"Augh what the fuck," she says, and manages not to fall over, and then realizes she said it in a different language. 

This is not the Worldwound.  It is also not Sothis or its environs.  It doesn't feel like she's enchanted, but it also doesn't feel like the last time she found herself someplace completely different- no explosion, for one thing.  (It's also actually decently warm, for the first time in months, she shrugs out of her coat and ties it through the strap of her satchel.)  That looks like a dangerous-beasts amount of trees, she should stay on the road- OH HOLY SHIT that thing is FAST never mind.  She will stay within sight of the road, a safe distance away from the- construct?  It seems to be ignoring her at least, that's good.

Detect Magic:  nothing.  Detect Fiendish Presence:  nothing.  "Hey Nethys, what the fuck, if this was You I'd have appreciated any warning,":  nothing, not that she really expected anything.  

She'll... head housewards, then, testing out her new language as she walks- good, she still knows the ones she started out with- and keeping an eye out for beasts on the one hand and speeding constructs on the other.

There are more speeding constructs! Several of them stop at the intersection, waiting for the lights to change color, there are people inside them. Bassy music thumps out of one that four teenage guys are inside, drinking beer.

She'll have to cross the road, twice, to get to the house and church. Or she could walk down the smaller and older side-road towards a metal gate with a red STOP sign, which none of the cars are taking.

She'll at least walk as far as the gate, and see what she can see past it, especially if it lets her get a road-crossing out of the way before dealing with the- cars?  Is that related to cart or is it a sound-coincidence... her new language apparently doesn't come with sourceless philology knowledge, boo.

There's open space and a corn field beyond the metal gate. The small road continues for a while. There are some tall buildings in the distance off to the left, but the area behind the gate otherwise seems pretty empty. A smaller sign declares: 

United States Department of Energy - Fermilab. No unauthorized entry. Visitors should use the main entrance located on Kirk Road <--- 1.5 miles

Managed by Fermi Research Foundation on behalf of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy

So 'United States' is probably the place she's in?  Could they have picked a less specific name- maybe the new language is translating it- she thinks maybe she's heard of there being a confederation or something somewhere in Avistan, this feels like Avistan sort of weather (it's damp) but for all she knows they're all over the place in Arcadia or Castrovel or whatever.

Department of Energy.... is a... division?  Some kind of government or university thing?  With an 'Office of Science' and a 'propernoun Research Foundation' nested inside it, okay, so it's maybe more likely a university and they're studying fire and electricity and acid and whatnot, (hopefully) not trying to regulate use of them, that would be wild and also inconvenient to her specifically. 

"No unauthorized entry" is pretty obvious, and she can't see any magical defenses (or for that matter guards) but she is not in a mood to find out what kind of disguised wards a 'Department of Energy' puts on its stuff.  She'll head back to the crossroads and watch the behavior of the cars for a while, until she can spot a pattern that lets her cross houseward.

Red light means stop. Green light means go! No crosswalks here, though.

Okay, so if she goes a little ways away from the crossroads and waits until there's a red light facing her, there shouldn't be any cars coming from that direction, and any coming from the other direction will be slowing and should be dodgeable...  she'll wait until she sees a bit of a gap and then try dashing across, satchel wrapped protectively in her arms.

Nobody wants to actually hit a pedestrian. She makes it across.

The house is sturdy brick. Actually, from closer, there's an inscription in the stone threshold: 'Big Woods School'. The church is mostly faced in white-painted horizontal slats of some kind of strange material. There's also a cemetary, a car in the parking lot just on the other side of it, and a sign. And up ahead, a large warehouse visible past trees and the road curving slightly.

Eastern Orthodox Church

St. Amalberga The Great

Holy Liturgy: Sunday 10 AM, 2 PM

There are two cars in the parking lot, and a couple of men taking boxes out of one and carrying them into the church. They look kind of tense and anxious, glancing around a lot.

She doesn't recognize the god- saint? if it's a saint, it's a bit odd the sign doesn't say what god they're a saint of... oh shit are they monotheists here.  That doesn't look from the outside like a torture kind of church but those guys sure don't look happy... she'll continue casually towards the cemetery and read some gravestones.  She's probably worried over nothing and just too used to thinking about Cheliax, 'orthodox' right on the sign kind of implies they're distinguishing themselves from some other heterodox church?  How many of Cheliax can there really be.  Well.  How many of Cheliax-and-Nidal.  And if they spotted her holy symbol they didn't immediately chase after her about it.  She's still going to read some gravestones and try and get a sense of what sort of afterlife they're expecting, and then maybe tuck the mask inside her shirt once she's out of their view. 

"Rest in peace" and "now lies in Heaven" and "forever remembered" all feature on the gravestone. They have birth and death years. It must be somewhere around 1991 in the local system, going by the latest one she sees.

A big ol 18 wheeler truck rolls by. There must be ten carts or more worth of cargo in that thing. The graphic on the side advertises Allstate Car & House Insurance.

Okay, good, they're expecting Good afterlives, she was just being paranoid.  (That thing is giant, wow... they insure houses here?  Is it... bringing someone a replacement house?)

She'll head back around the side of the church where the men were unloading things- are they still there?  Failing that, a door that looks like it's meant for parishioners and not the Church's private business?  Or is that just the big door out front?

They're still there! Lots of boxes stuffed into a big car. And other stuff- Right now they're ferrying 24 packs of bottled water inside. Well, one is. The other is keeping watch. (He tries to smile reassuringly at her. Badly.)

Slightly nervous return smile!  "Hello- I, um, I'm very lost, is this a church that aids travelers?  I can help out-" well, not with the channels until she's sure they're not monotheists, and not carrying those with her wizard's noodle arms, she'd be more hindrance then help- "with the children?"  She doesn't particularly like childminding but it's not like it's hard.

"-Pardon me for asking, ma'am, but are you sick? Have you been in contact with any any sick people?"

"...no?  Not anytime recently."

"Good. Good. You can use our telephone at least, if that helps. We will - have ask the priest if you should, uh-"

"We fear that the rabies epidemic is worse than they are making it sound," the other man interrupts. "Much worse. So we are moving supplies into the church, and will move our families here too. We don't have a safe place far away from people to use, but the church is at least a little bit away from the crowded places."

"Oh, shit-  I'm, uh, I'm not much help with an epidemic-" because Remove Disease is third fucking circle and she can't even manage cleric firsts- at least in the church they'll be closer to clean water-  "but if you don't have anybody for laundry I can do that.  If the priest doesn't mind."  'Telephone' is a... Message contraption?  That's a thing here???  

