"-Phenomenally lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately the portal will close within... Thirty minutes. You have the Long Road Home, so we can have a little expedition. See if there's anything interesting on the other side."

"...In and out, twenty minute adventure? Nothing's ever gone wrong with that."

"You're referencing something I don't care about again. Could be twenty minutes. Could be weeks or more. We can come back to Noten with your pocket dimension whenever we agree we're done, I'll be flexible. I think it's worth it for the chance at novel insights. And you frequently express a desire to explore new places too."

"...Yeah, yeah. Alright, fine." She stretches, then holds out one hand. "Invisible on the way through, just in case?"

"Lemme cast buffs. In case it dumps us out over lava or an ocean or something."

Sinnah spends a full minute, by the clock, drawing out sheets of paper and waving her hands over them in different patterns.

A rift between worlds tears open for a bare few moments, flaring with actinic purple light as a vertical slit in reality open to a dreamscape of towering cliffs and sodden rain, depositing two invisible humanoids and a quantity of water. 

The two individuals have a silent conversation and move a block over from their entry point, careful not to leave anything so obvious as muddy footprints.

The flash of purple light is caught by the surveillance automation and the subsequent vision of another world and the water is recorded carefully. It doesn't match to any expected phenomena so a request is sent for assets with more sensory modalities to be deployed. One small robot waits briefly and then skitters over to collect a sample of the water.

None of the people react to their travels. Most of the buildings are only three or four stories with taller ones going as high as ten. That is with the exception of the tall cathedral complex in the city center. The roads are oriented so it's almost always visible.

The streets are mostly host to foot traffic with the occasional small metal truck moving materials from one place to another. The buildings seem to be a mix of residential and commercial.

"...This looks... Industrial. Look at all the vehicles."

"It does. Not necessarily Tirran, there's no reason other societies can't independently derive robotics and powered vehicles. I think the City of Steel could build one."

"Magic is just so much more convenient, right, so it's mostly not worth it going into the physical sciences?"

"Quite. I have some understanding of physics and chemistry but taking the long way around to manipulating things is so boring compared to simply elegantly redacting reality in favor of your vision-"

Sinnah has a sudden thought and pauses to check which if any objects around her are magic, fingers twitching.

For the most part the city is non-magical.

But someone positively humming with magic just appeared back near their portal if she can sense that far.

"Mage."

What was that, teleportation? Such magic is perilous for wizardry, and unintuitive for witchcraft-

"Looking at the portal. Looks human... Do we have any real reason to hide?"

"There don't appear to be any immediately hostile monsters, no. But it looks like a war zone here."

"Hiding will make us look suspicious."

...She evaluates the few foot travelers, looking at their appearance and attitude.

The mage is wearing a sort of sculpted armor made from something that doesn't quite look like metal covering vital areas while the rest of her skin is covered by a tight-fitting jumpsuit and solid looking boots. The whole ensemble is colored in a variety of soft pastel colors mostly blues and greens. Her head is covered by a transparent but visibly there bubble of some glass-like material. Those who see her mirror their reaction to the machines with the mix of positive and negative emotions both accompanied by intimidation.

The vast majority of the men are wearing fairly simple tunics with colorful badges on their arms near their shoulders. If Sinnah and Weiss watching closely there seems to be a hierarchy of respect among the men based on what badges people have. A few of the men seem to eschew that in favor of either not wearing badges or switching to more varied fashions like pants and shirts but it's clearly not a well liked stance judging from the expressions on the other men's faces.

The women are a bit more varied; a solid majority of them are wearing simple robes that largely conceal their figures, and cover their heads entirely, but a sizeable majority of them are wearing other attire. Among those others some are attired to match the men, usually without badges though, most of them carry themselves with a sort of fragile defiance. The next largest group wears blouses and long skirts, they're still not showing very much skin. Still fewer are more daring and varied. All the women wearing non-traditional clothing catch at least a few nasty glances and whispered comments from the men.

"Ohkaaaay I think this might be a freaking... Saudi Arabia situation."

"What's Saudi Arabia?"

"Vague past life memories, just an impression of - women don't have rights and have to wear burqas," she gestures towards one such woman. "Think the Sandalwood colonies. You know how foggy that stuff is. But the tension in clothing styles implies a recent conquest that is now pretty much settled? And the conquerors have magic, which makes me nervous. War is... Bad. Very bad."

"I'll take your word for it. I want to learn their magic and I'm going to go talk to her."

And there's not much point trying to stop me, goes the unspoken assumption in their relationship.

"Stay invisible, or don't, but pull it off me, okay?"

...She stays invisible and follows Sinnah as she walks towards the magic person, suddenly appearing and waving lazily.