After a while, they might notice that the plants are spreading from a single area, currently dominated by dry, easily breakable, bushes that they can pass through with minimal effort. Between the bushes smaller plants of various sorts grow, lush green.

The dry bushes are a bit concerning, possibly being parasitized by a smallseed, but nothing else seems affected so they're probably safe. It's odd that the little plants are doing so well that close to the ground. Skei inspects the ground at center of the area with her lamp.

There is a depression on the ground, hard to indentify how deep given all the dried vegetation.

Suddenly, a bizarre creature emerges from a nearby tree, it looks at Kyeskei with black curious eyes.

She calls out a warning and backs away very quickly.

There shouldn't be any new creatures, and she thought they'd catalogued everything that existed. It could be what's killing the bushes, or making the plants so strange.

The creature's beady eyes follow her movements.

In her hurry to back away she takes a step towards the wrong direction, her feet can't find solid ground and she loses balance. She falls.

All the dried plants scratch her skin as she breaks her way through the branches, but they end up cushioning her fall too, during a brief moment she sees a perfectly circle of light above her, then it disappears.

For a moment the place she is in looks like a cave, then a chasm, the wall on her right is natural steep stone going almost vertically. The wall to her left looks natural at a glance, but it's made of large stone boulders and looks very old, the place is damp and intermenently covered with the kind of plants she was examining just a few seconds ago. Otherwise this location is completely unfamiliar.

She screams and tries to protect her head as she falls. Once she lands, she stands up and investigates the walls, rubbing her arms and hoping the cuts don't get infected.

Where is she, and what are the walls even made of? Painted wood, or something that already grew like that? It's so tall. How is this place here and hidden, and why? She looks around, trying not to touch anything.

Plants block one direction. The wall doesn't look like painted wood, it is a weird almost bark-like substance, dark-gray, hard and solid if she inspects it closely. And there more she looks... there hard is to justify how a place like this could be hidden anywhere in the area she was just a moment ago.

She couldn't have fallen through the planet, the fall wasn't nearly long enough. This probably isn't actually a hole someone dug in the ground, the light has to be coming from somewhere. She looks up.

The sky is a blue-ish purple doted by distant orbs of bright light, the sky's view is narrow, but she can see at least a dozen of them.

What.

Okay so right now she is going to assume that this is, despite all improbabilities, a giant hole someone dug and reinforced with weird hard grey trees and lit with something that glows blue with white flowers or something. She leaves a quick note on soft-paper explaining what happens, in case Tsond comes here later or whoever dug this has an explanation and a way back up, then starts walking, keeping the bizarre wood-or-whatever to her right.

the narrow and long corridor she is in keeps going until it abruptly opens to a wide open space doted by more examples of the weird wood-or-whatever, the ground is mix of mud, puddles and plants like the ones that were flourishing in the area she met the bizarre furry creature.

Speaking of bizarre creatures. There is a man in this field, he inspecting a shiny object that he apparently just dug up from the mud. His complexion is oddly pink-ish...

An underground tunnel dug out by someone really good at making weird trees-or-whatever, and some way to get light to everything even without actual sky light, and a blasphemous side project? Well, he doesn't seem to be suffering, so at least whoever did it was probably good at it? It's probably safe to talk to him. She calls out, "Hello?"

He looks up, is momentarily surprised but call back a word that sounds like a greeting. He approaches and now he is moving towards her she will notice how tall he is, maybe eight feet or so.

Oh wow, not just a minor cosmetic change. That's not a language she recognizes, so he's probably not a creation of the other nation, violating safety standards even further than usual. She waves and starts walking toward him.

He meets half way, holding some sort of metallic box that has seen better days under one arm. He tries a couple more languages, none of which she recognizes, he has a very persistent and genuine smile.

What is that box made out of? She could probably make something that looked like that. She shakes her head at the languages, but smiles back once she notices his expression. "Trade language?" she tries.

He shakes his head. He points at himself "Izakin" he says then he points at her.