"I don't think laundry is-"

"Hygeine is important. It helps keep sickness away, even if the disease is not rabies."

"-Yes Ennis. We'll call Father Ramisov. Do you truly have no place to go?"

It's a Good church and these are good people and there's an epidemic, now is the time for a leap of faith if there ever was one.  "I- don't know where this is or how I got here.  But I'm a priestess, too, if Father Ramisov wants backup... I'm.  A pretty new one, though."

One of the guys looks really uncomfortable. The other asks, "Oh? What faith would that be? I'm not familiar with non-Christian faiths."

Because, obviously, Christian faiths only take men as priests.

"Nethys,"  she pulls her little divided mask back out of her shirt collar, "god of magic and knowledge?  I don't actually know if you've heard of him here, we don't know Christ where I'm from either."  (Thank you, mysterious language knowledge, for reminding her how to get the noun back out of the adjective.)

(It is perhaps relevant to note at this point that Khalida is wearing slightly mismatched handspun-woven-and-stitched clothes that look like a not-sexy renfaire version of Lawrence of Arabia, carrying a black and red leather coat that, if someone looked closely enough, has a pentagram imprint on the shoulder where the embroidery was carefully picked out, and speaking completely perfect English with a bland newscaster accent.)

"-Ah. I am not sure if a cult like this... Well, I have never heard of that one. And orthodox doctrine holds that magic is evil, as it comes from making sinful deals with devils. I think. It's also, uh, not real, unless you mean something very unusual by magic."

"Oh, I might mean something very unusual, I didn't speak this language this morning.  But don't worry I am definitely not making any deals with devils, I know better than that."  Chelish coat notwithstanding shush brain she definitely doesn't need to explain about Cheliax if they haven't even heard of Nethys.

"Good. The devil is a great deceiver and cannot be trusted."

"I think perhaps you should speak to Father Ramisov? We do need to keep unloading and go back for another trip or two... We should have asked for more hands."

"I can help carry till Father Ramisov gets here, if I won't be in the way?  I'm not all that strong."  (She is a tiny noodly teenage girl.)

"No, no, he's not coming here. We would call him on the telephone."

Where is she from? It's not like phones are new, like computers.

"Oh... yes, I'd, um like to talk to him on the telephone?"  This place is weird and disconcerting and apparently having an epidemic which she can't actually do much for except provide clean water and channel at people until they pull through on their own.  But it's not like her odds are much better alone in the woods.

They can arrange that! There's a hall for service, with wooden pews and some nice religious art (detailed patterning on the furnishings, stained glass and paintings of people holding books, or babies, or holy symbols, or a humanoid angel with a trumpet, or a man wearing a crown of thorns - their holy symbol is a one vertical bar with three horizontal bars, apparently) and a few back end and office areas in the church. It's cooler inside than outside. The telephone is a red plastic handset attached to a wall; A woman inside who is inventorying and storing away food objects will keep her company if that's alright? Just because there are private documents and valuables in here.

They call the priest and give a report- She can hear a voice too low to understand, giving answers. They're at the church and putting away the food supplies. They're being careful, yes. A strange woman showed up and it sounds like she is lost or confused somehow-- She says she's not sick and hasn't been near any sick people recently, yes. Young, quite young, and foreign, perhaps Middle-Eastern? They didn't ask. She speaks English, yes, but... Ah... She says she has magic? Yes, it sounds very silly. No, they're not sure of that. Yes, she's right here and would like to talk. 

They hand the headset to her.

Oh yes, she understands, she won't touch anything,  she can just look at the art.  (Oh wow there are a lot of books in here...)

She's slightly awkward using the phone but doesn't hold it upside-down or anything, she watched how the person before her was using it.  

"Um, hello, Father Ramisov?  My name is Khalida, I'm from- really far away."

"Good morning, Khalida. It sounds like you are lost and troubled. If we can help you, of course we should. You do not need to tell me, but if you are avoiding something in your life - someone who hurt you, or might want to hurt you - well, if we were to help you go somewhere, it does not need to be 'home'."

"I, um, what?  Nobody-"  well, plenty of demons want to hurt her- and most things that actually have are dead-  "I mean, I guess I don't want to go back to my father's house in specific, if you have some way to send somebody back to their birthplace, that wouldn't do much good?  If you can send me back to where I was right before I came here, that would be all right-"  except your parishioner thought magic wasn't real?  How does she ask that without sounding like a total idiot-  "but, um, if you can't and you're having an epidemic here I might be able to help?"

"-I see. I thought you might be running away from home, since they described you as 'young' and- Well, it doesn't matter. Where were you right before you came here? Where you are now, our church is a bit north of Aurora and Naperville, which are both west of the city of Chicago. In Illinois, in the United States of America."

"Oh- no, I'm, uh, not here on purpose.  Um, so I was at Fort Eleven on the north border of the Worldwound, which isn't really in a country but I think used to be called Sarkoris?  On the planet Golarion.  Um."  Okay there is no not weird way to say this but she does have to ask.  "One of the guys I talked to first said magic, um, isn't real?  Is it, like, illegal, or does it just not work here at all?"

"-O child. Earth is the only planet God has given us. When I hear the word magic, I think of showmen performing tricks with sleight of hand using decks of cards, or coins, or clever devices on a stage. That is not illegal unless you use it for fraud, it is also not supernatural in the sense that it is within the workings of the physical world as can be understood. When they make a coin seem to disappear, it is only hidden, not truly gone."

...?  She's- just going to not engage with the theology part right now (are they not-evil monotheists?), it feels somehow rude to say 'well I have a different god and a different planet, I'm not one of you'.

"Okay, um, I don't super want to do fraud, so that's good- do you maybe have a different word for the stuff priests do?"   She pokes at her new language-  "...miracles?  Faith healing?"  Neither of those are quite right, whoops.

"Miracles are the province of God, and while faith is a powerful force, God does not call us to rely on faith alone to heal, to reject other tools such as scientific medicine... I think you may have been raised very confused, miss Khalida, a great wrong to you. Perhaps I am wrong- There is an epidemic, which seems worse than usual, perhaps that is a sign and strange things are in the world."

"Um, I-  I really do think I'm just from really really far away?  ...and I don't reject scientific medicine, there's nothing wrong with it if you can't get faith healing?"  Why does this entire conversation keep feeling a quarter-turn off from what she expects it to be.  "Anyway, uh, if your god is jealous I don't want to cause you problems with Him?  If you're all set on clean water I can go somewhere else, if you know who needs it?"

