And suddenly, there's a pair of figures who weren't there a moment ago. The taller one, a woman dressed in a black outfit with gold embroidery at the wrists and ankles and collar and wearing a black holster, stumbles slightly, catching herself on the air to keep her balance in a way that doesn't quite seem natural. The figure behind her is humanoid, but clearly not human, all silver metal with textured black glass where her eyes should be, with a slight and vaguely feminine build.

There are various different sets of reactions:

A few of the people (all of the people here have traces of magic running through them, in the blood; they seem more energetic and vigorous than baseline humans) start herding the children away, back up towards the buildings. The children distinctly do not want to be herded and think this is a fun game, where they can get to see more of the interesting thing if they can keep away from the adults.

One of the teenagers starts sprinting full pelt back towards the buildings, yelling "Visitors through the Gate! Weird ones!"

There is a general mix of interest, mild consternation, and concern swirling around; it doesn't seem like the people are very surprised that someone would drop out of thin air, but the exact details seem to be surprising and the whole thing is a cause for mild concern.

Some of the people have picked up spears that were hidden in the undergrowth, but don't seem to be making any immediate threatening moves - in fact they seem as ready to defend from something coming from elsewhere than from those who have just appeared.

"Uh, welcome to Foundhome," one man greets them, "are you okay? Is something happening imminently that we should know about?"

The woman glares at a few of the nearer spear-holders, but turns her attention to her companion when she steps into view, signing a few terse words to her.

    "Yes, sir, Xaari Deskyl is fine. Can you direct us to the nearest spaceport, please?"

"I... don't think we have one of those. Did you mean, a large port where you can fit a lot into a ship? The nearest port is Seren, but that's only on a river; you can take ship for Sarvos from there, though."

"You might want to wait for Allegra, though," a woman speaks up, "she'll have a better idea of what's going on."

    "...thank you, sir," she says, perfunctorily, and signs to her companion, who makes a rather expressively disconcerted face but doesn't otherwise comment.

In a few moments, the teenager is walking back down from the buildings with a middle aged lady in tow.

She notably does not have the same magical blood as the others and certainly not any inhuman vigour - there are slight traces of magic about the tattoos on her face, and under the large shapeless patched robe she is a tapestry of old wounds made with primitive weapons, and fire - there is what looks like a deliberate brand on her left cheek.

Her equipment is distinctly magical, though - circlet, bracers and a wide belt of some kind of defence, and the wide staff with silvery veins which has autumn leaves sprouting from it definitely a weapon, as much as she is currently using it as a walking stick. 

She radiates a wary tension, a readiness for action held carefully in check, a weariness she does not display openly.

"Welcome to Foundhome!" she repeats as soon as her voice will carry, in a deliberately cheerful and friendly tone. "Here deliberately, or lost and confused?" 

This is translated for the woman, who signs back, this time.

    "Neither, ma'am, Xaari Deskyl was escaping an attack but didn't intend to bring us here in particular. She doesn't think she'll be followed."

"That's good news, at least. Anything we can do to help? Davyd here can look you over and start fixing any injuries, if you are okay with that."

    "That won't be necessary, ma'am, she's not physically injured. Did we understand correctly that there isn't a spaceport on this planet?"

"I'm not entirely sure what you think that word means, but if it's approximately 'a place where ships go into the sky and reach entire other worlds', then not that we know of.

There are centuries old legends of people who came from the sky, but none of them made it back up there."

    "Yes ma'am. In that case Master Deskyl will need someplace to rest and a power cord for me, or supplies to make one."

"We can definitely do somewhere to rest - Brynna has a spare room, or we can set up a tent if you'd prefer. I'm not sure what you mean by a power cord - so we'll probably need to look at supplies there."

Less observant people probably wouldn't have noticed, but one of the people who has been watching is heading towards the muddy cart track, with increasing speed as she thinks she's getting out of easy sight. Mostly all she's putting out emotionally is determination.

Deskyl gestures for Allegra's attention and points the woman out with a questioning look.

"Alyssa, she'll probably be heading out to First Voice because something interesting happened, sometimes that means nobody survives in the vicinity, and someone should be elsewhere with at least some idea of what happened?

I can send Hyly to chase her down and bring her back if that reduces the chances we end up as a cautionary tale? I'm sorry for the suspicion, but, well..."

Allegra says all this in the same cheerful, friendly tone as before, and the tension beneath doesn't exactly get much more tense but it was already pretty high to start with.

    "No, that's fine, ma'am."

    "Master Deskyl would prefer a tent someplace she won't be disturbed. If you don't have electricity here she'll also need to make a water wheel and a battery - she'll need wood or a similar sturdy lightweight building material, a few flat pieces of metal in at least two kinds, a few pieces of leather the same size as the metal, some acid - sour fruit juice will do - a waterproof container big enough to stack the metal pieces in, a magnet or a piece of iron to make one with, and some wire."

"How urgent? We can maybe get most of that together out of things we have here, but we'd be sacrificing things we're currently using, or I can send a runner down to meet the next wagon and get them to pick up on the way.

Will bronze and iron do for the two kinds of metal or do you need, say, weltsilver and oricalchum, which we probably don't have enough of here? We can't get them very flat without ordering in from Seren, but we could, say, enthusiastically flatten a tankard?

Does the wire need to be anything specific, I think copper - or if it needs artisan metals, weltsilver - would be easiest to get hold of. That's probably the hardest to find here - might have copper, would need to disassemble someone's jewelry."

Allegra is clearly thinking out loud here rather than having a good inventory of what's available.

"Cory, can you go and start setting up your tent, a little way off from the Steading?"

One of the people who has been watching things unfold nods and starts heading back up towards the buildings. 

    "Bronze and iron plates and copper wire will be fine, ma'am, and Master Deskyl can flatten things if need be. Ideally we'd have the materials within three days, but I can stretch my charge to five days if I'm careful; longer than that and you risk not having me available to translate, which might be dangerous."

"Can Master Deskyl draw wire as well as flatten things? How much do we need? 

I suspect that's going to be our main bottleneck. We can sort out a whole house worth of wood, a normal and a fancy metal tankard, some leather scraps, someone's bound to have lemon or lime juice for cooking, an iron knife and a big ceramic mixing bowl, or we can make a wooden bucket as big as it needs to be. 

But I'm not actually sure how much copper we have at all, mostly some decorative brooches, and the only copper wire is in Lyna's wire wrapping earrings and pendant, which isn't much.

We're not too far out of Seren if someone runs the Trod, but it could take some time to find a trader with much copper wire in, it's only used for decoration. If they find some straight away, they might make it back inside three days; if they have to go on to Sarvos it'll be more like six at least."

    "She'll need enough wire to wrap the magnet, plus a yard or so; she might be able to draw it but she's not sure she'll be able to make it consistent enough without tools. I don't think a day of not being able to communicate will be terribly dangerous if she's left strictly alone for it, if that's the best available option."

"...how consistent does the wire need to be? You might want to write down some specifications; I can't imagine it will be impossible to get it custom made in Sarvos, they are especially good with small fiddly bits of metalwork, but mostly for decorative purposes."

Allegra fishes a small fabric-and-card-bound notebook and a somewhat rough-hewn wooden pencil out of her satchel bag and offers them to the metallic woman.

"You can try to dictate the details if you'd rather, but I'm no kind of artisan and certainly not an engineer, so it seems more likely you'll be able to write - and possibly draw - them more precisely.

Oh - and did you want someone to fetch some chairs while we're waiting for the tent to be ready, so you both at least have something to sit on? Anything to eat or drink?"

    "We'll take the chairs, please, ma'am," sign, sign, "and Master Deskyl would like something to drink." She takes the notebook and pencil and passes them to her companion with another couple of signs, and the woman begins writing.

    "Did you have any questions for me while Master Deskyl is busy, ma'am?"

A couple of teenagers dash off back towards the buildings

"I suspect she'll get apple juice for a drink, is that okay?

Are you going to be okay if you don't get the components you need in time? I'm kind of assuming you are like an Autumn herald, they are the ones who show up being metallic and requiring complex machinery to function. I'm also kind of assuming you don't have long term plans yet, but if you do, I'd be happy to advise on how plausible they are."

The teenagers come back with three folding chairs, a little folding table, a ceramic jug of apple juice and three wooden cups.

"Apple juice will be fine, thank you, ma'am. And running out of power won't harm me, I'll just be powered down and dormant until I can be recharged. I expect that Master Deskyl doesn't have any plans yet and won't want to make any until she's more recovered from her recent injuries, but it would be useful to know more about the planet for when she's ready to start with that."

Deskyl sits without looking up from her work when the table and chairs are ready; DZ waits for Allegra to sit before taking her own seat.

"Okay. So, you have arrived in a territory called Miaren, which is a territory of the Navarr, which is a nation of the Casinean Empire - we generally just call it the Empire round here, but I suspect that's not exactly a unique identifier further afield.

The Empire is a few hundred miles across, depending how you measure it, and there are ten nations involved. There are another, hmm," she counts on her fingers, "Jotun, Grendel, Druj, Thule, Iron Confederacy, Faraden, Axos, Skoura, the Mountains of the Moon... at least nine other polities on the continent. Then further afield you've got the Commonwealth, the Asaveans, the Sarcophan Delves, the Sumaah, Jarm - and those are just the ones we trade with, we know there are a number of smaller countries and territories out there which we don't have any meaningful contact with.

Mostly things are a bit of a terrible mess; the Empire is probably the least bad on the continent at just letting people get on with their lives, but of course I would say that. I kind of lose track of the endless round of ceasefires - I think we're currently at war with the Druj because they can't sign a treaty worth the ink, the Jotun because we don't exactly have an unblemished track record of trustworthiness either, and just signed a ceasefire with the Grendel because fighting a war on three fronts is suicide. And somehow we're still at peace with the Thule, despite their charming habit of using copious quantities of magically enthralled slaves. Oh, and there's the Vallorn, which is our primary adversary as Navarr - many centuries ago, we accidentally wiped out all our cities with a voracious miasma of Spring magic that likes to poison people and then keep them trapped as animated husks within itself, there's a bunch of that all over the place.

...I'm not sure if I'm helping. Is there anything more specific you might want to know, to narrow it down a bit?"

Allegra also sits down when the chairs are brought round, not waiting for DZ who she isn't even sure is the kind of entity that likes sitting down.

"Can you tell me more about the Spring magic, ma'am? Or Thule, please."

"Okay, so, we call the realms of magic after seasons and times. Spring is life and growth - with all the negative connotations of that, decay, predation and so on, as well as the positive ones, healing and vigour and such. Summer is glory and competition - some of the most iconic Summer rituals are summoning legions of elfin knights, directly petitioning an Eternal to set you a challenge, and a lot of straightforward ways of being better at fighting. Autumn is trade and... complicated meta things, the connections between things. Winter is... loss, and strength through hardship, most straightforward curses are Winter. Then Night is emotion, dreams, intuition; and Day is clarity, knowledge, logic; they're both good at divination, in their own ways, and effects on the mind.

Do those match up to something you call magic? I know a lot of places have the same thing, but call the realms different names. I can do quite a bit of Spring magic and a little Night and Day; we also have a Winter coven here. There are several other things that you might call magic, like the use of liao to create auras, crafting magical items with artisanry, potion-making, and the various hearth magics, as well as battle magic; I don't know if any of that sounds familiar?

As for the Thule - they're a nation of orcs, they're ruled by five 'dragons' who are also just orcs, but orcs that have discovered how to use the life energies of others to extend their lives, can project themselves into other bodies, generally quite bad news. They have quite a small and inhospitable territory, all along the frozen north and they've got a Vallorn on one end. In some ways nobody but the dragons are free to do what they want, but they also extensively use outright slavery, and undead workforces when they can. But because their power is so concentrated, and they don't really care about anything but accumulating more magical power, they're relatively easy to negotiate with - compared to everyone else, anyway.

