Huh, furry people. Furry steel-age people! They can help them like nobody helped Amenta! The round biomes is weird, maybe there are underlying craters with mineral deposits that affect things or something like that.

A shuttle lands about a mile away from a village in a low-nasty-predator-concentration prairie.

They notice right away. The thing they do about it is make a lot of noise and go up and touch a tree in the village grounds for a few seconds one after the other, before assembling into a militia.

One old-looking alien (grey fur, hunched posture, broken horn) calmly walks out from the village with no visible weapons, to stare curiously at the shuttle and the newcomers. The locals' clothes are very loose and light and not super covering, probably because of the fur. At least five more are watching from a good distance away with bows and arrows.

A green steps out, with her hands up, nervously glancing at the bows and arrows but still advancing till there is some reaction.

The old alien makes a barking sort of sound sort of sound and keeps walking forward, stopping about ten feet away. Takes a sheathed knife off their belt and makes a tossing motion and a 'mrr' sound that might be inquisitive.

The green slowly shakes her head, ready to bolt if headshaking turns out to mean "stab me" on this planet.

Headtilt.

"Only the old, old, oldest tales speak of those who live beyond the sky. Which I presume you must be. I offer you my blade, will you not take it?" The alien sentence uses sounds Amentans could make, plus a sort of tonal barking, and concludes with another 'mrr' and a more insistent wave of the sheathed knife.

...she holds out her hands, tentative. The mic pickup on her shoulder grabs everything he says but that doesn't mean they understand it.

Alien hands it to her handle-first, then steps back again with a happy bark. They wait expectantly for a few seconds, then seem to dismiss whatever they were waiting for with a head-jerk to the side.

They gesture at the shuttle. "This is your sky-ship or what have you, mrr? Such a ridiculous amount of metal. Ahh, you don't understand this do you..."

Head-jerk again. "...Sky." Pointing upward. "Ground." Down. "Sky-ship." Shuttle. Headtilt.

The green repeats these words as best she can, which is pretty well, and then points at the knife, and the native who gave it to her.

"Knife. Balori. Mrr? Dwellin." Pause. Alien points to the bow-wielders who are still a bit wary in turn. "Dwellin, Hista. Dwellin, Mako. Dwellin, Captu."

"Amentan, Kasotu," says the green, pointing to herself.

"Amentan?" Pointing at a grey closer to the shuttle.

"Amentan, Hatsush."

"Kasotu, Hatsush. Mrr..."

Alien spins around and gets into a low stance, arms raised and teeth bared against an invisible foe, tail lashing, striking out with a lunging punch. Then smooths everything and turns again. "Fight. Was fighting. Amentan fight?"

Headshake headshake!

Alien barks loudly and shouts something to the watchers. They also start barking repeatedly. It might be laughter?

Then they rip up a patch of grass with their clawed feet and start drawing in the dirt with a finger, a crude sketch of one of the local animals- A quadrupedal boar-looking thing. "Leadfoot fight Amentan! Careful careful!"

"Hatsush fight leadfoot," Kasotu says. "Amentan not fight Dwellin."

"Not, mrr? Not ground?" Alien points at the sky. "Not, 'Not'. Only Hatsush fight? Not Kasotu?"

"Kasotu not fight. Kasotu -" She touches her green ringlets. "Green. Hatsush grey. Grey Amentan fight, green Amentan not fight."

Alien seems to think this is deeply weird. "All Dwellin fight."

Balori is happy to exchange words via pointing and charades with Kasotu for a while. This is the kind of thing that takes patience.

Kasotu does charades! Insofar as there is any room for figuring out anything specific besides what's convenient she's curious about their legends regarding sky-ships.

Some of the very oldest and completely unverifiable legends say that people wander the sea above the sky in ships of metal, and don't agree much beyond that. This is far beyond living memory.

Huh. Amentans are new to wandering the sky in ships of metal, so they are not who the legends are about.

Balori doesn't know who they could be about, if they're about anyone at all, and shrugs (that head-jerk to the side is their shrug) about it. You'd need A LOT of metal and master craftsmen to try and make something like that.

Is it very hard to find metal on this planet?

"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...

Okay, do they have written records of the legend or just oral tradition?

"Why would- No. No. We would not write such things. The Well and oral tradition is the proper way. Writing is for... Practical things only. Hungry animal lives here. This is poison. Bread costs this much."

"The Well?"

"The Well of Souls. Where your memories go, so you can come back again in some new mother's arms?"

They would like to hear more about that!

They make sure to touch the leaves of these special trees as often as possible, it's a pretty distinct feeling as the Well accepts your memories. When new babies are born, at about a third of a year of age they are 'baptized' by touching them to the same trees. And most of the time, the baby receives the soul of someone who died and starts remembering lots of details of their past lives as they grow up.

Wow. Does the same set of memories ever appear in two different children? What happens when the child doesn't get a set of memories from touching the tree? How did they originally learn to do this?

It's been this way as long as anyone can remember, and they have heard of someone being alive twice at a time but it might be a tall tale- Someone who became a hermit and avoided the trees for decades, the Well thought they had died and split the soul into both the hermit and a child. New souls are blessed in their own way and often have interesting ideas about how to do things, though of course they mustn't take those too far.

Too far like how?

"Like the Black Emperor, for one. He was a new soul." There's a round of muttering at this. "Breaking things that work fine already. But- Amentans do not have a Well of Souls?"

"That kind of tree does not grow on our planet."

"...We should do the dying if there's dying to be doing. We mostly come back, and that means more kids for a while too. This place is mostly safe, though."

"It means more kids?"

"Yes. If things are crowded, no kids no matter how much you fuck. More deaths, more space, more kids, and the dead get to come back sooner or later. Nobody likes dying but better us than you, if you don't even come back!"

"...how crowded?"

"You definitely wouldn't live on one of your cities if you were trying for one. The biggest city I remember visiting had buildings with four floors and basements and there were hardly any kids around."

This concerns the Amentans very much. They are all quiet for awhile.

The Dwellins aren't asking many questions but they're a bit concerned at this. The one in the fanciest armor walks up (handing his sword off to another) and asks if they've offended their visitors somehow.

"No, no, you haven't offended us at all," Kasotu assures him. "It seems like it might not be good for Amentans to live here."

"Maybe, maybe not." The chief says thoughtfully. "I think some of you would not be a problem at all, but perhaps not as many as you would like, mrr? We all have a lot to learn here. I don't know if we can expect the same thing to happen to you with crowding here preventing children. I would guess not, that it is a Dwellin thing and not a here thing, but I don't know. I don't know how far you can push before nature decides it doesn't like you, and I can not imagine a safe way to find out. But both of those things are things you'd really rather know, mrr? Not good."

"Does it happen with animals?" she ventures.

The chief thinks hard. "...I do not know enough to say. The most dangerous animals have not left their homes and spread across the world, and I think a purple forest predator would dominate places like this if unopposed. Then again, I know small animals can grow rampant for a time and eat and dirty all your food stores, if you don't have ways to stop them from doing that. And food birds multiply well enough if you're eating some regularly. But I did not set out to study this, so, I do not know."