"I'm very confused, young lady, is the problem. If you need shelter, we can shelter you. It is only right to do so. But I'm confused. Do you follow a god that is not known by names such as the Almighty, the Christian god, Yahweh, Allah, Elohim, Jesus Christ?"

"No, yeah- I mean, not that I know of- Nethys, the All-Seeing, god of magic and knowledge?  But I know He's called by other names different places.  ...also yeah I don't actually have a place to sleep tonight yet.  If you have room I'd- like that.  If you're sure your god won't mind."

"God is said to be all-seeing. But I'm not talking to you to give you a sermon right now... How many years old are you? It is relevant to your position under the law and the ways we can help."

"Nineteen?"  Almost, but she'd just as soon round up, even if she's really quite sure at this point they can't somehow send her back to her father.

"Those under eighteen years of age are considered minors, children, in the United States. Being nineteen, there is no need for anyone to try to find your parents or another responsible agency to look after you, since you are so sure they are not to be found here. I may recommend against a young lady moving around alone, but you may so far as I understand the law. And I hereby grant permission to sleep within the church tonight and feed and water yourself with the supplies there, if you wish."

"Okay, um, that all makes sense, thank you.  ...should I hand this back to someone, I don't know the duration on it?"  Is the person who was talking through it previously hovering in earshot?

The two men are fetching boxes again, but there's a woman shelving things visible in an open door to a storage closet- Nobody's introduced themselves, really.

"-Ah, if you don't have questions for me, simply place it back in the slot on the wall and go in peace."

"I mean there's a ton of things I don't really understand here but I don't- really have questions questions?  -oh, I guess will your god mind if I faith heal people?  It's not gonna do barely any good for illness but I can go do it outside if it's a problem.  Uh, and you said a lot of names earlier, which one should laypeople be calling Him by?"

"I believe 'Jesus Christ' is most common, though I won't get into the theology." He sounds amused by this answer. "I do not think faith healing is a sin, if done with good and pure intent."

"Okay, thank you.  I can do one this evening, then, I like to keep one for emergencies."  Khalida's sourceless language knowledge did not come with telephone etiquette; she puts the device back in its mooring without signing off. 

She'll head over to the woman shelving things, then, and ask, "Hi, um, Father Ramisov said I had permission to sleep here?  ...do you want any help with that in the meanwhile?"

"-Oh, you need a place to stay? We'll have to get some spare blankets and pillows. I didn't think about that, what about people who lose their own or forget them when they come- Well the important thing is that I'm counting everything, and labelling and organizing it all. I'm not really sure how things are going to turn out, but, well, my husband says his friend who works in - mortuary services - is hearing bad gossip says things could get bad, very bad," she is affecting a gruff accent, "So better safe than sorry. Maybe we can convince the kids it's an adventure, not a terrifying imposition. I'm rambling, I'm Dana, Dana Goebbels."

"I'm Khalida, it's nice to meet you-  I, uh, I'm from really far away and don't know how I got here."  Although she has some suspicions.  "So- yeah.  This was the first place I found."  She fidgets with the edge of her scarf a little. "Mortuary services, that's like for- funerals?"

"Oh dear. Did you hit your head that you remember, does it hurt? Any lumps? No, no. Well- Sort of. He, ah- transports bodies. Gets them to where they need to go for funerals or investigations, and cleans where they were."

"No, I- well, I had kind of a headache earlier, but I don't think it was from hitting it.  Also I speak English now."  Oh look what interesting shelf labels.  

Dana seems to miss the 'now', and will anxiously ramble on as they shelve and count and label things. It's about twenty minutes before they're out of things, and the closet is getting kind of full too even with other things already present stacked at the back.

Some background world facts mentioned during the ramble:

Taxes are going up again. Didn't they elect Republican politicians on the promise that they'd REDUCE the state debt...? It's probably President Clinton's fault somehow, even though he's the President and not the state governor.

They say that it always takes a year or two to develop a vaccine for any new disease, so there's no just waiting and getting your flu shot about the rabies epidemic.

School is out 'for the summer' right now. Dana's son is sixteen and being lazy now that he doesn't have school anymore.

There's an 'industrial park' behind the church a ways and a 'suburban neighborhood' about a mile past the pond and 'Eighty-Eight', a road that goes to city of Chicago(?) off to the south and 'Fermilab' to the north.

You need a car to get anywhere these days, what a shame, they should have more bus services.

The 'Naperville River Walk' is a really nice park. There's a university in Naperville too.

Aurora has a 'bad part of town', where you ought to carry a weapon or walk in pairs or groups in her opinion.

Khalida's clothes remind her of 'the old country', she can get something probably more comfortable at Kohl's Store for not too pricey.

"Do you need anything? It must be quite distressing to be lost and then run into rumors of trouble on top of that."

Khalida can help hand her things, and keep track of counts for her, and try to piece together things about the world from what she's saying without asking too too many super weird questions.  

"I don't think so- I was really lucky I had my bag with me when whatever it was happened.  I guess dinner, if you have enough to spare.  ...what's a vaccine?"

"We can definitely spare dinner. It'll be packaged things unless you want to wait though- I think the plan is to get an outdoor grill from Sears and a lot of charcoal, to handle cooking- A vaccine is, you know- No, you don't. Er. I don't really understand how it works, but they make a weak version of a disease, and give you that, so weak you don't even actually get sick, but the body learns how to fight it. So if you catch it again, it doesn't sink in nearly as far. They managed to get rid of smallpox completely you know, it was a big deal. Nineteen eighty. And I think polio and measles are nearly gone too, I don't remember the numbers."

"Oh huh, that's neat- completely gone?  Wow."  Stack stack stack.  "...your god of disease is probably less powerful than ours, then.  Or- could She be mad about it, and that's why the epidemic?"

"Yep, completely gone. It only exists in two places, carefully guarded labs, so people can study it just in case. -There is no god of disease, of course," she says as if speaking to a child. "Only Jesus Christ and all the angels and saints."

"Huh, how did that happen?  ...why do you still have other diseases, is there a, a saint of disease?"

"How did- What? I'm afraid I don't really know all the saints. Maybe Raphael? And we still have other diseases because we haven't got around to curing them yet in God's plan, I'm sure."

"How did you wind up with no god of disease, is what I meant, but like, I think I'm even more confused about the god situation here than I thought?  Can you tell me the, like, little-kid version?"

