Now she is stumbling at the mouth of an alleyway in a different city.

She is standing on smooth grey stone, looking out on a wide street made of red bricks, with grey stone walkways on either side and a thin space of grass and flowers in the middle. Tall brick buildings with huge glass windows line the street, with colorful cloth and metal signs hanging out front, some of them glowing with illusion. Wrought metal facades and bright lights show their contents, dozens of people eating food or talking, strange colorful rectangles, clothes strung out on mannequins, metal hand tools. The signs are no language she recognizes, angular and alien. The smell of rot from the large metal box behind her and the squeaking of a few rats who flee from the sudden intrusion mixes with a dozen other unfamiliar smells - tar, smoke, something woody, something like wet fur.

Soft violin music is playing from the building she is next to, which contains a huge array of chairs, tables, and cabinets for some reason. It hardly overpowers the dull roar of a city not paying much attention to silence all around her, conversation, animals, and machinery blending together into an omnipresent blur of sound. And the people wandering the street - hardly thronging it, there are perhaps a few dozen in small groups on a street that could fit hundreds - are all either human or some new species, that almost looks like an agerah if they learned to stand on two feet, and were close to human-size. The not-agerah are faster than the humans. One of them is carrying a single small yellow bird in a cage. Oh, wait, there's a Caralendri man over there, if the ears are anything to go by.

A curious box with wheels attached rolls down the street, a not-agerah at some sort of controls and two humans riding in the back. It's warm out, though something seems vaguely foul about the air here. Behind her, a not-agerah wearing dark green shirt and pants opens a door, tosses a bag of some sort into the metal box with a thumping noise, and slams the door shut behind them after looking directly at her for a moment.

Gah. Weird. She never really thought about how the use of illusions to talk privately was convenient for everyone who didn't want to eavesdrop. Although she does want to eavesdrop here, if only to figure out what's going on. Shame it's so hard to pick out just one conversation to hear and she's not even sure any of them would make sense if she could, there's no reason to assume any of the assorted din is in Ilan or Hari.

Fast furry caralendroids, okay, that's like something in an illusion show set on another planet. An impressively good one, to get them looking that realistic with that many divergences from their actors, but still. She touches a wall that wouldn't be there if this were an illusion overlaid on Anavel Sani. The wall is there so it's not an illusion.

A building with lots of furniture and music in it, visible and audible from the street, is likely to be a business or a public place. But she'll wait a minute and see if people seem to be going into it before she puts any weight on that guess.

Anyone looking at her, for a moment or otherwise, may find the sight very interesting. Her hair is illusioned in pastel blue and pink, although the dye job is old and all the strands that have broken or started coming in are platinum blonde. She appears to be wearing earrings, a relatively new and clean sky blue robe, and a gauzy blue mask that sparkles. (She'd've gone for a veil, and in fact owns a veil, but they're too flowy to be safe in Anavel Sani.)

She stands out from local fashion - which seems to be a lot of vest shirts with shiny buttons, long coats in dark black or rich red, and a wide assortment of hats. Obviously colorful hair is fairly uncommon on the street. Her mask is unusual here, nobody else particularly covers their face. Some of them have curious metal frames with bits of glass in them over their eyes. People will look at her for a few seconds at a time, or just a bare glance before looking away. One man lifts his hat off his head for a moment and says something with a slight smile before strolling past.

The place with the music next to her does appear to be a business. A human woman and furry man(?) head in, and another human walks to the front and starts politely talking to them, before showing them around to various bits of furniture. The seller is wearing the simpler, single-color clothes that the people who are obviously working - carrying food, stacking boxes, driving that vehicle that went past - seem to wear.

She takes her mask off and hides it in her pocket and steps into the building. She waits for the others to be done before trying to talk with the merchant.

The merchant says something to her, probably in the vein of 'wait', before returning to his other clients.

The other two will be a while, discussing different tables and demonstrating their features - heat for things placed on it, some sort of possibly-a-clock illusion, and some more confusing things, then writing some things on the wall with a long stick that paints black illusion - looks like calculations for cost, maybe - and transferring it to a paper when they're done, then going over a bunch more paperwork at a small desk off to the side before the couple leave without actually handing over any money or taking any products at this time.

After all that he will bow to her, one hand at his side and the other crossing his waist, repeat the polite greeting someone on the street said to her, and then make eye contact while still moving slowly and keeping his body language small and saying some other stuff.

The full-body gesture doesn't parse for her but the other parts of his body language sort of do. It seems like he thinks she's dangerous, with the odd mix of submission and staring. That's not uncomplicatedly a bad thing but she does want to convey that she's not currently interested in hurting him unless she's provoked.

