"Did you gland during the crash? It looks like there was a malfunction with your implant. The mixture didn't distribute correctly and didn't shut off properly either. You have a bit of swelling in your brain and around your cervical spine between C3 and 4. I can program a countermeasure to reduce the swelling but longer term we'll need to run a full diagnostic on your gland, neural lace and nervous system.

Zey sighed. She tried to move her head but the cable was still plugged in and the feeling of that was beyond awful. So the Captain remained perfectly still.

"Ok doc, thanks. How long?"

"20 minutes, give or take. We caught this early enough to prevent lasting damage - It could have become much worse."

---

Iris made a brisk pace through the corridors of Jotunheim bumping into a few civilians, and techs, with little regard, mumbling as she went. This is single handedly one of the most important things that mankind has come across, and for some reason, only after a few days have passed, did they think it would be pertinent to wake me their chief biologist. I approached the bridge and came to an abrupt stop at the doors that did not open at first. Iris huffed and looked the doors up and down, but before she had long to look them over they started to open. “Thank you.” she scoffed under her breath as she entered.

As she stepped in she was met with only two people being on the bridge, Dr.Feng the head Medical Examiner, and her person of interest Captain Kadıoğlu. “Captain.” she snapped with a slightly aggravated tone. She looked to the doctor who was putting some things away then back to Zey. Taking a few more steps to close the distance between them she began. “Pardon me Doctor Feng, but I need to talk with the captain for a moment, can we finish up whatever this is?”

Feng stared at Iris for a moment, then walked by her, nodding as he went.

"By all means. Welcome to the party, Doctor. "

Zey stood looking intensely at Iris as she came in. Her arms were folded.

"Doctor Lambert, welcome to Kanth-Amerek. Your cryo gave out at one hell of a time. What's your status?" The Captain's words were cordial but her tone wasn't.

“Richard did well at stabilising me.” Iris started in with formalities, and pulled up her tablet as she continued explaining. “The lab is in much a similar state as the rest of the ship with a few of the machines needing some work before they are operable again.” Iris’ tone was matter-a-fact and almost accusatory with the last part. “Edward is continuing to sort through the equipment that had not been prepared for jump, and as we are on the topic of our jump; why would we have waited to wake up the chief biologist when we are making continued contact with alien lifeforms the likes of which would be extremely important to begin studying!” She raised her voice a bit and emphasised the last part further with unwavering eye contact while pointing indirectly as if the windows of the bridge were an opening to the new planet. “Every moment lost is a major setback in progress towards understanding them, and finding out crucial information that could lead to massive scientific advancement.”

“Cryo isn’t as simple as flicking a switch and you’re back in the room, Doctor. We didn’t exactly have the luxury of waiting for you.” Zey shot back, meeting Iris’ stare.

“Wodan has taken extensive video and audio recordings of the natives; you have clearance for those. It is now going to work on a translation program. One of the newcomers can read thoughts and so interface directly, apparently.” Her face was taut - while this prospect would excite some of the crew, including potentially Iris, she didn’t like the idea of a mind reading alien outside.

“I don’t need to remind you that your responsibilities don’t end at intelligent life. We also need to figure out if their food is safe for us to consume. We have enough rations on board for 24 people to last two years - we now number nearly 60. We’re working on getting back to Earth, but that could take some time.”

Zey took a step closer to Iris. She could smell the chemicals on her body from the forced sleep.

“That means we’re stuck together, like it or, as in my case, not. This isn’t one of your sick experiments either - this is real. Good people can die from the slightest mistake here; you may be OK with that, but I'm not. So if I catch a whiff of any bullshit from you, anything at all, I won’t wait for a trial on Earth. Am I making myself crystal clear?”

---

After this latest interaction between the crew and the natives, Zey had a quick catch up with Mallory in the corridor, then called another crew meeting. Ezra was dialled in so he could listen while still on watch.

She announced Wodan’s plan to create a translation algorithm, and reiterated what Mallory had said about knowledge being their main leverage. The natives weren’t stupid - they could see and had mentioned how much more advanced their tech was. Zey wanted to give them enough information to understand what Humans were and some parts of their history (maybe putting a positive spin on things). But the recipe for gunpowder? Under no circumstances were they to divulge that information. They had to just hope that this lizard mind reader was too confused by their new and unexplored brains to find that stuff out already.

Zey then outlined her priorities while the translation software was underway. First, they were to build some defences outside of the Jotunheim. The next few weeks were still very uncertain; they had to be prepared to defend their home. Nothing fancy to begin with, just a fortification which had existed for thousands of years in Human history - the trench. The crew appeared to have vastly superior firepower over these aliens, but they were so few that only a dozen lucky arrows could devastate them. The ship was on a hillside, so Zey suggested that Eva @TinyKiwi and her suit plus robots would be the best placed to lead the excavation, with input from Ezra on positioning.

The Captain then introduced the newly awoken Dr Lambert to the crew. Some of them would have met her before, but mostly she had been kept in the background until after launch. Zey allowed Iris to highlight her qualifications, then explained her task of investigating the Natives’ food and biology.

Third, Zey proposed sealing the shuttle bay and setting it up as a living area for the passengers. Three days in, they were all scared and angry, and had taken many opportunities to stop crew members in the hall to voice those concerns. Zey made it clear her desire to move them to more permanent lodgings rather than the temporary set up in the mess hall. The telescopic docking ramp would be deployed to create a primary point of egress, and she wanted some sort of reception area set up outside to receive visitors.

Lastly, she announced that after an initial delay, herself and Mallory would be interviewing the civilians individually. This was firstly to try to assuage their many concerns. It was also to understand their skillsets, with a view to eventually assigning them roles. Zey warned everyone in the room to expect a request to train or supervise this new workforce in the coming days.

Despite everyone’s exhaustion and the relatively late hour, the meeting was lively. Lots of back and forth showed that the crew was utterly invested in the process, which is sort of what Zey wanted. She wasn’t a dictator, regardless of how the chain of command worked. She knew that her team were experts, and should be allowed to input into the priorities. By the end of the meeting, she was absolutely exhausted. Zey made her way back to her cabin and rested, letting the cocktail that Feng had put together work its magic.

Over the next few days, the Jotunheim was a hive of activity. Zey certainly felt better from that next morning, but carried on having daily check ups with Dr Feng. A more thorough X-ray and diagnostic was scheduled for Day 10. The med bay was still busy, and Zey didn't want to add to the team's woes.

