Yeah, that's weird. Doesn't rule out that they're demons, but it's less likely. The patrol wizard's snowy owl familiar flies wearily over to get a look at them.

Two men, the older one lanky with a bow and quiver, the younger broad-shouldered with leather bracers, and a youngish teenager with a nice satchel, all dressed for desert heat and not evidently dying of frostbite and hypothermia, occasionally grumbling at each other but mostly just stumping exhaustedly through the snow.  Does the owl have any unusual senses?  Does the owl speak Osiriani?

The owl does not have any unusual senses and can't speak any languages, because it is an owl, not a raven. It observes them and circles back, flying slow enough that they can follow where it's headed.

The man with the bow notices first, nudges his companions and calls out something- there's a brief irritated-sounding exchange in the language the owl doesn't speak before the little party notices the distant patrol and picks up the pace to follow.  As much as they can, anyway; despite not freezing they're clearly unused to moving through snow, and worn out besides.

The imposing edifice of #11 isn't far off anymore and it comes into view. Oddly, it's not flying any flags at the moment.

The little party confers briefly as they crest the rise and spot it, most of the affect being relief if the owl is still keeping an eye on them.  Finding it easier going once they reach the patrol's tramped-down path, the larger man waves and calls in thickly accented Common Taldane, "Hallooo!  This is who fort?  We are very lost, thank you!"

"Chelish fort!" calls back one of the fighters from the patrol.

Some wariness but mainly shrugs: apparently Chelish Fort is less than ideal but far better than endless snowstorm.  Trudge trudge after the patrol towards the possibility of Indoors.

There's an area by the front door with enough shelter from the wind to be marginally less miserable to stand in, but then they have to stand there and wait till someone can be by with Detect spells. They can wait with the patrollers while a guy up on the wall watches them.

The teenager slumps against the wall; the fighter glowers out at the snow; the presumably-ranger checks on a small bundle in the front of his shirt and if the guy on the wall is at the right angle, he can spot a tawny cat's ears before he covers her back up and wraps an arm around her.  He seems to be doing somewhat better than the others, and tries out some similarly rusty Taldane.  "Very happy to find you.  We packed only for a day journey, did not know how far north we land.  Last of our food we ate yesterday, except the camel."  He winces slightly at this. 

"There's food inside. But we weren't expecting you so you need Detecting even more than the regular patrol. You see any demons on your way here?"

He nods, unsurprised by the caution.  "No, your bird is the first we see three days."

"Camel is six hours north," adds the larger man.  "If most dead camel you think worth walk back, all yours."

"Four hours, shorter days."

This gets an eyeroll.  "Since dawn walk.  Whatever."

"It's probably not even on short rations, but good to know."

Here comes the commander in his coat, suited for the weather.

He's got an Iomedaean holy symbol dangling out in front of the buttons.

The ranger blinks at the sword-and-sun and nudges the teenage- wizard?, who's been huddled into the lee of the wall, eyes closed, and the larger man steps forward, evidently the spokesman for the group.  "Hello.  Thank you find us.  I am Tariq, this is Omar," the ranger, "Khalid," the wizard.  "We are very lost."  He's glowering at the situation in general, but doesn't seem to be glowering at the commander in particular any more than anything else.

"Yes. This is Fort #11 at the Worldwound's northern border. I'm Commander Artigas. Do you expect that any of you are strong enough to be detectably aligned?"

He shrugs.  "No-", pauses to confer with the ranger briefly in Osiriani, "not likely.  Soon maybe?"  They certainly don't have any visible gear good enough to suggest it, even accounting for being in entirely the wrong climate.  

He nods. He Detects Magic, first, that's an orison.

A faint evocation aura on the bow and another faint aura on the satchel- no, two, one abjuration and one conjuration.

"What's the magic on the bag?"

"Scroll for remove magic, wand for cure wound.  Half used."

All right, that showing all the expected results he'll cast his Detect Chaos for the day.

Nobody here pings.

"Admit them," he tells his men, and the doors open.

"Thank you."  They follow the patrol in, having a hissed Osiriani conversation in which he can probably catch "Iomedae?"  Once the doors close behind them (the wizard jumps), the ranger undoes the bundle and lets a half-grown sand-colored cat out to ride on his shoulder, where she starts grooming a paw with a decided air of definitely having been huddling in a spare pair of pants because she chose to not because she had to.  

Does the entryway of the fort have any obvious places to sit down, or are they being shepherded in a particular direction?

There is a bench they can sit on. There's a couple of soldiers in the entryway. "Prestidigitator on duty is that way to get you dried off and cleaned up," point, "mess hall is that way but we are not on full rations so you aren't either. Channels are at noon and sunset in the mess. Commander Artigas'll want to hear from your party leader or whoever's best at Taldane when you're ready."

"Thank you", again, and some more muttered conversation, including 'Iomedae' a couple more times and something that might be 'High Inquisitor' if anyone recognizes the title.  "Khalid know prestidigitate, once we rest, but channel is likely good, thank you, we walk much.  We have some camel also, we share.  Commander speak alone?"

"Uh, probably?"

A couple of meaningful looks are exchanged, and the ranger nods.  "I speak best Taldane.  Tariq and Khalid wait in mess hall?  Is it commander who channel at noon?"

"Yeah. He tried to get a Gozrehn to stick around but her party left, it's just him."

This does not really answer any of Omar's questions but okay.  It's nearly noon already, they can shuffle off to the mess and wait to meet the commander there after he channels?  And most importantly they can SIT DOWN.  (Or Omar can wait here but it's probably pretty obvious the party would prefer to stick together.)

At noon, there he is, standing on a specific table; people crowd in around him and when they settle down he channels.

The stray adventurers squeeze into the edge of the radius and- yup, that's a positive channel all right, there go all the miscellaneous aches and strains from keeping up a punishingly hard pace through snow for three days with a minimum of rest, and Tariq's wrenched elbow from where he landed wrong- whatever else is going on here this guy is definitely a real priest of Someone.

The other two go back to the table they were sitting at, Khalid slumping back onto Tariq's shoulder and continuing to halfheartedly clear the snow off their boots, and Omar hangs around for the commander to be available, scratching behind Noor's ears and trying not to look nervous. 

And then the commander steps off the table, accepts a bowl of Worldwound stew from one of his men, and makes his way to the lost adventurers. "My office is upstairs."

Whatever the Worldwound stew consists of, it is not cold raw camel and therefore it is the most delicious thing in the world.  Omar will collect a bowlful for himself and Noor before he follows.  (Tariq has the remains of the haunch in his pack and will seek out whoever seems to be in charge of the kitchen once they've eaten.)

"You have questions, or I should tell from the beginning?

Worldwound stew is rice and beef and sometimes, if you're lucky, dried tomatoes or cheap zucchini or potatoes or something. They are not lucky at this time. It's rice and beef.

"Go ahead from the beginning," says Commander Artigas.

It is hot rice and beef and it is glorious.

"We are from Sothis, in Osirion, work normally as-" he struggles for a word, comes up with an archaic one, "skiptracers?  Follow man who flees and bring him.  Other things also, but this pays best because with a wizard we go further into desert, most wizard parties think this is not worth it, so since Khalid join we do mostly these. 

Three days ago we follow man, he is- very afraid, he run into tomb ruins.  We follow-" a twist of his expression probably means he's eliding an intraparty argument that he lost, "we do not see trap, it send us to snow.  We think, we go south, maybe Worldwound, maybe Tian Xia, probably freeze, still better than stay put and certain freeze."

"That's quite a trap. You can accompany patrols around the edge of the Wound and progress to Kenabres that way but I don't know your prospects for affording passage back to Osirion from there. Teleports are scarcer than they normally are at least on this front, I don't know how much you get of Avistani news there."

He nods.  "Khalid think it is old trap, not meant do that, not sure what it did meant.  Think we maybe lucky it was not worse.  In Kenabres they speak Taldane, yes?  We likely make boat money, not teleport money, but most places enough work for willing swords to make boat money.  Slower, but we none have family waiting."

Noor delicately fishes bite-size pieces of beef out of his bowl as he talks; he pushes a few over to the edge so she doesn't put her whole paw in.

"We hear- a lot of things.  Cheliax has revolution, no Galt conquers Cheliax, no Lastwall does, no the High Inquisitor's party does, war is over, Aroden has returned, Nefreti Clepati has closed the Worldwound, no it was the archmages with the High Inquisitor, no it is still open, no it goes other place now... but mostly we hear war in Cheliax.  We did not think to find Chelish fort still up, still patrolling.  ...Even more, I did not think to find Iomedae has Chelish forts now?"

"They have Taldane there but also Hallit. It was insofar as my information is correct the Inquisitor's party in both cases. Iomedae has me specifically, not the fort entire. Chelish forts continue operational but in most cases with fewer clerics even than this one. Asmodeus dropped all of his clerics not too long ago. You'll be able to sell that wand for considerably more than it'd be worth in a city if you care to."

"All His clerics...?"  Omar looks badly disconcerted.  "If they..."  but whatever foundation just shook, he apparently doesn't have the Taldane to discuss it, and after a moment takes a breath and returns to practical matters.  "Good tip for the wand, thank you- we will talk this, dangerous to go without but if it buys us teleport, maybe worth it."

"It might, I'm not sure. Not too many people have the necessary knack with wands if they can't cast their own Cures. It'll be dearer at a neighboring fort than this one. Would you like to be assigned to the next patrol going clockwise?"

"I sp- will speak with Tariq but I think yes.  Or, it leaves how early?  If we have one or two nights to rest, this is better."

"You can rest here a night or two in the guest quarters, yes. Patrols go out frequently, you can catch one when you're ready."

"Thank you, yes.  More questions?"  Noor has eaten her fill and climbs back onto his shoulder to look around at the office; he starts finishing up the rice and remaining beef.

"What are your abilities? It's usually quiet here but if you're taking Worldwound hospitality I need to know how to deploy you should Worldwound events occur."

"I have my grandfather's bow, and very good at follow- track?  In desert, I have not try this in snow before now.  In desert also Noor helps me scout," he rubs the back of her neck affectionately, "but she is young cat still and does not like snow in her paws.  Tariq is good brawler, I think grapple demons is bad idea?  But he can fight sword also- needs loan sword if this, though, it is in Sothis still.  Khalid is second circle, mostly useful spells, less fighting spells- because Endure Elements we are alive, Comprehend Languages, some illusions, some I do not know the Taldane."

"Endure Elements is very valuable, on the men and the horses, and will be most of what I would ask of you. It is generally a bad idea to grapple demons. I can source a loaner sword; you do not have to return it to this fort in particular but must leave it at some Chelish fort unless you buy it, that kind of equipment slosh is accounted for in the budget. Archers and wizards are usefully posted on the battlements. How rigid is Khalid's sleep schedule? Does he have a familiar?"

"I will tell Tariq of loan sword, hope it will not need."  He makes a bit of a face (to Chelish eyes, possibly a lot of a face); it's never pleasant to split the party but especially when you're sending your friend into worse danger. 

