"Probably. They're probably done with the grave by now."

"Okay, let's go."

"Not looking forward to explaining the genesis."

"...yeah."

"I can give you more words on the way back."

"Good plan."

More miscellaneous stories! Aduva can tell a lot of stories in an hour.

It's very helpful to Tiro's vocabulary.

It's only fair. He's very helpful to her survival, and that of her friends.

Trek trek trek trek oh look it's her friends.

Her friends appear to already be freaking out before they get there.

...Did a baby generate already???

They'll find out when they reach the friends, Tiro supposes.

A baby did not already generate, as it turns out, but Delsmiar has announced that they're on previously-virgin soil and a genesis is imminent.

Tiro hangs back awkwardly. He really doesn't know how to handle the prospect of spontaneous babies.

The spontaneous babies will happen where there are adults, not where there is corpse, so if he's willing to handle nearby spontaneous babies there's no obstacle to following him back to his base.

...Yes, okay, good. Back to the hill.

"I'm going to have to research construction," he says on the way back. "It was next on my list anyway, now that I've got the bathroom working. Does anyone want to help me clear all the broken furniture out of the bedroom? And does anyone want to learn this world's weird magic? You have to be careful with it, if you spill the wrong magic ink on yourself you might die or something, but it's really useful."

"Tell us more about how it works?"

"You saw what I did to make the dirt when you got here. That's how you make things with it," he says. "Painting magic ink on a flat plate. I'm learning how to make the magic ink, but I haven't got it all figured out yet, but there's enough of it that I'm not worried about running out soon."

"But spilling it could be lethal."

"I'm not going to spill it on any of you! I should get those collector flowers moved, though, I don't want to risk somebody running into one..."

"I didn't think you would! I just want to be sure it's really clear to everyone here. Anyway, I absolutely want to learn."

"Okay."

"--Can it do healing? I don't--I don't want to be in the position of trying and failing to save someone again."

"I honestly have no idea. I'm working out of books in a language I don't speak - my language magic works on speech but not writing, and the speaker has to understand what they're saying - and I've only been here for a month. I know it can do lots of things besides make stuff out of thin air, but making stuff out of thin air is the only thing it can do that you don't need to be literate to learn out of a book."

"That's really annoying. Delsmiar?"