Wow, this manages to be a worse situation to be in than "ambushed on the road by a monster he's never heard of". Are the sprinklers doing an adequate job such that his first priority doesn't need to be the fire?

The sprinklers seem to have the fire contained.

Okay! It's possible this is complicated somehow but it looks exactly like monsters attacking a human town and he doesn't understand any of the shouting so he's not going to get a clear explanation of why that might be today and he can't start channeling till there's a calm moment to get people into a radius without any of the bug things in it! But for extra safety margin he's going to open with a Burst of Radiance at the most accessible concentration of monsters.

The attackers - a quick count shows five four-legged insectoids and three big reptiles - are mostly stunned! All of the reptiles crouch flat, and two of them are badly burnt. Two of the bugs are out of the area or effect and two more manage to evade the worst of it, more dazzled than stunned - though one gets burned - and keep shooting bolts of glowy fire from their weapons.

The radio shouter seems to be some sort of officer- He shouts a rallying cry and four soldiers reply - "Uraa!". They stand and fire at the hostiles.

Inquiring projectiles would like to know if Blai is in half cover, full cover, or no cover.

That really depends on what direction the projectiles are coming from, everything's relative. Let's say half.

A lucky hit means a ball of plasma grazes his arm, burning it through the chain mail as the hideously hot material is briefly in contact. Not too bad as hits go but a more direct one would have been nasty.

The exchange of fire continues. Flashes of light and thunderous bangs. The lizards are taking hits with gouts of red blood but are visibly regenerating. A bug goes down with purple blood. One of the soldiers goes down too, headless.

One of the cops, apparently too injured to shoot, tries to offer him a shotgun.

Blai doesn't know how to use that! He'll convert a Forbid Action into a Cure for him instead.

"Blyat!" -But there isn't really time to question it. It is time to shoot back.

The attackers' weapons, it is quickly becoming clear, are astonishingly deadly. The wild spray of mini fireballs is blasting apart sturdy brick walls and metal shelves with relative ease. The humans' weapons are also deadly, definitely moreso than a crossbow at least. They fire with long strings of clattering bangs, and the violence occurring is going very swiftly.

One of the bugs throws a yellow object into the store, and the soldiers all shout and scramble away from it.

Okay?? Thing is bad news in some way Blai doesn't understand and therefore can't assume anything in his repertoire will solve, he too will get away from the thing.

Probably a good decision, as the thing promptly explodes in a greenish not-quite-Fireball. Everyone is out of the sphere, but only because they fled. One of the soldiers takes a hit in the arm as he scrambles away. This, plus some of the stunned aliens getting up again, seems to have broken the morale of the soldiers; They are now fleeing to the back shelves.

New combatant count: Three bugs (another one went down in the meanwhile; They seem a lot more fragile than the lizards), three lizards, two cops, four soldiers (two badly wounded), a bunch of bodies, and Blai.

Are they all or at least mostly in range of a Prayer if he drops one?

They're all in range but they have the look of people totally lost to panic and useless in a fight right now.

Prayer helps with that! Maybe they'll notice! He drops one and then draws his mace for the oncoming monsters.

Why engage in melee when they have these perfectly nice guns? Repeat previous question about cover status, please.

He's not behind cover but they are going to be taking a penalty to their shots if they didn't make their saves. Look, the fort needed the crossbow bolts, and also he has both channels left for once the monsters are down, or, failing that, Axis is lovely at all times of year.

Blai takes two shots directly to the chest and one to the shield, which punches a hole clean through it but does, at least, not hurt him much.

These do a LOT of damage. It's not quite enough to drop him in one round, though.

They were focus firing on him as an easy target, giving the fleeing soldiers a chance to rally and try to shoot back...

...And also, there seem to be reinforcements. No less than eight human figures in silvery armor burst from an alley, getting the attackers in a crossfire and a salvo of grenades a moment later.

Ow.

Is Blai not recognizing what a grenade is going to be a problem here?

Not unless he actively runs out to whack the hostiles before the round is over.

Well, that was his original plan, but maybe he can pick up from the newcomers that they've dropped in delayed area effects in time to get behind something.

The only hint on that front is the aliens scrambling away from the thrown brown objects that resemble the thrown yellow exploding object from earlier.

This means they aren't shooting back, or in cover!

Yeah, that's good enough, he ducks behind something.

There are some explosions. One of the lizards runs at Blai but is taken down by gunfire before reaching him. One of the bugs shoots at the new arrivals, scoring a hit. The new arrivals fire back, and keep firing.

And then everything is quiet save for the dripping of water and more distant sounds of combat.

The newcomers in different armor don't really relax. One is having a shouted conversation with the local officer while the others double-tap the lizards, reload their weapons, and take up defensive spots. One is approaching the store, holding a red box with a '+' symbol on it.

If the monsters are all down can he get everyone here in a channel radius?

They aren't preparing for a channel. Red box guy looks quizzically at his armor, then pushes past him, pulls a spray bottle from the red box, and starts triaging and spraying wounds with it. The soldiers and cops come over and receive more spray bottles and bandages.

