There is a moment of disorientation, then he lands, hard, on paved stone. 

This doesn't look like the inside of a snake. It looks more like an old, ruined city. The stonework is crumbling and covered in vines, plants grow through the cracks between the paving, and the only signs of people are a pile of crumbling bones to his left, and a more complete skeleton leaning against the wall to his right. It's still holding a sword, although its clothes seem to have rotted away.

Okay, first of all: ow. Second: what kind of shitty discount magic powers are so bloody difficult to use? Third: he should maybe get up. He does that, looking cautiously at the variously shaped remains of things.

He feels - something. A hint of something, buzzing about in the crumbling bones, draped over and sewn through the skeleton. The fuck..?

The sun is either rising or setting; if he waits a minute or two it will become obvious that it is setting.

Darkness begins to fall over the city, which Vinas might notice is completely unfamiliar, even down to the architectural style. He won't have too much time to appreciate the stonework, though, with the growing night hiding the finer details.

As the remains of the walls shield the skeleton from the setting sun, it begins to stir. At first, it is no more than could be attributed to the effects of the wind, or of some small animal. Before long, however, the skeleton is turning its head towards Vinas, and beginning to creakily rise to its feet. 

He stares suspiciously at the skeleton, eyes flicking to the crumbling bones and then back to the skeleton. There's - something going on there, and he doesn't know what, but it makes him nervous. He takes stock of his surroundings cautiously, giving the skeleton a wide berth. There is freaky magic going on there, and he wants nothing to do with it.

It's not that surprising when it turns out to move.

"The dead should not be walking around!" protests Vinas, more indignant than scared. "Stop that! That is - is - it's disrespectful, the dead should stay dead!"

The skeleton doesn't respond, at least not out loud. It doesn't seem to have any vocal cords, but its lack of other muscles doesn't seem to prevent it from moving as though they are still present. 

It finishes standing up, and turns towards Vinas, still moving slower and more stiffly than a living human but picking up speed as the sky darkens. Raising its sword, it begins to advance. 

Someone looking closely might be able to see a faint green spark floating in the darkness of each empty eye socket. They burn with a light which seems strangely cold. 

He's looking closely. He notices the faint green spark. Faint green spark. Well. Taking in that, and the way he can sense the skeleton and the weird magic buzzing in the bones that are not currently walking around, he probably gave himself freaky death powers. Damn it, color green, he trusted you. Why have you betrayed him. He knew he should have gone with the color that went with his eyes.

"I don't suppose you're getting up to creepily offer eternal servitude in undeath to me. Because my answer is no, good night, go back to sleep. Or death. Whichever."

Because he doesn't think he's that lucky, he draws his sword. Damn it.

How astute of him. 

With the sun sinking ever lower on the horizon, and the moon beginning to rise on the other side of the sky, the skeleton charges. It's not especially smart, but it does know how to use a sword, and it's aiming to kill.

Yeah, that was predictable. While he wouldn't say he's a proper swordsman, he has ever used a sword in his life, and is good enough with it to know how to make a fighting retreat. That is, how to run away while not getting stabbed. He does that.

Okay. So he probably has some freaky death powers. Maybe he can use his freaky death powers to get himself out of this mess. There's a lot going on with that skeleton, maybe he can just make it stop. He attempts to tug at one of the string-like things holding the skeleton together. With magic. After a few fumbles, he feels a rush of chilly energy, tugging at the skeleton from his mind -

"Go back to sleep," he hisses, and something in his palm flares green and rushes towards the skeleton.

The green sparks flicker, once, and go out. The skeleton crumples to the ground, in a manner reminiscent of a puppet whose strings have been cut. 

Its sword winds up a foot or two away, hitting the stone with a resounding clang. 

"... Good skeleton."

He sheathes his sword, then rubs his face. Okay. Freaky death powers. Sure.

Right, well. He's somewhere he doesn't recognize. He should figure out what his surroundings are like, see if there's a place to hole up in for the night.

There are houses! Some of them are even free of skeletons! 

He seems to have landed in what used to be a residential district, although pretty much everything organic has been lost to time, which makes it a little difficult to tell. Fortunately, the night is fairly warm, so he won't freeze to death for want of blankets or a door to close against the night air. 

