Huh, that's funny.

The scintillating corona of lightning and blue-violet light above her is going away awfully quickly, and a brownish grassy mountain slope is approaching from below with perhaps surprising speed.

Also, there's a naked foxgirl dancing down there-

-Wait, no, she's no longer visible. Or was it a trick of the light in the confusion of falling? Who's to say if that blur in the side of her vision in the moonlight rimed with portal-light was anything at all?

"Gah!"

She pulls a broomstick from nowhere and begins to decelerate about as hard as someone trying to get up to speed on a bicycle; whether that will prove to be enough deceleration to negate her interaction with the ground is a matter for the laws of physics.

Amara would normally be able to feel an unknown magic in her surroundings — but right now her metaphysical senses are still ringing from the cross-dimensional jump, and the fox girl passes unnoticed.

She started pretty high up. She can come to a hover before the ground makes its opinion known.

This place is a curious mountain- It's one singular massive slab of a slope, like some titan took a plain and tilted it thirty degrees, very little loose debris or breakage. It's night, and as the portal tears itself apart above her, she can see that it's a full moon. Not Luna. It's white, and about the right size, but the crater patterns are definitely different.

(A thoroughly invisible'd inaudible'd etc'd kitsune pads closer to her as she gets her bearings, to observe.)

On the one hand: Eeeeeeee alien moon! On the other hand, where the heck is the rest of her team.

Amara settles gently to the ground, vanishing her broomstick back to wherever it came from. She stands a bit less than 7 feet tall with a statuesque build that is somehow not diminished by the fact that the right side of her face, that shoulder and arm up to the elbow, most of her hip and all of her legs are apparently made out of water. A small blue aquamarine stone floats where her right eye should be. The non-water part of her features a fairly ordinary appearance, freckles, and bright red hair.

The first thing she does, on landing, is try to send to the exploration coordinator on duty.

[Jamie, I think I landed somewhere away from the rest of the team. Mountain, forest, no visible structures or people, nighttime. Currently safe; going to attempt return.]

... and the message bounces. It's not impossible that Jamie is just really busy, theoretically. But Amara has a bad feeling.

She double-taps the crystal mounted in her armband, which is supposed to send her snapping back home using the arcane connection it maintains. Instead, the crystal makes a sad chirping noise and crumbles to dust.

"Damn it," she curses, and any secretly eavesdropping foxes will find the words come out in their native language.

She doesn't smell evil! Always a good sign. But she's... Odd. Hmm...

...Eh, fuckit.

"Hey!" an illusion opposite of where she actually is calls up. "Isekai?"

Amara whips her head around to look at the illusion.

"Woah! Sorry, I didn't see you there. And — not in the way you probably mean it, I think? I'm with the Seekers, a group of peaceful multiversal explorers on a mission to discover new worlds and set up trade relations and means of transport between them. I was supposed to arrive here with my team, but nobody is answering my comms and I'm not sure why."

Surreptitiously, a pouch on her belt flips itself open and a handful of wildflower seeds drift out and fall to the ground, just in case.

"Yeah, I was invisible! Okay, wow. Usually we just get people from Earths. Well, even those are pretty rare. And you arrived right on top of me instead of anywhere else, I suspect shenanigans. What are the seeds for?"

Does she need to burn them? No no, no being paranoid, you already decided to trust.

Damn, she thought she was subtler than that.

"I am from Earth, actually! I went to MIT before my magical powers were awoken," she clarifies. "But if this world is some sort of known hub that pulls travelers in, that might explain how I ended up here. And I sort of don't want to explain what the seeds are for, because they're mostly useful in case someone attacks me. I will say that they're perfectly normal non-magical wildflowers that will not harm anyone and have no special properties."

This is technically true — it is the act of planting them that has special properties, not the seeds themselves.

"I'm Amara, by the way!"

"Wow, you know, I barely remember Earth? I'm Weiss. Welcome to Tirra."

"Thanks!"

Amara runs through her mental checklist to make sure she hasn't forgotten any of the abnormal arrival procedures, but with her return crystal gone most of them don't apply.

"How long have you been on Tirra? What's it like?"

Weiss might have just been here long enough to forget the normal way ... or the planet that apparently pulls people in sometimes might be trying to pull a Piranesi. Better to check.

"It's kinda fucked in some ways, but the safe zones are nice. They're like... Kinda late medieval early renaissance but with lots of magic going around? I've been here for... A while... And things are definitely getting better on that front."

Her illusion shifts, wearing her usual light wilderness tunic-and-pants-thing- It's still not her, but she's carefully padding over to join it and end the ruse.

