The sosei-shita living in the Rim have, over the last century and change, gained a great deal of experience. They know what a pterosaur is, for one. They've also learned the local people's language (if one can call it that). Thanks to their help of their Conduit ally, they also know what a speaker is, as well the character of its voice and how one might identify it as distinct from natural sounds.

In all that time, they have not previously seen a pterosaur, carrying a speaker, blaring warnings about oncoming...earthquakes and tsunamis, is their best guess. They're not entirely certain what to do about it.

About a day later, their ally and his closest companion return from their excursion to World Thirteen and the meeting with the other Conduit. After the cursory waiting time for their ally's world-auras to calm down (and for the handful of disturbing frog-like monstrosities that appeared alongside them to be slain by the fort's garrison), they enter into the fort, their ally distributing out his customary gift of color-flame(relatively small since he'd visited quite recently to drop off his car and make the two bicycles that he and Sunaipaa were riding at the moment). During the gift-giving, they give him the news since his last appearance, and he immediately suspects the involvement of another Conduit, and likely one well-attuned to the Rim (at least compared to himself). Information from his Stone Library confirms the likelihood of this, given the absence of giving such non-geographical names to places or areas in the baseline natives. Information from the same source indicates that information being provided is likely accurate as well.

This, in turn, demands attention. A team is put together, naturally including their ally, and among the vehicles currently housed in the fort's garage, a recently refitted ATV is chosen as the most appropriate vehicle. The team is dispatched westward, while those remaining at the fort begin preparing for an earthquake (something which, having experienced many times in the past several decades, they are fortunately well-prepared for).

This is likely furthest journey into the west any of them have been on, since they're bound for this alleged 'Word-Seeing Land', which none of them have seen any evidence of previously. This team is the most skilled wilderness survival experts and experienced explorers, and with their ally in the group as well, access to additional supplies of orichalcum, color-flame, edible food, and potable water is never far away. It takes them time, and occasionally searching for and finding additional speaker-equipped pterosaurs to make sure they're still headed in the right direction and haven't passed the territory by, but they're all but certain to find the Word-Seeing Land eventually.

What do they find, as they come upon its outermost border?

Locals in more modern clothing than they might expect, monitoring grazing animals. There's a barn visible in the distance. It's flying a flag that shows some kind of eight-pointed yellow figure on a black-and-white background.

The animals startle at the sound of the ATV, and after a moment the locals do too. They start herding the animals towards the barn.

The clothing settles it, at least as far as Fib is concerned. You just don't get modern clothes on the Rim like that without importing something, whether it's the clothes themselves or the tools to make them.

If the farmers don't seem hostile, Fib will slow his roll a bit, letting the ATV quiet down a bit, and try to approach one, at least close enough for one his current squad (probably Autumn, since she's had the most experience talking with the Rim elves) to cover the remaining distance on foot in a reasonable time.

There's one elf waiting nervously who doesn't appear armed. The rest are heading to the barn. One of them seems to be using a mobile phone.

Well, they're here to make contact with whatever sort of government the conduit here's set up anyway, so that's a good sign.

Autumn (who has a small, impish figure, dressed in camouflage pattern clothes and heavy boots, distinctly bronze complexioned face, silky black hair all tied up in a long pony-tail, and two properly formed but short horns projecting from her forehead) does indeed elect to make contact, hopping out of the ATV before it's come to a complete stop and jogging up to the lone farmer-elf remaining outdoors, calling out a greeting in the local language once she's within earshot.

"Greetings. Why do you come here? I have words to speak to elves who come here but you are not an elf."

"I am not an elf!" Autumn agrees. "I and my friends are here to talk with you and other people from Word-Seeing Land. We have not found other elves who do things like you do them before and want to learn about you."

"We know these things because Consul Ceanothus teaches elves." She looks a bit frustrated. "I speak like this but it is not good for this kind of talking. What do you speak? We see words, do you see words?"

