“Plants use leaves to catch sunlight, which is then used to make food for the plant to grow. That’s why leaves are so wide and flat; it maximizes how much sunlight they can catch per volume.”

Well that's interesting! (She says so). "Does us not knowing all this answer that thing you weren't sure of earlier, or do you need to actually ask us something?"

(She more or less knew this about plants, in a sort of implicit way, and is trying to think to what she knows and follow through the logic with this - approaching it rather differently. Isn't doing it outloud, in any of the available senses.)

”It gives a pretty good estimate, at least, and I can infer a bit more from the roads and your clothes. It seems like you’re millenia behind back home, but considering how much advancement has accelerated recently that might be variable; it’s at least several centuries back.”

(This makes more immediate sense to Aye, who has previously encountered the concept of 'X has a technology Y doesn't have, because they invented it'.)

Genea looks down at her clothes (she's in some light armor, leather with metal plates sewn on).

Imagine if some tower mages in the middle of nowhere wouldn't let their people learn metalworking, wouldn't have any people who already knew it, so they'd definitely never get blood iron. They wouldn't have metal plates on their armor, if they had any? And if they all got moved to some other world like Settlers, minus the mages, and hadn't figured it out again yet, they still wouldn't.

It's like that. I think.

She nods.

(...It's odd, to think about things that way, as something you wouldn't have anymore if people didn't teach it to each other, could start having by figuring it out. Not just - the way of the world you lived in (she's a guard not a scholar, had never known any scholars. A blacksmith wasn't a scholar). Odder, to think about how many things were like that, if she considers it.)

"...So I figure you have better things to do than tell me all about that curve thing you said, but actually I don't know what your plans are at all?"

“That one requires some advanced math; I know enough to teach it if it’s critical, but unless your planet has significantly more math than it looks like, that would be years of study back home to get to that level, and focusing solely on that would only help so much.

“I don’t really have much in the way of plans at the moment. I hadn’t planned to go heading off at all, and my first choice in destination wasn’t an option. I’d like to get stronger, but for the most part I’d need my body back for that if I wanted to train anything other than techniques or psychic powers.

“Besides that, I like helping people, but I’m not sure how far I’d be able to help you skip ahead in the time I have, so that might have to stick to things I can do with my other skills.”

She is pretty much not familiar with the concept behind 'advanced math' (and can't say it's the easier to understand, even with telepathy).

"I'd be pretty surprised if it was critical but I don't actually even know what it is so you'd probably be a better judge! Not that I'm set on that or anything, just grabbed it as one of the things you said. 

...So is that normal where you're from, not planning and then heading off and destination vetoing running around? Because I think most people here would think that was a problem.

Could I help with the body?" (She's not saying she will help until she knows more, but.)

"...What kind of helping people? And how much time would that be?"

“No, it’s not normal. I think I might be the first person to do this in centuries, possibly ever, depending on how you classify it. As for a body... I know none of the mages back home could have done it, not even Dandeer, but our magic is somewhat monofocused on sealing which isn’t directly applicable. My only hope until now was to get my old one back or head to New Namek-”

“Not the slugs.” There’s revulsion and distaste in Dazarel’s mental tone.

“What is your problem with the Namekians?”

“-but before that, Jiji said I needed to find some kind of anchor to keep myself tied to until then. 

“As for helping... normally I’d say I could help with anything, and probably start with the hardest problems, but I’m kind of limited with what I can do at the moment, especially when it comes to combat. I have psychic powers, I’m good at politics, and I can supercharge spells - if you have a Champion, I might be able to do a Ki transfer to temporarily lend them my strength, but I didn’t sense anyone on that level when I arrived so it doesn’t seem all that likely.”

"I'm sorry," she says, to the 'no it's not normal'.

"I have no idea what sealing is, so I don't think our magic's focused on that! I've never actually tried making a body, but I could make my own body just fine so clearly there's some body making potential in there. Could try, if you wanted.

Don't know what a Champion is either. But we don't really have a combat problem." - and if we did I could probably fight it, we more have the problem where can fight things too much than the opposite problem, she is going to say, but cuts herself off.

"...Do you have some way of credibly confirming that if we tell you things like our plans, you won't go do something unpleasant with knowing?

