Deskyl backs away from the door as she registers them leaving; DZ follows, still signing.

Allegra attempts to breeze past and not draw attention to Deskyl, but the woman with her does notice her presence and glares as she passes; no actual confrontation ensues and they head down to the stream to break the good / bad news to the other crystal panners.

Nobody else seems quite as put out as the original lady; Allegra concocts some errands for those who don't want some time off, some firewood gathering, some clothes repair, some tool maintenance.

Eventually she is free to attend to Deskyl again.

"So, how did you do it?" she asks, actually quite interested. She seems to have been distracted from her worries about the teenagers, and is genuinely interested in the answer.

    "They're very visible to her Force senses even under the mud, ma'am, and she can bring them up with telekinesis." Deskyl 'grabs' a nearby pebble and has it floating circles over her head by the time DZ gets to the end of the sentence. "She did want to ask if there was anyone else panning downstream; she would rather not cause a dispute."

"Oh - no, it's a mana site, if the crystals get washed away from the magical area without being picked up, they gradually dissolve back into the river. They're only good to be stored once they're dried off properly.

The main question is, are you happy to keep doing it, at least while you're here? I need to work out if it's worth setting up another cottage industry operation - although actually, it might be that you make us quite busy anyway, if you're going to be willing to do some technology transfer before you're recovered?"

    "She's willing to keep collecting the crystals, yes ma'am, and she can probably teach you to make some of the technology she knows about, but it will depend on what you'd like to learn and what you're already able to make."

"We're not exactly at the forefront of technology out here, but thanks to the mana site we have some resources for buying in supplies from more advanced areas.

Let's see. Obvious things that would be great: spinning and weaving machines that aren't more trouble than they're worth, I think the League does this a bit but they're huge room-sized finnicky contraptions that wouldn't survive out here; transport that doesn't rely on a human running or an ox pulling your cart or having a waterway to float it on and favourable winds, I'm assuming if you can get into space you've got something better there; smokeless heating and cooking, or at least better venting of woodfire smoke, we have some fairly good chimney designs but even the fanciest places tend to do underfloor heating and a kitchen you keep well out of the way rather than anything better."

    "She can teach you to make electric ovens and electric or internal-combustion vehicles, yes ma'am. And she isn't as familiar with spinning or weaving, but if you can get her a blueprint for the League's machines she expects to be able to suggest some improvements to them."

"They tend to be vanity projects, so I'm not sure they even have full blueprints, but, hmm, I could write a letter to the Wanderer's Gaze, they're less likely to show up in person and demand to know everything than the Barossa smith and more likely to know what's worth looking into.

I suspect our main problem will be that we don't have our own proper forge, I could start putting things in motion to sort that out; we've got the little one that we used for charms and jewellery but it's disused and not really up to a full iron oven body.

How much do you want to avoid drawing attention? I can easily start ordering in supplies for forge building on the pretext that we got a blacksmith who wants to resume their trade, if I start asking about esoteric League inventions then people will eventually talk to other people and come looking."

    "Can you be more specific about what kinds of things might happen if people come, please?"

"Maybe not very much; people will show up, make the place look untidy, pester you with questions about whatever their pet project is, try to encourage you to travel to wherever they live to help them fix their problems.

If you're moderately unlucky, the egregore shows up and is pushy about you either joining the Empire formally or having people come and keep an eye on you, which would be awkward for us but if you stick to the kinds of thing you've been talking about, wouldn't actually turn into a problem for you. Or a _lot_ of people show up and make the area rather less peaceful and restful.

If you're very unlucky, a priest who actually cares or someone more religious shows up and decides that they don't like the kind of magic you're doing, the kind of training you're providing, or just the fact that you're powerful and not subscribing to the state religion, and either brings a lot of people to attempt to convert you, encourage you to leave, or eventually make it illegal to be you somehow - then brings the militia in to have an actual physical confrontation about it. Or someone just decides to try to kill you, they presumably fail in a messily fatal fashion, then we have the militia in being suspicious and trying to investigate what happened and maybe arrest you about it."

    "She says she's not personally very worried about drawing attention in the long run - she might want to be more careful if there was a chance of someone threatening other people because of her, but if she can just leave when it gets unpleasant, that's fine. You should still avoid making things unpleasant for yourselves, and consider setting things up so that you'll learn enough to make it worth your while before taking any risks that are likely to lead to her leaving."

"I don't think we're looking at any short term problems from buying up a lot of copper wire, setting up a forge and waterwheel, and putting some subtle feelers out for interesting technology to look into.

In the long run, we probably don't want to monopolise you anyway; you're welcome here, but I like to think I established this place in a fairly resilient fashion already, I'm not sure I actually want to be a major technological centre - people would come here for the wrong reasons, and they might shoulder out the people who have nowhere else to go.

I should... sit down and revise some lists of what people are doing and what they might want to do if we do get involved in a little light manufacturing. And maybe some more magic tuition, if Deskyl can sense mana crystals then we should be able to match up the edges of our abilities quite well.

Anything else you need for the moment?"

    "No ma'am." Deskyl lets the floating pebble drop into her hand on its next circuit and tucks it into a pocket.

Allegra heads back toward her house, calling over a couple of people on the way and dispatching them on errands.

Many of the teenagers have wandered off to do something else; one of the older ones has got a notebook out and is scribbling intently, and a couple of others are still hanging around, including the one who reacted badly who is apparently engaged in teaching the eight year old some knife fighting moves.

She watches the knife-fighting demonstration for a moment before tagging one of the less-busy teens to show her what they've got of the kata; hopefully this time she'll be able to get to everyone without being interrupted again.

As word gets around that she's training again, many of the original participants come back and a couple more join in.

According to those who did assemble, the missing ones are off deeper into the forest hunting deer, or gathering plants or firewood.

She'll have a look at everybody, then; she has DZ tell the newcomers to watch the others and take their turns at the end, and then shows them the beginner kata. She's not exactly visibly flagging by the time she gets to the end of it, but she does wrap up rather quickly and head back into the tent without taking questions.

The teenagers hang around showing off to each other for a bit, especially the younger ones, but mostly disperse to their everyday tasks. A few people gather at the end of the clearing opposite the main Steading area and seem to be measuring the space and taking notes. Eventually, Allegra comes by again, looking for DZ.

DZ is sitting at the table, watching the goings-on on the other side of the clearing.

"I think I've got the schedule shuffled to set us up a forging operation. It's going to be built down there because several people informed me fire was bad and a larger forge was going to be more prone to accidental fire than the little jewellery forge we built earlier.

Everything okay here? Did you want to try some more magic practice? I haven't heard anything from our wire-finding expedition yet, but I've sent a couple more people into the city to order forge equipment and they'll probably come back with some of it on the normal trade wagon tomorrow."

"Yes ma'am; I expect Master Deskyl to sleep through lunch, so I have plenty of time." And if Allegra doesn't have any tips for her, she can keep working her way through her poetry collection.

Allegra provides the glowstone and her bracelet and lets DZ do what she wants for a bit. People occasionally come up to them and she sends them off to find other people or tells them where supplies are kept or reassures them they have permission to do whatever they want.

One of the offers is for lunch; she asks, "Is Deskyl going to be okay skipping a meal or should you bring her something?" 

"She'll be fine, ma'am, thank you - I prefer not to let her miss meals while she's recovering, but in general that's much less of a problem for Sith than for baseline humans, and she won't want to be woken."

"Right then." Allegra turns back to the lunch offerer, "Just for me, please." Then she gets a thoughtful expression. "Hmm. You don't sleep, right, DZ?"

"Yes ma'am."