There is a group of children picking over one of the nearby piles. This one, for example, is currently carefully taking apart a microwave for the touch-sensitive buttons, circuit boards controlling the timing, the little motor, door sensor switches, and of course the magnetron.

A woman appears just above one of the piles and falls onto the unstable pile dislodging some of it before catching herself with her flight magic. She's wearing a floral print blouse made of a thick but also very fine fabric and a pair of darker pants made of what looks to be the same material as well as a pair of thin black shoes that come up high enough that there's no skin visible around her ankles. A moment of thought cleans any bits of trash that stuck to her off her clothes. A quick check of the atmosphere has her keep up an air filter even as she drops the full atmospheric shield.

She takes a brief look around for anyone nearby and spots the children down below.

"Eep!" This one drops a desktop speaker and points and babbles a few more words.

This one puts her hands on a gun.

The gun probably isn't an issue but she hasn't checked for exotics so she can't discount it. Should she do that now? Probably. Are there any exotic materials or forces operating within a twenty meters of her outside of people's bodies? With a particular focus on that gun.

Yeah, bits of their equipment have faint glimmers of exotic material, including the gun's scope but not the main body or ammo.

Interesting. She makes sure her hands are visible and doesn't go directly towards them as she makes her way down. She considers doing an elven grace routine but that has a decent chance of looking uncanny instead of graceful so she just flies. She sets herself down a good ten meters away from them. "Hello," she calls knowing they almost certainly won't understand her.

Talking talking- Friendly wave!-

She issues an authoritative sounding command and presses a button on a device on her belt.

The rest of them start efficiently packing everything they've scavenged so far away.

She smiles and waves back. She will not approach them it seems like their leader sees her as a threat and she has time so she'll be patient. Are there any signs of what the exotics are doing? Are they having effects on the electromagnetic field or the kinetic properties of what they're a part of?

Looks like it's mostly kinetic; The exotic parts are tougher than they should be. They will hold up to heat better, too.

Would she like to see this glass marble with a flower inside it that he thinks is really cool?

(The leader says something exasperated to him, but he makes a sort of 'it's fine' gesture. Or possibly 'if she's going to hurt someone let it be me'.)

Ah, she probably doesn't need to worry then. Only probably though. She smiles again at the marble. These seem like bad conditions so it's a very promising sign that they still take the time to savor beauty.

How do so this next part without scaring them? It might just not be possible but she has to at least try she conjures a small illusion of the two of them. For the moment she'll just have both images stand still and gauge his reaction.

Ooh, it's like a projector!

(A truck rumbles into view around a distant trash pile, heading in this direction.)

She'll ignore it for the moment if he does. She shows the two of them saying things and then shaking their heads and a couple other gestures to mime confusion. Then she shows them with clasped hands and a bit of a lights show, then the two of them holding a piece of metal together for a few seconds and then them talking and nodding and smiling at each other.

They all glance at it and seem a bit relieved, actually.

Her illusion prompts some conversation between the urchins. And, eventually, a reluctant head-shake; No thanks.

Well that was probably too much to hope for. She closes her current illusion and shows two more. One is of her walking with the urchins and the other is of the her walking the opposite direction from them. She sets them both to replay on a loop.

They point at the truck, which is still pulling up to a stop.

(Truck has a good bit more exotics in it, along the same theme.)

She'll be optimistic and start walking towards the truck.

It sounds like this person getting out of the truck wants to know whats going on!

The urchins treat them like a trusted authority figure. 

Well then, maybe she misunderstood. She'll stop a good few steps back from the new arrival, close enough for easy conversation but not getting into their space.

Talking talking talking-

Excited waving and pointing!

......The adult in the room fishes out a touchscreen tablet and sketches on it a tall stick figure with a flower and a short stick figure touching and a '//' question mark.

That looks like a retelling of the illusion sequence demonstrating her process for sharing languages; so she'll replay that set of illusions.

She takes her gas mask off and says something that has ALL the kids objecting loudly and pointing at things!

Okay, okay, she relents-

-Uhhhh. Gesture time. Mime touching and then she groans and holds her head?