"We see words. I speak these words, and other words:"

"English,"

"to Nishugo."

"English! We speak English. The other farmers should be calling emergency services but I can answer your questions in the meantime."

"English works! It's our Conduit friend's first language, even. I suppose our first question is just, what is your Conduit like? And your government, if you have one?"

"Consul Ceanothus is a wise and powerful leader. It is by her teachings and protection that we enjoy the riches you see here. Literate Elfland is a parliamentary monarchy, which means that Consul Ceanothus asks us to pick wise elves to govern and tells us to listen to them."

"That's...good!" Autumn replies, attempting to keep her cheerful disposition up. She had thought, for a moment, that these elves might be more like the humans she'd met, but no, they're definitely still elves, just elves who are able to farm and learn other languages, and presumably at least read and maybe also write. "In that case, it might be best for us to wait for your emergency responders to arrive, and speak with them more, and maybe find representatives of your Consul and parliament to speak to as well. I'll return to my team's vehicle now and tell them what you've told me."

And she indeed does that, and there's a consensus among them that waiting and talking to some higher ups, and maybe even this 'Ceanothus', presumably these elves' Conduit leader if they can get her attention, seems like the right move.

“The Consul and Parliament will likely be very interested. I think everyone will be more comfortable if you don’t approach the barn right now but I can probably go get our telephone, if you’d like.”

"No rush!" Autumn replies as she heads back to the ATV.

She'll wait where she is so that Emergency Services can meet up with her and so that nobody gets tempted to bother her daughters or the flock.

Eventually some raptor riders show up. They have weapons accessible but aren't currently wielding them. She waves them over.

If nobody from the ATV approaches them, they're going to approach it very slowly.

The ATV has a couple of bows, and Sniper has their long gun as always, but like with the raptor riders none of these are being wielded. They will let the riders approach, since it seems like the course of action least likely to result in potential misunderstandings.

Once they're within earshot, Autumn will call out another greeting, this time in English just to get things started with a convenient language.

"Hello and welcome to Literate Elfland. If the foundation of Literate Elfland is impeding your usual travel routes we can assist you. We appreciate your decision to avoid conflict thus far. We would like to ask you questions but you are not obligated to answer them."

"We're not impeded at all. We actually traveled quite far to find you, since we encountered one of the earthquake-warning pterosaurs and were interested in meeting whoever sent them out. Feel free to ask your questions, if there are any we aren't comfortable answering, we will simply not answer those ones in specific."

"Are you from Earth?"

"He is," Autumn gestures to Fib, aglow with spectral colors as he generally is. "The rest of us are from another world. Yomi, if you know if it."

"No, just here and Earth and the Library Hub. What's Yomi like? Earth and the Hub are very slow, is Yomi slow as well?"

Autumn nods. "About as slow as all the other worlds we've encountered. The Rim is the only one that's not slow, at least that we've found. Yomi is...bad. Very bad. Our friend helped us escape it, and helps us keep in contact with other worlds, and lets us access his Stone Library and its Mirror Network, so we help out when we can."

"Well, I hopefully speak for everyone here when I say I'm glad you're not in a very bad place anymore."

Someone else's telephone rings and she answers it.

"They claim to be interworld travelers."

"Earth, a library like ours, and another world called 'Yomi' which is also slow. One of them glows, the Consul doesn't glow."

"They speak English."

"Yes, they've been perfectly cooperative."

"They noticed the earthquake warnings."

"Do you want to just talk to them? I can put you on speaker."

"If we don't get the telephone back the department will need a replacement."

The rider on the telephone turns to them. "Leadership wants to talk to you and they're lending you this telephone."

Autumn will reach out (and exit the ATV if necessary, before returning to it) to receive the phone. "Hello! This is Autumn, former kagemono of Yomi, and present sosei-shita and expert explorer of the Revival Base here in the Rim, a long way to the east of here."