"...I wasn't a proper isekai, I was a reincarnation, I think. Goddess Tamamo made me a kitsune. I think it's been probably about a century? Maybe more? I - it's like, Earth almost doesn't feel that real anymore, you know? It's some distant dream. ...I wasn't in a great place psychologically for a while and stopped keeping track of time."

Well, that really doesn't do much to confirm either hypothesis.

"Oof. I'm sorry to hear that. What are the safe zones safe ... from? Monsters?"

There has been a surprising quantity of monsters in her life since her awakening.

"Monsters! And general cursed energy that does bad stuff."

Amara nods.

"Right. I'm not really equipped for general cursed energy, although I might be partially immune. Tricky to test safely. Monsters are a good deal more manageable."

She looks around at the clearing where her away team isn't, and bounces one more volley of unanswered sends off of the mental void where they ought to be. When separated from a group, it is often easiest to be found by remaining in one place. On the other hand, she can't spend her whole life standing around in forests, and if they end up getting a high-level divination practitioner after her moving around a bit won't throw them off.

She bends down and presses a firm handprint into the soil with as much weight and minor telekinesis as she can bring to bear, and then stands up again.

"Are we in a safe zone right now? If not, how on guard should I be?"

"It's sort of a spectrum. This place is more Marches- It's like, two thirds cursed? Not one of the really bad zones either. I hang out way out here when I need space and I'm in the area- That mountain is called Windslab. It's fun to make a sail-sled and ride the wind up, then jump off the top and wingsuit glide... I do that with illusions, it's a kitsune thing, illusions just real enough to have physical presence... Wow, this is weird. I wouldn't have predicted I'd be this calm about an otherworlder. Um. Be at least a little on guard but I'm a match for anything around here. Curses look blackish, tar-ish, and generally evil. Undead look dead. Magic animals look like animals and you should leave them alone unless they get aggressive first, spirits are insubstantial and same, if you see anything really creepy and weird it might be a Cryptid and those are - very very nasty, because they are intelligent and have unpredictable idiosyncratic powers, buuuut they are also extremely rare. Like, I've fought... Six in the last century and some and I actively hunt them down with a party if I hear about them. If we do need to escape, I can shift us both to the spirit world if you touch me. It's not a guarantee against a Cryptid but, you know, better than not even trying."

"Don't bother animals or spirits unless they attack; local monsters follow genre conventions for evil appearances. Got it."

She debates internally for a moment, but it really is information that anyone who might fight monsters beside her should know.

"If we do get ambushed by a Cryptid, I'm happy to go explore the spirit world, but don't put yourself at risk trying to save me. I'm a lot tougher to permanently kill than I look. If my corpse is recoverable, please toss it into salt water, but if it isn't that's not a problem."

"Oh! That's a relief. Uh- Kitsunes will reform in the spirit world. Eventually."

"Most other people here will go to the Great Wheel of Reincarnation, though, and be reborn without much memory, some other time and place. Uh- Give last rites of some kind if you can, if it comes up. The exact ritual doesn't matter so much as long as it is genuine and respectful."

"Alright, I can do that," she agrees. "It sounds like we don't have much to worry about from monsters, then, the pair of us. Do you spend a lot of time hunting them on behalf of the less durable people?"

"Yeah! Or, um... It's a lot cleaner than trying to intervene in conflicts between people. And curse monsters are nicely unambiguously nonsentient and evil. Very satisfying to burn. It's not like I do it twenty four seven, I burned the fuck out doing that kind of thing early on, but... Yeah. You said you're an explorer?"

"Mmhm! Back on Earth before I found out about magic, I thought that the only place left to really explore was the ocean, so I went for the next best thing and studied biochem, because there's also a lot of cool stuff to be discovered there. But then when I found out magic was real, I heard about the Seekers and their whole to-boldly-go thing, and I signed up right away."

She gives a slight wince.

"This was actually my first proper mission, so I haven't exactly been doing things for long, but I did do a bunch of touring around the Union of Worlds during my training. There are some really amazing people and places out there."

"Dang. That sucks. I got hit by truck-kun. Not doing something heroic, like the usual isekai trope, just... Wham."

Sigh.

"...So, travel wise, occasionally 'rifts' open here. The gods are silent on the subject of isekai travel, they won't help or tell you about them, I'm not sure why. But you can go through if you find one. And kitsunes can do a... Dream journey sort of thing that I call 'the long road home' to travel 'home'. So I've actually been in a few other worlds besides Earth and here."

Blink.

"Wait, what year is it on Earth now? Or is there more than one maybe?"

"Oh, I can do a thing we call 'rifts', I'm just not good enough with it yet to open a portal back home."

