"And it'll work for one of us? Are you..." He looks at his friends with a brief exchange. "...A Yeti - not human? An Eskimo, that is, a native? One of the lost scouts? Or someone else?"

He listens to the questions, nods, then takes the cuff off and holds it out.  

The leader approaches - the other four stay put, nervous. He's completely baseline, bearded, and holds his hand out for a handshake. "I'm Charles Cooper. Leader of this scouting team."

He has to put the cuff up against his ear to catch that, and shakes Charles' hand gently.

"Ara'Vine" he says, pointing to himself. 

Once again he offers the cuff.  It's composed of elaborate filigree and is designed to clip on rather than needing a pierced ear.  Electrum, but with an odd red-violet cast when it catches the light just right.

It looks like jewelry. Maybe all the filigree is incredibly elaborate electrical wiring? Or something?

At any rate, after a muttered, "Pleased to meet you," Cooper holds the thing up to his own ear curiously.

Ara'Vine speaks.  The ear with the cuff near it hears the language Charles thinks in, while the other ear hears an unfamiliar language.

"I am a human, and a mage.  My mage-Power is a variety of shape-shifting.  I used it to grow fur after I was teleported to this place by some kind of unknown creature, so I could survive the cold.

"Before being teleported I was originally in the Soth Desert, on the continent of South Cardinal.  Specifically near the Olivine Monastery.  I don't know where I am now.

"That's an orich-electrum artifact.  As you've already figured out, it can be used to understand spoken languages.  We'll have to keep trading off to communicate until I have the chance to put together a phrase-book.  Or if you find someone who can speak Forrikari, Mesa-Sothan, or River-Sothan.  I also know a bit of Korstrade."

Plus a few dead languages and merfolk-songs.  No point listing those, though.

He doesn't ask for the earpiece back immediately, but his posture indicates that he's finished speaking.

...He hands the jewelry back.

"Several things about what you just said make no sense to me. That would be - mage and mage power, growing fur, orich-electrum and how that works, and I'm pretty sure South Cardinal's not a continent we've got Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Americas, and Antarctica. Never heard of any of those languages but that's less surprising then missing a continent."

And then presents his hand to take the artifact again if Ara'Vine gives it over.

Earpiece swap.

He thinks for a moment before answering.  

"Even if the continent names weren't translating for some reason, every map of the planet I've seen only has five of them.

"Mages are a type of magic person.  We're sometimes also called crystal-mage or crystal-hearts.  Each of us gets a mage-power, usually something useless like 'the power to magically extinguish nearby candles' but sometimes good powers occur.  Mine lets me change my shape.  Things like, uh - growing fur, gills, or better eyes, or healing injuries faster.

"Orich-electrum is an alloy of orichalcum, gold, and silver.  ...Orichalcum being the magical metal that does different things depending on what its alloyed with."

"Magic is, as far as we knew it, not a thing. Whatever you think is magic might be, I don't know, the sun's rays causing weird chemistry to happen or something. All we've got is steam and steel and coal and hard work and engineering."

"Magic is rare, but it definitely exists.  I've grown working wings before, and it doesn't matter if I'm in the sun or not.  We've had it for far longer than we've had steam power or electricity - those have only been invented in the past few decades, as far as I've heard."

He is really hoping that some god hasn't decided to send their followers on another anti-magic crusade.  Those always manage to destroy libraries and get his god annoyed at them, then he gets sent out to retalliate.  Though that would explain the snake.

"Well. I don't suppose your 'magic' can do things like make food from nothing, heal frostbite, or make people immune to temperatures in excess of forty below zero?"

"Mine can heal frostbite.  I can fill 6 units of charge-stones per week, which is... about 24 frostbitten hands, or other things of that size.  Charge-stones being diamonds that a mage has put their power into, and others can use.  I have a few on me."

He reaches into his pocket and takes out one of his charge-stone coins.  One side has a tiny diamond embedded into it, ringed with unknown text.  The other side is an image: it looks like a garlic bulb with a dragon's head on the end of its stem.  

"You will be able to sense the power in it when you touch it.  Don't activate it, just sense."

He holds the coin out when its time to swap the earpiece.  

Cooper doesn't touch the coin.

"I think perhaps that should wait. I'd like to hear about where you're from. I can try to explain us, too - the great frost drove everyone out of where they were before and now we are trying to build a new city that'll keep us all alive until the great winter ends."

He puts the coin away.  As long as he's being taken seriously about magic there's no need to verify it.  

"I'm not sure what's different enough to mention.  Magic, I suppose?  It's rare because there isn't much of it to go around, so it usually winds up taken and passed among the rich, or given directly by the gods to their priests or demigod children.  I'm part of the priesthood of the god Diamondeye, being her Champion.  She's the god of preservation, conservation, museums and libraries.  As Champion I'm expected to do her will.  My main project these past few decades has been the preservation of lives - figuring out how to use my powers to develop new vaccines and medicines so the little magic I can do each week will have more of an effect.  

"Mages and orich-alloys are two types of magic.  There are also potions, vampires, wizards... A few others.  Those five are the ones of any real significance in the regions I know.  Technology is usually more useful at most things, especially these days with the recent advancements.  

"Soth - and South Cardinal in general - isn't as technologically advanced as North Cardinal.  North Cardinal invented a number of things somewhat recently.  Steam power, airships, electricity, combustion engines, horseless carriages... I've seen a few pictures and read reports but haven't gone up in person.

"Uh, species... Almost all humans.  Some solon - amphbious tentacle people - in the tropical swamplands of western South Cardinal.  Merfolk in the oceans.

"We haven't had any unusual weather, and I haven't heard of any before I got here."

"Well, if you're going to have a sacrilegious pantheon, museums and libraries aren't bad things to be a god about. Anyway. Most of this sounds like utter nonsense to me, I'll have to admit. The western world having the most advanced technology fits, though. The industrial revolution started in Britain, and only the States and Germany really matched us. And the unusual weather is rather baffling. Also, apocalyptic. Most of us brought our families with, but... Most of Britain wouldn't have made it out. Let alone the rest of the world."

"Can you tell me more about the weather?  Does anyone have an idea of what caused it?"

"None of us do. None of us even knew it was coming except the Boss, bless his soul, and he overheard one of the old nobles talking about it. They knew about it for almost a year in advance. Made plans to save themselves, told nobody."

"Ugh, Nobles.  That's no different here, then.  Who's the Boss?"

"Theodore Bolard. Engineer and savior. He used to be a union boss, you know. Was drafted into working on the arctic cities for the Lords, figured out what was wrong - much as from what they were making him make as overhearing rumors, the way I heard it - then went about stocking boats and preparing for a journey north. The Lords were going to abandon us to the cold, but we beat 'em to the punch thanks to Boss."

"How do the cities keep people alive?"

"These great big converted steam-trains - the Generators. They built them right on top of coal seams, and they burn huge amounts of it to keep a city full of people warm enough to live and work. We'll have greenhouses, lumber and steel mills, infirmaries, even schools before long. There were supposed to be hundreds - we only know of the one, though. Rather busy not freezing to death."

He considers his options.  He could survive in a normal frozen wasteland by hunting, but the sudden shift means the wildlife probably isn't going to be reliable.

"Any room in the city for a healer?  I'm mostly known for creating charge-stones or using my power to research medicines, and I'm also capable of doing mundane surgery once I've been caught up on the local system."

"I think we ought to have you talk to the Boss before deciding anything permanently, mind - you're. Quite strange. Unsettling, really. Being honest."

"That sounds reasonable."

"You don't need anything straight off, do you? Food, medical attention?"