Is he in the way? He did not mean to be in the way. He didn't mean to be... here. Where is here. He does his best to sidestep the man in a hurry.

'Here' is an alley. About ten feet wide, brick walls on either side, a few windows and doors (boarded over).

The guy goes right past him and frantically tries to unlock a padlocked door at the far end of the alley.

Oh look! These three look like they're after him! Two have knives and the third has a hand-sized object that the people by the fire cringe away and take cover from when she brandishes it at them on the way past.

That's the weirdest looking wand he's ever seen but okay! He doesn't know whether these are lawmen after a thief or thugs after a traveler, he can't take sides here; he presses to the wall, mace still in hand but not raised.

The wand is brandished at him, too, as they pass, and they shout something, but yeah they're super after the guy with the backpack, who has gone through the door by now. They pile in after him.

...he'd like to not be in this alley any more. Can he get out the other direction.

Nothing's stopping him!

The street is wide, and most of the streetlights are on. The buildings are tall and crowded, but seem pretty... Run-down? People wear strange clothes. Some of them are injured or have metal parts or glowing parts. Many carry little palm-sized glowy objects. There are coffee stands and food trucks and stores and a construction site down the way. Several people are looking at the alley and gossiping worriedly. A van and a motorcycle trundle along, in opposite directions of each other, avoiding the potholes.

........this place is weird. It's definitely not Axis, people can't be chasing each other with knives down filthy alleyways in Axis.

He has no idea what's going on and needs to just park somewhere till he can prepare some language spells, he guesses. Is there a retaining wall or something to sit on where he won't be bothering anyone?

If he's willing to wander for a little bit there are bits of wall that aren't filthy and nobody is currently using, yes.

People give him weird looks about the armor and mace.

Well, he can't really ask them what their problem is right now. The mace is back on its hook at this point though.

Sit sit sit.

Cinci trundles on around him.

Things one can notice with slightly more observation time:

There's clearly some kind of gang situation, whether it's legitimate or not. The visibly well-armed people share a similar... Loud... Style, all scars and spikes on clothes and black leather and hair styled up into mohawks and such. And tattoos. Drones buzz around overhead, annoying little quadcopters that everyone ignores. 

The construction crew all sharing identification of bright orange and yellow down the way has some kind of Understanding with the black leather people and is doing things about the potholes, the dead lights, and the trash everywhere, but... Kind of a drop in the bucket situation, it looks like.

There are garish advertisements for unclear purposes, like, everywhere. Paper posted up on walls. Brightly colored signs designed to distract the eye. Ads for food, drinks, palm-devices, something to do with the metal bits that go into bodies, tough-looking people in armor carrying two-handed versions of that wand with music that might be supposed to be uplifting. This one pretty person, relaxing on a beach or sipping colorful drinks. Porn. The same few logos and motifs that seem to identify a group repeated over and over, not even showing a product, just the logo and maybe a catch-phrase.

An ambulance goes past, sirens wailing.

There's elements that make him think Nidal, and elements that make him think Norgorber's running the place, and elements that make him think he's on another planet, and over time he drifts toward the third interpretation.

When he hits diminishing returns on people- and cityscape-wataching, he Prestidigitates up a chess set next to him on the wall.

Nobody pauses to look at him long enough to realize he's making them out of thin air, but a little while after he's done this one woman stops next to him on a motorbike and asks a question, indicating the set with a smile.

...smile? Would she like to play?

Sure, she hops up onto the wall and will play. And try to make small talk, but shrug when this doesn't really work.

Her playstyle is... Weird. And kind of bad. She never takes the obvious move even when it's probably optimal, sometimes this is a mistake and sometimes it's good for her.

It makes it harder to think ahead usefully but her bizarre style isn't so cunning that he can't just win anyway. If he sets up again after and takes a few pieces off his side does she want to play again?

Sure, one more time.

...Halfway through this one her hand device makes a noise. She checks it, makes a face, then writes down a string of numbers on a notepad, tears the page and gives it to him, and gets on her bike again and drives off with a wave.

Maybe it's her name. In case he wants to Send her later. He can't cast Sending but maybe he is making some sartorial error that led her to expect he could.

Nobody else immediately wants to play chess with him. This guy might want to sell him something? He moves on quickly. There's a patrol of Tower Group soon after; Big armored wheeled vehicle with some Armor Guys from the advertisements just going straight down the street, showing the flag. Everyone gets out of the way.

Things are getting quieter, and the crowd is changing over time. More people are drunk or embroiled in use of things other than alcohol, and dressed in relatively little, now. Though this area is kind of a dead zone. A few people pick through the trash drifts for plausibly useful items.

He pulls his coat out of his bag and spreads it over the wall, sitting on one edge of it.

He casts Create Food, and if it gets attention when a spread of pies and rolls and fruit and cheese appears, that's fine; he picks up a pie and an apple for himself and it's fine if the rest is taken.

It sure gets him attention! Where'd all this come from?? Someone wants to try every language they can look up on their phone on him, referencing it between attempts.

...Some people just take the food. Some leave him coins and pieces of paper money about it. (It's fancy paper with some kind of shiny tough quality, so at least slightly hard to fake, maybe. Peoplewatching has revealed the use of this paper some time ago.)

Blai is actually accustomed to paper money! Maybe you can do it without backing it with souls! He will collect the money with polite smiles but not attempt to stop people from making off with a wheel of cheese for free. He apologetically shakes his head at every language attempt. Munch munch chicken and carrots and crust.

...Languages guy, a middle-aged looking man, sketches a picture of a pod hotel and giving the desk clerk OH$20 for a key, then sunrise, sunset, and Blai returning the key. And then hands him OH$20.

The pod hotel is a very confusing drawing! Blai frowns at it in puzzlement!

...Stick figure on a pillow in a pod?

Oh, okay. Weird, but all right, once his coat is free of food items he'll shake off the crumbs and stuff it back in his bag and go get a $20 pod to sleep in.

The bored clerk wearing a much more black variant of the Probably A Gang Style seems to think his armor and mace are really cool, going by where her eyes go. But she dutifully reads the rules, not that he can understand them, and hands him his key. It says '403' on it. The pods are numbered. There are signs. Including one that says "--> 401-449".

He's still not sure if these are definitely numbers, let alone which numbers they are and accordingly what order they go in. Language guy, help?

...Sure, he'll show Blai to pod 403 and how to open it.

"Thank you," says Blai, hoping to be understood in tone if not content. He will not have room to get the armor off in there so he starts getting out of it ahead of time.

Languages guy indicates the clock on the pod wall; it's currently 02:24, and he would like to meet up again at 13:00, out front?

........Blai still does not know what these characters mean.

......tally marks, and numbers next to them?

(The clock ticks over to 2:25)

(He yawns and blinks.)

...if Blai can have the paper for a second? Sunrise, then stick figure kneeling in the pod, then stick figure emerging.

...Shrug. Another yawn, and then a wave goodbye.

...well, hopefully they can find one another again in the morning.

Blai packs away the armor and climbs into the pod to sleep.

The pod door locks if he wants to turn the latch. There are some background noises but nothing major. Dawn arrives.

