It's either just after sunrise or just before sunset, the sky dim and dusty, the shadows long. The forest is filled with the sounds of the creatures active at this hour. 

He is the only human being in the immediate vicinity. 

He's low on magic, but not completely out. He spends a spell to take to the air, rising above the treetops to look for firelight or other signs of civilization.

There are lights over in that direction. 

Oh, good.

He heads that way, keeping an ear out for dangers in the dark.

He's almost to the lights, can even make out individual human shapes near them, when a handful of tattered undead shamble into view below him. 

Oh. Not so good.

He swoops down, taking cover in a tree, and waits - if there are more coming he should get them all in one burst, and if there's a necromancer around he'd like to know about that, too.

A handful more arrive. 

There is no necromancer anywhere nearby yet growth mindset. 

He gauges how fast the original handful are moving, and when they're about to get out of range, he chants, and all of them glow blue and crumble into dust.

A person who is not even slightly undead walks in in just enough time to see this. He lowers his sword and looks at Raafi with likely-imperceptible bemusement. 

Raafi checks that his flight spell is still active, and floats down from the tree branch. "Sorry to bother you - I'm not sure how I got here, I woke up under a tree a few minutes ago, back that way, and I was in a little village north of Pellstown when I went to bed."

"什么?"

...

He holds up a finger and rifles through his belt pouches - none of which are large enough to really need rifling through, unless he's quite absent-minded - to come up with a necklace, a piece of carved jade on a leather strap, which he puts on. He's understandable this time: "I must be farther away than I thought. Where am I?"

The man blinks. "--The forest outside the Cloud Recesses in Gusu. How did you do that?"

This is pretty confusing for Raafi, too. "The necklace has a translation spell. The walking corpses I used healing magic on, it damages undead - most clerics can do that, where I'm from, I'm a cleric of the god of travel. I'm low on spells, though, if you're having necromancy problems I'll be more help with them tomorrow."

"It's just a few low-level walking corpses, nothing we can't handle. You can use healing to fight ghouls? You're a priest?"

"It's channeled positive energy, if you want to get technical about it, but it heals living creatures and harms undead ones, yes. I might not be much like the priests you have here, it sounds like you have some very different traditions here." He peers through the woods in the direction the corpses came from. "Should we be expecting more of those?"

"How many of them did you destroy?"

"I counted seven."

"There should be a few others, then, but I don't know if they're in this specific immediate area." 

"Mmhmm. I have one more spell like that tonight, if we can get them all together for it."

"One more spell?"

"-I can do a better job of explaining once I know what kind of magic you're used to. But I can only do that once more before dawn, when I do my devotions."

"Oh, it's a religious proscription?"

"Not really, but you could think of it that way, I guess. My god gives me a certain amount of magic every day, and I used most of it earlier, I wasn't expecting to find myself here." He heads off toward the source of the zombies.

"Your god gives you magic?"

"Mmhmm. It's one of the more common ways to get magic, where I'm from. There are lots of gods, and some people care about the same thing a god does - travel, in my case - enough and in the right way to act as their agent, and if they devote themselves to that, the god they're following will give them magic, a little at first and more as they prove themselves with it."

"Where are you from?"

"Well, I spend most of my time on the continent of Ospor, but I've never heard of Gusu, so I'll be surprised if you've heard of us. I had thought the gods were known of everywhere, though, at least the most popular ones. I have a map with me, though, maybe we can figure it out in the morning."

"I've heard of gods, just not ones that give people magic like that."

"-huh. What kind of magic do you have - if I say there are eight kinds, does that sound familiar at all?"

"No..."

"Huh. All right, I'm very far from home, then, that's supposed to be universal."

"I...see. Well, uh, we have--one kind--maybe two technically but, uh..."

"I probably don't need to know about it right now, unless it's going to matter in the next day or two."

"...Probably not?"

"It can wait, then. I will need to decide what spells to ask for in the morning, though, if you're having any problems besides the undead that I might be able to help with."

"Ahh...you would probably have to ask someone else." 

"All right." Tromp tromp. "Is there an inn at Cloud Recesses?"

"...There are guest quarters." 

"Would I be able to stay there for the night, do you think? I don't usually mind camping but I'm sure you'd rather not have an extra shambler to hunt down tomorrow."

"Yes, of course. You expect you would die and become a walking corpse if you camped out?"

"That's how I'm used to undead working, at least. It'd be safe enough to camp most places I'm used to, but not knowing what's making them rise here I wouldn't risk it, not without protective magic and preferably someone on watch on top of that."

"Re...sentment?"

"-we get ghosts, that way, at home. Sometimes, not very often. We don't get walking corpses without something more serious happening."

"More serious like what?"

"Someone doing magic to make them, most often, or a hostile god in the area, or a leakage of negative energy across the planes, or something like that."

"...Hostile god? Leakage of negative energy across the planes???"