...The one he Cured keeps pointing at him and trying to explain the matter, but it doesn't really sound like the others believe it? This at least prompts the officer to come over and try about eight languages on him.

Are they "not preparing for a channel" or are they "positioned so he can't prepare for a channel".

The former! Part of triage includes collecting everyone who might, maybe, hopefully, still be alive, too. Including some kids.

Great. When they're all close enough he will push his way to the center and bam.

Whatthefuck.

How about one of the silvery-armored guys comes over and tries a bunch more languages?

Blai will signal his general amenability to the concept by going through the ones he speaks too but like. No.

Okay, uh. (There is a quiet and slightly sneaky conversation wondering if he is really human, is it some sort of elaborate trick? An infiltrator?)

Anyway, uh, there's still aliens dispersed throughout the town and everyone's had half a minute to breathe and they really need to keep moving, even Sung is back fighting fit again after that, there's no time to play an elaborate game of pantomime but Rogers will try to indicate the ongoing threat for at least a few moments by gesturing to the alien bodies and then making an expansive gesture towards the town at large. They're going to keep moving. If Blai follows along or not, that's up to him.

Yes, he'll join them.

Okay, sure, great. Go go go go go.

(The silver armored troopers head out, the other ones are told to stand guard, apparently. Probably wise, they don't look up for more fighting.)

The squad assumes a practiced forty foot wide staggered formation and sweeps down the street past the ruined store at a fast jog, heads on a swivel, peeking carefully around corners...

More lizards, distracted shooting at something to the left! ...With just two hand motions the apparent squad leader sets up a simultaneous attack that cleanly gets all three.

He's clearly underequipped for this ranged-heavy fight but this really isn't the time to ask for lessons on how to use their stuff. Were the lizards shooting at anyone he should go heal?

The lizards were shooting at a... school? The half blasted wall mural shows rows of children at desks. It is unclear from here how bad things are inside but at least a couple of cops are down, over there.

Any obvious reason not to go check if they're alive?

Just that the silver troopers are already moving on. At the sprint, even.

Blai's comparative advantage here is probably healing. Also he is in heavy armor and can't keep up with sprinters who aren't. He goes and checks on the cops.

Both are stabilizable, as it turns out.

He was walking alone and didn't prep Stabilize! Which he regrets now enormously! He can spend his remaining two first-circle slots on it, though, he hadn't cast his Endure yet and while there's enough fire that he's nervous about dropping the Air Bubble there is not obviously anyone presently trapped in a burning building.

One of them - an older guy -  gets up and looks around warily, groaning. He spots Blai and loudly demands something! (The other is still downed, merely no longer actively dying.)

"I don't speak your language," Blai says apologetically. Is there a good place to drag the Merely No Longer Actively Dying guy.

Into the building, once the cop gets the idea.

There are nervous civilians with crowbars and baseball bats inside. The cop helps calm them down and directs Blai to place the other one in a classroom.

Can do.

After that, nobody's really sure what to do with him. But he's not an alien so he can shelter here just fine.

...There's a TV in the teacher's lounge and the older cop comes to bring him over to it after a few minutes.

Live news reporting is talking about the attack on Sarny in Russian, with helicopter coverage of a bunch of silver-armor people conducting an assault towards three large coppery-colored circles. From the scale of them, they're the size of a big house. In fact, it looks like they crushed a couple of houses coming down.

The attackers are retreating towards them, streaming into the doors in a fighting retreat.

Hm. He could go attempt to join the battle seen on this scry here but he's still slower than the forces they choose to field and both sides are heavily favoring range and he's low on spells. Hunkering down and saving his second channel may be the way to go, and if a monster does come inside for some close-quarters combat he's got a Divine Favor and a Qualm he can't convert into healing anyway.

People are settling into a mood that's, if not celebratory, at least vindictive.

Large steel vehicles with cannons trundle down the road and start blasting the saucers. Two of them prove to be actual ships by taking off and flying away, regardless of units who had yet to reach them; The third, dented, tries to take off but only manages to turn and blow up two tanks before succumbing to damage and falling again. White-armor troopers then line up at the hull breaches and then storm inside in a coordinated movement.

And... That seems to be that, as far as the fight goes.

Huh, can he tell anything about the difference between the white armor and the silver armor tactics/loadout/etc. from here?

They have the same emblems and overall demeanor and tactics, but white armor are all carrying smaller weapons, some of them have big shields, and their armor seems to be more covering and heavier than the silver armor. A dedicated close-range breach team, perhaps.

Had he but known perhaps he'd've tried to join up with them.

Is there anything like chalk or something around that he could use to mark out a circle later when people gather for a channel, assuming optimistically that they have now figured out he's a cleric?

There is chalk aplenty, and also dry-erase markers and pencils. Nobody has figured out he's a cleric. Some of the small children are curious (from a distance) about the armor and mace though!

He can't really explain it to them. He will pocket some chalk, and wait.

People soon shift to cleanup. Lots of moving around and talking.

...Actually, a few minutes into this if he's looking outside at all, he sees a few cops acting kind of shifty, hiding away the guns and yellow exploding objects from the three lizards just outside the school. It looks like they were considering the bodies too but settled for some bits and pieces of them after realizing they are over 120 kilos each.

