...Kar reaches over the table and pats him on the shoulder gently.

"Folk need a kindness once in a while. You're free. Not quite as free here as in some big town, it's my place, but free."

"Thank you." He'd be even freer if he could figure out how to convince Kar to get his bracelets off but they don't let him offer anyone any payment for taking them off... he considers the implications of some of the words in this language. "I don't suppose you could help me get these off? They're what they make slaves wear and I can't unfasten them on my own."

"Oh, 'course. I thought they were jewelry of some kind. Sentimental or somethin'... These real gold?"

He reaches for the bracelet and fiddles with the mechanism for a bit, unfamiliar with it. He figures it out soon and does both of them.

"They're a gold alloy, they're not mostly gold." And then his hands are free and he can say whatever he wants. "You can have them if you want. I don't advise trying them on, though, I'd melt them down for scrap if I were keeping them."

"I mean, gold's gold. What's wrong with 'em? They look pretty enough."

Shiver. "They're..." Why doesn't this language have a word for command magic? "They're what they make slaves wear. And you can't get them off on your own."

"Oh, my. Some kind of artifact, eh... Can't trust those things... Bracelets you can't take off aren't worth more than a pound or two of close-enough-to-gold. And I've got a hammer. You want to do the honors of smashin' em up?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll let ya. After we finish eatin'. Not proper to interrupt meals."

He sets the bracelets carefully down and placidly picks up a handful of berries and resumes eating.

Valanda finishes eating more slowly now that he's less desperately hungry. "You're good at cooking, you know that? This is really good."

"Cookin's not that hard if you know what you're doing. The real trick is I grew all of it m'self." He smiles.

"Farming's important work!" What kind of magic do you have for it, he wants to ask, almost asks. The translation spell gives him a word, but the connotations make him hesitate. Magic is something they've forgotten how to use here, somehow, and they don't have random accidents with children so... everyone's magic is bound somehow? That's a horrifying thought. It makes sense, though, Kar was excited about real gold earlier, if they don't have sun magic anymore...

Valanda doesn't let his smile falter, though. "You were impressed I had gold in my bracelets earlier, are you short of metals here?"

"Metal's rare." He's looking at Valanda strangely now.

A sizeable chunk from the edge of Valanda's wooden plate is suddenly a much smaller chunk of pure titanium. He offers it to Kar. "I'm very valuable, see?"

He stops chewing. Swallows.

"Nope. You're not valuable, 'cause you ain't property. That's valuable. Is it silver?"

"It's titanium. It's strong, good for buildings. I'd use it a little like iron. You can have it. A gift for a gift, since you saved me."

"Nobody uses metal for buildings... I'll probably sell it, to be clear to ya. And I guess you don't want my copper pieces anymore. And, ah, you did wreck my plate for it. I can make a new plate. You may as well use up the rest of that one. Half a plate is junk."

And now instead of any amount of plate he has titanium. It weighs about the same as the plate but it's a lot smaller. "You go ahead and take this too, I can always make more metal if I need some. I won't mention what I can do while you're trying to sell it. Are your copper pieces just worth the copper they're made of?"

"Appreciate the silence. And yep. So I suppose you needn't do any more work for your food and board, since copper will do." He shakes his head. "Where'd you get that trick?"

"People... where I was born," he isn't going to call it home, "can do that kind of thing sometimes. Or other things, for instance..." oh no, local words for father and mother have the wrong connotations, "some people I knew, instead of making wood into titanium, could lift things with their mind or make sugar from thin air. There's a way to make people not able to do that, like if you hadn't gotten those bracelets off me I wouldn't've been able to make metal for you, only for my... owner. I think maybe someone somehow did that to everyone here. That would explain why you don't know how to do these things anymore."

"They say ancestors could do miraculous things, before the Gate closed. I wouldn't know any more than folk tales though."

"That makes sense. What's the gate? Can I see it?"

"Dunno. I'm just a lone farmer, not some city-smart librarian or somethin'. I just know that ancestors came here from another world through the gate, and then it closed, and sometimes people find artifacts that still work out in the stormlands. Sorry. You're from another world, then?"

"I think so. If there were regular flights to a huge private flying island I think I'd have heard about it. Maybe not, but it seems like the kind of thing that would be better-known."

"The whole world's flying islands. I don't have an airship but if I raise my flag sometimes one will stop by. Flag means 'I got food to sell ya'. More or less."