Aly is on her scooter, rolling its wheels along under her to bump and roll through the streets of Lapis, to pick up somebody's unwanted sackful of kittens. They're sinking their entire materials budget into startup costs for Aydanci's medical golems, which need to hold up and self-sterilize and can't be made out of twigs, and once those are up and running they should bring in some cash and they'll be able to get more storks in the air now that the proof of concepts are flying, but right now things are tight and kittens are free and petted ones will sell.

She scooters around a pothole, and turns a corner, and scoots straight into the maw of a thing, if you can call it a maw, and, blank with shock, appears - somewhere.