She points at herself, "Nenfe", then taps herself twice, "Kyeskei Tsi-Dyu Mekto. Kyeskei."

He observes this and imitates her, "Nenfe?", he says inquisitevely pointing at himself, then he taps himself twice, "Izakin."

She points to him and repeats "Nenfe?", looking a little dubious.

Izakin shrugs and then says "human" pointing at himself and then "human" again pointing at her.

There are probably categories that apply to both of them, so she repeats, "Human?"

She pulls out a sheet of soft paper and offers it to him.

Izakin cleans his hands (He did just dig up something from the mud). He writes something and shows her, maybe in hopes they can read-or-write a common language.

The alphabet is completely unfamiliar to her.

She shakes her head and writes a few symbols. When it doesn't look like he understands those either, she draws a few rectangle-clad stick figures, which she smudges over with sticks of teal and yellow until they look green, then another taller stick figure in yellow and pink. She points to the green clump and says "nende", then points to the reddish stick figure and says "Izakin?", and offers him the paper and color-sticks.

Izakin takes the paper and color-sticks.

He makes a couple more reddish stick figure, one with long hair and more feminine curves, another shorter than the other two.

He points at the three reddish stick figures and says "person". Then only at the first one "male". Then to the second one "female". He points at them both "person". He points at himself "male". He points at her "female".

She nods and adjusts the colorful braided bracelet on her wrist. She points to the red figures and repeats "person", and the green "nende", then waves at all of them "human?"

Skei draws a little oval, and an arrow from it with a simple pattern of five symbols in a line, branching into two. She points to the oval, then to the symbols, and gives him an inquisitive look.

"Person." Izakin says waving at all of them. "Human" He says to the red figures. "Human?" He asks about the green figure.

Izakin doesn't understand the symbol, he just looks at her confused.

She shrugs, not clear enough on what the different words mean to know which apply to both of them. She frowns at his confusion, then fishes around in her bag until she finds a small envelope. She taps a small brown seed out of the envelope and offers it to Izakin, holding it out to drop into his hand.

Izakin accepts with a smile (well, he does smile all the time already).

And now he has a seed and all should be obvious?

Well, Izakin looks at the seed up close and then mimics eating it. Is that what should've been obvious?

...

No. What.

She mimes touching something with her hand and thinking?

Izakin says a word that sounds like an exclamation of understanding it.

He takes the paper and draws two simple flowers of different colors. He then points the seed at the first flower. Then he holds the seed and pretends to concentrate hard and says the word "Synth", then he points the seed at the second flower.

She nods emphatically. "Synth! Izakin synth? Izakin synth- nn..." she makes a gesture with her hand, like touching the seed again, then points to the symbols on the page again and looks inquisitive.

"Izakin synth!" He says agreable, but he still looks confused at the symbols.

Well, at least he knows. She starts to say something, then stops, looking frustrated, and mimes speaking.

Izakin thinks for a moment and he mimes walking, he takes the paper again and draws a cluster of houses, he points at the houses and then at distance.

She looks at the drawing in apparent confusion, and shakes her head. She says "Person, human, Izakin...", then continues moving her mouth and looks expectantly at him.

"Speak." Izakin says pointing at his mouth and then miming the act of speaking, "speak," he says again. "Walk." Izakin mimes walking. "Town." He points at distance. "Kiskei Izakin walk town human speak Kyeskei?"

She looks back at the clearing near where she fell, then nods, "Walk 'town'." She starts walking in the direction he pointed.

"Speak?" She nods for a longer time, then looks at him.

"Speak." Izakin nods along, then frowns for a moment.

Maybe they should work on vocabulary. "Right." He raises his right hand and points right. Then repeats the same thing to left, and the directions, front, back, up and down. Waiting to see if she is understanding.

Oh okay, she can learn those words too. She copies the words for directions, and walks backwards a bit to check that they are relative to which way she's facing.

Then she nods, and shakes her head, and says "Speak?"

"Speak?"

"Person, human, walk, right, left, up, down- speak," she nods and gestures at her face, then shakes her head and gestures at it again.

