The guard sighs. "I wish, man. Nobody tells me anything. I've been trying to get a position here since I graduated and all I can get is a job sitting in a box." This is the first thing he's said so far that has broken through his cheer with some dejection, though his positivity returns quickly. "Still, I'm here! Maybe if I make friends with one of the researchers-- Sorry, you didn't ask for my life story or anything. Anyway, this is just my guess, but I think that somebody got Recognized nearby, probably somewhere in the valley."

Internal screaming. Which is suppressed.

He's going to assume being Recognized is rare and interesting. But he's unsure as to whether that bodes well for him or not. It's usually better not to attract attention if you're in a potentially hostile environment in general.

"Why are Recognized people of interest?" He adds hastily, "Sorry if that's an obvious question. I'm new to the field." It feels strange to say 'sorry', but he knows that it would be appropriate to say that there.

"Yeah, it can be easy to think there's not much to, like, study about Recognizants, right? They're just on their own, unique, case-by-case bullshit. But there's actually a whole bunch of weird interactions between them and normal anemonomastics! It's been, like, over a decade since one has visited the facility and let them study their invocation, let alone a fresh one that maybe hasn't even got an invocation yet, so-- Well, if I'm right and this is all about a new Recognition, then everybody's scrambling to try and recruit them to the facility so that we can have one here full-time, or at least willing to come by and do tests on a regular basis."

...testing.

"What's an invocation? Relatedly, do you know what sorts of tests they do on Recognizants?" 

Conrad may or may not run away back the direction he came based on the guard's answer.

"It's the sort of, uh, ritual-but-not-a-ritual that Recognizants can do, where they just call on the wind that Recognizes them to do a thing and it does it for them. That's the really basic overview anyway. And, I don't a lot of the specifics, they're pretty hush-hush about most of the stuff from the last time a Recognizant came by. I think they want to try and keep anyone from running off with the papers and getting them published somewhere else. I figured it's mostly surveys of what communicating with the wind is like, what their relationship is like, experimenting with their invocation and what it can do, what its limits are, maybe some direct scanning rituals, that sort of thing."

He nods and makes thoughtful noises.

"What is life like for Recognizants? Do you know?" He's going to assume that being one isn't illegal, given that there's a research facility interested in them operating openly. But it could be a case where it's de facto illegal, like how any Chelish citizen can leave it at any time, it's just that the inquisitors will take you in for questioning if you don't have a letter of transit and keep you in their dungeons forever.

There might be a danger here in that, once he lets himself enter the facility, that the researchers won't let him leave, fearing that he'll go to some other facility. He's leaning towards taking his chances here, though. It's not like there's anywhere else he can go to.

Should he pray? This is an appropriate time to pray, no? He would pray to Asmodeus, in this situation.

«Lord Echo, if You would have me bring glory to You in this world, lend me Your strength and guidance, such that I may evade danger.»

The guard shrugs. "I know the stories about the, like, big ones. The Road-Builder, of course, and the Mother-Maker, and probably some others if I put some effort into it. That's all, like, stories, though, half of it probably isn't even true. I have no idea what the life of an actual, modern-day Recognizant is like. Probably it depends a lot on their circumstances? If they're well-connected when they're Recognized, whether their invocation does something big or important, what they do with it, that sort of thing."

Echo's mental presence rises in response to Conrad's request.

<I would have you strong and guided in this world.> It replies first, with the same mental voice as him, as it did before.

<Here's the lay of the land.> It says next, though now with a voice like the man Conrad met out in the woods. This is accompanied by an understanding of the layout of the facility building and it's immediately surrounding grounds, including the purposes of all the rooms and how people tend to move about the building at various times of day.

<She's good people. She's trustworthy and understanding.> It assures in a third voice, echoing the guard Conrad is speaking with right now. This is accompanied by knowledge of one Doctor Melissa Bishop, one of the senior researchers present in the facility at this moment, including her appearance and a sense for her character, gentle and considerate and curious and empathic.

Eeeeeee. Wait, so they worship Recognizants here? The man who led him here said there was a shrine to the Mother-Maker nearby. Okay. Well, that makes him more confident in being open about being Recognized, at least. Either he'll have the social status to shield himself from Bad Things, or that he'll be imbued with power such that he can escape whatever bonds might be put on him. Although the alternative hypothesis is that a powerful Recognizant might want to squish the lesser, newer Recognizants to avoid being usurped.

He's taking an awfully long time to respond. INT 16 makes you quick thinking but not that quick.

He's going to need to get used to a deific entity 'talking' to him. The familiar voices are a little unsettling, but he can deal with it. He's surprised at how...efficient Echo is in imparting information – it would have taken him ten minutes or more to memorize that amount of information.

«Thank You, Lord Echo» he replies mentally. To the guard, his face twitches slightly before adopting the same neutral expression he's had since the start of the conversation.

"Thank you for answering my questions. I actually came here to meet someone – is Doctor Melissa Bishop in the facility?" Hopefully she doesn't require people make appointments beforehand.

