As it turns out, there are a number of game shops scattered around the city, catering to different niches. Some places just sell games, but many have a sort of private-library thing going on where you can pay for a day pass to hang out at their tables and play any game they have in stock, as long as you don't damage anything. One of them happens to be holding a strategy card game tournament today, actually.

Weiss looks up intro guides for the game that the tournament is of on the way to the event, tail wagging slightly.

Megi's tail also wags, raised into the air somewhat, as she idly fantasizes. Faces, hands, bare skin touching...

What? Festival? Maybe after she finishes this shield talisman...

Central River City is not laid out on a nice simple grid.

The citizens would really like it to be, but different parts of the city were built at different times, with different ideas of how things should be laid out. Also, the hills impose certain practical limitations on possible layouts.

But it wouldn't be a þereminian city if they didn't try very hard to make it navigable.

So neither Megi nor Weiss finds it particularly difficult to figure out how to get where they're going. The subway has large, colorful maps, and their phones can talk to the local Network to get positioning data and advise them on the route.

Once they're away from the carefully curated diplomatic team and out in the city at large, there are a lot of people. Many of thew gawk a little bit at the Kitsune — and also at the several hundred other people dressed up in clothes that mimic Weiss's, and fox-ear headbands of varying believably. The fake (and real) Kitsune quickly spread out from the park where they all met up, inundating downtown with a wave of people speaking Notal and decimating the local baked goods population.

(She amuses herself by giving a few dozen folks who look at a glance like they might find it funny or cool illusory animated fox tails that will last a couple hours. They feel warm and fuzzy, even!)

And Megi goes to 'The Chilling Point' via subway, having politely asked someone for directions rather than use the phone (which she's not used to)- Still in her Very Pink ensemble.

As it happens, the percentage of people wearing pink accessories in her train car slightly but noticeably increases as she makes her way toward the club. A person with a pink fuzzy collar and a short blue dress sits down opposite her on the train car, and ends up getting off at the same stop. When she gets to the top of the subway stairs and starts looking around for her next direction, they sign something at her and wink.

Anyone who has tried to visit a club in a small city during the day on Earth might expect The Chilling Point to be fairly subdued at this time of day. Fortunately, þereminians mostly don't believe in staying up late when they could just do things during the day instead, and there's a steady trickle of people headed in and out. The club is just down the street from the subway station, at a corner where three roads meet.

On the opposite side of the road, nearly across from her, is a shop decorated with pink curlicue designs and featuring a manikin tied up in red silk rope and suspended above the sidewalk in lieu of a sign. 

"I'm sorry, I don't know that sign... But I can make several guesses~"

Ooh, that's some nice rope. How would it feel on her skin...? She finds herself drawn in.

The person from the subway internally curses not taking their friend up on his offer to study the alien's language together, but waves cheerfully at her and heads off in a different direction.

The shop is pleasant, brightly lit, and completely dedicated to sex toys. They are roughly separated by function, and range from the probably familiar (rope, candles, wax, floggers, blindfolds), through to the recognizable-but-made-with-unfamiliar-materials (dildos, gags, body stockings), all the way to the completely unfamiliar (strange ring-shaped devices, things in foil packets, long metal sticks).

There's a shop attendant sitting on a stool behind the counter at the center of the shop, reading a book. She starts to say something as Megi comes in, and then looks up and switches to somewhat stilted Notal.

"— sorry. Hi! I'm Shopkeep Evevertin. You can look around. I can answer questions about the things. We have lots of things that are for sex. But I am ... my Notal is not very good today. I am trying."

"Oh, you're fine... It's hard, I know, and I do appreciate it. Gosh, there is a lot here..." She's trying to restrain her impulse to hide behind her fan. Adventure! She can indulge and not be embarrassing everyone around her, only herself! How novel!

"What even is all this... I saw some lovely looking rope?" She cats-cradles her hands and spins up illusory rope running between them. "I thought I'd be rather pretty and a lot less ow! in it, compared to the sorts I've used before."

The woman perks up.

"Yes! We have a few ropes."

She puts a bookmark in her book and sets it on the counter, and then gets up to lead Megi over to a display. The ropes are organized by material, color, and size. They're neatly coiled, and hanging from pegs — but that just makes it easy to feel the texture with your fingers.

"These are for on-purpose ow," Evevertin explains, waving at a set of ropes with scratchy fibers. "You want these ones — very smooth, not rubbing skin ow-ly," she continues, pointing out the silk and silk blend ropes.

Megi probably can't read the prices; the silk ropes are the most expensive ones.

She feels a few, takes one and rubs it quite hard over her arm.

"Oh, yes, nice." She blushes and bites her lip, imagining her wrists being tied with this very rope. "Hmm... What are things that you sell, that someone from long ago would be most surprised by?"

Evevertin taps her lips thoughtfully.

