"I'm… not really sure what 'living' entails, when it comes to something like floatstone?"

"It's... It's alive, the stone. Bacteria and something a bit like moss in symbiosis that excrete the honeycomb foam structure and filter light gases in. It grows. Just very very slowly."

"Ah." Pause. "How do you feed it, or…?"

"Feeds off sunlight. Occasionally I sprinkle the interior surface with sugar and fertilizer to make up for the darkness in here - but this way it won't try to grow inward, so I don't have to occasionally carve it down or anything. Floatstone cultivation is complicated."

"Sounds like it was an interesting experiment, at least. And you got something out of it, it wasn't useless."

"Yes. I could have had a ship four times the size for the same money - but it also wouldn't be manageable by myself, at that point. I wouldn't get on well with a permanent crew, I think, even if the very occasional passenger is acceptable."

"Do you think the floatstone'd have applications to… housing? On islands? Admittedly I don't know its properties very well."

"They do make houses out of it - mostly the dead variety. It's not as bouyant but still light and tough."

"Any particular benefits to it being dead other than not having to feed it?"

Mostly that. Also, it's much less flammable when it's been dead for long enough to lose the internal gasses."

"Okay, that sounds like a large perk to being used for houses especially kitchens."

"Just remember that's not 'not flammable', just less."

"Do you just not have much in the way of – not flammable materials?"

"Not bulk enough to make a house. Starglass and metal are both rather unflammable. There are fire-resistant paints - but if it's hot enough they'll melt off and burn anyway, that's a problem with fires you reach a certain amount of heat and everything ignites all at once, they call it flashover - and a few other things. But fire is a constant danger yes."

"I do not know that we have wards to protect against that kind of thing but it might be something we can look into?"

"Honestly, a ready supply of metal is a much more promising near to middle term benefit."

She shrugs. "People have not really been doing much in the way of development, where I'm from, but you may well be right."

"Oh, I'm sure there's all sorts of opportunities here, I just don't see the possibility space as clearly as you two do."

"Could be. People seem to like sorcerers, but mostly… as the town's medic? Or last resort in the unlucky event they get attacked?"

"Honestly, that's a bit like how metalworkers and glassworkers and some chemists get viewed. They work with fire and heat, you know, very dangerous, people would rather not have to talk to them or share islands... But it's just that they make so many useful things."

"There's also a difference between, like, town sorcerer, and that random guy who just picked some up because he had a spare hour every day for a month, and that one who goes digging for artifacts and has got some knowledge about it through slow exposure, and that group of weirdos who live in the abandoned university who often get themselves killed poking at it recklessly…"

"Hm. At any rate, that's about it for plant-watering."

She nods and puts things away.

"If it wasn't clear, Akien's more… the town sorcerer kind with an added bit of mystique?"

"Almost like me, the slightly crazy wandering trader-inventor? But, no, I think I see it."

"It's probably one of the easier personas to set up," she shrugs.