Daisy isn't sure there's a reliable way to tell what's a territory and what's not from the air. At ground level, they put up small monoliths to mark where the trails enter one. She might be able to tell where the public areas are from the air; each Crafter has a personal style that they make all their things in, and they use grey as a generic style to designate things that anyone can use, so if she spots a bunch of grey furniture or structures she'll probably be fine to go there.

The ansibles are local magitech; there's a thing you can do to crafting material to make two pieces of it that are in a sense the same object, and any changes that are made to one will happen to the other, no matter how far apart they are. So the reader has a little blob of stuff in it, and when they key in a code for a book, the machine squishes the blob around in particular ways, and that makes the matching blob at the library's computer deform in the same ways, and the library's computer reads that out as instructions and squishes its blob around to transmit the book's contents back. She thinks it's pretty impressive, for a civilization that hasn't discovered electricity yet.

The animals only have communicative crafting, and the kinds of approaches to territory she'd expect from normal animals. The crows are semi-symbiotic with the humanoids, she thinks; they hang around a lot and do favors for them and the humanoids feed them and provide medical care, and the humanoids seem to like having them around, but they aren't pets or anything. The mammoths are a little more standoffish but they trade with the humanoids, they're better at complicated or delicate heavy labor than the locals' machines are so they get hired to haul wood and help put up buildings and things in exchange for food, and she expects that if one of them turned up sick or injured the humanoids would be happy to help, they're pretty altruistic that way.

She'll have to be careful where she flies, then, but "only land in grey-marked areas if you don't know where you are" sounds workable.

That does sound impressive. It does sound like there's a lack of very significant—societal selection pressures—because of the way their social structure works and how self-sufficient they are, which links to the underdeveloped commons, but they're making progress? Has there been a visible arc of technological progress? When was this use of ansibles invented, and how have the library system and any other derivative technologies evolved over time? What happens if someone needs medical intervention or requires some other emergency response, and have the social technologies for those changed over time?

How do the Crafters mate and reproduce, given their territorial instinct, if they mate at all?

She wonders if they have problems with disease, life expectancy and so on.

Daisy hasn't asked about their history or biology or demographics much; they do have something weird going on reproductively, though, she's met a pregnant male one. For medical things, crafting can modify living bodies, so they can fix a lot of things that way; there's a specialist fleshcrafter in the community that they'll go to for things they can't handle themselves, and for body modification. (He lives off that way and has a personal pattern that's yellow and orange spiraled together on a black background.) In emergencies, they'll set off a loud noisemaker to let their neighbors know that they need help, but it doesn't sound like that works entirely reliably to overrule the instinct to stay out of each others' territories - she was told that if she hears one she should go help 'if she can get in'.

...Generic biomanipulation. Do the Crafter powers from Dragon Fairy Elf Witch include that? Rebecca might be interested in seeing about apprenticing under a fleshcrafter to learn that. It sounds very useful.

But overall, it sounds like people around her have things in hand. It sounds like almost an idyllic place, having everything they need and no real major problems. She's sure there are some around, just—the big picture. It's a refreshing change. Rebecca has visited a lot of different societies before, at home—there are parallel worlds her civilization had access to, just not the wider multiverse—and most people out there, high-tech or low-tech, are struggling in some way or another, and even many those who think they're doing fine will turn out to have every one in two babies die in childbirth or something else. She hopes that's not the case here.

Daisy mentioned that they had some neighbors around Rebecca could meet, which she's of course delighted to. But did they have anyone more... senior around here, with a more broad-based context, a community leader if that makes sense, for Rebecca to touch base with? Perhaps whoever runs the local library? Or is she still modelling the Crafters as more social than they actually are; she thinks she might be?

That's a lower density of libraries than she was thinking of... oh, she supposes the library just acts like a server, and people have home ansibles like Daisy does so they can "check out" books without actually going to the library's physical location? That makes sense.

She'd love to go to the local hangout. Would the fleshcrafter be there, or someone who knows the fleshcrafter? She's more in her element talking face to face than over a letter. (In private, she's wondering if Daisy will question if Rebecca has the mind control powers: that's information on whether Daisy does.)

Also, she didn't flag this earlier, but how does Crafter language work? There are books, and now apparently letters. Do they speak or do they use this all the time?

Also, just checking her understanding here (she'll check again tomorrow before she actually meets anyone):

She shouldn't go into anyone's territory, which is marked by monoliths on the trails; areas with lots of grey are unclaimed and safe to land in and interact with.

She shouldn't touch any Crafter in any location wherever they are. If it unsafe to touch objects that belong to Crafters, like a bag they're holding, or a bag they left on a table? (Obviously she shouldn't randomly touch people's bags, but the general category might come up in an emergency or something.)