"Speak." Izakin repeats agreeable. "Word? Human. Word. Walk. Word. Right. Word...?"

"Word! Word-" she nods, gesturing to the movement as she makes it, and looks hopefully at him.

"Yes. Word." Izakin nods. "No." Izakin shakes his head.

Good. She repeats these. "Word 'town'?" She points to a distance somewhere to their left, "Town?"

"No town." Izakin says shaking his head, then he points at the correct direction. "Yes town."

Probably not enough context to explain the word. She shrugs and keeps walking. "Word, Kyeskei speak Kyeskei, Izakin speak Izakin?"

"Language." Izakin supplies. "Izakin speak language. Izakin speak Lor language. Kyeskei speak language. Kyeskei speak...?" He waves her to continue.

"No, word - Kyeskei speak word Kyeskei, Izakin speak word Izakin? Kyeskei speak Mebliz language, speak word somebliz?"

"Izakin speak no Mebliz language. Izakin speak no somebliz language."

"Izakin speak no Mebliz language, speak no word somebliz. Kyeskei speak - yes no yes Lor language? Words solor?"

"Kyeskei Lor language words. Kyeskei speak word word word. Kyeskei speak Lor language?"

"Kyeskei speak -" she gestures, holding her hands slightly apart "Lor language?"

"More?" Izakin tries then he holds his hand up for her to wait.

He collects some rocks. "Rock." He holds one up to teach her the word. Then he holds two rocks in a hand and three in the other. "More rocks" he raises the hand with more rocks. "Less rocks" he raises the other hand.

"More- person, more tinende, more human? Word, rock, rocks: less less rock, more rocks?" She picks up a rock, then stops to look at it in complete bafflement. "Rock?"

"Rock." Izakin says slowly. "Rock, rock, rock." He repeats pointing.

"Rock no- synth word? Rock -" she scrapes up a handful of dirt, and squeezes it, then gestures with it. "no synth-word, rock no synth-word?"

"Rock no synth. Rock no... alive." He points at the ground "No alive," Then at himself, her and a nearby plant. "Alive, alive, alive."

"Alive," she nods. She taps a fingernail, tugs on a strand of hair, and mimes pulling a piece off of one of the plants. "Alive?"

"Alive." He echoes.

Well, that's cleared up! "More word, speak less less, less, yes, more, more more?" She holds up a thumb, then thumb and index finger, adding one finger at each pause until her whole hand is splayed.

Izakin provides to her the words for numbers, holding his fingers then indicating a similar quantity of rocks.

Numbers! "Four rocks, two two rocks," four rocks with two in each hand, "Five one rocks, two three rocks," six rocks with three in each hand, "Five five?"

"Ten rocks." And Izakin works her through basic arithmetics and things like tall, short, big and small.

Their math system is bizarre but she mostly gets the hang of it. Adjectives happen! It takes her a few minutes of back and forth talking to consistently place them before the words they're modifying.

He moves on to other basic things like pronouns.

She finally finds out the word for referring to yourself in speech! The plurals of pronouns use completely different words, except when they don't!

She tries several ways of asking about time and distance words to ask when they will get wherever they're going.

Izakin manages distance pretty easily (they're half way there) but it takes some doing until he manages time-related words. He points at the distance and she can see some odd square-ish things that are likely artificial.

(They do their time weirdly, too, and differently weirdly, in groups of sixty.)

Huh. Those are odd looking, why would you put enough effort to get something to grow like that? But it doesn't seem worth the effort of trying to ask until they get closer, so she practices the words she does know.

As they come closer they eventually see more of those people, many as tall as Izakin, but some are her height. No one is green, most are beige-skinned like Izakin, many blink at her in confusion but don't stop to ask questions.

Well. Apparently "humans" are either reproductively viable or someone made a lot of them. They don't seem hostile, at least. She gives them a wide berth and looks down as they pass.

He notices her discomfort and says a couple of things that sound soothing.

