Orfai watched the Goddess work with a cocked brow; her creations were beautiful and ethereal, and had great empathy. Even without words (and without relying too much on his divine senses) he could tell what they were feeling and doing. But he noted too that they bore gills and webbing for the movement through water. That could be good or bad, as it meant that it might not be such an easy sell to get his Faliargun settled in the waters here as he had hoped. He'd find out. "You forget I am too in the business of knowledge and it's proliferation as well as the keeping of secrets. Something of a dual nature. But our vision doesn't have to match perfectly for what I will propose-"

'He' flowed through the waters as a shadow and swept up over the oceans, appearing out of the water on the beach behind Orfai and swirling around to come up to him, so that the two shadow figures stood side by side. The broken machine and the record were placed down onto the beach, stuck in the same part of the musicless music of time as it would be forever. 

"Ah, wonderful." One of the two shadow beings said (It was rather difficult to tell which one had said what, as they spoke in the same voice and had no lips to move, nor did the sound seem to come directly from either one) as Orfai motioned to it with his shadowy hand. "This is what's left of what the Mater used to freeze time before- I'm sure you too will find it most interesting, and agree it makes quite the prize even if it doesn't function anymore."

"Hold on, this is going to get a little awkward." One of the pair said with amusement. For the sake of everyone's sanity, Orfai reconstituted into the form of a large Faliargun once again, brilliant bronze scales covering his body.

"Problem solved." The Keeper of Secrets declared as he nodded to his avatar, turning his attention back towards the Goddess. "This is 'He'. Me. A fragment of me rather, my avatar."

"It gets a bit complicated." 'He' said with a small grin, looking out over the islands and then to the waters around them with a slight nod of approval. "I see what I meant."

"Indeed. See, Rytia, I have a minor problem. I created an aquatic race, the Faliargun- you see them now in my form. I thought to leave them to multiply in the safety of the waters I had created- and then Larwen happened. The Corrupter decided it would be a wonderful idea to create the Goldari, that is to say to inject some powerful predators into the same waters. The Faliargun are too few in numbers to sustain any attrition from that, and they have little knowledge. They exist for now as little more than intelligent beasts, primitives. Now, usually I would be inclined to let things play out on their own, to leave it up in the air and see what happens. But there are so few thinking beings in the world at current that I'm not willing to let that happen. Can you imagine how difficult it is to be the god of secrets when there are no secrets? Knowledge when there is so little knowledge? It's quite infuriating, really." The God paused to prevent himself going too far on a tangent, returning to the topic at hand. "Anyway, the Mater has graciously given them refuge - and she made clear that it was temporary refuge- within the confines of her building.  So I am searching for a more long term solution for them."

"Within this archipelago, there is safety for the Faliargun to retreat to should one of these Goldari show up, or to lose them amongst the islands. Here, they can catch fish and gather flora easy enough and in time, they could cultivate plants beneath the calm central waters for food. It could be suitable refuge while they grow in number, and they should not cause difficult for your people. Although they can temporarily walk- well, in a manner of speaking - on the land, they are most comfortable in the waters. If anything it should even be mutually beneficial, at least in these early stages- there is safety in numbers after all, and there is potential for the future." 'He' said, concluding the thoughts of Orfai himself.

"So what say you?" Orfai asked with a pleasant smile spreading across the face of his form.

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Orfai makes a proposal!

[@Amethyst] 
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