"Neither of those is common at all. And I'm the wrong sort of cleric to deal with a hostile god, but an energy leakage isn't that hard to handle if you catch it early enough; I helped with one once." Yawn.

"I have never heard of either of these things. I mean, I've heard of entities that tried to become gods and failed and it went badly, but..."

"Well, it sounds like this is a different world, you might not have them here at all. Hostile gods are just - gods, of things that are bad for people, most of them don't have anything to do with undead but some do. Usually pretty weak ones, as gods go, not many people will follow one like that. And planar cosmology I probably shouldn't try to explain on two hours' sleep if you've never heard of it before."

"I...see. Yes, I can get you somewhere to sleep."

"Thank you. I should be okay to keep looking for a while, though, planar cosmology's just complicated."

"These are just low-level walking corpses, we can easily handle it." 

"All right." He takes one last look around and turns to head back toward Cloud Recesses. "I'm Raafi, by the way, and my god is Fharlanghn." He drops into a different accent to pronounce the names. "His title is Dweller on the Horizon, if you prefer."

"I have never heard of that deity but I suppose I wouldn't have."

"Doesn't surprise me, yes. You do have gods around here, though? What are they like?"

"Mostly once they get to the point of being gods they don't do that much on earth. Smaller local ones can be more helpful." 

"Huh. The gods I'm used to are mostly very interested in mortal affairs, and even the ones that aren't are important that way."

"Huh." 

He leads him to a sort of campus of long, pale, peaceful buildings.

Raafi follows agreeably enough, chatting to keep himself awake as they go.

"Should I look for someone in the morning, or anything?" he asks, when they get to the guest quarters. "And is it going to be an inconvenience to have me join you for meals? I can conjure food if it is, I just need to prepare the spell for it."

"Conjure food?"

"Mmhmm. Not quite as useful as it sounds, but maybe I'll prepare that one anyway, as a demonstration. Anyway, is there anything else I should know tonight?"

"...Uh, everyone rises at five."

"All right. I might be up a bit before that, but I can be careful not to disturb anyone. Thank you for your help."

"You're welcome." 

He sleeps, and wakes up comfortably before dawn to do his devotions, pacing quietly around the room.

They'll find him sitting outside the building the next morning, reading from a notebook and nibbling on dried fruit, with a walking stick he didn't have the night before propped against the wall beside him.

"So, you're our mysterious stranger." 

"That's me!" He tucks the notebook and pouch of fruit away and stands. "I assume someone wants my story."

"That would be lovely."

"There's not much to it, exactly. I seem to be from a different world - the young man who found me last night seemed very surprised at how my magic works - and I appeared in this one in my sleep last night, I have no idea why." He's awfully cheerful about it.

"A different world?"

"Mmhmm. It's news to me, too, that there's more than one, but walking corpses are much rarer, there, and our gods are more active in the world, and our magic is different - I get my magic from Fharlanghn, our god of travel, and I can do - well, lots of things, but the ones that came up last night were positive energy channeling, which heals the living and harms undead, and food conjuration. I can demonstrate both of those, if you'd like."

"...I would very much appreciate it." 

"All right. Do you have somewhere for me to put a lot of food? It isn't stable, it'll fade after a day if it's not eaten, but at my tier I can make nearly a hundred fifty meals' worth at once."

"We do, yes." 

He leads Raafi to a storage area. 

He chants for a few seconds, and the promised food appears with a diffuse glow - bread, mostly, as loaves and smaller rolls, but also a container of oats, a bushel of apples, a large tub of butter, and a small wheel of cheese, plus a couple of barrels of water. Raafi picks up a roll and takes a bite, then grabs an apple, too.

"What are these?" he asks. Some things, like the bread, seem basically straightforward in construction, even if the details are unfamiliar. Others, like the butter and cheese, he's baffled by. 

"Butter, there, and cheese - butter is churned cream, usually spread on bread, and cheese is fermented milk. And these are apples, a kind of tree fruit, don't eat the core."

"I had guessed these were a fruit." He's still handling a cheese as though he finds it perplexing. "This is fermented, but will go bad after only a day?"

"Regular cheese doesn't; conjured food is different, the spell wears off and it stops existing correctly. Except the water, water's especially easy to conjure. It's fine to eat, though, it's just as good that way. Here-" he takes the cheese, and takes a small knife out of his belt to cut through the rind and slice off a piece for himself and a smaller one to offer back. "This is pretty plain cheese; I can get a spell that can do nicer food but it's more complicated, doesn't make a very good demonstration."

He eats the piece of cheese. "Interesting," he pronounces. 

"I can show you how to make a few of the simpler kinds, if you want. Butter, too. For now the healing demonstration, though - do you have anyone around who needs it? My basic healing spell only does the same kind of healing that you'll eventually get from rest, I'd have to prepare something specific to break a fever or restore a lost limb or anything."

