They lift their head up again.

"Things you might really want .. will you be wanting a conjuration of another similar meeting hall, or perhaps some other design?"

"I thank you for the invitation, though I do not wish to eventually impose. Ah, I should return to the ice house." A cloud of smoke billows ice-house-wards with some haste.

She considers the question.

"The meeting hall was nice," she agrees, "although I'm not sure its going to be the first thing people think of. I more meant ... so lots of people are resurrectable now, and that's great, but it was a really big change. Too big, I think. But there are still lots of things that would be nice that are ... smaller."

"Things like the, uh, portal-turtle village restructuring. Or — it's not the harvest yet, but I think everyone would love it if we didn't have to worry about food this winter. Or firewood, for that matter."

"Wishes that do as much as they can are often heavy in consequence, but would you have been satisfied, doing any less?"

From the smoke appears a new pair of models - representing yet another possible design for a portal-turtle village.

"Food and firewood .. I could harvest trees, but the resulting material could rot, and then that would have been wasteful.."

"I wouldn't have been satisfied," she quietly agrees. She studies the dust of the square for a moment.

"Ah — we do already have areas set aside for sustainably harvesting trees," she points out. "Everywhere that's not good, flat farmland for more picky crops, really. Mainly the hill. The issue isn't so much getting the wood as cutting it, transporting it, drying it, and caring for the trees afterward. It's a constant chore, because we go through a lot of firewood every winter."

And then she realizes what Eeferi is implying.

"Oh! But you don't need to help with that unless you want to. You've already done so much for us. Nobody would mind if you wanted to just laze around and talk to people for a while. If you do want to help with the firewood, though, we could take a walk up the hill and I could show you where we're coppicing from this year?"

"It sounds as though drying the wood is the step most useful for preservation- and I do not know how to personally make wood dry much faster. If your facilities to do so are already full, then perhaps I should hold off on increasing your harvest.

"Ah, that is a good idea, to speak more thoroughly with the populace. Though I am not lazing, exactly- a large portion of my focus is on the continued development of the new Genie."

From the smoke, the figure is duplicated several times- each instance traveling towards other villagers.

"I do wonder .. what do you want to do with your time? When we met, you were, as I understand it, fishing. I do not know what your regular schedule of duties or activities looks like, nor what you prefer to do when nothing else is scheduled."

"I didn't mean to—"

Satenag sighs, and leans against the fence of the garden.

"Normally, I would be out fishing with Egresta," she agrees. "But we have stores, and some other fishing boats. It's not too bad if I take a day off. We have to, to repair the nets, or on account of weather."

She glances toward Penþa's house. "And normally, if there were weather, I might find someone who needed help with something, or work on my own household chores. But I think that today I want to ... walk around and think about how our lives could be different, and talk to people about it."

"Ah, then let me ask this directly. Would you prefer if I did not spread myself out to interview the village today- as that might interfere with your opportunity to do so? Separately, would you prefer my presence during your walk, or is some other arrangement more pleasing to you?"

"Oh! I see."

She reflects on her feelings for a moment.

"I don't think it would interfere if you were to talk to everyone; multiple people can be in a conversation. And I would definitely enjoy your company on my walk, if that won't spread you too thin."

"It is not so much that multiple people can be in one conversation, as that many conversations could occur in such a pattern as to potentially interfere with plans you may have had.."

"Well!" Eeferi appears to clap their hands together. "One moment please."

They spiral upwards, conjuring a spyglass from nowhere in particular and giving the impression of taking in an observation of the whole town. Near the ground, an apparent burst of wind seems to blow some of their smoke outwards throughout the village before it recondenses.

The spiraling pillar of smokes collapses back in on itself as the spyglass fades, replaced with what appears to be a map of the village- however, many locations on the map are marked with either a dot of color, a symbol of some sort, or both.

They hold the map out horizontally towards Satenag, ensuring it's at a readable height. "How would you like to start?"

"Ooh — is this where everyone is right now?" she asks, peering at the map. "That's much easier than tracking people down. Let's see ..."

She points at a cluster of people down by the shore.

"Let's start with them," she suggests.

"It is not wholly accurate to say this is a representation of where the people in the village I'm aware of were as of the last time I checked, but it is mostly accurate! Though I suppose it doesn't necessarily align with where they are now- however large changes this quickly for humans are rather unlikely."

..

"Happily." The figure nods, then appears to head in that general direction.

Down on the beach, a loose circle of villagers are discussing the impact of potential wishes on the village's industry.

"... which is why I think it makes more sense to wish for things that will improve our ability to do work, instead of removing the need for work," Gamesa comments. "Take weaving — we could end up not needing to wear clothing. But a lot of people like clothing, and if we could do more weaving overall, perhaps people could even end up with more varied or fancier clothing," he muses, "which seems like a better outcome, at least to me."

"In at least one case, being much more capable of certain kinds of work directly leads to less need for other kinds of work."

The others think about that for a moment.

"Like ... if everyone is capable of doing something independently, then nobody needs to take on the work of organizing a communal version?" one of their interlocutors hazards. "Or do you mean something else?"

"That seems to be another example.  I was considering that, in the context of a desert civilization, if everyone were capable of lifting many times their own weight with ease, then there may be much less call for camels of burden. Ah, I've thought of another. If everyone could make themselves heard by whoever they wished to speak to at any distance, there would be little need for messengers."

That provokes another thoughtful round of nods.

"I'm not sure that applies to weaving, though," Gamesa remarks.

"Unless people were capable of producing their own cloth," Satenag suggests. "Actually, I think there are rather a lot of professions that would be rendered obsolete if people were capable of creating things from nothing. I'm not sure how feasible that is, though."

The approaching figure appears to step into the same space as the already present one.

"I see no reason Wishes could not grant a more permanent variety of what Genies can already do, though I imagine the wording to ensure the ability works exactly as desired could be quite tedious to craft." From the smoke forms a simple wooden mannequin displaying a formal dress in a foreign style. Blues and greens smoothly transition to the other, with patterns of gold thread outlining reptilian silhouettes.

"Though such a Wish runs into the danger any crafter poses- of making something dangerous, perhaps even to themselves." A stand with many spears and two swords forms. One of the spears falls, its tip nearly clipping the figure. The weapons and stand fade away quickly.

Gamesa frowns in thought.

"... and probably trying to make a Wish like that restricted to only producing harmless things would be even more complicated or difficult," he muses. "Still ­— it's not like there aren't already dangers associated with, say, metalworking. So creating things safely is probably a skill that could be learned like other crafts."

"I think there are ... limits you could put in that would not be too complicated and make it harder to hurt yourself by accident," Morvalha opines. "Like, making it so that you cannot create items suspended above yourself, or unintentionally. But I agree that it would be hard to cover all the corner cases."

"I imagine that such cases would grow in number as more Wishes are granted, as some may react unexpectedly- or even be unknown to a crafter in the future."