"Uh, the closest one is fine," he said, trying to sound confident. His voice came out weak and unsure even to his own ears.

"Closest one? Do you even know where we are?"

Oliver looked around. They were in the Merchants' Quarter. Two streets up on the right there was a smallish System temple he'd noted but hadn't gone in.

"Yeah," he said, "I can find my way from here."

"Are you sure?" asked Tiro, "perhaps I'd better come with you, just to be safe." The grin was back.

"Please," said Oliver, "I just need some – time."

"You've had plenty of that, I think," said Tiro, cocking his head to one side thoughtfully. "I just dropped two guilden on you. I won't have you running off and getting yourself killed."

"Look, Tiro, you're a nice guy. Really. But I need to take care of this on my own," said Oliver.

"System dysphoria's nothing to play around with," said Tiro. "Don't go messing with it any more, all right? Not without checking with a magister. Or at least a friend." There was a curious inflection on that last line, which Oliver took to mean "ask me before you do something else stupid, all right?"

Oliver nodded, and strode off in the direction of the temple with a raised hand in farewell.

"I'll make it up to you," he called over his shoulder after a few paces. Tiro just stood there, watching as he left.

—

The temple was not busy. It had been a couple of hours, apparently, since he'd been trying to track time, and was now late morning. There were a couple of older folks wandering around, but by and large his entrance went unnoticed, despite his paranoia.

It was pretty straightforward. Simple, small, made of plain stone all the way up, unlike the other buildings in the area. A small entrance room with a donation box. Some candles. A statue of a four-armed figure, religious no doubt, feet worn smooth by the hands of countless passers-by.

He paused with his hand on the wooden door that led into the temple. He hadn't been into a church in a long, long time. And even though he didn't know the first thing about this religion, he still felt a little funky.

He set his shoulders and pushed in.

The interior of the temple was a garden, open to the sky above. Small trees, climbing vines, fronds, and all manner of vegetation transformed the cold stone walls of the temple into an indoor jungle. It was humid and warmer within despite being open to the autumn chill. Clearly much care had been put into the orientation and trimming of these plants; the overall effect was stunning and quite memorable.

There was a large mirror set in the ground directly before him as he walked in, made of polished glass with a silver backing. He saw himself in it as he approached, from head to toe. He was dirty, scruffy, long dark hair and unshaven whiskers partially burned off. No eyebrows. With his rough clothes he looked like a peasant or rough logger. The scar on his cheek stood out from the dirt unpleasantly. He resolved to get cleaned up the first chance he had.

To the right of the mirror was a path set into the vegetation, a stone path leading throughout the dirt.

He followed the path. Every few paces there was a stone plinth to the side of the path bearing a stone tablet, maybe two feet high and a foot wide, plain, uninscribed and unadorned. The path led in a winding circuit around the interior of the temple. No more statues or art appeared within; in fact, the interior was curiously devoid of symbols of any kind. There were perhaps thirty or so tablets all told.

A sacred calmness stilled the interior of the temple, a silence that lifted up the mind. There were a couple of other devotees strolling through the temple, one kneeling on worn stone at one of the plinths — shrines? — along the path as he went. They were staring into the distance, looking at nothing.

So this place had something to do with system dysphoria, was a solution for it? It brought to mind the concept of a mind palace from the system the ancient Roman orators would memorize their long speeches. For each speech, there was supposedly a place or path they walked, and as they walked associated the different places and sights with the different sections of their speech.

It allowed them to remember much more than otherwise possible, hours of prewritten and memorized speeches; the mind, it turned out, did much better with recalling things associated with the physical. Something to do with the way the mind prioritized input from the spatial and visual senses, perhaps.

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Associated with each plinth was a fireplace and a stock of logs. Most of the fireplaces were empty currently. Beyond the each plinth was also a small space, a stone-paved patio of some four or five feet to a side.

Perhaps, Oliver mused, the path served as a physical anchor, a physical path to provide the basis for their metaphorical one. He'd been wondering how the locals conceived of their systems in the absence of screens, role-playing games and spreadsheets. It seemed the temples were more than just places of worship; they tied to the physical to the metaphysical in some way. They served a direct purpose, the material world guiding, acting as a symbol over which the immaterial might be laid.

He departed the temple deep in thought, and so missed Tiro until he'd nearly walked past him. Tiro leaned off the wall and matched his pace as he walked by.

"Productive session?"

"Following me, were you?" asked Oliver.

"I was just listening for the screaming."

"You'll be the only one screaming if you decide to start following me around like some lost puppy," Oliver said, mostly in jest.

"I have money on you now. I'm just protecting my investment. Hungry?"

"Starving."

