"Some of us. Some of us do other research. Some of us clean the base, and cook the food, and maintain the tools we use for the research, and whatnot. I'm mostly here in case someone commits a crime."

He nods. "Will you want me on water creation duty? - the water disappears if it's not consumed within 24 hours, like the food. The food-creation spell can make longer-lasting water if that's important but it's not something I can do many times a day like water creation is."

"Probably we will, but I don't know what water disappearing after 24 hours does to the machines we put water in. How does the water know whether it's been consumed or not, anyway?"

"...water doesn't know things."

"What is the system that causes water inside you to not disappear, but water in a cup to disappear?"

"...you might have to ask a wizard that sort of question, and I'm not one, I get my spells entire from Iomedae and I know what they're for but not the details of how they play out."

"Well, I'm sure the researchers will want to watch their water disappear once it's time. Do you know if plants can use the water?"

"I believe that works fine. I haven't tried it personally."

"I'll pass that along. …I agree water doesn't know things, it's just, our water also doesn't have that kind of complex contingent behavior, so yours sounded like it knew things."

"There are water elementals and I can summon one if you like, though it will only stay about thirty seconds. Those can know things. But the water I make is just water, good to drink but not to keep."

"I'd ask you what planet you're from but you already said and it didn't make me less confused."

"Well, I can answer other questions about it if they might help."

"Do you remember what the stars look like at night from there? I won't be able to use that information, but it's possible an astronomer might, I don't know, and your memory isn't getting any fresher."

"I know basic stellar navigation as applicable to the area around where I was posted, but it didn't come up very often, there were usually other things to follow. I can draw out what I can of those constellations but this will result in you knowing less than I do because I am no artist."

"I see. How about you give it a try anyway, no real downside."

"For context, we don't have any magic at all, everything you see is stuff people built normal ways. If we want light we run electricity through – wait hold on that's another potentially unintuitive thing. In the past we used to use fires for lots of things but now we don't use them nearly as much, and places like this are delicate. So no starting fires, okay?"

"Understood. I had a fire spell prepared before but not since my most recent prayers, it's warm and lit in here and there's no fuel outside anyway. The lights are electrical items? ...which are in some way not magical?"

"Yes. The short version is that we burn fuel, which spins a special wheel with magnets, which makes electricity. And our current lights are complicated, but it used to be that people would run the electricity through a very thin wire in a glass bulb, so the wire would get very hot and glow."

"Huh. I will avoid interfering with them." If there's something to draw with he'll start drawing out constellations and marking them with what season they're seen in and where - "You'll want to copy these over in your own language so that your colleagues will be able to read them, as well as yourself after the spell expires" - but most of what he knows is how to be sure he's identified the polestar Cynosure.

"That makes sense." And he seems to be doing it.

Eventually he has exhausted his astronomy knowledge.

"So what are your goals, in the long run?"

"Do you mean more like, what was I on my way to do at the time the monster attacked, or like, what do I believe Iomedae's high-level objectives are and how do third-circle clerics tend to fit into them?"

"More the second one, and also anything you know about what you'd want to do on this planet."

"I don't think I should make long-term plans on this planet for at least the next few weeks because it's possible I'll be noticed missing by someone with the wherewithal to collect me, but if that doesn't happen, Iomedae is the Lawful Good goddess of victory over evil and triage toward that end, so I would need to do a lot of research about what that could look like somewhere so different. ...if I'm the only cleric on the planet, as you seem to imply, it would not be an unreasonable use of me to park me in a church somewhere to do healing."

"There are some people who claim to be empowered clerics in the modern day but they aren't very credible. If you'd like to join the military I'm sure they'd take you. If you'd like to do healing you'd probably want to do it at a hospital, sometimes churches run hospitals but the sick people and the religious services go in different buildings. I don't actually know what kind of healing you do and if it's in demand, though, our non-magical medicine has gotten a lot better than it was when chainmail was a common choice of armor here."