Oh, good, they were just starting to regret not bringing a blackboard and chalk. They get started writing a message immediately, with perhaps surprising facility (though needing to recheck the dictionary multiple times, and occasionally prompting him for a reiteration of a particular definition or combinatorial rule).

"We need to bring this to the people who we follow the decisions of, and our knowledgeable people, so they can think about what to say. We also need to get material to write definitions and rules in our language, for the others to read. We will be back soon."

They'll wait to leave until he confirms he's got their message.

He can in theory make more copies of the dictionary for them, or writing material or whatever else, but he doesn't have much spare matter with him and can't make it from nothing; if they expect to want him to do that going forward it'd be useful for them to bring some things up for him to convert into crafting material. Anything will work so long as it's solid rather than liquid or gas and not dangerous to be near.

The representative quickly gestures to the 'no' sign as the group quickly erases the previous message (seemingly using whatever invisible force they're wielding to chill the whole board at once rather than swiping over it with the erase-side of the hot/cold-marker they've been given).

"The conversion process causes things to lose--" and then there's a new symbol that they've seemingly coined just now, for lack of a better word to be found in the direction they have. It seems like it's attempting to combine the symbols for 'all', 'part', and 'power', but with some additional changes to make it clear that they're not using 'all' and 'part' like normal modifiers for 'power', "which may have other effects we can't predict. We will get our own materials when we go."

Then they quickly add a few more messages below that, "The presence of [all-part-power] may be why communication is difficult. It is the medium our abilities operate through. The doctor who was brought here before has the ability to see it. You and your things do not have any. Living things, especially people, normally have a significant quantity."

Huh. If they'd like his opinion on it they can bring him some samples with more or less of whatever that is and he'll see if it makes a difference in how hard it is to convert them to crafting material. Also he is going to need more matter for his own use eventually, if they want to start thinking now about how he can best get it without disrupting anything - usually he'd just take a tree or two that nobody particularly cared about but rocks or things are fine too.

They chill the board again and write another few messages. "The hat was our test for this. They don't have a great quantity of [all-part-power], but they have more than most plants of similar size and weight. Trees would likely have more. We will bring rocks for you to convert along with the writing materials."

Ah, that makes sense. The hat was more difficult than he expected, but he hadn't noticed that it was alive, and communicative crafting is different enough to make a direct comparison between it and object crafting hard. He appreciates the rocks-to-come.

The flying people all make a hand gesture that doesn't seem related to the signs he's put up, perhaps just a way of letting him know that they're departing now, before taking off once more. As with the previous times, they're quickly replaced by the same alternative group.

It will once again be a while before they're back, though if he checks, he'll be able to see that maybe half of that time is them finding a place in the large settlement where rocks, bricks, and other heavy, solid objects are neatly stacked and surrounded by a fence.

He waits a little while and then heads inside to get some of his emergency supplies. When they come back they'll find him taking stock of a box of tiny objects on a table he didn't have when they left; he crafts a couple pieces of fabric out of the edges of the table to hold down the various piles of objects when he sees them coming, and returns to the front of the ship.

Eventually, after much discussion with the person seemingly taking care of the rocks-and-bricks place, the previous group of five flies back out, now levitating a pallet stacked with a few hundred hand-length cut stone bricks in a neat and sturdy pyramid. It will hover near the chute while they replace the alternate team on the landing pad, and once he seems ready to accept it they'll give it over.

After a moment's consideration he opens up a hole in the bubble large enough for the pallet; he'd appreciate it if they got it as close to the center of the ship as possible before letting go of it so it doesn't unbalance things too badly.

And indeed they will do so, the pallet float through the provided opening, over to the nearest open area of sufficient size towards the center of the ship, then down slowly and carefully until it's at a height where they're not worried about the fall causing the bricks to make a mess, before letting it drop the remaining distance. The pallet definitely still cracks underneath the stack, going from the sound, but that seems to be the limit of the damage.

The deck underneath it is plenty strong enough to take the force; the ship does start sinking in the air but he takes a moment to enlarge the balloon overhead and get it stable before he closes up the hole in the bubble.

Do they want to get started on the next part of the dictionary or do they have things to discuss first?

They clear the signboard again and write, "The other people are still thinking about what to discuss. Translating more of the dictionary seems like the correct thing to do."

In addition to the stack of bricks, they also brought a pot of black liquid and a stack of white sheets, which they're levitating now, tendrils of black pulled from the pot by their invisible force and waiting over one of the topmost sheet.

Back to the dictionary it is, then; he'll pause whenever they need to for notes.

They're pretty fast with laying down their odd markings (only 36 distinct symbols in total, or 19 if the ones that look the same but are flipped horizontally are equivalent, written in compact lines), but not as fast as communication, so they will definitely need to take at least a small break for each new symbol.

After a bit he starts trying to draft a letter in between glyphs, and after another bit he gives up on it and grabs a couple of bricks to start converting in the pauses, but he'll keep at it until he runs out of dictionary or they call for a break.

They have a surprising dedication to the task, and will continue for as much as six hours before breaking, if the process takes that long.

Periodically, groups of five will leave the circling flock, and are replaced a moment later by another team, in a similar manner to how the replacements happened on the landing pad.

