"I don't know much about it either and I don't know how to find out. If I find a possible buyer I'll try to get them to suggest something."

Would there be laws on it listed like the laws he showed her? Would someone at the government building know? And at the least he did mention contracts earlier.

Such a person might have motivation to not give entirely good information, but it would be some information, so. Seems reasonable to ask.

If there's some way to market this, she supposes she could also try working as a very limited knowledge mage who can tell people if they're fertile or pregnant or some ways they're sick or not. 

"There's a market for that. All mages are limited, you can't learn everything before you die. Which kinds of sickness can you detect?"

So in humans the two major factors are how far along it is and how long she spends with a person. She can generally get more detail by spending more time around them (it doesn't have to be quality time or anything of the sort). A thing she's generally less likely to be able to do is to sort out a variety of bacterial and viral infection from each other, though here that seems like it might be less of a problem.

But - she's actually fairly good at this; she's quite good at using discerning sense and she happened to get a chance to practice this. Things she can discern include various cancers, various hormonal disorders and such, a variety of 'such and such organ is not operating exactly correctly' (diabetes, for example), infections. Internal injuries. 

She's not sure how much will carry over to non-humans, as well as not knowing if they even have the same illnesses (though there's some things she would at least expect to be similar enough). If there's some kind of opportunity for her to walk through a hospital or the like, she can try to see about it. Especially if he knows anything about other species' illnesses and can tell her.

"Depending on how long it takes you to tell, it would be really useful if you warned people about distemper and white death before they have symptoms. Those mostly affect beluli, agerah and essi. But I don't know how to get you access to a lot of sick people to learn from. If I knew how to arrange that it'd be a decent job for you when you run out of things to 'invent'."

How long is the period between getting it and symptoms? Is it developing without symptoms during that time? She doesn't know what distemper is. Is white death tuberculosis? 

Alright, she will keep that in mind. And work on paying attention to people when they practice going out; see what she can read.

"I don't know how long it takes for symptoms to show. Distemper's awful, they cough and vomit and have fits and diarrhea and sometimes die. White death is a fungus that grows on reptiles and kills them."

Is distemper viral or bacterial or something else?

Alright, she does not know either of those in that case. If there's a way she can see any sick people she can see what her discerning sense might give her about it?

"I don't know which of those it is. Iri?"

"I don't know, I'd need to know someone who had them."

"But there might be a way to get you information about sick people. It'd be conspicuous but I might be able to think of something."

Probably not worth doing something conspicuous right now?

Does this world have hospitals and such? Or doctors whose office they could hang around outside?

"Yeah, but people will definitely notice us hanging around. It'd be kind of rude, we could pay patients but..."

Ah, understood. No doctors offices near something it would makes sense to be near? Or hospitals that might need someone for a day job?

"Maybe. If I knew more about medicine maybe I'd know of jobs that don't need death or structure or force magic."

Oh, what's the force magic used for?

In the hospital she was in some menial jobs were cleaning and fetching and carrying; she doesn't know how the hospitals here work though. 

"They use force magic to move things that you can't easily grab onto and move around another way. You know, like if someone decides to use something unusual as a dildo and it gets stuck. Or sometimes they can get to someone who's choking fast enough to save them. Or people that can't cough well enough and are dying of it. Anyway, I can look into nonmagic jobs that would let you get close to sick people, just because I don't know about them doesn't mean there aren't any. I need to find a new job anyway."

Ah, understood. Useful.

And, not very time critical, she thinks, but that sounds like a plan. And meanwhile she can start paying more attention to that particular area when they go out.

"Finish the tide table first. And then rubber."

(Alpha instincts continue to not give useful input.)

Of course.

She'd like to practice going out parallel to working on the tide table, though. 

Valanda offers her a few coins. "When you want you can go out. Buy yourself something if you want. Don't draw attention and don't do anything stupid. Don't let anyone overcharge you, don't fall for any scams, don't forget to work on the tide table."

She thanks him on all counts. (It's obviously more useful to go out with him at this point in time; feedback and all that pedagogical value. But it's not something she's going to push on. And she's handled picking up customs and the like herself before, if not in another world. And having money is also very useful).

She will absolutely be careful and conservative. What kinds of things might draw attention/be stupid? How would she know if people are overcharging her? What are scams and signs of scams to watch out for?

She will not. In fact, varying activities is likely to be beneficial to her productivity. 

(Soon enough she expects she'll be used to this particular dynamic of managing/not taking not-useful advice from her Alpha instincts, as she got with the dynamics of slavery.)

"Don't buy things you don't know how to assess the quality of, I guess. Don't agree to any deals where you pay now and maybe get something later. Don't buy things you can get for free. Don't buy things from someone who's breaking a law and don't trust anyone who says they can keep you from getting caught if you break a law for them. Don't give away anything you could sell. Don't interact with people if you don't have to."

Understood. Just to clarify, what kinds of people breaking laws might be trying to sell something to her? And, what can be gotten for free?

"People might try to sell you stolen goods. And you can read the laws for free and learn Hari for free and there are some diseases you can sometimes get treated for free, especially in a city like this."

Understood. Is there a way to tell if goods being sold are stolen?

"Do business in public places without illusions. And buy things from people who have other customers."