"Most of the people in this city didn't do anything--" 

Some new instinct (perhaps the gesture, the smell of magic in the air, all just a touch familiar now in a way it wasn't before he got a lightning bolt to the face yesterday?) makes him sidestep, just so, before he even quite thinks about it. 

"-- to you?" 

He is entirely unharmed by the fire and for a second he looks really surprised by that, though she might not notice if she's still not bothering to pay more than cursory attention to him. On the bright side if so that means he can go for the option where he hits her really quite hard, hard enough that he has met very few humans it would not kill on the inst-- 

hm. 

that... barely did anything. 

that's not great. 

"I don't care if they hurt me! They are weak! The scaled ones shall rule! I have seen the coming of the People of the Eye!"

She'll try paralyzing him with a swift tap to his arm.

Some part of Hob's brain proceeds with alacrity over the course of that movement from '...arm... tap? friendly?' to 'wait, no, wizard, that's probably bad?' but unfortunately this does not actually cause him to be physically capable of dodging it. She's fast.

And Hob can make a reflex save against magic bullshit no problem, but his will save is... worse. 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

She raises her scimitar to take fatal advantage of this new circumstance –

– and then Jojo emerges from the pile of skeletons he's been dealing with, and strikes the black crystal with the flat of his palm.

It doesn't explode, per se. But there's a wash of searing green light, even as the world outside his lenses goes dark and faded. And there's a feeling of horrible wrongness, like his flesh is withering away.

"Greetings, Sojourner."

"--wait, right, this place is time-stopped. Have you got any books on enormous necromancy crystals that make armies of skeletons?" 

"I have no books on that topic," the Reaper apologizes. "A large onyx crystal could be made to enhance the wielder's own necromantic abilities by any of several means, and with context I might be able to hazard a guess."

He'll describe what it looked like through the arcane sight lenses, at least insofar as he got anything resembling a good look at it over the course of about ten seconds, and the situation with the evil tendrils constructing soldiers, and what Aribeth told him about Gulnan, and how Jojo shattered the stone and it exploded. "...I am hoping directionally," he concludes, worriedly. 

"It does not appear to be any artifact of which I have knowledge," the Reaper says. "From what you have described, and the principles of such devices, the undead it created will likely lose animus upon its destruction, rather than becoming an uncontrolled horde, which you may take comfort in. The explosion... is unlikely to have been unidirectional, but a wave of unfiltered negative energy will sharply attenuate within five to ten feet of the source, which is not a prohibitive distance for a skilled combatant to dodge if he is not unrelatedly paralyzed."

Okay. Okay. Deep breaths. That might be fine. Jojo's fast. 

"Mildly reassuring, thank you. Uh... hm. So my problem here ils that if she isn't exploded I am so, so outclassed. There has to be a way to use frozen time to solve that, right?" And he's a lot more motivated in that direction now that he has gotten wizarded to death in under fifteen seconds twice in less than thirty-six hours. ... hm. "Hey, the local magic is learnable, right? On a scale from calculus to boxing how doomed am I if I try to learn it from a textbook?" 

"You would find it very difficult without a knowledgeable wizard to guide you, and while I know much of magic, I cannot teach it as mortals may use it. There are other roads to power, however. You are already embarked on a martial path, and will grow into greater power if you focus your efforts."

"Fair enough, I'll table that for when I have a spare decade and a tutor. The problem with focusing my efforts on martial pursuits though is that there's really only so much you can get out of practicing without a sparring partner. I could spend a week hitting a tree with a stick and it'd help some, I probably should do that," uuuughh he haaaates drills they're soooo boriiiing, "but I don't think that's going to be enough." 

"Would your current traveling companion do, for a sparring partner?"

!! 

"Is that an option? Yeah, probably, he's very fast and stronger than he looks." 

And suddenly, just like that, Jojo is here.

He appears in the middle of a combat roll, and lands in a crouch before seeming to notice the change in his environment. Then he looks around, and his whiskers droop somewhat.

"Oh, Hells. I really thought at least one of us would make it out of the blast."

Oh no. He super did not consider this consequence. "Well eventually at least I'll--" wow no do not tell the possibly dying teenager that you are immortal and can't share, that's the cruelest thing imaginable. Although, wait. "I'm not actually sure... hm. Gatekeeper, what did you just do, does it... only work on dead targets or...?" 

"He is not dead, at least not yet. If the negative energy does kill him, it will do so after you both return. I have merely exercised one of my lesser-used privileges to bring him into this sanctuary, to share in our stopped time. ...it is not a privilege I should exercise regularly, but the occasion seemed fit."

"Well. Thank you, I think?"

"Oh! Yes, thank you." Time to start explaining stuff to Jojo because they now have plenty of time to do that! "This is how I got back up slightly more oriented after the lightning bolt yesterday, apparently it happens to me automatically because of some kind of situation with my world's physics interacting oddly with the local ones. It's also where I got my book, you might want to see if the well of lost things has any things of yours?" 

He goes over to check, looking faintly dazed.

He shakily retrieves a string of carved wooden prayer beads similar to the ones he wears around his neck, and comes back over looking substantially more dazed.

"...they weren't mine."

"Items can be passed from a deceased individual to another who would have inherited them, if of sufficient emotional import to both parties," the Reaper says neutrally.

What, no, hey, Jojo is way too small for deep personal connections to dead relatives, give him whoever those belong to back this instant, how dare you this happens all the time and Hob is so normal and mature about it. Having had time to get emotionally invested before losing someone isn't actually worse even though it hurts more. "We've got time if you wanna talk about-- it? Them? None of my business if you don't, though." 

Hob is by inclination more of a 'process your feelings via conversation' type of guy but he is aware that lots of people are better served by room to digest quietly by themselves when they are reminded of their trauma.