"Probably ... probably the, uh, things that go vvvvvvvvv. Wait a bit, I show."

She goes and gets a rabbit vibrator from a display case in the next section over, and then shows it to Megi. The store doesn't keep demonstration models of all their products, so she'd normally have to unbox this one, but it was already on display.

She taps a button, making the rabbit come to life, and then holds it out for Megi to feel. The surface is smooth and cool. She demonstrates that it will do a few different patterns.

"You can touch this part to your or your, uh, ... what is the word? Sex friend? You can touch this to their sensitive parts. Or you can slip this bit inside, and the arm here hits the sensitive part, and either way it feels good."

"Oh my. I..."

She drags it along her skin. And shivers, wiggling her hips a bit.

"...That could be very intense. And it's so smooth and soft too! If only it were also warm. -Ah, I think the word you want for 'sex friend' is 'lover'."

She clicks, committing this to memory.

"People like to warm it up before using it," she agrees. "You can carry it or put it against your skin and it will warm up. Or if you want, we have, uh, oils that make cold things feel hot?"

She gestures at the rabbit.

"That kind of vvvvvv-thing is— People who want to do the whole thing with it like it," she attempts to explain. "There are other shapes of vvvvvv-thing that are gooder for other uses. There are ones that you can wear all day and they just go ᵥᵥᵥᵥ, not vvvv. Or ones that are the right shape to put ..."

She searches for words.

"... inside a person with—" She makes a penis-y gesture. "—and hit the little sensitive spot that is inside them to make them—" She makes an ejaculatory gesture.

In her defense, the books Weiss provided for people to learn Notal from did not include a lot of topical vocabulary.

She giggles. "Maybe I'll be making quite a few contributions to the local understanding of Notal if I explain all these words and someone shares them. One of several fun uses for tongues. Is there not - a portable fire, something like that? I can do feeling warm but not truly being warm, and it takes focus which isn't, you know, enjoying the moment."

Evevertin gains a look of understanding. She shuts off the vibrator and tries to indicate its material.

"The stuff it is made of — it is safe for bodies, and feels good, and doesn't wear out much. But it will not survive a fire. Putting one of these in a fire is maybe boom."

She mimes an explosion.

"But we have a thing that makes oil hot without fires."

She leads Megi over to another display, and shows her a little arch-shaped construction. It has a pool for oil at its base, and then an arch that leads up to a little spout.

"You put oil — or, a liquid for making things slippery, it is not exactly oil —"

She points over to a rack with bottles of lube on it.

"And it makes it nice and warm and come out here. And you can put a thing through the—" She makes an arch gesture. "— and it gets covered and warm. Or just use a hand to get some, not have to use a bottle."

"Ooooh. This planet's people have invented a lot of clever things. I'm going down to Chilling Point next and I think all of these will make it much more fun. Unless I'm misunderstanding Chilling Point."

Evevertin laughs.

"Chilling Point has lots of different people," she tells her. "They have a ... a bracelet? Yes, a bracelet system, so you can see what people are there for. Some people go for music and dancing, some people go for dancing and sex. There are, uh, rooms you can pay for for just a little while?"

"If you want fun dancing, though ..."

She picks up another vibrator (still in its box), looks thoughtfully at Megi, and then comes back with some stretchy underwear in about her size, with an obvious pocket sewn into the front.

"This is a vvvvv-thing that, it listens to the music and matches the bum bum bum," she explains, tapping out a beat. "It is fun for dancing!"

"Oh my. Before committing to that one I kind of want to see how the first one works? When I started my journey I wasn't sure if I was going to try to have sex there- And now, I definitely am. I'm getting caught up in the excitement!"

Evevertin grins at her.

"There's a thing people say — you don't need to do everything today. It is good and fun to like sex! And good to find new things! But all these sex things, they will still be here tomorrow. You should take time to try them all and find the ones that are goodest for you."

She winks at her.

"And I do not only say that because I want to sell them to you. Do you want to look at the other kinds of things we have that I think would be new? Or do you want to take the vvvvv to try and come back to see more tomorrow?"

"Yes, let's do that. I also like the oil arch thing... I'm imagining having a lover, ah, prepare themselves with it and it's oddly exciting. But it will be here tomorrow, yes?"

Evevertin nods.

"It will be here tomorrow," she agrees. "Tomorrow's tomorrow the shop is sleeping, but tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrow it will be here again."

She goes and gets a version of the vibrator in a fresh box. þereminians don't go in for as much disposable plastic wrapping, so it's actually not shrink-wrapped, but people still generally feel better about buying sex toys in obviously clean, unopened packaging.

"The vvvvv, it eats the same thing that phones do. Do you have a phone?"

"Yes, they explained about electricity. We don't have an obvious word in Notal- There is 'lightning' but that is about weather. Is there a charger in the box?"