"It's a place on a floor with a spell on it, and when somebody stands there they get the spell! So for this one you'd be able to get an audience together and all listen to Cochik and understand him."

"Oh, that is good!"

"Yeah! I mostly make magic traps but I picked up rune circles a couple of years ago and they're a lot of fun."

"What are the traps for?"

    "For if someone's attacking your city or your castle or whatever, mostly. Oferst got overrun by drow a century or so ago and Cochik's and Rannura's people just got it back, so they want a lot of traps down in the mines and things in case they break through again."

"Drow are a kind of elf that lives underground, they're very dangerous."

"Why are they so dangerous?"

He switches over to the local language. "It's a combination of things - they have a lot of magic, they're pretty well organized, you can't expect them to follow treaties, that kind of thing."

"Can I help with the rune circle?"

"Sure! I probably won't be able to explain it well enough to really be satisfying if you don't know anything about our magic, but I can still use an assistant! - oh, hey Rannura," she says to the dwarf who's come back out of her room with a pack on her back. "Raafi's got a teleport, we can leave as soon as Cochik's ready."

    "And you?"

"-right, I suppose I should go get my stuff together. I won't be long," she assures Raafi and Skon, and goes to do that.

Skon explores the strangely proportioned house while he waits.

The rooms the group has been going into are all on one side; on the other, an open doorway leads to a somewhat smaller room with a fireplace set into the wall - this one unlit - and blocks of stone to form a rectangular table flanked with two more benches. The lack of decorations other than the stonework continues here, as does the detailing - there's a relief carving of alien creatures around the fireplace, and subtle leafy patterns on the furniture.

It's very cool and will keep him occupied till the humanoids want to leave.

They're another fifteen minutes packing up and doing a final sweep of the house - and good thing, they nearly leave one of the magic items Prince Maziar loaned them behind - and then Raafi can teleport the group to his hotel room back in town.

    "Woah," says Janow, looking around. "Why's everything so big?"

"So that females can fit in it," says Skon. "I guess Traveler could've fit in a males-only room but only if he got down on all his limbs? And maybe that isn't comfortable?"

"It's really not, for anything besides sleeping. And I'm not hurting for money at all, so this is fine. But yes, the females of this species are very big."

    "Huh! How does that work?"

(Raafi starts leading the way outside and to the school.)

"What do you mean?" asks Skon.

There are females on the street; some of them watch the humanoids curiously.

"I dunno, just - none of our species are like that. It seems like it'd be hard to make everything work for everybody if half of you are little like us and half of you are huge."

(Cochik watches the females warily and strums at his lyre. "That'll attract attention," Raafi comments quietly, and he stops.)

"Maybe your architects have an easier time? I don't know, aren't you smaller when you're children? Is that hard?" says Skon. "What do you mean about attention -"

    "Kids start out tiny but they have grownups to help them? And they don't stay that small that long."

"I tried humming on my morning walk once and I had people coming from the next street over to see what the sound was. Not that you can't play if you want to, Cochik."

        "I'm good."

"We can't hum," says Skon.

"I guess that explains it."

    "I wonder if I can turn into one of those," Janow muses. "I guess there's probably no reason I couldn't."

"Ooh, do it! I want to know what you think it's like to be a person!" chirps Skon.

Janow giggles and casts, growing into her new shape over the course of a couple seconds. "Oh, that's cool, I like the legs, it's so steady. Hey Rannura, try to tip me over."

The dwarf considers this for a moment, feints left, and proceeds to knock all three of Janow's right legs out from under her with a series of startlingly fast strikes, followed by a shove. Janow laughs, getting back to her feet. "Cheater," she declares, happily.

"Wow!" laughs Skon. They're getting quite a lot of stares at this point.

Janow doesn't seem to care, and continues putting her new form through its paces, rearing up and making a brief dash forward and attempting, with slightly ridiculous results, to hum.