"...Well, long ago people thought there were many gods, and worshipped them. But over time the prophets and saints who wrote scripture realized that there were not really any other gods than God, through the words of the prophets and the miracles displayed by his followers. Some people still disagree, and think there is no god, or that there are many, but they're wrong. We know by reading the scriptures and the miracles that were recorded that there is one, who is the father, the son, and the holy spirit."

"So- you can tell because the one god gives His followers miracles, and the others don't?"  Khalida looks about as confused as if people were disagreeing over how many moons there are.  "And- nobody does, um, learned magic at all?"

"No, you can't learn magic. Some people think some things are magic, but truly they are miracles, or just normal reality that seemed like magic."

"Um.  Excuse me a moment."  

Because she thought her Detects worked earlier and there just wasn't anything to show, but she has a sudden horrible sinking feeling that somehow she was just imagining it, that this whole city/country/planet is some kind of eternal Mana Wastes- she ducks back into the main room so if she's about to have a breakdown she's not going to do it right in front of this nice lady with the lazy son.

She closes her eyes, holds onto her little wooden mask for luck, calls an old familiar spellform to the front of her mind, the first one she learned, one she's hardly ever without.  "Prestidigitation."  Can she clean some dust off a windowsill?  Turn a cushion blue?  Warm up the arm of a bench?  

She can do all of these things! Not that there's a lot of dust to clean.

Thank You Nethys.  And thank You also Jesus Christ for being chill about her doing it in Your temple.

There's an empty water tank off in a side alcove, she'll take a minute and fill it up before she goes back to talking.  (It's gorgeously carved but surprisingly small for someplace that doesn't have a full-time priest, maybe there's usually a junior cleric here and Father Ramisov rides circuit?  ...or telephones circuit?)

An orthodox baptismal font has no particular reaction to being filled.

Dana has arranged 'lunch' by opening a couple boxes of pre-packaged snacks, chips, a thing of apple juice, and a can of pears in sweet syrup. She's on the phone, talking with someone about what to buy and how to pay for it. She gestures- Khalida is welcome to graze.

She would be pretty surprised if it did!  (And then probably die of mimic.)

Oooooh pears.  ...poached pears?  She reads the can as she fishes one out- it apparently contains 0 of several things, and some numbers of some others, none of which she recognizes- oh wow that's sweet.  She helps herself to another one, and- needs to stop there, these people are offering her charity and scared and she's not going to repay them by eating all their preserved fruit.  

Instead she'll take a packet of what calls itself 'cheddar cheese on cheese sandwich crackers', some kind of travel bread?  And- actually, move to a different table so the pears are less tempting- and after a bit of puzzling over the wrapper, slices it open with her belt knife to try one.  (Salty and crumbly and not at all like any cheese she's had previously, and also not a pear.)

She may recall counting and storing 78 cans of various fruits, but that's up to her.

Dana finishes her phone call and grabs some snacks of her own. The other two pear halves from the can, and she likes the little blackish breads called Oreos, apparently.

"I've been thinking about your situation, and realized you might not be in the united states legally."

"Uh... if that's a thing, then yes?  I- actually I guess Whoever or whatever brought me here might legally be kidnapping?  Not that anybody could really arrest it or Them for it..."

"I don't know how it changes if you didn't mean to be here. Usually they would deport you back where you came, but if they can't find your home or any records related to it... I'm not sure. Maybe you would get an asylum visa, for being kidnapped here. But I'm sure it will be a legal mess. What I'm getting at is that maybe this should not come up if you can avoid it, until someone helps you look into it."

Nod.  "Would I normally need to- do something in specific, to avoid it?  I don't think I can fake being from here, I don't know- any of this stuff."

"Lots of official things require identification documents, which you don't have and can't get. It might be difficult, ah... You don't look quite like the most common type of immigrant people get suspicious of. Not actively bringing it up will help... Maybe a work visa. That is temporary permission to be here in order to do a specific job. Probably we should try to get advice from a lawyer."

"Huh, okay.  I- guess I can avoid doing official things?  I can't really start a laundry business anyway, if everybody here thinks magic is fraud...  would it help if I said I was seventeen, would they be more likely to believe I was a refugee?  I guess maybe that's a lawyer question, sorry."

"That's probably a lawyer question. I'm not sure. I'm sorry, America used to be more welcoming, I think."

Shrug.  "Not your fault.  I'm more used to countries wanting to keep people in than out, I guess.  ...I mean, like, if they wanted to send me home I'd let them, but I don't see how they could."

"Hmm... The thing I would be most worried about is deciding you're from Yemen or somewhere and sending you there. I think that's very, very unlikely, most likely nobody will even realize unless you do something attention-getting. I'll ask around some tonight for who is a good, reliable lawyer."

"What language do they speak in Yemen?  I think I only got English."

"They speak Arabic. You look like you're from the region where most people speak Arabic, the Middle East."

"Hmm..."  She mumbles to herself in what sounds like it might be a few different languages.  "Nope, no Arabic.  We call the country I'm from Osirion, the city is Sothis, the capital.  Except I was way in the north right before I came here, and they need me more up there."

"Hmm... I'll see if I can find those in an altas or almanac later. How would you spell them in English?"

Sure, she can take her best guess at English spelling- wow what is with this language, maybe she'll give a couple options just in case- actually, does Dana want a map of all the country names she can remember, just in case?  And then if she doesn't have more questions, Khalida will head outside to get her bearings some before it gets too dark.

Dana will leave her alone for now. She must be overwhelmed.

It's actually mostly a pond, a road, and some undeveloped land right up next to this church. There is a plaque that says there used to be a village here. The closest visible buildings around the church are a commercial fleet Nissan mechanic shop, the kind with 100 cars in the lot and no customer-facing office, a swimming pool supply store, a FedEx distribution center parking about 20 trucks, and a cleaning supply outlet.

Khalida gets better at figuring out when and how to cross the road, makes mental notes of where everything is in relation to the church, gawks at the parking lots for a while, reads the text on everything in the window of the pool store- why do these people care so much about keeping swimming holes clean, how do they even manage it- an entire store just for soap?  That big?  If they really don't have any wizards she supposes it makes sense, they'd have to clean everything by hand all the time, and if they've gotten good enough at ???clockwork??? to make completely nonmagical constructs that go that fast, it makes sense to turn some of that inventiveness towards better kinds of soap.

(...although, apparently, not enough to make up for having only the one Church, if Dana only has the one living son- well, she didn't mention a husband either, maybe she was a young widow.  Or maybe they're Chelish about that sort of thing here, somehow, even though the church is Good?)

