"We are not used to large moving buildings, we are used to towns with large walls on solid ground and monsters of varying degree around mainly at night."

"Well. You're quite lost, sorry to say. And this type of flying building - one that can direct itself reasonably well - is called an airship."

"I am like ninety five percent certain I've never heard that word before."

"We have lost knowledge but it's mostly about sorcery practices."

"Hmm. Never heard of flecks, or anything particularly like them either."

"… Shadows? Pixies, Angles, Los, Panicks?"

"None. Bladesquid, rays, jellywings, spinies, fireflowers?"

"Fireflowers – we have those? If you mean brilliant orange roses that are slightly hot to the touch."

"Er, no. To me fireflowers are medium size red creatures that vaguely resemble flowers when seen from above, and like to explode."

"… I think we are much farther than I expected. And I'm afraid I don't have more useful comment than that."

"Well... Welcome to Cloudbank? Your sorcery is going to be extremely popular. Fast ships are great. We are escaping this storm fairly easily instead of it being a frighteningly close call."

"I am somewhat surprised you don't have any."

He frowns and pulls a bracelet out of his bag. The next time he looks at Nick, his eyes are glowing blue.

"Okay so please don't do sorcery things on my ship without explaining them and securing permission. Sounds like it could be really quite dangerous."

"– Right, sure." He puts the bracelet away.

"I don't suppose you know what Chi is or why you don't have any."

"No and no."

"It'd explain the lack of sorcery. But I'm slightly surprised you're not a rock."

"Chi is an old Chinese word referring to life-force. But life's just chemistry plus mutation and selection pressure, really."

"I do not know what Chinese is. Anyway – what's your name? I'm Akien."

"You can call me Nick. I think there is opportunity for trade here, even if you two are rather badly lost..."

"It will probably be quite small-scale, for the time being. Seeing as how there are two of us."

"I have no clear idea how much sorcery one can do in a day. Or even what it can do besides wind. But new resources are generally rich in potential profit-space."

"It is in fact limited but can do quite a few different things – elemental manipulation is part of it, small extrasensory details, is often useful in a fight or if you might be attacked by monsters. Possibly less of an issue here, but still."

Evara coughs. "Uh, I'm Evara, by the way."

"Akien, Evara. Bladesquid probably count as monsters. Can you do permanent effects?"

"Well, most of my tools here, they're permanently magical in some way, but it's mostly as magical aid. Other than that – extremely limitedly, but yes. It takes a long time, a lot of effort, and a lot of potential to backfire, with quite a restricted pool of things you can do."