Maybe a few Amentans will hang out on this planet and do science experiments, but not build an entire city right away. Hopefully there will be other planets that don't have this problem but they were very optimistic about this one.

They would be perfectly welcome to build a village as big as the local one for... What is 'science experiments'?

Science experiments are when you try to figure out how the world works by trying different things! They can study local plants and animals and learn more about the locals, too, but mostly they'd be trying to figure out how the trees work and how the natural population control works.

Sounds interesting! Some Dwellin would probably want to help.

An Amentan could go touch their local Well if they wanted, to see if anything happens.

The Amentans confer among themselves and select a volunteer, one of the greys.

Well, this way, it's in the village.

Two locals assign themselves as guides and start jogging off. Rather quickly. 

The grey can keep up!

They have to work for it, Dwellin have long strides.

Here is a small iron age village with a short wooden palisade. The gates are wide open and the main street is cobblestone. All the huts look, perhaps surprisingly, well made, neat and tidy.

There's a sort of little park in the center, with a tall tree that has very pale bark and a rainbow of leaf colors. His guides tell the curious onlookers that the alien is going to see what the Well does for them.

It's good it's neat and tidy!

The grey approaches the tree and pinches a leaf between her fingers.

Nothing seems to happen. The blue leaf feels a bit rough, but that's it. It will come off easily if she pulls.

The guides reach for leaves of their own, and both - shift their posture, look distracted for a moment.

She holds on for a bit in case it just takes a while the first time, but eventually gives up and shakes her head.

"That means no, right?"

"I think so. I didn't catch much of it."

The first one head-jerk-shrugs and unceremoniously breaks off a smallish twig with mostly blue leaves, proferring it.

"Science experiment," in the Amentan language.

She accepts it.

"Let's go back then."

"Wait, if their chief isn't here-"

"Jikka..."

"No, mrr, blue here. Want to fight?"

She's a little torn but shakes her head. "Blue find out."

Dwellin use a dissapointed sigh the same way as Amentans do apparently.

The other one laughs. "Told you so."

"Go shuttle." And they can go back.

They go back to the shuttle. The grey reports on these events to the blue.

The blue, after some conference with a green, decides it is okay if one or two greys want to nonlethally spar with the locals.

The Dwellin have these leather foot covers to make kicks less lethal! They decide to have a tiny lottery to pick out their fighters since so many want to. Nobody goes to fetch the one who stomped off earlier. 

The Amentans brought weapons but not sparring-for-fun weapons, so they can just try this unarmed?

Sure, that's easiest. They draw out a little circular arena in the dirt.

What are the usual rules?

Wear claw guards, to first blood or yield, no eye or crotch shots? If it were a serious match it'd be to incapacitation or yield and anything goes.

Okay! Usually the grey would want a mouth guard for her teeth but she didn't pack one, so maybe don't sock her in the jaw too hard.

Right!!!

The winner of the mini-lottery is Tarin, and appears to be the alien equivalent of a 4-year-old, a bit short and generally smaller. They're grinning (which sort of looks like the expression a happy dog makes???) as they step into the ring. Their compatriots cheer them on. Someone warns the grey not to get complacent, Tarin was a soldier in a past life!

She was a soldier in this life! Admittedly that tends to involve very little hand to hand.

She circles him slowly.

Tarin holds almost perfectly still, then launches headlong into motion with as fast a series of feints and strikes as he can manage. 

He's fast. And startlingly strong for his size. And not hesitating at all.

He can beat her pretty quick, though she's slippery the first couple times he gets a hold of her. She's pretty good natured about the loss, wants to know if her crew got that on video. (They did.)

"That was fun! Thanks for the spar!" Tarin agrees. (He then goes and brags and poses for his compatriots.)

Suusvu the prospective metal-buyer wants to know what video is?

They can show it! They even have a moderately sized screen for pictorial communication.

...The locals seem a bit uncomfortable about the video recording, muttering to each other and such.

Is something wrong?

"I think we have different things we say are good and bad because you are aliens," the chief slowly replies. "'Video' is... It is hard to say, but it could be bad, like writing too much."

...bad how. What happens if you write too much.

"It's just wrong. It is... The best way to learn something is to remember it from the Well. The next best way is to do it and make mistakes, bad ways of doing it, and then make less mistakes. The next best way is to find a teacher, someone who says how to do it to you. Reading how to do it is just... Bad."

...Amentans have not found this to be the case, they say cautiously.

"I'm sure you can learn from writing. But why would anyone want to? It'd be like eating old fruit. No center. You're aliens, it's not the same for you."

All right. They aren't planning to ask the locals to read anything. And they don't have to watch videos if they don't want to.

"Some kinds of writing are okay. Mostly short things. Some kinds of video might be okay. But it's not something we imagined before now."

It requires pretty advanced technology.

Yeah, the shuttle made it obvious they have a lot of that. It's part of what's making everyone kind of worried rather than just excited.

Is technology also... bad?

Not the same way, it just makes the Amentans kind of scary.

They don't want to hurt anybody.

That's good! Technology seems useful and interesting! It's just that the Amentans have more right now.

How do they decide who gets to be chief of their insanely huge villages?

Elections! They explain the basic concept and then if the Dwellin are interested they can elaborate on how it works in their country at various levels.

Huh. Yeah, they do elections on the local level, but in a lot of places it's hereditary or some other weird process or just warlords. But the Savannah Guard is more or less their 'country'. They collect taxes and keep the peace and catch bandits, at least. They're led by the best fighter, there's a whole big tournament every summer.

So, 'countries' are sort of like kingships or empires? How does theirs work?

They can see a map of Tapa if that isn't too much, uh, information recording?

Maps are one of the few explicitly allowed kinds of writing, much like menus, warnings, and (acceptably brief) codes of law!

Here is a map of Tapa! The capital is over here, and there are all these provinces, and they have their own capitals for province level administration, and then there are cities with municipal administrations, and all these levels of government are elected, but you can only vote for locations you count as resident in.

Wow, just by number of layers of government Tapa counts as an empire. And a big one. It makes perfect sense that someone who lives here can't vote for someone all the way over there, though.

Yup. Though it doesn't matter where in Tapa you live for federal elections.

They like that the Savannah Guard leader isn't elected. It would be annoying and confusing to have to worry about who's fit to run a kingdom and an empire instead of just a village.

Amentans would mostly be worried that being good at fighting isn't much like being good at ruling.

Basically all the Savannah Guard does is fighting. If it were a merchant group or something it would be different.

That makes sense. Who do they fight? Are they at war now?

Animals, mostly. And road thieves. Sometimes the Barkbiters from the east will try a raid to steal stuff.

What leads people to become thieves, around here?

"...Thinking that they can get away with it, mrr?"

Well, presumably, but like, are they hungry, are they greedy, are they unskilled...

"Greed for things and for feeling strong, mrr?"

"Not because they're hungry. Finding plants and animals to eat is not so hard. If a village says to go away maybe, it is not so safe on your own."

