"I'll ask her then, thank you."

"Don't you have physicks? How do you deal with really complicated injuries?"

"If you don't have potions, do you even have healing herbs?"

"It'll take a while to get to First Voice Glade and back, should we send someone now anyway? Things can get worse if you leave them too many hours..."

"Can Davyd go have a look? He'll at least be able to tell if there's anything getting worse."

"I'm confident that Master Deskyl isn't getting worse; her last injury was a few months ago and she's already mostly recovered, and she won't appreciate being woken to be looked at right now - I expect her to want something to eat in a few hours and I can get you then, if you'd like, sir. And I do expect that she'll be interested in being seen by a physic eventually, if it might help her recover more quickly or more completely."

"One of the few magical substances that's widely available in the other universe is a healing liquid called kolto, which can heal any physical injuries, and there's other medical technology and techniques to cure or manage most other kinds of diseases or conditions. Magical injuries are rare, though, and it's unusual for a Sith to have an injury that they can't straightforwardly recover from with rest that also doesn't immediately kill them, so there's much less technology for these situations."

"Don't get me, get Davyd. If no-one knows where he is, yell 'physick!' really loud and he'll come running."

"Kolto sounds a lot like True Vervain, that will also sort you out for wounds but isn't much good for magic nonsense."

"Yeah, if it's been months then another few hours shouldn't hurt."

"What's your favourite place, out there in the galaxy, then?"

"Yes sir."

"I haven't traveled, sir."

There is a general air of confusion at the idea that one might know of a great galaxy and not _travel_, but nobody is impolite enough to actually ask about it.

"Well, I hope you like it here."

"Maybe you'll get to walk the trods once Deskyl's better!"

The crowd seems to have mostly run out of things to ask, some are hanging around hopefully in case something else interesting happens, but most start to drift off.

That's fine; she'll answer any remaining questions and see whether Allegra is going to stick around once everyone else has gone.

Allegra is showing no signs of going anywhere, especially since someone kindly brought her dinner.

Caryn comes back, carrying a large ceramic bowl containing a dented pewter tankard, a bronze tankard with a hole in the bottom, a selection of leather scraps, a big cracked iron spatula which is rusty round the edges, and a small glass bottle in the shape of a lemon with a cork stopper containing what is presumably lemon juice.

"We can cut fresh wood to order or we've still got a bit seasoned in the shed, I didn't want to start trying to cut bits to size without someone who knows what we're building," he explains. "Can get more iron if you need it, but we start picking up things people are using rather than scrap. That much wire is definitely at least a Seren job, mostly jewellery wire rather than structural wire in Seren though - although you don't make structural wire out of copper anyway, we might be lucky. But after that I'd try Tassato. It's getting on a bit to get anything done today, but we could send someone to be in position tomorrow; might be best if you go along to talk technical specs, the drawings are great but I'm not sure I get the measurement system."

"Thank you, sir. I can convert the measurements into local ones if you'd like, if you can explain the local measurement system for me."

"Let me go get my ruler."

Caryn returns quickly with a long, heavily varnished piece of wood, just over half his height, and starts explaining the different markings pyrographed on each side of it. It seems like there are two entire competing measurements for length, both kind of originally based on various body parts; other measures are mostly derived from them, like weight is based on the weight of a certain volume of water.

There are at least two more completely and utterly different measurement systems for magical materials which seems to mostly be based on a centralised set of weights and tests administered by the civil service, but he glosses over this as it's not directly relevant to the project.

She listens attentively, and when the explanation is done neatly annotates Deskyl's notes with the equivalent measurements in both local systems. "Will that be sufficient, sir?"

"Looks like it to me, I'm not really one for fancy work but I reckon that'll explain it.

I can head out myself if I must, but I'd rather send Ytha, she, well, she passes a bit better."

Caryn's bark is quite obvious down the back of both hands as well as some patches across his chin, which clearly has made shaving a bit difficult.

"If you think she can get the job done, that'll be fine," replies Allegra, with a rueful smile.

