"And if it does mean Gandalf?"

"Then - 'G3' - would be a sign Gandalf was here October the Third; that's three days ago now.  And also, he was in a hurry, so he had no time to write anything longer or plainer."

He looks around the scorched stones.

"For myself, if it were not for our new companion, I would believe he was here and in danger...  The light that we saw in the eastern sky three nights ago comes back to my mind.  But he is here no longer; we must now look after ourselves as best we can."

They all stand gazing pensively for a while, around the hilltop and the land around.

Then Gord can finish preparing a spell in peace! Now, who to cast it on? The human stands out but only because he's human. Oh well, any of them can presumably translate, and he's not going to be able to guess at any distrust between them but if there is any then it might be better to be talking to one of the halflings.

"Merry," he says to get the attention of the one whose name he knows, and then offers him his hand in the 'may I cast a touch spell on you' gesture.

The Big Person looks like he's offering him something, but there's nothing in his hand?

Merry comes over, confused, and holds out his hand mirroring him.

Share Language (Hallit)! (Gord says a few unfamiliar words, makes a gesture, and lightly touches Merry's hand.)

"Now we can talk properly. Hello again, I'm Gord. I hope you're willing to translate for the rest of your group, I had to choose someone and the spell lasts for a day and a night."

"Oh, hello!  I'm Merry Brandybuck.  How come you suddenly speak the Common --"

He suddenly realizes they're not speaking the Common Tongue, and yelps.

Strider, on suddenly seeing Merry speaking in an unknown tongue, concludes that Gord has cast hostile magic on him and jumps forward between him and Gord.

Gord backs up in a defensive stance. "The spell only shared my language with you. I mean you no harm and thought you had agreed to it." He'd prayed for a spell and clearly offered to cast it on him!

"You can do that with magic --"

Merry pauses and repeats in Westron.  "You can just make me speak a new language with magic!?"

... at least he's speaking normal Westron again???

Aragorn glances back at him with concern while keeping an eye on Gord.  He says (in Westron, since Merry doesn't speak Sindarin (or at least he didn't two minutes ago)) "I've never heard of magic doing just that..."

"They're normal cleric spells where I come from. I can understand all languages - that's a different spell, a shorter lived one - but I can't speak in them so I cast this one to let you understand me. It doesn't do anything else - well, you could learn information about the language separately from me speaking it, but it doesn't do anything besides make you know the language for one day."

"Where are we? I seem to have traveled here from far away, and don't recognize any of the place-names you mentioned earlier." The common spells being different reinforces that. At least it really doesn't seem like the Abyss.

"We're at Weathertop - east of the Shire - east of Bree -"

Merry glances around, as if he might see some other familiar landmark to mention.  "And, uh, what's a cleric?"

Yeah you already said that --

...um. Is the spell not working right? "A cleric is someone who is granted magic by a god. There are other words for other kinds of mages who also get powers from gods but clerics are the most common. Just now I needed the spell to share my language with you so I prayed to my god for it." Is Merry translating all this for the benefit of the others, Strider looks tense.

Merry is still confused!  But he's so confused he doesn't know what to ask next, so - yeah, it's time to translate.

"He says he's got some magic from a 'god' -" (he uses the Hallit word since he's not familiar with the Westron ones it feels like it might vaguely map to) "- and it's pretty common where he's from.  And it just let me speak his language just for today but nothing else.  And he says he thinks he's from really far away -"

Another question jumps to his mind.  He turns back to Gord and asks in Hallit, "Wait, you say you aren't sure how far off you're from?  How'd you get here?"

Gord can let you speak new languages through magic?  Frodo wants some of that!

That... sounds concerningly like what Sauron does for some of his servants.

Gord didn't use any cursed objects, or any rituals besides just meditating, so Aragorn isn't stopping him just yet.  But he's not really reassured.

He takes a step back, next to Merry.

"Who is this 'god'?" he asks (in Sindarin, repeating the Hallit word Merry used.)

Gord didn't precisely say clerics are common where he comes from! They are, so he's not going to correct Merry about it, but he makes a mental note that he might not be the best translator if the stakes ever get much higher than this.

"I'm not sure how I got here. It didn't feel like a normal spell and I didn't cast anything or see anyone who might have. I'm thinking it might have been a planar rift (*), they're said to exist in the area I was in though I never saw one myself."  

To Strider, "my god is called Gorum. He's the Chaotic Neutral god of striving and fighting for what you believe in." Among other things.

(*) 'Plane' is a normal Hallit word, not a loanword or phrase. This is to say you can't figure out what it means by analyzing its structure. What the translation spell makes of it is anyone's guess.

"A 'rift' in a 'plane'?  Like... a hole in the burrow's floor that lets you climb down into the cellar?"

(Also Merry repeats about this "Gorum" person to Strider.)

"I've never heard of this 'Gorum'..."  Unless... he can think of at least two people that description might fit...  "What's he 'neutral' between?  Does he ever go by the name 'Tulkas'?  Or 'Sauron'?"

"I suppose. Except I fell through and it closed behind me and I can't easily climb back out."

To Strider, "I haven't heard either of those names but gods have different names in different countries. He's Neutral between Good and Evil, that's what 'Chaotic Neutral' means in this language" - he's not keeping close enough track of the translation to say if Merry misworded that somehow - "and His symbol is a giant-sized sword stuck in a mountain, at least back home. What gods are worshipped around here?"

"Oh no!  So you can't get home?

"And - what sort of person doesn't care about good and evil?"

Merry makes a face while translating, and adds that addendum.

Strider frowns and shakes his head.  "I've heard that from all too many people who just want to be left alone.  But for someone powerful enough to give people magic...  If someone that powerful told me that, I would think he wasn't telling me the truth."

Gord likes these people! They jumped straight past "so where do you actually come from" and on to the philosophical and moral implications of getting power from gods and trusting Pharasma's alignments about morals.

"Well, I don't know His mind. In my experience, most Chaotic Neutral people do care about Good and Evil, often quite a lot. It's just that they end up doing some of both, sometimes by accident or while pursuing other goals, so they can't be said to be entirely Good or entirely Evil. But that's people logic, it's not as if I can talk to Him to ask about it. I don't think He's telling me the truth, exactly, because He isn't telling me anything, He just gives me magic as long as I don't do anything he hates. That's how most of the gods are." And it's much preferable to the Lawful ones who do actually tell people what to do.

"I don't think He wants to be left alone. I'm not sure what I said to give you that impression. Gorum likes striving and growing stronger and fighting for what you believe in. He seeks out righteous fights and he gives power to mortals who do the same."

"Oh, so that's how people turn out Neutral?  That makes sense!"  Merry laughs.  "I guess most of us hobbits would be Neutral, then."

That's when Sam shows up, puffing from his run up the slope of Weathertop.

He still doesn't totally trust Strider, and now a second Big Person is up there with them too.  He's been worried ever since they vanished over the lip of the hilltop... and then he heard a hobbit's yelp, pressed Bill the Pony's bridle into Pippin's hands, and ran all the way up there.

He's relieved to find everyone looking fine, and Merry even laughing.

"What happened?" he exclaims.  "Who is he?"