- and it's gone, and the workshop's gone, and the noise is gone, and the light is gone, and it's just dark and quiet and dark and chilly and dark.

"Shit!"

She stumbles in sudden disorientation before catching herself. 

Dark. Cold. The Spark sings in her blood and bones, demanding she make a dramatic speech, demand reality to bend to her will, but she has long practice at stuffing that feeling back into its place-

The angry buzzing of the blade comes to a stop over a few seconds. The tiny little red indicator light winks out, losing even the bare impression of a stone floor she had. She still wields it close, defensively.

Did she end up in one of the mineshafts...?

"...Mr. Vikkers?"

Nope!

The Spark suggests a course of action. Can she, blind, try to unhook the safety casing and part of the handle to turn it into a crank-operated saw, it'd give her a WEAPON for these HOSTILE CIRCUMSTANCES-

Hahaha nope. Nope. Terrible idea. She tries to slow her breathing and listen carefully for... Anything.

Nothing, nothing - some kind of wet shluck-y noise from the ceiling?

Monster. Or some sort of cave critter. The difference is academic. She hefts the saw above her head in the general direction of the noise. It's terrible as a weapon, heavy and unwieldy, but part of it is sharp. It's slightly better than nothing.

Shluck shlorp.

It drops down, completely ignoring the weapon, onto her face.

Swing. Miss. She screams. Or tries to. 

Can she muster up enough focus to slam the saw against her own head, or ideally just above it?

She can. But it doesn't seem to do much. The blunt side hit it.

Also it's not great for her head. And it's hard to breathe.

Aaaaaah! A monster is going to eat her unless she pulls a miracle from her (missing) hat. Just like in the novels! 

Three step process. Easy. One, raise saw. Two, turn it around. Sharp bit towards you, nevermind the awkward grip. Three, ignore the burning in your lungs and brace yourself-

Now her ear is really really really cold! The face-octopus lurches away!

Four, BRING IT DOWN- NO STOP.

"Augh fuck! Fuck you, facehugger!"

Is another monster sniping the first monster? Time to bolt in an 'away' direction. 

Into the deep blackness. Where a wall or chasm could be at any moment.

Time to walk carefully in an 'away' direction, saw held out in front of her!

Wall!

Words from behind her in a foreign language.

"Oh, thank the Captain, people and not more gribblies."

She turns towards the talking and lets her arms drop to her side.

"I only speak Germanian. Ah, uh... Vive la Paris? English, english... God save the Queen?"

Words words words. Words.

A light ignites; a buckle on a backpack is glowing. The backpack is worn by a purple teenager in strange clothes - gray silk maybe.

Blink blink.

Is that a Jaegermonster? No. They're furry. She won't know about this kind of thing. There are lots of altered races and constructs about. More importantly, 

"Did you just- The buckle- Is it incandescent? No, the light is even and white and not singeing things. It must be a mechanism I'm not familiar with! Amazing! Also, hello! And thank you!"

Words words! Peering at the saw?

"Power saw. I was teleported right out of my workshop by some damned thing! ...Right. No common language... Uhh..."

"Psssshh!" She attempts a whistle through her teeth and mimes an expanding cloud. Then she points out the steam port on the back side of the saw and mimes something going into it. "Psssh, spinny spinny vrrrrrrrr!" Tap the nice sharp blade.

She swings it like a sword, gently, then grimaces. "Unf. Nope. Nu-uh."

She holds up one finger.

Then mimes gently running over something on a table. "Bzzz! Clank."

She holds up two fingers, but like, halfway bent.

Actually the person seemed to be following along fine up until "no common language" and then she waved her arm through the air and frowned.

"...Can you understand Germanian? But not speak it?"

"How does that even- No, nope. No. Not important right now. There's only three numbers that matter, you know, zero, one, and infinite. So you'll have a whole bag of tricks, right? Ice, light, and languages, oh my. Right. Fuck! I'm not very coherent right now. Uh. What do you need? Uh, this is my power saw. It- Steam goes into it, through a tube, and that spins the blade and cuts things. It's a tool, and incredibly shit as a weapon, as I have just found out. I hope they manage to kill the whateverthefuck. Alarm was going off when it got me, at least... Uh. I'm rambling."

She hesitates. 

"I'm. A Spark*. By the way. Minor one."

*Spark: The tiny ember that starts a wildfire. Mad Scientist. Inventing-Sorcerer. Artificer. Alchemist. Bard. None of the above are quite correct.

"Whateverthefuck?" asks the person, pointing at the ceiling octopus, which is twitching. She casts another ice-beam at it and collects its corpse into her bag.

"...That is indeed a something. A monster. Maybe a construct if someone made it. No, the teleporting-me-monster was huge. Some kind of snake, with a mirror. It just - appeared in the workshop, no warning or nothin'. Thrashed around, broke stuff, then lunged for me and my assistant. He got away but I was building something and-" In the madness place "-and confronted it instead. Like an idiot."

This is so weird. "This is so weird. My default response to stress appears to be rambling a lot. Convenient, that, I guess? I've never - been in a proper fight before, god damn."

Sympathetic nod.

"Yeah. I was never supposed to fight things. Just make stuff, you know, Sparkily, and try not to go too crazy with it."

...

"We nod-" She demonstrates, "For yes. And this, for no." Headshake. "So are we in some kind of mine? Where's the way up?"

"Eenh..." Shrug. "Spark?"

"The Spark of Genius? You know, like Klaus Wulfenbach? The Heterodynes? The Master of Paris? It lets me make things. And when a Spark is caught up in making things, lots of stuff seems like a good idea at the time. Random whims, cruel urges. I've received training in, uh, not doing that. Control and consistency."

...She is starting to calm down and wonder whether spilling her guts to this person is a good idea. But hey, she saved my life! So it's fine. Probably.

(She shakes her head at "you know".)

"...Well, it lets people make things. Impossible things. Or things that only I see how they're possible. It's hereditary, so Odin only knows how I got it. I made the power saw and lots of things besides. Whatever you've got seems Sparky to me- Or like something a Spark made. Sparks rule the world when they're not too busy killing each other to bother, on most of Europa. City Frostbound has been - Isolated from that. So that nobody finds them and conquers them."

"Odin?"

"Odin is a god. I think. I read a novel where the main character worshipped him once. He has one eye and knows many secret things, apparently. If you die in glorious battle you can feast with him forever. If you believe in that sort of thing. I've never seen Odin in my life." Shrug.

Nod, nod. She taps her chest. "Belmarniss."

"I'm Waltana. Thanks for saving me from the facehugger, Belmarniss. I do like not bein' dead."

Nod nod. She peers at the saw a bit more.

She proffers it. It weighs maybe eight pounds, all good solid metal, painted and well machined.

Not like it's doing her much good right now. 

"I would like it back. I'm not sure what you're trying to see about it."

She looks it over, hefts it, hands it back. Taps her chin thoughtfully.

