Three figures appear, and three voices.

One is a wordless shriek of terror.

"Wei Wuxian, what did you do?"

With practiced reflexes, Jiang Cheng puts a hand to the hilt of his sword and scans his eyes across the moss-covered stones around them.

"I didn't do anything!  It wasn't me."

Wei Wuxian tries to put himself between the other two and whatever is nearby.  Can he sense anything dangerous?

The rocks have some sort of power in them, rapidly fading. There's ... Something strong, several somethings, watching the area but it's really hard to pin down to a specific location. They don't feel hostile, more curious.

Something brought the three of them here and it wasn't Wei Wuxian no matter what Jiang Cheng automatically assumes about anything strange that has ever happened.  The unknown strong things (spirits? gods?) are the only things around.  It stands to reason that they must be responsible.  Given the lack of detectable hostility and the fact that they haven't been attacked, it was probably for a reason other than eating them or stealing their faces.

Wei Wuxian decides that he ought to try speaking with them.  "Hello!  This one is Wei Wuxian, disciple of the Yunmeng Jiang sect.  Did you summon us?"

There's a vague sense of: No. A sound that is not sound like the wind, a hint of confusion and a sense that the standing stones are strange to this spirit as well.

"Ah, so it's a mystery, then!  Did you spot anyone here before us who might have activated it and run off, or run through and switched places with us?"

He will inspect the artwork.  Does it look anything like the arrays he's used to seeing?

The spirits are apparently bored now and wandering off. The one who 'spoke' back replies with the impression of a thunderstorm before its presence retreats, as if blown on the breeze.

It really doesn't seem like he array's he's used to! It... Could be an array. The artwork is geometric and careful and intricate. But if so, it's one that has absolutely nothing in common with Chinese development.

But Wei Wuxian is so charming! 

He goes from stone to stone, speaking his thoughts aloud as he has them.  "Either whoever did this was a genius who created an entirely new cultivation school from scratch, or had learned a different form of cultivation somewhere else.  Probably the latter given we've never heard of them.  Or both - there's no reason a foreigner couldn't be a genius.  Then these stones were left alone for a long time judging from all of the moss and wear on them, only to activate during a thunderstorm.  Huh, I wonder if these activate every time they're struck by lightning or if it was a one-time thing."

"How do we make it send us back?"

"Oh, Jiang Cheng.  There's a brand new form of cultivation here, and you want to go back home without learning anything about it first?"

"Yes!  We're already half of a month late for getting home as it is."

"Well, I don't know how to use this sort of magic yet, because I haven't had time to study it!  Who knows where it would take us even if I managed to get it working and even if it's the sort of thing that can be reversed to teleport people away from it instead?  At least we aren't in the middle of an icy wasteland, or the middle of the ocean, or on the moon.  There are a lot of places out there that aren't where we were."

Speaking of unpleasant weather, how is the thunderstorm?

It's pretty thundery! It's a dry thunderstorm for now, and a patch of moss near where the stones were struck still smolders, but the rain threatens to come pouring down any minute. There's the sense of something distant and relentless above and a sense of trepidation from below, around and down the hill, as if the world is bracing for a bad time.

He looks around.  Are there any decent places to take shelter? 

There's an abandoned stone hut with a hole in the roof and no door.

Sure, he'll take it.  Flying in storms is dangerous and while Wei Wuxian would be fine Nie Huaisang isn't a very good flier.  He herds the others out of the stone circle before they really do wind up teleported out into the ocean or something, and they all run towards the hut. 

Wei Wuxian is cautious and keeps his eyes and other senses open for hostile ghosts or wild animals.  His sword is in his hand, but sheathed - the spirits earlier were friendly enough and he'd rather not look threatening if any more peaceful inhabitants are lurking around.

Nothing seems to be investigating or stalking them. Everything's going to ground. It starts drizzling, and almost immediately the rain is pouring down.

