"...these were my master's beads. At the monastery. He... wanted me to be strong enough to help people."

"Oh, wow, he would be so proud of you," says Hob, in abject delight, and then realizes belatedly that this is, possibly, a rudely presumptuous thing to say about somebody's dead mentor who you've never met. "...I mean, I would be." 

Jojo attempts a shaky smile, at that, and winds up crying instead.

Oh no. That's so valid but oh no. 

... does he want a hug? 

Jojo would really like a hug.

They currently have zero (0) time sensitivity and Jojo may have as much hug as he needs. 

It's really nice, apparently, to have no urgency and someone to hug.

Eventually he pulls himself together. "Sorry. I've... been crying at you a lot."

"I think the average person would be considerably less together than you've been under the circumstances? Like, even in my culture and we are famously unchill about people having feelings in public." He's still a little annoyed about this even though it has been centuries, it was not true when he was born and adapting was a bitch and a half. "Anyway. We have theoretically infinite stopped time and obviously we cannot actually stay forever, we'd go mad, can you imagine, but it's at least time to practice until we think we can win that fight instead of being about two seconds from losing it." 

Drilling and sparring is never a complete substitute for real live-fire practice, of course, but they do have a very live (as it were) scenario to drill for and also being from two completely different fighting traditions probably means there's room to learn something from each other. 

Jojo is happy to spar and drill; it's soothingly familiar, and he does enjoy the exercise.

"Should you like a more... realistic challenge," the Reaper mentions, "I should mention that in this place you cannot die, and may practice with naked blades without fear."

Jojo's ears perk up, at this. "Oh! Like with an attending cleric! Usually only the stronger paladins got to do that..."

! 
!! 

Hob has always been able to do that but you can't generally do it with your friends who are mortal and will die if you stab them. And your enemies who are mortal and will die if you stab them are not generally very enthusiastic about telling you what incredibly stupid thing you just did with your elbow that made that stab land weird. 

This is going to be even more useful practice than he was expecting. 

They are in there... a while. Hob deliberately doesn't try to keep track, because the important count to have in his mind is the passage of real sidereal days and also trying to precisely track it seems likely to be maddening without a solar cycle.

They just fight until they need a break, and compare notes, and fight more, and drill, and fight more, and occasionally when moving seems impossible but sleep is still too far away, read. Mostly about magic-- Hob is not actually going to try to learn to be a wizard but a general sense of what bullshit nearby wizards are likely to pull on him seems the sort of thing it's going to be best advised to have-- but a little bit of background on the local cosmology and history both religious and secular, and so on, now that (courtesy mostly of Boddyknock and a little bit Eltoora) he has enough starting keywords to ask the Reaper more useful questions/make more meaningful book requests than 'help, I know nothing.' 

Jojo is a possibly-literal godsend over this process and Hob thanks the Reaper about it almost every time he talks to him (which he does his best to do at a limited cadence respectful of the fact that they're living in his house, so to speak, and he does not seem like an incredibly extroverted fellow, but also not so rarely as to suggest he is not a valued friend; Hob likes having friends and has learned over time that avoiding losing your introvert friends by being too annoying is a delicate balance). The little mouse is an astoundingly good sparring partner even before accounting for the benefits of live-fire training-- he's lightning fast and getting faster, and hits with a level of force suggesting his bones simply do not know what an 'inertia' is or why they should care about it-- and also he has lived on this planet his whole life and can field questions about things the author of some book or another assumed was way too obvious to state. Perhaps most importantly, though, he is a tiny little ethics compass, firmly and unshakeably pointing heavenly-north. It's very soothing. Priests vary wildly on this axis and the ones who use their faith as a philosophical foundation instead of a philosophical cage are much nicer to talk to, especially while learning a variety of fascinating new facts. 

And so time passes, or doesn't, depending on your perspective. 

Jojo is happy to lend Hob all of the assistance he possibly can with the project of not going insane, and the project of acclimating to the world, and the project of planning what to do about the very powerful enemy spellcaster when they return to life.

"I don't like the situation," he confesses between bouts. "She seemed to be casting like a priest, but we weren't briefed on her having abilities like that. They said she was a witch, but if Aribeth was willing to send me along on this mission, I really don't think she knew she was that strong."

"Hm. Concerning point. Think it's related to the big green crystal or is that not the kind of thing that gives witchpriestesses powers directly?" 

"I certainly got the impression she was relying on it for something. But, worst-case scenario, it was only letting her make more undead than she could on her own, and she pops back up from the explosion hurt and angry but still just as powerful. Do we close and try to keep her from concentrating? Do we try to get away and alert Lady Aribeth?"

"On the one hand, option A worked great on the lightning rod wizard. On the other hand, lightning rod wizard had the dodging ability of a lightly drugged sheep." 

Jojo giggles nervously. "He really did. I think... I'm worried about her real power level, but honestly, if she's hurt by the explosion then it might be our best chance to get her. If we had to get Aribeth and bring her along, she might prioritize getting out of the city, and hurt people in the process."

"There is also that, yeah, good point. I suppose in theory we can try getting the jump on her and if that doesn't work then run? ... or was that big fireball she dropped narrowly not directly onto my face the sort of thing that you'd expect she can fling a hundred yards away, if so I'm not sure 'run' is a live option." 

"I'd expect it to have a range of..." Jojo does some mental math. "...fifty feet at minimum. More likely a hundred and fifty."

On reflection it is weird that it is even possible for him to do that. Hob is considerably older than the imperial standard yard. If the language he speaks sounded to Eltoora like a mix of several languages she's heard of the divergence point from last contact between their worlds can't have been that rece--- ok ok focus he can do historiography with Eltoora later. 

"Ah. Hm. ... I cannot run that far in the time it takes her to cast a spell," the human world record being like five seconds or something, he probably runs faster than your typical history professor but the distance between that and 'olympic sprinter' is really quite large, "but you run a lot faster than I do, can you?" 

"...probably. But I really don't like the idea of leaving you to fight her alone."

"That is overwhelmingly valid of you," yaaayyyy friendship yaaay <3, "but if you can make it and I can't, we gotta prioritize getting a report to Aribeth, right. I am not going to be an idiot about this, if we determine it is time to run I will at worst try to distract her for like five seconds and then also bolt in a different direction, but if you do end up leaving without me I will definitely not die of that even if I, uh, experience some pain that closely resembles dying?" Thoughtful pause. "...admittedly in the immediate presence of a necromancer some sort of bullshit might occur but I think I would bet pretty confidently that at worst it will just mean recovery has more steps." 

Jojo sighs. "I guess so, under the circumstances. If we have to put down your shambling corpse I'll be very sad about it, even if you do pop back up afterwards."