...he can't really go confront them because they will not understand the question and he will not understand the answer. Can he point them out to whoever seems most on the ball of the folks who Aren't Doing That?

Commisar Belov Sheriniko has arrived by now and, actually, wholeheartedly approves of this looting. The language barrier may leave his impromptu speech on the selfishness of the Xenonauts, and the need to secure alien materials for the USSR instead of an untrustworthy international organization, landing poorly, though.

It's around this time when that same squad of silver-armor troopers from before comes back down the street, plus a gaggle of technicians in pale blue garments and that big X emblem.

Commisar Sheriniko sets his jaw and plants himself firmly between them and the alien bodies.

...wow Blai really doesn't have a guess about what to do if there's internecine human fighting, please don't.

They already have Sebillian bodies, the weapons are probably already on a truck to some blacksite, so they would mostly serve as additional data, and that is... Not worth causing an Incident over.

There's a brief standoff that concludes with silver-armor-leader gesturing towards Blai with a med kit to please follow, and the Commissar trying to indicate that he could go or he could stay. He doesn't have to go with them.

The med kit is promising?? He really doesn't have a lot to go on here. He takes the chalk out of his pocket and makes a drawing gesture, not actually touching the ground, and then touches his holy symbol and points at the kit, and maybe they'll piece it together.

They smile and nod at least. Someone has prepared a photo of a field hospital to show him.

The photo is kind of more confusing than the live scry but okay! Is the field hospital the sort of place one can chalk out a sixty foot diameter circle.

Maybe if you moved a bunch of the cots?

A big truck rolls up. Silver armor folks climb in to two long rows of seats in the back and gesture for him to do the same.

That's sure an object. He will embark upon the object.

The object goes to a field hospital! Everyone piles out.

The ratio of injured survivors to dead is low but there do exist some of the former.

A blue shirt person has a whiteboard, markers, and one of the brand new tablet devices reverse engineered from alien electronics, set currently to play images and videos from a small gallery, is waiting here. There's also a woman here without the same uniform, but to whom everyone seems to be deferring. She watches Blai but doesn't say anything.

The blueshirt demonstrates the marker and eraser by drawing a line, and offers it and the whiteboard to Blai. Then he pulls up a before/after pic of a nasty chest burn before and after six days in the regen tank. It's mostly just a scar by then.

Well, magic healing doesn't leave scars but that's pretty good for if they don't have that and are working with, what, bandages and herbs or something.

Blai draws a stick figure with the sword-and-sun in the middle of a circle full of people - are any of these markers red? Red-marked people - and then another circle the same but with the people no longer red-marked. Though the process will not actually clean blood off of them he hopes the gist is clear.

Nod, nod.

So it's- 

-The drawing program on this thing sucks. He pages through the digitized encyclopedia and eventually finds an image of one of those Tesla Spheres and manages to draw a very bad stick figure over that. And then a frisbee and the same stick figure over it. He points to the sphere, questioningly.

...tentative slow nod, yes, channeling is a sphere.

Wow, fascinating. The sword and sun is the source of the effect...? That seems impossible but so did the alien psionics, and teleporting, and antigravity, and fusion tech, and supermaterials... Uh, right. He starts sketching something-

The woman says something in a stern tone.

...He produces a sketch of Blai drawing a circle with chalk. Yes?

Yes.

Nod, nod. How about some numbers, in the form of tally marks. One, two, three, make sense? 

He gestures at the previous whiteboard scene of Blai healing people. One time? Two times? More?

Blai holds up two fingers then puts one down.

Concerned foreign language discussion...

They'll be distracted for a little bit trying to format questions into the form of probably confusing pictures; They gesture him to draw the circle in the meanwhile.

Eventually: They have a slideshow of options around the healing. Is it more like:

Blai is doing the healing by... Thinking really hard? And getting tired?

The dagger-and-sun has some number of heals inside it, and they get used up?

The dagger-and-sun has liquid in it, going down in increments as he heals?

Also, sketches of Blai going with the silver-armor-people and then people watching him heal, pointing weird devices at him and healing subjects, and maybe eventually making a thing that heals like he does, or maybe more people who heal like he does- Or, that seems to be the gist of that sequence of images, it's kind of hard to keep track of context with wordless pictures.

He draws a circle.

He guesses that of these options it's more like the second thing?

He is going to express uncertain skepticism about the sketch sequence.

They measure the circle and then start packing people into it. (A bunch of people are moving around doing things in the background too; Most notably: Helicopters landing and taking off, loot collecting and sorting, loved ones visiting injured people, and more injured showing up. There's a minor incident where someone wants to get into the area and the X-emblem people don't want to let them in, and he complains loudly and unceasingly off at the perimeter.)

Here's a bunch of injured people packed into a circle! Reasonably efficiently for a first attempt.

Can Blai figure out why that guy isn't allowed in, is he just less injured than everyone who is?

The person being kept out is a local, and the point of contention seems to be the device with a big glass lens on front that he is carrying. They'd let him in without that!

