"I've never heard of those critters. You'll probably have to describe them."

He's relaxing quite a bit now. The emotional state of the captain is a good indication of the ship's safety.

"Flecks – well, mostly that. They hide in plain sight, you can only really see them out the corner of your eye, they sort of… sit flat against a surface, making it look raised, or blurry?"

"Not ringing a bell. Something to do with this 'sorcery' maybe. I'm inclined to think it's probably actually lost technology but call it whatever you want."

"… I'm reasonably confident it has nothing to do with technology? Lightbulbs are a relatively new invention, to my knowledge."

"We're coming at this from two completely different directions here."

"How do you mean?"

"To me anything humans do to the world is technology. Sorcery is storybook nonsense. Lost technology is technology we can't replace - lost knowledge, lack of material or facilities - but sometimes find in working condition. Brace for weight shift, venting lift gas..."

Akien moves towards the edge of the room, steadies himself against a wall.

Ev can cope.

The ship shifts fairly violently, and there's a sensation of falling for a moment. "What, you two aren't used to shifting?"

"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."