Goddamnit caste marks-- "Hold on a second, I need to leave the room to get rid of it--" and she steps out the door, walks in a small circle, and the pattern spiders decide that a new scene has started.

This probably has helped her case like, zero percent.

"Behold, weird metal from foreign parts." She hands it to him.

Witches have some license to be weird. Especially foreign ones.

The blacksmith investigates the weird metal from foreign parts with a few different tools. He scrapes at one coin with a blade, leaving no mark. He hits one with a hammer and totally fails to dent it.

...He's interested and impressed now. "Do you know how hot a forge has to be to work this? And are these all you have? Do you know how to make more?"

Yes this is working out okay.

Though it'd be way easier if Misho was around, he actually knows how to makes stuff.

"I haven't worked with it myself. The forge has to be hot, but not impossibly hot. I have a few more. The material is mined, and I don't think there's likely to be deposits around here. I could be wrong though."

"Could you point it out on a map - this could actually be very important, see, one of the problems with the new weapons for the demon war is that they tend to explode a lot. If there were a steady stream of this metal it would be revolutionary. You should bring these to the Metallurgists Guild in London."

Aaaah she just wanted to turn this into money and now she has to go all the way to London, and probably disappoint them because jade may not exist in this world.

"I don't know if I could point it out-- I think I'm from somewhere very far away, considering I've never heard of this place. Even where I'm from, it's somewhat rare and hard to mine. 

Is there a Metallurgist's Guild in Bristol? I'm headed that way. "

"They won't be as advanced as London's, but yes. If it's rare - well, I suppose one handful of miracle metal won't win the war. I'll buy these five coins off you for eighteen shillings. Make something pretty out of them. Twelve pence in a shilling, twenty shillings in a pound. If you're not from around here - one penny will buy you bread and soup most places, two pence will get you an inn room."

"Sounds reasonable to me!" And she exchanges the 5 coins for the 18 shillings.

She's probably got some time before she needs to meet back up with George, so she heads towards the Church to investigate the local religion (while pretending she knows about it, of course.)

The Church stands in the center of the town with a small garden around it, made of grey stone, solidly built. It looks like it's even been washed some time in the last few months. There's a tower at one corner that holds a large brass bell. The stained glass window over the large oak door shows a man with golden light shining from around his head, holding a book and a copy of the cross symbol and smiling down at whoever looks at it. The door is closed.

So, the building is important enough for the effort and water for washing it. The stained glass also has to be expensive: more evidence it's important. (More evidence that any screwing up might be bad. Very bad.) The cross symbol is widespread, and a book is involved. That's not nothing, but not a lot.

She knocks at the door.

(Some of the townsfolk are wearing miniature cross symbols as necklaces and the like, too.)

Another priest opens the door slightly and edges out and closes it behind him after a little while. He looks tired. "Hello, stranger. My apologies that I cannot welcome you inside right now. What need have you from the House of God?"

Welp, she didn't plan this far. Well, she did. Her plan was 'walk in, see if there is a book, read it, become more knowledgeable.' But no, she's going to have to pretend she knows what she's talking about and gently fish for info.

"I was planning to pray." Prayer is pretty universal, right? Not a weird thing to go to a church for.

Also God has a house? Is this a metaphor or what,

"Oh, I see. I'm very sorry. We are rebuilding the church's interior to meet the greater spiritual needs of Wellington as the community grows. Unfortunately, we've had to close to the public for most of the week. I regret the necessity, but this allows construction to proceed much faster." Indeed, building sounds are coming from inside the church, faintly. "I would be glad to see you return for the regular service on Sunday, or I would be happy to pray with you here, if you wish."

Okay, you know what, being foreign and confused has worked so far.

"Oh, I'm only passing through, I probably won't be here sunday. I was thinking more-- I'm from somewhere far away, and I wanted to see how churches were different around here. But I wouldn't want to interfere with the construction, or take up your time too much. I can always go to the church the next town along."

And here's hoping the pitchforks don't come out,

The priest is actually really excited to explain Christianity to a foreigner! God in his infinite wisdom and mercy calls upon him to spread the Good Word, after all. Christianity is definitely a monotheistic religion! There's a lot of emphasis on helping others and having faith that things will be better in the end, and how you will get into a good afterlife if you are virtuous.

The chaperones-having norms come from the religion - according to this priest the only reason one should ahem ahem is if you want children, though he dances around actually saying this, limiting it to vague comments about possibly getting 'more sensible' clothes. God uses angels instead of exalted as instruments of his divine will. He doesn't explain how witches fit into the picture.

Jesus Christ is some kind of avatar of God, and sacrificed himself and suffered for everyone, even those nasty- er, misguided heathens on other continents. The important book is the Bible and she can almost certainly buy one cheap, they're one of the first books the printing presses started mass-copying!

Yay, she can more effectively pretend to be Christian now! (Some gods would be bothered by their followers pretending to be part of another religion, but not Luna. She is the god of deception after all.)

And Jesus isn't a party god, that's a shame. She's going to make noises like she is going to follow the clothes advice, but she isn't actually.

...she's just going to mentally replace every instance of 'God' with 'the Unconquered Sun' and 'angel' with 'exalted.' That's probably not completely wrong.

And now, better equipped for Operation Lunar Operative Undercover, she's going to head George-wards.

George has a mostly-empty cart now. A few bundles still sit in it but there's more than enough room for two this time.

"Hello again. I made good time on the deliveries. Glad I didn't keep you waiting. You find what you needed?"

"Yep! I'm all set. And I can pay for my food and board."

That's a relief. He probably would've paid for something cheap, you can't just leave someone to starve or sleep on the street, but it'd have been annoying.

"Well, hop in and off we go! I heard something interesting too. I asked about the presses - the book presses - turns out it's a clever new invention! Have you seen, say, nobles' seals before? Stick them in ink, press them onto paper and make a nice neat mark?"

"I've seen them used occaisionally, yeah."

"The idea is - you make letters of those and arrange them and now you have a stamp for a page in a book. Stamp it a thousand times and rearrange them and do it again and again, and you have a thousand books! Really fast compared to copying them by hand! How clever is that?"

"I have a friend who'd love that." When they somehow meet up again, Misho is going to be so jealous. "Must be why the books are getting so much cheaper."

"Indeed so. I'm going to be buyin' books. I'll have a shelf of them before long! Like I was rich or something." He calms a bit.

"Your friend sounds smart. I don't know how you can find your friends, but I hear some witches can just know things. Pull facts from the ether and be right. Maybe you'll find one of them."

"Yeah, Misho is going to be jealous of that. He had a shelf of books, but it got destroyed. Somewhere where replacing it would be no big deal? He'd love that."

And ohohoh, a lead!

"I'll have to keep an eye out for that sort of witch when I get to Bristol. Probably the best way to find my friends." And blow my cover, but whatever.

"Well, Bristol's fifty miles from the inn we're heading for now. That's a day and a half of travel, I figure. So you'll be there soon enough."

"That's good.

Have you been to Bristol before? What's it like?"