<You are welcome, Conrad.> It replies, again in his own voice, before the presence fades to previous levels.

"Oh yeah, Dr. Bishop came in just a little while ago, one of the ones who came back for whatever's going on tonight. You got here at the right time I suppose! You know where her office is?"

"Yes," surprisingly. He's going to walk on in if the guard isn't going to ask anything else of him.

What does the inside of the facility look like? He's going to try and pick the route that intersects the least with people's activity at this time based on the information Echo told him, although he's not sure if the information he was given was based on past trends that may no longer be relevant in this exceptional time. Don't doubt the god that just cleric-ed you, Conrad, that's a very bad habit.

If he spots anyone else in the facility, what are they wearing? It might be productive to Prestidigitate his clothes to be a similar color, or maybe Prestidigitate his hair blonde. He's only met two people here so far, though, so he has no idea whether blonde hair is common or not.

...although it would raise a lot of questions if someone observed him for more than an hour and the Prestidigitation ran out.

The inside of the facility is clean and white, tiled floors and papered walls. It's filled with light, as well, shining down from bright rods embedded in the ceiling. There's a desk and several chairs in the entrance room, but nobody's stationed at the desk or sitting in the chairs. Indeed, everyone present seems to be in another part of the facility at this moment, and consulting his mental map, it's easy for Conrad to find a path to Dr. Bishop's office that avoids areas of typically high traffic at this time. This information seems to be good as well, as Conrad only encounters three other people on his way, all of them being rather a hurry and hardly noticing him at all. They're all dressed appropriately for late autumn or early winter, sweaters and pants, jackets and hats on those who seem to be headed outside. The three weren't wearing any unified colors, though they did seem to trend towards greys and browns and oranges, though one of them had a bright blue strip of cloth tied around their neck and tucked into their sweater. Two of the three had black hair and one brown, and it was cut fairly short for all three.

The bright rods aren't surprising to him: Ostenso Wizarding Academy had similar Permanencied Light spells built into the ceiling. His hair won't stand out, so he doesn't bother Prestidigitating it. He momentarily considers Prestidigitating his uniform, but he decides against it. The important part would be to remove the Chelish insignia on it, but the time and place are unsuitable. He should have thought of that earlier.

He knocks on the door three times.

"May I speak with you, Dr. Bishop?"

"Just a moment!" an older-sounding feminine voice replies from behind the door, followed by the sound of books and papers shuffling, of several things tumbling to the ground, the voice quietly cursing for a moment, and then the door opening to reveal a small, silver-haired and dark-skinned woman. "Sorry about that, we're all in a bit of a rush tonight. What can I help you with, young man?"

He's not going to be upset at her being busy, given that he's the cause of the busy-ness.

"May I speak to you in confidence?" He would ask about her being Lawful and whatnot, but Echo has told him that she is to be trusted, and so he will trust him.

"It concerns the recent echoic phenomena in the valley."

The presumed Dr. Bishop's expression quickly changes from parental to serious as she nods, opening the door wider. "Please come inside my office."

Visible through the door, her office is dimmer than the hallway, though not dark, primarily lit some of sort of heatless lamp, situated on one corner of Dr. Bishop's desk, alongside some drafting supplies and a fist-sized stone cylinder whose curved side is covered in intricate and fine inscriptions. There's a well-upholstered armchair fit for the desk, as well as a mess of books and loose papers on the floor next to the desk that Conrad can guess was made just now. The wall opposite the door has a window looking out over the night-cast darkness of the valley, a handful of points of light visible through the mostly leafless trees, and a second chair sits before the window. Both of the remaining walls are occupied by shelves, one set full of books and the other a mixture of books, loose pages, and additional office supplies.

He comes in, but refrains from sitting, unless Bishop offers.

"Lord Echo bid me to come see you, Dr. Bishop. They say you are trustworthy." He keeps his hands behind his back, as if standing before his battalion commander. A part of his mind thinks about the window: he might need to jump out of it to make an escape. But Echo hasn't led him astray thus far, and again, it's very unwise to doubt the entity that just revived you. He's Wise, but not that wise, so he has to manually push away these thoughts.

As he enters, Dr Bishop quietly closes the door behind him, before stepping back to her desk and turning the stone cylinder upside down, causing it to briefly emit a quiet hum.

"Lord--?" She seems confused for an instant, then fascinated, though she quickly regains her composure. "So, you're the Recognizant the anemometry array picked up, and one who has some strange ideas about the winds, or at least about the echoic wind. You've been communing with it, and it directed you to me, specifically?"

He looks intently at the stone cylinder, then looks back at Bishop.

Conrad similarly loses his composure, looking abashed, before wiping the emotion on his face.

"Yes. I don't know what you mean by strange. I think...I believe that Lord Echo brought me here from another world. Specifically, I believe that this world is outside of Pharasma's Creation. Are any of these names familiar to you? Rovagug, Sarenrae, Iomedae, Asmodeus, Pharasma, Abadar? 

