"Lots of caves for kids. There's enough connection to the surface that the air doesn't go stale. Seaweed farming. Fish farming in net-pens, with them eating the zooplankton and phytoplankton that grow right on top. Anemone farming, or starfish or whatever, eh... Sometimes? Usually it's, like, clams. Oysters. Those are pretty low maintenance. Some of them, you can get dye or medicine out of. Whales are bigger than we need and they grow real slow, so those are a no. I gotta warn you though, the ocean is full of slimy stuff and parasites. The shallows are fuckin' teeming. The open ocean much less so, but there's still a lot. It's a constant pain to keep clean. Random fish you catch from the ocean have all sorts of worms and shit in them, which is why you cook 'em nice and thoroughly. I guess random rabbits or whatever land hunters hunt probably do too? The farms, less so, since we're spraying 'em and magicking 'em all the time. Ooh... That's a thinker, the teleporting thing."

Fins kicks off from the dock and lounges on her back, wearing a tight leathery garment of some sort; Her feet are long flipperlike things.

"Spraying?

The downside of my teleportation is that I can't carry anything, like this disk. But the upside is that I can't carry anything, like grime and parasites! I've waded into shit slurry up to my elbows and then popped home clean and dry, not even any stench grubbing up my nose.

I guess you don't come to the firm land - dry land - very much, or people would notice. But I would really like to find a local place to hang out, if you have any tips, where I can learn to really speak Kelosian, and stop letting the maker of this disk jam their concepts into my thoughts. Or other languages! Is there a commonly-used Ejer language?"

"That would be Jerran, the old tongue. Hjel mef sjer klej haffajallan, yeah? I clean the ships, remember? And I'd better keep getting paid for it. They just incorrectly think I live down on the southern edge of town. If you want to power-learn Kelosian, the Oak Temples will be happy to talk and preach at you for free, teaching is White'n'Green and all, but they're stuffy and Kelosian as all get-out so I bet it'd be boring. I guess I can show you the hangout cave without giving too much away... I'm sure there's a dozen secret hangout spots, but they're secret. Friends being friends, arm in arm, not for strange eyes to see~"

"Sure, that works for you, Fins, but what about the rest of you all? Do they all have fake houses? That can't be worth the cost.

I don't need a snobby lecturer drilling me on vocabulary. Just people to talk to who might not think that, say, Ejer are um a disturbing rebuttal to moral realism but now thankfully assimilated - or something, not that phrase but that's the vibe I get. And I'm not asking for secrets! Just direction to the best" leafhouse "coffeehouse or pub or library or gamehall or what where people talk."

"Oh, you want Gjika's. Go upriver, left side, and ask folks. You'll find it. Bored now, come back some time if you wanna swim through midnight waters to a secret cave! Also, half of that was lies, 'not a kaleid'! Nice bit!"

Giving a cheery wave, Fins vanishes beneath the water with a splash.

"What? Hey! Okay, nice bit, you got me. Bye!"

How's Katherine doing?

The lecture seems to have finished. Cleanup is continuing. The mood on the docks is kind of split between amused and sullen. Katherine is handing over a pouch of coins to who seems to be the captain of the boat that was receiving timbers. Then she goes to sit on a bench in a huff.

"Nice lecture from the boss lady. Real head of steam on her."

"Could've leaped straight to fixing it instead of yelling."

"Yeah, they fucked up bad, but still..."

"Praise in public, damn in private, that's what my Pa always said."

"Maxims pay us to load the ships, not ruin cargo."

"Could've happened to anyone."

"No it fucking couldn't have, they were jumping on it and shit."

"Maxims are still just as in charge as before, if you work for 'em."

"They pay well though, and you can always just quit."

"Anton's not so bad but Katherine's too young. Doesn't quite know what she's doing yet..."

"Whatever, nobody got hurt, tempers are high, let's just fix it and get back to work."

"Yeah, yeah."

A catfolk-ish looking man stretches, then holds one arm out, palm up in a gesture that everyone else seems to recognize. "Back to work then. Anyone want a pick-me-up?"

There's a chorus of 'sure's and everyone reaches out to touch the man's arm or hand, standing straighter and looking more alert after they do.

Nobody hurt, so she's not needed, even if there were a place she could usefully deliver a single memorized phrase...

She shouldn't have taken a side earlier. She didn't mean to, really, just commiserating with a random person nearby, but she could have acknowledged his frustration without declaring an opinion, and now if she comforts Katherine she'll look like she's part of the 'Maxim loyalist faction'.

But nothing for it. She sticks by her friends! Holding the disk tight, she pokes Katherine's shoulder with her nose. "You okay?"

Katherine jumps slightly.

"I'm fine. I'm sorry you had to see that, things usually run smoothly, I swear! Bah, all that wood will have to be inspected now, the fall could have damaged some of it. Gale Timber's reputation for quality is too important not to... But enough of my woes. I think I was going to show you to the healers' commune?"

