And then over there appears in a collapsed and unwisely-angled heap a girl in bloodstained cold-weather clothes.

Slowly, she starts healing.

Son of a--

They do not have time for random civilians! They do not have anything for random civilians!

This impeccably logical argument does not make the universe take the random civilian and put her back where she came from.

...Well, she's healing, maybe she's not a random civilian.

Edie is distracted from this train of thought by Emily pulling the splint tight, snapping the bone into place. Ow. At least it doesn't hurt anymore after she Si Vales's the problem away.

The random civilian makes a whimpering noise but slowly uncrumples and sits up and blinks and waves her hand in front of her eyes.

"Are you alright?"

"What language is this?"

"English. You have some kind of translation magic?"

"Apparently. Fuck."

"Yeah, I'm not going to pretend you just teleported into the safest situation. Or a safe one at all, really."

"I - I don't even know how many artifacts hit me -"

"Artifacts?"

"Several of them. At least three. ...Four."

"You're bonded to four artifacts? How the hell is that even possible?" Not a random civilian, then. Maybe a godsend.

"There was a truckful of them and they weren't adequately packaged," says the godsend, "and it turned over and hit me and there's at least four." And one of them has healed her almost completely now.

"You got hit by a truck containing four--at least four--artifacts suited to you enough to share?"

"I think we're talking at cross purposes."

"More plausible than what I was hearing. So...what, you...were affected by some artifacts that were set to discharge on random passers-by? And the crash triggered it?"

"I didn't speak this language a minute ago so I'm not sure what the connotations of the word 'artifact' in it are but the concept I'm using that word to describe is a thing that affects anyone who touches it with one good effect and one bad one. I've counted four bad two good so far - maybe five bad if the blindness and deafness are separate things - so it's at least four that hit me and I may encounter other less continuous or presently relevant effects -" She takes her coat off.

She takes a moment to absorb this.

The woman not only doesn't speak English, she didn't recognize it. This isn't conclusive on its own, but...

"Artifacts are one of the three sources of magic. They bond to a single user and can be wielded thereby; or they operate based on residual instructions from previous users."

"Okay. So I didn't just randomly teleport. I'm in a different universe."

"You're in a different universe hanging out with a couple of reckless magical heroes who have just successfully thwarted slash avoided being murdered by one magical villain and are taking as much of a breather as we can before one of his friends find us. This is not your lucky day, I'm afraid."

The random civilian godsend goes very still and swallows and says, "Um. I don't - I don't know if I got anything that can. Help with that."

"We're strong too. We can try to keep you safe. That's the best I can promise, I'm afraid."

"What's the best way for me to - not interfere?"

"Depends on what magic you got from your extradimensional artifacts, I expect."

"The useful things I've noticed are the language thing which is overriding how otherwise deaf I seem to be and I guess I healed and there's a - sense, which is making it slightly less unpleasant to be blind now that it's not so confusing and new. I don't know what else I have, there must be things but they're not obvious."