Eventually they reach a tall cylindric structure at least four times taller than any of it's neighboors, he gets inside and calls her to follow him.

And inside there is a woman taller than Izakin, she looks up (well, down, she is really tall) from her book and tilts her head when she registers Kyeskei's skin.

She seems somewhat comforted by his tone, and follows him into the building. (Why would anyone bother to make something like it?)

She doesn't remember what Izakin's probably-greeting was, but looks up and says "Hello. I Kyeskei Tsi-Dyu Mekto. I Kyeskei. I one nende. You word? You one human?"

She nods, then says "Sovie," she holds up her hand and writes something on a piece of paper, then she shows her the words "Do you know how to write?"

The words are in some sort of unfamiliar language (the alphabet is unfamiliar too).

Kyeskei can understand them just fine.

... How.

"No? Yes, I write words somebliz, I no write words solor, no write words-" she points to the paper and makes an extremely confused face.

Sovie writes. "Magic. I can translate any writing. If you can write we will be able to communicate."

She nods, then writes in Mebliz (which seems to mostly consist of symbols for words, rather than for sounds), "That is useful but strange. How does it work? Language is not encoded in people's patterns" with the implication that patterns are related to heritable traits, "and there is not contact. Why are you here, and why are the buildings like this, and where is here, and how has it not collapsed, and who created you, and why?"

"This world is called Elsewhere. I am using a sorcery gift," sorcery is transmitted as a kind of life-related magic, "it spends my wakefulness to produce this effect. These buildings are fairly normal to us and stable. I was born, not created, not even altered. Were you altered? Your skin looks like something caused by synth magic," synth is transmitted as a different kind of magic, related to life in a different way than sorcery.

"I have never heard of magic that does anything unrelated to patterns, or costs wakefulness more than any other mental activity does, or can be done without contact. You all look edited, Izakin said humans were synth people, is synth not the same as editing patterns? I am not edited."

She pauses and rereads the first sentence. "This world? I fell here, but not for long enough to fall through the planet."

"Not all humans are synth people, but many are. Synth is editing patterns of a sort, but if the translation isn't rendering them as the same then they might be different things." In response to the world question she writes. "There are worlds connected to this one, sometimes people just vanish where they're from and appear here, but there are portals connecting places too."

"Oh."

Pause.

"I edit patterns to make more useful things. It is good to know that not quite that blasphemy is occurring. I am curious about the difference. Do the holes between worlds remain after people fall through?"

"Holes usually stay, and it looked like you fell through an old one," Sovie writes, then she adds an "really" between "an" and "old".

"What do you mean with blasphemy?"

"Then there might eventually be more contact, and possibly trade, between our worlds? And I should see my housemate again. Good.

"It is blasphemous and wrong to edit a person's patterns. It is treating them like a lower plant, to be edited for usefulness, and has never been done without introducing debilitating or lethal mistakes. Synth apparently lacks this problem."

"Trade between worlds would be good. We can see to at least returning you to your housemate. It is possible to make mistakes with synth, but making people healthier, stronger and longer lived is simple enough that it was discovered independently many times during ancient times. Mistakes would be considered medical malpractice instead of blasphemy."

She pauses to think for a few breaths.

"I apologize if this is rude, but might I compare a sample of synth and non synth human patterns, to figure out whether it could theoretically be accomplished by editing, and whether it seems like it could work on tinende? From whichever stage, and not necessarily from someone alive, if that helps?"

"I can't guarantee a completely non synth pattern. But if anyone is likely to have one it is my stepsons. I am on the higher end of synth change and they are at least on the lower range."

"Thank you. I hope that this will make it possible to similarly improve the lives of tinenfe, or at least to find out whether it might be possible. What relation is a 'stepson'?

"I cannot make trade agreements on anyone else's behalf, but I am a fairly good engineer. Once I have a better understanding of the limitations of synth engineering, I might be able to offer plants that would be more difficult to design with synth?"

"Stepson is the son of someone's spouse. He is the son of my former husband, I raised him."