He wakes up at dawn. He scrunches himself into an acceptably prayerlike position in his pod and delivers a sitrep and receives spells. That wasn't really a lot of sleep and he will have a little more if the guy isn't hanging around waiting for him.

There's no evidence of language guy on a quick walk out to the square the pod hotel is in. Food stalls are setting up, and there's a bunch of people walking to work or hanging around talking to each other and distributing small objects.

He prepared another Create Food today but he doesn't cast it right away. He will... put his armor back on and go for a walk to familiarize himself with the area.

Street vendors buying and selling what seems like random junk along with more understandable items like knives, food, clothes, and bottles of beer. "Green Dragon!" Convenience stores and gas stations. Construction crew forming up around a foreman. Clothes store. Gym. Traffic. Food stalls. Lots of traffic. Soup kitchen. Residences, between everything else. Parking garages. Mechanics' garages, repairing the vehicles. Bars. A street clinic treating walk-ins. Hotels. Drug pushers. Gun store. Improvised sports field in a parking lot, with some kind of game on. Ads, everywhere, occasionally gory or pornographic ones.

Half of it is incomprehensible; the other half he can parse by vibe even if the specifics are bewildering. He watches the sport for a little while. Observes the construction for a minute. Tentatively concludes that the guns might be mechanically dangerous instead of magically when detecting magic on them yields fuckall. He pauses at the soup kitchen and again at the clinic but decides he will come back when he can talk.

He returns to his capsule to sit in it and study the Acts till the guy shows up, if he's going to do that.

It's not too much longer; He does come and knock on Blai's pod door a bit after noon and the extra sleep and wandering ate much of the morning.

Handshake?

Sure, handshake.

"Share Language."

"Yep, I knew something was up. Cheers. I'm Samuel Brown."

"Select Blai Artigas. Where am I, please?"

"City of Cincinnati, state of Ohio. North America, Earth. They called me crazy, you know, but I did always believe there was something more to the world than physical reality. Ha! Let's not chat right near the other pods, it's rude."

"Of course, where should we go?"

"Just out to the square, I guess. 'Cmon."

Once they're a bit away, "Oh man. I have so many questions I kind of wrapped around to having zero questions."

"Is 'Earth' the planet?"

"Yes. You're from a different one- How did you get here? What's it called?"

"It's called Golarion. I was attacked by an unfamiliar species of monster and it transported me here."

"Oh man. Oh man. Is that something we're going to have a lot of? Random appearances? Teleporting monsters?"

"Not as far as I know, I don't know that to be a thing monsters do normally."

"Okay, that's a relief. The Army could probably handle them, but it's obviously better if they don't have to. Is the, uh... Tech level about what it looks like from what using a mace and chainmail armor implies? No widespread proliferation of machinery, no calculating machines, anything like that?"

"That's... correct... I'm not sure what to derive from that being an early question you have."

"We have a lot more things and I guess you won't really know what they are, how to use them, the implications of it."

"I am indeed baffled by many things here. Though I saw what looked like a healing facility, is the red cross a holy symbol? And a restaurant that I may or may not have misinterpreted as charitable in nature."

"The red cross is not holy, per se, but it's been the internationally recognized symbol for medical care for over a century now. If they were serving soup to anyone who came up without taking obvious payment, yeah, that's a soup kitchen, people do that. I suppose with you being human-shaped and having a similar enough mindset to reference these things... Hmm... Not sure where I was going with that thought. What else can you do like giving me this language ability? I could get the ability to speak a new language with a skill spike, but I don't have a spike rig!"

"I have no idea what a skill spike is. The spell Share Language will last twenty-four hours, and I prepared a second one in case there's anyone else I should talk to besides you. Clerics like me are best at healing - at least compared to other Golarion spellcaster varieties - but I can also prepare various buff and utility and combat spells."

"Skill spikes are these little things, 'bout this long, sticking out of some people's heads- They do complicated brain stuff. Make you smarter in a couple different ways, or make you better at some specific thing, or make you learn stuff, or play entertainment in your head. Spells! Spellcasters! Healing! You could prove you're not a hoax and- Oh, fuck. If you're really not a hoax that might be... Bad."

"...in what way?"

"You'll get arrested on false or no charges and disappear while they poke you and try to figure out how magic works, if someone high up thinks it's actually really real. I wish it weren't so but it... Absolutely is."

"Oh, well, I can't be coerced into using my magic for evil ends, my goddess would pull my spells, but it's still worth avoiding, that might be expensive for Her."

"Goddess, huh?" He says, skeptically.

"Yes, that's where my spells come from, I pray for them every morning. Her name is Iomedae and this is her holy symbol." He taps it.

"Alright..." He's not going to touch that any more. "Healing would be... Really useful to a lot of people. Not everyone can go to Saint Joe's- Saint Joseph's Mercy Hospital uptown a bit treats most people who come in for free, but they're massively overworked because, free."

"My healing is much better at injuries than diseases. I only get two channels a day, and I can use my spell slots for it too, but the channels can heal everyone within thirty feet of me."

"Well, uh, Cinci can provide more than enough trauma. The problem would be it being obvious that people are getting better sooner than they should."

"...because someone would arrest me? Is there another jurisdiction I could travel to where this would be less likely?"

"...I wouldn't recommend the Badlands for most people, it's a desert and rule of law is thin to nil out there, but you'd be much more easily parsed as a twisted rumor or a hoax to grift people of some of their money out there. Far as I'm concerned it's my duty as one of the believers to get you a little local context, but there's not very much more than twenty bucks and some explanations I can spare, honestly."

"I can create water. I could try to establish a church out there, I suppose?"

"That ought to be... Fairly safe from being renditioned, at least? Just normal badlands dangers instead. I wouldn't really blame you for wanting to get away from the bullshit, Christ, imagine explaining insurance fraud to a caveman, right?"

"I know what insurance fraud is but not what a caveman is."

"-Caveman is a metonymy for a human who lives before the invention of agriculture."

"And why am I imagining explaining insurance fraud to one, and what does 'renditioned' mean?"

"I'll cool it with the references and phrases. -Try to stop doing it. You'll be weirder if you don't know them though. Renditioned is a euphemism for disappearing without a trace because an elite corporate hit squad kidnapped you. I'm not sure how often it actually happens but, like, sometimes."

"Share Language should actually be giving you some Chelish phrases to use but if they're not applicable to the concepts you're using and you instead translate word for word then I will tend not to understand, which may be fine, I need to know more about the world to live in it. Why am I imagining explaining the abuse of financial instruments or things analogous to that situation to someone who does not have the background to understand them, please."

He thinks for a bit and takes a deep breath.

"Everyone is... Scrying on each other all the time. In a hundred little ways. The drones up there, buzzing around, are eyes, and there are cameras practically everywhere, like the eyes the drones have but on a wall or something, and there's a whole world and culture that I don't imagine you're familiar with around 'computers', devices that do math but so much of it that it starts to seem like magic. Computers can read books, call other people, scry on people, track thousands of people at once, record and play back video, interfere with other computers and devices- That's called 'hacking'- And a lot more."