It's not very likely that he'll speak Ilan or Hari but trying them both will, if it fails, communicate that they have a language barrier and that she's trying to communicate.

Why, yes, they do seem to have a language barrier.

He tries another language, and then fetches a book and tries five more, and then sighs exasperatedly and gives a thin smile and raises both shoulders and arms helplessly, looking steadily less patient.

She tries South Essi, a snake tongue which human mouths and throats were never meant to produce but which she can approximate, sort of, badly. And then that's it, she doesn't know any other languages.

Does he know a... how can she mime that she wants a knowledge mage? She tries gesturing at her head and looking confused, then mimes looking around. Maybe context will make it obvious.

He will sketch on the wall with the illusion pen a... Map? Probably a map. It has the local street and alley - he marks their current location with a little table and points at the ground several times. Then draws in on the map on the wall - she has to go right, then left at the first major street, then look for a building on the right side of that street about twice the distance to the first left (ignoring two more right turns) that he draws a strange - essi scale? - on. Or, apparently, talk to people wearing black and the same scale on their upper chest and this particular design of pointy hat.

That works! Does he seem to want something for this or is he directing her there out of his own selfish desire to see her interact with the pointy-hat-scale brigade?

He seems pretty insistent that she wants to talk to the pointy hat scale brigade.

Great! No need to pay him, then. She goes looking for the pointy hat scale brigade headquarters where the map says it should be.

She sees two pointy hat scale people before she gets to the headquarters!

They are escorting an angry looking man in heavy-looking manacles that restrict his arms along towards the HQ, and everyone on this somewhat-busier street is giving all three a wide berth.

Police taking the man away to be tried or enslaved or something, she assumes. Small chance they're instead people who sell slaves and would not mind the chance to kidnap an ignorant foreigner. Either way, she's not going to talk to those ones. They're busy. She waits for them to get several times her height ahead of her and only then follows.

They take him into the entrance of the HQ building, briefly talk with another officer behind a thick glass screen, and then pass through an intimidating looking doorframe with a visible blue glow with the prisoner.

The reception area of the police building is pretty small, with a few uncomfortable benches, some wordy posters in the angular language she doesn't know (the pictures include: A stern faced officer pointing at the viewer, a smiling man holding a metal hammer, a row of prisoners in cells looking sad, a strange long wheeled thing on metal rails), and a slightly sad looking potted plant. She's the only one here, now that the prisoner is gone. The officer in the armored box stares at her with a wary frown and asks a question in a sharp tone of voice.

"I don't speak any local languages," she says in Ilan, and then again in Hari.

The officer gives a loud sigh, holds up a hand palm out, turns around and fetches a paper book, spends a while paging through it, reads a page, glances up to make sure she's still there, grabs a finger quartz crystal from a desktop organizer, then makes a series of hand motions while saying things in yet another new language.

And then she hears - or, well, not with sound but as ideas - 

Miss, this is a one way communicative spell. It will last a few minutes. If you would like a cast as well, the cost is 4.5 tach of magic. Otherwise we will have to use yes or no questions. Hold out one finger for yes, two for no, three for maybe or four for 'something else'. Do you want to provide the magic for your own casting?

Does she want to - well, yes, but how? She's never heard of that. They must have different magic here.

She's pretty sure she still has her own magic, which doesn't work that way. Probably. She thinks.

Four fingers, and then after a beat she folds down two of them.

Sigh. 

Do you need to report a crime?

Probably but not to these people. Maybe. Unless the snake is one of their citizens and kidnapped her on purpose. Is that a crime or is it an act of war?

Three fingers.

I am not very good at guessing games, young lady. Are you sure you don't want to give up a little magic? I don't know what you've heard if you've been sheltered away from ever selling magic, but it doesn't hurt or damage you in any way. You only have so much to give, that's all, and it comes back.

...A crime against you? That you witnessed? That happened in this city?

Well of course she's not sure she doesn't want to. Fine, maybe the person will try to take it and then realize the problem.

Two, one, two, two.

Can you try to use charades to describe the crime, please.

Sure. She has one hand slither over to the other and bite it, then moves her other hand quickly away and swivels it as if it were looking around.

...What?

You were... Bit by a snake? And then got lost? You know what, screw this. Come here and I'll bop you with the spell.

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.

It's on your clothes? Hell, let's let you go into the wasteroom at least, get some privacy-

Veeka quickly ushers her there, after a brief and kind of hostile exchange with the bureaucrat.

