"Ehh... Making magic work apparently involves special scrolls and writing things on large keystones or obelisks. And then the shrines make everyone who does the right things and wears the right clothes and works in the right building get a Job, which gives you magic, it's- We have to be scouts, be really intense about it. Codenames! Hand signals! Marking trails, making maps! Or we lose the Scout job. And all the magic that comes with the Scout job. But I tried painting over the stuff in our island's shrine, and doing the rituals as best as old legends told them which was probably terrible, and it wasn't working at all, fewer and fewer people could get the Fishing job, and there was only one woman who still had Shipwright and she died of old age, and... Well, it's a lot harder to do well for yourself without jobs."

"There's magic for fishing?"

"There's a Fishing job. It makes your boat faster and let's you control nets."

"And jobs are not just... occupations, but rather roles with associated spellcasting perks?"

"Oh, yeah, there's jobs and then there's Jobs."

"What makes something a magical job?"

"That's the part I don't understand! Sorry!"

"How do you... tell... whether a job is magical or not and how to do the magic associated with it?"

"The big central obelisk on Onbu gives you vibes if you try to read it. That's how we know what things are Scouty, for example. I imagine the shrines did too once, before the Carpenters stopped visiting- They always rode Onbus, so probably Onbus are really magical."

"Huh. Can anybody go have a look at your magic obelisk?"

"I think so yeah. They only let the, like, six guys who got Researcher write on it, though."

"Oh, writing on is is involved? What do they write?"

"It all looks like nonsense to me. Sometimes single words stick out, like 'wood' or 'mushrooms'."

They're visibly making progress- The Onbu seems a little bigger now.

"They don't explain it? Or can't?"

"They seem to be going with hunches that Researcher gives them and inventing stuff about it. Like, 'oh, obviously this represents the journey of energy as it flows through the farm and forms a dome'. Or maybe I'm just not very bright."

"... weird."

"Right?? But weird is a lot better than dead, which is what I'd probably be if there wasn't Onbu magic."

"They seem essential! At least, uh, now? People used to be able to live more places than that and now can't?"

"Because they relied on the Carpenters for magic, and don't have it anymore. Also because of the poison fungus."

"Are those things related?"

"Probably. Hey, what about you? What do summon people do when they're not summoned in some creepy old lab by accident?"

"Oh, I play the violin and read a lot of books and sometimes I spend a decade or three studying up on this or that academic topic or learning a language the long way. It's lovely but I've got nothing on at home that I can't drop to see about improving this place, it looks like it could use some help!"

"Oh yeah, we're just about muddling along but it's pretty scary reading the daily reports on Onbu's health and what we can and can't do about it."

"It's sick?"

"Accumulated injuries and stress. And parasites. And the fungus. And an Onbu-sized appetite!"