"I notice that 'not being mind-controlled' did not make the list. I am not sure why you are mentioning hygiene are you trying to make a sales pitch?" If she gets outside of the house she will not actually be any safer, vampire night vision is not deficient at all and he knows the area. She stops backing away. She does not look directly at him.

"No, of course not. I merely have standards. I wasn't aware that mind control was a relevant concern; it's mostly not, here, unless demons are involved. My standards for consent do involve 'of their own free will, uncoerced, and not mind controlled'."

"I am not sure I believe you. Vampires - which is what I am assuming you are - on my plane can dominate minds with a glance and it seems incredibly unlikely that this plane has beings that are similar in all respects but that one."

"...That is definitely not a thing I can do."

"I still don't believe you." She sighs. "I am not going to run because if you are not hostile I'm safe here and if you are hostile I'm safer where I can see you. I will help you research how I wound up here as promised, but I won't go within arm's reach of you or look you in the eye and I hope if you are sincere about your friendliness you will forgive me."

"I'm not friendly; I don't like people. But I'm not what you believe me to be and have no reason to object to your precautions."

"Friendly is a relative term. I don't imagine I'll need to sleep tonight, it was the middle of the day on my plane, we can get started now if you want?"

"Certainly. Where did you arrive?"

"Less than an hour ago, I think. A dragon attacked the city I was in, I fled. I used a spell on the teleportation circle out so it would send me somewhere at random that couldn't be traced. It seems to have been more random than expected, and also more powerful if this is another plane. Give me a moment, I can - " She pulls of her bag and feels through it for her spellbook (eyes fixed a foot to Kozlov's right) and flips to the right page. " - here, this is the spell if you want to look at it."

He studies it for a moment.

"Your magic and mine are very dissimilar," he says after a moment.

"I have my own diagramming style, it's a bit more efficient for me but it does make collaboration harder. I could copy it in a more standard style if you have the inks, but we probably don't know the same standards... Or do you mean there is a more fundamental difference?"

"Fundamental difference."

"Hm. I study my spellbook each morning, decide which of the spells in it to memorize and once I've studied them enough they kind of click and stay there until I sleep. Then during the day I can direct magic along them, and the instructions imprint themselves on the magic and then I release it and it carries out those instructions. I'm mainly limited by the number and complexity of spells I can memorize and how much energy I have to spend on them. Do you know if other people here do magic like I do? How does yours work?"

"I have never heard of someone doing magic like you. Magic here is composed of rituals which one performs until one is intimately familiar with them, then abridges with personalized shortcuts until one can perform a spell with a word or a phrase."

"We have rituals too, for things too big or complicated to fit into a spell. They usually involve multiple spells, and the magic circles and incense and chanting that people associate with ritual magic is just tying the spells together, showing them how to work with each other. We do have that sort of refinement system - most newly developed spells are rituals - but the shortcuts aren't personalized. We have other kinds of magic-users but none that sound exactly like what you've described. Hm. Usually different kinds of magic do different things better, mine is best at - I guess it's kind of the generalist approach, it's very flexible. Magic music does subtle things, mind-affecting usually, sometimes illusions. Divine magic is best at things related to life and death - healing, raising the dead, and so on. That would have been the best way to go about immortality if I could muster sufficient piety, but, alas. Also I think immortality-seeking might be a bit impious on its own."

"Divine magic?"

"So, sometimes, if one is particularly devoted to one of the gods - you do know about the gods, right? They're not native to my plane, divine magic works when travelling across planes, so they probably have a presence everywhere - they will occasionally grant minor miracles for you on demand. As long as you're not too demanding. The actual mechanism is unclear because the so-blessed won't let anyone study them, something-something profaning the divine, something something mortal minds not meant to know, yada yada yada."

"--I am familiar with a god, whose existence I was not best pleased to confirm."

"...Just one? Which one?

She assumes one of the nasty ones, from that comment, but she doesn't know this guy particularly well and he is a vampire so it could be Pelor or something...

"If I say 'the Abrahamic one' I suspect you will not know what I mean. Um. Their name doesn't have any vowels?"

No vowels???

"...Oooh kaaay. That does not sound like any god I know of. Maybe it's a pseudonym. What are they the god of?"

"Everything, apparently."

"...everything? I guess maybe if this is their plane that makes a bit more sense, but wow. No...theme?"

"Uh. Is the god of this entire plane one of the nice ones or..."

"Better than most of their followers, from what I've gathered."

"Impeccably high standards for virtue or poor communication skills?"