If the soap store is open this time of day, she'll head in and read packages until someone tries to talk to her.

This store is aimed more at professional janitors than individual homes. Bright yellow mop buckets. Heavy duty rubber boots. 60 packs of sponges. Shop-Vacs and a commercial scale power dishwasher on display on one side, with graphics showing it cleaning around 100 plates at once. Lots and lots of bottles of various cleaning chemicals in various brands, some of them with loud warning labels about how they are poisonous. Wet floor signs, trash bins, heavy gloves. Mops and brooms and brushes and big buckets. Really quite a diverse array of cleaning stuff. The prices are denoted in "$", apparently.

It'll be a few minutes before a middle aged clerk asks if he can help her find anything.

She's staring in fascination at the power dishwasher display by that point.  "How does this work?  ...um, I don't plan to buy one, I'm just really curious."

"Oh, it's really the same as the in home units you can get at Sears, just a lot bigger. For restaurants and cafeterias. It requires hot water hookup in the building, which connects here, and then there is a high power pump to achieve high pressure spray mixed with soap. This is the soap intake, we used specialized granules. When you shut the door it triggers a switch and starts the spray. You do need three phase electrical hookups for it. Big beefy pumps on this thing. Here is the thermostat, labeled for one sixty, that one sixty for ten seconds is the standard for disinfection."

And so on. This guy clearly likes cleaning technology in the same way wizards like magic.

Then he will have an eager and engaged listener with a lot of questions!  Although possibly not the sort an earth human might expect, more along the lines of 'how does the hot water get to the machine' and 'what's disinfection... wait, can plates get diseases here???'

Maybe she's Amish. He's perfectly happy to explain things, at least until two other customers show up (wearing uniforms that say 'Oswego 308 School District - Facilities Services') and he gossips with them while gathering up 'the usual load'.

She'll thank him and excuse herself when the actual customers show up, and finds a flat surface to scribble some notes on. 

She wants to know everything about how they make these things and how they figured it out, it's incredible- they're basically entirely compensating for not having arcane magic, at least the everyday low-circle stuff- (did Aroden never come here and it's a lot harder than she thought to figure it out from divine magic without the basics to build on?) -with mechanical devices that anybody can build if they know how...

...well, there's an obvious place to learn a lot of things very fast, isn't there.  She'll wait until the Oswego 308 School District men are done making their purchase and then try to intercept them on the way out.  "Excuse me?  Do you work at the school across the road, by the church?"

"Hm? Oh, that old place is more a historical site than an actual school. Jim, go pull up the van to the loading dock, please?"

"Sure, sure."

"No, we work at Oswego High School, about an hour's drive from here. If they're gonna pay us to drive out and back here to save a few cents on the dollar it's no skin off my nose."

He's looking consideringly at her now. "...Shouldn't you be in school? Unless I'm misjudging your age, miss."

"So it's not out for the summer yet?  I was wondering if I can talk to one of the teachers."   She should've asked Dana if they count age by birthdays or new years here, fuck- if she tells too many people one thing or another she won't be able to 'correct' it in the convenient direction when she finds out what that is.  "...I'm just short."  Hopefully adding a tired sigh makes it not too too obvious an evasion? 

"Oh, right, three oh eight's school year ends two weeks later than some other districts." He sighs too. "Well, we're janitors, not teachers, but I suppose there's no particular reason you couldn't talk to one if you get a ride there? You might have better luck at a public library, with a librarian, if it's not something school specific, like getting a diploma."

"There are public libraries here???"

"Sure are. I think you need to prove you're a local to check books out but reading them in the library is free. There's a brand new one even that's basically on the way here from Oswego- I can show you on our road map if you like?"

"Oh yes please."  She's read maps before, she can squint at his and copy the important landmarks onto her piece of scrap paper in an unfamiliar script.

It's five and a half miles straight down the same road the church is on.

"Okay, less than two hours, 's not so bad..."  She'll definitely want to find someplace closer to sleep in the long run, though- this must be what Dana meant about needing cars to get places?  "What time does the sun set here, this time of year?"

"You're planning on walking there?" Slight frown. "I don't know off the top of my head. Maybe around nine."

"Hm?  Yeah, I don't have a car," she says absently, already doing math in her head- that's nine hours past noon and the hours seem to be around the same length as hers, thank you for including units mysterious English knowledge, can't be too far past noon now, so she should have a good three or four hours to read and plan her next day's reading and still get back to the church before sunset- huh, they must be nearly as far north as the Wound, if the days are the same length here as Golarion, she won't have a full eight hours before dawn- she didn't think it ever got this warm there, even about midsummer?  Maybe this planet is closer to the Plane of Fire somehow?

(Unfortunately for Khalida but fortunately for her spell prep, the sourceless English knowledge did not include sourceless knowledge of Daylight Savings Time.)

There's the sound of activity from the back of the shop.

"Welp, I'd better get back to work. Have a good one now."

"You too!"  She tucks her scrap paper back in her bag, readjusts the coat so it's less lumpy, and heads out.  

She doesn't especially recognize any of the trees, but if she'd landed in Andoran or Tian Xia she wouldn't really expect to either.  She'll keep an eye on the woods in case of beasts and stick by the road- oh, she probably should've mentioned to the school janitor that she's an adventurer, he might be worried... no, if they don't have wizards here he probably just wouldn't believe her.

The first part of the walk is through the woods. The most threatening thing she encounters is a possum that plays dead in front of her.

Then the vast bulk of Highway 88, the road she's on (Eola) going up and up a large hill that turns into a bridge over a huge road with hundreds of cars and trucks running along in either direction. It's very loud, and smells kind of unpleasantly smoggy.

Then a complicated road crossing. Then some more woods. Then a couple of businesses.

And then she is walking past a large building complex labelled 'Metea Valley High School'. It extends back quite a ways; You could probably fit twenty houses or more into the place. There's a sign that says ENJOY THE SUMMER! There are people playing some sort of sport in the fields out behind it, but the place is otherwise quiet and empty.

Khalida has never seen a possum before; she watches it curiously for a moment or two but when it doesn't do anything more interesting, she resists the temptation to poke it with a stick and skirts around it instead. 

Tromp tromp tromp.  She is so prepping Mount tomorrow now that she doesn't need to fill up on Endures.

She has time to do a lot of thinking, even taking a break to stare at the cars for a while.  (That is so many, apparently Dana was serious when she said everyone needed one?)