"No familiar yet.  Rigid is... stiff, firm?"  The question is clear enough from context anyway, even if he's completely off.  "Khalid sleeps best in dark and no footprints, does not need precise before dawn?"

"Well, there's plenty of dark to be had at this time of year. If you have no further questions I'll have Caldentey show you to quarters and get you on the schedule."

He has so many questions but this man's god is clearly his private business- no, some of them are relevant.  "Other forts as we go, they are... also still up, still patrolling?  War in Cheliax is not war here?"

"Other forts are still up and patrolling, though at reduced rations and spotty timings. When Asmodeus dropped His people there was a bit of a scramble to turn wizards into Nethysians and pursers into Abadarans and soldiers into Gorumites, and to encourage adventuring clerics to stay, with limited success but enough that in conjunction with the Wound closing no forts have fallen outright. I believe I'm the only Chelish person to be collected by Iomedae. The war in Cheliax affected the Wound substantially, but only indirectly."

"That... works?"  He extremely does not have the Taldane for this, adventurer bars are not heavy on theoretical theology and he's feeling the lack right now.  "...we should fetch more camel before we go?  Not worth it to you but if next fort is more hungry, maybe worth it to them?"

"I can't spare men to accompany you but you can make the excursion for the rest of the camel if you choose."

He nods again.  "We will talk this.  I have no more questions, thank you."

The commander hands them over to Caldentey, who shows them to guest quarters and where the schedule is posted.

Tariq and Khalid are where he left them, glad to see he's unmurdered, and they can all read Taldane numbers no matter how thick their accents are, and then they can go do No Things for a bit until whatever they're next needed for on the schedule.

...Khalid has four Endure Elements that they're not going to need today if they're staying indoors, is there a patrol going out that could use them?

Always. They can save wand charges that way. These patrollers please and thank you.

Then Khalid can go do that while the other two- okay, they can have yet another brief muttered argument in Osiriani, and then Khalid having apparently won it can go cast Endures and meet the other two back at the guest quarters.

Any of these patrollers especially perceptive?  Or Caldentey for that matter?

Not strikingly so, nah.

Then it's down to their base rate expectations and the whims of fate whether they notice anything odd about the slight foreign wizard (and perhaps how much they know about Osirion).

Endure Elements.  Endure Elements.  Endure Elements.  Stumble and recover.  Endure Elements. 

And out goes the protected patrol.

And up to the guest quarters goes a tired wizard to FLOP.

If the adventurers hide in their guest room (they're all in the same one, so they can warm it up for each other) they will remain largely undisturbed, but if they come out - for water, or dinner, or a fire, or company - they will get attention from this guy! "Hello - which of you is the party wizard?"

"It is I," in an even thicker accent than the other two (one of whom is snoring loudly behind the door).  Said wizard is also shivering violently, a blanket wrapped tight around thin shoulders, having apparently learned the hard way why you Prestidigitate yourself all the way dry before Endure Elements wears off.  "I, um, I seek the k-kitchen?  Or any other fire which is at h-hand."

"This way. I'm First Arcane Grec, and you're..."

"Khalid," through chattering teeth.  "F-first Arcane, this is a title of wizardry, is it not?  Or solely of c-command?"

"It means I'm in charge of wizardry for this fort. I wanted to ask if you wanted to trade spells, we don't get a whole lot of foreigners this far north."

"Oh yes!"  Some things can usually be relied on, however differently they manifest, and a young wizard's hunger for new knowledge is one of them.  "I have but little ink remaining- attend a m-moment-"  Cold briefly forgotten, the youth dashes back to the guest room and returns with the satchel slung awkwardly over the blanket.

Grec attends a moment patiently enough. He's got his spellbook already.

Khalid catches the door just before it slams and eases it closed a bit more quietly.  "There.  Which w-way?"  Another bout of shivers.  "And may we t-trade nearer the fire?"

"This way. Did Caldentey not get you three proper coats?"

"Oh."  Somewhat sheepish wizard.  "He may have done so, I confess I did not think to look when I returned, nor I did not wish when I woke to make too great a light and wake the others."

"You, check with Caldentey if he got the adventurers coats, and if he didn't see that it's corrected," Grec tells a passing soldier, who salutes and runs off.

Sheepish wizard is even more sheepish!

And they can get set up near the fire - a couple people move out of Grec's way - and sit down with their spellbooks. "How are Osirians about Infernal Healing, that's one you might not have..."

"Ooh, no- how does that work?  Unless I know it by a different name, I had not heard of such a thing."

"Gives people fast healing. Works on undead, if you have friendly ones, on top of being an arcane healing spell at first circle. You need devil's blood or unholy water, but even since going Iomedaean the commander's said we're allowed to summon devils for it if we run out - don't ask me how he squares that."

"First circle arcane healing?  It works on undead and mortals?  Infernal priests do not channel positive energy, though?"  Khalid starts flipping pages.  "I dearly wish to see that but mine are mainly common, at least in Sothis- hm, do you have Secluded Grimoire?  Not as useful as what you could instead prepare but such efficient planar transport..."

"I have that one, too bad."

"Hmmm... Flaming Sphere?  If you have another first-circle one to make change?"  The shivers have  stopped enough now to handle a cantrip without dropping it more often than not, and Khalid starts drying their things off again.

...yeah, that's definitely a girl in drag.  Older than she looked at first glance, if you parse the delicate features and soprano voice as a woman's rather than a beardless boy's, maybe seventeen or eighteen.

Well, sometimes wizards are girls. Maybe Khalid is a girl's name. Maybe that's how Osirian girls dress, or she's in extra layers that belong to her party members to handle the cold. Grec doesn't care. "I don't have Flaming Sphere - is it good for swarms?"

"Yes, quite good, at least if the swarm is small enough or fears fire.  It's not unlike Fireball - I can't cast Fireball yet but I've seen it - except much smaller, only a quarter the size, but it lingers for a few moments and you direct it about if you can keep the link up."

"I would quite love to have that one. Not for here, really, probably won't singe a vescavor."

"Oh, be forewarned it doesn't fly- it can hop about ten yards straight up, but no higher, and it must roll on the ground to go sidewise, not in the air.  At least so far as I can do, anyway, it's possible there's a variant with finer control, or it takes practice."

She flips back to the earlier pages.  "What is a vescavor?  Apart from a swarming demon.  Alarm, Feather Fall, Sleep...  have you anything good for range, I got Bull's for Tariq because Omar had an heirloom bow already..."

"Toothy, bite straight through armor and rock if they're of a mind to, glow a bit green. I have those... have you got Abundant Ammunition, it comes up here a lot. Bed of Iron. Longshot."

"I've none of those, I think Abundant Ammunition will be most useful, and I don't yet have any really good physical conjurations besides.  Bed of Iron is the one for sleeping in armor only, yes, it would not have helped with rocks or snow?"

"Yeah, armor only."

"Flaming Sphere for Infernal Healing and Abundant Ammunition, then?  And... perhaps we could speak of other ways to trade later?"

"I'm not giving you two spells for one when the one won't even work on vescavors."

She wrinkles her nose and mutters something annoyed in Osiriani.  "Well, have you anything interesting at second circle, then?  Unless you're missing Unseen Servant or Silent Image, those are my last first-circle spells.  Aside from Endure Elements and Comprehend Languages which I expect you must have."  

"I actually don't have Comprehend Languages. It doesn't come up much, everyone knows Taldane."

"Oh- well, then would you accept that for Infernal Healing?  Or..."  She squints thoughtfully at him.  "I'd trade Flaming Sphere for Infernal Healing and the ink to scribe it, if your stores could spare it?  Considering that your fort saved our lives."

"We haven't gotten a supply run with anything less essential than food and ammo in a while, I'm using my personal ink supply."

"Much as I want Infernal Healing I don't actually need it, not enough to swap for my best second-circle.  Maybe somebody else along the way will lack Feather Fall."  She flips back to the loose folded leaf of charcoaled notes marking the beginning of her second-circle spells.  "Do you know Rope Trick?  I almost bought it last time I could afford a new spell... not that it would have been any more use to the poor camel, I suppose."

"Don't you? If you're taking the long way around that's a lot of forts without clerics you'll be going through. I have Rope Trick."

"They'll still have wizards, though, will they not?  People say Chelish wizard schools are the best in the world."  Some people said that, anyway, despite it usually provoking an immediate argument and occasionally a brawl when they said it in adventurers' taverns.  "Rope Trick for Flaming Sphere?"

"Wizards stretched a lot thinner on the Endures. This is how they have you trying to trade in Abadarland, first circles for seconds or for extra ink or for twice as many spells?"

She opens her mouth, closes it again, stares confused at him for a moment.  "Did I not-  Flaming Sphere is second circle.  I fear I must apologize for my poor Taldane."

"- oh, well then I'll trade you Rope Trick for it."

She gives him a small relieved smile, flips her spellbook to the right page and slides it over into the light for him to copy from.  "For your question... Abadar teaches that the true price of something is solely what someone will knowingly pay for it."  There's a rote quality of recited catechism to it even through her accent, not the enthusiasm of a zealot spotting a potential convert. 

"Were I desperate enough and without other prospects, I should have traded you my second circle for your first, and not accounted myself cheated thereby."  Her smile twists a bit.  "Or, a truly proper Abadaran wouldn't begrudge you it.  I am a fallible mortal and make no promises."

He pages to Rope Trick and turns his spellbook around for her to see. "The commander loves Abadarans, I think his best friend's the insurance adjuster who comes round once a year, but I don't really get it."

She rummages in her satchel for charcoal and another leaf of scrap paper, and starts sketching.  "I could quote you scripture if you wish, my father was very devout, but- I suppose people find it more meaningful when they can see Abadar's hand at work improving their circumstances.  I've been fortunate compared to some, but... gains from trade have not been an unmixed blessing.  If I had to pick only One I would incline more towards Nethys."

"That's how I've been leaning too these days, though He's not tapped me with anything useful for it yet."

"That's part of what I like about Him, really, He doesn't- make bargains with you, or the church doesn't imply bargains?  He's just- there, it doesn't matter to Him how you live your life."

"That's appealing?"

Eyeroll.  "To one who was raised to be a very proper Abadaran and- didn't?  Very appealing."  She seems about to ask something, then thinks better of it.  Sketch sketch.  "...this here, this is the planar interface?"

"That part and also this part, I don't keep it all together."

"Ohhh...."  She frowns at the page, tilts her head, sets down the charcoal to move her hands through the air over it, 'visualizing' how a spell would come together on that scaffold.  "Oh, I see now- and then when you hang it-" and she can happily chatter away with shop talk which this margin is too underspecified to contain until both their spells are copied, someone interrupts them, or Grec changes the subject back to something that isn't magical theory.

Why would he do that.

It's truly an inexplicable desire but her party never wants to hear about topology, she's very glad to have found someone more sensible. 

Other fort wizards drift over eventually to see if they can get in on this. Some of them are women.

