"What kinds of runoff do you mean?"

"Whatever cruft or oil from your workshops cakes onto the walls, accidental spills of this and that onto the streets, I would say tar from the building joinery if you used tar..."

"I see. We can make sure to clean things like that up early and often."

"Are you going to farm here?"

"If possible. Importing our food would be very expensive - we can send lots of ships back and forth but the more cargo involved the more expense."

"So the star-ships are not cheap even for you. Well, farming would merit more attention and have more pitfalls than the city itself by mere fact of requiring more land... Once we're past preliminary discussions I would like to work out a consulting rate with someone by the way."

"Of course! I usually pay my consultants by the day, I don't know if that will work best for you?"

"Yes, that'll work well enough. Though I'm not really available until I finish my last circuit here. Ten days from now barring delays. I've cut out leisure and travelled nights to finish quickly."

"That's very dedicated of you!"

"Aliens are very important. I'd like to visit Amenta once done. Also, may I have a lightbulb? I want to try something with it."

"Just a lightbulb all by itself?"

"Hey, you," says one to a purple, "get Stoneheart here a spare lightbulb."

"Yes, if I'm right I can power it with my magic and then use the same method to power the everything that was gifted to me."

The purple fetches a spare lightbulb and gives it to her still in its box.

"Thank you."

She unboxes it, carefully holds it by the metal bit and tilts her head-

It lights up - half a second later there's a sharp cracking sound, and she drops it with a start and a hiss.

"That- Metal, right. I've broken it. Sorry about that."

"No big deal," a city planner assures her, passing the box and busted bulb back to the purple to deal with.

"The everything is much more expensive than the lightbulb, I gather, hence the safer first test. Anyway." Headshake. "Where were we? Farming?"

"Farming, that's right. We use a lot of fertilizer but we can probably design the irrigation systems so the fertilizer-laced runoff hits other fields first before finally reaching, hm, some kind of aquaculture which will tolerate it well, maybe."

"It sounds like I will need to visit farms to have an informed assessment of that."

"If you're going to Amenta that can certainly be arranged."

"I want to, yes, whether or not it's compatible with consulting on this at the same time. I'm perfectly willing to take the quarantine shower."

"Glad to hear it's not too onerous!"

"I would never disrespect your theology!"

She stays to discuss potential city plans a while longer, but there's only so much to be said without a civil engineer here or a specific site picked out.

A few days later, Three Bells' diplomat informs the Amentans that their prisoners from the pirate faction have arrived and been processed into their prison.

The ambassador dispatches an observer yellow to see how they're getting on!

The prison is a fortified-looking stone building with a big yard and a brick wall on the edge of town; The warden was told to expect them and waves the yellow into her office where she's idly sharpening a knife.

"So do you just want to look around, or what?"