The protections around the Bronze Orchard, despite having been laid more than two decades ago, still hold fast. They have not had anyone appear in the dungeon in years. Still, it would be unwise not to keep guard posts in the area the Teleport Trap redirects to. It was Manus's turn to keep watch this afternoon. 

Exhausted, hungry, neat layered green army robes torn by brambles and stained with blood and mud, Allegra continues down what definitely looked a little like a forest path earlier, although she is beginning to amend her assessment to 'forest path for deer'. Surely Cargo couldn't be much further?

She is too tired to notice the faint signs of a regio boundary until it is considerably too late.

As her surroundings change, she instinctively draws her army-issue rod (mostly wood, painted silver, cheap green gem embedded in the end) and buckler from her belt, even though there is probably little she can usefully do with them.

There is now a wizard in the cell.

There isn't supposed to be anyone in the cell.

Manus bolts upright and draws his dagger, raising it into the air. He calls upon a fragment of Conrad's power. Bane: Humanoid (Human). The dagger begins to glow a pale white. He speaks the command word and it expands into a greatsword.

"Who are you!? Why are you here?" he asks in Taldane.

Ah, excellent, someone shouting at her in a foreign language and waving a glowing... expanding sword?... at her. That is definitely exactly what she needed to improve her day.

She drops the rod and raises her hands in the air in what she hopes is a universal sign of surrender, although she does keep her left hand through the grip of the buckler; she's not necessarily convinced it will hold up against that thing, but at least it should take the force of one blow and stop her being immediately bisected.

"Do you speak Imperial?" she tries.

The wizard drops the rod, but wizards can still cast spells just with their hands. Still, he does acknowledge the sign, and rests his greatsword on his shoulder.

That is not a language he speaks! He knows Varisian from his father, and Abyssal from the church. And Taldane. Everyone knows Taldane. Almost everyone. He casts Tongues.

In Imperial, he repeats, "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Allegra Highspire, Spring ritual auxiliary with the fifth ritual aux team of the Citadel Guard, currently very lost!" she replies, in a soldier-reporting kind of tone. None of it is... technically inaccurate... and it's not like she is about to let a dangerous stranger believe nobody is looking for her. She starts to gently put her hands back down, checking his reaction carefully; they've started to shake a little from fatigue.

He is very confused, but he doesn't let that show on his face. His expression remains dispassionate and stern. Citadel Guard? Guard of what citadel? Lastwall?

He has no idea what Spring rituals are, but it's clear that the woman is a part of an organized military group, with her uniform and demeanor. Which is very strange! The Worldwound closed more than two decades ago, and this place is in the deep wilderness. All of the countries sending forces to keep the demons at bay have since recalled them.

Inquisitors get dungeon guard duty more than other people, and that's because they're great at interrogations. He can Discern Lies as an immediate action. She won't get anything past him...and she hasn't. Discern Lies says she's telling no lies.

He continues staring at her for a moment, and tries to examine her alignment next. That will be a good clue as to who sent her. Or, in this case, where she's from. Assuming Discern Lies wasn't fooled, which he doesn't expect it to have been, she really did come here by accident.

"Stay there for a minute," he says. His eyes seem to glaze over.

Detect Evil. Detect Good. Detect Chaos. Detect Law.  Each one of them will take eighteen seconds to process. He can use process of elimination to figure out her alignment then, although it won't distinguish between her being True Neutral, having an effect on her that conceals alignment, or her being too weak to show up. Which detection spells does she ping, if any?

Nope; she's just not powerful enough to have an aura. She puts her arms back down by her sides and tries to stay standing still, but is swaying slightly; walking was just about okay, but she really is dead on her feet.

Huh. She does not detect to any of them. Either she's too weak, is Neutral, or is concealing her alignment. Suspicious! The bars of the cell are enchanted and will not be broken by any mundane method, but there's no Antimagic Field in place. Detaining wizards, or casters in general, is very difficult. 

He can tell she's tired.

"You can sit down," he says, although there's nothing at all in the cell, so she'll have to sit on the smoothed gray stone floor. He softens his expression. It seems that she's already used up all her spells for the day, because any other wizard would likely have tried casting something already.

"Where do you come from? What were you last doing before you came here? Were you sent by anyone?" He readies Discern Lies.

She attempts to sit gracefully on the ground, but kind of half collapses instead, both knees to one side and her free hand on the ground to steady her.

"Originally, Morrow; most recently, Reikos, although I'm fairly sure we'd been pushed over the border into Therunin. I was attempting to reach civilisation after being separated from my unit. I didn't intend to come here at all, I think I fell through a regio portal. Is this an Autumn pocket or something else?"

She is too exhausted to come up with any particularly convincing lies; it might be incomplete, but none of it is a deliberate falsehood.

He does not know any of those place names. Nor does he know what a 'regio' or an 'Autumn pocket' is. But neither is it a lie, so either she has some sort of divination-blocking item, is very good at concealing her own thoughts from herself, or is deluded. Or some combination from the above. He clearly can't handle this on his own. Likely the wizards will know what she's talking about.

"I'll be back in a few minutes." Before he goes, he casts See Invisibility.

There are no invisible entities in the cell.

He leaves the dungeon and asks whether someone has Share Language and Lesser Geas or Geas prepared. Conradia does, so he fetches her, and explains the current situation along the way. A few more people go with them, but they remain outside the dungeon.

The woman that comes back with him is visibly older, but not by much. Whereas Manus wore a simple and ergonomic tunic and pants, Conradia appears with wizard robes that would shine brightly to Detect Magic, as well as a bunch of other magic items. She has some sort of bluish cape or cloak trailing behind her, and there's something like a leather strap or circlet around her forehead that's studded with gemstones and metal pieces.

Her face is neutral, and it doesn't have that undercurrent of vigilance and concealed aggression that Manus has.

"Hello, Allegra. My colleague has explained things to me. My thought is that you somehow came here through another plane, though a Plane Shift like effect," she says in Imperial. She explains like she was giving a college lecture.

"I'm keen to talk to you more, but I would like to cast a spell similar to what my colleague used to understand and speak to you, so that you'll be able to speak our language. It's a touch range spell, so you'll need to stick your hand out through the bars." She, as a seventh-circle wizard and important person, has Permanent Tongues on her, but most of the five hundred or so people in the Bronze Orchard don't. 

Allegra resignedly struggles to her feet, trying to retain what scraps of dignity she can muster, and presents a hand through the bars.

At actually being touched, she startles and just about manages not to snatch her hand back, her muscles tensing like it took a considerable effort of will; like she doesn't touch anyone at all very often, like it's uncomfortably intimate; she doesn't seem to have expected to actually be touched, just for the caster to come close enough that she could in principle touch her.

She doesn't bother saying anything until this is done, assuming that it's necessary for the new person to understand her, even if she can understand what they're saying. She's also carefully watching and listening to how the spell is cast, like she might be able to tell something about it from how it's done.

"Thank you," she says after the spell is cast, as much to try it out as anything else. She stays on her feet, swaying slightly.

It takes her three seconds to cast Share Language. She incants, though not in Imperial. Her right hand makes a few sweeping gestures, and then lands gently on Allegra's hand to place the spell.

Conradia debated whether to give her Abyssal or Taldane. Taldane is the lingua franca of the Inner Sea – it's sometimes called Common for a reason. But they don't speak Taldane in here. They speak Abyssal. It's a requirement for initiates. She decided to give her Abyssal and not Taldane. Were she to try and escape, she would only be able to speak Abyssal. Which would be highly suspicious, given that Abyssal is the language of demons.

Any member of the Bronze Orchard can leave at any time, but she isn't one, and she hasn't been proven not to be a threat or of strategic value. This Citadel Guard of hers might want her back. At the same time, it behooves them to treat her with decency and not like how they normally treat prisoners, in the case the Citadel Guard comes to fetch her.

"This spell will give you the facility to speak and understand our language, as well as read and write in it. It only lasts twenty-four hours, however."

She makes a slight smile. "Would you like some food? We have beef stew. We can get water for you as well." She really seems like she needs it. From the way Allegra is swaying, she looks like she's about to faint.

It's always stew of some sort: that's the only thing the Cauldrons of Plenty can make. It took her weeks of research to figure out how to alter the cauldrons' enchantments to produce other types of stews or soups. Beef stew was Conrad's favorite, so when He made the cauldrons in His mortal life, He made all of them produce only that. Fortunately, her alteration was not ruled as heretical or sacrilegious by Rendon.

"Sadly, we will have to ask you more questions before we let you out, although we will let you eat and drink before that. Actually, given that we might be here a while, I think I'll get some food for myself as well."

"I would..." she starts, and startles a bit at how the words actually sound; she hasn't been the target of something like Share Language before, and certainly not with quite such an alien language, considerably different from whatever the first guard was speaking. It would be fascinating, if she had the spare capacity to think about it much right now.

"Yes, food and water, please," she continues, a little hesitant about word choice in the very unfamiliar language. "Many apologies for accidentally trespassing in your domain, your suspicions and questions are entirely reasonable and I intend to cooperate fully." She wonders vaguely about sitting down again, but actually deciding on a position seems like a lot of effort; once it seems clear nobody is about to react suddenly, she does reach out gently and steady herself on the bars.

Manus looks to Conradia, and she nods. He leaves. 

She runs a hand through her hair unhurriedly. She walks over to a desk and pulls out a map from a drawer. It's a map of Golarion.

"My colleague will get us food and water. By any chance, could you recognize either your place of birth or country that employs you here?" She doesn't expect her to be able to, if her hypothesis over Plane Shifting was correct. Neither has she heard of any of the place names she's talked about. It pays to do you due diligence, though.

"I would also like to ask you what an 'Autumn pocket' or 'regio portal' are. They sound like terms of magic? And it also sounds like it was the latter that brought you here. Could you tell me what those are? Oh, and 'Spring rituals' too. You said that working on those was your job in the Citadel Guard." The Plane Shift hypothesis is supported by the fact that, if such things existed on Golarion, she would have heard about them even if they were only tangentially related to magic. She doesn't think Allegra is talking about the seasons here, although there does exist some magic that's dependent on the seasons.

Allegra dutifully studies the map. It's getting a bit hard to focus her eyes on things. It's pretty clearly after a while of carefully tracing the coastlines that there's nothing that matches the map of the Bay of Catazar that she's familiar with.

"No... no lines that match... this one could draw you a local map with tools? Whole world is not mapped by us, we control land from ice to desert around a great bay, but not back to temperate lands again, not joining side to side; this could be across the ocean.

This map is bigger than any pocket unless the places are very small. Magic - magic we know, not magic by this word - comes in seasons and times of day? Spring summer autumn winter day night. Autumn is most likely to have - stone buildings, cities, well built dungeons. Spring is - growth, life, healing, decay. Regio is - a place of power? Portal is - there is a proper word for portal, so probably just that - usually between our world and a pocket, but can exit again in another place.

Rituals, rituals are, magic that consumes power, material power? We condense it into crystals, use those, but other sources can work. I know several Spring rituals, for healing, for corpse disposal. We cast them together; I can cast some alone, not as efficient."

She is very unfamiliar with this system of magic! She is very excited by this confirmation. Her face doesn't show it, though. She merely says, "I see," and nods, as if it was something she had heard before and merely needed prompting to remember. The way she speaks implies that she is fully truthful and that Conradia should be less initially doubtful of what she says, or that she's a very good and Charismatic liar. There's an easy way to test that.

She incants and thrusts a hand toward Allegra, but doesn't touch her. Detect Thoughts. Aside from reading her surface thoughts, it will also tell her how Intelligent Allegra is. Unless she makes her Will save successfully, she wouldn't be able to notice the spell's probing effect, although the casting is noticeable.

"I'm casting a divination spell on you," she says, technically not lying. "I want to know what magical items you have, if any, and what properties they have. You were holding a rod earlier?"

There is a permanent Mage's Private Sanctum placed on the entire headquarters, which blocks many Detect-type spells, but the dungeon is excluded from its area. She rarely casts Detect Thoughts anymore, now that she's no longer working for Cheliax.

"It's not an - enchanted item? It's a - focus, for spells. I don't have any enchanted or - wondrous? - items."

Allegra reflexively makes a will save, without understanding that she's doing so, but fails it. Her intelligence is 18.

when is the stew coming... hope it's not too spicy... what is 'hallowed' in this language anyway, none of these fit... is it going to look worse if I sit down or if I collapse...

Manus enters with a large pot as well as bowls and cutlery. He's strong enough that he can hold the pot with one hand. He sets it a little before the bars, and sets down three bowls and cups. He takes out square cushions and puts one into Allegra's cell through the bars. He makes a show of ladling the stew into the bowls from the same pot and cutting the loaf of bread in front of her, placing each slice alternately on each plate. He doesn't want her to think they want to poison her.

He pours water from a pitcher into the cups, and then passes them through the bars. He sets the two cushions near Allegra, about a meter away, and sits cross-legged on it.

"Feel free to eat."

Conradia does the same and sits down.

She complains about the beef stew, but it's actually very good. It's just tiring to eat the same thing every day. And not spicy at all, so that's good for Allegra. It took Conrad a lot of work to finagle the enchantment to make it flavorful – normally, Create Food and Water makes edible but bland food.

"Hm, I see. Do sit down, you look tired," she offers. She's a skilled enough wizard that she can talk normally even while focusing on a spell, although it takes effort. Hallowed? Does she mean the spell Hallow? But no, if she meant that, Abyssal has a word for it. She's struggling to peer through the links of meaning there. And an Intelligence of 18! She's surprised she doesn't have any wondrous items on her. An initiate with that level of Intelligence would be fast-tracked through the wizard curriculum immediately.

She doesn't seem like she's lying about not having any items save for her rod, which she says she uses as a focus, though she plans on checking that with Detect Magic later.

She sighs. "I believe you now when you said that you came here on accident from another plane with different magic. I'll ask you more questions about how your world's magic works, but I think it would be good if we explained where exactly you have ended up." She'll let the inquisitor explain – she's known Conrad from before He ascended, but he's the one who was ordained and went through seminary. She looks at him, and he nods.

Manus speaks as if rehearsed from memory. His tone, while not hostile, sounds profoundly unamused with the current situation.

"You are currently inside the Bronze Orchard, which is the church headquarters of Conrad, the Contender, the Lord of Staff and Sword. He is the god the two of us worship. I am someone ordained by Him to protect the interests of the church – an inquisitor. We share the Bronze Orchard with the worshippers of Damian, the Fragrant Petal, the Lord of Flowers and Allures. They are ascended mortals, and our churches are allied and interconnected, since They were lovers in Their mortal life, and continue to be lovers today.

The Bronze Orchard is located deep within a mountain, and is hermetically sealed from the outside world. There is no way in or out save for teleportation, and unwanted visitors who try to teleport in are redirected by the protections laid on this place into this cell which you are currently in right now. This is why I was initially hostile towards you. I had interpreted you to be an attacker or spy." Which, to be clear, he's not entirely sold she isn't, even if Conradia might be humoring her. And it's not like he's going to apologize for potentially having attacked her – he has no obligations to her.

He asks questions more forcefully than Conradia, and generally has a more imposing demeanor, despite the fact that Conradia is an order of magnitude stronger than him, and could probably take on a dozen of him in combat. 

"What is your alignment? I tried to divine it, but didn't get a result. Are you attempting to conceal it? Don't lie, my god's blessing allows me to tell. Or is it that you are too weak to show up to it?" 

Okay, so they're carefully showing the food isn't poisoned. Probably not worth trying to subtly cast Purify on it then, they look like they are paying attention. Cushion clearly means sit down before you fall down, so she does, lowering herself gently using the bars instead of almost falling over this time; she's not quite flexible enough to sit neatly cross-legged, especially not this tired out, but just generally she is not very happy sitting on a hard flat floor.

Food, blissful food, must remember to eat it very slowly even though it tastes so good, sip the water gently rather than gulping it down.

She tries very hard to pay attention to the explanation even though the food is taking up almost all of her concentration. Ugh, gods. Titles sound a lot like Eternals in a funny hat, ascended mortals could just mean they ate them or could be they actually usurped another one's position. All sounds a bit Suranni for comfort, but they didn't seem abjectly disgusted with magic, so there's that.

What the shit is an alignment. Does the language have anything to say about this. Okay, it does, it's kind of like dedication but weird; she reckons that 'chaotic' is a shoo-in and 'evil' is, uh, probably on the cards (a woman in a similar uniform in the woods, their throat slit by the knife she carries), but that doesn't sound like the safest thing to admit to these nice people?

"I don't know how strong you need to be to show up to it. I'm only second rank in Spring? I'm not concealing it on purpose, I know of items and potions that probably could but I'm not bound to any or have taken any, that I know of."

Second rank in Spring? If he extrapolates rank to mean circle, then she would indeed be too weak to show up to it. You usually need to be at least third-circle to reliably show up to alignment detection spells.

Discern Lies says she isn't lying, and Conradia would have told him if she saw there was some effect that would have concealed it, or if Detect Thoughts didn't go through.

His face relaxes, but he maintains his sharp gaze. He starts to eat, and lets Conradia explain what alignment is.

Conradia wipes her lips with a napkin and explains.

"In our world, when we die, Pharasma – the goddess of fate and death, and also the creator of the universe – judges each mortal based on the actions they did in life, as well as their outlook on life and philosophy and their intentions when acting. There are two axes which she considers: Good and Evil, and Chaos and Law.

Good represents altruism, charity, treating other people as nice as you would treat yourself, taking other people's preferences into account. Evil represents prioritizing your own welfare, taking only your own preferences into account, and selfishness.

Chaos represents refusing to be bound or fettered, preferring options that retain option value, refraining from constraining your future self, and not placing value on precedent. Law represents preferring stricture and regulation, and  permitting your current self from making binding decisions that constrain you in the future.

A person who is balanced between the two poles on an axis, or, more likely, is indifferent to either pole or hasn't done enough to tip the scales in one direction, is said to be Neutral on that axis. Each person is assessed on each axis separately, thus creating nine separate alignments. Which alignment we are judged to be determines which afterlife we go to when we die. We have divination spells that detect alignments, but only for people who are strong enough. This is both because stronger people have stronger, and hence easier to detect, alignment auras, but also because weak people affect the world very little, and so are more likely to be True Neutral. True Neutral people do not detect to alignment spells, except for See Alignment tuned specifically to detect it. For example, babies which die, either from abortion or miscarriage, sort True Neutral, having done nothing in the world yet, and the same is true for very young children.

That's not all that these concepts are, but they're close. Pharasma's concepts roughly correspond to our mortal conceptions, but not exactly. She is an ancient gods, and ancient gods, as a rule, do not think like mortals. Ascended mortals don't either, being that they are gods now, but they retain parts of their mortal selves that lets them more easily relate and talk to us.

As for us, our gods are demon lords, and so are Chaotic Evil. Most of us here are." Ha. 'Nice people'. Oh, Allegra. She has to stop herself from smiling. If she is Chaotic Evil...perhaps she might be both worthy and willing to join. Perhaps it was Conrad's divine intervention that led her here.

She does not put special emphasis on her penultimate statement, and continues eating.

Great. Lovely. So this is a Suranni setup, but she's managed to get herself caught by the fucking Hand of Dumon.

Oh well, at least she has got a good meal before dying stupidly in one of their chaotic schemes. And maybe she can be useful to them, if their wider society has been trying to keep magic from them.

They've clearly got some weird language thing going on but that could be a specific Boon; they already know detect magic so they've got the basics; it's unlikely they have everything in Imperial Lore and she has the background to re-derive most of it if they'll let her.

"I suppose... I should be working out how to be... useful to you, then. Is there anything else you want to tell me to... make that more likely?"

A little food and she's really crashing now, her digestive system would like the rest of her energy to start making use of it. Just got to persuade them not to get bored with her too quickly first...

What's a Suranni? She is pretty sure she's not a part of the Hand of Dumon. Whatever it is, it seems that for her, it's a real pain to deal with. And Imperial Lore...Conradia thinks that that's what they think of as magic, or, at least, the manner by which magic is performed.

She smiles. The way Allegra would be most useful to them is for her to tell them what she knows. She's conducted interrogations like that, where she asks specific sets of leading questions to induce someone to think about something specific, then read their thoughts as their memories surface. Still, the best way to get someone to help you is to get them on your side.

"I have been reading your mind for the past few minutes," she says calmly. "We are not Suranni, and we are not the Hand of Dumon. I don't know what exactly you mean by those, but I was able to get a little information based on your thoughts about them. They seem similar to us, but I'm quite sure we don't worship the same god.

And we are not against magic! My god, Conrad, has Magic as one of His domains, and he favors those with both martial and magical ability.

Normally, we would only permit someone into the headquarters if we thought that they were a worthy initiate. That means being aligned with the goals of Conrad – or Damian, although you'll have to talk to the Damianites for that one. He is concerned with...power, and growing, and becoming stronger, and not permitting yourself to be bound. That's a very rough summary. I will seek the leave of the High Priest to see whether you could be treated as though you were an initiate, with the status, privileges, and responsibilities that that entails.

We will ask you to teach us more about your world's magic, and see if it can be replicated here.

All initiates are permitted to leave the Bronze Garden and renounce Conrad or Damian at any time, but I'm unsure whether the same privilege would be afforded to you. Probably yes, despite the circumstances, given that Conrad values...hm...the ability to exit situations. Although if you do do this, we would not be able to see if we could return you to your home plane, if you do wish to return – I'm not sure that you do – and we would have to erase your memory of being here. We have a spell that can remove the episodic memories of someone in a specified period. If you do wish to leave, we will remove all your memories from the time you arrived here up to now, and then Teleport you to a city of your choosing no more than nine hundred miles away. Although, such an option being available to you does not necessarily mean that it would be wise for you to take it – you don't even speak any of our world's languages."

She takes a sip of water. She hasn't dismissed Detect Thoughts yet – her thoughts on this topic would be just as important as what she actually says, even though she knows now that her mind is being observed.

They're what?

No. That's not even a thing. It violates the fundamental limits of magic. They're just lying about not knowing her geography and have made reasonable inferences. If they know the Suranni then they know what they look like, even if they're not them.

It's also clear they know Urizeni, that pitch sounds suspiciously tailored to her. Or at least the Empire as a whole, some people would be stubborn about the god thing but 'play along and we'll make you stronger and by the way we value freedom' would be a good pitch to most Imperials that weren't too religious.

"Those sound - like my concerns. But of course I'd say that." 

I was running away anyway, she considers and then doesn't say. Even if they claim to like freedom there's such a thing as too much rebelliousness. And she has no doubt they could make her consent to the memory alterations if they wanted to. In fact, now she's doing an internal inventory of her physical state to see if she can spot a previous discontinuity...

She nods her head sagely and closes her eyes.

"Hm, you're doubtful that mindreading spells exist. My spell is called Detect Thoughts, and it's a second-circle spell. It's not very difficult in the grand scheme of things."

She should probably invoke more things that she thought about.

"What is Urizeni? Hm, I can tell that's a name, but I can't tell what it's a name of. A place? A god? An ethnicity? Our church will make you stronger – that's our whole purpose, but I can ask the Damianites to assume custody of you if it's pleasure or sensual experience that you desire instead."

She frowns slightly, and her expression is wistful. "I am sympathetic to your position. Decades ago, I too was a formally trained soldier-wizard, although in my case I was a part of Her Majesty Abrogail Thrune's legions, deployed to the Worldwound. She rules Cheliax.

I defected from them and turned to Conrad's side. Conrad and Damian were also the same as me, although they did not formally defect – they fulfilled their entire term of service before embarking on the path that would lead them to apotheosis. Trust me when I say that it would be very out of character for us to impede someone like you, whose goal is to run away to lead a freer life." She would say that it's very likely to be heretical, but she's not going to make pronouncements as to what's heretical or not while there's an inquisitor sitting beside her.

Okay, they clearly want her to play along with the thoughts thing, let's play along with the thoughts thing. Maybe she should experiment like a good Urizeni? If you can hear this, I'm thinking of a purple monkey washing dishes.

"Urizen is the nation I'm from. The Citadel Guard is their army."

She's kind of tempted by Damian to be honest, she does like a good sensual experience and she has a pretty broad horizon on what that means, after the Druj. Being stronger is good for her survival chances but sounds like a lot of hard work. She doesn't want to cause any trouble and she is so not in any state to make complex important decisions right now. It's all sounding pretty encouraging as 'running into a dungeon by accident' goes. Maybe they'll let her sleep first.

What should she say. Well, if they're reading her mind, she doesn't have to say anything, right? Clearly they've already got all that and she can save her mouth for stew. More stew, mmmm.

She chuckles.

"I can hear that, yes. Well, not 'hear' – reading thoughts is a sense unlike any of the other senses. You're thinking of a purple monkey washing dishes. Although you must be formally accepted by one church in order to be in here at all, under normal circumstances, at least, there's no issue with interacting or working with members of the other church. We regularly train with them, and share many of our facilities with each other. There are cases of people formally switching which church they belong to, but that has only happened a few times in our history. 

If you want to sleep, we can get you a blanket. I'll need to ask the High Priest, Rendon, how this situation ought to be handled anyway. And yes, you don't have to say anything. So long as you think it, I can hear it." She laughs.

The Damianites would likely want one of their own to talk to her too, to see what she's like. She'll ask Rendon about that too.

Okay so that's a thing. That's just a thing now. There is no point frantically worrying about how that is a thing, it's just a thing. There is also no point cringing and grovelling in apology for thinking rude and flippant things earlier, terrified fawning child in the corner there, stop that at once, it's undignified (and you know what happens if you're undignified...).

She really wants to finish this stew very carefully and then pass out and yes a blanket lovely, no complaining, it's better than the forest floor (and much better than passing out shacked to the wall, ugh didn't she get rid of most of those memories for a reason).

She deliberately thinks about how she will be very useful and accidentally thinks about how she's now mostly sure enough they won't randomly kill her in her sleep or at least there's nothing else she can do about it.

Allegra's thoughts are getting distinctly less coherent as she lets herself actually believe she can stop desperately holding it together for a bit, at least to sleep and get a bit sharper in the morning, hopefully. 

"It seems as though this is a good place to end as any. We'll get a blanket for you. You can choose to eat the remaining stew in the pot – we brought extra in the case you wanted to eat more, or you can just leave it there."

Conradia looks away and dismisses Detect Thoughts. Allegra's thoughts are a little too similar to her young self's thoughts, being a wizard student in Cheliax. She feels for her, but, of course, she shouldn't. Allegra is not a part of the church, and she must treat her as such.

She leaves and goes to consult Rendon about what they ought to do with her. 

Manus pushes the stew pot in Allegra's direction, and gets out a thick woolen bedroll for Allegra, rolling it up and pushing it through the bars. Although she'll be sleeping, he won't be. His shift won't end until midnight, at which point he'll go to sleep. Agnes is the one on duty next, he believes.

Rendon likes to sleep early, but Conradia's report is urgent. He listens intently.

He prays on it. No response.

He decides that Allegra ought to be given the status of an initiate, but have the armory and scroll rooms be barred from her. Also, she is to be under the effect of Lesser Geas or Geas, and that someone must be attending to her at all times. The prospect of another world's magic is too good to pass up, even though it's risky to have an unknown quantity in their sanctuary. 