Yes, I have been communing with Them, and was...concerned for my safety. They said that I could trust you."

He's a little put off at the fact that Bishop refers to Echo as an 'it', but it tracks with the fact that they don't consider Them to be a god. Weirdly. Perhaps they have different conceptions of gods? Well, the Golarion concept of 'god' wouldn't track at all in a world outside Pharasma's Creation, now, would it? But he expected people to be more...deferent? To powerful entities? It seems like the sort of thing you would do. Even paladins of Iomedae speak respectfully of Her, even though She doesn't demand obeisance from Her followers.

Conrad can all but literally see the gears of Dr. Bishop's mind wheel and spin as she processes what he's said. "None of those sound familiar at all, no., and, I believe your special circumstances may explain some anomalies with the anemometry as well." She looks over Conrad again, noting his rigid posture and perhaps a hint of weariness from his trek to the facility. "Please, feel free to take a seat if you're tired. I can only imagine that it's been at least as long a day for you as it has been for me."

She offers as she begins to pick up the spilled books and papers, setting them on her desk and sorting through them for a moment before picking out one particular page. "Yes. We haven't picked up any Recognitions this close to the facility before, there were a number of differences between the measurements taken earlier today and extrapolations based on more distant measurements and measurements taken from other facilities. Most of the others chalked it up to some previously undetected property of the Swarthwalls' resonance, but I was in the process of comparing it to some records of non-Recognition echoic phenomena."

She plucks another page from the pile, and then another. "I'm going to look through these now, but I get the feeling that I know what the numbers are going to say, if your story has any truth to it. In the mean time, if you're comfortable, can you tell me what's happened so far? After you, ah, appeared here? And before then, in this other world of yours, if you're willing to share."

He sits wordlessly. He could have stood for longer, but he's not going to refuse the offer. He's willing to give the whole story, but he'll...omit a few details that pertain to his capabilities, in case he needs to make a hasty escape after all. He's also very curious about the process by which echoic phenomena is detected, but he'll hold off on asking questions.

"Normally, I would be much more reticent in sharing details about myself, but you were specifically called to be the one I ought to talk to." He looks up at the ceiling as he begins to retell his story.

"I was a soldier in Her Majesty Abrogail Thrune II's Tenth Battalion, in the fifth crusade against the Worldwound. The Worldwound is a planar tear from which Abyssal demons pour forth to threaten our world, Golarion. The country I am from is called Cheliax, and Cheliax worships Asmodeus, the god of tyranny, slavery, compacts, and pride. During my service, I developed...theological issues with Asmodeus, which is to say that I became a heretic, and defected to try and find refuge in some other church also at the Worldwound. I was killed by Chelish Security in the process of defection. With fire," he adds, in case that's relevant.

"I woke up in a forest, healed of all wounds, when Lord Echo began to speak to me. They gave me facility in your world's language, and told me a bunch of other information as well. Oh, and orders to 'be free', and to 'speak and listen'. I'm not sure how to interpret that.

They spoke...really weirdly. I'm not sure if that's heretical to say. I can recite their exact words to me, although they also communicated things to me that was information, but not in the form of speech. I cannot recite that for you.

A man – I'm not sure who he is, though he seemed to be...in charge of the forests? – saw me and gave me directions to nearby sites, and I decided to go here."

He feels tired. Not physically – his Constitution is high and the metabolic road made it so he expended less energy than he had to – but...spiritually tired. Perhaps all that one can hope for is to have a kind and understanding master. What's the afterlife situation here, if Pharasma's jurisdiction doesn't extend here? What's Echo's afterlife like?

Dr. Bishop listens to Conrad's story as she collates the data. She remains serious, but there's an unmistakable sadness or pain that rises within her, though also a kind of happiness. "I'm glad that you were able to reject your god. If I may be honest, they sound awful. And, I'm glad that, ah, Lord Echo as you call them, brought you here. I assume you don't have the winds in the world you came from? This is only a hypothesis for now, but, I imagine that the echoic wind's appearance to you has been shaped by your history. It is the wind which most strongly reacts to human experiences and concepts, and seems to naturally assemble them in a way, to construct a sort of familiar form through which it interfaces with its Recognizants. Strange speech-rhythm, repeated speech, reversed speech, and similar interpretations are all common elements reported by other echoic Recognizants. The charge to 'be free' and to 'speak and listen'..."

She sighs. "They aren't something I have any specific records of but, informally, they certainly sound like things the echoic wind would say. As for the man you met, I imagine that's one of the forest rangers. Swarthwalls has a considerable tourism industry and it's not uncommon for people to get lost in the woods when they go hiking or camping, so there's a ranger patrol to catch them and help them back to civilization."

Echo's presence remains distant, but seems to respond to Conrad's uncertainty. It's wordless, and fuzzier somehow than the previous instances of received understanding, there's still a strong sense of there being...more, after life. More life to live, and more than life, more than living, or living more than just life. It's not a very clear idea, but it stands apart from Conrad's ideas of afterlives as they existed in Pharasma's Creation.