"...My brother is currently recovering from an injury to his back." 

"That sounds like the right sort of thing," he nods. "Unless he's paralyzed; I can fix that, too, but it's a separate spell, it'll have to wait until tomorrow."

"He isn't paralyzed, it's all skin and muscle damage, his spine was unaffected."

"I can take care of that, no problem. Now, if you'd like."

Nod. 

He leads him to another area, then knocks on a door. "Brother, it's me. I've brought a new healer." 

"Come in." 

He's half-propped-up in bed, reading some kind of scroll. 

"Hello," he nods. "May I see, or is it painful for you to move? It's more efficient to match the size of the spell to the severity of the injury," he explains to Lan Xichen, "but I don't expect to need much magic today, I can use a bigger spell than I need to."

He nods, and begins removing his robes. 

Underneath his torso is heavily bandaged; there isn't much blood leaking through at the moment, but the bandages aren't pristine either. 

He's very gentle getting the bandages off. He freezes, for a moment, when he sees what's underneath; it's subtle compared to the rest of his body language, but he's definitely startled. He keeps it out of his voice, though, when he speaks - "I might need two, for this. And I'm afraid you'll have some scarring where it's started to heal, unfortunately. Nothing worse than that, though." And he chants, and his hand glows blue; he touches Lan Wangji's back above the highest wound, and they close almost completely. "One more," and he repeats the process, and the healing is complete.

He blinks. 

He rotates his shoulder, checking for pain, and re-dresses and stands. 

"Thank you." 

"You're entirely welcome."

"How did you do that?"

"I'm from another world, with more active gods; I'm a cleric of one of them, our god of travel, who gives me various kinds of magic. That was positive energy channeling."

"What does 'positive energy channeling' have to do with travel?"

"It doesn't especially. Clerics' job is to look after our gods' interests; we mostly get the same sorts of tools to do that with. I'd usually use it to help people injured on the road, or I might be asked to travel with someone through dangerous territory where it'd be useful security. And I do have other magic that's more about travel directly."

Nod. "What else can you do?"

"A pretty wide variety of things. Lots of kinds of healing, mostly physical but some mental. Raising the dead too, though that's expensive. Some combat magic, though I don't personally favor it, I usually just summon an elemental if I'm in trouble like that. Protective magic, too, for combat, and physical and mental improvements for combat or outside it. Divinations, a few different kinds - the translation magic I'm using is a divinaton, and I can do things like checking whether a plan is a good idea or not or whether someone's telling the truth. For travel magic, I favor teleportation, though I can only teleport to places I've seen, with my long-range one, and I can also fly two different ways and improve my land speed. I expect I'd be able to teleport back to my world if I was prepared for it, but I'm not, I probably won't be able to go back until I've started getting the highest tier of spells - a decade, maybe. I might be able to do something about your undead problem, too - I'm not sure, since it sounds like they work a little differently here, but the spells I'd use at home might still help."

"Raising the dead?"

"Mmhmm. If they're recently enough dead and some of the remains are available."

"Mn." 

"How recent is recent?"

"I can get two different spells that can do it; the less expensive one only works within fifteen days unless the corpse is magically preserved, but the other one works up to a hundred and fifty years, for me. There's also a ninth-tier spell - spells in my world only go up to ninth tier, and I can cast up to eighth right now - that doesn't need remains, I expect to be able to do that eventually."

"How eventually." 

"Wangji..."

"How. Eventually." 

"My guess at home was ten years. It might be more or less than that, here, depending on how much there is for me to do - almost certainly no less than five."

Nod. 

"There was...a war. And then some further incidents after the war."

Raafi nods. "I probably shouldn't jump into geopolitics my first week in a new place, but I should hear about that."

"I would be happy to tell you." 

Happy is maybe an overstatement but the sentiment is genuine. 

"When you're ready - I never stay in one place very long, but I might stay here for a month, if you'll have me."

"Is there some way to contact you when you have left."

"I can check in, one of my divinations lets me communicate at a distance."

"I would be grateful." 

Nod. "We can discuss the details before I go. Is there anything else I ought to be looking into right now?"

"I don't know of anyone who's died within the past fifteen days but there are people who have died much more recently than the past hundred and fifty years whose bodies are mostly intact."

"Well, I like to know a little bit about people before I raise them, and as I mentioned that spell is expensive, but I can prepare up to three resurrections a day, starting tomorrow. -possibly I should explain how spell tiers work." He does so, including that Resurrection is a seventh-tier spell and he gets two of those and one eighth-tier per day, not counting domain slots that can't be used for that. "I usually charge for spells - most clerics do, if they're not casting to advance their gods' interests - plus Resurrection requires an offering; diamonds are most reliable for it. - I'm not expecting anything for the conjuration or healing, that was to my own benefit as much as yours."

"Money isn't a problem, although I think you will want to talk to the other sects for some of this..."