Seems likely to be a legit sort of thing then. Blai checks that nobody's obviously leaving space another person could fit in and then takes hold of his symbol and channels.

Huzzah! 

There's some confusion as things get broken up and packed out again. Several people insist on thanking him, not that he can understand.

The blue shirt people have prepared another image sequence.

Lizards regenrating, lizard bodies and captives being examined by the weird devices. Night day night day dot dot dot... Eventually, the scientists have a blue liquid. There are some before and after photos of using it to heal wounds. And then again, his holy symbol being poked by the devices.

...headshake?? That is not how that works, you can't do alchemy to holy symbols.

Dubious and considering faces all around. They can't exactly do forced experimentation on a human someone who's not even an enemy combatant...

He's gonna see if he can convey via pictures that he will be able to talk to them tomorrow.

Huh.

...They'll take this at face value. Some kind of psionic ability, but he needs to sleep first?

The next sketched pictures include Blai coming with the silver and white armor contingent on big helicopters, flying to a secret base somewhere, to eat and sleep.

Sure sounds fine. For a value of fine that includes spending the whole trip afraid of heights but that's still fine.

Okay then! They try to indicate that it will be an hour or two. One of the blueshirts will sit near him and continue trying to work out the start of a shared dictionary in the meantime.

There is really no point to that because he will have magic for it in the morning and also that kind of construct is loud. He can like, introduce himself.

Oh, no, the choppers aren't even here yet. This is sitting on metal folding chairs on the outskirts of a field hospital and he's going to keep trying unless he gets a very unambiguous 'no really stop' vibe.

Then he can attempt to teach whatever this language is to a patiently unenthusiastic cleric.

And eventually the helicopter arrives, and he can share it with a bunch of mixed silver armor troopers, blueshirts, and sealed crates.

It's actually two and a half hours. There aren't any windows. Someone passes around a box of chocolates and bottles of water a little bit into the flight.

And then they can all disembark in a huge underground hangar full of more Mystery Objects. Concrete walls, beefy metal doors, armed guards. Lots of busy people doing a bunch of mystery tasks with mystery objects.

He is escorted through the hallways and through a spartan barracks and to an officer's quarter, which has the bed, a private bathroom, a tiny desk, and that's it. Oh, and they can bring him food if he wants.

He'll decline the water, he can make his own to rinse his mouth out after he throws up! He can also make more water when they take him to the quarters and then gesture at the food: he can make that too, where's good.

The water conjuring sparks a bunch of extra conversation!

...They want to make it clear that they're going to do Science Things to the food, not eat it, but if that's okay they'll take him to the lab section.

Well he's going to want some of it but if they want to do Science Things to the rest that's their business. This'll be ten minutes chanting.

They want to do Science Things to it, indeed.

...He could have base food anyway, if he wants? An aluminum tray with portions of stuff on it? Up to him.

If they try to insist he will take their food instead of his pies but like he is pretty sure there's enough food there for whatever they want to do with it without a couple pies.

They will take the base food away and not insist on having his pies. And start doing science things to them. And show him back to the officer's bunk. (This whole base has a sort of weary, frantic energy to it.)

He will sit in the provided quarters and eat pie! With a little of the rock salt from his pack shaved onto it.

They won't bother him overnight. There are muffled sounds of activity from elsewhere in the base, though.

To be expected.

He has no idea when dawn is going to be so he might as well catch what might wind up being a brief nap. When he's eaten his pie he takes off his armor and goes to sleep.

Dawn is going to be...... Much later, actually. About 14 hours later, to be exact.

In that case he will wake up and not have new spells yet. Hopefully they're not too impatient, his drawings did specifically reference the sun.

They do ask, (and also attempt to ask if he wants things) but don't seem too impatient when the answer is 'not yet'. (There was a soldier standing by his room's door. It's ambiguous if he's meant as a guide or a guard.)

Perfectly reasonable in either case. He didn't finish his apple pie last night and has it for breakfast.

Does he want to hang out in this little lounge? It contains troopers playing cards and more troopers with popcorn and beer watching Top Gun.

Either way, soon enough dawn does come.

He'll hang out in the lounge and alternate between trying to derive the rules of the card game and watching Top Gun - there are sure a lot of weird cuts in this scry? - he'd make a chess set just in case but dawn might be any minute, they have no way to tell him when.

When dawn strikes he will go kneel in the corner holding his sword-and-sun for his prayers. Iomedae he really really hopes that this is not some case where the monstery looking guys were actually good and the humans were in the wrong but like it did appear that the battle was taking place on the humans' turf so that's suggestive, he hopes, he presumes that Her still being there for him this morning means he did not culpably fuck up a lot but he's going to try to get enough information to be more confident going forward and if he did fuck up a little bit and/or non-culpably he apologizes. Two Share Languages, some Comprehends, a Protection from Energy in case they'll be able to tell him what those projectiles were because he's not a hundred percent whether it's an electricity or fire situation, fill it out with some Oh Shit, he wants to drop the Spark for Stabilize, they seem to have light covered here so drop that for a Mending to patch up his buckler and shirt.