An entire bedroll! She hasn't had an entire bedroll for days and days. She looks longingly at the stew pot for a moment but decides one bowl is probably enough for now, and snuggles down into the blankets, using the cushion as a pillow. Once she's happy with the arrangement of bedding it takes only a few seconds for her to be fast asleep. 

The next morning, there's a teenager in the dungeon outside Allegra's cell – no more than twenty years old – sitting on a desk and looking intently at something invisible in the air. There's an open book on the desk, in front of a rapier lying on the desk as well, and she's doing motions above it with her hands that looks like a cross between complicated crochet and sign language. A moment later, she slams her fists on the table and grunts.

Nobody seems to have noticed she's awake or demanded anything of her yet, so she quietly keeps her eyes open just a little bit and observes. Could be some kind of local ritual technique, that sounds like something important to pick up.

She sighs, looks up, then tilts her head. She notices that Allegra is awake now, and walks over to her. She had already cleared Allegra's pot, bowl and cup from the room.

"Hi! Hello, Allegra." Her voice is cheerful and bright. "You're famous now, everyone is talking about you. Everyone. They'll have so many questions to ask you. Oh yeah, we'll be treating you as an initiate, apparently, so welcome! Conradia was supposed to break the news to you, but I guess she's running late. What circle are you? I'm first-circle, but I'm really close to second and I can't wait to be second-circle! If I do, they'll finally let me fight on the front lines and not just cast Magic Missile again and again." She rolls her eyes.

"Wait, do you even have circles? Your world's magic is different, so maybe not."

Okay, rumbled. Allegra sits up, but can't be bothered to disentangle herself enough to stand yet.

"At least answering questions is easy! I'm second rank in Spring, I'm not sure how that translates to your system yet." She tries to match the girl's tone, although she's still quite bleary. I've rather had enough fighting, she doesn't say. "The front lines, huh?" She wants to ask what it is they are fighting, but that might be suspicious and also she isn't convinced she'd like the answer.

"Hm, yeah, that doesn't sound like the magic I know. Yes, I'm really eager to put my rapier skills to use. Oh, and spellstrike! I can't wait to get to second-circle so I can hang Frigid Touch – that was the spell I was trying to prepare earlier. What sorts of things can you do with being a second rank Spring wizard?"

Conradia arrives a moment later.

"Congratulations, Allegra. Rendon, the High Priest, has said that we are granting you provisional status as an initiate provided that you are supervised at all times, do not enter the armory or scriptorium, and are under the effect of Geas. You are still permitted to leave at any time, in which case we will erase your memory, dispel the Geas, and teleport you and your items to the nearest city as we talked about yesterday. Geas, or in this case Lesser Geas, is a spell that can compel or forbid certain actions. You don't need to move for me to cast it on you. It is a ranged spell."

Her tone grows stern. "Do not try to resist or throw off the spell." Not that she could – Conradia is a seventh-circle wizard, and it is very difficult to resist a seventh-circle wizard's spells unless you are also one – but she doesn't want to have to re-prepare her spells for a quarter-hour just because Allegra wanted to be difficult and got lucky. 

"You will obey commands I give which are prefaced with 'I command'. You will not enter the armory or scriptorium. You will not move more than sixty feet away from the person assigned to watch over you. You will not harm any person in the Bronze Orchard, or destroy any items within. You will not cast any magic except when expressly instructed."

She only incants in this case, but it takes six seconds. Lesser Geas. The spell descends on Allegra's mind like a spiked cage. 

"Healing, putting back limbs, corpse disposal..."

She's interrupted by Conradia returning. For that, she gets to her feet. Everything hurts, but that's not exactly surprising; she often feels worse the first time she properly rests after pushing herself.

She doesn't like the sound of the geas at all, but it's definitely better than the offered alternatives, at least for now. She doesn't know how to stop trying to resist a spell, but she's not actually good enough at it to succeed, which is probably just as well.

"Thank you," she says. "Uh, what happens if I hurt someone or destroy something by accident? I don't intend to, but..."

Conradia unlocks the cell and pulls the door to let Allegra out.

"If you break the terms of the geas, then it will apply its curse on you. Every aspect of your body and mind will be diminished, slightly at first, but worse as time goes on. Your body will become weaker and frailer, and your mind will become dim and dull. However, the curse will retract itself if you resume obeying the terms after twenty-four hours, provided you do not break it again during that time frame. In your hypothetical case, you would only suffer the effects of the curse for a day, so long as you did not harm someone or break something else. I will be your assigned minder for now."

She leads her out of the dungeon and into a corridor. The walls are the same smooth gray stone, but there's engraved detailing running along the walls. 

"I will take you to speak with the High Priest first. His name is Rendon Salian. Now that we're treating you as an initiate, you can just call him Rendon. He can also cast Lesser Restoration on you – you look...tired." She purses her lips.

"Okay, that is a much more sensible way of doing that than I was worried about," she says; maybe if she makes conversation confidently, everyone will assume she deserves that level of confidence in her situation? She's just about getting used to the language now, it's easier to work with if she just lets it deal with word choices for her rather than worrying about it too much.

She tries to keep up and not slow Conradia down, but also keeps trying to search the engraved detail for any more clues of what she's got herself into.

"Sorry - I'll probably be okay in a day or two, I haven't been getting much sleep lately," she apologises. "Do I have responsibilities as an initiate apart from the terms of the geas, or will Rendon cover that?"

The detailing is a simple pattern of lines in a braid, colored in silver. They seem to be going to a more central location now – the corridors are wider and have higher ceilings. There are people that walk past them, glancing at Allegra but never more than that. None of them try to stop them or make conversation.

"Lesser Restoration removes fatigue, so it will help. Rendon will cover that. Initiates have similar responsibilities to soulsold or ordained people – you'll have say in what jobs you'll do. Though you probably won't be doing any of the regular work like maintenance or guarding anytime soon. Researching your magic is way more important.

As an initiate, you will be paid for your service weekly, although since there's very little around to spend it on, most people simply have the church hold on to it and then withdraw it when they want to go shopping. You can choose to withdraw your pay at any time, however, and keep it in your room instead if you wish. Base pay is based on how strong you are. We have ways of testing it, but we're not sure about how you'll fit into our scheme. The minimum pay is one gold coin per week." She reaches into her robe and draws a single gold coin, weighing a third of an ounce.

If you render exceptional service or are sent out on a dangerous mission, you may get bonus pay or get a share in spoils, depending on the situation. In the case you decide to leave, we will give you all of the pay you have not yet withdrawn and your equipment, but of course we will take back any equipment or magic items we may have lent you for missions, except for those you have paid for to keep. We produce many magic items here – that's my main job, actually – and one of the perks of working here is that you can buy magic items and equipment much cheaper than buying it at say, Absalom. We charge much less for labor if the customer is someone that's working for the church."

They're approaching a door now. The door has intricate geometric carvings on it, with a symbol enclosed in the circle in the middle of it: a magic rod tipped with a gem laid perpendicular to a greatsword.

She studies the people who are walking past, trying to place them from clothing styles and complexions, although she is starting to believe that she is in fact a long, long way from the Empire now.

She lets her face light up on seeing the gold coin; no need to make them think she's insensitive to positive incentives, now.

On seeing the door carving, she realises that she failed to pick up her rod from the cell; she'd been still acting like a prisoner rather than an ally. Oh well, maybe they'll issue her with a better one if they do a lot of enchanting here; it's not like combat spells are her speciality, although she can probably muster a couple to demonstrate with enough practice time.

The people walking past are generally wearing simple working clothes, although all of the clothes are surprisingly clean and free of patches, rips, or holes. All the people that walk past them are humans.

"We're here," she says, knocking on the door. "I won't come in with you, but I'll stay by the door so that your Lesser Geas doesn't trigger."

She opens the door to let Allegra in, and closes it after her.

Rendon's office is similar to other offices: there's a desk, there's chairs, and there's shelves to the side. The floor is stone tile, and the furniture is made of richly varnished wood, except for Rendon's 'chair', which really looks more like a throne than a chair. His chair is plush and padded, with silver embroidery worked into it. From the looks of it, it seems to be real silver. Rendon has a similarly opulent outfit, with long flowing gray and silver robes that have the same embroidery, as well as a headband similar to Conradia, but somehow has even more gems put in it.

He doesn't seem to be human. He has the general shape of one, but that is where the similarities end. His skin is dark purple, and he has horns half a foot long sticking straight out of his head. His ears are pointed, and he has a tail like a salamander's peeking out of the bottom of his robe. His eyes seem to glow slightly. His black hair is cut short, short enough to point upwards.

The light in the room is brighter than the light of the corridors. It's bright enough to be compared to sunlight. It doesn't seem to be emitted by anything in particular – the entire ceiling is just glowing brightly.

"Welcome to the Bronze Orchard, Allegra Highspire. I am the High Priest Rendon Salian. Please sit." He gestures to one of the padded armchairs in front of his desk. His voice feels soft and warm, despite his appearance.

He stands from his own chair and walks over to her. "But first, I was told you needed this." He incants, and his right hand seems to glow a bright yellow. He touches Allegra, and refreshing positive energy suffuses her. "Do you feel better?"

Okay, so maybe this is a Daeva. That would make sense, this does seem to be the kind of place you might find a reclusive Commonwealth species.

That's some funky lightstone they've got there, too.

She is just about to sit in the delightful armchair - it's very reassuring that the chairs are not clearly less comfortable than the chair behind the desk, that's always a bad sign - when he walks over and starts casting, and then touches her. Clearly that's a thing now. She absolutely does not flinch and only someone fairly observant would be able to tell that she really wanted to.

The effect is much nicer than any energising ritual she'd previously been subjected to.

"Thank you," she says, in a very heartfelt manner. "Yes, I feel a lot better." She takes a seat as previously instructed. "I'm sure you have plenty of questions for me, I wouldn't want to waste any of your time."

"I'm sorry. I should have told you what I was about to do before doing it – you have no reference for what our world's magic is like, after all." He sounds genuinely remorseful.

"The spell I cast on you is called Lesser Restoration. It gives you energy: removing fatigue and dispelling minor afflictions." He sits back down.

"Yes, let's talk. So, you are from another realm with different magic, and came to be here through a magical accident involving what I believe is some sort of artifact. You are a trained soldier-wizard of the Citizen Guard, which is the military force of Urizen. Did you defect?" His demeanor is that of a priest at confession, like you could tell him everything.

The Damianites care a lot about comfort, and this extends to furniture. The Conradians don't really care about furniture, but neither do they turn it away. The armchair is enchanted to fit whatever entity sits in it: as Allegra rests her weight on the chair, the pads and cushions adjust themselves to fit her better. The effect is rather unnerving to watch and feel at first, however, as the cloth and down squirm and shift like a bag of worms.

It seems like today is just going to be full of surprises, even if they are primarily surprisingly good surprises. Allegra is highly trained in not looking uncomfortable or weirded out by unnerving things happening and now actually has the energy to implement this training.

"Conradia did explain the spell to me, it's just not usual in my culture to touch people - all our 'touch' range spells can be delivered from anywhere you could plausibly touch the person if you wanted to," she explains. "A 'regio' is usually naturally occurring, although it can be manipulated by 'Eternals' to do what they want; a magical item specifically designed could also redirect one, I suppose."

She considers directly answering his question, but decides to see if she can get away with deflection for the moment; it's not entirely a conscious choice, she's spent so long rehearsing how to deflect on the subject that it's instinctive. If he's also reading her mind, then this is somewhat pointless, but the spell he cast did have an obvious effect that was different from the earlier one.

"Ah, for us, touch means touch." He pauses for half a round.

"What an amazing advantage it would be, to be able to deliver a touch range spell without actually touching the person. Many touch range spells are damaging or have a negative effect. I believe you've met Agnes? She is a magus – magi specialize in delivering these touch range spells using their weapons. If I wanted to deliver a touch range spell like Bestow Curse, I would have to lunge at the enemy and touch them. Not necessarily their skin: touching a horn or hair or armor would be sufficient." He smiles. Despite the fact that he just talked about cursing someone, his smile is full of kindness.

Rendon is not reading her mind. They are under the effect of Mage's Private Sanctum now, so no more mind reading. 

"I've heard of places where magic works differently, but there are too few of them and they are too varied to be grouped under the same name. Is it that regio have standardized characteristics in your world, which is why you have a word for them? And what are Eternals? Are they gods?"

He laces his fingers together, resting his elbows on the armrests. "There is no shame in turning away from an unworthy master," he says, sagelike.

"Our touch spells are all beneficial or at least neutral - offensive spells are delivered by implement, like the rod I came in with. You do have to tag someone with those, although you can be gentle enough not to hurt them.

Full battle mages can deliver them at staff length, which sounds a bit like your magi?

Regio have some standard characteristics - they generally make ritual casting of a specific realm easier, they're essentially a place where one of the realms of magic is - nearby?

Some of them contain portals to pocket dimensions between the material world and their Realm, which creatures who couldn't survive on each other's side can meet in - the most plausible mechanism for me appearing in a different place would be that I stepped in one of these by accident, then stepped out elsewhere, which is rare but not unheard of.

Eternals are creatures of the Realms, the largest of such, generally they have a domain - a place within the realm that they rule, or sometimes that they are - and, think very differently to people? They get worshipped as gods in some places, but they're just large magical entities which are quite limited in some ways."

If they're up for playing the 'I know and you know but you don't have to directly admit it' game about her current status with the Guard, that is absolutely fine by her, she'll continue to politely ignore the insinuation without outright denying it.

Meanwhile, she's still a little wary, but it's so nice to feel knowledgeable and appreciated; it's hard not to just relax into it and confide everything in them. Chaotic Evil, she reminds herself. They haven't even fed her breakfast yet.

"Are all of your offensive spells like that? Do you not have any ranged offensive spells, like Magic Missile? Ah, apologies, you wouldn't know what that is. Magic Missile is an arcane spell that creates unerring bolts of energy. It is a very popular spell because it never misses – the spell homes in on the target.

Hm. The way you describe realms make them sound like a specific place and also a school of magic? Planes here do not correspond to specific schools of magic.

The wizards would love to talk to you more about those portals. Creating permanent Gates is something that only very, very powerful wizards can do, usually those imbued with divine or otherworldly power." Given her description, it doesn't seem like the Guard would be able to get to her. Even if they could, it seems like it would be enough of a hassle for them not to bother, especially as it seems like she didn't have a high position.

"Eternals sound exactly like our gods, then! They are magical and think very differently from people, but ascended mortals have values and thoughts much more similar to us.

But enough about magic. Tell me...tell me about your training in the Citizen Guard. How did they train you? Was it tough? Were your instructors kind to you or harsh? Why did you join?"

Rendon totally has noticed Allegra's deflection, but he wants to approach this matter delicately so she doesn't reject the ideas out of hand. He doesn't want to recruit – the church of Conrad does not do that – but he does want her to come away with a complete and accurate picture of what Conrad stands for before rejecting Him out of hand. 

"I don't think the ranged thing is a fundamental limit of magic, but it's certainly a practical one as far as the magic we know goes - if you want to affect something at range, you have to involve some kind of intermediary, and it's always a ritual rather than just a spell.

Realms are both places and - schools of magic, yes, although not split up anything like that word implies. More the kind of place that 'plane' implies, yes.

It's possible to create a regio, but it's a long term project consuming a lot of resources and I'm not convinced I know a sure-fire recipe, although I know some of the theory behind how it could work. It would probably depend how - close? - we are to the Realms of magic, whether it could work at all here. Generally it's much easier if you can get an Eternal's attention and sponsorship to the project, which is a bit of a chicken and egg situation if you don't have a single regio to begin with - although if your magic can't detect them, or doesn't distinguish them from noise, there might be plenty already that nobody has had the right tools to study?

Citadel Guard - or I think it's formally The Guard of the Citadel but nobody calls it that - not Citizen Guard. Uh, standard basic army training for a while, a lot of running and being shouted at and formations and all that. The ones who could run in full armour and still parry with a sword afterwards went on to front line training, steady hands to physick, those who were left and had a bit of ritual theory - like me - to the ritual auxiliary. It was a bit of a shock to the system at first, but nothing like actually being in a combat situation, and the ritual auxiliary training was a bit disappointing, to be honest; I think by that point they were worried we'd get bored and wander off back to a wizard-tower with their training, so they weren't inclined to push us any more.

I joined because it was the easiest way to get out of my parents' wizard-tower and not have to think too much about where to go next; not many Urizeni are very keen on a career that involves enforced physical activity or following orders, so the army is always recruiting."

He's almost succeeded at putting her at her ease, she's almost forgotten she's in a hostile environment at all; it appears 'magic' and 'herself' are some of her favourite conversational topics, and it's much easier just to indulge in them than to consider what might come next.

"Yes, I'm not sure we would have regio here. Indeed, I'm not sure whether your world's rituals would work here at all, though perhaps they might. It is said that people learned arcane magic by attempting to duplicate god-given divine magic. Slowly, through millennia, wizards and the like have been able to refine and improve upon that initial imitation. Perhaps it's the same with your world's magic. The other possible scenario is that your world's rituals will simply fail to work here at all, although I'm hoping that's not the case." They would really stand to benefit.

"I'm sorry for that embarrassing mistake. Does everyone in your country live in wizard towers? Your country must be known for its magic, then. Here, only fearsome wizards live in wizard towers, and usually only they and their familiar live there. Perhaps their family, if they have one. They also usually are laden with traps to stop intruders. No one else. Or is your world's version of wizard towers different from ours?"

Ah, an opening. Let's open this can of worms!

"Was there any particular reason you were so eager to escape your parents' wizard tower?"

"We'll have to find something to replace crystal mana, I'm afraid I don't have any on me to study even, but I'd know what would do the job if I was holding it, or within sight if I can cast Detect Magic.

I'm not sure wizard towers is the exact right translation, you don't have a specific word in this language; they're ancient buildings from a long-dead race that was larger than humans that our people have taken over, mostly extended family size, some of them are larger or have accreted a town around them. Some people go in for traps, mostly for dangerous wildlife; I hear Redoubt still has orc brigands sometimes and they're a bit more security conscious down there, the high mountains tend to be inaccessible enough not to bother.

My parents... wanted me to be a musician. I know enough about the music of the spheres to teach it, but tragically I'm utterly tone deaf."

It's clear that there are Additional Worms in this can, but Allegra is especially keen right now not to show weakness or complain about things, and explaining the additional worms would involve doing that. Her trying-to-be-casual-and-flippant-about-it tone on the last statement especially is clearly covering a well of pain.

Crystal mana? Like...Nahyndrian crystals? Surely not: the way she said it implied it was more mundane, like spellsilver. Regardless, she can discuss magic with the magicians. He's a cleric and his job is to talk theology.

He really wants to dig deeper on that, but he is able to tell that she's in a fragile state, and that it wouldn't be productive. Instead, he looks up and tells a story.

"My god, Conrad, ascended only two decades ago, and I met Him back when He was still a mortal. Both of us were born and raised in a country called Cheliax. Cheliax's patron god is someone called Asmodeus, and his whole deal is that he hates the fact that mortals have been given free will. So, he structures his country so as to reshape their people in a particular way.

Conrad was Intelligent enough to qualify for free wizard education – that sounds like something optional, but it's really not – but He was also Strong. His father was a fighter, and he handed down a greatsword to Him, which He chose to be his arcane bonded object.

Do you have those in your country? Here, wizards can choose to bond with specific items as a focus for casting and preparing spells. Most wizards choose an amulet or ring, but He chose a greatsword. That's because it's easier to enchant your arcane bonded object. If your bonded object is a ring, you can enchant it even though you don't have training to enchant rings in general. 

Anyway, His teachers disapproved of this, and indeed disapproved of the very idea of wizards fighting in melee. Wizards normally fight in the backline, casting long-ranged spells or placing enhancement spells on allies. In His diary, which we still have, He wrote about how furious He was that His potential was not being...utilized to its full extent. At the time, He wasn't upset about being used as a pawn or a soldier, but He was upset over being railroaded and forced to reshape himself in a way that was dissonant with...His natural shape, so to speak. This eventually caused Him to break away from Cheliax and strike out on his own, putting him on the path to His apotheosis."

Abyssal, like many Golarian languages, distinguishes between regular pronouns and god-pronouns. Rendon sighs. Conrad's saga is more elaborate than that and he's skipping over a lot of the details, and like, he's kind of questioning how relatable an ascended mortal's story would be to a regular person. He decides to talk about himself instead.

"When I met him, I was an orphan living on the streets. See, orphans usually get used as dummies for wizard students to practice spells on in Cheliax, and when I found out that a similar fate awaited me, I escaped from the orphanage. Tieflings like me are descended from fiends – in my case, I have demonic ancestry – so we tend to be treated badly. Fortunately, I was a teenager at that time, and had attained to my sorcerous bloodline. It was what allowed me to get away and survive being homeless.

Now, something about me is that I'm...suited to servitude. It's a little hard to explain, but what I mean is that I'm well shaped to be a lieutenant or a sergeant more than a general. I'm the sort of person who prefers to have someone above me. Normally, this would be great: it would have made me eligible to become a cleric of Asmodeus. Asmodeus is the god of tyranny, slavery, compacts, and pride. But my issue with Asmodeus was that He wants His slaves weak. He does not want them to blossom into their full strength, because weak people are easier to control. I wanted...to serve someone who would not mind me becoming strong, and would invest power into me freely. I wanted someone who wouldn't stifle me.

Many, indeed, most people, will not amount to anything. Their souls are like the seeds of weeds, who grow quickly, but grow neither tall nor strong nor fruitful nor beautiful. But for those who would grow up into a majestic oak tree or a beautiful rose bush, Conrad wishes for them to be able to achieve their full potential."

"We have magic items that need to be bonded to people to work, but that sounds like a different thing. Generally artisanry - creating magic items - and actually casting magic are entirely different skillsets; I might be able to re-derive some of our magic item crafting from first principles, but mostly it needs a much larger range of materials that I don't know if you have here, I guess I could try for a Circlet of Falling Snow or something that doesn't need them.

I'm not sure I got all of that, there were a lot of words that didn't quite make it through the translation spell - I think 'Intelligent' and 'Strong' are doing some work that 'intelligent' and 'strong' don't, I'm not sure what a 'sorcerous bloodline' is or how you'd 'attain' it, and 'fiends' and 'demonic' are coming through oddly - we do have the concept of, uh, extraplanar creatures interbreeding, and specific terms for the results for our nearby planes, I'm just going to assume it's something like that?

I definitely know a lot of people who'd rather take orders than give them. I, uh, it's not something I've been accused of much, I have to say."

She's not quite sure whether she should be bragging and trying to make it clear that she considers herself a significant person, or avoiding implying that she's potentially going to be too much trouble for them.

"Hm, Strength is simply a more formalized and quantitative measure of strength that we developed via testing. Intelligence is similar to intelligence, although it's only one component thereof. We split up mental ability into three quantitative measures: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, which we are able to measure with spells. Conradia told me you had an Intelligence of 18, which I believe makes you smarter than almost everyone here, ignoring the effect of headbands.

Ah, you do have headbands, yes? I assume so, given that this Circlet of Falling Snow is a magic item. Headbands," he taps his own headband, "are able to enhance one or more of these mental abilities to varying degrees. Mine enhances all three.

A sorcerous bloodline is something related to your ancestry. Many people who have outsiders – entities from different realms – in their ancestry have that reflect in their appearance and abilities. My demonic ancestry gives me my horns and purple skin, for example. But sometimes magical abilities can also be passed down. Whereas wizards must study in order to cast magic, I access that ability by tapping into my bloodline's powers. 'Fiends' are outsiders from any of the Evil afterlives – Hell, Abbadon, Abyss – and 'demons' are specific to the Chaotic Evil afterlife, the Abyss."

He thinks it's probably best to let her eat and show her to her room. He imagines being transported against your will to a different world to be very tiring.

"Thank you for talking to me. It's almost time for me to pray for spells now. There are still errands that need to be done: I need to get you an arcane stamper, show you to your room, talk to you about your duties, arrange for you to teach and research magic, and tell you more about our world. I can fetch someone to help you with all that. Ah, or do you want to see me pray? It will take an hour, though. Do you pray to gods in your world? Or, rather, not gods, but Eternals? Do you pray to those?"

"Our headbands are a lot more specialised," replies Allegra, who is trying to sit on her sudden considerable desire to obtain one of those headbands; she would be much more successful at hiding this if she'd had breakfast, slept adequately more than once in the last week, and/or wasn't trying to juggle an awful lot of other conflicting emotions about things; as it is she is giving Rendon's headband an intensely covetous look. She seems to just accept 'smarter than almost everyone here' as an obvious fact, rather than being particularly proud of or interested in it. "Sometimes our magic-touched - some of which do have horns like yours, although it'd normally go with metallic skin colouration - do have an affinity for specific magic, but they still have to learn it as usual."

The whole 'Evil afterlives' thing clearly makes her uneasy, but she's not sure what to actually say about it and it didn't come with a specific question, so she leaves it unaddressed. She is definitely tempted to stay and watch him pray, that seems like it might be the right answer to some kind of test, but it also seems like it will definitely delay any prospect of breakfast...

"Some people pray to gods, but it rarely seems to help them much. Or Eternals, there are actual communication methods you can use to send messages to Eternals, just thinking in their general direction doesn't usually work. In the Empire sometimes people contemplate the Virtues, or even pray to a specific Paragon - uh, an ascended religious person, they generally aren't held to interfere much in the world and some people think it's borderline blasphemy to expect praying to them to do much, but they do sometimes provide miraculous visions and some people power their magic off them. If most of your 'gods' are like you describe Conrad, that might be a better match, actually?"

Part of her is intrigued at this new intellectual comparison, part of her is distinctly worried that she has accidentally delayed getting on with the rest of the morning.

He picks up on the headband-lust: wizards are so predictable. He has enough Splendor not to let his smugness show, though. Every caster loves headbands, but none more so than wizards. It's also clear to him that she looks somewhat uncomfortable, though he can't guess exactly what's causing it. Alright, time to pray.

"Yes, that's actually very similar. People here don't expect prayer to get them anywhere, but that's only because it's very unlikely to work. It is costly for gods to intervene in our world, and it is also costly for them to...see things. They are able to see things related to their domain easily, and so too for people who are aligned with them, but it is difficult to view things which are more conceptually distant.

One way to communicate with them is by deliberately thinking about a god's concerns and values – this makes your thoughts shine to them like a beacon, alerting them to you. It is for this reason that secondary worship of other gods is prohibited here, even though we don't have theological reasons to forbid it. We don't want to expose ourselves, even though we have placed magical protections over this place.

I'll go ahead and pray now, but you don't have to stay for the whole hour to observe. You can just leave when you want, and Conradia will get you where you need or want to go." In hindsight, that was probably what was upsetting her, he thinks.

He stands up and moves over to a soft carpet in front of the symbol, and then kneels and bows his head. He remains unnaturally still.

Allegra stays around for a few moments in case it gets interesting, she's not that much of a slave to her hunger even though she's only had one good meal in the last few days; at least she's not stuck standing up to watch.

Nothing interesting happens: Rendon is still just kneeling there wordlessly. Does she want to leave now, or look around the room some more?