That is shockingly friendly of them. Really makes her not regret deciding to be vulnerable here.

Once she's in the bathroom and has handed over her clothes she can get to work on... which piercing is it, she has one for illusions and one for protection and she's been assuming she's having problems because of the first one - since they need to cast a spell on her - but it could be the second one. Or it could be both. It's probably the one for protection against other people's magic, though.

Either way, she got both of them fused shut by a structure mage. It seemed like a good idea at the time since her threat model was someone trying to attack her and having a force mage unscrew her jewelry and remove it, and if she ever wanted it removed she could pay a structure mage for that too. So now here she is grabbing it by the little balls on the ends and trying to rip it out. If only it would not come across as insanely suspicious to ask for a knife.

Are you okay in there?

There is a pause and then a scream and then a string of what is not technically swearing but might as well be.

Veeka barges in, eyes scanning the room. Then she swears herself and quickly pulls out a small medical kit.

Oh, smoke and thunder. This is going to sting a bit but it'll be quick, okay- She rinses the wound with water and then a little bit of antiseptic and then more water, then slaps on a wide sticky bandage onto it. This process hurts.

You had it actually implanted? Wish I'd known that, could have prevented some bloodstains. That's honestly clever, such a shame you have to do this, it's not really fair but that's life you know? More wound-cleaning with rags taken from her little belt. She tries to get some of the blood off Saira. It... Doesn't really work That doesn't look too deep, so you'll probably be fine. Here's some more rags, the sink will give you water. I'll - leave you be now. Why don't you clean up a bit more and hold your hand out the door when you're ready? I'll have to recast on myself too, this is about to expire... Ugh, that's a lot of my mana allotment...

Veeka goes out the door, flustered and muttering, accidentally brushing Saira with her tail as she leaves the small room

These people continue to be shockingly friendly, she notices on several seconds' delay when her brain starts processing things again.

If she ends up having to take the other one out too she's going to be so mad. Hopefully some government will track the snake down and torture them to death, though, and then that'll be fine.

She cleans the blood up a bit. She holds her hand out the door, with three fingers up because she isn't completely sure it'll work now but - assuming magic works similarly enough here, which is a big if - then even if her illusions get in the way the spell should stick and she can just take the other piercing out without them needing to recast the spell. And she is really, really hoping she doesn't need to do that anyway. That would suck. This already sucks.

Veeka does the same long chant and taps her hand. And-

It's obvious that she can send thoughts to other people, now. For a fewish minutes, steadily ticking down. There's no mental indication of how, exactly, one does that, but it is an obvious fact about the state of the world that she can.

Oh, I think it worked!

Testing. Can you hear me?

I can hear you. Now we can actually make some progress.

I am from Anavel Sani in Har. A snake with an illusion of a mirror over its face ran into me and teleported me here against my will. I'm a trained inheritance mage and a free adult but not familiar with the idea of sharing power with other people or with this kind of translation - where I'm from, it's done the opposite way: people use magic to become able to understand, rather than able to speak. Not that I can do that myself anyway.

I see. So you're - not a wizard, it's an innate power like Gnoll strength? You might have less mana production, then. There are other translation spells, this is just the one the police know as a matter of routine, in case we have to give instructions to foreigners. I've never heard of Har, but the world was broken not too long ago. There are lots of places I wouldn't have heard of. Inheritance magic is your useful skill? I'm not really getting a clear picture of it yet.

I can alter - and to a somewhat lesser extent directly perceive - the material that is passed down from parent to child that causes adopted children to resemble their biological parents more than their adoptive parents. So not things like being taught your parents' language or something, but having their fur color, being tall or short - I can't directly alter an adult's height but I can alter the height a baby will grow into; I can't alter the color of someone's grown-in hair but I can make it start coming in a different color. I've never practiced on a gnoll before, though, only on humans and caralendri and beluli and I trained for agerah and ereli but I haven't had a client who was one of those yet. And some plant species, I sometimes help some hybrid seeds breed true, but I have no idea if you have the same crops here. I expect I'd be most able to make money off of treating humans with genetic diseases if you have a way to verify that that's what I'm doing.

Wow. I guess that depends on how many people have a genetic disease and can actually afford to pay you. Giving rich people better babies- You could be a millionaire in a month like that, if you actually had a reputation for it.

Yeah. Any idea how I can prove I'm legit?

