Breakfast nom nom.

After breakfast: Class! The sleeping area of the kobold's cave contains a mysterious new human-sized bedroll and a new fire circle with still-glowing embers in it. She doesn't comment on either unless asked, but starts the class with a quick explanation of a way of avoiding being touched while casting (maintain a bubble of mage-sense around themselves; a centimeter or so should be enough for people with reflexes as good as theirs) before going into how to combine conditions in triggers.

The learners begin to keep bubbles around themselves while casting. They work diligently at conditional triggers.

And progress is made, and class is completed.

"Any plans for this afternoon?" she asks Ana as the rest of the class leaves.

"Nope! Is Raafi still around?"

"Yeah, probably. Let's go check." She heads to the entryway and touches the engraved tree to teleport up to the surface.

Ana follows her up.

The kobold heads down toward the stream; there's a hint of a trail to follow, now. When she reaches the water, she looks around, and then heads upstream.

Ana continues to follow the kobold. She also stretches out with the Force. If there's no one else in the area, it should be fairly easy for her to sense Raafi.

Raafi isn't far; in fact, he's headed toward them on the same trail. If it didn't wind to avoid the worst of the underbrush they'd be able to see him already.

He seems complexly layered, almost fractal, in personality. There's a sense that this is intentional; 'ordered chaos' comes to mind as a description.

Ana likes him already. She hurries along the trail.

They can hear Raafi before they can see him; he's humming quietly and talking to himself, apparently trying to compose a song.

He sees Ana first - they're rounding the same bend from different sides, and the kobold is hidden by a bush - and pauses, settling into something that's not a fighting stance but could easily become one, or just as easily allow him to turn and run back the way he came. "Hello?"

She comes to a stop, and waves.

"Hi! Are you Raafi?"

He relaxes his stance and grins. "I am. You're a friend of the portalmaker?" The kobold continues around the bush while he speaks; "you must be; here they are."

"Yep! My name's Ana."

She'll start walking the path to catch up to where the two of them are, now that Raafi doesn't seem to be in flight-or-fight mode anymore.

"Ana's been my guide while I've been with the Jedi," explains the kobold.

"A guide! Have they done a good job?"

"Well, they're not you, but who is?" the kobold giggles. "But yes, they've done a very good job."

"A pleasure indeed to meet you, then, miss," he says, and bows to Ana with a theatrical flourish.

She giggles.

"So what sort of things do you do?"

His grin brightens at her giggle. "As a traveling adventurer there are very few things I don't do, excepting those that require staying in one place for months on end. But my personal calling is tales - learning them, sharing them, occasionally facilitating them."

"How many stories do you know? Can you tell one?"

"As many as there are stars in the sky, and more; it is impossible to tell the same tale twice, as the speaker and the listener are different with each telling."

He starts down the path again, and starts into a story: A man trying to move a dangerous but well-loved pet from one town to another, facing one problem after another, from thieves to weather to the temporary escape of the pet to the fear of his fellow travelers. Eventually, a group of frightened fellow travelers finds Raafi, and asks him to help (he doesn't explain why they'd ask him in particular, but touches his pendant as he speaks as if that explains it), and Raafi finds the man and his pet and offers to travel with them. They face the same problems again, but with Raafi's help they're much more manageable.

"And then we came to the town, and I took my leave, as I much prefer the open road to buildings and cobblestones. But when he arrived at his new abode, he was blessed with a portal to Milliways, and sent a messenger to invite me to share in his fortune as I had shared in his misfortune, and that is how I met our friend the portalmaker." He finishes just as the teleporter pad comes into view.

"Cool! So you just go around helping people?"

He nods. "I am a cleric of Fharlanghn; we're charged with providing smooth passage to all who travel." He offers Ana the teleporter pad with a gesture and a grin.

How nice. Ana teleports down to the cave.

"Is that a cleric thing or a Fharlanghn thing?"

Raafi and the kobold follow.

"Each god's clerics are given a charge. Many might take an interest in a journey undertaken for a particular purpose, but only Fharlanghn and his brother advise travel for its own sake."

"How many gods are there?"

"Easily hundreds, each with their own domain. Does this realm not have gods?" He takes off his backpack, and the kobold immediately starts rifling through it; she finds a leaf-wrapped package of fish and sets them up to cook in the campfire. While she's doing that, Raafi helps himself to a cushion and sets one out for Ana as well.