"I am a new arrival from very far away, and I need new clothes that make me look neither rich nor weak. These robes are cut to distract the eye away from my bad foot, so I don't look weak, but even after I removed most of the gold, ivory, and ebony accents, they're still too gaudy. I'll be a target if I keep them, and I can repel attacks but I'd rather not have to prove it too frequently."

Felters is quick, diligent, and professional. They take a look at the materials on offer, show off a few garments to get an idea of her taste, and then rapidly assemble an appropriate wardrobe, from nightwear to a formal coat. One to wear now, the remainder for pickup tomorrow after adjusting for her measurements. The Ambiguous Officer seems to be getting pretty bored and antsy at this point.

"Sorry, dear Officer, I'd forgotten how long this takes when the tailor doesn't already have your measurements. Shall we do shooting lessons now?"

"Well, I did already show you the basics, but more practice never hurts. Getting on to dinnertime, though."

"Ah, so it is. I assume you were expecting to go somewhere with me, since you didn't beg off while I was here?"

"Guard duty is sacred. But I suppose we're even now, then?"

"Close enough to call it good, at least. Thank you. I suppose I should go find that cheese store for my dinner, and my rooms over it."

The cheese store exists! An enforcer will introduce her and have a quiet conversation.

The Anxious Cheesemonger who minds it mutters about his trade constantly between bouts of how, uh, how very glad he is to pat the Gentlemen's back and put the past behind him. She's welcome to stay a while. Modify the rooms or lock them. Whatever she wants. He's not using any of it. Here's a chaucherie board.

"Thank you kindly. I suspect I will be a very unusual lodger, as you might have guessed from my escorts" - she gestures at her pair of thrulls - "But I will do my best not to be a troublesome one. Let me know if there's any favours you think I might do for you."

Nope nope nope, he won't trouble her. At all. He's just going to mind his cheese caves and curing sheds and keep his nose down.

As he likes, then. But if he ever has an idea of a way they might profitably collaborate, she would be pleased to hear him out.

She'll inspect the rooms; can she stash her thrulls somewhere? Ground just below a window or roof just above one, maybe?

The property is fairly large and there's a lot of old junk in storage. The lived-in areas are clean at least. An unremarkable attic right outside her room can be had, for example.

That will be excellent. She will stash them there, and then relax for a while.

But now, what's next? She makes a mental list:

• The Correspondence
• Bat-thrulls (sale? Cheesemonger's butcher?)
• The Gentlemen (value of lawyers)
• Sourcing mana

Honestly, she's not sure where to start. Operating independently is a weird experience.

But after some thought, she decides that she should walk around the neighborhood, with her escort and gun, and orient herself to it better.

...Tomorrow, though.

Then it is tomorrow. She takes her Gruggs and a walk, trying to look approachable.

The territory of the Gentlemen is still hardly welcoming, but the character is different. They don't move to stand in front of her path until an explanation is given, for example. She receives directions to The Box, where secrets and favors can be traded for coin.

Some standout denizens she can pass include:

An Ursine-Accompanied Singer in leather pants and an extremely poofy red shirt, oozing Red slowly, riding a docile bear with a bell around its neck, whose harness is clinking with dozens of bottles of alcohol. She offers the Dire Lady a drink in between verses of something pretty-sounding in French.

A Khanate Scrimshaw who has heard that she has a lot of ivory from somewhere and would perhaps like to buy some, or better yet, trade in kind. He shows off his work; It's very fine, tiny lines of text and stylized illustration of a tiger lounging in a tree, on a single long curved tooth.

A dapper-dressed man with bright golden eyes whose breath smells slightly of sulfur, who introduces himself as 'an associate of Hell' and offers to buy lunch if she'll make a judgement on a somewhat tricky contract regarding the rights to a soul, as a sort of interview.

A small urchin gang hawking various stolen knicknacks; Watches, wallets, purses, belts, shoes, hand mirrors, and so on. One of them standing back and watching over the rest eyes the Thrulls and fetches a Lethargic Bat in a rusty cage to display as she passes.

She politely declines the drink, suggesting that she might take one in the future when she is more at home here.

The scrimshaw is lovely, and she will definitely want to trade later. Probably mostly not in kind, but try not to sell the tiger for a week, will you? It's definitely to her taste.

She looks faintly bemused at the urchins, and notes the bat but doesn't actually engage with them. (Children are not really her speed.)

The devil, though:

"Ah, I'd been wondering when I'd meet one of your - kind? species? What's the polite term? I would love to take a look at the contract over lunch. Are you one of the parties to it yourself? Or did you perhaps just pull out the most challenging case you had available?"

"Oh, it's an old one in fact. Long settled by blood and fire, but it makes a good conversation piece. Either descriptor is acceptable. Just be aware that I am not associated with those fools pretending to be knights."

"It seems a strange mummery to turn your life toward. Harmless, perhaps? I don't properly know."

"Chivalry is just another set of laws, one that's easier for weak people to mentally deal with." Headshake. "I will get my usual table at the White Swan. Now or in a while?"

"Now will do for me."

He has a private room. The place is vegetarian, though there's decent variety none the less. The devil orders stir fry and honey-glazed fruit while maintaining small talk.

The gist of the contract, once you get past irrelevancies, is that a man managed to bet his soul twice by arguing that he had become a different person with a different soul, and then both bets reached the condition where he would owe it. The first contract conditions were fulfilled first. The second contract holder claims the 'different person' line.

Teysa orders a slightly different stir fry, and picks at the fruit when she notices it's served to be shared. (Usually at restaurants she was culturally obligated to performatively overeat and/or waste food, so 'shared appetizers' are a slightly foreign concept.)

She asks some questions about objective standards for measuring change in a soul, expecting this to be fuzzy enough not to be decisive, then examines the terms around the distinction.

"If I was arguing for the first contract, one tactic I've used is to goad a counterparty - either the second contractor, or the original man who had the soul - into testifying, and try to subtly corner them into admitting they didn't actually believe the 'different person' standard was met, or even better that they didn't think it could realistically be met. Obviously it depends on their personality, but it works more often than you might think. That also assumes that you have a concept analogous to mens rea. In short, that's 'intentions matter' - that someone entering into a contract, or filing suit, under knowing false pretenses, has a significant effect on whether the contract can be enforced or the suit upheld."

The standards for "new soul" are indeed not enough to be decisive. They're very high, but then, something very extreme happened to the man, involving Parabola.

"Always a sound tactic. It can be very helpful to unnerve a foe - or to make them underestimate you by focusing on the 'wrong' things. Tricky, tricky. We generally don't hold with mens rea, the letter of the law is superior. Nor do we hold with the nonsense of precedent. What would you guess actually happened in the end, in this case?"

"You might be missing out. Precedent creates more complex law, and complexity favours the party with experience and money. But here... The first contract. Pragmatism favours the one who can take possession immediately, and he can argue that he wagered for the soul, whatever would become of it, extreme changes not excepted. Not a flawless argument but a very strong one."

"Perhaps, perhaps. The old entrenched system always has the advantage. It does depend on one's objectives and position. Every system has its factions, doesn't it? There's a saying I picked up from an engineer... The design is not complete when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. In this case, you're broadly correct- The soul was claimed by the first holder, and the thing left behind was promptly given a terrible fate by the second in anger over the whole affair."