How about this. If you let me cast a spell that monitors your mindstate for signs of deception - it's illegal without permission or suspicion of a crime, normally - and then say that you really have this skill, I'll go take on a huge risk to myself and get a payday loan and give it to you, get you on your feet, in exchange for you paying me back a small part of your earnings for a while until you hit some fairly large multiple of the loan amount. I'll help you figure out monetization too, where I can, since that gets me more money faster. If you can't do it, I'm screwed over just as hard as you with a debt I can't easily pay back, but if you can, that much money will hardly matter to you at that point. Sure, I benefit a lot too, but you need money to make money, yes?

These people have been shockingly good to her so far, so she's more inclined to get herself into debt than she would otherwise be.

I might need to take out the other thing to let you do that - do you maybe have a knife so I don't have to rip it out, by the way, I didn't try to ask before because why would you have given me one, but now you know why I want it - my other thing should block divinations like that. I was kind of worried it might block this spell, actually. Um, but assuming it works, I'm - probably okay with that idea but I want to pin down exactly how much I'd owe you and exactly how long I'd be paying it back over and how much help with housing and getting food is included in that price. And how much your best guess is that I'd have left over of my earnings while paying the installments, I don't want to end up having to borrow more for some small thing and then end up taking out loans to pay the loans I took out to pay the loans I took out to pay the loans and so on. 

Yeah, I'm thinking. This one worked, but I wouldn't know if the other one would. You can borrow my knife if you need to.

I can get maybe ten 100s Kromer from a payday loan place, probably at a long payoff rate damn the interest. Maybe a bit less? My salary is not amazing but it's considered a pretty stable job. That's... A rowhouse bunk will run you 10 Kromer a week but they're incredibly bad, you'll need to be presentable, you'll need lots of miscellany. A moderate budget would be maybe 100 Kromer a week between a decent place to live, food, and keeping yourself presentable, plus 200 to get settled in one time. You could probably get that down to 50 if you really needed to. If we make some kind of deal I'll be happy to spend a couple hours each day situating you or helping with this and that - when I don't have shifts of course. Free of charge because this is a big investment for me that's going to be a big part of my life, and I don't want you getting into trouble that means you can't pay me back. 

I'll want 50 Kromer a week after the first two weeks if we can swing it, to start paying back the payday loan. Gonna be lean living for me for a while. Long term, I want something like one-of-ten of what you earn with your magic until you hit whatever end cap we agree on. Until the total amount paid to me over time reaches whatever limit, I mean. If I'm essentially acting as a manager or something by that point - I don't know if that will make sense to do in a month- Here and now is not a great place for a long contract discussion, honestly, the local manager is glaring at me pretty hard now. I'm going to have to bribe him to forget this trouble, ugh.

Tentatively agreeable pending further specifics. What do we do to get the local manager to stop glaring?

We go up all politely smiling and I apologize for the trouble and give him 10 Kromer as an apology about how I brought in a girl who is bureaucratically inconvenient and cut herself in his bathroom, that's all. If we don't they'll find some rule to keep that temporary visa from you when we come back after the loan place.

Oh, is that the kind of place this is. I can try to smile politely.

Yeah, you'll find that a Kromer or ten makes everything much faster. Can't make too much of a habit of it, of course. So that's our tentative agreement until we get it down officially, which we can probably do tomorrow. You all cleaned up in there?

Sort of but more blood keeps coming out.

If that field dressing's not cutting it I need to do a couple firstaid spells on you and redo it and probably get you to a doctor, too. More startup expenses, but there's nothing for it. May I come in for those firstaid spells?

Depends on our exact tolerances here, you can come see if you think that's worth it. Bearing in mind that my clothes won't stain unless they rip and they probably won't rip either. I wouldn't be worried about it at home but I don't know if it'd be a catastrophe here if I got a little blood on something.

She peeks in, nods, and pulls her head back out.

Yeah okay, that doesn't look urgently life-threatening, you're right. We'll want to keep it clean and hit it with antiseptic every few hours though. At this point I don't need to verify that you can do what you say, the mask and robe would sell well enough for you to pay back my payday loan in the unlikely event you're actually just insane or something, so we can just head out and get you settled.

Sure. And I'll, uh, try not to look like trouble. She can follow wherever she's supposed to go at this point.

Veeka bribes the local manager and also the front desk clerk and gets Saira her temporary visa application form. Veeka starts filling it out for her, explaining what's on it rather quickly (spell's running out and it's expensive to keep renewing, she mentions)- It wants her name (Saira), her reason for being in Beseren (starting a business), to know if she has committed any crimes (no, she writes without asking), to know if she intends to pay her taxes (yes), to know if she has any relatives in Beseren (no), to know who is vouching for her entry into Beseren if anyone (Veeka is), the current date, and then her signature at the bottom saying she agrees that the government of the Beseren Federated States is legitimate and to obey all applicable laws, and pay her taxes in full and on time.