"...okay. The place is full of miracles of Azlant and so many scrying sensors that it is hard to avoid notice, and if I am noticed, I will be dishonestly arrested by people who want to study my magic. ...is there someone who might want to research the magic, protect me from other people who want the same thing, and not be sufficiently Evil about it that I can't cooperate with them? I could just preemptively go to such an entity."

"...I mean... I've heard good things about Europe. But maybe that's just the progaganda machine working. And Texas is very, uh, eager for war but I've not heard too many other complaints. Serisse is the big dog as far as corps go around here... I'm not exactly an expert and kind of have the impression the corps are all corrupt and backstabbing each other constantly. Corps are - trading houses grown so bloated and influential you should maybe think of them like noble houses, sort of. Private armies, if small ones, and they have the ears of the Powers That Be. You can try to stay low profile. There's so much out there that you can get lost in the noise."

"I think I can take a reasonable amount of time to get oriented and choose a strategic approach but I don't think I'd be a good use of Iomedae's resources if I just continued to lie low indefinitely. What is Texas interested in having a war about, or is it nothing in particular?"

"Arable land."

"...unfortunately it seems more likely than not that it's Evil to invade a place for their arable land."

"It sure is. If you're looking for - kind, good people, you'll find them mostly doing littler things. There's an old saying- Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"That's... an interesting saying. I don't know that I agree with it but if the belief is widespread I suppose it would explain good people failing to seek leverage sufficient to improve matters at scale."

"We should grab you some local clothes and a local bag. The more anomalies about you get stacked up in a database somewhere the more your chances of being found. I'm trying to think of what you could do to get some quick cash, but everyone wants some quick cash, so..."

"I have some donations from last night but I don't know what they amount to." He will take them out for help counting. "I would prefer to keep wearing the armor, there seems to be enough violence about that it may be called for."

"...I guess chainmail will help with, like, knives. Maybe you can put a coat on over it. Let's go."

He starts walking.

"God, if only the world was so kind that you could just have magic and use it for good. I'm really curious about what all magic can do but... Maybe better for my health to not know."

"- then I won't speculate out loud if you would prefer not to be further involved than you are."

The money from donations totals up to $44.

"Spend all my life sure there's magic out there, and hide from it because it'd be too high profile. That's Samuel Brown, boys and girls." He shakes his head. 

The walk is only a couple of minutes. He makes excuses to a couple of spiky-hair-and-leather men patrolling, then stops at the entrance of a store. "-Better you wait out here. Stores get tetchy about weapons. Tower Group, the guys patrolling in armored vehicles, will too, even if a mace is... Unusual. I'll get a basic gym shorts and T-shirt and summer jacket, sound good? And a duffle bag. Probably run me about eighty bucks total."

"...short... pants? If you think it's essential maybe but I'm not accustomed."

"Okay, just some basic jeans instead? It's summer. It'll get pretty hot out."

Surely he's noticed how many people are underdressed, right?

"I have a spell for that. If I can't use any of them to heal people I may as well spend one a day on the heat."

Samuel goes into the clothing store and comes back out with a plastic bag full of clothes. He hands it to Blai and walks back towards the pod hotel's square.

"Have you got anything for old injuries?"

"Lesser Restoration can sometimes solve those. Or Remove Blindness or Deafness, if it's specifically to the eyes or ears, though it only works if they're still present and merely don't work."

"I took a nasty fall some ten years back, and my back has been bothering me ever since, never fully recovered. Can't afford fancy nano-medicine. I'd consider something to help with that payment and then some for the clothes and the room and informing you and all that."

"I didn't know to prepare one this morning, but I can tomorrow."

"That might be one way to disguise your spells. Find a competent - doctor - Chelish doesn't have the word I was reaching for - who's also trying to do good, play it off as fast-acting nanomedicine. Or, like, put them under anesthesia - sleep drugs - to be healed 'in surgery'. There are as many as several difficult steps between here and there, though..."

"Sleep is a wizard spell. ...also operating with deliberate subterfuge as opposed to basic discretion might be against my religion."

"Might be?"

"I'm not very well catechized."

"...But you have a goddess, so, you got - picked by her and didn't have time to get all the background knowledge? That sucks. -Is unfortunate. Hm. About subterfuge compared to discretion. How would you rate 'don't ask any questions, we can't tell you how it works, but we'll put you under anesthesia and when you come back out you'll be healed'?"

"I would not be surprised if there were an orthodox way to do such a thing but I don't know how."

"Religion isn't popular around here, with the lack of gods that... Are provable."

"No clerics at all of anyone? No wizards? No sorcerers, druids, witches...?"

"No magic that's publicly known! If there were, you wouldn't be in such danger! You hear stories, rumors, of things- People who are better than human at shooting firearms, or at driving cars or fighting, who can read thoughts, climb up a sheer wall with no equipment for it- But always rumors. Never anything - public, proven, in the modern history of Earth."

"...well, I don't know why that might be, there are several possibilities, but apparently Iomedae can reach me here and is willing to do so and so long as She'll have me I'm not going to go around doing anything I'm not confident She'd approve of, which will tend to rule out most things that involve pretending that I or She is other than we are."

"Yeah, I guess so, it's your life and all... Have any questions for me?"

"What would be a good way to go about learning the local language?"

"There's a school that does ESL classes- Over on Covedale. English as a second language. They charge tuition though. You might be better off with a cheap - computer program - or textbook for it."

"Will I be able to use a computer program? Will a textbook be able to instruct me in how to pronounce anything?"

"The books are probably written with a specific starting language in mind, but the programs are all- Showing you words and sounding them out, repetition exercises and example conversations. Say a hundred dollars for an older phone and thirty bucks for a copy of Igloo in English. Both things to shop around for in Gamble Street."

"I'll be able to read the books with magic, the trouble is I won't be able to connect what I read to sounds."

"You'd still need a phone to get it to read books aloud to you."

"To... read books aloud... okay. I think I can make progress with a device that can read books aloud and some introductory books. Will the Lesser Restoration tomorrow cover that?"

"I'd maybe want a little more. I'll be spending over two hundred bucks by then, and that's- Most of my savings. Also, I have work tomorrow. Uh... How's the food thing work?"

"I can do one of those a day if I'm not preparing something else in that slot, like a Remove Blindness would take the same slot, and do have another one for today. The food doesn't last if not eaten within twenty-four hours so I hope no one was trying to hoard it but they looked hungry. I can choose what the food is but it always comes out undersalted; I have some rock salt for this reason."

"Give me most of the food and I'll pass it out to folks and family, earn a couple favors, and I'll consider that and trying to help with my back fair pay for everything."

"Of course. Today and tomorrow both, or more days beyond that? What kind of food do you want?"

"Just today. Things that are conveniently divisible, like fruit or little pies?"

"Sure. Do you have dishes or a clean table or something?"

"Back at my place yeah. Do you want to take care of that before we go down to Gamble Street?"

"You know best what will work for your schedule with giving it to people to be eaten in the twenty-four hours following the spell."

"Let's do it now, Gamble will be an hour or two most likely."

His place is part of a set of rooms above a repair and resale shop full of random machines. He has to explain Blai away two people clearly acting as a neighborhood watch of sorts to get into the little courtyard, watching the street and exchanging gossip about what dangerous people and events have been seen in the area recently.