"I don't suppose a teleport back home is in the offing. Be a bit much to hope for. I wasn't even totally sure it was possible outside of novels. I made machines for City Frostbound... Mining suits with powered drills. Improvements to the great turbines that drive the old mines, and to the steel mill. We mostly made steel and sold it. Something I still don't understand with the potato crops and can only chalk up to Spark madness, made one hothouse grow 'em twice as fast but also shock you if you harvest wrong. It was early work."

A snort and headshake at "teleport". ...she pulls a gold coin shaped like a Pringle out of her bag, waves it around a bit to elicit vocabulary.

"Gold. Most people like gold, I think. There's also silver, and there's copper in some places but not in City Frostbound. Uh... In the city we used papers that could be redeemed for stuff from City Hall. 'Fiat Currency'. Gold is 'commodity currency'. The fact that it's gold matters, not just a repre- Am I going off topic again? Sorry. Is saying a word good enough for you to understand it? Is the understanding thing- Limited, going to run out of power, something like that?"

Handwobble for "good enough", nod at "limited".

"Ah, hm. Yeah, I'm just going to keep saying as much as I can if it's limited. I can make stuff. I know you have to work to eat but I don't know what some kind of cave people eat or what they do for work. Or if there are any guards and law and order, Polar Lord territory is, just, full of nomads and monsters and wandering menaces stealing from and killing each other all the time, the way I hear. I'm mostly good for the making stuff. Uh, stuff I can make... Mechanical things, for heavy lifting or repetitive tasks. Clocks? Lights, but you have that covered, looks like. Tools like the saw, cutting, smashing rock, welding. I know how to make steel from iron ore but you kind of need ventilation. Wouldn't want to try it in a mine. I know how to identify a lot of ores. I probably need a weapon, and I already have four- five ideas, it'd take some fussing but I've got no doubt I could get it to work, the Spark loves weapons. Six ideas. Air compressor. Alarm system. What's even useful in caves? I could try to replicate my lightning-crops, but kind of no guarantees there."

Her voice is getting increasingly animated and excited.

"I'd need stuff for all of this. Metals, especially copper and iron. Tools. Chemicals, I don't know. Magnets. Glassware. Ooh, I made a fire-resistant thread once, that's kind of a lot of fussing with the chemicals fumes though, are there fumaroles down here? A nice geothermal tap does wonders. Seven weapon ideas, now. Springy crossbow, saw-sword, lightning emitter, flame thrower, steam musket, springrazor trap, shock-explosion trap. Hmm! Hehe. Ideas. I'm going to work on this power saw for a bit and try to make it weaponlike unless that's a terrible idea for some reason you know and I don't!"

Headshake at "law and order". Interested nodding at the list of things and a dismissive gesture at "ventilation". Excited smile at "crops". Headshake at "fumarole". Handwobble about "terrible idea".

"Well the thing about the crops is- I can never explain it makes no sense to anyone else but the plants have a way of turning light into potential, you see! Life is miraculous chemistry!"

She pats her own pockets, looking for her customary screwdriver. It's not here. She starts picking at the screws with her fingernails instead; Somehow, this works. Possibly because there's something in her voice now.

"It's amazing, machines too tiny to see working every second of every day, unfathomably complex. Why- If you could understand the secrets that animate the living body-! Ah, but I have only a glimpse. Electrical potentia. If you deliver the exactly correct type and amount of lightning the green leaves of the plants are hyper-stimulated, activating the very mechanisms that convert fouled air and water into sugars. Very very fast, compared to the light they demand normally! Yes, hijacking Nature for our own benefit! Of course, I have to fucking cheat with the Spark to actually manage it. Oh, if only I understood it when grounded."

The power saw is in three major pieces now, with a pile of smaller bits and bobs on the floor. Her hands move fast. She has also torn out several copper buttons from the thick canvas outfit, leaving it partially open at the top. Did she just bend what felt like a solid, thick metal plate from the casing, by hand? Yes, apparently. 

"I'm about three quarters of the way into the madness place now, you see. Everything makes sense. It does, but it shouldn't. It feels like I know it all, but try to write down useful observations? Look at it later and it's nonsense like 'hexagons are bestagons'. No, no, I channel it. Into GOALS. In this case, MAKING A WEAPON. Springs are wonderful, you know. It all comes down to energy in the end. Stored, transformed, released. Lightning to fire to sharp steel at high speed, it's all just energy. Hahaha..."

The thing is starting to be reassembled, now. It's longer, thinner, and has what looks like a hand-crank sticking out the side by now.

"Oh, the Spark really does love weapons. This came out a lot easier than it should have. I don't suppose there are questions I can answer that you can articulate while I'm worked up. It might make more sense to me like this!"

Belmarniss takes a couple of steps back and says some words! Can Waltana understand her now somehow?

Nope!

She says some more stuff about kinematics and springs and energy and gear ratio and the beauty of simple machines and then puts the last piece back on, turns a crank that used to be part of the handle a few times until something starts clicking, and then seems to fully snap out of it.

The blade is fully exposed now, wicked-looking and circular. She holds the thing two handed, like a club, and presses a small button. The blade whirrs for one round, then stops again.

"And there you have it. Much more usable as a weapon now. If inconvenient to wind. Not sure how it compares to a sword, probably unfavorably..."

Belmarniss doesn't look like she thinks the situation needed a subpar sword more than it needed a cool saw. Did she leave any bits and pieces on the ground?

She starts winding it again.

A dozen discarded screws, a bent copper pipe the size of a finger, a piece of steel with a circular hole in it, and the boiler suit button she was using as a tiny improvised prybar litter the floor.

"-Oh, yeah, should keep those."

Is she going to try to hit Belmarniss with her subpar sword if Belmarniss tries to pick them up?

She is not. She will step back and keep winding.

"Those little things are screws, we had machines that make them by the hundred. And tap matching holes into metal. Useful for holding bits of metal together when you don't want them together forever. I dont know what you want outta me and would like to learn that sooner or later."

Apologetic shrug. Does Waltana want her bits and bobs back or can Belmarniss put them in her bag.

She will stuff them in her pockets, aside from a couple screws. "Keep those two in case you need to show them to someone. Uh... Running out of thoughts on what to say to take advantage of the understanding."

Nod, nod. Thoughtful chin-tapping. ...gesture to come along through the tunnel? Also the light needs a refresh, she does that.

"I'll wanna learn how to do that, if I can. Or at the very least, study it. Not urgent."

She follows, trying to move... Quietly and cautiously? That's a thing adventure novel protagonists do, right? (She's completely untrained at it.)

They travel through a series of tunnels and passages and rooms. The rooms have people of Belmarniss's species in them and often appear to have been completely dark before they show up with the periodically refreshed light. Sometimes there are also ?midgets?.

The whole place is one giant cave system, and the local dominant construct(?)-species can see in the dark. Light is a convenience for foreigners. A potent home field advantage.

There's no reason for there not to be more construct-species. But it's very strange. Are they adapted to fit into tight crevasses?

She tries to walk snootily and confidently. She has a power saw and is following a local into a trap who saved her from the facehugger.

