The white featureless truck swerves from the left lane heading straight for Jacqueline.

"HONNNK HOOOOONK!"

She has but a moment to react.

The noise is incredibly jarring, and she nearly trips over her own feet.

The sun set hours ago, her battery is low. Her reflexes aren't exactly what she'd call sharp, if they're still probably better than most unenhanced humans.

What she has time to do is draw on her power and fling it in the coat she's wearing.

Armor, of a sort.

35,000 pounds of truck slam into Owl at 45mph.

Luckily the trailer is empty.

And that makes all of the difference.

Owl in her coat masses less than a seventh of that. She does not stop the truck, though she may help it to brake.

There is a blinding light as her battery is fully spent.

She goes under the truck, though not beneath the wheels.

She is rather more durable than your standard-issue fourteen year old girl.

The nondescript truck driver leans out his window and calls out:

"You.. You alive down there?"

She will not condescend to respond, instead dragging herself out from beneath the vehicle. 

"Oh er.. sorry bout that, I don't really know what happened there, I'm glad you're alright."

Jacqueline considers several possible answers to that and dismisses them.

She's just going to ignore him and limp home, if that's alright.

It is not Owl's night.

It's been such a very long day.

Owl finds herself laying face up in a field of flowers. Her wounds have disappeared; the sun shines down on her as if it were noon. 

...That's not normally what happens when someone is hit by a bus, but abnormal things aren't that abnormal. 

Maybe she's at the hospital and this is the side effect of a healing power?

She considers shouting "hello!" to see if there's someone that can hear her, but figures she'll probably learn that soon enough without going through the bother.

A woman is standing a few feet back staring at Owl.

"You're crushing my flowers."

She says without a hint of accusation, as if she is simply making an observation.

This is the face of someone who does not believe themself to be at fault.

"Well, it was nice meeting you. Good luck in your next life."

Wait what?

WAIT!

WHAT?

Owl appears, standing on a vast plateau. The sky is dim and red. The star appears to be setting. The air is extremely arid and dry.

Owl can feel the temperature actively dropping.

Wait, what?

She'll look around her environment. 

Infront of her: nothing but rock as far as she can see, which isn't as far as she could on Earth, the horizon is oddly near.

Behind her: Is that... more rock? Yes! 

Wait! There are wagons! Owl is unsure of how far, but definitely close enough to recognize them as wagons.

This has, without a doubt, been the oddest... minute, minute and a half? of her life.

She's going to try jumping up and down. 

Is the gravity like on Earth?

As far as she can tell.

She must have misjudged the distance to the horizon, or this is an immersive mindscape, or something like that.

...Yeah, this is an immersive mindscape.

Joy.

She'll stoop down to pick up a rock... and stop short.

Isn't the dirt on Mars supposed to cut up your lungs if you breathe it?

Who knows if the sediment here is made of something safe to touch or inhale. There are many elements on the Periodic Table, and each of them worse than the last.

If this is all in her head, or - someone's pocket dimension, or something like that - probably she isn't at risk?

Well, no reason not to play it as-safe-as-she-can-considering-the-circumstances. 

She'll pull her shirt up over her mouth and nose.

It continues to grow colder, right now it is somewhere around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Estimating a 1-2 degree drop since she arrived. This is not a sustainable rate for survival. The wagons stop approaching and begin to pull into a giant circle some half mile behind her.

A lone figure is moving toward Owl from the wagons at an alarming rate.

So we're losing maybe a degree Fahrenheit per minute? In an hour, she jokes to herself, it'll be 0, and in two hours 60 below.

She's actually pretty cheerful about the temperature, since it's warmer than where she came from, minus the short stint in flowerland.

On top of everything else, she could be cold.

She's less thrilled about whoever's rushing towards her. 

Can you quantify "an alarming rate"?

43.97mph

Her battery is empty and is barely charging in the dying light. 

45ish mphs is indeed alarming.

She'll scoop up a rock from the ground, brushing it with the back of her thumb first to see if that's bad for her skin.

Any moisture on her hand absorbs into the incredibly dry piece of stone, other than that it seems a perfectly normal rock. The figure is now close enough to make out details.

She'll make out the details, then.

If they're weird enough she'll use a bit of charge and x-ray the person.

They are mounted on top of what looks like a deer. A deer with white fur. A deer with white fur and floral outgrowths on its body. They themselves appear male, somewhat scrawny, and wearing some type of uniform.

The uniform consists of tanned boots, trousers, and shirt. Around their lower face is some sort of a bandana. Over their eyes are a pair of extremely primitive looking glasses. They wear a cloak that is billowing behind them, the cloak is double sided, one side some reflective material and the other a dark black. They appear human.

The bandana validates her life choices and also makes her afraid.

Do they look human on the inside, too? And what does the quadrupedal alien look like to x-ray vision?

The human in fact looks human on the inside! The deer has all of the normal organs you'd find in a living creature. Owl notices that the floral outgrowths actually extend down into the monster, existing as roots throughout the entire body.

As the rider gets closer they sit up straighter and nudge the deer, it begins slowing down. On pace to stop right before collision.

If they're slowing down Owl isn't going to throw anything at them.

Without dropping her new rock collection, she'll put her hands up to show she's not a threat (or block anything that comes for her face). 

And walk backwards, prepared to exit to the right side if the deer continues forward.

The deer comes to a halt in front of Owl.

*snort*

She'll keep walking backwards, but slower.

The rider looks down at you. In a slightly muffled voice he says:

"I'm a scout from Ignara, who are you and what are you doing out here alone?"

Cool, she's being shouted at by an alien Mountie.

She's going to have to talk to him. Owl hates talking to people.

"Where'd you learn English?"

"English?"

"There's no reason to shout."

"Shout? I'm talking in a slightly above normal tone."

People always say that.

"My name is - " Jacqueline Somer isn't particularly fond of her name. If she's on an alien planet - or immersive dreamscape - where no one knows her, couldn't she introduce herself as anything she likes? 

Some people call her Owl, but she doesn't particularly like that name either. She'll stick with Jacqueline, so that she doesn't get caught in an embarrassing lie later.

"- Jacqueline Somer."

"Jacqueline eh? What are you doing out here with the sun setting and all?"

"Lost track of time."

"How'd you go and do a fool thing like that? Its not like you cant see the sun. What tribe are you from? How did you get here? You're not wearing any clothes I recognize from the last confluence, is there a new style going around?" 

....She needs to take a moment to step back and orient herself.

The people with the circled wagons saw someone out and about when the sun was going down, and sent a rider.