"Certainly. Because they'll be covering their own resurrections, or is it more complicated than that?"

"And because they'll know their own people better, if you want descriptions."

"All right. We can work on arranging that today - I'd prefer to start with noncombatants, if that's possible, until I know more about the war. I'll want to know more about your undead situation, too, but that seems like a less urgent problem."

"Two of the people I'm thinking of didn't die in the war at all." 

"That sounds like a good place to start. Is this a good time to tell me about them?"

"Their names were Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. They died--well, in the mess that happened after the war."

Nod. "Were they involved before that? I'm mostly concerned about unintentionally starting the war again."

"That's unlikely as long as you don't resurrect anyone surnamed Wen, although raising Wei Wuxian would have its own set of problems. The Wen sect was the most powerful of the five great cultivation sects, but they became arrogant and attacked the rest, who were forced to band together to destroy them. Wei Wuxian took in refugee civilians from the Wen Clan, but he was using dangerous and untested magic and things went very badly."

"That sounds straightforward enough, all right."

"Wei Wuxian's body was destroyed utterly."

Raafi nods. "That doesn't matter, for True Resurrection - I actually don't even need very much for the resurrection spell that I can do now, a lock of hair taken from the body is fine, or ashes from a pyre, if you do that here. And the political situation might have calmed down in five or ten years, especially with the casualties returned to life; we'll have to wait and see."

...Nod. 

"No ashes. No hair. There was nothing. But five or ten years is acceptable." Is infinitely better than forever, which is what he thought was on offer. 

"Mmhmm. If your undead problem is widespread, it's good news, that way - I expect it makes it dangerous to travel, and if I can clear it up, that should be impressive enough to get my god's attention. Maybe not enough for an entire tier, that takes a lot at this point, but a good piece of one."

"It would be extremely rare and unfortunate for a ghoul problem to make travel difficult for long without one of the sects addressing it."

"Well, good news in some sense, if not in this one. I may be able to solve it permanently, though, which will still count for something. And there are plenty of other things I can do - even just exploring by myself helps, it's just slower."

"...Solve it permanently?"

"I can consecrate an area so that no undead can rise there. Doing it permanently on a large area will take time and be expensive, but it's probably worth the effort even if you have it basically under control - the difference between a low risk of meeting a walking corpse and no risk is significant, to most travelers, in my experience."

"What are the relevant magnitudes of 'large area,' 'take time,' and 'expensive.'"

"It takes several spells, and supplies - if I'm focused just on that I should be able to consecrate an acre in a week or so, with enough powdered silver; I'd have to check my notes on how much, but a considerable amount."

"One acre is unlikely to make a considerable difference. Unless you could do it to something like the Burial Mounds..."

"It does make sense to start where most of the corpses are."

"It's not just the number of corpses, the place is very cursed."

"Well, that sounds like another problem I can solve."

"Normally it's the kind of problem we can solve but nobody's been able to make any headway there."

"It's still worth a try. Usually it comes down to caster tier, in my world, higher tier spellcasters can put more force behind their spells. And fifteenth tier casters are rare enough that I won't be very surprised if you don't have anyone equivalent around, even if I'm not approaching the problem from a different enough perspective to matter."

"Fifteenth tier?"

"Mmhmm. Just like how spells come in distinct tiers, spellcasters do too, in my world, based on how experienced they are. It affects how well my spells work, in various ways - higher tier casters can produce more food with the conjuration I showed you, and resurrect people who've been dead longer, and for other spells they'll last longer or have a larger or stronger effect or can be cast at more of a distance, things like that. You'll notice that the number fifteen, or multiples of it, comes up often in what my spells can do; that's usually because of my caster tier, and they'll improve when I do. Higher tier casters also get more spells, and higher tier ones; I'll be able to cast ninth tier spells when I reach the seventeenth caster tier, out of twenty possible."

"If I hadn't had a concrete demonstration of your power that would sound like nonsense." 

"It is a little strange," he nods. "We think it has to do with how magic was made by the gods, that it's easier for them to work with us if spellcasters can be categorized more simply."

"As far as we know, the gods had nothing to do with our magic."

"I am curious about how yours works, if there's nothing more pressing to talk about."

"Nothing more immediately pressing, although it's not a simple topic; our scholars can spend their lifetimes trying to understand it. The key underlying principle is the cultivation of spiritual energy within oneself."

"I've never heard of magic working like that."

"I've never heard of magic not working like that. Or--at least more like that than like what you describe." 

"Mmhmm. I wonder if my magic works together with yours as well as it works with itself - one of the things I can do is temporarily improve people, make them stronger or healthier, or make them smarter, a couple of ways. Those kinds of mental capability help determine how strong our spells are, depending on the type of spellcaster; mine are improved by the spell that makes me more perceptive and better at noticing the practical implications of things, and the other spell I can cast makes people better at understanding how to communicate and present themselves well; there are also spells for agility and for considering complex ideas and remembering facts, that I don't get but have a few potions for - potions are a way of storing spells to use later or for trade, making them is a special skill that I don't personally have."