Eventually they get where Belmarniss meant to take her. It's an older woman of the same species - not old old, actually no members of this species have looked really old, but more firmly adult and mature looking than is Belmarniss herself. Belmarniss introduces Waltana - her name's in there - and then a conversation ensues.

She makes sure nobody is behind her but otherwise tries to act calm.

What does the conversation feel like? A guard talking to his buddies? A factory worker and foreman? An ordinary miner addressing a guard? Someone schmoozing up the quartermaster? Belmarniss doesn't seem worried...

If you were somehow really good at analyzing conversation-qualities like that you would conclude that Belmarniss has tracked down an erstwhile teacher of hers and is asking for a favor.

She parses it as 'not a big authority figure, at least' and relaxes.

Eventually Belmarniss secures her favor. She reaches out for Waltana's hand.

Her first instinct is once again hesitation, but- It wouldn't help to act like a cornered rat.

The non-saw-holding hand is extended to match. She's wearing leather gloves.

Belmarniss holds out her hand to the teacher. The teacher casts a spell (that's probably a pretty recognizable class of action by now, she's seen a few) and boops Waltana's knuckles.

"There you go! That'll last about an hour, I can spend much more time understanding you than you can spend understanding me so we should be efficient," says Belmarniss. "Come on, this isn't an ideal place to chat."

"Always a pleasure, Niss," says the teacher, waving them off.

"Oh!" This is fascinating. "Quite, yes. Cheers." Nod at the friend(?).

"Lead the way."

A place she deems acceptable isn't far off. "Anything you need to ask me, first?"

"I'm a stranger in a strange land right now. Time to listen... That thing, was it venomous? Anything I absolutely mustn't do?"

She's feeling the aches of everything that happened now, with adrenaline and fear fading away. Ugh.

"Not venomous, just suffocates prey. You should probably not go all - weapon construction rant - in a crowd, scared folks are dangerous."

"...Yeah. I try to confine it to workshops but being effectively unarmed didn't sit well."

"You can probably buy a real sword or at least a good knife, your powers sound pretty useful."

"They really are. Also, dangerous. The Captain had me training discipline to control it. They benefit from tools, materials, a workshop- They just kind of hired me and gave me one, back home. Probably doesn't work that way here?"

"Nnnnot exactly. I can probably get some startup funds from my mother, she's spendy, but you're going to need to pick and choose what's a priority till you've got stuff that can do big industrial work in the mines or kill monsters or something."

"...I mean, Sparks are supposed to be good at killing stuff, but... Sounded like crops were a big deal?"

"I was assuming that'd be slower - even if you can make the machines in the same period of time plants take time to grow. Or does it make them grow faster too?"

"The one in Hothouse Five took me... Five days all told to build and install? With a half dozen technically literate helpers. Plus occasionally fussing with it until the farming crew got used to its quirks. Made 'em go from seed potatoes," she pinches her fingers together, about an inch apart, "To full size ones in twenty days, in the dark, over about... Four thousand plants I think? And also automatically watered them and controlled the temperature. But it was as big as this room not even accounting for the pipes. I could probably replace most of the metal with, like, rocks, most of the metal by weight was just frame."

"That's amazing and might return better than monster-hunting! Do you need things that aren't metal or rocks? We have those but wouldn't be so excited about plants if we had lots of those."

"Rubber, or at least wool or some other insulation. I'm not sure if silk works. Copper wire, not having to draw it out myself would save an enormous amount of time. A little bit of paper, some sulfur or acids, small amounts of metals other than iron and copper- Like, tin, or nickel, or lead. It will need an energy source, some strong source of heat or cold or lightning or force. Glass jars or vials? Maybe samples of whatever is common. If I'm to make steel I'll need coal, not charcoal, proper hard anthracite, and chalk or limestone on top of the ore. Also to build a custom forge. Uh... Rambling on. Iron, copper, a power source, and some sort of lightning insulator are the things that absolutely can't be gone without. More variety would almost certainly help. I want to stress that I can't guarantee this will work. Much better than even, but not sure."

"Tiny amounts of wool are around but silk is more common. Wire exists, paper exists, sulfur and acids and coal and various metals and chalk and glass exist... how continuous do you need the heat or cold or lightning or force? A ton of spells do those, repeatably and cheaply, but - not really more repeatably and cheaply than a light, we do have some lit chambers with plants in them."

"Well, I can do capacitors that store lightning energy- Why is it so much easier to say 'lightning' than 'electrical' no nevermind- But that means more glass and paper. A big boiling vessel that's continually kept at a boil and more water added, or a tiny lightning strike every few seconds, I think I could make work?"

"Oh if you can store a bunch of Jolts that's great, that'd mean the place doesn't need a wizard standing over it at all times and a bunch of students can just cast into it for practice. - I told Instructor Johysis I'd teach some of her junior classes to trade for the third circle spell."

"You can store Jolts, yeah... Have to mull over the best ways. How do 'spells' work? You can learn them?"

"You can learn them if you're a wizard, or pick them up less controllably if you're a sorcerer. Clerics get them from demon lords - in most places it's gods but drow prefer demon lords. I'm a wizard and a sorcerer both but my usual dueling cantrip is Ray of Frost, like you saw, I'd have to buy and scribe down Jolt to do it myself. A lot of the kids will have it, though. There's also an acid one but the acid doesn't last."

"That is. Strange. But Sparks exist, the world is a strange place. Do... Things the acid eats at stay corroded? What's this about demons?"

Is EVERYTHING in novels real after all?

"Things the acid eats stay corroded. Demons are chaotic evil outsiders? I thought everyone knew that."

"Ugh. I... Am aware of the outside world through novels I thought were fiction. Should get into the whole story later when we're not running down a harsher timer."

"Yeah. I can probably get Instructor Johysis to cast more of these at the same exchange rate, but if we make enough money I want to spend some of it on getting a Share Language spell, lasts all day and it's a circle I can cast, I just don't have it yet."

"Money is pretty important, I know that much at least. Lots of plot arcs where the hero runs out or has it stolen from them... It sounds like the basic plan is getting money from your mother to try and build a Jolt-based plant agitator? And then sell it to someone? Or possibly make a deal with someone who owns a caveful'a plants? I'm, uh, I don't know much about this - city? But I can build things, and then build more things, and then pay you back and figure out what next. If I'm building things it can't be all bad."

"Some plants have seeds in them, could we just use those?"

She thinks.

"Probably. I wouldn't put much past the Spark. Maybe I size the thing for a single room and a few dozen plants, not a huge farm and 200 potatoes a day. And if it doesn't work to grow plants I can always turn it into a lightning cannon."

"Getting a big cave to ourselves would be expensive but there's no shortage of little ones that are in weird places nobody's using. A cannon that stored up cantrips and shot meaningful amounts of lightning at monsters would also be really cool though."

"It would! It'd also be kind of heavy and unwieldy. Little cave in out of the way place is a good idea. If I get off the ground maybe I can make things better, and more food's probably the number one way, right? But I'm not a plant or animal spark, it's all steam and lightning and metal for me. We get specialties, or at least styles."