"Yeah, to the healers'! Is it common to have magic drugs like that guy used?"

As they walk, she gives Katherine a brief tail-hug. "You don't need to stifle your feelings. Gale Timber is separate from Gale Rocks?"

Tail-hugs are nice; She smiles and pats the tail in question happily.

"Oh, yes. The Maxim family used to own the entire region by fiat- That's how Kelos still does things, nobles own larger and smaller regions and pay fealty to each other. But I saw which way the wind was blowing as a little girl yea high, and I encouraged Father to speak for independence and give up the theoretical authority that never would have been truly obeyed. So now we're just a merchant house, and Gale Timber is the name of said house. Quality standards at the sawmill are high."

Nefanie can see the odd state of the construction in the area they're passing through. It's all wood, no stone at all, and most of it appears temporary. Carts, tents, scaffolding, open walls like the gazebo. The local activity is mostly peddlers and small-time tinkers; Shoe shiners, seamstresses, whittlers, a painter, three carpenters advertising, some sort of medicine maker, a scribe for hire, plus a couple of food carts. Up ahead at the end of the street is a smooth stone wall with a long ramp leading up to the top.

"Wow! Abdicating like that, no matter how much the wind was or wasn't blowing, was really good! What other merchant houses are in Gale Rocks?"

"Are the people here travelers? Do they move to follow the 'seasons'?"

"It was the only way that did not end in blood. More blood. There already was some, before my birth." Katherine shrugs. "And we're the only ones really embedded, though Three Dogs Shipping, Ruby and Lumen Distribution, and Pearapple Traders have schedules that bring them here. In Gale Rocks we don't- We endure the summer storms and winter chill alike. There are still traditional tribes out there though. Ejer. They're nomadic, as far as I know. I think the year is a bit too short to follow summer around the globe- What an image, though. Eternal summer, or eternal winter..."

"I figured. Still good of you to avoid more blood.

Do the other merchant houses want to be embedded in Gale Rocks? I'm guessing from the names that they're not as focused on timber. Do they carry timber at all? Do they have their own 'sawmills'?

And I'm guessing the Ejer travel to collect food from lots of places that are each too barren to support them? Oh, or they have to raise kids in places that kids can safely live, but then the adults travel as far as their bodies allow?

I think people who wear clothes like not having to switch between different sets all the time! At least, that's a thing that travelers complain about at home."

"Everyone carries whatever they think they can make a profit on! We're named after timber, because that's the flagship product, the thing we make the most money on and what we want to be known for- Lots of easily accessible forest that not even the Ejer care that much about upstream, cut down the trees and replant them and come back in fifteen years to more full-grown trees. Logs float down the river, nice and easy, and it's mostly good hardwood too. But Gale Rocks is still a small town- There is more industry elsewhere. Mines, smelters, cloth mills, lots of craftsmen turning materials into finished goods too. Kelos is more established at that, much busier. I don't know much about the Ejer, not the traditionalist nomads anyway. There's some truth to the food thing, I know they seed their travel routes with forgeable plants and come back to them later. It uses much more land than a farm, but farming is hard work so maybe they have the right of it if work is more limited than land. You probably do the same with the ability to teleport vast distances at a whim, no? Feeding a child- Who would be observing you- Must be a challenge."

"The Ejer object to cutting down forests? Why? I guess you just said you don't know much about them, sorry. It just caught my attention because at home there are a couple reasons people get touchy about forests, and it might just be that they want to prevent a mudslide but it also might be because they want to keep a bunch of animal species around, or because the forest is secretly full of their plant-specialized friends. I don't know if any of that matters on Scope!

Children of my specialization suckle for years, and during that time you carry them around and walk with them, so that when they're weaned they can feed themselves and start exploring areas of their own. And we try to give birth at the edge of our territory so they will have plenty to explore.

Cloth mills - machines that make cloth? Cool! How does that work? What kinds of magic do they use?"

"The food thing, and resentment for interference, I think. I'm fairly sure there aren't a lot of plants around that are secretly people, though we were concerned about that for a bit. I don't know too much about clothwork- There's a great deal of retting and sifting and threading and tamping and so on, to get cloudplant hair into suitable thread, and then big wooden frames that pull the thread taut and shuffle it back and forth. With help from a lot of blue magic to tug things into place and keep them from falling apart too soon. Also green, for growing the cloudplants. Similar principles to the mechanized sawmill, really, it's a whole specialty."

They come to the top of the wall, and see a wide, irregularly shaped plaza of smooth stone open up below them. It's busy. There's a big statue of a werewolf woman and a human man embracing in the center, with a little fountain around it. There's scattered wooden furniture and brightly colored cloth decoration, most with a few people hanging around them. A group has drawn a game field in chalk and is playing something rough with unknown rules and a hard leather ball on the hard stone. A small band is playing mediocre banjo-like music. There's a few stalls around the edges, but not as much as the area they've just passed. A big portion of the square is taken up by a large group of people working on processing some sort of small vegetable, cutting them up and laying them out on cloths to dry in the sun. A few couples are lying or sitting snuggled up with each other, talking quietly or napping or just people watching. One man is doing some sort of show with weighted cloth streamers, and a pair of women are swordfighting with wooden swords.

