New world! This one feels similar to Earth, yet different. There are supposed to be an infinite number of Earths, she knows, but she isn't sure about how much they vary.

She adopts her regular human form and puts on a simple and unornamented blouse and skirt outfit. With leather shoes, which regrettably she did not make herself. Leather requires tanning and she hasn't figured out how to do that yet.

She sets her Memory of Flesh timer to be three days, and then she sets up triggers in her skull so that she can very quickly abort the expedition by committing suicide. With those preparations made, she steps through the bridge. She doesn't have the skill some Conduits have of being able to peek at the other side, so she does so completely blind.

What is on the other side?

She has come out in an amber field of grain, swaying gently in the breeze. The place is flat, as far as the eye can see. Mountains, blue with distance, lurk in the direction opposite the sun. A tractor quietly rolls along perhaps a mile to her left, and a small cluster of buildings sits in the other direction.

It's so idyllic! She has half a mind to turn into a bird and fly, but this is a public place and she might be watched.

Is the grain ripe? What type of grain is it? She is powerless against plants and she doesn't have eidetic memory for their forms, but she knows enough about basic Earth plants to pattern-match.

She walks in the direction of the small cluster of buildings, though if there are any paths or whatever she'll go to them first to avoid trampling on the crops.

At this time of year, the grain is newly growing, not much more than shin-high. It looks to be an unfamiliar cultivar — the bran and the germ are both larger than typical cultivars, for all that it is still clearly wheat. If she can identify that sort of thing from immature wheat.

She can reach a path — running straight, unpaved but marked with tire tracks — that leads her right to the cluster of buildings.

As she approaches, the structure of the buildings becomes clearer: there is a big barn, two grain silos, and then a series of small two-story buildings set out in a semi-circle around a large central yard. An adult human and a number of children are running around in the yard holding brightly colored sticks above their heads. The walls of the buildings feature large windows and plenty of irregularly spaced hand-holds. On the other side of the buildings, an array of solar panels swivels to track the sun; below them, some non-wheat plants grow, in the form of various shade-loving vegetables.

She would expect a different world to have different wheat. She recognizes that the bran and germ are bigger but can't figure out any more information from it.

She will walk on the path to the building cluster. She has no idea what the hand-holds are or what they are for. When she reaches the other side, her eyesight is sharp enough to notice the very slow movement of the solar panels tracking the sun. That's amazing! It's giving solarpunk realness.

Can she identify the shade-loving vegetables? She will also touch them to scan them, even though this is not centrally in the remit of her powers. It will take about half a minute for each one.

There are a few types! There's a small yellow nightshade that is probably an un-bloomed tomato? And three different cabbage cultivars, looking very different: tall, celery-like stalks with brocolli-ish crowns, deep red spherical lettuce, and a larger-leafed variety that smells a bit bitter.

One plant with tiny purple flowers doesn't look like much, but scanning it will reveal it to be a tuberous root vegetable. Two different types of bean (black and yellow) twine around snow-white spring snap-pea blossoms.

This whole area under the solar panels is laid out in a much more compact way, clearly designed for manual care and harvesting, rather than the geometrically-even machine-threshable wheat in the surrounding fields. It probably takes as much manual labor to harvest this smaller garden area as it does to harvest the much larger fields.

She's far enough away that the kids don't particularly take note of her, so she can inspect the vegetable garden at her leisure.

What language are the kids speaking? If this is an Earth, it could be a language she knows...but probably not. Are they saying words? Her hearing is very keen and she will be able to hear them if they're speaking normally at this distance.

Also, can she see any larger settlements from here? She is not, on this scale, constrained by visual acuity but foggy air and obstructions will stop her from seeing farther.

The kids are speaking an unfamiliar but highly rhythmic language. Or maybe they're just chanting. It's not entirely clear what they're doing with the sticks, really.

Luckily, this area of the planet is absurdly, startlingly flat. One-fourth tau radians widdershins of the distant mountains, at a distance of ... 50ish miles, perhaps, there is a sprawling city with some buildings going up about fifteen stories. There is a smaller settlement one-sixth tau radians widdershins of the city at a distance of 65 miles. No other settlements are immediately visible from her current vantage point.

Well, they're probably playing some sort of game. Or dancing. So that makes sense. She doesn't bother trying to interpret it for too long.