Jiang Cheng figures out what the driest looking corner is, brushes away any ruined remains of furniture or other debris, and huddles down looking miserable.  Nie Huaisang sits next to him, still clutching at his fan in a white-knuckled grip as he mutters about how much trouble they're going to be in and what sorts of monsters might be lurking outside. 

Wei Wuxian sprawls out half over Jiang Cheng, looking for all the world like this is all normal and fine.  This is great, actually.  They have a mostly-intact ruined hut with a dry corner and everything.  Wei Wuxian has had to weather storms with far less, and once the storm passes they can fly out and look for a village and see where they are and maybe even get some answers. 

"Nie-xiong, how about you take watch and tell us if you hear anything unusual?" he says, already closing his eyes as if this is a perfect place to take a nap.  And they wait out the storm.

It's a pretty nasty storm all told! Nothing attacks them.

In the morning trails of woodsmoke are visible fairly distant in the - west, given the direction of the sunrise.

They fix up their hair and robes as best they can, because they are important young masters of dignified cultivation sects and are not allowed to make bad impressions. 

Each pulls out his sword (or saber, in Nie Huaisang's case) and step onto the flat of the blade to fly towards the smoke. 

There's a little village! Huts of varying quality and wheat and potato fields and sheep in pastures and a blacksmith who is the primary source of the smoke. The people don't look Chinese.

One notices them flying and points and shouts, and everyone gets rather excited after that. They abandon their work in the fields and chores by their houses and all gather up in the center of the village, jabbering in a manner more like fear and confusion than awe.

Wei Wuxian suspects from their different appearance, clothing, and architecture that they probably aren't going to speak a familiar language either.  Luckily, he has a solution to that.  He takes a moment to cast a quick spell on himself and another copy of it on each of his companions which will handle any language barriers.  Maybe he could have waited to confirm that they didn't speak and saved a bit of spiritual energy, but he was excited about getting to use a spell he'd never had the chance to use before and it's not like it's going to cause them any trouble to have it on and then not hear foreign languages.

Putting on his most reassuring and charming smile, Wei Wuxian leads the descent and then jumps the last few feet to the ground.  He flips his sheathe backwards in his hand and Suibian, his sword, flies into it as soon as he lands.  Behind him Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang do the same.  

"Hello, group of townsfolk!  We're cultivators from the Yunmeng Jiang and Qinghe Nie sects, in China, and seem to have gotten a bit lost.  I don't suppose one of you would tell us where we wound up?"

"You're near Listag, which is beyond Lentik, which pays fealty to Goldvalley, which is one of the Kingdoms of Metal, lord shamans."

"I'm not familiar with any of those places."  Wei Wuxian turns around.  "Jiang Cheng, you payed attention in class, right?"

"I did.  They didn't cover anywhere by those names." 

Wei Wuxian turns back to the group.  "Looks like we must have wound up pretty far, then!  That's exciting, isn't it.  We'll get to learn so many new things.  And get to try new foods, maybe?  The strange array of stones over in the direction we came grabbed us before we had a chance to eat dinner last night, and the abandoned hut we took shelter in didn't have food either.  What sort of tavern or other place could we go to buy breakfast from and maybe be told some more things about this place?" He makes an exaggerated hungry gesture.  Wei Wuxian can sense Jiang Cheng behind him tensing up at the informality, but these people look scared and maybe Wei Wuxian can calm them down by letting them know that they are also normal people who eat breakfast.

"Well sirs, we can certainly provide a breakfast. We have some good sourdough bread, and we have cheese. The old stone circle up in the hills we think is from before the coming of Chaos. Before the dragon war. There used to be a shaman who studied it but he left just after we founded this village." 

"We're hosting the visiting shamans! Eger, go get the good cheese. Wine too. Mits, start heating up your oven!" The people visibly relax with this announcement, and having something to do. The named parties start wandering off to do what was asked.

"What was the dragon war?" Nie Huaisang asks once there aren't quite so many people around. 

"Oh, it's ancient history. In time immemorial, when our ancestors were great and mighty, they were bid to conquer the land and make it useful, to turn forest to farm and mountain to mine. But the dragons those evil creatures, them and the other forces of chaos, grew restless and slaughtered in anger wherever they went. The dragon war was the rising of Chaos, when the god of dragons nearly destroyed the whole world. Everything was ruined and humanity only barely survived."