"Here we have old stone market- The healers' commune is out in the forest a bit and this is the quickest way, but the plaza here is a big social spot!"

"The Ejer harvest food from the trees? Does making the trees grow more wood mean they make less food?

Mreh, blue magic to 'tug things into place and keep them from falling apart' - we don't have that at home."

"Lovely!" She dashes all over the plaza, bouncing in time with the music: splashing through the fountain to get a close look at the two statues, running on tip-toes along the boundary line of the game field, circling the sword fight, and ending abruptly to stare at the man with the streamers. "Oohh!"

- and reluctantly back. Via the vegetable group. "That smells great! What are you making?"

She leaves a trail of looks and chattering in her wake. The man with the ribbons winks at her and twists his rainbow-colored ribbons in a move where they catch on each other and the weights at the end twirl together, ribbon trailing like a spinning comet.

Most of the vegetable group keep to their work, with just a wave or a smile. They're cutting them all in half and laying them out in these spiral patterns.

"Ho there, stranger! It's mizzem- When you dry 'em and dust a bit of spices on them, it concentrates all the good flavors right down. This is mostly Ilonse's crop, theirs did really well this year, I think it's the eggshell fertilizer- Harvested early, and wouldn't you know it the plaza's the most convenient large open space for drying, yeah? I don't think I've seen you before? I'm Lisha." The human-looking woman holds out her hand with a friendly smile.

(She winks back!)

"I'm Nefanie." Handshake. She flops onto the warm stone. "Mmm, it's so nice here." She does not steal a snack. "Why the spiral patterns? Who's Ilonse? You combine the crops to process them - how does that get organized?"

"Ilonse!" A man with bright white hair looks up. Lisha waves. Ilonse waves back, confused.

"Best time of the year right now. We get the warmth and the sun, and the storms haven't quite hit yet! Well- It's just more neighborly to do it all at once, right? The more you put in the more you get back out, sure, but we all know each other, whole lot of small farms out past the wetlands. The spirals make it so each mizzem-half is slightly tilted, see? It takes up a bit less space but doesn't actually dry much slower. It also doubles as advertising~ Looks tasty, doesn't it? Smells good too!"

She gives Ilonse as big of a friendly wave as she can while flopped on the ground holding the disk. "Good to meet you, sir!" What's he wearing? How human-like does he look compared to the others? "It's nice that you're so friendly and cooperate so well. If you got this many people-of-my-specialization together, well they wouldn't be working since they wouldn't have materials or tools, but if you tried, half would get bored and leave and half would end up paired off in nooks."

Ilonse looks a liiiitle bit like a cross between a human and a drake with silvery scales instead of blueish ones! He is not especially clothed; Sandals, baggy shorts, and a sleeveless vest-thing that's not even closed at the front, the latter of which seems to be a fairly common article of clothing around here, on both genders. He smiles. "Welcome to Gale Rocks!"

(It looks like the people who are laying the mizzem out are snacking occasionally, for what it's worth.)

"What's this 'specialization', then?" Lisha asks.

Katherine catches up at this point. "Her magic appears to work entirely differently, it's quite fascinating and we'll probably do some tests about it later."

"Oh," Lisha sounds less cheerful now that Katherine is here. "Well, glad you've got that sorted then. I'm guessing you all live out in the country and are used to your space more than townsfolk are, then." She waggles a finger and smirks at Nefanie. "Not that pairing off in nooks, occasionally not in pairs, doesn't happen, of course~ Especially between younger folk."

Ilonse is pretty! Not really her type, but so pretty. He didn't respond to her calling him 'sir', but maybe that was too subtle. She should have said, uh - she rummages through her borrowed vocabulary - 'my lord'?, but it's too late now. Similar clothing, not fancy, and he looks less human than the others, which at least is evidence against the active working of the simplest Kelosian-Ejer system of oppression, at least here in this part of Gale Rocks and this social group. And Lisha didn't hint at any hidden strife among the farmers.

"Yeah, I'm from a desolate mountain. It's different in the cities! On the planet I'm from people have abilities from birth that they can't change, but can use without limit. The specializations come from animals. I'm fox-specialized - 'kitsune' - and we can teleport to places we've been before as long as no one is watching. We can't carry things, which is why we don't bother wearing clothes except to sleep. I need to go now; it was nice to meet you, Lisha, Ilonse, everyone!"

Onward to the healers'!

"Lisha seemed a bit - subdued around you. Why is that? Anything I can help with?" Nefanie can think of several good and bad answers Katherine might give. 'Technically I could have anyone in the town killed but I won't of course' is concerning, but is a better sign for Katherine than the oblivious 'she hates me for no reason'.