Well, there is still a forest, on one side at least. The trees are completely different, though. Not just not burnt, but a totally different kind of tree, and unfamiliar kind at that, with a wide river that wasn't there before as well.

And looking in the other direction, there's something else entirely. A cluster of boxy buildings, all close together and colored in various earthy browns, oranges, and reds and whose colors are distributed seemingly almost at random, stretching for a few miles up and down a coast that was possibly not there before either, centered on the mouth of the river as it spills out into the sea, where there are some docks and where some ships settled on the water are tied off.

There's definitely quite a few people milling around down below, between the buildings. Honestly, it's a lot of people.

What. What. Where is he, he was nowhere near the coast.

The color scheme would be strange (but very cool) for an individual, but with a crowd like that he'd bet it's not, not that he has an alternative hypothesis. He sends the ship in that direction, anyway; maybe peoples' reaction to him will give him some clues as to what's going on.

His colors stand out against the still-overcast sky quite well, so people notice him coming in pretty early. A few people, ones who are sitting down eating or doing various other stationary activities might gawk and wave, but the ones who are up and about don't seem to pay him much mind, at least initially.

Once he's been headed down for a bit (though still a few times too far for his communication to reach), a small group of people up on the roof of one of the taller buildings underneath him wheel out some kind of contraption, hold a part of it up to their mouth, and project a fast-paced sequence of amplified mouth-sounds at him. It's not anywhere near as loud as an emergency alarm, but it's definitely still pretty loud, given how clear he can hear it despite still being a way's up.

This isn't illuminating.

It doesn't seem unfriendly, though, so he heads in that direction, and once he's got the ship's propellers set he makes a set of sound reducing headphones to rest just forward of his ears where he can put them on quickly if they decide to be painfully loud, and adds a glyph to the front of his ship indicating that he's not hostile.

They seem a bit perturbed by something, which is a bit confusing. Then when he forms the glyph on the front of his ship, they outright panic, scrambling away from his ship and back inside the rooftop door they initially emerged from. One of them bumps into the contraption as they flee, knocking it over and causing it to produce a brief but even louder and painfully sharp sound before going quiet again.

A moment later, there's more mouth-sounds coming out of the building, though it's duller, maybe echoing up off the ground and the buildings rather than being projected directly at him. And now everybody on the street is panicking too, rushing into buildings when they can or else just running away from his ship.

Oops. (Also, ow.)

He adjusts his ballast to head back up into the sky and makes himself a telescope, both to keep an eye on the people below and to see if he can spot any other settlements in the area.

There are smaller settlements, or at least clusters of buildings, all with a similar box style though much smaller in scale, at regular intervals up the river. There's also a path of cleared trees with rail-tracks that runs parallel to the river that goes past the horizon which probably goes somewhere.

A few minutes later, when he's checking on the people below, he may notice that a group of five people dressed the same, in a different kind of clothing from the people earlier, green- and black-barred suits and paints with shiny pins on their breasts, are...flying towards him. Not in any kind of vehicle, just levitating at him, swaying through the air like they're being carried by an enormous, invisible bird. They're approaching at significant speed.

Um.

His house should have a clear protective bubble around it now, close enough in that they can get into communication range but not much closer than that.

He'll even add a landing pad, as an afterthought, if he has time.

They reach his elevation only a few moments later, but don't collide with the bubble, instead circling around him, not landing regardless of whether he's provided a surface to do so on or not. The five of them make more mouth-sounds at him, all in unison. They sound more forceful than before, but there's also an undercurrent of fear and uncertainty in their harmony.

Well he can't communicate with them if they won't get close enough, unless they know the same writing system he does, which he seriously doubts. And also, it has occurred to him that the most likely explanation here is that they have whatever tier of crafting comes after the type he can do, which suggests they are to him as he is to crows and elephants, which is not a position he feels optimistic about being in in the slightest. He watches them as they circle; he doesn't have much hope of keeping the fear and submission out of his body language, and he's not particularly trying, but he's not taking any actions about that, either.

They circle another couple times, without making anymore mouth-sounds. Then, they finally alight on the landing pad they've been offered.

If he's still keeping an eye out, he may be distressed to notice that other groups of flying people are emerging from the settlement below. They aren't rising up yet, but the way they're all starting to circle, at all the various distances, is plausibly unsettling, and perhaps give the impression of carrion birds in waiting.

For better or worse he's not looking at the land below the ship right now.

When the flying people land, he steps forward to the leading edge of the ship, into communication range. He's not looking at them at all, or addressing them with his body language, it'll almost seem incidental that he's gone there, but they get a vague impression as he comes into range that he's uncertain of the situation, and then he flinches slightly and glances more directly at them and the impression strengthens into an understanding that he doesn't know how he came to be here and he doesn't mean to trespass or cause any harm.

The flying people don't seem to react all that much either, but there's a period of time where they're quiet, perhaps deliberating. Then they make some more mouth-sounds, still quite firm but again with a more information than demanding tone. Then they fly off, heading back down and joining the ?flock? of flying people. Others break off from the flock and head further down, back to the ground, quickly disappearing into one the largest buildings.

He looks down when they fly away, and yeah, that's not great.