"I expect to be able to muddle through getting you materials with only Comprehend Languages up - that's the one where I can understand you but can't talk to you - and I can do that several times a day, not every waking hour but whenever it's important... We're going to want to not make it obvious where our chosen out of the way cave is, make sure we're not followed, that sort of thing, it'd be a big theft risk."

"Hrm. Traps? I can make some."

"I'd rather not kill people for trying to steal food, to be clear, and if they don't die, they'll be able to come back later with help, so it's best if it's just really hard to find."

"-Oh, right, this would be people and not gribbles from the mines or snow-wolves or whatever."

"I might wind up picking a place out of the way enough to have big monsters but most of those aren't accustomed to eating plants!"

"Nothing about today makes much sense to me, okay? I'm just kind of saying things at this point."

"No, no, absolutely go ahead and clear up anything you need to know from me while I've got Tongues."

"The - small people? How many people have magic? How does, uh, no guards no judges, so you have to be intimidating but also not too scary, right? I think an explanation of demons being real sounds important too."

"Halflings. They're slaves. Anybody down here who doesn't look obviously like an adventurer - you do, but keep your saw with you - is a slave, but most of them are halflings because they eat less. Since you want to look like an adventurer, go armed, wear everything you want to keep on you and keep it secure, don't be aggressive because aggressive adventurers sniffing around among drow are bad news. You can tell people Belmarniss from the line of the cunning sorcerers is your friend - ask me to repeat that with Tongues down so you can memorize what it sounds like - as a social buffer, but I'm not important and my family's not very important and you should avoid getting to that point if you can. Demons are real but they're not around, they live in the Abyss which is the chaotic evil afterlife. The judge-god is racist so drow all go there even if we're nice folks but you'll probably go somewhere else. Wherever Odin lives maybe, I don't know enough about surfacer religion."

"Slaves. Racist gods. Evil afterlife. Grand."

"I can try to get you up to the surface if you want but I wouldn't be well advised to stay there and help, surfacers will as likely as not kill a drow on sight and it's not like they'd be stupid to do it either."

"I get the feeling I'd be just as lost. Also, uh, you're calling in favors and stuff about me and like, it's just stupid to not be - the kind of person who pays that back if you can."

"Very Lawful of you."

"Lawful? Yes. We had laws, to work together and leave everyone better off."

"...so, chaotic evil is one of the nine alignments. The axes are law-chaos and good-evil. Drow as a rule are chaotic evil, at least if you ask Pharasma, creator of the universe, and care what she says, which one kind of can't avoid because she's the Judge. You can be Lawful - I appreciate it, even! - but you should be aware that the people around you down here aren't and aren't used to it."

"So the Judge, Pharasma, judges whether people are 'lawful' and whether they're good or evil. And, what, smites you about it? Sends you to Hell instead of Heaven?"

"Hell's for lawful evil and Heaven's for lawful good, yep. Elysium's chaotic good, Nirvana's neutral good, Maelstrom chaotic neutral, Boneyard true neutral, Axis lawful neutral, Abbadon neutral evil, and drow being chaotic evil wind up in the Abyss."

"Okay."

It makes about as much sense as Valhalla does. She'll see if she actually believes it later. Doesn't really change anything right now.

"Okay... I'm kind of sore and tired and not thinking the best but I think the immediate next steps are clear- Out of the way cave, secret, build a plant-booster with what you buy and bring, work with you to sell food and make it all back? Maybe I should just try to memorize words now."

"You should probably sleep over in my cave to start out in case I can't make it over every day. What's your sleep schedule like at the moment?"

She takes a deep breath and thinks.

"It was close to the end of dayshift. All that's happened so far... About an hour? So it's approximately dinner time for me, and sleep in another two or three hours at most."

"Okay. I hope you love mushrooms."

"It's fine. Food is food, and I'll grow other things soon if I'm not just completely wrong. I'm- You-"

Pause.

"You called me lawful. Would you call yourself lawful? What do you want, not now but in a year or ten? I want to see places. I want to build wonderful things. I want to have a clean conscience, still."

"- I'm not lawful. I guess if I were just picking I'd want Neutral Good but even people who get to choose don't get to pick. But like, I can admire the potential virtue of Law abstractly? It just doesn't work well with anything about my life."

"Right. And I don't even know what law means. I guess- I'm finding it hard to stay calm even repeating to myself that you could've just not saved me from the thing. You said scared people are dangerous, well, I'm scared. I'd like to know why you're helping."

"...would you rather be dead? It's, you know, not my first guess with total strangers."

"No! If I did, I could turn the saw on myself. Probably. I just- Augh. I can't find the words... Slavery is common, right, and people are dangerous if I scare them, and there's thieves about, so- I'm trying to understand the shape of things. What you expect from me, what I should expect from you. It's worrying for it to be... Vague, I guess? I don't want to offend you by mistake or come to some kind of- Dramatic misunderstanding-"

"I think it's safer for you if it looks vague, inconveniently. I'm trying to get you parsed as 'non-hostile adventurer', because that's a nice big vague category that most people would rather not poke because they don't know what circle you are or anything."

"Circle?"

"...Yeah, too tired for this. Well, if you ever think I'm about to betray you suddenly, I expect you will probably be mistaken about that. For whatever it's worth."

"Top spell power level. I'm second circle. I will be on the lookout for enchantments making me paranoid."

"Mmh. I don't have my watch with me so I don't know how much longer the, was it 'comprehend languages'? No, that's the other one, I don't know this one's name. I don't mind mushrooms. I don't mind following your lead especially if you think your lead is the least likely path towards dying. I'll try to learn this language- What is it called? -Fast as can be. And any common sense adventurers have. I'm literate- In Germanian, at least, if that's relevant to anything."

"This one's Tongues. Should last a bit more than an hour total. The language is just 'drow', we've got a sign language too and, yes, a written one."

How about she stops addressing difficult, emotional topics and just repeat useful phrases like 'Belmarniss from the line of the cunning sorcerers is my friend' while focusing on the sounds and grammar.

"Not a good use of spell duration, I can help you with that kind of thing when it's worn off."

...Okay. (Why isn't today DONE yet.)

"Right. Enchantment? Type of magic? I'm getting the impression of something like Sparks' voices- I don't really know how to turn it off except try not to give commands while I'm worked up-"

"Enchantment's the type of magic that works on the mind and commands that - are extra compelling - would qualify. There's also - massive oversimplification but - conjuration, appearing stuff; evocation, applying force or energy; illusion, creating false appearances; necromancy, creepy deathy stuff; transmutation, making stuff be different than it is; divination, learning stuff; abjuration, wards and protections; and some oddball spells none of the above."

"If there's proper schools about this- Going to imagine massively oversimplifying electricity and turbines to get an idea how much I'm missing. Okay. So the acid spell would be conjuration? I might find that useful for a few steps, by the way. And Jolt, evocation?"