Vigdis was glad to hear that at least the commander shared her views on oversharing with the locals and cataloging and putting the civilians to work. Occupying their minds with something would leave them less time to be worried, Vigdis thought. The irony of the thought, as she’d been doing nothing but burying her head in work so she wouldn’t have to think about the very real possibility of something important being busted beyond repair and thus stranding them forever ever since the crash, lost on her in the moment. What job would Darnell be given? A mop and bucket? She just hoped the civvies wouldn’t see being quartered in the shuttle bay as some form of imprisonment - being moved aside while the ‘social elite’ of the actual crew controlled the entrance to the ship and hoarded the comfortable living space and supplies for themselves. She took the news of training the civvies with actual joy, welcoming the option to leave mundane tasks to them and focus on the big things.

Over the course of the fourth day, Chief Zhao finished checking the main distribution conduits and all of the systems they needed to keep running, fixing some issues found. Until they started turning on new equipment, they had minimized any power losses and could breathe a little easier. There were still kilometers of wiring and circuit boards to check, but most of those were useless in their given situation and could therefore be safely ignored until much later. During the same day, Varen and Vigdis went over the three still-attached engines, both cackling about having ‘an office with a view’ while some poor bastards were digging a moat. Although the cowlings were battered, the engines filled with soil and debris, more than half of the compressor fan blades needing replacement and the port side aft gimbal mechanism mounting was bent out of shape, nothing was deemed beyond repair, though neither of the two felt confident giving any sort of time estimate on how long repairs would take.

On day Crash+5, Vigdis had spent no small amount of time huddled over data sheets and the power control console, at times joined by some of the other engineers when dealing with systems they were more familiar with, trying to figure out how to squeeze the most time out of the backups. After hours of deliberations and a few decisions she needed to run by the other engineers as a sanity check, she made her draconian recommendations to the command crew. Dimming lights and switching them off in empty rooms, no heating, rationing hot water, turning off everything that didn’t directly contribute to day-to-day activities, repairs or restarting reactors, not using the galley’s cookers and organizing people to form logging parties for open-flame cooking… Still, just saving power was only putting off the inevitable. Vigdis did attach a note to her recommendations advising that parts of the ship could be dismantled to build wind or man powered generators, but they’d need a miracle or fucking magic to get enough power to keep up the minimum requirements and start the reactors in their lifetime.

Fucking magic…

They had magic now, or rather some frien- not-enemies who did.

Vigdis spent every free moment of the rest of day Crash+5 and day Crash+6 using the ship’s onboard database to research lightning and running through various calculations that might’ve made a non-mathematically inclined soul nauseous. A few times someone walked in on her rubberducking at Fritjof, who probably knew the answer but chose not to share to amuse himself, but she’d been making steady progress. Still, there was no guarantee that it would work. Measurements were one thing, practical implementation would be a different beast to tackle.

And on the seventh day, they rested. Not quite, but with Wodan’s new technical development, Vigdis and maybe some others clocked out early. Armed with the translation program linked to her headset, a grounding stake, a sledgehammer, some man-portable lab equipment she’d borrowed with the permission of whoever she found in the lab at the time - more of a courtesy rather than actually intending to heed their potential refusal, survival came first - the largest tablet she could find loaded with some materials on harmless subjects like astronomy and grade school physics and chemistry, an EVA dry erase board, a rag, some markers and the weapon present every time she went outside, Vigdis set out toward the camp of the locals she somewhat knew, though hoping Silbermine - or preferably someone less pig headed and scientifically literate from his camp - would also join, intending to leave them free range of questions initially before asking her own. Standing some distance away from the camp in plain view, she radioed Ezra - prick as he could be, he was still made responsible for their security - to let him know what she was doing and briefly lifted up her breathing mask to be able to whistle unimpeded to draw their attention before approaching. Friendly or not, they still had swords and a living flamethrower. Time to play teacher and CIA officer in one.

”Hello again.” She started, the wristpad’s speaker spitting her words out in S’toric. ”I hope this thing works as advertised. On a scale from one to… eight,“ She remembered their math exchange, ”eight being good and one being bad, how well can you understand me?”

Nellara heard Ixtaro's words in silence, simply nodding in understanding as she mentioned that regardless of Nellara's words, they were already part of the conflict. While that was technically correct, Nellara didn't see a need for the humans to actively make part of the conflict.

"I understand. I merely ask for caution regarding pointing your weapons..." Nellara said, replying to Ixtaro as she asked for a bit of time for the humans to organize themselves and Vigdis as she explained the reason for her being so cautious. While she did sound rather understanding of the humans' situation, there was still a warning hidden in Nellara's words. A subtle warning, but a warning nonetheless. Just like the humans wouldn't like them pointing their weapons at them, the same was true for Nellara and her group.

While she already had a suspicion about it, Ixtaro was quick to confirm to Nellara that the humans had their own hierarchy, with Zeynep at it's top as it seemed. The idea of having to deal with Silbermine again wasn't one Nellara enjoyed, but she could understand why the humans wanted that. Not only to try and avoid a war happening a few meters away from their ship but also to know both 'sides' of the story. Still, understanding their reason didn't make Nellara less annoyed by it.

"Very well, a meeting will be arranged. Just be ready. Some Mythadians, especially those like Silbermine, can be incredibly hard to deal with." she replied with a heavy sigh.

"The Ascension has no royalty nor an 'official' religion and bloodlines, inheritances and the such were abolished many years ago. Instead of being ruled by kings or nobles, it is led by an Archmagister, who keeps their position not thanks to a law, rule or religion, but solely based on their competence. Especially since any citizen is free to approach the Archmagister and challenge them for their position." Nellara said, explaining a bit more about the Ascendancy after Ixtaro requested her to do so and especially as Vigdis mentioned that the humans and the Tekeri might be more similar than she had thought.

"For centuries, the Ascendancy has been led by Archmagister Vyana, who maintained her position without being defeated a single time in all thirteen times she was challenged. It was thanks to her judgement, her intelligence and her competence that the Ascension is what it is now, as the Archmagister Vyana was herself the one responsible for unifying our kingdom, outlawing bloodlines, inheritances and shaping it into the meritocracy that it is today." Nellara explained. Even for Ixtaro, it was quite clear in her voice and expression as she talked about the Archmagister that Nellara was incredibly proud of her leader.

"In the Ascendancy, one's position must be earned with their own skills and effort. There are no nobles, no bloodlines and no inheritance. The child of a Magister and the child of a construction worker are evaluated the same by the Ascendancy and given the same opportunities to show their own worth." Nellara completed.

While Nellara did seem to be very proud about how the Ascendancy worked, her words would also give the humans a small hint of how ruthless and harsh the Tekeri society was regarding failure. There was no sympathy nor compassion for those who failed.

---

On the next few days, under the request of the humans, Gar'Tan helped them to know more about Kanth-Aremek, sharing knowledge and more importantly, helping the humans to understand their language, so they wouldn't need a thought mage to communicate themselves.
Even from outside, it was quite obvious to notice that the humans were incredibly busy inside the ship. Loud noises from the ship being repaired betrayed only part of the issues humans were dealing with inside their ship.