She concentrates for a moment and opens a circular hole in the air, about four inches in diameter, through which Weiss can see the two of them from a different angle, by way of demonstration.

"I'm still sort of expecting my team to show up to come get me eventually? Like, nothing I've tried to contact home is working, but I'm new to this. There are people with much better rifts or aethernautics or divination or what-have-you. The more powerful witches are always super busy though, so it might be a while."

"And it's 2025 on my Earth, but yes there are a bunch of them. Earth is sort of the 'center' of the local multiverse, and it kind of resonates outward, creating echos that get more and more divergent as you get farther away. Or at least that was how it was explained to me."

"Huh! That is a rift, I guess."

It's a little scary to have a visitor with unfamiliar, possibly quite strong, magic. But don't let that get to you and be a paranoid ass. She seems nice. 

"-It's nice to talk to someone who might get my references. Wanna go see civilization proper? There's a village not too far, but this is a pretty rural area, towns and the big proper cities are further."

"Absolutely! I got into this because I wanted to see far-off places, and I'm not going to let a little thing like being completely lost stop me."

She falls into step beside Weiss, letting her lead the way.

"If you've been here for a hundred years, but you can still make references like 'truck-kun' ... I wonder whether you came from an Earth that's a century ahead of mine, or whether time in Tirra passes more quickly. Or maybe I'm way overestimating how recent cliché isekai light novels are."

"-Say, how fast can you fly that thing? I never thought I'd see an actual flying broom. Most witches, like, whack things with them to clean things. Ooh, do you wanna try wind sledding up the mountain? It's the opposite direction of village Namoshed, but it's fun!"

"I can do about 40 miles per hour with no extra weight and my full concentration. If I have passengers that drops to, like, ten. And sure, I'd love to try wind sledding! I ... don't think I have anything that can make a sail like you described, though. Can you make one for both of us?"

"Hmm- I've got enough juice for that for a little while, at least! And it really is fun. So, woo!"

She turns and runs back the other way from the clearing, going through the woods with nimble and fast legs towards the treeless slope up. It is just a minute or two away at this pace.

Amara is slightly less practiced at dodging through forests, but she follows swiftly just the same.

"What is your recharge method, and is it something I can help with, if you don't mind me asking? I have to hang out in undrinkable water, but there's a witch on my team who recharges off of making people hold their breath, so we're always helping with that."

"-Ah. Um. Er. Well, one of them I just need a private spot open to clear sky for, and the rest are mostly slow or have other blockers. You kinda interrupted a charge session actually. But it's fine! I'm relaxing this week, not gearing up."

"Oh, sorry!"

If it were starlight that Weiss needed, and Amara had actually practiced stellarism, which she hasn't, she could offer to glow. But. It sounds like Weiss doesn't really want to talk about it.

"So what should I know about windsledding before trying it? Do you steer by deforming the shape of the wing?"

She can definitely explain windsledding!! She mostly invented it herself, and, uh, as far as safety equipment goes she could also generate padding if Amara wants but she should keep the broom handy to recover-

You steer partially with the sail and partially by turning the runners and by shifting your own weight- It only really works here in this one place, though, because of the wind and the clean slope-

It is really really windy out on the mountain proper, it turns out. The wind rushes steadily up the mountain, without a simple and obvious reason for it to do so. 

She'll demonstrate! So this is how you get started, and now see how the wind is kind of pushing her sideways-up along the mountain slope, the way wind and gravity work out? You sort of slew side to side up the hill, like reverse snowboarding!

Huh!

Well, she'll certainly give it a try. She slips into the illusory harness and starts getting a feel for it, letting the wind tug at her. Soon enough, she's gleefully soaring up the slope, laughing as she goes.

"This is excellent!" she shouts at Weiss, although some of it is probably lost in the wind.

Eventually, the slope has to run out, and she hasn't really practiced stopping, but that's fine because she can arrest her own momentum in the air and either pull the sail back down or let it go flying away, depending on what Weiss does.

Weiss rides right over the cliffside at high speed! And then her sled is kicked away, and vanishes like a mirage, and instead she has a big parasail as she whoops in joy and soars over the rocks and trees on the other side.

She banks left, after a bit. You can see the village in the distance here, by a stream, little clusters of houses and farms, and a stone wall.

Oh, convenient! She has at least one reference point for local geography, then.

She can't summon a parasail, but she can suddenly be dressed in traditional baggy witches robes, and use those plus the occasional broomstick assist to stay in the air.

Does the stream look particularly muddy, beaver-infested and/or turbid?