Circled wagons. 

The rider isn't here to investigate, he's here to rescue her.

No more reflexive recalcitrance, idiot. 

Get on the deer thing and get out of here.

"I'm from a planet called Earth it's a long story or rather a short one that would take a long time to explain can I stay with you for tonight I won't eat your food or take up much space."

"O-Oh! An otherworlder! Welcome to Chartara! I need to get you to the chief!"

He reaches down a hand, presumably to help Owl up.

Well, she guesses it does make some sort of sense if people who find themselves on different worlds disproportionately find themselves on worlds that get a lot of "otherworlders".

Makes her life simpler.

She'll take the hand.

The scout casually pulls her up into the saddle behind him. As easily as if she was a scrawny 14 year old girl.

"You'll want to hold onto my waist"

It's bad enough that she has stuff from his hand on her hand.

(She's belatedly realizing that she failed to think that through.)

She'll do without the... waist holding, thanks.

Can Owl give me a DC 15 acrobatics check as the deer accelerates to 43.97mph within 5 seconds.

She'll grip the animal with her legs and the saddle with her fingers.

Owl holds on astonishingly well for a first time rider as the deer takes but a minute to arrive at the circle of wagons. Each wagon is twice as tall and four times as long as Owl. The deer slows down to a trot and enters the makeshift camp through the space between two wagons. A large board is dragged into place behind them by a dwarf, blocking the outside world from the inner sanctum of the camp.

Dragged into place by a dwarf as in a short person?

Or, like, dragged into place by Gimli from Lord of the Rings?

A dwarf straight out of your average fantasy novel.

...Are there also Talking Beasts?

Owl doesn't see any.

Marsh-wiggles, perchance? 

Owl doesn't see any.

What does she see?

All around her a mix of humans, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes are running around in a hurry. At the center of the camp is a massive bonfire surrounded by children and the elderly. Smaller fires in front of various wagons have food cooking over them. A mass of deer, hundreds by your count, are all eating out of a trough. One portion of the circle has 13 people in a ring, from her elevated position she can see two men in armor and wielding swords dueling while the ring cheers. A very large man with an even bigger sword stands next to the fire and people constantly rush over to him to talk before leaving toward their various activities.

The scout directs his mount and it walks towards the mass of deer.

She read a sci-fi story, once, where the characters had to travel into the mind of a fantasy author to wake him from his delirium. 

The world the fantasy author had dreamt up had green sand and multiple suns and a giant snake and overall seemed impressively bizarre to her.

She's never actually read any fantasy set in a setting that weird, in her experience that's mostly the domain of sci-fi.

Maybe she's read the wrong books.

The scout dismounts and reaches out a hand to help Owl down.

"I'll take you to the chief, he should be able to answer any questions you have."

Getting down from things is not difficult. It is anti-difficult, it happens by default.

The hand will not be necessary. 

He watches Owl hop down.

"Alright just follow me. Stick close, I'd rather you not get lost in the crowd."

He begins walking toward the bonfire.

She'll beat him there, in her haste to get some charge back off of the fire.

She hasn't seen any trees around, what's it burning?

A man and a woman stand next to the fire. They both seem to be just pumping wood out of thin air and throwing it in. As Owl gets close enough to see them she notices the very large man from earlier. His eyes snap towards Owl and then to the scout jogging after her.

Huh, so people have powers here too. Fair enough.

And now it's time for more interaction.

The scout jogs up to the chief.

"I found another otherworlder sir, out on the planes. She's right there."

He points at Owl.

She doesn't feel up to waving at the "chief", but she'll raise a hand and waggle her fingers.

"Hello! Please come with me so we can discuss."

He begins walking toward a wagon in the circle.

She's hoping they have a book or a pamphlet, if they get people from off-planet frequently.

(In the (few) worlds where this is actually happening - but those are also the only worlds where it matters which actions she takes, so.)

She'll follow.

He talks at Owl while he walks.

"You are the 4th otherworlder that we know about. You and your kin have started appearing since the last confluence. Reshma has blessed us with not just one but now two in our tribe of Ignara."

He arrives at a wagon that has a purple stripe above the door and knocks twice.

Oh, so it's not so much an established thing.

So much for getting a pamphlet.

"Seren, we've been blessed by another otherworlder."

"Oh!"

The door swings open

It's an elf.

Of the Tolkien variety, rather than the Polar type.

Well, either that or she's been mutated by her powers, but for whatever reason Owl is leaning towards "elf".

The elf glances you up and down

"I take it you're not from spes then." she says disappointedly.

"Where are you from?"

The elf speaks in <small> text.

"My name's Jacq. I'm from Earth."

"Earth? I've never heard of it. Umm.. here you go.. it's a list of all the useful information I've gathered about this place so far. I'll.. need it back later though."

She hands Owl a piece of paper.

"Thanks."

The paper, to the best of Owl's interpretation, says the following:

This planet is called Chartara, It orbits a Red Dwarf Star. It is incredibly dry year round and has a very thin atmosphere. The world is small enough that the "caravale" that everyone rides can go from equator to pole in about a week of travel. There are twelve tribes who travel the world by caravan. The surface of the planet is split into 32 "plateus" each about the same size. An expansive tunnel network exists underneath the surface. Inside tunnels creatures called "craghowlers" spawn, this has yet to be explained. They grow with time and apparently there is no hard cap. These are harvested for meat. The longer inteligent life spends in or near a tunnel the less craghowlers will spawn in them. The tribes also grow various plants to subsidize their diets. When a "caravale" dies they eat it, but they never kill them for food. Each rider has a bond with their caravale. Each tribe gets water from their artifact while traveling. This artifact can emit a constant stream of water but isint nearly enough to sustain the whole tribe. When the tribe camps inside of the tunnels they collect massive barrels of water which they transport by cart. This water comes from the river systems that carved out the tunnels and surface at parts.

The more you know.

"Um, well Spes was very advanced in technology compared to this place. I've been trying to teach some of our knowledge to these people but it's been slow going. Mainly because.. I didn't really know a lot about why stuff worked in Spes. I just kinda lived life. Do.. do you want to help this tribe? It's.. the biggest tribe. I think it has the most resources."

Woah, hold up. 

That was fast.

Owl has zero interest in aligning herself with one of this world's political factions for the long run based on "they're the biggest, I think it has the most resources".

It's been less than ten minutes since she landed on this rock.

She doesn't even know what "resources" refers to, since they clearly have matter generation! Though they can't produce food, they have to kill animals... Owl does not know how to kill and cook megafauna.