Khalida has, actually, met other female wizards before: her first teacher was a laundry-wizard's widow, carrying on the trade for those families both wealthy enough to pay extra for a woman to come do the small household magics and insecure enough for the conspicuously strict seclusion to be worth it in expectation.  There's two she's seen visit the little branch temple of Nethys nearest their usual tavern, although they won't speak to her.  It's not the kind of neighborhood that gets foreign adventuring parties but she met a Galtan refugee couple once, both of them wizards, stretching their coin with the cheapest available lodgings before making their way upriver.  And of course everyone has heard of Nefreti Clepati, who's an exception to everything.

She has never, on the other hand, seen this many in the same place at once.

She can continue talking magical theory with the larger group at first, with scarcely a pause, and if any of them want to trade spells she can write out a list of the ones she's willing to swap, carefully organized by circle so she doesn't embarrass herself again.  But soon the group gets bigger and multiple people are talking at the same time and the women wizards (!!!) are prettier than her and she forgets to pay attention to her vowels and her accent goes from thick to incomprehensible and she doesn't realize until someone is staring at her and they probably all think she's a weird stupid hick-

Every word of Taldane flees her head in an instant.

Khalida covers her mouth with a hand, then both hands, and suddenly (and for the first time in years) wishes she had a veil to hide behind. 

(She's pathetically easy to read.)

"What," says the woman wizard who's staring at her, "all I asked was if you wanted Shield Companion? It doesn't look like you've got a familiar but some of them hide."

Headshake.  Still with both hands over her mouth, still looking like a started rabbit.

"No-  no familiar."

"Dangit, that's my only weird one."

"I apologize."

Deep breath, then another.  Put the sentence together before starting it, one word at a time.

"I think, I perhaps am not still recovered fully from, our journey."  

(No, godsalldammit that's the wrong order, fucking Taldane adverbs-)

"Well, get out of her way," says Grec, when this fails to immediately clear a path for her.

"Thank you.  I hope we may speak again tomorrow?"  The textbook phrases fall together easily enough; she gives a grateful smile to Grec and a smaller apologetic one to the cool older prettier wizard she maybe just offended, collects her notes and her spellbook and flees.

The little party doesn't emerge again until dinnertime, now all in suitable loaner coats (Khalid's is a little big on her, but she's turned the sleeves up).  They stick together as they collect their bowls of stew and find a table; Khalid is still a bit subdued, and Tariq slings an arm around her shoulders and glares indiscriminately in a manner more possessive than protective.  Omar is watchful but not visibly worried, letting Noor sit on the table and again making sure she gets her fill of meat before he eats any.

The commander arrives and does his channel for the frostbitten and training-accidented and generally weary people who flock around him and then drifts past their table. "How are you finding your stay so far?"

"Good!"  Tariq booms.  "Is very good, not dead snow.  We thank you food."

"And we appreciate the Endures. Do you have an updated estimate of how long you will be staying?"

Tariq raises an eyebrow at Omar, who confirms something, and there ensues a spirited not-quite argument in Osiriani, from which fact it can be inferred that no, they do not.

"Well, you're welcome as long as you require the hospitality of the fort and as long as I don't need to further cut personnel."

"My spells may be put to the fort's best defense as long as we remain here," Khalid speaks up unexpectedly, in archaic but perfectly grammatical Taldane (albeit with an accent thick enough to cut with a table knife), ignoring Tariq's attempt to shush her.  "I have met First Arcane Grec and found him very hospitalit- hospitable."

"My best officer," nods Artigas.

"When is no demon, soldiers here do what?"  Omar interjects, fending off another brewing argument.  "Play cards, dice, this is allowed?  Practice shoot, grapple?  ...practice language maybe?" he adds hopefully. 

"Cards and dice are allowed but on the advice of the insurance adjuster betting is exclusively in favors, not money. There are classes and practice sessions you may sign up for with Lieutenant Vallvé, over there, including in common Taldane, though the classes assume that the native language is Chelish."

Omar translates 'insurance adjuster' and a few other words for Tariq, who scowls.  "No good favors, leave soon."

"What manner of favors?  I expect there may be quick ones?"  Khalid directs the last few words to Tariq; he responds with some suggestive remark in Osiriani and she rolls her eyes at him. 

"You teach grapple soldiers maybe?"  Omar is trying to keep this conversation in Taldane their host is right here.

"I do not teach the grappling classes personally. Sometimes the favors are quick, or they're more like dares than like favors."

"Tariq knows good tricks, maybe good practice grapple soldiers-"

"No, no, is good dares!"  Tariq interrupts him.  "I do dares."

"So then we may stay a bit longer?"  Khalid stays in Taldane this time, although it's directed at Tariq.

"Two days.  Then go."

"I've sent a letter to the next fort east of here to alert them that your party will be heading clockwise soon, so they will be expecting you."

"Is how long walk, between forts?  Noor no-"  He intercepts the little cat before she can pounce on Blai's holy symbol, glinting in the light.

"It depends on the weather. Unless something goes wrong a patrol is out for hours, not days."

"Oh good."  Omar and Tariq both look immensely relieved; Khalid is still poking glumly at her bowl.  If something does go wrong they might all be dead and it won't matter if the next fort is one mile away or a thousand, but nobody actually needs to say that, it's equally true of adventuring parties the world over.

"You will have many legs of the journey to get to Kenabres, though."

Omar nods.  "One, maybe two night at forts, should ready each time for two days walk if fort locks doors..."

"Oughtn't they simply kill us, if they take us for shapechangers, not drive us off and let us try the next fort?"

"Maybe no food, not share?"

"That's part of what the letter is for, and you should accompany a normal patrol who can account for you having been with them the whole time. But you might run into places on shorter rations than we are."

"Bring camel, give."  Tariq says decisively; Khalid looks miserable about this prospect but doesn't argue.

"What beasts live here?  Not demons-"  Omar indicates Noor, now working determinedly at a particularly chewy lump of beef, then expands the gesture a few feet above the tabletop.  "Wilderness beasts much trouble?"

"Occasionally there are bears, caribou, dire rats, ptarmigans. Not likely to attack a group the size of a full patrol, though of course you should be ready if you do see a bear or dire rat."

"What is caribou?  And ptarmigan?  Not know these?"  Omar glances at Khalid, who shrugs and shakes her head.

"A caribou is a big deer. A ptarmigan is a white bird, so big, not dangerous but good to eat."

"Ah, food beast not fight beast, that is good.  With patrol we can- Tariq, not grapple bear.  Loan sword bear."  He accompanies this with a glare of 'I know you were thinking it', and Tariq throws up a hand in mock surrender with a "yes, yes", and a comment in Osiriani that presumably alleges a lack of courage.

"Caribou are also good to eat."

"Is good!"

"What do the caribou and the- the birds eat, themselves?  I did not think to find many, um, such beasts here where there is so much snow."

"I'm not sure. We don't see them too often so they may have to travel pretty far for it. There are some plants under the snow, though."

"Huh."  She nods thoughtfully. 

"Most places is some plants.  Desert have-" Omar checks with Khalid if she knows a Taldane word, then switches back although he's still mostly addressing her.  "...very small sword plant, drink much at once and keep it, like camel, ocean have no roots plant, swims, make sense snow place have snow plant."  He looks much more interested in the prospect of investigating weird snow plants than he was about just trekking from fort to fort for weeks.

"The snow does melt for some of the summer. ...anyway, please let me or my officers know if you need anything or have questions." And he moves on.

"Thank you much!  Is good talk!"  And the little party will return to Osiriani among themselves as they finish up dinner.  If clusters of soldiers stick around the mess hall talking after the meal breaks up, they'll split up but keep vaguely in the same area, Tariq and Omar looking for a card game or a group of men who might seem inclined to start one, Khalid in search of the wizards.  ...hopefully a smaller group of wizards.

There's a card game over there, and a dice game thataway. There's some of the wizards from earlier in that corner.

Staying at the fort is going to do nobody any good if she's scared to talk to them so she has to do this.  Probably they get foreigners with bad Taldane here all the time anyway.  She'll take a breath and head over, angling so that they'll spot her in time to wave her off if they're working on something classified.

"Good evening, may I join you?"

"Sure, why not," says a Female Wizard. "I'm Txell."

"Khalid," she says automatically, but if there ever was a time it's now, come on- "Or Khalida, in mufti, but we came here quite unexpectedly and without baggage."

"In... mufti?" says a different wizard, this one a man. "Is that Taldane?"

"I learned Taldane mostly from books, it may have been a loanword from something else?  Or I may be saying it wrong.  Off duty?  Not on a job?"

"You have a separate name for when you're on leave?" says Txell.

"It's the same name at the root?  Just-"

oh no this was a terrible idea- breathe.  Focus.  Say a different thing than the sentence that got stuck.

"-we do a lot of skiptracing? So it's- simpler, if men think they're losing to a girl they would fight harder..."

"...a girl with a sword sure. A girl wizard?" says Txell. "Man. Garundi."

"It's truly that different here, then?  You hear things, but..."

"Oh, people are assholes about women but they're assholes about everything. A wizard's a wizard at least once she's got Alter Self, anyone with sense knows that," says Txell.

"Girls aren't as good at keeping their heads in combat," objects a male wizard.

"All the ones that's true of? Die before they circle up," shrugs Txell. "I know you passed math, bitch."

She shrugs.  "Many people haven't seen a wizard in combat, and the ideal would be for them to surrender without fighting- my most dramatic spell makes it more difficult to take someone alive.  I imagine it's very different here."

"We basically never want a demon or a deserter alive," nods Txell.

"I can't imagine you would, what would you even do with a live demon... do you get many deserters?"  She's pretty sure she knows what that word means but not sure enough to risk assuming and being wrong.

"Well, how many is many?" shrugs one of the men. "- Janer," he adds, introducing himself.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance."  Thanks, Janer, that did the opposite of help.  She's probably totally wrong and it's some kind of weirdly specific technically-not-a-demon Abyss-dweller.  She'll... return the shrug.

"I suppose I mean more... what do you do here, on ordinary days when there's not a demon attack?  Endure Elements for the patrols, of course, but..."  

"Prestidigitate everybody and everything," says Txell, rolling her eyes. "Lights. Detect Magic."

Khalida laughs in rueful sympathy.  "If you'd told me when I was twelve I could ever get bored of magic... I suppose my teacher did, really, she was a laundry wizard.  Not that I listened."

"It's better than farming," says Janer.

"Oh, certainly, I don't disagree," says Khalida, who has never in her life been closer to a farm than riding through one.  "And it's an incredibly versatile spell, for all that the other things it does aren't nearly so useful."

"You really don't want to try to take a bath at the Worldwound even in summer. We just prestidigitate everyone," says Txell. "I've gone a year solid without a look at my own tits."

Khalida doesn't actually know that word either, but there's a limited subset of things it could be in that context, and now she's thinking about Txell in the bath... she schools her expression into a coquettish duck-and-smirk after half a beat of looking poleaxed, but words in any language are not happening just at this moment.

Janer and a couple of the other men laugh at her. Txell grins brazenly at them.

Okay, focus, now is the time to turn this conversation to either a flirting one or a decidedly not flirting one... she doesn't know nearly enough about Chelish soldier social dynamics, there's got to be an unspoken hierarchy under the rank one, can she manage to flirt with Txell specifically without giving the men ideas... well, a full retreat would signal vulnerability anyway, maybe she can sally and pull back and see if she's pursued.  

