Myrrin’s living room was richly appointed, with lovely dark wooden furniture, expensive-looking upholstery, and papers and books strewn around like the aftermath of a tornado blowing through a library. The short warmage fussed around, picking up stray notes and books and muttering to himself as he moved parts of the mess from one spot to another to allow for enough room to sit. Finally, enough of the couches and armchairs had been liberated that the whole group could sit, squeezing together uncomfortably while they carefully avoided knocking over any of the sizable piles of clutter that remained around them.

Myrrin lowered himself into a particularly large, nearly throne-like red armchair, and took a deep breath as he ran a hand through the wispy remains of the hair on his pate. “So…” he began, “I’m going to believe you are what you say you are. Mikhail is perceptive enough to not fall for a base lie, and he wouldn’t have bothered me with any old horsecrap. So run me through it. Leave nothing out. Let’s start with how you got here. You said you just woke up on the hill with the stones, in the southeast valley, correct?”

“That’s right,” Sam said. “We just… woke up there, with no idea of how we’d ended up there. None of us is exactly sure of what we were doing last, but that’s where we woke up.”

“Well, that’s certainly an interesting spot to pick for interdimensional travel,” Myrrin said. “One moment.”

He got up from his chair and, after looking around for a few seconds, withdrew a piece of mostly blank parchment paper from the middle of a particularly big pile next to him, careful not to topple it. With a flick of his fingers and a whispered word, a quill and small bottle of ink flew towards his open hand. He perched a tiny pair of spectacles on his nose as he sat down and rested the blank parchment against his knee. “Arrival at…. Hythrian… Hill.” he muttered, as he scratched the words down, then looked back at them. “Go on, what next, the wolf?”

“Yes,” Camille answered. “We were sitting in a small shack on the hill when that thing just tried to batter down the door. We managed to drive it away with fire, but it attacked us again later, as we were making our way towards the smoke we’d seen.”

Myrrin hummed thoughtfully. “Fallbeast, right?” he turned to Mikhail.

“Right,” Mikhail answered. He was sitting a bit further from the group, as if unwilling to enter the pit of clutter that surrounded the small circle where they’d sat. “According to Alder, two days old at least, but no more than a week. It wasn’t starving yet.”

“Well now, that’s interesting.” Myrrin’s quill furiously scratched against the parchment. "If a Fallbeast had formed before you arrived, that could be dumb chance, or perhaps it could be linked. What I find interesting is that it instantly seeked you out. It must have, if it struck only a few hours after your arrival."

"Wait, you're saying that thing could... feel us?" Tasha asked.

"Perhaps." Myrrin fiddled with the quill's feather. "Fallbeasts are creatures consumed by raw magic, and twisted by it. Any number of thing can happen to them, but all of them usually make them deadlier, and inevitably more dangerous. Once a beast Falls, it must consume magical essence regularly, or starve and wither out. Simple food simply no longer satisfies it, though it will try, at first. Most humans are only latently magical, unless they've learned to wield magic, but that's enough for Fallbeasts to target them."

"So, you're saying that that thing was trying to eat us because we're... 'magical'?"

"Just so. But that's not the really interesting part. How did it know where to find you? Fall beasts can sense the magic that created them, but again, we are only latently magical. For it to sense you from the bottom of the hill is, well, very imporbable. So it must have sensed something else."

"The spell that brought us here?" Sam guessed.

"Perhaps, yes. But let's continue. So, the wolf attacks, messes you up, you get rescued by Mikhail’s minions…”

“Hierarchical subordinates,” Mikhail cut in.

“Minions,” Myrrin repeated, “And you, you get your arm fixed by magic.”

“That’s right.” Sam said, rubbing at the scars on his arm. He’d had to cut off the tattered bloody scraps of the shirt’s sleeve.

“Hmm.” Myrrin tabbed his chin with his quill. “Your world, you said there was no magic there, right? No one could manifest lightning, fire, anything like that?”

“No,” Kaisei answered, “though we did make tools that let us do something like it. Not magic, just technology.”

“Well, unless you count people like Jesus Christ,” Sam cut in, “But… that was thousands of years ago…”

“And also complete made-up bullshit,” Kaisei added.

