Somewhere else, Tamamo laughs.

And she's suddenly elsewhere. 

She is amid a honeycomb of tall skyscrapers and parks, each cluster of buildings surrounded by green space and connected by high-speed rail, and a network of side roads going by along the hex edges. People, mostly women with braided ponytails and maxi skirts, are strolling through the gardens talking to each other. 

She appears amid the bushes, within eyeshot of someone wearing an extremely realistic pair of fake fox ears she can only tell isn't a kitsune because they don't smell right. 

No-one seems to have noticed her translocation, but this doesn't seem to be earth, exactly... 

Yikes sudden translocation!

Her ingrained reaction to surprises is to leap away immediately, while also making herself invisible.

However, her danger sense is not actually going off? She's not in danger.

So she just invisibles, instead.

...Huh, a new species of demi? Or... Something seems off about those ears.

No getting distracted! More importantly! What! Is this Earth? Shall she have fanfic and memes once again?? She peers up a skyscraper, shock slowly turning to awe. She forgot how big they are.

Nobody notices, and people's days continue on without her. 

At a closer second look, it seems the gender ratio might be off, for earth: there seems to be a marked lack of masculine-presenting people. Almost everyone also wears a bracelet on their right wrist made of some form of tough plastic or steel, with tiny glowing lights inside in different colors. Most of the lights she can see seem to be purple or red, with a few one-offs in other colors. 

Further down the path there's what looks to be some form of café, a single story building with a sign saying "Sweet-berry il'ka" that sprawls out a bit. In the other direction the path meanders on for quite some time before stopping at the foot of one of the skyscrapers. 

Overhead, a train passes at what must be well beyond highway speeds, off on a journey between hexes. 

"Hmm... All girls... Or mostly girls? This is the future that liberals want..." She snorts at her own joke.

This place is, like, Hong Kong or something. Or Japan. Towers, trains, clean. Except it's not Japanese, she thinks she'd recognize the look of kanji? Or any other language she recognizes, really.

...She has been gone for. A while. Probably. Or maybe much longer than a while. It's unclear, to her, if Ancient Tirra is related to Old Earth, and Tamamo never answered either...

Boop.

She felt it, a physical noseboop in addition to the sudden magic power addition: Language Edition.

"...Aaaaand Tamamo is paying attention. Okay." Best not to think about that too hard. It always backfires, with Tamamo.

Uh. What now?

Sweet Berry ??cafe?? now. A nice berry smoothie sounds delicious and she has a sudden craving as soon as she has the thought. Hopefully they accept gold, lol, lmao.

She will de-invisible and walk in that direction!

The cafe (?) is quiet, and seems to serve coffee, hot chocolate, and a selection of fruit smoothies. There's a back section that people are paying for the privilege of entering, that's new.

All the people who've paid have paid using what seems to be a form of credit card, except one who pays with some odd glass coins that are hexagonal and stamped with numbers on each side. 

The barista looks over at her. "Ordering anything?"

Though the soundproofing of the cafe is excellent, her whiskers can still distinctly pick up the vibrations of more than one couple... or group, it seems there's at least one threesome... going on in private rooms in the back of the café. 

(Well, it's quite faint, but she has learned to recognize this particular rhythm and try not to pay too much attention. Her fellow kitsunes are not too shy, usually. Odd that it's going on in a cafe though???)

"Uh, I'd like to but I only realized I don't have my card on me just now..."

She appears some gold and silver coins from her tail by waving it forward and digging her hand deep into the fluff for a moment. "I've got these, but, uh, I can't exactly expect that to work, right?"

The cashier laughs. "Nice magic trick. No, I'm sorry, you'll have to come back with a card or proper currency."

Forced casual (though her ears go back and low), "I don't suppose you know where the closest place for that is? I'm really craving a smoothie, like, right now."

"Uh, I think there's a pawn shop three stations down? Transit's free even if you don't have your card on you." 

"Oh, sure, thanks. I'll go see if I can sniff it out."

With a closer look at the ears she's pretty sure? They're not fully biological? They look pretty convincing, but it's the little things. They don't smell right (though that could be any number of things with modern soap and plastics in play), they don't look warm and fleshy in some vague indefinable can't-point-to-it way. It's really subtle, but... Not a new demi species, just humans? Another tick in the 'not Tirra' column, as if it needed help.

Anyway. Surely the transit system can't be that confusing, probably. Hopefully maybe. There are (probably?) two directions the pawn shop could be three stations in, so she'll just guess if there aren't any other context clues.

With a little investigation, she can determine the train station is up on an archway in the skyscrapers. She'll have to go through the building.

Well she COULD parkour up onto a balcony if she was invisible for it prooooobably a bad idea, Later Maybe TM.

In she goes.

There turns out to be a lobby with maps. Down and upline are marked... for each of three different lines. There is the green line, going north-west to south-east, the blue line, going south-west to north-east, and the cross line, going directly east-west. There is a map of the broader area with grid stars laid out, displaying on a large screen that takes up all of one wall. 

It's anyone's guess as to which line the barista meant to go downline on.

Blarf.

Okay, option one: Wander aimlessly, hoping to find the pawn shop. Plus: This is a weird new place. Plenty to see. Minus: Could be boring and go nowhere.

Option two: Flee to a different country and never return. Plus: Satisfying on a petty emotional pique level, she guesses?? Minus: Cowardly!

Option three: Slink back with tail between legs to ask which line and in which direction it was. Plus: Actually solves problem? Minus: Embarrassing.

...Man, why does she even need a pawn shop anyway? It's not like she NEEDS cashmoolah. However much she WANTS it, for the snacks and the vidya. The moon is enough for her, technically. Maybe she could, like, busk? She smells not a whit or a hint of cursed ground: No monsters to earn bounties on. What DOES she want to do next, anyway?

She devolves into pacing in front of the screen in a thoughtful pose, tail a-swish in erratic agitation, as she thinks it through.

A passerby stops and looks at her. They've got a little pair of brown black brid wings, too stiff to be real. "Hey," they say. "Nice tail." Then they step up to the screen and tap on one of the small halos around one of the distant stations, which causes a whole goddamn interface to show up on the screen displaying a regional map of that hex of the train system. 

She bristles in surprise a little bit, then holds her tail close and hugs it, self-consciously. "Uh thanks?" 

Yeahhhh sneaky is not her game. But they're taking it as great cosplay instead, which is a little funny.

Also WOW, really?? Go for minimalist design, so minimal it doesn't even look interactable! It just looks like a circle is the icon for a station!

(Vague memories of phone screens and an annoying button combo to turn it off...)

Deep breath.

Anything look like a search bar there, while they're looking at it? Either way, she can attempt to flail with all interface about all six direct line three-stop-away stations when they're done.

With the interface up there's a local search bar for the node, looks like. And her unwitting tutor has demonstratrated that you can pinch to zoom out, as well; apparently they're planning a longer trip. 

With the map zoomed out there's another larger halo around the whole city, and if she taps that she gets a city search interface. It's kind of intuitive... if you know that a circle means it's interactable.

With only a little more effort she's able to find a pawn shop three stations away, as the barista had said. Apparently it's down the green line.

You know what, sure, to the pawn shop. She's not that attracted to her gold. Unless she starts spending gobs and gobs of it. Gold is pretty expensive, right? A whole string of Northern coins is a LOT of Tirran money but also weighs, like, two kilos. That ought to be plenty.

Hopefully the train isn't awfully crowded. And the thing about no charging is true.