un: yotsuba; text

[blindluck]

Be careful if you see anyone you recognize from home in the mists! It seems like hallucinating such things is possible here. It would be a shame if you tumbled into the River chasing an illusion.

If you've seen one, though, I'm curious: were they someone who already died in your world, or were they someone who was supposed to be alive?

[Listen. Nagito can't only put up a warning. He has to gather potentially sensitive information about it too.]

Comments

[blindluck]

Oh, I think I've been there. You recognize the area?

[hasapoint]

Collect a lot of leeches?

Hertasi like colonizing or creating swamps like that. This seems like the one on the outskirts of the old k'Sheyna Vale. It was different the last time I saw it, after k'Sheyna left and others moved in.

[To her, knowing how hertasi terraform and seed plants, it doesn't look like a 'natural' place at all. The memory she gave up is of a house in ruins on the edge of this swamp, which was visible at a distance.]

[blindluck]

They seem to have trouble with my clothes. [His tight pants come in handy here.] What are hertasi, exactly?

[It sounds like they're sapient, so they probably won't have to worry about running into any, but Nagito is still curious.]

[hasapoint]

I mentioned animals changed to make them as intelligent as humans, on a broad scale? Hertasi started there. It was showing off in three ways: using a reptile as a base, altering the morphology significantly, and instilling a 'useful' mindset.

[Need draws a chunky lizard that looks rather like a tegu, a little like a monitor. Then, next to it and about twice its size, a more anthropomorphic lizard, with peculiar clothing.]

I don't expect they're really there, or you'd have had a worse experience. Unless looking at you set them off and they started following you around anyway.

[She doesn't really expect they would have. Nagito... has long white hair and is tall and thin and very observant, that would catch their eye, but he doesn't have anything like Urtho's presence or manner.]

[blindluck]

So this is the kind of thing you were referring to. [Lizard people, like from a novel or a video game.] I didn't see anyone who looked like that. I went into what I believe would be their homes, so I imagine they aren't there at all, or they'd have probably been upset about that!

[hasapoint]

Though most of the ones who've made it this long aren't so humanlike.

[Need sighs. Now everyone paying attention will put together that that part of the swamp has its own mini-village. It's difficult to reach even knowing that it's there, the little folk do their best to discourage strangers visiting and turn the safe path into a maze.]

What did you think of the route in? They're intelligent but not as creative as we are, so they tend to fall back on certain patterns.

[blindluck]

I've seen much worse mazes. It was interesting! Oh, but talking about it too much in public might spoil it for everybody else.

[Nagito will talk about the houses but he will not post maze spoilers. Because everyone wants to do these sorts of things, right?]

[hasapoint]

If it was true to how they maintain their territory that wouldn't matter. They change what they can all the time to keep it fresh.

[well, every few weeks. 'What they can' is pretty major though.]

[blindluck]

I'll have to go back sometime to see if it's changed!

[Enrichment for Nagito's enclosure.]

[hasapoint]

Did you find the headman's ledger?

[she's asking if he found the lizard library, which has to be tucked away very particularly to keep away from the damp.]

[blindluck]

The area with the books and papers? I brought some of that back with me. [Of course he did. Reading material is reading material.]

[hasapoint]

[The hertasi don't expect strangers rummaging through their homes and don't hide that but their library isn't meant for the 'great folk' to an even stronger extent than the rest of the settlement. If she remembers right, it's probably only accessible through a small, steeply upwards tunnel in one of the homes. Small enough she's not sure she could get through. Need sighs again. Yep, Nagito's definitely seen the kitchens, then.]

I'd ask if you made sure not to let any of it get wet but it doesn't matter anyway, does it.

They mostly keep that for the winter. They'll all collect in one burrow and they don't hibernate, quite, but they slow down and don't go outside much.

[blindluck]

So they're still cold blooded? [That's interesting.] Even if they're not actually here, I'll keep their papers dry! I don't like wet books either.