"Hmm. I would say our magic benefits from--attentional capacity, and working memory; strength, though, is solely tied to the spell itself and the magical strength of the user."

"Owl's Wisdom might help, then, or you might need Fox's Cunning for it - Owl's is the one that improves my spells, attentional capacity is a component of perceptiveness, and Fox's is the one I can't do, that's better for working memory. I do have Owl's prepared, if you want to try it, I knew I'd be curious."

"It seems worth a try." 

He'll cast it, then, offering the spell as a gentle glow in his outstretched hand.

"I have Eagle's Splendor today, too," he tells Wangji while his brother considers the spell. "The one that helps with communication. If you'd like to try it later."

"...Yes."

Nod. "I'll give you some time to think about it - it helps with figuring out what things are a bad idea to say because they're offensive or unpersuasive, but not with avoiding telling someone something you didn't mean them to know, and it only lasts fifteen minutes." And he returns his attention to Xichen. "How's that feel?"

"Can I go check on something before answering that." 

"Sure, I'm not in a rush."

He sweeps off, brow furrowed. 

"Would you like to try some of my apple?"

"Mn."

He cuts off a slice and offers it to him. "There's more in storage if you like it - only for today, conjured food doesn't last very long. I can make more another time, though."

He nibbles the slice silently until Brother comes back. 

After little enough time for the Owl's spell not to have worn off he sweeps back in, looking grimmer and holding a book. 

"Something wrong?"

"Yes." Sigh. "Nothing that's reached the point where your magic seems like the best solution. Yet." 

"All right. I do have divinations prepared that'll let me check whether a plan is a good idea, if you'd like one." And he takes another bite of the apple, content to wait while Xichen works.

"Hmm. I might take you up on that at some point."

Nod. "Let me know."

Nod. "If you'd like to go to Koi Tower any time in the next few days to talk about resurrecting Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan it would be extremely convenient for me to take you."

"Whenever you're ready. Maybe tomorrow, if they're going to want a demonstration of the same spells I showed you."

"Tomorrow would be ideal."

"I'll be ready, then." To Wangji: "And I can look for you this afternoon for the spell."

He bows. "Thank you." 

And Raafi heads out to explore the rest of the campus, favoring places where he can watch people going about their day or doing interesting things.

People go to and fro, occasionally exchanging a word with him but mostly passing by quietly, occupied by their own business. 

The land around the buildings is clear and beautiful, smooth and grassy with little gardens tucked away here and there. 

The entire place is cloaked with an aura of quiet serenity and peaceful contemplation. 

Around noon, people start heading for a centralized dining area. 

It's very nice, if maybe the sort of place that'll get boring eventually.

He follows when people start heading for lunch, peeking in to see how their mealtimes are set up.

Everyone eats at the same time; there aren't staggered mealtimes so a smaller space can feed more people. Food is laid out in large dishes in the centers of the tables and people serve themselves therefrom. The people closest to Raafi leave a space for him to sit down. 

Nobody talks during the meal. 

He takes them up on the apparent offer, taking a little bit of everything for his meal and producing a fork from his belt rather than try to use the chopsticks.

Afterward, he goes looking for Lan Wangji.

The fork gets a few odd looks but no comments. 

Lan Wangji is to be found in the library. 

He quietly gets his attention and asks in gesture if he'd like to go.

"Yes." 

They can go, then, and Raafi'll follow him to wherever he'd like to be for the spellcasting. "I only have one casting of Eagle's today, but if you turn out to need more than that, I can do it tomorrow, don't worry about fitting it all in now." And he casts, and offers the spell.

"This feels very odd." 

Deep breath. 

"Wei Wuxian was a member of the Yunmeng Jiang sect. During the conflict with the Wen sect, he developed an unorthodox new way of doing magic, which involved harnessing resentful energies and commanding the undead. This caused some entirely understandable concern, but everyone was so concerned about the Wen sect that for the most part it was simply accepted as long as it consistently won battles. After he had won the war for them, people began to become more uneasy about it, but public opinion didn't turn entirely against him until he decided to protect surviving Wen-aligned civilians from being killed slowly." 

"That sounds admirable, on his part. Though risky, if necromancy is morally corruptive here - it is in my world."

"I do not know. The circumstances surrounding Jin Zixuan's death remain opaque to me. But I do know that Jiang Yanli's death is not on his hands as many claim; she died on a sword aimed at Wei Wuxian after throwing herself between them, not at his hand. But even if he was some amount corrupted by the end, he was still a better person than the hypocrites who cried out for his blood." 

"He sounds it. And if it is - that is something my magic can do something about, if he's well enough to want me to."

"He will be better than if we did not resurrect Jiang Yanli first, I am certain."

