"Nothing to report." The most interesting thing that happened all night was a plot twist. "Finish the food if you are hungry; we eat breakfast after we talk to the summoner. Do not wake me up unless you are in danger."

Now it is Tanya's turn to do nothing for two hours. Iomedae climbs into the Rope Trick, lies down, and promptly starts snoring.

Tanya has no problem standing watch for two hours in a cool and quiet room. Even with her attention carefully trained on the door and any magic she can sense near the room, this leaves her a lot of free time to think.

She is in another world. Her third, but she didn't reincarnate this time. It could still be Being X setting her up, but probably isn't; if the locals think they have a full explanation, with precedents, then Tanya has no reason not to believe them.

On its face, this is absolutely excellent news. She no longer has to risk her life fighting a doomed war! She is free from Being X placing her in ruinous situations! Even Earth might be free from Being X making mortals irrational, which Tanya half-suspects he was doing to annoy her! She got her retirement handed to her on a golden platter. The dragon's hypothetical family is a real concern, but it can't be as bad as being a soldier, she'll clear it up and then go on to be a productive member of a peaceful society! Even if all her non-combat skills are irrelevant or obsolete on Golarion, thirty years' worth of pay will let her start a new career or three.

Complication: it might be possible to communicate with Earth, or go back to it. She might even be forced to go back to Earth, if not immediately.

As long as going back is possible, Tanya's duty as a Germanian soldier is to do so. She is conflicted about this, obviously, but it was always possible to betray her comrades and the Fatherland and run away, defect or just hide in another country. She never seriously considered doing so. Being on Golarion gives her more options, but she's not going to abandon them the moment she's out of sight. 

If she goes back, she'll bring novel magical technology with her. Revolutionary technology. Technology which, in the hands of Germanian R&D, might yet turn the course of the war at the last possible moment. Or it might just make the war last an extra decade and kill or maim half of another generation's worth of young men. Still, that's not her decision to make. Lt. General Zettour might have the rank and position to make a judgement call like that, but as a mere Lt. Col. Tanya emphatically doesn't.

Ongoing communications between Earth and Golarion would be much more useful still, but they raise the prospect of other people making the trip and that is dangerous. When a technologically superior civilization - worse, several planetsful of different civilizations - make contact with a less developed one, the results are often grim. It would be best if they could keep to sending messages until Earth catches up, with Germania (i.e. Tanya) relaying all such messages. She doesn't know how to prevent Golarion from leveraging communications into interplanetary transportation, but she will avoid suggesting or promoting it.

If she stays on Golarion, can the locals still contact Germania with her help? She isn't sure and will ask Nazir later. If that works it would be the best of all worlds: an excuse for Tanya to stay here as a relay, possibly an invitation to bring more Germanians over to relieve her (she continues not to be an authorized diplomat and must not be construed to usurp that role!!!), and communications that may benefit Germania on the other side of the line. In fact, it would be best to establish a permanent Germanian delegation in Osirion, to make sure their interests are well represented and to help smooth over any cultural misunderstandings. Negotiations are always best conducted in person.

Transport from Earth to Germania has been demonstrated; the other way around has not. Tanya would be very gratified if this state of affairs continued.

After two hours have passed, the rope trick fills with the sound of Tanya chirping(*) 'It's been two hours. Iomedae, please wake up.' 

(*) In the flying young girl sense, not in the bird sense.

Having your entire night compressed into a single sleep cycle will never stop being a weird experience. Iomedae rolls off the mattress and shoves it through the window, then follows it by climbing down the rope with the box of rats in one hand.

"Dawn is in one hour and ten or twelve minutes," she says, like someone for whom 'dawn' has always been the most important time of day to index off. "I am ready. Do you need to prepare your spells or perform a daily ritual before we leave?"

"I don't need to do anything to be able to cast my spells. I do have a daily ritual of breakfast and if convenient a shower." Best to establish expectations early. She can eat the remaining figs, though.

Tanya needs to eat breakfast every day. Easy to remember; they can make sure that happens. She's not sure why she only needs to shower 'if convenient'. Maybe whatever benefits she gains from ablutions are nice-to-haves rather than essentials?

"You can bathe with that," she says, pointing to the wash basin. "Turn the valve and water will come out of the spigot on the side. The Lodge does not charge for this but less expensive inns will, if they have it available." The spigot is located at what would be a convenient height for an adult man, but Tanya can probably work with that. Iomedae will step out into the hallway and resume reading her novel without being prompted.