So it might mainly be a shelter issue? (Crime rates on Amenta are very low partly because of strong social services.)

Yeah, they don't really know. It's not like anyone goes around interviewing bandits. Good for Amentans, though.

Maybe Amentans will interview some bandits at some point. Though it seems like they might be hard to catch, ha ha.

Haha. A shuttle would be pretty good at catching bandits, though.

Maybe Amentans could pay the Savannah Guard to turn over bandits for interviewing or science experiments.

They could! What does the Guard usually do with bandits?

It's a judgement call based on how bad they were. A beating and lecture and sending them home, or exile, or execution (after letting them visit the Well one last time of course).

Huh, it seems like it might be a bad idea to let criminal tendencies into their soul pool.

Everyone gets to visit the Well, no exceptions. If they're terrible enough it won't spit them back out again, but even then they still exist and that is very important. They hope there's some way to make it accept Amentans.

Huh. How does it decide not to spit somebody back out?

Well, they have lots of anecdotes about how a forest village got people who were carpenters and a place dealing with too many packhunting omnivores got great trappers and the Black Emperor never returned and so on.

Huh, cool.

They think castes are a bit strange. People mostly take the same job they had in past lives but they still figure out what they want themselves the first time around.

(They've been talking for a while by now, mostly the time-consuming pointing at things and charades at the start. The Dwellin will have to go home for dinner and chores many of them have neglected to come meet the aliens soon.)

That makes sense, the aliens need to go in their shuttle and eat and rest themselves.

Will they still be here tomorrow?

Yup! Though after a while they might want to go meet more people on other parts of this planet.

Just remember that Suusvu wants to buy metal! Good night!

If the greens look at the twig from the Well tree, they'll probably notice that it seems really weird.

They do look at it! Weird how?

The leaf and limb have neurons in them, as well as bacteria-sized metal nodules, and lots of different cell types. The genome is extremely long and it seems like each leaf has a different but related one. Also, none of the telltale signs you use to track an organism's evolutionary history are there, at least on a first glance.

WOW. They will try to get a normal amount of sleep but they really want to study the twig more.

Suusvu walks out with a wheelbarrow-style cart laden with bags and boxes in the pre-dawn light, chatting cheerfully with the hunter who watched the shuttle overnight as they pass.

In the morning the greens want to ask if the tree has any relatives? Other plants that are - weird?

Suusvu is the only one here quite yet. "The Well of Souls is one of the weirdest things around! We have the gods to thank for it. But here, I have things to sell you! Payment can come later!"

Sure, they've already notified their homeworld that the locals want metal and it's on the way, what's he got?

He has brightly decorated little knives, carved amulets of bone or odd-colored wood, scarves and wraps with geometric designs and tassels on the end, ceramic plates and bowls and cups with elaborate designs, a lot of polished wooden and stone statuettes mostly of local plants and animals, some live birds in cages that are sort of like small chickens, elaborately decorated leather sheaves and pouches, wickerwork baskets and bowls and hats and chairs. The craftsmanship on everything seems pretty good, if not to industrial precision.

How much does he want for all these things? Also they don't know if the birds will live okay on Amentan foods, which would make getting them to people who want birds difficult.

He names various weights of copper or much smaller weights of gold, and has the weights and scales he uses to trade with on hand so they can compare to their own. And he wouldn't say no to Amentan souvenirs to sell locally either.

"Kiki are sturdy! But that is a risk you would be taking if you don't just want to eat them or do science."

They establish conversions between the measuring systems and inquire if haggling is customary here.

"If there's a sign saying the prices it's not, but I don't have one of those, do I, mrr?"

They look up the commodity prices of metals on the Amentan market, convert everything into tap, and start trying to figure out how much these things are likely to be worth. They don't wind up haggling much except for the birds.

He'll let the birds go cheap. More where that came from.

"If I find 'weird' plants for you, is that worth something as well? Depending on what's so weird about the Well I have a few ideas there."

They explain that it's weird that it stores memories, but it also looks odd to other kinds of analysis. Of course they'd also like to see some other more pedestrian local plants.

"Mrr. I'll get you one of every crop and herb in town for the same price as three plates. What about animal parts?"

Parts aren't useless but they can learn more from live animals. They will also pay for animal feed, for small numbers of each animal to be studied onsite.

Well, the kiki are the only ones he could get on short notice. He'll get some feed for them. He probably won't bother getting them animals, they're a pain, but someone will eventually.

He's curious what kinds of analysis the Well tree looks weird to. Nothing else has quite the same colors or is so terribly hard to grow, but they probably have more technological things to do to it than just looking at it, yes?

Yes. Though some of it is just looking, see, there's this microscope.

"Hoh. I want one of these. I know someone who will think it's the best gift ever. After I file off all the labels, I mean. Is the lens... Mrr, hot-sand? Or something else?"

It is hot-sand, yes! They can get another microscope for... they look this up... yea much gold or yea much copper, or things worth that much.

"Yes, deal. I'm leaving today to get more souvenirs for you, I'll be back in a few days with several carts. Too bad I can't have a look around your village and see what else I might want to buy from you that easy, mrr."

If some Dwellin want to come to Amenta they can do that, they'll just have to be thoroughly cleaned first to make really sure no germs can spread that way - the Amentans here all did that before they landed, and sterilized their shuttle.

"Hoh. How long does it take to sail the stars? And what are germs?"

Depends how far apart the stars are - the Dwellin planet is about three days from Amenta. Germs are little creatures that are usually harmless but some kinds make people sick.

He might want to go, then. As long as he can come back home after a week or two, since they don't have any Wells. He'd get nervous going too long without touching one. And germs- Oh yeah, those. His friend the microscope is for talks about them sometimes. Though Dwellin don't get sick often, is it a big problem for Amentans?

Not anymore, but it was before they had modern sanitation! They live in much larger groups, so they need to be really on top of not letting any diseases get started; even if a really bad one got loose here it seems like it might barely affect a hundred people before dying out, unless it had some other reservoir.

There was a disease that just kept going around when he lived in the city of clams. He died before it got resolved - not from the disease, he had a sparring accident - but he heard eventually they got fed up and went through a lot of effort to get rid of it. Maybe the bigger settlements would want to know more.

Sure, the Amentans would be happy to bring them soap and help them figure out plumbing. - assuming plumbing is not also bad or dangerous in some way.

Mrr... The city of clams had soap and plumbing. Maybe not as much as Amenta does. Plumbing is kind of expensive, it's hard to get enough heavy grey soft metal for the pipes.

Oh, that kind of metal is actually poisonous to Amentans. It might or might not be poisonous to Dwellin, but Amentans wouldn't make their plumbing out of it, they like the orange kind for that.

Huh. He doesn't think it's poisonous to them. Anyway, he has to go get more souvenirs but he remembers how much copper they owe him after the haggling so far!

The trader leaves, but before long more of the locals are showing up again, including the old one who came out first yesterday and a couple of curious 2 and 3 year old-looking kids who try to go up and touch the shuttle.