"Huh.  Most of our stories about dragons have them being benevolent and wise.  Not that anyone has seen one in living memory.  Just lots of statues and embroidery designs."

That gets a few scowls and a muttered swear! "No sirs, I don't know where you've been that worships dragons or something, but they are foul beasts. Wise? Capable of low cunning, perhaps, but hardly wise. Pests that steal livestock, set fires, and kill good men whenever they can get away with it, if not driven off or slain by fire and sword."

"Anything that kills people or damages property is definitely bad," Wei Wuxian agrees readily.  "They'd be something that a cultivator would go out and kill.  It's just that we don't have any stories of dragons specifically doing such things!"

"It sounds like you're very far from home. You'll find most people have stories about dragons. In fact, I've heard there's one stalking Goldvalley, that being the city of Goldvalley where the King lives, now - a young one, but growing more bold and dangerous quickly. Would you also hunt down great-brown-ones and changebeasts and demons and ghosts, at your home?"

"Cultivators hunt down anything supernatural that cause problems for people.  Undead are the most common problems we get hired to deal with - ghosts, water ghouls, walking corpses, and fierce corpses, from people who were killed by betrayal or failed to get a proper burial, or had their graves robbed and then we have to go re-bury the ghost and also usually bury the grave robbers too because the ghost got to them.  Then there's yao and demons and monsters of all kinds, animals and objects that have gotten too close to resentful energy and changed into something else."

"It sounds like you do things differently than the shamans we know, lord shaman? We had a visiting shaman come through here last autumn, to look at those rocks I think. But I wouldn't say shamans hunt things down usually. That tends to be the Guard's job, shamans are about talking more. They're good for burials and ghosts though, yes."

"We do more than just attack things until they stop moving.  If the spirit isn't pacified properly it will just come back, and if resentful energy isn't cleared it will continue to warp animals or spawn monsters.  It does involve a lot of fighting, usually, to get past the monsters and to the heart of the problem, and cultivators are better at that part too since we can fly and are so much more durable."

"That does sound more shamanish. And whatever you are doing to make yourself understood is shamanish. We're honored to have such skilled visitors." He looks over at one of the houses. "Be welcome. If you're hungry now, lord shamans, there is yesterday's stew and some wine, but a proper meal will have to wait a little while. If you wish to rest, Master Hemmensteb has volunteered his home for the day and night. He is a hunter and so it is perhaps less lacking than the others."

Mollified that the man agrees that cultivators are indeed magic, Jiang Cheng will respond with awkward but genuine thanks to the welcome, going through the various formalities that would be expected for such a situation if they were home. 

"We would appreciate the chance to rest and consider our situation," he says, "and the stew, if it's available."  Jiang Cheng has reached his full adult height but is still young enough to look gangly from it and has also only just been let out of classes at Cloud Recesses and months of the terrible food there.  He will eat just about anything.

They can have stew! It's mostly onion and carrot and celery with thin stock and a bit of venison and salt mixed in. And the use of a larger stone hut that actually has two separate rooms (kitchen and bedroom) and a reasonably large and comfy bed. Overall the locals seem to be treating them like - mistrustful, but if all they want is food and a bed, better to just oblige than have a fight.

Their visitors also don't want a fight.  As the crowd is beginning to disperse Jiang Cheng quietly asks the person who seems in charge whether it's customary to pay for things before or after staying, whether gold or silver are acceptable currencies, and if they ought to track down everyone providing things individually or if the village has an internal set-up for distributing the payment in this sort of case.  Given how far away they are, it's possible that those are different than he's used to as well. 

Well, it's just good hospitality to help out people who need a bed for a night, especially if they're noble warriors (hint hint). One night, at least. Gold is preferred to silver, here. It's in the name and they have too much silver ever since Old Bearkiller came back with carts of it recovered from a dragon hoard a decade ago.