Tanya can fly and is used to dealing with inconveniently high spigots and other fixtures.

The water coming out of the spigot runs over the rim of the bowl and falls to the floor, which contains a drain grating. This is less convenient than a showerhead at ceiling level, but it's workable; Tanya is aware that it always takes time to adapt to a new culture's bath and toilet technology. And there's no hot water, but that she can take care of herself. It's going to be hot enough outside that she'll be glad for her clothes to be a little wet, anyway.

Once done, she re-dresses and steps out of the room.

The crowd in the main room of the lodge is different. The people wear darker clothes and talk in hushed whispers that stop when Iomedae and Tanya pass through the room. The sand golem lets them out, and when the door closes it's not possible to hear whether the conversations restart.

"The Pathfinders offer their services free to members," Iomedae comments, once they're outside. "They are a society dedicated to exploration and chronicling. Many adventurers and soldiers of fortune come up from their ranks. I do not know if that sort of fraternity appeals to you."

"I am a soldier", Tanya points out. "...Oh, I'm sorry, I only introduced myself to Nazir. I'm an officer of the Germanian Imperial Army. I don't know what exactly the Pathfinders do, and exploration and chronicling are good pursuits, but I'm not at liberty to join as long as the possibility of returning to Germania - or establishing contact with Germania - remains an option. And if it's not, I don't know nearly enough about Golarion to make that kind of choice yet." 'Soldier of fortune' might not literally mean 'mercenary' but Tanya doesn't know what it does mean.

Most officers are noblemen, because officer postings go to people with social standing and political connections. The officers who are not nobility tend to be mages of one stripe or another.

Tanya is an arcanist (probably) so her position as an officer makes sense. But, could she also be a noblewoman? She hasn't made any hay of her status in the Germanian peerage, only mentioning her rank, but how else would she have gotten the necessary education? 'Rocky relationship with her parents' is what comes to mind. Iomedae will avoid bringing it up.

"It is inadvisable if it conflicts with your existing commitments," she says neutrally.

It's dark out. Very dark. The number of visible lights outside in Sothis, even from the air, can be counted on one hand. The enormous castle is the only large illuminated structure to be found. Is Tanya still okay with flying under these conditions, or should they walk?

Whether you classify Tanya's relationship with her biological parents as rocky or placid is up to you. However, she received both her posting and her patent of nobility due to her excellent performance. Admittedly she did it at a younger age than if she'd had to go through the public school system, but that's academic.

Tanya has no problem flying in the dark but she needs to know the local protocol for signaling lights, air traffic lanes, traffic control, right of way, et cetera to avoid midair collisions with anyone else who's doing it.

...if they are flying at Iomedae's slow pace then she can in fact see anyone coming in at and swerve to avoid them in time, unless they are much faster. Also what if she startles someone and they are bad at dodging and crash into a building. Civilian air traffic obviously needs some rules of the air.

...she can also just follow Iomedae and stay behind her. Maybe put little white signaling lights on herself just to be sure. Unless there's a light-pollution regulation in effect? The city certainly looks like it.

Why is Tanya placing lights on herself? You're supposed to avoid illumination; concealment is king when you specialize at long range – no, they're not getting into a fight, and she didn't do this yesterday, so she must want to be observed in the darkness… to avoid unintentional collisions! Not all flight-capable humanoids have supernatural senses; Tanya must be following a protocol from a place where most airborne people can't see very well by night. That's not even a bad idea inside Sothis; there could be idiot apprentices with the reaction time of a gelatinous cube flying around at this hour. Iomedae will set up a quartet of Dancing Lights in orbit around her body, then take off at a slow average pace.

The city is already partially awake despite not having reached the false dawn, possibly because the temperature is actually fairly pleasant right now. The dominant activity is manual labor, visible in pools of light shed by workers holding torches rather than streetlights. Two people flying while lit up like beacons will draw curious stares, but as unorthodox as they are it does successfully prevent collisions with hypothetical idiot apprentices.

Their destination is in the walled district surrounding the giant beetle. It only takes a few minutes to reach while flying.

"Do you want to handle this transaction, or shall I?" she asks, once they arrive.

Tanya thought Iomedae was going to introduce her? ...oh, she's asking which of then should negotiate the deal. Nazir named a price and it's probably a reasonable one, but just as there's no directory of services there is no fixed list price for this, especially since they're just the intermediary and not the actual expert.

