if i could find a higher tree | Glowfic Constellation

Now she is stumbling at the mouth of an alleyway in a different city.

She is standing on smooth grey stone, looking out on a wide street made of red bricks, with grey stone walkways on either side and a thin space of grass and flowers in the middle. Tall brick buildings with huge glass windows line the street, with colorful cloth and metal signs hanging out front, some of them glowing with illusion. Wrought metal facades and bright lights show their contents, dozens of people eating food or talking, strange colorful rectangles, clothes strung out on mannequins, metal hand tools. The signs are no language she recognizes, angular and alien. The smell of rot from the large metal box behind her and the squeaking of a few rats who flee from the sudden intrusion mixes with a dozen other unfamiliar smells - tar, smoke, something woody, something like wet fur.

Soft violin music is playing from the building she is next to, which contains a huge array of chairs, tables, and cabinets for some reason. It hardly overpowers the dull roar of a city not paying much attention to silence all around her, conversation, animals, and machinery blending together into an omnipresent blur of sound. And the people wandering the street - hardly thronging it, there are perhaps a few dozen in small groups on a street that could fit hundreds - are all either human or some new species, that almost looks like an agerah if they learned to stand on two feet, and were close to human-size. The not-agerah are faster than the humans. One of them is carrying a single small yellow bird in a cage. Oh, wait, there's a Caralendri man over there, if the ears are anything to go by.

A curious box with wheels attached rolls down the street, a not-agerah at some sort of controls and two humans riding in the back. It's warm out, though something seems vaguely foul about the air here. Behind her, a not-agerah wearing dark green shirt and pants opens a door, tosses a bag of some sort into the metal box with a thumping noise, and slams the door shut behind them after looking directly at her for a moment.

Gah. Weird. She never really thought about how the use of illusions to talk privately was convenient for everyone who didn't want to eavesdrop. Although she does want to eavesdrop here, if only to figure out what's going on. Shame it's so hard to pick out just one conversation to hear and she's not even sure any of them would make sense if she could, there's no reason to assume any of the assorted din is in Ilan or Hari.

Fast furry caralendroids, okay, that's like something in an illusion show set on another planet. An impressively good one, to get them looking that realistic with that many divergences from their actors, but still. She touches a wall that wouldn't be there if this were an illusion overlaid on Anavel Sani. The wall is there so it's not an illusion.

A building with lots of furniture and music in it, visible and audible from the street, is likely to be a business or a public place. But she'll wait a minute and see if people seem to be going into it before she puts any weight on that guess.

Anyone looking at her, for a moment or otherwise, may find the sight very interesting. Her hair is illusioned in pastel blue and pink, although the dye job is old and all the strands that have broken or started coming in are platinum blonde. She appears to be wearing earrings, a relatively new and clean sky blue robe, and a gauzy blue mask that sparkles. (She'd've gone for a veil, and in fact owns a veil, but they're too flowy to be safe in Anavel Sani.)

She stands out from local fashion - which seems to be a lot of vest shirts with shiny buttons, long coats in dark black or rich red, and a wide assortment of hats. Obviously colorful hair is fairly uncommon on the street. Her mask is unusual here, nobody else particularly covers their face. Some of them have curious metal frames with bits of glass in them over their eyes. People will look at her for a few seconds at a time, or just a bare glance before looking away. One man lifts his hat off his head for a moment and says something with a slight smile before strolling past.

The place with the music next to her does appear to be a business. A human woman and furry man(?) head in, and another human walks to the front and starts politely talking to them, before showing them around to various bits of furniture. The seller is wearing the simpler, single-color clothes that the people who are obviously working - carrying food, stacking boxes, driving that vehicle that went past - seem to wear.

She takes her mask off and hides it in her pocket and steps into the building. She waits for the others to be done before trying to talk with the merchant.

The merchant says something to her, probably in the vein of 'wait', before returning to his other clients.

The other two will be a while, discussing different tables and demonstrating their features - heat for things placed on it, some sort of possibly-a-clock illusion, and some more confusing things, then writing some things on the wall with a long stick that paints black illusion - looks like calculations for cost, maybe - and transferring it to a paper when they're done, then going over a bunch more paperwork at a small desk off to the side before the couple leave without actually handing over any money or taking any products at this time.