He heads inside for a minute to get a mass of crafting material, and brings his dog up with him when he comes back, to wait in the front of the ship and craft himself and his dog a backup vehicle just in case something happens to his house.

Nobody approaches again for a while, then the flying people went into the building come back out with another person, dressed in white and looking both afraid and maybe kind of excited. Then, the lot of them all fly back up, though the white-clad one looks distinctly less coordinated, flopping around in the wind a bit whereas the flying people are unruffled.

Then they're alighted back on the landing pad. The white-clad makes some mouth-sounds immediately, directed to the flying people and not him. Their tone portrays the same mix of fear and excitement as their posture. The flying people make some mouth-sounds back with an inquisitive tone, the white-clad one replies, and then the flying people turn back to him and make further mouth-sounds, with a tone somewhere between pleading and demanding.

He's calmed down some by this point, though not enough that he's inclined to look at them before they address him. When they do, he looks up from petting the dog, and they'll get the impression that he can't understand their sounds - he believes that they're trying to communicate but his species doesn't communicate that way, only the way he's doing it and by writing. He's guessing that they're not communicating by this method for some reason related to the norms of their species or culture; they do have his permission to communicate with him this way if they need it. Or if they indicate that he should stop he'll do that; he can understand their tone of voice, he thinks.

The flying people don't react much, visually, but make some inquisitive mouth-sounds at the white-clad one, who replies with an excited babble. They discuss for a while, then the flying people face him again and make an inquisitive mouth-sound, before the glyph on the front of his ship is audibly thumped three times in fairly quick succession.

He tenses up considerably when they thump on his ship: He wants them to know that his species has instincts that will react very badly to them interacting with his things or especially his body, with an exception for objects that he's colored grey or clear to indicate that they're available for public use. (The landing pad is clear with a grey border and grey marbled swirl throughout the floor.) The glyph on the front of the ship where they thumped (his ship, still, probably; he's anxious about that now) is an example of the writing system he knows; it's used to denote things that are benign. He has a book printer and ansible to the library on the world he's from aboard and can print them a set of dictionaries if they want, though it'll take a couple hours.

The white-clad one recoils a bit, and berates the flying people briefly, before being quieted with some retaliatory mouth-sounds. Then the flying-people make one at him as well, which sounds probably affirmative? Also possibly apologetic.

Okay: He'll go get the printer started when they indicate that they're done with him. Or, uh - he takes a chunk of material from the ship's railing to reshape into a sign, which he puts a glyph on before setting it up facing them and communicating that the glyph there means 'now', so they can indicate it.

There's a brief but visible reaction, a keying up of tension as he sculpts the chunk of material, among the flying people, before the white-clad one talks to them more and seems to calm them down. They discuss for a short while after that, then the white-clad one gestures pretty distinctly to the sign that he's provided. Then flying people take the white-clad one back down to the ground and are replaced on the landing pad by another group of five.

A couple minutes later, the flock of flying people is shrinking, most of them heading back down to the ground and entering various buildings, then exiting again a minute or two later, and repeating the process. After maybe half an hour, the flock of flying people has reduced to maybe a tenth the size (which is still a pretty scary number of people, all things considered), and people down on the ground are back to milling about, though now it a palpable anxiety to their collective movements. People are glancing up at the ship frequently.

He doesn't notice the initial burst of tension, distracted as he is with is crafting; he does look up when they start talking but goes back to it when it's clear they aren't addressing him. He heads back downstairs when they tell him to, with the dog following close beside him, and when the new group shows up they'll find him feeding the beginning of a roll of paper into a slot on top of a box bulky enough that they may be a little surprised he was able to bring it up to the deck so easily. He glances up when they land, but he presses some buttons on the printer before he steps back to the front of the ship, and after a minute it begins printing.

Back with the others, he lets them know after another false start that he's currently getting a list of book codes and he'll be able to start with the dictionaries when it's done, and then takes another chunk of railing to make more signs.

They do not seem surprised by the bulk of the machine he's presumably going to print the books with.

The flying people on the landing pad give him another affirmative-sounding vocalization, and wait, watching him, the dog, and printer all with some interest and considerable wariness.

He makes signs and translates them as he puts them up: yes, no, something else, and more complicated. He checks the printer when he's done, waits a few moments to get its printout, enters another code to start it printing, and comes back.

He's very confused about what's going on here and doesn't want to bother them - if they want him to leave he will - but if they'd like to humor him in attempting to figure it out and don't want to communicate with him via crafting - or if they can't for whatever reason, he's noticed that they're hard to communicate with and doesn't know what that implies about anything but they shouldn't find the same trait in him, if they're just assuming it's not possible that's probably false - then he'd like to try explaining what he knows and what his guesses are and they can indicate when he seems to be on the wrong track, and he'll probably find that useful.

The nearest of the five will gesture at the 'more complicated' sign when he conveys the possibility of them wanting him to leave, then the 'yes' sign when he mentions figuring out what's going on, then 'something else' at them not wanting to communicate, 'yes' and 'more complicated' with different hands at them being unable to communicate, 'yes' and 'more complicated' simultaneously again at him not having the same quality that makes communication difficult, and just 'yes' when he proposes him sharing his guesses.