“A world without magic… Fascinating. I wonder how… No, questions for later…” Myrrin’s quill scratched again at the paper, and then he leaned back, reading over the words he’d hastily scribbled upon the crumpled sheet.

“Well. This doesn’t make any sense.” He concluded finally.

“Tell us something we don’t know.” Camille snorted.

“The reproductive cycle of the Burunt Fly-catcher typically involves no less than four separate instances of auto-fellation,” Myrrin answered without missing a beat, “but that’s not the point. The point is that, even if we assumed that interdimensional travel was possible, and that’s a big if mind you, then the specifics of your story still wouldn’t make sense.”

“Gross,” Camille said with a grimace. “And what do you mean?”

“Well, your world doesn’t have magic, so teleporting you from there to here wouldn’t be possible. This is verifiable from dead-magic zones in our own world. Teleporting to one of them is possible — if difficult, messes with the spell's tracking function something fierce — but you can’t vanish someone from a place without magic. That's where the magical heavy lifting happens.”

“So… what does that mean?” Kaisei asked.

“Well, the option I'd considered is that your world did have magic and you just didn’t realize it, being incapable of interacting with it, but that causes another problem. And that problem is you.” Myrrin said, pointing at Sam with his quill.

“Wait, me?” Sam said.

“Yes, boy, you!” Myrrin pointed more forcefully with the quill, sending little droplets of ink flying from its tip. “Your arm! You had two separate healers working on it, like it was nothing!”

“Ah,” Mikhail said from the side, “I see what you mean. Actually, Myrrin, it’s worth noting that his recovery, even with my and Edne’s skill, is nothing short of miraculous. From what Edne’s told me, what arm he had left could have fit in that bottle I gave you, through the neck. And yet here it is, perfectly functional once more, with barely some scars to show for it. I also had a remarkably easy time of reconstructing his entire nervous system.”

“Miraculous indeed!” Myrrin exclaimed, leaping to his feet, knocking over a pile of papers as he did. “Oh, bugger! Whatever, it can’t fall any further. But you,” he pointed at Sam excitedly, “would have been impossible to heal without the ability to interface with magic! It is possible to teleport by simply transplanting space around the target, but for healing? No way! You must be able to interface with magic! So if your world had magic, it would have been impossible for you not to sense it!”

“So where does that leave us?” Tasha asked.

“I have no fucking clue!” Myrrin proclaimed with a wide smile. “This does not fit with the rules of magic as I understand them!”

“He’s not an anomaly either,” Mikhail noted. “Tasha also had a broken collarbone, which Edne was able to mend.”

“Rot my beard, there goes that theory!” Myrrin laughed. “Oh dear, I’m afraid this doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“I don’t see what makes you so happy about this,” Camille groused.

“This, my dear girl, is… huge! The laws of magic as we know them don’t apply to your case… so clearly, we don’t know them as well as we thought, and I’m on the cusp of the discovery of the century — No, the era!”

“That’s great, good for your career,” Camille said with a glare, “but how does this help us get home?”

Myrrin sobered up a bit. “Well,” he said, rubbing at his mustache, “so far, it doesn’t. But logically, we will need to understand how you got here to know how to help you make the return trip. That means research, testing, and understanding this strange anomaly you represent.”

“And if it helps you reach fame and prestige by discovering some new law of magic or whatever, that’s just a side benefit, right?” Camille asked with a pointed look.

“I don’t see why benefit couldn’t be mutual.” Myrrin smiled with open palms.

“Wait, wait,” Kaisei said. “So you’re saying that we can ‘interface’ with magic, right? So does that mean we could cast spells, too?”

“I… Huh. Hmm.” Myrrin frowned as he fiddled with a black ring on his left hand. “Well, in theory, assuming the other two are similarly receptive of course… I suppose so, yes, it might mean that. That would certainly be relevant data to—”

“I volunteer!” Kaisei cut in excitedly.

“You... what?” Myrrin said, broken from his musings.

“I volunteer!” Kaisei repeated. “To learn to cast spells! To do magic! You need that information, don’t you? To figure out more about us or whatever? So I’ll do it!”