She would like breakfast tomorrow.

"What do you envision me helping with?" It's not like she's swimming in marketable skills.

"Oh! Um.. I was thinking you might just do whatever you do best for the tribe.. did... did the goddess give you powers too?"

No.

No she did not.

"Oh! I forgot to write it down. The goddess is called Reshma. The tribe here worships her. Maybe you didn't get any because she thought you'd be useful without them? I think... I think that's the only reason I got mine."

She looks down at the ground

"If you have any questions ask me or Mislav" she gestures to the chief. "For tonight I think that you can stay in a guest wagon and we'll make sure you get some food. Also make sure you get one of the cloaks everyone is wearing if you plan on being outside at all, and a mask. When the dust storms start you'll want one."

Everyone else gets magic powers bestowed on them by a deity, but she's stuck with the lackluster superpowers she got the normal way?

Powers which are third-rate even on Earth in broad daylight, and now she's on a world with a red dwarf for a sun?

Is it because she didn't beg and grovel about the flowers she was summoned on top of? 

This is so unfair.

But at least she gets to explore an alien planet while her body malingers in a hospital bed.

"Well, let's get you some food. Also a weapon. Always a good idea to carry a weapon."

After the soft shy voice of Seren, the chief's voice blares in your ears.

Who just gives away weapons to random children from other worlds??

He seems a trusting soul. 

"Why is it always a good idea to carry a weapon?"

He begins walking toward a different wagon, one with a smoke stack sticking out the top.

"All sorts of creatures roam around. Some are friendly... some are not. Just a way to protect yourself is always a good idea. Also, we are all warriors! Proving yourself in combat will earn you the respect of others!"

"Proving" herself in "combat" against "all sorts of creatures" (what joy) sounds like a great way to die young.

She wishes her pamphlet had had more information on what sorts of creatures composite all sorts of creatures.

"Are pointy pieces of metal the state of the art in weapons tech, these-a-parts?"

"Swords? A sword is a testament of your authority on the battlefield. I'd say my sword is probably one of the best three weapons in the world."

Is it a legendary magic sword passed down from chief to chief since time immemorial, that can cut through stone as if wood?

Probably it is.

(Well, not exactly that, because disjunctive, but something in that general class.)

"What's your sword do?"

He smiles as if he was waiting for this opportunity.

As the sword draws the area around Owl seems to darken. Sparks of blue and purple electricity fly off of the sword as it slides out of the sheath.

Fully drawn the sword is taller than the chief's imposing 6'4" figure. Electricy encompasses the blade in a whirling pattern of purple.

"This legendary blade is passed down from chief to chief. It was a gift to Ignara from Reshma herself."

He reaches out the handle, offering it to Owl

Um.

That looks electrocution-y.

She is going to shuffle away from it with her feet together.

"Thank you for the offer."

"Suit yourself"

He sheaths the weapon. In closer inspection the sheath is much smaller than the sword is, but somehow that doesn't stop it.

Why do these people, who have powers, use literally medieval weapons??

Well.

It's because whoever made this world wanted them to.

If she probes harder, is she going to find that this place has its own internal logic?

Or has no one gone to the effort?

Mislav arrives at the smokestacked wagon and pounds on the door. The door swings open revealing an old looking goblin.

What does the word "goblin" mean to this setting?

Are we talking Griphook or are we talking Gothmog?

"Eh? Who're you?"

The goblin says in a raspy voice while looking at Owl.

Yet another reasonable person who speaks at a reasonable volume without prompting or prodding!

"Jacqueline Somer. I'm new from off-world."

"An offworlder eh? What you want, another staff? I don't got much in the way of small scrawny girls besides a dagger or two."

Do you carry such things as thrusting spears, with which I might hold "all manner of creatures" at bay.

Or lawn darts, she'd take lawn darts.

"Do you carry spears? Or darts?"

"Yeah yeah one second."

He slams the door and you can hear the sound of things being knocked over inside. A few seconds later he opens the door, inspects Owl, and takes a saw to the furnished spear he holds in his hands. He hands it to Owl as well as offers an armband with 8 darts.

Hooray.

................................"All manner of creatures."

At least now she has a pointy stick to carry around.

Congratulations! Owl has acquired: [Spear] and [Dart] x8!

She feels ridiculous. 

She's pretty sure that if something with powers tried to eat her she'd just die.

Maybe the spear is actually a bad idea, because it gives her a false sense of security?

...Well, she doesn't feel very secure, so maybe not.

She always has the option of dropping the spear if it hastens her retreat.

Can Owl give a DC 18 perception check?

Does it help at all if she can hear a pin drop in the next room over?

Or read the text on a tossed coin?

Owl's passive perception of 40 passes the check. She hears a small quadrupedal creature take off in a leap over the wall and turns to catch it soar through the air and land about 15 feet away from her

Owl is actually crouched on top of the smithy-wagon and pointing her new spear at the encroaching alien.

Does anyone else seem alarmed by today's latest quadruped?

"That's a scripe. We get those a lot, they love mushrooms."

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a mushroom which he throws on the ground.

Mmm mushrooms are yummy.

One of "all manner" identified!

They get a lot of "scripes", specifically? With consistent traits?

"Can they reproduce?"

"Far as we can tell. They're cute enough that the adults tolerate them and the kids love them so they come around at night to get food and for the fire."

The scripe having finished its meal begins slinking toward the bonfire. Wait, is that another scripe? It is! There's two! Hold on! there's more! Brief count of 20 scripes are in the camp. Wait, 21. Did that one just walk into the fire?!? It did! Another one walked in!!!

"What powers do scripes have? Do you know where the first one came from?"

Scripes absorb heat for food! They are very heat resistant. They live about 11 years on average. We're not sure, they've been around as long as recorded history.

"And how long is your recorded history?"

"I believe 800 years."

So, on the one hand, that's really short.

And on the other, it's way too long.

"We do know that the first intelligent life existed somewhere around 12 elf generations ago, but wood kineticists are a recent discovery which has allowed us to begin recording our history at scale."

Asking about powers is impolite, but he's the one who brought it up, so.

Etymology suggests that "wood kineticists" move matter rather than produce it.

"Where does the wood come from?"

"Kineticists act as gates to the elemental planes, they move the wood from the elemental plane of wood into this reality."

She knows those words in isolation but not in conjunction.

"Define 'gates' 'elemental' 'planes' and 'reality'?"

"Umm, gates as in a connection between two points? Elemental planes are infinite planes composed of the various most basic elements. Reality as in this plane of existence."

The most basic elements like... wood.

