Shrug. "I’m easy."

<Teleporting will consume less time prior to arrival and signal more accurate information to the local population,> she says completely straight-faced.

"Teleporting it is," smiles Melda.

Pop.

Their first actor is a middle aged man nursing a beer. "Ho there!" he says. "Now there's something you don't see every day!"

Wave wave!

"Hello! I actually do see this almost every day, but I do agree it's objectively pretty unusual!"

"Ain't you fancy. You do this all the time, appearin' like ghosts?"

"Pretty frequently!" says Melda. "Can you tell us where we are, sir?"

"Oh, this is the Venner Shore rangelands."

Xinai has a chip in her head! Is this an alt of any known location?

Not in a way that is intended to be obvious, at least!

"We are envoys from another civilization, known as Vanda Nosseo, which is very far from here. Who do you recommend we speak to?"

"Oh! Well, I don't know that I'm the person to ask. The Yes-men'd tell you one thing and the Nay-sayers would tell you another and I'm staying all out of it."

"Can you tell us more about what the Yes-men and the Nay-sayers are?"

"Political... bundles of folks, I suppose. Against one another and sometimes against themselves! It's all a big mess."

"Oh wow, that sounds confusing. How do you tell who is who?"

"The Yes-men wear white or yellow and the Naysayers favor blue and brown." He himself is wearing faded red.

"So what are they saying yes or no to?"

"Well - lots of things but mostly the war, I reckon?"

"Huh, we're from really far away and don't know what war you mean."

"Oh. Well, like I said, I stay well out of it."

"Sounds like a policy with a lot of upside, really. At least one of us should go find some people who don't stay out of it but can we and our fantastical powers do anything for you while we're here?"

"- well that rather depends what they are, now, doesn't it!"

“Valerian and I can change things - almost anything into anything else, which includes healing! Our team can also do stuff like teleportation, cleaning, music… all kinds of things!”

"You're... magic performing housecleaners?"

"Also healers! And diplomats. Mostly diplomats. And Melda can turn you into a bird or make your graceful - there are kind of a lot of things but if you don't have an obvious single one you're interested in right this second the thing we're actually mostly here to do is talk about maybe inviting you to join our alliance or at least trade with us." He glances at Melda like he's not sure if he's doing this right.

"Well, now, that sounds like politics," he snorts. "Except for turning into a bird. I don't even know what that one sounds like."

"It's understandable that you'd want to stay out of it," says Melda. "Is there anywhere the Yes-men and Naysayers have - debates, or anything like that, where we could hear from both sides?"

"Oh, over thataway - or maybe it's thataway, I'm not very good with directions - there's the city center," he says, pointing at a fairly featureless area of the plain. "Usually someone or other is shouting there."

<Thank you,> she says. <'Seek out the shouting individuals' is very helpful advice.> And she will thoughtspeak her team (but not the person they have interrupted), <Time to go, I think?>