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Several weird things happen at once, including Khalida isekaiing, and zombies
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There's no moment of transition or spell to resist.

One moment there. Now here. With a mild headache and a new language blooming in one's head.

'Here' is the side of a wide, cracked black road, with a large pond on the other side, and a patch of woods on this side. Tall poles with metal wires strung up between them run along the woods-side of the road. There's an intersection with signs and stoplights some distance to the left, and what might be a house and a church visible across the pond, also to the left. Nothing but a long road visible to the right.

A car is coming down the road at about forty miles an hour, staying between the lane markers. It's about 80 degrees Fahrenheit out. Cloudy.

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"Augh what the fuck," she says, and manages not to fall over, and then realizes she said it in a different language. 

 

This is not the Worldwound.  It is also not Sothis or its environs.  It doesn't feel like she's enchanted, but it also doesn't feel like the last time she found herself someplace completely different- no explosion, for one thing.  (It's also actually decently warm, for the first time in months, she shrugs out of her coat and ties it through the strap of her satchel.)  That looks like a dangerous-beasts amount of trees, she should stay on the road- OH HOLY SHIT that thing is FAST never mind.  She will stay within sight of the road, a safe distance away from the- construct?  It seems to be ignoring her at least, that's good.

 

Detect Magic:  nothing.  Detect Fiendish Presence:  nothing.  "Hey Nethys, what the fuck, if this was You I'd have appreciated any warning,":  nothing, not that she really expected anything.  

 

She'll... head housewards, then, testing out her new language as she walks- good, she still knows the ones she started out with- and keeping an eye out for beasts on the one hand and speeding constructs on the other.

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There are more speeding constructs! Several of them stop at the intersection, waiting for the lights to change color, there are people inside them. Bassy music thumps out of one that four teenage guys are inside, drinking beer.

She'll have to cross the road, twice, to get to the house and church. Or she could walk down the smaller and older side-road towards a metal gate with a red STOP sign, which none of the cars are taking.

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She'll at least walk as far as the gate, and see what she can see past it, especially if it lets her get a road-crossing out of the way before dealing with the- cars?  Is that related to cart or is it a sound-coincidence... her new language apparently doesn't come with sourceless philology knowledge, boo.

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There's open space and a corn field beyond the metal gate. The small road continues for a while. There are some tall buildings in the distance off to the left, but the area behind the gate otherwise seems pretty empty. A smaller sign declares: 

United States Department of Energy - Fermilab. No unauthorized entry. Visitors should use the main entrance located on Kirk Road <--- 1.5 miles

Managed by Fermi Research Foundation on behalf of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy

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So 'United States' is probably the place she's in?  Could they have picked a less specific name- maybe the new language is translating it- she thinks maybe she's heard of there being a confederation or something somewhere in Avistan, this feels like Avistan sort of weather (it's damp) but for all she knows they're all over the place in Arcadia or Castrovel or whatever.

 

Department of Energy.... is a... division?  Some kind of government or university thing?  With an 'Office of Science' and a 'propernoun Research Foundation' nested inside it, okay, so it's maybe more likely a university and they're studying fire and electricity and acid and whatnot, (hopefully) not trying to regulate use of them, that would be wild and also inconvenient to her specifically. 

 

"No unauthorized entry" is pretty obvious, and she can't see any magical defenses (or for that matter guards) but she is not in a mood to find out what kind of disguised wards a 'Department of Energy' puts on its stuff.  She'll head back to the crossroads and watch the behavior of the cars for a while, until she can spot a pattern that lets her cross houseward.

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Red light means stop. Green light means go! No crosswalks here, though.

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Okay, so if she goes a little ways away from the crossroads and waits until there's a red light facing her, there shouldn't be any cars coming from that direction, and any coming from the other direction will be slowing and should be dodgeable...  she'll wait until she sees a bit of a gap and then try dashing across, satchel wrapped protectively in her arms.

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Nobody wants to actually hit a pedestrian. She makes it across.

The house is sturdy brick. Actually, from closer, there's an inscription in the stone threshold: 'Big Woods School'. The church is mostly faced in white-painted horizontal slats of some kind of strange material. There's also a cemetary, a car in the parking lot just on the other side of it, and a sign. And up ahead, a large warehouse visible past trees and the road curving slightly.

Eastern Orthodox Church

St. Amalberga The Great

Holy Liturgy: Sunday 10 AM, 2 PM

There are two cars in the parking lot, and a couple of men taking boxes out of one and carrying them into the church. They look kind of tense and anxious, glancing around a lot.

