Just after she enters, before she can decide on a particular scroll, a familiar face shows up.

"Hey! Lee! Sorry about leaving you alone so long, something caught fire."

She turns, gives a greeting/acknowledgement in return.

"Not a problem. That sounds unfortunate; what happened?"

"Emi is a bitch who doesn't tell us her plans, mostly. She pissed off Kaguya, big time, Rian demonstrated why we try to keep her idling, there was very literal fire involved, like I think the Shin Forest's still burning, we somehow got a couple more people free in the chaos, that sort of thing. You might get some neighbors soon, depends on where we settle folks. How've you been holding up in the mean-time?"

"Alright, thank you. What is the sort of thing that pisses off Kaguya? 

Is the fire sufficiently contained? Does your system enable fire wards?"

"There's a break between Shin and here, so we're not under threat, but I don't think we'll be able to do anything about the fire except let it burn."

"For pissing off Kaguya, usually cutting people free, or spying on her, or touching the God Tree, or being Rian. We're not sure what Emi did, though."

She doesn't actually find attempting a forest worth of fire wards particularly appealing, so she doesn't continue on that line.

"And in response she sets forests on fire?"

"Fights do. Rian and Emi both use fire release; Kaguya likes to escalate, and there hasn't been rain in a while."

"Ah. What had she done to start, then? 

Is Rian alright?"

"She usually opens with a pure force blast; we figure that's what happened this time, the pattern of damage to the landscape is similar."

"Rian's alright, just tired."

Nod. "She can be fought to a standstill then, though not further?"

"Pretty much. Except she's also holding back a lot - I think she doesn't want to, like, blast the earth past 'people can live on it,' and she's extremely cautious about running low on chakra. Apparently would rather cut a fight short, and not kill us, than risk us getting in a major hit."

Nod. (Greater strategic understanding is a generally desirable thing to have.)

"Does she plan to have people living on it at some point then, rather than as I was told she is making them now?"

"We don't know. Last time I think she turned a bunch of people into her white zetsu? She talks about making a perfect world sometimes, too."

"White zetsu?"

"She has servants. Black zetsu is intelligent, and a manifestation of her will. The white zetsu - aren't unintelligent, but only act in a predetermined way when not being actively controlled. There's a lot of the white zetsu, and they're the reason I'm stuck as gate guard, since they can shapeshift better than most of us can pick up."

"And these are made from captured people? Is this an ability others have as well?"

"Not anyone she's captured now, we don't think; she made them a thousand years ago. We don't know anyone else with that ability."

"And she was able to reacquire them, or was never separated from them?"

"Reacquire, we think."

"Now, you'd expressed interest in helping out with underground plants earlier?"

"Had they been kept somewhere in the interim?

Yes, I think that is an area I could help in. Are you the one I'll be sitting down with to figure out what else I might do? Or has it been decided?"

"We're not sure."

"And yeah, that's what I'm here for, figuring stuff out. We figure I have the best chance of understanding your system."

"Why so?" And, she is perfectly ready to do that as is convenient for Mariko.

"I'm smart. I have a talent for math, for understanding things, and for reverse engineering things. The bulk of what we use day to day in terms of seals and barrier techniques were developed or improved by me."

Mariko would like first to understand what the magic feels like from Lee's perspective, and what she understands it to be doing, based on what principles.

Her compliments. (Her interest levels in this particular person adjust.)

If Rian hasn't shared the summary she's already provided, she can produce it again. Further than that she's not sure she entirely understands Mariko's questions, might she clarify/rephrase?

"Does it feel like anything in particular? Are you moving an energy - internal or external - or taking a mental action, do you have to visualize what you're doing...

"Do you know the working parts of your magic? I could explain that techniques happen when chakra moves in certain patterns, and furthermore that chakra is made of a physical and a spiritual component, and if someone wanted the detailed theory I could go into mathematical descriptions of the amount of energy measured, moved, lost, or gained, how it transforms, and I could write an equation detailing the exact variables involved in one of a few more well-studied techniques."