For Nellara, the following days seemed to be equally as busy. Not only she had to plan and strategize for a possible confrontation, including factoring the terrain, possible usage of mages by Silbermine and his forces and even think about the political consequences behind his actions... Including trying to figure out if Mythadia's king knew what was happening or not.
Besides all that, Nellara also had to constantly watch Silbermine's camp, hoping her reinforcements would arrive before Silbermine's.

After three days of the humans having retreated to their ship, Vigdis was the first to approach Nellara's camp, using the bracelet the humans called a 'wristpad' to talk in S'toric. Apparently, Gar'Tan's collaboration with the humans had paid off.

"I assume their... 'wristpad' does automatically translate our words as well, right?" Nellara asked, looking to her group before she turned to Vigdis again.

"Vigdis, I understand you perfectly well. Can you clearly understand me?" Nellara asked, speaking her words in a clear and steady pace.

In the light of morning on Crash+4, Tyreese Darnell brought Ezra some breakfast. Fastening flash gear over a plate carrier and a mask over his face, the large suited man gingerly stepped past the wall of crates and the plastic sheeting while clutching an MRE.

It was the first time he’d ventured away from the safety of the ship since they crashed. For three days previously he’d paced, swore, agitated and generally been a bit of a nuisance. Gradually, the stress of the crash had worn off and the bruise on the back of his head had gone down. He’d stopped feeling sick too. Now, he’d finally drummed up the courage to go outside.

The vista that greeted him was absolutely stunning. There had been a light rain during the night, so all the grass that hadn’t been scorched glistened with dew. The fog was gone, leaving a majestic view down the hill towards the marshes and lake on the horizon. A few small rocks tumbled down the side when he kicked them.

Tyreese couldn’t actually see Ezra, so he opened comms.

“Ezra, food for you here.”

No reply.

Perplexed, Tyreese skirted the Jotunheim’s hull until he was facing the massive primary thrusters. He looked around again. There was a camp nearby where the aliens had set up shop. He avoided them and went instead to the droid that stood guard.

“Where is Ezra?” He asked the robot.

“Opposite end.” It whispered back in Wodan’s voice.

So Darnell traipsed back along the port side of the craft and looked up the hill. He saw another droid stationed near a clutch of bushes, and so walked up.
The ground was moderately slushy underfoot, where the ash of burning shrubbery had mixed back with water. Darnell tutted at the shit now adorning his Oxford shoes, but pressed on.

The droid’s upper bod swivelled to face him as he approached. It cradled a long gun, whirring softly.

“Where is Ezra?”

It pointed, and the mercenary’s IFF tag pinged blue in Darnell’s fake eye augment. A prone outline of the man cut through the bush leaves.

“Thanks. Ezra!” Darnell called.

“He is resting.” Wodan spoke through the droid, rather superfluously. Ezra jerked instantly awake, pulled his sidearm and pointed it at Darnell in one movement. He put his hands up, MRE in one of them.

“Hey, it's me. I brought you food. Sorry, did I wake you?”

Ezra holstered the gun but stayed prone, checking his watch.

“No. Thanks.” He lightly clapped his gloved hands together and then cupped them out. Darnell understood the motion and chucked the MRE through the bush towards him. Ezra caught it and began opening it up.

“The drones can deliver these.” He said before his first bite.

“I fancied stretching my legs. The scenery is beautiful isn’t it?”

“How goes work on repairs?”

“I’m no expert, but it seems there is a lot to do.”

Some of the Wodan and Eva’s drones skittered over the hull even now, analysing issues and welding things together.

“You’d better get back to helping them.”

“Listen, Ezra, I’m sorry you’re stuck here with the rest of us.” It felt weird for Darnell, apologising to someone who was essentially a contractor. But he needed this guy on side.

“But look around. This is an inhabitable planet that isn’t Earth, and we’re the ones who discovered it! The opportunity before us is gigantic.”

Tyreese kinda expected Ezra to respond there, but he didn’t.

“Do you have a family?” Darnell asked, changing tack.

Another pause.

“Yes.”

“When we get back, you’ll be able to tell them you helped colonise a New Earth. Give them a life they could never dream of.

“We will be killed before then. I should leave, take supplies and hide until it's over.”

Darnell’s face fell.

“We can survive, Ezra. But we need you. If I can get back in one piece to make my recommendation, Tamerlane will be very appreciative of your help in this matter.”

The figure in the bushes looked right at him, the MRE motionless in his hands.

“One million per day.”

Darnell laughed out loud.

“That was for your whole team’s services!”

“Now I protect whole ship by myself. One million.”

“Two hundred thousand.”

“Seven fifty.”

“Three hundred.”

“Five.”

“Three fifty.”

“Five hundred thousand per day.”

“That is an extortionate long term rate.”

“I leave tomorrow then.”

“Ok fine. Deal. But you work for me, ok? Not the Captain. If I don't get back alive, Tamerlane would rather kill you than pay you that much.”

“I’d like to see them try.”

"Okay," Jack says, talking over the hum of the crowd in the Mess Hall. "I'm Jack Mallory, the executive officer aboard the Jo'. I know most of you weren't expecting to find yourself having to take cover aboard the ship, and this ship winding up... wherever we are."

Jack sighs, then turns back to them.

"So, we're in an emergency situation here, and even though you didn't want to be here, we need your help until we can find a way home."

And let's not tell them how remote that's looking to be.

"So, we need to know what skills you have, so we can all work towards getting out of here."

Seven days.

A full week spent on an alien planet, filled with unique life and sentient creatures.

And I’ve spent most of that time in this fucking tomb, Itxaro mused bitterly as she crawled through the Jotunheim’s guts, covered in hydraulic fluid, grease, and sweat. The air was beginning to grow stale onboard the Jo, recycled atmosphere mixed with the smell of unwashed bodies. The lower decks were even worse, the cramped spaces and dim lighting making her feel as if she was trapped in a metal coffin.

Itxaro had spent several years working aboard spacecraft, but they were nothing like the Jotunheim’s submarine-like configuration. Both the USASR’s design philosophy and Itxaro’s need for space to house massive FTL drives she created meant that the ships she’d grown used to completely dwarfed the Jotunheim. Itxaro could bounce around in zero-g on those behemoths for weeks and never feel the slightest twinge of claustrophobia. On the Jotunheim, however, it was growing oppressive after just a few days of hard labor.

The doctor was currently sawing away at the lifeboats, cannibalizing the tiny crafts for whatever parts they could use. The miniscule capacitors onboard the escape pod and the shattered solar panels that fed the life support system wouldn’t be enough to jumpstart the reactors, but they might get the kitchen running again.

