Marisa is keeping an eye out for a stall selling something sweet. (She doesn't have local money on her, of course, just an eclectic mix of gold and silver coins from civilizations that may or may not ever have existed.)

"I'm an ape descended human, as far as anyone out there in space knows that's the only kind. Where I'm from, there's humans and youkai—we use 'youkai' as a sort of catch-all for magical beings, even though it's not really accurate. Anyway, I haven't heard of anywhere else where humans do magic. Maybe that's this planet's advantage in trade. I do it, but that's just me."

"I know other human mages. Not recommended to learn that kind."

"Really? Never knew that." She addresses the locals again. "Yeah, Praem's really well travelled."

"Let's go and check in with her office, she's probably just in there writing letters," says the Carta Notturno member talking to Praem. On closer inspection, he appears to have yellow snake eyes, fangs and a bit of a lisp.

There are a good number of stalls selling sweet things, mostly elaborate pastries drizzled with honey and sprinkled with nuts, crisp pastry tubes stuffed with sweet creams, or sweet crisp breads with dried fruit. They are all quite happy to haggle a value for strange gold and silver coins, generally wanting to give her change in the Imperial currency - dull bronze coins stamped with intricate designs, denominated in one and five 'rings' - for them if she only wants an individual portion, at least after Laria gives them a 'don't rip off my guest' look. More of the stall-holders than their greeting party are baseline humans, but some have a variety of interesting features, from green veins and patches of bark to sharp snaggly teeth and a rather unhealthy looking pallor.

"The Empire has a considerable magical tradition; we like to think we are the most generally advanced magical power in the world, although there are a few foreign nations that have advantages in more focused areas," explains Laria.

"Are your 'youkai' creatures of the magical Realms, or some other kind?" asks Tommaso eagerly.

Marisa tries a few small servings. She probably won't turn over gold for street food, but might overpay in silver; she likes haggling but has no local knowledge yet. If there's a pastry garnished with strawberries, she'll feed any strawberries to Praem by hand.

Praem does not eat any food other than being fed strawberries, but seems wordlessly interested in a meeting with local religious leaders, nodding at the one proposing it.

"Some of them are from magical realms, but not any more than being from some mountain or something. You can recognize them because they seem a little bit like they're not real. It's like... the proper place to meet a youkai is if you're lost in the woods in the middle of the night or something. When you get back to camp, you'll wonder if you imagined the whole thing. Well, if you talk to one socially over tea, it's a little bit of that in the back of your mind. It's toned down with the youkai monks on the ship, because they're Buddhists, or I'd tell you to meet one and see. Maybe their superior, if she comes out."

(Marisa also tries to figure out their currency system from whatever clues there are. She hopes it's base 12!)

None of the sweet food sellers are doing strawberries, but there is a separate fruit stall which is.

"Follow me, then," says the somewhat snake-ish Notturno to Praem, and starts moving off more determinedly down the dockside.

"That sounds more like wolves than heralds," replies Tommaso, "maybe the word covers both?"

"Here we have the Blood Red Quays Art Gallery," announces Laria, pausing in front of a grand edifice in a stunningly white building material with red brick highlights. The tall door is surmounted by a pillared balcony looking out over the harbour. "Any particular artistic style you might be interested in, or shall we head up to the balcony for a nice view across the harbour?"

The currency system is, well. The 'rings' come in 5 ring and 1 ring pieces, the next coin up appears to be a 'crown', and that's twenty rings. Her adventures in small change have not got much further than that; some of the traders had four crown pieces in their cash boxes, however, which suggests that it does not necessarily proceed logically from there.

Praem elegantly follows!

"Can't say I know your art history," says Marisa, playing with some coins. "Point out the best ones for me, so I know how to look cultured. Is that building all stone? Uh, wolves? I can think of a wolf youkai or two, they like triangular fang motifs usually. Not sure that you mean the animal, though."

Marisa gives Praem a casual wave as she goes off.

The Carta member leads Praem through a maze of side streets and alleyways, many passing under and through other layered buildings, and arrives at a smaller, neat building with detailing in the bright white stone that seems to be popular for impressive architecture.

They enter through a small door set into one of two impressive iron bound doors, her escort nods at a receptionist or possibly guard who is sitting at a table near the door sorting through a pile of letters, and knocks on a side door off the moderately impressive main hall - lots of tapestries, embroidered cushions on long pews and so on, with a raised stage area containing an elaborately carved lecturn.

