"What was wrong with the plants at first?"

"There wasn't enough, like... anything? Water, things plants use to grow? This whole place is just dead. So I made it a little less dead."

"It looks much less dead!"

He beams.

"Do you have to ration your magic use at all or can you just do that as much as you want?"

"How should I know? I haven't run into anything that looks like a limit yet, though."

"Some possible limits might have been clear early on!"

"I guess. Haven't found any of those, though."

He stares out over his forest for a moment, with the same distant look from when he was examining their surroundings with magical senses before. "...huh," he says. "Vacuum. Wow, there's not really much air on this planet, at least not in comparison to how much planet. Is that normal?"

"I don't think all planets have to have air at all, but I haven't noticed it being very thin here. Uh, it should go a few miles up if it's like mine, fading out?"

"Sounds about right, I think. It's just that doesn't really look like much when there's so much planet underneath it. Anyway I'm pretty sure there's literally nothing alive on this planet except us and what I put here, but I've got about half a planet to go so it could still surprise me."

"Islands of paint mages! More hideyholes of books!

"Oh, yeah, there's definitely more magic stuff. I can see like a dozen more bits of magic like this one scattered all over the continent."

"Oooh."

He laughs delightedly at the look on Cor's face.

"Everyone'll be so excited about figuring out the lost civilization! After we have arranged not to lose our civilization."

Snicker.

"They just roll right under the couch, civilizations."

Helpless giggling.

"Hey, is this water drinkable, it's been hot out."

"Pretty sure it is, here—" and he gestures, and the spring heaves itself up into a charming little fountain, made of rough stone with a clear pool spilling a tidy little waterfall into a slightly bigger pool which pours in turn into a little stream flowing down the hill.

"Thanks!" Slurp.

He makes a tree bend itself into the shape of a chair and sprawls in it, contemplating the planet as he extends his senses. Ocean, ocean, ocean, "—wow, what the fuck happened there?"

"...couldn't begin to tell you."

...he laughs a little. "There's, uh... something weird, all the way around the planet from us. It looks like there might've been a continent there once, but now it's mostly just a really big hole that goes almost right down to the magma, full of ocean."

"I cannot explain that based on my background understanding of spherical solid planets. Unless it's actually just an ocean. What do you mean looks like there might've been a continent?"