She hadn’t even bothered with the alien Alcubierre drive yet; there was no sense in it. Until the ship could exit the planet’s atmosphere, the device that got them here in the first place, and their only hope of returning home, would just have to wait.

The first humans on an alien world and we’re trying to get the hell off it.

It occurred to Itxaro that she’d been here an entire week, yet she’d only seen a square mile of the planet’s surface. She hadn’t even spoken to their new friends since the last tense meeting outside the Jotunheim’s cargo bay, the frantic repairs keeping her away. Deciding it was time to change that, Itxaro wiped her face with a rag and climbed out of her dungeon.

---

Itxaro was eager to test the new translation software now installed in her datapad; she loathed the artificial intelligence that created it, but had to admit even a team of human linguists wouldn’t have been nearly as quick. The doctor fed some of her own speech into the program, recorded lectures she’d found saved on her tablet. With some tinkering, Itxaro managed to have the translator speak in her own voice. Well, an approximation. It was stiff and flat, but still better than the droning monotone of the program’s default voice. Armed with her new tool, she stepped out of the dark ship, into the bright light of an alien sun, and sought out her first target.

The doctor knew she should probably find Nellara and drill the diplomat/soldier for as much lifesaving information as she could, but instead, Itxaro started searching the burned mountainside for a familiar, craggy, smoldering silhouette.

---

For Kareet, even just those few days of waiting gave her no small measure of frustration. She understood the plan. Gar’Tan was going to assist them with some means they had of translating their language. Kareet did not exactly understand how, but the Humans seemed confident it would work. She would just have to hope they were right.

Over the course of a few days, Kareet did manage to get detailed sketches of the Jotunheim from just about every angle, as well as the strange metal golems that seemed to stand guard around the ship. However, there was only so much she could do from outside, and she hoped the irritation would be worth the wait.

---

Finally, the time seemed to be coming. It was early morning, four days after their first real conversation, and both Vigdis and Itxaro had emerged from the Jotunheim. Kareet stayed back at first, but she was close enough to hear the exchange between Vigdis and Nellara. There was some object on her arm that actually seemed to be speaking S’toric. Presumably, it was speaking aloud what Vigdis said in her own tongue, and did the same in reverse when Nellara replied. That alone ignited a flurry of questions within her mind, but at this point, it was just more to add to the list. However, there would certainly be no more waiting for Kareet.

As quickly as she could, Kareet gathered what she felt she would need: her notes, of course, and a few pens. She also grabbed the book that Itxaro had gifted her. She could not read it, so she had just tucked it away as she focused on other matters, but now if she could speak to the Humans, she might be able to learn more about it. Vigdis was speaking with Nellara, and Itxaro appeared to be approaching Shirik. Either way she was going to have to intrude on someone, but she truly did not care. She was not waiting any longer.

---

Kareet did not wait any longer. She had witnessed these objects they were wearing on their wrists, and that alone provoked questions she wanted answered. She took up her notes and Itxaro’s book in her arms and moved to the edge of camp, towards Shirik. The way this object she wore spoke sounded almost like Itxaro, but the words were clearly S’toric. It did not seem to mimic Shirik’s voice in return, but from what she had been told, she could imagine that it was repeating his words in their tongue.

“How can this be?” Kareet asked. “You’ve said your people have no magic, but how can you make an object think without it? All of our golems require Thought and Lightning magic both.”

Even Kareet did show some caution as she interjected. Itxaro clearly had some purpose in approaching Shirik, and if nothing else, Kareet did want to avoid upsetting her.

Kolvar Stilmyst

Walking over towards Vidgis wanting to ask her if he would be able to speak with the head doctor. His reasoning was that he wanted to learn more about the human anatomy. “Excuse me miss Vidgdis, would you be able to arrange a meeting with the head doctor? I would like to speak to them about learning more about your specie’s anatomy.”

Of course, he really wanted to learn more about human culture and history. But he would be asking that a little bit later, but he did not mind waiting patiently for the right time to ask. In the back of his mind, he worried the humans will not have enough time to get ready for the impending battle. There was the possibility of him contacting his people, but they would not want to get involved in the conflict. He could hear the leader of his people disagreeing and saying that going to war with Siblermine’s army would be disastrous.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------

Arancini Barberio

"Mmm, perhaps I could lower the power of this and send some power to the reactor. But not enough to totally shut it off..” Trailing off in thought he franticly moved between his computer and a large humming machine. “What do you think I should do mancare (Miss in Italian)?” He looked to his left as if someone was standing beside him. Waiting for a response before nodding his head. “A great idea, I would get more done with a little bit of help. I should ask Itxaro and Vigdis for some help. I'm sure they could help me investigate this matter further.” He brought up his wristpad tapping a few buttons on the handheld tablet.

“Ixtaro or Vigdis how is your progress going fixing the ship? I am working on getting power back to the reactor, and I need some help with a few things. When you have time would you be able to come by my office thank you.”. While waiting for their response he continued trying to jumpstart the reactor somehow. The man once again looked over his shoulder toward the invisible person he had spoken to before. “Of course, they can help me fix the ship, that is their job after all.” He spoke quietly before shaking his head.

After scanning beyond the scorched crash zone, Itxaro spotted her tree friend, sitting beneath a tree. Fitting. As she approached Shirik, the doctor hesitated; he seemed to be resting, if the Iriad was capable of such, or perhaps meditating. Either way, Itxaro wasn't eager to disturb him. Just as she was turning to leave, Itxaro heard his rumbling voice, which was also picked up by her translation program. She couldn't help but chuckle as the translator repeated his words in English, utilizing her own voice she'd just installed. Gonna have to tweak that.

Itxaro strode over and sat down in the soft grass, still damp with morning dew, across from the Iriad. She leaned back for a moment and stretched her sore limbs, leg still aching from the graze a week ago, and let the alien sun warm her face through the tree's branches. After being cooped up in engineering for so long, Itxaro didn't particularly care if she was getting a healthy dose of radiation from the star or not.

"Thanks, Shirik. And yeah, that's what they tell me anyways," Itxaro replied, looking back to the Iriad. "Think of it like a little Gar'Tan, but dumber, and not as scary-looking." Itxaro was amused, hearing the program spit her own words back out in a totally foreign language.

"So, how's that? Make any sense at all or just gibberish?"

Itxaro took a moment to tweak the translation software on her datapad, removing her own voice for incoming translations. She paused for a moment and glanced at Shirik as her finger hovered over the "masculine" and "feminine" default voice options before selecting the former. She wondered if the Iriad even had a gender, but figured the deeper of the two would be appropriate. Itxaro briefly toyed with the idea of uploading famous human voices for the program to use, but decided it was best to stick to the basics for now. Still, her mind tore through several humans to use that would best represent Shirik and the others.