"The jewel of the collection is meant to be the portraits in the Butchers Gallery, especially the ones painted by the senator herself, but personally I've always preferred the cityscapes, especially Ilaria's - she came to us from Urizen, you know," replies Laria. "The Milestones exhibit is quite something, though, I'll give them that."

"Oh, sorry, wolves is a technical term," replies Tommaso. "Not really my field, you'd need to go to Temeschwar for the experts there, but essentially they're the things that go bump in the depths of the Varushkan woods. Responsive to hospitality, can't get you on the roads if they've been properly maintained, but makes the place rather perilous, especially at night."

Praem looks around a bit at the architecture, nodding politely at the door-minder. Her blank gaze lingers for a moment on the correspondence, but it would be rude to pry.

"Sounds like home, I live in some perilous woods. Humans actually getting eaten is rare these days, it was actually mostly before my time, but it's not exactly safe either. Yeah, lead the way, that all sounds good. Sounds like senators are the most important officials around here?"

The side door opens; a lady in rich red and gold robes looks vaguely annoyed at them for a moment, then notices Praem is somewhat odd looking and puts on a much more open and welcoming expression.

"Thisss is Praem, she arrived on a flying ship into the harbour and wanted to talk comparative theology," explains Praem's escort.

"Oh! Welcome to the Night Market Church. Do come in, have a seat, would you like some wine and nibbles?"

The office is clearly a working room, there's a desk covered in various bits of paper, several high backed wooden chairs with red and gold cushions, mismatched cupboards. It still has lovely patterned wallpaper and a couple of portrait paintings in gilded frames.

Laria leads Marisa through the grand entrance, nods to the attendant on duty at a front desk, and breezes past the guards on duty into a gallery with rich red wallpaper and many portraits in elaborate gilded frames, all labelled as Someone di Something di Something Else - often Sarvos - or Someone Something von Temeschwar, and 'Member of the Butcher's Guild' or 'Esteemed Patron of the Butcher's Guild'; sometimes it's 'of the Butcher's Bank' instead.

The portraits are all technically marvellous, although possibly a bit lacking in animation and character; they all kind of look the same, like there's an Approved Portrait Style for this gallery.

"Senators are second only to the Empress, if we had one; as it is, they're still squabbling, Lisabetta was a tough act to follow."

"Good day and thank you for your hospitality." Praem sits on the best-positioned chair. "I am Praem Saye, titled Peregrine Bishop to the Unfamiliar Places of the Church of England, appointed by Her Majesty, Empress Victoria III. I have not travelled here in that official capacity. It is a position with irregular responsibilities." Her high, sing-song tone has the quality of a practiced recitation.

Praem sips some wine. Someone perceptive might notice it fizz slightly as it passes her lips.

"I have authority for diplomacy. But I am mainly here to learn." She pauses. "A priority. Are there hostile gods here? By any definition."

Marisa flits from portrait to portrait, viewing them at various distances, continuing to talk. She tries to find patterns in the names, but not very hard; she knows how long it takes her to memorize things like this, and it's quite a bit longer than she's going to spend.

"Seems like the butchers are pretty important here! Guess it's their museum, right. Does the senate elect an Empress? Who appoints senators, does the local government do it? Sorry for the silly questions, government where I'm from is 'you get in a duel to resolve disputes, and if things get too out of hand Reimu comes and duels you and always wins'. Well, and the old treaty, and the new treaty, for the really powerful people. I've been picking it up as I travel!"

"Bishop Serelina di Notturno di Sarvos, at your service.

There are no gods here, and as far as we are aware, the concept is incoherent everywhere; every now and again some powerful beings decide to attempt to set themselves up as gods, which rarely goes well for anyone involved.

Juno, thank you for bringing me this very interesting person, you can go now."

The other guild member, presumably Juno, bows sarcastically and leaves them to it, shutting the door behind them.

"I have sent Juno away because there are laws against incautious proselytization, which I wouldn't want you to fall afoul of while we have a private, fascinating conversation.

What do you know of the Way already, so that I don't bore you by repetition?"

"The Butchers Bank - or, at least, Lorenzo La Volpe, in his capacity as the richest man in the Empire - sponsored this building, and an awful lot of other public works projects besides," replies Laria. "May he pass through the Labyrinth swiftly, or be propelled from it by his works, as I'm sure he intended.

