Nod.

Blue-glowing eyes! Scanning around!

"Welp, seems like we're definitely leaking it," he says.

"I thought we already knew that?"

"Well, yes, but – it's sticking around a little, in this place, instead of just evaporating or whatever."

"...Even more on the lookout for nasty creatures, then."

"I've never heard of them just mysteriously appearing in towns, and towns usually have quite a lot of ambient chi, but – yes."

He looks over at Nick and tilts his head.

"Have I got something on my face?"

"Not that I'm looking at, at least," he responds. "You might be – a bit blue, though."

"So you might be contagious? Or you might be leaky? Hm... Anyway, I'll go string up a couple of hammocks in the cargo bay for you two and then make the glow-implements and then sleep. We're going to head out in the morning and hopefully fly all day."

Nod. "Sounds good."

So he does that. The end result is one flashlight-sized thing with a big glass tube at the top and a rock inside that, with a rolling wheel built into the handle to control it, and a similar large lantern with a dial on its top.

"Plan is for me to enchant the rock, I guess?"

"Yes, if you can get them to react to the dials."

"… It might be a bit of an experiment."

"...A smallish chunk of gold instead of useful magic things would be an acceptable substitute for the fare. If you feel it's a bit dangerous."

He considers. "If you instead attach something to it so I can have it glow based on distance to an object, that would be less dangerous… Dial-related reactions I haven't done, so much."

"...A slider with another small rock on the end? Brighter the closer the second rock is to the first one?"

"Would work much better and be a more conventional design, yes," he responds.

"I can do that, I didn't know you had conventional designs for this sort of thing."

"Glow related to distance from an object is – standard activation protocol, if it's not just on permanently?" Shrug. "I mean, the magic and what concepts it combines, is more standard."

"Aha. Well, I'll fix it tomorrow. It's well past time to sleep now."

"Did you set up the hammocks?"

"Yeah, same room you came into. There's a restroom near the kitchen if you want to wash up - please don't disorganize my cargo bay in any way."

Nod. "Thanks. If that's all, goodnight."

"Yep, goodnight."

So Akien goes to his hammock and sleeps.