An infinite expanse of... basic... wood.

"What are the other basic elements?"

"Fire, water, earth, air, metal, and wood"

"Our Ebru, you just met him, is actually a metal kineticist."

Owl feels pretty sure that this man is deeply confused about a great many things.

"Are these portals two-way?"

"Well, the kineticists can send material back to the plane but that's the only interaction that can travel back."

"Why do you think that other realities exist?"

And that you're not, you know, just destroying whatever it is you think you're banishing.

And she's not going to argue the terminology, even though she feels like if it can be interacted with it all has to be part of one reality.

"Our goddess Reshma lives within their own plane of existence, out first ancestor saw it and has told stories passed from generation to generation. Also the wood has to come from somewhere."

She'll keep an open mind for if stronger arguments exist.

Where is Owl expected to sleep tonight?

And you mentioned food, does there also exist such a beverage as water?

She will inquire.

"Yes, those wagons over there are the guest wagons. We currently are housing some scouts from various tribes for the night so go ahead and take some of their food tonight. You'll get your own wagon tonight, tomorrow we'll work on getting you a permanent wagon near to the other otherworlder."

The guest wagons have a fire going with some stew cooking, there is a water barrel on the back of one of the wagons.

"Do most people get their own wagon?"

They are not small wagons, and presumably someone put a lot of effort into making... no, that's not the case, they had a "wood kineticist" make it. 

For some reason she keeps expecting them to do things the hard way, when they have powers.

It is so strange that they use swords and spears, and eat wild animals.

"No, only important people to the tribe, also we know that otherworlders might have customs and practices they prefer to do in private."

These people are going to be disappointed when they get to know her.

Nice of them to give her the house to herself. She'll try not to throw any loud parties.

Again, she gets the impression that... no one here is acting quite sane. Is that what culture shock feels like?

"I'll get out of your hair, then."

He nods to you

It's handy that the wagons have doors.

She will close the door to the wagon behind her.

What is the interior like?

A central rectangle surrounded by a bench that goes around the inside of the wagon. Bundles of blankets and spare clothes are placed at varying intervals on the benches. It is dark inside but a lantern hangs above that can be lit by a clever striking mechanism built into the cap.

She'll figure out the lantern later.

She couldn't charge off it yet anyway, unless it's brighter than the fire was out there, and when all else is equal Owl prefers the dark.

She'll lay down on the floor.

What a day.

Well, at least she doesn't have to worry about waking up for school tomorrow.

Unless she does, because she's currently in a hospital.

Well, maybe they'll hold on to her for a few days.

Ever since that truck hit her, it's been one thing after another.

But now she has the space to breathe and orient.

And... it's clear that she's made a pretty poor showing of herself so far.

Hasn't she spent idle hours daydreaming about being portal fantasy'd?

But then it actually happens and, what. She sees someone and follows them around, like she's on a field trip and is waiting for it to be over.

That's... seriously pathetic.

It's probably a good thing that she landed near these people, but it'd have been more interesting if she had to figure out some other way to survive the night.

But now she has some peace and quiet, and it's long past time to orient herself to the situation. 

What's the most urgent thing to think about?

That's a question which answers itself: she needs to come up with all the conceivable things which are important to respond to within five minutes.

The first question on that list is: did she bring some kind of plague that their immune systems aren't prepared for, or vice versa, which is currently multiplying exponentially within their or her cells. 

She's not going to jump up in a panic about that, instead she's going to think of the other things which might be urgent to respond to within five minutes.

There might be someone on the planet with an extrasensory power who became aware of her. 

If everything that she's been told is true, she's not the first otherworlder on this planet. The elf wasn't preemptively captured or murdered - but then again, the elf has powers from the goddess.

Speaking of the goddess. The person that she met in the flowers.

That's a strong contender for the person who created this world, and then, the person who created this world is a strong contender for the person who controls all of the other characters.

Should Owl treat this world as fully what it appears to be? Full of conscious sapients, in orbit around a different star?

Well, it seems overdetermined that she should for at least five minutes.

If the world is real and it all ends in ruin and ash in her mouth, what is the thing she should have done differently right at the start?

She should have avoided getting mind-controlled. How can she tell if she's under mind control?

She could try hitting the chief, though that seems ill-advised. Unless that's the mind control talking? What would yesterday's Owl have said if she told her that she was considering hitting an alien chieftan to check whether she'd been mind-controlled into not hitting him, also he has unknown powers but they work best in melee.

Unless that sword is purely ceremonial... which it could be. He's a really muscly guy, which either means he gets a lot of food and exercise or it means his powers let him cheat.

She's getting side-tracked. What would yesterday's Owl think? Yesterday's Owl would think "that's a really dumb idea." That could be the mind control, what would Owl's mother think. She'd also think it was a dumb idea.

Yeah, she needs a different way to check for mind control. She could spend a lot of time on that and she wants to keep thinking about urgent things, but she'll untie her shoelace so that when she remembers to tie it she'll also remember to check more thoroughly (for example, by checking whether she feels the same way about the people she knows and the stories that she's read and the values that she has as she remembers previously doing).

What else is there that could matter within five minutes.

Time travel. Everyone knows that there's no way to travel further back in time than when you first get access to time travel. She should ask about time travel on this world.

She should go ask the other otherworlder about diseases.

First, though, she'll tie her shoe. And check that she's not mind controlled... well, not in any way perceptible to her.

She'll pay Seren a social call.

"Oh hi, um did you need something?"

"Did you worry about extraplanetary diseases when you first arrived here?"

"I did, but then I realized that if the goddess gave me a new body, then why would she send it with extraplanetary disease?"

Huh.

If she made Owl a whole new body, would it have killed her to make one with a full freaking battery?

Well maybe if the silly mortal had talked to me I might have been more helpful.

WELL MAYBE YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN HER MORE THAN LIKE THREE SECONDS TO DO THAT.

"Thanks. Time travel, how's it work here? Does it work here?"

"Umm.. Time... Travel? I'm not exactly sure? I haven't seen anything that can travel through time. I mean... if they could wouldn't they have already done it?"

What happens when Jacqueline asks Ms. I Am From A More Advanced Planet And Traveled Here So Clearly That Is Possible For People From More Advanced Planets To Do to follow her time travel logic through to its natural conclusion?

"Control over the travel is clearly not possible otherwise this reality would not be what we see."

"You don't think that the "goddess" can control it?"

"When I asked her she said she could control where souls go from her realm, but not from where or when they enter."

"When I asked if I could go back to my home of origin she said I'd already been "used up" there and she was going to send me somewhere else"

"Seems like something you might have thought to put in your notes."