The card game is Texas hold 'em, being played for colorful chips. At one point a winner of a big hand puts a bunch of chips in a box and gets beers for the table.

People look at him curiously when he starts praying, but don't interrupt.

Oh good, he'd kind of like a full spell complement.

When it's been an hour he gets off his knees. Is there any discernible specific person who has been assigned him, such as perhaps the guard from outside his room but maybe not that specific guy if he's been awake a real long time?

The same trooper has been shadowing him the whole time so far.

...The same woman who seemed Vaguely In Charge back at the town that was attacked has shown up while he was praying, though. And she still seems Vaguely In Charge, looking away from a screened device and up at him contemplatively.

Okay, if his guard/guide has been up for at least fourteen hours and In Charge Lady is here he will go up to In Charge Lady and offer her his hand.

She says something to a couple other troopers, who nod and leave the room, and holds up one finger in a 'wait' motion to Blai. They're back thirty seconds later. She says something else. They nod.

Then, she'll take his hand.

"Share Language."

"We had expected something more like... Mutual Detect Thoughts, but this works. Hello, welcome to one of the Xenonauts bases. I'm sure you have many questions. I'm Mary Lee, a member of the operations coordination team."

"I'm Select Blai Artigas. I'm, uh, not sure what planet I'm on, to begin with."

"In the most commonly standardized language we call the planet Earth, 'Terra', or 'Gaia' sometimes. It is part of a star system that has nine planets, or eight depending on who you ask, none habitable to humans except this one. We have not been able to figure out where the aliens are coming from yet. We have some ideas and are investigating them, though. If you also arrived in the same phenomenon that they are using to invade, that's maybe a potential route to study some very important things... Or a way to get you back. Do you know anything about how you arrived? One moment."

She says some things in English before looking back at Blai. The two troopers relax incrementally.

*Italics denote loanwords

"I was attacked on the road by a monster of a kind unfamiliar to me that looked like a large snake with a mirror instead of a head and went through the mirror and found myself in the place where I arrived, otherwise apparently unharmed. I am unfortunately not powerful enough to cast any spell to contact people from my own planet, Golarion, though I may be noticed missing in a few weeks by one or more archmages."

"Hm... We can maybe show you the database of observed alien types later, in case any of them resemble it. It sounds like you are aware of, in principle, means to contact or travel to other planets, though?" 

She looks like someone who is deeply confused and not quite high enough Bluff to completely hide it from Chelish people.

"Yes. I am a third circle cleric. Sending is a fourth circle spell, and sends twenty-five words to anyone without a distance or planar limit. I think probably the most economical way to go between planets involves two Plane Shifts but that requires a tuning fork attuned to one's destination plane."

"Okay. Hmm... Okay. I am going to be less than fully honest on some topics at first, for purposes of military secrecy. This is a precaution against you reporting, being spied on, or potentially choosing to join the side of the aliens. I will generally inform you when information is being hidden because it is classified. However, I make no commitment to do so, or to refrain from lying... We consider the war against the alien invaders an existential threat and are taking it extremely seriously, but wanted to share this policy early so it does not cause later offense or confusion. Is this clear, do you have questions about this policy?"

"No, that makes sense. I'm not personally permitted to lie but I have twenty years of military experience and understand how information security works. If it's ever of critical importance that I believe some true thing you wish to tell me and I have reason to be skeptical there's magic for that."

"Good. While we would welcome your assistance, you haven't signed up or committed to anything, and that's important to us. The Xenonauts, the international and independent anti-alien organization, is an all-volunteer organization. We have agreements with the various nations of Earth to assist with alien activity in their territory, but are not formally under command of any particular nation. While the notion of 'spells' and 'spell circles' are unfamiliar to me, we believe that the aliens are invading using a phenomenon similar to Plane Shift. Essentially using a form of exotic energy to transport things between planes... Or rather, between 'dimensions', which I'm not sure are the same as planes. I'm unfamiliar with 'magic' as a classification for things that... Actually exist and are real, but the aliens have given us many unpleasant surprises in the form of things that were previously thought to be impossible, so it's a bit easier to believe this time. A major focus of the Xenonauts is reverse-engineering captured alien technology and attempting to recreate it for ourselves. Is that possible with magic?"

"...a lot of things are possible with magic and I'd hesitate to categorically rule it out. I cannot personally do that."

"Poor phrasing, sorry. Is it possible that the Xenonauts could gain the ability to use 'magic'?"

"I don't see why they couldn't, if they're people. They cannot get - hm - if they were able to get specifically the kind I have that would be vitally important information about the justness of the war, because my spells come from my goddess and being able to get spells from Her requires alignment with Her purposes. But there are other gods, and other forms of magic that do not rely on them."

Her not quite high enough Bluff shows again at the word 'goddess'.

"That's promising. I'm not going to jump straight into trying that, we should be reasonably sure we've covered broad topics before that. In particular, I'd like to give you credible information about the justness of the war."

"Trying that - ah - I don't think it is likely that my specific goddess will be able to empower more people here. Both because it seems like for whatever reason She is not already invested here, and because She is having an expensive year at the moment. But She has allies I would be willing to recommend."