I usually have a way to check, but it won't work with your wards and I wouldn't want to do it without asking anyway."

The only other kinds of magic the exiles are familiar with are the legendary sorcerer Babidi and the nigh omnipotent wishdragons, Porunga and Shenron, and Kakara isn’t super informed on the limits of her own people’s school of magic; she has no context to determine whether or not this is a reasonable assumption or working of magic.

“Champions are pretty rare in general; I’m not surprised that you don’t have any, or haven’t identified them if they do. It’s a catch-all term for people who are extremely powerful Ki fighters.

“Back home, I could just give my word, but you don’t have any kind of independent verification of that. There’s not much evidence-as-a-tool-for-distinguishing-possibilities I could offer that someone dedicated couldn’t fake. 

...

“I am a seer, though, and that makes me kind of a huge infohazaed issue. I won’t spy on you, but you still have only my word on that anyway.”

"Don't know what a Ki fighter is either!

Is your word magic there or is that a they-trust-you thing?"

“Ki fighters are people who use Ki for combat. Ki is a type of energy; everyone has at least some of it, but it varies how much from person to person and from training. My telepathy is actually a Ki technique, but you also get stuff like flying.

”And no, nothing mystical about it; it’s just a combination of personal reputation and culture. It’s expected that any upstanding member of society is honest and good on their word. It’s not really a warriors code, but being if not honorable at least guileless is considered a necessity for anyone in a public facing role.”

She nods understanding.

She considers.

As noted, Karen is pretty obviously magic, which is at least a strong consideration for her not being likely to be a fan of mage slavery. And she's been fine to both herself and Genea, mage and not respectively. 

It'd be kind of really weird for someone to pretend to be obligate disembodied so they could lull her and Genea into a false sense of security and get them to tell them things and then go tell the Helas. That seems like a weird plan, especially when they wouldn't really have a way of knowing that they have a plan to tell the Helas, unless they have some magic way to find thing out, in which case they could just find out the plan.

Is that enough?

She consults with Genea.

...Actually she might just be able to test the disembodied thing. 

"Gimme a sec, I want to try something!" she says to Karen, and then reaches with her magic. She can tell what magic things stuff does sometimes, right? This person has magic; what kinds of things does it do? ('Does it actually let her have a body if she wants to' being of course the most relevant question. Also is she actually a seer like she said.)

Neither she nor Dazarel is a mage, nor are they at all magical themselves. There is something sticking to both of them, though, that's like magic; they're as similar to each other as magic is to them.

Dazarel does have some magic of a more familiar kind stuck to him, though it’s well made and hard to detect.

She has no knowledge or specialized practice in this area but she does have a lot of power.

She's not surprised to find that they're not mages in the mage-spark sense (she wouldn't have been surprised to find that they were either; maybe that works the same wherever they're from, or similarly, but just as much maybe it doesn't). What she wants to know is about what they are. Or have.

Karen has something. She can't get much more on the something, but she's pretty sure Karen cannot make bodies. The other one has something - externally imposed? And can't do much right now? And she's pretty sure also currently can't make bodies.

She pushes more about the seer. ...She thinks that's true. 

She stops reaching. She consults with Genea again.

"Done," she says to Karen.

"So I think we're going to trusting you. In which case I can finish that sentence, which was that if we did have a combat problem I could probably fight it, but we more have the problem where I can fight things too much than the opposite problem.

The problem we're trying to do something about is the mage-enslaving. Which we probably don't really have the best plan for, but we've been kind of short of ideas for better plans."

On Garenhuld, slavery got solved via outside interference; no saiyan had any incentive to support it, and some opposed it on moral grounds. In terms of a prediction of how it would end left to its own devices, it was rather unhelpful. In this case, however, there was also outside interference: them. 

“The main causes of universal emancipation were the spread of democracy and a rise of a capitalist based economy. The latter provided large and international pressure to stop it, and the latter finished it off by making it uneconomical.

”There were some continuing problems with worker exploitation and sexual slavery, but both proved largely amenable to legal pressure and, at least for the former, worker organization.”

"We have democracy? I - don't think it's doing any of that. I don't think I understand the other word very well but I don't see how it would help?"