"Oh um, my notes weren't actually meant for other people. They were just stuff I wrote down so I wouldn't forget them. I have a very clear memory of my time in her realm and I didn't think I'd forget it."

They didn't read that way to her.

On a gut level, Owl is more and more certain that this world isn't real.

(Whatever that cashes out as in practice.)

Still.

"Are there any things which you regret not doing within ten minutes of your arrival here?"

"Umm I regret not marking where I first appeared in case it had some useful properties or in case we could predict where other otherworlders would appear."

Oh, that's a good idea. She'll go out there tomorrow and find it.

"Thanks!"

"of course! anything else I can help you with?"

"Give me five minutes to think and I'll tell you."

You'd immediately think that this world is downstream of her own world and its powers, and she's seen no evidence against that.

The questions she most wants answered are - 

Is it all in her mind?

Are the other people real thinking beings?

(Or even one real thinking being?)

Was she teleported to a different part of the universe that's been remodeled by powers from her corner of it?

The people she's met seem... odd. 

Quite odd.

For starters, they speak and write in English.

They're weirdly... compliant. Nothing she does seems to bother them.

They take things in stride. They immediately make asks of her. Owl hasn't played very many video games in her life, but... this feels not entirely unlike the first little bit of Skyrim.

She doesn't think that they evolved. Obviously. And she doesn't think that she's imagining these people, as she wouldn't be able to come up with them.

Someone else created them, and is either directly puppeting them or else made them to think that they had a history...

There are more exotic possibilities - well, an endless number of them, really - they could be people who've been abducted and brainwashed, for instance.

She'll treat the people she meets like real people.

It has been a very long time since Jacqueline Somer surprised herself, or anyone else that knows her.

She responds to all things by taking the path of least resistance.

There's a clear path of least resistance, here. Just button-mash through the dialogue trees and see what whoever created this place wants out of her.

She strongly suspects that the goddess will grease the path for her.

She'd like to get out a little bit ahead of the plot, though, before she decides to play along.

She's not equally happy in all stories, and she'd rather not figure out how it ends after it's too late for her to just wander off into the desert instead.

It seems like the people she landed on expect her to help them with something. 

If she overcomes her flinch-level incredulity, what could she actually help them with?

Her assets:

- 14 years of experience on a different world. But she isn't an engineer or a computer person, she's just a nerd.

- A prickly personality.

- Superpowers.

Nothing that immediately seems useful? Well, the superpowers, maybe...

Superpowers can be broken down into:

- Enhanced speed, reflexes, strength, and durability - but not to any outrageous degree, she's sure. Well, it depends on what powers the people here have, in absolute terms there aren't that many of them... but why would everyone be carrying melee weapons if they didn't have better superstrength than her?

- Enhanced sight, hearing, smell, processing speed.

- Can see through solid objects (drains her battery life).

- Shoot laserbeams from her eyes (takes battery, not useful here unless she finds a reliable way to refuel).

- Increase the effective mass of inanimate objects (takes battery, not so useful here).

And... that's it, really. 

She's not licensed to practice medicine, but maybe she'd be useful as an x-ray machine?

Other people in her family have better versions of the power, but you roll the dice and.

Do they want otherworlders just to increase the number of unique powers they have in their tribe, since the next generation might get better versions of them? Is that why they were excited without knowing if her powers were any good?

Well, if that's the story you can count Owl out.

Returning to a previous thread.

People want her help with something, they have a problem, she should ask the otherworlder what the biggest problem is.

Returning to a previous thread:

She found herself in this world right after being hit by bus, and she's never heard of people being sent to other worlds after they're hit by a bus. Well, unless you count the various afterlives as other worlds.

And wasn't there that one Narnia book where their train crashed?

But anyway it's not a common thing, at all, and the obvious reason that she's here instead of under a bus is that someone used a power on her, and that person did her a favor.

It'd be weird if they trapped her in some kind of hell dimension, so probably they expect that she'll like this world? Or they considered it better than the alternative?

Maybe that's some evidence that the person who made it doesn't have complete control over how it manifests? 

"You said that the goddess said you couldn't return home. Was that caveated with anything, or were you led to believe it applied to all otherworlders?"

"led to believe, the way she explained it made me think it applied to everyone"

Sounds fake, but okay.

"Oh, while you're here do you have a moment to hear me out and possibly help me with something?"

That's the hazard of talking to people, right, is that they can always talk back.

Wiser to shun the entire field of endeavor. 

That "hear me out and possibly help" has one acceptable response, which is of course to say "what do you need help with," which will prompt the request that Seren is waiting to make, which will be delivered such that Owl can't refuse without making it a whole thing.

It's not that Jacqueline would prefer to be ordered around outright, so much as that she'd rather not help anyone with anything ever.

"I'd be happy to help."

"Well... I received a number of abilities from the goddess that, so far, have been consistently replenishing when I take a rest of 8 hours or more. And umm.. I still need to test most of them out; the only one I know the effects of is one that provides healing for a single target, a far target, or in a burst around me. I have a vague sense of what each one does but I believe it would be helpful to have a better understanding of what their specific effects are. Would you mind helping me test some or all of them out?"

No. No, you cannot test your new and unknown powers on her??

That's such an incredibly stupid thing to suggest that Jacqueline thinks that maybe she misunderstood what was said.

But... what else could "I have targeted powers, help me test them" mean.

"What would helping you test your powers entail."

"For the combative powers, I suppose I'd simply activate them one by one and we could observe what they do. O..Oh! I don't mean like targeting you. I would fire them and you would help me determine their results. The other ones I'd just need you to help figure out the extend of their abilities. The first spell I'd like to test is some sort of protective magic but I'm not sure what it does."

Owl can almost hear that one news anchor with the hair and the gratingly wobbly voice going "in other news, five dead on Chartara today, when an extremely late bloomer developed eremetic powers. Her last words before disaster were 'I'm not sure what it does.'"

And then the other news anchor shakes his head gravely and you can tell that what he's thinking is what an idiot.

"Does no one have powers on your home planet."

"No! They do on yours!?!"

"Wait, so you do have powers! Just not from the goddess!!"

"I guess."

No one from elfplanet has powers? That's... peculiar.

"So then maybe you can help me figure mine out!"

Jacqueline Somer has red eyes and gigantic pointy teeth. She really wouldn't have thought she'd have to spell out that she has some kind of power.

On the other hand, she is talking to someone with pointy elf-like ears, so maybe it's on her. 

