The Chained Watcher

''What do you mean, 'Grounded'?!''

"What do you mean, 'Grounded'?!"

(since Wattpad hates quotation marks in titles, here's the actual title with it, instead of two apostrophes)

~~~

Listening to the debrief being given to everyone on the Explorer team currently in base. Grian perks up upon hearing the biggest point of interest found yet.

"-And about a day's flight south, we've found our first local settlement." Ooh, locals? Wonder what kind of civilization there is. "Our tech specialists are currently working on connecting to the local internet to work on getting a translator up and running. Until then, any observation should be done subtly and from a distance. We don't need to potentially tick off the locals by making ourselves obviously outsiders."

Makes sense, though he'll definitely ignore that using his translation spell. The most important questions on his mind are... "Couple questions. One, any hybrids? A lot of us need to know whether or not to pack concealing clothes to hide our hybrid traits."

"Ah, yes, there are hybrids. They seem to be equals, from first impressions."

"Two, pure tech, or is there magic too?" The world's magic feels active enough for there to be mages, but it's not impossible for some sort of vast curse cast over the planet that seals access to it.

"Strangely enough, mostly magic, from what little we've seen." The debriefer flips through their notes, summarizing, "Apart from the internet, most of the tech we've seen has been some kind of pseudo-tech made with magic. We haven't gotten our hands on any yet though."

"Important clarifier, have you actually seen any mages? Places with artificing usually have mages too, but it's not impossible for a place to have one without the other."

"Er, give me a second..." They flip through their notes again, tracing a finger down the page. "Ah, here we are. Yes, a scout has reportedly witnessed one of the locals fix a broken stone retaining wall by merging some loose stones from a barrow into the wall."

"I see..." So elemental manipulation is a thing here. If there's earth manipulation, he can reasonably assume that the other basic elements like air, fire, and water are also commonly used by mages here. Decent chance for 'derived' elements to be there too. It'll be fun to check out some grimoires while he gets a feel for the flavor of magic the locals use.

When Grian doesn't ask anything else, they return to the debrief, giving advice and warnings to the explorers here for if they run into another settlement. He doesn't pay much attention, but then they ask something that immediately snaps his focus back to them.

"So, with all that said, would anyone like to join the scout keeping an eye on the settlement we've discovered? Due to the potential for conflict, it's entirely understandable if you would prefer to continue scouting out the nearby geography, so this is a purely optional task."

Well would you look at that! A perfect excuse to abandon the boring stretch of empty plains and deserts that've been all he's seen. He pipes up, "I can go!" He can't wait to see the interesting architecture of this planet's civilization-

"""No!"""

The outburst from all of the strategists in the room brings his thoughts to a halt. "...Pardon?"

"Not... you. Just... stick to your current scouting direction. Others can handle first contact with the locals."

"Wha- Why not?!" He's rather aggrieved by this sudden turn of events. He's always found important information! Of course he should be the one to go look!

In a tired voice, the debriefer explains, "Because, Grian, whenever you do any scouting involving the local population, you inevitably, without fail, come back with some piece of information that single handedly invalidates over 50% of the plans we made prior to your scouting trip."