Emote plods around the room, setting up various cameras. One camera must already be on, likely a drone as the sound of its hovering fills the air. Finally Shulamit takes out a tray of fossils, and carefully picks up one from the small box.

Say what do we know about this fossil? It's the serrated sakirtana! Again! What have we learned? Nothing!

Emote looks grumpy over this before it soothes itself, its ruffled leaves laying smoother once more.

Say well. We know it has a biiiiig tail. Very flat. Very useful in lots of water! But we discussed water last time. Drone, place information about that recording somewhere.

Emote (The drone buzzes around, making a confused chirping sound.) does not seem to have noticed the drone has done absolutely nothing of note and instead the drone zooms in on the fossil.

Emote (The fossil appears as such to the drone, “Pressed into sedimentary stone, the curling and hooked shape of a claw or fang of some kind has been immortalized in veins of shimmering milky opal and preserved chitin. Though its color is pale and its fire is muted, it nevertheless strikes a rather eye-catching contrast to the dull stone around the specimen.”) picks up the fossil, nodding at it as it does so. “A good strong fossil!” it says. The fossil crumbles a bit in its tendrils. “A fossil!” it says.

Say it smells of old old dirt, dirt that is deep underground. You know, the good stuff. Delicious dirt.

Emote nods to itself, crumbling a bit more of the fossil as it inhales the scent. “The first aromas are, of course, desert. After all, a desert is like...over top all these fossils, hoo hoo.” It continues to nod as though this is a deep insight.

Say however, deeper down, are the minerals! Hoooo the minerals. Old minerals! Oceanic minerals? Well, sometimes. Phosphorus, copper, zinc. You know, those ones! Not much gold here though.

Emote leans into the fossil, obscuring the drone's view before it repositions itself. The fossil looks worse for wear, the opal now very scuffed and showing tiny cracks.

Say so what causes the opalization? Water! Well. Hoo. Water going down through things, and picking up delicious silica! I use to snack on silica wafers as a sapling, the nice lady gardener would give them to me. She liked watching me just munch on them as she munched those sliced vegetable chips, what were-

emote stops as the drone bonks into Shulamit's canopy, telling it to stop rambling about more recent ancient history than the thing they are looking at.

Say Hoo, right, yes. Opalization happens because nature is very cool.

Emote (the drone seems unsure this is the answer, but) ignores it.

Say we also think the fossil had...wigglers. Yes, hoo, w...wigglers.

Emote (the drone beeps, bringing up a half formed DNA reconstruction - “Armored plates bristling with protective spikes, this elongated crustacean crawls along the sea floor on four powerful pairs of segmented legs, or swims with surprising agility using a fat, fan-tipped tail to scoot backwards through the water. It has a dozen or so tiny-” and the reconstruction gets very fuzzy.) nods. “See? Tiny wigglers! Very...wiggly, those dozen of...” it trails off, clearly unsure what the dozens of things are, as the reconstruction keeps trying to figure it out as well, but can't.

Say well. Well. We keep getting more fossils, so eventually we'll figure it out, right? Hoo? Now where is the fossil, I need to put it back.

Emote looks down at the fossil, now considerably worse for wear. “Well, hoo, it is still here. I'll just...have a taste of the dust. I'm sure it'll be fine.” it says, as it places the now much more cracked fossil into the case.

emote reaches up to the drone, ending the recording abruptly.