"What conditions would this 'aligning with purposes' entail, in general?"

"- in general, gods empower people who will, with the amount of further direction available to them, advance that god's aims in the world. This usually means the Wisdom necessary to cast spells, a combination of intuitive philosophical agreement and well-integrated catechism, and general personal efficacy, although I do not have details on the exact tradeoffs different gods may make in these domains. Iomedae is the goddess of defeating evil and of a triage-oriented approach to doing that."

So, a divine Cold War?

"Do they limit their interventions out of concern for conserving resources, or perhaps preventing escalation of conflict beyond levels that can advance their goals?"

"With the understanding that imparting information, like that information, to mortals is itself expensive, and so I am likely to be wrong or incomplete on the actual underlying mechanics of it, yes, both concerns are operative; gods working at directly cross-purposes can be destructive in ways neither wants and they are thus bound by limited intervention budgets. Empowering a mortal is a standard and common behavior and other more detailed contact is rarer and should be presumed costlier."

"I'm analogizing to a series of proxy wars this planet experienced where two dominant empires competed to advance their interests by supplying money, information, and weapons to lesser states, and committing espionage and other covert actions, without directly warring against each other, out of concern that a direct war would destroy the world."

"There are more than two gods but that seems like a reasonable enough analogy based on what you've said, yes."

"Alright. We'll have no shortage of questions about the gods, I'm sure. Do you have any questions for us? Both sides asking questions strikes me as more likely to uncover any fundamental information gaps than just one."

"Do you have a good way to make use of my healing abilities from here? I can do the burst of healing to a thirty foot radius twice daily, and if I don't need all my other spells I can convert most of them into single-target healing as well, and I can prepare spells that will repair some kinds of lingering damage that a channel or Cure won't cover."

"Hmm. I don't believe we can safely transport enough wounded here to make full use of burst healing twice a day, with additional single-target healing, largely due to secrecy concerns that complicate transport to and from this location. I am tentatively imagining, if you wanted to contribute maximal healing to the anti-alien war effort, that we would form a permanent guard detail for you and transport you around the world to pre-arranged locations to perform healing, both on Xenonauts casualties and those of allied nations..."

"You're healing the enemy casualties as well?" he asks. That could be good or bad. Depending.

"No. We are not, generally. Xenonauts is the name of our organization, consisting of humans, while 'xenos', or 'aliens', are the colloquial names for the invaders. We have discovered during interrogations that their internal name for their polity is 'the eternal empire'."

"There are some religious strictures around what sorts of interrogations I can enable."

Nod. "We won't ask for any enablement of interrogations until we have a better understanding of each other, that's easy enough. What are the strictures?"

"Well, most importantly if you're going to torture them I can't be party to that, but if this is a priority and there's some other confusion I can consult my books."

"We don't cause deliberate pain or discomfort during the course of interrogations. However, we do not have some facilities and amenities they may find familiar, nor unlimited capacity to hold captives, and do execute some of them after interrogation... It may be extremely useful, game-changing, to have assistance to capture certain aliens. I should not be any more specific at this time on that topic, it's not a matter urgent on a scale of days."

"Understood. ...if you don't have magic how are you communicating with them?"

"Certain aliens speak various Earth languages as part of training for covert actions on Earth, including kidnapping, implanting people with mind-control devices, and killing prominent leaders or other figures. Certain aliens display abilities we have termed 'psionics'. These are... Similar to Enchantments, if my understanding of this translation is correct? With the more skilled of them being able to read and project thoughts. And we have taken pains to translate their spoken and written language from interrogations, recordings, captured material..."

"Do you know their motives for war?"

"We don't have a clear understanding of that. The lower level officers and soldiers don't either. They largely know that they have their orders, and are intent on following them without much questioning them. We have guesses, but they are guesses."

"I shouldn't assume your counterpsionics procedures are identical to what I'm familiar with for enchantments, what do I need to know about that?"

...Question in English to one of the nearby people. Answer in English.

"I'll have to discuss what to reveal on that topic with my superiors and get back to you."

"If you have any other procedures not necessarily related to psionics that might require my cooperation on short notice I should learn those too."

"Yellow flashing lights mean all soldiers are to go to ready five minutes - that is, to gear up such that they would be in aircraft and on the way in less than five minutes. Blue flashing lights mean the facility is under attack. In either case, as of right now, you'd ... probably mostly get in the way trying to help."

"Probably, so where is a good place for me to stay out of the way?"

"Back to your quarters, or barring that, anywhere that's not obstructing paths or hallways. ...Red flashing lights mean that the base is having a non-enemy related emergency such as fire or flooding."

"I have no special flood related skills but do generally prepare Create Water which has its applications in case of fire."

"Maybe if the fire-fighting pumps fail somehow. It may also be a more complicated emergency such as a... Radiant... No, not radiant. A hazardous material containment failure, let's say. Probably a good idea to default to listening to instructions, we don't intend to leave you unescorted in the base for a while."

"I don't speak the language. This spell lets you speak mine for 24 hours; I can also cast one that lets me understand and read but not speak or write any language."

