pyth, aestrix

Tempting as it is to make millions, Adarin will not hike up the prices for most of his fruits. If this were something less necessary for people at his home, he'd jump on that in a heartbeat, but right now - he would like to prevent scurvy in the lower class. That comes first, despite how much good he could do with the money.

He hires several people to cultivate various fruits, marks out unclaimed land for them to be planted on, and hands out seeds to be grown. The results are promising. Unfortunately they don't grow instantly, they take time, but if there's one thing Adarin has, it's time. Not an infinite amount of it, but for something like this - he can wait.

Besides, he has several projects to work on, while he waits for trees to grow. A sewage system, proper waste disposal (he does not want a plague on his hands, not now, not ever), and making sure some streets are paved. All of these cost money to do, but Adarin's good with money, he's earned enough to pay for it. Unfortunately that's really more of a hands-off kind of project, he knows next to nothing about stoneshaping. Learning what he needs to know to be of any use would take longer than it would for ordinary people to manage it. Besides, he wants to give them jobs.

Luckily he has a project of his own to work on. Magic is endlessly fascinating, and when given a chance to study it - well, he's all for it. The translation spell is tricky, he doesn't just want to spell a book to be a dictionary and work from there, he wants the spell to be adaptable, flexible, and hidden. He's got enemies, and he doesn't like his things being stolen. So, if he plays his cards right - they might not even know there's anything to steal. It takes him several weeks, longer than he'd thought, but he manages it.

The results are better than he'd hoped. He didn't spell an object, he spelled himself. When he thinks about the winged man's language, grammar information and vocabulary unfolds in his mind. It takes some practice (all things do) but he adjusts well enough. There are few spells he can be truly proud of, most of them have little issues he'd like to work out, little problems that bother him endlessly.

This one, though, he is quite proud of.

With the language barrier out of the way - he can get so many questions answered. Things impossible to ask in mime and with little stone figurines and illusions. "How is he feeling?" "Is he lonely?" "What are the other species like?" "Where is his winged lizard thing?"

And, most importantly: "Will you help me?"

He wraps up several items of business that require it, and then one teleportation later, he is back on the island.

On the top of Adarin's long, long list of things to do is 'Find nutritious new food sources.' It's easy to forget about nutritional diversity and just accept living entirely off of potatoes or something, but it leaves them open to lots of unpleasant things. If a plague ravages their main food source, people will die. If they don't have some food variety, diseases will be more able to weasel their way in, and people will die.

Adarin does not want people to die.

Vegetables they have a reasonable amount of, their new home has edible versions of those and that's enough to be ensure stability of it. They can domesticate the native creature of New Kystle (he will have to think of a better name for the place, he thinks the name is uncreative and stupid) for meat or milk or eggs, Adarin's hired several people to get to doing that. It's difficult, but they're making progress and he's optimistic about its results.

Fruits are another story. The only fruit they have are apples - and just having those was a stroke of sheer luck. It's only because his shield partially covered an apple orchard that they've got it at all. Natively, their new home has absolutely nothing in the way of fruit. This is a problem.

There is a solution to it, though - Adarin's a mage (possibly the most magy mage that mages in their generation) and he can travel to other planes. He decides that it's worth the inherent risk, if he's careful.

He makes a spell to check the nutritional value of fruits. During his moments of spare time, and when his store of mana allows it, he checks other planes for the sorts of things he's looking for. Fruits, nutritious fruits, ones that are able to survive in this plane's admittedly strange conditions.

The first sets of results are promising, but not worth going after immediately. Boring planes with boring plants that are somewhat nutritious but not particularly great for humans. He looks for a plane with lots of different types so he can be economic with his trips.

Then he finds one plane that has fruits whose nutritional values are off of the metaphorical charts. This is worth investigation. This is so worth investigation that he will clear his schedule and start scrying the plane exclusively.

It turns out to only be centered on a specific island. Just one island that, in comparison to the rest of the plane, is a holy grail of nutritional value. Adarin's got absolutely no idea why it's just the one island, but he doesn't know a way to check the reason why that's so without going there himself.

He takes a little while to consider, and meanwhile checks the place for things that he considers deadly. It turns out to also have a high concentration of venomous creatures and poisonous plants, but if he's careful that won't be a problem. He makes a spell for removing venom from his veins, in case he steps on something and is bitten. Poisonous things are easier to deal with - he gets gloves, and will avoid eating anything there without scrying it first.

It's got several carved statues of what looks to be a unicorn, but Adarin can't manage to find anyone who could have carved them. He's forced to make the assumption that they've left or died out, and there's not much he can do about it. He practices some shields, just in case, but without proper information that's all he can do.

Once safety preparations are complete, he informs important people who should know where he is going (including his sister), gets his affairs in order, packs himself supplies, gets a good night's sleep, and then teleports to the plane, aiming for the island.

Bullseye.

He glances around to get his bearings - he definitely made it to the island. Then he starts careful, careful explorations.