"Maybe? No, but Amentan have huge metal so maybe huge metal from Amentan place."

Some more Dwellin are showing up now that violence has failed to break out. They linger a good ways back, talking to each other, all armed but not looking especially violent at the moment.

More Amentans come out of the shuttle! They are mostly greens, with a couple more greys, a couple purples, one blue, an orange, and a yellow.

Balori relays her fellows' requests in a halting pidgin of their language and Kasotu's.

Suusvu wants to buy some of their metal since they seem to have so much of it. Krala wants to fight Hatsush so they can brag about sparring with an alien. Or maybe fight all three greys at once. (Krala is very confident.) Ludi wants to offer Amentans some local fruit to see if they like it. Jaidel and Cerema both think Amentans are kind of hot. Nukol and her kids Bittru and Chirri (who look about Amentan-equivalent 4 and 2 respectively, all three of them bright red in coloration) are here just to get a slightly closer look at the shuttle.

Hatsush seems inclined to take Krala up on that but the blue tells him no. They don't have any spare metal with them, but can bring some next time, what kinds would they like and what would they like to trade for it? One of the purples will try a fruit after one of the greens has investigated it with some equpiment. These Ametans are all too well-prepped to startle at the red furry aliens.

The fruit is firm and juicy like a peach but tastes slightly spicy!

Green-ore orange-metal is great stuff and hard to find. Iron is fine. Yellow-soft-metal is good. Small samples of anything else they have a lot of so he can check whether they know about it, too. They can offer... Maybe food? They've got food. Lumber too. Various handcrafts, like furniture and dishware and stuff? Trophies from the local wildlife?

Krala calls all Amentans cowards; The others rib her a bit about it but don't actually disagree. Krala stalks off.

Amentans would be super happy to trade metals (they call green-ore-orange-metal "copper" and yellow-soft-metal "gold") for local foods and souvenirs! Also land, Amentans would like some land.

Sounds like a good trade to Suusvu too. Once they know more about what Amentans have maybe other stuff than metal.

...Do they mean like, a house right in the middle of the village?

They mean like a big area of land where they can build a big Amentan village and farms! Like about from... here to there, times a hundred, squared, would be a good amount, even if they have to buy it from other villages too in pieces.

Dwellin don't really do ownership of the bits of wilderness between villages? But a new village in the area that big would be kind of a problem, people would have to move if they wanted kids.

Yeah, the reason the Amentans want land is to have more space for their kids. They can pile a lot of people on top of each other - here's a picture of an Amentan city - but it still does take up some room.

...Wow, that is a tall building.

They think that putting lots of those up could very quickly become a problem, if the Amentans aren't careful.

What kind of problem?

"If you destroy too much nature, nature will fight Amentans. We Dwellin will help if that happens. We don't mind visitors much I think, but destroyers are different."

"What do you mean, nature will fight Amentans?"

"Nature is slow and patient, but it will not just lie down and die if you are determined to kill it. We have legends about this, too."

The Amentans look at each other. "Will you tell us the legends?" says Kasotu.

"Sure. But if you look around the larger villages, you could probably find someone who actually remembers the-" (A digression: A chief is a village leader, a king is a chief of chiefs, an emperor is a king of kings) "Who remembers the Black Emperor, and his terribleness."

"We will do that too, but it would be good to hear your legends as you know them now!"

Well the short version of the story goes like this-

"Long ago, there was a chief who sought to be an emperor. He was an ambitious and clever ruler, a brilliant tactician, and a genius inventor. His village invented many interesting new crafts and machines, and became a center of trade and wealth, attracting famous hunters and explorers from the entire continent. Soon, he was a king, with other villages providing tribute of raw material and labor, and his works grew ever more grand. But he was selfish and arrogant. He lived in grand palaces and had as many women as he wanted, he stole others' children to raise as his own, he ordered slaughters at the slightest obstacle instead of trying for trade and peace. The empire he built hungered like an insane beast, consuming more than it could ever possibly need, growing ceaselessly. Strip mines and clear-cutting roused the slow but implacable wrath of nature, and all at once every right-thinking Dwellin suddenly knew that the Black Empire had to be erased. Dwellin and beast alike all stormed the Black Empire's holdings, and the corruption of generations was destroyed."

...gosh, what a story. How long ago did they say this was?

After some conferring, they think it was roughly 30 generations ago?

How long are their generations?

By 'generation' they mean 8 local years (it's about 3/4 of an Amentan year). They can have kids at 6 or 7 and all throughout their lives if they're lucky, though.

Do they have any written records of -

- Do they have writing?

Yes, they make - warnings and property labels and store signs...