Here's a house with steps leading up to the door. The interior seems to be completely undisturbed, unlike many of its neighbours. 

Well, this house can officially be his base of operations, then. Until he finds something better. Though he checks to make sure it's free of skeletons. It's free of skeletons, right?

Not even a single bone. Maybe skeletons can't climb stairs? 

It doesn't look like any wild animals have been in here either, although the passage of time has done enough on its own, reducing practically all of the furniture to dust. A thick layer of it covers the floor in every room. 

Ick. Well, if he decides to sleep here, he'll have to take a little while to try and clear it of dust. As it is, he's going to have a look around. Since he can use his green powers to take out the skeletons that might want to bother him.

Are there any more nearby?

Actually, they seem to be starting to congregate in this general area.

If he heads outside, any skeletons in sight will start shambling towards him. Just one or two at a time to begin with, but gradually increasing in number. Some of them are armed with swords, but most are wielding more improvised weapons, including bones. One seems to have detached its own left arm to use as a weapon. 

How charming. He is charmed.

Well. One by one, he can make them go right back to being dead. Good night, skeletons.

This works fine for the first few. It continues working for the first ten, fifteen, twenty. 

They keep coming, shambling forward over the remains of their vanguard. Bones clack against each other in a constant rattle. 

Okay, now he's starting to feel like he's magically running on empty. It's harder to reach for the magic. Or harder to fuel it. He can feel it replenishing, but it's not as fast as he's using it.

He considers, then turns and briskly walks into the house with the stairs. Are skeletons beaten by the almighty power of stairs?

It appears they are. The ones at the front keep walking forward, tripping over the bottom step, and getting up to try again. 

Skeletons continue to congregate at the base of the steps, until there are easily twenty mindlessly shoving at each other to get closer, or walking into each other's backs over and over. 

That's kind of darkly hilarious.

Well, he'll just sit up here and return them to rest, at a leisurely pace he can actually maintain. Good night, skeletons.

More keep arriving, but the rate begins to slow down after a few hours.

By this stage, there's a pile of bones at the bottom of the stairs, which makes for treacherous footing but also means skeletons occasionally make it onto the first step by walking over the heap. 

Oh no, a single step, whatever will he do. Oh wait, there are other stairs after the first stair. So he's completely safe. What a surprise. He has long since lost all sense of fear of these things. They are too stupid to be afraid of. He feels like he's some kind of skeletal pest control.

After the first hour, he starts experimenting, more from boredom than anything else. He can cut the 'strings' holding them together just fine, but can he do other things with them...?

Another two hours of idle magical flailing, and the faint green sparks in one of the skeletons' eyes flares much brighter. The skeleton turns to stab its fellows.

"Uh," says Vinas, alarmed. "Nnnno, nope, nope." The skeleton summarily falls apart. "Sorry. I'm new to this."

This appears to bother the remaining skeletons no more than his earlier efforts, although a couple of the closer ones tilt their heads as if listening to his words. 

It doesn't look like they're going to stop showing up any time soon, although the rate seems to have stabilised. 

"... Wait. Hold on. Can you understand me?"

He stops putting the skeletons back to sleep. He's going to feel really bad if these are people. People that are really bad at cause and effect. And also stairs.

The closest one nods jerkily, then trips over the stairs again. 

"Oh. Uh. Okay. Then why are you trying to kill me?"

That seems to be too complicated a question for whatever rudimentary intelligence animates the skeletons.

They stare blankly for a moment, then resume their mindless assault on the unfortunate steps. 

Sigh.

"Do you have a person in charge of you?"

There is a brief pause.

Then, in eerie unison, all the skeletons in earshot shake their heads. 

That is so very creepy.

"Do you want to keep existing in your current forms?"

Heads tilt. 

Some of the skeletons nod, fortunately not in unison again. Others just stand there looking vaguely confused. 

Vinas rubs his face. He's already feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. Great.

"Okay. Do you want to kill all living things?"

More scattered nods. 

The skeletons at the front of the small crowd are still attempting to climb the stairs towards him. A couple of them, probably accidentally, manage to boost a third half-way up the steps, where it promptly loses its footing and clatters back down. 