Alien children! The Amentans are really charmed by the alien children and want to talk to them and give them presents (they don't have a ton of spare stuff along but somebody donates a necklace and somebody else offers a magnetic fidget toy.

The kids chatter very quickly without paying much attention to being understandable. An ALIEN necklace! The toy is cooool, one of the kids starts telling the others about magnets and compasses and sailing but the others just want to fidget with it. They briefly fight over the fidget toy until the old one yells that stealing is bad and they can share it. They heard the sky ship can FLY and that Amentans have weird clothes which is TRUE and that only grey hair people fight, are they just scared all the time because they can't fight? Also can they throw rocks for a game, are they better at throwing than Balori?

They are not scared all the time, and they will try throwing rocks, and they are interested in hearing about the locals' state of the art on sailing!

The 3-year-old-looking kid who was a sailor in a past life is happy to talk about sailing! Most of the rest of the kids scatter out into the field and race around trying to be the first one to pick up any thrown rocks!

Greys throw rocks, a grey with a sailor grandma talks sailing, they take a lot of pictures of cute alien children. A green wants to know if having a past life makes having new parents weird, or makes them more adult-ish than their new-soul peers.

"I'm sure I could do everything on my own, I'm very mature," the sailor-child insists.

"You cried about missing your mom when she went to help Fastpaw!"

"Did not!"

"Did so! Don't listen to them, I used to be a blacksmith and I'm gonna be again but not yet, being a kid is the same every time. I practice hammer swings so I'll get strong enough! I don't remember it all yet and I'm still little so I need my parents, though."

"...I like my now-parents better than my last parents, they were mean. I was mean too, I'm trying to get better."

Awwwwww they're so cute would they like to tell stories about their past lives??

Most of the kids will tell one or two stories. The former lives suggested by the kids' stories are sailor, blacksmith, farmer, hunter, soldier, singer, potter, mason, tailor, artist, trapper, hunter, farmer, merchant, sex worker (they say with a shrug that they'll probably remember what was so fun about it in a year or two). The smallest, who looks just over one, says she can't remember much except sitting in her past dad's lap with a ball of yarn, and one kid proclaims being new. Some of the adults contribute anecdotes too.

Do people often find their previous family members and friends? Does this affect how language evolves on their planet?

Not all the time, it's always a great moment when you find someone you knew ages ago! This adult goes drinking with someone she once killed in battle, sometimes, they're great friends. They don't think they understand what the Amentans are asking about languages? There's like three major ones and then dialects.

Are people usually born into a language group the same as the one they were previously in, or are a lot of people reincarnated such that they're multilingual?

That's kind of uncommon. Most people come back at least sort of close to where they died, or at least where they last touched a Well. Within three or four biomes' distance, most of the time. Sometimes right into the same village! Though the amount of time they spend dead also varies a lot.

A biome is a unit of distance?

Yep! The average diameter of one, four days' hiking at a fast pace with a light load in easy terrain like savannah. (They're about 160 miles across to satellite measurements). They're all more or less the same size as each other, so they make a good shorthand.

Why are they the same size as each other?

Nature just likes it that way, though old legends disagree on why (allowing people to live an easy life or a challenging one if they wish? something about a grand design for the world? separating it into different domains for different gods?), and puts them back if anything majorly changes them. Though it can take centuries to do that.

...huh. That definitely calls for some science experiments - is biome alteration a thing that also makes nature angry, or -

If you grow some foreign plants in your fields not really, but if you, like, set forest fires, yeah. It starts with the animals getting a lot more aggressive, so that's a warning sign to watch for.

Okay, and if the animals start getting aggressive what is the thing to do, just back off on whatever you were up to?

Yes. And maybe ask a nature-studier what they're doing wrong in case they can tell?

Is there a nature-studier in this village?

No, they're pretty rare and tend to like forests and jungles.

Fair enough. Will there be any diplomatic complications if Amentans want to go talk to lots more Dwellin on different parts of the planet?

They won't mind Amentans going other places. A warlord might try something stupid against them though.

They will probably just leave if that happens. Do they know where the warlords tend to hang out?

Orange swamps and purple forests and black jungles especially. They're very dangerous, those areas, and that seems to promote warlording.

They can point out a few other known warlord-y places on the map, and one mountain biome that apparently has a - literally scheduled - annual war.

...why does it have a literally scheduled annual war.

So that the participants can win glory and fame?

...Glory and fame makes it much more likely Dwellin become fertile.

Oh, interesting. Directly or just because wars have casualties and lower population density?

They're pretty sure that famous and important people have more kids even in dense areas, though they don't really know how or why.

And they don't have a guess how the fertility inhibition works at all?

Well, it's probably Nature making sure they don't turn the whole world into cities, now that they think about it.

Do they have any understanding of how Nature got so opinionated?

The gods made it that way, and also made the Dwellin, once upon a time.

They'd like to hear those stories too.

Once, the world was a barren rock that the sun shone pointlessly on. It had seas but no fish. It had plains but no grass. The five gods Firnu, Dela, Kanku, Elbon, and Hessen saw this and thought to create something new. Firnu smote and sculpted the earth with mighty hammers and exhaled the sky, turning it blue. Dela took the barren soil and sea and bled into it, filling the world with nutrition. Kanku was mother to all the tens of thousands and more kinds of plants and animals and insects, and loved watching them live. Elbon saw that the world was full of life and that it was good, but worried that it would destroy itself, and so worked with the other gods to give nature itself a sense of right and wrong. And finally, Hessen knew that without someone to enjoy the new world and its challenges, all their work would be for nothing, and thus created the Dwellin. Each of the gods also gave something else to the Dwellin. Firnu's strength, Dela's wisdom, Kanku's fertility, Hessen's cleverness, and Elbon created the Well of Souls.

Other places have different versions of the legend, though.

Hmm. And what are all those gods up to nowadays?

Most people agree they probably left to look for more new worlds a long time ago.

And never came back?

No. Some people say they're still watching and sometimes nudge things if you think at them.

Maybe they will do science experiments about that, what kinds of nudges?

Oh, that would be interesting actually. About the weather and trying for children and skill in learning and luck in combat.

Those are subtle enough to require pretty big experiments but they can do those.

(The kids have thoroughly gotten bored and are playing some sort of team-based tag now)

How would those experiments work? Would it involve a lot of writing? Knowing the answer was gotten with writing is... Probably fine, if they don't have to do it themselves.

They would write some things down but the Dwellin don't have to do any of it.

Well, good. And they tentatively think that video is fine if you're not using it as a replacement for actually learning or experiencing things.

What do they think of reading aloud?

...They'd have to try it and see.

An Amentan could read them a story?

They should tell them a few stories and not say which one was written down.

Sure, okay, it can be a science experiment. This green will tell some stories and pretend to be looking at her everything for all of them and be actually reading one of them. To make sure there isn't an obvious style difference the one she reads is auto-transcribed from a spoken anecdote.

The Dwellin who stayed to listen feel a little bit uncomfortable about all the stories but it might just be general anxiousness? They wouldn't have been able to read something that length that wasn't clearly a warning sign or something.