"Negotiating prices varies a lot between cultures, so I would appreciate your help. I'm willing to pay the price Nazir suggested, maybe a little more - say ten percent - but he did give us a second reference in case we needed it and the matter is no longer as urgent. I can describe what I actually want to learn, and that I want confidentiality - it's hard to put a price on that, but the answer we learn could be such that confidentiality will matter a lot." For example, if there's an condition that will make the spell send her back and that someone else can maliciously trigger anytime they want her gone. "You can probably fill in useful details I don't know about what went on in the fight at the tower. And I'll need an explanation of how negotiations with the actual experts will work - do we potentially call several until we find one who thinks they can actually answer yhe question, and then negotiate the price with them? - but perhaps I should wait to ask that of the middlemen."

"Fifty scarabs is very little margin for brokering a deal like this. Nazir expects her to accept this happily because we are a large fraction of Setareh's revenue from selling wands and scrolls, and reliably so. The price for a wizard without dependable clientele would be closer to one or two hundred. Our business with her is already confidential. The spell will call a single outsider, either a particular one by name or any interested member of a species that the summoners believe will know the answer. You will then bargain with them directly. If you reach an agreement, they will either answer you at once, if possible, or leave to confer with their associates and perform independent research. They will then return and present their findings. I will leave the confidentiality assessment to Setareh; there are a range of possibilities. Would you prefer, then, that I make the initial request discreetly, then leave the final negotiation to you?"

Tanya doesn't really see the point in dissembling like this. Who would they be hiding their association from, Setareh's apprentices? The summoned expert? If someone doesn't know who killed the dragon (but knows it wasn't Nazir's team), and tails Nazir, they can probably pick out the really weird foreigner he keeps meeting with. Besides - "I'll need your help to describe anything that happened at the tower anyway. I don't see a point to hiding our association from the called expert; someone who can track them down can probably find me anyway, or find you or Nazir and then follow the trail to me. We've been associating in public all this time."

Fair enough. Tanya isn't realistically threatened by anyone attacking her while she's awake, so there's little additional risk from telling more people about her now. They can go in.

This place is a factory, not a shop. The vestibule is a perfunctory room for magic items to change hands, hidden from prying eyes by nothing more sophisticated than a sheet of lead built into the walls. The only inhabitant is a black cat sitting on the desk, watching them intently as they come in; anything else noteworthy about this place has been hidden elsewhere.

"Go and fetch your master," Iomedae says firmly. "I have business with her."

Unlike the sand golem, the cat remains where it is for just long enough to imply that it understood her perfectly and is intentionally considering her request at leisure before it leaps off the table and disappears into one of the back rooms.

"...that, uh, person looked remarkably like an animal from my world. Now I'm worried that I have or will mistake other people for animals." Not that Tanya mistreats animals, but it could matter in an emergency! And be very socially awkward outside of one! "...this isn't urgent, I can assume everyone is a person for this meeting at least."

"Familiar spirits look remarkably animals from this world too. There is no easy way to be sure, short of reading their mind and noticing they are much smarter than an animal should be. I only happen to recognize this one. Some mages retain a familiar as the source of their powers, but a wizard's familiar serves as a conduit for their master's power, not the other way around. They know they look like wild animals or housepets; if they want your attention they will behave in uncharacteristic ways to signal that they can understand you, but usually they will not want this…"

The proprietor is a Garundi wizard. You can tell she is a wizard by her overlarge floppy hat and her star-spangled robes, neither of which are as magical as the black cat glued to her ankles. There was a time when she wore proper wizard's robes and half a dozen other wondrous items besides just to leave her tent in the morning, but risking your life excavating forgotten tombs is a young woman's game, and now the only purpose her costume serves is to remind her customers that she is indeed a wizard — and to obscure her headband. You can retire to a life of relative luxury in the civilized parts of Golarion, if you reach fourth circle and have a knack for item crafting.

"Your last order isn't finished yet," she says. "One of my apprentices took leave for a week, and none of the others could finish any of his work."

"We have your letter," Iomedae says. "I will leave that to you and Cicerone Nazir. Today we have another request: one Planar Inquiry, to investigate a magical incident that took place yesterday. My companion," she indicates Tanya, "was called to Shiman-Sekh by unknown means from a place that nobody recognizes by name or description. We must determine the cause while we still can – there was a Commune to Abadar yesterday on the subject, we should have time to answer this question if we go about it quickly."