"If he'll have me. I'm not going to insist on shadowing your every move, just, you know. The action."

Oh, goodness, armor. That's going to be a nostalgia trip and a half. He hasn't worn real armor since... hell, the sixteenth century? Fifteenth if you don't count ceremonial armor, which you shouldn't. 

"Excellent, thanks," he says, carefully stowing the pouch of coins in his jacket pocket. "I'll head thataway, and Jojo you are absolutely welcome. Honestly, follow me around to your heart's content, I don't know anybody else here yet and I get lonely easy." 

You'd think you would build up a tolerance, after six hundred years, but it turns out that, at least if you are Hob Gadling, you don't really. 

Aribeth collects the enchanted goblin who has been humming in the corner for the last several minutes, with Desyyra's assistance, and begins bundling him out the door to wherever his interrogation is to take place. "The work of the righteous never ends," she says. "Our hopes ride on you; try not to die."

Jojo will in fact follow Hob around like a duckling for as long as seems reasonable.

"Conveniently for you I am mediocre at many things but really good at not dying!" chirps Hob cheerfully, and then sets out to attempt to understand the layout of Neverwinter, starting with finding the temple armory.

The Academy is (was) physically located in the Beggar's Nest, technically, but it adjoins the City Core so that students don't have to walk through the slums to get to the tavern from class. The City Core contains lots of very large municipal-looking buildings, one of which Jojo points him to.

"It's not just the temple of Tyr," he mutters as they walk up the imposing marble steps. "I mean, it is officially. But there's shrines to a lot of gods. And an entire wing for Ilmater. I guess most of the paladins are Tyrran."

"Huh. Only most of them? Where I'm from there's only exactly two kinds, the ones attached to one particular God and the ones that used to be and have since Fallen." 

"...huh. How many gods do you have? Are most of them Evil, or Neutral? Not even Lawful Neutral, there's paladins of Kelemvor..."

"Depends who you ask. There's at least the one. There's a staggering number of other things that might be gods, they have the most amazing debates about it at theology conferences, I went to one once and it was fascinating. Even the people who go around insisting that their favorite caped vigilante who is definitely for sure the most good person on the planet is totally technically a god because they made one creepy shrine, or whatever, don't generally dispute the provenance of paladins. I'm inclined to figure there's just the one and the rest are something else, whether they're evil or not, but I'm not a theologian." 

Jojo boggles somewhat at the claim that there is "at least one" god.

"Well," he says eventually, "here there are many gods who can endow paladins. Ilmater is my favorite, partisan as I am; He made me a paladin, even though I was just a scrawny beastkin teenager with too little sense to run away from bandits, and I've honored Him since."

"He... made you... a..."

Please hold while Hob reboots his understanding of this vocabulary word. Paladin = Angel Saint?? 

Is Aribeth a ... half-saint ... or is she half human half something else and unrelatedly this planet's equivalent of Jehanne d'Arc. EIther option is wild, really. He's probably going to continue mentally filing her under 'teenage angel, sort of', though, on grounds that this is probably the closest guess on whatever it might possibly mean to be a half-saint. After all, this did not at any point fail him as a model for d'Arc, up to and including the point at which she disemboweled him, so it ought to work for Aribeth even if (here's hoping) he manages not to induce her to do that.

"Huh. Good to know. I was going to guess you were raised in a church and was kind of worried about it but that's actually just completely reasonable on your part and His." He considers this backstory and grins wryly. "... also, you know, bewildering metaphysics aside, sounds remarkably familiar? Unfortunately mine didn't introduce himself." 

Jojo winces and takes in a breath. "I, well, I was raised in a monastery of Tyr for a while, three years, I was ten when I managed to convince my father to let me leave home and train with them. But then, um, the monastery was raided by orcs. And the monks told me to flee back to my village. ...which had also been raided by the orcs, and burned. So I, um, headed for Neverwinter, after... burying as many as I could... and then I ran into some bandits on the road and I was. Tired of running. So I charged them. And I would have been killed if Ilmater hadn't given me His blessing. But. He did. You didn't ask about any of that, I'm, I'm sorry -"

Sniffling mouseboy. He retrieves the extremely bloody handkerchief from earlier and starts attempting facial triage.

Oh.

Opinion of Ilmater sharply revised to 'Hob's favorite local god' until further notice.

Hob pats Jojo sympathetically on the tiny furry shoulder, and what he was intending to do was say something contentlessly reassuring, but he's thinking about what it means for there to be things in the world that do that when brave teenagers throw themselves into unwinnable fights because they're too good not to, and what actually comes out of his mouth is "If my world had had gods like that my son might have lived past twenty."

... that was. Not really. A reasonable response.

"-Sorry. Um. I mean to say, I am really glad that yours does, so people like you can keep being in it. And anyway it's all right to not be perfectly composed, it seems like you've had a hell of a day and also a hell of a several years, yeah?"

Jojo gives him a weak and watery smile. "The three since I became a paladin were going pretty well until. Well. It's been the Hells of a month, at least. ...I'm sorry about your son."

He's led them, mostly on autopilot, to the supply room of the paladin barracks. The quartermaster looks between them with deep confusion and some alarm.

Right, why does this guy find him alarming then? Admittedly he is currently carrying a bloodstained goblin sword but everyone here is going around armed and they were literally invaded by goblins like an hour ago.