Up on the third floor he has a dingy little apartment. Currently empty- "My wife is at work and our daughter moved out a while ago- Just spread everything out on the table here, I'll look for any old books I wouldn't mind getting rid of and that might be useful to you in the meanwhile."

"Thank you."

He starts casting over the table. Fruits and pies and stuffed rolls, easy to distribute in small snackish amounts.

Samuel finds a couple of cheap paperback novels and a few newspapers and an old English to Spanish dictionary to throw in the shopping bag.

"Should I have any context on the nature of the books before I read them?"

"These two are fiction- This one is set in the past during a big war - the war actually happened but I have no idea how accurate it is as real events - and this one has made-up magic in it. This one is a dictionary that matches words between Spanish and English- English is what is mostly spoken around here, but Spanish is a fair-sized minority. It's what I have. These are recent newspapers, probably don't believe too much of them."

"Don't believe them in... what way. They're fiction, they're propaganda, they're lazily researched, they're heretical, they're exaggerated for effect...?"

"They're a mixture of propaganda, lazily researched, advertisements, and exaggerated for effect. Mostly used for entertainment value."

"Understood."

"You can find things out from them with some level of actual relevance, but it's a skill. Here, I'll toss in an old math textbook... No idea where I got this. May as well, yeah, if I'm never reading it?"

"Thank you."

Once the food appears he salts it all and them spends a few minutes - lying - about a banquet that got canceled and tax written-off, and there's enough fresh food for everyone to have some. Blai is helping him with that, but he's probably going away soon, you know how it goes.

Then they can head on foot to the increasingly dense Gamble Street. The place is a maze of human activity and effort, everyone hawking everything. Clothes. Food. Electronics. Furniture. Tools. Porn. Vehicles. Weapons. Books. Jewelry. Drugs.

(Blai bags enough for his own meals today and breakfast tomorrow, rolls full of eggs and cheese, pies full of chicken and spinach or apple and honey.)

Blai is nonplussed by a lot of these things and sticks closely to his guide.

Tough looking men in yet another register of Gang Fashion guard and watch over the place. These ones look mostly Tian for some reason.

He checks the backs and internals of the phones vendors show him for something and keeps declining them until one passes his scrutiny. Then over to a different part of the market, more focused on programs and media. Again he passes by many of the vendors on some unclear judgment, and eventually buys a small chip that he loads into the phone. Also, a little solar charger and battery pack.

Away, away from the teeming throngs of commerce.

Oh thank goodness.

Back near the pod hotel, he'll explain the basic functions of a phone, and how to use Igloo. It'll read the words out loud and highlight syllables as it goes and do comprehension questions and get more complicated as he gets them right. It has a cutesy ice and snow theme.

He could do without the cutesy ice and snow theme but it doesn't matter! He is thoroughly ignorant of devices needing to charge and will stay that way unless informed.

Samuel explains that, too. He got a little solar thing. Or you can plug it into these sockets in civilized places- Don't stick your fingers or anything metal in there or the lightning will shock you.

Miracles of Azlant. "Thank you."

"Are you still thinking that the Badlands is your best plan for the immediate future?"

"Possibly not the immediate future. But I'm not at this time aware of an alternative where I won't be abducted, though I imagine that even if there are some you might not know them either."

"I wouldn't know and trying to find out would be hazardous. There are guys who are known to be charitable but like- I don't know them, maybe they're caught up in shit of their own and being monitored, maybe it's all a front while they spy on someone else or take corruption privately, maybe they really are good people but have no idea what the hell to do with you."

"Well, I could prepare Detect Good but most people aren't powerful enough to have a reading so I don't know how far it would get me."

"I have no idea what the constraints on that are but there's a lot of people in the city, if you check everyone passing through a busy part of Gamble Street for example, that's easily over a thousand people."

"The people who have a reading aren't just - a phenomenon that pops up occasionally for no reason, it's powerful adventurers. And empowered divine servants, we have a reading right away. In a city, I would usually expect Detect Good to get me retired adventurers, or ones who were in the city for a shopping trip or rest or something. There's not very much adventuring to do in a city that would make someone more powerful. The people going around threatening civilians might be powerful but likely not Good. I guess Aura Sight lasts long enough that it might be worth a try, though it'd mean a day of skipping food."

"Would people with a lot of augments count? They're - sort of alchemy, sort of medicine that can make you stronger, better at aiming, better memory, that kind of thing."

"Maybe. I do think it's worth a try day after tomorrow."

"I can't really pull the same excuse to distribute your created food again. It's already getting on to evening now, I'm gonna give you another twenty for that room- They have bathing and toilets, I can show you. Tomorrow, trying to help with my back and what else?"

"I thought you wanted two days of food but I can do Aura Sight tomorrow instead. Tomorrow I will try to help with your back and start studying English - how long do I have access to the miniature inn room -"

"Nah, it's a lot of decently quality stuff, everyone got a small nice treat and things run on favors, I'm good. You have twenty-four hours since you paid the first twenty, which would have been about... Two after midnight. It's twenty dollars for a twenty four hour period."

"If it's rude to have a conversation there is it also rude to have the phone read me a book there?"

He makes a so-so gesture. "Less so if you hold it close and play it quietly. I didn't think to grab a pair of headphones, which plug into it down here and let you listen quietly. There's probably a street vendor around with a cheap pair if you want to look?"

"Well, I don't want to bother my inn neighbors, so if they're not too expensive, yes."

Walking around a bit more they can find a street vendor with an old pair of corded earbuds, wires frayed to near uselessness. Only one side works, but they're dead cheap- $5.

Maybe Mending will patch them up. He buys them.

"You need anything else right now? I do have errands of my own to take care of."

"I think I'm fine to get started."

"Great. Remember to pay for another day, and uh... I guess I'll meet you out here at around nine tomorrow? That should be a couple hours after sunrise."

Nod. "With a Lesser Restoration."

"I'll see you then. Good luck with everything, head..."

"...is that a customary thing to call people in your language? Is it quite polite?"

"-It's pretty common to say, yeah. And it depends a lot on context. I'm not sure how to explain it briefly... It's definitely a casual register thing, though."

"So if I were going for something more like 'sir'..."

"Then you'd use 'sir'. It's a little weird and stuffy but not, like, intolerable or anything."

"I might be weird and stuffy," says Blai.

"You'll successfully give that impression with 'sir' for men and 'ma'am' for women. Except it's 'sir' again even for women if they're specifically police or military."

"Sir or ma'am. Thank you."

Samuel Brown waves goodbye again and starts heading off. The city bustles, though not very much here and now.

Blai starts reading books while having them simultaneously read to him.

At one point he can hear someone having sex in one of the neighboring units. It doesn't last long, though. There's also the low noise of people walking and talking quietly, now and then, or moving around in their own miniature-rooms.

Night falls.

He pays for another 24 hours. He sleeps.

Nothing else interrupts at the hotel. Samuel Brown is out front again at nine AM.

Blai meets him there and casts another Share Language.

"Good morning. Well. Morning, at least. How is the English coming? Slowly?"

"The spelling is very strange but I am making progress."

