Phaidra kept it, it takes a minute to find between the rest of her notes (complex strange symbols that the mysterious person did for some reason). But here it is.

He politely doesn't comment on her weird writing system, but looks over the layout - it looks generally good, he's not sure what she's planning on using all that countertop for when she can't craft but it's not his business. Does she want someplace for her dog? Does she want her bed enclosed so he can craft the usual amenities into it or does she prefer an open one?

She is open to all these changes. That countertop space is for writing magical diagrams, but she doesn't try to communicate that concept. Yet, growth mindset.

Cool, he'll get started, then. He's not picky about what he takes for crafting feedstock, she can bring him whatever she likes.

Phaidra looks at him confused. "What?"

...

...

...

what?

Uh. Does she... somehow not know how crafting works at all. That's not something he thought could happen. Especially since she seems to have had some pretty significant fleshcrafting done? So she has to have been around crafters at some point? And followed crafting-related instructions to facilitate that?

Um. Okay, does she somehow not know how crafting works.

Head-shake. And an exaggeratedly confused expression.

...okay. (Holy shit.) Does she know why she doesn't know?

Smile. "I do!" Phaidra considers miming the concept of 'close' and 'far' but then remembers the sheets.

She takes one without any important notes and wipes it. Draws some simple humanoid figures to get the concepts. "Close. Far." Then she points at herself. "Giant far. You close." Does that help.

...he'd already put together that she's not really from around here, but he knows other places have crafters, that wouldn't do it. Even if other places have... some weird kind of thing where they don't raise their kids? or something? a kid like that would still pick up simple crafting, babies pick up simple crafting.

...he should probably let her explain more before he tries again to guess. Possibly also he should make more tablets for her, this could get complicated. And teach her the local writing system, in the long run. He'll do the tablets now though.

He goes back into his house and comes out with a mini tablet, a block of crafting material, and a chunk of log; he sets the log by his seat and makes her a couple more writing tablets.

"Giant far far far far." She tries to explain, but then lets him do the work.

Yes, she should have tried figured out if they had writing. Her fault really. She is now drawing a large eight-sided polygon and populating it with the simple versions of the species of her world: Giants, Sea serpents, dragons, humans, phoenixes, and so on. Labelling that with "Actana" in her writing system.

Then she will proceed trying to illustrate the situation with a humanoid figure putting a hand through a portal (represented as a simple door frame, though most portals are not shaped like that). The hand comes out of another portal draw further away in the page.

..............

Okay, if he's getting this right she's from so far away that there aren't crafters? And maybe something else instead, since he's pretty sure crafting doesn't do teleportation no matter how good at it you are?

"Yes!" She claps happily.

Okay.

(He's pretty shaken.)

Well, she's still going to need a house and it's still going to be several days' work, he can think about all of this while he's crafting. Literally any matter will do as feedstock - the first step is to craft it into crafting-material, which comes in different types and can be modified from there, he has a good amount on hand but not enough to make an entire house.

Aww. "Sorry."

She can help collect matter then. If there is a preference for a specific kind of matter, she can search for that. Or just use her larger size to carry more stuff.

He doesn't specify; he does seem to prefer larger things over smaller ones, though, as she brings various options.

Crafting seems to be pretty engrossing; he's not doing anything very interesting to watch, but he doesn't take breaks or even particularly acknowledge her when she drops things off. He does break for lunch, eventually; when she gets to camp she finds him in the chicken coop making the plants grow berries while the chickens mill enthusiastically around his feet to eat them.

Phaidra takes the opportunity to take a look at her former camp site and recover her clothing. And she doesn't interrupt him, though she is curious about the local magic.

He sees her looking when he turns to leave, and shows her on a bush on the edge of one of his gardens how he can make fruit grow at a touch. There's a crafting-material fertilizer that he has to feed his plants to allow for that, he explains; it works on unfertilized plants too, but they can't grow much without dying, since crafting can't make something out of nothing.

Interesting. Not that different from how Faen and spirits work on plants. She points at his ears with an inquiring face.

Yep! It's more complicated, growing something on a living thing that it wouldn't naturally have at all, but the same general sort of technique.

She nods. How to ask more things she wants to ask. Instead, she decides to demonstrate how she can clean herself by just making her dirty hands become clean with a slight puff of salty smelling vapor.

Huh, handy. They can sterilize things with magic, a few ways, but not clean them like that.

Smile. "Interesting," then she remembers that he mentioned writing. She gets her own notes to show him to remind of him of that, in case he forgot.

He's puzzled by this, but a little miming gets the idea across. He's hoping that the people who live around here will be willing to let him copy some kids' primers to teach her with; he can try to teach her without anything like that but he doesn't expect to be good at it.

Makes sense. In that case, after lunch she will get back to collecting feedstock, or working on her own magic. With a writing system, it's less of an emergency, but no harm in trying to figure it out.