"It's possible there's some anti-impaling-people-in-the-square interest group we should be learning about, in the city."

That is an excellent idea! (Why didn't Tanya have that idea?) 

"You're right, we shouldn't do anything without knowing the public sentiment. After all, there wouldn't really be much point if absolutely nobody in Taldor agreed with us." Tanya doesn't want to get involved with what sounds like politics in an alien culture, it's not an especial competency of hers, but it pinpoints the correct action and the reason why Tanya might not be able to take it. Vigilante action can't solve anything if there isn't even any public support behind it.

"I mean there'd be the point of skipping however many hours of misery each guy is in for, but if they're even slightly good at identifying actually bad behavior to punish by impalement I'm not sure it's always going to be an improvement, demons are also pretty good at doing torture."

Yes, but it would be so dispiriting to admit there is no hope of systemic change resulting from their actions!

"Demons are - the ones invading the Worldwound - you think criminals go to an afterlife in the Abyss where demons torture them?" This is depressingly familiar. Belmarniss said the Abyss was the 'chaotic evil' one of their nine afterlives, which sounds like the bottom circle of Dante's Hell. Those who do evil in service to the law are damned, but the worst torment is reserved for lawbreakers; that way both Church and Crown are happy.

"I think chaotic evil people do and criminals are probably disproportionately chaotic evil to the extent the laws identify bad and disruptive things and make them illegal and the justice system locates people who did those things."

"And so their response is to torture them ahead of time? ...no, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be snarking at you. I do hope the justice system is doing its job of catching and executing the right people." Probably they're not executing scapegoats, because all the people the locals hate are conveniently of other races Tanya is allowed to dream. Let this country be cruel but just, that is enormously better than the alternative. The belief of torture in the afterlife is, as usual, not actually helping anything.

"Well, it'd be expensive to let everybody see how they fare in the afterlife and they might take a while to get there."

Who, us? Put up a diorama depicting the torture of the sinners in Hell the Abyss? Don't be ridiculous, it hasn't been considered edifying cost-effective for centuries! Besides, we might have to wait until the Last Judgement or something to avoid being accused of libel! Not everyone can be a Dante. But don't worry, you'll get to enjoy their suffering when you're in Heaven!

"Indeed," is what Tanya says dispassionately. "Well, there's still hope for better conditions in Cassomir." Civilization and technology start in cities, right?

"Yeah."

Cassomir comes into view on schedule after they come through the surrounding swamp. The tallest building is a church of Shelyn and the runners-up are also churches. It's got walls, and sprawl outside of the walls, and a shipyard that smells weirdly sweet, and street urchins, and people hawking fish and vegetables and pocketwatches and hats and candles in the cobbled street, and narrow alleys and free halflings and posh humans and rowhouses.

Finally, a (small) city! Clearly not a modern one, but it might be well on its way there. Tall churches stay around for many centuries after people stop building new ones, and they are very pretty if you ignore their original meaning.

The sailships are a testament to ingenuity. People who can build something that complex (and also cheap pocketwatches) can surely work out how to make steam engines, once the principle is explained to them. Tanya doesn't have to reproduce the entire thing from memory, she just has to convince them it's possible and worth trying.

Do they have accommodating lodgings for drow guests?

The first place they try doesn't want them but the second one will look them over and offer an affordable gouge.

Ugh. "What do you think, is this place safe and merely expensive?" Tanya doesn't really have a sense of prices in the city and is only reacting to the fact that the first place turned them away entirely.

Shrug. "Probably? I don't see how we'd find out besides trying it. We could shop around more if there's something you're looking for based on knowing more about humans or anything."

"I don't know the kind of humans who'd attack me in the night. And humans are notoriously bad at understanding foreign cultures. I can tell if they're being rude or hostile, but I can't tell 'we don't like you' from 'we might rob and murder you about it'. As you say, we have to give them a chance or we'll never get anywhere."

"Here it is, then, the soup smells good."

All right! And then they can go out and see the sights. Bakeries? Libraries? Convenient guides for newcomers that list the general prices of things and the local landmarks? Government offices and local big businesses or industries (the shipyard is clearly one)? Things that jump out at them as they walk the streets (possibly literally?) Any clues as to how Tanya could earn money more quickly than building a radio?

The biggest library appears to be attached to a temple of Nethys, which is mostly library by volume and also contains acolytes who are notably curious-in-a-friendly-like-way about Belmarniss when she walks in, though perhaps not everyone would react with such equanimity to questions about eating babies.

...Tanya takes her words back; she does not know if these people are being deliberately rude, just that they clearly are. But she's not Belmarniss's guard from social dangers and she's certainly not going to tell her to leave a library if she wants to stay. Maybe the acolytes will disperse after a few minutes? If not, she could try talking to them to take the heat off Belmarniss but she can't really talk to all of them.

(Why does every useful social institution have to be attached to some religion or other?!)

"The last time my family had a baby for dinner I wasn't on solid foods yet," Belmarniss is explaining, "so not me personally. ...Message. Tanya, they'll wanna hear about you being from another planet, you could tell 'em and charge them for answering more questions or something."

"I don't think it's to my advantage to advertise this to random people," Tanya whispers back. "It will draw attention from the authorities, and perhaps powerful individual actors, and I don't know yet who I can trust or want to work with."

Her orb is active (obviously she isn't going to power down her shield!) and this is detectable at short range by the local mages, but going by Belmarniss's stories Tanya thinks she has a good chance of selling it as 'foreign magic' and not literally 'offworld alien magic'.

Well, a Nethysian is certainly staring at it real intently now, though he hasn't verbalized an inquiry about it yet.

In that case Tanya isn't going to verbalize an offer to explain!

(Looking intently at an unfamiliar spell is normal mage behavior outside of combat situations.)

Eventually, though with a longing look at Belmarniss's offer to trade a downstairs cantrip for a common but higher circle spell she doesn't have, he meets Tanya's eyes. "What is it?"

"A flight spell, and a personal shield." She demonstrates by moving up and down, quite sedately. The trick (which may or may not work) is to tell them the parts that she can't and won't try to keep hidden, and convince them that's all there is to it.