"-Okay, we'll want to know the functional limits on any 'spell' you deploy, when feasible. One thing we wanted to address is whether you expect any side-effects for the people affected by your healing magic. We haven't observed any acute effects, but if there is an accumulated risk of damage or disease with exposure to the healing, for example, we would like to know."

"No, it's generally understood to be pure upside. It does not handle infection but it doesn't cause or worsen it either."

The other soldier shadowing this lady has been poking around on a device; He says something.

"Oh, that was fast, I'm clear to describe ordinary non secret psionics and precautions to you. Most known cases of psionic attacks last the length of a combat, no more - minutes at most - unless they involve physically putting things in the body and brain of a target. There is a species of aliens called Psyons. If you attack them and fail to hurt them, and they can see you, they automatically attempt what we call 'mesmerize'. If you - fail your will save? - not quite, I think, or maybe it is - you are stunned about one or two rounds. Psyons are also capable of causing people to go berserk, attacking anything in sight, terrified, generally fleeing or freezing, or sometimes dominate. All of these usually last only around two to five minutes and can be disrupted by injuring or killing the Psyon that did it. On the battlefield, standard procedure is to generally prioritize Psyons over other hostiles, and if domination is identified to try to kill the dominator as fast as possible even at the expense of other objectives."

"Understood. Which ones are the Psyons?"

She pulls up an image of an alien; It's different than the two species he's seen attacking that town. Huge bulging head with bone ridges, big black eyes, three-fingered hands, jawless mouth. There's a short and a tall example. 

"These are Psyons."

He studies the image carefully and then nods. "If I have enough advance warning to prepare the appropriate spells there are anti-enchantment protections."

"An ongoing objective of ours is the live capture of a Psyon officer. We believe they are a leadership caste and hope to understand their objectives and command structure."

"Understandable. Do they stop being able to use their enchantment powers after some number of uses, or without the use of their hands, or without line of sight, something like that? It seems otherwise challenging to hold them."

"The security procedures around that are part of what I am not permitted to tell you at this time. Aside from the fact that they exist."

"Understood." Means he can't help much but they must know that.

"In terms of other known alien units, I've been asked to give a general overview of the known threats to you. The ones you encountered yesterday were Mantids and Sebillians. In terms of notable strengths and weaknesses, Mantids are the four legged ones. They are relatively fragile and weak, but their threat is still potent due to the deadly ranged weapons aliens use. They tend to go into battle lightly armed and armored. They are the only type of alien that sometimes wields what we call a bio-launcher, which launches Tiny aggressive insects at high speed. The impact of the launched insect can hurt somebody, and then you have a creature with aggressive claws and jaws right next to you mindlessly attacking anything that is not a Mantid. These tiny units, symbiotes, move and act quickly and are dangerous, but die after three to six rounds. Mantids have a very wide cone of vision and can see almost everything around them except for directly behind them, so don't assume one can't see you lightly. Sebillians have poor eyesight and therefore bad aim at distances longer than 30 to 50 feet, with objects and people beyond those distances apparently being blurry or with a distorted sense of depth perception. However, they are fast on their feet, very tough, and fast healing, often requiring much more damage to take down than, say, mantids or the smaller psyons. They'll also bite and claw in melee, and are surprisingly deadly up close. Some people automatically judge Sebillians to have poor intellect and will, but if anything it is the opposite, they tend to be quite cunning and brave. Deadly at close ranges. Other known alien types include psyons, wraiths, servitor golems, reapers, and mentarchs, but do you have any questions so far?"

"The symbiotes die, they leave bodies, it's not that they're summonses? Will they attack non-mantid hostiles if put into proximity with one? What is it that makes Sebillians stereotyped in this way if it's not true?"

"Yes, the symbiotes die and leave bodies. The summary for non-biologists says that they are designed to use all their fat and muscle at once and have no mechanism to eat or even breathe, once disconnected from the gun. They will attack non-mantid hostiles if they land near enough one, yes. Sebillians have visible reptilian traits which I suppose just for cultural reasons is commonly associated with brute strength and low intelligence."

"Understood, go on."

"Psyons are likely the best all-rounder soldiers the aliens have. I have already described their most common psionic traits, but another is that they are - effectively - reading each others' minds on the battlefield, which improves tactical coordination and also makes them significantly more accurate if several psyons are within about 200 feet of each other. We're not sure on the exact effective limit of that distance. Psyons are generally the most deadly due to the combination of generally high accuracy and competence, reasonable toughness, and psionic traits. Wraiths look superficially similar to psyons but have two large bulbous pale sacs on either side of their heads. They have natural visual camouflage- It's not invisibility, just rapidly shifting colors to match their environment, including their armor and equipment. Easily seen up close or in bright lighting, but makes shooting at them much harder. They prefer to engage at long ranges, with powerful weapons, good accuracy, and sufficient stealth that return fire is more difficult. The servitors are golems that float above the ground and have six small limbs and one tall head. They are slightly less deadly than many other units and serve a support role - their main weapon fires weak shots at a very fast pace with poor accuracy, which can suppress or panic soldiers. They can also heal most other alien units with a spray of dust particles at around twenty to thirty feet of distance."

