The next day started just like the previous one: Dakla and I headed out early, roamed the woods, and in general, avoided the village. This time, we went further than the previous day and I continued using my drone to make our job constrained by our walking speed rather than our searching speed. Language lessons continued, and by the end of the day, I felt that I had a reasonable grasp on the spoken tongue, albeit missing rarer words and still a bit shaky on tenses and grammar.

The similarity to the previous day stopped after we returned to Dakla’s house. Apparently, the trouble we were attempting to avoid by staying away had wised up and decided to come knocking after sunset.

I noticed them first, obviously: footsteps, heavy. A quick lap by my drone later, and I had visuals. A single male, older and with facial hair. Not hurried like the boy had been. In fact, his stride and general bearing scored above average on confidence and leadership indices. Age was still something that I couldn’t tell from a glance, but this man was probably around the same age as Dakla, if not older. Furthermore, the man’s expression wasn’t that of someone seeking medical attention. He looked like someone bracing themselves for an unpleasant-but-necessary task if I had to guess.

I, who was sitting across from Dakla at her little table, told her about the visitor who was inbound. She cursed and stood up quickly, then asked, “How far away is he?”

“Not far,” I answered, “Maybe 30 seconds.”

In retrospect, it might’ve been prudent to set up a bigger security perimeter. These humans weren’t particularly stealthy or particularly perceptive, but at the man’s current distance and approach, he had a clear line of sight to Dakla’s home and both its exits. If I left the house now, he’d surely see me.

Don’t get me wrong, my stealth capabilities were good, but not suited towards this type of task. I could pull off extremely convincing visual camouflage with my skinsuit but that wasn’t as effective while moving. Ironically, the more advanced features of my inbuilt stealth suite were somewhat amusingly completely useless against this sort of observer. According to my documentation and half-memories, I could mask my thermal presence, reduce my radar signature, silence my radio emissions, and run simple counter-electronic warfare making me nigh invisible to passive sensors. The man probably didn’t have a radar pointed at me and if he hadn’t been looking directly at the possible escape routes, I might’ve decided to risk it with just visual camo. Instead, I’d have to stay inside or squeeze myself through one of the too-small windows. Looks like I’m going to have to hide.

Dakla, who’d come to the same conclusion even though she didn’t know about my extensive stealth capabilities, reached down to grip a metal ring in the floor. Pulling on the ring lifted multiple connected floorboards and revealed a hole with a ladder in it. Dakla gestured me towards it and whispered to me to, “Hide, quick!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I’d been considering jumping up into the wooden trusses that supported the roof and hiding there in the shadows, but a pre-prepared hiding spot was also fine by me. I walked over to the hole and looked down. Into the darkness, a wooden-board clad shaft led with a simple ladder attached to one of the sides. The bottom, around three meters down, was dirt. I jumped, heard Dakla gasp, and landed silently in the compacted earth.

Then there was a quiet thunk as the wooden hatch was closed and now only thin sheets of candlelight came down through the cracks between boards. Above, I heard shuffling, and then even that faint light was snuffed out. My drone confirmed my suspicions: Dakla had dragged a carpet over the hatch.

I took a moment to handle the drone. At that moment, it was hovering just outside one of the windows and looking into the house. I’d flown it out of the approaching person’s line of sight but spotting it through an open window wouldn’t be particularly difficult, so I waited for Dakla to momentarily look the other way, and then quickly hovered it through the window and up to the ceiling. There, among hanging strings of dried plants, I hid my observer. I was ready to watch.

Comfortable with my drone’s positioning, I took a closer look at my current surroundings. Right away, I realized that this room was the most dangerous thing to me on this planet that I’d seen so far. It was almost completely made of compacted Earth and wooden planks. The floor was dirt, the walls were dirt, and several places in the wooden-planked ceiling were bowed down, presumably under the weight of the earth above. I wasn’t scared—my time served as corporate equipment had removed the capability for experiencing greater fear—but all my threat-assessment subroutines were awfully nervous.

If the engineering—or lack thereof—failed in this room, I’d immediately be buried under tens of thousands of kilograms of earth and rock. It wouldn’t crush me, at least not at three meters of depth, but I’d be thoroughly stuck. I wouldn’t be able to breathe and that would make many of my systems more inefficient. I’d need to rely on my power cell, which I couldn’t recharge easily when buried, and I’d need to spend days digging myself out: Painfully shifting material from above me to below me with my skinsuit.

Even worse, a cave-in wasn’t something that I could dodge, punch, or shoot my way out of. If the ceiling lost its structural integrity, my only real strategy would be to move towards an exit fast or attempt to find a place that would maintain a pocket of un-crushed space.