Tiro regaled Oliver with stories of the city as Tiro led him down a few streets, taking them back to the main thoroughfare. Apparently it had existed before the university as a stopping point for loggers and travelers coming down the river, and remnants of its humble origins could still be seen in the buildings which hadn't been demolished and reconstructed once the Empire had seen fit to place its university there.

They ate food from a street vendor who was selling kebabs cooking over an open fire of charcoal, then fetched up by the open well Oliver'd seen earlier for some water.

"So, what brings you to Celeia?" asked Tiro again after they'd satisfied their thirst.

"Why do you even care?" asked Oliver.

"Have you ever seen a lost puppy wandering around crying for its mother?"

Oliver stared him down without expression.

Tiro sighed. "Call it professional interest."

"You're a musician," Oliver said, splashing water from the bucket on his face, trying to scrub off some of the dirt and burnt whiskers.

"Bard, actually. But yes, that's — pretty much the point."

"So, what, you want to write a song about the half-stupid idiot who nearly killed himself by fiddling with his system? That'll bring in plenty of tips, I'm sure."

"Not exactly," said Tiro. "Oliver, you must realize how much you stick out. You look like a Body practitioner in a bookshop."

"Why do you think I came to this big city?" Oliver shot back, drying his face on the hem of his shirt.

"Ahh. So you are hiding," said Tiro.

Oliver sighed in disgust. "I don't suppose you'll just leave me be, will you?"

Tiro smiled.

"No, I suppose not," Oliver said. "Should have known the Gray Bean was a bad idea. It was your idea, after all."

"You have no idea how to use your system, do you?"

"Was it that obvious?"

"You spent maybe ten minutes, tops, in that temple. And who modifies their system on their own, with no preparation? And the fireball. Teor's mane, the fireball."

"Fine. You've got me. I'm trying to expand my horizons," said Oliver after a pause. "I grew up as a leather worker, and now—"

"You're a terrible liar, you know that?"

This was why Oliver didn't do people.

"You want to know what I think?"

Oliver's silence was telling.

"I think that you're an elf trying to blend in as a human. You've got the glamour and all. You want to figure out how humans work so you can torture us more efficiently in your Faerie halls."

"I thought you thought I was a deserter."

"Well, I did, but you didn't have the tattoo."

"I'm not an elf," said Oliver. "I'm—" he cut himself off. This guy had done literally nothing but try to help him. Oliver still didn't know what his ultimate motivations were, but it was clear that in the short term, at least, he was trying to help him. He hadn't brought down a magical hit squad, or turned him in to the police, or threatened him in any way. In fact, he'd probably saved his life with the whole system dysphoria thing.

Oliver kept quiet, thinking. Could he trust him? Tiro waited, glancing around after a moment to take off the pressure. There were only a few people in the area. The morning well rush had already ended, the last of the women trotting off with her pails slung over either arm.

All this magic and she still was bringing water home through the strength of her body. Elitist society, perhaps? Ruling class hoarded all the power for themselves? Oliver's thoughts were wandering.

…and Tiro had bought him beer.

He had to take a risk at some point to get ahead. Obviously, Tiro had an ulterior motive, but the whole lone wolf thing he was so tempted to fall back into wasn't going to get him home.

He needed an in with somebody who knew the system, couldn't keep blindly fumbling around in the dark. As his recent experience had shown him, that was a fast way to get himself killed.

"I'm an American, from Earth," Oliver said finally.

"You're a what?" said Tiro.

"I'm human. From America. On Earth. It's a place – no, a world – very far away from here. A world where we don't have systems, or magic."

"I'm sorry," said Tiro, without missing a beat. And he looked it, too.

"That's all right," said Oliver automatically. That was not the response he'd been expecting. "Wait, what?"

"That sounds like a terrible way to live. No magic? No system? How do you people get along?"

"A lot better than around here," Oliver said, gesturing vaguely to their surroundings. Memories of fire, pain, and death were fresh on his mind.

"Really? No poverty? No wars? You all have plenty to eat and drink and all that?"

Oliver opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again when he found he didn't have an answer.

"Well, anyhow. Like I've been asking you: why are you here? Not this city, not the Empire, why are you in this world?"

To his credit, Tiro seemed to be taking the whole thing rather in stride.

"You seem to be taking the whole thing rather in stride," said Oliver.

Tiro shrugged. "So far," he said, with a self-effacing smile. Oliver suspected he might still dis-believe him.

"Yes, well. To answer your question: I don't know," Oliver admitted. "I was at my home, in my world. Then I was in the woods. Here. There were flashing lights, rather like the aura of a migraine, but a good deal more colorful. Since then? Well, it's been all I could do to stay alive."

Tiro smiled. It was a predatory smile, like the smile of a shark. "A man from another world," he mused. "Sounds like an interesting story."