"Oh good. I have a work shift at the flying port in... Two hours, so I may have been a bad target for that spell today. Sorry."

"I have another, though I'm not sure there is anyone else I should be casting it on either, that'll depend on the Aura Sight. Do you want your Lesser Restoration here or somewhere else?"

"It won't look like any thing obvious, will it? May as well get it over with if so."

"It's got a slightly longer casting time but the effect is not visible." Cast cast cast. "Lesser Restoration."

He waits for it to complete. "...Wooooow, woah. Holy smokes. I really feel that." He stretches, twists. "...No way I could've done that when I woke up. I don't think it's all the way better but definitely better. Thank you! Yeah, uh by the way, people are passing off your weirdness and the Chelish language as- A religious thing, like bikers giving away old tools for good luck. I've been very vague about it, I don't think anyone will, like, call you out on it. And they don't think it actually works of course. Just thought you ought to know."

"...all right. Thank you very much for all your help."

"Any last minute questions or requests before I go catch my ride? I'll give you my phone number but it might be best if we meet in passing from now on instead of, like, scheduled."

"If you say so. I'm not immediately thinking of any questions, though of course some will come up once it's impossible to ask them."

He chuckles. "That's always how it goes. Okay, some last few pieces of sage advice whatever comes to mind, I guess. The whoring business is fucking vicious and if you try to help girls or guys in it, do it very discreetly or they'll get beat up or murdered by their - madams. They're almost slaves. It's one of the most fucked up parts of this city and that's saying something. Don't snitch on people generally. Don't sell drugs or spikes without also- Actually probably just don't at all. Don't be too nosy or people will figure you're casing them for a robbery and get preemptive about it. There's pretty reliable drudge work at the city dump. Shitty work but nobody really pays attention to trash sorters, you could do it while you learn English and figure out what next."

"I'm not sure I'm competent to distinguish objects of value from waste in this place. Can you go into more detail on what you mean by snitching?"

He can go over some quick categories of valuable stuff and point them out scrolling through photos; Spikes and other electronica are pretty distinct if you look for the connectors. Weapons, too. Or if he means for working as a trash sorter- They'd show him how to correctly sort things. It really is not very good work though.

He's not really sure how to define 'snitching'. It's kind of a know it when you see it situation. Telling Tower Group about someone who fucked with you in the hopes that Tower will fuck with them is definitely snitching in his opinion, however much they may be the closest thing to a police force Samuel Brown really has no respect for them, it seems. Any more ambiguous situations might be ambiguous.

--And then he'd better get going if he's going to catch his ride. He writes down his phone number. It looks a lot like the one the chess-playing biker woman gave him on his first day.

"Goodbye."

Blai buckles down to work on English. He has a full night of sleep behind him and a reasonably good theory of how to pace the Comprehend Languages castings with repetitions of the same books without it so as to be efficient about it. Does he have enough money for another night in the hotel?

He has $24, so yes. His books are about a sensationalized ground view of various battles in WWII (though it does spend a while on 'how guns work'), vampires having a shadow war with werewolves and witches in a city that sounds a lot like this one, a spanish-english dictionary, and a Calculus I textbook. And half a dozen newspapers, and whatever ads he sees or is willing to grab off the street. This is a pretty eclectic way to learn English. The first book has some badly written old-timey language.

Oh, those things are guns. That's good to know. Comprehend Languages doesn't allow him to distinguish archaic and modern English but it does allow him to identify bad writing; the dictionary is a pretty poor choice for anything other than looking up how a word is pronounced with the help of the phone. He notes the properties of local vampires, werewolves, and witches in case they come up in his day to day life, though he bears in mind that the novel may have sensationalized them. He mostly plugs into his inn room, though he will certainly appreciate the solar charger if he manages to go set up a church in the badlands.

Nobody bothers him on the day he used Lesser Restoration or the day after. However, at that point he is out of money to pay for the stay.

Yup. Time to start hiking out somewhere little-inhabited enough that he can sleep rough. Is there a map posted anywhere to help him pick a direction? (Did Mending work on the headphones?)

Mending did fix the headphones!

There are no maps trivially accessible to him. Though he may be able to understand having heard the phrase 'across the river, into the Badlands' in context of someone leaving the city, in passing.

It's as good a hint as he seems likely to get, at least if he knows where the river is.

He might be able to reference it from landmarks seen in aerial photos in the newspapers, that one corporate tower shaped like an X in relation to the curving blue one, as he can see both in the distance from some parts of the slums.

Sounds like a plan. Out he strikes. The armor is heavy enough to slow him down but he can make it five leagues before sundown if he has to, and if he's not out of the dense city by then he will risk Lighting his phone, he's seen them glow if not in exactly that way.

He hits Riverside long before then. The first sign of it is a tall barbed wire chain link fence with periodic signs - TOXIC WASTE SITE - CONDEMNED - DO NOT ENTER UNDER PENALTY OF LAW

Okay, well, can he go around it?

There's a lot of Riverside. The fence seems to go on forever. Though more in the east than the west.

There's a few breaks in it, a few little tunnels. Obviously people ignore all the warnings, at least occasionally. He doesn't see anyone except as lookouts on upper levels nearby.

He didn't prepare Delay Poison, and even if he did he also didn't prepare the spells he'd want to ride out an attack of poison that patiently hit at a more convenient time. He will continue trying to go around, bearing west.

The mostly unguarded toxic waste site steadily transitions to fairly guarded riverfront. Barbed wire, steel barriers, drones flying about. A sign warning of 'land mines' (which were mentioned in the WWII book) and a big arrow pointing to 'EXIT THROUGH APPROVED CHECKPOINT ONLY'.

...inconvenient.

He will stop for a bit and workshop a few sentences to offer to the guards. He will approach the checkpoint. He isn't supposed to lie but if he says he's going into the badlands to start a church maybe he'll just sound crazy and be under no obligation to correct anyone.

At the checkpoint, there's a big 'ol gun on the roof, like the tank turrets from the book illustrations, and a huge line. People are antsy, bored, grumbling, but nobody wants to start trouble right in front of Tower Group's face. There is definitely casual bribery happening- Twenty bucks and you get to skip a good portion of the line.

They have him pass through a scanner. They ask for name, age, any mutations to declare, and ask him to show his border pass at the exit gate.

He's got Comp Lang up and he has learned his numbers so he can tell them his name and age, shake his head about mutations, and... spread his hands helplessly at the border pass question.

The guy sighs and asks him if he understands he will not be permitted to re-enter the city of Cincinnati without a pass. And the fee for a 'lost pass' (said with sarcastic emphasis and an eye-roll) may be up to $200.

"I do not speak good English," he says. "I understand I think."

Great, he can go through. Put the bag through the scanner and retrieve it on the other side. Cross the bridge and don't try any funny business.

...Bordertown, just outside the checkpoints, is like the favela-ish parts of the slums but worse in every way. The dust is getting everywhere, without the river and the concrete barriers to stop it. Lots of people driving around, trading, sitting in shitty bars or just sitting around.

Cool. He's looking for someplace with rocks. Can he find rocks?