She takes the opportunity to have another glance around the room, but absolutely doesn't believe he is paying little enough attention that it would be a good time to poke around; if nothing particularly interesting continues to happen, she'll head quietly out the door to Conradia.

The room is scrupulously clean and tidy. There's a sense that the room is more for show, rather than a place where 'work' is actually done. On the shelves are books in both Abyssal and Taldane, although Allegra wouldn't be able to read the Taldane titles. Many of them seem to be religious texts of some sort. A surprising number of them seem to be drafts of books rather than published ones.

Conradia closes the door softly after her.

"So, how was it? Rendon is usually very kind – I'd be more concerned about you meeting Magnus. Magnus is the Damianite High Priest. He can be...intense. But no harm would come to you."

She takes a breath and then puts one hand on her hip.

"There's a bunch of stuff new people are expected to go through or settle or do: which one do you want to do first? We'll have to finish most of them today, but you can choose the order. I think Rendon would have explained most of what you'll need to do. Oh, right, something that may have passed his mind is equipment. We'll let you requisition equipment from the armory depending on your role and proficiencies. You'll only be able to choose from a limited range, but it's better than nothing. As for the equipment you left in the cell, someone would have brought it up to your assigned room by now."

"It was good. I feel like I understand a few more things now. I'd like to meet Magnus at some point, I think, but probably after I've had some breakfast?" That's the closest she dares get to actually asking for breakfast.

"Apparently I need an - arcane stamper? And to see my room, and who I'm teaching magic, and who would like to hear more about my world. And hear about my duties. If the armoury and scriptorium aren't obvious someone had probably better tell me where to avoid, too."

"The arcane stamper has two purposes. The first is that it lets you apply an Arcane Mark even without knowing the spell. An Arcane Mark is a simple cantrip that lets you permanently mark an item. It doesn't do anything except for glow slightly." She casts Arcane Mark on the wall, and the  word 'Hello' is now faintly glowing blue on the wall. The size of the word is about one inch squared. She dispels it the next round.

"We use it so everyone can mark which items are theirs. The second function is as a key for the Teleport Trap cast on this place. Someone who tries to get in without having both the stamper and a password – which we'll tell you – will be redirected to the dungeon cells, as you had been. This is also true if you want to get out of the place: Teleport Trap triggers regardless of direction."

"In any case, breakfast it is, then." Conradia leads her to the canteen. It's a few minutes walk away. It's one of the facilities which are shared between the two churches. 

The canteen could be better described as a banquet hall. The tables and chairs are ornately carved, and there's a fountain in the center with flower bushes surrounding it. The place has the same noon-bright light as in Rendon's room, emanating from the high ceiling. It's almost as if you're outside. A lot of time, money, and effort was clearly put into the room.

Conradia takes her to the buffet line. There's beef stew – there's always beef stew – but there's a small selection of fruits and sweet pastries. The selection of food seems underwhelming compared to the decor and ambiance.

"Yeah, so, most days there's only beef stew or other stews or soups. That's because everything we eat comes from Cauldrons of Plenty: they're magically enchanted cauldrons that can produce food on command. The beef stew is actually an improvement, since usual Cauldrons of Plenty produce terribly bland food. It took us lots of time to research how to make better food with them. Beef stew was beloved by Conrad, and He was the one who made them, so that's why it's mostly beef stew. I was the one who enchanted a few of them to make other things.

The pastries and fruits we import. The cost isn't the limiting factor, but the transport is. When we send people out to Teleport and go shopping, we also ask them to get some treats for us. You can have as much of the stew as you want, but you're limited to only one of the sweet things a meal unless you pay one of the shoppers to get stuff for you."

The beef stew smells excellent and didn't disagree with her last night, so plenty of beef stew it is, even if it isn't really a traditional breakfast food. She considers not taking anything else, but decides if she's just been told she's allowed one, it would look unnecessarily subservient not to take one, so she goes for a fruit - looking for bananas, peaches, plums, apricots by preference.

She's mostly looking at the other people in the room, and how they're behaving - are there obvious hierarchies, how patiently are they waiting, what's the social grouping displayed by seating arrangements, what kind of thing are people wearing? Is the buffet being served up / attended by people, and do they look like the same kind of people on a rota, or clearly servants?

"Where's good to sit?" she asks, figuring she hasn't got in trouble for questions yet.

There are no bananas or apricots, but there are peaches and plums. There's also wine and water. Conradia takes a glass of water and casts Prestidigitation repeatedly on it. The glass starts to sweat from condensation – the water is much cooler now.

Most of the other people have already taken food, so there's no line at the buffet. There's a person behind the counter that's keeping an eye on the sweets section and also cleaning dishes using Prestidigitation.

There's enough seating for one hundred, although that's just based on the chairs. The tables are quite far apart from each other and are arranged in a hexagonal grid. There are about forty people in the room. Most people aren't wearing anything as elaborate as Conradia or Rendon. Most of them wear simple tunics, dresses, shirts and pants. There is some color coordination happening, though.

One group of people wear greyish or silvery clothes like Conradia, and another wear warm floral colors, usually purple. The two groups tend to sit with people similar to them, although there are several tables which are mixed. The vivid-colors group also have many people with visible makeup on, both men and women. And they are notably more conventionally attractive in appearance.

There don't seem to be any obvious hierarchies, and there are no waiters or servants aside from the wizard at the counter, but the counter-wizard stays there and doesn't attend to anyone. People occasionally stand and walk up to the counter to get more food or drinks.

"I can chill your water or wine for you, if you want. Or heat it up, if that's your thing. I can do that for your stew as well. If you're eating here by yourself, you can ask the person behind the counter to do it for you.

Oh, there's no hard limit on the wine, but of course you shouldn't take so much you get drunk. We have spells that can transmute water into wine, it's called Enhance Water. I personally drink wine only at dinner. The transmuted wine isn't the best, but it is still good. I know the Damianites are doing research into making it better, despite the fact that it's a divine spell. We also import alcohol from outside, but that is limited.

I like to sit near the fountain, but you can sit anywhere. It's impolite to sit somewhere that's already occupied, though, unless it's really crowded. Alternatively, you can carry your food to eat in your room, so long as you bring back the plate and utensils."

The light near the fountain is somewhat brighter, and Conradia picks an unoccupied table to sit at. The chairs have the same reshaping enchantment that the chairs in Rendon's office had. The architecture and ambience is reminiscent of a lesser royal or a noble's outdoor garden or solarium. The fountain itself has a life-sized bronze statue of Conrad and Damian. Both of Them are wearing wizards' robes similar to Conradia, although Conrad's is shorter and more practical looking. Conrad is standing straight with a stern expression, with His greatsword resting on his shoulder, the hilt in His palm. Damian's spiked chain is looped and hung around His waist, and He's holding a spellbook. The two of them are standing together and holding hands. Surrounding the statue are bushes of heliotrope and yarrow. There's a spout just in the middle and behind them that sprays water upward to land on them like rain, which then falls to the fountain's pool. Despite that, the bronze exhibits no corrosion.

It's quite nice here really, something like the Court of the White Fountain. Allegra is still certain the other shoe is going to drop any moment now, but she takes a seat and starts applying herself to her stew, not quite fast enough to look like a starving wild animal but also wasting no time.

She has taken water and doesn't ask for it to have the temperature changed. "I'm not a great connoisseur of wine, I wasn't allowed it at home and I've always been fairly good at getting to sleep in bad places without it."

"Huh, why not? Well, I'd understand not giving wine to children, but I don't see why you would be forbidden it when you're an adult."

Her natural eating pace is a little slower than Allegra's speed, but she doesn't bother to speed up.

"It really must have been some magical accident to have brought you here. This is why I chose not to specialize in conjuration, even though I have something for a talent or predisposition towards it. I've heard too many stories of wizards playing with Dimension Door and got stuck in a wall, or powerful casters playing with Plane Shift and were never heard of again. 

How are you liking the Bronze Orchard so far?" she asks, as though they were old friends. Allegra is to be treated as an initiate, and so she'll treat her like one. And besides, she's sympathetic to her position.

She gazes at the statue. "Do you think you'll miss home? I don't, personally. I came from Cheliax, just like Rendon, Conrad, and Damian." She gestures at her face, indicating the similar ethnicity. Well, not with Rendon, though.

"Oh yeah! We could try Scrying someone from your home, if you were close to any of them. Scrying is a spell that can let you observe a specific person, even if they're on another plane. It might work. It's easier if we target someone you're very close to, and if you have a picture, a possession, or body part – a hair or piece of nail will do." She smiles widely. Chelish people tend to be very reserved, but all the time away from it has made it so that she's more open with her expressions with members of the church.

"Oh, I left home as a teenager, been in the army since.

It seems very nice here? It reminds me of one of the better citadels we were trained in. I feel like I should have asked for a bath before coming to the food hall, really!

I might miss some things, I'm not sure what they are yet. I didn't quite get everything Rendon said about Cheliax, there were a lot of words that don't quite translate, but it sounded a bit like Faraden - they're very keen on keeping everyone in their place, they don't believe Ambition and Wisdom are virtues, I don't think I would get on there very well at all.

I'm not sure I have a very good target for Scrying," her expression flickered into immobility for a moment when 'body part' was mentioned, there's probably some of her blood somewhere, but she knows where she is, she's in the Labyrinth, "but we could try one of my previous squadmates, I could draw a frankly terrible picture if that might help."

"Yes, it's very pretty, isn't it? I do think that some of the things the Damianites do or request are obnoxious and unnecessary, but it's undeniable that they have an eye for good design. As for Scrying, I can keep casting it until it connects, but failing means that I'll have to wait a day before trying to scry them again. I can spare one fourth-circle slot a day to try, since it has no expensive material component. Sadly, it's not of immediate strategic importance, so I can't ask Rendon to order the other wizards to attempt scrying. This is more like a favor, although not fully, since I'm also curious to see what your world is like.

Scrying works best if you have a close connection to the target, and also have one of those foci I mentioned. I'd have a poor connection to any potential targets, since I'd only know them second-hand. Pictures or statues of the target work as foci, but they are the least powerful. I'm not sure it would work if the picture was of poor quality, but perhaps I could cast Crafter's Fortune on you. That spell makes it easier for you to make items, which includes art. 

Scrying also permits me to send messages through it, if you wanted to say something to them. Would you want to? I imagine the Citadel Guard would want to know where you are. You were a part of them, right? At the very least, they'll know you're alive and wouldn't like, execute your will and give away all your possessions or something."

She finishes her glass of water, but doesn't rise to get another one.

"Yeah, it'd be good to tell them I'm alive - and probably to report the last known position of my unit, they might not be too late to run a rescue in," replies Allegra, a little guarded. "Other than what I'm due for my contract, which I haven't cashed out yet, I don't actually own anything I'm not carrying, though - and nobody will know anything's wrong until my unit don't make their rendezvous in a couple of days - assuming time isn't messed up as well, which is a big guess, I suppose.

I'd love to try Crafter's Fortune, if that's not too much extra hassle. I've always wanted to be any good at drawing, but it hasn't happened yet."

It's pretty clear by now that if they wanted to kill her, or do anything particularly unpleasant, the thought that her people might come for her isn't exactly on the list of things stopping them. Not that she thinks they really want to hear the whole story just yet. Or maybe they do, maybe that's the kind of anecdote 'chaotic evil' people really enjoy?

"Yes, that seems good. We would need to conceal any information that could lead back to us, but I could transmit the other information. Although..."

She sighs, and clasps her hands together on the table.

"You are in a weird position, as a provisional initiate. There are two interpretations to the phrase that Rendon used. The first is that we ought to treat you like a guest. That is to say, we treat you as though you were a visiting scholar, learn of your world, learn how to send you back, and then erase your memory before transporting you back to the Citadel Guard.

But if we were to treat you like an initiate, then that would constitute a deeper connection. One of the requirements of initiateship is the severing of bonds – you will need to formally relinquish any ties you have to organizations or people outside the church.

That doesn't mean that you're forbidden from interacting with them or maintain friendships, but it does mean that you cannot put their goals and values above ours, and that you do not consider yourself subject to their rules. If this severing of ties would constitute defection, we would protect you from any fallout, and from anyone that would chase after you."

She puts her hand on her chest. "I myself was a defector from the the Chelish army, and Conrad protected me from the inquisitors and security wizards that wanted to punish me. This was back when He was still mortal, but the principle remains true still."

Allegra realises this is an important moment, and would really have liked another couple of nights sleep and a bit more experience of what is on offer here to make a sensible decision with!

"So. Relevantly, I have a bond - it's still active, I can feel it, it'd stop if I died but it's fairly durable otherwise - to the Urizeni Egregore. I'm not deeply attached to my army commission, although I'd kind of like to try handing the mana site I'm due to someone who'll appreciate it if the scrying thing works, but - I'll do it if I have to, but I'd prefer a bit more time to decide, what to do about that bond?

I don't want to be difficult, I'm just not sure I have, enough information."

She manages to stop herself talking to take in the reaction she's getting, to see if she should change tacks. She's not even quite sure why she feels so strongly about it all of a sudden, it'd have snapped when she got to the Commonwealth anyway, but for some reason it suddenly feels very salient and like... the only thing she really has, to connect her back to her home.

"What's an Egregore?" Abyssal doesn't have the word for it, and she's using the syllables Allegra used.

"And yes, you will have time to decide. Until or unless you progress to being an initiate proper, it's not necessary to make that decision just yet. I suppose we'd demand you make a decision if, say, the Citadel Guard suddenly marched up here and said they want you back immediately, but since that isn't happening, we won't make you. It's against our way to force someone to join us – usually it is us who reject people who want to join." 

Ugh, she's really not cut out to be a diplomat. Still, she can tell that that hit a nerve. Hm, talk about something else...

"What's a mana site? Rendon told me via Message to talk to you about crystal mana – does that have something to do with that? Apparently you need crystal mana to cast the magical rituals of your world."

Oh good, we're back to factual questions. Allegra can deal with factual questions, they don't require life or death decisions or emotional responses. And it looks like if she doesn't overthink the language thing she can actually use native Imperial words, good, that might be useful for fewer misunderstandings when they don't line up.

"An 'egregore' is - the spirit of a nation? They were created when each nation joined the Empire, with a ritual that has somehow been lost even though the Imperial Orcs had it cast sixty years ago. Every Imperial citizen swears to one of them, as part of becoming an adult. It was part of the original agreement that meant there's an Empire in the first place rather than a disparate collection of nations, the egregore is meant to make sure that the traditions of the nation are preserved and don't get mixed up into a single Imperial culture. They speak through people they choose, so you can interact with them. Urizen's is called Menos, and generally inclines us to - controlling and using our emotions rather than letting them use us, being intellectually curious, liking our personal space, wanting to be the best we can be at whatever we are good at.

A mana site is a place where crystal mana forms - usually naturally, you can improve production by seeding crystals and adding focusing mirrors and so on. Do you have 'dragon lines'? I think ley lines might be a useful translation? It might be that I can force a mana site to form on a ley line, especially a crossing point, using the techniques we normally use to improve one that already exists."

Wow, that's a little horrifying, honestly. She can't imagine having to swear to the egregore of Cheliax.

"They choose people? What do you mean by that? Do they possess them, or are they turned into heralds, or are they something like clerics?

I don't know of 'dragon lines', but we do have ley lines. There's a Damianite druid that specializes in them, actually. I've never heard of any place where crystal mana forms naturally, although granted, it's not like we've been looking very hard. How much time would it take to grow mana crystals from a newly-built mana site? How big does it need to be? If there's a place here that's suitable, we might be able to build it here, provided it's small enough. It would be much more difficult if it had to be built outside, though. The outside conditions are...not pleasant."

"They - kind of possess them? They still have their personality intact, they just also have all the memories of the egregore and know what it wants to get done - it has to have their consent, it can't just do it to a random person, people who do it mostly think it sounds like fun, gives them an important purpose, that kind of thing. And the host can kick the egregore out whenever they feel like it, often when they want to start a family, or want to settle down somewhere rather than always be travelling.

Takes about a season to grow a batch of mana crystals; you can make a site fairly small if you're focusing it, maybe about the size of that fountain? Ideally it'd want natural light to get in, but possibly your magical light is better than ours."

Eeeeeeeeeeeh. The prospect still seems really horrifying to her, and it shows on her face a little. Alright, ignore the nationalistic possessions. Let's talk magic instead. 

"What is it about natural light that is conducive to mana crystal formation? Does it have to do with natural light being...natural? If it has to do with nature, then you're better served talking to the druids. They get their magic from communing with it. Arcane magic is more general, and arises from power that comes from you specifically.

Speaking of research, have you decided what we should do next? If you want to do magic research now, I'll contact the Damianites via Message to talk to you. Message is a spell that lets you talk to someone nearby: in my case, I can talk to people about two hundred feet away, usually more. I can try it with you now, actually. It's blocked by walls, but we usually construct our rooms to have small openings that can be closed so that people can receive Messages. Whisper your reply back to me."

She whispers softly, and points her finger at Allegra. The voice is soft, but it is as though she were whispering directly into her ear.

"It's a very useful spell, and it's also a cantrip, which means it's simple and can be cast at-will. Given that I'm tasked with tutoring you in Golarian magic, I'd likely be able to teach it to you."

It's kind of reassuring that Conradia is capable of being creeped out by something, actually. Especially something as innocuous as egregore spirits, although if your nation is really Not A Good Place, then even gently enforced compliance to its norms might be rather worse than the Imperial version?

She startles a bit when the message comes in, instinctively dodging away from the source of it - she manages to catch herself before she's entirely leapt out of her chair at it, but it's a very obvious reaction. "Yes, I heard that," she manages.

"With mana crystals and light, I think it's mostly to do with intensity," she continues in her normal voice, trying to cover for the reaction. "Lightstone just can't provide the energy level of sunlight. The light in here looks much better than I'd expect from even a carefully mirrored array of lightstones, so it might do the job, if it can be directed.

It sounds like I should pick up the arcane stamper, drop by my room in case you need to hand me off to someone who doesn't know where it is, anything else I need to know about my duties, then we can start on the research - I'm not sure how easy it'll be to stop and get any of the rest done once we get going."

It's simultaneously saddening and annoying that Allegra is so touchy with regards to spells, especially given the mundane and boring nature of Message. She would have thought Prestidigitation would be more profound. Or was it because it was directed at her? She frowns when Allegra flinches and leaps up, but not at her specifically – just at her reaction.

"I hope you'll be more comfortable with our world's magic after we have – or I have – had a chance to show you how to cast it. For the arcane stamper, I'll get you to the item workshops. If you're done eating, we can put our plates away and go there now. You'll get to choose what design you want for your stamper, but there's a size limit. You can either describe it to Claro, I think he's the one in charge of stamps this month, or draw the design for him to copy."

Yes, yes, it was a shocking lack of poise, but it sounded like a person was right up close by her ear and that has not been good news for quite some time now.

"What kind of thing does a stamper design normally look like?" she asks, hoping that moving the subject on will make Conradia forget whatever she disapproved of. Although she feels it's somewhat just falling into another trap - they seem big on aesthetics here, and she is not very creative on the spot like this. Maybe the constellation of the Phoenix will do.

Maybe the stars are different here. It sounds like she isn't going to get out of this underground fortress any time soon to see them, though.

"Stampers are based off of the Arcane Mark spell, which I showed you earlier, and the designs for those usually involve the wizard's initials plus some decoration. It's not necessary for you to hew to any particular aesthetic or match ours, however. The only requirement is that it's not too similar to any existing design – there's a board at the workshop where everyone has their Arcane Mark on display as a specimen."

Conradia's own design has her initials, C.S., linked together with flowing flourishes similar to calligraphy.

"The board is a minor religious relic for us, given that it has Conrad and Damian's arcane mark too."

"Okay, that doesn't sound too complicated." Allegra picks up her plate and looks for where they go; she considers picking up Conradia's too, but she's still trying to find the balance between cooperative and subservient, and also doesn't really want to make any sudden moves towards her at the moment.

Conradia doesn't expect Allegra to pick up after her, and she places her plates in a metal box along with the other dirty dishes. She beckons Allegra to follow her to the workshops, which are quite near: only a minute away.

The item workshop is half the size of the canteen, with about half the ceiling height: only two stories high, rather than about four for the canteen. The aesthetic of the workshop is different from that of the canteen: it's more utilitarian and sparse, all clean lines and bare walls. There's a sense of looming hugeness to it, as though looking at a giant monument, despite it's smaller size. Despite its purpose, it's remarkably clean: there's barely any dust or dirt on the floor or elsewhere, and the air isn't dusty or sooty.

About two dozen people are milling about the various facilities: there are forges and tables and lathes and tools all appropriate to an artisans' workshop, although there are several more objects whose purpose isn't obvious. From the looks of the people operating them, and how the objects seem to be reacting, it does seem to be related to magic or enchantment.

Conradia looks around for a bit and makes a beeline for one of the men sitting on the tables, working on a ring with a loupe. She introduces Allegra to him, and introduces him to her: he's Claro.

"Are you here for a stamper?" he asks. He directs her to a portion of the wall that has large sheets of metal on it. The metal sheets have the Arcane Marks of everyone who has ever been in the Bronze Orchard. 

"Just make sure your design doesn't look too similar to any one of those already there, and you're fine."

"Have you got something for me to sketch on? I've got a design in mind but it's a bit hard to describe."

She considers putting her initials inside the box of the phoenix, but actually that is AH which just looks like an exclamation, A isn't exactly much better, and she's not sure a whole Allegra will be legible at the relevant size. It's not like anyone else's looks like the constellation of the phoenix, and if she's going to be teaching (and the stars being potentially different doesn't ruin casting by constellations) then people will associate it with her soon enough.

"Of course," Claro says, handing her some paper and pencils.

Most of the marks involve initials, but there are some that don't. Each metal plate is scored to divide it in half, with the Damianites being on the left side and the Conradians on the right. The Damianites tend to involve floral patterns, whereas the Conradians prefer geometric designs.

Claro remains silent, but pipes up after a while. "Would you be fine with us examining the rod that you came in with? We're really eager to see how it works, and see how it might be different from rods and staves from our world. Conradia would be able to show you some of our metamagic rods from the armory once you visit it later." Claro has had enough experience with onboarding to know how it goes.

Allegra sketches out a constellation:

It seems like she has quite a lot of practice drawing this, although she's not very good at neat dots and freehand straight lines.

"Sure, it's just a basic mage implement; I could make another one from any length of wood and most kinds of crystal. Properly enchanted ones are possible and there's a set that doesn't take special materials, but I'm not an artisan myself, so it'd take me a while to figure out how to get that right, if I even can at all."

Claro accepts the drawing. 

"If you have no other modifications to your design, I'll get to work carving the stamper. Learning your world's magic is already wonderful enough, but learning about your items is even better." He's beaming with delight.

"I should probably sit down and write out a catalog once we're through the preliminaries, just so I don't forget anything - rituals, spells, items - then we'll at least know what we're aiming at."

"Sounds great. I'll leave you to Conradia, then," he says, and then returns to his worktable.

"Now that that's done, I can take you to your room now."

The path to Allegra's room is long and winding. The corridors here are somewhat narrower, and the ceiling is a much more reasonable height – just a single story. Her room is numbered 'E22'. There are twenty-five rooms in the corridor that she's in: the layout is similar to a hotel or an apartment block. The aesthetic remains similar to that of the canteen.

Inside, the room is rather tight, but it's clearly meant for only one person. There's a writing desk and chair, a bed, a cabinet and drawers, and a bathroom. Most of the furniture is wooden with metal finishings. On the table is Allegra's rod and buckler, and everything she might have left in her cell from yesterday.

"Here's your room. You'll be expected to clean it yourself, of course. The bed and chair also have the shifting enchantment. Oh, and the toilet flushes, it's not a chamber pot. We have indoor plumbing here. The Damianites are all about comfort, see, so they wanted to have piped water and shifting furniture and everything, and since they've already worked to set all that up, we accepted it as well. You're living in the Conradian section, although you don't formally belong to either one at this moment."

She says 'gusni', and the lights in the room turn off. "The Light spell in the room is controlled by a command word, so just speak 'gusni'" the lights turn on again, "to manage them. That's the command word we use for most of the Bronze Orchard's lights."

"Oh, lovely. Where are cleaning supplies kept? I think that's the last thing I need to know before I sit down and make sure I at least get an overview of what I want to teach people onto paper, before I fill my head with your magic. There's a lot that I'd normally expect to be able to look up and I don't want to lose anything we might need later.

Unless for some reason you want to hang around the entire time I'm scribbling notes, how does handing me off to someone else for the geas work? Presumably we need to go together to hand me over, the ceilings are quite high and sixty feet isn't that much."

She chuckles.

"They're in the cabinet in the bathroom. It would be great if you were a quick study in our world's magic, because once you pick up Prestidigitation, you can just use that to clean things. You can even use it to clean your skin and clothes. On that note, laundry is also by Prestidigitation: there's a laundry area nearby where a wizard is stationed. Just ask them to clean your clothes for you.

Ah, yes. I picked out this room because Agnes is next door, so I can have her stay with you." She'll probably remove the minder requirement the next time she casts Lesser Geas on her to refresh it, it seems more trouble than it's worth.

"You can work here if you want, or I can take you to the library. By the way, there should be a printed map of the place in the desk drawer. The person who brought your things should have seen to that."

Meanwhile, she knocks on the door to the left and talks to Agnes once the door opens.

"Wherever's more convenient for Agnes, although here might be better to get it all down uninterrupted to start with," replies Allegra, checking the desk is well supplied with paper and hopefully some pencils, she might have to recopy it later in ink but unless the pens are really good here she'll make a terrible mess writing at speed.

Maybe she should be doing more due diligence first, but there's food and it's comfortable and they aren't going to get much out of the notes if she's not around to provide the underlying theory, if it turns out they're secretly doing something intolerable then writing this isn't going to make much difference.

"I hereby reassign your minder to Agnes Alsina," she says.

"There, the Geas should have attached to her now. I've told her not to disturb you while you work – she plans on staying in her room to read for the next few hours. If you need to go somewhere, you can knock on her door. I have to go to work and enchant items now, so I'll see you in the late afternoon. There should be a clock in the cabinet."

She leaves promptly.

Okay, so apparently that was brunch; just as well there was plenty of stew.

Allegra sets to work writing slightly cryptic notes to herself on everything useful she can remember - lists of rituals, by name when she can recall it, realm and effect and magnitude where she remembers; magic items, focusing on the ones that take no special materials; the affinities and dissonances for each Realm, all basic known spells and their effects, not that she thinks she'll forget any of those but it would be embarrassing if she did. The constellations, although she's increasingly unsure they are going to work here; what she remembers of the music of the spheres, although she could never get it to actually work, and the few runes she has memorised.

The Highborn cast by paragons, the Freeborn just by doing a bit of a song and dance, it must be possible to just make up a ritual metaphor. She adds a few notes on dramaturgy, that is probably quite adaptable, it's not like she can remember the full list of personae and stages anyway.

She scribbles down a few more magic item descriptions where she isn't sure if they take materials or not, and the properties of the magical materials that she remembers.

Then she starts copying out some of the most important bits, rituals and items, more neatly. She's not going to get through doing a neat copy in a few hours, but nor is she really noticing how much time is passing.

Conradia returns eight hours later, and it's early evening now.

The door to Allegra's room is unlocked, but Conradia knocks and waits to be let in before entering. 

