"I could certainly tell you're not undead – if nothing else your little friend Jojo would have noticed, his holy sense is for positive energy and he gets nervous when someone blocks it."

"Huh." Puzzled headtilt. "You say that like 'holy sense' is a... category of thing? That people frequently have? What does it detect usually, if his is commentworthily atypical?" 

"Paladins all have something like it. Usually it detects Evil, but sometimes someone will turn up detecting Chaos, or positive or negative energy, or poison. I've heard some dwarven paladins can detect precious metals, but I'm not sure how far to trust that, it's the kind of thing people would say anyway."

??? The university quartermaster is a saint by the definition of the local high-touch gods and Fenthick isn't ???? 

"I see. ... No, you know what, I probably don't see, every time someone's told me a new fact about what the word 'paladin' means I've thought I understood and then the next one makes no sense whatsoever. I'm coming around to a hypothesis that it's something we simply do not in any way have on my planet which is amazing because we really have a completely unreasonable number of things." 

"A paladin is a divinely appointed warrior under a sacred oath. No more, no less. The gods sometimes choose people for other paths; the most common is that of the cleric, an empowered priest with more potent spellcasting but less in the way of battle prowess. I myself am an oracle, a divine spellcaster who bears a physical or spiritual curse through which he channels power." He tugs down one of his white gloves, revealing thick burn scars on his hand, then replaces it. "I am fortunate that mine is so limited in scope."

It is that Aribeth's basically d'Arc? only it's not just her?? they have an entire regularly occurring type of guy that is Jeanne d'Arc, specifically??? 

"Huh. I think we maybe do have that, she just only happened... once." Thoughtful pause. "I suppose this is evidence in favor of the conclusion that, as I said to Jojo, we only have the one god. Empowered priests are also rare though not 'there's historically literally one' rare. Cursed powers you get from being horribly injured on the other hand pretty common actually, congratulations and/or condolences on that. Are they-- tell me to shut up if this is an excessively personal question, it wouldn't be at home once you know someone has them at all-- are they thematically related, like, is your power about setting things on fire?" 

Fenthick smiles wryly. "Not exclusively – I have many spells, between my power as an oracle and my sorcerous gift – but yes, flames come more easily to me than to most. One paladin, really, that's such a strange number to have!"

"Isn't it! I hadn't thought so until contemplating the concept of more, I just assumed she was the sort of very incredible person a planet only gets one of. ... I also assumed more or less on sight that the exactly one your planet has is Lady Aribeth and now I don't know if I should tell her that because she'll find it a compliment and perhaps find me less distressing or I should definitely not because it will come off as insulting all her friends or something, do you know?" 

The smile turns dreamily fond. "My love would like that, I think. And if we could only have one, she's certainly the one I'd keep."

Nod nod.

Aww the teenage magic superhero elves are in love. Hob is so pleased for them. Love improves most situations, he feels. (Which is not to say it doesn't cause problems, of course, but they're worth it.)

"Excellent sort of people to have, aren't they. Wouldn't've traded ours for hardly anything." He considers Fenthick's chillness and helpfulness thus far and therefore offers the slightly more informative and also embarrassing context. "She stabbed me, actually, but I deserved it. My country was invading hers for stupid reasons and I took a bunch of mercenary money to try to kill her because her blinding paladine rightness was making us look bad. Which is among the reasons I am now more careful about accepting money in exchange for murder, you see." Look he is not great at making the right decision the first six times but he learns! He does! He swears!! 

"What a policy," comments a sour-faced old man who falls into step beside them. "It restores one's faith in the common thug. Look, ye doubters! This one changed his mind."

"Desther!" Fenthick looks delighted, before his ears catch up to his eyes and he winces.

"Mr. Gadling has been very helpful," he reproaches. "You could be kinder."

"He has agreed to be very helpful," Desther agrees acidly. "We shall see what help we receive."

He shifts his weight on one leg and winces. "Perhaps I could be kinder," he admits. "The cooling air stiffens these old bones."

And who's this, then. 

A friend of Fenthick's, evidently, which says more than nothing; but then, Fenthick is very friendly, so maybe not a great deal more than nothing. A friend who listens to him, though, which speaks well of at least one of the two of them. Disinclined to believe in promises without results, which is fair, but also, rude. 

"Personally I find my old bones less stiff when I change my mind about something at least once a decade," he says brightly. 

Desther barks a sarcastic laugh. "Helm preserve all comedians. Anyway, Fenthick, I apologize for the interruption to your work, but I wanted to know your progress on the investigation of the Academy attack. The wisdom of our superiors in this matter is that we should relocate the remaining creatures to Castle Never; do you think it safe?"

"No," Fenthick says immediately. "If you mean the Castellan, he won't be persuaded not to trust his own men, but it shouldn't matter; I've arranged for our guests to be done with their business by the end of the day, and if he wants to move them anywhere after that it should be to back where we found them."

"Why, Fenthick, I had no idea you had plotted this matter so exactly. No room for error, eh?"

"Not with treachery afoot. Too much evil can hide in such a margin."

They come to the Temple of Tyr, where they are greeted by (in Fenthick's case) a kiss from a delighted Aribeth,

(in Desther's case) a look of disdain from a mildly to moderately annoyed Aribeth,

(or in Hob's case) a hug from a moderately to severely anxious Jojo.

oh no the poor stressed Jojo who deserves none of this nonsense :( 

Hugs for tiny mouse warrior! Hob is reasonably skilled in the art of hugging teenagers in a way that makes them not feel Treated Like A Baby, although this is admittedly a bit hard mode when they are the size of, like, an eight year old. 

"Thank you for sending Fenthick to find me, Jojo," he says, "I made ill advised social decisions and got a little stabbed, would have been rather more late for our morning agenda." He's obviously considerably calmer than he was yesterday about the entire situation, and especially about proximity to Aribeth. 

"Thank you, Fenthick," Jojo says. "Robert, I will be following you more closely for the foreseeable future so you don't get stabbed again."

Well that's extremely valid of hwait a minute. 

"... Call me Hob, please? That's my name to my friends. 'Specially the ones I've got into mortal danger with." This is not exactly literally true, he's definitely gotten into mortal danger more recently than 'Hob' stopped being a valid shortening of 'Robert' in contemporary English, most of the guys he knew in the second great war called him Bobby, but he feels it's true in spirit. 

It's sort of freeing, not carefully constructing a subcategory of himself that's a convincing normal person and instead just being an entire Hob. The entire Hob hasn't gotten to see himself in a mirror in a long time and parts of that hurt a lot but... not all of it, actually.