That... isn't even going to work, even if she could pay for it. Or is it? She's got some exceptions for illusions, so she can dye her hair, and knowledge is its own thing that defense magic can't block. ...But will her anti-scry block it? Well, there's only one way to find out for sure. So, sure. She can go over there and get bopped with the spell.

Bop.

Nothing seems to happen. The officer looks surprised, and then a bit angry.

That drained an entire crystal and failed. There was at least 30 tach left in it! What are you playing at? I'm going to need to see your identification papers.

At this point she is going to be sold into slavery. She could maybe have gotten away with avoiding it if they'd known about the snake and had the ability to communicate with her and she hadn't hurt anyone by accident in her ignorance, but now? Now she's screwed. Remaining question: does she want to make a probably doomed attempt to maybe kill this person in revenge? Advance revenge since she won't be able to afterward. Prevenge. Whatever. Maybe... not yet, not until anything anyone else would find objectionable happens.

She pauses while she's thinking this and then turns her visible pockets inside out. No papers, just a mask and a pocket notebook and pencil and some loose change she hasn't strung yet.

The cop says some grumpy sounding things.

You are required to carry identity papers while in the state of Beseren or any of its substates. You are lost, aren't you?

Listen.

Did you knowingly and intentionally enter the state of Beseren without submitting to proper immigration procedures?

Something about this question seems carefully phrased.

She's not going to be enslaved! If she were, they wouldn't be asking this question, they'd ask if she was working for someone else or not ask anything at all.

She holds up two fingers.

Then we're going to escort you to immigration and let THEM deal with all the paperwork, okay?

She holds up one finger and nods.

Great. You can be someone else's problem.

The cop in the guard box calls over another officer, a young not-agerah woman, who looks a bit confused. Then writes some things on a paper and hands them to the new officer while lecturing in a stern tone of voice.

Veeka here will take you to the immigration building and hand you over for processing. She won't be able to talk to you but I'm sure immigration has something for that, like we do. Probably.

Nod. She'll follow Veeka, then.

Excellent! 

Veeka smiles cheerfully once they're out of the station, walking fast back the way Saira came. Veeka tries to figure out some way of communicating. Maybe pointing at things and naming them will help? Not-agerah are Gnolls. Humans are Humans. That tree is a tree. And so on.

Okay. She'll have to learn this language at some point and maybe in a few months she'll be able to explain what happened to her. If she wants to by then. If she's alive by then.

She repeats the words under her breath and tries to decide whether she'd rather be enslaved or dead, and whether she'd rather risk seeming uncooperative or lose all her wards.

It's maybe a ten minute walk. The first floor of the large office is filled with a long series of booths where bureaucrats are shuffling papers. Her escort asks something to the guide near the front, then has a bit of an argument - the gist of it seems to be that they're in the wrong place. Veeka pulls out her badge and looms threateningly with it at one point but the bureaucrat is unperturbed. Soon she gives up and starts leading Saira somewhere else.

The neighborhoods get steadily less nice, with much rougher and smaller looking houses, people in worse clothing and more furtive glances, badly degrading roads and animals in the streets, and the smells getting worse. They pass an especially large building that is emitting large amounts of black smoke from two tubes coming out the top.

This new immigration office is a single story structure that looks thoroughly dingy and has a persistent foul smell coming from somewhere. The bureaucrats here look even more listless. Veeka talks to them for a while, looking increasingly frustrated, then eventually casts the one-way thought spell again.

They say it's too late in the day to start processing you. I tried to get you a temporary visa but there's a fee involved for that, paid up front. I know it puts you in a bad spot, but I can't pay that and have you owe me later even if I wanted to, I have to pay rent. Without a visa, you can't work or reside in Beseren- Immigration has temporary housing that doesn't require a visa, but there are fees for that too. We're hundreds of miles from any borders so we can't just expel you either. I don't suppose you have anything valuable on you? Or are willing to reconsider selling [magic/mana]?

"Mana" comes through differently, with a different person sending the thought. It's the thing that everyone generates and can be moved from person to person and is consumed to cast magic.

Yeah, they have different magic here, obviously.

She takes her mask out of her pocket and offers it.

Veeka and the bureaucrat both perk up in surprise.

What are the sparkles made of? Is that diamond?

Two fingers for no. Diamonds would be neat but actually it's an illusion. Most clothes sold in Anavel Sani are lighter and less covering than they look, unless they're enchanted cold.

So it just looks very fancy? Veeka squints. I see magic on it. Illusion? Does it draw mana?

Yes, no.

Illusions aren't surprising. Active power draw wouldn't be surprising. They can do translation, one way, the opposite of the way Hari knowledge mages can, and they can see illusions. The most important questions she has about it are whether they have inheritance mages and whether they can verify that she is one; if the answers are no and yes then they have a reason to want her cooperative. Otherwise... not so much.

Okay, well you could probably sell this but I don't know how much you'd get and again, I can't actually afford to buy it from you and resell later- And I can only escort you for so long before I have to get back to actual patrol. We have to sort you out before that, one way or another. Anything else? Any useful skills, maybe you can get a payday loan - though without a steady job lined up maybe not -

One finger for yes.

Well, okay, but there's still the problem of you not being able to talk back.

One finger for yes!

I'm running out of ideas on that front. I don't know what could cause the spell to fail unless you have some weird wards on you. Oh hey, maybe you could sell your time to a university professor as a curiosity or something. I have no idea how to set that up though or if it would even work.

...Does she want to take her clothes off and rip a piercing out? Not really. Does she want to give up her wards? Also not really, although - they haven't tried to actually take her into custody. They're trying to offer her a place to live. It might be a good idea at this point to do that and -

- and then what? They might not even have enchanted items. They might think it's completely inexplicable. It's not like they've managed to point to the abstract concept of translation and tell her what it's called, or anything, so how would she tell them to try again? Or her skin could be too strong and she might not be able to get it out. Also she'd be bleeding then.

One and one. Yes she has weird wards and yeah sure whatever maybe a professor will be more useful.

Okay, well, there's your problem I guess? Veeka is looking kind of exhausted at this point. Take your wards off and you can explain yourself a bit, or I guess your other option is to try to find a pawn shop and probably get cheated horribly for your mask and get that visa. You need ten Kromer. Or have me come along so you look less suspicious and give me a cut - out of uniform, maybe, I don't know. The other option is that I have to go book you in as a criminal for illegal immigration.

She exercised literally no agency in being here! They should be booking the snake for illegal immigration! Ugh.

Fine. She starts taking her clothes off so they won't get blood on them. She has a decoy earring but her actual magically protective jewelry is a collarbone piercing, currently invisible.