Oh, there is another place willing to reject the gods even when they're handing out magic!  He might want to ally with them!

"Like Rahadoum?  Maybe?  Not know Rahadoum.  Not outlawed in Numenor, but -"  He waves his hand to say "so-so."

He's not sure just how little time he has left on the spell, so one more question - "When you go?  Go somewhere?"

Yeah, that's Geb.

"We're going on tomorrow. Hunting monsters."

    "Tracking down sheep-eating spiders or something," Luca says glumly.

"Better than sewer rats."

    "Well we hope there's enough spiders or something for us to taldane taldane taldane up tomorrow!"

Pharazon's spell runs out, although he can recognize some words without it now.

Yes he can recognize some words; his good memory has stood him in good stead often before now.

"Spiders," he echoes in Taldane with an emphatic nod.  He slaps his sword.  "Many spiders."

("Many" is something of an exaggeration, at least for those he himself helped slay.)

"All adventurers have to start with spiders. You look like you're a ways past that?" It's a very good bet, if he's the kind of adventurer who gets Teleported around.

He cups his hand to his ear.

He could recast the spell, but is this the best time?

...he repeats what he said, louder and enunciating more clearly.

He shakes his head.  "Magic.  Numenor talk Adunaic; I talk Adunaic; Andoran talk --"

(he forgets the name of the language.)

"Taldane," Anton says at the same time as Luca firmly says "Andorani."

They glare at each other. "If every nation could rename a language after itself," Luca says, "you would have to concede that to the west they really do speak Chelish. And yet their language is -"

"Don't say it!" Orlando exclaims. "Look, can we all agree on Common? Language is a possession of the commons, is it not?"

"When asked by a foreigner what language you speak, replying 'why, the common tongue' seems rude," Anton comments. Then he blinks. "What was that about magic? Did you use a translation spell earlier?" In which case he's not sure how to unconfuse Pharazon by giving him a single word as the name of the language. He might accept "Andorani", but Anton has principles.

Uncomprehending stare.

"Did you use comprehend languages," Anton asks. It's the one spell whose name in Common - that is, whose name in common use (*), across all Avistani languages, is the same as its verbal component. The verbal component is the same for the arcane and divine versions, which is a quine of nominative determinism evidence that wizards started out reverse-engineering common cleric spells a deep insight into the nature of this spell and magic itself, which he will understand once he is much more cunning.

In practical terms that means every caster pronounces those two words in exactly the same way and so can readily recognize them, regardless of accent and other mortal accidents.

(*) That is, common use among casters and arcanists, who are obviously the only people who matter for this matter.

They figured it out!  He heard the same words he'd used to cast the spell, but he didn't see the hand gestures.  Maybe they cast the same spell?  Or maybe they're just talking about it?

"Yes!" he says in Taldane, enthusiastically nodding his head.  And then he continues in Adunaic:  "I would be happy to kill more spiders.  Are they common around here?"

Anton very clearly didn't cast Comprehend Languages! Really it ought to have been clear to anyone that he didn't cast any spell just then, that's a very freshman mistake to make - oh, the man must be a cleric.

And he doesn't have it prepared right now, why would he? In fact he doesn't even have it in his spellbook, because it'd be a waste of good money when all his adventuring for the immediate future is going to be inside Andoran. It's one of those classics everyone learns in school and then promptly forgets about until third circle.

He gestures that he doesn't understand. Hopefully the man has forgotten about his original question of what the local language is rightfully called?

So they don't have magic?  Or the Valar didn't give them this spell?

But he's jumping ahead of himself here.  Maybe they have some other sorts of magic; it's not necessarily the case that they'd jump at the chance to have a magic-user with them.

He smiles and touches his sword.  "Many spiders," he says in Taldane.

"Are you trying to join them?" Miriel asks (in Adunaic, of course).

Pharazon nods.  "It's a way out of this town.  And a way to start doing noteworthy deeds."

Oh, he picked up some Andorani Local Language from going around with Comprehend Languages? Maybe he has the makings of a wizard after all!

And he seems to be saying he got his start as an adventurer by sword-fighting many spiders, and only became a cleric later? That's reasonable, many adventurers have one cleric circle in addition to their main specialization.

"So - you need money to go home, you don't know where that is, and you're looking for work as a fighter," Orlando summarizes.

    "Do you want us to hire you?"

"Are you kidding? We don't have enough money to hire him, we barely have enough money to hire us!" Which is to say, they're all in it for the experience, not for the pay.

    "And we can't understand him."

"But he has Comprehend Languages, so he can understand us."

    "That lasts less than half an hour per casting," Anton says.

"I don't see how we could work with someone we can' talk to. What if there was a misunderstanding while we were fighting?"

    "Anyway we can't afford him. I mean, just look how fancy he dresses, and that's not even his armor!"

Orlando spreads his hands. "We don't have enough money," he says, this being the simplest-to-explain reason. See this coin? They have very few of them. Sorry.