Her war-gymnastics lessons continue. Nue helps her refine the techniques she has already learned, and she shows her a few techniques that she will not be able to use until much later (if at all, depending on how she specializes), but for which form is important enough to practice in advance.

The wizards can send back articles of her clothes if that will help refine the spell, she can buy new ones locally.

The wizards appreciate that! They can't immediately check on how the clothes are doing, because they haven't sunk any time into improving that. They do bring the clothes back. What's left of them, anyway. They will need to keep trying.

The promised shezodza, xæmā, and thievery experts finally arrive, and join in on one of her lessons with Nue.

"Lintalai, as promised, your experts. This is Lintalai- oh, I never asked after your family name. Is there a better way to introduce you?"

"We don't do family names. We do job names and sometimes blues do job names that are the name of where they work? I could be Lintalai Arcadia."

"-alright. Lintalai Arcadia. Lintalai, these are Torrig Teneherk, Hadrol Rutsk, and Bharrik Ramanurk. Torrig," she indicates a shorter humanoid whose clothing is light and flowy, "is a master zodje,"Hadrol," she indicates the tallest humanoid, who carries a wooden staff, "is a master xæmor, and Bharrik," she indicates a shorter humanoid whose face is obscured by a hood, "is a master thief.".

"Hello, pleased to meet you!"

"Hmph," acknowledges Torrig.

"How wonderful, that the orb shines upon our meeting," says Hadrol.

"Charmed," whispers Bharrik.

"I'll let you lead the discussion, Lintalai. I believe you had some questions about plant magic and predicting the future?"

"Yeah! I want to know whether being a plant myself would affect plant magic, and how good predicting the future can get."

"Hadrol might know something about plants," Nue says, as Hadrol vibrates with enthusiasm.

"There are so few sapient plants, and none that look like langbrud. Are there many of you on Amenta? Do you photosynthesize? How do you eat?"

"I eat - only plants, not animal products - and I do seem to photosynthesize. There are more of us but I don't know much about them because I was abandoned with amnesia when I was littler."

"Amazing...I don't think most of my abilities would change if I were a plant, although you may find that you have a special advantage at communicating with plants and communing with spirits- most spirits are associated with animals, and they may appreciate your decision not to eat the species they represent."

"Huh! I didn't realize they'd care about that - it's not a decision really, meat just looks like not-food -"

"It's fascinating, really. Individual animals don't always care, but they don't have spirits. Species have spirits, and they care very much. Some plant species have spirits, but they are much rarer. One that I've encountered, two which I believe to exist, and some that are rumored to exist but I have seen no evidence of."

"Which species have them?"

"Large cats, bulls, and hyenas are just a few animals that have spirits...as for plants, tea and silphium are the plant spirits I believe may exist, and jasmine, I have encountered myself."

"Huh! I wonder why those."

"The animals, I believe it's connected to how personable they are. There are not many insect spirits. For the plants- I admit I have no idea why jasmine's spirit is so active, but tea and silphium might have spirits because of how many people value them. That is usually why spirits and gods arrive."

"Do people-species have spirits, or are those just gods?"

"It's such a fascinating question, isn't it? There are gods whose entire focus seems to be a particular species- there are several gods that only seem to want jotunbrud worshipers, and there are famously a few feuding daragarum gods."

"What are jotunbrud and daragarum?"