She's got a place to stay and food for as long as she can make herself useful and/or not annoying; she should probably look into ways to earn local money before that runs out, she's got some silver on her but no idea how far it'll stretch.  (Which will depend on whether she can find a trustworthy moneychanger... which is probably a lot harder without Abadarans around, huuuuh.)  What those ways are she has no idea, even if she gave laundry wizarding another try no one here is going to know what it is or believe her when she says she can do it, and quite possibly they've got machinery for laundry just like they do for dishes.

She's- probably not getting home, at least not anytime soon, not when they don't have arcane magic here and only the one Church, their Plane Shifts are probably all spoken for already for church purposes.  (And even if they sell some, that reduces to the problem of local money, subtype: absurdly huge pile.)  Unless whatever landed her here decides just as unpredictably to take her back.

It might be just one of those weird things that happen sometimes, but- whatever did it gave her a Share Language while they were at it.  (Which might wear off at some point?  She should see if she can get a fix on it from the inside and figure it out, she's pretty sure it lasts longer than Comprehend but not whether it's hours per half-circle or days or what.)  And didn't drop her in the ocean or in the snow with her Endures all spent or whatever.  Which implies there might be a reason.  If it's some archmage or fey or something doing things for Mysterious Fey Reasons she'll just have to watch for more clues, but if it's Nethys... there's one obvious guess for why Nethys might send one of His people somewhere with no arcane magic.

Hey Nethys?  What the actual fuck?  Why me?  She is not qualified to be this world's Aroden!!!  She is second circle!  And not even all the way a priestess!

But... she does have a copy of the Book of Magic in her bag.  She's never tried teaching before, maybe she'll be terrible at it, but she can at least make a copy to leave behind here once she can afford enough paper.  (Maybe the library will pay her to copy their books?  That seems like the sort of thing it'd be harder to make a mechanism do, you can make clocks small enough to fit in a pocket but they just go around in circles...)  ...maybe two copies, one for the library if they'll take something that's not in English, and one for the church who'll have people who can cast Comprehend Languages, that way she can get it copied out in a day of Scrivening rather than translate the whole thing, in case it wasn't Nethys and whatever it was tosses her somewhere else before she can finish.

The next bridge that Eola road crosses over goes over a large train yard. An engine is currently pushing along about a hundred cars. They're about the size of the big trucks, not the small cars. Some of them are boxy. Some of them are rounded. Some of them are open top with huge piles of coal in them. It's gone by the time she finishes crossing.

Not so long after that is a row of what seems like more normal shops- A bunch of different pubs and restaurants, mostly, but also a 'nail spa', a barber, a book store, and a Radio Shack. They're all in one long row of brick facades, with a sizable parking lot out front. There's another truck here, this one is COCA COLA, and a guy is unloading a bunch of drinks from it for the pizza place.

Soon after that the road changes to a two-lane affair without any proper sidewalks, just a strip of dirt and grass. Over a short hill for much of this stretch is a neighborhood of houses. Each house is big, and has its own large yard that they mostly don't seem to be doing much with. Some of them have fences, or playgrounds, or patios, or a single lonely tree. She passes a barbecue cookout where loud music is playing and a bunch of people are talking, dancing, and drinking.

And finally, here's the library! It's actually a whole 'community center'. There are sports courts and multipurpose rooms of various kinds around, too, and a sign pointing the way to a park trail.

The library is at the far end. It's humble as Earth libraries go, but past the reception desk and open area at the front, there are twelve long rows of bookshelves on two separate sides on the ground floor, and a wide set of stairs up to a second floor where about twice that many bookshelves are located. Signs helpfully point out that the first floor is mostly CHILDREN and FICTION, while NON-FICTION is upstairs.

Apparently people decorate their nails here enough to have a whole place for just doing that- is she being immodest by local standards, Dana didn't say anything but maybe it's rude to call attention to it- she stares in the window of the bookstore for a while but there's no moneychanger here and if the public library really lets anyone read their books for free, she needs to head there first, it's not that much farther.  (The Radio Shack is mostly just bewildering, she doesn't have enough context for most of the things in the window to make any sense, but she does file away a couple more tasks they apparently have mechanisms for.)

Everything is so big, here.  And it's not just the things she's seeing, some kind of machinery made those rails and all these roads, one of those coal cars holds multiple times what #11 uses in a month and it's going somewhere, the houses are far enough apart for truck gardens but clearly not doing it...  oh wow whatever they're roasting smells good, she should maybe have had more than one set of sandwich crackers before she got distracted.  

And then:  BOOKS!  This is SO MANY BOOKS!  

She stands stock still for a few moments just inside the entrance, just staring around- there's so many, she couldn't read all of these in a year, where does she even begin?

"Can I help you find something, hun?"

Either librarians are sneaky or she was quite distracted. The librarian in question is a slighy pudgy middle aged woman wearing a sweater and slacks and eyeglasses.

Yeah she was definitely distracted, but she only jumps a little.  "Hi yes hello, I'm looking for books on machinery and germs and chemicals and electricity?  And topology if you have that here?  Can you really read all of them for free, some guys from the school said so, um, Oswego School?"

"It's actually free to check books out if you have a library card. We just charge you fines if you return them late or damage them, and you need proof of residency to get one. But you don't need one to read within the library, that's right. That's quite a set of topics, is it for a school project?"

"Oh no, I'm new here, I'm from really really far away, and I have a lot to catch up on- I'm living at the church right now, the big one by the pond, I don't have proof with me- oh do you have a telephone!  If you can telephone the church you can ask Dana- anyway yes I'd like to read in the library either way, thank you,"  she's still talking very fast.

"-There's a lot of churches around, and a lot of ponds, but that's not important. Hmm. Why don't we sit you down with an encyclopedia, lots of summaries and general knowledge, and something to write down questions with, and I can help you look for books on more specific questions once you have them does that sound nice?"

"An ency- Oh!  Yes, yes please, an encyclopedia sounds perfect."

Then she can have a ballpoint pen and a piece of notebook lined scratch paper and a study carrel in one of the reading rooms and a few of the volumes of Grolier Family Encyclopedia, published by Grolier Incorporated. Specifically, volumes 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15. Out of 22. The others are checked out right now.

Lacking a better way to choose, she'll collect volume 3 (Bat-Byz) since it's the first of the available ones and bring it over to the carrel, get distracted for a bit trying to figure out how the ballpoint pen works, Prestidigitate the ink off her fingers, and get started.