Wouldn't have been able?

"No, no. That was saying something more than is true. If I needed to read a book to save my friend's life, I could. But it would feel very wrong and I'm not sure how much of it I would actually remember."

Well, maybe Amentans can have readers-aloud available for any written down stuff Dwellin want to know, as long as they're going to be setting up science stations.

"Maybe. I don't know what your visiting means for us in the long term yet, but you are certainly interesting!" The chief declares. "Hopefully we have enough to trade to be worth the trouble, I think this could be very good, but it's very very strange."

"There are a lot more of us than of you, so even if only some Amentans want souvenirs from here, or want to visit, I think there will be enough trade to be worth it for you," says a green.

"Visitors sound fun! More fun than new neighbors."

"Oh? Why more fun?"

"We'll get to show off what's special about our place again and again! And always meet interesting new people!"

"Okay! I'm glad you're excited about tourists. They'll want to see all the interesting places, and watch entertainment - some people might even want to watch the war, if they can sit out of the way somewhere -"

"We have festivals and plays and sports and whores and interesting places! You'd have to talk to someone closer to the Teeth Mountains about the war but it does not sound impossible, there are referees."

Cool. The Amentans are still disappointed that they can't just move in en masse but they can at least have science outposts and trade and tourism.

The Dwellin wish them luck finding other places!

If they do, will any Dwellin want to move away? If they can transplant the trees, presumably.

The city looked pretty overwhelming... And whoever tests the tree working somewhere else would have to be very brave.

Well, they could test the tree with a visiting Dwellin who'd go right home if it didn't work, presumably.

The best sign it works would be if a kid is successfully ensouled and you have to trust your kid to the experiment, then.

They thought it also felt like something?

Yes, but it's not a real test of a thing unless you test all its functions?

That makes sense. Maybe someone will be that brave.

Probably! It sounds like a good way to get famous. Nobody here is volunteering, though.

A few more Dwellin have heard the Amentans want souvenirs and give them this and that as gifts, but their meeting place is not as busy as before, especially now that the kids are getting called back to do their chores.

That makes sense.

They promise to come back when the cargo for trade is in, and exchange metals for stuff, but for now they are going to go explore somewhere else!

They go to another, larger village.

Here are some rolling grasslands by the ocean and a village with some kind of large building near the middle of town and a stone wall and piers along the river!

Loud bells ring repeatedly in town and dozens of locals watch warily from several hundred meters away. All armed again, but that seems to be a constant of Dwellin.

They hopefully will get somebody who speaks the language they've been learning. "Hello! We are friendly!"

"Who are you!" Comes back an accented call.

"We are called Amentans! We are from another planet and came across the sky to meet you."

"Old stories only!"

"Will you give us a blade?" A different voice calls from off to the left.

"...We did not bring blades of our own, but we have one from some other Dwellin, will that do?"

"...It means peace! Giving up a weapon is a show of trust!"

Several of the distant watchers dart for the town at this point. Also, some of them are trying to sneak closer through the low spots in the hills, only foiled due to the shuttle's height.

They find the knife they got from the other Dwellin and hand it over despite the objections of one green who thinks it will be of tremendous historical significance.

Everyone seems to calm down as soon as they do. Another batch of runners is sent off.

"You truly come from across the sky? With a flying ship, perhaps we will believe you. I am second-" (an unfamiliar word), "-chief of Three Bells, named Yaowek. If you mean no harm, be welcome to approach the gates."

A subset approach the gates!

The gates are open. Dwellin in armor line the walls, pushing for space to stare curiously. Farmers from the surroundings gawk and point from hilltops, too. Yaowek and a few others are the ones to actually approach. The bells stop ringing.

"Such weird strangers I have never seen before," Yaowek declares, "Snout-less, nearly hairless, hornless, and yet so similar despite it all. You even mostly talk like us! What is the sea beyond the sky like?"

"We learned this language from other Dwellin and speak differently at home! Our oceans look much like yours."

"No, the sea beyond the sky! The place you use to go from one planet to another!"

"More importantly, second Yaowek, what exactly do you wish to find here?" An orange-furred Dwellin with forward-curving horns asks.

"The place we fly in to get off of planets is very empty, with no air! The stars are easier to see, and we stay inside ships sealed full of air to breathe. Here we want to meet people and learn things and trade."

"No air! And clear stars! Oh, I want to see it now..." Yaowek bounces on her feet. "Meet people, eh? Well, hello! I like learning things too!"

"Trade? Trade is good. We have a market if you'd like to see it?" The orange one says, relaxing at the word.

"Yes, please!"

This town has the buildings a lot closer together and some of them have two floors. All the streets are neat cobblestone and the buildings display solid workmanship.

"That's a restaurant and that's a school and that's a militia house don't go in it and that's the waste house and that's a place for plays and that's a law house and that's a granary and that's a drinking place..." Yaowek keeps up a running commentary as they go. People lean out of houses and alleys to look at the Amentans, giving them space.

"And here's the marketplace!" It's a large open area filled with wood stalls with colorful awnings and a fair amount of shouting. The smell of cooking is on the air. At the far end of the open square is the large stone building- It towers over the rest of the town and has a big stained-glass window depicting two Dwellin embracing.

Lovely! Amentans take many pictures of things and want to know who's depicted in the stained glass.

"Donraf Sea-Eyes and Nuumil, the Architect! Nuumil basically built Three Bells, by building the harbor that supports us and then designing the walls, the grand hall, and many other buildings over the decades. Every one of their incarnations, they quest to meet each other again and return here, adding another square to their hard-won tapestry of love! They, ah, haven't been around for the last two decades but I'm sure they'll arrive sooner or later."

Hey, how do they tell for sure if someone is really a particular person's reincarnation or just making it up?

"Oh, you can't tell for sure. I've seen fake reincarnations. Or just mistaken ones, sometimes. But the pair leave hidden notes to themselves and know how to open a special vault, which is at least hard to fake."

Cool! Are the two of them generally reincarnated around the same time?

"Oh yeah, I don't know the full timeline, who remembers all that, but - within 5 years of each other, usually, and they come back pretty quick. Some people have to wait decades to come back. Though the waiting doesn't feel like anything, you can find your family all scattered and the villages different if it's too long."

The merchants hesitate to hawk as loudly around the Amentans as they walk, but are still displaying their wares and talking them up as they pass. Everything the other place had and more is on offer.

What do they want for instances of the stuff? Metal also?

Yes, metal! Three Bells uses these minted copper and silver coins as currency so those would do nicely. Or big rolls of the nice cloth their clothes are made of or exotic spices and dyes or samples of exotic wood and stone or Amentan souvenirs or-

Fabric, dyes, spices - they're not, mind, sure yet if they're biocompatible - wood, stone, souvenirs, got it! It'll take days for the stuff to arrive, because their planet is far away, but they will bring stuff.

Gosh, a whole other planet. Hmm well only a few of the merchants are willing to sell right now, on credit, and at worse prices, but they'll still be here in a few days!

Yup, they aren't urgent about any of it. If some brave soul wants to try some Amentan food they did bring some of that!