May I ask what interested you in them in particular?"

Allegra's suspiciousness appears to have been ramped up further by the interest in the Thule, and her tone has got a little colder, although if anything more polite; she clearly does not approve of them in the slightest.

"Xaari Deskyl disapproves of slavery, ma'am, and she's most likely to be interested in doing something about either the nearest problem or the most offensive one. And your magic doesn't sound especially familiar; Master Deskyl uses the Force, which is described by Force-sensitives as being an aspect of physics - the fundamental physical mechanisms of the universe - rather than being magic, but it's generally understood by others as essentially magical. In particular she's a Sith, and the type of Force use Sith are trained in sounds closest to what you'd consider Night; they call it dark."

"Oh, good. You have come to a good place to start, then - the Empire recently created the Liberty Pact, a group of countries united in opposition to slavery, and that has made several of our neighbours quite unhappy, but they could just stop with the slavery.

Basically all of our enemies practice some kind of slavery. The Jotun have the least offensive kind, as they go, with a whole underclass of people who are not really respected as full people because they don't fight, but who are mostly left to get on with meeting their production quotas rather than under direct oppression at all times. The Druj do it as a matter of cruelty - their whole society is based on fear and oppression, you can either hold the whip or bear it, kind of deal - that's why they're our first priority to wipe off the face of the planet. The Grendel are also extremely invested in slavery, mostly as a form of economic dominance and power game - they like to threaten their opponents with a short life of slavery in their salt mines, but slavery is woven through their whole society as what happens if you don't have the wherewithal to compete.

And the Vallorn isn't really a sentient force enough to do standard-issue slavery, but it skips that in favour of the enormously horrifying variety where it just takes over your body and leaves you a helpless passenger as it uses you to kill all your friends.

If you want to not cause any unanticipated side effects, I'd probably start with doing something about the Druj; they are essentially just uncomplicatedly horrible on every level, and they won't get worse when you oppose them, unlike many of the other forces which have been fought to at least something of a standstill or compromise.

I feel like I ought to be advocating for the Vallorn as a target, as that is definitely the nearest problem and the one I'm actually sworn to oppose, but I'm not sure what your talents at unravelling complex magics are like - they're not really an enemy you can just kill, it's more like malevolent terrain that the energy needs draining from, and if you do it wrong, it just wakes up and gets worse."

"That's exactly the sort of thing I expect Master Deskyl to be able to do, ma'am, she's primarily a sensory specialist but she's trained in designing Force effects and modifying existing ones."

"Then we should definitely get on sorting your supplies out, and once you're recovered we'll show you Hercynia, that's the smallest one and it's just north of here."

Allegra calls over a few people by name and instructs them to start rounding up woodcutters and finding out who has a bronze tankard they wouldn't mind parting with for a good cause.

"I could ask you questions about where you came from, but I'm not sure I'd understand the answers, let alone find a use for them. If there's anything else you can tell me about the Force, or what you both might need to get back to full strength, those sound like useful topics; otherwise, feel free to keep asking me things, having an enormous store of mostly useless knowledge is why all these people tolerate me bossing them around."

This gets a few laughs from the crowd of Definitely Not Onlookers, Just Going About Their Ordinary Day As Close As Possible To The Strange Interesting People.

Deskyl is done with her notes, now, and sets the book down on Allegra's side of the table; DZ signs to her a bit, though clearly not enough to explain even an outline of what Allegra has told her, and she signs back at slightly more length.

    "Yes ma'am; if you have any specific questions I can try to answer them, but the Force can do a variety of things - Master Deskyl tells me that we seem to be in a different universe than we started in, and your physics are different here, so she might be able to do somewhat different things than she could at home, but in general Sith are stronger and faster and have reduced biological needs compared to baseline humans, and have better senses including a precognition-based danger sense, and can sense emotions and use telekinesis. Different Sith learn different techniques in addition to those - producing lightning is one of the most common, but there's a wide variety. Master Deskyl is a sensory specialist, which means that she can do things like see through walls and at a significant distance, sense emotions more accurately at a wider range, and detect and diagnose injuries and illnesses at range. She's also learned to leverage the 'ranged' part of her sensory specialty to share a few techniques like pain reduction that most Sith can only do to themselves. Sith also draw power from emotion, especially anger, in a way that tends to reinforce the emotion; Master Deskyl is a particularly calm Sith, but they do have a well-deserved reputation for being unstable and quick to lash out, usually lethally."

Allegra glances at the notes. "Caryn, can you come take a look at these and see what we can do, then find a good runner to take the rest to somewhere with an actual forge at least?"

She actually has a mild physical double take at 'sense emotions', which is a rare thing to puncture her seeming of equinamity, and to emotion sight this appears to have dredged up some kind of deep anxiety about not being able to control her emotions adequately, smothered by a wave of deliberately squashing down all emotions with an air of a practiced technique.

The concern of onlookers has mostly been replaced by intense curiosity about the fancy new magic.

"You have definitely come to the right place - I'm a particularly unusual Navarr, not having been born here, but weaponised anger is definitely not unknown amongst us, and Briars are second only to Changelings at having emotions.

We absolutely understand not accidentally setting people off."

A decent sized ridge tent, about six foot at the high point and generously enough to sleep two in comfort with some space for gear, has been going up a little way off from the buildings but still just about in sight; Cory returns to the seated people and asks, "What do we want in the tent? I'd normally just be sticking bed rolls in, but if it's not going anywhere we could do camp beds or even drag an actual bed out of a house, though I'm not sure it'll fit two of those. We can also put some of the books from the last delivery in it if someone's going to be stuck in there for a while?"

Deskyl gives Allegra a sharp, concerned look, hissing gently under her breath, when she squashes her emotions.

    "We'll only need one bed, ma'am, I don't sleep. Master Deskyl would prefer a full bed and can carry it over for you. We'd also appreciate books, particularly nonfiction and poetry."

"Unless she'd particularly like to, I think Cory can sort that out for you?"

Allegra seems to be interpreting the hiss as a sign that Deskyl is in fact injured and not wanting to show weakness, rather than a reaction to her inner state. 

Cory nods and makes to head off.

    "She can lift it with telekinesis, ma'am, it'll be much less effort for her than for you."

"If you're sure, Cory can show us where a spare bed is." Allegra gets up; apparently she is definitely not leaving the supposedly dangerous visitor unescorted. "If you're both going to be in the tent, what's the best way to get your attention when supplies arrive, and would you like to start on what we have here or wait for the full set?" 

Dekyl will head in that direction, then, with DZ following.

    "You can speak to me from outside the tent, ma'am, Master Deskyl will be deaf most of the time until she's recovered enough to let her replace the Force effect that lets her hear without pain, so that won't wake her. She'd prefer to get started soon."

"Okay, I'll check on the progress of getting the materials together once we've got Deskyl somewhere set up to rest properly."

There are a number of curious people peering out at them throughout the collection of ramshackle buildings, which seem to have gone up in an extremely unplanned fashion.

The spaces between them are quite tight, and whilst Allegra in full escort mode (clearly alert in all directions, staring down anyone who looks too interested) keeps most people at a reasonable distance, they are increasingly shadowed by a small pack of children who are intensely curious and strongly desire to touch the strangers, especially the metallic one.

    "Thank you, ma'am."

Deskyl seems to be ignoring the children, though she gets visibly more tense as the crowd grows. When, eventually, one of them does try to touch the droid, everyone within ten feet of the Sith - droid apparently excepted - experiences a brief but startling flash of fear, as she spins to glare at the offender.

Everyone who is not Allegra and Cory, including the offender, sprints away at top speed as soon as the flash of fear occurs; nobody seems to be very surprised that unnatural emotions occur, but the natural reaction here seems to be to put distance between you and the cause. Cory looks shaken and backs off a few steps but recovers himself quickly, although retains an additional wariness; if you didn't know what had happened, Allegra's brief blink and exhale would have been practically unnoticeable.

"Sorry about that; one of the reasons I didn't want to bring you in here, I probably should have explained. I don't think they'll do it again for a bit after that?"

    "Thank you, ma'am."

The pair exchange a couple of signs - DZ seems to be reassuring Deskyl - and Deskyl gestures to Cory to continue on.

    "She's very protective of me," DZ adds, once they've gotten moving again, "but I think that would have been fine if they had asked first."

"I might ask you to come out and answer some questions from people while she's resting, if you'd be okay with that, but right now let's get everything sorted out for the tent."

The target bed is in a two room house, just inside the door in the front room; an older lady is there, and greets then effusively - "Hello there! I'm glad someone can make use of this, I hope it's not too heavy? I've left fresh blankets on it, pillows are tucked under the blankets, but do come back if you neerd any more."

"Thank you, Brynna," says Cory, then he makes sure he's well clear of the awkward manoeuvre through the slightly too narrow doorway. 

    "That will be fine, yes ma'am."

Deskyl nods acknowledgement to Brynna and gestures at the bed, which lifts six inches off the floor before tilting sideways, bedding sagging a bit but otherwise staying in place, to maneuver through the door; she follows it out into the street and holds it flat overhead to make the trip back through town.

This definitely attracts an audience, but for now they retain a respectful distance.

Cory goes slightly ahead and secures the opening on the front of the tent mostly out of the way.

"Just drop it in there, I'll fetch you a nice selection of books and get out of your hair," he offers, mostly to reassure himself that tasks requiring him to be anywhere near Deskyl were almost over. 

The bed goes in the tent, with Dekskyl following immediately behind; the flap tugs itself out of Cory's hands once she's through.

"She'll sleep for at least the next two or three hours, ma'am, and I should be here when she wakes but I'm free until that's a concern. May I sit? It will help me conserve my charge."

"Sure - do you want to hang around near the tent, head back over to the stream, or we could just go to my house?" 

"I'd rather stay here, ma'am; moving around as little as possible will also help me conserve my charge."

"Okay then," replies Allegra, and she calls out to the nearest of the people Definitely Not Loitering Nearby To Watch - "Cyla, make yourself useful and fetch us the chairs and table from off by the stream, please!"

"Feel free to sit on the grass if you want in the meantime, but it shouldn't take long to fetch them."

"Yes ma'am." DZ lowers herself fairly gracefully to sit crosslegged in the grass.

"So, I'm not sure what you want to know right away while Deskyl's sleeping. Or I can just leave you to read some things when Cory comes back with a random selection of books?

Or if there's anything you think I should know about your care and feeding - should we have some food ready for when Deskyl wakes up, what does she like?"

"She doesn't like spicy food but she's otherwise not picky, ma'am, and I don't need anything. And I can read while everyone's asleep. You mentioned wanting me to answer peoples' questions?"

"If you're okay with that? I'll get Cyla to round some people up when she comes back, and make sure someone's got a stew on. I think it might calm people down a bit to get all their obvious curiosity out of the way."

"Yes ma'am. Is there anything else you'd like to know, in the meantime?"

"Mostly I'm having trouble framing what I'm after? I'm trying to work out what I should be doing with you; obviously you have an entirely different kind of magic and it appears also advanced technology, you seem to have some compatible motivations, so currently I'm just trying to look after your immediate needs and hoping you'll get oriented and get a better idea of what you are happy to help with.

At some point - probably in a few days time, when someone follows the runner home because they were buying interesting things - other people are going to start arriving and suggesting competing demands, or being suspicious, or expecting you to conform to certain expectations. Fortunately Navarr isn't the most _insistently_ religious place in the Empire, but I should probably explain our religion to you at some point, as I suspect you have something completely different and some people from elsewhere are not going to like that?"