"Yes and yes. I don't have Acid Splash but I can get it or enlist a kid."

"What would be good to think about making if the plant thing doesn't take off as fast as hoped? D'you think I could learn magic? Want to learn some engineering principles when comprehend is up and tongues isn't?"

"You seem sharp enough to be a wizard but it takes years, and money for the spellbook and supplies. I would love to learn your thing though."

She snorts in an almost-laugh. "Well, it takes years, and money for the tools and materials."

"Fair enough, but I don't think drow classes in wizardry will admit you, so I'd have to tutor you myself and Instructor Johysis's bargaining aside it's not my strong point."

"There's always later. Make some money, build some tools, so many more options. Don't need a fifty seven step plan to world domination starting now. And I'll try to explain the basics."

"Why would you want world domination when you can go poke the rock that turns you into a god with far less opposition from world leaders?"

"The what. There's a river that turns you into a monster, but a god?"

"Yup. There was this guy who figured out how to turn himself into a god and left behind an artifact that let other people do too. He died when I was little, gods can still do that once in a great while, but as far as I know the rock still works."

"This sounds like something worthy of further investigation."

"It doesn't always work, a lot of people die trying, but when we're stronger I agree."

"What is- Being a god even like- Agh. Further investigation. The river I was referring to, by the way, is the Dyne- The source of power of the infamous Heterodynes, who strike terror into the heart of Europa with their evil, so on so forth, until the Good Heterodynes took it upon themselves to be heroes instead half a century ago. They say if you drink from its source, you might just explode, but you also might become a Jaegermonster, a separate race with all the same cunning and wit but with supernatural strength, speed, regeneration, and fighting talent... Stories from me are probably not a good use of spelltime, sorry."

"I'd be interested in hearing it later, but yeah. More questions about life among drow? Imagine Tongues just ran out, what do you panic about not having asked."

"-Washing and, uh, toilets."

"Wizards and sorcerers get a spell that cleans things. You can get a bath but it's an expense and it's not a necessary one while you hang out with me. Nightsoil is valuable, try to save it for the chamber pots in my cave and you'll be pulling that little bit more of your weight when it gets sold."

"Well, better than there not being said spell. I'll build myself a bath when I can afford it."

"Yeah, do you want a going-over now? It gets your clothes too."

"May as well. Ehm... Gods? I never heard anything reliable about any- Odin the father, Thor the warrior, Loki the trickster... Baldr, maybe, something about the sun... Some say Albia is a god, not just a queen..."

"I haven't heard of those but they could be gods I've heard of under other names and with different emphasis, or they could just not be popular any of the places we've got books from. Drow mostly don't go in for gods ourselves. I can rattle off a few I've heard of if you want."

"They're not just stories, right? They actually do things? Also could a spell sharpen the saw blade when it inevitable dulls?"

"...yes, they do things. They give clerics spells, most obviously. I can mend it if it breaks but sharpening we just do with mundane tools."

"No 'clerics' in City Frostbound. I guess I'll need a file and maybe a vice... Any other common or cheap tools will help... I can kind of get around it but," shrug. "Oh, uh, my work on things will probably be loud, if we're talking about secrecy."

"Clerics are just the people who get spells from praying. How loud? How long for how long?"

"Shouting loud, whenever I need to use the saw or other big tools. Probably pretty often."

"Shouting's not that bad, it doesn't get through rock."

"Excavation might be more iffy, then? Put a layer of cloth between stone and whatever I'm working on? To keep it from shaking the walls."

"I can see about getting quilts and stuff, but might also just plan to go farther out of our way than I originally imagined."

"Which might bring me back to the traps if there's more ceiling gribblies. Well. All you can do is your best effort sometimes."

"Yeah. Let me show you a place to get dinner, I think I can get you allowed to sleep at my place but getting you food there would be trickier."

"Okay. I do not currently have any money. I'd be fine selling off the boilersuit for a little boost but it probably makes me look adventuresome."

"It does, yeah, adventurers tend to pick up magical gear from all over the place and look very eclectic. I can cover you eating for the time being and apply to my mother for anything past that."

"Yeah. If it works out I'll pay it all back. What else is expensive?"

"...most things, really. Chalk is cheap. Basic rocks are so cheap people'll pay you to take them away. Water's cheap. If you want something a halfling could do I can probably borrow a family slave without it being an additional cost if they're not too busy right then."

"What kinda rocks? Just, what I see now? You gave the impression that ventilation wouldn't be a problem earlier- Chalk into quicklime, that's not too hard, it's good for sealing walls and stuff."

"Yeah, like what the walls are made of, people dig them up making new caves and clearing out mines. There's a spell for ventilation, it's called Chimney, I don't usually prep it because it's so common but I have it and I can."

"Then I can make quicklime with rocks, chalk, and a heat source and Chimney- I'd be surprised if nobody down here was making it but it's probably saleable and it'd be useful to me later. You can mix it with water to make cement and plaster it on walls to make them nicely smooth or mortar rocks together. And a bunch of more niche uses, like fertilizer for some kinds of soil."

"Neat! How good of a heat source do you need for this?"

"Pretty big one. Forge-like. Uh, like if I build the kiln right I can insulate it lot. Maybe I could use Jolts to do it, otherwise I need some stuff that burns, or some other way."

"We have coal. It's not notably cheap nor expensive, it's like mushrooms, everybody can afford it because if you can't you die."

Well. Yeah. If you starve you die.

"Coal's a lot easier to use than magic, probably."

"Yeah, there's not a real fire cantrip, just Spark which starts fires if you have fuel."

"...I'm not really thinking of anything else to cover now, except for daily necessities."

And trying to understand or get to know her savior a bit, but she seemed prickly about that.

"Yeah, let's go get you some stew. Water comes from the river or the temple - temple charges but it's more convenient and the water's usually more convenient. I already mentioned nightsoil, right? Do you have all the clothes you'll need or can you not sleep in that?"

"You did mention nightsoil. I can probably sleep in this, more clothes is hardly urgent compared to tools and materials. Oh- I'm stronger than I look, for what that's worth. Not- Ridiculously, but more like a fit human man than a slim human girl. I'll do whatever manual work doesn't break the adventurer look, if needs must. Might even clear the mind."

"Not a ton of humans down here, they eat a lot more than halflings and can't haul as much as orcs, but that's good, it's in keeping with the adventurer look even. Rynaeri picks up a lot of hauling work in the mines - she has a floating disk spell, but it has to be loaded and unloaded manually, you could help her sometimes maybe."

"Sure. You take the lead until I have the tools to make the tools. You know this place, which I don't even recall the name of, if you mentioned. I don't want to break things- Whatever passes for a peace here, I mean. One imagines that yelling about slavery would, uh, not improve matters and quite the opposite, so."

"This is the city of Chosl in the country of Noctimar. And yeah yelling about slavery will accomplish nothing, though a foreign adventurer is often as not expected to be a little annoyed about the racial slant on the institution as it exists down here."

"Chosl. Noctimar. There's kinds and degrees, right, it's not like Spark warlords or noble dukes don't get things out of 'their people'- I'm not sure if this is a touchy subject-"

"I don't like slavery myself but there's noplace safe for them to go and there's only so many thefts you can get away with before you're dead."

"-Mmh. We put criminals in the mines at home too, called it 'punitive labor' not 'slavery' but it's still work for no pay, and - fucking with that would get you tarred with the same brush." Sigh.

"It's not even just the mines. We do a lot of mining just because we live underground and find stuff worth having while we're digging out new homes. Elves - drow are a kind of elf - don't like babies. The surface elves are dealing with this by going slowly extinct and we're dealing with it by having slaves. I don't have a clue how to handle that."

"-Well, my mind immediately said 'nursery clanks', but... Uh, clanks are a thing sparks can make, they're sort of like metal animals, mostly not people smart."

"For all I know that's how they do it on Castrovel. - Elves are not from this planet."

"Ooh, other planets?" It's like something out of a Heterodyne Boys story! "-Uh, spell duration, not urgent."

"Yeah, it turns out that the rock we are in is kinda ball-shaped and there are other balls of rock stupidly far away. I've never been to Castrovel, though, don't know much about it."

"I knew about the sphere thing, it's just there's no way to get there- The emptiness is huge. It'd be amazing to explore though, since teleporting is apparently a thing."

"You need an especially powerful teleport spell to get that far. Like, I'm not positive anyone alive can cast it, that kind of powerful."

"So, what, someone really really smart? With tons of practice?"

"Somebody really really smart with tons of combat experience. With a book you can understand anything you're smart enough for but you won't actually be able to cast a spell like that if you haven't done a lot of adventuring, probably riddled with near-death experiences. Opinions vary on how much mileage you can get out of espionage and intrigue that never comes to daggers drawn, but once you're past fifth circle I don't think you could find enough of that even if it'd work in sufficient abundance."

"...If it works that way generally I guess that'd explain why Wulfenbach is Wulfenbach, emperor of Europa. He's probably fought or commanded the fight against everything there is to be fought on the continent of Europa. Ye gods that means strong people actively looking for more fights, though. Yikes."

"People do retire but if you mean to go and keep going then yeah, you e souses jov e tyon."

"-Spell ended, I think."

Suddenly dropping a language is just as weird as suddenly knowing it was.

"Leh? Ah." She casts, and beckons on toward food.

Waltana is trying to remember the sounds of things she said as easy as breathing just a minute ago. Pon... Or something? Leh? What's Leh??

(And also following)

Eventually they can find a big communal kitchen with coal burning stoves and ovens and grills, their smoke harmlessly sucked away by regular Chimney castings, where people are cooking mushrooms. Belmarniss finds somebody who's selling what he cooks and buys two bowls of stew. It has several kinds of mushrooms in it.

Funnily enough, City Frostbound cuisine also prominently features mushrooms, if more like once a day than in every meal. Does it look like they're going to eat it here and now, or what?

Yep, there are rocks to sit on.

She noms. And mutters quietly, idly, "Central vessel with steam pipes could heat all those stations with less coal... Smoke's a bad sign, smoke is unburnt fuel, higher temperatures are more efficient..."

Belmarniss tilts her head, listening curiously, while she goes through her stew.

"In a really hot furnace you don't get smoke, just - bad air, the kind from exhalation that settles in pits. Fundamentally, burning is converting the breathable part of air and fuel into heavy air and water vapor and heat. Anything that's not one of those means an incomplete burn. Well, mostly."

Interested nodding!

"Doing all the burning in one place, at high temperatures, making hot water or steam and distributing that to cooking spots would mean less heat ends up in the air or not produced because it's smoke. And you can use the steam for..." Glance around. "Uh, useful stuff. We worked on that sort of thing a lot in Frostbound. Got to be frugal with the coal."

Belmarniss points out two proprietors, then balls her hands into fists and taps them against each other. "Grr."

Shrug. "I guess if there's no Captain issuing directives that'll happen."

Nod nod.

Even more whisper-like this time: "Have you ever heard before, of an 'engine'?"

Headshake.

"Ways of converting energy into force. There's... I could pump water anywhere, as much as you wanted, if nobody would mess with the machinery. Would just need some jolting once it's built. Or coal. My other idea might not need the jolts, either- I could do it with coal instead, I was assuming it wasn't available, earlier."

Shrug at "pump water anywhere". Nod at coal. They sure have that.

"That's all for later though, I guess."

Nod nod.

When they've emptied their stew bowls very thoroughly - it's apparently customary to swipe out the dregs with your finger - Belmarniss takes them and brings them back.

She's already having vaguely Sparky thoughts about chemical synthesis of sugar.

And then Belmarniss can bring her home - it's a long walk, she has to refresh the light a couple times - and explain her houseguest situation to her mother.

(She is honestly too tired to be putting much effort into learning the language. She tries to be polite-if-distant. The darkness is terrifying each time it comes. She's definitely going to work out a torch early on.)

And then in her own room Belmarniss can wad up a cloak and offer it to Waltana as a pillow. She herself sleeps in a silk hammock.

Just relax. Don't keep shifting around. Loosen your grip on the wound-up saw. It's already dark, so may as well close your eyes. Stop clenching your jaw.

Her head still hurts a whole lot. Little stings from the head-gulfer's skin, a dull roar of a headache, lingering soreness from the ice spell...

She falls asleep eventually, though.

She will have the opportunity to wake up to Belmarniss receiving breakfast from a tiny light-bearing person. There is some for Waltana too.

Five more minutes.

Ugh. No. Fine. She's awake.

"You probably don't have Comprehend Languages up right now."

...Point at ear, headshake, inquiring sound.

Cast! Attentive look! - Light cast on that pebble over there!

"Oh, sorry, I was confirming that you weren't using it right then. Now I have to say things."

Snort. Shrug. Breakfast breakfast.

"Could try to start explaining engineering- The slate and chalk over there will help."

-But first, breakfast, yeah.

When they've eaten Belmarniss passes her the chalk and slate.

She spends a little while on it.

Kinematics
--Acceleration, velocity
--Friction & Pressure
--Momentum, force balance
--Torque & rotation
--Static Analysis

Conservation
--Energy
--Momentum
--Mass
--Concept of "force-work"

Materials
--Chemistry Fundament
--Stress & Strain
--Tensile vs Compressive

Lightning & Magnetism
--Where do I even start?

Actually using it
--Tolerance & Clearance
--Calculate forces and balances, plan based on needed end result
--QUANTIFY
--Shaping/Machining (you need to actually make things)
--Common tools & techniques?

"...Wait. That lets you read Germanian, right?"

Nod nod!

