She stands on a narrow dirt path, barely more than a deer trail, with dense woodland crowding in on either side.

Pale sunlight filters through the leaves, and birds sing somewhere out of sight.

Oh. 

Well, this isn't what she was expecting death to feel like.

...she'll be so annoyed if it turns out that one sect that believes you go to some otherworldly paradise after you die is right after all, despite the complete lack of evidence for any of their claims. That just seems unfair. 

Alright, Daphne, focus. She's not a ghost, and her soul hasn't dissolved into nothingness to rejoin the cycle of eternity yet either, so something she wasn't expecting is going on. Break it down. 

Two possibilities. Either she's dead, or she isn't.

Either way, she's not where she was a moment ago—a subjective moment ago? Time might have passed without her knowledge while she was dead or...whatever just happened. No, that's too many uncertainties, not relevant right now, ignore it. What she's certain of: she's not where she was last time she remembers being anywhere. Observable differences: different time of day, no Whiteraven Tower anywhere in sight, no vampires trying to kill her. No Lyall, either, but he was safe last she remembers, so that's better than it could be. 

If she's dead, then either this is paradise, or she's a ghost after all, or something else unexpected happened. She looks down at herself—still in the clothes she wore to her death, her silver jewellery a comforting weight around her neck and wrists. She doesn't feel like a ghost. When she moves a foot, the blades of grass bend under her weight. Probably not a ghost, then. 

If she's not dead...something else unexpected happened. She doesn't recognise her location, but she could be just about anywhere in Arenland, or any country with a similar climate. She takes a closer look at her surroundings, to see if they give her any clues. 

The trees surrounding her are an odd mixture of recognisable and exotic. Sturdy, familiar broad-leaved specimens are interspersed with fuzzy dark green conifers, which she's only seen rarely. They're more common further north, suited to colder climates. 

Now that she's thinking of it, there is something of a chill in the air. 

Perhaps if she knew more about birds she could tell something from the birdcalls. She doesn't. 

There's not much to be seen or heard from where she's standing: just trees, birds, and the path beneath her feet. The chill in the air and the cooler climate indicated by the evergreen trees don't match Daphne's vague intuitions for what a perfect paradise should be like, but there's no reason paradise should conform to her expectations, she supposes. If it's not paradise, she might be somewhere in the north of Arenland, or in one of its northerly neighbours, but she can't narrow it down further from here. 

It might be time to see where the path goes. She takes a look in both directions, to see whether there's anything to recommend one over the other. 

The path is winding enough, and the undergrowth thick enough, that she can't see very far along it in either direction. The main difference from where she's standing is that one direction—the way she was facing when she landed—seems to have a slight downhill slope, while the other direction slopes slightly uphill. 

It might be time to flip a coin. She'll pick a direction at random, and go that way for...five minutes, to start with? And if she doesn't see any signs of human habitation in those five minutes she'll come back and try the other direction. 

She doesn't technically have any coins on her right now, but she detaches one of the silver discs from her necklace and uses her magic to engrave the words downhill and uphill onto each side before flipping it. 

Downhill it is. 

She gets a stone in her shoe after fewer than a dozen steps. 

The path continues to be narrow, overgrown in a few places by straggling thornbushes. She manages to pick her way through with only minor damage to her dress, which was really not designed for walking through untamed woodland. At times, it almost feels like the thorns are actively trying to catch on her skirts, with how persistently they tangle around her. 

The woods feel simultaneously too loud and too quiet. At times, she can barely hear herself think over the birds calling to one another and the branches rattling in the wind. Yet, at the same time, every rustle and snap of a twig she makes seems to echo uncomfortably loud in the stillness. 

Daphne is starting to feel as though she too, like her dress, was not designed for walking in the woods. 

This has to be something like the second longest five minutes of her life. She checks her pocket watch again, holding it up to her ear to check it hasn't stopped. Three more minutes of this to go. She doesn't think she could force herself to do it if the alternative to walking through the woods wasn't staying lost in the woods indefinitely. 