It's convenient that it's so flat. Maybe she isekaied to this Earth's version of Kansas. Toto, I've a feeling we're in Kansas right now!

She wants to go to the sprawling city, but walking would take forever. She's going to go back into the fields of grain and crouch so that she's completely covered, and then shapeshift into a hawk. Her bird form has to be big enough to contain her brain — whenever she does this, she puts her brain in the abdomen because she doesn't really like. Need. A digestive system. And because it won't fit in the bird head.

She will fly toward the large city. It will take her a little more than an hour to get there. Is there anything interesting to see? Is the landscape and infrastructure perceptibly different from Earth?

It is!

For one thing, there are approximately no cars? She can see delivery trucks moving around in the city, and tractors moving around in the fields, and a bus making the trip from an outlying settlement to a larger one. But based on the high-speed train moving containers full of grain sunwards, and the additional tracks she can see around the edge of the city, transportation relies more on trains than it does on the typical Earth.

Also, the fields are laid out on a hexagonal grid. On Earth, property is often laid out on a square or rectangular grid, and then circles of well-watered crops become apparent because the simplest at-scale plant hydration solutions operate in circles. This wastes a bunch of space at the corners of the field. On this planet, the fields are hexagons, which is closer to a circle and so wastes less space.

The buildings in the city are apparently climbable — there are people in safety harnesses going up and down them, only a few of whom are washing windows as they go.

Everyone appears to be wearing colorful sashes. One section of the city is set off from the rest by decorative cloth screens, and a handful of people look to be having sex in a park in that area. There are occasional airplanes, but these look pretty typical from the outside.

Oh, the city is laid out on a hexagonal grid too! And all the streets are one-way streets (for vehicles) meeting at one-third tau radian intersections.

With vision as good as hers, she can probably see a lot more detail about any of these things if she cares to.

Wow, she loves this place already. There are trains, but are there trams or buses? Are most streets simply barred to vehicles? Do people go around in smaller personal vehicles like motorcycles, scooters, bikes, or electric wheelchairs? How do people cross the blocks hexes? Are there tunnels or overpasses or crossings?

The hexagonal grids are so cute! This world understands that hexagons are the bestagons.

Ah, so that's what the handholds are for. She wants to try climbing a building. Well, later, once she stops flying.

Do the colored sashes appear to correspond to anything? Can she deduce anything about the sashes based on what the people wearing a specific color are like, or are doing? How many colors of sashes are there?

The sectioned off area for cruising is amazing and she is in love with this city. This kind of smart, walkable, mixed-use urban architecture would be illegal to build in her home Earth.

Are there any areas in the park or elsewhere that are accessible to her as a bird but could conceivably hide her if she transforms? Or for her to vanish into her Bevin and then come out as a whole human.

There are some busses being used outside the city proper, in the lower-density surroundings. In the core of the city things are approximately barred to vehicles — the delivery trucks seem to be limited to just over walking speed, and frequently have to wait for pedestrians. There are not designated pedestrian crossings, people just cross the street wherever. It's not obvious how people travel longer distances in the city, until she notices people vanishing into and emerging from subterranean areas in waves. Probably most journeys longer than walking distance use some kind of metro system.

Many of the hexes do have tunnels through them, though! Either because they have private gardens in the center, and there are tunnel-like accesses, or as more of a mall-like thing where the first few floors of the building are all shops and businesses. Either way, people can walk in from the street and then exit from the other side of the building a few minutes later.

The colored sashes are a little hard to guess, but she can observe some patterns and facts about them:

Everyone has them, even young children. Some people wear them over their left shoulder and some over their right shoulder. Nobody speaks to people wearing red sashes. People wearing pink-and-purple sashes tend to be wearing less other clothing, and what they do wear is form-fitting. People working in stores dominantly have purple sashes. Kids disproportionately have green or brown sashes. Adults who are not working are disproportionately wearing blue or rainbow-with-intricate-knotwork sashes. She notices people nodding respectfully to a woman in a golden and purple sash as she walks down the street. One particular building has people wearing white sashes and scrubs; no other buildings seem to have white sashes.

The complete list of colors is: White, Brown, Purple, Green, Blue, Red, Rainbow, Pink, Pink-and-Purple, Purple-and-Black, Purple-and-Gold.

