"We can experiment with recordings, then." If that works well it could be very disruptive but they won't be able to prevent that by not testing it.

Will that make it hard for me to get a job?

"For some jobs, probably. But if it's not worthwhile to hire you to stand around singing all day it might be worthwhile to hire you to design new songs, if that's how your magic works. And any you haven't sung in public yet you can sell people the chance to record."

I guess. I don't have a lot of magic ones and they take a long time to write.

Wouldn't make any sense for the healing song since it's not worth much if it can't be sung to arbitrary people, but possibly the others she could make not sharing them a condition of learning them. He would maybe not want to mention this if he had a choice about it but here she is reading his mind.

"How long a time?"

Years and years.

"That'd take some very careful budgeting at best. But we don't even know that recordings work."

Maybe she could just sing to deaf people - actually, what if the sound can reach other parts of their body but not their ears? What if they're unconscious? Maybe there's a workable plan there somewhere and maybe he should stop figuring it out for her for free.

I don't know if people here are good enough at singing anyway.

"We can find out. You're still interested in testing it, right, even if you don't expect to want any jobs where you could learn confidential information?"

Yeah!

Then they can do that.

The medical building has areas that are nearly impossible to learn anything about from the outside, and osanwe doesn't work in most of it for mysterious magical reasons. None of the medical professionals who work there can be mind-read. The person handling talking to her tells someone else a few things in Hari and then shows her to the room where they want to do the tests. A very fake-looking illusion of a forest hides one side of the room from view. They want to try various things - what happens if sound is allowed to pass freely through the room? What if no one on either side of the illusion can hear anything from the other side? What if the person on the other side is deaf? What if an illusion of silence has been cast right around their ears? And what about trying all that with a recording? What exactly is the effect on these half dozen illnesses or injuries that will not be described to Beka for patient privacy reasons? What happens if she doesn't know how many people are on the other side of the illusion?

She sings and sings and sings! The song helps slowly but noticeably for the entire time she sings as long as sound reaches the sick or injured person. If the illusion blocks it, it doesn't work. It works fine on a deaf person, or if the illusion of silence is ears-only. The recording works. She can't customize the song and it works worse but still at all when she doesn't know what's wrong. If there are lots of people it works on all of them but best for anyone she's aiming at.

They'd like to make a deal where they use recordings of her singing and she doesn't teach anyone else (or sing healing songs to herself in public where they could be overheard or scried on), and in exchange they'd pay her an amount of rings every month, until the secret leaks or either party wants to end the deal.

Is it... a lot of rings?

The person whose mind she can read on the topic thinks it's not a livable income but since it involves no effort on her part and she wasn't exactly interested in working in medicine it's probably a net positive for her. Some practices would probably pay more than others, and they're probably up there; they're bigger than most, and in a central location where all the complicated intractable cases go, so the song is worth more here than for the average small town medical practice. It's possible she could get a better deal in Elit City or something?

Normally they'd have made a worse opening offer but since she can tell how much they think is fair they just went ahead and offered that much.

Yeah, okay, deal.

Then they'll give her an enchanted item she can use to let them know when she has an address they can send rings to, and half the first month's payment in advance, and then they're done with her for now.

She will go out and buy some food and see about the laws thing, they seem big on laws.

This place has a selection of foods which suggests that they have even more carnivores here. Still no crickets, but there's a small selection of greens and grains near the fruits.

They are big on laws! The laws are available in writing which she could hire someone to read to her. People waiting in the lobby of the government building also occasionally check them or reread them while waiting for appointments, if she waits and listens long enough. The imperial government enforces laws against attacking other people, setting slaves free who can't be expected to understand the law or follow it, trespassing, stealing or damaging other people's belongings, lying in court about whether someone committed a crime, keeping free people out of public places, breaking contracts, and refusing to pay taxes. Each state has other laws, generally about things like the use of public forests and parks or how to build in ways that minimize the risk of fire; people who don't want to follow those are encouraged to find a different state or go somewhere no state has claimed.

What... is a taxes.

Someone nearby is vaguely annoyed that the fisheries tax is so high because this somehow causes fish to be more expensive.

If she asks about it she can find out that at least one person understands taxes to be money you pay to the government when you do things they would kind of rather you didn't do very much of, that they use to pay for public works.

How do you know when you have to pay a tax?

"There are lists of them you can read, like the laws. And you'll get a reminder if you forget."

Oh, okay. That doesn't sound too hard. Now, how does the bunch of rings she has compare to the price of a place to sleep?

It'll do for tonight.