Woah, good thing he's used to heights. Is this a normal way for the aliens' hives to be?

Yeah! They can fit a lot more people into a lot less land by building tall, and it makes getting around on foot more convenient, too. Does he need to be invited into the elevator? Here is a blue who came to the roof to meet him and owns this area of town if that helps.

Being asked if he needs an invitation works for him as one, he reports after a second or two of contemplating the elevator door. Also hello to this blue alien!

Hello! Welcome to the city! He's so glad traveler decided to visit. The elevator goes down, and they are let out onto the street! There's a relatively discreet perimeter of greys.

The buildings are so tall, that's - kind of dizzying, actually - he's fine, he's got his stick, he just needs a second. And maybe a brimmed hat or something, good thing he grabbed that extra crafting-material. Incredible architecture, though. Everything's so straight, it's quite a look. So what are all these buildings for, they said for people to live in but the lower bits look like they've got other stuff going on.

The one he landed on is actually offices, where the government of the colony works. Over there is a restaurant, there's another one, there's a hair salon, there's a clothing shop, that's a bike rental, that's the subway station - they're still working on the subway, mostly they're getting around by bus for now - there's a school over there, blue and green.

Huh, he feels like there must be a hundred good questions to ask about running vehicles underground and he can't think of any of them. What does it mean for a school to be blue and green?

It means blue and green kids go there. Schools specialize, because the castes do, and most schools are just one caste but the colony is still pretty small so there's no blue-only school, it'd have like sixty kids in it. Instead they're sharing with some greens, who can pick between this and some other green schools.

A children's school, huh! Not what he was expecting. What kinds of things do they teach to children?

How to read and write, though some already have that down before they're old enough to start; history and civics; science and math; most schools have some sort of phys ed, though grey and sometimes purple schools are the ones where they do organized sports much; art and literature... A blue-green school in particular is probably heavy on the history and civics, whereas an all-green school would go harder on the art and literature and science and math because greens are at the top of all those fields.

That makes sense. Crafter children learn those things from their parents and neighbors and books and experimentation, mostly. He's not sure what they mean by organized sports though, that might be something crafters don't have.

If they go this way a few blocks they can see a grey playground, which almost always has some sort of sport in progress!

The sport in question turns out to be something with kids charging up and down the field, tackling each other and fighting for possession of four balls and control of eight goals.

Goodness, are they... yes, they're fine, he sees... crafters definitely don't have anything like that.

He keeps watching.

The kids - they're on the older side, four year olds - notice the alien and wave during the next time out.

He waves back!

They go back to playing. "There are a lot of different sports," the blue mentions. "Some of them are played professionally - people like to watch them."

That sounds interesting! What's involved?

Depends on the sport! Arcball has only one ball and it's smaller and the players don't crash into each other, for instance. There's also competitive sports that aren't on teams, like skiing or running or hang-gliding.

And if he wanted to watch?

Oh! Most often people watch on TV at home but they do have a couple public sports arenas in this city, would he like tickets to a game of something?

He thinks he would, he answers after puzzling over the translation for a few moments. And what's a TV?

A TV is a screen, like the pocket everything he's reading what this blue says off of, but bigger and mainly used to watch recorded entertainment and educational media.

Interesting. Is that popular?

Yeah! Most Amentans watch some TV, though plenty prefer books.

It sounds like it'd be popular among crafters, too. He certainly wants to see.