After a few minutes of struggling her way through the hostile flora, she rounds a corner and comes quite abruptly to the edge of the woods.

Before her, fields of barley stretch out under an early-morning sky. A few human farm-workers are out tending the crops, singing what might be a work song, although at this distance she can't make out any of the words. The path continues on, between two fields, towards what looks like a small farming village. She can just see the roofs of a few buildings, and a few rising plumes of smoke. 

Between the woods and the start of the fields is a bare strip of ground that looks deliberately cleared; it seems to run all along the boundary as far as Daphne can see. Placed next to the path, on the near edge of this strip, is a waist-high stone pillar carved with strange markings. 

Signs of civilisation! Daphne is not doomed to be lost in the woods forever! This is the best thing to happen to her all week—which isn't a high bar, she has had an awful week. Still, though: civilisation! People! Places that are not the woods!

She rushes forward, not even minding too much when she trips over a protruding tree root and has to pick herself up before she can stagger across the boundary line. In other circumstances, she might have examined the markings on the stone more closely, but as it is she's too grateful to be out of the woods to pay them much heed. 

The closest workers look up from their crops, startled by the sudden appearance of a stranger. 

One of them calls out to her in an unfamiliar language, sounding friendly but confused. 

"Hello," she calls back in Rennish. "I seem to be lost; can you tell me where I am?" 

She pushes a whisper of power into her thrall, stretching it out to charm the one who spoke to her and the other humans nearby. Not too much; she's tired, hungry, thirsty, and more uncertain about where her next meal is coming from than she's ever been in her life before, so she doesn't want to waste the energy. They'll be more inclined to help her and less inclined to view her as a threat, that's all. 

If she's ended up far enough away from home that she doesn't speak the language, she's going to need every tool at her disposal to get home. 

The man shakes his head in incomprehension and says something else she can't understand.

He sends one of the younger humans, maybe thirteen or so, running off in the direction of the village. A few of the people further away, who weren't caught by Daphne's thrall, look up, alarmed by the urgency, but they seem to assume that the situation is being handled and return to their work. 

She tries a few other languages while they're waiting for the boy to get back, more for something to do than because she expects that the farmers will know any of them. It keeps them interacting with her so she can maintain her thrall, and demonstrates that she's doing her best to figure out how to communicate with them. 

In the same spirit of peaceful cooperation, she stays where she is on the edge of the field for now.

After maybe five minutes of mutually incomprehensible attempts at conversation, the boy comes running back. 

Following him with equal haste is a young woman in forest-green robes, standing out among the earth tones of the farmers. When she gets closer, what looked like a smudge on her forehead reveals itself to be a symbol drawn in ash. 

She looks at Daphne and says something in a completely different language to the one the other locals have been using. From the careful way she pronounces the words, it doesn't seem to be her native tongue. 

Interesting. She's as human as the rest of them, so not a mage. (Assuming Daphne is still in her own world. Magic in other worlds might work differently.) Maybe a local priest or some similar role? 

"Sorry, I don't speak that language either." 

The woman shakes her head, to the loud disappointment of the farmers.

She turns and asks a question to...what looks like thin air, but she appears to listen intently to its response anyway. (Daphne hears nothing.) She asks something else, again waiting for a response no one else can hear. She seems to grow more confused, not less, as this strange conversation continues. 

After a few minutes of this, a cat stops to watch. It sits unnaturally still, staring directly at Daphne. 

It takes Daphne a minute to notice. One more set of eyes on her doesn't make much of a difference.

Maybe that's normal behaviour for cats? Daphne doesn't know a lot about animals. She won't worry about it unless the humans seem alarmed. 

One of the humans tries to pet the cat. It ducks away, swiping at the offending hand with claws outstretched. The people watching seem surprised by this, and slightly unsettled. 

They leave the cat alone. It goes back to imitating a statue. 

Interesting, and potentially concerning. 

What happens if she extends her thrall to include the cat, still at its gentle whisper of this person seems nice? 