But people from Chartara have powers, though.

"Do you not trust the Ignarans?"

"It's not that they're not trustworthy. I just feel like they might want me to blast them instead of a rock or something. And then I'd have to be awkward and explain that I don't feel comfortable blasting them with unknown attack magic."

"So ummm.. will you help me? Worst case scenario I can heal you? But I really don't think it will come to that. The goddess gave these to me while knowing that I wouldn't know how to use them. This makes me assume that they are safe to test?"

The worst case scenario is that you need to scrape what's left of Jacqueline Somer off the ground with a spatula. 

No.

No, that's not even the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is that Seren uses her "healing" power on Owl and it replaces her missing organs with parasites that imitate the functions but can hijack her body at Seren's whim - no, too optimistic - automatically hijacks her body when it believes that to be to Seren's advantage, using simplistic heuristics and faulty logic. Or copies over her with an earlier cached version, or slowly turns her into Seren's (healthy!) duplicate, or any of the thousand horrible ways that healing powers will mess a person up.

No, that's not even the worst case scenario, because that's assuming that all Seren's powers do is injure her! When they could do literally anything!

"We don't have the facilities to safely test your powers."

"?"

"Some powers have lethal radii measured in miles. Your powers are probably safe for you to use, but there's never any guarantee for the people around you."

Is it strange that the Ignarans aren't aware and more cautious of this?

Quick estimate, how many people has Owl seen in the camp?

Owl has probably seen about 200 distinct individuals. If all of the carts were full of 10-20 people there would be 1000-2000 people.

She thinks that wildly eremetic powers are supposed to be something like one in a million? Less than that? She doesn't know the exact number, there, but maybe the Ignarans haven't seen how bad things can get?

Not that non-eremetic powers are passively safe...

"How do Ignarans test new powers?"

"So far I don't think anyone purposely tests a power, it just kind of emerges either while fighting monsters or while going about their daily life."

Maybe they should start testing their powers before they need them in life-or-death situations.

And, is she hearing this right? They send people without powers out to fight monsters? She knows that people sometimes went to war much younger in the past, but that was on Earth. If they don't have powers what's the point?

"How often do people without powers fight monsters?"

"Last time I checked about 30 people have powers in the tribe so I think on average every 2 days?"

Huh.

Huh.

That's... really not how she would have expected it to work. 

Things here operate by different rules, and she doesn't know them.

She needs to be enormously more cautious than she would have been on Earth. 

No one on the planet will be able to point her at where she should direct her caution, because they're iron-age and haven't invented government.

If they don't have government, and there's only a few people with powers, and no one knows how dangerous they can get...

"Is it bad manners to ask about people's powers?"

"Um.. Not particularly? Many people boast about them openly and the others probably wouldn't mind sharing. Especially if you can help them with new ideas using their powers."

That's familiar.

They act like little children.

"Could you describe the thirty powers in the tribe?"

If there's only thirty, she should know them all.

"Um.. I haven't been here long and I only heard most of them in passing. Off the top of my head you have: the wood kinetisits, that's 2, the Ebru metal kineticist for 3, the chief has, super strength durability and gets really angry which let's him ignore pain. We're at 4. I'm not sure on my powers but I make 5. 5 more recieve blessings from Reshma, kind of like me but their's change day to day. For 11 we have the titan who is uncannily good with a sword, super fast, and super durable. The aegis is ridiculously hard to hurt, I haven't seen him take so much as a scratch. That makes 12. The remaining 13 members of the apex are all various forms of strength, durability, technique, and minor stuff like lighting their blades on fire. So for 28 we have 3 people who can like... talk to flora. I came to the understanding that they just project whatever their real powers are onto the plants. At 30 we have a set of twins who are inhumanly good at singing and dancing. Let's see.. I remember various other minor spell casters but I don't recall how many exactly and last but not least we have somebody who has the ability to craft explosives out of nothing."

She doesn't have anything to write that down on, and it was kind of light on the details (sing and dance? talk to plants? receive blessings from Reshma? (...she hasn't seen any plants so far, but good news if this planet has them. Well, that was possibly inferable from the O2 she's breathing?)), so she doesn't think they'll stick in her mind very well.

And none of those powers had numbers attached to them, though she can perhaps infer from "The Aegis" never being scratched that the others have been? Which would be useful if she knew what they'd fought.

Tomorrow she's going to talk to everyone who wants to talk about their powers. There are few enough of them that she can get details, and it'd be dumb not to know all the details she can about the people with powers.

"Thanks for answering."

"Of course. I might be able to provide a write-up in more detail tomorrow. For tonight would you mind helping me test the limit of 2-3 of my weaker protective powers? Weaker as in about the same level as lighting your sword on fire. At that level we shouldn't need safety facilities to test the powers."

What's the polite way of saying "I'd sooner chew glass."

Seren is so far removed from having remotely the right mindset to approach this type of thing that Owl sees no easy way to correct her.

Owl could say "I don't know what you mean by 'about the same level as lighting your sword on fire' because a) that is ridiculously underspecified (are you burning the sword? or are you creating fire in its vicinity? if the latter, how hot is the fire in its vicinity?) and b) I'm guessing that your other powers which are 'on that level' aren't eg outputting the same number of watts." 

She could ask Seren to precisely detail the two or three weaker powers that she wants to test, in as much detail as Seren knows, and then decide whether Owl knows enough to safely help test them.

But... if Seren is the type of person who would would propose this in the first place, and not immediately see what she's doing wrong, she's going to do something stupid at some point, in some way that Owl hasn't anticipated, and Owl very much does not want to be caught in the blast radius.

"Can you describe the powers you're testing in more detail?"

"Umm, no. When I feel for my powers I just get a vague sense of each one. I can tell them apart from each other as well their general power level. I can tell whether the spell is protective, offensive, or neither. The heal spell I have registers as protective. Out of the one's I'd like to test we have two protective powers that are 1 "stage" below the healing magic. And the last is a protective power that is on the same level of the healing magic. The healing magic is capable of healing an otherwise life threatening injury via touch, when channeled for an additonal 2 seconds it becomes ranged up to 30 feet and the healing so far has restored every injury the person had, and the 6 second channel will do it in a burst around me that will heal each person a random amount somewhere between minor stab and tooth through the carotid artery."

It's like Seren's deliberately trying to give Owl nothing useful.

It takes a moment of thought to find a question that might possibly allow her to extract some bare glimmer of relevant information.

"Tell me about the first time you used your healing power, leaving nothing out."

