Evren will find herself standing beside a stone road. Across her is a small hexagonal pavilion, reminiscent of Chinese ones.

To the right of her is a giant snake, several feet long, jaw opened impossibly wide with a mirror stuck between its jaw and palate.

The air is summer warm and humid and the sun and sky suggest that it's early afternoon.

To the left of her are two women, one of them having a sling on her back with a baby on it. The woman with the baby unties the sling and hands the baby to the other one, who is pushed away. Previously-holding-the-baby woman shouts at her, and currently-holding-the-baby woman runs away.

The one remaining balls her hands into fists and relaxes them, repeatedly. She looks apprehensive, too focused looking at the snake to notice Evren appearing. She's wearing a loose, ankle-length skirt and a blouse, with a wide brimmed hat with a string tied around her chin.

Definitely a monster, though she's never heard of anything like this. They have maybe twenty seconds to react, which this woman's spending on a panic attack. But what can Evren expect; Evren's the one who sat through hours of lectures on killing monsters, and this isn't the first person she's saved from their own honestly stupid reaction to unexpectedly meeting one. 

She fumbles in her backpack, thinks the elements "cut" and "monster", sigils that also appear on the stake in teal. She feels a click-- the spell went through-- and starts running towards the snake.

She was expecting to cast Emotional Mirroring to try to intimidate the monster and then run away, but Sudden Monster Hunter also works! She wants to help them with a Vigor spell, but she only knows how to cast it at touch range.

She will instead slowly move backward and cast Vigor on herself. It doesn't look like anything, outwardly. Her main goal right now is preventing the snake from passing through them and attacking her sister.

She lunges with the stake in an attempt to stab the shit out of the snake's mid-section. 

The snake will twist to try to get out of the way, but fails. It thrashes around, emitting seemingly no vocalization, trying to get at Evren, but the mirror stuck in its mouth means it can't get a good angle.

The fight is over quickly.

Marina will stand back, warily, even after the snake has stopped moving and seems dead. She calls out in an unfamiliar language.

Once again, her life's purpose fulfilled.

Her shirt's covered in snake blood now. It's sticky and blue-black. A little cold. She imagines taking the shirt off and burning it.    

"...Do you speak English?" she asks the woman, though she already has a pretty good guess. 

She does not speak English! She seems to try a few different languages, and then makes a frustrated expression.

She can cast Telepathy with just a mental action, and now Evren will 'hear' a voice in her head. 

:Hello. Thank you for saving my life...and probably that of my sister and her child. I'm a Flowering practitioner, but I'm not a fighter. I can do healing though — do you need it?:

Evren flinches.

If you can read my thoughts please don't tell anyone what you overhear. There are certain people it will end up getting back to and the less they think of me, the better. I know I can't stop you from telling people but I can help you in exchange, if you really don't like to fight... I won't tell anyone that you don't like to fight, either. Just in general.

That Evren flinches when she receives the telepathy doesn't surprise Marina — telepathy isn't unheard of, but it's an uncommon spell. She is very surprised by what Evren sends back, and it's clearly evident on her face.

:My Telepathy only gets what you choose to send out. I'm not...if you prefer I don't tell anyone that you helped me, I can do that? I can refrain from identifying you in my report. You don't need to...really, I should be the one repaying you for your help.

Um, it's not really...a secret that I don't like to fight. Most people don't.: She feels kind of silly having to state that. The terror that previously washed over her is just kind of dissipating now under the confusion and disorientation.

The woman didn't really answer her question about whether or not she needs healing, but Marina is just assuming that she doesn't need any, because it didn't seem like she was hurt during the fight.

Do you have to report this? If you leave out my name I guess that's fine.

Sorry. I mean it's pretty rude to accuse you of reading my mind.

There's no way to touch the fighting thing without digging a deeper hole, really. On an outpost world like this-- this doesn't look like Earth; she guesses some Asian settlers influenced the architecture-- you probably can't walk your dog without something slithering out of the bushes to kill it. That's why only powerful magic users get sent out here. Maybe getting defensive about how normal it is to refuse to get involved with defending your society just because you don't like fighting helps this woman cope with whatever's going on with her. Maybe she's just a really silly person who likes to talk about how "everyone has their own strengths". 

In any case, she is the weirdest magic user Evren has ever met. (Evren doesn't like to count herself as a magic user.)

Also, do you know if there will be more of that snake? 

:So it's not mandatory, but it's prosocial to report monster sightings. Even if it's already been taken care of. I don't know if there would be any more of that snake — I knew this area to be safe, but perhaps it isn't anymore, right now. My sister and I were traveling to Samva. That's the nearest city, and also where we live. I was planning on giving a statement to the municipal government.

I am reading your mind, just not reading anything that you aren't deliberately willing to send. That's how my telepathy works.:

Yeah, I've never made any report like that. It's not really a thing where I'm from.

You seem like... a nice person who isn't going to call attention to it until I say something, but I am from Earth, yeah. I got here right before the snake attacked and I'm not sure why or how. Like, I have some guesses, but they don't make any sense. But... I'm not the kind of person who gets dispatched here.

If this is like, illegal immigration and you're going to get in trouble or something for helping me, I can just go my own way. And if you know of a way to get a portal back to Earth of course I'll go with that. 

:I'm not going to get in trouble for helping you. My thought was that you would come with us to the outside of the city where my sister's husband has a bee farm, sleep, and then go into the city to make the report in the morning where you could also give a statement.:

She's from Earth? Does she live underground? Maybe she's a True hermit who lives underground and she hasn't had any outside contact for 144 nanca. 

:I can leave you out of my statement and just say that an unspecified person helped me who is uninterested in the hunting bounties. I don't know where Earth is...if you are a hermit, I apologize for disturbing you. I don't know of a portal back to Earth — portals are an Open Door thing, generally.: