He puts the paper down again and writes something, then shows it to her again.

The first thing is a box. It very clearly and precisely says that he cannot speak Basic. Despite being a box.

The second thing is a line. It has some sort of meaning, but she can't tell what it is, because it's very incomprehensible. Again, despite being a line.

"My new theory is that you have some sort of language-related mind control power."

"Yeah."

He puts the paper down, thinks for a few seconds, writes another thing and shows it to her.

It says 'book', it's written in Basic, and it's actually written how she would write the word 'book' were she to write it in Basic. The handwriting isn't exact, of course, but it's definitely how one might write the word 'book' in Basic.

"That one is actually in Basic."

"Okay. So this is kinda creepy. Possibly useful, but definitely very creepy."

He folds the paper up and puts it and the pencil into his pocket, then looks at the graphics calculator, decides to leave it where it is, and picks up the metal bar.

"Any idea what this is for?"

It's basically a cuboid of iron or steel or something like that. It does not appear to be doing anything except being shiny.

"Paperweight, possibly."

He shrugs, waves it around to see if it has anything inside, and then– it glints. Out of the corner of his eye.

… And there no longer seems to be a Thario present to hold it up, so it falls back onto the wood of the desk.

Really.

She doesn't really want to stay stuck here by herself. She picks it up as well, then shakes it to see if that will activate it again.

It doesn't actually seem to need any shaking, because as soon as she picks it up she gets a feeling of vertigo and finds herself standing in a much smaller room.

Thario doesn't seem to be present in the room, but she can detect a life-force on the other side of the door in one of the walls.

There's also a few slightly shiny sparkles at the edge of her vision.

What-

The sparkles coalesce into a yellow-and-black patterned lizard.

"Don't ask me," it says.

She can hear a thump from the other room! There seems to be a bit of a commotion.

Elleira looks up.

"You should go check that out," says the lizard. "Your new friend might be in trouble."

"He's not-"

"He's the only even slightly interesting thing here. Go."

She opens the door.

Thario: seems to be being bitten by a small stoat-like creature? It's red with black stripes. Or black with red stripes. "What the hell?" is what he seems to be asking it, for the most part.

The stoat-like creature, however, doesn't seem to be talking back. Might be that it can't, might be that it's too busy biting his hand.

...The last time something bit his hand, he nearly died.

She'll just go ahead and levitate that thing off him.

The little creature doesn't seem to take too kindly to being levitated, but it does eventually detach from Thario instead of deciding to just mangle his hand as it's dragged away.

The animal makes some sort of noise. It's not something Elleira understands, but Thario seems to respond to it with confusion, surprise, and then something that seems to be phrased quite harshly. Then he turns to Elleira and says, "Thanks for that. And again: what the hell."

"I have no idea."

"Mysterious, indeed."

The lizard has followed her into the room.

"Mysteriously appearing animals apparently talk? And there were two of them?" He seems a little… confused by this, sort of squinting like 'oh, of course, ugh'.

The stoat-like animal appears to do whatever the stoat-like-animal-equivalent of squinting is, then Thario seems to glow slightly green, causing him to turn the squint on the animal.

"One for each of us, it seems."

The glowing stops, so Thario seems to ask the animal something, prompting a response, which then leads him to say to Elleira, "Apparently the animal is willing to not bite me if you put it down."

Animal: looks at this interaction and doesn't decide to add anything to it.

Down it goes, then.

And it stays in its position on the floor, looking over at Thario.

"Okay, so, any idea why there are mysterious talking animals?" He looks at the animals in question. "Animals? Any idea? I'm pretty sure keriols don't usually talk."

"I think we are somehow part of you. We just weren't separate, before."