What's the typical granuarity of territory borders? For example, if there are two grey-furniture areas spaced a dozen meters apart with just natural grass in between, is it probably safe to go on the grass in the middle, or might that actually be someone's territory? Will Crafters stake temporary territory claims in the middle of hangout areas, like where they're sitting, which she should watch out when attending?

Yeah, the book printer uses local materials to make a copy of whatever book she asks it for, and then since the book is made out of crafting material it's trivial to recycle it into whatever else she wants when she's done with it, and the only objects the library imports and exports are new books for its collection and new ansibles for people to use.

Daisy's not sure how often the fleshcrafter comes to the hangout; she hasn't met him yet but she's not there all that often herself. Nine might have met him, he goes out a little more often. They can also just go visit his territory; crafters who are okay with having visitors will have interactive signage set up at the borders of their territory to let people alert them that they're there, and he'll definitely have something like that so people can reach him in emergencies. That'll be in the written language, though, which, yeah, they have one; Daisy has Omniglot and knows it already but Dusk isn't fluent yet and Nine isn't learning it. They don't have a spoken language at all; in person they just use crafting-based communication.

Going into someone's territory with their permission is fine, and so is touching them, as long as she's conservative in her assumptions about what she's been given permission to do - it's always fine to leave someone's territory but not otherwise okay to move around past where they've given you permission to be, for example. Just not going in at all is the simplest way to handle that and should be fine, it's not unheard of for a crafter to have territory instincts so strong that being given clear permission isn't enough for them to be able to get past them. They'll expect their things not to be touched but that's a much more recoverable mistake than touching them or going into their territory - they'll interpret the touched thing as no longer being theirs and will probably be upset, but you can give it back as if you were giving them something normally. It's still better to avoid that, though; it's stressful to them if they can tell you don't have a territoriality instinct.

Territories are generally quite big; her group's is about three acres and the crafters considered it too small a plot of land for one person. They don't claim temporary territories - claiming a territory takes them several weeks, apparently - but they'll make temporary object claims; if she sees a section of a different color on something that's otherwise grey that's what that is. She doesn't have to worry about non-obvious temporary claims, it's the responsibility of the person making the claim to mark the thing in a way that's visible.

She probably knows enough about Crafters now that learning more can wait until she meets one in person. But she's thankful for the pointers; she definitely could have done a lot of damage if Daisy weren't here to fill her in. (Maybe the thing the Spirit wants her to get out of this is the local crafting, and invoking There's Another One is just so she gets off on the right foot? But while biomanipulation is useful, she's not sure why it's so critical for her to have right out of the gate.)

She continues working on her crafting.

Perhaps changing the topic: Daisy seemed to suggest that where they came from, there are humans and droids, and Dusk is one of the former, and Daisy and presumably Nine of the latter. What's up with that?

There's a lot more types of people there than just those; what did she want to know about it?

She's interested in the other kinds of people as well, actually.

But specifically about droids, because at home there are only non-sapient robots—barring some unique cases—so she doesn't have a good model of how a society with droids works. It sounded to her like droids are made by humans for specific purposes, like Daisy mentioning Nine being a battle droid, but... do they have any rights, are there any droid societies, have there been any human-droid wars or uprisings, that sort of thing? How new is this paradigm and is it stable?

Ah. The paradigm there is stable, but not very nice - droids aren't known to be people, by the general public. She figures the people who make them have to know, but they recommend that people who own droids wipe their memories every six months to avoid it becoming obvious that they have the capability to grow up and develop personalities - they describe it as 'becoming unstable'. The droid situation is arguably better than the alternative, their world also has slavery of biologicals and they have a much worse time in that kind of role, but it's still not, y'know, great.

Dusk would never, to be clear.

Of course. She was guessing that was what Daisy meant by "Dusk absolutely loathes slavery". It sounds like there's a lot wrong with their home universe, between the Sith empire, the droid slavery and the biological slavery. It's becoming very apparent why they left.

(She's not really judging them for not planning to go back and fix it. She's seen first-hand trauma affects people and she knows not everyone's mind works like hers. But she is wondering a bit.)

There's not much significant she wants to discuss in depth without Dusk or a Crafter with them, so if Daisy doesn't have any questions for her, Rebecca will just keep working on her crafting, asking for the occasional pointer from Daisy, until Dusk gets back.

Daisy doesn't mind working quietly at all. She has her own crafting-related experimentation to do, in between showing Rebecca the ropes; she's trying to figure out if she can make something that's fuzzily reactive, in this case getting warmer the more strongly it's pressed.

After a little more than an hour, she looks up from her work - Dusk is back - and goes to the door; instead of going out she stays there, watching, and Rebecca will see a red light moving around outside it.

She stops her crafting and watches. What's going on out there? Emerald Or—wait, did Dragon Fairy Elf Witching Nine give her permanent darkvision?