"So, you won't see me doing nearly as much of the hard part as most people because I'm a Spark and we're ridiculous cheating cheaters who cheat- It's definitely some kind of magic and one resistant to analysis, but it helps if we have real engineering underneath the crazy. But, engineering is fundamentally about understanding the way the world moves, in practical, mathematical ways, and then designing things so that your desired result comes about as the result of perfectly explicable rules. For example, I can tell you almost exactly how long it will take a rock dropped from an arbitrary height to hit the ground, with slight variation because of the air slowing it down. Or, using the same kind of math, just how fast a spring with a known strength and compression will spin- This sawblade." She taps the metal surface gently. "Lotta math, lot of writing things, to do it proper."

Math and writing things are good!

Waltana will explain basic kinematics, growing steadily more animated- Acceleration, velocity, Azramut the Stubborn's Three Laws of Motion, the force of gravity, and pose a question with accompanying algebraic equations as to how fast one has to leave the ground to leap to the top of a 100 foot cliff. What about jumping across a 100 foot gap, assuming you launch at the same vertical and horizontal speed (I.E. a 45-degree angle)?

"And while you think about that, I'd be obliged to be about the chamberpot and then that cleaning spell."

Belmarniss points out the chamberpot, casts Prestidigitation to have it about for later, and fiddles with the math while her back is politely turned.

Waltana will cheerfully keep going down her list as fast as Belmarniss seems to be absorbing information, until the Comprehend Languages runs out or something interrupts. The air and water also have forces, they're called pressure! Friction is a thing you can do math about!

(Somewhere along the line she grows more somber again as she remembers that there are slaves everywhere. Her breakfast was cooked by a slave. It kind of sucks.)

A slave also comes by to empty the chamberpot.

Would it be weird to thank them? Or do... Something other than have an awkward look on her face?

"-Should we be getting to work soon?"

Nod nod. She packs up her stuff and leads Waltana out. They will be going shopping!

The market is a ways off. It's a maze, many passages connecting many caves, with carved stairs and bone ladders connecting different levels. Belmarniss walks them pretty quickly past an area that's just selling mushrooms, that's not what they're there for, and then slows down in the area that has exotic surface goods and stuff like metal and coal, awaiting Waltana's judgment.

Copper (wire, if possible), iron (both bars and whatever cheap objects are available), glass, coal, sulfur, sand (if there is any), stone bowls or slats, a file for sharpening, bones, leather or skins, clay, thread or cord, a needle, an odd chunk of pewter- They can get rocks and chalk later. Cheaper, damaged things are mostly fine.

She tries not to be obvious about what interests her and will let Belmarniss judge what to actually buy, gesturing vaguely with her hands how urgent something is. She doesn't rate anything higher than copper and iron, but thread gets rated almost as high. Probably they won't get everything.

There's sand! It doesn't even seem expensive. There's glass in various forms, coal available in bulk (Belmarniss brought a bag), stone bowls, files, probably-pig leather, bones, almost everything she wants. Once Belmarniss figures out that she'll take low-quality stuff she swings to a lower-end part of the market. There's a stall with copper wire in amounts and gauges that probably intended it for jewelry. If she'll take the iron in rusty unkempt forms it can be had for not too much.

The Spark will clean it up. She doesn't really want to think about how. She will carry things, not seeming to be much impaired by the weight.

Pretty good haul, maybe the whole endeavor isn't doomed. Going for actual ore as even cheaper is probably an 'another day' thing though.

They can bring it back to Belmarniss's cave as a staging area while Belmarniss hunts up a suitable location.

She will do math and sketches in chalk. For as long as the Light lasts, anyway.

Belmarniss says something apologetic-sounding about the light and nips out to go spelunking.

Somebody comes in when Belmarniss has been gone for a bit. She lacks the courtesy to put on a light, so it's probably not Belmarniss herself.

-She drops the wire and thread she was fiddling with and grabs for her saw and jumps to her feet.

"-Belmarniss?"

Giggle. Footsteps.

Calm. Calm. Calm. Calm. CALM.

"Okay, so you're probably not a monster. But you're making me a mite nervous on account of I can't see right now. Don't know if you have Comprehend Languages up either."

Try to remember the word for 'light', the spell... She makes a guess and says it questioningly.

Giggle! Departing footsteps.

Great. Joy. Amaze.

...Fuck this. She's going to tear down her saw blind and use what's there to make the little indicator light a BRIGHT indicator light, crank powered. It doesn't make sense and shouldn't work but she's Cheating. She NEEDS it, and the Spark responds to NEEDS with alacrity. She cuts herself a couple of times during this process, muttering grumpily.

Belmarniss comes back after she's been gone for some four hours and casts a light as soon as she arrives. "- hm?" she asks, pointing at the saw-pieces.

There's a bright and even red light casting shadows, and a little mechanism with a spring slowly ticking away attached to it. She is fussing with putting fiber weave over wires again.

"Someone came by while you were gone and it turns out I am now afraid of the dark."

"Ugh. SOVI!"

Drow language yelling!

Drow language yelling BACK!

"I needed a light anyway. Maybe not more than I needed a weapon though."

Stomping! Yammering!

Belmarniss makes a "ta-da" gesture at the other drow. "Sovi," she says.

Sovi looks younger than Belmarniss, maybe about twelve in human equivalency.

A kid. She closes her eyes for a moment of focus.

"Hello, Sovi." she has caught on to 'Hello', at least. And now not understandable again but hopefully the tone will come across. Maybe Belmarniss will translate. "I'm not mad. This is your home, after all. I'm just a bit nervous." Shrug.

Belmarniss may or may not be translating.

Sovi huffs and leaves.

Sigh.

...She starts packing up all remaining bits and pieces. The partially thread-sheathed wire gets treated most carefully.

Does she want help or is she all set there?

"I've got it. Find a place to set up or are you still looking? It'd be pretty fast to have found something already, I think? ...I'd like to get out of this room either way. You mentioned your mother doing hauling spells?"

Slow nod.

"I don't think I ought to walk around without Tongues, or learning the long way, but I want to do something other than sit in the dark and fuss with wires. Not that I didn't make progress. I just... Have a new appreciation for synthetic latex. Wrapping them in cloth and thread is taking a while. Should build something to do that for me."

Does Waltana want an introduction to the drow alphabet? In the form of Belmarniss writing letters on the slate and saying how they're pronounced?

Focusing on this is a lot better than moping!

Oh good.

Belmarniss is not going to try to take her anyplace until she asks her questions one at a time, when they're all rapid fire she can't be sure that nodding will be clear.

Waltana is kind of mood swingy but asks again if Belmarniss has already found a spot to set up again, later.

(Also, it looks like her version of a permanent light requires rewinding about once an hour.)

Handwobble about the spot.

"Yeah fair. It'd be great if there was a spot with - a consistent breeze. Or water. But I doubt it."

Belmarniss has a notebook and writes these desiderata down, blinking attentively in case there are more.

"-Or some sort of convenient heat source, I guess. These would all be ways to get energy without needing to haul so much coal in. Otherwise mostly just needs to be big."

Belmarniss makes various sizes of gesture with her arms at "big".

"Uhhh... Well, the bigger the better but if I'm going to build a kiln, a work area, the plant-zapper, troughs or pots for actual plants... Sixty, eighty feet or so? I guess it doesn't have to all be one chamber but ideally there'd be one entrance to the place?"

