—oh there it is, another rock.

He flies towards it!

"One over here."

Follow follow! Kaede does the sign thing again, and once again lightning strikes it and it breaks and stops glowing.

… And nothing after a pause?

Nope.

"There are probably more of these."

"Probably." Sigh. "I hope the creators liked the number three."

"Unlikely."

"Do you have any mystical numbers in your culture, by any chance…?"

"Mystical numbers...?"

"Like, seven is a number of magical significance, or four is unlucky, or superstitions about them…?"

"Not... particularly. Are numbers magical where you're from, or is that literally just superstition?"

"Superstition, as far as I know." Shrug. "Might be used in parlor tricks – I don't know much about them."

"Well, anyway, no, we do not have that."

"It's possible these are scattered all over and this might take us an extremely long time."

"Yes."

Whatever.

More exploration, then?

Yep. Theo continues to fly around ahead of them to speed the process up.

...is that a small cactus-like thing running around extremely quickly over there?

It looks like it is. He flies towards it, swooping to land – well, it would be about fifteen meters away, but the thing's moving so that'll probably change by the time he's there.

It does change. But the thing stops short of that and looks at him.

"Hello."

It... makes a noise. That sounds like a rubber duck being squeezed.

"I suppose you don't speak my language," he sighs.

Point. "Theo."

The little cactus thing balances itself on one... foot... and leans forward so its head is pointing in Theo's direction.

Then its arms start rotating.

Then a huge number of incredibly strong and sharp needles starts shooting from its head at him.