Elderra Cosmic Circle 3514.
Place of observation: A suitable settlement of below average size, on a star called "Bantour" by the natives.
My first encounter with them was weird to say the least and their initial behavior intrigued me. As one of the first sentient races of beings I visited, their actions were not what I was expecting.
This group of supposedly sentient beings almost attacked me the moment they saw me. Of course, I saw them far before they saw me, and until I closed on the distance enough for them to spot me, they were shouting amongst themselves a lot. They were probably arguing about what food they will eat, because that's what they only do, eating and excreting. A fact that I deduced from observing them from afar until then.
Well, back to the main topic. When I reached calmly at their wooden door, they stopped arguing about what food they were going to eat - most likely because they finally figured out their dilemma over it - and faced me while holding their wooden bend sticks. Although one of their pointy twigs did land pretty close to me, I simply let it be without seeking an explanation, thinking that the person who threw it was most likely very hungry and by his appearance he had weak limbs, truly a pitiful being.
I kept silent, watching them staring back at me with their vision organs fully open. When they shouted a few of their words at me a couple of times and I didn't answer back, they stayed silent. It was long until they got tired of the staring game and, just as I like to believe, also grew very hungry - I could see them trembling and sweating, they truly needed to consume something, or they might collapse where they stood - that they finally decided to open the door for me to pass.
All the while I walked past it and through their settlement, everyone I passed stared at me so intensely that I started considering if these beings were more on the savage side than the sentient and logical one.
But as nobody pounced on me with their teeth, I rejected that hypothesis.
When I got to one of their dirt roads, bigger than the others, I saw a multitude of the beings present, gathering and walking among themselves. Because of their sheer numbers I decided to dampen my presence for this place as to not have them all staring at me and disturb them of their activities.
Walking now mostly unnoticed through the mass of beings, I could see many of them confining themselves in wooden cages of some sort. In front of them, each one had different items. Some had tree fruits of their world in small boxes of each kind, some had little metal trinkets with flower decorations on them neatly arranged on a cloth piece. Others with a construct that kept a fire going next to them had pointy metal sticks, big square blocks of both metal and wood, and many more.
In every wooden cage with different items, the beings self-imprisoned in them were yelling at their fellow beings that passed them by as if they couldn't hear them if they didn't shout loud enough. Some of them even yelled at me as I passed by them, moving their hand over the items in front of them, with a few even managing to spit their mouth fluids in their effort to shout even louder.
That kind of erratic behavior spurred me to reconsider their overall evaluation and add to their characteristics an amount of above average craziness.
Leaving them to continue spitting their mouth fluids nonstop, I acted the only reasonable response against crazy beings, which was to simply ignore them. I never stopped to listen of their yelling, trying to make as little eye contact as possible.
Moving away from the crowd I slowly reverted my presence back to normal.
As I walked in the settlement, with the beings avoiding me and only staring at me, one of them suddenly came crushing on me seemingly out of nowhere. Of course, I saw him - I think it was a male - in time, but his motion of twisting the body upon contact, outstretching his upper limps towards my makeshift native attire, made an impression to me, speculating it to be a special greeting of some sort.
Eager to reciprocate the first ever greeting I received by sentient beings, I followed the same actions to the letter, only a split native second slower than him. When we both were done with the greeting, his back facing mine and with a little distance between us, I found myself holding a small leather container with some round metal pieces inside.
The same but fake one I had over the leather strip of my attire was gone. Figuring that the greeting also involved a mutual trading of items, I simply tied it to where I previously kept the fake one and mentally recorded the unique exchange.
These beings continued to intrigue my curiosity by doing something unexpected every now and then. Deciding to stay with them a little more and observe them, I continued my walking in the settlement and at the same time, gathered data about their mannerisms towards each other, and of how they lived and interacted in their community.
One part of this data was how every being in this settlement had a specific construct made of stone and wood, where they would go for rest or consume their food. Also, in each of these specified constructs, only a particular number of beings were entering with all the others entering other constructs.
The rate of entrances to such constructs became increasingly higher the more time passed. The star providing the light for these beings was setting through the horizon, so their time of rest was getting near.
As I wanted to extend my visit in the settlement, I headed to such a construct, which was bigger than the others. Any rule of entry the other constructs were following was nonexistent there. I saw lots of beings entering, signifying its uniqueness.
Entering it, all the beings speaking, yelling or eating, stopped what they were doing and stared at me in silence at the same time. I immediately brought out my archive log and took notes.
