The brain points out you are presently in a flying ship several thousand feet above the ground until you decide otherwise so exploring isnt that useful. Although there is a rumour of a black dragon not far to the north that you could testyour ship against.

Other allies worth considering -

The Elhugomtanians, a race of hobbit sized aliens with advanced metalworkign abilities

The Snarkars - walrus-monkeys from the far south

Ivor the Three Legged Panda of the Apocalypse

The Bozog - a super itnellgient slime race from the west

The hiralgis - a race of deaths cap mushrooms obsessed with tapdancing

The ArcLeviathans - the biggest organism on the planet, sea dwelling weighting around the weight of mont blanc each

The Tin dwarves - thinner more sickly versions of normal dwarves with steely grey hair

The pansy-ents whom you encoutnered briefly earlier

The Nugachi-Wu - soem orang utan samurai

Pete and Sandra Jones - an all american couple who live near the equator