"Wonderful. Did your former master tell you to kill all living things?"

This is still kind of darkly hilarious. He still doesn't feel even a little bit threatened.

That one seems to confuse them a little, but one by one they shake their heads. 

New skeletons have pretty much stopped showing up by this point. There are around thirty standing around listening to Vinas; the ones too far away to hear him start drifting away. 

"Did you ever have a person in charge of you?"

Most of them shake their heads in sync. 

Simultaneously, two of them nod. They look mostly the same as their fellows, but, interestingly, both have actual weapons. One holds a sword, and the other has a single-bladed axe. 

That's interesting.

"Do any of you remember anything about your lives before you became all skeletal?"

Creepy synchronized headshakes, still with a slight delay for them to process his question. 

So they're new creatures inhabiting dead people, running around and ineptly trying to kill everyone. Really stupid creatures.

Okay. Let's see if they are smart enough to answer this question.

"Do you want to kill things more than you want to keep existing?"

Most of them stop moving for a few seconds, as all the rudimentary brainpower they can muster is directed towards attempting to comprehend what Vinas is asking. 

They all seem to give up after a moment or two, and resume their pathetic assault. 

What was the thing he said earlier? Oh, yes. Sigh.

"Do you want to have a new master?"

This gets universal blank staring, insofar as it's possible for something to stare without any eyes or eyelids.  

The exceptions are the two who used to have a master. They both shake their heads. 

Right. Okay. Good, so he can dodge having a gaggle of very stupid skeletons trailing after him.

Except what does he do with them?

"Do you guys want anything besides killing people?"

They all unanimously shake their heads, almost as soon as he finishes speaking. 

One skeleton, coming round the side to see if the stairs are more climbable from that angle, trips and falls so it's lying across the bottom few steps. It flails slightly, seeming unsure how to get itself back up. 

He looks at the hapless skeleton. Yeah, he's pretty secure in the knowledge that these things are not smart enough to matter very much, morally speaking. And they could actually hurt someone that didn't have stairs available to thwart them.

"All right then. I'm just going to go back to ending you. If that's all right with all of you."

Well, they're not raising any objections, at least.

If he stays up long enough to see it, any that are left will start dispersing a few hours before dawn. 

He doesn't. He kills skeletons for another couple of hours, then carefully makes his way to the (somewhat rickety) second floor of the house to sleep. Two sets of stairs. The ultimate line of defense.

By the time he wakes up, there's sunlight coming in through the remains of the roof and all the skeletons are gone.

There's still a massive pile of bones at the bottom of the steps, though. 

It would probably be disrespectful to the dead if he just casually nudged all of them aside. Except he doesn't really have a better way to handle them, does he? And he'd like to have this place free of bones in case he stays here tonight. Respect to the dead is not as important as the safety of the living.

... He carefully nudges them away from the steps with his foot, making sure not to step on any of them. They go in a tidy pile well away from the steps. It's the best he can do for right now.

Right, well. He should probably find water and food, in that order. He has a water flask on him, but that won't last him very long. The skeletons didn't seem to like daylight, he should be fine. Probably.

There indeed do not seem to be any skeletons wandering around the streets this morning! 

Wandering around at random will bring him to a street fountain after not too long; there's one on every major intersection. This one has mostly dried up, but there's still a small trickle of water. 

Oh, good. That might work. The water doesn't smell weird or taste strange if he tests it?

The water smells like water, which is to say it doesn't. Its taste is within tolerances for regional differences in water taste, although it's not one that's familiar.

It seems to be reasonably fresh and clean. There are plants growing all over the fountain, including below the water line, but the water itself is clear. 

He should probably be more worried about those voices in the distance. 

Oh! Voices! People! He's tentatively excited about actual non-skeletal people.

Can he identify which direction the voices are coming from? Can he go in the direction the voices are coming from?

Yes and yes. The voices seem to be coming from the same general direction as the house he stayed in last night. 

As he gets closer, he can hear that they seem to be arguing about something - the word "bones" is mentioned several times. 

He really hopes he didn't commit some kind of sacrilege or something in killing the skeletons. He's pretty sure he didn't, but. Well. He's a little nervous anyway.