"It wouldn't be safe to try to impose a religion on Master Deskyl, no, ma'am. In general trying to force her to do things is extremely dangerous; that's an overt threat, among Sith. Asking is generally fine, with a few exceptions, because of how calm she is, but objecting if she tells you no is not. I can warn people if  they're about to say something dangerous, while I'm translating for her anyway, though that might also annoy her if it happens very much. -it may also be important for people to know that the copper rod she keeps in her holster is a weapon, it produces a red blade when lit, and she'll take it as extremely hostile if anyone tries to touch it or suggests she can't do as she likes with it. She may threaten people by drawing it or threatening to draw it, as well, and she won't be bluffing if she does, though she'd certainly prefer that the person who's irritated her back down in that situation rather than provoking her to kill them."

"That said, I don't get the impression that the people of your town will be in very much danger - Master Deskyl does very consistently give warning before attacking anyone, in situations where that's safe for her, and they seem to have a good sense of self-preservation."

"No, everyone here's pretty sensible, even if the egregore shows up they're normally pretty sensible - I suspect you won't have trouble within Navarr if you make it clear you're interested in fighting the Vallorn, everyone will be 'excellent, how can I help you'.

Once you get a bit closer to an actual Vallorn you might have to deal with the occasional idiot who thinks only Navarr know how to conduct themselves in a dangerous situation, but if given a chance they'll probably back down once it's obvious that you _are_ a dangerous situation.

I think the only thing to be potentially careful about in the near term is talking about religion - that includes where souls go after death, what the generally correct way to live is, what counts as a Virtue.

The only other people round here who won't take no for an answer are the magistrates and the militia, and a foreigner holding weird beliefs isn't a crime but proselytising is.

Other crimes are fairly obvious - as long as you're not killing anyone, stealing anything - the only other thing I can think of to cause a surprising confrontation is interdicted items and Eternals under enmity, which you're vanishingly unlikely to come across out here."

Cyla shows up with table and chairs; Allegra is glad to sit down again. 

DZ nods along, and moves to a chair when they arrive. "None of that sounds like an obvious problem, ma'am - Sith don't consider themselves subject to laws but Master Deskyl isn't inclined to theft or proselytizing. Can you tell me more about interdicted items and Eternals? Force sensitives have a tendency to have strange luck, so there's an unusually high chance we'll encounter them."

"Okay, so, some magical items are illegal to possess. I don't actually know the full list; the one that has been illegal for a long time is the Scorpion's Sting, which is a self poisoning knife that's basically only good for murdering unsuspecting victims. I believe both the items that let you hide your Dedication are also...

That's a point. I might want to check Deskyl doesn't show up as dedicated to something weird. I haven't actually seen a dedication of wrath, we're not sure it actually exists, but it might affect how much you want to discourage any other curious priests having a look - it's not something people do regularly, but if you attract weird coincidences, that seems a fairly likely one.

Not urgent enough to wake her up, I'm not expecting any nosy priests in the next couple of days, but something to bear in mind."

"I'll suggest that she talk to you about it next time you're both awake, thank you."

"Some rituals are also illegal to cast, but you have an entirely different kind of magic anyway. Mostly it's things that cause widescale death or suffering, like Rivers Run Red which causes an entire territory to be mildly poisonous, encourage wound infection and so on.

In general, I'd advise not talking to heralds or eternals without someone who know what they're doing - heralds start off at 'quite like lineaged people but more so' - did I cover lineage, most people in the Steading are Spring lineaged? And go on to all kinds of bizarre forms, I've seen glowing flying jellyfish, gigantic spiders, person sized crabs. If it's not approximately 'human with extra bits' or 'heavyset grayish humanoid' and it talks, it's probably a herald.

Eternals are much harder to meet by accident as they can't exist on this plane of reality, so you have to go through a regio portal before you can even maybe find one - it is possible to do this by accident, especially if something is deliberately leading you into a trap, but if there was a regio near here I'd know about it.

Both of these are manifestations from the Realms of magic, and some of the Eternals are illegal to help or trade with because they've done something egregiously horrible like tried to spread the Vallorn or encouraged people to eat each other or a really serious amount of property damage and a curse of terrible doom on a whole city.

But none of them are really good news and all of them have extremely alien priorities, generally to do with what they're Eternal or a herald of - things like revenge, experimentation, gossip.

People will likely mistake you for an Autumn herald because they can show up as mechanical people, but I'm pretty sure you're not because you haven't tried to sell me something."

Cory shows back up with some books - a couple are hard bound, all of them are printed with fairly primitive printing press technology, most are simply bound with string.

"Is it okay to give them the ones on rituals and Eternals? I brought them from your collection, and it sounds like you're talking about them," he says.

"Yes, better than me trying to list them all." Allegra looks back at DZ. "The status will be out of date - Agramant is the only one who has been constantly under enmity, and superstitious people hate even naming him, but Yaw'nagrah and Skathe are also definitely there at the moment."

"Thank you ma'am, thank you sir," she says of the books.

"You're right that I'm not an Autumn herald; I'm a droid, we were invented as a replacement for slaves. Can you tell me more about lineaged people, please?"

"As... a replacement for slaves? Is there some sense in which you are not a person? You're certainly doing a pretty good impression of one, I would be generally unhappy with anyone keeping you as a slave until proven otherwise?"

"Master Deskyl agrees with you, ma'am, but we're generally held not to be people at home, and generally not allowed to develop to the point of seeming like them." Her tone is just as level talking about this as it has been for everything else so far, with no hint of a personal opinion on the matter.

"Well, at least I don't have to have a _very polite conversation_ with her about what constitutes a person, then.

Lineaged are humans who have traces of realm magic in them - so most of the people here, they're Briars, which means they have a trace of Spring magic - it causes the obvious differences you can see like bark patches and green veins, and a few more subtle psychological tendencies, for instance it's incredibly difficult to cause a briar to be magically tired - they tend to respond with a burst of energy instead.

There's one for each Realm - Changelings are Summer, antlers, pointed ears, maybe coloured swirls or eagle feathers, stereotypically swift to anger; Cambion are Autumn, single-point horns, metallic markings, stereotypically extremely stubborn; Draughir are Winter, pallid skin, sometimes sharp teeth and claws, stereotypically very protective of them and theirs; Naga are Night, scales, sometimes colourful feathers in the hair, stereotypically secretive and passionate; Merrow are Day, also scales but fish rather than snake, gills, sometimes other aquatic features, stereotypically reserved, very good at holding their breath.

The other kind of people you're likely to run into at some point are orcs - they're a little hard to describe, they're humanoid but very distinctly not human, thicker bones, thicker skin, generally less pronounced facial features, less hair; skin tones generally very greyscale, younger orcs are darker shades, older orcs go bone white, sometimes flecks of brown and yellow but nothing like human pigmentation."

"Thank you, ma'am. Did you have any more questions for me?"

"I have a _lot_ of questions. Trying to figure out which ones come first. I'm assuming you don't know much about your intended plans until Deskyl wakes up? What's your inclination towards sharing technology - it sounds like you come from a _much_ more advanced place and there would be all kinds of useful things that you could share, but I don't want to presume."

"I expect our immediate plan to be to stay here until Master Deskyl is recovered, unless there's some reason not to do that - we don't know how long to expect her recovery to take, exactly, but based on her rate of recovery so far I'd estimate about a month or two, or longer if she exerts herself. I don't expect her to be comfortable making specific plans for afterward at this time, though she'll probably be willing to give you a firmer idea of what she is and isn't potentially interested in doing. I do expect that she'll be willing to share at least some technology, that's common when a new planet is contacted and she's an engineer by trade."

Cyla comes back with a jug of water and a bowl of stew, followed by group of about a dozen interested briars who hang around hopefully.

"Ah, you said you might be okay with some of my people asking their questions? I'm afraid you might have to repeat yourself a bit. I think this is a hint that I should eat something, I do tend to forget when something interesting is happening."

"Yes ma'am. I don't mind repeating myself if that's how they'd rather do it."

"Okay everyone, it's Question Time with... I have just realised that I haven't actually asked your name, in all of this...."

"DZ-12-Q, ma'am. DZ for short if you'd like."

"It's Question Time with Deezee!"

The briars gather round a bit closer, although they don't get between them and the tent and they leave a respectful gap each side of the tent to avoid accidentally cutting off all escape routes, and start asking things:

"Are you an Autumn herald?"

"She already said she's not an Autumn herald!"

"I hear you have space ships, is there stuff up in the sky like where the Vard come from?"

"Do you, like, eat and sleep and things?"

She isn't an Autumn Herald; she's a droid, a very complicated type of machine designed by humans and other similar species to work as servants.

Master Deskyl says that this is a different universe from where they were, and she doesn't know how this one might be different, but where they're from there are lots of other planets with people living on them on them, some humans or related to humans and some completely alien, and even more without any life at all, plus stars and asteroids and things; it takes years to go between even very nearby stars without special technology, though, and most stars have only one planet that can support life. She's not familiar with the Vard.

She doesn't eat or sleep, though if she runs out of electricity - it's a type of energy that she uses instead of food, and that powers a lot of other technology the people in the other universe have - she'll shut down, which is like being asleep in the sense that when she gets enough electricity she can start up again as if nothing had happened rather than being stuck like that permanently. Master Deskyl is going to build a machine to make electricity for her from the movement of the water in the river, but they're waiting on supplies.

"The Vard are, like, they're Varushkans now but they and the Steinr fell from the sky, hundreds of years ago!"

"What other things can you do with electricity?"

"If you're a machine, do you have... sorry that's probably a mean question."

"Go on, it's a bit late now."

"Do you have a soul? Or are you _like_ a Herald, even if you aren't one?"

There are thousands and thousands of different inventions that use electricity: it can make light and heat and move heat out of a place in order to cool it, it can power machines that do most of the tasks a human can do and tools that allow them to do even more things, for example vehicles that go faster than animal-powered ones and never tire, and it can power machines that do lots of math very quickly and use that to do something like thinking and to speak to each other - droids are a very advanced type of that kind of machine, but the simpler versions are good for keeping records and sharing information, including sharing information with many people over very long distances, in addition to all the math they do. In particular electricity is considered revolutionary because it allows for automation, where most work can be done by machines instead of people so that the people can spend their time on other things instead while the work still gets done.

She would prefer to wait and see what Master Deskyl has to say about the question of whether she has a soul.

"Cooooool."

"Are you going to teach us that stuff?"

"Are you going to, like, run off to the League, they have real cities?"

"Seren's a real city!"

Allegra _looks_ at the two people talking about cities and they do not have the argument they were probably about to start.

She doesn't know enough about electricity or machinery to teach them how to make them, but she expects Master Deskyl to be willing to show them some things. She doesn't expect Master Deskyl to be very interested in moving to a city; she doesn't like crowds.

"Oh good, maybe we get to keep something interesting!" 

"Why do you call her Master, is it like a title or something, should we be using it?"

"Are you going to join Navarr then? We mostly do not crowds..."

"Droids traditionally refer to everyone as 'Master', as a sign of respect; Master Deskyl won't expect you to refer to her that way. She does have a title, 'Xaari', which means 'Sith apprentice' - it's important to note that Sith consider Sith of any rank to outrank any nonSith; you may want to avoid referring to her as 'apprentice' if it might cause confusion about that. I don't know if she'll be interested in formally joining any local groups."

"We're a nation, not a 'group'!"

"We don't really do rank here either. But we're happy to respect her because she's scary!"

"So you normally have to call everyone 'Master'? That doesn't sound very good, I don't think anyone here will appreciate it and really don't say it to an orc!" 

"Yes ma'am; I don't know if she'll be interested in joining any nations, either."

"That will be fine, sir; that's how it works among Sith, too."

"I can refer to someone a different way if that's what they prefer, sir."

"Just calling us sir and ma'am is weird enough!" 

"I don't know, I quite like it. It's refreshing to hear someone be polite around here!" 

"Mostly people will want to be called just their name, or 'you over there'."

"So, uh, what's it like where you come from? It sounds very different!" 

"Did you have a specific aspect in mind, ma'am? It's much more technologically advanced, but I'm not sure what else might be different about it."

"Do you have, like, different nations and stuff?"

"What kinds of magic are there?" 