On reflection they do seem to have approximately medieval materials science here from what he's seen so far and he is wearing modern fabrics in a modern style and a lot of jewelry. He probably just looks like some rich asshole and that is kind of a weird type of guy to be visiting the armory immediately post-attack.

"Hello, sorry to bother you, I'm sure it's been a day," he says, offering the guy the pass he was given. "Lady Aribeth gave me this and told me I should ask you for armor and a better sword?"

The quartermaster squints, then turns to Jojo.

Jojo nods, still wiping his nose. "He's under my supervision."

"You are aware that he's -"

"Yes," Jojo says, sounding preemptively tired of the number of times people are going to ask him this. "I don't think he's a danger to us."

Quartermaster shrug. "What do you want, then? Plate, leather, chain? We've got good selection on swords, some decent axes and maces, bows and arrow..."

Oh. It's that again. Wow, he does not like this business of random people being able to detect his fundamental awfulness on sight. How is he ever supposed to build a useful reputation for being pleasant and trustworthy under these conditions?? Unfair. Well, no, completely and obviously fair, actually, but ugh.

Anyway. Right. Armor. "Great question. Been in the bad habit of fighting without armor for a while. Hmm... shirt of chain and as much plate on top as I can reasonably carry, which unfortunately," he gestures with cheerful self-deprecation at his general state of not being particularly large, "is not a lot. Let's say... gorget, boots, poleyns, and if I get shot in the face I deserved it." Not having visibility inconveniences Hob more frequently than dying and as a result Hob doesn't really like helmets even though objectively this totally does get him shot in the face an annoying amount. He definitely needs the steel-toed boots, though, he's wearing oxfords right now and while it's not the first time he's gotten in a scrap that way it is, in fact, not ideal.

"As for weapons..." He should pick up a bow if he's in back in the land of no guns, shouldn't he. He's had a great deal of practice with the damn things, if much of it legally mandated. Sigh. "Longbow, yeah. And an arming dagger and some kind of short polearm? Bill-guisarme by preference but I'll take anything about so long," he gestures slightly above his head, "with a hook and a spike."

The guy hands over a suitable swathe of chain and breastplate and associated accessories. "It's minimally enchanted, just enough to keep off rust and make it a bit more solid, the very basics."

Then a bow and a few quivers - "again, not much reason not to enchant it enough to keep away warping and termites and all that but don't count on it finding your target from across the battlefield for you. Ammunition's standard, enchanted arrows are for special occasions."

A dagger is handed over, then the quartermaster hesitates. "We're, ah... I'm not going to say we don't have polearms but they tend towards the glaives and warscythes - elegant, straightforward, deadly. The hooks and spikes of a guisarme are seen as... more complicated and, ah, showy than practical. I don't personally hold this opinion, but the fact of the matter is that I don't stock weapons the paladins don't want."

Ah yes. Of course. His favorite peasant weapon. Showy and impractical, that's the problem with it, and not that, as the man says himself, it is not elegant. Rich people are such a way (he says, in full awareness that he himself did have a bit of a Phase(TM)).

"....riiiiight. 'Course they are," he sighs, while he's putting on the armor. Magically enchanted not to rust, that he's excited about. Jacket off, light gambeson on over his modern shirt, chain shirt on, jacket back on, plate bits on top. God, he looks like he's about to go to a bloody rennfaire. He's not giving up his modern fabrics, though, so. "Glaive it is then, thanks." He can arguably competently use a scythe but he took off his own foot with one once and has disliked them since. "S'pose medium term I can probably find a blacksmith, any personal recommendations?"

"Shining Knight Arms and Armor," the quartermaster says, handing over a very shiny glaive and looking grateful not to have been called out. "They're down the hill a ways, and they can get you anything that's not too exotic - the forgemaster does solid work and his enchanter's reliable too."

"Cheers, I'll bring it back when I've got a replacement then. You need anything while we're here, Jojo, or are we good to go learn microgeography facts?"

"I fight unarmed," Jojo confirms. "Ilmater has blessed these hands."

The quartermaster frowns. "Will you at least take a cold-iron-shod quarterstaff. You can use it as a walking stick if you must."

Jojo shakes his head; this is obviously an old argument. "If I face a demon, I'll Smite it. If I face three in a row, I'll run and get someone more qualified. There's no point in giving me an expensive weapon I'll be tossing aside half the time."

"Fine," the quartermaster says reluctantly.

"Is that a going concern, demons? ... Am I allowed to have a cold iron weapon or are those only for paladins."

Hob is equipped to kill the kind of demon with which he is familiar (and in fact has done it unarmed in this outfit because somebody made it bloody illegal to carry knives six months ago) but it'd sure be easier with the proper tools.

The quartermaster nods. "The dagger's cold iron - ah, you're not used to the system, of course - the glaive's enchanted like the armor, no rust and a bit of an edge, but the dagger isn't, it's just cold iron so you've got something if a demon comes at your throat. Harder to enchant cold iron, but it works into a blade like anything else. So keep it polished and all."

"We are really very unlikely to encounter any demons inside city limits," Jojo says firmly.

"Ah! Brilliant. Will do." Hob grins wryly at Jojo. "It is also very unlikely, I am given to understand, to encounter skeletons in your school, and yet here we are."