That's a reasonable question. She conjures a few more illusions. The first shows the first part of the process and the recipient smiling afterwards. The next five show five different people doing the second stage and and one of them groaning and holding their head for about thirty seconds while the others just smile.

Talking talking talking-

-Tablet sketch of doing the touching thing, and then an arrow to small stick figure lying down, and then stick figure with gun and truck and a very exaggerated angry face.

"But if you really want to risk it, Meto, I guess I can't stop you. I think it's a terrible idea, though."

"It'll be fine. Maybe it's some kind of cybernetic tech. Or maybe she IS a witch and this will make me a hero." Or maybe bad things instead, but he wants to.

Wren sighs deeply as Meto approaches the stranger again.

She nods gently in understanding of the sketch. It makes sense for her to be protective of her people especially since they appear to be young.

She kneels down and offers her hand to the kid.

He will shake hands and squint his eyes closed, bracing himself.

A sensation of something a bit like warmth spreads through Meto's body starting in his hand. Little bits of discomfort that he hadn’t even noticed flee before the gentle ebb of magic filling something that isn't quite his body but is certainly connected to it. Other greater aches and pains he's been carrying ease a bit.

The sensation builds a little as it spreads carrying his attention with it to every finger, every toe and everywhere else. Once it encompasses his whole self it deepens somehow, or perhaps ignites? There's no perfect word for it but he knows instinctively that something important has happened; he knows the magic inside him isn't Maenik's anymore it's Meto's. The sensation is more than a little overwhelming.

Maenik discreetly supports his body a bit in case he loses his balance to prevent any misunderstanding.

He wobbles. The oldest kid steps forward, looking suspicious, but Meto says something and she stops approaching. Doesn't step back, though.

Magic! Magic! Did he just BECOME a witch?? Can he pick things up with his MIND???

If he can it's not immediately obvious.

Maenik waits a little bit and then pulls out the metal block from the illusion and hold it out.

What if he WISHES really hard to pick up that discarded license plate over there with his MIND.

(He is too distracted daydreaming and babbling to his friends to notice this.)

The magic doesn't seem to respond to abstract wishes like that. Or at least not to that specific wish.

Maybe this will be harder than he thought...

The local adult says something and points to the metal box. The kid extends his hand hesitantly.

The metal box feels strange when he touches it. It feels like an absence of magic or maybe a magnet for magic? Something in between those. He can feel a bit of Maenik's magic already in the box.

...Is this where things go bad? Probably not, right, she seems nice, but.

...Poke?

The box seems to pull on the magic he gives it, not enough that he couldn't pull it back but enough to be noticeable. There's some sort of network of passages inside the box, with the tiny poke's worth of magic it moves down the paths slowly. Even the small amount of magic he poked with is enough to start doing something though. The passages in the box seem to reshape the magic that passes through them into an incredibly intricate structure. That reshaped magic moves back up his arm and through his shoulder and his neck towards his head. With just a tiny amount of magic it moves rather slowly.

This is kinda scary! He - yanks back reflexively, pouting. Then thinks better of it and will touch the thing again and... Poke harder?

With more magic it flows a bit faster. If he lets it get all the way to his head he can feel that it's not changing anything. It's looking at something about the pattern of cells there and then recording it in a bubble of magic. After it finishes that process it'll move back towards the box pulling the bubble with it.

He reports this aloud to his friends.

This one gasps and starts talking excitedly about- Brain things, maybe, given the gesture and pointing at her noggin.

Maenik smiles a different smile at that. It's good that they're talking to each other and understanding what's happening.

Once his bubble gets back to the box there's another bubble waiting made from Maenik's magic. Each of their respective magics copy the other person's bubble and then magic with a new intricate pattern drags this new copy into their respective bodies and while he can't track the motion of the magic inside Maenik he can sense his own magic pulling it back towards his head. This time the pattern will settle in around the same place it was looking before and make some tiny changes while still looking.

Still nervous!! But will let it happen!!