"...with a spray of dust particles?"

"The dust particles are... Tiny* semi-biological machines which act as medicine, 'regenerative nanites**'. Our newer medical treatments actually use a derivative version of them that can be manufactured by our society's technology. Or well, bred, more or less. The reason Sebillians are so tough is that they have especially good compatibility with them and a gland that produces them."

*not the size category, a word for really really small.

**'nanites' is loanworded

"And the spray is selective, it won't heal other creatures in the area?"

"It's a narrow enough stream to be effectively single-target... One moment."

Here's a shaky helmet cam video. It looks like a glittery golden beam the width of an arrowhead from the 'head' of a weird hexapedal floating machine, visible for half a round, impacting a Psyon with green blood pouring from its head. The wound closes in seconds. Then the psyon shoots at the recorder and the camera blacks out.

"Do they consistently object to scrying sensors?"

"...That's from what is called a 'camera', a device that functions as a physical scrying sensor in many ways. Specifically a helmet-mounted camera in this case."

"Ah."

"I think you will also require primers on many commonly used technologies of our society. It seems like you have a very different paradigm where you are from, lacking some things and having others we do not have."

"Yes, I get that sense."

"Would you prefer to get into that, or finish the primer of main alien types first?"

"If there aren't too many more alien types they seem important to have a rundown of."

"There are three more, though one of those we just know a name - 'Eternals'. They're the leadership of the 'Eternal Empire' and a distinct species. They are psionically powerful. That's all we have. Otherwise, we have Reapers and Mentarchs. Mentarchs are only found inside alien ships. They are Medium sized creatures consisting mostly of a very large brain and equipped with armor, a defensive force field, an integrated ranged weapon, and a number of long metal tentacles. They float. They are... Responsible for piloting and controlling alien ships, for the most part, using a specialized form of psionics. The same basic phenomenon, detectable with the same methods, but Mentarchs can only interface with a ship's control systems and mentally communicate with Psyons. They don't have any other psionic powers that we have ever observed. The reapers..." She pauses. "Are fairly gruesome, do you want details or a sanitized summary?"

"...I don't think I need it sanitized."

"The Reapers are Large insectoid units that reproduce parasitically at an extremely rapid pace. Their arms are equipped with muscled injectors that, when stabbing a creature, inject several live Reaper larvae into them. These larvae begin very rapidly consuming the creature from the inside out. It is reportedly extremely painful. When the injected target dies, they become a walking corpse that displays unusual strength and mindlessly attacks people. After about one to two hours depending on the body size of the victim, they... Burst, into one or more new Reapers. An unattended Reaper outbreak could potentially end a city in a day or two. They are shockingly fast and stronger than they look. If you think you can beat one in melee, you almost certainly can't. Overwhelming ranged firepower is the preferred method to deal with them, they don't have ranged attacks and they are not intelligent, they always display very simple behavior of attacking anything living except alien forces. No cunning or coordination or communication. We have... Not done experiments on any of this because of the obvious cruelty, this is all through... Observations and autopsies. We have reason to believe that Reapers are designed specifically to be horrifying as a terror weapon."

"I assume you don't have any data on whether the undead created in this way are vulnerable to the positive energy that heals the living. Is it possible to extract a larva from a target before death or are they always embedded in a vital area?"

"My uneducated guess would be that they are not vulnerable to positive energy. We have one recorded incident of surviving an injection; Her armor blunted the blow, leaving it injected shallowly in a leg, and then the larva died after a few rounds, we suspect helped along by the regenerative nanite injection that was also applied."

"...no one has had the opportunity to try cutting off their leg?"

"No. We don't typically have rapid limb removal apparatuses readily available on a battlefield. Except, facetiously, explosive weapons."

"I guess if you're so reliant on ranged weapons people aren't going to have swords available."

"The paradigm of warfare has been one of ranged weapons for a while on Earth. No modern soldier carries a sword for anything but ceremony, or a knife for anything but utility. Mostly."

"Should I be learning to use these things?"

"Plausibly, yes. I'm not sure when that would get approved. We're in the asking lots of questions phase now."

"Understood. I'm not as good a shot as I am with hand-to-hand but it sounds like the tactical considerations very much overwhelm personal fit, here."

"They do, for the most part. There is some personal fit. Highly accurate people can be trained as dedicated marksmen, strong people trained with heavier weapons, those with calm dispositions and higher will are given the destructive explosives, fast runners are sometimes made scouts, people with especially good reflexes, or toughness are considered for breaching squads. But as our saying goes, every soldier is a rifleman first."

Nod. "As with most things if I'm expecting it in the morning I can prepare spells for the situation."

"We're a little nervous about deliberately involving you in combat without a very clear chain of command and possibly formal admission into the Xenonauts. Coordinating medical services for you has fewer such reservations. We do want you here. But I want to note specifically that you are not a prisoner and have no obligations to our organization at this time. If you wish to depart, we'll discuss your options and commit to one without unreasonable delay. "

"I appreciate that. Using me as a medic might make perfect sense, deploying one cleric you may not be able to replace is a different matter than deploying a renewable supply of many."