In 20 minutes you will go to the Westlake And 7th southbound stop in Seattle, where you will be attacked by a snake. You will permit this, though you might set it up to die slowly. You will then receive my favor.

…Well, her goddess has her reasons.

She'll do it either way, but is it fated to go well for her, and does that vary based on whether she kills the snake?

Positive, not varying based on the snake.

In that case she'll grab some poison and go play it by ear.

That's a big snake, with a mirror for a mouth. Someone is already running away screaming.

Well, that oughtta die.

She'll nick it with a poison arrow and then … stand still … while it goes to bite her.

She finds herself at the same intersection, going by the street signs, but the surrounding buildings are different. One, a nondescript office labeled simply "Amazon", is guarded by two armored women, a human with a taser and some kind of snake creature with a labrys. Passersby don't seem to notice the guards, or in most cases even the building.

Thaaaaat's putting excess weight on the Veil though apparently she didn't catch it until she got bitten by the snake.

She can pass for a cosplayer but cosplay security guards are a stretch and a snake is a lot more elaborate than some green makeup (and tusks she keeps covered with a mask).

She'll approach.

The human is wearing a name tag reading "Janelle". The snake woman—who has green scaly skin, tails for legs, and no breasts—is "Savannah".

"Can I help you?" asks Janelle.

"Yes, I'd like to know why you're seemingly putting so much weight on the Veil."

"You mean the Mist?" asks Savannah. "Um, not to be rude, but have you perhaps not been on Earth in a few centuries? This is nothing for it, these days."

"I do most of my work on Earth! I get that humans have advanced a lot in costuming technology, but if you're playing the role of security guards then you should understand that most Earth companies don't allow their employees to wear costumes like that to work. A costume tail like that would interfere with job duties."

She sighs.

"Do you actually think this is a good idea or are your superiors just telling you to act like you think so? You can pass me along to them if you'd like."

Maybe she hasn't re-formed in even longer than Savannah thought?

"No, like, they can't see the tails. It's like the disguises the gods use to look human, that's on by default for all of us now."

Imrijka uncovers her mouth and approaches someone on the street.

"Hey, what do you think of my Warcraft cosplay?"

The guy looks a little confused.

"Uh, cool hat? Sorry, I don't play that game, so I wouldn't know who you're supposed to be or how accurate it is to the character or anything."

"Fair enough, and thanks!"

She heads back for the security guards.

"You win. I think I'm not on my usual Earth."

"There's more than one? Like in Marvel?" Janelle asks.

She turns to Savannah.

"Savannah, did you know there's more than one?"

"...no."

Turning back to Imrijka, Savannah says "Yeah, I think you're right about this being a problem for my superiors. Care to come in and wait in the lobby while I call this on up the chain of command?"

"Works for me."

The lobby is a small, cozy room. There's a receptionist typing away at a computer, an apparently unarmed and unarmored hunan woman wearing glasses and a name tag reading "Joy".

"Hi there! Feel free to have a seat while you wait. The WiFi network is AmazonGuest; password is snore hyphen scrap hyphen green."

The chairs are plush and comfy, and in a basket near each one there's a selection of newspapers and magazines: the New Roman Times (headline "Calydonian Boar Sighted in Florida"; subtitle "Third re-form of the decade?"), Man's World (cover model is a tall, slender, long-haired young man in a floral print button-down, makeup, and a collar; advertised articles are about fashion, parenting, and interior design), and the Journal of the Amazon Medical Association (promising jargon-laden explanations of the synthesis of drugs for human enhancement).

…she's already gotten out her copy of Undying Love 2: Red Kiss (a book with a pale man on the cover with fangs and a revealing outfit) but probably it would be wise to read the news. She can have novels time later. Maybe this universe has a similar but not identical set of novels.

She tucks it away and picks up the New Roman Times.

The boar article begins by relaying reports from the "mortal media" summarizing a string of incidents of escalating violence across the state of Florida. First is a building collapse in Miami attributed to shoddy materials and poor construction, that has cost millions of dollars in insurance payments and lawsuits. Next is a multi-car pileup on the interstate, attributed to a distracted driver who was texting in heavy traffic, that put several drivers in the hospital with severe injuries. Finally there are some grisly deaths at a nightclub in Tallahassee, attributed to a mass murder-suicide by a crazed gunman.

Several photographs, reportedly taken by an anonymous "New Roman intelligence officer" with a "Mist-penetrating camera", illustrate the real culprit of the incidents: a boar the size of a compact car. Its tusks are big even for its huge body, and are shown in the photos penetrating steel and concrete with apparent ease. It's said that "due to the locations of the attacks and the speed with which the monster moved across the state, it's believed that the boar is once again using the Labyrinth to travel, likely with aid from a third party or the maze itself to maintain geographic consistency of the sites of carnage".

The article concludes by explaining a joint operation by "the Twelfth Legion Fulminata" and its allies: "Delphi Strawberry Service"; "the Hunters of Artemis"; "Amazon, Vanguard, and other front corporations of the Amazon Empire". One aspect of the operation is "providing robust reputational and legal defense to the scapegoats". The other, and more involved aspect, is the deployment of arned guards to "monitor all Labyrinth entrances across the continent of sufficient size and appropriate operation mechanism to allow easy entry and exit by the boar, with a particular focus on containing activity in the Southeastern USA".

These guards have, apparently, successfully beaten the boar back into the Labyrinth on several attempted exits and saved mortal lives, but not yet killed it. One series of photos shows the monster surviving a lightning strike while an Amazon (she looks like Janelle, the human guard Imrijka saw at the entrance) stands by glaring; it's captioned "Amazon warrior Janelle Arden shocks the boar with Tesla's bolt". Another shows a pink-haired teenager with a Roman-style gladius talking (or maybe singing) to the boar, followed by the boar peacefully plodding away through a garage door, which when closed is shown to be spray painted with a big red triangle; it's captioned "Third Cohort centurion Alyssa Waters turns aside the boar using charmspeak".

A short bio of the author at the end consists of two small headshots of a middle-aged blond individual, one of them in makeup with their hair down in a feminine style and the other bare-faced with their hair hidden by a hat, and the caption "Norma(n) Brewer (they/she/he) earned their Roman citizenship through service in the Fourth Cohort involving a successful kill of a hydra, and graduated with honors from the New Rome University school of journalism. In their spare time, they enjoy swimming, duck and deer hunting, reading a good romance or detective novel, and role-playing games both video and tabletop."