She waits another couple seconds but once she's pretty sure the language module is active she repeats her hello. "Hello, you should be able to understand my language now. I can also understand and speak in yours so if you'd prefer you can get rid of the translation magic on your end and we'll just talk in that."

Then she'll turn to address the adult and demonstrate that fluency in their language. "Thank you for trusting me not to hurt your companion."

"I don't know how to do that."

"He was very insistent. I'm effectively their guardian so I would rather appreciate a thorough explanation of what you think is going on with him."

She takes a step back and pockets the small box. "I did two things. First I awakened magic in him. Passively the main thing magic does is heal the people who have it. With templates like the language sharing one we just used magic can do a lot more, it's also possible to learn how to do magic without templates but it's something that requires a lot of practice. The second thing was that we used a template that lets us people trade languages. I gave him a common trade language used by my people and got the languages he knew in exchange. That's how I'm talking to you now."

She turns back to the younger boy. "If you just grab hold of it with your other magic and squeeze really hard it should go away without any issues."

"They say never to trust a witch, they don't know how their own magic works, or else they do and how it works is 'it screws you over'." Suspicious Girl declares, suspiciously.

"It's probably fine, I feel great!"

"I bet cocaine feels great."

"Oh so you do have local magic. I wasn't sure, all I noticed was some unusually durable materials. I'm from a bit further away than that depending on how you think about things. Multi-spatial distance is always hard to measure. My magic at least is rather well studied and the mechanics of how it works and what it can do are well understood."

"We don't personally have local magic. It's rare. And usually not more useful than an engine or more deadly than a gun."

"My magic doesn't tend to win competitions with major equipment on raw power. The healing is pretty nice though and efficiency and flexibility counts for a lot."

"So how do I do things with it? Can I pick things up with my BRAIN? That would be really handy for scavenging."

"That's simple enough that with a lot of practice you could do it without a template but it's a lot faster to just use a template." She looks around and finds a bit of scrap metal in a nearby pile and splits off a piece of it with magic then levitates it over to her hand and transforms it into a bracelet there before sending it over to Meto. "With a bit of practice you should be able to use that."

He will POKE the cool gadget with his magic.

"So is what you wanted to get- The language, and you consider yourself paid up?"

"That's not really how I approach the world. In terms of fee for service I mean. My translation magic is bidirectional to put me and the other person on more even footing. And to facilitate having actual conversations instead of trying to guess at meanings with illusions and drawings."

"...There's no such thing as a free lunch."

"Yeah, what are you really up to, lady?"

She takes a breath. "I don't know how to convince you of the core truth. I can tell you about things at the edges of what I do that probably fit better within your frame though. My role in my broader society is to check for potential dangers and to build good will with our neighbors so if the war the most paranoid parts of my society are worried about happens there will be more people willing and able to fight it with us. And in the less paranoid case so that those neighbors are less likely to attack us when they have the means."

"Oh, so, scouting, recruiting. And diplo-whatsit." She nods. That makes perfect sense. Not necessarily great to be next to, but it makes sense.

"Yeah, I've heard places that are less crowded are... Nicer than Bastion's trail. And allies and friends aren't out of the question once you've had a couple good deals with someone, just... Yeah. Well, we can definitely trade on this basis, information. I don't have any special insight into things but generalities, for sure."

"Sure, that works. I'm Maenik by the way. Would you be willing to tell me your names?"

"Wren."

"Alice!"

"Wait wait WAIT don't fairies steal names or something?"

"I don't think the 'fairy' threat model is the one we ought to be worrying about here. I'm pretty sure you've never told any of us your real name either, little miss Eagle."

"You may call me Grace."

(Too busy messing with the magic bracelet to have heard the question.)

She laughs a little. "I promise I'm not a fairy, I just didn't want to have to point and say hey you. It's good to meet you all. As to information... well the obvious question is what's up with the flying city dropping piles of trash everywhere?"

The bracelet is both more and less complicated than the translation box. On the one hand the maze of passages inside it is a lot simpler. On the other hand the magic it changes just sort of hangs in a cloud around the bracelet by default.