"Are there, like, loads and loads of different planets?"

"Do you have orcs? Or other species?"

"Ooh, have you ever met a Daeva?" 

"There are hundreds of thousands of inhabited planets, and they're mostly self-governing at least to a degree, but they're also grouped into four larger political regions: the Sith empire, where Master Deskyl is from, which is run by the emperor and the Sith council under him; the hutt empire, which is run by the hutt species and mostly concerned with trade; the republic, which is administered by a democratic process that its member planets vote in and which is at war with the Sith; and the outer rim, which is made up of planets too far from any of the other three to be of interest to them. Many of those planets have unique sapient species; many of them are derived from humans but the majority are fully native to their planets and not necessarily very much like humans at all, for example hutts are much larger than humans - about twenty to twenty-five times as heavy - and have sluglike, legless bodies and froglike heads. To the best of my knowledge orcs don't exist there; the word refers to a fictional species. I'm not familiar with Daeva and haven't personally met any nonhumans; I've been assigned to caring for Master Deskyl since my last memory wipe."

"Magic is extremely rare in that universe; only Force-sensitives can make use of the Force, and in most species Force sensitivity only appears in one out of several billion individuals. Force use does seem to be more flexible than your local magic; there is a distinction between light-side and dark-side Force techniques, and individuals who practice one generally can't practice the other, but most techniques are neutral or can be achieved either way; the main difference is that dark side practitioners draw power from their emotions in a way that makes them stronger but less emotionally stable than light-side practitioners. Sith are exclusively dark-side practitioners while Jedi, the faction of Force-sensitives in the republic, are exclusively light-side practitioners."

"Uhhh, your _last_ memory wipe? Do you do it a lot?"

Allegra looks kind of slightly worried, which is a lot of emoting to reach the surface there, but doesn't interrupt; if DZ isn't making a fuss about it she's not going to make it a big thing in front of a crowd.

"Oh, everyone can do magic here. I wonder if you can? Allegra can try teaching you something?"

"Don't you have, like, potions and stuff that's kind of magic but not really? And artisan stuff?"

"Light and dark... is that like Day and Night, that's orderly logical stuff versus emotions and passion and things?"

"Light and dark force practices do sound quite a bit like your local Day and Night magic, yes sir, though it's not a perfect match; Force healing is a light technique, for example, and lightning production is a dark one. Potionmaking is a very rare capability outside of a few Force-sensitive species with a natural ability to produce magical substances; in general a Force-sensitive can't produce an effect that persists after they've left, though there are a few exceptions and they can produce changes that persist - if Master Deskyl causes someone to be afraid, it will take them the normal amount of time to calm down even if she leaves. I expect Master Deskyl would be interested in knowing if I can do your local magic, if it's not inconvenient to try to teach me."

"Oh, healing is just... basic magic? You can do more complicated healing with Spring but normal healing doesn't have a element."

"Do you have magical materials, like Orichalcum? Or Mithril?"

"Lightning production? Is that like the ritual that summons storms?"

"Let me know if they're tiring you out and I can shoo them away until we've got your charging arrangement set up," says Allegra, as the crowd only appears to be growing in number and enthusiasm.

"Yes sir, the Force seems to be different in that way."

"No sir, there are no intrinsically magical materials, though there are a few mundane ones with unusual properties related to Force use."

"The standard lightning technique produces a small lightning bolt beginning at the practitioner's hand and extending for up to fifty or sixty feet, ma'am, with the practitioner having a degree of control of its path related to how much practice they have with the technique; it doesn't produce any other stormlike effects."

"This isn't especially draining, ma'am, though I should probably talk to you privately at some point."

"Oh cool! So it's like repel, but, like, _super_ repel?"

"We have to use an implement for that kind of thing and it still has to touch them to set it off!"

"So you have weird magic and you only kind of have potions... anything like liao? Uh, it gives you dreams and you can use it to make, like, Virtue auras and exorcise ghosts and stuff. Plant extract."

"The basic plant's Vinum, that's the stuff that gives you no dreams at all."

"To be clear, ma'am, lightning is quite dangerous; the technique is generally used as a weapon. There are foods and drugs that can assist with reaching certain mental states that are relevant to Force use, but I wouldn't expect any of them to be tied to a specific technique or group of techniques like that, no sir."

"What do you do about ghosts, then? Do you even have ghosts?"

"Repel hurts unless you're super careful too."

"Yeah, but not as much as getting struck by lightning!"

"Wait, hundreds of thousands? That's... a lot."

"Why are you at war with the Republic? Are they likely to come here and make trouble?"

"Sith who die in especially violent or emotionally charged ways sometimes leave ghosts, which are limited to either the area they died in or an area around their remains, and usually those places are abandoned; other Force-sensitives may also leave ghosts, but I know less about them, and non-Force-sensitive individuals never do; it's largely not a concern, sir, since Force sensitives are so rare and only a fraction of them leave ghosts."

"Yes ma'am, hundreds of thousands of planets is quite a lot. I don't know very much about most of them."

"I don't know anything about the political situation between the empire and the republic, sir, I'm sorry; Master Deskyl didn't expect anyone from our universe to be able to follow us, though, Force sensitives can't usually teleport at all."

"Oh good, we don't want to open another front."

"I'm not sure it's a 'front' if it involves thousands of planets!"

"How long does it take to get between all those?"

"It generally takes a few days or weeks to get between relatively nearby planets on highly-traveled routes, sir, and several months to get from one end of the galaxy - the overall group of stars - to another."

"So a lot like taking a fleet across the ocean, then."

"Do you still fight with, like, spears and swords and things, or do you have crazy high tech weapons?"

"What hasn't anyone asked that you expected us to?"

"Force sensitives do favor lightsabers, which are a type of high-tech sword, yes sir - that's the copper rod Master Deskyl wears in her holster, which you shouldn't try to touch, she'll react violently. Other people generally use blasters, which are projectile weapons that shoot bolts of superheated material, or larger vehicle-mounted weapons that work similarly, and most ground wars are fought with battle droids, not people."

"It's a bit surprising that you haven't had more questions about Master Deskyl, ma'am."

"Oh, can you tell us about her? It seemed a bit rude to ask things behind her back!"

"Yeah, uh, is she - interested in helping fight the Vallorn? Planning to stay here for a while?"

"She's going to be okay, right? We do have a physick and there's really good ones up at First Glade..."

"I don't know what she's going to want to do yet, ma'am, but it's likely that she'll want to stay at least for a little while; Force sensitives are lucky, as part of their powers, and she'll want to make sure she's not missing any opportunities here."

"We're not sure that she's going to recover fully, ma'am, we're not sure what was done to her and she hasn't had an opportunity to recover fully before, but it's likely that she will, Sith are very resilient. I wouldn't expect a mundane doctor to be able to help, though, the damage seems to be a mixture of neurological and magical rather than physical."

"No, see, we get magical injuries all the time - I mean, we don't, but a lot of ritualists do - physicks can totally deal with that too."

Allegra nods along. "I understand if she doesn't want to be checked out," she adds, "but we can get a magical traumatic injury specialist over from First Voice Glade and they do treat all kinds of bizarre sequelae of magic - maybe with herbs and guided meditation, if it's primarily mental, but there are lots of different methods."

"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."

"Oh, the basic spells aren't - just detecting magic, operating portals, making and breaking bonds. Offensive spells and attuning battlemage regalia are a bit on from that, just one of several ways you can take it from there. It just gives me a bit more fundamental understanding of how these things fit together, that's all."

"Yes ma'am, those sound fine, thank you."

"Okay, so..."

Allegra rummages in her bag, pulls out a lightstone - a chunk of crystal, about fist sized, and sets it on the table. The glow isn't very strong against the daylight, but it's clearly glowing softly.

"The first thing we've got to do is find your native metaphor - the magical technique that resonates with you, that you'll likely find easiest to pick up.

The basic metaphors that seem to cross nations are runes, dramaturgical scenes, astrological signs and music. I'm afraid I am unutterably terrible at music, so if that's your favourite then we'll need to find someone else to work on that with you.

If you're not sure - well, we have a table full of books here. I'll pick out one on each and you can have a browse and see which makes most sense to you.

There's no guarantee that any of them will work - you might be stuck with a native metaphor that references the Force, or something, as that was the magic system you were brought up knowing about.

Uh. If that even applies here. Sorry."

"Would poetry make sense as a metaphor, ma'am?"

"Oh! Yes, I think the Erigo Hakima in the Brass Coast use that, or songs at least? A lot of people work incantations through something that rhymes or at least scans, it's just easier to keep track of that way.

You'll probably want at least one of the basic magical concept sets to weave in, unless you already have a set of allegorical symbolic concepts with the right sort of range. I mean, I say that, but all of the concept sets are different - runes and music have some more or less direct realm correspondences, but astrological signs are philosophical concepts - like the Mountain, that things are difficult, or the Fountain, that things are born and live.

So... anything along those lines, although if you're picking something nonstandard you'll have to explain it to me so I can show you how to use it magically."

"I know thousands of poems, ma'am, I can probably find the right sorts of metaphors for anything the magic needs, if that's how it works. If you'd like to give me a list I can check."

"Okay. So astronomancy is my metaphor, although I've been learning a bit of the Navarr magic of patterns as well. One of these books probably has a nice summary list..."

She pulls a book on Astronomancy from the pile and flicks through to an index:

The Chain
Things hold together
Bonds, oaths

The Chalice
Things heal; things apart come together
healing, mending, connections

The Claw
Things bleed
Battle, destruction, violence

The Door
Things move and change
transport, travel, personal transformation

The Drowned Man
Things end
Curses, misfortune, ending

The Fountain
Things live
Growth, fertility, foundations

The Great Wyrm
Things change and transform
magic, grand transformation

The Key
Things are revealed
scrying, opening, skills

The Lock
Things can be hidden
wards, defence, concealment

The Mountain
Things are not easy
obstacles, effort, trials

The Oak
Things endure
strength, endurance, fortitude

The Phoenix
Things learn
knowledge

The Spider
Things are watched by a hidden eye
hidden forces, eternals, sovereigns

The Stallion
Things procreate
fertility, growth, wealth

The Stork
Things matter
decisions, responsibility, leadership

The Web
Things are connected
relationships, synchronicity, sympathy

The Three Sisters
Things are connected by blood
consequences, ties of blood, sorrow

The Wanderer
Things are not what you think or Things go awry
destiny, fate, chance

"I have poems for most of those, yes ma'am; the exceptions are the phoenix, the spider, the stork, and the three sisters - for the phoenix and the stork I have other metaphors with those meanings, and the spider and the three sisters I don't have good matches for."

"Hmm. The Spider is definitely one I use a _lot_ for magical identification, and I'd generally use magical detection as the foundation; but the Key and the Web ought to do okay.

Let's pick something stronger than a lightstone to work on, though."

She takes off a bracelet she is wearing, solid bronze with traces of some kind of silvery metal inlaid in a complex pattern, and drops it over the lightstone so that it encircles it on the table.

"This is a magical item that is bonded to me. Your first exercise is to pick a poem that you _think_ might be able to identify it, and study it closely while reciting - a poem that resonates with the Key, maybe also the Web, and is directed towards... I'd normally say 'uncovering hidden things' but that's because I'm still stuck on the Spider, it sounds like a more useful target for you would be 'spontaneous revelation of information'.

I recommend getting up close to it, you can touch it if you like, just don't move it from around the lightstone. Unless you are a natural talent I wouldn't expect anything to work first time, but practicing this exercise for a bit is the fastest way I can think of to tap into any natural talent you might have.

If it doesn't seem to be doing anything by the next time we get interrupted, I'll break it down into smaller concepts to assign you more specific practice."

"Yes ma'am."

She leans forward, resting her forearms on the table for stability, and begins reciting a poem comparing a web search to traveling along the strands of a spiderweb, with a stanza that refers to an account password as a key.