She makes the smirk intensify slowly into a smolder while she marshals her sentences.  "Well, that does seem a shame," she murmurs, then takes a breath and leans back, letting the eye contact drop as she rolls a crick out of her neck.  "How warm does it get, here, in the summers?  The commander mentioned the snow" shit what was the special snow verb, no time "-departs?"  She's aiming to keep the tone at 'simmer' instead of dropping all the way back to 'polite small talk' but she's never flirted in Taldane before and isn't quite sure if she managed it.

Txell snickers at her. "Yes, the snow departs, but it still frosts overnight half the time and you still want your coat to go anywhere outside or hold still anywhere inside."

"Ah, well."  Friendly small talk then?  She can do friendly small talk.  She's not disappointed.  "It's so different from Osirion, it was an especially hot summer when I mastered Ray of Frost and I likely spent hours just hitting the walls and floors with it to cool the house."

"It gets hot in Cheliax in summer too. If I muster out before I've got another circle I'll have a drinks cart, I think, better than scrivening or laundry."

"Oh, that does sound better, people could just come to you instead of you going to them... what would you do in the winter, just switch to warm drinks?"

"Yeah, exactly."

A burst of raucous laughter comes from the card game as Tariq stands up and cheerfully shucks off his coat and shirt in one go.  Khalida jumps at the noise, then relaxes when she sees it's harmless and rolls her eyes at him.

"How'd you fall in with your party?"

"Hmm?  How did I join them, correct?  The usual way... I suppose I don't know what's usual outside Sothis."  She shrugs.  "We passed time in the same taverns, they sought more talent to accept better-paying jobs, I sought- a more stable situation.  The taverner recommended us to one another, I spoke to some former compatriots and Omar's landlady, we took on some short jobs to make certain we worked well together."   To a decent Sense Motive check, she's not actually lying lying but she sure is leaving some stuff out.

"Well, usual for a Chelish wizard with any talent is the army," shrugs Txell. "Hold the Wound."

Khalida nods.  "Have you come here straight out of school?  In the Sothis taverns people talk of going to the Wound someday, but more as- a thing to do once you have a few circles to your name and a party you trust?"  And usually some less than Good deeds to try to make up for.

"Yeah, I was straight out of school," says Txell, and there's some nods. "But it's one thing when your country does its part with the forts, right, and another when you'd only come as an adventurer."

"I did a few years on a ship first," says a guy.

"I was a laundry wizard for a bit but had to get out of town in a hurry," says another.

Khalida glances away, suddenly crestfallen- she was absolutely planning to come here as an adventurer in a few years, not entirely selflessly but she'd thought it was a perfectly decent goal, and now it just seems... insufficient. 

"I've never been on a ship," she murmurs for lack of anything better to say.  Why do Chelish people all have to be so hard to read, she can't tell if hurriedly leaving town guy is hoping she'll ask so he can tell the story or if he's not and it's rude to pry, and she's already trying not to ask about their god or their country or any of the half-dozen other things she's desperately curious for...  "What was wizard school like?"

"Better than farming," says Janer.

"Tougher than regular school, since everybody in it was bright enough to be a wizard," says Txell. "Couldn't count on being tops in everything just for being the smartest of forty idiots."

"Forty?  Goodness, I can scarcely imagine a school of forty, how did you ever focus enough to read?"

"- what would stop me? Kids breathing?" says Txell.

"Ohhhh, if they set you all to reading at the same time that makes sense... but then how did they tell what you'd learned, if they were trying to ask forty children questions in half the time?  Did they have many teachers, and speak in small groups?"

"They had tests, and called on us one at a time to answer questions."

"Oh huh!  So it's- I don't know the Taldane- a subset of the things you should know, not chosen in a skewed manner?"

"Well, if you can solve a random arithmetic problem, probably you'd have been able to solve a different random arithmetic problem, and if you just got lucky, the test will show that."

"But arithmetic runs on principles, right, there's a technique to it, there's no technique for law or history or poetry, I suppose you could say there's technique for embroidery but it's not really the same thing..."

"We didn't really study poetry. I guess we learned law a little but all of the kind where if you don't know it you'll bleed sooner or later."

"Mm, lucky.  I was acceptable at memorizing poetry but my middle sister was better at composition than me by eight years old, and I was embarrassed enough I simply stopped instead of trying to outpace her.

...I suppose law does operate on principles if you step back to think on it, it must be forbidden to set fires in a city or the city should have burned down long before, one doesn't need to memorize the penalties to know that, but it's not... it's not like arithmetic, it's not like looking at your abacus and knowing that thrice five is the same as five times three and it must be so and could never be otherwise...."

"Normal kids who are just going to go back to the farm? Don't think about math like that," says Janer.

"Huh."  She wrinkles her nose.  "I suppose my sisters didn't, but I just attributed that sort of thing to them being younger.  But you follow my meaning, though, it's about skills more than facts?" 

(She's intending the slight emphasis on 'you' to distinguish Janer from the normal kids, but realizes too late it might come across as switching flirting-targets.  Hopefully Txell doesn't mind, but she's too invested in the sudden prospect of math discussion really for real for it to throw her enough to break her Taldane.)

"History is too," says Txell. "After a while I stopped trying to memorize the history books every year and started just getting the answers from how they wrote the questions, they weren't good at not telegraphing."

"Hm, I suppose that would be a drawback of written tests.  But history isn't so important for wizards regardless, not past the basics at least, not like it is for clerics."

"Why's history important for clerics?" asks one of the other female wizards.

"If they set a policy that seemed like a good idea, but it had been tried a hundred years past and turned out terribly and they should have known that?  I suppose village priests don't often set policy, but wizards you scarcely hear about involving themselves in politics before archmage level-"

...oh no.

The comment about archmages gets a bit of a nervous laugh all around. "Maybe that's more of a thing in Osirion, where you've got your cleric king?" offers Txell.

Okay they don't hate her forever.  Or are hiding it very well, which is totally possible because again, Chelish, like she apparently forgot for a minute there.  Breathe.

"Maybe, yes, Taldor has... dukes?  I think?"  She should probably say something less stupid than that but it's a coherent grammatical sentence and that's as good as she's getting right now.

"We have those too! Dukes and archdukes, counts and barons, petty lords."

"I fear I know little about how countries govern when they aren't theocracies- or, rather, aren't Osirion especially."  Okay, focus, small talk, she can do small talk.

"You've got some assholes and some bigger assholes that tell them what to do," says Txell.

Is this banter?  Godsdammit she can't tell.  Banter is harder to pull off than flirting but plausibly a better sign.

She chuckles and briefly ducks her head again.  "Well, it seems that much is the same everywhere."

"Does Osirion even have nobles or just priests? Are they all like Boian - I guess you've probably never met Boian, he's not even Osirian -"

"You know we don't all know each other."  She flashes Txell a quick bright smile.  "But I don't recognize the name, I fear.  Is that the insurance adjuster?  First Arcane Grec mentioned one."

"Yeah, that's him. Whole fort has to kiss his ass."

"Oof, that sounds terribly wearing."  Sympathetic grimace.  "It was he who decreed cards shall only be played for favors and not money?  Are there other similar decrees?"

"He's also anal about getting everybody paid on time, so I guess that's nice."

She chuckles.  "Now that sounds like the Abadarans I'm familiar with- supposedly one priest at the dockyard temple gives rather pointed sermons on the virtue of meeting one's obligations each time a captain is laggard in paying on arriving in port, my father used to speculate about which it was."

"There's nothing much to spend it on around here, but yeah."

"Especially when one doesn't lose it at cards, but I suppose it gets one in the habit of saving.  And you'll have a good starting capital for that drinks cart once you leave."

"If I don't blow it all on theater and books, sure."

"And yet this too is pleasing to Abadar, for you preferred the book and the bookseller preferred your money,"  she intones mock-solemnly, then giggles.  "Nearly any desire can be pious if purchased fairly, it's really terribly convenient."

"I really would've thought the commander'd be an Abadaran if anything, he's so friendly with Boian. But no, apparently Iomedae's got him. He walked into the mess hall and cast Light off his table knife to announce it."

"That must have been something to see... could it be She has some purpose in mind for him?"  She's so curious and this is maybe not prying?  "Mysterious are the ways of the gods, of course, but-"  heck she does not have an end to that sentence and now the pause will be too long to find one... just pretend it was on purpose and smile invitingly.

"Mysterious as fuck. Like, he was always a little..." Handwave. "But Iomedaean, that caught everybody off guard."

"I can only imagine- is it true She's completely banned in Cheliax?  Or was, rather?"

"No, no, not completely banned, the Hellknights like Her, the Menadorians like Her, the rule was no primary worship of anybody but Asmodeus but you could always say a word for whoever else came up, even Iomedae. But the commander didn't, as far as I ever knew, he was Asmodean all through with the weird chumminess with Boian on top."

"Huh."  Khalida glances around to see if the commander is still hanging around the mess hall (the card game is down a few more shirts).  "I suppose he may simply have preferred the person rather than the god?"

He seems to have cleared out with his meal.

"I guess! I'm not chummy with him, myself."

"Hm."  Can she be done with small talk now, can they go back to magic talk.  "Oh, were you among those who wished Secluded Grimoire this afternoon?  I fear I retired rather suddenly..."

And unless anyone interrupts with something more pressing, Khalida will happily swap spells and compare notation systems and talk magical theory for the rest of the evening, until people start drifting off to bed.  (Her party has gained and lost several rounds of shirts and other clothing, Noor yowling protest and moving to balance on top of Omar's head at one point when her usual perch on his shoulder was disturbed, instead of moving to the table.)

...and then she continues looking over her notes long after they've settled into bed, until Tariq finally rolls over, flings a blanket over her bedpost-Light, and informs her that all three of them are eating on her Endure Elements and she had better be able to cast tomorrow even if she doesn't care about keeping them awake, and also the bloody books will still be there in the morning.  She grumbles halfheartedly back that he's a pigheaded tyrant, sets her notes carefully on top of her satchel by the bed and nestles into her usual spot under his arm.  

Surprising no one, she pulls her blanket over her head and goes back to sleep after Tariq gets up the next morning.  (Omar wakes earlier, but his step is light and steady enough she can sleep through it by now.)  Eventually, though, she wakes reasonably rested from a confused dream about a judgy sphinx, and after locating the necessaries she can settle in with her spellbook. 

It's a beautiful piece of work, like all spellbooks are, the labor of many hands combined to make something greater than any could alone, a fitting support for the precision demanded by spell diagrams:  smooth creamy paper in a painstaking binding, the covers of red leather tooled with an abstract pattern of vines and petals, corners reinforced in brass and a cunningly wrought lock on the closure.  As a prosperous father's gift to his favorite daughter, indulgent but not extravagant, her next-younger sister's flute had cost twice as much.  The real gift and the real extravagance had been the lessons.  With her spells in it, the book alone was probably worth more by now than her mother's wedding jewelry. 

