It's not Master Damin's bedroom!

Instead, it's tundra. Very cold tundra.

It is very cold! Rend ought to get to shelter immediately. Is there any nearby.

There's a stone castle or fort nearby.

Rend will run to what it thinks is the main door of the fort. Hopefully it opens for it. If not, then it will knock.

The door opens. There are very shocked humans wearing black uniforms with red trim inside.

Did it get transported to a furry event? A teenagers' furry event given the height of the people there.

Now that it's warmer, Rend will start oscillating his aftendrils.

It will also bow 90 degrees and say, "This drone's name is Rend, of Master Damin Bales Sertes. It is lost. This drone's Master has lost drone insurance which will pay out to you if you help it get back to its Master, proportional to the help given."

What's Rend wearing?

Rend is wearing a wrapped garment consisting of one whole long piece of cloth, made of something like silk. It's dyed a brilliant blue with a yellow flower-and-vines pattern on one edge.

There's a knot at the lower left back. From the shape of it,  it must be wrapped starting from there, then hooking over the left shoulder, crossing over the chest and abdomen, wrapping around the lower part of the waist once, tucked underneath the loop around the waist, rising to hook over the right shoulder, then crossing over the chest again, at which point it's tied with the other dangling end. It forms an X-pattern on the front, with two vertical lines on the back. It seems that the wrapping is deliberately designed to expose the six openings on the back.

Below, it's wearing pants made of similar material, as well as leather shoes dyed a similar bright blue color to match the outfit, with wool socks.

On its neck is a collar or choker made of silver woven into a flat braid, tight against its neck. It's very thick and looks very heavy – if it was made of iron it must weigh at least two pounds. At the front of the collar is more of the metal rope woven to make a flexible wide triangle, which terminates at the collarbone in an enormous triangle cut diamond, an inch across, perfectly clear at cursory examination. It's also wearing dangling earring of teardrop cut sapphire, which are likewise large and seemingly perfectly free of inclusions.

Rend is clearly not human, or is some sort of human hybrid – totally hairless and with shell plates on the head and shoulders, and with aftendrils sticking out the back.

That has to be glass, surely. At that size – you could cut it and have a dozen Wish diamonds. Maybe more. But even if not, the silver, earrings, and the luxurious dyed cloth alone already clearly marks this man as someone rich. Why is he here????

Tongues.

"My sincerest apologies – could you repeat what you said?"

"This drone's name is Rend, of Master Damin Bales Sertes. It is lost. This drone's Master has lost drone insurance which will pay out to you if you help it get back to its Master, proportional to the help given."

Drone? What is Tongues giving him...ah. Rend is Damin's slave. Well. This Damin person must be a very rich and important person indeed, to have his slaves wear regalia. His own family wouldn't have been able to afford what he's wearing – though admittedly Damian is only a baron's son.

They have lost slave insurance where he's from? How neat. Sounds very useful. And – it will pay out to those who help him get back to his master. 

Quite frankly, he's surprised that the slave isn't, like, trying to run away now that it's very far away from its master, now. I mean, that's what one would expect. But...oh, he should run Detect Magic.

He waves his arms and says a few words like he did when casting Tongues. What does he see?

No magic items.

"This drone apologizes, Sir; it did not understand what you said."

Really? None at all? There are fancy enchanted slave collars you can buy, in special shops in Egorian. They're very expensive, but if you're the type of person who's so rich so as to be able to afford...that...for your slaves to wear, then surely you'd put out for magic items? Presumably there's some sort of enchantment that lets you track someone wearing the item, and another enchantment or curse to prevent them from removing it. He did take the Craft Wondrous Items class, but he can't remember anything like that being taught off the top of his head.

No more thinking; Rend is expecting a response.

"Where does your Master Damin live? Why are you at the Worldwound."

"Master Damin lives in many places, but He was in His country estate near Kosfor City." Rend rattles off the address. It's in Sranam Province, in the Zmavli Imperium. "That was also this drone's last location before it ended up here. His public key is mikib kodec tytyp gocix nadeb redit rimat cyted cucyr zucer luxyx vu'op xisor razib pemut vocas.

This drone did not intend to go to the Worldwound, and was transported here when it opened the door to its Master's bedroom. This drone does not know what the Worldwound is."

Right, having multiple houses at that level of wealth makes sense.

Damian does not know where Sranam Province or the Zmavli Imperium are. If Rend was human he might have been able to guess the latitude based on skin color, but he's not.

Hm. Maybe it was some sort of attack on Damin, which misfired and landed on his slave instead? In that case, lucky him. And lucky Rend for being able to get to a fort without meeting with some demon.