"Oh ok... so, I was here in my wagon when I heard a commotion outside. I opened my door to see what the commotion was and saw a group of some 18 people standing in a circle. I asked what was going on and they opened the circle a little to let me see what was going on. On the ground lay a child who had fallen while playing on the top of a different wagon. Before you ask children are in fact discouraged from doing this but many do it anyway. The child's leg had a massive gash and they were bleeding very badly. Someone was pressing a cloth against his leg and someone else was having him drink water. I just remember thinking that I wish I could help and when I did I felt access to a specific one of the spells that I can now sense. Instinctually I placed my hand onto his shoulder and it began to glow a soft white light. His body knit itself back together and besides the blood there was no evidence that the wound existed. After that I began to sense the rest of my spells, almost like I got another sense in my body. I could recognize the heal spell as the one I used and used it several more times experimenting around with it and found it could do the things that I've told you."

Alright, that's useful. 

Owl doesn't know how the healing power works, but at least now she knows as much as Seren knows. If she were Seren she'd be trying to find a test subject (cached answer, if they can't make a brainless human, is "animal test subject," but... seems cruel) that's fine with having it used on them a lot (someone with their own healing?) so she could further narrow down what it does. 

She's not Seren, though, and is rapidly running out of patience for the interaction even without trying to make suggestions and defend them.

"Thanks. Now, could you tell me exactly how testing your powers will play out, as you imagine it?"

"Um, I will reach out and tug on one of the spells to activate it and you will help to make observations as to what happens. It's hard to say when I don't know what the spell will do but if it does something like make my skin stronger you could help me test how much stronger?"

"...Have you tested your healing power on broken bones? Delicate organs?"

"Well, I'm not sure what the difference would be. If it's capable of understanding the complex workings of human skin and muscle tissue enough to leave them as perfectly as they were then it shouldn't have trouble with bones or organs, but no I haven't tested."

Maybe you should test that instead of assuming.

Wait.

Oh no.

"Have you ever tested your healing power on yourself."

"I did use it to fix a papercut I got earlier."

Jacqueline hasn't cut herself on paper since well before she got her powers and attendant durability.

Convenient that Seren has, though...

...For some reason that feels like a lie to her. It'd be a stupid thing to lie about, but people sometimes tell stupid lies...

...Owl's worried that she came across too strong, too dismissive, and now Seren is saying whatever came to mind to push against that.

And if Owl calls her on it, what. Well, she's not even sure that Seren's lying, and if she isn't - ugh.

And if Seren is, then she has to double down because people always double down when they're called on their lies.

Does the "goddess" take requests?

Next time she's hit by a bus and wakes up on an alien world, she'd like one with less talking-to-people, please.

"Could we test your healing power before we might need to rely on it? Sometimes these things are finicky, it could have worked earlier and not work for us now."

"Umm..Alright."

Seren takes the dagger of her belt and hesitates for a second before sliding it across her hand. She holds up the hand showing the dripping blood and after a moments concentration her hand begins to glow a soft white and the wound knits itself closed.

Hands are pretty useful. 

Next time, maybe the back of your arm would work better?

At least nothing went wrong.

"Thanks for humoring me."

"If you use your self-targeted durability powers inside your wagon, I'll wait outside at a safe distance, and you can call for me - I'll hear it."

"Uhh.. Alright thanks! Call out when you're a safe distance away."

Ugh.

Alright, she'll make some distance (and take some cover), stick her fingers in her ears, and shout:

"READY!"

But a moment later

"OK, You're Good!"

She wishes she could conduct all of her conversations with her fingers in her ears and through a closed door.

She'll walk to the cart and let herself inside.

What does she see?

Hovering next to Seren is a disk of light. roughly one foot in radius. She seems to be moving it around.

"So, I think it's some sort of barrier?"

It looks so cool.

"If you take it outside I can throw rocks at it."

"Alright then."

She will walk out the door.

So, she's going to be sensible about this.

First, she's going to toss a stone gently at the center of the disk of light, while standing off to the side.

What happens?

The stone lightly bounces off the center of the shield and it flickers out of existence.

Well, that was disappointing. 

"O..Oh... I can still feel it there, but as if it's further away? 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10."

She counts approximately in line with a second.

"So, by... 10 minutes about? I'll be able to reach it again."

She was so ready to whale on the weird glowing disk of light.

You can't dangle that in front of her and snatch it away, that's just cruel.

It would be satisfying, after the power has had its ten minutes to cool down, to hit it as hard as she could.

It would not be prudent.

But if she scales up the force applied gradually, with a ten minute wait each time, this could take a while.

"Let's test the second one. I'll wait outside."

She'll walk back into her wagon. After a second she'll walk out.

"So, um, I couldn't cast it. When I tried I got the sense that nothing was... dying near me. So it targets someone who is actively dying? I'm not sure what qualifies as "dying" versus very injured?"

Jacqueline doesn't know either.

"Alright, lets do the last one then?"

Seren turns around and re-enters the wagon.

Owl takes cover, shouts when she's ready.

After a moment she exits again.

"So, I'm not sure exactly what it did... I want to say I feel more... protected but that could also just be me expecting some weird feeling. I know that it targeted myself."

"Try hitting your arm with a rock."

"Alright."

She'll grab a rock of the ground and swing it at her arm.

"Huh."

She'd meant "softly at first, and then harder," but all's well that ends well.

"What happened?"

"I uh, hit as hard as I'd expect it to take to actually hurt myself. I felt the pressure of the swing but it's as if there was some... interference? It didn't hit as hard as I'd expect it to. Like the speed of the swing and the mass of the rock didn't change... but the actual energy did?"

A) why would you immediately escalate to actually hurting yourself, and b) does Seren have a passive durability power?

"Are you harder to hurt with rocks than most people?"

"Yes"

Good to know.

"Do you know how that works?"

" "
" ... "
"No."

"If I threw a rock at you, what's the first place that would go differently than I'd naively expect."

"Without my spell active? At the moment of contact it just... wouldn't do as much damage as it should. When I want to I can... make that not happen... but I'm not sure how?"

She'd like some kind of quantification or qualification or something, but whatever, it's not really her business anyway.

"Was there anything else you wanted help with?"

"So, I'm not sure how much force exactly the spell prevents, whether it's a percentage or a value. Would you like to take a couple swings and give your best guess?"

Percentage or a... oh! Like, whether the defense scales with the force of the impact? 

That's not something that her mind would have jumped to, but sure, she can test for it.

What happens if Seren is poked lightly with the butt of Owl's spear?