"It's Conradia," she shouts. She had already picked up her arcane stamper – it has an extra purpose as a key to your room – and she plans on getting Allegra to the armory before she goes to sleep.

Oh right! Time has passed, her hand actually hurts quite a bit, and she's starving hungry again. Oops.

"Come in!" she calls. It's going to take her a moment to successfully get up from the desk and she doesn't want Conradia waiting for her to get her neglected limbs in order. Her right hand has a huge graphite smear where she has been writing too much and there is paper covered with scrawl all over the desk and a smaller pile of neatly written pages.

Conradia demonstrates how to use the arcane stamper to operate the lock on the door – the stamper has a cover which, when removed, exposes a regular metal key. Simple and easy. The door locks from the inside.

"Apologies, it took me a little longer than usual. We can stop by the canteen to get something to eat, and then get to the armory. Alternatively, we can do it the reverse way if you don't want to rush – the canteen is open indefinitely unlike the armory, and they will just leave the food out if anyone feels like eating in the middle of the night. The food won't spoil: the clerics cast Purify Food and Drink on it before the canteen closes."

If Allegra wants to eat now, then they can eat quickly before the armory closes, and then walk briskly over there.

Allegra feels like she has some reputation for poise to make up, and probably isn't about to faint or anything, she tells herself sternly.

"Didn't the geas prevent me from visiting the armoury?" she asks. "And, uh, have you swapped back in for Agnes? I'm sorry for checking all the time, but I'm sure neither of us really want it to go off."

"The geas prevents you from entering the armory proper, but it doesn't prevent you from going near it. We won't actually be going inside, we'll just be going to the window where you can check out items from the armorer, as well as the changing room afterward. And yes, I've already swapped for her. Don't worry, I've done this a few times before." She makes a smile she hopes is reassuring. The last part is a lie – she's done this many, many times before.

"I'll swap Agnes back in when we get back, and you can just knock on her door tomorrow if you want or need to go anywhere. She's not an items enchanter, so her schedule is freer, and she was very willing to be your minder. I probably won't be interacting as much with you after today, except for when we have magic lessons or research."

That means she only has a limited time available to impress her.

"Okay, let's get to the armoury, then," she says.

It's clear that Allegra is putting some considerable effort into making her movements look smooth and effortless and covering for any physical weakness from spending eight hours straight writing at a desk - although at least the furniture is unusually comfortable here, if a bit weird to get used to.

Well, she did offer to let her eat before going to the armory, but whatever. She's not going to press the issue.

While on the way, she asks her a few questions.

"Wizards of my world don't wear armor, because it interferes with our spellcasting. Is it the same with you? If so, do you have training to spellcast despite wearing armor, like magi? What weapons are you proficient with? Here, junior wizards learn how to use crossbows, since offensive cantrips like Acid Splash or Ray of Frost are useless against demons."

The armory booth is a large rectangular opening in the wall with a desk on it, similar to what you might find at a bank. Behind it are rows upon rows of weapons, armors, and other things Allegra probably wouldn't recognize. There's an older gruff looking man attending to the weapons, who comes over to the desk when Conradia calls for him. Apparently, his name is Selm.

"Ah, the new guy. Welcome, welcome. You're quite special, it seems. New recruits usually don't get one so early."

He presents a note written by Rendon to the two of them, which says that Allegra should be permitted to requisition one of the spare Headbands of Vast Intelligence +2. 

"Armor disrupts the flow of magic, yes. I could make you a set of mage armour - I'd normally use gloaming but if you've got enough kinds of gemstone and leather I can probably find something that works - but it'd take some practice for me to actually use it. We haven't worked out how to just cast in normal armour at all.

Basic training covered what to do with a sword as well as a rod, and I did a bit of work with maces too; I can shoot a training bow but not something with the draw strength to really hurt someone."

Allegra smiles politely at Selm, then has entirely run out of energy to contain her happy surprise at the note, although she doesn't embarrass herself by actually saying anything - she thinks it'd come out as an undignified squeaking noise if she tried right now.

Selm smiles and gets one of the headbands and places it on the desk. It's an inch-wide strap of light brown leather studded with sapphires, with a metal buckle. At the end, there's an arcane mark denoting it as belonging to the armory – it's 'ARMORY' in big letters. There is also a small maker's mark on it, carved into the leather: "BALLESTER AND FERRER WIZARD CO."

"You put it here," he gestures to the top of his forehead, near the hairline, "and then tighten it until snug. It will work immediately, but you'll need to wait a day for it to have the full effect. I don't advise you taking it off after that, because it might disrupt your spell slots. Actually, I don't even know if you have spell slots, but in any case, most wizards never take theirs off. Don't worry about damaging it in the shower: the enchantment prevents it from being damaged by mundane water and soap.

"What type of sword do you want? We Conradians prefer greatswords, but that's not really a wizard weapon. We have shortswords, longswords, estocs, glaives and rapiers. We also have maces. You can check out one of them, but you can swap it out if it turns out that our weapons are a little different from yours and it interferes with your usage. All of our weapons are masterwork quality," the way he says it implies that it's a technical term, "but we won't give you an enchanted weapon until later. Generally, we don't bother with giving wizards enchanted weapons, since they're full spellcasters."

"We have a spell called Mage Armor which functions similarly to armor, but doesn't interfere with spellcasting. It forms a layer of force near your skin which deflects blows. Our magic can be reworked to operate even while wearing standard armor, but it takes a long while to develop that training, and for most wizards, it's not worth it."

Yes, she recognizes the headband delight. Rendon is kind, which is probably part of why he wanted to give Allegra the headband, but he probably also wanted to entice her into not leaving using it – leaving would mean parting with one's most precious headband.

Allegra takes off her citadel guard uniform headband, hangs it near her elbow where she won't immediately drop it, then picks up the new headband with some trepidation, now she's actually about to put it on.

It's not like they can't just cast weird mind affecting things on her whenever they like, though, and at least this one should be interesting. She follows Selm's instructions in putting it on.

The initial effect is, kind of like activating a circlet of falling snow? Everything is just that bit - clearer. It kind of makes her want to try writing some more things down, but there are questions to answer and she supposes she shouldn't rudely ignore them to contemplate the effects of the headband.

"Which of those has the best one handed reach while being as light as possible, probably a rapier? I really do have pieces of damp string instead of arm muscles," she responds. "That spell sounds exactly like our mage armour works, although it's an item rather than a spell - you wear a few key pieces and it extends a field between them, but it takes a bit of practice to move around without disrupting the effect, especially in a fight."

"Rapiers aren't exactly light, but they feel light in the hand because their center of mass is nearer to the hilt than other swords. It's the sort of weapon that suits someone who relies on Dexterity than Strength, though, so that's a good idea. Many magi here use rapiers."

He clicks his tongue. "Has anyone told you about the fitness exams? Conrad was Strong and Fortitudinous for a wizard, and He really didn't like unfit wizards. So, he made it such that everyone has to pass a fitness exam every season or they'll have their pay held. It's not hard, but it's not something you can cheat – spells are banned during the test. No Bull's Strength or Bear's Endurance, or Unseen Servant to help you lift things."

He guffaws. "You can join the people in the gymnasium in the morning and the evening if you want to fix that."

He places a rapier on the table with the same arcane mark and maker's mark. It's remarkably well made. He writes down her name – by now everyone has heard of her – plus the items she requisitioned on a ledger. He points to an empty rectangular space to the right of the entry.

"Place your stamp there, and you can check out your two items."

She sighs. 

"Yes, the fitness exams. Those are, sadly, a thing. I can do running just fine, even though I'm older now – I have Age Resistance on – but asking me to do pushups and situps is just ridiculous. Still, it's been there since even before They ascended, and the...tradition...is not going to get abolished anytime soon. I'm so sorry."

She really does seem very sorry.

Ugh, she thought she'd done her last press-up years ago in army basic training.

She carefully slips the rapier against her hip, held in by her somewhat worse for wear but still functioning belt, and awkwardly starts to operate the stamper. "Is it possible to get, like, a satchel bag or something? I don't really want to just put the stamper down somewhere."

She misses her nice army satchel bag a lot.

"Yes, of course," Selm says. He adds the satchel bag to the entry, and places a leather one on the desk. 

"Most people use a string or rope to tie it to a belt, or sometimes a necklace or bracelet. Do you want one? I'm surprised the wizards haven't already put that in." He places a thin string that can be looped around a hole punched in the stamper on the desk, for Allegra to take if she wants it.

"I'm not sure if anyone else has told you, but you can buy any piece of equipment from the armory at cost as a member of the church. I don't know how much you're getting paid, but if you do buy your equipment, you can keep it if you decide to leave. The masterwork rapier and headband would usually go for 320 gold pieces and 2000 gold pieces respectively, but the cost to make them is just 157gp and 1000 gp. So that's the price we'll give you if you want to keep them for yourself.

"Thank you," she says, somewhat automatically, shuffling everything around and tying on the stamper. She doesn't really expect to be allowed to leave with anything interesting, or indeed get paid unless it turns out that Damianites will take her and don't need to pass a fitness test.

That reminds her that she's still only got the robe she's standing up in, which has very much seen better days. If she's going to impress some Damianites she had better scrub up a bit better. 

"I could probably also do with some changes of clothing, I didn't really arrive with anything?" She considers apologising for continually thinking of one thing at a time, but she doesn't want to be continually apologising.

Selm looks a little annoyed, but also understanding. He wordlessly adds the new items to the ledger. On the desk are two sets of tunic and pants, in the same light gray color as Conradia's robes.

"You can ask the laundry wizard in your dorm section to repair your old clothes with Mending, and clean them up with Prestidigitation," he adds helpfully.

"Excellent, thank you." She makes sure everything is stamped and tucks the clothes into the satchel bag.

"Okay, I think that's everything for now."

She claps her hands.

"Great! We can have dinner now, barring anything else that you might want. I think we can discuss plans for magic research and me teaching you magic over dinner. Does that sound good to you?"

If it does, then she'll lead her back to the canteen again. 

Yes, food sounds extremely good right now. Hopefully there's not too much of a line now. She nods and follows along. 

Everything is too nice - even with the fitness test thing that is honestly straight out of her recurring nightmares about basic training, that doesn't seem to be something that will make them stop feeding her or put her back in the prison cell or anything.

She would kind of like to get paid just so she can maybe amass a small pile of magical items and learn the language spells and then when the other shoe does drop, if it's not immediately too late and they were lying about setting her loose all along, she has a fighting chance in the wider world.

But she's still not sure if actively asking about the other side, the Damianites, will push her luck too far.

There are a dozen people in line, but the line passes in five minutes. Conradia sits back down at the same place near the fountain.

"So, magic research. It will take a whole season for the mana site thing to work out, right? Probably more, if we don't get it right the first time. But I understand that aside from rituals, you also have spells, which require no mana. What spells are you able to cast?

Me tutoring you in our world's magic is of lesser priority, but we still want to do it in the case that it might help you get insight into how our two worlds' magics could be usefully combined. I think I can tutor you...three times a week, maybe. It depends on what orders we get from our clients. Or if I'm called for a mission to explore more Sarkorian ruins or something. We might deploy you in the field, actually, to see how your combat style is like, although we won't do that until you've had a chance to spar with others.

The summer solstice is in two weeks, which means lots of people are going to spar to train for Dies Irae."

She frowns slightly.

"Oh, right, you wouldn't know what that is. The Dies Irae is a Chelish tradition, but Conrad adapted it for use in the church. People fight each other, sorted in their level of power, to the death. Well, figuratively speaking. We use Merciful weapons and Merciful rods," she says those like they are technical terms, "to ensure no one dies. You do have to fight until one person is downed, however – there is no surrendering or forfeiting. The winner wins money and bragging rights. I should clarify that you don't have to participate: it's strictly voluntary. No one will force you to go. You can watch, though. I'm not exactly one to be entertained by violence, but people do get really creative during the fights."

"Spells run off personal mana - I have four a day, it's possible to improve with practice. Most cost just one, but can be cast more quickly with two, and paralysis or breaking an object just costs two to start with.

I just have the basics - detect magic, create bond, operate portal - but I'm pretty sure I could pick up repel easily if I tried, I've had that sometimes.

I can probably teach all of our spells, although I'm less confident of the healing spells."

Food is good. Food doesn't suggest awkward questions, like 'in the field against who'.

She's very confused by her wording. She talks while Allegra eats.

"Er, are you saying that you previously knew the repel spell but...forgot? Could you describe how magic is taught and learned in your world, and how it's prepared and cast?

I'll go ahead and tell you how magic here is prepared and cast, and then you can tell me how your world's magic differs from ours in which respects.

I believe our worlds are similar in that spellcasters can only cast so many spells per day, but that spellcasting is independent of one's physical stamina.

There are four types of magic in Golarion, based on whether they are prepared or spontaneous, or arcane or divine.

Prepared casters must, as the name suggests, prepare what spells they want to be able to cast each day. A wizard who wants to cast the spell Magic Missile twice must prepare that spell twice. If they don't bother to prepare it, then they can't cast it, even if they have the spell in their spellbook. Clerics must request which and how many of each spell they want to receive from their god when they pray.

Spontaneous casters, meanwhile, do not have to do such preparation. Instead, they 'memorize' a set number of spells and are able to cast any one of them at command. They don't need to think about what sort of spells they might need for the day, since they only have that set number – that's it. It's possible for spontaneous to change which spells they have memorized, but it's a difficult process – the process depends on what exact class you are – so most don't go through with it.

Prepared casters are at a disadvantage in raw firepower. All else being equal, spontaneous casters can cast more spells per day than prepared ones. Where prepared casters shine is in their versatility. A spontaneous caster will require days to weeks of retraining to swap out their spells, whereas prepared casters only need to wait a day. Clerics receive access to the entirety of the cleric spell list instantly, and wizards can prepare any spell they have in their textbook – provided both of them are of the requisite circle.

Arcane magic derives from power channeled by yourself, whereas divine magic comes from gods or the powers of nature.

Arcane magic is usually more versatile than divine magic, and also has a wider variety of damaging spells. We've found through experimenting" on captured prisoners and commoners "that damaging arcane spells are more efficient than damaging divine spells, even when cast by casters of the same caster level. Ah, yes, the concept of caster level is something that we've refined through study – it's a measure of how powerful you are as a spellcaster, and it has ramifications for all sorts of things.

Divine magic is more limited than arcane magic, but it can do things that no arcane magic thus far has been able to replicate: healing and resurrection spells. Further, divine magic is not affected by arcane spell failure. In order to cast arcane spells with somatic components, you need to have training in order to be able to cast them while wearing armor. Armor limits the free movement required for arcane spellcasting. Divine spellcasting has no such restriction.

An anomalous exception is alchemy, which is not divine, but is also not quite arcane, but it's also not entirely mundane, either: it is known that alchemists need to develop channeling capacity as other casters do. We've invested resources into interrogating the exact nature of alchemy and how alchemists 'cast', but we haven't gotten very far."

She pauses for a little bit.

"It would be a great boon to us if you could teach your world's healing magic. We're starved for healing – Evil clerics are much less adept at healing than Good clerics, since they only get negative channeled energy and spontaneous casting of Inflict rather than Cure spells. We make do with alchemy and mundane healing, but it's inconvenient."

"Yes - I think that's analogous to your spontaneous spell casters changing what spells they have memorised? If we don't practice a spell regularly, we can't immediately cast it any more until we've built up the habit again.

We also have other practices that are a bit magic - chirurgy and physick often use hearth magic and magical herbs, artisanry creates magic items, alchemy creates magical potions, and religious practices create emotional auras and disrupt ghosts and the like - I'm trained in aura creation and disruption but I'd need a specific substance that I have no idea how to even start looking for to use it, I have nothing but a general idea of the rest.

All of our 'magic' magic - spells and rituals - depends on tapping into the fundamental forces underlying reality by using a casting metaphor. There are a variety of basic meditation exercises designed to get people started on understanding their chosen casting metaphor deeply enough to use it.

I'm a bit worried some of the metaphors might not work here - constellations may be different, the great rivers are unlikely to be significant, we may even be too distant from the paragons. I expect blood magic to work even if nothing else does, and runes would probably work but I'm afraid I only have fairly incomplete knowledge of them, my native metaphor is constellations but I can also work with blood, it's just easier to do on the spur of the moment without any notes.

Once you're comfortable with the casting metaphor, detect magic is normally the easiest starting point - if your magic shows up to it we should be good, if not - divination mode should still show something on a historically interesting item, I think?

As we don't have a handy regio I'd probably skip operate portal and as we don't have an artisan I'd probably skip create bond - the other uses of create bond require both parties to be under the same egregore bond, so that won't be useful here.

The spells are essentially basic applications of the casting metaphor - I'm pretty sure the healing spells are tied up with local time acceleration and I'd want to try teaching them first to someone who is intrinsically optimistic about the future and doesn't fear death.

Rituals are more complex applications of the casting metaphor tied into one of magical Realms. There's a chance we have a different set of accessible Realms here and are going to have to rederive these entirely - especially the ones that require specific Eternal backing, especially if I break the egregore bond and no longer come under the agreements made with the Empire..."

"For us, magic item making is totally magic: I'm an artisan in the sense that my main job is crafting magic items, not really spellcasting. I'm mediocre as a combat wizard. Magic item crafting is special in that you don't need to know or have access to the spell that the final item will have. It's a lot harder, but not impossible. So long as you have the requisite channeling capacity, you can try to make it. 

Could you tell me more about those auras, and what the ingredient necessary is? Do you think they'll be useful?"

She makes a displeased face and purses her lips when she hears 'blood magic'.

"Yes, the constellations and rivers of Golarion are likely too different to be useful. I suppose it'd have to be blood magic for the moment. 

We have tons of magic items we can test it on. I can get a bunch of the cheaper magic items to test it out on in case there's some sort of destructive interaction. If they show up as inert but where there's no negative interaction, then we can test stronger items."

She makes the same face when it comes to her describing the healing spells.

"I could probably get some of the more foolhardy antipaladins or inquisitors who would be willing to be test subjects for the healing spells. Hm, does the subject have to be willing? We could try to procure prisoners for testing if it's possible.

We most likely have a different set of Realms here. We have a bunch. Nine afterlife planes, four elemental planes, the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, demiplanes, so on and so forth.

What agreements would you no longer be bound under if you break your egregore bond? How does one break one's egregore bond anyway?"

Oh no. These people disapprove of blood magic too? She'd have thought that, out of anyone, people who call themselves 'chaotic evil' in all seriousness - and have fitness tests for their mages, for Virtue's sake - would be entirely fine with the prospect of a little blood magic.

"Auras are - I suppose I have to start with Virtues. Virtues are - fundamental human drives. Possibly of other sentient beings too, but humans are what all the research is on. Things like Ambition, Courage, Hatred, Loyalty, Hope. The single word versions of the concepts don't really do them justice - that's another one actually, Justice, or you might call it Vengeance if you don't like it, the Empire isn't very fond of it - they're quite complicated concepts.

Anyway, an aura is the expression of one of these, stuck onto an object, or a place, or a person. You can also do weaker auras with magic that don't have to be linked to a Virtue, although they generally have to be something fairly fundamental about a Realm instead.

They're mostly useful if you're trying to guide someone to have more of that Virtue, or to cover up another effect like it, or generally stop people having emotions you don't want them to have and make them have emotions you do want them to have instead. Most of my usage has been in Despair auras - the people we were fighting liked to create those - sticking Pride anointings on people so that they would actually participate in their rescue rather than making it harder for everyone.

I don't think detect magic really has enough power to do any damage to anything, but I suppose it's right to be careful about totally unknown magic system interactions; it's much more likely to give the caster a headache or a nosebleed, or possibly something weirder like filling their bones with bees in particularly extreme cases.

Healing absolutely does not require consent - just to stay close enough to touch and not be moving around too violently, restraining someone works fine."

She worries a bit about saying this, but doesn't let it show; better someone else is getting hurt than her, but she's not exactly pleased by the idea of deliberately injuring prisoners for research.

"The Empire has a lot of magical agreements with local Eternals; generally things like 'if we cast this ritual, you'll shove a magical castle or march a small army through the resulting hole', but also basic things like 'parley means something terrible happens to either side that does violence during it' and probably a lot that I don't even know about.

The egregore bond is voluntary - it's hard to break by accident, or if you don't really mean it, but easy enough if you do strongly intend to leave the nation - especially if you're doing it while swearing to some conflicting obligation."

"Yes, your Auras are different from ours. We do have auras of Despair, but they're boons granted by our gods to antipaladins. The antipaladins themselves and their allies are immune from the effect of the aura, however."

She makes an incredulous face at the magical side-effects comment. "I have never heard of any magic accident ending so badly your bones fill with bees. I suppose I'll ask one of the clerics to be on standby when we experiment with magic that can Dispel effects off of us if needed, and also do healing.

As for your healing spells, I'll talk to Rendon about procuring prisoners for you. Another aspect we would be keen to test is whether our healing magic would work on you. I mean, while I'm pretty sure you're a regular human like myself, there might be...differences. We could just cast the spell on you right now, but that wouldn't show whether or not it was effective, only whether or not it's harmless. That would require getting you injured, though, which we obviously don't want."

Her face turns serious.

"Hm. So, are egregores sapient? Can they think? Can you communicate back and forth with your egregore?"

"Yes, we normally have physicks on hand for magical injuries, they often need - interesting fixes. Like, there's one where you get lightning stuck to your body and need to be grounded..."

If they didn't like blood magic they won't like the full description of that either. Why are these 'chaotic evil' people somehow more squeamish than her. It's very inconvenient.

"You can injure me if you want, as long as it's something that will normally heal okay. I've got to try out this sword at some point, for a start? Or I've still got some bruises and scratches that aren't quite done healing, if it's the kind of thing that clears up those."

Oh no, what is it about egregores that has alarmed them?

"Egregores are sapient, but generally can't be communicated with unless they have a host there - they can tell if you die or break the bond, but they usually have to actually think to check about the first one, I'm not sure about the second, it doesn't come up much.

I guess they must be able to ask someone to become a host too, but I don't know if they can without a host there to do the talking.

I can't deliberately send them anything other breaking the bond. Or dying, I guess." That's okay to say, that's just another reason for them not to kill her, right?

"We don't injure our own without very good reason – it causes resentment. Resentment is an emotion sacred to Conrad, and so we are careful not to induce it in any people in the church. If you want, you can test the sword on the prisoners we'll be getting soon."

She now speaks as though reciting from a book. "Anger over one's weakness is the first step on the path to power. Conrad and His church are heavily interrelated, of course, but they are not one and the same. If we upset people in the church unnecessarily, some could schism unamicably and fight us, and Conrad will not necessarily side with us. It's the same reason the church refuses to employ slaves. Were one of the slaves to develop the hunger for power that Conrad values, He might choose to imbue them with power and let them do what they wanted with us, seeing them as being closer to Him than we are.

Bruises and scratches are totally something they can help with, though. Wait...ah, Rendon probably cast Lesser Restoration on you, didn't he? If it worked, then I don't think there's anything to worry about."

She breathes a sigh of relief. Okay. Reminder to kill Allegra outside of the Bronze Orchard, then. She hopes it doesn't come to that, but, of course, you want to prepare for such things, as sympathetic as her story might be. Petrifying her wouldn't count as killing her, though, so doing that before transporting her outside might be convenient.

"I see. Are egregares capable of seeing through people they're bonded with? Do they have...awareness of what happens to people bonded to them? It is known that part of the reason gods ordain people is that they are able to gain an awareness of the mortal world through their thoughts and senses. We categorically forbid witches, oracles, and ordained people of other gods from this place for that reason."

Ugh, no, she doesn't want to injure prisoners, she just feels like things would be less abjectly confusing if someone actually hurt her. It's much clearer what people want when they're willing to hurt you about it.

"Yes, I felt much better after the Lesser Restoration.

Sometimes the egregores know things and it's not entirely clear how they know them - but it's possible that's just that a lot of people trust them and talk to their hosts.

They can definitely see through their hosts, that's how they do most things."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

"Being bonded to an egregore is distinct from being their host, yes? I will have to check with Rendon about this development. We may sadly have to confine you to one of the workrooms if the risk to your egregore finding things out about the Bronze Garden is too great. I'd prefer not to do that, though."

"Yes - I'd have to consent, to be their host. It's possible they could ask me, but I'm not sure why they would - my disappearance shouldn't be suspicious for quite some time, and - uh, if they come to the obvious conclusion, they wouldn't want to be taking a host in that situation anyway.

You could make it an extra condition, to not accept one and to let you know - to let my handler know if they ask, if you wanted to be extra sure."

She didn't really want to let them know no-one was coming for her, but actually now that seems safer than making them think someone might be.

In the next moment, the light emanating from the ceiling darkens to about that of a night with a full moon. The big plant pots placed between the tables catch on fire with huge red flames, but they seem to be heatless – the plants are untouched.

"Oh, yes, the lights in the public areas darken during the 'nighttime' hours. It corresponds to the time of night and day outside...roughly. Such concepts don't really work this far up north. We're approaching the summer solstice, so the outside is in perpetual day. The enchantment setting the time is roughly based on Chelish time. The sun sets later in the summer, and the light timings do adjust themselves somewhat. It was a fun challenge getting the seasonal timings accurate and stable." 

She looks back at Allegra.

"Yes, that seems like a good idea. I command you to refuse consenting to your egregore seeking to make you their host, and to inform whoever was minding you of any attempts thereof."

Yes, Allegra's safety would be more compromised if having her here meant that other people knew where this place is and how its internals looked like.

"If you're finished with your food, I can take you back to your room and hand you over to Agnes, unless there's something else you wanted to do first. I suspect the Damianites would want to talk to you tomorrow. If they don't, we can commence with magic tutoring and research. The prisoners will take a day or a couple of days to be procured. We only take prisoners if we have experiments that require them, see, and that's not always the case. Although, if there's a long enough gap, the Damianites sometimes go ahead and nab some anyway." She sighs.

At the unexpected lighting change Allegra jumps to her feet and is some way towards drawing her sword when she realises nobody else is reacting and Conradia is calmly explaining.

She sits back down again, trying not to look quite as utterly embarrassed as she feels. Apparently these people fight a lot, surely they've heard of someone having combat reflexes before.

"I'd... like to talk to the Damianites," she ventures, "but I should probably sort out my hair and put some less destroyed clothes on first, so tomorrow sounds good."

She picks up her bowl ready to bring it to the cleaning box.

Sigh. Well, she hopes that Allegra will calm down soon enough. It's understandable why she'd be on edge, but that doesn't stop it from being awkward. The other people look at their direction for half a round and then go back to whatever they were doing. They're sufficiently clued in so as to know not to upset the Person Who Came From A Very Faraway Plane Accidentally.

Conradia's face remains neutral. Not comforting, but also not angry. She does also puts away her cutlery and bowl.

"Sure thing. I'll get you to your room and pass you to Agnes, and then you can go sleep." Unless Allegra wants to talk, Conradia is content to escort her in silence.

Allegra is quite content to trudge back to her room in embarrassed silence. She knows how to act like someone who isn't a threat, it's just that it seems like she shouldn't be doing that or they'll decide she's not actually that useful.

Conradia handles the Lesser Geas before Allegra enters her room.

