It's... unfamiliar. There's really no other word that can explain it. The trees don't appear to be of the same type as the ones from the forest he was flying over before he got down. And a bunch of huge towers stretching out into the sky can be seen in the distance. Nothing seems particularly wrong, in fact it's like there's never been a forest fire at all.

What.

No, really. What.

He continues descending, looking for signs of Crafter presence.

Well, the forest looks extremely well-preserved and untouched? But that'd be the opposite of Crafter presence, wouldn't it? There's a few people visible in a clearing, though. Strangely dressed.

Most of the crows have abandoned ship at this point, not being any happier about the close confines than he was, but a few stayed, and he asks one of those to go ask the gathered people if he can land there.

The crow in question swoops overhead before landing in a tree, and waits for a moment to see if the people are busy rather than immediately delivering his message.

They're not busy, they're just standing around in what looks like long underwear and a jacket, together with a helmet equipped with a visor that's currently up. They glance at the crow, just shrugging, before returning to sitting in a circle and talking to each other.

...those aren't the kinds of sounds Crafters usually make. He waits for a few moments, trying to figure out what's going on, before deciding he'd rather just deliver the message and get back to the ship.

From the Thomassians' perspective it's suddenly weirdly obvious that the crow is paying attention to them, with an intention to interact, and that he'd like to know if this is a public place for humanoids because a humanoid in an airship asked him to find out if the humanoid could come here.

They're stunned, just looking around in confusion. They shrug, and nod, not coming up with any other way response to the... realization.

The crow is also confused, they can tell, though it's not at all obvious how they can tell.

He flies off again after a few seconds. If they look where he's going they'll see a small dirigible-like airship in gently glittery indigo with gold trim; it's hard to make out any details at this distance but it seems too small to comfortably hold even one person, according to Thomassian sensibilities.

They try waving at the ship, curious and not understanding any other method of communication. They're excited, hoping that it's a treasure-hunt surprise coming from the mayor or something.

The ship drifts parallel to them for another minute, then turns and starts heading closer. It's a ways off, but it moves at a pretty good pace once it's underway; it'll take it maybe ten or fifteen minutes to get to them.

They take a closer look at the ship, curious about how it works and what it looks like. Does it have any kind of chest on board, maybe?

There's no chest that they can see, though they're not really at a good angle for it. The hull of the boat is shaped to cut through the air, with several sets of propellers on the sides for propulsion, and the bottom of it is stained with smoke. There's a person on board, too, an older man, slender and bare-chested with the look of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors without sunscreen; he keeps checking on them, first with a spyglass in the same indigo-and-gold color scheme, and then when he gets closer by simply looking over the side of the ship.

The ship stops when it gets overhead, drifting gently in the breeze, and after a minute the man looks over the side again and drops a thin indigo sheet - it's not quite paper or plastic or anything else they've seen - with a few lines of unfamiliar gold glyphs on it.

"This means nothing to us", one of the men in the group of people says, before they all look at the man with confusion and disbelief on their faces.

He gives them a few seconds, then sighs and ducks back into the ship. After a second, a section of the hull turns transparent so that he can watch them closely as he slowly brings it down to land at the edge of the clearing.

They're too confused to be amazed, again shrugging and looking around without saying anything. "None-" the man starting to speak is too confused to say anything more.

As long as they're just confused and not distressed.

Around the time he passes the treetops the nearest people will get a distinct impression that he's busy with landing the ship and they shouldn't distract him, with the rest of the group coming into range as he descends; it doesn't take long after that for the ship to touch down, though, and then it's just a moment for him to take in the balloon a bit - he puts a hand to it and the whole thing retracts in an uncanny way quite unlike the way mechanical things move, and the ship loses some buoyancy and settles more firmly to the ground - and he turns to address them.

The effect is similar to the one with the crow: it's not clear how they know what he's intending to communicate, he's not making any noise or gesture, but they know it nonetheless. He's confused and very worried: there was a fire, and he went above the clouds to escape it, and when he came back down he was here, and the terrain is different enough that there's no possible way he could have gotten here from where he was in the time he was overhead. Do they know anything about this? Do they maybe have a map he could look at, at least?

No, they have no idea about magical airships teleporting to arrive above this group of backpackers! They can show him a map, on their phones. There's lots of maps, actually. Including a map of a globe that's completely unfamiliar.

He appreciates the map. It's definitely not of the world he was in, which is distressing. It's also pretty weird and distressing that they aren't communicating with him... they're obviously plenty smart enough, crows can do it and they aren't smart enough for maps. Hopefully it's not that they have a taboo about it or something? They can shoo him up and he'll go, it'll only take a few seconds to take off again.

"I mean, I think it's clear that there's a communication gap. Is there something you're going to do, eventually?" The man speaks to him, understanding that it'd be futile. He obviously doesn't have any kind of translation magic that lets him understand them. Unless very clearly trying to think about the idea of confusion does something? Probably not.

If the sounds are meant to be communication they're not doing the job, yeah. He'll... maybe try somewhere else, he can tell he's bothering them; if they have a recommendation of where it'd be appreciated.

They've given up on speaking, and are just looking at him, trying to get some idea of what to do next. They don't get any idea of what to do next. Eventually, they have nothing better to do than to walk off.

Well. Okay. Very weird.

He lifts off again and lets the ship drift, taking the occasional sighting with his spyglass but mostly just giving himself some time to adjust, and making sure his ansibles are still working and trying to draft a letter to his friends and family back home about what's happened. He'll want to go down and pick up some dirt to grow food plants in, eventually, but for now he's not in the mood.

A woman enjoying the sun on the roof of her skyscraper eventually notices the flying ship slowly moving through the sky. She tries thinking about what might be happening, but has no idea about what it might be. She decides to use her phone to take a picture, wanting to see for herself that her eyes are really seeing what's happening.

Yep, it's definitely there.