Jana rolls her eyes at Friedrich. "I think people would be more curious as to what you were doing if air didn't give you flight. There is a level of visualisation here. You need to know what you want the element to do. And you need to feel how it's doing it."

Hmm... 

She concentrates, and imagines the air swirling around her, ruffling her hair.

There is no immediate effect-

Her hair ruffles very, very slightly, but that might just be the local weather.

"Oh, and don't be worried if it takes a while, took me days to learn anything."

"Time periods," Jana sing-songs. "You want 'weeks'." She looks over to Melissa. "It varies, and he wasn't exactly focusing on that fully. We had other things to worry about at the time."

"I can see how this would be hard to discover independently..." Melissa says, still concentrating some, trying for now detail this time.

"Fastest I've heard of was... five hours? And that was someone trying to escape jail."

"...You shot her, didn't you?"

"She had just killed five people. There was a reason she was in that cell. And I did what I was hired to do and kept her alive. I don't advise using brute force to escape from a cell by the way," she says off-handedly to Melissa. "Subterfuge is a better option," that sounds like she has experience on the matter.

"...I'll keep that in mind. Is needing to escape from cells a problem? ...For that matter what's likely to get me thrown in a cell, I don't know the local laws..."

"It isn't really. Jan here just had an...interesting childhood. As for laws... don't take things that aren't yours, don't harm anyone on holy ground, don't kill anyone unprovoked, and if you have to kill someone, make sure you have evidence for why you killed them. Don't break into someone's house. Basically anything a relatively decent moral compass would say was bad don't do? I'm sure there's a few nuances I'm missing, but there's specifics that vary from fief to fief and if you're not local, or can do a passable impression of someone not local, most guards will give you the benefit of the doubt and let you off with a warning."

"Okay."

"That's the waystop just up there," Jana points to a building to the left of the road.

It's a quaint building that appears to have been added to as need required - not all the extensions quite match. There's a second, blocky building that is probably a stable, and a wooden fence surrounding the entire place. There's a few people obviously in the middle of doing maintenance and chores moving between the two buildings.

"You're probably alright for talking to others," Jana says quietly. "But if they ask where you're from, just say 'the south', your accent is close enough that most people won't be able to tell you're not."

"Alright."

Friedrich leads the way into the main building, and taps the counter to attract the attention of the man behind it. Who looks less than impressed.

"What ya want?" he sounds bored.

Friedrich arches an eyebrow and immediately his easy-going nature's gone. "I was looking for a bed for the night for me and my companions."

Jana shifts, sliding her rifle off her shoulder and settling it into her arms. The man's eyes flash to it and widen.

"Don't think he wants to serve us, boss," she drawls, accent different now, thicker.

"Well that's just rude," Friedrich notes clinically.

"You're-" the man starts, and his eyes sweep to the rifle again. "How many rooms were you wanting, sir?"

"That's better. Two will do, thank you. A suite would be better if you have one, and dinner."

The rest of the transaction is relatively smooth, and while it's likely Melissa has no real concept of their money, there's probably enough indications that the price they are getting is far better than average.

Soon enough, they're ushered into a comfortable, if small, sitting room, with two doors off it. The innkeeper is being grossly obeisant now, and it's clearly grating on both Friedrich and Jana if the way Friedrich curtly dismisses him is anything to go by.

"...Were you threatening him?"

"Depends on your definition of 'threatened'," Friedrich responds. "We're just kinda leveraging the fact that that rifle of Jan's mark's her as a sniper from...let's just say a pretty prestigious cross-fief unit. They're pretty well known, and only they carry guns from this particular maker. And they're basically...the entire reason the desert border held before the fiefs down there managed to make peace with the tribes."

"It affords us a little more respect than two wandering vagabonds."

"Vagabonds? Jan, I think I'm offended!"

"So... Kind of like pointing out you're soldiers? ...I think I might have the wrong reference, the only soldiers we have work for the Wizards. Only position that really carries automatic respect and not just outright fear is being a Steerswoman."

"I mean, there's kind of a threat implicit, that unit has a whole host of respect from other people, and other soldiers to boot. Soldiers don't, on the whole, mind roughing it too much. And they will blacklist an inn if someone puts out the word that the proprietor has been being disrespectful. But we're close enough to the desert here that the innkeeps know that without Jan and her lot, they wouldn't still be here. The tribes were...not happy with what the fiefs attempted to impose."

"So... Border guards? I'm not from anywhere near the Outskirts, guards might carry that respect there. Those're mostly local forces, though, nothing overall organized."

Jan gives a wicked grin. "We all nearly got court-martialled for the cross-fief thing."