They will try Amentan food!

Lots of Dwellin offer to spar with the Amentans, again. One of them says they need weapons. Some of them ask if Amentans find them attractive? The Dwellin think they look interesting and exciting and that is mostly the same thing.

They're pretty sure that unarmed the Dwellin would win, and if the Amentans were trying to win it would be not much like a sparring match. None of these Amentans find them attractive but tastes vary very widely and some surely will, there is porn of imaginary aliens vaguely like them in many ways.

Oh, there's an idea, the merchants will buy porn too!

...just still images or is video okay too?

After another explanation of video... They're unsure? It feels a little taboo, they'll have to think about it and probably ask ethics-thinkers.

Yaowek, who has been sticking close and asking lots of questions about Amenta, gets a whispered message from a runner then says, "Good news! Mrr, well, news! King Leuu'k wants to meet you all."

They would be happy to go meet King Leuu'k.

The king apparently rules from a two-story stone building near the huge hall, instead of the hall itself. Brightly decorated hallways, lots of side offices, a bustling 'map room' full of various labelled maps and models, and an open courtyard with another Tree of Souls. Then the king's chamber, where he sits on a throne decorated with bright white furs.

"I thank my visitors for taking the time to answer my summons. As one might imagine, such a momentous occasion is concerning. I would not want to make new enemies by accident. I hope my escort has prevented any trouble?"

"There has been no trouble! Your people have been hospitable."

"I am pleasantly surprised. But Yaowek is rather infamous here, if anyone would deter trouble..." (Yaowek laughs.) "It seems to me that trying to fight Amentans without being forced to would be a terrible waste, but not all share that thought. I have heard some of what you've explained already from my helpers, and I say we should plan for trouble before you visit again."

"What kind of trouble?"

"You should review our laws. We must decide how to handle matters of accident and ignorant harm, or deliberate or reckless harm- By my people against yours, and by yours against mine. Also, I will choose someone to by my voice in the matter of Amentans. As king of Three Bells, I administer this village and nine others in the area-"

He waves a hand and a roll of heavy paper gently lifts itself from the table and floats towards the Amentans.

"This is a map of the area, a gift to you."

"..."

"- thank you! It seems prudent to appoint a diplomat and be aware of each other's likely patterns of behavior and of course we would like to know how to follow local law. Uh, how did you - do that?"

The map settles gently to the floor if they don't catch it.

"My salk? That- Mrr. Perhaps we will tell you when we have had time to trust each other."

They pick up the map once it's stopped moving. "...okay," says the spokesAmentan.

"I am sure you have capabilities you have not described to us. The methods you use to construct huge buildings of steel and glass. Weapons as strange as the shuttle or more. Trust takes time. But exchanging diplomats would be very good. If you wish to be granted a building to make your own while you visit, that would be acceptable."

The paper map shows that Three Bells apparently claims a large section of the local coast and riverine system, though not the whole biome. The nine other villages claimed are the larger towns, there are also dotted smaller communities here and there.

The Amentans would prefer to build their own building eventually if that's okay - they want things like plumbing and electricity. Is this blue they've brought along a suitable diplomat or are there particular traits they should screen for?

"You may also receive a plot of land, though it would not be as centrally located. I would be greatly pleased if you allowed us to learn by assisting construction in some small way. In Dwellin diplomats I look for someone patient, who understands their own group's priorities and is able to empathize with mine- If this describes your 'blues' I see no reason to ask for someone else."

This blue will be the ambassador to Three Bells, then! They would be happy to hire some local labor for some of the less complicated parts of construction, though they have a lot of advanced technology and can't promise that much will be learned that way. Trade goods and construction equipment for Amentan outposts and some construction workers are already on the way.

The King is glad to meet them and looks forward to trade! He still has to decide who would be a good ambassador to Tapa but expects whoever he picks to be fine with cleaning procedures and following Amentan laws as best they are able, he'll come to a decision within two days. In the meantime, the laws are written down in another room but do they have any questions directly for him?

How many citizens are in Three Bells? Are they getting along with their neighbors?

There are about 35,500 people living in the town itself of Three Bells. About three times more, across the whole polity. It's hard to keep an exact count, naturally. They don't have any trouble with their land-based neighbors but have some on and off again conflict with distant seafaring groups and pirate cliques.

Is 35,000 people enough that they have trouble having kids?

The king calls for someone else to answer that in more detail-

They estimate fertility in the city is 40% lower, but people who live in smaller towns for at least 3 years seem to get it back. They've been growing steadily for a while.

Cool. And their level of growth has not caused any wild animal related problems?

They had a spate of shark attacks until they figured out a better waste treatment system that didn't use sulfur.

Oh, interesting.

And they have to be careful not to overfish and with polluting industries like smelting. But otherwise, this level of development seems perfectly fine.

How much fish can they take without an issue?

They have to summon someone else for this- The king shoos them into a side chamber so he can get on with other things- The First Fishing Chief is happy to tell them about their fishing habits. While they don't really have exact figures they're much smaller than industrial fishing, and mostly stick close to shore for it. They feed about a third of the population with fish.

What else do they eat?

Lots of fruit, lots of vegetables, some grains, some hunted and some domestic meat. If something happened to their food supply they'd intensify fishing and fertilizer use for a year or two and deal with the animal warnings.

A different functionary is eager to tell the Amentans about how they're trying a thing where the farms are carefully disguised to still look like wilderness and people can wander through, to see if that helps with fertility! People living in that place seem to have more kids, but there's arguments over whether that's the farms or something else or just coincidence.

Ooh, that's clever. How do they disguise them?

Avoiding obvious paths and fences, scattered naturalistic placement of fruit-bearing trees and bushes, free-roaming livestock, placement of other crops in small patches without rigid rows. Unfortunately they're pretty expensive to run, though people do seem to enjoy them a lot as parks.

They sound pleasant! But yeah, not that efficient to harvest.

Someone hauls in a copy of the laws. It's one short scroll no bigger than the map- No slavery. Citizens are guaranteed food and have mandatory militia service, if called up. Taxes in the form of a corvee, waived for coin at the King's discretion, and entry tolls for non-citizens also at the King's discretion. Laconic descriptions of penalty ranges for murder, fraud, theft, assault, and environmental crime. Anything can go to one of the King's arbitrators for a trial, but use of that right judged 'unnecessary' will get you punished too.

Where do the entry fees come up and how big are they? Also what are the boundaries of environmental crime and how will that affect science experiments? Will long term Amentan visitors who are there for a few years count as citizens for tax or militia purposes?

The entry tolls are a way to capture value from being a safe trade center and pay for fleet and facilities maintenance, the law-bearer explains. They get changed but right now are just one small copper coin per head (person or animal) and per wheel (on carts and such). And environmental crime is ignoring the administration's directions regarding the environment. Any diplomats certainly wouldn't count as citizens if they don't want to, that's an established policy, and they imagine that alien visitors could have something similar worked out probably involving a fee.