As for the contents of this hidden sublevel: they were quite boring. Visual inspection quickly revealed that this room was basically an extension of the house above it. Plants, roots, and various other natural components were stacked on shelves, stored in jars, or otherwise hung from strings. Here and there, a book was on a shelf among other glassware and tools that I assumed were for making the primitive medicine that Dakla specialized in.

Above me, the visitor still hadn’t reached the house and I wasn’t going to let my suspicion of this questionably engineered room stop me from exploring it. I simply paid special attention to planting my feet properly in the dirt floor. The room was small, around ten square meters, and as long as I didn’t slip, my physics-sense told me that I’d be able to spring into the stairwell faster than the ceiling could collapse if it came down to it.

The most interesting things to me down here were the books. Judging by their spines, they weren’t simply copies of those above, and even though I couldn’t read yet, their information could still become useful in the future. Eventually, Dakla will teach me to read, and then I’ll be able to instantly absorb the contents of all the books I’ve already looked at. Becoming literate would be a big boon in general though. With the amount of books I’d already scanned—most of them from the robed men—I was reasonably sure that I could boost my vocabulary by at least an order of magnitude if I could interpret all that literature.

I turned pages and shifted my attention to what was happening above. The man was now at the door. He knocked. Solid hits against the wood, creating a deep bass sound. Dakla, who’d positioned herself a couple steps from the door waited a beat and then approached and opened the door.

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The man spoke, “Good evening Herbalist Dakla. May I come in? I believe we have some matters to discuss.”

Dakla hesitated a moment, and then nodded, said “Come in [Headman] Larkin” and stepped to the side.

Larkin entered and Dakla bade him to sit with her. They did, and then there was a tense moment of silence before Larkin spoke up:

“Yesterday, I trekked here hoping to speak to you, but I couldn’t find you.”

Curtly, Dakla responded, “I was out gathering supplies—”

Waving this away, the man cut in, “Be that as it may, you need to understand that you have a duty to our village. What if I’d come in urgent need of your craft and been unable to find you?”

“But you weren’t.”

“No, I wasn’t, but that is not the point. We have an agreement, or more specifically, the village and you have an agreement. You lend your craft to the people when in need, and the village grants you this land. If you are unable to serve the village with your craft, then the village feels that you should not be granted this land.”

Somewhat indignantly, Dakla shot back, “When have I not been doing my duty to the village? Do I need to remind you about Henrikson’s wife? Or all the various aliments I’ve helped with over the years?”

Larkin stayed cool, “You failed your duty when you let Markus die.”

Now Dakla was angry, “What do you mean I ‘failed my duty’, I did everything I could!”

“Markus is still dead!”

Dakla stood up and slammed both her hands on the table, “Markus is dead because you didn’t call me earlier—and just so you are aware: Markus didn’t just ‘die’, I’m almost certain he was deliberately poisoned.”

The man stood up now too and pointed an accusing finger at the Herbalist, “Oh, not only could you not save him, now he was ‘deliberately poisoned’, how convenient for you!”

“Convenient for me!? What are you—” Dakla was once again cut off by a now red-faced Larkin:

“I don’t care whatever your twisted motivations are, but everyone knows you’re not just an herbalist, are you? My boy swears up and down that he saw a [Demon] in this very hovel the morning he came to fetch you!”

“Your boy is delusional Larkin, he—”

Cutting in a third time, Larkin’s tone now took on a sharp and menacing edge, “My boy is the [Aluane]-blessed future of this village, witch. Watch your tongue.”

Both of them stood silently, breathing heavily for a couple seconds. Then, Larkin stepped back from the table and walked to the door. He opened it, stepped out, and then paused. Looking back, he said, “You better be careful Herbalist Dakla, this is your last warning.”

Then the man turned, closed the door, and swiftly strode back towards the village. Dakla, meanwhile, fell back into one of the chairs at her table and massaged her head with her fingertips, slowly simmering away the anger that had built up and seemingly deep in thought.

A short while later, I was done with all the books in the sublevel, and the man’s footsteps had long retreated into the distance. Judging it safe to emerge, I climbed the ladder and knocked on the wooden door. Dakla heard and moved to uncover the trapdoor before swinging it open. Then, she bade me to sit at the table with her.

A couple moments passed, and then Dakla spoke, “How much of that did you hear?”

I said, “I hear [mostly] everything.”

Dakla didn’t even look surprised, and said, “We, or more specifically, you have a problem.”

