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She can't exactly talk to them, since DZ stayed behind at the tent, but she hangs out at the base of the tree for a bit anyway, keeping half an eye on the position of the sun.

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Some of them start attempting to show her how to climb the tree; nobody gets too close to her yet, but someone goes up to demonstrate and someone else starts pointing at easy routes.

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She chuckles a little and makes a fifteen foot standing leap into the tree, landing easily on one of the branches.

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Everyone is very clearly impressed by this feat, and it inspires a couple of the more competitive teenagers to get into the tree and start swinging about in less impressive but still moderately dangerous feats of athleticism.

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After a moment, they'll find that the last foot or so of airspace above the ground is acting oddly cushioned, so that they fall more slowly through it; it wouldn't be impossible to hurt themselves with a bad landing, but at least considerably more difficult.

Deskyl turns her attention to the sunset. (The cushioning effect remains in place.)

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One of them discovers this the hard way (although she's executing quite a competent breakfall anyway and the ground is mostly mossy and forgiving); the other notices something's interesting and leaps carelessly out of the tree into it deliberately (although he is clearly still ready to break his fall in a trained fashion if he needs to).

Sunset over the forest happens in a reasonably pleasant, but definitely 'this world is low on air pollution' way.

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It's still lovely.

She doesn't come down again until half an hour after it's fully dark, instead taking the time to do her daily meditation first.

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The teenagers mess around in the tree and have fun with the dampening field; this seems to be one of the most interesting things that has happened to them for a while, even if she's no longer doing anything obvious.

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She hops back out of the tree when she's done, landing with a gentle thump and no visible attempt to cushion her landing. It's full dark, by now.

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The stars are out; nobody seems to have lit a big campfire although several houses are producing smoke out the chimneys. It's dark and quiet and most people seem to be content to sleep with the light, other than the few nocturnal types on sentry rotation. Maybe there will be news of the supplies tomorrow.

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Deskyl takes a walk around the village, keeping an eye out for the warehouse with the good view of the sunset but mostly just getting a feel for the place. She's again not going to any particular trouble to avoid being spotted, though she is keeping an eye on the emotional landscape and will move off if her presence seems to be worrying anyone.

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The warehouse is presumably the building that the mana crystals were being stored in earlier; it's got a triangular roof which crests a little higher than most of the other buildings, although not as high as most of the surrounding trees.

A couple of the sentries are practicing their skills by spotting her, then deliberately losing track of her, then picking her out again, but she seems to be an accepted fixture of the place already as far as they're concerned.

There is a clear separation between shared buildings - warehouse, latrines, a few different workshop type spaces - which are lined up neatly against the treeline, and have a broad dirt road between them and the rest of the settlement which eventually heads off down to the road out - and everything else, which appears to be entirely made up of personal dwellings that were constructed however and wherever someone felt like constructing them. Generally there is enough space to circle around any one of them, with a bit of a squeeze in places, but nobody has successfully left any larger open spaces.

There are a few indifferently cultivated patches of ground in the mostly grassy clearing area between the village and the stream, in various states of neglect, mostly herbs and a few runners of fresh vegetables. It seems like there isn't really enough cultivation to be more than a hobby.

There is a little tension - worry for the future, concern about things changing - and a little excitement in the air, although it is all gradually drifting off to sleep; the forge site has been marked out and cleared of undergrowth at the other end of the clearing.

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It's a cute little place.

She heads back to the tent and lights her 'saber, giving it a few moments to see if the light is going to alarm anyone before starting any exercises with it.

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Only very minor alarm; very quickly categorised as 'the strange visitors are doing a strange thing'. Much more interest; several of the steading's nocturnal types are watching with various degrees of intentness and plausible deniability.

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She'll move on to practicing her swordwork, then, stopping only if someone comes within a few feet of close enough to get tagged with a lunge.

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Now she definitely has an audience and some people have woken up a couple of their friends to come watch the glowy sword display. The lightsaber and its sword forms don't seem to be familiar to any of them, but also not totally out of their expectations of things that might be possible. A couple of onlookers have picked up sticks and are experimentally trying out some of the moves.

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They will quickly notice that some of the moves she's doing seem to be outright impossible to mimic with a stick; momentum doesn't work that way.

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That just causes them to redouble their attempts, try out a woodcutting axe and a machete instead of the stick, and argue quietly amongst themselves about whether a sword or maybe a rod implement could be enchanted to swing like that.

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(Deskyl is, perhaps unfortunately, not paying enough attention to them to notice that they've switched to experimenting with live blades.)

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Everyone involved is reasonably safe with live blades and there are only a couple of incidents of axes and machetes escaping their owners' grip and flying through the night, during which nobody gets hurt. There is a general resolution that if they're building a forge, Allegra must be expecting an artisan to show up, and when the strange visitors are feeling talkative they should ask if the artisan can have a look at whatever that is.

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After fifteen or twenty minutes Deskyl winds down her practice, pausing at the end to briefly watch the onlookers but returning to the tent rather than sticking around to chat.

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They've mostly wound down too and are just watching her; once the entertainment is over they start to drift off again, not particularly wanting to bother her directly in the middle of the night - or at least being willing to obey the general rule that seems to have been passed around of not approaching the strangers uninvited.

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They won't be seen until morning, then, when DZ comes out to ask about breakfast.

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There are, once more, a number of people who just happen to be hanging around and are delighted to offer a range of breakfast options. One of them also mentions that Davyd might want to see them, if it isn't any trouble, just to make sure Deskyl doesn't need anything to help her recovery along.

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It's easy enough to compose a meal out of the food on offer, and DZ relays that Davyd is welcome to have a look at Deskyl when she's done eating, too.

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