The Iriad spoke of home, Earth, and Itxaro turned his words over in her head. "Well," she replied after a moment, "it's definitely farther than I thought we'd make it. I'll be honest, I didn't have much faith in that heap of scrap over there. Guess my gut was only half-right." She looked over to the Jotunheim's wreck, contemplating her own words. It wasn't exactly the ship, which was a sound piece of engineering, but everything surrounding it. Alien technology, corporate oversight, untested AI, the lot of it. Too many moving parts.

"And if I'm being honest, we don't even know how far we went. Hell, on the cosmic scale, our worlds could be neighbors." Even as she said it, Itxaro knew it couldn't be true. 200 years of scanning planets light years from Earth hadn't revealed anything like the garden world they crashed on, let alone a rock remotely capable of hosting complex life. No, they were far. "Nah, I'm not homesick yet. We knew what we signed up for. Well, most of us, anyways," she finished, thinking of the stowaways who had definitely not volunteered for an interstellar road trip. She supposed it was better than being gunned down by shadowy mercenaries. Her leg throbbed involuntarily at the thought.

"What about you? Where's home for Shirik? I'm guessing you don't vibe with the Ascendency, and definitely not with our good friend Silbermine. Tell me about where you're from," Itxaro asked with a gentle smile, genuinely curious.

Shirik intrigued Itxaro on multiple levels. The first, obviously, purely physical. A sentient burning torch. Who wouldn't be curious? But beyond that and the magic, he seemed less... Frantic, somehow, than the other aliens. The Iriad wasn't constantly plying her with questions, eager to get something from them, desperate to learn, for which she couldn't blame them. Perhaps Shirik was simply playing it cool, looking at the long game, or maybe this was just his disposition.

---

As if to provide a counter for Shirik, Kareet approached the two, and Itxaro waved them over. This one, on the other hand... Very curious. The Tekeri dove beak-first into the new technology, and Itxaro grinned. She was pleased Kareet still had the books and pen she'd gifted to her, but then remembered with a twinge of panic just how flammable the paper was in this atmosphere. "Well, hello to you too, Kareet! Come on, join us," Itxaro said in response to the Tekeri's loaded question, an attempt to buy herself some time. Golems? Really? Am I in the Talmud? Itxaro decided to save her questions for later, and answer the one at hand.

"Not magic, no; it just seems like it. In about 600 years or so, your people will probably figure out how to do this yourselves. Well, if you follow humanity's path anyways." Itxaro thought for a moment, considering how best to describe a computer to both an alien and someone completely unfamiliar with electricity. Teaching quantum mechanics to a first-year student would probably be easier.

"Well, I guess it starts with power. Think of how lightning strikes in a storm. We're able to harness the dominant influence within lightning, which we call electricity. We generate it, make it small, and use it, like how you channel a river to turn a watermill, which uses the energy to saw wood. We send the electricity through metal and sand, and through some complicated math that even I'm not sure about, we can make it do what we want. We can store information with it like a book, use it to solve math problems for us like a giant abbicus, or help us send ships flying across space and into the dirt. And it works much faster than our minds can, but it only does what we tell it to," Itxaro said. She didn't bother bringing up the AI they had on board, which would only complicate matters even further.

"But it isn't magic, and it isn't sentient, just like how rain or wind isn't intelligent. The process is more like... Smithing. I couldn't figure out how to make a nail from a lump of iron, but J'eon, who knows all about it, could make a suit of armor in his sleep. It seems impossible to me, but not to him." Itxaro searched the Tekeri's eyes for understanding. It was much to take in, perhaps too much; she'd need hours upon hours to fully explain it to her, but Itxaro hoped the simple answer would suffice for now.

---

"Hey, did you say, uh, golems?" Itxaro asked in disbelief before she was cut off by a voice coming over her comms system. Barberio, the quiet, work-oriented machinist Itxaro had barely spoken to over the hectic week.

Itxaro let out a deep sigh and pushed down her annoyance before responding. A machinist, she thought, probably shouldn't be tinkering with nuclear reactors. I sure as hell wouldn't put my hands anywhere near his CNC machine. Would probably tear my other arm off. Then again, Itxaro considered, it was hypocritical to complain about Barberio working on a reactor when she was out here playing diplomat, something totally beyond her own skillset. "Nowhere near enough juice to get the reactors fired up, so we're just taking a break, chatting with our new friends here. Why don't you join us?" Itxaro asked, in part because she wasn't sure if the machinist had stepped outside since they crashed judging from his complexion, but also to pull him away from the reactors. Recalling his dossier, Itxaro remembered the man was a polyglot with a penchant for writing code, so she figured the lure of a native language and translation program would be a sufficient draw.

"Sorry about that," Itxaro said to her two companions. "Coworkers. You know how it is."

”Yes, I can understand you.” She fiddled with the mic settings a bit to clear up some minor oddities, ”We’ve come to an agreement on what is safe to share with you and what isn’t, and now that we can talk to each other normally, I figured we all had a lot of questions.
First, I’d like to apologize for my reaction to Gar’Tan’s magic. Since he was escorted by the Inquisitors, I assume mind magic is as worrying to you as it is to us, but still, I could have been calmer about it.
Second, as a result I haven’t properly introduced myself yet. My name is Vigdis Jonsdottir, although I just go by ‘Vigdis’. I’m one of the builders of the Jotunheim, so I can answer questions about engineering and some sciences in addition to common knowledge about our history and cultures.”

”I can ask, but they might be busy.” She told Kechak and keyed up her radio, leaving the translator running. ”Jotunheim, Vigdis. Kerchak wants to learn about anatomy. Refresh my memory, was that on the allowed list?” Truth be told she hadn’t been paying attention when that was discussed, that wasn’t her field. She’d been too busy trying to figure out how long they could run on the batteries salvaged from the shuttle if they could find it. ”If so, should I arrange a meeting here or tell him to go over when one of the medical staff is free, over?”

She was about to continue her conversation with the locals when she was interrupted by an incoming radio call she wasn’t expecting. Why was the machinist messing with power control? This was a particularly sore point for her, as technical personnel doing things on their own or things they weren’t supposed to be doing was the cause of all three of her lasting injuries from military service, resulting in her tone being more hostile than the situation warranted. ”Fuck are you doing messing with the reactors? Backups don’t have enough power for relight even at full capacity, nevermind after a week, and they can’t release power quickly enough to do it even if they did, that’s why there’s a separate battery for it, which I used up restarting Number 2 after it died during the jump.” It’s almost as if they would’ve done it already if it was that easy. Frankly, having two reactors was seen as enough of a safety net by interplanetary standards. A double reactor failure was simply deemed too unlikely under normal circumstances. Of course these were everything but normal circumstances, but no ship Vigdis ever worked with, even military ones, was designed to restart by itself after something like this, that’s when salvage crews were called. ”Stop poking around critical systems unsupervised before the Chief bites your head off.”