He goes to the voices.

"It was over several hours," echoes a woman's voice, more than a little testy.

"Maybe he's a wizard?" wonders another voice, this one male.

"I am not sure that even a master wizard could take out this many undead with no damage to their surroundings," says a third.

"A cleric could take out a few, but even if they spent the whole night at it, I doubt most of them could manage something of this scale either." 

Vinas can see them now, a group of seven standing around the heap of bones. Most of them are looking down at the pile, but a couple are keeping watch. 

"Perhaps we should just ask him," sighs the woman. She points.

"Uh," says Vinas. "... Hi?"

The shortest member of the group - one of the ones on lookout duty, although ey happened to be looking the other way - lets out an absolutely foul curse in what, if Vinas is paying attention, he will notice is a different language to the one the others were just speaking. He can still understand it, though. 

Ey whips round to stand between Vinas and the others, drawing a sword that looks almost as tall as ey is. 

"Greetings, stranger," calls one of the others. 

He steps forward, placing one hand on the hilt of his sword and thrusting out his chest. 

"I would have your name," he continues, projecting his voice out to cover the distance with the ease of long practice, "and know your business in this godsforsaken place." 

He sounds more like an actor in a play than a real person, with the way he's placing over-dramatic emphasis on each sentence. 

"Vinas Siethan, and, uh. Would you believe me if I said I was really lost?"

 "No," says the woman, flatly.

"... Well, fair enough, but can you at least not wave swords at me while I try to explain myself?"

"No-one's waving anything, but surely you can understand the need for caution in a place like this." 

He takes another step forward.

"I am Donato Ruiz, minstrel and historian," he introduces himself, with an elaborate bow.

"These are my travelling companions. You sound as though you have an interesting tale to tell, Vinas Siethan." 

"And since when," mutters a young man in gleaming full plate, "were we your 'travelling companions'?"

His face is a study in refined disgust. 

"Are we not all each other's travelling companions?" wonders a man with pointed ears and a wide smile.

... Vinas looks a little uncomfortable. And confused. Which is accurate, he feels a little uncomfortable and confused. There's something weird about the words they're saying, but he's having trouble placing it.

"It's mostly a whole bunch of mysteries, but that probably adds up to interesting if you squint at it hard enough. Where are we?"

The man in blue robes starts to answer, but Donato cuts him off. 

"You stand, sir, in the ancient city of Kadar, once capital of an empire that covered the known world." He flings his arms out to the sides.

"For a thousand years, it has been gone beyond the reach and knowledge of men - and now it returns..."

His voice drops to a whisper. "But returns changed." 

Vinas raises his eyebrows slightly. Can someone else maybe try talking? No? He's stuck with the overly-dramatic person.

"... Cool," he says. "Next question. Why are the dead walking about."

The blue-robed man steps forward, holding up a hand as Donato looks about to speak again.

"I am Elouan d'Aramitz," he introduces himself. 

"I cannot be sure, but my current theory is that large amounts of free-floating necromantic energy have gathered here over the centuries, causing the dead to spontaneously animate. We have been here several days without finding any sign of deliberate necromancy, although admittedly we have not yet explored the inner districts or the lower city." 

He has never heard the word 'necromancy' before. It's completely foreign, except - he knows what it means anyway. What. As Elouan d'Aramitz explains, Vinas's expression grows more and more grave. Hold on. What. Is the color green doing some kind of sneaky translation? It seems like the color green is doing some kind of sneaky translation, and it doesn't hold up to squinting. Or maybe teal's responsible, he doesn't know. Either way, he's hearing words in his native language, except when he listens in the right sort of way, he - doesn't. In short: aaa.

"..... Okay," he agrees after a longer pause, with a mechanical nod and the expression of a man who just swallowed a lemon. "I would like to change my assertion that I'm 'really lost' to 'really, really lost.' And maybe also sit down. And throw up. Not sure yet, we'll see."

Elouan frowns, discarding the question he was about to ask regarding the piles of bones.

"What can we do to help?" he asks instead, motioning for Darya to put eir sword away. Stepping closer, he holds an arm out ready to catch Vinas if he falls over.