Copyright a string of letters that doesn't look pronounceable, no part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form- oh, so they do have book-copying mechanisms- presumably the publisher gave the library permission to share it?  It starts with a long article about bats but she doesn't know enough about Golarion's bats to know if these are any different, assorted places including two named Bath, followed by an article on the concept of baths (wow this book is thorough) that lists a lot of what are maybe local historical periods, a noble family one of whom was a notorious necromancer, oooh they have machinery for exploring the deep ocean (two different articles for bathyscaphe and bathysphere although they're not particularly clear on the difference), more people and places she has no context for.... aha a long article on the "battery".

A battery is, apparently, a device for turning a chemical reaction into electricity, so far so good, but after that she's very quickly out of her depth.  "Electrons" flow between two metals through a light bulb, okay at least the sourceless knowledge is giving her what that is... she starts skimming, writing down words to look up next (they have mechanisms for shaving?  why?), and gets over to the next page before she realizes she doesn't know the order of this alphabet.  (Seriously???)

Okay.  This is fine.  She's fine.  This book is organized alphabetically, she just has to go through and write down the order of the second letter, B is going to be close to the beginning, it is not impossible.  (This works until she gets distracted by the article on 'bearings', but at least that one doesn't spawn a dozen new questions.)

She'll emerge a bit more than an hour later and go looking for the librarian, ballpoint pen and page of notes in hand.  "Hi again!  So, I think I maybe don't have enough background for the encyclopedia either, but I have more questions now- the history of such-and-such field articles were pretty helpful, are there any books with mostly stuff like that and less of the statesmen?"

(Her notes look odd, if the librarian takes a closer look at them:  she's entirely covered the page in a tiny cramped hand going a couple of different directions, the keywords in English but the rest of it in some unfamiliar script, and has- written the alphabet out along the top of the page, accompanying each letter with a foreign one?  And missing F, K, P, Q, and X?)

She's not closely examining Khalida's notes. She does notice the additional language, but she'd already figured English wasn't her first.

"There are history books- Well, lots of those have plenty of statesmen too. Hmm. Can you give me an example of an article that was helpful?"

"The history of biology one?  And the bit of the electricity one where they were figuring out it's a fluid, it got harder to follow after that."

"So you might want a focused book on the history of biology as a science? Charles Darwin, the Broad Street Pump and so on? Or would a modern school textbook be closer to what you want, since historical figures aren't your interest? Same question for engineering."

"Probably a textbook?  Which one is less likely to think you already know what electrons are?  -the author, I mean, I know books don't actually think-"

"You probably want a textbook, not a history. Let's look through the card catalog. Biology and electricity, yes?"

"Yes!  Thank you.  And how the machinery works, like cars and trains and dishwashers and things?"

"There's actually a book called The Way Things Work- Uh, sort of meant for children but it's not too bad? Lots of pictures and simplified explanations that give a high level view on these things."

She can get started on looking for all three of these, explaining the card catalog idly and noting down the shelf numbers on a paper scrap.

"Oh definitely pictures."  Of course they're rich enough in Objects here that they can have books specifically meant for children full of machinery-woodcuts, why is she even surprised.   And enough books that they keep track of them three different ways, it's quite impressive. 

The librarian helps fetch these books, very grandmother-coded as she does, but then has to go about other librarianly duties, which appears to be reshelving work.

Khalida devours The Way Things Work- the author uses mammoths for all the examples, it's a little tricky at first to sort out what's a joke and what's serious- adds parking meter and hydroelectric dam and space probe and sewing machine and combine harvester and aqualung and a dozen more to her list of words to go back to the encyclopedia with- starts digging into the biology textbook, and fully does not notice the time passing until the loudspeaker crackles on with "It is four forty-five, the library will be closing in fifteen minutes."

...maybe she can just read a little while longer...

That librarian from earlier finds her a few minutes later when she comes into the reading room to shut off the lights!

"-You're still here?"

Khalida starts a bit guiltily and glances up at her.  "Oh- is it time already?" She reluctantly closes the book, collects her bag and coat, and hands the pen back.  "Here's your pen, thank you for the loan.  I'll be back tomorrow?"

"...Do you need a place to stay, hun? We can't let people stay in the library overnight but there are shelters around, if people need them."

"Nah, I've got one already, I'm staying at the church down the road- Saint, um, Amal- Amalberg?  Something like that?  Thanks for asking, though, it's very thoughtful of you."  Whyyyyyy do her polite cached phrases come out sounding weird in English. 

"Alright then, let me just reshelve these and you have a lovely evening. I'm glad you liked the books!"

And Khalida will reluctantly leave the library (the library!!! why does it close so early...) and head back along the road to the church. 

Tromp tromp tromp... ugh wow she's a little shaky and she hasn't even been in a fight, she really should've had more to eat earlier.  Tromp tromp tromp.  

She spends most of the walk back thinking about all the mechanisms from the mammoths book, the implications of them being so rich in objects- clean water in every individual house, printing cheap enough they label every pack of bread... 

She does duck into the woods partway back, just far enough to find a discreet bush (checking carefully for beasts in the immediate vicinity first).  As she's about to head back to the road, though- is that a rustle in the underbrush?

There is thick foliage all around. You are likely to be eaten by a grue stumbled upon by a zombie(?). It looks like a man covered in blood, with ragged clothing, clammy-looking skin, bloodshot eyes, a clearly unnaturally bent bone, and a permanent snarl on his face. It grunts in rage and tries to sprint at her!

"Augh fuck!"  Sidestep, back off as fast as she can without tripping on a root, calling Flaming Sphere to her fingertips-

-it looks human, and she's a stranger here, and no one's mentioned adventurers in any context all day, and the houses with their big useless yards don't have fences, and she doesn't know anything about the government yet except Dana doesn't want it to notice her, and there aren't any Truthtellings to be had here and she doesn't have local money for a Zone-

-it's going to look like she straight up murdered a man in the woods-

-she changes tack at the last possible second, "Fuck off!  Glitterdust!"  Let's see if it needs its eyes.

Well it knows where ahe was a moment ago. It'll keep scrabbling roughly over plants towards that spot even if it can't see, maybe getting turned to the side. And if she runs, it can still heaaaaaar her.

Okay yeah now it can get a Flaming Sphere to the face.  (To the all of it, really, she starts it off aiming at center mass, but face is included in that.)  Continuing to retreat in what really ought to be the direction of the road, keeping the Sphere on it as it follows her.

The zombie is not particularly Fire resistant. It goes down pretty quick, gruesome burned.