He has no idea what a 'public key'* is or what the long string of words which don't mean anything are. He decides to table that for now.

He was tutored in geography and he also went to school – Cheliax being one of the few if not only states on Golarion that has universal mandatory education – and if he doesn't know where the Zmavli Imperium is, it has to be on another continent or like, some other plane. In which case it will require high-circle spells to get there.

Still. Returning a richly appointed slave to his even richer master has to come with a large reward. The slave already said as much with the 'lost drone insurance'.

"The Worldwound is a dimensional rift connected to the Abyss from which demons pour out. It's very unsafe outside, and you should stay here, notwithstanding the cold weather you aren't dressed for." It's not unusual to see people not dressed for cold temperatures since Endure Elements is first-circle, but he would have noticed it on Rend earlier with Detect Magic if it was on him.

* Cryptographic 'keys' do not share the same word with physical 'keys' in Standard Imperial.

It really ought to have registered the fact that this was a teenagers' furry event and that people would be roleplaying.

"Zi'i*.

This drone's name is Rend, of Master Damin Bales Sertes. It is lost. This drone's Master has lost drone insurance which will pay out to you if you help it get back to its Master, proportional to the help given."

* "I am not roleplaying and am speaking out of character."

They have a two syllable word just for that??? He already felt that this language was oddly optimized but this is something else.

"Zi'i. I suppose that if you live far away you wouldn't have known about the Worldwound."

"Demons are not real and are fictional. Therefore this drone assumed that you, Sir, were roleplaying. This drone is not roleplaying."

How does he respond to this.

"Demons are real. Every once in a while we get a wave where a bunch of them attack. I swear to you that I am not lying about that."

"This drone must think. Please wait."

The sudden teleportation was itself already an out of context event. Rend ought to relax his priors and not immediately dismiss the existence of demons or demon-like entities, given that that might be totally obedient to the structure of this new world he's in. Which is definitely a different world – the Imperium is the biggest major state in Zmavliterdi by an enormous margin and even a young and ignorant person living outside would have heard of it. And this person hasn't.

And this frozen wasteland must have very little land value – there's no point in putting a defensive emplacement here unless there really was some threat to be defended from.

"This drone tentatively accepts the existence of demons and of hostile demons which are attempting to attack this place. This drone also realizes that it is no longer on the planet Zmavliterdi."

It really needs to get back. It really hopes it can get back.

"This drone pleads with you, Sir, to help it get back to its master. The insurance will still pay out even if you are not an Imperial citizen."

Rend isn't a part of any of the forces holding the Worldwound back, and isn't contributing to its defense. He isn't covered by the Worldwound treaty. They could just capture him. But that's clearly foolish – they do not want to upset Rend's master or the Zmavli Imperium, which is so ludicrously rich that slaves wear diamonds and sapphires as jewelry. And he thinks Ramon, the fifth-circle priest in this fort, will agree. He doesn't have the short-sightedness a lot of Chelish people he's met seem to have.

"Yes, I'm planning to report to Duran, who is my superior, about you. I don't speak your language – it's not Taldane, which is the most commonly spoken language here. I'm using Tongues, which will only last fifty minutes since I cast it. After that, I won't be able to talk to you anymore. I'll go get him so that he can talk to you, with me acting as interpreter."

"Thank you, Sir. This drone will stay here until you return."

Damian will walk away to go to Ramon's room and summarize the situation.

"You acted correctly. Bring the slave, Rend, here. I'll cast Zone of Truth and interrogate him. Have Conrad stay outside and cast Detect Thoughts."

Conrad and Damian will do that.

Rend will bow and say the same recited speech he gave to Damian.

"I'm willing to help you get to your master," at least for now, "but it might take a while. I don't recognize the Zmavli Imperium. It's either on a different continent or on a different plane. Right now I need to verify what you're saying. I'm going to cast Zone of Truth. It's a spell that prevents people who are inside its emanation from uttering things they know to be untrue. You might feel something when I cast it – it's important that you don't resist it or try to throw it off, or it might not work."

Just because the slave is rich doesn't mean he's educated – and he already said that he didn't know demons were real, so. 

He says words and waves his hands. Zone of Truth.

Obviously he's going to position the emanation so that only Rend is in it, and not him or Damian.

The spell does feel like something, but Rend doesn't know how to describe it. He obeys Ramon and doesn't try to ''resist it or try to throw it off".

Conrad can follow instructions and will cast Detect Thoughts exactly now.

What is Rend's INT?