Vinas doesn't look in danger of falling over! He locates something sturdy and sits in a fashion that could more accurately be described as 'crumpling.'

"Just, uh, give me a minute." He rubs his face.

  "... So, probably a liability?" wonders the woman quietly, in Araith. She's eyeing Vinas like he's something she might scrape off her boot.

  "I wouldn't go that far," replies the man with extremely pointed ears, in the same tongue.

Vinas briefly glances up, but offers no comment. If he's not mistaken, that was another language. And - yep, he understood it just fine. Aaaaa.

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Elouan contributes. All three of them have different accents, and Elouan's reveals, to someone paying attention, that Araith is not his first language. 

"He's clearly had some kind of shock, possibly been the victim of a magical accident," he continues, taking a step back and crouching down to look Vinas in the eye. "And I'd give good odds he's responsible for that pile of bones - you call that a liability?"

  "I do if he can't keep his head in a crisis," says the woman. "Strange abilities or no, if he panics, he's a liability."

"Yeah, uh, my strange abilities go a bit further than the pile of bones. It's been that kind of week," says Vinas, deciding that he'd rather not sit on his magical polyglot powers and quietly listen.

  Donato chuckles. 

The dwarf scowls. "Does everyone here but me speak treehugger," ey growls in Common. 

Ey puts away eir sword, though. 

"I actually only speak one language, and it's not any of these. I think I've got a weird translation. Thing. Going on."

Elouan mutters "Detect Magic" under his breath in yet another language, while touching a fingertip to his closed eyelid.

He looks at Vinas, squints for a moment, and shakes his head. "Well, you're definitely a magic-user of some kind, but that's about all I can make out. That isn't any type of magic I recognise."  

Standing, he turns to squint at the pile of bones instead. "I can confirm," he says with a smile, "that these remains will not be rising again tomorrow night. Something severed the connection between the physical objects and the animating force." 

"Oh. Uh. ... Good? They seemed like a real nuisance?"

"You c'n say that again," the dwarf says, tipping eir hand to point a thumb at the ground. 

  There are nods from the others.

"Your work, then?"

"Yeah. They, um. Had something binding them together? And then I severed that. With my inexplicable magic powers. That I got, uh. Yesterday."

That earns a snort of laughter. "Nice." 

Ey walks up to where Vinas is sitting, and holds out a hand.

"I am Darya Rozaliyev Goldcrest. Call me Darya." Ey shoots a glare at Donato. "Everyone else does." 

... Vinas doesn't know what to do with the hand. After a brief confused pause, he also holds out his hand, but with a clear lack of understanding of what purpose this is for. He'll go with it, sure. Cultural differences.

"Pleasure to meet you. Is, um, it rude to just call you Darya, or...?"

There ensues a brief handshake, barely more than a clasp-and-release. Darya's hands are rough and calloused. 

"It is...something for friends. Rude without permission - but I just gave it." 

Ey nods, as if that settles everything, and turns to watch their surroundings again. 

"Oh. Well, thank you."

  One of the members of the group, a man who's been utterly silent, gives Darya an apologetic look.

"Welcome to the team," Elouan says, a little wry.

"You know, I think that's the fastest I've seen em take to someone. Even I didn't manage to get on first-name terms for a day or so. Was it the pickpockets, or the sea-serpent, Darya?" 

"Neither," ey snorts.

"It was the cardinal." The two of them share a quick smile at the memory.

"So, Vinas," Elouan continues, turning back to him.

"You say you acquired your magic yesterday? And you are already powerful enough to take on a small horde of skeletons."

He sounds impressed.

Vinas blinks at the pronoun, but honestly it makes sense for another species to have different things there. Huh. Neat.

"The stairs did most of the work," demurs Vinas. "I um. Still barely have any idea what I'm doing."

Elouan gives him a reassuring smile. "I'm sure we can figure it out." 

He looks quite excited at the prospect, actually. 

"While we're all standing around, would you like to see a map of the city? I should mark this area as cleared of undead." Rummaging in his satchel - which looks to be mostly full of papers and writing equipment, with only a little space left for other practicalities - he pulls out a scroll and shows it to Vinas. 