Some of the little patch of woods in the liminal space between neighborhoods is on fire now!

She'll hold the Sphere on it until she's absolutely sure it's stopped moving.  And then an extra moment just to be sure.  And then she'll start Creating Water all over the general area.  Two gallons every six seconds, alternating a concentrated splash on the worst patches and a heavy rain as wide as she can spread it.

How damp was this forest to begin with, and how much dry brush and leaf litter is laying around?

The woods are pretty damp, actually. It must have rained not too long ago. There's a pretty high amount of low brush smoldering, but the fire isn't spreading far and no big trees have caught.

Create Water Create Water Create Water Create Water Create Waterrrrrrrrrrrr.  Partway through her post-fight shakes hit and combined with her existing shakiness she has to sit down rather suddenly, but she can still cast sitting down.  (She does find a good big tree to put at her back, just in case it had friends.)

The cars on the road continue trundling by. If she stays there for more than, like, five minutes she'll hear a siren in the distance.

The fire probably doesn't need a full hundred gallons of water; once the worst of the shakes have passed off she'll clamber back to her feet and head towards the street...

...wait.

She turns back around and eyes the burned corpse, and reluctantly gets closer.  It looks horrible and smells worse, she really doesn't want to touch it, but she does want to find out what it is... there's nobody here to see her looking stupid, she unties her borrowed Worldwound coat from her bag, sticks a hand into the sleeve, and gingerly touches it through the thick leather and fabric.

Hey Nethys All-Knowing, can you help me know something about what this used to be?

This used to be a human infected with a lethal contagious disease that induces near mindless rage.

Augh fuck fuck aaaaaaaugh.

She jerks her hand away, Prestidigitates the sleeve clean, and doesn't feel like that was entirely enough so she Creates Water directly on it and Prestidigitates it again a couple more times.  Suddenly she is really very glad she didn't care about looking stupid.  

Pharasma take him safe into Your keeping, and Sarenrae guide him to mercy and aid all those yet living in danger from this plague, and Jesus Christ whatever it is You do for dead people here please do that, and aid the living also, and Nethys thank You so so much for the warning.

The siren is getting a lot louder. A big red truck shines bright lights, faintly visible through the foliage.

Oh fuck what now.  She's used two second-circle spells on one fight she is not up for another, she's going to head away from that noise as quickly as possible, parallel to the road at first and then back out to it once she's gotten a bit of distance in between herself and the corpse.  Can she see what's making the noise from there?  (Nothing to see here, just a carless traveler headed churchwards...)

It's a big red truck! Different design than the 18 wheelers. Four people in brightly colored armor and black helmets disembark from it and move to investigate the burnt patch of woods.

Ooooh huh.  Matching armor, that's the closest thing she's seen to adventurers but they're identical instead of at-best-vaguely-themed, that kind of implies 'official'?  And she does not want to come to Official Attention even though she really wants to see what they're doing.  She will make her Will save and continue along the road.  Not too too much farther to the church, hopefully the official whoevers are too busy with the corpse to notice her.

Nothing else interrupts her on the rest of the walk back to the church. There are a few cars here this time, and at least a dozen people inside, seeming unsettled.

Khalida leaves her coat outside, arranged to catch as much sun as possible, and flops onto the nearest available chair to rest for a bit.  If Dana's around she'll wave, otherwise she'll wait to start a conversation until someone asks what she's doing there.

Dana is around! She's organizing movement of the pews to make more open space. She waves back.

Khalida will move over to where Dana is and flop into a chair that hopefully won't need to be moved immediately.  "Hi again!  I went to the public library, it's so so cool!  It closes soooo early though.  But the librarian showed me an encyclopedia and a book about mechanisms and a biology textbook- and a physics textbook but I didn't have time to get to that one."

"-I'm glad you had fun." Dana seems kind of stressed. "It sounds like you didn't have much chance of going to school where you were before, if all that is new and exciting?"

"No- I mean yeah- I mean, I didn't go to school school, my stepmom taught us, but that's not-"  She gets stuck on her words briefly and has to take a long breath and marshal her sentences, scrubbing a hand across her face.  "What I mean is we didn't have the things, back home.  Or the printing press, we had to copy everything out by magic."  (She says this last in the exact same tone one might use for 'by hand'.)

Living in a third world country is one thing and she already sort of suspected that, but...

"By... Magic? I wonder if you learned that word wrong."

"I guess it is kinda weird that you have the word for it but not the thing- uh, like miracles, but people can do them just by themselves in their heads, without a god needing to give it to them?  Mine does still work here, I did check- I don't have the copying one today though."

"Hon, as far as I've ever seen or heard of, magic is not something that people can reliably do, and miracles are only possible through the grace of God, and He doesn't do so many of those nowadays by all accounts. Now, I'm open to being proven wrong if you want to demonstrate."

That might be the best way to get this mistake sorted out.

"Oh, uh, sure?  Prestidigitation-"  her scarf is green now.

"-That's... Huh. Huh."

Pause. Could it be stage magic of some kind? A hidden tab being pulled that changes the weave or swaps out the scarf?

"May I hold the scarf and have you do it again? To... Purple. If I understand this right."

"Yeah, that one's-" and the words freeze on the way out of her mouth.  Because this language doesn't seem to have a word for 'cantrip' even though it has one for 'spell', and also her brain has caught up to her mouth and there's strange men here (although they're not paying a ton of attention) and also she is introducing arcane magic writ large to an entirely new planet and should probably have thought about how to do that at all beforehand.

Breathe.  Until further notice she is here for a reason.  Breathe.  Assemble the sentence before starting it.

After a moment or so, she stops looking quite so much like a deer in headlights and ventures, "I, um, there's guys around- would my coat work?  Or, um, one of the bench pamphlets?"

"-Oh, of course, you don't need to undress. It's even better if it's something you can't possibly have prepared, anyway."

She opens her purse and pulls out a handkerchief. "How about this?"

"Sure, thanks.  Prestidigitation."  It is enpurpled.  (It's the same nonsense word and hand gesture as before, if Dana is paying that much attention.)  "That one lasts like an hour, it'll turn back to white after."

"Now this is really weird, I could've sworn magic isn't real, that it's all tricks and stage shenanigans. Sleight of hand. I'm not sure what to make of this, I admit."

"Oh, I mean, it takes years to learn enough to be actually useful, somebody had to be first but it's totally possible nobody here's happened to get there yet, especially if you've only got the one god and He's stingy with miracles- um."  She adds in the direction of the cross, "sorry, no offense."