Allegra leaves her to it for a couple of minutes, although she is clearly itching to ask or correct something. She picks up a book - something about court proceedings of a certain date - and flicks through it to stop herself interfering.

She pauses for a moment at the end of the poem to see if Allegra would like to say anything, but if she doesn't, she'll keep going, repeating the original poem once and then branching out to others with themes of animals' webs, the internet, keys, and passwords.

After a while the runner comes back, without Davyd.

"He's interruptible this evening if you really have to, but he was looking forwards to a nice quiet evening and would rather do tomorrow if it's not urgent."

"Thank you, I don't think it's at all urgent," replies Allegra. Then she turns back to DZ. "Anything? I'm not sure the concepts are quite on target, we can work on that a bit if you'd like."

"Not yet, ma'am, no. What should I change?"

"I didn't quite follow all of it, but I think I might have misled you towards thinking of uncovering secrets deliberately kept, rather than just - looking at things a different way?

You're invoking the opening quality of the Key - but there's nothing here to open as such - it'd be a great part of a ritual script for the one that breaks open a night pouch, or something, but you need to invoke the revelation and scrying resonances instead - the information is there, it's available, it just has to be, hmm, decoded maybe?"

"-would you like me to explain the technology that those poems have as a theme, ma'am?"

"I'm not sure it'll help with the magic, but yes, it sounds fascinating..."

The internet: It's a bit like an absolutely gigantic, chaotic library. Without a centralized organizational system, finding things is a matter of using a tool to search for entries matching a description. Many parts of the collection are public, but others are only available to authorized individuals - though becoming authorized is often as simple as asking to be - and that authorization is shown by giving a password, which can be considered a type of key. Most information on the internet is hidden, in a sense, but it's in more the sense that a container in a warehouse that's accidentally lost its label might be considered hidden than in the sense that a buried treasure is hidden.

"Sounds a bit like our travelling libraries, but much, much faster? Most Stridings carry some books, gradually they circulate around the entire Empire, people send out requests for specific things with a Striding who will look for them on route and bring them back when they come back that way.

Most information isn't secret though - I mean, the Highborn and the League sometimes try to make it so, for different reasons, but they do it either by burning any written record, or writing it in a cipher, or there was that time they wrote the name of the responsible priest on each book of heretical material, getting hold of those was always fun...

Anyway. Detecting magic is more like working out what kind of... metaphorical lens to use, to focus in on the right details?"

Allegra actually smiles for a moment when talking about the labelled heresy, although she smooths the emotion away as soon as she realises it's got near to the surface. None of the other people here are doing the same kind of emotionless act - they are mostly quite animated and open - it's just her.

Allegra's emotional state is definitely not DZ's business, but perhaps she'll mention it to Deskyl when she wakes.

"The internet is very much like that, yes ma'am. Do you think poems about astronomy might work?"

"Sounds like a good approach, especially as it directly resonates with the constellations. Oh, except, the moon seems to be a distinct red-herring - it's magically inert for some reason, we think it might be a white granite mine if there was any way to get up there."

"Yes ma'am." She'll try again, then, and throw in some astronavigation poems for good measure.

They try a few different broadly similar approaches; there _might_ be something there, some anomalous sense that there is some extra property of the bracelet, but it might just be that looking at something closely for a while will make noise seem like data.

The sun starts going down; Allegra yawns.

"Are you going to be alright out here by yourself? Nothing should get this close to the Steading without someone noticing, but I can send someone with a late sleep schedule to sit with you if you'd rather. I'll leave the light stone but I'll need the bracelet back."

Fortunately for DZ, droids aren't subject to imagining things; she mentions the vague sense to Allegra and notes what she was doing when it started.

"We'll be fine, ma'am, thank you; Master Deskyl will wake if anything dangerous approaches her. Is there someone in particular I should talk to if she needs something overnight?"

"If you like, I can show you Davyd's house on the way back to mine, but to be honest from here your best bet is to just shout, you're not close enough to the Steading to annoy anyone - "anyone listening" or more urgently "help" will get you whoever is nearby, "physick" will get you a chirurgron and someone heading off to wake up Davyd.

If that doesn't work, but I can't imagine people won't be hanging around at most hours, knock on any door, if someone's faced their door out of the Steading rather than in then they don't mind - though I don't think anyone here will mind for more than a few seconds once they realise they get to help the exciting strangers.

Or if you really don't want to wake anyone, head down towards the road and someone who's decided to take sentry duty will ask if you're okay."

"Thank you, ma'am. I expect that Master Deskyl will want something to eat at some point, but we're unlikely to need anything else before morning."

"Oh, right." Allegra stands up, rummages briefly in her bag, and sticks a brown paper bag with some rectangular compressed oat and fruit bars on the table. "I'll talk to anyone I see on the way home, you might end up deluged in trail snacks, but if you don't at least you've got something.

Water upstream of where the bluebells start is good to drink if there isn't enough left in the jug, anyone hanging around should be happy to play fetch."

"Thank you, ma'am."

There's a barely perceptible rustle from the tent. "I should go," and she does.

Allegra begins to head off, but deliberately taking her time in case something happens. 

Nothing happens immediately, but she may still be in sight of the tent a few minutes later when Deskyl emerges and leaps into the tallest nearby tree, looking for a good view of the sunset.

Well. That's a thing. Deskyl can probably register her brief surprise before it gets overtaken by weariness, and the fascination and interest of a handful of people who had been deniably doing chores as close as possible to the strange encampment.

It doesn't seem like they want to be bothered and it's been a bit of a day, so Allegra just continues to heads home, asking a couple of people she knows to be night owls to keep a general ear out.

Deskyl stays in the tree for a few hours before leaping back down, landing on her feet with an audible thump but no sign of discomfort, and returning to the tent to get an update on the situation from DZ.

That done - it takes most of an hour - she decides to take a bit of a walk to get a sense of the area around the tent; she won't go into town, but what else is nearby?

The 'town' - less than fifty rather improvised looking buildings, with a set of larger and slightly sturdier looking outbuildings along the forest's edge - is pretty much all there is in the way of man-made features.

The forest closes in soon after the little clearing where the tent has been placed, coming down to the banks of the stream. There are some signs of forestry work and wood harvest but it's fairly subtle and carefully sustainable; there are no main paths or signs that people venture far into the forest regularly.

The stream has a distinct area where it throws off huge amounts of bluebells, cheerfully oblivious to the season, then abruptly stops doing that either side.

There are some people still up. Someone's sitting against a tree just on the border of the forest with line of sight on the tent, apparently consumed in a whittling project by the light of the lightstone on his belt, but more alert than he looks. A couple of people are still out panning the stream - the moonlight seems to somehow feel brighter in the bluebell covered area.

The road away from here, such as it is - a muddy, rutted cart track - is actively guarded, or at least there are four people scattered in positions they find reasonably comfortable, one of them up a tree, vaguely keeping an eye on it while doing some kind of repetitive hand work like cord weaving or making twine.

If Deskyl doesn't actually try to leave via the road, or call attention to herself, they don't pay attention, although if she gets close one of them may spot her unless she's seriously trying to avoid it. 

She stops to watch the panners, first, lurking unobtrusively nearby for a few minutes before levitating a crystal out of the water and presenting it to the nearer one with a noise of wordless curiosity.

Brief startlement. Oh no. Got to be polite to the powerful stranger. "Oh, thanks," says her benefactory, rather nervously.

The nerves are only partly down to the strangeness of the situation, mostly from having to interact directly with anyone at all - there may be a reason he's out here at night.

He wipes the crystal off carefully and nestles it in a little wooden box with some absorbant sawdust. 

She backs off without further comment, finding another spot a little farther up the river; in ten minutes when she's ready to move on she returns, quietly clicking her tongue to get his attention while she's still several feet away and pointing to the pile of a dozen or so crystals she's leaving on the riverbank.

She checks out the road next. She's making no particular effort toward not being spotted, but a quietly-moving person in a black clothes with no light source in the middle of the night hardly needs to make an effort; on the other hand she is interested in seeing where the road goes, which might draw a bit of attention.

The man's eyes widen and he can't seem to decide between being amazed or pleased or terrified. He shares out most of the crystals with the other panner to put away safely, but slips one into a pocket.

One of the lookouts is sitting nearly on the road at its entrance, and scrambles lightly to her feet as the quiet shadow goes by. She's proud that she spotted the figure before the others, adding to her quiet confidence in her own abilities.

"Hey," she calls, fairly quietly, "Need anything? We're to let you go where you want, just checking."

Deskyl stops when the lookout calls out, but gestures at her ear and shakes her head rather than answering.

"Okay then. You need an escort?" the lookout says without thinking, then feels a bit embarrassed. Then she tries to mime two people walking down a road by pointing hands downwards and gradually wiggling both hands towards that direction as if walking, then a querying gesture with one hand, then repeats the first gesture with one hand and shrugs expansively, trying to convey she doesn't mind either way.

She just seems to assume that she can be seen; there is a bit of moonlight but here there is more shade from the surrounding forest.

She's a sensory specialist, of course a minor consideration like 'light level' isn't going to stop her from seeing her surroundings.

She shrugs and continues down the road, avoiding the worst of the mud.

Unless she appears to object, she is being followed at a polite distance by the erstwhile lookout, mostly out of curiosity.

The road continues like this for about a mile before it joins another road, there's an obvious direction to keep going as a slight right turn or a sharp left turn available. This road has noticeably more fresh foot tracks, although only one recent set that take the sharp bend. 

She'll spend a minute or two looking around, to get more of a sense of the place, and then head back.

Other than the road, it's pretty much wild forest, although there's something slightly off about it - not _completely_ wild, somehow... influenced, curated, made safe and useful for people, just not in an obvious way.

That's weird, but trying to sort it out now will just give her a headache. She heads back, pausing to acknowledge the lookout when they get to her spot, and then takes the long way around the settlement to get back to the tent.

The lookout nods back, and smiles. Nobody else seems to spot her, although she can feel the smugness radiating off the successful lookout as she brags to one of the others about it.

(That's cute.)

She doesn't leave the tent again that night; DZ goes to look for breakfast for her when the sun has been up for about an hour.

Quite a few people are up by now, although there's no sign of Allegra. Before DZ can get to the Steading, three different briars have converged cheerfully on her from separate directions.

"Good morning!"

"Did you sleep well? Oh, uh, did your friend sleep well?"

"We've still got some bacon left if you want to join us for breakfast!"

"Maybe they don't eat bacon. I've got three kinds of museli and powdered milk..."

"We've got porridge on if you'd like! Cinnamon, raisins and honey to stir in, nuts as well..."

"Master Deskyl slept well, thank you, sir, but she'd prefer to eat in the tent this morning. She does like bacon, though, and would it be possible for me to get her bread and butter and fruit?"

"Absolutely! Separate on a plate or a bacon butty?"

"What kind of fruit? We've got apples, pears, dried apricots, raisins, some dried orange slices..."

"Can we get her anything to drink? I can go refresh your water, or we've apple juice, pear juice, grape juice..."

"Separately, please. She likes pears and apricots, thank you, and whatever juice is easiest to come by will be fine."

The three competitors look at each other, then nod and with a cheery, "We'll bring them out here for you," bustle off to acquire separate components of breakfast.

Shortly, there is bread and a little ceramic jar of butter and a blunt butter knife, with warm bacon, on a plate; a pear surrounded by dried apricots on its own plate; and a jug of apple juice. They offer to bring them over to the tent, or just leave them on the table if she doesn't want to be crowded.

DZ will bring them in herself, yes; she thanks all three before doing so.

After another hour or so, Deskyl comes out to stretch and do some katas, attempting to ignore the onlookers while she does.

Onlookers? What onlookers? There are only these burningly curious people who happen to be going about their ordinary day within sight of the tent and sneaking glances when they think they can get away with it, that's all.

Once the katas start there are some more obvious onlookers: some of the older teenagers are trying to follow along.