The Senate is indeed responsible for electing an Empress; apparently last season's Throne vote was quite dramatic, one of the candidates died in the process, although they unfortunately didn't have the sense of style to elect her while they were at it.

The Dawnish used to have a big fight about their senators, but in general the Empire is not a fan of duelling that isn't entirely consensual, so our options are a little limited on that front; here, the owners of businesses get voting certificates they can fill in for the candidate of their choice, which is a little dull and sedate but does get the job done - and at least it's something people can trade, or 'lose', keeps it a little bit exciting. Every nation in the Empire is different in how it appoints its Senators, but essentially it's always some kind of popularity contest."

"I am unfamiliar. Few inferences."

"Sounds exciting, we don't usually have people die in duels, though I know one person who dies on purpose in them. It's a show of magic, doesn't really hurt more than a solid punch to get hit. Some people play rougher than others, but it's about the artistry and mastery really. And we've got treaties. They actually made me sign both! I'm just a human. Anyway, what's the Labyrinth? Can we see some more art?"

"Okay. I don't normally teach introductory classes, so let me know if anything is especially unclear.

When a human dies, their soul goes to the Labyrinth - which is probably not really a 'place', but one of our Doctrines is that you can't actually really understand it unless you're already about to transcend it, so don't get too hung up on that, I suppose.

They stay in the Labyrinth for some amount of time, and are then reborn in a new body, without direct access to their previous memories.

We know things about this because we can unlock those memories - but only very partially, and only with a very expensive substance that it takes a considerable amount of the Empire's productive capabilities to produce. We call the substance 'true liao' and the unlocking a 'past life vision'.

Due to this ability, we have also managed to deduce some other things about how this works. There are fundamental drives in human nature - probably the nature of all sentients, but our research has been primarily on humans - that we call Virtues. Some of these Virtues help a soul move faster through the Labyrinth - we call those True Virtues. Our current list is Wisdom, Prosperity, Ambition, Courage, Vigilance, Pride and Loyalty, which is fairly stable but there have been changes in the past when new evidence has been presented.

Some individuals that should have gone very fast through the Labyrinth instead don't come back at all - but do have, uh, variously documented effects on the world after their death. We call these individuals Paragons, and say they have transcended the Labyrinth and gone beyond it. The documented effects are mostly visions, and also sometimes what we call 'miracles' - effects that are not explainable in other ways, often to do with auras but not always.

Auras are, I suppose, a side topic in religion - the refined vinum that doesn't become true liao creates a substance that's just called liao, which lets properly trained priests leave auras of a virtue on places, people, and things. Only humans can successfully take liao out of the people we've tried it on; orcs can't stomach it and reject it rather messily, heralds have a range of effects but none are the normal one. Humans, and possibly orcs although this is controversial, can also leave these auras just by getting into a mindset extremely aligned with the Virtue in question - this is one of the most usual forms of miracle - but it happens rarely enough to be called that.

Are you following so far? There are a lot of edge cases, the words for the Virtues are a little misleading in places and could generally do with detailed exposition, and I haven't really mentioned Exemplars or the religious laws yet, but that is the fundamental basis of our faith."

"Yes, it's very illegal to murder someone in a duel even if they consented to it, although how much that is successfully enforced varies from place to place. Do you have better retrieval of past lives than us, or is something else odd going on with someone who can die repeatedly and still each time be a... consistent enough person that you recognise them?

The Labyrinth of Ages is where we go when we die; the soul loses access to its memories unless they're unlocked later, at great expense, but is reborn with the Virtues that you cultivated in your previous lives, and other general similarities.

Are you going to be looking for the Empire to sign treaties? Generally that would happen at Anvil, at one of the solstice or equinox gatherings.

Let's wander through the Roads gallery and get to Landscapes."

The Blood Red Roads gallery is a little monotonous - a lot of milestones and markers painted to look like the white stone, with names engraved and painted in red. Landscapes is much more varied and interesting, with everything from extremely abstract canvases to amazing hyper realistic paintings that must have taken an awfully long time to do by hand.

Praem listens attentively.

"Some common ground with Buddhists. Some of those on our ship. They seek escape from rebirth." She pauses for a moment. "Not all beings are reborn in the same way, or at all. Have seen differences even among human lineages."

"What are the metaphysics of the others you mentioned? Heralds, orcs."