell are you?"

oh wow he's hot

"Uh, Ellie Farshaw. Nice to meet you."

"Did you – where did you come from?"

She sits up and casts a quick Prestidigitation to make herself more presentable.

"I was... in bed? And apparently someone decided to teleport me as a prank. I thought I put my wards up..."

"… What land are you from, major polity? Teleportation is not common knowledge in these parts."

"Huh? Magisterius University in the Imperial Republic."

"I do not know either of those places. We're near Saffron, if you've heard of the place, in the Lower Lands."

She pats her pockets, finds a scrying glass, and casts a spell.

"Oh. This... isn't the Prime Material. That's worrisome."

"I'm afraid I'm not acquainted with the Prime Material."

"It's where all the interesting things happen." She smiles at him. "Well, most of the interesting things."

"I don't suppose you have any experience surviving in forests, do you?"

"Yeah, I took Wilderness Survival last summer."

"What do you mean – took?"

"As a class."

Blink. "But you're, like, what, twenty or something?"

"Yeah. University. I said university, didn't I?"

"You did but you were using it as a place name and – I didn't realize you meant an actual university?"

"More people know MU better than the town."

"People do not frequently go to universities in this area – universities are mostly only in the extremely large towns, typically left over from historical times, and do not have current students?"

"What a poor, deprived plane."

"I'm reasonably confident this planet is not in fact flat."

"Not a geometric plane, a plane of existence."

Pause. "I didn't realize those actually existed."

"There's a whole building dedicated to the Interplanar Studies program."

"Well. That sounds nifty but it sounds like you must have a lot more in the way of… sorcery and such."

"I'm not a sorceror. I'm a wizard."

"The distinction being?"

"Wizards have to learn their spells the long way."

"… I don't have spells as such."

"...How do you do magic, then?"

"It's more a – continuous thing?" He indicates the metal rod he's holding. "This is – a permanent artifact thingy, helps me focus Chi the right way?"

"Weird. Can you demonstrate something?"

Deep breath, and then the metal rod goes shinier–

And then he jumps about six feet into the air.

Wait, why is she impressed with him and not just the magic?

Who knows!

"What sorts of spells can you do, then?"

Ooh, he's asking her a question.

"Oh, all sorts. There's two big categories, divine and arcane, and then it gets broken down further from there into the different schools. I focus on arcane magic. One of the simplest spells is Prestidigitation," she waves a hand through the air trailing green and gold sparkles, "which you can use for all sorts of little effects. Bigger spells cost more mana, but also do more." And then she's off and running into a serious lecture on general theory of magic with visual aids where appropriate. It would be much more accessible with about four years of schooling and lot of background knowledge that he doesn't actually have. But she's very enthusiastic about the subject!

He tries to pay attention, but stops her before she can get into anything about enchanting. Or spellbinding. Or elemental magic.

"I think this needs a lot more than just a five minute conversation. And. Probably should not be done while we are in a forest at risk of being eaten by a grue."

"That's probably a good idea. Do you have somewhere to go?"

"I… am sort of on a quest."

"Exciting! I was going to find a quest to go on after I graduated. What are you questing for?"

"To try to work out why there are extremely large gashes in the ground over near Ajolta. And why Ajolta and surrounding towns are rather – suddenly uninhabited."

"That sounds quest-worthy. Do you want help?"

"Help would be appreciated!" he says. "Unfortunately not many people know very much in the way of magic. And while there are a few brave adventurers, or whatever," he says, a little dismissively, "they don't seem to actually want to help."

"Well, I'm more than willing."

"… If you're from another plane you might not be used to much in the way of what we have here." Pause. "We still have the same laws of physics, right, gravity and momentum and such?"

"I wouldn't characterize those phenomena as laws, they're more like general guidelines."

"What's stuff like where you're from? We had a bit where – it didn't seem to apply to some planets, was a bit off, but turns out our calculations were instead."

"If you try to do anything resembling calculation to the way the world works, it's likely to change the way it does, just to spite you."

"… Not where I'm from it isn't?"

"How sure of that are you?"

"… Sure enough I've not died while poking at magic yet? I'm careful, I don't just try – like, teleportation or something stupid like that."

"Someone once tried to measure the site of various falling objects. 'Down' is no longer a coherent concept in the area of the test."

"Uh. If that were a problem I would expect lots of issues with, say, magnetism or – well, we have lightbulbs? They use electricity, and as far as I know that's all very technical but linked to magnetism."

"Sounds like something out of a science fantasy novel."

"… I don't think we have any of those?"

"It's a genre of fiction wherein the world works in transparent and predictable ways, and won't poke back if you poke at it."

"I wouldn't – uh, I wouldn't call everything transparent," he says, looking around. "And we should probably start moving before something attacks."

"If it's not actively hiding, it's transparent. Where are we going?"

"We're halfway through this forest and it's well-known for having awful creatures at night and being dangerous enough you shouldn't go into it in the day unless you're either suicidal or a sorcerer, so… mostly just away from here."

"Which direction, though?"

He continues in the direction he was going. "Away from Saffron, right now, and sort of loosely Ajolta-wards. Because I am in fact a sorcerer and so am fine in these forests."

She follows after.

"What sort of dangers are there?"

"It strongly depends on what you're looking out for. Some things won't attack you unless you notice them." Pause. "But more helpfully – stay away from anything that seems extremely out of place, stay away from anything that looks ominous, if you're not sure then ask me, if I'm not around then try to look at some spot that keeps it out of the corner of your eye and back away slowly, holding a hand behind you in case you walk into another one."

"Would a fireball make that kind of situation better or worse?"

"… A direct attack would be risky, because against a lot of them it could help but against a lot of others it'd just provoke them. You'd be safer just creating a flame near you, if you can, and then using a fireball if it does attack."

"Do you have a bestiary or something?"

"It's more informal notes than a bestiary per se, and mostly for the rarer creatures…"

"I'd still be interested in seeing it."

He gets out a book and shows it to her. "I'd rather not lose this, if possible – it'd mean a hassle to get all the information compiled again."

"I can be careful."

So he hands it to her and continues walking.

It's a lot of hand-written notes. The details are mostly scarce and some of the diagrams have notes like 'reproduced from verbal accounts' or 'guess from tracks'.

There is also a huge section on Shadows, which mostly elides details of what they look like and what danger they typically pose, but goes into quite a lot of detail about the magic they appear to have access to, ranges of 'personalities' and histories of interactions he's had with them.

They've all ended in the attempted murder of the Shadow, it seems.

That's only sensible, if they are dangerous. He does seem the sensible type.

Well, they're presumably dangerous. Apparently they can appear in sufficiently thick fog, too, which not everybody knows.

Fortunately, the surrounding forest is not at all foggy! How nice for them.

Yes, it is. Lovely day for a walk.

"So what's it like, where you're from? Any particular prevalent dangers, common way to ward off dangerous creatures…?"

"Oh yeah, there's a whole laundry list of things to watch out for. Basic wards and a knife is enough if you stick to the well-traveled areas, though."

"… We don't so much have personal wards, if you mean that, it's on large settlements. And roads are not usually special in any way other than being, well, often in flat, open areas where it's harder to be ambushed."

"Most monsters are kind of shy. They don't congregate in areas with too many people."

"It probably varies depending on the creature, but I haven't seen many of them working together…"

"Not congregate like they're having social gatherings, just that's where you're more likely to find them."

Shrug. "They're often around outside towns, for us, Shadows and Blurs, but not all of them do that."

It occurs to her that she ought to have been slightly annoyed by the way he didn't pick up on what she meant by congregate. Instead, she found it slightly endearing.

"Something wrong?"