She closes her eyes and takes a long breath to center herself, opens to the first page and starts on the scaffold.  Prestidigitation, in her teacher's hand, deceptively simple in structure because if you hang it right the careful folds shake out half a dozen different ways for half a dozen apparently completely unrelated effects.  Detect Magic, in her own too-precise childish printing, and Light and Mending, more old friends, looping and weaving and tucking away and taking down the scaffold and on to the next, patterns furling and unfurling in her mind's eye.  Endure Elements, as familiar by now as the path from her house to the temple, and again and again, quick fingers flying across the scaffold in the same pattern.  She can spare a spot for Secluded Grimoire, it's not strictly necessary but it's beautiful and it did save their lives, you don't need it until you really need it.  Noor can stay behind at the fort if they really have to go out after the camel today.  Not as much choice for her second-circle spells but they make up for it in glorious intricacy.  She has to go more slowly here, doublechecking the scaffold before she starts feeding in power, not just from the added complexity but because she only has a year or so of practice.  Glitterdust for today's oh-shit complement, since demons are apparently immune to fire, and Locate Object and Bull's Strength, which there's probably some use for in the fort if they don't go back out again.  

And then, much too soon, she has to descend from the realm of pure geometric form into the everyday world of drafts and stone and sore feet and Worldwound Stew.  Although it's well past dawn even in this northern clime by the time she emerges into the corridor, quite possibly breakfast has been and done and cleared away already.

Meals are served on something of a rolling basis; they have very large pots but the fort is, when full strength, large enough to need several batches and they don't all cook concurrently. She can get a stew ration.

Oh good, she wasn't about to complain but she would definitely have been privately cranky, her own fault or no.  She puts the stew away fairly quickly and then goes to find someone who looks like they know which patrollers have some Elements to Endure today.  Or her party, whichever she locates first.

The person she's meant to report to is over there and has her Endure Elements some people and then wants her on dish Prestidigitating duty. "If," he says dryly. "you don't have other pressing appointments."

Is he... annoyed with her for sleeping late?  Hinting that the commander or somebody is interested in her?  (And if so, is he annoyed about that or giving her a warning?)  Judging her for not sticking with her party? 

She buys time to assemble a polite sentence by rolling up her sleeves and retying her scarf so the ends don't drag in the dishes - she's wearing it loose today instead of turban-style, it keeps her ears warmer - and gives him a bright smile.  "I am as yet unaware of any, and should one arise I expect it can find me here as well as anywhere."  There, that ought to be a reasonable reply to at least several possible meanings? 

Khalida pulls the little Prestidigitation knot to the forefront of her mind and settles in to work, keeping an eye out in case he has further directions or cryptic comments.  Tug, push, release, 'Dish' stays here and 'Not Dish' goes elsewhere, catch the spellform before it dissipates, guide it back to its correct closed form as the tension eases, clean dish on the pile, tug, push, release...

She might catch a couple mutters but there is maybe a rule about not hassling wizards and/or visiting adventurers about their sleeping habits or something. One feature of the rolling-basis meal service is that there are dishes to do this to All Day Long.

Okay, yeah, if it's about sleeping late that's honestly pretty fair and maybe the best subtext it could have been, since sleep is obviously important for a wizard and she can just demonstrate reliability some other way.  (Why is everyone here so hard to read...)  Dish dish dish.  Well, if it had been that the commander or the First Arcane or whoever was interested, that could have been more useful, but whether it was strictly better would depend on whether half the rumors about Chelish men are true... on the other hand, depending on which half... no, focus.  Second pass to catch a stubborn bit of dried rice, covert glance around to see if anyone spotted that, dish dish dish.  It's not even like they're going to be staying here that long anyway, they're leaving in two days, unless there's better food in some officers' mess somewhere there's not a lot of favors that would be much use over two days' time.  Dish dish dish.  And then they'll trudge through the snow to one fort after another (snow lost all its mystique about half an hour after the trap misfire), and eventually get to wherever-it-is where they can earn enough money to get passage on a ship back home, where they can continue... earning enough money to just barely get by, but where they speak the same language again.  Dish dish dish dish dish.

She can have her lunch ration of stew right where she's sitting courtesy of one of the cooks.

She accepts the stew with a small smile and a careful Taldane thank-you and pauses in her dish duties to eat it, stretching her fingers between bites and rolling out cricks in her neck and back.  There's something comfortably meditative about dish duty, over and over again the same spellform, the same tug and push and release and catch, the same tiny victory of mortal knowledge over the forces of decay....  She'd thought she could be a laundry wizard, when she left her father's house, and it wasn't the laundry that was the problem, it was the everything else.  But here in the warm kitchen around people all busy with their own work, this is what she thought it could have been like... not all day every day, maybe, if nothing else you can't hold another spellform in your head while working with a different one, but she could be happy like this-

"There found you!" Tariq booms from behind her, and she jumps and drops a dish and has to switch to Mending to put a chip back in the rim.  

"Fucking hells, Tariq, stop sneaking up on me," she snaps in Osiriani, opening out the familiar lines and angles with just the right push of arcane energy to start them oscillating around and eventually converging on Dish As It Should Be.

"Like I was even trying," he smirks, shaking melting snow out of his clothing and stamping it off his boots, "not my fault if you can't spot a cart before it runs you over."

The cook glowers at Tariq. "Why are you in the kitchen?" she asks.

"Find wizard!"  He's cheerfully impervious to her glower.

Right, Khalida was being rude, switching back to Osiriani in front of her hosts when Tariq was bothering to use Taldane. "Well, thou hast found me, and now I must remain another ten minutes because thou'rt amused when I jump."  She rolls her eyes at him and pointedly nudges an oscillation that was widening instead of dampening, although it didn't actually need nudging and it's just going to look to him like she moved her hand slightly away from the dish.  

"Shoo," says the cook to Tariq. "She's on dish duty, you're not."

"Aw, sweetheart, no harm," he says to the cook, slinging an arm around Khalida's shoulders in an affable gesture that nevertheless indicates 'here is a large man who doesn't intend to be moved.'  

"We haven't got to let men in here any more."

Oh now that's interesting- that must be an Iomedae thing, given the 'anymore', but if it's actually being enforced... she should not test this theory on her party leader, she should try to do the soothing deescalating thing.  "A moment,  Tariq?  Was it something urgent thou sought me for?  Is Omar with thee?"  Presumably waiting outside, if the kitchen is some Chelish sort of womens' quarters Omar would be the first of the three of them to pick up on that.

Glower.

"Done practice!  Omar and bowmen, done soon."  Good, he's in a mood to be convinced and save face today, this doesn't have to turn into another stubborn-off.

"Thou'st not yet eaten, then?"  She reaches around her spell to hand him a dish off the clean pile.  "I've just finished but I'll join thee once I complete this?"

The cook would like him OUT OF HER KITCHEN.

It takes a little more coaxing on Khalida's part (and a muttered Osiriani 'come on, Tariq, we were going to have girl talk'), but application of stew can cause this.

Once he's left, she flops back against the counter with a long exasperated sigh and scrubs a hand across her face.  "I fear I must apologize for my companion."  The words are archaically formal but even through her accent the tone is very clearly 'ugh, men.'

"We haven't got to let men in here any more," says the cook firmly. "Apart from the butcher but he's all right."

Small tentative smile.  "I am glad to hear it.  This is- because the commander follows Iomedae now?"  Why is the spell going that way instead of this way... she squints at the dish.

"I suppose. Cecília believed him when he sad he'd be executing people for rape according to his new handbook and he did it, too, and then said we were already understrength so to save any more like them from themselves men were not allowed in this wing."

Khalida is rapidly discovering the limits of her Taldane vocabulary and she is so not going to ask.  If Tariq wants to find out what specific act it is that isn't allowed he can ask the commander his own damn self.  She'll just... nod. 

"Very sensible if one can manage it.  I suppose it must benefit that one needn't leave to go to the market, the market is here."  Aha, that's where that extra resonance is coming from, there's a hairline crack in the base she didn't notice before.  Nudge nudge nudge, yes Dish As It Should be does include the ceramic being whole there and not separate, that's correct.  "It, uh, it hasn't since much needed enforcing?"

"Nobody but Cecília's made a fuss, but we don't have to let men in here any more." She nods to herself.

Nod.  "Good.  That's good."  She eyes the spell for a bit, but the lingering wobbles damp themselves down without needing further nudging.  

...oh shit maybe she does need to figure out what that was, and the corresponding thing Cecelia apparently did.  Or figure out how far the fort rules apply to stray adventurers, or preferably both- well, Omar ought to be fine banging Tariq regardless, if kicking men out of the women's quarters solved whatever the presumably sex-related problem was.  Irori could she please melt into the floor right now please.  

Irori, completely unsurprisingly, does not grant this request, but she does at least remember to assemble the whole sentence before she starts it, so that she doesn't trip herself up with her stupid fucking talking problem, which is vaguely sort of related to self-perfection if you squint.  She stares fixedly at her spell, it's not like watching the cook is going to tell her much anyway.  "Is that- something one would be obliged to take notice of- between foreigners? Or solely if one or both is direct in the fortress command."  Did she lose track of her vowels in the middle there, fuck, hopefully it was still mostly comprehensible.

"I don't know but you might try going to the commander if your boys give you trouble enough you'd like them executed."

"No!  No, I definitely do not like this."

"Then you haven't got to make a fuss, but you'd better tell them to leave Cecília well alone."

This does not get her any closer to knowing what makeafuss is but if she has to say any more words about Mysterious Death Sex she may explode.  She nods again, and thank all the gods Mending is coming to the tricky bit and she can just focus on the spell for a while.  Last few nudges, and the chip pops into place, and the bit that's like Prestidigitation's single-minded older cousin if shapes had cousins, and hold the energy flow steady as it fuses into place and the crack closes up.  She makes sure the last of the resonance has settled out, picks the spellform back off it, and puts Dish As It Should Be back on its stack of nearly-identical fellows, then pulls Prestidigitation back into her mind's eye and starts clearing the melting snow off the floor without waiting to be told.

The cook nods smartly and goes back to making stew.

And once she's done with the puddle she'll slip out to find the guys and drag them back to the guest room so she can relay this incredibly awkward conversation in private.

(Has anyone told her how long she's expected to be on dish duty for, or can she hide someplace and go over her notes after that?)

She was not told specifically but she can probably guess from other information available in the fort that she's probably expected for about ten hours.

Ugh fine she can be responsible even though her new spells are right there.

Meanwhile, Omar, being oldest and wisest and decent at Taldane and having drawn the short straw will go see when the commander is next free.

He has time for their visiting adventurers as soon as he's done taking an after-action report from a patroller. "Yes?"

"We thank you for fort hospitality, hope no demons but fight if come."  Noor shifts on his shoulder and he offers her a hand down so she can patrol the office and sniff at things.  "Question we do ask: when no demons, how much fort rules, how much party rules?"

"Do you want a copy of the Worldwound treaty?"