[And yes, he's seen the kitchen. Optional sidequest: figure out how many knives Nagito has now.]

[hasapoint]

Not entirely. Let's just leave it at 'they hate the cold'.

[There are middle grounds between endotherms and ectotherms and Need doesn't remember all the terminology.

These hertasi produce the basic ingredients for most of the food for the nearby human settlement that is not part of that location, along with most of the fabric and many tools. In the Vale itself more hertasi, and a few humans, refine the materials and make the meals and the clothing etc. So even though all implements made to serve as weapons are gone, there's going to be a lot that could be improvised. That's concerning.]

I actually don't know what kinds of books the k'Sheyna hertasi keep for winter. They tend to like satire.

[and stories about dinosaurs. Hertasi feel that before "the monkeys" came their forebears ruled the world. They're unable to consciously resent being servants, but some of the dinosaur stories suggest a lot.]

[blindluck]

Oh, so like a mesotherm or something like that? That's really beyond my knowledge. I wonder if Tanaka-kun might be interested in them, if he were here? His talent is non-human animals, though, so I'm not sure if this would count.

[A rare detour into Nagito talking about people he knows from his home, though he has spoken to Sunny about Gundam before. But Need already knows Nagito misses his definitely-not-friends. (Really, anyone might assume something like that, but Need is the only one who heard him say it.)]

I can show you the books if you'd like! It was a little more difficult to skim them, since they were handwritten, so I took all of them. You might appreciate the satire more than me.

[Satire is heavily tied to culture, after all, and Nagito lacks the background.]

[hasapoint]

I'm familiar with a specific Gift that's thought of as being able to touch the minds of animals. It works well on young children but regardless of species when people are more mature it's just not able to handle language. Does he have something like that?

[Need has that Gift, because of course she does. Nagito thinking about his almost-friends is good for him, maybe.]

I could take a look. Whether or not things reset there, I'm not as small as I used to be.

[she's not a three-pound sword here and there's a limit to the spaces she can squeeze through.]

[blindluck]

People have always said he could do something like that! And he and animals certainly understand each other better than someone without talent could manage. But I don't know if it's something like that, exactly.

[Nagito's world is actually just full of kids with superpowers and somehow nobody has quite realized it, actually.]

[hasapoint]

Would he be able to call a deer to him, do you think, or is it not ranged? Can he find out what they've seen or heard? Do they tend to do what he wants them to do?

[She certainly has that impression.]

[blindluck]

I don't think he can talk to animals telepathically or anything like that! But training them and getting information from them, sure.

[Nothing crazy like calling animals at a distance! Just two out of three. You know. Totally normal.]

[hasapoint]

That's still useful. Animals can be very good spies, though it takes some work to get them there. Even if you've created machines to replace them in daily life. Have you?

[This Tanaka has a low level of animal-speech, thinks the wildly overpowered fantasy character who can command animals at a distance and remotely use their senses.]

[blindluck]

Yes. Of course, that's not Tanaka-kun's talent. But it is Souda-kun's! He's the former Super High School Level Mechanic. He helped build my mechanical arm.

[hasapoint]

Biology always made more sense to me than machinery, but I think that's just because I always knew horses and didn't see anything more complex than a water mill until I'd been dead for a while.

So that was a joint project?

[blindluck]

Yes, he and Hinata-kun made it. [Need already knows Nagito's thoughts on Hajime, of course.] If anyone ever needed proof I was lucky, getting to be a living display for talent would prove it!

[That is not why they made him a mechanical arm.]

[hasapoint]

[Need wonders if him knowing she knows something of how he feels about this Hinata character itches at him. The smiling mask coming back immediately, and him protesting at all...]

You got to be a proof-of-concept or prototype case for a new technology?

[blindluck]

New technology created by talent! [That part is important.] Of course, I told them over and over I didn't deserve such a thing, but they were very persistent.