"Mmhmm. I'll see if I can catch your brother later to make sure we're still planning on doing that tomorrow - does he know about what happened?"

"The facts of the matter are public knowledge. Most would frame them differently."

He nods. "I'd like someone involved with planning her resurrection who knows the situation and won't be surprised when she starts telling people they're wrong, is why I ask - I wouldn't know if it would be better to wait and talk to some people about it first, or something."

"Brother would not be surprised. I do not know if Jin Guangyao would be surprised but I would not be surprised if he wasn't." 

"All right. Is there anything else I should know about Wei Wuxian?"

"I don't know what would be relevant to you."

"And I don't know enough about the political situation to know what to ask. I do think he deserves to come back in a situation where he won't be demonized, if we can manage it - are there any other misconceptions about him?"

"Numerous. The rumors bear little correlation to reality."

"Unfortunate. Does he have any other allies? Alive, or ones I might resurrect?"

"Wen Ning, one of the survivors--for a time--and the only known example of sapient undead. Wen Qing, one of the survivors and his sister. The rest of the survivors are less specifically notable to the public but they ceased to survive shortly after Wei Wuxian did. Jiang Fengmian could conceivably be helpful, but might also be politically complicated; a Sect Leader has never come back from the dead before."

"If it'd be obvious quickly enough whether he'd be likely to help, I can cast a divination to check, but my best one looks a week into the future. How hard will it be to get the others' remains, do you know?"

"Wen Ning and Wen Qing were burned to prevent Wei Wuxian from bringing them back; they predeceased him."

"All right. I can work from ashes if we can get them, but I'm not sure that's a good idea anyway. We'll have to see how the first few resurrections go."

"Is there anything else you want me to know? About him, or anything else?"

"Do not trust Jin Guangshan."

"Who is that? I'm not very good with names."

"Jin Zixuan's father, and the person responsible for what Wei Wuxian was rescuing the Wen civilians from."

"Ah. Alive?"

"Unfortunately." 

"Mm. I'll be careful. Mostly physically dangerous, or should I be watching out for something more subtle? I do best when I know what I'm facing, since I have to prepare my magic ahead of time."

"Politically dangerous. Perhaps physically as well, since you are not a cultivator."

"-tricky, but I can probably work with that. All right. - I am pretty good in a fight when I'm prepared, and the teleportation makes it hard to force me into one, don't worry too much about that."

"Hopefully it will limit his ability to move against you significantly if you are able to resurrect his son." 

"That's good. It wouldn't necessarily be the case, everywhere I've been. That's the major limitation I have, if you have any advice about it, that I don't know much of anything about how things work here. - next time, that spell will be wearing off soon. I should be able to prepare it every day at least once, though, if you'd like me to, it's only second tier."

"Thank you. It is incalculably easier to find the words for what I wish to communicate, like this." 

"You're welcome. I can do a half-hour version, too, at third tier, just let me know the day before if you're going to need it for something."

"...I will think about it." 

"Sure, no rush."

"I can think of situations where it could have been useful in the past, but whether they could have been anticipated in advance is another matter."

"Yeah. If I could get home I'd recommend you get a magic item for it, that'd let you keep the spell on all the time, but," he shrugs. "Eventually. Did you have any questions for me?"

"I am curious about your magic." 

"Anything about it in particular?"

"What its limitations are, how it can be learned." 

"Ah. Well, there are different kinds of casters, with different limitations, but the eight schools are common to all of them - conjurations create or move things; transmutations change things, like reshaping stone to make a bridge, or sometimes in subtle ways, like Eagle's Splendor changing your mind to work slightly better; divinations give people information, like the translation spell that lets me know how to speak your language; illusions make false images or sounds or other tricks of that sort; abjurations protect the people or things they're cast on; evocations create energy, for example in the form of a bolt of lightning or ball of fire; enchantments let the caster affect peoples' minds in various ways; and necromancy allows the caster to raise and command undead and affect peoples' bodies in various ways. We can do some things that aren't obvious from those descriptions - healing is a type of conjuration, for example, because it often creates flesh - but anything very different from them we're unlikely to be able to do."

"For a directly-cast spell, the caster has to be there to cast it - some require touching the person or thing we're casting on, others can be done at a bit of a distance, but almost all of them require the caster to be there to set the target when they're cast. It's also rare for a spell to last forever, if it's directly cast; most last seconds to minutes, some last hours, a very few last days. It's possible to infuse a spell into an object, to get around these limitations - my translation necklace, for example, will work forever unless it's broken - but that takes special training, I don't know how to do it."