She waited a moment for the agitated facial tic to subside before returning to the interspecies conversation. ”Apologies, technical difficulties.” If nothing else it was a good way to start her little experiment. She started driving the grounding stake into the ground, speaking in between hammer strikes. ”We have a… Small problem with… Some of our machines - bastard!” She cursed as the stake hit a buried rock and refused to budge further, requiring her to start over half a meter away.. ”Nellara, you’ve… Demonstrated the ability to… Create lightning. I’d like to ask… you to hit this… stake as hard as you can. Don’t worry about damaging it, it’s a solid chunk of high grade steel.” Finally, it was in. Attaching the reactor-grade multimeter to the stake with a reinforced cable, she carried the machine some fifteen meters away, beckoning the locals to follow. ”A lot of our technology is driven by the same natural phenomenon that is responsible for lightning. We call it ‘electricity’. Electric current flows between two places of different electric potential. A naturally occurring lightning bolt is such a flow between the storm cloud and the ground. This device will let me measure the electric potential - or voltage, as it’s commonly called - of the lightning you create, and because I know the electric resistance of this grounding stake, I will be able to calculate the strength of the current generated, which will tell me if you can help us with your abilities and how long we’d need to charge a device we call ‘a battery’, which stores electric energy to be used later.” It wasn’t a sophisticated experiment, but it would be a launching pad. Or it’d crush their hopes.

---

Kareet’s eyes all blinked as she looked ahead, listening in amazement. For a moment, she almost forgot to actually start taking notes. Harnessing non-magical lightning? And not only that, but the things she described them doing with it seemed impossible, were it not for the fact that she had seen it with her own eyes. Before now, she could not have even imagined lightning would be capable of such things. Having electricity think by itself sounded absurd, but that object on her wrist was doing so right now. Besides, if there was Thought magic involved, the Inquisitors would currently have their knives at Itxaro’s throat.

“You say lightning, electricity as you call it, can do all of this? Without even needing magic to shape it?” Kareet remarked. As Itxaro seemed to be speaking to someone else, through some means that she would have to ask about later, Kareet set aside her notes and books on the ground momentarily. She pressed two of her fingers against her opposite forearm, then ran them up towards her hand at a constant pace. Through the entire motion, a charge of electricity started to form around her fingers, arcing into the air around her arm. When her fingers moved past her other hand, the arcs of electricity became stronger, and stayed connected between her two hands. Kareet then rotated her hands, leaving one held out, palm-up, while the other she moved in a circular motion above it. The electricity disconnected from both hands, recognizably following magnetic field lines as she shaped a field to contain the lightning. The end result was what looked like a ball of lightning, contained within an invisible orb.

“This is the…electricity you are talking about, yes? Could magic lightning possibly do the same things?” Kareet asked.

The thirty-ish civilians who’d sheltered in the Jotunheim before takeoff were largely still wearing the clothes they’d arrived in. The ship didn’t have enough spare uniforms for everyone. Most had dressed for the cold Norwegian weather, with jumpers, hats, gloves and boots featuring quite prominently. Zey supposed that was a good thing - better to be wrapped up warm than only have a Hawaiian shirt and trunks.

Zey took her cue from Mallory.

“And I’m Zeynap Kadıoğlu, your Captain. We’re also here to listen to any concerns or suggestions you may have.”

In the end, Zey and Mallory were rarely conducting interviews at the same time. Someone needed to run the ship; there was a near constant stream of questions and status reports that needed answering. An exercise that the Captain hoped would take one day ended up taking two.

It seemed to her that the initial adrenaline and shock of the crash was wearing off, and their surprise passengers were now experiencing exhaustion (from cramped conditions), anger (that they couldn’t go outside) and fear (that they were stuck on an unknown planet in a wrecked vessel). Zey had more than a couple heated conversations with men and women who thought they knew better than her and the crew.

No, they couldn’t fly without operational reactors.

No, they couldn’t all just go camping outside to ‘get out from under each others’ feet’.

No, she couldn’t make a special exemption just for them.

She also had good conversations with ordinary people who were happy that someone was in charge, and were tentatively optimistic. They wanted to get home and see their families, and were ready to get stuck in to make that happen.

Zey took all everyone’s feedback on board, then gave them some insight into what was going to happen next. In order to get everyone home safe as quickly as possible, all able bodied people would work shifts. They would obey commands from their supervisor and the command crew at all times. It could be dangerous at times, but they would receive appropriate training, and Zey assured them it wouldn’t be more dangerous than remaining on this world for good.
After fielding a few questions about the work, Zey turned the interview back towards them. What was their skill set? What did they do for work? After combining her notes with Mallory’s list, they had the final tally - 29 civilian souls:

Spaceport cargo loaders x 2
Hangar attendant
Chemical Engineer (was heading to the Moon to help set up a new food factory)
Lunar mining equipment mechanic
Ethical hacker (knowledge of AI) - Broken leg
Archaeologists x 3
Nordic metal band members x 3
Landscape designer for the Martian rich and powerful
Lunar colony architect (head injury)
Solar energy farm engineer - focused more on sales
Marketing consultants & project managers x 3
Investment analyst x 2
Decentralised finance infrastructure engineer - Gunshot wound to shoulder
Gene editor (and mother to an 8 year old boy on board) - Venusian
Mining equipment manufacturing line supervisor (and father to a 9 year old girl on board)
Estate agent
Senior Claims Adjuster - Crisis Management, Cyber and M&A
VR game designer
Artist and graphic designer

One of the passengers who had been in critical condition since the crash died on the fourth day, and two more followed on the fifth day. Zey asked for them to be put on ice in available cryo pods for the time being - she wasn’t certain the natives wouldn’t dig up their dead again during the night.

On Crash+6, Zey reconnected with Eva @TinyKiwi about an important assignment. Getting their eyes and ears back was becoming too pressing to ignore. Once trenches had been dug, they were to head to the summit of the hill and set up the Jotunheim’s one remaining portable sensory array and comms relay (the others had fallen out somewhere over the marshes). They would set up two cameras (that was all they could spare) with a live link to monitor the site remotely.

If they could set that up successfully, the crew could begin building a detailed map of the area, identify mineral resources and increase their communications range.

On the morning of Crash+7, communications resumed with the locals who had camped nearby. Zey was on top of the Jotunheim, safely secured with a harness. She was surveying the damage and extent of repairs so far when a request from one of the aliens came through. They wanted to discuss Human biology.

“Is that the one that can’t decide what type of bird it wants to be? It's not asking to cut anyone up is it? What does it want to know?” Zey turned around to look at the camp down on the ground. A spidery mechanical drone clanked past.