After all that he will bow to her, one hand at his side and the other crossing his waist, repeat the polite greeting someone on the street said to her, and then make eye contact while still moving slowly and keeping his body language small and saying some other stuff.

pulling hair back but in an enticing way like trying to invite a vampire

The full-body gesture doesn't parse for her but the other parts of his body language sort of do. It seems like he thinks she's dangerous, with the odd mix of submission and staring. That's not uncomplicatedly a bad thing but she does want to convey that she's not currently interested in hurting him unless she's provoked.

It's not very likely that he'll speak Ilan or Hari but trying them both will, if it fails, communicate that they have a language barrier and that she's trying to communicate.

Why, yes, they do seem to have a language barrier.

He tries another language, and then fetches a book and tries five more, and then sighs exasperatedly and gives a thin smile and raises both shoulders and arms helplessly, looking steadily less patient.

She tries South Essi, a snake tongue which human mouths and throats were never meant to produce but which she can approximate, sort of, badly. And then that's it, she doesn't know any other languages.

Does he know a... how can she mime that she wants a knowledge mage? She tries gesturing at her head and looking confused, then mimes looking around. Maybe context will make it obvious.

He will sketch on the wall with the illusion pen a... Map? Probably a map. It has the local street and alley - he marks their current location with a little table and points at the ground several times. Then draws in on the map on the wall - she has to go right, then left at the first major street, then look for a building on the right side of that street about twice the distance to the first left (ignoring two more right turns) that he draws a strange - essi scale? - on. Or, apparently, talk to people wearing black and the same scale on their upper chest and this particular design of pointy hat.

That works! Does he seem to want something for this or is he directing her there out of his own selfish desire to see her interact with the pointy-hat-scale brigade?

He seems pretty insistent that she wants to talk to the pointy hat scale brigade.

Great! No need to pay him, then. She goes looking for the pointy hat scale brigade headquarters where the map says it should be.

She sees two pointy hat scale people before she gets to the headquarters!

They are escorting an angry looking man in heavy-looking manacles that restrict his arms along towards the HQ, and everyone on this somewhat-busier street is giving all three a wide berth.

Police taking the man away to be tried or enslaved or something, she assumes. Small chance they're instead people who sell slaves and would not mind the chance to kidnap an ignorant foreigner. Either way, she's not going to talk to those ones. They're busy. She waits for them to get several times her height ahead of her and only then follows.

They take him into the entrance of the HQ building, briefly talk with another officer behind a thick glass screen, and then pass through an intimidating looking doorframe with a visible blue glow with the prisoner.

The reception area of the police building is pretty small, with a few uncomfortable benches, some wordy posters in the angular language she doesn't know (the pictures include: A stern faced officer pointing at the viewer, a smiling man holding a metal hammer, a row of prisoners in cells looking sad, a strange long wheeled thing on metal rails), and a slightly sad looking potted plant. She's the only one here, now that the prisoner is gone. The officer in the armored box stares at her with a wary frown and asks a question in a sharp tone of voice.

"I don't speak any local languages," she says in Ilan, and then again in Hari.

The officer gives a loud sigh, holds up a hand palm out, turns around and fetches a paper book, spends a while paging through it, reads a page, glances up to make sure she's still there, grabs a finger quartz crystal from a desktop organizer, then makes a series of hand motions while saying things in yet another new language.

And then she hears - or, well, not with sound but as ideas -

Miss, this is a one way communicative spell. It will last a few minutes. If you would like a cast as well, the cost is 4.5 tach of magic. Otherwise we will have to use yes or no questions. Hold out one finger for yes, two for no, three for maybe or four for 'something else'. Do you want to provide the magic for your own casting?

hair blowing and mouth open like a painting

Does she want to - well, yes, but how? She's never heard of that. They must have different magic here.

She's pretty sure she still has her own magic, which doesn't work that way. Probably. She thinks.

Four fingers, and then after a beat she folds down two of them.

Sigh.

Do you need to report a crime?

Probably but not to these people. Maybe. Unless the snake is one of their citizens and kidnapped her on purpose. Is that a crime or is it an act of war?

Three fingers.