"Is there anything else you need? I'm also about to go to sleep myself. Otherwise, good night to you." She makes a slight smile.

"I'm assuming the bathroom is stocked with things? Otherwise, nothing else." She's never really tried to make herself more than 'presentable enough that the instructor doesn't tell her she's a disgrace to her nation' before, but hopefully it's not too hard to figure out.

The bathroom isn't really stocked. It has soap, two towels, a mirror, and that's it. There's also the cleaning supplies, which has lye, strong soap, and rags, but that probably isn't what she meant.

"If the Damianites want to speak with you, then they'll send one of their own. They're probably the people to ask if you want like, cosmetics or perfumes," Conradia says.

"Sure. Have a good night." Allegra isn't going to push it right now; maybe she'll get some extra sympathy from not having good shampoo, or something.

The next morning, a woman knocks at the door. There's a peephole on the door, but she also speaks. The woman looks generally like a human, but has pointed ears, with two earrings with a small dangling amethyst hanging. She has her long black hair hanging down, styled into loose waves. She has pink-red lipstick on, and, if Allegra is perceptive, she'll notice that she's wearing foundation and concealer too.

She's wearing a loose white short-sleeved sundress that goes down to just below her knees, with a pattern of thin curling vines. She's wearing a citrusy, orange-scented perfume. It's very clear that she put a lot of time and energy making herself pretty in all respects.

"Good morning, Allegra. Could I speak with you for a moment?" 

Allegra has... done her best with soap and water, but her hair is now dried out from being cleaned with soap and absolutely unmanageable, she made a valiant attempt to braid it but just gave up. The headband is only barely visible amongst the chaos.

She is wearing the nice new clothing, which is fortunately not too wrong for Urizen but feels a bit like she's in her night clothes or underwear, her actual underwear being so hideous that she's a bit ashamed to take it to the laundry facility and certainly didn't want to put it back on.

She supposes that will have to do. She opens the door and plasters on her best friendly smile to cover for the dreadful sinking feeling of making a terrible first impression.

"Certainly!" she chirps brightly. "Would you like to come in?"

She considers apologising for her appearance and making excuses, but she's not sure she can remain politely cheerful about it.

She purses her lips when she sees Allegra with her messy hair and plain Conradian armory clothes, but Felicia is here and Felicia will fix everything.

"No need. The High Priest of Damian, Sir Magnus Sundheim, has sent for you – he wants to have breakfast with you. But I came early, so we have about an hour to an hour and a half before he actually expects you. Would you like to come to my room instead? If you want, I can lend you some of my clothes."

She looks Allegra up and down for several seconds, as if appraising an item at the market.

"I think green would look good on you. Of course, that's optional. I have hair oil in my room too, or makeup if you like that. You know, just to freshen up."

Right, she probably shouldn't make the new person so self-conscious. The Conradians are nice, but...they kind of just give you the bare necessities of life. Except for weapons and armor, they're very generous about that!

"How have the Conradians been treating you?" she asks noncommittally. 

"Oh, please," she says with great sincerity at the mention of hair oil. "The Conradians didn't put anything but soap in the bathroom, I really needed to clean my hair somehow but it's hopeless now and I need to rescue it." She's laying it on a little bit thick here, but hopefully Felicia will appreciate it.

"They've got me under a geas, though - I can't go more than sixty feet from Agnes, next door, unless she's allowed to hand that over to you?"

She doesn't try to answer about her treatment in general yet, waiting to see how this initial gambit lands.

"Oh, you poor thing. Yes, I will make sure to rectify this deprivation."

She doesn't react about the Geas save for a slight nod. Honestly, her church would be the one who might place stronger enchantments on her.

"Yes, most likely, assuming the Geas caster didn't deviate from the standard wording. I'll take care of it."

She knocks on Agnes's door and she passes minder-status to her. From the way they speak, it seems that they're at least acquantances.

"What do you usually wear in your world? I wonder how different your fashion is from us. Are our clothes similar to what you might find where you came from?"

Her body language indicates that she's ready to lead Allegra over to her room.

"I mean, what I've been wearing lately is army uniform, which isn't exactly the height of fashion. Layered robes is what I'm used to, I've always wanted something in embroidered silk but it hasn't really been practical. This kind of feels like I'm wandering around in my underwear. People do wear this, but mostly as a base layer, or it would at least be decorated."

Allegra is very happy to follow Felicia to her room like an awkward duckling.

Felicia leads. It will take about ten minutes to get to her room.

"Layered robes we can do, although I admit that's not really my style. I don't have silk clothes – we have to import silk from Tian Xia so it tends to be on the pricier side – and also partly because I'm not too fond with the texture of silk. I do have embroidered lace, though, as well as pattern-dyed clothes like this one. I wear summer clothes because it's summer, although you would not wear clothes like this outside: you'd freeze to death. 

What types of decorations would your clothes have? We, the Damianites, tend to prefer floral and plant themed decorations. That's not a hard and fast rule, though. I'm especially partial to them because I love plants – I work in the greenhouse when I'm not doing cleric stuff."

"Ah, my nation is where other people import silk from, so it's not as big a deal. Mostly our decorations are a bit abstract, but anything as long as it's fairly subtle - plant themed can be good for that as long as it's not, like, giant flowers everywhere."

She considers saying she's not that keen on lace because it's scratchy, but that sounds like such an absurd thing to complain about.

"Subtle. Yeah, we can do subtle. I love bright showy designs, but the Damianites as a whole also like elegant, understated designs. I have less 'loud' clothes too. One of our tailors might want to speak to you in the future and ask you more about your world's silk designs and clothes."

They eventually reach Felicia's room, and she opens it with her stamper. It seems the Damianites have the same system. The basic layout and space is identical to Allegra's room, but it's clear that it's more lived in. The white walls aren't bare: there's a big corkboard on one wall decorated with dried flowers and plants, with notes on it like to-do lists and drawings of plants – she's not a good drawer.

The writing desk has a big mirror attached to it which has transformed it into a vanity with integrated magic lighting. There are vials and bottles of assorted beauty products strewn on top of it. The bed, rather than having white sheets, now has plain light green sheets. 

"Why don't you sit down on the vanity's chair?" She smiles.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot to cast Share Language on you. Conradia's been doing it, but I don't think she's meeting with you today, so I have to do it. May I cast it on you now?" She's heard about Allegra's rather strange touchiness with regard to touch spells.

"Sure, I'll hold still." She waits for the spell to be cast before sitting down; it's not so bad when it's not a surprise, it's just like a chirurgeon is seeing to her injury or something.

She'd kind of forgotten she was using weird translation magic to speak, it seems to work better when she doesn't pay too much attention to it.

She's also almost used to what the furniture does - actually, it's really quite relaxing.

She taps her on the shoulder. Share Language: Abyssal.

The Damianites are sometimes called to work with people who have been traumatized for one reason or another, usually initiates from places like Cheliax, and so she's trained in how to approach people who might be...damaged. The Conradian philosophy isn't so good when it comes to dealing with people like that – usually they tell people to just suck it up, or grin and bear it. Not very sustainable, she thinks. But, well, that's why she was chosen by Damian, not Conrad. They live differently, the people on the other side.

"We have several options now: you don't have to pick all of them, just choose which ones you want. I can let you borrow some of my clothes, or I can do your hair, or put makeup on you. I can help you with any one of them, or let you do them yourself." She's not going to lend her any of her jewelry, but clothes and makeup is fine.

"Do we have time for all of those? You'd better help, I'm sure your things are different and you obviously know what you're doing with them."

Allegra is blissfully unaware that Felicia thinks she's traumatised, and actually, sitting back and getting her hair done sounds really nice right now.

She smiles brightly. Her expression is evident on the mirror. Hooray, she gets to give the newcomer a makeover.

She starts with her hair, since it involves hair oil, and she'd rather not get that on her clothes. She takes the bottle and pours a little on her hands at a time, and then drags her fingers through Allegra's hair to work out the tangles. She then takes a comb with her other hand and spreads out the oil using it. Her gestures and actions are relaxed and luxuriant. 

"Do you usually let your hair hang loose, or do you do something with it? Ponytail, braid, bun, or maybe curls or waves? I can curl your hair using an iron."

Oh yes, she could definitely get used to this. It's almost relaxing enough to distract her from the impending doom of two groups of 'chaotic evil' people fighting over her.

"I do partial braids for fancy occasions - braid off the front parts and loop them round to come together at the back? Lately it's just been loose, or back in a tail if I need it out of the way. It does get delightfully wavy if I sleep in braids, but I suspect it might get a bit excessive if deliberately curled."

"I see! I haven't done that style before, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it nicely for you. Since you have someone doing your braid for you, how about a braid starting from the back of the head? I usually like to do it with a ribbon."

She gathers up Allegra's hair and ensures it's all in one big 'piece' at the back, and then takes a long thin white ribbon and places the middle of it on the crown of her head, letting the two strands dangle near Allegra's ears.

"I'll weave the ribbon into the braid and then use that to tie it off at the end. Does that work for you? We can do something else if you don't like that braid style. I also have different colors of ribbon – white is simply the easiest to pair with your clothes, color-wise. Alternatively, the other braid style I commonly do is to weave two braids also starting from the back of the head, and then wrap them around the head, tying the ribbon at the crown. It's a good style if you have a vibrantly colored ribbon."

She opens one of the drawers and there's about a dozen more of the ribbons there in different colors, along with other items like makeup brushes and pads of paper and inkwells and dip pens. 

"Sure, whatever you think will work best; I like the second one, I think? I thought we were going to pick out some different clothes, though, if you're still okay with that? I like the idea of green, it's a bit of a cliche as a Spring mage but I think it works for me."

"Yes, we can pick out an outfit for you once I've finished with your hair. It will only take a few minutes. I wanted to do your hair first so that any hair oil that might spill wouldn't spill on the outfit you're planning on going out in.

In what way is it cliche? Conradia has talked about your world's magic system a little, but I'm not caught up with it."

It really does only take a few minutes. It's clear that Felicia is very practiced with it. Allegra's hair is formed into two braids, which are then wrapped around her head to meet at the crown, where the dangling ribbon is tied. She positions the braids carefully so that they sit above the upper edge of the headband.

She checks her work in the mirror and makes pleased humming noises.

"Do you think that looks good, or is there something about it I should change? Afterward, I can show you my wardrobe."

Allegra normally doesn't like her hair all the way up, she thinks it makes her face look the wrong shape, but that seems acceptably pretty and she doesn't want to be disagreeable.

"It's lovely. I suppose we should pick out clothes next so I don't smudge anything putting them on, yes." 

"Of course," she says, and opens her cabinet. Her wardrobe is very lavishly appointed by Golarion standards. She focuses on the middle-layer clothes.

There are about a dozen dresses, and two dozen skirts, pants, and blouses, as well as some plainer clothes that seem to be loungewear. Most of the clothes are dyed brilliant colors, or have delicate embroidery or patterns. She rifles through the clothes, and picks out a long-sleeved dark green blouse with mother-of-pearl buttons, as well as an ankle-length skirt with a light brown and white paisley pattern. 

"Ooh, I love this one. Do you like it? You can pick out something else if you don't like the pattern. Or do you prefer pants? I have lots of pants too, if I'm planning on going deep into the dirt when working at the garden."

None of these things are really correct; she glances at the dresses to see if any of them look kind of convincingly robe like. "It's a lovely blouse, I might want a closer look at the dresses though - or, do you have anything more, matching in a long skirt?" It's safe to have fashion opinions, right? "Normally I'd go for a slightly lighter shade," she adds.

"Sure thing. I take it you like...looser clothes? Clothes that hang from your body. I tend not to wear those since they're inconvenient to wear when I work. I doubt you'd want to borrow my cleric's robes, although they seem like the thing that you're describing. Let me take a closer look."

She offers:

- a long and thick light green dress with yellow embroidery on the sleeves – it's the sort of thing that you might wear to a ball
- a beige tunic with a thin leather belt to cinch it, paired with an ankle-length brown skirt – it's plain and has no decorations

and then stops.

"Hm, actually, I heard Conradia say you wear layered robes where you come from, right? Layering, layering. That's another thing I tend not to do – the only layering I do is putting on furs when I need to go outside – but I think I can get you that look."

She agonizes in front of the cabinet for a minute, and then picks a long light green wool robe that you cross over the chest, similar to a kimono, with a cloth band to tie it at the waist, as well as a thinner white outer cloak made of a thick canvas-like cloth, secured near the neck with string. Both of them reach all the way down to the ankles. The cloth band is the same light green color as the robe. The hem of the robe is white, with yellow embroidery of a braid running down its length. Aside from the hem, the clothes have no other decorations.

"Does that work for you? I don't wear this one often."

"Yes! That looks great, thank you," replies Allegra, relieved. The cloak isn't perfect and she doesn't normally go in for wool, it tends to itch, but at least it's the right form factor. If she wears it over what she's already got on it should be fine.

"Alright. Ah, right. I'm...not sure if you are particular about modesty where you come from. Some people on Golarion are. Uh, I'll go to the bathroom and then you can knock when you're done changing."

"Oh, no problem, I'm going to put this on over these - I don't like wool directly against my skin much," Allegra explains. She debates adding that she's not at all fussy about changing in front of people either, but decides there's no need to volunteer it right away.

"Do you want to put on makeup? Or perhaps have me do it for you? Otherwise, I can take you to Magnus already. I think we have about twenty minutes left."

She checks the clock.

"Yes, that's right."

She's a little sad that Allegra didn't want to take off her Conradian clothes – she thinks they don't look very good – but it's not a huge deal. 

Allegra puts on the new clothes, which mostly cover up the Conradian clothes anyway, swiftly and efficiently; 'belt up a robe in a hurry' seems to be a very practiced action.

"How long is it going to take to get there? If we've got time I'd love to see what you can do." Allegra has no idea how makeup works, but Felicia is clearly wearing plenty and she wants to make the best possible impression on the high priest.

"It's only going to take five minutes or fewer: we're in the Damianite section of the Orchard already, so it won't take as long as when I took you from your room to here.

It depends on what look you're trying to go for. If you want something conservative, then I'll just put foundation and concealer on you, maybe some contouring, to cover up blemishes. If you want to go all out, then I'll put on colorful eyeshadow and lipstick."

Her makeup collection is remarkably well-stocked; it seems Felicia really likes makeup.

Oh no, not another decision, surely Felicia is the expert here? That's what she gets for arguing about clothes, Allegra supposes, but she does feel a lot more comfortable in a suitable set of layers.

Actually, that's probably the best thing to say. 

"You're the expert here? Which would Magnus prefer to see?" she asks. 

"It's – so – it's hard to explain." She stirs the air with her hands.

"It has to do with theology: Damian wants us to explore and experience the wide range of pleasurable experiences available to us. So, He values that people, say, create very high-quality art, but he's agnostic as to the style of the art, though he does prefer unique experiences a little more. There's a particular aesthetic you can achieve by putting on subtle makeup, and another that you can achieve by putting on flashy makeup.

As for you, I think subtle makeup would work better. Do you agree? If so, I can work on that."

Allegra nods - that's kind of the outcome she was hoping for, but she still has no idea what they consider to be high quality about an aesthetic. At least navigating this is considerably less awful than a fitness test, she reminds herself.

"Sounds good - shall I sit down again and let you get on with it?" She moves back to the chair.

"Yes, please."

It takes a little over five minutes to finish. She puts on less than an equivalent no-makeup makeup look for herself, because she doesn't want to risk it looking overwrought. She puts foundation and some concealer on reddened areas and leaves it at that, without bothering with contouring like she said she would.

"That should do it. Is there anything else that you wanted to do before we go? Ah, that reminds me, do you want me to cast Remove Fear on you? It's...intense, meeting an antipaladin, especially one as strong as him, especially if it's their first time meeting you." Despite the topic, her face remains cheerful and bright.

"Yes, that sounds very handy," replies Allegra, wishing she had just a drop of liao with her and could Anoint herself instead.

She's not totally sure she likes the sound of 'remove fear' either, her fear is very useful at keeping her alive, but she's operated fine under a lot of Anointings, it's probably not going to be worse than that - after all, the energising magic earlier was downright gentle, maybe all of their magic is unusually cooperative.

"It only lasts ten minutes, so I ought to cast it on you just before you go in. Shall we go?"

If Allegra is ready, then she'll lead her to Magnus's office, the door to which is very similar to Rendon's, although this time, the symbol is of an inflorescence of heliotrope.

Allegra (outwardly) cheerfully follows Felicia to the office, and tries to enjoy looking at the carvings and so on along the way and not rampantly over think an encounter she probably can't meaningfully prepare for anyway.

"Anything else I should know about Magnus?" she asks, as they go; Felicia seems quite friendly and she might as well use this for any information she can get.

"He's really handsome," she says immediately. "Well, that kind of goes with the position. We have magical ways to permanently enhance appearance. Hm, he likes to...play with people. Not harmfully, but that's something that he does do."

The carvings are flowing and curved rather than geometric, but there isn't anything that could be usefully gleaned from the pattern. It seems as though it's just there to be pretty.

She makes thinking noises for a bit, and then says, "The Conradians value forthrightness and honesty, but we sometimes like to put on a show. You don't have to, but that's something that you might like to know."

It's fine for the pattern just to be pretty, she's trying to soothe her nerves, not interrogate it.

Great. Well. She prefers honesty, but at least putting on a show is something she can do, unlike - star jumps or whatever.

"Does he prefer confidence or terror?" she asks.

"Confidence. The antipaladins' fear auras are something that their allies are immune to, but if it's their first time meeting you, they might not be able to suppress the aura entirely. They don't actually want to scare you – Damian and Conrad would be upset if they tried that."

She taps her with Remove Fear when they arrive. It feels like there's a feeling of bravery that's swelling from deep beneath her. The magic feels very reminiscent of Summer. 

She opens the door and passes minder-status to Magnus, and then leaves.

"See you later."

"Thank you," replies Allegra, and then turns to face Magnus with a confident smile, striding into the room and looking for an appropriate piece of furniture to lean on while she waits to be told to sit down, or whatever's going to happen next.

The basic layout of the office is identical to the Conradian one, with the same bright light, although there are potted plants placed thoughtfully within the office. It seems that they're real. Magnus is wearing similar robes to Rendon in structure, although with a rich violet color. He has the same headband as Rendon too. There's the lingering smell of incense.

He stands and greets her. "Good morning, Allegra Highspire. I am the High Priest of Damian, Magnus Sundheim. Please take a seat. Help yourself to whatever you like."

His table has been cleared of items, and instead, there's breakfast food. There are scrambled eggs, ham, toast, coffee, thin pancakes with syrup, and coffee in cups, with a small jug of milk and a container of sugar.

It seems that what Felicia said is true: his face has no wrinkles or blemishes, with great bone structure; his body is muscular and fit, from how the robes hang on him – he's the picture of health and beauty. When he smiles, his teeth are white and shining. Regardless, there's the sense of something sinister about him – the same sensation you get when looking down at a cliff and feeling the urge to jump down despite yourself. There's a feeling of creeping doom or unnerving presence that Rendon totally lacked; Rendon was grandfatherly and friendly.

Allegra's eyes widen in genuine delight at the breakfast food, that all looks so delicious. (Normally, if she'd been told someone likes playing with people, she'd assume it was a test or drugged food or something, but the Remove Fear is crowding out that kind of paranoia right now.)

"Thank you, you've somehow picked out all my favourite things," she replies, loading up a plate with scrambled eggs, pancakes, ham, and a token slice of toast before taking a seat.

With the effect of the Remove Fear on her, the general sinking feeling around Magnus doesn't really feel much different from the background dread she's been feeling ever since she dropped into a prison cell.

He sits down and takes some food of his own.

"I'm glad. One of Damian's tenets is that you ought to experience pleasure in all its forms, and what is better than tasty food?

Your hair is great, by the way. The style suits you. How are you liking things so far in the Bronze Orchard? Has it been a comfortable stay?" His tone is that of an old friend catching up. It's really quite surprising how quickly he managed to transition to that from the formal tone he started off with. His demeanor and movement seem to change seamlessly along with his words.

"What parts of it have you visited so far?"

Allegra tries to recall her poise lessons on 'eating daintily while making conversation', which she did have extensively as a child, although she's never been particularly good at it.

"Thank you - it's really to Felicia's credit. Everyone's been almost suspiciously nice, and the beds are amazing. I haven't had much chance to wander around, just over to Rendon's office, the dining hall, and a quick trip to the item makers and the armoury hatch." She returns his chatty tone while attempting to assemble a good chunk of toast and egg to eat while he responds.

Ah, yes, he recognizes the style now. Felicia sometimes wore that too.

He tilts his head slightly and flashes a wicked smile.

"Suspiciously nice? How so?" he asks, the tone of it friendly. He licks his teeth.

"And yes, the beds really are amazing. One of the Damianite wizards figured out how to attach the resizing enchantment wondrous items have to furniture without breaking the bank in terms of necessary spellsilver. It's great, isn't it?" He makes a show of leaning back into his chair before eating some more of the pancake.

"Well, I did start out by inadvertently trespassing and getting dumped in a prison cell, and then Conradia told me that you were all 'chaotic evil', but once it was clear that I was happy to cooperate with magical research, suddenly it's all people falling over themselves to do whatever they can to help me settle in, and everything's very neat and tidy," Allegra explains. She considers mentioning about the fitness tests, but she doesn't want to look desperate at this stage of the conversation, it's all quite nice so far and also she wants to eat this delicious food before something happens to prevent her. She also snuggles appreciatively into her chair, demonstrating that she's totally used to the enchantment by now (she isn't entirely used to it, but 'pretend you're perfectly comfortable with the thing that is happening' is something she has plenty of practice in). "It really is. I don't think I've ever encountered furniture this comfortable."

"We are Chaotic Evil, though. Do you understand what that means, Allegra? Did Conradia explain? She didn't lie or misspeak. We are just the worst sort of people. We're appalling, repulsive, horrible people. You really should be afraid and disgusted by us." He smiles innocently. He takes a bite of food.

"What was life like in Urizen? Your daily life, I mean. I've always been interested in the small things – how commoners lived, rather than nobles or great heroes. I think that's a much better way to find out what a group is like, rather than looking at only the most prestigious members thereof."

"No, she didn't explain a thing," replies Allegra in kind, continuing to maintain a cheerful demeanour, "although at the time I was mostly concerned with not dying in the next few minutes, so I didn't exactly ask. I'm also not sure what a 'demon lord' is; 'demon' sounds to me like a pejorative for a kind of Herald, but I've heard this doesn't quite line up?"

"I mean, I was something of a hero," she continues. "Most people live in their Spires - basically like a wizard's tower, but generally with an extended family rather than just one wizard - and do some kind of research, or maintenance work. We have magical servants - ushabti - for all of the everyday work that most 'commoners' across the Empire spend their time doing, so everyone is working on some kind of project, whether it's keeping their Spire's magic going or advancing the boundaries in something - not necessarily magic, we also have terrace farmers and llama breeders and mines and all that. The land's not all that productive, mostly mountains and jungle, so quite a lot of our food is imported anyway; other parts of the Empire are much better at farming."

"Right, right. Conradia is very dangerous, after all. If her green Disintegrate ray hit you" he makes a pointing motion and a popping sound, "then you would have been rendered into a pile of fine dust. Let me give you a little theology lesson – I'll return to the topic of Urizeni life a little later. 

Chaos represents unpredictability and refusing bindings. Evil is self-concern, harming others, stealing from them and all that. Chaotic Evil means doing what you want without regard of how others might be affected. Most Chaotic Evil entities are destructive, and, we are that, but I think that the others give the alignment a bad name. We represent Chaotic Evil done not-dumbly: we are only Evil outwards, not inwards. That's why we treat you very well – we consider you to be a part of us. At least, for now.

Demons are outsiders who come from the Abyss, the Chaotic Evil afterlife. When you die, Pharasma sorts your soul into one of nine afterlives, and if you go to the Abyss, then you turn into a demon after some time. A demon lord is a demigod that resides within the Abyss, and is able to control demons to their service. Does that make sense to you? Do you have questions?" He speaks like a kindly teacher.

If he was hoping to get a rise out of Allegra about the disintegrate thing, he'll be disappointed; Allegra's basic assumption about the world has always been that anyone can basically kill her any time they want, and the trick is making them not want to.

"Right, so - you are essentially, here, signing up with a demon lord in advance to get a head start on that?" she asks, with the intention of looking intelligent. "Staying 'part of you' certainly seems like my best move. I'm still not sure what an 'outsider' is - where I come from, we reincarnate. Most extraplanar creatures I know of are what we call 'heralds', from magical planes, and started that way - although humans can turn into them if we end up in their planes for any reason, so I guess the demon thing is the same kind of deal, except Pharasma fishes everyone out of the Labyrinth locally and sticks them into a non-Material plane?"

"Wow, okay, let me back up. You are from outside Pharasma's Creation, after all." He makes an exasperated gasping noise.

"It's best if you ignore how your world's afterlife works, since, now that you're here in Golarion, your soul is probably under Her jurisdiction now, so long as you remain here. When you die, Pharasma holds a soul trial for you, where it is decided, based on your actions and thoughts in life, which afterlife you are deserving to go to. There are nine. Going from Lawful to Chaotic, we have Heaven, Nirvana, and Elysium for Good; Axis, the Boneyard, the Maelstrom for Neutral; and Hell, Abaddon, and the Abyss for Evil.

After your soul is so assigned, it becomes an 'outsider' by the process of internalizing the ethics and energies of the place: outsiders are not human and are immortal, and also always express the alignment of their afterlife plane. They're much less malleable and changeable than mortals.

The Good afterlives are generally good, but the Evil afterlives are awful. In Hell, you are tortured for eternity by Asmodeus and His devils, in Abaddon your soul is eaten by daemons, and in the Abyss, you fight with other demons and probably die. Generally not a good time. I'd rather wander Elysium and its infinite wildernesses.

This creates an awful dilemma, see: what if I want to be Evil and do cool fun Evil things while alive, but also don't want to die the true death in my afterlife or get tortured forever and ever? That's where Conrad and Damian come in. They have a very nice and pleasant Abyssal realm, unlike the general awfulness of the Abyss. I can show you if I ask Rendon to Scry.

Now, ordained people – people who are chosen specifically by gods because They want them to advance their interests in the Material Plane, and because their soul is of a very pleasing shape to Them – are already destined to go to their gods' respective afterlives when they die. But for those who are useful but somewhat less pleasingly shaped, there are soul contracts, which is like being-ordained-lite – it permits you to go to Their afterlife in exchange for your mortal service.

By 'pleasingly shaped', I mean that your values and thoughts are particularly aligned and agreeing with Theirs. For Damian, He is the god of exploring and experiencing the wide range of positive experiences available to you, so he selects people who are indulgent and discerning and honest about their desires.

Following Him means that I get to have a pleasant afterlife while still getting to do everything I want to do here in this life. I do so love escaping the consequences of my actions. Don't you?"

"I mean, who doesn't?" she replies, trying to work out what to say to the pile of information. "Outsiders still sound like heralds to me, that's exactly what getting dumped on the wrong plane will do to us, assuming we survive the process."

She takes another bite of breakfast and savours it, meaningfully.