He might notice a serpentine chain of carts make it's way over the horizon, headed towards the main settlement following the path carved through the trees and alongside the river, passing by each of the smaller settlements along the way and picking up a small crowd of people at each.

Later, it might be notable that a larger group of flying people, maybe a couple dozen, fly in, carrying several big, thoroughly vine-covered boxes, dropping off the boxes at another one of the larger buildings in the main settlement where they're brought inside at ground-level. A handful of the new flying people follow the boxes inside, while the rest join the circling flock.

They'll be midway through the last book of the dictionary at the six hour mark, but he's flagging by then too; if they want a break he's not going to complain about it.

He would like to bring his ship down for the night if that's all right with them, and refill his water tank (saltwater is fine, he can distill the salt out) and let his dog out to run around for a little while. He's fine with doing it away from the settlement and would in fact prefer that if they don't mind it.

They'll finish up the notes for the last symbol they were working on before their posture relaxes significantly. They clear the board of its most recent messages and write, "Landing away from the city is preferred. Landing on the water would be ideal to maintain minimal contact. We understand if you would prefer to be able to leave your ship on foot, however. We will guide you to an appropriate landing spot in accordance with your preference for ground or water."

He's fine anchoring in the shallows if they're confident there won't be a storm overnight or anything like that.

There is indeed no storm forecasted for the next twelve days, and none as intense as last night's for the whole rest of the season.

They will go ahead and guide him down to the shallows to the north (assuming nothing weird is going on with which direction the sun sets in) of the settlement, which has a pleasantly sandy beach that leads up to a sort of wall of earth held together by the trees' roots. The settlement is detectable as a glow behind the trees to the south, but is not directly visible, nor is it audible over the waves or natural sounds of the forest.

It might be strange, once he's touched down on the water, to note that there's almost no life in the sea, and what life there is seems to be solely crustaceans or other arthropods, with nary a mollusc, fish, or marine mammal to be seen.

There is still a flock of flying people circling him, now overhead rather than below. There are fewer people in it now, though. It's cut down to maybe half the size it was before he landed.

He doesn't notice the lack of sea life right away, but once he's had some time to tend to things in the house he makes a floating platform to let the dog out on, and he spots it while he's out there with her. It's pretty surprising, especially since they didn't comment on it when the word 'fish' came up in the dictionary, and he considers trying to get someone's attention to ask, but ultimately decides against it: these people haven't really been that sociable, they probably won't appreciate it.

He stays out with her for half an hour or so and brings the platform back in with him when he goes inside; they'll also see him on the roof printing up a couple more books and just generally taking in his surroundings for a while before he turns in for the night when the sun starts to set.

He'll be up shortly after sunrise in the morning, though he only comes out onto the top deck for long enough to harvest some more tea leaves before returning inside to have breakfast. Once he's ready to deal with people, though, he comes up again and starts moving things around so he can designate half of the deck as available for them to land on, with enough furniture for them to be comfortable and a large shared table extending across the dividing line, and when he's done he adjusts the protective bubble so that they can land in that portion of the space.

Once it's obvious from the air that he's setting up part of his ship's upper deck to be landed on, a group of five peels off from the flock (which, at its current size, shrinks it noticeably) and flies back towards the city. Maybe half an hour later, they're returning along with the main team from yesterday and two of the vine-covered boxes. One of the boxes, as well as the original group of five, land on the apportioned area of his ship, while the other five and the second box...land on the water's surface, as if standing on an invisible raft.

In the public area, the familiar five flying people make gestures seemingly as greetings, before the vine-box opens, the vines parting like a curtain to reveal three people. One wears pure white, though in a different form than the doctor from before, while the other two wear green suits with metal pins, similar to the ones worn by the flying people, but the clothes don't have the black bars and instead have pure white collars, and they each have three pins rather than just one, and the shape of the pins are different from the ones the flying people wear, and from each other's. Additionally, all three are wearing hats with what seem to be living plants either held on top or woven into the hat itself. One of the green-dressed ones has the same kind of vine hat as he was given before, which when worn almost gives the impression of green hair (which two of the flying people he's interacted with so far have actually had). It's possible that most of the people he saw in the streets the previous day were wearing these vine hats, which would might make it seem odd in retrospect that the flying people and and the doctor weren't.

The three people who emerged from the box will sit in the provided furniture. The flying people all remain standing.

He greets them, from a more socially comfortable distance this time, and explains that the books he's left out for them are a traveler's primer about his world, covering the geography and giving an overview of how Crafters in different places live, and a childrens' primer on crafting vocations, covering the various things that can be done with it - he can do a few tricks beyond the basics but nothing that needs specialist training or years of practice. (He's also provided a writing board and markers again.) His primary goal for today is determining how he can get the supplies he's going to want in the longer term - chickens or other food animals and seeds for food plants - and in general figuring out how he's going to live here, but he assumes they have plenty of other questions for him and it's fine with him if they want to go first.

The three new people confer with each other, and the familiar five, for a long moment, before the they (presumably the familiar five, it's unclear since they're still using their invisible force to wield the marker) writes, "These will be translated and read soon. We will give you a similar packet about our own history and culture, as well as information about [all-part-power], once it has been translated. Food animals and seedstock can be provided, but the decision-making people may have--" another new symbol, this one seemingly stitched together from 'obstacle' and 'request', "which they will want satisfied before they allow more to be given to you than has already been given."