"- let's just - do this breadth-first, okay, everybody? For all we know every item is gonna open up this many new nodes and we might as well orient ourselves.

Sorry about all the pauses to bet, Toy-Mun. Just, rare opportunity. We can ease up now.

How about 'animal' - Scoryu is right, it's a good starting place - what subcategories go in there?"

Pokes Toy-Mun with one of his silver coins before passing a bunch of them to Pel in exchange for some bet-contract slips.

Toy-Mun allows the coin-poking. Silver does not seem to do any harm.
- Huh. Well, there are fish, there are bugs, there are worms, and there are beasts, - they respond slowly. - And birds - although, I guess, they are pretty similar to beasts, and things like griphons suggest there's room for transition, so let's fold birds under beasts, too. I mean, there are also magical constructs, which are whatever their creator wants them to be - say, a mimic can shapeshift to different objects… I have a counterquestion, if I may: why betting? Are you just that addicted to gambling? Or is it somehow a... standard thing in your society?

Scribble scribble scribble "- do you know of lizards and alligators, andor also of, like, capybaras and monkeys, and if so, which forms the central example for 'beast' and where do the other ones go? Um, anybody else feel free about the betting."

He looks around, sees the vote of their eyes is for him. Others clearly wanted to butt in with a unilateral answer, but things are calming down back to civilization as time passes and it becomes less likely the stranger will vanish the way he came, and those others have inhibited themselves.

"It's to keep our words, the things we profess to believe, meaning anything? You can entertain bullies and long fruitless discussions about nothing, at cult, if at no point do you challenge others to put their money where their mouth is." 

Toy-Mun scratches their chin - which is clean, with no obvious signs of a stubble.
- Don't know what a capybara is but monkeys and lizards are all beasts, - they respond slowly. - A typical beast would be… a wolf, I guess? As for bets… interesting. We would challenge to combat if we believe someone's lying - not to death, for small situations like this, but still - but if you are serious about that non-aggression thing, I guess it makes sense that you went for money instead.

"- it does tend to destroy a lot less incidental value, settling your contests with money. Although that's genuinely unintuitive to some primitive cultures, which - hm - actually - has your home culture invented computers, washing machines, andor some kind of lights that aren't fire?"

Visibly moves to bet and stops itself short!

"- are humans beasts? How does the ability to shapeshift get in the 'magical constructs'?" Scribble scribble scribble

- "Primitive" is not a nice word, Henreyyah, - Toy-Mun responds with a clear scowl. - I don't know what a computer is, but washing and lights can be done with magic. And I have no idea how mimics work internally, I just know that they are no good. As for whether humans are beasts… I mean, people will be offended if you tell them so, but in terms of how bodies work, a human or an elf is not that different from a monkey, or a tigran from a leopard. We bleed, we mate, we have bones. Beings of magic such as dragons and shapeshifters are more complicated, of course, but if a dragon and a human can mate, then at least the human-like body of dragons is beastlike. And by the same token demons and angels probably are beasts.

<💭>. . . Oh, right. Other cultures have inscrutable norms of etiquette that you must follow, too. The more inscrutable the more distant they are from yours, and Toy-Mun is an alien, so.</💭>

Angels and demons (and implicitly humans) are 'probably' beasts? Where is the ambiguity coming from? But he doesn't ask that, there's a priority line of inquiry -

"Tigrans are like leopards in the same way humans are like monkeys, but tigrans and humans can mate with each other?"

"Objectively, modulo anthropics, that's much weirder than vampires being real, but I'm still hung up on the vampires and I think that's reasonable."

<💭>It's definitely just a translation issue somehow - I can take Pel into a corner where we won't interrupt Toy-Mun, and bet him about that - wait shit Henreyyah asked about blood and immortality and transformation a minute ago and Toy-Mun gave confirmatory answers - holy fucking wizards,,,,,,WHY,,,,,,,,,</💭>

"It's not necessarily weirder than vampires being real, even modulo anthropics. That depends on whether Toy-Mun's world has reified the plot-conceit where vampires have to feed on human blood specifically.

Or sapient blood, I guess, in Toy-Mun's world's case."

<💭>Toy-Mun sure doesn't know how the internals of anything work for someone who takes offense at being called primitive! Probably more tact than that is warranted if I want clarificatory answers out of him, though . . . ugh, tact . . . come on, Asic, dig deep, where is your tact . . .</💭>

"Everybody, please, let Toy-Mun answer!"

Reluctant/abashed silence.

Toy-Mun coughs:
- No… Tigrans only mate with other tigrans and shapeshifters, as I said, and vampires definitely can drink animal blood. There are actually some subdivisions between tigrans too, some are more like lions, some are more like leopards - but they're generally, you know, big-cat-like. It would sure be weird if I could mate a tigran… I mean, I can and I have, but it would be weird if it produced children.

Having understood what they've just said, Toy-Mun gets a furious blush.

Oh shit his face is red because he's mad at us because we didn't remember what he said! We had one job!

He squints at his notes. Yep, that's definitely what that squiggly loop besides "TIGRANS" was originally supposed to mean, before he "corrected" it.

"Well, that's less confusing! Also -"

He forgets all his other priorities, and the Refutation's newfound standards of decorum. He needs to know.

"Is there some reason that most of them still feed on humans most of the time anyway? Like - that it's more nutritious? Or just tastes vastly better?"

Toy-Mun almost visibly sighs relief seeing that their mating history doesn't seem to have bothered the others much.
- Vampires are power-mad undead monsters. Just like rape isn't just about mating, drinking blood doesn't seem to be just about hunger for them. You seem to ask an awful lot about them for a world that doesn't have them, though, so… what are your vampires like?

". . . Rape is about mating?"

"What's rape?"

"When a male just forces sex with a female. When it gets to be frequent in a population, you start seeing things like duck corkscrew vaginas and female dragonflies and damselflies with the ability to eject unwanted semen."