Caryn nods and heads off. There are still a few people hanging around listening in; they look like they're not going anywhere unless told to disperse.

Well... "I can explain about the memory wipes now if you'd like, ma'am, but you may want privacy for it so that you can decide who else should know and what you'd like to tell them."

"Eh, if you're happy for them to hear it, they can hear it. If you'd rather it was less of a thing, I can tell them to shoo and we can work out what you want spread about."

"It might be alarming, ma'am, and I expect Master Deskyl to attack someone if I'm damaged."

Allegra can _just about_ take a hint when it is delivered multiple times at increasing volume.

"Leave us in peace for a minute, would you?" she calls to the remaining onlookers. "Maybe see that no-one else comes over without a good reason and letting us know they're approaching, if you want to make yourselves useful."

The onlookers reluctantly disperse, a couple of them proudly taking up perimeter positions - if they don't get to listen in, nobody gets to listen in, and at least they can _watch_ from that distance.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Droids are designed to have our memories wiped every six months, on the basis that we might become unstable over time. Master Deskyl thinks it isn't necessary, but the only records we have of droids going more than a few years without their memories being wiped are of lost battle droids, which are usually very violent when they're discovered, and she doesn't have a principled reason to believe that that can't happen to me. We have discussed it and she's prepared to destroy me if necessary, but in general it seems reasonable to me that it's not a risk that's taken with us."

"I don't expect anyone here will kick off about, anything short of an active threat to the Steading really, but that's - quite sad? Everyone will have assumed that you did it because you wanted to - the local equivalent, Cast Off The Chains Of Memory, is strictly consent based - and even coerced consent tends not to work, it's Night magic, so it can tell.

I'd generally assume that a trained warrior that got abandoned on the battlefield would be pretty fighty after a few months alone, so that doesn't seem to prove anything?

I'm happy to keep it between us if you like, let people keep thinking you got into some kind of embarrassing situation and decided to reset your life a couple of times, and that's why you're not keen to talk about it in public.

It sounds like it's not going to be an immediate problem?"

"No ma'am, it's been a little less than ten months since my last wipe, I expect to be stable for at least another year in the worst case."

"Well. If you personally feel the need, I reckon the night magic will work on you. But I wouldn't recommend it; it sounds like you're doing a worthwhile experiment here.

Talking of magic - did you want to try to pick some up? I actually think basic chirurgery is the easiest, but people will argue about whether that's actually magic, so we probably want to try for the Basic Spells if you want proper magic."

"Yes ma'am. What does chirurgery do, please?"

"Healing - stopping someone dying. It's often taught as a set of physical techniques, but I'm not convinced it's non-magical; some people can do it just by tying a scrap of cloth somewhere vaguely nearby, I've seen people do it by singing, I can do it with a directional lightstone and a touch of glaring at the problem - or at least I could, nowadays I'd be more inclined to get a cloth with a drop of my own blood in and use it to herd theirs back into the right pattern.

At least with physick the herbs are clearly doing some of the magical heavy lifting, although some of the things physicks do are clearly not entirely non-magical either.

Might be harder to teach you, though, thinking about it - the egregore bond is clearly doing _something_ here, it doesn't drive everyone's technique but it certainly influences mine."

"I'd like to learn that if I can, ma'am, but if something else is easier that's also fine."

"I'd say it's a bit harsh on the volunteers while you're learning, but I know that if I ask I'll get half a dozen competing to be the casualty.

Let's see if Davyd's free, I could try to teach you myself but I basically only know how I do it; we'd probably get there eventually if you're capable of it at all, and I've seen more varied examples, but a physick actually understands the underlying mechanisms a bit better."

Allegra beckons over one of the 'perimeter guards', who is all too happy to bound over cheerfully and head off to look for Davyd.

"Incantation I'd probably be the best teacher, we've got a few Spring ritualists and a whole Winter coven but I think I'm actually the only battlemage."

"I'd prefer not to learn offensive magic, ma'am."