I want to develop them more. In another draft I might introduce them earlier and show a performance, maybe in conjunction with the dancing. I had been thinking I ought to worldbuild something, but didn't get around to shoehorning them in until this bit, and in this bit I was full of fretting about the pacing so I had to dash off after Events to try to keep the story moving. So... They'll definitely get refined and expanded. I was really enamored of the idea of them being not so much balladeers or entertainers as, like, digital culture archivists and DJs, kinda. I imagine they collect and distribute news as well-- most settlements probably get brief radio bulletins and probably summaries by bird message, relying on travelers to fill them in on further details-- and maybe I'll worldbuild in some small data chips so that expanded media and news could be shared by pigeon, but the troubadours are going to be the ones who have the context and can explain what's going on and such. So it'd be important for them to be of an elevated societal context, and independent from the wealthy or powerful.