Dusk is out there; she has a sword with a glowing red blade and is running through some kind of exercise with it. She looks pretty wrung out, emotionally, but the exercise seems to be helping her center herself, as Rebecca watches, and after a moment small arcs of blue electricity begin sparking along her upper back.

That's... not concerning, presumably, as Daisy isn't concerned. She will continue working on her crafting such as to not stare, but keep her metaphorical ears open for any changes.

Daisy stays by the door for the ten minutes or so that Dusk stays at it, and then takes her cloak to hang up when she comes in; she's not sparking anymore, and looks a little better, but heads to the kitchen to make a mug of tea before coming over to join the two of them at the workbench.

Daisy says you have some questions for me? she signs, and Daisy resumes translating.

It was less specific questions and more that her general direction of inquiry into their collective background was heading into material that seemed it might be personal to Dusk, so she held off. She was also wondering if the two of them had anything to ask her, or any ideas of what would make sense to do here, and that made sense to have everyone around for? She's not sure if they want to ask Nine in too. She gets the feeling that Nine isn't as outwardly social as the two of them.

If you're going to be around he'll want to meet you; I think he's just busy right now. I'm curious about where you came from, what you might be interested in doing here - you can skip anything you've already told Daisy, she'll fill me in later. For things to do, the magic's neat, both by itself and for building things with, and if you're an animal person the talking ones are pretty cool.

She told Daisy this, but it's important prerequisite context, so she'll say it again: this is her first world, and she was just filling out her notebook before she was dropped on top of them, so she is quite new to the multiverse.

As for the world she's from—do they have a native concept of "superheroes" where they come from? She pushes the package of ideas at them: anonymous champions with extraordinary powers who protect citizens from harm and capture criminals, especially criminals with similarly extraordinary powers; a cultural norm of lionising them as unique individuals; originally conceived as fictional but later turned into reality.

(She's put some thought into what axes her world deviates from the median by, if one were sampling a space of possible Earths through a narrative lens. There are some obvious guesses.)

They have that as a fiction concept, yes. Force-sensitives are the closest real thing in their world of origin.

If one were to interpret with a fictional lens, she comes from a superhero setting.

Her civilization is still bound to Earth—do their humans come from an Earth?—their planet of origin, and the world is not entirely at peace, with about two hundred separate polities, of which two to ten have major global influence and power projection, depending on how you count. Major wars are uncommon, but there are political tensions. Trade is globalized and most of the world's economies are industrialized; they have handheld computers, the Internet (she tries to push as much of the concept as possible), robotics, ground and air transport but no reproducible artificial minds, commercially viable interplanetary travel.

That's not the important part.

On her world, when people suffer extreme traumatic experiences, they have a chance of gaining superpowers: idiosyncratic abilitites that defy physics as they understand it. In many places, including Rebecca's nation of origin, they tend to fashion themselves as superheroes or supervillains. In some other nations, they simply style themselves as warlords and fight over territory, or they play more subtle games of influence in the shadows, or so on. Rebecca was a superhero, one of the most prominent ones in her nation, before she came here. Some people with superpowers have the ability to create technology far more advanced than planetary standard, but which is almost impossible to reproduce for a medley of discovered reasons which still do not fully explain the phenomenon.

That's still not the important part.

(From her emotions, Rebecca is clearly steeling herself.)

There's what they call the "first" cape, Scion. It's the source of superpowers: one of the sources, the other source already dead. Not a human, but an alien being larger than planets masquerading in a man's face, silently granting superpowers for reasons they don't fully understand. A study of some sort, they believe. But they know that it planned to destroy the whole planet—the whole solar system—consuming worlds for energy in every parallel dimension of her universe. Rebecca and a few others are the only ones who know this, and they've been working in secret to build forces against Scion, but they can't let it know they caught on, because otherwise it'll be tipped off and destroy them first.

The project hasn't been going well. They have precognitives, and they have tradeoffs they can make to influence when or how Scion tries to kill them all, but whatever point they choose, the death toll is unacceptable. The time window has been growing shorter, and they haven't made enough progress.

Then Rebecca received the notebook from the Spirit of Femininity Unleashed.

And now here she is.

The notebook told her that while she's on her journey, time in her original world will be paused.

When she's amassed enough power or found the tools she needs to stop Scion, she'll return, and do whatever is needed to save her world.

Hold on a second, I need to do something before I forget about it, Dusk signs, and goes and knocks on Nine's door to speak to him briefly.

It's absolutely not your biggest problem but if you haven't gotten your climate-modifying practices balanced out that'll make your planet uninhabitable in probably not too much longer, and we have stuff in the library that'll let you fix that. Nine's finding it for you.

For the rest - do you know what you'd need to do, yet, to stop him?