There are a few handy copses of trees where she could land as a bird and transform, sure. Or, given that the buildings are climbable, she could duck behind an HVAC exhaust vent on a roof. (Some of the roofs have little cafés and things on them. Zen gardens with raked patterns of gravel also seem popular.)

Oh, is this a caste based on color type of deal? People who labor and do service jobs are purple, the leisurely aristocrats are blue, and the ruling class are gold. And the reds are untouchables who must not be spoken to or acknowledged in any way. She read a series about this once, she thinks. Though she notices it's not an absolute rule, once she looks enough to see exceptions to each. So she thinks it is not, in fact, a caste situation.

What are the sort of clothes people wear? Do they match with their sash colors? The state of the grain and the weather suggests to her that it's summer, here. And that the climate is temperate.

The accessible roofs are great! She hasn't quite decided to land yet, but she mentally notes down where the good spots are so that once she decides she wants to go somewhere as human, she can pick the closest one.

Are the people who are in the Sex Area wearing sashes? If so, what color?

Under their sashes, people wear robes, kilts, long-sleeved shirts, and light, swooshy skirts. They wear sandals or soft cloth shoes. There are a few people in pants or shorts, but they are an extreme minority, and mostly in purple-and-black or white sashes. The colors of the clothes does not frequently match the color of the sashes. The clothes tend to be darker and less visible than the sashes, although many are covered in embroidery.

A close look at the materials might actually suggest that clothes are ... designed to be hard-wearing, and then worn for a long time, perhaps? There are plenty of people with visible holes or patches on their clothes, some done subtly, and some done with contrasting colors for decorative effects.

The people in the Sex Area are wearing all sorts of colors, but a majority are in pink sashes (or pink-and-purple). Except for the few people who are completely naked, or naked except for pink collars or posing pouches. The people who aren't wearing pink mostly seem to be there for reasons other than sex, such as purple-sashed clerks staffing stores or red-sashed people walking home.

The Sex Area is fairly small, compared to the rest of the city, but it also isn't only dedicated to sex. That's the most eye-catching activity, perhaps, but there are also people dancing, busking, eating in chairs set on the sidewalk, and so on.

She notices the fact that people are wearing clothes with holes and patches, some done in a contrasting style, though she needs to actually touch and examine the garments to notice their design. It seems that it's more acceptable to wear mended clothing here than on Earth. She likes that!

Ah, so it's not just a Sex Area but really more of a Sexy Area. Or 'place you can be naked in' area.

She thinks she's figured out enough about the color scheme to know that pink means "open to sex or sexual activity" or something along those lines. And purple means "providing some service to the general public". So those two together would be...prostitute? Maybe?

She's going to find a convenient set of trees in the pink area to fly into as a hawk and then disappear into her Bevin. She'll make and wear a two-piece thong bikini made of pink silk, with white canvas shoes. She'll also create a sheer scarf made of the same pink silk and then drape it across her shoulder in a manner similar to a sash, though it doesn't connect at the end. She lets her knee-length blonde hair hang loose. And then she reappears.

What's the design of the park like? How big is it, and how tall are the curtains? Are there patterns on the curtains? Are there children in the area?

The park is hexagonal — to fit with the block layout — and centered around a currently unused open-air amphitheater. There are some fountains providing water and water-noises, and scattered copses of trees that seem optimized for keeping the area cool in direct sunlight. The curtains (which are visible a block or so down the road) are about two-stories tall, but they're also not continuous pieces of fabric; they're several independent strips, so bits of the rest of the city are occasionally visible as people move through them or the breeze blows. They only come down to about four feet from the ground, anyway.

The curtains are printed (on this side) with a festival scene, showing people primarily dancing, but there are sex acts tucked away in the details that only become apparent if you look.

There are a few children here, but not as many as in other areas of the city. All the children here are wearing green sashes. All but one of them seem to be overseen by an adult in green, who is pointing out some detail of a fountain. The other child is wearing a green sash and a spikey green headpiece with two symbols on little springs coming out of the headband to wave in the breeze. They are frowning over a detailed charcoal sketch, trying to capture the way a man eating strawberries across the road is gazing down with a warm expression at the guy sucking his dick.