"I could definitely get used to some positive experiences," she smiles. She's not definitely flirting, but she is certainly doing the thing where she is extremely plausibly deniably flirting; in her experience, guys who go on about 'the wide range of positive experiences available to you' generally mean 'sex', and it's not like she'd mind.

He chuckles. "We have many positive experiences on offer. Have you tried praying? I assume Rendon talked to you about it. Who knows, you might actually become a cleric. Then you could become a mystic theurge like him – an otherworldly mystic theurge."

He eats more before continuing.

"Let's take a break from boring theology. So, you were a hero from Urizen? Were you popular? Apparently you ran away from your parents. Why? And I'm curious about your ushabti – it doesn't sound like they're slaves, and more...magical constructs?"

"Rendon mentioned prayer, but didn't exactly encourage me to do it," she replies. "He did say I could stick around and watch him pray, but he was just totally motionless and silent, and also I wanted breakfast." She eats a little more breakfast, just to punctuate the sentence.

"Our unit was pretty popular, we did a lot of extractions from the Druj, everyone likes a heroic tale of infiltrating a bunch of torturer orcs and smuggling out high value prisoners. It's a fun puzzle and I quite liked the adulation, but not exactly the most comfortable line of work.

My parents wanted me to be a musician; there's a whole school of magic where I come from around abstruse mathematical properties of musical scales; that was, uh, not my thing, so once I was old enough that people wouldn't just bring me right back to them, I left.

Ushabti are magical constructs, yes; I don't know if the background magic is high enough here to support them, I know they don't work in other areas of the Empire. I know the basics of maintaining one, but I've never built a whole one from scratch. There's a whole range, it's a huge field - right from very simple ones that just do one movement over and over, to ones that can do a sequence of tasks and basic collision avoidance, to ones that can do really complicated things like take dictation and serve drinks. They're pretty fragile, strong enough to do farm work and mining if they're built that way, but it doesn't take much violence to turn them inert."

"Yes, that's the most common form of prayer. Prayer is the process by which you focus your thoughts on your deity to connect with them. That is, however, the only necessary component of prayer, so it is totally possible to pray while doing...other activities." He smiles. "It's just harder."

"Mmm, well, see, we are kind of the torturer orcs in this scenario. You've heard about our prisoner keeping habits, haven't you? Though we take care not to capture anyone high value if all we want to do is torture them. It's not wise.

I'm sorry to hear that. Funnily enough, we have totally failed in attracting any bards to our church. We have people who have musical talent, but not anyone who's a professional bard. Then again, our church is young and small. It's only twenty four years old – younger than me by half – and we only have about five hundred people. 

Yes, that sounds just like our constructs."

He eats some more before continuing.

"What motivates you, Allegra? What makes life worth living?"

"I haven't heard much about your prisoner keeping habits," admits Allegra, "other than the Conradians think they're frivolous, but the Conradians think shampoo is frivolous.

Anyway, you are much more interesting than the Druj - they certainly haven't learnt the bit about not taking it out on each other."

Hmm. What does motivate her, anyway, and what of that should she tell him? She doesn't want to obviously hesitate, although fortunately the food is good for plausible deniability there.

"I pretty much find life intrinsically worth living?" she replies. "I haven't found anything that makes me want to stop yet, and not for lack of being in situations where that might be expected. I like - interesting things, new things? I'm mostly used to being motivated by survival, honestly."

She has thought about some of the implications of saying this next thing, whether he'll take it as a challenge, but the Remove Fear is buoying her up and Felicia did say he liked confidence.

"I can find something to enjoy in just about anything, really - that's who I am."

"Aww, you shouldn't malign the Conradians so much. Our tenet against harming others of the church is something that came about because of them. We are separate churches, yes, but our churches are joined similarly to how our gods are joined in their relationship. Conrad is very tribal – he has a very strong us-versus-them mentality – so he values that all members of the church be treated nicely, but that everyone outside not be afforded this same treatment. We have adopted this tenet as well as part of our compromise for living together."

He makes an expression of fake shock and covers his mouth.

"Really now? You can find something to enjoy in anything, you say?" He draws out that word. "Even in the fire and lash of Hell?" He smiles.

"I just finished praying earlier, but...it might be an edifying experience for you to pray. I...think that you're more aligned with Damian than you are with Conrad. Would you like to try now? It might actually be easier while you're eating."

"I mean, I haven't tried being in literal hell," replies Allegra, "but pain can be interesting as long as it's not, monotonous?" 

Recovery is always the worst bit, but they did say they had some magical healing here; hopefully it's just as nice as their magical invigoration.

"I can give it a go; it sounds a lot like the mental motion of calling forth a Virtue aura, just a different set of emphasis. Sorry, that probably didn't mean much to you."

"Mmhmm, we do have magical healing here too. Cure Light Wounds will set you right. And I should tell you Lesser Restoration invigorates the whole body." He laughs.

"Alright. It's important not to be distracted during this step. I'll prompt you on what you should be thinking." His voice becomes a little more serious.

"Damian's concept is usually thought of as 'pleasure and beauty', but it's a little more complicated than that. In particular, it is impossible to truly grasp the entire concept of a god, because gods are much more expansive than humans – it is the same reason that receiving visions from gods usually results in headaches. Damian is an ascended human, though, so the vision backlash is greatly reduced: He maintains a human aspect of himself that He can use to communicate to us, something which the ancient gods lack.

As you chew the food now, pay attention to the taste and texture of it, and which parts are pleasant and unpleasant. Yes, you are able to sense the taste of the food, but are you really tasting it? Think now of blind people who learn to navigate based on touch, memory, and sound. Their touch, memory, or hearing is not supernaturally sharper than us, but, through practice, they have learned to become discerning to the subtle variations in pitch and echo of sounds, and to the ridges and textures of different materials. They pay attention to them in a way others do not. Damian asks of us to taste – really taste – when we eat something, to carefully separate out the different miniscule sensations that then come together to form a sum greater than its parts, and not to analyze such sensations dispassionately, but seek them out and immerse ourselves in them."

Oh, she can definitely do that. She'll close her eyes and absolutely lose herself in teasing out the individual sensations; it's much more relaxing than trying to engage in a battle of wits with Magnus for her life. She loves just doing this when she thinks she can get away with not paying attention to her surroundings, and right now it seems like it's safer to dive into the individual sensations than continue to keep a wary eye out, which is... nice.

There's a sensation like falling, and then – 

Allegra is now standing inside a pavilion in a garden in the height of summer. The pavilion has delightfully scented flower bushes surrounding it. The pavilion itself has a varnished wood floor, and the inside is painted white. In the middle of the pavilion is an octagonal hole or depression that's shaped sort of like a bowl or a pool, except the inside is padded like a sofa, with cushions strewn about.

On the side opposite Allegra, there's a Chelish man lying on his side with a large linen cloth or blanket draped carelessly on him. He is, just like Magnus, unbelievably handsome, although he appears younger and of a slightly different ethnicity. He doesn't appear to be wearing anything else other than the linen.

"I was wondering when you'd come talk to me, Allegra. Come and sit," he says, and suddenly, Allegra is now standing just on the edge of the hole.

"Or lie down, if you want."

Okay. This... sure is a thing that is happening. Maybe the food was drugged.

Anyway. If she's trying to do this right, she should probably not just sit on the edge of the hole. Not taking her eyes off the man, she lies down. The whole 'jump cut to the edge' thing made it abundantly clear that 'running away' wasn't a thing that was going to happen here, anyway, so it's really no more vulnerable than sitting.

She feels the absurd urge to apologise for being bad at this, but that is very obviously the wrong move, so she just waits to see if he's going to ask her something.

He turns on His hips and sits up, crossing His legs at the knee. There's now a pleasant breeze flowing through the place, carrying the scent of cut grass and sweet summer blossoms.

"Congratulations on receiving your first god-vision. You know, many people don't get one in their entire lifetime, but I'm generous like that." He looks incredibly smug.

"You really are from another world – I've never seen anyone with a soul shaped like yours. It's quite delightful." He stares at her like he's peering at her soul, which, well, he is.

"The food was not drugged. If I wanted to have you drugged, we would have done that a long long time ago. Put some faith in us." He makes a face of mock offense. "If I tried doing that to you, Conrad would pout at me."

Conrad is stuck between a rock and a hard place: He refuses to work with anyone who isn't personally loyal to Him, but He also doesn't want Allegra to leave because who wants to let the wizard who knows an entirely new school of magic go? Which leaves Damian to take care of it – He's more amenable to...shenanigans, and to people being less-than-perfectly loyal. Oh, if He wasn't in love with Him, He would have totally abandoned Him a long time ago.

"No need to apologize, my sweet. I probably should have waited before giving you a vision, but I just couldn't help myself. I wonder what would make you feel more assured of your position here. You seem terribly anxious, you know. Is it the shampoo? I'll make sure you'll have all the shampoo you could ever want." He laughs.

Okay, so, he's reading her mind. That shouldn't be all that surprising? This might all just be a figment of her imagination to start with, and that would definitely read her mind.

"You might have done it in a way you thought was beneficial," Allegra points out. After all, drugs that induce a vision are her own religion's highest rite, and liao dreams are another popular sacrament; it makes perfect sense for other religions to use hallucinogens.

"Relaxing hasn't exactly been the best plan for staying alive so far in my life," she admits; he's reading her mind anyway, he was going to know whether she said it out loud or not. "Is Magnus going to know we had this conversation? He seems to be pretty keen on assuring me he's dangerous, and I know Felicia said he liked confidence, but 'I had a polite chat with your god' doesn't sound all that convincing without proof." It is pretty relaxing to just be able to say the things that she was going to be worrying about anyway.

"I feel like I should be trying to impress you, but also that you would probably just laugh at that," she offers.

"Mm, I do love me some drugs, but I assure you that we have not done any of that. Yes, he'll know. Hah, that's just Magnus for you. He won't hurt anyone that's a part of the church. Visions don't have a visual component – but he'll definitely know it happened. It's a thing."

He taps his fingers together rhythmically and frowns.

"Impress Me by answering My question. Conrad always says that the way you get someone to trust you is to credibly signal to them that you are willing to tie your fate to theirs. Hm, would you like me to ask Conradia to dispel the geas on you? No, no, Rendon would have a conniption. How about I ask her to recast it on you, but remove the 'I command' wording, and also remove the need for a minder so that you can wander more freely?"

He rests his head in his hands.

"You know, I could just use my godly powers to remove your anxiety about having trespassed into our secret base, but we actually do want you to consider the possibility of maybe joining us."

He rubs his chin.

"As an aside, I should tell you that giving visions is a costly thing for a god to do, and costly for you too. You'll probably end up getting a headache afterward."

"Not even if they ask nicely?"

Where did that come from. Clearly all these distractingly hot men are, uh, distracting.

"The sixty foot thing is kind of annoying, but not really the problem."

The command thing isn't really a problem at all; Conradia hasn't used it yet and doesn't really have to anyway, 'Conradia can disintegrate you whenever she feels like it' is much more salient than the geas.

What would do it. No, she can't ask that - well, she's thought it now, so she might as well.

"Magnus could be bound to protect me," she replies. "He's strong enough to definitely do it even if the others object, and I'm not sure anything else would make me not afraid that someone would just decide to turn around and kill me for some reason. Maybe protect and avenge, if everyone is actually as chaotic as they like to say, then they can't just weasel round it and say 'oh no, never mind'."

She can't quite believe she just said that, but this doesn't seem to be the kind of conversation where you shouldn't ask for what you want, even if the answer is actually 'no'.

She's mostly unmoved at the prospect of getting a headache, other than that it might make her less able to protect herself. She is a little more worried about wasting Damian's time and energy, but there's no point expressing that; it's fundamentally his problem what he decides to do with it, anyway, he can stop whenever he wants.

"Well, that's different. Depends on how nice you ask." He smirks, then adopts a neutral expression.

"It is not Our way to bind people of our church like that, and, in any case, My church is already going to do what I want. Any of My ordained, My clerics, antipaladins, inquisitors, and warpriests, receive their power through Me, and if I so chose, they would lose all their power in an instant." He snaps his fingers.

"The same is true for everyone not ordained by me which has a soul contract, which is everyone here save around two dozen. I could rip up their soul contract and excommunicate them, and that would mean they'd lose all their status within the church. 

Right, you probably didn't know that, given that you asked that question. I should say that I, Myself, cannot remove the ordaining or soul contracts of people from Conrad's church, but you should know that We are lovers: if I tell Him to remove someone because of something bad they've done and He doesn't, for no good reason, then I'll break up with Him – and so would My church.

However, if it will comfort you, then I'll send Magnus instructions to protect and avenge you from anyone from our two churches or their employ who might harm you, on pain of being stripped of his power – social and physical – and expulsion from My church. This is a very indulgent and generous thing, but I'll do it if it is what it takes for you to feel comfortable around us." He thinks she's overreacting, but, well, he also kinda understands. He gets it. And besides, it would be very very bad if they lost her and all of her Delightful New Magic.

Well, it would just be ungrateful to not be comfortable after that! Of course she's immediately worrying that she won't actually live up to what they want, that she won't deliver any results from the magic because it turns out it all relies on power sources they can't replicate, and then the god himself is going to be angry with her because he was indulgent and generous and she didn't adequately repay him, but she tries valiantly to squash that fear down and put it back in its box.

Maybe if she could use her magic without permission it would be quicker to test some things. She's not asking any more out loud, but she's thought it now, right. At least then she'd know. It's not like she can actually hurt anyone with any of the spells she can cast, and they've got her hugely outclassed even if she did rederive the whole set. Anything really significant takes crystal mana, which they're pretty much in control of her ability to access.

"Thank you," is what she actually says. "It's nice here, but I probably shouldn't waste all your time? Or my ability to actually do anything else for the rest of the day, or however long the headache lasts."

"No, no, no." He waves his hands in the air like swatting flies. "That is the reason that I'm being generous, but I wouldn't squish you even if your magic failed to replicate. Your soul and values are aligned with mine – I wouldn't dream of wasting someone like you. It's not as if you'd be useless anyway: you are very Intelligent and would likely pick up our world's magic with ease.

Hm. You're right. I can...see, from your thoughts, the limits of what your spells can do. I think Rendon would be fine with removing that restriction on the geas as well.

The headache will last for a day. Get someone to cast Lesser Restoration on you afterward, though they'd already do that if they knew you had a vision. It helps with the pain."

He waves her goodbye, and there's the same falling sensation again – 

Magnus is clutching his head, and then straightens up when he realizes that Allegra has recovered from her vision trance.

He stands, walks over to Allegra, and genuflects. He takes her hand and kisses it.

"By the will of Damian, the Fragrant Petal, I, Magnus Sundheim, shall protect you, Lady Highspire." He is totally milking this for all it's worth. Receiving a divine mission doesn't mean you can't play with it.

"Of course, my lady, I shall send for our cleric to Restore you." His voice sounds haughty and overwrought, but also a little pained – it seems that his vision affected him too, although much lesser.

Allegra is a little busy not reacting to the splitting headache to be particularly startled from Magnus kissing her hand, it's just one more Weird Stimulus To Be Ignored. She's sure there will be plenty of time to feel weird about it later.

"Sorry about the headache," she says. "Sounds like you could do with a Restore too?"

Magnus calls for a nearby cleric, and a second-circle cleric of Damian enters the room wordlessly and casts Lesser Restoration on them both before promptly leaving. She doesn't introduce herself.

Magnus sighs with relief as the energy of the spell washes over him. It's very good. He dusts off his robes and stands back up.

"Would you like to take a nap? If the pain is too much," although he doesn't expect that it is, "I can have the cleric, Lili, cast Delay Pain on you. The issue with it is that it removes all your capacity to feel pain for several hours, so you'll have to move carefully."

"I've had worse," replies Allegra, a little shortly, but mostly she's doing remarkably well at pretending she doesn't have a headache at all. "The restoration's taken the edge off it.

So. Praying seemed to go quite well. What's next? I think Conradia wanted to play magic school this afternoon, and I should probably get my room stocked rather than steal Felicia's clothes and makeup every morning."

"You sure? I can ask Conradia to reschedule. I imagine magic research is the sort of thing you want to do with a clear head. But still, whatever you want." He smiles. "Oh, yes, she also needs to recast your geas to a looser wording."

"I can get you to our warehouse and tailors' workshop to see whether there are clothes there you might like. I think late afternoon or early evening will work, depending on whether you want to ask someone to sew something for you – some people might offer to do that to be able to talk to you about your world's clothes – or just find something already there."

"Haircare and makeup, or are those also in the warehouse? I suppose this is the time you also tell me that there's some kind of terrible equivalent of the Conradian fitness test before I can get a stipend from your side of the church either?"

Her tone with the latter is somewhat teasing; in general she's got a lot less tentative and fake-confident and a lot more actually confident. It seems like pushing it is not a losing strategy here, so she's inclined to see how far that goes.

"Yes, those are also in the warehouse. Also, you will be sorely disappointed – our church does the fitness test too. No test, no pay. You cannot escape the fitness test. There are two certainties in life: death, and fitness tests. We don't pay taxes.

We do it because we respect the Conradians' commitment to combat readiness, but also because we'd encourage or even mandate that people exercise even if there was no danger to us. This body," he gestures towards his own, "does not come about without effort.

Come to think of it, we need to test your Wisdom and Splendor too, but we can take care of that some other time. Even if you fail the fitness test, you won't lose your pay or have it be reduced, you'll simply be unable to claim it until you pass. We do the fitness tests a week before the solstice and equinox celebrations, so that's...three weeks from now." He smiles.

"I suppose I'll just have to seduce people for anything else I want, then," she replies, flippantly to cover her clear disappointment. "There's a reason I was stuck in the ritual auxiliary until I got picked up for special forces."

"Noooooo, no need to seduce people. Most things you can get by just asking nicely. Shall we go to meet Conradia? I think she's scheduling for herself less time enchanting so that she can do magic research with you, passing off many of the easier items to the junior wizards."

He opens the door to let her through, then leads her to the Conradian side of the place.

"What made Urizen pick you for special forces? And why were you only in the ritual auxiliary – with an Intelligence of 18, you would have done wonderfully at any of our world's magic academies. Damian Himself only had an Intelligence of 16 when he started studying at Ostenso Magical Academy."

"Sure, I'd like to ditch the need to follow someone around like a duckling, although it's not like I know the layout so I'll probably still need a lot of directing.

Ritual auxiliary is pretty much everyone in the army who can't reliably keep up with the front line - unless you're really dreadful at everything and end up peeling potatoes or something.

I got into special operations because they'd noticed I was smart, tried me on liao, and I was bored enough to say yes; it's not really a role with an excellent life expectancy, usually, but I knew a guy who was putting together a team that was planning to be unusually smart about it, and he convinced me.

I'm not really a magic academy kind of person - I mean, I'm looking forward to teaching and learning stuff here, but people here are keen to know anything and I get to rederive things how I like, not argue over some obtuse formula for marginally improving the safety of some Silutarian mode..."

"True, although it means that you'd be able to wander the greenhouse and lounge all by yourself.

What's liao? I don't think I've heard of that. It's some sort of thing you...eat? Consume?

Yes, I meant magic academy in the neutral sense of...place where you learn and teach magic. We're rather informal here. There are no set classes or lectures or anything like that. If we're teaching someone without any magical knowledge or experience whatsoever, then we'll usually apprentice them to a senior wizard – third-circle or above – until they manage to learn first-circle spells. You're only considered a wizard after you learn first-circle spells: cantrips, because of their simplicity, don't count. We sometimes still teach people who are ineligible to become wizards a few cantrips because they're so useful: Prestidigitation is the most common, with Mending being a far second. I know how to cast Prestidigitation, but I have terrible control and only use it to do laundry and cleaning, which is the most popular use of the spell. It's why it's so popular.

Usually, learning to cast your first cantrips takes months, and it takes several years to attain first-circle spells – Damian and Conrad took three years of study to finally get to first-circle. Of course, that was when they were teenagers. For you, with a higher Intelligence and also a magical background, I think it will go much faster. It's difficult to teach children magic because there's a lot of focus and concentration necessary, and unless they happen to love magic, they simply won't be in the state of mind required to prepare spells.

Once someone reaches first-circle here, then they're free to go and learn about whatever magic they want. We subsidize the magic ink necessary for them to copy the spells every wizard ought to know – all the cantrips, plus mainstays like Mage Armor and Endure Elements, however, we're much more stingy about letting people copy spells if they don't have a soul contract with us. Cantrips and first-circle spells are cheap to copy, though, so it's not that big of a deal. Wizards need to have the spell diagram copied in magic ink – this is ink with ground-up spellsilver suspended in it – in order to be able to prepare and cast it. There are ways to learn how to prepare a spell without this diagram, but it's much harder, and most wizards don't bother.

We don't have a set curriculum or force people into certain lines of study because, as the Conradians say, 'when you overspecialize, you breed in weakness'. The main strength of a wizard is their versatility, and we would never want to hamper that by railroading people. I admit that it makes figuring out unit deployments hellish, though, because you need to know every single person's skills individually." He's kind of pandering, but it is true. Their churches do follow that philosophy.

"Most wizards do specialize in one school because they happen to have a talent for it, or simply really like the spells there. Damian specialized in Enchantment, and Conrad in Transmutation. Of course, you could also choose to remain a Universal wizard and learn everything equally, but that's less popular – all wizards start out as Universal, because novices are equally incompetent at all schools of magic."

They reach the forge where Allegra got her arcane stamper, and Magnus goes inside to fetch Conradia.

"Liao is a drug; it's surprisingly unfussy about how you take it, you can inhale it, drink it, bake it into fudge, drop it in your eyes, some formulations even do direct skin absorption. It's refined from the sap of a plant we call vinum, in its natural state it just gives you dreamless sleep - which is handy for some people - but when refined it makes you - more attuned to the underlying emotional reality of the world? And you can focus that, with training, into emotional effects that stick to people, places or items, or giving people directed dreams, or - interfering with souls, unseating them slightly to cut people off from this ability, laying stray souls to rest, that kind of thing.

The strongest version lets you see visions of past lives, but that's incredibly hard to make - the entire Empire generally managers less than half a dozen doses a season, and it's really trying hard.

The civil service are in charge of all the refining processes, though, unlike a lot of my world's magic I just really wouldn't know where to start with this, even if I had some Vinum in the first place.

I'm still not sure what your magic schools are, they sound a little bit like the Realms are to rituals but not quite."

"Yum, I'd like to try vinum one day. It's sad that I probably wouldn't get to experience it. I'll leave you with Conradia now, she can explain magic schools better than me."

Magnus brings Conradia to Allegra and waves goodbye, walking off.

"Hello, Allegra. Let's go to one of the workrooms," she says, starting to walk. 

"Magic schools. They're less fundamental forces of the universe, like your Realms seem to be, and more like categorizations of spells. The shapes of spells of the same school are similar to one another. There are eight schools of magic, plus one. I think I already told you about them, but only told you about their names, so I'll describe each one of them to you now."

She recites as though from from a textbook.

"Abjuration spells are protective. They create physical or magical barriers, negate magical or physical abilities, harm trespassers, or banish the subject of the spell to another plane of existence. Examples: Mage Armor, Dispel Magic, Forbiddance, Dismissal, Antimagic Field.

Conjuration spells are subdivided into five categories: they can transport creatures from another plane of existence to your plane (calling); create objects or effects on the spot (creation); heal (healing); bring manifestations of objects, creatures, or forms of energy to you (summoning); or transport creatures or objects over great distances (teleportation). Examples: Planar Binding, Create Food and Water, Cure Light Wounds, Summon Monster I, Dimension Door.

Divination spells enable you to learn secrets long forgotten, predict the future, find hidden things, and foil deceptive spells. Examples: Detect Thoughts, Scrying, Find Traps, True Strike.

Enchantment spells affect the minds of others, influencing or controlling their behavior. All enchantments are mind-affecting spells. They can changes how the subject views you, typically making it see you as a good friend (charm), or force the subject to act in some manner or changes the way its mind works (compulsion). Some compulsion spells determine the subject’s actions or the effects on the subject, others allow you to determine the subject’s actions when you cast the spell, and still others give you ongoing control over the subject. Examples: Charm Person, Geas, Dominate Person, Hold Person, Power Word Kill.

Evocation spells manipulate magical energy or tap an unseen source of power to produce a desired end. In effect, an evocation draws upon magic to create something out of nothing. Many of these spells produce spectacular effects, and evocation spells can deal large amounts of damage. Examples: Acid Arrow, Fireball, Sending, Icy Prison, Gentle Breeze.

Illusion spells deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or remember things that never happened. They can create a false sensation (figment), or change a subject’s sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear (glamer), create an image that others can see, but such that it also affects the minds of those who see it or are caught in it (pattern), creates a mental image that usually only the caster and the subject of the spell can perceive, which third parties don't see (phantasm), or create something partially real from extradimensional energy (shadow). Examples: Minor Image, Magic Aura, Color Spray, Phantasmal Killer, Shadow Conjuration.

Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force. Examples: Deathwatch, False Life, Animate Dead, Circle of Death, Unshakable Chill.

Transmutation spells change the properties of some creature, thing, or condition, which may involve transforming your physical body to take on the shape of another creature with some of its abilities (polymorph). Examples: Masterwork Transformation, Monstrous Physique I, Baleful Polymorph, Stone Shape, Alter Winds.

The ninth special school is called Universal, for a few special spells that correspond to none of the schools. Examples: Prestidigitation, Wish, Permanency, Arcane Mark, Limited Wish. Actually, I shouldn't even call those examples – they represent all of the Universal school spells out there."

She opens the door to the teaching workshop and beckons Allegra inside.

"I think teaching me how to set up a mana crystal site is our first priority as of now, since you say that that requires a season. Better to work on it immediately. Though I'm curious now to see whether there's one particular school of magic you're drawn to. Magnus has probably explained that people usually specialize in one school. I'm specialized in Illusion."

"Conjuration definitely sounds most interesting from that," Allegra replies. "One of the fundamental limits of our... my kind of magic is it can't create something from nothing - this is a little less limiting than it sounds because it can pull things that exist in Realms into the material world, but it's still a big thing.

To build a mana site from scratch, I'll need a location with natural flows of magic - you said you had ley lines, the most significant location you have available on one of those would be best?

I'll also need - hmm, easiest design is probably basins of water, it's a bit maintenance intensive but easier to move things around and see if it's working. Ideally they'd be sculpted to increase surface area, essentially you want lots of possible crystallisation points - but just a dozen large metal bowls will do.

And a range of metal salts, the kind that crystallise out of over-saturated solutions. I'm not sure which ones are best so we'll want a wide range to experiment with and see how they do.

Essentially what we're doing is growing crystals in the basins, and if they're lined up right with the magic flows they'll also absorb power as they crystallise and become mana crystals. You can also do fancy things with mithril mirrors to redirect the ambient magic so more flows through your collecters, which we might have to try if the ley line isn't strong enough, but that's beyond anything I've even got a close look at.

Oh, we might also need to think about air flow, as we're underground - some mana sites are in caves, so it's definitely not impossible, but I think air that's too stagnant will mess up the crystallisation process somehow."

The workroom has a U-shaped table in the middle, with shelves of various items on the shelves. There are tall stools stowed under the table.

"Oh yes, our kind of magic can do that too. Many conjuration (creation) spells have limited durations. If you look at their spellforms, conjuration (creation) spells look similar to evocation spells, which is reflected in their effects.