Okay, cool. They were hoping to be able to move lots of Amentans to a new planet but it seems like this one isn't suited for that, but there will still be a tourism industry and science stuff, so it's good to work out how that will play out when they scatter buildings all over the planet.

Buildings outside of civilized areas will tend to get attacked, by the way. They can only speak for Three Bells but if they're paying some sort of taxes the army will defend them just as much as anyone else.

The Amentans are willing to have their own security if they build out in the wilderness - which they might, since there's not much wilderness to see on their planet - but appreciate the option of having resorts and science based in safe places and are happy to pay for it.

They will make sure the king also considers how to handle Amentan long-term residents. The diplomat and their team can come back tomorrow to see the plot of land they're being assigned.

Okay! How big is it going to be, about?

That depends on if they want bigger or closer to the center of town.

Bigger. They can have bicycles for getting around if the distances are annoying.

Okay, then the plot they'll probably get is- They retrieve a map from the map room- Is about twenty body-heights by thirty-five body-heights, slightly longer on one side than the other. (This includes horns, making the effective measure a bit taller than the average Amentan.)

That's big enough for a decent sized building. It will take them some time to put up and they might need to stage some stuff outside the plot itself during construction.

That's not exactly standard for construction. She'll look into allowing them to block the street or neighbors amenable to it.

They can probably do it within the footprint if they have to.

Well, things should be worked out by tomorrow. Would they like to do anything else in the government building since they're already here? Or maybe go see the Bell Hall? There's a lot of art in there.

They would love to see the art!

Art!! There's a huge hall with a painted ceiling inside, where blue tinted light filters in through glass skylights and more stained glass windows. The art is scattered all around, including in side rooms and a second floor with sets of balconies. Sculpture and painting, mostly, including some incredibly detailed ones where every tuft of fur is clearly seen in marble. Though there's also fancy tapestries and jewelry and extremely flashy weapons, behind ruddy and imperfect glass cases. The art leans strongly towards gentle, asymmetrical nature-like curves and fratals, or realism or still-life. There's some probably-porn, just incidentally, without a real focus on it. The Amentans can't visit the bell room, it's only for god-followers, but you get there through that tall ladder into a loft area.

Can the Amentans show somebody how to take a picture and get a picture of the bell-room without going into it?

Uh, no, that would defeat the point that only god-followers see the art in there.

Okay, they weren't sure if it was about seeing it or about entering the space. Why is that the point?

You need to have an understanding of the gods to properly appreciate it. And looking at god art without properly appreciating it is disrespectful to them.

Okay. They will not go look at the art in there. They take pictures of the rest of it though.

Are lots of people are going to see those?

...yes. Do they need to work out an IP arrangement?

They need proper attribution and a way to notify the artists of their fame, that's the important part. The caretakers can name the artist of every piece from memory.

Okay! They will write that down diligently and can send a regular update on the number of hits each piece gets to the museum.

Murrr, writing... No, no, lists are ok-ish, they'll be fine.

The curator's memory is very impressive! They just don't have memories like that.

Probably this is because Dwellin have a close connection to memory.

Yes, that seems likely. Also practice, since they don't usually write things down and Amentans get used to relying on it.

Perhaps. The curator can ask if any artists want to send their work to Amenta, if that's a thing the Amentans would want?

They would! They can do an art exchange, if they want any Amentan art to display.

The curator would enjoy looking through pictures of Amentan art that might be on offer and seeing if any of it looks interesting.

Sure! They scroll through some stuff that goes on exhibit tours.

Abstract art doesn't make much sense to her. But some of the stuff with happy families in it is very warm and hopeful, that's a maybe! Do they have war art, like the room full of paintings of battles against scary animals and other Dwellin?

Sure, here's a really big painting of the Battle of Shapto Mountain, and here's a sculpture of an Erethani fighting a polar bear, and here's an exhibit of portraiture of martial artists in fighting poses.

Oh wow, now she wants to fight one of those. She'll look into getting appropriately good stuff to potentially exchange!

Awesome! They will want examples of lots of different artistic traditions and there are many more Amentans than Dwellin so they can probably absorb as many art objects as they can spare.

Oho, a call to get creative, some people will enjoy that. Have a lovely day, Amentans!

They are! They are having a very lovely day.

After they have finished their preliminary survey of Three Bells they promise to come back with the ambassador and the trade goods soon, and hop over to another biome.

This one is a chilly, craggy lake area, with sharp mountains and lots of cliffs cut up by a mix of forested and open valleys, lakes, and rivers.

There's several villages they could land nearby, and- Actually, what is that? It's the size of a house, whatever it is, a silhouette broken up and half hidden by the trees, shaking them as it moves with bellowing rage. A big pack of Dwellin run along the shore with more weaving in and out of the trees, some of them carrying wounded on their backs.

Oh no, the poor natives!

The shuttle lands in the shallow water and a couple greys assemble their rifles and take shots when they have them.

This only adds to their panic and confusion, but they recognize a weapon when they hear one, since bursts of blood and monstrous jerks tend to follow the sharp cracks.

The hunt leaders herd the thing out closer to shore and away from cover, knocking down trees as it goes. It looks... Sort of like a giant, scaly, six limbed beaver-bear? It's already wounded in a bunch of places, with spears and arrows sticking out of it and blood smearing the green scales of its front arms.

It roars at a grouping of Dwellin, so loud that it distorts the air. The targets all stumble and clutch their ears in pain.

The greys have loud rifles and hearing protection. They pepper it with a few more rounds, aiming for the eyes.

It's much less of a threat blinded, and the Dwellin continue working hard to harass and hurt it. One goes flying into the lake from a paw swing, another loses an ear and falls to the ground.

The creature can take one hell of a beating, apparently. But it's panicking and slowing. And after more punishment than something that size should be able to take- It falls, and doesn't get up.

A victory chant goes up- Only half intelligible from the language they've been learning. Locals wave in the shuttle's direction and throw their weapons into the air, celebrating.

Greys unload their rifles and toss them too, whooping! Hopefully this will get across all right.

They seem to get it!

More Dwellin emerge from the trees, many of them carrying large packs. They start treating their wounded. A pair of white-furred ones leave their compatriots and jog towards the shuttle. (The lake-tossed one manages to swim to shore).

The greys aren't super keeping up with the language acquisition and are joined by more Amentans. "Hello!"

This language seems to be kind of far from the previous one. "Hello strange (people?)! Many thanks! You (something) killed the walkutan! Are those wealons salk? Stupid (us?) were (something something something) dead! We give you (something)!"

They can do the new vocabulary game with these folks too!

Oh, okay, vocabulary games.

'Salk' is 'magic' - the word for abilities that beings don't normally possess, like the king's telekinesis and the walkutan's sonic scream. These Dwellin were a hunting party specifically trying to get this thing to steal its magic! But they underestimated it and were probably all going to die. Therefore, Amentans get first pick of the kill!

Gosh. How does stealing its magic work.

Well, you have to find the bits of magic inside it and eat them. You don't get the same kind of magic it had, and you have to figure it out yourself. That's by far the most valuable part of this thing so if the Amentans want its magic they can only have most of it, and none of the flesh or bones or scales or anything!