The city seems to be divided into two, labelled "Upper City" and "Lower City" in two languages. One of them is the language Elouan used for his spell, which seems to be the original text; translations have been added later in the language they are speaking. 

"We're somewhere in this area here," he explains, pointing at a sector towards the upper right of the page. "These lines are walls, these are roads, and this is the river. Oh - does your translation work on writing?"

It takes him a few seconds of squinting to notice why the two sets of words look slightly different, but he realizes it soon enough.

"Yeah," he says. "I can actually tell that those are different languages, and that one -" he points at it, "- is in the same language you said your spell in. Which is neat in a freaky magic kind of way, I guess."

"Well, that will be most useful." Elouan might be bouncing a little.

"I speak Volic myself, of course, but there are texts in other languages that would be vitally important - if only anyone could read them. And now you can!" 

The young man in plate armour, who still hasn't introduced himself, clears his throat.

"This is all quite fascinating, but perhaps we could move on? We still have most of the city to explore." 

"An excellent point, sir," Elouan says, in a tone that just barely passes as non-sarcastic.

"Oh, Vinas, allow me to introduce Sir Justus Beauchene, a knight of the Kadarin Church. And would you like some food, before we move on? I expect you must be hungry."

"That," says Vinas, "would be great, thanks."

"I have a few things in my pack that should do," says one of them, searching through his pack. "I'm Pythios, hello, this is Melina Rhea."

"Full name, please," she says, looking bored.

"Similar thing to Darya Rozaliyev. It's rude to shorten it without permission."

"I am going to have such a fun culture shock, aren't I. I'll try to remember, I apologize in advance if I mess something up."

"Since this seems to be the topic of conversation," the knight says, "may I request that I be referred to as 'Signor Beauchene'?" 

There are nods from the others. 

Vinas considers the array of people and how he is absolutely not going to remember everybody's Thing reliably when confronted with this many people at once, then says, "Sure, let me just. Write all of this down, shall I, so I have a chance of keeping it all straight."

Out comes the book! He starts scribbling down everybody's names and preferred address - Darya gets a pronoun addition in the margins, Melina Rhea gets a small note saying 'full name,' - and then he glances at the remaining person who hasn't introduced himself.

  "I'm Cesare di Versizo. Cesare's, ah, fine," says the man, after a semi-awkward pause.

This also goes into the book. Hooray, maybe he won't be utterly lost in an ocean of different cultures and customs! But probably not.

"You shouldn't worry about getting things wrong for at least the first few days," Elouan reassures him.

"We'll know you're trying, and that's the important thing."

He leans over to see if Vinas has spelled everyone's names right, and blinks when he realizes he can't read anything on the page. It's in a totally unfamiliar alphabet. 

"Looks like your translation doesn't work on things you've written, at least not by default. You could possibly write in other languages if you tried..." he speculates.

"Oh, I hadn't even thought of that. Let me try."

He flips to another page, which he frowns at for a few seconds. He definitely feels like he can write in other languages if he tried, but it feels - weird. Like instead of paying attention to how his hand moves while he writes or letting habit guide him, he needs to stop, focus on the language he wants to write in, and let it move in a way that isn't natural. It's tricky enough that his first few words in Common are a little hard to read, like they're scrawled by someone who's just learning how to write. As he gets used to the mindset his handwriting neatens up into something more legible and ordinary.

"This is weird," declares Vinas. "Just. So you all know. Super weird."

  "I don't think we were likely to forget," says Pythios, lightly.

"Fascinating..." Elouan murmurs, before shaking his head and backing off.

"But you should finish eating, so we can move on before Signor Beauchene wears a hole in the ground with his pacing."

"Sure. Sorry for the delay."

He can scarf if necessary. He deems it necessary, and scarfs accordingly.

And then they can move on! 

Melina Rhea takes the lead most of the time, although Darya is frequently called to the front to clear their path through the application of brute strength. Elouan is the map-reader. Pythios is called upon when there is a lock which needs breaking, or a feat of acrobatics required to enter a building such as climbing through a small window.

Justus seems to have put himself in charge of dealing with any remains they find which might potentially be undead. His method is to pray over every individual corpse, giving it some sort of last rites. This takes a while, five or ten minutes for each.