"And that sounds like something people would be interested in."

"To compare, I will need to touch either you and your stepsons or separated parts of your bodies, or your other stages, whichever you are most comfortable with."

"Would you need to touch other parts besides the arms and head? What do you mean with stages?"

"No, anywhere with the same pattern will do. If any of you were uncomfortable with me having the information about the patterns affected by your lives, I could use the patterns of your vines instead.

"Oh," Sovie says out loud, then continues writing. "Another species difference. We don't have vines. We do sort of have stages, but they don't include vines. I don't expect different parts of me to have different patterns, but that might depend on how patterns work."

She looks deeply confused, but does not ask about where humans come from. "Some things that happen to people in life affect their patterns. If, for example, someone once had a small-seed infection, the patterns in their arm would be slightly altered, and someone reading the pattern would be able to guess that they had had an infection there."

"There are things that could do that, but they are not common. I am not sure synth could detect them, but if you can there is no trouble."

"As long as you all know ahead of time. I can do it however and whenever you prefer."

Nod. "My stepson has a memory-related power." She starts writing then she writes above that line. "You should know." Before returning to the line below. "He can duplicate, erase or enforce them. He is responsible and won't use it on you unless you explicit ask."

"As long as he does not use it on me, I do not mind that he could."

"Good." She asks Izakin to bring Ezra along and then tells Kyeskei she did that.

After a thoughtful pause she writes. "The portal you came through must be world. And I wonder if your people met the precursor civilizations. Or are themselves that."

She thanks Sovie for the information.

"Precursor civilizations? What do you mean?"

"A long, long time ago, Elsewhere inhabited by different people. They died out mysteriously. You likely found one of their portals or something."

"That is sad. I expect it would take several towns' worth of people to start a civilization in a new world, and would expect their parent-towns to have continued contact with them and informed everyone else of the other world. It's possible one of the collapsed nations lost several villages worth of people, but I would still expect someone to have found records of it."

"I would've expected someone would've found the portal sooner. Maybe it's something else completely different."

In comes a man in his twenties, looking like he just woke up and put something that wasn't pajamas on because there was a extradimensional visitor around to see him. He says something that sounds like a greeting and hugs Sovie.

Sovie introduces his as Ezra, her stepson.

Well, she isn't going to judge him; the sky is weird here and it might be any time of day.

"Hello, Ezra. I am Kyeskei Tsi-Dyu Mekto" (which comes across as containing some information about her family, her village, and her age) "Have you been informed that I plan to inspect your pattern and compare it to Sovie's? Is this acceptable to you, and if so, do you have a preference about whether the material I read your pattern from is still attached to your body?"

"As long it's just looking, I don't have any objections. Attached should be more convenient than separating anything. Do I need to do anything besides offering contact?"

"No. Oh, may I write down the pattern I see? I can burn the paper after the comparison, if you want." She pulls out one of her own blank pages of soft paper and holds out a hand on the table, palm upward.

"I won't mind," and he touches her open palm.

His patterns are very distinctive from her own.

She looks very surprised for a moment, but this is quickly replaced with deep concentration. After a few minutes, she draws a branching symbol near the center and top of the page, and begins writing out two strings of symbols, with three symbols per row in each string. Eventually, each of these strings branches into two more strings, in different places. By the time she finishes, about fifteen minutes later, the strings have branched into thirty six strings of symbols, ending in different places, across two pages, front and back. She double checks her record, then releases his hand and labels the top of each page with a number, and the first page with "Nezla", which she scribbles out a consonant of to make "Ezla".

They observe this but don't comment. At some point Sovie momentarily leaves the room, but is back before Kyeskei has time to comment.

"Would you like some tea?" Sovie asks once Kyeskei is done.

She did not particularly notice Sovie leaving the room, or returning.

"Yes please, if it is convenient."

They server some tea along side some fruits (they don't know what animal products would do to her).

When it's her turn, Sovie raises a hand.

There is definitely something altered about Sovie's patterns. Some even feel... doubled, or extra. Added on top of others instead of changed.