"That's Bastion. They strip the ground as they fly and throw out anything that's not immediately useful or that outlives its welcome to save on weight... Leaving all us down here on the ground to pick through it. Trade it to folk further afield. It's probably better than hunter-gatherer life, all the useful scrap and salvaged electronics and all."

"That sounds incredibly wasteful. I know without magic recycling is harder but metal is one of the easier things to recycle and there seems to be a lot of it here."

"I think they do some recycling on Bastion? But I heard once that it's easier to just - go forward and keep strip-mining. There's big operations that melt it all back into ingots. We're component-pickers though, it's a different niche- You average 'broken' appliance is probably still ninety percent good, and your average frontline scavenger will usually only grab light and compact things- Tablet computers, not fridges."

(The cloud of magic will go onto... That old tire! Does it do anything?)

"Interesting. Things do seem a lot more intact than I would expect for falling from the city. So you trade what you gather for food and medicine and other useful equipment?"

If he holds the magic there for a couple seconds there's a burst of activity. Thin streams of magic burst out and make their way to the ground and the rest of the cloud shifts and spreads evenly through the tire.

NOW can he pick it up with his MIND MAGIC?

"I think about half the trash gets lowered down slowly. They have deals where it all gets dumped relatively gently near frontliners for - intel, or salvage, letting trailer trash like us do the recycling work and sell rare metals or electronics back. I'm not, like, well versed in the economics of it though."

If he tries to move the cloud of magic now it's a bit more sluggish but it does move and carry the tire with it. So yes.

"Interesting, That does sound like a complicated arrangement."

"I can MOVE THINGS with my MIND! Yesssss!"

He will FLING the tire. If he can. (Away from the group.)

"Oh good, you figured it out."

If the magic allows for flinging it isn't immediately obvious how. The tire does accelerate up to a running pace but it's not immediately obvious how to make his magic let go.

The magic started being 'grabby' when it went into the tire, soaking in like syrup. He'll pull it all back OUT. That should do the trick.

"So, would you happen to be able to tell me how to manufacture these- magic tools-"

"I can just give you the basic transmutation templates but you need magic to use them. My magic doesn't really do the artifacts thing that's so common in stories. Atomic transmutation is usually more trouble than it's worth but we can talk about me giving you those too."

"...That one sounds like a bad idea to distribute more widely? If it can turn, say, uranium-238 to plutonium-239."

"That's why I'm not distributing it lightly. It's not like it wouldn't be easy to figure out with the right knowledge though."

"Bastion can do it, and does. It's just a matter of... Access. I wouldn't want every random trash-picking crew to have access to a fission bomb, only the smart ones manage to have reactor powered vehicles..."

The grownups are being boring and talking about things she doesn't understand.

"I want magic too!"

"It's certainly a risk but it's a very time consuming process, and while I said it wouldn't be hard to figure out that's mostly if you know what you're aiming for already and you know enough not to make it go critical before you want it to.

"I'm happy to distribute magic more widely but I don't want to presume."

"You prolly shouldn't decide based on what the first five trash-rats who say hi say either."

"Shareable magic is - huge. Ridiculously huge. This seems very important, actually. Are there - limits on how to share it? Does it run down a resource or anything?"

"There aren't any limits, except time and mental energy everything you do with magic takes those at least a little. Or if there are they are very very high. And the only decisions I'm making based on talking to you are what to give you and maybe where I'll go after I've spent some time with you."

"Hmm. Well, why don't we call it a day with the scavenging, kids?"

There are noises of agreement.

"My truck is also a mobile home. I want to go to the Three Hexes caravan camp and talk more there. I pay an entry fee and they enforce peace inside the camp. It's not that we're likely to find trouble in the field here, but it's better to be safe than sorry. It would be about an hour's drive. Does that sound alright?"

"Sure, that works for me. I'll ride in your truck with you then?"

"Yep, that sounds like a plan."

The kiddos are already heading towards the truck. The boy responsibly offers her the telekinesis-bracelet back.

She follows them to the truck.

"You can keep the bracelet it only took me a few seconds to make."

