Alright, it's time to label things and correct labels again. It's quite convenient that the sphere-operators have so many images of things.

Yes, the backpack is a backpack. Yes, the boxy waterskin is a boxy waterskin. And so on. And now there's an oval containing all the containers. Maybe that header text was a category word? Is there a narrower category word than "containers" to use? The category seemed narrower than that, there wasn't a crate, but Griffie's not sure that they have a more specific word that still includes everything, so they write "containers" in Celestial in the parchment space.

Griffie probably should have tried harder to convey "set of", but it makes sense that abstractions would be harder to communicate.

Yes, the holly and mistletoe sketches are sketches of plants.

...the sphere-operators have pictures of holly and mistletoe varieties. Their machines, even their backpacks that look like Griffie's backpacks, don't depend on the presence of the Elemental fields. They seem to not use magic at all, even the basic sorts of wards you'd want to put on an otherwise entirely mechanical device you're sending into messy situations. They don't recognize even Celestial at all, and the glyphs they try with unrecognized people don't look like any of the Languages of Power Griffie's seen before. And they have holly and mistletoe. What.

Does this mean that they're from another region, like Suaal, with stable Elemental fields supporting conventional matter, and they got holly and mistletoe seeds somehow, but have no contact with the Outer Planes at all?

The screen cleared last time there was a while with no input. Given this, Griffie manages to refocus on the task at hand somewhat promptly. Yes, the beautifully-rendered holly and mistletoe varieties are plants.

Page complete.

The tablet attached to the drone continues to present examples in approximately this format. It introduces ovals with videos, and ovals with parchment, some with word prompts taken from the vocabulary Griffie has given it thus far and some for Griffie to pick the words for as well. When Griffie sketches in the parchment ovals, the result is shortly after replaced with alien attempts at examples, each example accompanied by the ring-words setup and alien words. The contents of the book Griffie showed the drones pages of do not make an appearance.

Griffie continues with this process, and attempts to introduce the concepts of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. Maybe once these are conveyed they will get that Griffie, like holly and mistletoe, would really prefer to be in an environment where the Elemental fields exist. During this back-and-forth, Griffie also ends up introducing concepts such as wind, candles, metal. During an attempt to convey the concept of Water, Griffie casts Create Water once more.

The conjuration results in a pause in the replies, but eventually images of water show up, along with the glyphs.

Create Water is a divine spell. An inability to recognize it isn't that surprising, since they don't recognize Celestial or any of the images in Immonhiel's holy text? Maybe they just have pictures of so many varieties of holly and mistletoe because they have pictures of that most of the varieties of most plants.

Anyway, yes, Water. That is Water. Please offer to take Griffie to a place where Water doesn't spontaneously vanish?

They would like to teach Griffie something new now. Specifically, they use an image of Griffie's hand with a finger sticking out to indicate where to tap and drag as they show a sort of game where colored shapes are dragged to go with similar things, either in color or shape depending on how the existing ones are sorted.

Griffie can play this game. It's nice to not need to be doing all the drawings, and that this device can store data more quickly than Griffie can.

They gradually add some complexity to the game, having more than two groups of the same luminosity or shape or pattern at once.

Griffie can tell that the white shapes are in one circle and the grey shapes are in another circle and the black shapes are in another circle and move the unsorted shapes accordingly. The same applies regarding geometry and texture.

The aliens would like to branch out from shapes now. Can Griffie sort fire, water, and containers into their respective groups?

Yes!

They would like Griffie to match videos to the groups "objects combusting destructively when exposed to a lighter", "objects performing some task when exposed to a lighter", and "objects not reacting to a lighter".

Griffie can match videos to those groups, though some of the task-performing objects are confusing and it's kind of a weird category.

They add a picture of Griffie to this sort task.

Griffie moves the image of themself to the "combusts destructively" category, although they would in fact react by extinguishing themself, and a small flame would only cause superficial burns.

They now show various things having rocks fall on them and either being damaged or not being damaged, then ask about Griffie.

Griffie would be damaged if a rock fell on them.

They now show Griffie taking various actions that either lead to, in one group, being lit on fire or having a rock falling on them, or in the other group just being undamaged. They then add drones doing things that might or might not lead to rocks falling on them, seeing how Griffie sorts those.

Griffie sorts the sphere-constructs having rocks fall on them in the same category as Griffie having rocks fall on themself, and the sphere-constructs being undisturbed by rocks in the same category as Griffie being undisturbed by rocks.

They add spikes going through Griffie to the set to see how they get sorted.

Griffie's circulatory fluid is white, not silver, but that's otherwise fairly realistic. It looks like a question, not a threat, though. The spikes go into the rocks and fire category.

How about Griffie being given a pencil by a drone?

Griffie receiving a pencil – or maybe a fake pencil? They're visually similar – goes in the category where no injuries or damage happens.

They show pictures of weirdly clothed humans being stabbed with spikes, lit on fire, or hit with rocks, and put them in the rocks-and-fire-and-spikes category.

They have humans? That's not necessarily weirder than the holly and mistletoe. It does suggest promising things about eventual linguistic compatibility. Are the sphere-operators humans? Can Griffie go to a human environment?

Anyway, yes, injuries to humans work like injuries to Griffie and presumably work like injuries to sphere-constructs.