(The drink and fruits have interesting and novel flavors.)

 She blinks in bewilderment. It feels almost but not quite like reading two patterns at once, but they clearly go together, there's even a section that's not doubled at all. She gets out another two sheets of soft paper and begins writing, frowning in concentration. After about half an hour of writing symbols and occasionally scribbling out strings and rewriting them on the other set of pages, she has a total of sixty five different strings on the two pages, with seven strings branching from the same earlier string circled and the same in both sets, and twenty nine different in each set. She numbers the pages and labels them "Sovi - i" and "Sovi - a", then stretches her hand as she compares them to her record of Ezra's pattern.

After her hand is stretched, she writes and says "It looks like instead of changing your patterns, you might have another set of patterns added? Nothing was changed or added in this section," she points to the circled region of both patterns "which seems to mostly be things about your brain and connections from it to other parts of your body. This-" she taps the two pages that seem more like Ezra's patterns "seems more similar to his patterns, while the other is significantly different. It is possible the first is what your pattern would be without the synth, but I am not sure."

"That makes a lot of sense. Using synth in the brain is possible but rare," she pauses in her writing, "and could be compared to what you called blasphemous."

"I will be sure not to suggest it, then. The other changes seem to be general changes to individual parts of your body. I will need to look at them more closely and compare them to the unmodified pattern to understand the effects of the changes, and to figure out which would be applicable to tinenfe."

"What types of engineering might be useful to trade? I can usually accomplish any effect on a plant, but for any responsiveness or specific chemical effects, it is much faster to use an original plant that already has some of the aspect I need."

"I am not sure what effects you can accomplish? I got the impression you can make them grow in useful shapes?" Pause. "Can you make plants that move? Or have senses?"

"Yes and yes, but- some simple plants have some amount of of reflexive movement or responses to stimuli, and it is much more efficient to modify one of those to move in a different way, or in response to different stimuli. It is easy to get some of them to respond to pressure, or temperature, and to specific substances, but nobody has successfully made a sedentary plant with hearing or vision."

"I am pretty sure no one ever managed to make a synth-modified plant with hearing or vision. Maybe not even with sorcery. Some can resposively move in specific ways, but not as fast as you and me and definitely not as versatile. Do you have..." pause in her writing to think, "trained mobile plants? That you can order in simple ways to do simple tasks?"

"No. Mobile plants are complex, and I could not make a new one without an example. Sedentary plants do not have brains, and can respond in specifically engineered ways to stimuli, but cannot make decisions or respond to orders."

Topher says something to Sovie and then takes the pen. "I think the very different cultural backgrounds might be working against us here. With your permission," he underlines the word three times, "would you accept if I showed you what things we use plants for and some of the limitations? And, again with your permission, would you mind sharing memories of the same?"

She pauses to think, then writes "I accept both, but may need instruction."

"We should take a few minutes to think about what we know about plants and compose a mental summary. Then we touch hands and exchange summaries. Background assumptions would tag along so we would get a sense of things that the other takes for granted on the subject."

"I will do so."

She thinks about what unmodified plants are like, sedentary and mobile, and the sorts of changes that are made to them. The engineering she does with them, the relative difficulties of different edits, other people's designs.

"I'm ready."

Topher sends first. A general summary of plants: what are they; what they can do; what they can used for. Plants in this world are sedentary. There is magic that can do quite a lot to plants, even making them magical, but even just making one single leaf react to sound or move on it's own would be high grade magic. Plants are used as food, fuel and material there is a strong implication that this world has an abundance of different materials, because wood is implied to be used as a secondary material for tools (like in the handles of hammers and axes) or as one option among many for construction materials (where the wood is cut, because making it grow the right way is hassle)... it goes like this.

She absorbs the information, and incorporates the differences into her own summary.