"Uh... maybe?"  He absolutely does not want to drag himself through pages of bureaucratese in any language, Tariq understands more Taldane than he bothers to speak but isn't much of a reader even in Osiriani, Khalida could probably find the relevant bits but good luck dragging her away from her books long enough...  

"Treaty speaks of- inside fort, not only nations?  We do not think to come here, cannot before ask what most ask if- think come here or other place.  Maybe not know things others know all."

"The treaty covers how I must treat you as a guest in my fort, including which of my rules I can require you to obey. Is there... a problem, or do you only need to know for general purposes?"

"No, no problem."  So much for the clever plan.  "Khalid speaks to cooks, they say new Lastwall rules, Khalid does not know these rules...?"

"- ah. Do you want a copy of the Lastwall disciplinary handbook?"

Dammit Khalida why can't you clean up your own messes Omar is a responsible man and can handle this.  

"If everyone in fort uses Lastwall rules, then yes?  But forbidden things are words Khalid not knows, ask if forbidden with cooks only or forbidden also in party."  (Noor goes 'mrer' and jumps back into his lap, having noticed that Her Human is a bit stressed and seizing the opportunity to demand scritches.)  "...Thinks forbidden is maybe marriage matters."

"The Lastwall handbook mandates execution for rape. Do you know that word?"

"Ah.  No.  It is this word and also mekafus, this is question."  Noor is getting so many scritches.  

"...mekafus I don't recognize, but rape is when," he pulls out his Lastwall disciplinary handbook. "...I will try to simplify the words, but have not practiced doing that. Rape is sex that happens even though someone does not want it, or if you could not tell if they wanted it because they are in a situation where they would be scared and lie. If someone under my command does that, I have to execute them."

"Ah.  Thank you explain.  This not in party."

"I am relieved to hear it. There was a... report, not too long ago, and I had to try and execute several of my men, but nothing since then."

Omar nods, and-

Noor is DONE with scritches now and abruptly launches herself into the corner of the room to pounce on a bug or possibly a shadow.  Omar is instantly alert but it's evidently kittenish attention span and not a threat, and he sighs a bit sheepishly and returns his focus to the conversation.  "Handbook is good, I think, to scout in case, but if Lastwall rules are most city rules, we have no problem."

The commander recasts his Guidance. "That is good. If you ask whoever is on Scrivening duty for a copy of the handbook, the treaty, or both, they will be able to provide one for you to borrow."

"I will ask this.  And I will tell Tariq, we do not go to kitchen.  Wish for cooks to not scared."

"Thank you. I did not expect you to want to go into the kitchen, I apologize for not having said you should avoid it."

Tariq can go on the list of people who should be cleaning up their own messes, it's not like Omar wants to barge into anyone's kitchen, even at home he knocks on the doorframe and waits because he was raised proper Tariq handling this conversation would have been a disaster and they both know it.

"There is not apologize for.  Many things different with Cheliax and Osirion, it is not to know this thing is the same."

"Men were previously allowed in the... I should just put up a sign." He grabs a piece of paper and starts writing out a sign. "Do you have any other questions?"

"Only this question is important one.  If one here knows snow plant and beasts, I like to speak them?"  He holds a hand out to Noor and makes quiet chk-chk sounds to call her away from her epic battle.

"We don't have a proper ranger on hand, but I can arrange you an appointment with the fellow who teaches the most nearly relevant orientation classes."

He nods, scoops up Noor and settles her in her usual place on his shoulder.  "I thank you this, and for talk also."

"If you ever have anything else that needs my attention please meet with me again."

Omar nods and departs to update his party.

Khalida stays on dish duty through most of the dinner rush, since she got up so late.  When she finally emerges, stew in hand, her party isn't in the mess but she spots Txell with a lingering group and heads over to that table.  She doesn't join in the wizards' conversation much, though, because finally finally she has time to get back to her new spells!!!

This looks, to the outside observer, like Khalida eating her stew one-handed while staring fixedly at the same piece of looseleaf for minutes at a time, occasionally making some expressive faces.  Even if her dinner companions had happened to have Detect Magic up, it wouldn't have revealed anything more interesting- she hasn't had time to ink any of them into her spellbook yet, and just charcoal on scrap paper won't hold arcane energy long enough to do anything. They have the context to know what she's up to, though; it's possible to 'visualize' an empty spellform without channeling energy through them to cause effects on the world, and Khalida has very, very good geometric intuition.  Sketching the spells the day before, she hadn't fully converted them out of the unfamiliar Chelish notation, just made sure she got each individual piece and understood the signifiers correctly- it would have taken too much time to translate the spell entire into her own system with everyone watching.  Now, finally, she can work on building up from the notes to the shape of the spell itself, focusing in on each individual section until she understands it and then leaving a mental 'placeholder' where it fits into the whole, then deconstructing it again until she can 'see' how to compress it down onto, by necessity, separate finite-sized two-dimensional pages.

This is beyond any doubt the best part of being a wizard.  Some people might pursue arcane knowledge as a means to an end, for worldly power, or acclaim, or never farming ever again- Khalida can't understand them.  (Well, she can be fairly sympathetic to that last one, anyway.)  This moment here, holding the keys to the universe in your hands and you can hold them because they fit in a human mind, that flash of insight when you notice that Alarm has the same underlying structure as Message beneath all the details of their different implementation and knowing that helps you hang both of them faster... it's the best rush she's ever known, the most important thing in the world, spells easing your work and buying you nice things and occasionally saving your life is a minor side benefit in comparison.

Wizards are wizards everywhere. Wizards are wizards even if Txell is now telling a story about kicking her classmate in the stomach till she wasn't pregnant any more so she would be able to pass finals.

Khalida is pretty focused.

She's not that focused, though, at least once she's figured out what's up with the weird bit in Abundant Ammunition, and she doesn't know all those words (again godsalldammit) but the gist of it is pretty clear from Txell's tone and gestures. 

(Three times in two days, maybe she should put up Comprehend Languages tomorrow and pay one of the cooks to tell her all the sex words and swears she can think of so she can take notes.  Except then it'd be just her luck if something important hinged on different types of arrowhead or something.)

She's doing a decent job at keeping her eyes on her own paper metaphorically as well as literally, but a Chelish Sense Motive won't have any difficulty in picking up that she's got Some Concerns.

"More bugs than usual in your stew over there?" Txell asks her.

"No, no, merely I-"  Concentration thoroughly lost, she puts down her paper with a sigh.  "I have still poor Taldane, and I do not know all the words for the question."  Seriously, sex words are fair enough, but how is she not even coming up with 'midwife'.  "Lay dedicates of Pharasma, but not the gravetenders, those who- help new mothers?"

"Well in Cheliax they won't admit to too much Pharasma-ing but you want 'midwife'."

"Mid-wife."  She nods thoughtfully.  "In Sothis, if one knows how to ask, one may find midwifes who are- not dedicates of Pharasma, who will sell- certain plants?  Or, um, other things, if the plants have scant effect."

"Oh, maybe, but we didn't know where to find one of those and kicking's free."

"Ah, I understand.  I'm sorry to hear that."  Was that rude?  That was probably rude.  She passes her Wisdom saving throw closes her teeth on trying to explain herself further.  Any sentence involving 'what Osirian men say about Chelish girls' is right out.  "Did she pass?"

"That time yeah but she washed out the next time."

"Oof.  I'm sorry."  There... doesn't seem to be much to say to that.  She contemplates her stew for a bit.

"Yeah, dunno what happened to her after. Maybe I should drop her a note. Dear Aspexia wherever you are I bet you're warmer than me."

"One could be scarcely colder," Khalida agrees fervently.  "...I suppose there's a chance she joined as a cook or some such, and is at some different fort equivalently cold."

"Oh nah, I don't think so. Washout wizards usually go and teach school or something, they don't do servant work."

She nods understanding.  "Certainly warmer, then."  And unless Txell wants to keep talking, Khalida will go back to her notes until her bowl is empty.

There's a parable in the Abadaran secondary scriptures about a hungry man equidistant between two exactly identical dates.  The fool who believes himself cunning cannot find any reason to prefer one over the other, and so starves to death in arm's reach of food; the pious man flips a coin and chooses randomly, preferring any date to none, and thus exercising his free will.

Khalida feels like the man from the parable stumbling into a whole orchard of dates.  Not everyone was interested in swapping, of course, but there are quite a few wizards here and she's the only foreigner with spells from a different tradition and a lot of them are very bored, and she has been gleefully greedy about mutually beneficial exchange.  She's got notes on Rope Trick and Abundant Ammunition and Mount and Acid Splash and Summon Minor Monster and Disrupt Undead (she'd never even seen a necromancy spellchart before) and Alter Musical Instrument and Infernal Healing and Resist Energy (she is so excited about trying out the fiddly bit that polarizes it to a specific energy type) and Animate Rope and Reduce Person...

...and she's got enough ink for three of them, maybe four if one is a cantrip.  If she's very careful and draws the thinnest possible lines that will still hold the scaffold and doesn't make any mistakes she might be able to stretch it enough for Rope Trick and nothing else; more likely she'd wind up with a completely useless seven-ninths of a spellchart and have to try to barter for a scarce nonrenewable resource everyone knows she desperately needs.

She hasn't been able to decide which to ink first by the time she's scraped her bowl clean; she heads up to their guest room still boiling with frustrated temptation, makes a list on one of her remaining pieces of scrap paper, makes another list, tears up the first list so she can rearrange it freely on top of the blankets, yells at Omar to fuck off when he comes in even though he's not making any more noise than usual and she hasn't even started working yet, he drops Noor on her head in response and she takes a few minutes out to breathe and pet her and crumple up the pieces for her to practice chasing.

...maybe Noor can be her tiebreaker, she's as good a source of randomness as any.  Khalida's completely lost track of which piece is which by now, what's the next one she brings over?

Alter Musical Instrument

...okay, well, not that one.

Infernal Healing

and also she's done playing chase now pet her ears, no not like that Her Human does it better, she hisses and jumps back out of Khalida's lap to climb up Omar instead.

"Breathe, kiddo, you got this," Omar says on his way out, resting a gentle hand on her shoulder for just a moment as he goes by.

And Noor did help so it's not like she can even be mad at him, except a little bit for being right again.  She smooths out the scrap of paper and considers Infernal Healing. 

It'll be most useful here, of course, with a sudden drastic cleric shortage in an active warzone, even more so in the other forts along the way where they haven't even got Inexplicable Iomedaen Commander.  It's not going to be nearly as much use if when they go back to Sothis where there's some temple or other in hollering range practically everywhere except right on the edge of the desert, and getting devil's blood without too many questions is going to be tricky, but... first circle arcane healing.  And it's not like it's not practical, it trades off with Secluded Grimoire which would be a bit of a wrench but having healing out in the desert turns a spiraling disaster into a recoverable one, they could sell the wand (or most of its remaining charges, more sensibly) and have a bit more breathing room... and first circle arcane healing, she wants to get her head around that spell like water in the desert.

Khalida rolls out of bed, digs her ink bottle and her good pen out of their special padded pockets in the middle of her satchel, and gets to work.