"All casters from my world have limits to how many spells we can cast per day, and most of us have to prepare our spells ahead of time - the exceptions to that are mostly not types of caster that you can choose to be; sorcerers get their magic from their bloodline and favored souls are rare, and spontaneously chosen by the gods. Bards are another exception, and one you can theoretically learn, but they aren't strong casters and I think you'd be poorly suited to the profession in general - they're generally very focused on interacting with other people. All three of those have limitations on learning spells at all - I can only cast Eagle's if I've prepared it, but if I choose not to prepare it I can ask for any other spell Fharlanghn offers instead; if a favored soul knows Eagle's and two other second-tier spells, they don't have to decide ahead of time whether they'll want to cast Eagle's that day and risk wasting the spell slot, but they also can't cast anything but those three spells, or their first-tier ones or orisons which are similarly limited, with their second-tier slots."

"Generally people who just want magic in particular go for wizardry; it's the most straightforward that way, and the most versatile, in theory. I can't teach it, but there are plenty of schools in my world that do, if you have the aptitude; it's based on cleverness, how good you are at solving puzzles or inventing things. Wizards construct their own spells, rather than receiving them from an outside source, and are about equally good at all eight schools, though they've never figured out how to do healing in particular."

"Clerics are also strong spellcasters, but if you're just interested in the magic, you won't be able to get it this way - unless you're interested in magic because it sounds like the best thing, for its own sake, in which case you could be a cleric of the god of magic. We get our magic through devotion, to our gods and the concepts that they're made of, or to concepts that are important to us personally without necessarily having a god involved at all. The concept has to be the most important thing in your life, something you wouldn't be yourself if you didn't care deeply about. If you have something like that, you can do a little bit of preparation - every cleric needs a holy symbol," (he touches his), "- and then spend an hour a day at the same time each day in prayer and contemplation of it and how you relate to it, and you'll start getting magic. Assuming it works here, I suppose. We can't cast as wide of a variety of spells as wizards, but we do get healing, and a variety of defensive and utility spells, and some offensive ones - I can translate a list of common cleric spells for you, if you'd like."

"There are also druids, who are like clerics but devoted to nature; they get more spells that help them interact with the natural world and less that help them work with other people, and they can also transform into animals. I don't think you're suited to that, either, you seem too comfortable here rather than out in the woods."

"Did I miss anything that you wanted to know about?"

"Nn." 

"All right."

He's up bright and early the next day for the trip to Koi Tower, wearing a backpack and carrying a different walking stick than he had yesterday.

Xichen does not notice the difference, looking somewhat preoccupied. 

Today the cleric of the god of travel gets to learn what it's like to travel by flying sword. 

Excellent, is what it's like to travel by flying sword, if a little cozy.

They arrive shortly outside a grand tower surrounded by a number of lavish outbuildings. 

Raafi's a little distracted by the architecture, but only a little.

"Is there anything I should know before we go in? And I have spells for us, too - Owl's like I cast for you yesterday and Eagle's, the one that helps with communication, at double the duration but I don't know if there'll be a wait before everyone else gets here."

"At least a short one; how long do they take to cast?"

"Only a second or so each, it can wait."

"Er-ge!" a short man in a hat designed to make him look taller says, stepping out of the tower and beaming at Xichen. "And--who might this be?" he asks, nodding at Raafi. 

"This is--someone extremely foreign, who has abilities that bear little resemblance to conventional cultivation. And even less to demonic cultivation, of course. But A-Yao, there is something I really must speak with you in private about first." 

"Oh?" 

"In private, A-Yao," he all but snaps. 

"...Right," he says, smile fading. He turns to the other visitor. "If you wouldn't mind waiting, I can show you to a room where you can do so comfortably." 

"Of course."

He leads him off to a comfy waiting room and leaves with Lan Xichen. 

These people have excellent silencing spells; he doesn't hear any shouting at all. 

They return a little more than half an hour later, Jin Guangyao looking a little upset and subdued and Lan Xichen looking unhappy and troubled.

Raafi looks from one to the other. "...is there anything I can do?"

"No. But thank you." 

"All right. Uh, names - the title for clerics of Fharlanhgn is 'Traveler', my translation magic is struggling with my name a bit but 'Traveler Raafi' sounds at least more correct, to me, if you'd like to introduce me that way. Or just 'Traveler', I'm addressed that way often enough at home."

"Traveler Ruafei," he tries.

"Sounds good to me," he nods.

Then they can go in and see a man in elaborate golden robes who is lounging on a very elaborate chair and not-so-subtly perving on attractive female servants while his wife glares at him. 

The man is initially skeptical but he's willing to have Raafi's impossible outworld magic demonstrated and once it has been he is suddenly paying MUCH MORE ATTENTION and yes would very much like his son (and daughter-in-law) back and yes they have diamonds. 

"I'm prepared to do that today," Raafi nods. "I'd like to know a little more about them first, though, on general principles - what they were like, how they died, that sort of thing."

Jin Zixuan was honorable and brave. Jiang Yanli was kind and gentle. They were both horribly murdered by Yiling Laozu.