"Hmm. Possible telepathic or hivemind ability which would be really rare having with their simple minds. If they are also crazy, as in previous indications have shown, having such ability would probably lead to their destruction or the destruction of others in their race future."
Under their constant stares I found an empty chair - which was an object they use to sit on - and sat in silence. In front of me was a round piece of wood, with its round surface at the height of my lower thorax. I later found the word for it, a table. The beings here used it to place varying items such as food. Having myself nothing to place I let it be without using it. After staring at me for a while, they resumed their conversations and activities, but at an obvious lower volume.
I sat there and observed them. There was a lot of noise; a mix of different voices sounding together. Many of them were standing around others who were sitting, and a few were going everywhere back and forth transporting food and - by what I learned in my travels, a concoction made by sentient beings who had a decent community established - alcoholic beverages.
There were a lot of interactions and different actions happening in this large gathering construct, which enriched my data on their race.
One such action was the use of different shaped metal pieces, similar if not the same as the ones in the leather container I received earlier, to exchange for food and beverages.
In some instances, I even saw a couple of the beings go to a wooden confining space, almost the same as the ones outside, situated at one of the four sides of this place.
There, a single individual of the race was surrounded by many containers of beverages, both at his back and in front. He was probably one of the important members of this settlement because any food or beverage going to the other beings was passing by him first, and all the metal pieces exchanged for them went always to him.
The couple of beings who went there themselves, gave the individual a few metal pieces and then following one of the food and beverages transporters, went up by what they call stairs, only to disappear behind a wooden door as they are called, and never to be seen again.
After I stayed where I sat for a while longer, I decided I had gathered enough data about their activities there, so I stood up. Immediately all the noises stopped, and all the beings began staring at me again.
'What a fascinating response' I thought. I wrote it again in my notes as I proceeded towards the important individual. I was very interested to know where the other beings disappeared to and why.
The important individual stared at me with intensity as I closed in on him. When I got to his enclosed space, water droplets could be seen dripping from his head. I at once took out my archive log yet again.
"Hmm, as an important individual maybe he is also different in composition in some ways than the other members of his race." I wrote down as I spoke out loud.
I also took notes of his immediate reaction of his visual organs enlarged and he started trembling slightly.
Finishing my input in my archive, I withdrew it and took the leather container I had on me. Opening it, I randomly picked a few metal pieces after a native second and placed them in front of the special individual.
His reaction speed at the time, which I got to record, was quite disappointing for a unique member of the race such as him. He stared at me for a couple more native seconds before he looked down at the metal pieces. I also thought he would understand my intentions of giving him the metal pieces, but the confused look on his face when he looked back at me told me otherwise.
'Hm. Maybe the unique percentage of this race is more inclined towards practical skill mastering than intelligence.'
Without any other option, I made a few simple motions with my hand, which any being with an intellectual capacity would understand. I first pointed at myself, then at the metal pieces and lastly at the wooden doors.
Following my movements like a simple primate beast, he finally understood what I wanted. He took the metal pieces and called one of the food transporters to show me the way. As I was going up, they all kept staring at me in silence, right up until the moment I entered through the appointed door and closed it behind me.
Through the wooden door I could hear the noise beginning again, this time however it was significantly muted. Behind the door I found myself inside another smaller confined space, but not like the others I have seen. This one was large enough to move around inside it a bit and it had four wooden barriers, which I later learned were called walls, hiding anything outside of it, instead of the piece of wood I had previously seen which had the height of half of the beings with items on it.
Inside there were four small wooden constructs.
"They sure love their wood material"
Two of them were a chair and a table, just like the ones I sat on below, another was cubic like container with sliding parts and the fourth was a long and low wooden frame with a different material inside it. The first three were plain or already known to me, so I moved towards the fourth.
Touching the material inside the wooden frame, I found it to be very similar to the one I crafted my attire from; based always on the earlier observations I made of their life from afar. It was some kind of fiber, a little rough on the touch but still soft enough to be suitable for wearing. Investigating even further, I found a softer and cooler fiber cloth beneath it.
"This is very similar to some nests of creatures I visited before, where they use softer materials for the place they rest on. That means that this is a place of rest for those who don't have a specified construct of their own or just a temporary stay for those that pass by this settlement."
"I fall in these categories, so I will stay here as long as necessary and collect data about their rest environment"
As I recorded down the details of the environment, I laid on the resting place to collect more in-depth data, staying there until their period of rest will end.