There are... Unattended cinderblocks in a couple places? And mud. And here and there old crumbling roads, if asphalt counts as a rock. There's a hill, it has some rocks and a big encampment on top. Looks like they're healers, maybe. Otherwise, he might have to keep going past the densified area a bit.

He's not actually sure if asphalt counts as a rock for Stone Shape purposes. He'll check out the healer encampment on the hill with a closer pass.

The Mercy Crew is treating all comers to the best of their ability. Their ability is...... Limited. The workers seem exhausted. There are people with bones where bones should not be and other Bad Stuff. The nurses and doctors all look harried and exhausted. A few people wearing their armband-symbol patrol with guns, just keeping order and helping out in little ways- Oh look, one of them is threatening a guy who was shouting about 'getting his girl back' and marching him down the hill at gunpoint.

..........can Blai get into the middle of things, channel discreetly, and get out again with a really clear route that will hold up to a little alarmed shifting around?

It's not exactly a high security perimeter. He could duck out between those two tents there and then run down a gully on a steep bit of the hill.

Yeah. He heads in, makes sure he has line of effect to the worst-injured, makes sure no one is looking right at him, channels, and then hustles out.

There's the predictable alarmed shift in activity. One person shouts after him, but doesn't actually pursue.

Does the shouting have content or nah?

It was just a 'Hey you!'

Yeah he's just gonna keep going.

Bordertown gets rapidly less dense out past the Mercy Crew's hill. He sees an old highway overpass in the distance, stretching far off to the west. Closer to hand there's a set of rusty train tracks and an old rusty car in the distance, or endless rolling dry hills in every direction but those three.

The overpass looks promising! It might be made out of rock! Is it occupied?

Nobody is visible on or near the highway overpass right now.

Oh good.

It's been a long walk and he prepared Create Food today, not Stone Shape. He will go set up a camp under the overpass and make himself a feast.

A motorcycle gang roars past, seven bikes in all, later that day. They don't bother to slow down. White and red face paint, banner emblems of some kind of big cat.

It's polite of them to have legible heraldry, that's not seemed a major priority for most people around here.

He stuffs himself. He dampens the ground around the area to cut down the dust. He sets up to spend the night, and sleeps.

A heavily dressed figure pauses near him, then goes around, as he's bedding down.

Overnight, there's a dust storm. It wants to coat everything, shifting the grit into new uncomfortable patterns and howling loudly.

He wakes up with dust in his mouth and has to spit a few times before he can Create Water. He prays. He shakes out the dust from all his stuff. Creates some more water to dampen the immediate dust environs. Eats as much as he can of last night's feast; he at least kept the pies and rolls in his bag, where less dust got on them, and he can rinse off the fruit and cheese.

He casts Stone Shape and lays a hand on a pillar under the overpass, and he begins to construct his church, bringing down the abandoned structure carefully so it doesn't crash down around his ears. Fifteen cubic feet at a time, and if it's going to storm like that a lot he doesn't want to start with one wall or a foundation, he wants a complete enclosure. If he makes the walls relatively thin, he can wrangle enough of the concrete into flowing and resetting itself to construct himself a little shelter more generously sized than the capsule hotel. Making hinges with Stone Shape is difficult so instead he just makes the entrance small enough for his coat to cover it, with some hooks to hang the coat in place.

No further dust storms are immediately in evidence. There is just the wind and hardy dry plants and the odd lizard or wild dog barking in the distance. Though he does see a big dust plume on the horizon and what looks like a convoy of boxy vehicles kicking it up. They're not quite headed in his direction, probably a tad north if they're going to Cinci.

Just as well if it takes a while for anyone to notice he's here, the chuch won't be impressive for weeks.

He paces out a thirty foot radius circle in the dust, and casts Ant Haul and starts moving some of the rubble into the shape implied, with the little shelter being at one end of the circle and a few other anterooms marked out once he's got the big sanctuary plotted.

The shadows lazily crawl into new positions. He hears the faint roaring echo of a suborbital shuttle departing Cinci WSW, near directly overhead.

Wow what the fuck is THAT.

Once he's done enough heavy lifting for the day he does some more work on English.

He can maybe see it if he looks up in the right area; A silver dart with a point of light at its rear, and a long long contrail towards the city.

Later, a lone hiker wanders past, wearing all-covering tan gear and a face mask and a huge backpack and tent. They stop and rest in the shade under what remains of the overpass, but don't move to approach.

Pie?

"What'chu want for it?"

Headshake. More emphatic pie-offering.

"...Sure, head."

He will eat the pie, being careful with the mask and heavy goggles.

"...Good luck with your... Rubble. Just a word from a concerned party: Something has the Pumas riled up. Someone important went missing or something. They're honorable as badlands goes but when there's trouble... Who knows, yeah?"

"Pumas?"

He sketches the big-cat heraldry in the dust. "These guys."

"Someone important?"

"Hell if I know. A woman, I think, I overheard 'she'."

Nod.

"See you around maybe. I'm in and out around here a lot. I go by Mud."

Mud stands up and makes to keep walking.

"Goodbye, Mud. I name Select Blai Artigas."

And he's gone, walking due east, not northeast towards the city.

Close to sunset he gets a merc crew driving by in a convoy of two Jeeps and an 18-wheeler truck, a few hundred meters or so away, and obviously observing him. Apparently heraldry is popular out here? At least for some groups? The big organized travelling ones, at least. Theirs is a field of red with a stylized wing in grey.

They stop and send a battered black plastic quadcopter over. It hovers buzzingly near him.

"Hey, guy," it says through a tinny speaker, "You speak English?"

"Not good. Apologizing."

"Okay. We're Marek's Silvers. We usually camp under that overpass overnight on this route. For the shade, mostly. What do you want in exchange for fucking off for the night?"

Oh, he didn't realize people were still using it, he might have kept going and found some stone no one was using to shape if he'd known. "Can both sleep?" he asks. "I go in here." He points out his shelter.

"It's bad juju, head. You never know, you know?"

"I do not know." The food's all gone now or he'd offer them some.

"...'Aight. If you're cool with it, we'll be cool with it. Stay cool, head. We're gonna drive up."

Drone starts flying away. A bit later, the three vehicles approach and park under the pass, on the far side of the shaded area from his shelter and rubble ring. A guy wearing a dozen spikes (the local headband kind, not just pieces of metal) in his hair and a holstered pistol saunters over towards him, doing tricks with a butterfly knife as he walks. He peers up at the overpass, and between it and the shelter.

"Huh. Hey, I'm Marek. You're an odd one, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, you seem new out here. Heard of the Badlands Code?"

Headshake.

"There's no real law out here, none of the big states care to enforce it. How do you think we have any kind of civility despite that? Badlands Code. More custom than law for sure, but it works, mostly. So let me declare hospitality. If you want to hang out by the fire and eat and drink what we're eating and drinking, you may, we'll not touch you. And if you attack or steal shit that's not freely given, we'll kill you and nobody'll blame us. Make sense?"

Nod nod.

"Cool, cool. Well, come on over if you like. Tiff makes a mean chili-scop stew."

He turns and heads over to the vehicles; They've been circled, sort of, with canvas walls being strung up to keep the dust out, and people are unfolding chairs and throwing wood on a firepit.