Raafi accepts this without particular comment, and explains that he'll need the diamonds, his own payment, some small part of the remains - a lock of hair would be ideal but anything works - a place to work, and an assistant: by default the restored person wakes up almost immediately, but he prefers to leave them asleep for a few moments when resurrecting for people who aren't familiar with the process; the assistant is to put a magic blanket over them as he finishes the spell, which will keep them asleep for a little while. They might want to have clothes on hand for them, too, and anything else that they might want immediately.

Diamonds and an assistant can be provided immediately; digging up the deceased's ashes will take a little while. 

Of course. Do they mind if he looks around a little while he's waiting? They've got some gorgeous architecture here.

Yes, yes they do. (Have gorgeous architecture, not mind.)

He doesn't go far; they'll find him sitting on the steps sketching a particularly interesting flying eave when they're ready for him.

It takes a couple of hours but then a servant comes to find him. 

He follows the servant to the place they've set up for him, checks that everything is in order and explains to his assistant what to do with the blanket, and casts. It's ten minutes of chanting, which he's warned them of, in his strangely-accented foreign speech. The offering disappears, eventually, replaced by a body on the mattress where he sprinkled the ashes given to him, clothed in a plain white shirt and pants. He anoints it with holy water at forehead, hands, and feet, and nods to the assistant to cover it with the blanket, still chanting. There's an odd sense of presence, of being watched, in the final few seconds, and as he comes to the end of his incantation, the body takes a breath.

The sect leader's wife's hands go to her mouth as she blinks back tears. 

"There you go," he says, speaking quietly. "You can take the blanket off whenever you're ready."

"Can you do his wife, too, first...? He died before she did, if he wakes up and she's gone he'll be distressed."

"I only have the one blanket, so she'll wake up as soon as the casting is done. But if you think it best, of course." And he repeats the process.

She gasps and sits up. 

The last thing she remembers is being run through with a sword intended for A-Xian. She knew she was dying, but--

"What happened?"

"It's all right. You died, but I have magic that can bring people back. You're safe now. Your husband, too, he's right over here."

She looks over and gasps softly. 

"What about--where's my son, is A-Cheng okay--is A-Xian okay--?"

He glances at the assembled locals for help - "I assume your son is fine, I haven't been asked to do any more resurrections or healing today, but I don't recognize those names, I'm sorry."

"My brothers. Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian." 

A startled, disapproving murmur goes through the onlookers. 

"Someone was trying to stab A-Xian, that's what killed me, I couldn't let them--"

"-oh. Ah - I don't know anything about Jian Cheng, but -" does anyone else want to field this - "Wei Wuxian is dead, I'm sorry. And his body was lost, without that I won't be able to resurrect him yet."

Her hand comes up to where the wound that killed her was. 

She looks around at everyone who isn't meeting her gaze. 

She wraps her arms around her husband and buries her face in his neck and cries. 

He sits on the floor on the other side of Jin Zixuan - this is a risk, she's likely to wake him and he has no idea how he'll react, but probably worth it - and rubs her back, gently, and speaks quietly. "I don't know what happened after you died, but I think you did the right thing - he was doing important work, and you gave him the chance to do more of it. And - I can't bring him back yet, but I will be able to. You're not the only one who wants it."

"Good." She won't ask who; that's just likely to make things more difficult for them. She gently shakes her husband awake and they tearfully embrace. 

He backs off, going to stand by Lan Xichen. "You think she'll be safe here?" he asks, half under his breath.

"Yes. Madam Jin was best friends with her mother, and...Jin Guangyao has strong incentives to ensure she comes to no harm."

He nods. "I want to know more about the political situation here. But, later."

Nod. 

The Jins would like to know what exactly are the circumstances he's able and willing to bring people back to life in. 

He can do at most three resurrections a day, given notice by the evening before that he should prepare the spell for it, of anyone with remains available who died within the last hundred and fifty years, unless they died of old age. It's also possible that someone will decline to return; he's never had it happen but there is a risk of it. (He'll refund his portion of the cost of the spell if that happens, unless he's warned them ahead of time that he thinks it's likely and they've asked him to try anyway; the offering will still be used in any case.) Payment and offering are as he's already discussed; the offering doesn't strictly have to be diamonds, but it does have to have the same value, and there's a chance of anything else being rejected; he can check with another spell whether it will be, if needed.

He doesn't want to bring anyone back who might restart the war, or start another one, or generally make significant trouble like that; he may be willing to bring people back in spite of that kind of risk if they'll accept him using additional magic to reduce it. He'll want enough information about the people he's bringing back to judge the risk of that. If he gets a request to not bring a particular person or group of people back he'll also take that into account. And this is a relatively time-limited offer: as a cleric of the god of travel he doesn't stay in one place very long as a rule; he expects to be comfortable here for a month, perhaps two if it ends up being convenient to make lots of day trips to interesting places, but he's eventually going to want to go - though of course he can come back later, if there's unfinished business here.