Most plants are sedentary. There are trees and vines and bushes and grasses, which are large enough to see, and small-seeds, which are not. Small-seeds generally grow on surfaces, or get beneath the surface of another plant and consume it from the inside out, or consume already-dead material. Some larger plants have a second stage that is mobile, which emerges from a part of the plant's sedentary stage and moves independently. It is not possible to engineer a plant to be magical. Mobile plants all have some touch-based editing ability, although the specifics depend upon the species. Plants are used as food, fuel, and material, but the only materials available that are not plant matter are water and soil.

Examples of engineering: trees that branch out and merge with themselves to form hollow rooms with doors and windows for people to live in, fuzzy vines that wrap around each other to weave fabrics, paper trees of both varieties with large scales of bark that break off at the right size, grass that glows in the dark, a bush with berries that catch fire when crushed. Changing details of something while letting it mostly do what it was already doing are easy, changing the chemicals beyond simple pigments is hard, and so on...

"I am not aware if we have small-seeds. Sorcery and synth can do some of the things pattern-editing does, but I got a sense that your way is a lot more straightforward and doesn't spend lifeforce."

"Lifeforce? Such as Sovie's translation costing her wakefulness? But yes, editing is a mental activity that only costs effort and attention, like any other."

"Yes. Wakefulness is one of the five lifeforce components: breath; stamina; wakefulness; health and youth. My memory power also spends wakefulness and I have a cold-aura power that spends stamina, every sorcery power spends an aspect like that. Synth is a different thing from sorcery but spends both stamina and wakefulness to even just checking people's patterns."

"It is sad that it costs you. Is there anything obvious that would be particularly useful to have edited, but too expensive to be worth using synth for?"

"I get a sense that some of your things are better for the enviroment than ours." He pauses and adds. "Sometimes our method of making things leaves byproducts that can be toxic or otherwise undesireable. I don't think they might be worthwile to replace our way to build houses, but I could see some people interested in that for the novelty. And if the plants can grow on their own they could be useful for places that have less contact with civilization or don't want to bother with the complicated infrastructure to turn plant matter into paper and things like that."

"Sometimes, if someone is not careful, plants create large amounts of irritating or toxic pollen or other substances. I am careful, though. I think I should be able to reconstruct a plant like the soft paper tree from a local plant, and allow it produce viable seeds."

"We could test that. Might be useful testing if you lifeforce works normally or if you can do sorcery."

"If it is possible and not too difficult to check without risking permanent damage, it seems like a good idea, yes."

"Checking to see if your lifeforce works like ours wouldn't risk permanent damage. If it does, it is likely safe for you to cast a sorcery ritual."

"Then at a convenient time, assuming it's not a costly test, I would like to check."

"It would be no trouble. We are going to need a few minutes to set that up." Pause. "We should figure out where are you going to stay? It can be here if you are comfortable with that."

"I am comfortable with wherever is most convenient. I suppose that if your buildings do not grow, there must be fewer empty homes."

"Do yours grow that fast? We have a spare bedroom. It is likely we could return you to your world today, but it sounds more complicated than staying here overnight."

"No, but many grow at once, and usually more than are needed. I should return some time before my housemate becomes too worried. I agree staying seems a better plan for tonight. When is your night?"

"It's is going to get dark in about two hours. I actually control the day-night cycle in the area."

"In my world, the day-night cycle is the same for the entire planet. Is this another thing you change with sorcery?"

"Not quite. It only applies to Elsewhere, our light is provided by crystals floating above the surface and their light output can be manipulated to a proper day-night cycle."

"Our light is provided by the edge of the god, which forms a uniformly glowing bubble around the planet, whose light changes color and brightness throughout the day. If you can change the length of your days, how long do you make them?"

Sovie thinks for a moment how to address the bit about "god", but first she writes.

"Day-night work differently in the other worlds and we just match one that for convenience. Other worlds are spheres that spin around their own axis and are lit by large burning balls of fire called stars or sun (if it's the star lighting your world)."

... She stares in bewilderment and vague disbelief at the page for a few seconds before composing herself to write back.

"A sphere does not seem like a good shape for a planet. But if they exist and have people and day cycles, then it makes sense to choose yours to match."