Omar presumably told Tariq that she's in a Mood or working or both, because the guys don't come back until well after she's finished getting it pinned down onto the pages and is sprawled out on the bed, eyes half-closed and head pillowed on her arms, just taking some time to herself to contemplate the finished (empty) spellform before she gets back up to start on Abundant Ammunition.

Tariq flops down next to her, shaking the bed, and heaves a sigh.  "I can't wait until we get out of this godsforsaken frozen wasteland and back home where we belong and things make fucking sense."

A bit later in the evening, if any Chelish soldiers are passing close enough to the guest quarters, they might hear something that sounds suspiciously like a screaming argument.  On the even slimmer chance that they speak vernacular Osiriani or are curious enough to burn a Comprehend Languages, they could catch something like this:

"-not staying one more minute because you've gone all prissy about-"

   "Oh sure you'd say that, it's your own damn fault I need to in the first place-"

"Like hell it is, you were no cloistered maiden when we found you-"

      "Will both of you just stop-"

"You're not in charge of this party-"

   "You're not my fucking father!"

"Heyyyyy everything okay in there?" calls Txell from outside their door.

The yelling abruptly stops.

There's a rather awkward silence.

"Yes, all's well!"  Even through the door, she sounds both still steaming mad and very embarrassed. 

"'kay, kindly don't blow anything up or neglect your eight hours!"

The door cracks open and Khalida pokes her head out, hair loose and a bit pink about the face.  

"Right, yes," in a more normal volume, "I apologize if we woke anyone."

"I thank you for scout," Omar calls from out of view behind the door.  

"Didn't wake anyone, I just took a half-shift internal patrol to stretch my legs. Sleep well when you sleep."

"And you as well."  She nods and retreats behind the door again.

Omar clears his pack off the top bunk so Khalida can sleep alone.  She curls up under both her coat and the extra blanket, shivering, and sulks.

It takes her a while to get to sleep, but she's not up nearly so late as the night before, and as the guys clear out to go to breakfast she's sitting down with her spellbook again, sleep-haze and lingering crankiness banished by the prospect of new spells!  She flies through the practiced motions of her usual cantrips, and then flips all the way back to the newest page, she has to try out Infernal Healing even if another Endure Elements might be more helpful in expectation, set up the unfamiliar scaffold and then like this and loop around to there...

Khalida had picked up notes on Protection From Evil and Protection From Good last year, during a particularly good string of jobs.  It hadn't been quite a good enough stretch that she could justify the expense of inking them- it's very rare that they wind up fighting something other than a human or a beast, and even rarer that they know they're going to in advance- but she's been studying them in spare moments often enough that she can see past the different notation systems and realize the spellform is the same, except for one particular aspect that's similar but exactly inverted.  And as she's midway through setting up Infernal Healing, immersed in the glowing perfect shapes in her mind's eye until she practically forgets where she is, she starts noticing that this spellform has a particular subset that's very much like the invertible bit in Protection From Whichever... and that the framework around it is symmetric in a way that really ought to support it in either orientation... and if she pushes, just so, it should just snap into place the other way round...

If someone had asked her what she was thinking in that moment, Khalida would protest that of course she knows spell experimentation is dangerous, it's not like she was going to cast it, she just wanted to see if it worked and then she was going to take it down and assemble it the right way round for real.  This is, while not untrue, also not an accurate representation of her state of mind.  In point of fact, like many wizards, especially young ones, especially ones whose Cunning outstrips their Wisdom by almost half, she's not thinking past the present moment at all, consumed by the question of whether she could to the extent that she hasn't even noticed the question of whether she should is also at issue, and the battle with temptation is not so much lost as forfeited before it begins.

There's also another relevant fact she hasn't noticed, which is that spellforms are stable as constructed.  While not physical objects, they have some similar properties, like analogues to compression and tension and strain.  As it happens, the other configuration she noticed is actually a stable one, but the path from one stable spellform to another, half-charged half-assembled rather than built from scratch, is not.

She pushes, and the invertible subset resists for a moment, then gives a little, and then snaps... and in the process, puts reaction forces on the nearby structure in a way it was never meant to hold.  The release of tension travels outward, reaches an area of slack she hadn't knotted and folded and attached yet, that whips around loose, and then the whole structure shakes itself to pieces and the energy goes... everywhere else.

First-circle spells don't actually hold that much energy.  If one considers evocations, the most direct way of just releasing it into the world, centuries of wizards optimizing everything have gotten Burning Hands to the point where Khalida could, in theory, just barely, drop a carthorse in one shot if she was as lucky as she could possibly get.  But that's because a lot of the energy available dissipates harmlessly into the environment (or if not harmlessly, at least lights objects on fire rather than horses).  Shocking Grasp ekes out more power at the cost of essentially zero range, bringing her odds of killing the hypothetical horse up to one in three.

And second-circle adventurers are in fact quite a bit tougher than carthorses.

In theory.

On average.

A second circle wizard, on the other hand?  A profession notorious for spending all their time cloistered in towers and libraries, and fighting at range from the rear echelons with plenty of armored men between them and the foe?

A second circle wizard who'd never walked more than a mile at a time before the age of fifteen?

Who might well have inherited a degenerative fatigue disorder?

What saves her, as it happens, are two things.

First, that she hadn't actually finished channeling energy into the spellform when she made Decisions and Choices, so it's only holding a bit more than half of what it could be.

And second, that it's a healing spell.  Most of the released energy is force or raw magic or something weirder, but a certain fraction of it is still positive.

So she's in fact still conscious when the force of the explosion throws her backwards and cracks her head into the opposite wall.

And, nowhere and everywhere all at once, something happens that is not suited to description by human language, but might be summarized something like:

Aha, there you are.



DIBS.

Khalida, to her future immense frustration and regret, does not experience this happening.

One of the internal patrols twigs to the noise, summons backup, and is on the scene in a moment, bursting through the door.

They can find:

-one wizard, unmoving and lying at a slightly concerning angle and a bit scorched

-one large crack in the opposite wall that was probably not there yesterday

-one blanket that is currently on fire

-assorted other clothes and bedding and papers, not actively on fire, flung in various directions 

-one spellbook, off in the far corner of the room, open facedown and a bit crumpled

Ugh. Somebody stomps out the blanket. Somebody else checks her pulse.

Weak and thready but existing.

Two guys pick her up together and haul her to the mess and ring for the commander; there's a rope that leads to a bell in his office, previously used mostly for non-medical emergencies but now equally applicable to medical ones. There's a general shout as everyone who can be spared from their current occupations swarms in to benefit from the emergency early channel.

Commander Artigas sweeps in, Stabilizes her, and gives it another couple moments for people to form up around his position before he channels.

The concerning squashy spot on her head unsquashes, and her color gets somehow better, and the sluggish bleeding slows further.  Once the channel hits she groans, and gasps in a long breath, and then starts coughing and trying (without much immediate success) to roll onto her side.

If she's conscious she can wait till the evening channel for another dose, he's not going to burn a prepared spell on an unwise wizard. "What happened?" he asks her.

Conscious but barely so and unhappy about it; it takes a moment for her to get the coughing under control and sit up, and by this point somebody has located the other two adventurers and they rush in with the same question, much more loudly.

Well, if she can't answer. "Report," he tells the interior patrolman.

"Heard an explosion, barged in, the wall was cracked and the blanket on fire and she was down, spellbook was out, brought her here and rang for you, sir."

He nods; that's about what it looked like.

(Omar translates this for Tariq, who's glowering around indiscriminately but looking more than a little scared under it, and goes to help her sit up.)

Khalida is still coughing intermittently and having to run more of her breathing on concentration than is really ideal; she caught 'spellbook', it being nearly the same word in both languages, but focusing enough to parse a whole sentence and formulate a reply is going to be a bit.

"Guiu, go collect her spellbook lest anything happen to it, and make sure the fire is out."

"Yessir."

The blanket is thoroughly out, but as Txell picks up the book she can spot a sock blown under the farther bunk that the earlier patrollers missed, still smoldering slightly; it's not in a place where it could have lit anything else on fire before it burned itself out, though, between the stone floor and the stone wall.

Wonder of wonders, the spellbook has some crumpled pages where it landed but they're blank ones towards the end, none of the actual spellcharts are damaged.

By the time she returns, Khalida is sitting up unsupported and breathing almost normally.  She also looks like she's coming slowly to the horrified realization of just how dumb she just was.

And she gets to do that right there laid out on a bench in the mess hall where hundreds of passing Chelish soldiers can watch her do it!

Txell stomps out the sock and brings the spellbook to its wizard.

Who clutches it to her chest with both arms like a drowning man clutches his log, or a mother her child, and then looks up at the commander like she's fearful he might take it away again.

"She thank you book," Omar says to the other wizard, still with a hand on Khalida's shoulder (knowing her well enough to tell that words won't be happening), and then to Artigas, "Also we thank you, for this healing.  Very thank you."  He gives Tariq a Look until the other man gruffly nods and seconds this.

A curt nod. "There will be an evening channel, at the usual time unless there is another emergency. Guiu, you're responsible for alerting the party if she's not present at the channel, whenever that might be."

"Yessir," says Txell.

Everyone is staring at her.

Everyone is staring at her.

Khalida shoves herself to her feet and- does not bolt out of the room and instead grabs onto Tariq to keep from falling which of course makes everything worse- 

(She is a grown ass woman and an adventurer and she is not going to bury her face in the nearest friendly shoulder and sob.  She is not.)

(Continuing to not takes concentration for a few moments though.)

It feels like it takes longer than the whole horrible trek through the snow but she makes it to the door on her own two godsdamn feet and sags against the corridor wall, except there are still people in the corridor and she can feel them watching her.... Their room is the only private space she knows offhand but she'd have to go through like half the fort to reach it and also she- does not really want to see how badly she exploded it right now- she pushes off the wall and unsteadily heads for the next door down the corridor to hide in the kitchen where at least less than half the fort will be judging her, at least where she can see it.

(Omar hovers in the doorway for a moment in case anyone has questions about why there's a distraught wizard folding herself into a ball in the most out-of-the-way corner she can find, but... he's pretty sure they already know.)

If nobody tries to kick her out, she'll spend a while just curled around her spellbook with a pounding headache and- well, not exactly post-fight shakes, but post-something.  Eventually, the shakes subside and the headache eases up a bit, and she'll uncurl enough to take a deep breath and Prestidigitate the blood and soot off.

Ow ow ow fucking OW

She loses the spell and only barely catches it- has she somehow broken her magic- grits her teeth and focuses on her breathing until she can force the panic back down- tries again,  pleasepleaseplease-

(an echo, a breath, a hint-)

-it takes more concentration than it has since she was twelve and feels like dragging her brain over rocks, but she gets through the spell and tucks it away again and it works.

She tries it a few more times and it doesn't get easier but she also doesn't get that close to dropping it again.  She will worry about whether her brain is broken after the evening channel.  She tucks her spellbook in between her coat and shirt, and silently goes to join whoever's actually on dish duty today.  If she closes her eyes and takes a couple breaths after every dish she can keep up a more or less steady pace, embarrassingly slow compared to her usual but she grinds her way through enough that the other wizard can knock off for an extra break after the lunch rush.  