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She doesn't recognize the god- saint? if it's a saint, it's a bit odd the sign doesn't say what god they're a saint of... oh shit are they monotheists here.  That doesn't look from the outside like a torture kind of church but those guys sure don't look happy... she'll continue casually towards the cemetery and read some gravestones.  She's probably worried over nothing and just too used to thinking about Cheliax, 'orthodox' right on the sign kind of implies they're distinguishing themselves from some other heterodox church?  How many of Cheliax can there really be.  Well.  How many of Cheliax-and-Nidal.  And if they spotted her holy symbol they didn't immediately chase after her about it.  She's still going to read some gravestones and try and get a sense of what sort of afterlife they're expecting, and then maybe tuck the mask inside her shirt once she's out of their view. 

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"Rest in peace" and "now lies in Heaven" and "forever remembered" all feature on the gravestone. They have birth and death years. It must be somewhere around 1991 in the local system, going by the latest one she sees.

A big ol 18 wheeler truck rolls by. There must be ten carts or more worth of cargo in that thing. The graphic on the side advertises Allstate Car & House Insurance.

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Okay, good, they're expecting Good afterlives, she was just being paranoid.  (That thing is giant, wow... they insure houses here?  Is it... bringing someone a replacement house?)

 

She'll head back around the side of the church where the men were unloading things- are they still there?  Failing that, a door that looks like it's meant for parishioners and not the Church's private business?  Or is that just the big door out front?

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They're still there! Lots of boxes stuffed into a big car. And other stuff- Right now they're ferrying 24 packs of bottled water inside. Well, one is. The other is keeping watch. (He tries to smile reassuringly at her. Badly.)

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Slightly nervous return smile!  "Hello- I, um, I'm very lost, is this a church that aids travelers?  I can help out-" well, not with the channels until she's sure they're not monotheists, and not carrying those with her wizard's noodle arms, she'd be more hindrance then help- "with the children?"  She doesn't particularly like childminding but it's not like it's hard.

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"-Pardon me for asking, ma'am, but are you sick? Have you been in contact with any any sick people?"

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"...no?  Not anytime recently."

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"Good. Good. You can use our telephone at least, if that helps. We will - have ask the priest if you should, uh-"

"We fear that the rabies epidemic is worse than they are making it sound," the other man interrupts. "Much worse. So we are moving supplies into the church, and will move our families here too. We don't have a safe place far away from people to use, but the church is at least a little bit away from the crowded places."

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"Oh, shit-  I'm, uh, I'm not much help with an epidemic-" because Remove Disease is third fucking circle and she can't even manage cleric firsts- at least in the church they'll be closer to clean water-  "but if you don't have anybody for laundry I can do that.  If the priest doesn't mind."  'Telephone' is a... Message contraption?  That's a thing here???  

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"I don't think laundry is-"

"Hygeine is important. It helps keep sickness away, even if the disease is not rabies."

"-Yes Ennis. We'll call Father Ramisov. Do you truly have no place to go?"

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It's a Good church and these are good people and there's an epidemic, now is the time for a leap of faith if there ever was one.  "I- don't know where this is or how I got here.  But I'm a priestess, too, if Father Ramisov wants backup... I'm.  A pretty new one, though."

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One of the guys looks really uncomfortable. The other asks, "Oh? What faith would that be? I'm not familiar with non-Christian faiths."

Because, obviously, Christian faiths only take men as priests.

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"Nethys,"  she pulls her little divided mask back out of her shirt collar, "god of magic and knowledge?  I don't actually know if you've heard of him here, we don't know Christ where I'm from either."  (Thank you, mysterious language knowledge, for reminding her how to get the noun back out of the adjective.)

 

(It is perhaps relevant to note at this point that Khalida is wearing slightly mismatched handspun-woven-and-stitched clothes that look like a not-sexy renfaire version of Lawrence of Arabia, carrying a black and red leather coat that, if someone looked closely enough, has a pentagram imprint on the shoulder where the embroidery was carefully picked out, and speaking completely perfect English with a bland newscaster accent.)

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"-Ah. I am not sure if a cult like this... Well, I have never heard of that one. And orthodox doctrine holds that magic is evil, as it comes from making sinful deals with devils. I think. It's also, uh, not real, unless you mean something very unusual by magic."

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"Oh, I might mean something very unusual, I didn't speak this language this morning.  But don't worry I am definitely not making any deals with devils, I know better than that."  Chelish coat notwithstanding shush brain she definitely doesn't need to explain about Cheliax if they haven't even heard of Nethys.

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"Good. The devil is a great deceiver and cannot be trusted."

"I think perhaps you should speak to Father Ramisov? We do need to keep unloading and go back for another trip or two... We should have asked for more hands."

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"I can help carry till Father Ramisov gets here, if I won't be in the way?  I'm not all that strong."  (She is a tiny noodly teenage girl.)

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