The truck looks bigger than an Earth-sized 18 wheeler up close, wider and taller, if not that much moreso. There's a flexible connection between the cab and trailer, and two seats and a machine gun turret and a very modest apartment-type arrangement with cramped facilities in the back and a rear cargo area full of shelving and large salvage objects on pallets and a small workbench area.

The ride is fairly rough due to the bad terrain.

"So, an important question I want to answer is- How can we make sure magic makes things better on average rather than worse? Every tool has helpful and destructive uses, right, so..."

"That's an important question and a hard one. In the long term, magic almost always serves to make things better if it's widely distributed. The part about in the long term is important though. Magic mostly serves to raise the floor of how bad someone's life can be. The issue arises in worlds where groups have a vested interest in that floor being low. From my first impression, that seems true of yours."

"I think that's true on... A lot of local scales? It's not- Well, I suppose groups do have such an interest in a lot of ways. And- Well. I guess I don't know much about Bastion's intentions and goals, but it would make sense that there's layers and layers up there, too. 'Bastion' is not a thing- Bastion's military, and their mining companies, and the everyday workers, and the guys giving the orders, are all doing different things that happen to shake out to not caring about the trash-pickers that much. There's Bastards who send --- Charity packages. With cameras on, sometimes. You got to give them a good show of smiley grubby kids overjoyed at toys themed after last season's popular show or whatever, maybe you'll get more. Down here too, there's people who wear the stomping boot and people who want to help."

"That all fits what I've seen of societies. It sounds like you have a healthy attitude. The main thing is that people are complicated. Magic can make life better for almost everyone, the only real exceptions are people who are already fabulously well off that already have magics or technologies to do everything magic can, and some of the people who's comfy life styles depend on people needing to accept bad conditions to survive.

"The issues in the short term come in people trying to prevent the world from changing and people who see the most important thing to do with magic as taking revenge on the people they think wronged them. I don't have a way to prevent either of those from happening. Framing can help and choosing what templates I give people to get started can help but ultimately it's a matter of convincing people a different way is better and there's no simple way to guarantee that."

"My gut is saying that - the people who have good and secure enough lives down here that they'd kill a lot of people to keep what little they have already is relatively small? I'd say we're around average quality of life, our little gang? And if you call it - something other than witchcraft, than magic, maybe it's a novel form of energy-based technology, that will help reception, it's really not the same thing as witches I think? Since it's the same between people? Uh... Avoid the Golden Sow trading company, the guy who runs it is a psycho. Feeds information to Bastion. Runs a protection racket. Feeds people in 'debt' to him to his pig sometimes."

"This wouldn't be the first time when the word magic bothered people. I think the last time it came up I called it Interspatial Interfacing. Eventually I think magic should be available to everyone but I'm not picky about the order so if you think some people would be better to leave for later I'll follow your lead at least for the area near you. The other real tool I have to tune the impact is what templates I hand out. There's limits to how far I would want to take that but reducing things to the basics is fine."

"His reputation is the kind of guy who would cheerfully accept magic and then try to kill you so he has an advantage."

"I've survived being shot at more than a few times but it's not something I enjoy so yes that sounds like a good choice."

"Hmmm."

They can drive quietly for a little while, then. Wren keeps checking the mirrors, sides, and rear camera very frequently.

"Anything you're looking for in particular?"

"Followers, drones, new groups."

She closes her eyes and extends her magic to look out from a ways above the truck. Does she see any obvious robots or people following the truck?

Not at the moment! There are drones further away, and several very distant flying craft, but nothing that seems to be following this particular truck.

"I don't see any nearby drones or people following us. I couldn't say what groups are new vs not."

"-I'll keep checking myself, actually. No offense intended."

"None taken, I'm unfamiliar and I already said I can't distinguish one of the things you said you're looking for."

"So, magic... Food, water, and safety are probably the three biggest concerns to the average person."

"Agreed. There's ways to handle food and water with magic pretty easily. People with magic can do without them if they need to. Safety is more complicated, magic can protect you against weather, against most sorts of wild animals and against some kinds of attacks by other people. People are creative though, there's no such thing as a perfect defense and there's limits to the magnitude of attack magic can protect against."