What possible designs are there for the mana site? Perhaps it might be good to try out multiple different configurations simultaneously. If you give me detailed plans for the bowls, I can create them instantly through Fabricate. 

We have magic items that can create, destroy, and direct air: it's one of the very useful pieces of spell research Conrad and Damian did, and what allows us to live in this hermetically sealed fortress.

I've told everyone who is both interested and potentially useful to you to come along to form a magic research group, since I can't do everything for you. Notably, Dannek, a Damianite druid, specializes in tapping on ley lines for casting. Lucius is our strongest and most skilled alchemist – he's also a Damianite. Aside from that, I've also told Agnes to come. She's newer to learning our magic system and so might be able to help you learn our magic better – sometimes you forget how you became an expert once you are one. They should be arriving in about ten minutes or so. In the meantime, I can recast Lesser Geas on you."

She does that, keeping the same wording as before, but removing the need for a minder, and permitting Allegra to cast spells of her own without permission so long as those spells are not targeted towards anyone in the church. If she plans to do so, then she must describe the spell's effect fully, if the person does not already know the effect, and have them consent to the casting before proceeding.

Allegra considers thanking her for the loosened geas, but having to fully explain detect magic to everyone she wants to cast it on still sounds kind of irritating, and also there's nerding about mana sites to be done, which is much more interesting than social optimisation.

"So, mana sites are most commonly natural features that have formed where magical energy naturally pools, generally near water because that's how you get naturally occurring mana crystals; if you're using the site you then add salts to the water for better production, if it's not naturally running at capacity anyway.

Other forced mana site designs are basically water feature designs - you want the water to circulate enough not to get stagnant without being too turbulent for crystal formation. If you have a magical flow rather than a pooling site, it might be worthwhile to run the water along the direction of flow for at least part of the site.

The completely different design is to bring in existing crystals - usually it'd be spent mana crystals - and attempt to charge them directly from the magical energy, rather than using the crystallisation process to help. You want a giant focusing mirror for this - the one I heard about was a blast crater from a magical explosion, if you'd tried to use it the normal way it wouldn't have kept its shape and polish, so crystals were very carefully placed in the right locations to absorb the ambient power. I'm not convinced it's a good idea with a flowing rather than a pooled source.

With the correct geometry you can just make mana crystalise out of the air, but that's more in the 'rare workings whose secrets have been lost' category.

I can try to sketch some fancy basins, I think that's the best starting point, we might have to carry them around a bit but there's no point in planning anything complicated until we can map out the flows of magic better. Uh, unless your druid friend totally bypasses the process, I am going to need a good hand mirror, a couple of movable standing mirrors, a good light source and possibly some free standing wind chimes for that bit."

A man wearing hide armor walks in. He has pointed ears.

"Hello, Allegra. Pleasure to see you." He smiles. He points to Agnes, who waves, and to another man, who looks a little older. "You already know about Agnes. This is Lucius, our alchemist." Lucius nods.

"We're all very eager to learn from you." His tone of voice implies he's eager to learn other things than magic, but he looks at Allegra and he straightens up and clears his throat.

"I don't think I've seen mana crystals before. But if it doesn't detect to our world's Detect Magic spell, then we would probably have thought it was a regular rock. You only use mana crystals when casting rituals, not spells, right? We don't use rituals at all – well, we do, but it's very rare – and in those cases we don't use mana crystals either. Most of our magic is in spells."

He places a large box that Lucius and him had been carrying on the table, opens it, and takes out a map.

"I'd love to know how you detect magic flows, but I've already mapped them out. I can detect them just by being in their presence. I'm a druid, but I'm a druid that specializes in magic, not nature. If you want rivers, there are several rivers within Teleport range that have nice and strong mana flows." He points to a few spots on the map.

"I also brought our collection of salts with varying solubility in water. What are your mana crystals composed of? Are they of a specific material, or can any crystal be infused with magic?"

"Yes, just spells." He's clearly flirting with her but she doesn't immediately like the look of him, so she decides to file it away for later. "Rivers aren't essential, but if there's a nice small stream lined up in the right direction that makes it easier for us, because we don't have to basically create an artificial one.

I haven't got a full list of permitted materials for a mana crystal, and it probably wouldn't match what you call them anyway - I can feel the language failing to actually match mana crystal seeding salt, so it doesn't have a specific word for the most common variety or this spell can't find it.

I think anything that is possible to crystallise in the conditions available at the site will be worth trying. Most mana crystals are tetragonal or hexagonal - cool, this language has a lot of geometry - so it might be worth prioritising those, although it's not an absolute rule."

She starts examining the map - mostly she's looking for places where strong flows meet each other, which might have usable pooling or eddies rather than having to chase a flow over a longer distance.

He unrolls a map on the table with annotations and shading in colored pencil to mark mana flows.

"Right," he says, pointing to the top left. "We're currently here in Sabertooth Vale. Much of the rivers and lakes of Sarkoris dried up when the Worldwound opened, but there are still some remaining today. As for magic flows, the ones most significant are the meeting of the West Sarkora and North Sarkora rivers to make the Sarkora River proper near the Needleglens. That part is uninhabited.

The second choice is where the West Sellen meets the Sarkora at Storasta. Storasta is inhabited, mostly by druids who want to repair the damage the Worldwound wrought. I have connections with them, but I'd prefer to test a mana site at the Needleglens first, unless it proves unsuitable for whatever reason. Also, it's close to the Mendevian border. I'd rather not the Iomedaeans get access to the secret of mana crystals.

As a last resort, we could try Bridespool Fen, Lake Ipona, or the mouth of the North Sarkora River near Dyinglight. I really really would not want to do that, though, because the waters there are noxious, and there are gibrileths – a disgusting type of demon – as well as fungus cultists." He, as he says, looks very disgusted at the prospect.

"If you just want a place with significant mana buildup that's not necessarily a river, then we can try Shadow Spring. The water there is sulfurous and unsuitable for drinking or bathing in, and there are corrupted humans living there, but compared to the rest of Sarkoris Scar, it's safe. Especially since you have me to protect you." He laughs. "Well, more like Lucius and Conradia. They're way stronger than I am.

Continuing, the Circle of Hierophants is a collection of stone circles – hundreds of them – made by the same druidic order I'm a part of. Well, not really. There are still druids that come from it, who fled when the Worldwound opened more than a century ago that maintain the same traditions, but it is a shadow of its former self. There are siabrae there: corrupted undead druids, but we'll be able to clear them out if we prepare. The magic flows here are particularly strong."

"Hey! I'm almost to second-circle. Don't count me out." Agnes sighs and casts A Look at Dannek's direction.

Going out on an expedition would definitely be enough to push her to second-circle.

"Those last two certainly sound like the kind of places I'd expect to find a natural mana site - big river confluences tend to have too much going on to settle mana into crystal without a lot of engineering work.

It sounds like Shadow Springs should be our first stop, it's closer by and if we're very lucky we'll find natural mana in the sulphur crystals already there."

Staring at the map has distinctly reminded her that she has a terrible headache; her eyes are kind of refusing to focus properly on things. And that is too many random place names to remember without context.

"If that doesn't work then the Circles also sound like the kind of places we can find and experiment with pooled mana, which is easier to get repeatable results out of."

Dannek looks at her for a minute. 

"Are you okay? Do you want a Lesser Restoration? I have it prepared." He's less flirtatious now and more actually concerned. The amount of flirtatiousness remains nonzero, however.

"The distance doesn't matter so long as we're in Sarkoris Scar. As long as it's in Teleport range – which is nine hundred miles – they are the same distance away. We can only travel in and out of the base via teleportation, remember, so what counts is the number of times you go in or out, not the actual distance. Spell slots are the limiting factor. Going outside Sarkoris Scar is problematic because the Wardstones block teleportation across them, but we have Teleport locations near them that mean it just increases the number of teleports necessary to travel.

Still, if you feel that that is the best place to go – you did mention that the sulfur crystals there might be suitable – then we can go tomorrow after we've had a chance to prepare suitable spells for working in the springs: Endure Elements, Resist Energy, Protection from Energy, Life Bubble, Freedom of Movement – the whole works.

The hot springs aren't that dangerous, but the boiling sulfurous water burns the skin, and the springs can spit sulfur fumes into the air. Not very nice to breath in."

"Already had one, apparently speaking to the gods is not so easily shifted," she explains.

"I was kind of hoping you might have a good magical solution to that, yes - everything we - I - know of in the elemental protection area is almost as unpleasant as the problem it's trying to solve, and of course all needs mana crystals too.

The circles sound nicer to work in, but less likely to have already helpfully crystallised some mana for us."

He tilts his head and looks at her for a moment when she mentions she received a god vision. Well, that makes sense. She wouldn't be here if she wasn't special in some way. Talking to otherworldly visitors is the sort of thing gods would spend energy on doing.

"Good news, Life Bubble is a wonderful spell. It protects from temperature, fumes, lack of air, pressure, and also enables you to breathe underwater. I get it a circle earlier than clerics and wizards, so I'll be the one to prepare it tomorrow. It's a little redundant to prepare Endure Elements and Life Bubble together, but Endure Elements lasts the whole day – Life Bubble lasts only two hours per caster level, and has to be divided among all of us.

Yeah, I don't think there's going to be any there. I'm a type of druid called a menhir savant: I used to look after stone circles like that. No crystals to be found."

"As for the basins, do you think you can draft a plan now as a prototype, or would you need to visit before you can make the plan? I have Fabricate now. I was planning on using it for a commission, but that's not urgent or as important. I can prepare more of it tomorrow.

The springs are better in that they're less dangerous. We can fight off mundane humans just fine. The siabrae we would also be able to handle, but we don't want you to get hurt in the fighting – in such a situation, we would Teleport you out, although that's quite a hassle."

"We might not need them, but better to have them around in case." She scans the shelves for obvious paper and writing equipment, hopefully pencils, she can't screw up as badly with pencils as with ink. "I'm not exactly the world's best drafter so these are going to be a bit approximate," she warns, "but it's not super important, if it's going to work it should work in anything, it just helps get the yield up.

If we're working with a natural site we'll need tools for sculpting whatever the local ground material is and probably some materials for diverting water flows - uh, I'd normally use weirwood offcuts which are waterproof, strong and magically unreactive, but I know that weirwood didn't translate well, so we might need to think about it."

There are both pencils and pens on the shelves. She doesn't look over Allegra's plans until she's ready to show them.

"That's fine, I can clean it up when I receive your plan. Alternatively, we can have one of the other crafter wizards to help you with drafting. I have to hold the shape of the entire item when I cast Fabricate: as long as your drawing is to scale, I can figure out the measurements.

No need for tools, that requires too much labor and time. I can prepare several of Move Earth, and Dannek can prepare Move Earth. Perhaps one or two of Transmute Rock to Mud and Control Water. It's a little harder to manage the movement of water at the hot springs, since they're springs and not rivers, so we can't use Alter River to help us. It's fine, though, Move Earth will do most of the work."

"It might be more sensible for me to explain and do a few rough sketches at a crafter, then - I can sort of gesture at the idea, but I'm not convinced I can be precise enough for you.

I think our initial visit is going to be - see if there's existing natural mana, pick some likely looking sites for crystallisation, put our best guesses at appropriate solutions down in bowls. If I'm very confident that somewhere looks almost like a natural site with a few tweaks, we can try that, but I think we'll know more after we've tried a bit of static crystallisation - so we should only need enough landscaping to secure the bowls.

Are the locals going to interfere as soon as we leave? If there isn't natural mana, we're looking at weeks to a month before I expect any of the bowls will yield anything I can detect, and they need to be undisturbed. Oh, and local weather patterns? We might need to make some kind of shelter over the bowls if it gets exciting around there."

"Alright, I'll arrange for you to meet with one of the crafter wizards soon.

Maybe. The springs are surrounded by a village of the same name. The people there are insane from demonplague and have turned into cannibals, so I have no idea whether or not they'll interfere. Our spells don't last very long: the longest lasting spells are on the order of days to weeks, and I don't know of any that would be appropriate that last that long, not without an expensive casting of Permanency. The easiest solution would be to kill the villagers – there are several hundred of them there.

We can do it ourselves, although Rendon would prefer that we Teleport in a bunch of the lower-circle casters who need to develop channeling capacity to do it in our stead. The villagers are strong enough that it would be a significant challenge for them.

We'll also probably need to make a shelter, yes. The weather here at Sarkoris Scar is much calmer than it was back when the Worldwound was opened, but the weather remains harsh and unpredictable. There are blizzards and hailstorms which the bowls will have to withstand."

Allegra feels like she should object to killing several hundred people because they are inconvenient! But also that it might be the kind of thing that her 'chaotic evil' - captors? benefactors? kind of both, really - would not appreciate her objecting about.

Also it does sound like they're not having the greatest time right now, being insane from demonplague and eating each other; maybe whatever happens to them in, presumably the Abyss, would not actually be that much worse for them.

"Yes, hailstorms will really mess things up," she contributes.

Conradia isn't particularly Wise, but she does have good Sense Motive. You kind of have to have it if you want to survive in Cheliax for any significant amount of time.

She looks up and clicks her tongue.

"I'll ask Rendon whether he'll approve me taking some diamond dust and powdered opal from the warehouse to cast Symbol of Scrying. It will notify us if someone moves too close to the bowls and will let us observe them, but only once. It's very expensive, though, so I don't think he'll like it.

In any case, I'll get the materials you asked for earlier to detect mana flows."

"That sounds like a lot of trouble..." she has said before her brain catches up with her mouth. "Uh, I mean, thank you?

What do we need to do next. Crafter. Sketching. Sorry, I can just about contribute when there's something obvious I should be doing, but, the headache."

"You're welcome. That's fine, I understand. I think we can push off the expedition for a day or two: it seems that we'll have to prepare more for it anyway. Besides, I'll have to go have a talk with Rendon to handle the expedition. I'm the only seventh-circle wizard here, and my spell slots are very valuable. If I'm leaving, the other wizards have to pick up the slack in ensuring we have a good selection of spells on hand. We don't want to rely on our stored scrolls or wands unless it's an emergency or an urgent task."

She says pleasantries to everyone else in the room, and they disperse. She takes Allegra back to the magic workshops to see Claro. She explains the situation to him.

"I'll be back in about half an hour. I just want to check on the project I'm working on."

Claro looks up and takes off his loupe. He's currently sitting on a workbench. He stands up and moves to a different empty bench, and then lays out chairs for the two of them to sit down at. There are various writing materials and drafting implements on the table.

"So, bowls." He claps his hands.

"Okay. So. The fundamental principle here is, a surface that increases crystallisation sites. Do you have a working understanding of crystallisation of, uh, ordinary crystals out of saturated solutions, or do I need to start a little further back?"

"Oh dear, alchemy. Not experienced with that. I know that crystallization works by concentrating a solution more and more until crystals precipitate, but I don't know what the surface has to do with it."

He's ready to start taking notes with his dip pen.

"Okay. This isn't my specialist subject, but essentially, there are a few things that help crystals start precipitating - mostly, surface area, the potential for trapped air, things that are rough, ideally porous. But not too porous, or the crystal will get 'stuck' in the pore and not form properly.

Also we're looking at leaving these bowls in a quickly made shelter outside in the Scar, so they've got to be pretty durable and not fall over easily and all of that.

A traditional design is essentially a 'hammered' texture - so you have a lot of individual dents, and you roughen some of the points between the dents, and the crystal starts to form on the rough spot and then falls into the dip once it gets to be a certain size. Those work best when you can actually calibrate to the solution, and I don't think we know the characteristics of any of the solutions we're using, though.

Another way of doing it is to lay strings of a rougher material in a bowl that is just a bowl, or that has attachment points so that you can lay down a web of threads - this tends to get you much smaller, more uneven crystals, often you then transfer those to a hammered bowl and have little sockets at the points for the seed crystals, but that sounds like we'd have to make more visits to tend the site.

I'm sorry, is any of this making sense? I'm just kind of rambling on the topic."

Claro writes quickly, making bullet points of what Allegra is saying, subvocalizing portions of what she's said.

"You're making sense. I think tomorrow I'll prepare Silent Image so that you can tell me whether the shape is correct I'm thinking of making, and also so that Conradia has an easier time Fabricating it. Usually she can just visualize the three-dimensional image from blueprints, but if it's difficult she'll ask us to make a Silent Image for her to fit her Fabrication to.

What material is best for the bowl? Clay, stone, ceramic, bronze, steel, or something else? What properties does it need to have?

We can try both options. Only the first bowl needs to be custom-made. We have regular large bowls already available here."

"Especially if you're using the hammered bowl approach, the other surfaces need to be smooth and non-porous, that's usually easiest in bronze - especially as we also need weather resistance, although I don't know if the pools are acidic, that might also be a consideration?

You can also do it with ceramics, which makes it easier to leave the rough surfaces in after glazing the rest, but I don't know how that interacts with Fabricate - if you can shape the material how you like, but it's easier to use a single material, bronze is probably the best bet. Clay tends not to hold the porous surfaces as well as other ceramics.

Sometimes the hammered-bowl method uses little chunks of pumice as the point material, if we can make very arbitrary shapes out of multiple materials that might work quite well, usually it's awkward to get the pumice seated securely enough.

With just a normal bowl, one useful approach can be seeding it with tiny bits of pumice, which provide crystallisation sites without having to be directly attached to anything, that might be worth trying too; I'm really not sure which one will be best in the circumstances we've got."

"True. The waters are likely to be acidic. I could see if we have enchanted bronze or any enchanted metal around, which will not corrode, but that's expensive. I could see if the alchemical labs have them, though.

Fabricate can only transform one thing of a single material into another thing of the same material. We'd need several castings if you want multiple materials. We could totally just make a regular ceramic bowl with Fabricate or via mundane methods and then glaze and fire it. After Fabricate is cast, the end-product is indistinguishable from one made by mundane methods, provided both the caster and the artisan are competent."

"If we can specify it very precisely, then I think we can use bronze for the whole thing - we could even try different pore structures in different places to see which one does the best. I really don't know what acid will do to it though, I just vaguely remember it's not good for metals. Maybe we should run this all past an alchemist as well, if your kind of alchemist does crystallisation? Ours are mostly to do with combinations of magical herbs into potions, which doesn't really involve the same kind of - inorganic stuff?"

"I see. I think it would be best if you can sketch the pore structures. It depends on the sort of acid, but bronze usually corrodes and turns green. I'll ask the alchemists for their opinion too. Our alchemists tend to...work with both? They use both organic and inorganic substances in their extracts and potions.

I'm not sure if they do much work with crystallization, though. Our alchemists tend to not really work with mundane alchemy, but instead infuse magic into it to recreate arcane or divine magic. By mundane alchemy, I mean anything that doesn't react to Detect Magic."

"I can give it a go, but I'll basically be guessing; all I actually know is, pumice is good, rough twine is good for lots of little seed crystals, luffa or sea sponge is a bit too much."

"We can try two with a pumice-like structure and a regular bowl with hooks for rough twine. Let me fetch one of our alchemists. They work in an adjacent room."

He leaves and enters said adjacent room. The door seems to imply that it's a smaller room. He comes back after several minutes with a woman named Sera. She has goggles on.

"We have iron containers in the laboratories that are specially enchanted to be chemically inert. No need to work with bronze. Claro – no, you're only fourth-circle, right?" he nods, "– some other wizard can Fabricate the enchanted iron containers into what you need. Once they're done, then they can Fabricate it back into the same containers. The enchantment isn't dependent on shape, so it will remain stable even after the reshaping."

Claro makes a clicking sound with his tongue and smiles. Sera sticks around.

"Well, there we go. Problem solved. Did Conradia mean for you to work with us on any other things, or is that the last of it? It...looks like you could use a break. I'll draft the plans and get a stronger wizard to craft the bowls for you. "

"I'm not sure having a break will actually help, it's good to have things to keep my mind off it," replies Allegra. "She's going to be back in - half an hour, minus however long we've been at it? - anyway, so I should probably stick around here, if I'm not in the way.

Is it going to be okay to be using those enchanted bowls for a while? It's likely to be a couple of weeks before we get any results I can be sure of, and three months before we're done with the first batch."

"It's fine. We have extra. The bowls are very expensive for bowls, but they also don't degrade. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a huge cost. Try not to lose them, though," Sera says.

"Yes, enchanted items have a large upfront cost, but usually pay for themselves in longevity. The bowls will last long after I die," Claro says, laughing. "That's fine, you're free to stay. I bet lots of the people are just dying to ask you about how magic items work in your world, but have been holding themselves back to avoid overwhelming you. If you don't feel like talking – I'm sure Conradia will thoroughly question you about magic anyway – you're free to watch us work. I'm currently working on a ring: a Ring of Spell Knowledge IV." 

He gestures to his workstation.

"I'm happy to try to answer questions - I'm not an artisan, but I've got a general idea of how it works. Mostly that's with magical materials that I'm not sure you have here, though - like tempest jade, iridescent gloaming, ambergelt?"

She heads over at the workstation to have a look. Every artisan's workstation is different, so she's not sure exactly what she's expecting or looking at.

The workstation looks like a jeweler's bench, with fine metalworking tools. There's a slip of paper on the table.

Client: Solana Silveras
Class: Bard, 4th-circle
Order: Ring of Spell Knowledge IV (25k gp)
Remarks: Client additionally wants engraving of name on ring.

On the table is a gold ring with four rubies set on a raised square platform. There's some engravings on it, but it's clearly unfinished.

"Yeah, we don't have those, sadly. We mostly work with spellsilver. Do you have that where you are?" He unlocks a chest in a cabinet and takes out a vial of oil, in which a lump of soft-looking silvery-gray metal is floating.

"Looks a bit like weltsilver, but we don't keep that in oil," she replies. "I think what we do is very different, though; it's quite distinct from magic, I suppose it is a little bit like rune-work, but the effects are very different. Although the item I know best is the circlet of falling snow, the weapons and so on might be quite different."

"That makes sense. For us, spellsilver is necessary for any enchanting work. Any magical effect can be created with a sufficient quantity of spellsilver. The mark of a skilled crafter is knowing how to use as little of it as possible. Over the years, people have developed schematics for crafting things in such a way that minimizes the costs to something that's actually affordable and doesn't require pounds upon pounds of it.

In this case, I'm using the rubies as a focus for the ring. This is a ring of spell knowledge. It allows spontaneous arcane casters to know one more spell, in this case, up to the fourth-circle. The four rubies stabilize the spell along the four 'holes', i.e. the 'circles' of the spell. Doing it that way makes them cheaper to make.

What's a circlet of falling snow? Is it like a headband of vast intelligence? I notice you're wearing one now. I am too. He taps his own. It's clear that his also came from the armory, although his has more gems than Allegra's, but fewer than Conradia's."

"Oh no, it's nothing like this - we don't have anything like the headbands," replies Allegra. "It's called a circlet, but actually I mostly see them made as bracelets - as long as it's the same kind of form, like jewellery or a sword or a banner, it doesn't matter what the exact form is. It lets you put a little bit of your personal mana in, and use it to resist mental influences."

"A banner?" His face lights up. "That is really very interesting! A banner would be a slotless item. Right, magic slots. Um, we have these things called 'slots' for our magic items. You can only wear so many on one part of your body before the magic starts destructively interfering. This is why people can only ever wear two rings at a time. Wearing more than one ring on one hand will cause the two to interfere and not work.

It's possible to create an item that has the same effect that occupies a different slot, for example, a ring of spell knowledge turned into a necklace of spell knowledge, but that would require a different enchantment spellform and different materials, which would mean that all of the efficiency improvements wrought by centuries of wizard crafters wouldn't apply. It would be terribly expensive. Probably hundreds of thousands of gold coins' worth of spellsilver, for a ring of spell knowledge IV."

"Sure, we have the same kind of thing - you have a weapon slot, an armour slot, and a talisman slot - then you can bond to some items as a group, like a banner, or a coven stone - there are three kinds of those, banner items, coven items and sect items. Very rare things are slotless, but generally they have limited uses and get used up - and I definitely don't know how to make anything like that, they're usually Eternal boons I think?

It sounds like you get more personal slots than us, though, and you don't have to bind the item to the person to have it work?"

"Usually no, you can just wear them. There are items which are bonded, though, or those that require a period of attunement. For example, you'd need to wear a ring of sustenance for a full week for it to attune to you before it starts working. That ring permits you to no longer need to eat and drink, and vastly reduces the amount of sleep you need."

Conradia walks silently to the group.

"Hello, I'm back. I just stabilized the half-finished enchantment I was working on so it wouldn't unravel. It seems that you finished early."

Claro explains that the alchemists have enchanted iron bowls.

"Yes, that would indeed work." She turns now to Allegra. "Do you think you're up for teaching each other magic today, or do you want to defer that to tomorrow or later? It will take a day or two for us to prepare the bowls and talk to Rendon before setting out, in any case."

"I think I'd rather keep working on something, the headache's not going to go away just because I don't have anything to distract me from it," she replies. "I don't think doing things is particularly making it worse, it's just... there."

A ring of sustenance sounds really nice - except, there's reliable good food here, and the bed is really nice, and maybe those would actually be harder to get here if she didn't need them. It would have been really nice for being lost in a forest with, but maybe she can avoid being lost in a forest again.

And they should try some magic soon, before they waste too much time on the mana site project; probably Conradia won't be so upset with her that she'll get disintegrated before Magnus can do anything about it, even if nothing works at all.

Conradia seems genuinely pleased. The earlier times she was smiling implied that she was smiling perfunctorily, or just to be polite.

"Wonderful," she says, bringing them to a workroom. This one has white padded walls and flooring. 

"This is probably the safest one to work in, in case there are accidents. Not that I expect there to be any. Right. Do you need your staff and buckler to cast spells? I would like to observe it with my Detect Magic." She's almost saved up enough to get Permanencied Arcane Sight, but not quite yet. It's a little unusual for a seventh-circle wizard not to have it, what with how useful it is.

She originally thought of having everyone observe her, but she thought that it might...put pressure on her, and so she's letting her do it with just her in the room before bringing in other people to gawk.

"I think it would be productive for us to, when we meet, alternate between you teaching me your magic and me teaching you ours."

"I'd need the rod to cast offensive spells, but I'll have to spend some time practicing to get one of those back anyway," she replies. "Do you have any magical effects on you, or a magic item? I can just cast detect magic at one of the stampers and see what that does, I guess. I think Detect Magic is the one that's most likely to actually do something. I can demonstrate what create bond and operate portal would look like, they'll just fizzle because they don't have a valid target."

"I do have a magical effect on me: I have Mage Armor on. It would probably be best to try it on the stamper, though, just to see whether your magic might destructively interfere with ours. I don't expect that, but it's a possibility. I'll cast my own Detect Magic now. Our Detect Magic lets us see magical effects in a cone-shaped emanation. What about yours?"

She chants and waves her arms around, and casts Detect Magic.

"I've cast mine now. So long as I keep it in the back of my mind, I can hold it for as long as necessary."

Allegra concentrates on summoning up the appropriate state of mind. Come on, she's done this while injured a lot worse than just having a headache.

"This is the long incantation form, it'll take about thirty seconds, it saves mana doing it this way in case we want to experiment some more.