Once she's run through her whole set she repeats the first kata much more slowly - she could just be focusing on perfecting her form, right, the teenagers don't necessarily have anything to do with it - and then sits at the table for a while.

One of the teenagers shyly approaches. "Uh, hi," she says, "I know you're recovering and stuff, but can you let us know when you're going to do more of those exercises? And, like, if you can tell us anything about them?"

DZ is on her way out of the tent by the time the teenager stops talking: "She can't hear you, ma'am, one moment."

(Sign sign sign sign sign sign sign.)

    "She says she doesn't expect to be able to do katas regularly until she's more recovered, but she'll do them after breakfast more often than not. They're practice exercises for the type of swordsmanship she knows, which she isn't going to teach; it's not safe to try to wield a lightsaber without the kinds of powers she has. But most of the skills the exercises teach are also useful in other ways, too, so it's still good to learn them, if you'd like."

"Thank you! We'll be back tomorrow... Maybe once we've seen it a couple of times she can watch us and tell us if we're doing it right?

It's just noone here is doing any kind of military training - almost noone has been in an army at all except Allegra and she just says it was too long ago - and with the Synod declaration and the new army forming up, well..."

She trails off, as if she wants to gauge the mood before continuing. She is a whirlwind of mixed emotions, hope and joy and fear and a fierce pride, with potential embarrassment lurking in wait. 

Ah.

    "She can teach you the basics, yes ma'am. And she says that Master Allegra might be able to help you now, too, if what Master Deskyl knows is enough to remind her of what she was taught, if you'd like to invite her to come and watch as well."

"She's not much for mornings, but we'll see!" There is apparently something highly amusing about calling her Master Allegra, but the girl doesn't show this on the surface which is all cheery. "Is there a good time to show her what we picked up this morning? I don't want to presume..."

    "Now is fine, ma'am."

The girl excitedly calls the others over. There's half a dozen eager teenagers, a couple of slightly older youths, and one extremely determined eight year old girl. They have a... Wide range of competence.

She'll have them show off what they've picked up one at a time, offering some words and a telekinetic nudge or two to each to explain what they most need to work on. She also shows the ones who need it a couple of more beginner-friendly katas, explaining how the forms in them teach the skills they'll need for the more advanced one. (She started when she was older than most of them, and used the beginner forms when she did, she mentions.)

The first one she touches with telekinesis doesn't really seem to notice, just moves in the way she wants.

The second one springs away from her like a startled cat and lands in a ready to fight or run position with two previously concealed daggers drawn, a survival instinct filled with terror she just set off, although it's already fading into embarrassment with an undertone of apprehension about how she's going to take it.

Nobody else seems especially surprised by this.

She nods approvingly.

    "That's a good instinct, ma'am."

"Sorry, she gets jumpy about things," explains one of the other teenagers. The one who reacted puts the daggers away, but the expected embarrassment has been replaced with confusion - that's not a good instinct, right?

As this is playing out, Allegra turns a corner and gets line of sight on the tableau, and her faded emotions spring into a mix of concern and skepticism and worry, although it doesn't show on her physically at all; possibly she picks up the pace a little.

    "It's all right. She can explain later, if you'd like, ma'am."

Deskyl glances at Allegra before signing a bit more: "Would you like to take a short break and try again?"

"Sorry, I thought I felt something touch me," the jumpy girl explains. "I'll be alright in a minute."

Allegra makes her way over, attempts a fake smile, and asks, "Getting on alright?" From her emotional tone, she is clearly weighting up whether interrupting whatever is going on more insistently is worth it or not.

    "Yes ma'am. They saw Master Deskyl doing some exercises and asked her to teach them, so she is, and she startled Master - I'm sorry, I don't have your name - by accident, just now. She did touch you, she says," the droid directs at the teen, "with her telekinesis, but she can figure out a different way of showing you things in the future if you'd prefer."

"With her what now?" asks one of the teenagers.

"I don't mind if I get some warning," mumbles the jumpy girl, "it was just a surprise, that's all."

Having taken in the scene, Allegra's conflicting emotions head firmly towards resignation. What's happening is happening; making a scene about it will just make it happen more.

"Well, if you're all enjoying yourselves," she says. Someone over at the stream is waving at her to get her attention. "Excuse me, it seems like I need to see to another problem," she concludes, starting to heading off towards them. The tone is very polite but Deskyl can feel a strain of bitterness under it, with a strong implication that the visitors are now a problem.

Deskyl signs to DZ and then turns her attention to the group by the stream while the droid relays her message; whatever's going on over there could be about her crystal collecting last night, and she might want to head over.

    "She has telekinesis, yes; it's a Force power - a type of magic, basically - that she can use to touch or move things without physically touching them.

The person by the stream that she's talking to seems quite agitated, a mix of upset over broken routine and worry for her personal future; Allegra is still giving off deepening resignation, now with an undertone of sympathy.

After the initial exchanges, they head off towards one of the outbuildings over behind the main Steading.

The stream does seem to be currently entirely depleted of crystals, although with the potential for more to grow intact.

Yeah, she should go deal with that. She sighs and signs a few words to DZ before heading in that direction.

    "I'm sorry, everyone, Master Deskyl will be back in a few minutes." The droid hurries after her.

The outbuilding is basically just a small square building with shelves; it's within view of anyone who might be guarding the road entrance and a couple of people are sat nearby with small craft projects and spears in grabbing range.

Allegra and the person from the stream are inside the building by the time Deskyl and DZ get there. The nearby people with spears look up and make it clear they've seen the new arrivals, but don't immediately leap up or try to do anything about it, although they maintain a heightened sense of alertness (with an undertone of worry about whether they could do anything useful if they needed to).

The person from the stream is showing Allegra last night's crystal collection with some incredulity (and an undertone of outrage and fear). "Just, look at it!" 

Deskyl stops just outside the doorway - it would be cramped at best with all four of them inside - and waits to see how this is going to play out.

"There's more in there than we pull out in a season!" continues the upset person.

"I mean," says Allegra, somewhat uncertain, "good? I don't think we can damage the site by extracting too much from it? It might be a few days before it's worth looking for any more, if you wanted to let people know to take the time off."

"If this carries on... Do we have... I mean, I'm sure _I_ can find something else useful to do..."

"I don't think she's going to be around forever," replies Allegra, who has clearly noticed Deskyl approaching but is deliberately not calling attention to this while the other woman hasn't, "and if it does become a problem, we can start up the charm forge again - maybe with a different pattern - or get supplies for better quality walls that will need mixing, or establish a herb garden, or... all kinds of things."

The woman seems a little mollified, or at least has realised she is making a bit of a scene and isn't going to get what she wants this way.

"But what should everyone do today?" she tries.

"Let's put these back away and go ask them?" suggests Allegra.

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."

"That might be a problem. Usually, personal mana - that's the magical power that everyone has inside them, lying around untapped - regenerates overnight when you sleep. People who are cursed not to sleep, don't regenerate mana. So you might be chronically low on mana, which would mean you wouldn't be able to cast anything successfully.

And you don't eat, so I'm not sure that a Mageblood potion would actually do any good for you.

We might want to see if you can cast off crystal mana. Usually that is far too expensive, but Deskyl has just pulled quite a few up, so I'm happy to give you one back and see if that helps. If she can find mana crystals just by looking, she might be able to find more mana sites..."

"That sounds like a good thing to try, yes ma'am. Will you be able to tell if it works?"

"I've never heard of someone successfully draining a crystal without it being very noticeable to them and as part of casting something, so you should be able to tell - in fact, telling whether a crystal is charged or not when you're holding it might be an excellent first step, I'll get a fresh one and one of the expended ones we keep for jewelry crafts."

She gets up and starts heading towards the warehouse with a burst of energy, then thinks better of it and sends off someone who comes up to her on the way, while she goes to sit down again - slightly stiffly, to close observation.

"Haly will bring them over," she explains.

"Yes ma'am. Do you have a guess about whether I have any mana of my own? Droids don't have a connection to the Force at all, where Master Deskyl and I are from, not even to the degree that insensitive people do, and she was surprised that you thought I might be able to learn magic here."

"The closest comparison to droids that I have ever previously heard of is the wind up heralds and mechanical spiders of the Autumn realm, and obviously they're naturally magical.

So you may not have any mana and you may not be able to pick up magic, but in general being able to speak is a good sign of being able to learn magic.

If you can't feel anything in the mana crystal, I'll probably let Davyd try to teach you some chirurgy, or the artisan we've got coming over for the forge to try teaching item crafting - those are both somewhat magic but don't require personal mana.

But it would be unusual to pick it up in a couple of days anyway, especially without incidental exposure beforehand."

"Yes ma'am. I appreciate the help."

Haly comes back with two similar looking crystals. "Thanks," says Allegra, and puts them on the table. "Feel free to do what you like with them, they're yours now."

There's definitely - something about one of them. It's not emitting detectable radiation, or heavier, or vibrating. But it has an undeniable significance to it even so.

"Yes ma'am. - this one seems to have mana, ma'am."

"Ah, excellent! You're clearly not entirely lacking in the ability to sense magic, then - everyone can tell mana crystals up close, but I also think everyone who has the patience can learn magic.

I'm hoping that in itself will give you a better idea of what you are aiming for.

The next step normally involves a lot of repetition of the metaphor forms and... whatever kind of basic meditation or concentration exercises you find culturally relevant, until you can feel a potential mental motion you could push on."

You don't have to be Deskyl to notice, despite Allegra's usually pretty serious emotional control, 'methods of teaching introductory magic' is something that takes her a moment to get all her instinctive reaction back under the surface.

Yep, she notices. She's certainly not going to comment, though.

"I'm not familiar with how meditation is done, ma'am."

"Okay, so, the very basic one is... You don't breathe, either, do you."

"Not as such, ma'am. I do have cooling fans."

"That might still complicate things, let's start with a mantra instead. Pick a very short phrase - I actually tend to do it with a single syllable word, but nowadays I mostly use it for sleep rather than focus. A short line from a poem should do.

Then, close off all the sensory input you can - eventually you'll want to learn to do it alongside sensory input, but it's easier if you start without - and replace your train of thought with the phrase. Whenever you notice yourself thinking something that isn't the phrase, let it go and come back to the phrase.

If you have a highly visual thought track it can help to imagine writing the phrase over whatever visual thought is attempting to happen.

At first I'd expect it to be very difficult and you to be constantly interrupted by normal thoughts, but if you have a more herald like cognition we might instead need to set up a signal to bring you out of it..."

"I don't expect to be interrupted, ma'am. I can set up an internal alert to tell me when it's been a certain length of time; that might be easiest."

"Yes, if you have a reliable internal time sense that doesn't impinge too much on your thoughts to monitor it, that would work very well. I recommend no more than one minute to start with, although we'll rapidly get up to at least ten and maybe longer; if you do take to it effortlessly we'll probably want a more focused visualisation, this exercise is mostly for getting the hang of it at all."

"I'm not sure Master Deskyl would approve of me being unaware of my surroundings for ten minutes, ma'am. It might also be dangerous."

"Let's take it in shorter bursts, then. Once you've got it down, you can start being aware of the surroundings at the same time, as long as you can avoid it interfering - but still not especially alert, that is likely to disrupt the mind state. We might have to leave longer stretches to when Deskyl is awake, if you don't trust our safety here."

"It might be dangerous in the sense that she might suddenly need to be calmed down, ma'am, it will be riskier when she's awake. But droids are very good at paying attention to what we mean to; I expect I'll be able to learn to do it with my senses available without very much practice."

Allegra looks... distinctly nonplussed at the idea of Deskyl needing to be calmed down.

"You know her better than I do," she settles on, at length. "Let's start with a minute, or whatever you feel comfortable with, and then you can report on what that was like and start re-incorporating sensory input?"

"Yes ma'am."

She sets her hands in the 'I'm safe' sign, and goes very, very still.

