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. [i]Trees don’t walk around and shoot fire though.[/i]

[color=fff200]“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,”[/color] 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.

[color=fff200]“So, the magic; new development around here, or is that something that’s always been possible?”[/color]
[hr]
[color=fff200]“That’s right,”[/color] Itxaro replied to Kareet, [color=fff200]“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.”[/color] She tensed visibly in her seated position when Kareet summoned a ball of lighting between her hands with ease. [i]That’ll take some getting used to.[/i] 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. 

[color=fff200]“Yeah, that’s electricity alright,”[/color] Itxaro said, eying the sparking orb. [color=fff200]“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.”[/color] 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. [i]Could have probably saved the environment a lot of pain with that trick. Sorry about that, Mother Nature.[/i]

[color=fff200]“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.”[/color] 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. [color=fff200] “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.”[/color] She gave Kareet and apologetic shrug. [color=fff200] “Wouldn’t take any notes in that unless you’re ready to see them go up in flames.”[/color] 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.
[hr]
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.
 
[indent]>Hey Barberio, the locals are real interested in electricity. If we get the reactors working, any chance you could fabricate a couple models for them? Maybe a little ac generator, steam engine, all that fun stuff? [/indent]
Itxaro looked over to Vigdis and Nellara, and quickly picked up on the engineer’s plan. [color=fff200]“Looks like they’re gonna see just how much juice is in your magic, Kareet. Might wanna watch this!”[/color]