Your spear seems to lose energy for a brief moment as it taps their flesh. The effect leaves when you are moving it away. The speed of the spear doesn't change, neither does the spear change weight to any discernable degree, but it doesn't press into their skin as you'd expect it to.

Fascinating.

"Seren, are you good to be hit harder?"

"Go ahead, just don't do anything that would kill me."

What would kill you is what we're trying to figure out.

"Could you stick out one arm?"

Seren will do so, opting for left over right.

She'll hit the arm with the stick.

What happens when Seren is hit somewhat harder than a light poke?

Owl feels the same force disappearing. The actual jab makes Seren wince the way a person hit by a slightly less powerful jab would.

She'll hit something like twice as hard this time.

The same amount of force is lost and Seren's arm gets shoved backward.

She grunts.

"It doesn't seem like it scales with how hard you're hit."

Which means there isn't any point in continuing until someone gets injured.

"Ok well, thank you! Have a good night. I'll try out the light disk more tomorrow."

She will enter her wagon.

Jacqueline Somer will likewise return to hers.

Through the night Owl will hear something moving around outside the wagons. Something, wrong. Owl is not sure what, it's as if something is stepping, and slithering, and brushing the ground all together in a terrible cacophony of sound. Whatever is out there, Owl is sure it is not supposed to exist.

In the morning Owl becomes aware of Chartara's 6 hour day/night cycles.

Unless there is someone physically dragging her out of this bed

(or taking her blankets, or pouring water on her, or threatening to throw away her books, or any of the myriad other things annoyed adults will do to people they rule over)

she's just going to sleep in, thanks.

Owl drifts back to sleep until awoken by the sound of someone hooking up caravle to her wagon.

Someone else knocks on Owl's door.

Owl can, when she so chooses, see through walls.

Who's knocking?

A tall elven male. He has a sword at his hip and a buckler on his back.

After waiting about thirty seconds he knocks a second time.

She's going to continue lying here, because she hasn't gotten enough sleep to think strategically.

And he's going to continue knocking, ensuring that she won't get any more sleep.

She doesn't know how to break out of this hold.

He knocks for a third time, waits about thirty seconds, and turns and walks away. He glances around as if looking for someone. He spots the person he's looking for and holds a muted conversation. 

Owl rolls a perception check

Owl succeeds the perception check

The elven man asks to see if Owl has left their wagon left. He is informed Owl hasn't. "Must be a deep sleeper." He responds. "Eh. they'll probably wake up when their wagon starts moving." He moves to perform other duties.

Owl notices that all around people are packing things into wagons. The chief's wagon begins to move, pulled by a team of Caravale. The next wagon is hooked up to another team and begins to move as well.

She is not accustomed to adults letting her sleep in!

She'll lie here until her wagon begins moving, and then she'll get out of bed and see what they expect from her.

After about 12 minutes a person comes around and hooks Owl's wagon to some Caravale. They begin dragging the wagon. Nobody seems to expect anything of Owl for the moment.

What a fantastic start to her day.

She's going to sit on top of her wagon and admire the alien vistas. 

Owl opens the door and climbs up on top of the wagon. She feels what little energy she can gain from this star seeping into her. Looking left, is that rock? and right? More rock! and straight ahead a caravan heading toward... rock!!! and behind a caravan leaving more rock!

She likes rocks, or at least alien rocks! 

What's the rock-to-dust ratio? Do outcroppings look more eroded on one side than the other to her untrained eyes? Do the rocks look igneous to her untrained eyes?

And just how little energy constitutes "what little energy", here?

What's the light level?

Imagine standing on a dirt field with a truck doing donuts around you. About that dusty. Everyone else is wearing their masks, or at least everyone outside of their wagons. Outcroppings are about equally eroded. Rocks are very sedimentary, Owl can see the layers on the sides of the elevated rocks she passes. They sky is about as well illuminated as an indoor classroom without windows lit by slightly burnt plasma rods.

Owl wants her narrator to clarify something. 

Human eyes judge brightness on a logarithmic scale. The difference between an indoors classroom without windows, and standing outside in direct sunlight, might not intuitively seem like a huge deal. In both cases there's enough light to see and read by.

Owl does not play Pathfinder Second Edition, but in that game both an indoors classroom and an outdoors field would be "Bright Light."

But "indoors without windows" and "out of doors at all" is actually, for purposes which do not judge brightness on a logarithmic scale, a pretty huge difference! 

A factor of one-hundred difference, or even a factor of one-thousand. 

So Owl would like clarification on whether the narrator literally means "the sky is about as well illuminated as an indoors classroom without windows lit by slightly burnt plasma rods," and not something gentler like "as well illuminated as the sky at sunset, or on an overcast day."

It's actually slightly dimmer than the classroom, as if one of the flickering plasma rods just burnt out entirely.

Does it look like it's going to get brighter as the day wears on?

Slowly and not by much. From what Owl now knows of the 6 hour day night cycle, it will probably cap not even twice as bright as it is now.

In these conditions her battery won't charge past - maybe ten or twenty percent of a full charge?

Well, she hopes they weren't counting on her laser vision for anything.

She's going to find the person who was knocking on her door earlier.

Owl notices about 4 tall elven males wearing bucklers on their backs with swords on their hips. Telling them apart is difficult for someone who hasn't lived on a planet with elves before.

Two are jogging from wagon to wagon, hopping up onto the stairs and knocking on doors, seemingly passing messages. The other two are riding Caravale next to the caravan.

Well, if they're passing messages, it might not matter if she gets her original elf? 

She's going to jump she's going to climb down from her wagon like a geriatric old woman, because she doesn't want to waste charge flippantly when it's charging this slow, and stand awkwardly in his vicinity realizing hoping that he notices her and takes over both halves of the social interaction. 

One of them jogs over and steps onto your wagon. "We are arriving at the north ravine of plateau 13 in about two hours. The chief wanted me to ask if you'd be willing to join the scouting party to find a good place to set up camp in the tunnels?"

Did she mention her heightened senses to the chief? She doesn't think so, but it seems reasonably likely that word has gotten around?

She does want to earn her keep, but is worried about which "all sorts of creatures" she'll find in "the tunnels".

"What would that entail?"

"Oh, just heading into the tunnels with a group and finding a reasonable place to set up our tents. Making sure we have access to water and whatnot. Your group would have yourself, two members of the Apex and Seren."

The Apex being the group of warriors with powers that Seren mentioned.

"When people in scouting parties die, what tends to be what killed them?"

"We haven't had anyone in a scouting party die in at least a couple years. Sometimes they get some scrapes but generally those gets healed by one of our priestesses."