Aesh." She traces a rune in the air, a point, then a small peak, then a long downwards slash. "Aesh. Rune of Thought. Rune of the Staff. Aesh to open the way... Aesh."

She repeats this, then, "Ophis." A similar rune, but this one continues with a second small downwards peak and an upwards stroke. "Ophis the bright lantern. Ophis the rune of revelation. Ophis."

And she traces the outline of Ophis over the stamper on her belt.

The spell goes off. It is not much like a Golarion spell at all; there is no complex geometry to it, just traces, flows of power that come from a place inside Allegra - connected to her, but not in any particular physical location - and wrap themselves around the stamper, searching, questing, almost alive. They marshal themselves together and flow back into her, reporting the information back about the object.

"It worked! Did you see that? The stamper - evokes a complex geometry that harmlessly etches a personal mark on any surface - and is a - key to the complex enchantment on the base which redirects incoming portals - no, teleportation, that's a thing - to a specific location?"

Amazing. She's really observing otherworldly magic! The flow of it is unreal. And the fact that the verbal component is...actually understandable. She's surprised she found that the most surprising part. And she cannot confidently identify the magic aura. It's similar to divination, but not quite. It does make sense that a whole new system of magic wouldn't conform to hers.

She makes no effort to hide the sense of wonder from her face.

"Correct! It does do that. It's a key for the Teleport Trap. If you're holding it, and if you know the password, then you can teleport to the base without ending up in the dungeon like you did.

Alright, personal mana. So you have spells per day too, like us? How many can you cast per day?"

"I have four personal mana a day; it improves with practice, but I haven't been doing much basic spellcasting recently. Long-casting like that costs one of them; swift casting costs two. Offensive spells are all swift, but only the most complicated ones cost two.

...what does it look like, to you?"

Only four? That's a bit low. Well, it seems like she's not a very 'high-circle' wizard, so it makes sense that she wouldn't have that many spell slots. Er, personal mana.

"I might ask the armory to give you a pearl of power. Spellcasters like myself use them to recharge our spell slots. It's possible you might be able to use them. A first-circle pearl of power I should be able to procure for you easily, though it's possible your magic needs more than that.

It looks to me like a divination spell. Which is the same school of magic as my Detect Magic. It's very strange, looking at it. I've never seen any spell behave like that. Our magic is...mathematical. Yours feels organic. It's reminiscent of divine magic, but not really. Even divine magic has that mathematical feel. 

I think you should try casting Detect Magic on me. I have Mage Armor on. How does your world's Detect Magic work? What can it detect?"

"Detect magic has a variety of modes. The one I just used was identify magic item - it won't get you hidden details like curses, you need a specific ritual for that, but it gets you the basic functionality of any magical item. Including your kind, it turns out!" Allegra smiles at this, even though casting probably has made her headache a bit worse.

"The one I'd use on you is discern enchantments - it lists off the magnitude and realm of any enchantment or boon that's on you, it sounds like mage armour is something like an enchantment so I'd expect it to pick that up - but it won't have a standard realm and magnitude, so I'm not sure what it'll do there.

There's also identify ritual, which does the same thing for a ritual that's actively being cast, and divination, which tells you which other rituals are worth casting - that can be used to very broadly tell if something's cursed, as Wisdom of the Balanced Blade will show up. That mode might be interesting to cast on you too.

There's a couple of other niche uses, you can use it if you think there's a regio to confirm what it is, you can use it with some magical constructions to get information they've collected, and - oh, I wonder if detect arcane mark shows up your kind of invisible arcane mark? Our kind is on a person rather than on an object, but it seems like it might be similar."

Conradia chuckles. "I'm pretty sure I'd know if i was cursed. Still, it might be useful. Can you cast detect magic with more than one mode at once? I should try casting a different spell on myself and see if you'd be able to identify it's effect without knowing what it is.

Hm, I don't know. An Arcane Mark for us is just a way to make magical writing. We like to use it to identify people, since this is the way wizards use it, but it doesn't tie you to it. You can forge someone else's Arcane Mark with practice and a reference."

"Nope, one at a time and it costs me a mana each time. I'd get both effects if you can have two effects on you, I think, though - that's another limitation, only one ritual enchantment at a time - although as many curses as you like, and curses can have beneficial side effects.

The stamper seemed to have a trace of something like you could use it to make an invisible stamp, although possibly not through the actual item, that might have been the spell it was imitating only?"

"I see. Your curses must be very strange, because I haven't heard of any curses with beneficial side-effects. I suppose something like an infernal bargain might do it. 

Yes. The arcane stamper can only make visible marks, but the spell it's based on can make visible or invisible stamps. The invisible stamp can be revealed through various detection spells."

She makes a thinking noise, then tells Allegra to wait for a moment. There should be low-circle pearls of power here. She opens a chest and gets a first-circle pearl to Allegra.

"This is a pearl of power. Try using that to recover your personal mana. Does it work?"

The pearl is eerily similar to a mana crystal, but...wrong. It's very uncanny valley. There's a clear sense that it's storing a set and discrete amount of energy.

"Curses with beneficial side-effects are basically laboriously crafted by people trying to cheat the one-enchantment-only system. They're generally pretty weird, like, the pair of territory curses that affect whether more people die or more people recover from battles, but affecting everyone, not just the people on your side.

Hmm. I could cast off this, I think," she says, feeling the innate magic of the pearl. "If I had crystaltender's vestments, I could probably refill from it... Normally refilling is either from that, or a potion, but I guess I'm not supposed to eat it? Maybe if I try calling up the feeling of using the vestments...

Oh, wait up, I think there might be more than one slow spell's worth of power in here. I should cast something else first, then see if I'm right."

"Hm. We can stack on as many spells as can fit, for us, although repeated castings of the same spell won't stack, as well as effects that operate on the same principle. For example, Stunning Barrier and Shield of Faith both operate by deflecting attacks away from you. Casting both at once won't give a heightened deflecting effect, only the stronger of the two will count.

Ah, for us, it restores only a single spell. It might be a good idea to exhaust all your personal mana before using it, then. Try casting Detect Magic on me, trying both Discern Enchantment and Divination. Before that, let me try casting a different spell on myself to see if you can detect it."

She casts Disguise Self on herself, changing her left pinky finger to be a quarter of an inch longer.

"Try it now."

Allegra runs through the same incantation again, this time drawing Ophis in the air an inch or so from Conradia. "You've got... yes, that's two, they kind of overlay each other..." Trying to disentangle them looks to be somewhat painful, although it might just be that when Allegra's concentrating on it she's not concentrating on maintaining a completely calm demeanour. "Autumn and... Night. Both pretty low magnitude, around two? I have no idea how that translates for you, that's about as low as our system goes."

She closes her eyes, wincing a little, and breathes deeply while visibly relaxing, a couple of times. "Okay, let's try the next one."

She repeats the same incantation, mostly - this time it's "Ophis. The bright lantern. Reveal what is hidden." - and the same runic gesture.

"Okay," she says, a little shakily, shaking her head slightly as if to clear it and then clearly regretting having done that. "That's Bright Lantern, Ties that Bind - that's unusual, it normally doesn't mention that unless there's something weird, oh but of course there would be - and, uh, Wisdom of the Balanced Blade. I guess it might be confused with the whole multiple enchantments thing?"

"What do Autumn and Night correspond to? What sort of spells would be associated with each school – er, Realm?

Around two? I'm not sure how magnitudes work for you, but they are both first-circle spells. That is the lowest formal level of spell power. There are spells which go lower than that, called cantrips, but they are not spells proper, since their mechanics are a little different. Especially pedantic wizards might refer to them as zeroth-circle spells. Cantrips can be cast as much as you want, so long as you catch them after casting. This is possible because there is no 'hole' in their spellform, which means casting them doesn't require you to cause the spell to unravel to release the energy.

What do the rituals do? I'm assuming Ties that Bind tells you about the person's affiliations, but what about the other one? Didn't you already cast Bright Lantern? You were saying that as a chant – I had assumed that Bright Lantern was another name for Detect Magic: Divination.

As for curses, I'm quite sure there are no curses on me as I understand them. I suppose...my soul contract could be considered a curse? It predestines me for an afterlife rather than letting my soul take the natural course, although for me, that's a straight up boon.

Aside from Detect Magic, what other spells do you know how to cast, or would be able to cast after a little bit of retraining?"

"Uh. Autumn is - manufactured things? And deals - trade - favours where that's kind of, like, more transactional than emotional? But very much about making things, especially metals and cities and that kind of thing. There's a big-ish Autumn ritual that gives a person a lot of armour, it might be just comparing it to that.

Night is - feelings, intuition, transformation. Alchemy - although that can also be Winter, depending. Change, mysteries.

Two is very low, there are a few rituals that are two, mostly those are things that don't really make sense to cast at base magnitude - they do things like replicate the effect of a spell but you can scale them up for lots of targets, or to push through shrouding effects, or to break a spell effect.

Bright Lantern of Ophis is kind of like the discern enchantments detect magic but more so - you actually get to know what the effect is, where it came from, how long it's got left, if there's a way you can stop it early. You can also use it to find regios further out than detect magic will get you, and it'll tell you what they do, if there's a portal, that kind of thing. If you don't have a regio or any equipment you probably need two people to cast it, or a serious expert - it's mag 6.

Ties that Bind is about affiliations, yes - I get the feeling they're kind of more formalised where I come from, nation bonds are a real thing, group bonds, item bonds. I wouldn't be surprised if that was picking up your soul contract as well.

Wisdom of the Balanced Blade is curses, but like I said, 'curse' is basically just 'magical effect that you can't overwrite with another enchantment' - it's hard to make them beneficial, but they can absolutely be something - double-edged."

Allegra pauses for a moment to put her hand on her forehead, as if that will help, and breathe a bit.

"Uh, spells. Create bond, operate portal; neither of those are actually going to work on anything here. Create bond either bonds one of our kind of magic items, which should work fine if we had any, or bonds a person to a group - but you've got to be under the same nation bond for that to work, so none of you qualify. Operate portal requires there to be a portal there, which happens in a regio, which we haven't found any of yet.

I reckon repel is going to be the easiest one for me to remember - I did have it for a while, I gave up maintaining it when I learned to do things with liao, but I think it's really pretty unlikely we're going to get any liao, so if I forget a bit of that then I should be able to pick up repel again."

"I see! In that case, the Mage Armor must be Autumn, and the Night one Disguise Self. I specialize in illusion magic, so that's what I picked. I bet most illusion spells would fall under Night's domain. Take a look."

She shows her left hand, with an unusually long pinky.

"Disguise Self only affects visual components." She puts her right pointer finger on the tip of the pinky, and it phases through.

"You can try it if you want." She offers her hand.

"What effect does Repel do? Presumably it repels things, but how? I'm not sure if we have a spell that replicates that...I suppose if it repels projectiles then Protection from Arrows counts. If it pushes things or people, then Battering Blast is the closest. I have the latter in my spellbook but not the former. Not many enemies here with bows."

Allegra obediently waves her hand through Conradia's extended digit without really thinking about it. Thinking is starting to really hurt, and while her self-image is that pain doesn't bother her, it's still pretty distracting. That is pretty weird, though.

"Oh, repel is, hit someone with the rod and they run away. You can do it with a wand too, or a staff if you practice a bit. It doesn't last all that long, maybe ten seconds, but that's a good long time in a fight. Or plenty of time to get a good head start. You can just hit their shield or their weapon too, they can dodge out of the way completely but it's less difficult than actually having to get past their guard."

She nods and makes humming noises. "Repel. Probably abjuration, if we're using Golarion magic classification. Touch range. Two round duration. By run away, is it a fear effect? A mind affecting effect? If so, then we have spells similar to that: Cause Fear and Scare. They cause people to run away by making them scared. 

Can you resist the effect? It seems like it would be a Will save, perhaps Fortitude. Ah, in our world, many spells can be resisted in one of three ways. Resisting with bodily might is Fortitude. Resisting by evasion is Reflex. Resisting by focused thought is Will. Virtually all mind-affecting effects are resisted with Will. I think I already told you that earlier, though.

In the case of Disguise Self, it can be resisted by Will. More precisely, it can be disbelieved with Will, which lets you recognize that it is an illusion. Once you have successfully shaken off the illusion, you can usually choose to see through it as though it were translucent. If you want, I can try casting a more involved illusion so you can try to disbelieve it. Alternatively, I can try casting a nondamaging but offensive spell of each of the three classes so that you know what it's like to resist a spell."

Conradia has lived in Cheliax long enough to recognize people holding back expressions of pain, but she isn't going to bring it up if she isn't. 

"Some people - experience it as a fear effect, I think? It isn't really, though - even if you're absolutely not frightened, maybe you have an anointing up or something, your body will just run away.

Some people experience it as being physically pushed away, but there isn't, uh, really any force there? It doesn't move your clothes, and it doesn't usually make you fall over.

I guess it would be - reflex, then. The way you don't get affected by it is, you don't let the rod touch you - or anything you're holding or carrying. If it touches, you're affected.

I'm - not sure I'm going to be as good as usual at resisting stuff right now. Apparently god-headaches and spellcasting don't go together very well."

She is, however, looking at the affected finger - she's put her hand through it, clearly it's not real, so she should be able to see through it now, right?

"Hm, that's not quite how we would categorize it. It seems to me closer to an irresistible touch range spell. We have spells that cannot be resisted, but require you to touch the person with your hand, or which produces a ray or bolt that must touch the opponent. 

That's fine. I more just wanted you to know what it's like to try to resist a spell, although having offensive spells cast on you is unpleasant even if they don't do any damage. We can skip that for now, although it would be good to do that at some point before we set off so that you're not totally unprepared in the case someone hostile decides to cast spells on you. We will take the utmost precautions to ward you against such effects, as well as keep away any possible enemies from you in any case, but nothing is certain.

Is there anything you need in order to help you re-learn the Repel spell? Should I get you to a place with training dummies or something? Or, no, you'd need a person. I could perhaps get one of the cavalier fighters or antipaladins to be your testing dummy, since Repel is a nondamaging spell."

She can! Weirdly, it seems as though Allegra's brain is still seeing both the illusion and what's behind it, as though she were seeing two things in the same place. She can focus one one or the other as she chooses, however, now that she has successfully disbelieved the illusion via Conradia prompting her. Realizing that something is an illusion will defeat figment and glamer spells.

Cool, it's just like the mirror illusions you can set up - with a lot more range of movement, rather than relying on standing in exactly the right place...

Allegra is about to tell Conradia that actually the first step is probably just meditating on her memories of casting, but poking people with sticks sounds like an awful lot more fun.

"Uh, it's not actually entirely nondamaging," she admits, however, thinking of the geas. "It's possible to pull it so that it is, but that's an extra step that I'm not sure I'll get right straight off."

She's about to volunteer that it's easier to do that if hitting a shield, but actually, she wants to see what Conradia does with that.

"My geas wording only specified that the other person had to be fully informed and consenting to the spell being cast on them, not that it needed to be nondamaging. It's just that we generally refrain from casting damaging spells on our own people when testing magic whenever possible for hopefully obvious reasons – healing is troublesome. This is also why it took us a while to figure out what spells ought to be used in our testing battery to measure strength, since we wanted only nondamaging spells – I should remind you that we will need to do this at some point if you want us to know how much to pay you. 

If it damages people, what sort of damage at what intensity do you think it would inflict?"

"Uh. I'd expect to have a fresh recruit with no armour on the floor in two blows, but I'm assuming that we're not talking about unarmoured magicians who are fresh out of their parents' tower here? Normally it's just, like, bruising and getting the breath knocked out of you, but it can crack a rib if someone's unlucky; as long as it doesn't do anything like that, a nice lie down for a couple of hours should sort them out?

I think I should at least sleep this off before we try any kind of standardised testing, but hopefully I'll be up for it some time tomorrow."

"Oh, I see. That's very minor, then. We all have combat training, so we're more resilient. Even though I'm a wizard, I'm one of the most resilient people here, since I'm seventh-circle. It would take a lot to kill me. 

Do you require silence or concentration to rederive Repel? Or for me to fetch you a prop or a person to cast on – I know many spells require that you target a person specifically.

It would actually be better for you to be impaired, in a way, when we conduct the testing, since testing you requires that you willingly not resist the spell effects. But I don't want to compound the pain from your god-vision. I've had one before, so I know what how it feels. We can do it tomorrow."

"Basically I need to spend some time remembering how to do it and practicing that. I probably won't get it today, at some point I'll need to actually be hitting something to improve, and at some point that'll need to be a person.

I'm not totally sure I'm going to make much progress on it like this anyway. I think I'd be better off either answering questions, doing something reactive, or doing something more physical."

"Hm, you've used up...three out of four of your personal mana now, yes? Try using the pearl of power now. How much mana are you able to get from it?

As for other questions, I don't think I have many questions as of now. The people at the workshop would probably ask you more questions about item crafting, but it seems that you are not specialized in that, and you don't have any specimens for us to work on. Unless your buckler and rod are magical?"

Oh yes, this object is something important! It's just as well she didn't have anything else to pick up or she'd have totally dropped it and forgotten it ever existed.

She tries to feel out the pearl's magic again, and tries to remember activating Crystaltender's Vestments. She'd only got to try them out the once, as she clearly wasn't a front line mage and nobody wanted to lose them behind the lines. It's kind of like, you tap into the mana like this, and you twist it up into your reserves like this...

oh, and apparently if you do that you get a blinding stab of pain from your stupid headache and have to catch yourself on one of the padded walls, which is not the most dignified thing ever.

"Uh," she says, pulling herself upright like nothing just happened, "I think I got it? Uh, the rod, the rod is kind of magical - not a proper magic item that bonds into the weapon slot, but it has to be made right to focus the magical energy, it's pretty simple and I can throw one together as long as there's wood and basically any kind of gemstone I can wedge in the end."

She purses her lips at Allegra stumbling.

"Did you get any mana out of it? If you want to sit down, I can get a stool for you. Alternatively, we can call it a day. If you want to do something that doesn't require thinking, then we can go to the gymnasium so that we can make progress on your fitness test.

Ah, that's a potentially very interesting path to pursue. Our touch spells have to be delivered by touch. There are ways to enchant a weapon to permit it to store spells and cast them upon impact, or those than can permit certain effects to be channeled through the weapon. However, they are not versatile and require expensive spellsilver and delicate enchantment work. If, as you say, the rod can work as a casting focus with just a gem and a wooden stick, then it would revolutionize melee casting. Being able to cast through rods and staves would give melee wizards reach.

Although a part of me is thinking that it wouldn't work, and that this property is dependent on the particular way your magic works. Your magic seems more...freeform? In a way? Detect Magic gave that impression. For us, any deviation in the verbal, somatic, or material components in a spell will cause it to instantly fail, unless you deliberately construct it to negate the need for one of the three."

"I.. think so? It feels like I can cast more than once and I only had one left." She's not all that enthused about the idea of trying it out.

"Yes, our magic is much more about - intentionality? Your intention's got to be compatible with one of the things which is possible, and expressed in the right kind of way, but once you've got a bit of practice then it's pretty easy to make almost anything have it fall into place. I know someone whose favourite vocal component for Repel was just, 'you, fuck right off!', and because she had the right underlying concepts in mind, it worked just fine.

I was pretty conservative with detect vocals because I wasn't sure most of it would work, but runes seem to be fine; I kind of expected those to be the most universal."

Ugh. She doesn't want to address anything else Conradia has said, that sounds like making a decision, she doesn't want to make a decision right now. Pretty much the only thing that would perk her up would be actually getting into a fight.

"...is there sparring going on? I'm going to suck at it, but it sounds like the most fun way of moving around that I can think of right now," she suggests. "It doesn't count as harm if we're using the special not injuring anyone weapons, right?"

She laughs. "Oh, how I wish our magic worked like that! I would totally cast half my spells with that verbal component if I could. For us, magic is mathematical and deterministic. You can't be creative like that. Divine magic is more flexible with regard to internal intent, but only to a point. Their casting components must still be the same for everyone."

Right. She's a little annoyed, but also understanding. When Conradia got a god vision, she basically took the rest of the day off because her brain stopped working. She's not sure Allegra ought to be sparring right now, but whatever. She can do what she wants.

"Yes, there's always sparring going on, especially with the summer solstice incoming. It doesn't count as harm, yes. I can bring you to the training rooms if you want. What kind of sparring do you want to do? Presumably you want a weapons only with no spells type of sparring. Some people spar until one of them falls unconscious: mostly those who want to compete."

"It's not like I'm going to wake up with a worse headache," she replies. That's probably not actually true, but being knocked over sounds really quite relaxing right now, to be honest. She's always strangely enjoyed those moments when everything's broken and there's nothing to do but gaze at the sky and hope someone shows up in time, as much as she fights desperately not to get there if she's not certain of rescue.

She's a wizard, but she acts like one of the antipaladins she knows. 

"Alright, let me take you to the training rooms."

The two of them walk for several minutes, until they come to another large room. There are four large slightly raised square platforms measuring eighty feet on each side, where people are currently sparring, usually one on one. There's about thirty people milling about, or queuing for a turn. There's an opening in the wall where a much smaller armory is, where people are taking and putting back weapons from.

"Do you want to go looking for a sparring partner yourself, or should I try to match you up to someone maybe of your level? In what manner do you want to spar?"

In the meantime, she asks the person at the armory for a Merciful rapier. It looks basically the same as the rapier Allegra was given earlier. The armorer puts the blade on the table and asks Allegra to stamp the logbook.

"Remember to bring it back once you're done," the armorer says.

She goes through the motions of nodding (that was a bit of a mistake) and stamping the logbook.

"It's probably best if you match me. Uh, ask them what they want? I don't want to try casting anything, so probably no magic." Allegra is no longer extremely sure that this is a great idea, but she's here now. She definitely doesn't want to actually talk to someone she doesn't know to try to arrange a bout, that sounds like an even worse idea. "Do you have any training armour? It'll probably be more entertaining for them if I don't immediately go down like a sack of potatoes. Uh, probably just a padded jacket or something, I still want to be able to move."

"Do you have a padded jacket? Or light armor in general."

          "Yes, we have a padded jacket. Coming right up." They place the jacket on the table, and Conradia hands it to Allegra.

"There you go. They have medium and heavy armor if you want it too. I think, hm..." She looks at the crowd for a while.

"Ah! Agnes is here. She's about your level, I would think. And I think it would be a more even match if you use no magic." She beckons her over.

"Aside from Merciful weapons, we use Merciful rods – our rods are different from yours – when we're sparring with magic. The rod infuses the Merciful enchantment on the spell being cast so that it is similarly nonlethal.

Getting stabbed with a Merciful weapon feels the same as getting stabbed as a normal weapon, but the weapon doesn't break the skin. You only get a nasty bruise that resolves within a day or so, possibly sooner if you nap."

She waves and runs to them.

"Hello, Conradia. Hello, Allegra. Nice to see you here. Are you here to spar? I'd love to spar with you, um, if you want." She clearly wants it.

"That's what I'm here for," replies Allegra. She has an urge to abjectly overshare and tell Agnes that she has a terrible headache without a physical cause and is finding this very confusing and would thus like to actually be in pain for obvious reasons instead, but she stamps on it as utterly inappropriate. "I don't know what the local customs are, though; I've picked up the special weapon for it, I'm assuming there are conventions on where to start and so on?" Ugh, sparring is so complicated, if her old unit had had these kind of weapons that definitely wouldn't need a physick on hand - and was clearly out of danger - they'd absolutely just ambush each other and cut out the boring negotiation part.

There is a cleric on hand for emergency healing, but they're basically just sitting in the corner doing nothing. They're there in case some freak accident happens, and will only start paying attention if someone calls for them.

"I'm currently sparring without using magic."

          "Yes, no magic, please," Conradia says.

"Right, no magic with you. We wait until one of the squares is free, and then we just go at it. Usually, people spar until they get several hits in and stop, but many go 'to the death', as in going until one of them in unconscious. Which do you prefer? You're new, so I'll let you pick."

"I'll be impressed if you can actually make me lose consciousness, unless these things work very weirdly," replies Allegra. She knows some people black out when they're badly injured, but she's never been one of them, although she sometimes doesn't have the energy to scream. "How about, until one of us can't get back up - or chooses not to, I guess."

"That's fine with me. The weapons can make you black out because they produce the same sensations as getting the injury, without actually injuring you. But maybe people work differently where you're from. Sure, you look human on the outside, but maybe your internals are all different."

She points to an empty square.

"Great! Those two finished just in time for us." She runs up into the middle of the square and waits for Allegra to follow.

"Let's begin. I won't hold back. Do the same for me." She holds her own rapier in front of her.

Allegra takes her at her word, and doesn't wait a moment or put up a guard; she immediately ducks to one side and aggressively presses the attack. She's not good at this, but she generally makes up for it with unhesitating aggression and ideally a bit of surprise.

Agnes decides to take the opposite approach, and waits for Allegra to make the first move. Then, she pivots on her front foot, twisting her body and leaning down and forward to try to hit Allegra in the leg. She's being a show-off, and there's a good chance it won't work. It almost doesn't, but she succeeds in driving the tip of the rapier into Allegra's thigh.

The rapier pierces through the cloth, but it doesn't penetrate the skin. Still, they weren't lying when they said it would feel like getting stabbed. There's a sharp pain, as well as a sensation similar to that of getting punched or clubbed in the area.

The rapiers have a base enchantment of +1 in order to have the Merciful enchantment placed on them. They feel like very high quality weapons, almost supernaturally easy to wield.

Eh, Allegra's been stabbed before, and the great thing about being in pain in two different locations is they kind of trade off with each other; there's only so much capacity to pay attention to the signals before it all gets kind of saturated.

She instinctively starts to move to protect her leg arteries, but very quickly recalls that's actually unnecessary and also she's not actually limited in movement from being supposedly impaled; instead she continues to press the attack, following through in an attempt to get inside Agnes' reach and trying to deliver a slash right across her torso.

Agnes leans back and successfully evades the brunt of the slash, but the tip of the rapier drags across her leather armor, making a long but shallow gash in it. She'll have to Mend that later. 

She's going to try another show-off-y move and push Allegra's rapier with her left forearm in the same direction as the blade's travel, and then thrust her own rapier into Allegra's right shoulder.

Allegra drops down out of the way of the blow, but this involves basically deliberately falling over. She swipes at Agnes' legs from the ground, hoping that her movements were at least somewhat surprising.

They were surprising! Agnes wasn't expecting Allegra to go that low. Her armor doesn't extend all the way to her ankles, so Allegra's rapier makes a gash across her shin, right at the bottom of her knee. The flesh doesn't break, because of the enchantment, but the cloth tears. She yelps, but she has enough training not to falter. Instead, she reaches forward and thrusts her own rapier into Allegra's back.

Allegra's scrabbling-on-the-floor dodging options are... somewhat limited. She tries to use the moment that Agnes is overextended leaning downwards to surge forwards and up, intending to slice her rapier into her opponent's torso - or to use the momentum to get clear for a moment if Agnes voids the blow.

Agnes has faith in her armor. She doubts that Allegra has the strength or the leverage to pierce or slash through the leather to get to her body. She doesn't abort the attack.

She's probably right, but Allegra follows through the surprisingly easily landed attack with her full weight; maybe she can knock Agnes on the ground this time, or at least distract her for a moment.