They would like enough magic parts for one Amentan to try it out, since they don't know if it will work for them.

Huh, okay. That's perfectly reasonable even if they do all the butchering work. Also, the Dwellin are really curious how the guns work, are they like bows in some way? And where did they even come from and why do they look like that?

They are sort of like bows but powered by explosions! They came from another planet and everyone there looks like them, and they've been bopping around here meeting Dwellin.

Well they saved these Dwellin's lives! Most of them. They should come join the feast!

Okay! They aren't sure yet about whether they should eat lots of Dwellin food yet but they'll come hang out.

It's definitely a loud party. They're building bonfires and washing things off with ashy soap in tubs filled from the lake and dancing and hollering and steadily chopping up and cooking the giant beast and many couples have snuck off with each other. More and more Dwellin come in, with walking wounded and non-walking wounded and bloody extra equipment and camp supplies.

The hunt leader says this will be an excellent story- Even if they kind of stole his glory, he didn't deserve it in the first place!

They are glad they were able to help! They don't have many dangerous animals on their planet any more and they seem like a real menace. Which part of the animal is the magic part?

People leave the places really dangerous beasts live in alone, unless they want to hunt them, and that tends to work out fine. They knew what they were trying was dangerous.

It's these little gemstones, usually in the brain and spine. They're going to carefully dig through those bits to make sure to get them all.

How much does somebody have to eat to get magic?

It kind of depends, but a good fingerweight is usually enough. Powdered is fine, but most people eat them whole so they don't lose any material. Eating the salkstones is just the beginning, though. It takes a lot of practice and experimenting to actually use your magic. There's not much good generalizable advice about it than 'try'. One of the white-furred ones shows off how they can make a blade very very sharp for a single cut by running their fingers along it.

Oh that's really cool! What are other examples of magic they can get?

Making yourself stronger and tougher, permanently. Enhanced senses, like telescopic vision or sensing metal. Creating venoms. Sheathes of glowing force around your body as a weapon or shield. Telekinesis. Pyrokinesis. Health-sensing. A bunch of hard to explain things that help with crafting, like the super-blade thing.

Amazing.

Once the gems are extracted one of the greys washes her share off very thoroughly and swallows them like pills.

Haha, yeah, of course you want to take them right away. Basically nobody ever sells these when they could take them themselves, unless they're old. Magic doesn't carry over to a new life. It doesn't really feel like anything until you're actually doing magic and then it feels kind of like remembering something that didn't actually happen until the magic becomes instinct.

How long do they take to digest or whatever?

They've never heard of anyone getting it down in less than a week, so that's an upper limit?

Okay, cool! That grey will, uh, try.

They have similar questions about these Dwellin's political status with their neighbors and desired trade relations and possible science/tourism outposts.

They're kind of nomads and often get into trouble with the areas they wander through, with their camp and kids waiting a few days back whenever they try anything dangerous. Though they tend to have good relations with fellow nomad groups. They could sell animal pelts and scrimshaw and smoked meat and info about interesting places they've been? Can they buy guns?

They would need to talk to their government back home about selling guns but they can buy some of the other stuff!

They have to travel light, can't go buying unnecessary stuff. Amentans can have a few scrimshaw pieces as presents though. 

They appreciate that.

As the party and chat goes on they pay more attention to pocket everythings- Light making thingies like that would be pretty handy actually. And that water bottle the grey has, it's amazingly light!

The pocket everythings are mostly not for being flashlights; they can give them a flashlight that is, but explain it will run out of charge sooner or later. They can have a spare water bottle too.

Oh if it doesn't last forever that sucks, but it's still better than a torch for some places. Thank you!

Party continues. These Dwellin are happy to offer food to the Amentans and tell stories. Mostly violent ones. This biome is adored by climbers, and the more built up parts of it have lots of ropewalks and bridges between the cliffy parts. There's a great view from this one mountain. They nearly got half the party taken as slaves once but their chief pretended to take the deal and betrayed the slavers, serves 'em right! They were mercenaries in the 971st Teeth Mountain War half a decade ago. And so on.

Yeah, serves the slavers right! The Amentans might try coordinating anti-slavery Dwellin to abolish the practice worldwide once they have an established presence.

That'd be a fun war to fight for sure!

And then there would be no more slavery, it'd be great.

The next day the trade goods are incoming and they go back to their orbital ship to collect various personnel and objects they are distributing to various places. This time more shuttles disperse. The would-be magic grey stays in orbit to "try".

The village in the savannah is happy to welcome them back! That one merchant has a lot more stuff and is delighted to collect his copper. Three Bells has a plot and Dwellin diplomat prepared for them as promised. The nomads are still camped out in the same place this morning.

The stuff shipped in from Amenta is enough to let some purples and their yellow clerk/translator get started building on their plot. In the meantime they'll live in their shuttle, including the ambassador to Three Bells. The nomads can get traded with and the Amentans would like to know for future reference where their home camp is.

More shuttles deploy to elsewhere in the world to learn more languages and meet more people.

The nomads don't really have a home camp but they have a usual route and will make a map of it. You can bet they'll come see if they see a shuttle landing.

Three Bells's people are very curious and bother the Amentans with questions and hang out on nearby roofs to watch them. Their diplomat would like to spend time discussing everything Amenta's government does with his counterpart- It sounds like Amenta has more complications to deal with.

Other landings mostly go well. It looks like Three Bells is on the upper third of the bell curve when it comes to size and organization. They've outpaced actual news of the previous landings, though not rampant speculation about the trails the shuttles make in the sky. Though the more dangerous areas have... More paranoid and aggressive inhabitants.

Amenta does have more complications and the ambassador is happy to discuss them by way of practicing the new language he has to learn!

The Amentans favor withdrawing rather than fighting when they encounter would-be ambushes but if necessary will cover their retreat with return fire. They try to make friends with somebody adjacent to every hostile group for intel and a place to fall back short of orbit.

Return fire is very deterring! Sometimes the neighbors are hostile too, and some of the 'friendly' groups are clearly looking for weaknesses. A bunch of probably-slavers offer to sell Dwellin tranquilizer to the Amentans as a nonlethal measure.

...what do they want for the tranquilizer and how can they be sure it's what they say it is.

An amount of metal, pricier than the usual souvenirs but not obviously scammy. They'll test it on a volunteer, this merchant's assistant right here will volunteer and be fine after an hour.

Sure, if they can pick a dose out of the whole lot for the test and their orange can inspect the volunteer.

They'll load a dose into a bone needle right in front of them. What would they be inspecting?

Whether the patient is faking.

What! Why would they be faking! That would be dishonest! ...Hmph. Very well, just don't hurt him okay? (The patient tells the merchant to stop the show and just get on with it, please.)

They pick out a dose and the orange tries the standard tricks to check for consciousness that work on Amentans and most animals, like shining light in their eyes and pinching their fingernail a bit.

He's either out like a light or real good at pretending. He bites suddenly at one of the checks, but the merchant says that's a reflex.