The spell does feel like something, but Rend doesn't know how to describe it. He obeys Ramon and doesn't try to ''resist it or try to throw it off". His thoughts are...strangely sparse? It's like he has very diminished thought activity, like trying to Detect Thoughts an animal, except not – there's clearly something going on there, but going on the level of instinct? It's strange to see.

Rend's Intelligence is 14.

Huh. Conrad wishes he'd have Detect Thoughts-ed a Lawful outsider before to be able to compare. Very curious. Is this what all of their kind are like?

"Cheliax is the name of the country Damian and I were born in. Try saying 'I was born in Cheliax.'".

"I was born in...I was born in...I was born in...the Zmavli Imperium.

This drone is unable to obey your command, Sir."

"That means the spell is working."

If he wanted to be really thorough, he would have used Enchantment Sight to verify that he didn't already have any enchantments on him, and then cast Zone of Truth. That way, he could verify that it took. Sadly, he didn't have it prepared today. And in any case, Damian already checked him with Detect Magic and found no auras at all – though that isn't foolproof, since Magic Aura exists.

"What god do you and your master worship?"

"They don't have a word for 'god', Sir. The closest words are 'superintelligence' or 'superpower'."

That's...strange. Is the Zmavli Imperium in some kind of outsiderless demiplane? That would explain the not having gods and not having demons. Or it could be a place like Rahadoum, but more extremist, and they censor such knowledge.

"Use 'superintelligence'."

Damian will ask this!

"Neither this drone nor its Master worship any superintelligences."

Rend, on a surface level, doesn't think of anything other than answering the question plainly.

Really? None at all? 

He's kind of expecting for Rend to elaborate more on that in his thoughts, but there's that odd sparseness again.

To Damian, "So they do have the word for worship? And it means the same thing it does in Taldane?"

"Yes, Sir, that's what Tongues suggests."

Now intended to be translated for Rend, "What work do you do for your master? What's your job? And what work does he do, if any?"

"This drone works as a valet for its Master. It has a very wide job description: helping Master put on His clothes, doing secretarial duties, buying things, signing and authorizing things on His behalf, managing his other drones, stenography, bookkeeping, pretreating His clothes before laundry, and other things besides. Those are the main ones.

Master Damin's main job is being a farmer. "

Right. He's going to assume that 'farmer' means 'lord of an estate who collects tribute from serfs or equivalent' and not 'peasant'.

He wants to figure out more about the world Rend comes from, and the position of his master in that place.

"What about his parents?"

"Sir Bales is a member of the Imperial Legislature. Sir Sertes is a member of the Sranam Province Legislature."

Damian understands what Rend is trying to say, except that Taldane doesn't have a word for 'legislature'. They have words for 'imperial court' and 'judge' and 'minister' and 'advisor' – but not someone who just makes laws. 'King' or 'queen' implies more than just the capacity to make law – it also has executive and judicial powers.

"Sir Bales is part of the group in the Imperium that makes laws, except that group is only in charge of making laws. Sir Sertes is the same, but of Sranam Province."

That's...a strange way to structure a government...at least, at first glance. He wonders whether he should pursue this line of questioning – there's a limited duration on Tongues, and no one else has it prepared. He manages the prepared spells of all of the prepared spellcasters in his fort to make sure there's a good balance of spells available – and Tongues isn't essential. Most people at the Worldwound are from Avistan, and almost everyone in Avistan can speak Taldane, though it might be dialectal.

In any case, that explains it. He's the son of nobles – he's not sure how nobility works in the Zmavli Imperium but that's a very good analogy, he thinks.

Damian's Tongues will last for fifty minutes, but his Zone of Truth won't. He should ask the more important questions now, and leave the cultural exposition for later.

"Are you a mortal? You don't look like a human – what species are you?"

...

He's finding it surprisingly hard to translate that.

"Sir, I don't think they have a word for 'mortal'. I think rephrasing will be necessary."

????????????okay??????????????????

"Do you age. If you die, are you resurrectable with revivification spells?"

Damin will translate.

"This drone does not know what a 'human' is. The name for its species is 'remna'. Its Master is of the same species.

Remna do not age. Revivification spells do not exist in Zmavlimu'e, as far as this drone knows." A pause. "Cryonics exists, but there is no method currently devised to revive those put into cryonics."

He knows that the slave is already under Zone of Truth, but his thoughts confirm that he thinks of this as a basic fact of life. 

Conrad feels the terror of having walked into something he shouldn't have but suppresses it.

"What is cryonics? How old are you, and how old is your Master?"