There's a windowless stone room in the basement of a building in a dead-end alley. Between the boiler, the several bunk beds, the piles of boxes, the shelf of bottles of assorted liquids, and the too-small table in the middle of the room, there's barely enough floor space for Rit to spread out the paper she's sketching on. It's supposed to be a map with some cryptic notes around the edges.

Rit almost looks human. She's a featherless biped, at least, with five-fingered hands and a very average face. But her limbs are slightly out of proportion, her ears are pointy and too big, and her brown hair has hot pink roots. The person sitting on one of the bunk beds frowning in her general direction is the same species, whatever it is.

She speaks one language and it's not related to any Earth languages.