Nodnod.

"-Okay, it's been bothering me. Your family has slaves too. I guess it's - going with the flow - and slash or they'd be picked up by someone else or just killed if you didn't, something like that?"

Handwobble.

"-Ugh." Sigh. "I don't know what I'm doing pokin' at it. Like picking at a scab or an itch. Since we've established doing something about it would be counterproductive, an' all, and I have no solid way of double-checking it on my own yet."

Nod.

...Back to a somewhat grumpy language lesson.

She's focused intensely on it, and cunning. Maybe wizard-tier cunning, maybe not. Diligently repeats things and practices pronunciation.

Then she can make some respectable progress and learn Drow for whatever words she might expect to use with people other than Belmarniss.

After the Comprehend ends, she thinks for a bit to assemble:

"Me - do things? Or - work- This?" Gesture at the parts and bits.

Belmarniss points at the parts and bits.

Shrug. Sigh.

Okay, she can get lost in fussing with these PRIMITIVE PARTS in POOR WORK CONDITIONS. That's fine, it's all FINE, sooner started sooner finished. The wires still need insulation if she's going to wind them into a proper magnetic loop... Maybe she can make something with the leftovers from the saw to hold the thread in place and make that easier...

(She is getting parts and pieces out again, now.)

Belmarniss disappears again and is gone until the time the halflings come by with dinner.

"-Hello," she says to the halfling, glaring at messy thread and fiber under the red glow of a strange machine. "Food?"

"Yes," says the halfling. She puts some by Waltana and another portion on Belmarniss's desk.

"Thank you. Oh. Uh- Do you know, eh-"

She holds up thread pieces.

...Her brain catches up and she blinks.

Shit. She can't be giving the slaves more work.

"-Nevermind. No, sorry, thank you."

Via gives her a weird look, then bows her way out of the room.

Waltana...

Stretches and does some sit-ups and a few other body exercises, actually. For a couple minutes, at least. It helps work out some of the malaise she's feeling. Then she eats, down to the finger-swiping dregs, then she brings the empty dish and goes and looks for water to drink, carrying her light. If the water source is obvious she'll just take some, otherwise she'll ask the first person she sees, "Water?"

There's a basin with a dipper in it.

She suddenly notices how thirsty she is and drinks a fair bit. Leaves the dish near the chamber entrance, uses the chamberpot, and gets back to work fussing with the cloth and thread, the most useful thing she can do without better tools or a proper place to set up yet.

Belmarniss comes back, collects her dinner.

Grumble grumble wires.

"...okay?" asks Belmarniss.

"Bored. Tense. Miss home." In Germanian. "...Can work," in Drow.

Nod.

Belmarniss goes to hammock not too long after dinner.

At least soon she will have enough insulated wire to wrap it into a little motor core. She keeps fussing, quietly, driven to work by the stress. For a while, at least.

In the morning, "I teach you? You teach me? Or, you go out?"

"I go out, you go out with me."

Oh! "Okay!"

She packs things into her pockets and deals with all the morning ablution in a suddenly better mood.

She still has her light, but the sawblade is fixed to a handle so at least it can be swung around.

Belmarniss leads her through a multitude of twisty passages, humming a tune.

It's not sitting still and fussing with thread! Yay! She tries to build a mental map, and loses track of it immediately.

After a while they're going to have to do some climbing and ducking. Belmarniss has a spell that makes it feel really obvious where your feet are, which helps in the iffy flooring.

She likes feeling more competent! 

Her boots seem to be extra clingy with something black on the bottom, too.

And then Belmarniss shows off her find.

It's a steep slope on the way in, almost a slide - Belmarniss in fact takes it sliding - with a rough choppy side on the left that will probably serve as handholds on the way up. Past that there's a broad empty cave, only about six feet high - so, a little claustrophobic, but no risk to their heads. A small trickle of water descends from some tiny aperture in one spot and disappears likewise. There are a few further chambers, with lower ceilings but enough space to store some things. There's some stalagmites they could slice the points off to use as tables.

'Inconvenient to get to' is both a plus and minus. She's already having thoughts about a pulley near the top, or stairs, if this is to become a long term thing. She puzzles over it for a bit, mentally arranging equipment, but... Eventually gives it something halfway between a handwobble and a thumbs up, and says, "Good. Comprehend Languages?" (She mispronounces the second part.)

Comprehend Languages!

"I think this works! The water is good. A breeze would be even better but you can't have everything." 

She'll have to filter it to make it drinkable, but still. 

"Is this very far from the inhabited areas? I think... If I carry a lot of rocks and chalk out here today and lay out a kiln with them, late tomorrow I'll be ready for a supply of coal and Chimney. That'll give us quicklime, and I can use it to build more things and maybe you can sell it. Then I can figure out what the Spark thinks about whatever seeds we can buy or find in food."

Handwobble about "very far" - surely Waltana knows how far they walked and how long it was since they last saw a person. Gestures of sizes for "a lot"?

"I don't have a feel about navigating underground and couldn't get back on my own.

-The more the better, honestly. At least a couple hundred pounds?"

...Belmarniss squishes her own bicep skeptically.

"Yeah. I can bodge together a sledge with cloth under tension, I s'pose. Or a travois."

"Rynaeri?" suggests Belmarniss.

"If she wouldn't mind? Or's fine with paying back later?"

Shrug.

"I'm really eager to get to work properly. When I'm building things, everything seems alright even if it's not. So I like the plan to ask her."

Nod nod. Up and out again?

Yep! 

She leaves some of the stuff bulging out of her pockets behind a rock so it's less inconvenient to walk around.

Back and back and back they go until they are home at Belmarniss's family cave. Belmarniss drops Waltana off in her room and goes to find Rynaeri.

She organizes and bundles what Stuff remains here for transport.

Rynaeri appears, amenably enough.

"-Hello. I'm Waltana. I don't know much Drow."

"That's okay, little suskna! I'll pendru e ny delao konvit."

She has an intense look of focus as she tries to decipher the unknown words.

"You- Help carry today? I help you some time?"

"Yes! Niss, tsiua, come dassa o eli."

Belmarniss leads the way to the market so they can load up on chalk and junk rock. When they have too much to carry, Rynaeri casts a spell to create a floating disk and they can load that up.

So many exciting possibilities for cutting into brick-shapes and building with!

She's stronger than she looks and will load the disk and take up a heavy load on top of that.

The disk can carry a lot. They need to go briskly, though, it won't last forever. When they're done shopping Rynaeri herds the girls into positions behind the disk, which follows her, perhaps to deter thieves. Off they go up the passages that lead to the cave Belmarniss found.

Or someone after Rynaeri herself... And it's probably an appearances thing, too. She makes sure her saw-handle-thing is still visible.

It happens they are not interrupted on their way. The disk expires most of the way there and Belmarniss sends Rynaeri back home with a bit more chattered Drow before beginning to make several trips to pour all their swag into the slide-tunnel.