@Regime Goon @Starlance

Kolvar Stilmyst

Arancini Barberio

Arancini’s face looked quite surprised and freighted by Vidgis stern talking to about diverting power. In his mind, he was just trying to help bring power to the most important functions of the ship. “Scusa (Sorry) miss Vidgis, I will keep from diverting any more further power.” He clicked on his wrist pad so he could not hear him. Letting out a sigh as he took a moment to sit down in his seat. “It looks like I was overreaching on what I could do with the reactor’s power.” He looked over his shoulder to the empty seat beside him. “No, I do not think Vidgis is a bitch. She is correct about not emptying out the reactor’s power. Perhaps I am overthinking things, but people are pestering me about wanting power to make their machines work.” He thought of an incident with engineering wanting power so they could try to power their tools.

“Ah, madonna.” Places a hand over his face trying to think of what he should do. Listening to Itxaro mentioning perhaps he should leave his office and meet the aliens. The very thought of meeting the natives of the planet made him quite nervous. He didn’t even know what kind of questions he would ask.

He took a moment to think about if he should even go down to meet the aliens. He had a lot of things on his plate as it were. But perhaps he could take a quick break, he had been working for a couple of days straight, so a few minutes would conversing would hurt anyone. Standing up from his chair making it dart backwards.

Walking out of his office and towards the others. His mind ran millions an hour, He had so many questions he wanted to ask the aliens. “What do you think I should ask them?” He said out loud to the invisible person from before. He waited for a response before nodding his head. He didn’t want to give off the wrong impression to them, if they thought he was crazy then it would only make working with them quite difficult.

Kolvar meanwhile was disappointed that he would not be able to see the head doctor immediately. However, he was current he would be able to meet this person today. Again he was fine with waiting for the right moment to speak to the crew of the ship. His conversation was interrupted by the arrival of another crew member. Someone he had not seen during his time spent with the other crew members.

“Hello my name is Kerchak, what is your name? It is a pleasure to meet you.” He said bowing his head.

“My name is Arancini, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He put out his hand for Kerchak to shake, but Kolvar just looked confused. Arancini awkwardly put his hand back to his side. Looking amazed by seeing giant birds, humanoid lizards, and a tree. “It’s very nice to meet all of you. Wow, I never thought I would such exotic extra-terrestrials. How do use your claws to grip objects?” A question that made Kolvar raise an eyebrow.

“Mmm like so.” He demonstrated by using two claws to pick up a small pebble on the ground. Arancini looked in amazement nodding his head.

“Amazing, and how do you breathe air? Does your species have lungs? What kind of abilities do your people have?” Arancini turned his attention toward Shirik, and Kolvar and watched as the pale human barraged them with questions. Feeling bad that he did the same thing to the humans.

Truth be told, Nellara was very surprised in how quickly the humans were able to analyze and be able to communicate in S'toric. Even with the assistance of a thought mage, being able to create a device to let the communicate in S'toric by themselves in just seven days was remarkable, to say the least. Evidently, Nellara wasn't the only one amazed by that fact, judging by how excited Kareet herself seemed to be on the very second she heard Vigdis communicating with them by using her strange bracelet and how Kerchak quickly asked for a meeting to be arranged with the doctor.

Vigdis' quickly started her explanation about the previous events as soon as she was able to confirm that her bracelet worked well. The first matter Vigdis wished to address was her reaction to Gar'Tan's magic, which was somewhat understandable, judging the nature of thought magic.

"Your reaction is understandable, seeing as it is your first time dealing with a thought mage. Thought magic, when misused, can indeed be extremely dangerous. Although I would like to vouch for the Inquisitors and the thought mages that work with them. Their neutrality is a well established fact in Kanth-Aremek." Nellara said, nodding her head.

Ixtaro was also quick to reply to Kareet's questions, reaffirming that the humans indeed had no magic. Instead, both the ship and the strange bracelet seemed to be a result of something they crafted themselves, without the help of any magic at all.


"Which seems to be unlikely, considering our society focus much more on magic than on crafting... At least if we don't factor in any knowledge shared by you humans..." Nellara said to herself, reflecting as she heard Ixtaro's words regarding how they too should be able to craft similar artifacts in the future.

"If we consider that at least some of the principles used in your technology can also be applied to magic, there is a very good possibility of a creation of a new field of study that could revolutionize the way we see and use magic... Which would happen to be exactly Kareet's field of study instead of mine." Nellara said, reflecting to herself before she turned to Kareet, realizing that if she started such conversation, it would quickly leave her area of expertise.

Regardless of how fascinating the humans' 'machines' were, their complexity also seemed to bring them a rather difficult time repairing them, something that was quite obvious if one observed the Jotunheim even for a moment and how the humans inside never stopped working. Even Ixtaro and Vigdis themselves seemed to also be relaying orders to other humans inside despite being talking with them.

According to Vigdis' words, there were still some issues with their machines that they were not able to solve yet, as she explained while, for some reason, she hammered a metal spike into the ground. The explanation for such seemingly random act would follow soon after Vigdis was done hammering the metal spike.

According to her, most of the humans' 'machines' worked by using the same natural phenomenon that was responsible for lightning. 'Electricity' as they called.

"To think the humans were able to harness, control and use lightning despite having no magic is truly impressive... How does these... 'batteries' work? I wonder if a similar concept could be used with magic... Perhaps to 'store' magic to be used later..." Nellara said as she heard about how the humans had found a way to even store electricity for later use, by using devices called 'batteries'.

Even though Nellara wasn't exactly a scholar like Kareet, she knew very well that such information could definitely be used by their own scholars. Without speaking a word, she turned to Kareet, giving a discreet nod towards her. Both of them should definitely pay very close attention at Vigdis and Ixtaro's explanation about such phenomenon and how the humans were able to harness it to their own goals... Particularly how they were able to 'store' it by using batteries.

Vigdis' experiment consisted in Nellara using her lightning magic into the metal spike, which would allow Vigdis to measure it and know if Nellara's electricity would be able to be used to charge the humans' 'batteries'.

"Very well. Please tell me when to stop, Vigdis." Nellara said as she approached the metal spike Vigdis indicated after she said for her to strike the metal spike as hard as she could.

Giving a few steps forward, Nellara approached the metal spike. The moment she extended her hand towards the metal spike, even before she touched it, strong arcs of electricity started jumping from her claws to it, crackling through the air with an audible noise for a moment before Nellara finally grabbed the spike.