It would be nice to get something for dinner, and tomorrow morning he can materialize breakfast for everybody unless they leave very early. He'll go sit with them.

There's maybe twenty people here all together. Including several kids and teens. Some of them are kicking a ball around. Some are setting up to play cards. Some are setting up camp, but everyone's taking it easy, curiously glancing at him.

A woman asks, "What's with the mace? You look strong enough for it but you should probably get a ranged weapon. Long sightlines out here."

"My - people needed the - sharp of ranged weapons."

"...That doesn't make any sense. I mean, I literally do not understand what you mean. But everyone should know how to shoot. Shit, head, I'll show you the basics if you want. I like a good excuse to use up ammo."

"...you do?"

"Yeah! Shooting is fun!"

"It's coming out of your share!" Someone shouts.

"Hospitality! C'mon..."

"...Fine, half. And only up to a hundred rounds. And use pistols, not rifles!"

"See? Ammo's cheap enough in Cinci, we're almost done on a passage, it'll be fine."

"Thank you."

The woman shows him how to shoot pistols. She very assiduously covers gun safety rules, and sets up old plastic bottles as targets with the crumbling embankment as a backstop, and shows him how to hold and operate the M1911 ('cheap as shit, reliable as anything if you treat it well, a real classic near on two centuries old as a design...') and hold a proper stance with a few taps and nudges but absolutely no prurient interest, and overall turns out to be the sort of person who can talk for hours about their special interest without the slightest hint of acknowledgment or interest from other parties.

And they can shoot some targets! (And diligently collect the brass afterwards.)

Blai is clearly completely untrained on a pistol and has a Dexterity penalty.

Also he's weirdly good at hitting the targets for some reason considering that these things are the case, and better once he's had a little practice.

"You learn quick! Wanna buy that gun? I mean, if you have a hundred fifty bucks on you."

"I don't have a hundred fifty bucks on."

"Too bad. Now, let's cover proper cleaning and maintenance- Too many people don't respect their weapons, and they'll fail on you at the worst possible moment-"

By the time they're done with that, food's on. Someone is playing guitar idly, not really going anywhere. Someone is low-key watching him, not quite fully trusting the hospitality thing.

Someone asks if he wants the chili mild or spicy, and if he wants booze. There's a table with shredded cheese, and something white and creamy, and little yellow snack-sized objects, and salt and pepper shakers, and people add these to their bowls to taste.

He wants it mild. He doesn't want booze. He will add the cheese and taste a yellow object.

It's salty, crunchy, a little oily. The chili is only very slightly spicy, and well-seasoned. Rich.

The group's dynamics are a little awkward, moving around him and talking in references and context he doesn't quite have, but they're polite enough. Someone jokes that if you endure listening to Chell talking about guns for two hours you're tougher than average, then asks what he does for fun.

"I do... I do not have word..." He will duck into his shelter and cast Prestidigitation and come out with a chessboard and a queen, it takes time to make the whole set and he's pretending he had it already.

"Oh, chess. I'll play chess with you, head. Be a break from all the usual stuff, anything gets boring eventually. For me, anyway."

Oh yay! He will go back and "get" the rest of the chess set. Hopefully it's not suspicious how the pieces all look like they were sculpted out of plastic wrap that then dried out and got brittle.

Who knows where some of the junk people have lying around came from, really?

His opponent mutters and hesitates a lot. And is only moderately good.

That's okay, he will checkmate the guy quick and then start the next game with some of his pieces missing.

That makes him mad. Which makes him impatient. Which makes him worse, though also less predictable.

Oh no, mad in a - fun spirit of competition way or not so much?

Mostly fun spirit of competition way? Probably? He advances a bishop, impetuously, lancing Blai's knight.

That knight was defended by this here pawn, and its capture means it's gotten out of the row that Blai's rook threatens and the king is in check!

Bishop blocks check.

He loses the second game as well. Then calls over someone else. "Kenny! Kenny, you're good at chess, right? Come beat this guy!"

Kenny is a middle aged bearded guy with an obviously artificial eye. It moves and focus with a faint mechanical whir. "Sure, I'll play one game of chess. But it isn't my fault if you're no good, Leo."

...Kenny proves to be startlingly good at chess. It's just that every move he makes somehow puts him in a better long term position.

Oh yay! That means he has so many things to think about to eat up the omnipresent anxiety!

After a long match, Kenny checkmates him. He doesn't really want to play a second round, though, muttering about how he has to go deal with unreliable fixers and sketchy customers.

What a pity.

The other kid comes back with a chess book on his phone and frequently consults it, grumbling and trying to get better. Or at least to keep the handicap from growing...

Blai has been doing phone related stuff a lot for language study reasons and can find the timer app. He can have a lesser piece handicap and a greater time handicap? Can he get that across?

...Sure, that works.

Eventually, a bit after sunset, the boss guy Marek wants to chat again.

"Hey, head, I just want to tell you... Look, we're nice, because it turns out killing strangers and taking their stuff makes you feel like shit in addition to making everyone else want to kill you in self defense, but you absolutely shouldn't trust most groups out here. You need backup or an escape route, head. Maybe you have one and are wisely keeping it quiet? Just a word of advice."

Awkward shrug.

"Yeah, that's that. Good night now."

"Good night."

He tucks himself into his shelter.

There's the clatter of them tearing down and the rumble of engines as they depart much later. Early, predawn.

Oh no, he wanted to make them breakfast. Oh well.

He's not bothered except by a wild dog sniffing around for the rest of the day.

If the wild dog doesn't attack he will let it be.

If nothing else happens he will proceed with a protocol of studying the Acts, studying English, practicing Prestidigitation uses other than making objects (starting with cleaning), and, every other day when he's not Creating Food, adding to his church, wall by wall.

He gets a few visitors, and a few more people passing nearby but deciding to avoid him or not even noticing.

Though people are growing less wary over time when they pass again and he's still there. Mostly individuals or pairs, no hedraldry. Some ask to buy food or water off him, presuming he's got a source since he lasted this long.

He doesn't always have food but when he does he'll hand it out, and he does always have water.

About half of people insist on paying. The dust storms continue; A particularly nasty one sends a chunk of rebar flying hard enough to put a small hole in the wall if it's too thin.

And then one day he has a man riding a dirt bike spin out and crash right under the overpass, shortly followed by two more bikers with a three vertical lines heraldry. The two approach the downed biker and pull guns, sneering and not in a hurry.

Does he have any previous knowledge of the three vertical lines heraldry group?

They're called 'Red Treads' and someone said they mostly come from down south and called them 'mutie-lovers'.

Blai considers this and approaches the downed man. He won't project hurry about it if they don't.

The two pause their approach. "Hey, hermit guy, we've got unfinished business with this piece of shit," one Red Tread says without heat. "We're not gonna kill him."

"Fuck you. You break my leg and the desert will do it for you."

A loose shrug. "Maybe, maybe not. But you are going to hurt. We are capable of fucking pattern recognition, you little bitch. Accident, my ass. He was spouting racist shit, and 'accidentally' stepped on a tail. So, he gets a broken leg. You gonna do anything about it?"