If her signature needs to be in the local language she can try clumsily to copy how Veeka wrote her name.

Where exactly do I go now and how long do I stay there?

You follow me to the loan place and wait while I get a loan and maybe buy some more mana off someone, this spell's expensive, then we get you a rowhouse room for the night - or maybe I should just invite you to sleep in my place, reduces the chance of you getting stuck on something and unable to explain yourself or ask for help, what do you think? Tomorrow I'm off, luckily, we can go down to the university to pay some poor magic student to shove some basic Rellan into your head, I'm pretty sure that's a thing. Or something that's better than what we're doing now at least. We could even try that tonight, actually, better to get it done as soon as possible I think?

She does NOT want anyone to shove anything into her head. But she doesn't seem to have much choice right now. She's so conscious of how she has absolutely no protection against anything right now.

Sure, that all sounds fine. You have a guest room or are you thinking it's worth me sleeping on your floor to stay out of trouble?

Well, there's a couch, which is better than the floor at least. And the clock doesn't stop. C'mon, after the loan place I have to go get yelled at for escorting you instead of coming back right away, so you'll be on your own in my place for a while.

Veeka heads out the front door of the immigration office, now that Saira has a temporary visa.

Yeah, a private room was probably too much to hope for. She's not sure if she wants to know if the couch is hidden at all, it's not like she can do anything with the information.

She'll just go ahead and follow Veeka wherever.

Seedy looking loan place with a grumpy middle aged teller and bars across the window! Paying someone for mana! Heading back to the police station for a minute so Veeka can explain things to her boss! Then back to Veeka's apartment, on the fourth floor of a brown building that doesn't stand out from the rest of the brown buildings (no elevator). There's a small combined kitchen-and-living-room with a couch and faded pictures of more Gnolls hanging on the wall, a tiny bathroom, and a tiny bedroom. There's an odd smell in the air, some kind of plant?

Veeka opens a large white plastic box full of frozen food in the kitchen and looks at it consideringly.

Think you eat the same kind of thing our brand of humans do?

Seems likely and if I don't I don't know how I'd find anything to eat here.

Veeka starts cooking. Dinner will be:

Sliced bread with a bit of butter spread on it, two fried "chicken" eggs each, some unfamiliar fruit of two different kinds (small sweet berries served cold, a long brown pod that gets grilled and then opens to reveal vaguely savory mush), and a steak, the majority of which goes to Veeka. She doesn't have any of the sweet fruit or bread, though.

Veeka probably hosts humans often. That... isn't weird, they're not a small minority here.

Bread is... an interesting experience, and one she wouldn't mind repeating sometimes.

...Saira is not sure what polite dinner guest behavior is but it probably starts with eating. And then, uh... maybe Veeka will give her a hint...

I think maybe I should hear more about what kinds of magic you can do, Veeka 'says', conspicuously refraining from 'talking' while also chewing on anything.

Making kids better, changing hair colors, curing some specific diseases... I don't know a lot about crops but you did mention plants...

She can go on at length about that.

The hair thing is probably the fastest to implement, it's - there's already a market for hair stuff, easier to find customers and easy to verify after a week or two.

I want to make you more comfortable with Beseren though, have you got any pressing questions? That's part of my 'job' with you honestly.

Way too many to know how to prioritize. What's the local magic like?

I'm guessing you mean wizardry, it's the big one. Technically there's species magic and then there's wizardry, which any intelligent being can do - it's easiest if you're in the elfanoid body pattern - The concept is more or less 'humans who look like caralendri' - you know, hands and eyes and a voice. So the way wizardry works is by defining limitations in the grammar of the magic language until you have something narrowly specified enough it does what you want. The more you narrow a magic spell the less mana it costs. There are both gestures and words for it, and there's a bunch of extra complexity on top of that, I'm a cop not a magic developer. Anyway, you can put magic into objects called spellframes. They remember the long complicated spell and cast it on their own, as long as they have the mana. So you can just buy a self-heating stove and feed it mana instead of fussing with coal or chanting heating spells yourself. The key thing to remember is that really specific magic is cheaper and easier and figuring out exactly how to do something without costing enough mana to buy a house is the big hurdle for new spells. That's why this translation spell only projects thoughts and does not also read thoughts. And even that is apparently really hard and it's supposedly incredibly impressive that some genius wizard got it down cheap enough for cops to use when necessary.