It's a shaped piece of rock, a round ring with a round bar crossing its one-foot diameter, its unpolished surface decorated with intricately carved designs in an unfamiliar style. The material is similar to blue granite, but somewhat more uniform in texture.

The apologetic one says some more apologetic things, still incomprehensible. The sweeper sweeps. The smasher asks the other two a question and they both shake their heads.

The apologetic one takes a step as though intending to block his way, but then the sweeper snags the apologizer's sleeve and pulls him out of Thanjen's path. The smasher rolls her eyes at them both, opens the door, and strides off purposefully.

No one attacks him! It's a hallway. The only other person visible is the purposefully striding woman who smashed the sculpture.

He looks back at the people still in the room.

They are arguing with one another.

He walks back in and attempts to get their attention.

The sweeper breaks off first, looks back at him, asks an incomprehensible question.

He shows them a little blobby flowing-colored-glass scene of a little person (probably supposed to be him) making their way out of a cutaway little building with hallways (probably supposed to be this building).

They both nod comprehendingly, then... start arguing with each other again.

Figure of a person walking back and forth confusedly in a hallway!

Comprehending nods! Escalating argument!

Standing in the hallway looking exasperated!

The sculpture-smasher comes striding purposefully back down the hall. She's leading another woman, also tall, also pointy-eared. This new person smiles at Thanjen.

"Hello!" echoes the newcomer. She inspects the diorama, then nods and beckons.

He follows.

Along the way, she points at herself and enunciates, "Lirieth."

Lirieth nods encouragingly. "Thanjen," she repeats, doing a better job with his vowels than he did with hers.

Little map of what he's seen of the building, pointed at.

She nods, and points at the building map and gestures at the hallway around them, and gives a multi-word name.

He shrinks it and adds vague representations of land and other buildings and people.

Lirieth nods, and resumes leading him out of the building. Hallway, hallway, stairs, more hallway. It's a pretty big building, apparently, and one with very few windows.

No comment seems obviously called for, but Thanjen tries to smile politely and stays well back from the inexplicably glowing gas.

"Good!" she says, pleased. "So, this is a translation spell. It should make you mutually comprehensible to anyone you speak to as long as you have it." She offers Thanjen the smoke-creature.

"I hope they can reverse whatever it was, seeing as this seems to be not even the same planet, or maybe universe."

"Really? Oh, that reminds me, I wanted to ask - how did you get your lifeforce so entangled with all those floating objects?"

"Oh, that's a fascinating word! Is that kind of connection with matter outside your body a common thing where you're from?"

"Anyone old enough to be able to, does. You only have your puramem?"

"I'm not sure... elf-kin like me have bodies in the sense you mean, but fae like Skytouch don't," she gestures at the small winged woman, "they're not biological in the same way. And I don't know if anyone 'has' things in the way you mean; I can tell there's a connotation that's not quite translating."

"You seem to be getting more out of my words — if I say that I'm getting the idea that no one here lankored anything at all, does that sound right?"

"Yes!" she says. "I'm a linguist, I analyze everything."

"That sounds really inconvenient and dangerous. I mean, not the being a linguist part —"

"Roads, yes, but what rides on them?"

"Oh, that makes sense. For us a road isn't a spell, it is just a long flat surface that is good for wheels to roll on."

"That's what roads are outside the Forest," Lirieth agrees.

"What is it shaped like, then?"

"I wonder if I could help look further. Sounds like a bit too adventurous even for me, though."

"I'm not nearly adventurous enough to go near something like that," says Lirieth. "Although at least it's less terrifying than the people trying to find out what's under the ocean."

"Well, this being the City of Light, there actually is a system in place for supporting people affected by magical accidents," says Lirieth. "You're probably the first person accidentally stranded here from another world, but your needs should still be mostly covered..."

“I suspect I need less and more than the average person here. Will it cover getting me home?”

"I'm not sure if that's strictly covered under the accident relief system but I'm completely sure that we'll be able to find someone willing to work on it anyway," says Lirieth.

“Do magical accidents include ‘total amnesia’? I'll probably need some background on, like, magic, and species and politeness and how to get supplies and things I haven't even thought of yet.”

"I think the accident relief system will be able to manage all that pretty well, and I'm happy to help out if there turn out to be things that aren't covered!"

"Thank you. And what's your — for that matter, what is this organization?“

"This is the University," she says. "Technically the Manafall Institute of Knowledge, but everyone just calls it 'the University'."

“And the Manafall, I'm going to guess, is that big blue column that would be impossible where I'm from?”

"Yes. The country is named after it."

There sure are a lot of hallways here. And all these stone walls.