(And we bided for the daylight, And the daylight came at last.
And we bided for the daylight, And the daylight came at last.
And we bided for the daylight, And the daylight came at last.
And we bided for the daylight, And the daylight came at last.
And we bided for the daylight, And the daylight came at last.
And we bided for the daylight, And the daylight came at last...)

Okay, that is kind of creepy but she seems to have got the whole meditation thing sorted? Allegra gives her up to five minutes to surface before starting to be concerned.

Then the lightstone flares for a moment - like daylight - and Allegra is on her feet with her staff in her hands before she has really noticed it.

"I'm sorry," she apologises automatically, not sure whether DZ is hearing yet, "that was not what I expected."

DZ comes out of her reverie after a minute by the clock, not long after the lightstone's flare. "...I'm sorry, ma'am?"

"Well, it looks like you have - some kind of hearth magic. Or your own magic. Whatever you were concentrating on made the lightstone perk up, very briefly.

Hearth magic is notorious for being impossible to experiment with, I wouldn't even necessarily expect it to do the same thing twice. But it's promising that you're attuned to _something_.

Let's try a more focussed meditation and see if we can get you a bit further. Hold the mana crystal, look for something inside yourself that - matches. Try a few different lines and see if any of them resonate with it. You shouldn't be able to drain it without saying anything out loud, so don't worry too much about that, just see what kind of thought-forms might - tug on it?

You might not get anywhere today at all. Meanwhile..."

She gets a mirrored tile out of her bag and puts it on the table. "The hearth magic that normally goes with light is witness and reflections. If you don't like turning your senses off, you might want to try looking in a mirror instead; it works for me, but I was raised Urizeni."

"Yes ma'am." She picks up the mirror and the mana crystal, and, considers.

Well, the thing in her that's most like the mana crystal is her battery, obviously. Unfortunately, there's not much poetry about batteries, and next to none that are about them the way droids experience them. The closest biological equivalent would be food, and there's plenty of poetry about that, though of course she has trouble relating very personally to it; perhaps poetry about other power sources will work? Which brings her back to Out of Darkness Into Light, conveniently enough...

Till we wondered at the sunshine, When at length we felt its rays.

Then upon the far horizon Came the faintest tint of gold;

Richer, deeper, grew the radiance, Till our eyes could hold no more.
We had traveled to the eastward, And our journeying was o'er.

Now the light is round about us, And the sun to guide our feet

The lightstone - maybe brightens, a little? It's not as dramatic as the first flare was, it's on the edge of detectability. It doesn't seem to be doing very much to the mana crystal, light and sunlight apparently don't resonate very strongly with mana.

Allegra gets a notebook out and starts studying a list of names with letters next to them, sometimes adding another letter or crossing one out. She seems to be assuming they aren't going to make any more noticeable progress. Now and then someone will wander over to ask her something, mostly about where things or people are, or details of the forge building (which she mostly just reflects back to them and asks them what they think, or recommends someone else to ask about).

Interesting that she can get the lightstone to respond somewhat consistently, even if it's only a slight response. She's trying for the mana crystal, though - if the obvious kind of power source doesn't work, maybe a poem more abstractly about power will?

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

[source]

That doesn't move the lightstone at all. It's maybe a little like it's pushing at something - but something very orthogonal to either sort of magic.

Allegra will let her get on with it for a little while longer, then ask, "Anything interesting?"

"The lightstone lit up a bit again when I thought about more lines about sunlight, ma'am - not very brightly, I'm not sure you'd be able to see the difference in it - and the last poem I tried seemed to be doing something unrelated to the mana crystal or the lightstone, I don't know what."

"What was the poem about? Maybe put down the mana crystal and recite it out loud, if you don't have a power source you're unlikely to have anything too problematic happen."

"Yes ma'am." She does so, putting much more emotion into it than her usual demeanor would suggest she's capable of.

Allegra seems noticeably impressed, or possibly perturbed, and takes a moment to collect herself.

"So, uh, one of the other kinds of magic - although most people wouldn't call it that - is... aura-making. We call it different things depending on what the aura is on, anointing for people, consecration for places, hallowing for items.

Generally you get into the right state of mind for it through a plant derived substance, liao, that is refined from vinum, a kind of vine sap. I'm not sure if that would work on you at all if you don't eat food; it can be applied to the skin or inhaled as well, but those don't seem to work quite normally with you either. It's possible that putting the _target_ in the state of mind might work, though.

This is a religious ceremony, to be clear. But it's not - totally necessary for the creation of auras. Sufficiently deeply felt emotion, expressed strongly enough, can cause - spontaneous auras. Those are also know as - miracles.

You're not really near generating a spontaneous aura with that poem, but it is definitely aligned in the right direction; if it was possible to dose you with liao and have you do that, I'm pretty sure what you'd get is a Courage aura."

"It's not possible to drug droids, ma'am, but it's possible to cause similar effects in other ways; I would want to discuss it with Master Deskyl first, of course. Can you tell me more about the religious implications, please?"

Allegra seems quite animated about this topic, although also a bit self-deprecating in places.

"So. Our religion is fundamentally based around reincarnation. When a human dies here, our soul goes on to the Labyrinth - a place adjacent to normal reality - and attempts to find its way back to the real world and be reborn.

There's a whole other thing for orcs, but I'm not going into that right now because it's complicated, and... political, and not really as settled as the rest of it.

The - basic human tendencies - that help you navigate the Labyrinth are what we call the Virtues. Courage, Wisdom, Prosperity, Pride, Vigilance, it's traditional for me to now forget the ones I haven't done, Loyalty, did I say Wisdom already..." she counts on her fingers for a moment, "oh yeah, Ambition.

There are also False Virtues - things like Fear, Hatred, Vengeance - which _work_ like virtues - they produce auras and so on - but don't help you navigate the Labyrinth.

If you get good enough at understanding the Labyrinth, eventually you transcend the cycle, possibly get assumed bodily into the Labyrinth rather than having to die the normal way, and pass beyond it. That is explicitly something that people who have not got that far can't understand, so it's a bit short on details, but there are a bunch of Signs to look for which basically boil down to 'being super Virtuous and spreading the True Virtues'.

Someone who is recognised to have a few of those signs is an Exemplar, someone who had all of them and we don't expect back is a Paragon.

Priests - that's basically anyone with a bit of training, I can do it - can use liao to make virtue auras. Paragons don't need the liao - they can deliberately induce the requisite mental state. People in extreme situations sometimes spontaneously generate auras too - not always in a good way, the Druj love torturing people until they put up fear and despair auras for them.

We haven't encountered non-humans who can successfully use liao, it makes orcs throw up, and they don't seem to spontaneously generate auras either - although there are one or two that are claimed to be orc-generated, so that might just be political nonsense.

If you can repeatably generate auras at all, you're ahead of any other non-human we've encountered, and if you can do it without liao then everyone is liable to get _really_ excitable and argue a lot over whether you could be a Paragon, whether you 'cheated' somehow, and whether you can replicate that 'cheating' so everyone can ascend faster..."

"Yes ma'am. The method I have in mind won't work for humans, it requires capabilities you don't have, and it's more like taking liao than like willing myself into the right mental state."

"I suspect the Synod will still argue about it for seasons. I'm not sure I can _describe_ the mental state, but maybe Deskyl can sense it?

In any case - if you want to channel magic rather than virtue, you need to look more at the fundamental building blocks of the _universe_ than of _people_. That's what the standard metaphors are designed to describe, but they're all very different, so it's likely your own system will work well enough - if it has the right kind of concept. The three basic operations of magic are detection, opening, and bonding; we don't have a portal to open on hand, and I'd rather keep my magic item attached to me, which is why we're looking at detection first. Bonding can also bond people together as well as people and items, but we only know how to do that through the nation bond - which involves being sworn to the Empire and the egregore - so that is unlikely to be relevant for a while.

I usually do magical detection with the Spider and the Web; things are watched by a hidden eye, things are connected. If I was trying to put that into poetic form - it would be about embodying the principle that things are watched, that the universe has observers, and those observers are fundamentally connected to what they watch?"

"Yes ma'am."

"So far, all of the poems that have worked for me are ones that are particularly personally meaningful, is that typical?"

"Hmm. To some extent - but a lot more so with hearth magic and virtue than with mana based magic.

What you're aiming for with mana based magic is more along the lines of... convincing the universe that you know what you're talking about. And that the thing you're trying to do is - aligned with fundamental principles of magic, or some practitioners would say, underlying reality."

"Yes ma'am, that should help, thank you."

She knows less Sith poetry about Force use, but definitely some; she picks the mana crystal back up and starts going through the collection, starting with the ones about sensory powers and how they call on the connection to the Force that all biological creatures, and to a lesser extent all objects, share.

No immediate results - pretty much the same total lack of effect as you'd expect from a droid trying to use the Force.

It takes her a while to conclude that it's more likely that she's taking the wrong tack than that she just hasn't found the right poem yet.

"I may need some time to think about what sorts of poems I should try next, ma'am - am I right that it's important that it be a poem with themes that I'd reasonably have an observer's role in?"

"I mean, that is probably a reasonable component of the approach?

Breaking it down a bit further - the usual components of a spell are calling upon a power source, either your own internal power or a mana crystal; aligning that with a fundamental truth about the nature of the universe, which can be a musical key, or a constellation, or a paragon, or... some kind of dramaturgical thing, I never did really get the hang of dramaturgy, which is possibly why I'm struggling to devise poemancy? And then directing that at the result you are after, in this case 'what's interesting about this object'.

The calling on a power source is generally done implicitly by calming the mind or holding the crystal, although some people do reference it explicitly in wording as well. Some early magical exercises are just for getting in touch with the feeling of your internal mana reserves, but I've kind of skipped over those as we're not sure you actually _have_ internal mana reserves..."

"My battery is a kind of power source, ma'am, perhaps I need to call on that? But if there's a chance that this will use any of the electricity it's storing I should wait until there's a way to recharge me."

"Hmm, yes, it might well do that. Hopefully at least some news tomorrow, although it'll probably be 'they went on to Sarvos for the wire'."

"Yes ma'am." That's that for that, then.

Deskyl stays in her tent for the rest of the day, but comes out after dinner to spend a few minutes stretching before the sun starts to set.

Interested teenagers gradually congregate as word gets round, although only a couple make it in the first few minutes. 

Deskyl slows down her routine a bit to let them see, and then has DZ ask if any of them can recommend a good spot to watch the sunset.

There isn't really a convenient hilltop; DZ collects directions to several good climbing trees and 'it's pretty cool from the warehouse roof if you can get up there'.

She relays her thanks and sets out for the nearest recommended tree.

It's a lovely sprawling tree right on the treeline, nice even spread of thick branches, oak-shape leaves, about twenty metres tall and the same across at the widest spread of branches. It has a considerable quantity of scuff marks from previous tree users. A small entourage of teenagers is following her.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Davyd wanders up to the tent about half an hour later, carefully carrying a large bowl of water.

Deskyl and DZ are sitting outside, waiting; Deskyl seems a little tired, but alert enough.

    "Hello, sir," DZ offers when he gets close enough, signing along as she speaks.

"Hi there! I've just come to do a general check-up on Deskyl, if that's okay? I brought the bowl so we can mirror some of it, if she'd prefer a minimally invasive approach; normally on Navarr with an unknown long term condition I'd do a blood draw, but Allegra's been showing me some Urizeni sympathy tricks she uses for chirurgy, so I think I can get away without if you'd prefer."

    "She says that either way is fine with her, sir."

"Excellent. Let me get a good general look at you, first."

The physick sets the bowl down on the ground, unrolls the tool wrap, and takes out a small vial of clear liquid which he upends on a small clump of moss. Then he walks a full circle around Deskyl, regarding her closely; he's clearly going through a mental checklist of potential symptoms, both by visual inspection and by - something like smell, but he seems to be getting more detail out of it than he should. At one point he smells the clump of moss to compare.