Also, more obvious from close up: these people don't just talk with their hands, they're actually signing. Blowjob-guy is signing something longwinded and one-handedly at his ... partner? Friend?

At his blowjob-ee, anyway.

Ah, she would have thought that the curtains went all the way down to obscure it. But it seems that this culture is much less concerned about hiding sex, especially given that children are allowed in the area. She mentally notes that green sashes seem to represent being a student or a teacher.

Sign language is great and she wishes more people did it. Even if you can hear, having the ability to talk silently or while your mouth is occupied are useful. Also, sign languages are interesting linguistically. She will, like the sketching child, look at the scene and try to figure out the signs based on how the other person reacts to them. Are there any other people who are signing? How common does it seem to be?

The teacher is simultaneously signing and speaking aloud, actually!

Now that she's twigged to it ... it looks to be about half-and-half signed and spoken, actually, although the teacher is the only one doing both simultaneously.

The couple chatting about their work days does not really give enough context for her to pick up more than the basic grammatical structure of sentences, at least not without magical Conduit powers tipping the scale. That said, the grammar seems pretty regular? And if she's already familiar with some sign languages, she may notice that they're doing the typical-for-signed-languages thing of using relative locations in space plus pointing for pronouns.

She does have magical Conduit language powers! But it can only do so much for her. She does know enough sign language to notice that.

She feels like observing the teacher to find the correspondences between their spoken and signed languages but she should focus on picking just one up for now. Probably the spoken language since she's more familiar with spoken language in general.

She'll walk over to the stalls. What are they selling? How do people buy things? Do they use gold or paper or plastic or some sort of electronic payment system? This will also be a good opportunity to learn numbers, though it'll be harder if they do it electronically and there aren't any physical things she can look at being exchanged.

The places right on the park itself are mostly selling food. A few are selling towels, baskets, and various glass bottles of mysterious gels that might be lube or might be sunscreen. Or moisturizer. Inside the buildings and down the streets away from the park are places selling clothing, glassware, jewelry, leathercraft, furniture, shoes, books, rope, and a dozen more things that are not as obvious just from looking at storefronts.

People seem to be paying using their phones — usually worn on a lanyard around the neck, or tucked into an internal pocket of a sash. The phones look a good deal bulkier than Earthly phones. They tap them against a particular symbol and then take whatever it is they're buying.

She can spot one person paying with paper ... probably. Or they're just bringing the clerk a paper and getting merchandise. They seem to be joking with each other, so they might just be friends.

On the other hand, it is a good opportunity to learn numbers, because prices of things are clearly labeled with short strings of what are clearly digits in context. There are six different digits, and some comparison can probably give her some idea of which one is which.

They have a senary number system! That's so cool. Though they do have the standard human ten fingers.

She wants to try out Foreign Earth food but she has. No money. And she's too bad at the language to try to convince some person to buy her food by being pretty at them.

The phone lanyard thing seems kinda uncomfy given how heavy they look but maybe you get used to it.

Are all the shopkeepers here also wearing purple scarves? Also, she will try to see what the procedure is for signaling that you want someone to have sex with you. Aside from wearing pink.

The shopkeepers are wearing purple scarves, yeah! Except for the ones wearing purple sashes and less revealing clothing.

Wearing a pink bikini and being pretty honestly seem like pretty good first steps? She's getting a lot of people extending their hands at her finger-first and moving fingers up and down in a wave, anyway. Which seems based on context plausibly like either an invitation to conversation or a wolf whistle?

One man in a sensible pink-and-blue striped kilt, pink scarf, kneepads, and nothing else waves at her and signs:

"['A' handshape held palm out, rotating through 180 degrees to be tapped against the left side of the chest] ['B' handshape, fingers pointed at Dorcas — probably some variation on 'you'] [Extended index finger curled through a downward circle to point at the speaker — plausibly some variation on 'me'] ['V' handshape held palm-out to the chin, tongue making lapping motions]. [Tilted head, rapidly vibrating open hand swept toward near-by fountain]?"*

It is at this point that she might recognize that, although about half of conversations are spoken, they almost universally start signed, unless someone is carrying things.

*Translator's note: For readers confused by the sentence structure here: Dorcas has landed somewhere that they speak Smaller Continent Official Language, so the grammar doesn't match Larger Continent Trade Language.