"So," Mallory said, glancing at his phone for the passenger record. "You are...?"
"Thorleif Hedstrom," the man replied.
"I thought I was the one who was sore?" Mallory said with a chuckle, glancing up at a very confused solar farm engineer furling his eyebrows. "Ah, right. Sorry. So, we need some way of generating more power for the Jo'. If we could come up with power, we could crank up one of the fabricators and make more panels. But until then, we need someone to help set up the first ones we make ourselves."
"I was in sales," Thorleif said. "I'd measure and plan the layout, I didn't put them up!"
"But you've got to have some idea..?"
"Just enough to answer fool questions," the solar engineer replied, leaning back and crossing his arms.

"Great..." Jack signed, scratching his head.

Itxaro listened attentively to Shirik, enraptured by the Iriad’s history. The endless forests of Myriad captured her imagination in particular; the woodlands of Earth sounded like paltry scraps of land in comparison. She felt herself longing to run through the dark forest of the Iriad's homeland under a dense canopy of leaves like some pre-historic human. Shirik seemed nostalgic for his people's home, but hadn’t been there in… over one hundred years? She cocked an eyebrow at this figure in disbelief, but the Iriad went on. Itxaro reminded herself that trees lived far longer than anything in the animal kingdom, and that it was entirely possible whatever Shirik was shared that longevity. Trees don’t walk around and shoot fire though.

“Wow. I’m 35, and I feel ancient sometimes. But traveling around your world sounds nice right about now after being stuck in the Jotunheim. Any grand cities in the Myriad? I think I’d like to go just for the forests, they sound beautiful. We kind of ruined ours back home,” Itxaro asked eagerly. It sounded like Shirik got a front-row seat to witness his world’s leap into a sort of renaissance, so perhaps this was a particularly exciting time for him. This sent her mind wandering down another path, and she couldn’t stop herself from drilling Shirik with questions. She didn’t notice he asked nothing from her, a momentary lapse in awareness on her part.

“So, the magic; new development around here, or is that something that’s always been possible?”

---

“That’s right,” Itxaro replied to Kareet, “No magic needed. But it isn’t easy. It took humans a long time to figure it out, and even longer to use it properly. There were a lot of things we had to learn first.” She tensed visibly in her seated position when Kareet summoned a ball of lighting between her hands with ease. That’ll take some getting used to. Itxaro supposed that the human’s technology must be just as baffling and threatening to the aliens as their magic was to her, so she tried to relax and trust Kareet wouldn’t lose control and send 100 million volts directly into her face.

“Yeah, that’s electricity alright,” Itxaro said, eying the sparking orb. “We don’t really use lightning though, there’re other ways to generate the same power from it. You can burn wood or coal to generate electricity if you know how, but it isn’t nearly as efficient or strong. Seems like you’ve got a leg up on us there.” She wondered how much faster human technology would have developed if they had the ability to draw a potentially endless source of energy from the ether, using nothing but their hands. Could have probably saved the environment a lot of pain with that trick. Sorry about that, Mother Nature.

“But you can’t just shoot lightning into a hunk of metal and expect it to fly across space. The first thing we did with electricity was heat up a little piece of metal, and used it like a candle. You’d need a capacitor to store the electricity, to save it, so you can use a little bit of it at a time.” Itxaro felt like she was putting the cart before the horse. She doubted they had steam power, let alone gas light, so explaining electricity felt beyond what she suspected they could comprehend or even utilize. The urge to explore, to see the cities of this world and what level of development they’d reached, was becoming almost unbearable. “I’ll see if I can find some books about it for you that can explain it better and get a translation going. Also, speaking of books, the ones I gave you? Highly flammable on this planet. Careful with that.” She gave Kareet and apologetic shrug. “Wouldn’t take any notes in that unless you’re ready to see them go up in flames.” She made a mental note to come up with some sort of paper alternative that would be used to share knowledge with the locals that wouldn't smolder immediately; perhaps the natives had some fire-resistant plant they used.

---

Itxaro spotted Barberio, the pale machinist, escape from the Jotunheim’s belly for what just might have been the first time since crashing, and he was greeted almost instantly by Kerchak, another eager scholar from what she gathered. An idea quickly formed in her mind, and not wanting to interrupt the machinist’s lively conversation, she opted to send him a message through the ship’s extranet using her tablet.


Itxaro looked over to Vigdis and Nellara, and quickly picked up on the engineer’s plan. “Looks like they’re gonna see just how much juice is in your magic, Kareet. Might wanna watch this!”

As the days went by at the Glen camp, Silbermine grew inpatient. Despite his initial rhetorical approach, he wasn’t stupid. The Castigator and that rabble had got there first and had made it very clear they didn’t want to share. The hilly terrain favoured the agile Tekeri form over hulking Glen knights. When you factored in unknowns like that burning tree and who the Humans would support (if anyone), a fight between the two sides could go either way. Silbermine didn’t have enough loyal Glen to just throw them away in a pricey skirmish.

No - His father had taught Gesith the virtue of patience. Even if the Castigator had sent a life mage back as a flying bird to raise an army, the mountains of the Ascendency made it difficult to mobilise large forces quickly. Keraknúr by contrast was just a couple of days away for a determined Glen. Silbermine hoped that enough supporters would turn up to force Nellara to give them access to these new arrivals. He was desperate to learn about them, and whether they would be his champions in the Running.

As they hadn’t packed enough food for a prolonged stay, most of Silbermine’s retinue foraged the forested hillside during the day. The rest watched the Jotunheim, its inhabitants and the Tekeri camp from a distance. Most were unlearned, but dutifully recounted everything they saw to Silbermine as best they could.

It was on the morning of the seventh day that one of the Glen-at-arms dashed back into camp while Silbermine was performing his ablutions.

“My lord! The Humans and the Tekeri are talking.”

Silbermine looked up, then put the wash rag back into the bowl of cold water and exited the tent bare chested. The warrior servant bowed down in reverence before continuing.

“I heard them. I thought they were speaking in tongues like before. But the things they carry speak!”

Glen had excellent hearing. In the right conditions, they could pick up the specifics of conversations from hundreds of yards away.

Silbermine locked eyes with Sir Sweven as they lifted the flap on their much smaller tent. You could have chiselled their faces from granite.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes milord. I watched them all and the Humans were speaking S’toric. It seemed to come from a brooch they wore.”

“Very well. Fetch my caparison, quickly!”

---

Lord Silbermine led Sir Sweven and four Glen-at-arms into the clearing that now surrounded the Jotunheim and approached the Humans and other K-A natives while they conversed. He wasn’t dressed in his ornate armour from last time, but rather a dark blue caparison emblazoned with his standard in white, a grizzled mountain tree with a bird of prey perched atop it. To not wear any armour in this situation was a clear signal that Silbermine wanted to talk, rather than fight. His followers had some armour, but not a full suit. One of the Glen carried a chest on their back.

“Good morrow! We wish to break bread and talk!” Silbermine called.