"Okay. Nothing obvious besides general fatigue and some old wounds that are healing fine by themselves. Can I get a brief symptom description, then we'll swab an appropriate area, take a tiny amount of blood, and drop it on a few reagents to check internal balances."

"Just current symptoms, sir, or also past ones?"

"Let's start with current symptoms, if there are relevant past symptoms still connected to them that would also be useful to know; if I spot anything in the blood I'll ask for a more comprehensive medical history, but I think we might be here all day if I try to take a general one?"

"Yes sir." She consults with Deskyl. "Her current symptoms are fatigue, difficulty focusing, and memory loss after exertion; the memory loss doesn't happen immediately but the next time she sleeps she'll wake without memories of several minutes before, during, and several hours after the exertion, or more if she exerts herself more intensely or for longer."

"Hmm, okay. That does sound a lot like some varieties of gate shock, I hope it's not one that needs ilium or prismatic ink. Can you direct her to follow the lightstone with her gaze?" He digs out a small piece of glowing crystal from his toolkit. "I might be able to get away with an arm draw but it'll be more informative from the temple, if she's okay with that; I've got plenty of clotting moss so the incision will clear up almost immediately." He drops down to an easy deep squat in front of Deskyl, to get into her eyeline with the crystal in anticipation.

Deskyl follows the instructions she's given; there's a very slight delay to her reactions when it changes direction, but she's otherwise entirely able to track the lightstone. She's a little more skeptical of the nonstandard blood draw location, but relays her consent to that as well.

Davyd carefully takes out another piece of moss, dampens it in the bowl of water, and swabs Deskyl's temple - there is a cooling feeling and a slight numbing. He takes what looks quite a lot like a clay sculpting tool and another pinch of moss, makes a very quick, very small incision in her temple, intending to soak up the blood in the moss - which also seems to accelerate the healing of the incision.

Deskyl stays very still throughout this process, not flinching at all when the blade breaks her skin.

Davyd carefully applies the blood-soaked moss to a few other drops of clear liquids, gazes at it deeply, and makes a range of "Hmm," noises. Eventually he seems to come to some kind of conclusion.

"So. Good news, it's not going to kill you. For the memory loss, I have some smelling salts," he presents her with a neatly cork-stoppered glass tube full of rose-coloured crystals. "Shake the tube and take a sniff of these during the time that you'd normally lose, it will reinforce memory formation - it's likely to take several applications to cover the whole time at first, come back to me if they start losing potency. There's some kind of persistent effect there which is causing hearing loss, it's not physical; it can probably be disrupted with a vital honey salve if you want to, except I don't have any vital honey on hand so we'd have to order it in. And I'll brew up some Drake's Tea for you to take with dinner, that will help keep your healing up - brain injury's a tricky one, I could attempt to treat it more aggressively but I don't think the potential downsides are worth it in this case."

    "Thank you, sir. The hearing loss is an intentional effect that Master Deskyl is maintaining; it's mostly unrelated to her injuries and she expects to be able to replace it with something less impairing when she's more able to focus. She appreciates the smelling salts and the tea."

"Right, then." He packs up all of his equipment, and picks up the bowl again. "Trade wagon should be here soon, if you're interested; normally the highlight of the week, whatever artisan Allegra's persuaded to join us is likely along with it too."

    "Yes sir." They'll wait, then.

Eventually, people start to get excited and drift towards the road segment just before the warehouse; a lookout has come running ahead of the trade wagon to let people know it's arriving shortly. Bundles of handicrafts, choice bits of hide, and similar trade goods are being somewhat anarchically marshalled; Allegra is hanging around the warehouse waiting to greet the artisan; some people have put together a crude wheeled sledge and are awaiting forge components.

Deskyl finds a good spot to leave DZ, and has a look at the assembled trade goods while she's waiting for the wagon; she's back with the droid by the time it comes into view, though.

They're generally not very impressive. Mostly time consuming but not very high skill things, handcarved wooden spoons, patterned ribbons with vine designs, little embroidery patches to be sewn onto clothes, knitted woollen socks, that kind of thing.

The wagon is drawn by two oxen, and only just fits down the winding road. There's a proper hooped hide-covered main section. The accompanying traders - looks like baseline humans, not particularly interested in this stop, the big one's next - are walking alongside, but sitting on the back step is a pointy-eared lady with pastel blue swirls on her face as well as the ubiquitous thorny vine tattoo who is intensely curious about everything.

The traders are suddenly more interested in what is going on when they spot DZ, although they don't immediately change their routine approach.

Deskyl and DZ are hanging back slightly in the crowd; they stay put as the wagon approaches.

"Good day to you!" calls one of the traders to Allegra. "I'm sure it's Vate business, but I'm awful nosy - can we tell anyone you've got a herald in? Haven't seen one down this way for a while."

The other trader starts unhooking the hide cover and making ready to put the side down on the wagon - they've got an unusual amount of heavy stuff to deliver here today. She waves over the people with the sledge to come set up, and tells a couple of the hopeful individuals with trade goods that she'll be with them in a minute.

The changeling hops down off the back of the wagon and also heads to Allegra, but is definitely staring at DZ whenever she thinks she can get away with it. "Hi there! Ooh, is that one from the Forgemistress? I'd definitely waive some of my stipend to work with one of those!"

Deskyl gives the sledge team a longing look, and after a brief consultation with DZ, she scoops the droid up into a bridal carry to drop her off with Allegra and then goes to help with the unloading.

"I'm afraid it's not really common knowledge, I'd appreciate it if you can keep it under your hat," replies Allegra to the traders. "I'll explain for you later, Angharad. You'll probably be working with her at least some of the time. DZ, this is Broker Catrin Closehaul and artisan Angharad - do you have an existing Striding name you're keeping, or?"

"Angharad Foundhome now, unless you've got anything you want me to swear before I claim it," replies Angharad.

"No, you're very welcome," Allegra replies.

Meanwhile, extra hands at the unloading are entirely welcome; there's a big anvil nobody was looking forwards to moving, as well as quite an extensive pile of tools and firebricks.

The big anvil is no trouble at all for telekinesis, and hopefully gets the point across that they want Deskyl on moving the biggest, heaviest things.

"It's good to meet you, ma'am, ma'am."

There is some consternation when the big anvil starts floating, particularly from the trader, but several of the Foundhome briars have at least heard of the Bed Floating, and when they glance at Allegra and she doesn't seem at all worried about it none of them make any particular further comments, although the trader is definitely somewhat nervous about Deskyl throughout.

"And you," replies Angharad warmly. "I look forwards to hearing all about you when there aren't extra ears around!"

Broker Catrin doesn't seem to know whether she should respond to DZ directly or not, so turns to Allegra. "I also have a message from a Ytha Foundhome? Apparently no-one in Seren was confident they could deliver to her specifications, but she got a specific referral to a workshop in Sarvos that might be able to do it."

"Good to know," replies Allegra. "Do you suppose you can shift twice as much mana as usual without a price drop? We've had a little overproduction but I'm not sure whether that will lead to a dip in future months."

"Should do, it's all just going into the Seren mana markets which are a lot bigger than the supply from here," replies Catrin. "Anything else you want to special order while we're here, save you sending another runner in? Although I'm sure they like the exercise..."

"Yes ma'am," DZ replies to Angharad, and then she goes stiller when the broker delivers the news about the wire order.

"Deezee, is there anything you can think of that we might want to get from Seren while we're at it? We've now got a well-stocked normal artisan's forge on its way to being set up, but not much in the way of materials other than a few test ingots of this and that." Allegra attempts to look sympathetic at DZ's reaction but she's not very good at it, and seems to think the best cure for being worried about something is to think about something else.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't know what materials you have available; if you can list them for me I might be able to make a recommendation."

Allegra gestures at Catrin as if she clearly expects her to contribute; Catrin takes this as permission to talk to the weird herald thing.

"Are you interested in building materials, everyday goods materials, magic materials?" she asks briskly. "Seren's best in the world for herbs and alchemicals, most things you might need everyday are available, might have to order out to the Leaguers if you're looking for pre-made parts or bulk metals."

"Materials for building and everyday goods, please, ma'am. And you may want to get samples of the magical materials to show to Master Deskyl, ma'am," she adds to Allegra.

"I ordered a starter kit for the artisan, there should be enough to look through there, just not enough for any big projects," replies Allegra.

"Brick, stone, wood, plaster and such? Brackets, hinges, nails? Woods, fibres, metals, ceramics, lightstone, other crystals, resins? Glues, paints, pigments, inks?" asks Catrin.

"Most of the things Master Deskyl knows how to make are primarily metal, ma'am, with some ceramic; she does use crystals for some things but I expect that won't come up here. Glues will be useful, and mechanical parts like brackets and hinges. The type of metal may be important, though, and I'm not familiar with what kinds of metal you're able to make."

"Your standard metals are iron, steel, bronze, brass, copper, gold and silver, I can get as much of those as you can pay for and will fit on the wagon. We can also source lead, quicksilver, tin and zinc without much trouble. I think there are some unusual non-magical metals available up in Temeschwar, platinum's the obvious one, I'd have to go ask around what the others were called. Obviously then you've got orichalcum steel, green iron for complex shapes, weltsilver for springs and such, and mithril at the top end.

For clays you're best off telling me what properties you want, there's a huge variety from bone china to bulk terracotta clay; your tradeoffs are price, load-bearing, brittleness, how thin you can work it, what temperature it needs firing at, unglazed colour, how well it takes glazes, how smooth a finish you can get. Glues similarly, how fast drying, what surfaces are you trying to join, load-bearing, long-lasting, resilience to sudden jolts, gap filling, we probably have something if you can trade those off.

Pre-made brackets and hinges will mostly be iron or bronze, steel more expensive and more durable, orichalcum steel or mithril if you want the top end."

"I expect Master Deskyl will primarily want steel for structural components, ma'am, and copper wire and small amounts of gold wire and gold leaf for electrical components. I'm not familiar with green iron or weltsilver but they sound likely to be useful; I'm also not familiar with orichalcum steel or mithril. I expect her preferences for clay to depend on the project it's being used for, and I'm not sure what kind of brackets and hinges she'd prefer; steel is probably a fairly safe guess."

"We can get you steel ingots that should be processable in your forge; if you want wire to Ytha's specifications we'll have to follow her supply chain, we can get you basic jewellery wire in Seren but apparently that wasn't sufficient in some respect. Gold leaf is also standard jewellery and detailing supplies. Green iron, for mechanical uses, it's quite like lead in malleability but much more durable and also helpfully not poisonous? Much more expensive, though, mind. Weltsilver, I'm not sure what to compare it to, you can draw it right down into thread or you can alloy it with copper or iron for basically any kind of mechanical property you like, as long as it's on the 'light and springy' rather than 'very durable' side; copper/weltsilver cookware is what the Dawnish use when they want something that heats up as soon as you stick it on the range. Orichalcum steel is like steel but better - basically, same kind of property changes you get going from iron to steel, but more so. Mithril, well, it's mithril - lightweight, practically indestructible, a right pain to work with obviously but a little weltsilver and green iron in the mix can really help there.

If you're not sure what you're after, we can bring a range of sample brackets and hinges, and of the more exotic metals, on our next trip for you - if you're going to still be here next week. Or you can come back to Seren with us and pick them out, although we're off up to First Voice as our next stop."

"We'll be here next week, yes ma'am; Master Deskyl isn't prepared to travel at this time. I expect her to be interested in orichalcum steel as a structural material, and to want to check at some point whether her powers are useful for working with mithril. Overall I expect that she'll want a sample of green iron and eventually one of mithril, a larger but still relatively small quantity of weltsilver - enough to experiment with to see what it can do - and a good amount of orichalcum steel and a smaller amount of regular steel, or the reverse of that if it seems impractically expensive; I'll defer to Master Allegra on that, I don't know what the local economy is like."