I’d been wondering if she’d noticed, and apparently, she had. I clarified:

“[The] man knows that I am [at this] location, or he knows [that] you are not [alone/one person].”

“What!” Dakla exclaimed, sitting up in her chair. Ok, maybe she didn’t notice.

“Before the man [leave/left], the man look[ed] at that table on the wall [over] there,” I said as I pointed towards a side table that still had a pair of stacked bowls and cups on it along with two spoons.

Dakla took a moment to realize the conclusions that could be drawn from the table I was pointing at, and then cursed.

A much as Dakla’s a useful teacher, and a friendly person, it might be better if I left before my presence caused more trouble for her. I have to offer, at least.

“If you want, I can leave?”

At this, Dakla sighed.

“No, no, it’s not your fault. Thank you for offering, but this problem is something that’s been building for a while now—it’s not you. Also, I would feel bad letting you out into the land unprepared as you are—”

“Thank you—”

“—But you should answer some of my questions.”

“What questions?”

“First, where are you from?”

“Far away.”

She waved her hand in an annoyed manner, “Ok fine, something simpler: How did you know that Larkin saw the table in the corner?”

I debated with myself whether I should reveal my drone. Although revealing it could build trust, it might also scare or upset the woman. Weighing the choice, I found that her trust was worth more to me at the moment. Now, how to explain a drone to a primitive…

“I have a tool” I said, as I directed the drone to lose its camouflage and hover its way into my outstretched palm. There, it rested, glistening in the matte-metallic color of deactivated nanos. To her, it must’ve looked rather alien: A near-perfect sphere with multiple little holes, tiny bumps that housed sensors, and the big optical unit in the front which looked remarkably like my eyes—albeit with fewer lenses and an even less organic look.

“What…” Dakla was speechless.

“I use this tool as [extra] eyes and ears.” I said simply.

Dakla stretched out her hand, and in a reverent whisper, asked, “Can I hold it?”

I gave her the drone, and she cradled it in her hands, as if it were a precious piece of art.

“Why is it cold?” she asked.

What a strange question. Not, ‘how does it fly’ or ‘where did you get it’… Thinking on it though, I realized why this was her first question: She thinks it’s alive!

“The tool is not alive; it is just a tool. It is not a creature and made of cold metal.”

After a short inspection, she carefully passed the cheap scouting drone back to me and I had it hover back outside a window and rest on the roof. I’d learned my lesson. From now on, the security perimeter would extend far enough to make sure I wasn’t caught off-guard.

“So, this is your magic?” she asked.

“No, the tool is not magic it is…” Obviously, I didn’t have a word for “nanotechnology”, but I didn’t even have a word for “regular” technology. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t have words for many concepts I’d describe as technology-adjacent like science, physics, or engineering.

I finally settled on the closest words I knew, “My tool is built? Constructed?”

Dakla thought for a moment, and then slowly asked, “You are telling me that your ‘tool’ is not magical but instead constructed? From [mundane] materials?

“Yes.”

“And you are sure that it has no magic in it?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

How am I supposed to explain the difference between technology and magic to her? The big difference is…

“I can explain how the tool is made and how it works.”

She looked at me incredulously, “And? I can explain how magic works.”

I didn’t expect that answer, but it makes sense. To someone who’s grown up with this strange ‘magic’, it would appear as a fundamental part of her worldview. Presumably, to her, my technology would appear just as inexplicable and impossible to her as the ‘magic’ appears to me. Fine, it’s not as if there’s a practical difference to her anyways.

I compromised, “It is a… different magic.”

With this, Dakla breathed a sigh of relief she’d apparently been holding and relaxed back into her chair. Why she did that, I didn’t know. I noted the conversation, I probably almost stepped on another cultural landmine or something there…

Thinking about cultural landmines I was still blind to, I thought back to the shouting match that Dakla had with Larkin earlier. There were several words I didn’t know the meaning of: [Headman], [Demon], and [Aluane] notably. It was as good a time as any to ask, so I did.

“Headman is easy,” Dakla said, “The headman is the person that the villagers choose to be their leader. Headman Larkin has been Headman for the past eight years now and became headman when the previous one got too old.”

Then she paused, looked me in the eyes, and continued, “As for Demons and Aluane—you must be from very far away to have gaps this serious in your education. Not knowing the spoken tongue, I can understand, but not even knowing about the [Divine] and the [Infernal]?!”

I shrugged, apologetically, “Sorry.”

Dakla was apparently out of sighs as she simply sat back, folded her hands, and said, “Very well, let me teach you about the [Divine] and the [Infernal]…”