What happens is that, after another minute or so, the cat comes a little closer to her.

It opens its mouth, and, in perfectly comprehensible (if a little strangled) Rennish, says, "Welcome to Barokan."

The farmers are all startled; a couple of them scream, and most of them back away from the cat a little. 

"Eeep!"

Daphne is also startled! That is definitely not normal cat behaviour! 

The robed woman is likewise taken aback for a moment, but then she recovers and bows to the cat, greeting it in the local language.

The cat responds; whatever it says seems to reassure the humans a little, although they still keep their distance. 

"I'm the Wizard Lord, the ruler of this land," the cat explains to Daphne, switching back to Rennish. (The word "wizard" translates to Rennish as a word for a fictional type of magic user common in folklore.) "I'm speaking to you through the body of this cat—my real body is in my palace about fifty miles away." 

...well, that explains why there is a talking cat. Sort of. 

"I'm honoured by your presence here, milord, however you choose to manifest it," she ventures, copying the woman's bow. "My name is Daphne Gage Whiteraven, I have never heard of Barokan in my life before today, and I've no idea how I came to be here." 

"That makes two of us," says the Wizard Lord. "That's a pity; I was hoping you could tell me how you managed it. I can tell you that it wasn't the work of anyone in Barokan, either spirit or wizard." 

"Sorry, could you clarify what 'spirit' means in this context?" Daphne asks. "And, actually, I probably shouldn't assume that all my intuitions about wizards are accurate either."

She decides not to mention that said intuitions are based on folktales. She's not sure this wizard would react well to being told that his kind is nothing more than a tale for children in another world.

"Everything, either living or dead, has a spirit—called ler in most Barokanese dialects. A wizard is someone who has learned to speak to some spirits and learned their true names so that he or she can command them," the Wizard Lord explains.

"Village priests, such as the woman in green over there, can also speak to their local spirits." 

"Huh. That's..." 

She reconsiders what she was about to say. "If there are spirits—ler—where I come from, I don't know about it. If a place didn't have wizards or priests, would they be able to tell whether they had ler?" 

"...do you know," he says, as though he's never considered it before, "I'm not sure they would! Is there a reason you ask?"

"Well, there are no wizards where I come from," she says, since he's probably already guessed as much from her question. "Not of the kind you mean, anyway. By the same token, we have people we call 'priests', but they don't claim to be able to speak to anything like your ler." 

"Hmm. You landed in the woods, and had to walk through them to reach the village, yes? Did you notice anything different about them compared to the woods in your world—did they seem wilder, more difficult to navigate, more hostile to your presence?" 

"...I thought it was my imagination at the time, but—yes, now that you mention it. That's the ler?" 

"Indeed. Ler in the wilderness are generally hostile to humans," he says in a disapproving tone. "You're lucky you were not worse injured." 

"I'm not human. But that sounds like...a problem...for people who are." 

The cat goes very still for a moment. 

"...no, you're not human, are you? Interesting! Do your kind have a name for yourselves?" 

"I'm a vampire. This world doesn't have them?" she guesses.

At his nod, she explains. "I used to be human; vampires can turn humans into more of our kind. The relevant differences, assuming humans are the same across both our worlds, are that I have magic, I don't age, I need to drink human blood to survive, I'm a little stronger, faster, and tougher, and I have better senses."

"Fascin—"

He pauses to cough up a hairball. 

"Sorry, I think I've been abusing this poor cat's vocal cords long enough. I'd better let it go for now and find a different animal to speak through." 

"Alright." 

She will...wait right here, she supposes, for lack of interesting alternatives. 

The cat runs away, hissing.

And shortly a little bird comes and perches on her knee.

"Where were we?" 

Daphne is trying not to let her opinion of the Wizard Lord be swayed by the cuteness of the forms in which he's talking to her. Seeing the cat's distress provided a counterweight in the opposite direction.

"We'd established that my world probably doesn't have ler and yours doesn't have vampires," she says to the cute little bird that is probably equally upset about being possessed by the Wizard Lord.