Sovie gives her a shy smile. "We make do with our spheres. They are really big spheres. Elsewhere is different in that it is a flat floating plane of rock with magic tying everything together."

Nod. "Rock is the substance like very hard soil, yes?"

"Yes. We should give you a more permanent translation spell and an encyclopedia."

"I would appreciate that, if the magic expenses make it a better tradeoff than continuing to translate like this, or waiting for me to learn Lor language, or getting someone better from my world."

"The spell spends overall more, but requires less active attention and works on speech."

She shrugs. "I cannot make the tradeoff for you, but if you think it is worthwhile, I would appreciate it."

"I do, thank you. We will have it set up shortly."

"Thank you! Is there anything similarly useful I might be able to do for you within about the same amount of time?"

"I don't know. I am personally tempted by the paper-trees, but I don't know how much work those would be."

"It should be fairly straightforward to reconstruct something similar, especially with the soft paper I already have with me to use as an example. Are there tree seeds available that grow into trees whose bark peels in sections already?"

"I think we have some seeds for trees whose bark peels, but not in sections?"

"I should be able to do something with that. Does it grow reasonably well, or should I look to changing anything other than its bark?"

"I don't know much yet. We can make things grow fast though, so getting usable paper should be enough."

Nod. "In that case, if I see a simple way to make it grow more quickly or healthily, I will do do, to spare the costs of your magic. Do you want them to propogate themselves, or need to be planted by people?"

"Planted by people sounds better for safety's sake. Thank you. You really don't have to."

"I will not have it self-propogate, then. I may not need to, but I likely can. And You have been very kind, and I would like to be useful."

Sovie smiles. "I am going to search for the seeds, it should be here somewhere."

Izakin is back. They've prepared the translation ritual.

She writes, "What do I need to do?", then stops, unsure if he can read it without Sovie there.

Sovie can't work at a distance, but she is willing to inform her before going seed-searching. All she needs to do is to sit in a circle over there and hold this etched stone.

She does so, trying not to seem too confused by the stone.

And eventually. "Is it working?" The effect is similar to the written translation, but for speech.

"Yes! Thank you!"

"You're welcome. What else do you need to get settled for the night? It might be easier to get that right out of the way soon."

"I think just a hammock and fabrics? And yes, might as well set that up while we are thinking of it."

They go do that. They have hammocks and also beds, but they understand that she isn't used to those.

The description of beds makes them seem a bit like better-padded sleeping bags, but she can probably sleep wherever is convenient. Hammocks are usually the easiest to set up on short notice, though.

They have hammocks they set one up for her.

That is very nice of them. Do they want to check whether she had lifeforce for sorcery now, or later on?

Now is good. Would she mind standing on another circle while they do seemingly random things to produce magical effects?

She would not mind! She stands where they indicate, and cooperates with instructions.

And soon enough: magic! In the form of a tiny glowing ball of light that she can move around and change color, it leaves her feeling like she is making a physical effort like holding her hand, but nothing hard to manage.

Exciting! (She may be fluttering her fingers, a bit.)

She swirls the ball around in the air, then pulls it into a blobby spiral. Can she make it brighter or dimmer, or multiple colors, or separate pieces?

She can't do separated pieces. But drighter and dimmer are easy. Multiple colors is trickier, giving a gradient effect.

She tries to make a dim twist of orange light, with attached spheres transitioning through yellow to white. Once she thinks she knows enough to figure out more later, she remembers herself and pauses.

"Thank you! Will I be able to do this on my own? Is there more I should try, or know, or do? How can I be appropriately cautious?"

"As long you do the ritual right. We probably should try rituals that test your other non-youth lifeforce aspects. The important thing with sorcery is not to overexert yourself and only try well-designed rituals."

Serious nod. She tries to stop doing the light, to pay more attention.

The light winks out.

Oh good.

"What should I try first? Or should I wait?"

"Try with sorcery?"

"Yes, unless I ought to be trying or doing something else first?"