"I don't have very good English. He stepped on you?"

"Friend of mine who wasn't bothering anybody. Reds don't stand for anti-mutant hate."

The crashee leverages himself free and stumbles to his feet.

"Does your friend need help?"

"...Eh?"

"Your friend is hurt? Need help?"

"We have med techies and don't know you from a hole in the ground no offense intended."

They start advancing again.

"Fuck you!" Shouts crashee, trying to right his bike.

"He is already so," Blai says. "To not kill him you cannot gun him."

"We're not going to kill him. Or shoot him, unless he pulls his gun. We're going to break his leg."

He taps his own leg and keeps walking. Range is closing to 20 feet. Crashed guy is trying and failing to start the bike.

Mending takes ten minutes. There is some extent to which this does not completely fail to resemble in any respect a justice process. Blai can fix the leg once they're gone. He follows at a nonthreatening distance.

The guy... Swears, asks if Blai is really going to stand aside... And gives up, and curls defensively to make the upcoming beating less severe.

But it's no beating. It's a grapple, and pulling a leg into a flat spot, and one vicious swing of a crowbar, clearly practiced, and a pained wail.

Then the two Red Treads turn and leave, with the parting words, "Pain is a great teacher."

This guy: Clutching his leg on the dusty ground, swearing up a storm. He reaches through a coat pocket for a pill bottle and swallows some pills between creative insults.

When they're not looking any more Blai lays a hand on the man's shoulder and burns a second-circle slot on a Cure.

"What the fuck? Did that codeine hit really fast, or-" He looks Blai up and down. Suspiciously. "Did you do some kind of mutie thing to me?"

"No. It is god magic."

"...Magic, huh? A miracle? Well, praise the Lord! Fuck..."

He sits up and feels around his leg.

"Praise Iomedae, Who heals," offers Blai.

"Sure. Iomedae did more for me than Jesus Christ ever did..." He sounds faintly awed now. Quieter. "I'm not hallucinating from heatstroke or anything, am I?"

"No." Blai's got his mug on his belt, he pulls it off and fills it with water and offers it.

"...Thanks."

He drinks. He feels around his head for something.

"...So is this the part where you sell me on the Path of Ome- Iomedae? Better start than most bordertown preachers."

"I don't have very good English. Tomorrow I will tell more, if you be here for tomorrow."

"Urgh. I've got nowhere better to be. I'm only going to complain about my life if you want me to though. 'M not that pathetic."

Shrug. "Food?" he asks.

He stares up at the concrete of the overpass instead of answering, for a bit.

"......If you're offering, Chainmail Jesus. Thanks. I'm a fuckup but I'm a fuckup who doesn't have a broken leg. So that's worth something."

Blai grabs him a pie.

He will pause looking over the bike, declare, "It's about out of gas anyway...", and eat the pie. "What brings you out- No, no, bad English." Sigh.

Blai nods apologetically and has a pie too.

He cleans up his bike. He asks for more water. He paces and rambles to himself about places he could go next. He asks Blai if there are any chores or anything he ought to be doing, since he doesn't want to risk going back to Bordertown just yet.

"Help English?" Blai suggests.

"-Oh, sure. I was told immersion is the best way to learn languages. I never was a teacher though. How do you want to do that?"

"Tell me when I say a wrong thing? Or the word for a thing I say many words for."

"...Tell you when you say something wrong. Or when there is a more concise word you could use. Okay, I can do that."

"I will be worse at this in about forty minutes," he says. "So, until then. Do you do chess?"

"What, more magic? No, I've never played chess. I think the knight moves in an L shape? And bishops are sneaky somehow? Pretentious authors like to use the pieces as metaphors in their books sometimes."

"Bishops do -" He casts Prestidigitation and makes a board and starts appearing pieces on it, a bishop first. Diagonal like so, zig zag zig.

"Bishops do diagonally. So rooks do orthogonal- Straight lines? And queen does bishop and rook. And king can only move one spot."

"Yes." And he makes all the rest of the pieces too and sets them up. Makes sure the guy knows what pawns are for too.

He's really not very good. Especially with knights.

This is a teaching game so Blai keeps all his pieces - so as to demonstrate - but gives his opponent lots of tips as they go.

"Weren't you supposed to be trying to learn English? Well, if you want to play chess we'll play chess..."

He has an original thought for a move, for once! A marginally clever pawn/rook fortification.

"English can be about chess!"

Once he is sure the guy knows all the rules he estimates a generous handicap and starts over.

"I don't know... Chess words. I'm sure there's all sorts of words for particular strategies or whatever, but I only know a few by cultural osmosis- 'ahh, yes, the Vienna opening, a bold choice Mr. Bond' or whatever."

"Vienna? Mr. Bond?"

"Vienna is a city in Germany- In Europe. One of the big centers of culture for the western world. Once upon a time, anyway. Mr. Bond- Now this is old old stuff, I'm a bit of a geek about the classics? But the references survive, at least a few of them- Do you expect me to talk? No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE. The James Bond series was a very popular and long-running series of movies and novels, video games too, spawned a whole genre. Spy stuff. Thrilling heists and infiltrations against villains out to take over the world but for one daring secret agent trying to sneak into the enemy base and figure out the plot."

He is making a pretty standard pawn ladder.

Blai has few enough pieces to find this at all challenging to cope with! "Only one secret agent? No one to help?"

"Only one in the field, usually. Sometimes a partner thing. He has people make gadgets for him, tracking devices or odd weapons like exploding pens- Or gather information. Sometimes he rescues a damsel in distress."

"They are damsels because of the book being a book about a man and a damsel doing - I do not know all the words or which words are polite -"

"What, sex? Yeah, it's implied that he bones the girl after rescuing her. Never outright stated- Oh, no, you couldn't do that in some types of 20th century media, think of the children!" He snorts. "Anyway, yeah, there's a lot of words for that. I think 'damsel in distress' as a trope isn't actually specifically about the character being a sex object though? It's more about them being helpless. Usually that's women in classic stuff, thus, damsel."

Roooook come on out, slow and steady only accept even trades and he'll beat this handicap.

"...what are we thinking about the children?"

"A particular brand of 20th century stupidity. Children shouldn't read about people having irresponsible sex, what if they decide to have irresponsible sex! Actually don't tell them anything about it at all! As if that won't have any negative consequences whatsoever."

"They do not... notice? If no one tells them?"

"I don't know how things actually worked back then, head. I just know they had a pile of weird social rules about it and it informs the media."

"Okay. Now the media is different?"

"Yeah, we have whole new problems. Shock value. Violent media eroding away the standards of decency and good conduct, anger for anger's sake. There's no more taboos- Except cannibalism. And fuckin' mutants."

"What is about mutants?"

"I'm not sure what phrasing you would have been going for there if you were a native speaker. Mutants, man- Look, I'm not saying they can't be nice guys, good ones among the lot, right? It's unstable biological hackwork, they're built different, they think different, and they think in terms of immediate reward and selfish crime. Tower Group has a contract to keep mutants off the streets of Cinci because if they didn't, the mutants would make the gang problems so much worse, make the shit that goes down in the Projects spread all across the city."