This is a mountain stream, fast and cold and clear, not having a lot of time to pick up impurities and grime.

Downstream of the village it's a little worse, though.

As they glide closer- They probably won't get all the way there, but most of the way- It becomes clear that the village is species-cosmopolitan. Several people are working fields with tools of some kind. Someone is doing a fireworks show to entertain a small crowd.

She'd be a lot more concerned about flying close to a fireworks show if she wasn't functionally immortal. As it is, she mostly gives it space to avoid interrupting the display.

What species can she see in the village? How many people, total?

There are at least six person-species; Humans, two types of winged people, cat-people of the mostly-human variety, furry people of the anthro variety, a snake-person operating what seems like a travelling show/exotic goods cart. The village has a few hundred houses, so probably less than a thousand people total?

Weiss turns into a huge dog/small pony sized fox when they finally skim to a landing from their gliders.

"Haah. Fun times, right?"

Amara was not expecting the sudden foxification, per se, but she's seen enough transformations not to be more than momentarily surprised.

"Yeah, for sure! It's a very different feeling than flying on one's own," she agrees. "I sort of want to figure out whether it can be done on any taller mountains, although you'd need odd wind conditions."

She looks around curiously at the village, now that she's closer to the ground and can see more details.

"Is there anyone you'd like to introduce me to, or should I stand around being a visible oddity and hope that prompts people to ask questions, do you think?"

"Ahh... I don't feel particularly welcome in this village. Not that they're prejudiced, just awkward history. So I don't really know. You could check out the travellers' house, they're an institution in most civilized places. I'll take a nap downstream a bit."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize! I guess I'll see you soon, then."

She gives Weiss a cheerful wave. Is it slightly awkward ditching Weiss to go poke around a random village? Yes. On the other hand, it's Weiss's prerogative and there's a whole unknown magical culture to explore.

She walks in toward the village; is there a particular building that is obviously the travellers' house, or will she perhaps have to ask for directions?

Around the plaza space at the center of the village, there's a church, a possible schoolhouse, and an inn-like building with a bulletin board out front of it. It looks like the board has maps and... Temp work postings? Seems like a safe bet for the travelers' house, even if it's not labelled.

People look curiously at her, a little bit shocked and wary, even. Not hostile, but definitely something.

An obvious religious figure wearing an embroidered stole decides to approach her from the church- One of the cat-like women, wearing symbols of a bird and a serious, businesslike expression.

"Hello, stranger. Welcome to Namoshed."

"Hello! It looks like a nice town; I'm glad to be visiting. I'm Amara."

She was sort of expecting shocked. It comes of being partially made of water. Even cosmopolitan witches used to normal Undines sometimes do a doubletake. As long as nobody is running her out of town at pitchfork-point, she'll ignore it.

"I'm Ikava. I'm mostly coming up to talk to you to prove you won't bite- Talking to strangers has many possible benefits! I don't think we've ever seen your particular species before. Is there anything you want to see or do? What brings you here, just chance?"

"Oh, you don't need to pitch me on the benefits of talking to strangers! I'm part of a first-contact team. We jump between worlds meeting new peoples and new civilizations, setting up contact and trade between worlds," she explains. "It's not supposed to just be me, though — something went wrong with our transport spell and I arrived alone, a little ways away from here, not with the rest of my team. So mostly I just want to see the local sights and get to know people while I wait for my team to divine my location and come follow me. Would you be willing to tell me a bit about yourself and about this place?"

"Oh! That's delightful! I want to try to help. I'm a priestess of Erius! His concerns are often summarized as trade, travel, and justice- In the sense of fair deals, not in catching criminals. Namoshed is mostly a quiet sort of place, founded by people who wanted fresh mountain air and unclaimed land. It never grew as prosperous as some hoped, isolation has steep costs, but we're comfortable enough out here. I'm trying to attract visitors by appealing to the lovely view, and Windslab Mountain- But without decent roads or other places to visit in the area or navigable waterways, it's difficult."

"Is it mainly the lack of roads that has you isolated? Creating roads from whole cloth isn't really my skillset, but I may be able to find something that would help."

She's curious whether and how the priestess will talk about the monsters Weiss mentioned.

"It's not so much the physical construction of the roads as warding and patrolling them against Curses. I can't keep up a hundred miles of road ward all by myself. The village itself has been purified often and long enough that they don't bother us here, and they're less dense in this region than in the worst cursed lands anyway, but... It means you mostly get adventurous young people or big caravans."

"I see! My planet has monsters too, but they're not usually so populous as to require warding the entire road network, and I don't think we have a generalized way to make them uninterested in an area. How does purification work, exactly?"