Mikhail began laughing from his seat. “Ha ha! Well, Myrrin, you were giving me crap about my unexpected students, I think you just suckered yourself into getting your own! Oh, Lady, you of all people, teaching someone anything!”

“Why I…” Myrrin flustered as Mikhail kept laughing. “Boy I simply meant I’d let you try to use some basic magical items! The study of magic requires patience! Diligence! Conviction! And will you stop laughing already Mikhail you treacherous fuck!?”

“I’m patient! I’m really patient! And diligent and the rest of it! I can do it!” Kaisei pressed earnestly. “And won’t it be much better data to see if we can actually properly do magic instead of just activating something someone else made?”

“I… Well, yes,” Myrrin admitted, “But there’s simply no way you can do it on your own! To perform the kind of magic that I could teach you requires years of the kind of specialized education that you don’t simply wake up with! You don’t get shortcuts lazy priests like that giggling bastard do! Quickly, boy, how much is thirty six times seventy four?”

Kaisei paused for a moment, glanced up, then after a few seconds looked back at Myrrin. “Two thousand six hundred and sixty four. Come on, that’s easy!”

“What, that is?” Sam asked Camille, as he tried to make sense of the numbers.

“I… Uh… I’m not very good at maths…” She admitted.

Myrrin narrowed his eyes at Kaisei. “Why you… a fifteenth of four by a ninth of five!”

Kaisei scoffed. “That’s even easier. It’d come up to about… Uh… a thirty sixth of one hundred and… fifty five. Which would be… just a bit over four point three.”

“Easy indeed!” Myrrin responded with a scowl. “The area of a hexagon with a base of…”

They continued like this for a bit, Myrrin asking Kaisei incredibly complex questions, and the boy answering. Eventually Kaisei had to actually ask for a sheet of paper to calculate, which made the mage very smug, until Kaisei responded with another perfect answer a few minutes later.

“Bah! Enough!” He landed in his chair and glared at Kaisei, who looked very pleased with himself. “Why the Hells does your world teach a shit-sniffing brat like you so much about quadratic formulas and trigonometry if you don’t even have magic? It took me decades to find teachers willing to show me all of this, and some green whelp like you just happens to know it all already!”

“Oh, please, we didn’t even do differential equations yet! That’s where maths start getting fun!”

“Kaisei,” Tasha said, “you have a strange notion of ‘fun’.”

“Anyway,” Kaisei leaned forward, eyes glittering, “Will you teach me?”

Myrrin glared at him sullenly for a while, before Camille butted in. “You know, it really would help you achieve those results you need much faster to be able to work directly with him, and you could start sharing your findings much sooner.”

“Blasted kids, now I’m getting ganged up on!” Myrrin threw his hands up in the air. “Fine! Fine! I’ll teach you, whatever you’re capable of learning!”

“So much for consistency, eh?” Mikhail noted from the side.

“Oh you stay out of this,” Myrrin growled looking at him, “You’ve already enjoyed yourself enough at my expense, you backstabbing dog!”

“Ah, and now I'm a dog.” Mikhail shook his head sadly. “How quickly I have fallen from Sainthood.”

“No bottle of wine is going to make up for the hassle this is going to be.” Myrrin grumbled. “Oh whatever. It is decided. What are your plans with them now?”

“Show them around town,” Mikhail answered, “let them meet the villagers. Then go back to the Chapel and begin work on making them adequate fake Temple Guards.”

“Still can’t believe you expect them to pass for those fanatics,” Myrrin shook his head, “but your options were limited. Very well. Bring them here every other day. Except this one. If I’m going to be teaching him, he comes daily, and at dawn.”

“Really?” Kaisei asked, eyes wide.

“Yes, really,” Myrrin answered with a nasty smile. “Nothing like fresh morning dew for the inquisitive mind. Conviction, my boy, remember?”

“Awesome!” Kaisei actually fistpumped. “Every day, learning magic! This is even better than I expected!”

Myrrin’s smile faded into a surly frown. “Old Gods,” he muttered, as he looked at his new excitable student. “This is not how I’d planned to spend my retirement.”