Somebody brings Khalida a bowl of stew, and she's a bit off food still but she can get most of the rice down (and gives the beef to the skinniest cook, still without speaking), and she gets through a few more dishes and then goes to curl up behind the water barrels again and take a nap.

She wakes disoriented and with a crick in her neck, collects herself gradually- there's a weird emptiness in her head that's somehow completely orthogonal to the pounding headache filling it.  At least she's not hearing voices after the channel, that can wait for after the channel.  Which... looks to be pretty soon, actually,  she must've slept quite a bit longer than she expected.  She just has to go join the crowd out there like nothing's wrong and then she'll be fine again.

Which she'll definitely go do.

Any minute. 

If she doesn't show up he'll send Txell for her.

She's not hard to find, (even if the two adventurers hanging around the door to the kitchen weren't a clue), she's hesitated in the doorway but emerges just as Txell comes to look for her, not quiiite late.

And when she is in range, another channel hits her.

She sags back against Tariq's shoulder with a long sigh as the headache abruptly lets up.

The emptiness in her head is still there, though, more obvious now that the headache isn't distracting her and making it hard to think, like a missing tooth you can't stop poking at- or, no, like running your hand along what you thought was a solid wall and suddenly putting your whole arm through it, like an entire different direction you couldn't go in before.... 

Maybe it's just that she didn't eat much today.  Maybe it's just that she barely prepared any of her spells.  Maybe she really did knock her head cockeyed somehow.  Maybe channeling can't fix crazy.  

If nobody seems inclined to yell at her ask her questions now that she's back up to fighting trim, she'll look for a quiet corner to settle into and fill back up on Endure Elements.  (The guys follow her like a pair of overprotective geese, Tariq slinging an arm around her shoulders again.)  The pages aren't damaged, but she doesn't relax until she's set up the scaffold and confirmed she still knows how and it still works.  It's harder to concentrate on than it usually is, though, and not just because she usually does this in private and she can still feel herself being watched.  There's a persistent sense of- something more, that new direction waiting for her to reach out, a new angle there to look back at the same familiar things from... 

She is not going to do any more messing around with spell prep today.  She is going to set up Endure Elements the exact same way she has done a thousand times already and she is not going to explode anything. 

She's still looking quite a bit more nervous than usual when she goes to see if the night patrollers are up for taking it.

They barely register who's doing their Endures. They are insisting to one guy that he is absolutely forbidden to make the "I spy with my little eye... snow" joke even one more time.

The patrollers do not explode!

Hooray! Off they trudge.

And the little party can head on up to their guest room.

The guys have cleaned up the room and sorted their damaged things and gotten some replacement blankets from somewhere, and it's this, of all things, that finally tips her over the edge into tears.  Tariq wraps her up in his arms and she turns her face into his chest and sobs.

(The sense of being watched has mostly faded by now- it's just her people here and they know her and they're not going to judge her- well, Noor absolutely will, but Noor judges everyone all the time and only likes Omar because she thinks he's her mother.)

She cries herself out after a bit, and Omar plunks Noor on her lap and goes to wheedle or sneak some stew out of the mess.  She organizes her notes while he's gone- the guys understandably had just put 'all plausibly magic-related papers' in one big pile- she's missing most of Mount and one page of Reduce Person but the rest are salvageable.  When Omar returns with the stew she realizes she's suddenly ravenous and wolfs her portion down without even pausing to look at her notes again.  

Khalida settles in to go through the pile of 'probably needs mending' on Omar's bunk while he brings the dishes back to the kitchen, but she's scarcely kicked off her boots when she's... just going to rest her eyes for a moment...

...she dreams of running barefoot straight up the side of a building in a city taller than Aktun, artificial lights everywhere turning the night as bright as day, blood sweet on her teeth and angles tumbling through her mind...

...of an immense library opening onto (predictable safe beneficent) nothingness and suddenly encountering an old friend or a new enemy deep in the stacks, of plotting to catch a murderer over breakfast, of a precious forbidden dangerous vulnerable box of mice...

...scamming tourists with cold-read fortunetelling in the park while she dreams disaster every night and no one will listen...

...a half-grown raccoon, determined to haul an abacus as big as she is across a forest floor...

...a castle floating in endless sunset clouds, full of books and cats and geometries that shouldn't exist, besieged over and over in grand sky pirate battles but everyone wakes up safe the next morning...

...an endless spiraling hallway that is also a trap that is also a friend that is also herself...

...exploding stars out the window, again and again and again...

She wakes, all at once without her usual morning grogginess, eyes adjusted to the faint glimmer of light through the crack under the door, and for a moment can't tell what woke her- no sounds coming from out in the corridor, Omar and Tariq curled together in the other bunk deeply asleep (someone put blankets over her at some point while she was out, she notices distantly), Noor at the foot of their bed twitching an ear occasionally...

The space in her head... isn't an emptiness at all, really, it's- waiting, ready, an unlocked door, an entire new direction she could stretch both her arms out into at any moment, like the ants in a beginning wizardry lesson discovering they live in a three-dimensional world for the first time...

(There's no windows and none of them own a pocketwatch.  She's nonetheless certain that it's dawn.)

What is happening in her head?

She has to know... she reaches, opening out into the new direction, straining as hard as she can to see, to figure out what it is and where it came from and why it's here-

The watching is coming from this way, she realizes abruptly, and it's not watching but knowing.  Recognition.  Presence.

It's not the infinite unconditional love she's heard priests of Sarenrae talk about, it's something... just as all-encompassing but calmer, quieter.  Not like blazing summer sunlight but warm still water buoying her up on a sleepy afternoon.

She is Known, the Presence says (except it's something less active than saying, less directed, like reading a plaque that's always been there and always will be and she's only just now found), she is Known, and she is Understood, all of her pasts and presents and futures and every speck of her from her long-gone milk teeth to the veins pulsing each moment in her neck and all her doubts and fears and insecurities and ambitions, she is known and she is accepted and nothing about her could ever make that Presence judge her or reject her or turn away.

And... there's really no One else it could be, is there.  

Nethys.

Hi.

'Hi' may not be a "standard" ""prayer form"" but it is shot through with wonder and awe and overwhelm-in-the-divine-presence and that tiny fragment of the All-Seeing that is (mostly) safe for mortal minds to interact with catches it and accepts it and reflects back acknowledgement and recognition.  You are one of Mine, it says, and I see you and I am here.

How does she do this.  How does this work.  Is she- chosen of Nethys now, that must be what this is, she's supposed to- pray, or something-

Even in the privacy of her own head she's forgotten the words to every psalm she ever knew in this one overwhelming moment, but somehow she knows it doesn't matter, and she reaches out and holds up to the god- her god- her desperate hunger for understanding and that moment of clarity when a spell snaps into place for the first time and the staggering feeling of walking into the incredible library in the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye and the certainty that there is more out there...

There's something glimmering at the edges of perception, in this space that is not a space to her sense that is not a sense, and she wants to see she wants to know- she reaches and there are spellforms there, hanging just in range of her metaphorical fingertips like fruit on a laden bough, spellforms like she's never seen them before, curved in ways that she thought they could never hold- she wants all of them she wants to devour them she wants to stuff them whole into her head and dissolve herself into them and know how they work- 

(Fortunately for both her sanity and the structural integrity of the fort, wanting this extremely hard does not actually cause it to occur, although it does happen to be a very effective way to attune oneself with Nethys in prayer.)

-she can't see them well enough, she can only barely reach them, the harder she tries to focus on them the more they slip away like stars in the corner of your eye-

-and then finally some half-remembered theology clicks into place and- she's working on the wrong problem.  She can't see them but she can hold them.  They're gifts.  Make of yourself a cup to hold divinity, and neither leak nor spill...

She does some purely internal equivalent of closing her eyes and breathing and centering herself (her physical eyes have been closed the whole time), and instead of reaching she calls.  Can she have Create Water, only clerics get Create Water, that's the best way to know for sure... focus on being a cup, being a shape that can accept a spell and hold it and carry it, and- there, she feels something coming towards her, and she tries to reach out to it too soon and it bobs away but on the second try she gets it nestled in the extra space that's suddenly part of her, and she knows instinctively how to get it back out when she needs it as surely as she knows how to move her feet.

How about that one she noticed earlier, please, the one with the prettiest internal structure?  And- is there a healing one she can reach...?  There is, apparently, and that's good to know, that she can ask for something and be granted it without being certain it exists...

Her head feels like a strained muscle unaccustomed to use, and it's so hard to resist the temptation to poke at them and take them apart, but there's still more room there, a bigger space than the first spells took up and an odd... corner?  with the same metaphorical volume as the large space but a weird squashed 'shape'.  Can she put a healing spell there, is that what that's for- no, apparently- well, what does fit there- is that Detect Magic, it looks like Detect Magic the way a living breathing tree looks like an iron staircase, and she tries to grab it and it slips away and she wants to see- steady, center, don't focus like a drill focus like a parabola, Detect-Magic-But-Cooler simplifies itself and settles in and then expands to fill the space available.  

One left, has to be first-circle, she's so not prepared for this but she can figure out what cleric spells there are later, healing healing she wants healing- and it's there and it's beautiful and she can't help herself she grabs for it, and of course it's like trying to cup your hands together to hold water and then touching the surface of the water with the hand that's trying to hold it- she tries again and again- 

-okay fine then how about Mending, clerics have a better version of Mending right- and something that might have the same bones as Mending slips into the last remaining space and expands- 

...and she's... done?  

And an hour and five minutes after dawn a breathless wizard is outside the commander's office.

"He's not there," says a passing patroller. "He's filling the cistern wile he gets his overnight report."

"The- cistern?  Where does one find cistern?"

"By the kitchen."

So then back down the stairs to the kitchen to find someone who can direct her to the cistern or the commander or both-

There he is. "Good morning. ...Create Water."

Oh, it means cistern, that makes much more sense.  

"Good morning."  She's barely met this man and he's kind of confusing and intimidating and she slightly broke his fort, and he's also the only (other???) cleric in Nethys only knows how many miles.  "I, um.  I seek spiritual counsel."

(Are there buckets or barrels laying around in here, perchance?)

There are some buckets around, yes, for filling at the cistern to bring water to other locations. "Spiritual counsel on what?"

"I, um, I-"

And then the words get stuck, and...

...and she pulls a small book out of her bag, flips it open, and presses a hand to the frontispiece.

"...Create Water."

(She's never tried aiming a divine spell before, and there's something a bit counterintuitive if you try to do it like it was wizardry.  Most of the water goes in the bucket; quite a bit goes on the floor and her boots.)

".............congratulations?" he says with extremely deep uncertainty.

"...thank you?"  

'What the fuck do I do now' is probably not the sort of question a random priest of some other god can answer for you, actually, and also she doesn't know how to say fuck in Taldane.

"I, um.  It was Nethys.  As- one would likely expect.  But I'm certain it was Nethys."

Insofar as he's legible he is no longer concerned that this is a terrible event that endangers everyone! "Congratulations," he repeats more firmly. "Have you told your party?"