"That probably did it," old man says.  He exhales heavily.  "Get all the blood off?  - That's important, you don't want any of it in the water."

"I used a magic thing to clean me of it and get me new clothes. What's it do?"

"Dragonblood grows tapewyrms, tapewyrms turn you into a chimera.  'Snot fun. It can corrupt a Wellspring too, but we don't know how much it takes.  - You have Wellsprings where you're from?"

"No Wellsprings, my world's magic is different. What's a chimera? Does that happen to nonhumans as well?"

"It'd happen to other animals if there were any left.  Think bugs are too small.  Chimeras're anything with a dragon head growing out of it.  Dragon head wants to kill everybody, just like ordinary dragons."

Young man asks: "If you don't have Wellsprings what do you do for immortality?"

"My species just is immortal. I'd expect the chimera thing to not work on me, also, both because of species and because of personal magic."

"Lucky you.  You need a place to stay?  Ride into town?"

"Not really, but thank you. I'd like to—understand what's going on better."

"Mm, I may not be the most qualified person to explain everything to you.  Plus we've got to get back to our posts, if you don't need anything else.  You could go into town - follow this road to get to Exaloc proper - and talk to one of the Sky Knights posted there - they're the folks who usually kill dragons.  They're shuffled around every so often so they know a lot about what's going on all over, 'n' they don't have much to do if there's not a dragon attacking."

"Okay. Is anyone going to be extremely alarmed if I run just shy of at the speed of sound?"

"I imagine they'll think you're an odd sort of Sky Knight, not a dragon or anything - they'll be startled but they won't set the watch on you."

"Okay. Thank you."

And he doesn't break the speed of sound because causing sonic booms is rude but he comes close.

Nyoom.  He reaches Exaloc in a few moments.

The city is made of trees: trunks thick enough for a spiral staircase support interconnected globes of weaved and melded branches, windows open to the air or shaded with clusters of leaves.  Dirt and cobblestone roads weave between the trunks, thronged with people and heavy-duty plant creatures, squat pitcher plants carrying shaded passengers and lumbering root vegetables hauling goods packed into gourd-carriages.  There's no division between road and sidewalk; no one seems worried about being run down by a large plant.  The roads are pleasantly shaded, by the higher-level tree-bridges and above them by a canopy of leaves.  The air is filled with the gentle murmur of a busy city with nary an internal combustion engine.

And is there anyone around whom he might be tempted to call a "Sky Knight"?

Well, not on the ground, certainly.

Most of these tree trunks have doorways; there are, indeed, spiral staircases inside of them.  Some of the big suspended buildings are bigger than others.

Here's a pretty big one, made of the interleaved branches of at least eight different trees.  It's hard to tell from the ground but it looks like it might be open to the air.

Then into that one he goes.

The staircase he takes is labeled "watch-house," and it leads to a balcony surrounding a - well, it's some sort of building, certainly.  These tree branch amalgamations can be hard to tell apart.  There's a leafy curtain set into one wall, probably an entrance.  No windows, but there's bushes on the roof that might be protecting skylights.

And it is very likely he can both hear and smell people so if he follows that...

It sounds and smells like there's people inside, certainly.  Past the curtain is a perhaps-receptionist at a perhaps-receptionist's-desk who looks up when he enters and says, "Hello, can I help you?"

"Hello, yes. I'd like to talk to a Sky Knight, I'm an extradimensional visitor and I've been told they're the ones most likely to be able to explain to me what's going on around this place."

"...I... think Tobin's in," they say.  "Uh, right through there."  They gesture to another leaf-curtain.

"Thank you!"

Through there he goes.

The leaf-curtain leads to a thin, snakey little passageway that seems designed to block line of sight, and then another leaf-curtain leads him into a larger, skylit room with a few leaf-cushioned benches around the edges.

On one of the benches is seated a figure in golden armor, sleek and angular and finned.  A six foot long, similarly golden-hued swordstaff is propped against the wall behind him.

He looks in Sadde's direction, and a complicated three-part faceshield unfolds to reveal a grinning human face.

"So, hi," he says.  "Extradimensional visitor, huh?"

"Indeed. No dragons or Sky Knights or Wellsprings where I'm from."

"Shit.  So, uh, you'll want to get up to speed, I guess."

"Okay.  So.  Uh.  Wellsprings do everything.  You can program a Wellspring to make all sortsa weird magic plants and shit."  He taps the bench he's sitting on a few times, illustratively.  "Trees don't just grow like this here, Wellsprings tell 'em to do it.  All the big plant monsters we've got hauling around food and stuff, Wellsprings make those too.  They're, like, ponds, in the centers of our cities, and if you know what you're doing you can sit by them and meditate and change what kindsa magic plants they make, but I definitely don't know what I'm doing so don't ask me too much about that part."

"Dragons are big fuckoff monsters, started showing up one day, what the fuck, right?  I wasn't around then, but I got history lessons, you know - they're the reason everything's so fucked up outside the Polity.  Uh, which is where you are.  We're the last holdout against the dragons that we know of.  There might be others but we're not in contact, cause, you know, hard to send a courier across the wasteland.  Even a Sky Knight - farther out you go, the more dragons there are, even a team'll get fuckin slaughtered eventually."

"Sky Knights were dreamed up after the Brush, that's the big wall of plant outside the Polity - once people figured out Wellsprings are shit at fighting, someone built a magical cemetery called a Sepulchre.  You put somebody in a Sepulchre, they wake up like this."  He gestures at himself.  "We die, we're reborn up in the Sepulchres.  We're better at fighting than ordinary people, and we can fly around, hence, Sky Knights.  Us and our support staff live in big floating islands that circle around the edge of the Polity, and whenever a dragon gets too close a few of us fly out and take it down."

"That's pretty much the basics on those three things.  How'd I do?"