-A muddy yard with chickens scattering away from her in alarm, a chicken shed of ramshackle construction, corrugated tin and mismatched pieces of wood. The stench and noise of a city all around. Rotting fish and other scraps that must be the chickens' food, unwashed humanity, stress and misery and resignation that only every other day is blessed by soap, plus far too much coal-smoke and the acrid tang of smelting. The ocean, lying under everything, the stench of all the things that grow along the shore. A faint hint of ozone. There are industrial noises in the distance, rhythmic clanging and thumping of metal on metal and engines reciprocating. One either side, a flat brick wall. On another, the back of a run-down house that might have been nice once. On the third, a wooden fence and a street with more houses across the way, brick and wood intermixed. It's too warm for snow, if only a bit.

A poster across the way declares:

For God, Queen, and Country. Sign up for work with the I.E.C. today and prepare for the coming frost!

Memory items: situation is comprehensible, no danger, no opportunity, she's trespassing but not causing any other trouble. She walks out to the street, briefly dropping to all-fours to slink under the fence.

Checklist: the street seems safe for now. No mental distortions. This seems to be a random location, so she's not required to advertise her presence. She strolls down the street towards the industrial sounds. (She doesn't like the smell, but that's irrelevant. She takes a moment to admire her ability to not let unpleasant sensations bother her - so useful, thank you Marra.)

It's not her place to speculate on Marra's intentions in sending her here. In fact, that's usually forbidden. Her duty is simply to advance Marra's interests in general, as she best perceives the situation. If the recruitment poster means there's a war coming, she might, say, train soldiers and eventually rule a duchy in the conquered land. If 'coming frost' is meant literally, well she's used to helping petitioners adapt to the cold. (Living mortals won't become outsiders, but she can still help them psychologically.) If there's social unrest, she can build an oasis of Lawfulness.

(Hm, the recruitment poster referred to a single god. Possibly an enemy of Marra's?)

There are only humans here, and relatively few at this hour. Her appearance gets many double-takes as she walks down the cobbled street. People cross the street or duck into doorsteps and shops, nervously, to avoid her. Though they also peer out of second-story windows and mutter to each other.

A slight turn in the street marks a point where steel rails are laid into the stone, like an Axis tramway. In the distance, a huge brick building - some eighty feet tall - belches black smoke out of five tall smoke-stacks.

She passes an alley where a scarred man boggles, ducks deeper in, then steps out and starts following her, walking like he has a concealed weapon.

"'Ello there."

They must not see a lot of five-and-a-half-foot-tall blue-and-purple anthropomorphic canines with long fluffy tails and visible claws and fangs around here. Of course, marrenai are new and still very rare, but judging by these people's extreme reactions, do they have no kitsune? No catfolk? No gnolls?

...is this a planet with only humans? Actually it makes sense for planets to have one of: totally aliens, about the mix of breeds she's used to, or only one breed of humanoid that colonized a planet without telling anyone else. It might be coincidence that it's the same breed that she was when she was a mortal, two lives ago, but maybe that will be relevant somehow. Queue this topic at low priority.

Have they never seen a summoned vulpinal or procyal or leonal agathion? Maybe the god that dominates this city/country/planet is opposed to Neutral Good. On one hand, she doesn't like Nirvana herself. On the other hand, there's a particular god, Marra's greatest enemy (for now), famous for His theocratic rule of a country that suppresses knowledge of Neutral Good.

"Hello! I'm a new arrival. Can you tell me about the laws that are followed here?" (The laws that are followed, not all the laws.)

"...Nice phrasing. No killin', no stealin', no torture or malingering or harassment or what not, you know, basic stuff. I do know that walking around like that is going to get a lot of very important people very excited, and coming up with two dozen contradictory explanations. Could get messy."

Perhaps just mentioning Law dissuaded him from trying to rob her? Nice.

"What exactly is 'malingering'? What's exciting about me?"

"I think it means pretending to be sick to get out of work. I just think it sounds funny, personally. And you're either in a damned good costume or some sort of fey thing, that's exciting!"

She can appreciate that it is a funny word. Her face is not much good at expressions, but she nods and crinkles her eyes.

"I'm not a fey. I'm an outsider, which is what most people become when they die. There's lots of types of outsiders, depending on the plane where we're made and the god who shapes us. What is your god like?"

"Oooooh, that's gonna be spicy. The Lord God Almighty, you see, is the only one, and only heathens and anarchists say otherwise. Keep your faith in the Lord, repent of your sins, an ye shall be given mercy and know paradise. Else, ye shall suffer the fires of Hell. Glory, glory, glory, hallelujah." He rolls his eyes dramatically. "Bit hard to believe when things so readily go to shit down here, in my opinion."

Not Asmodeus, then. Probably. He might be doing something tricky.

Not Chaotic, if He is opposed by anarchists...? Depends what they mean by anarchists, really. You could call Abadar an anarchist if you looked at Him the right way.

"What are the most common sins? What other gods do heathens and anarchists talk about? Why do poor conditions here make it hard to believe - has He broken promises to you?"

"Why don't I invite you to tea if we're going to be chatting for a while. Pay me back with being the first to hear the word, no funny business. Thief's honor."

"So my obligation is to listen to you and confirm, if anyone asks, what you told me? And... that I didn't hear it from anyone else first?

And by 'no funny business', you mean, for example, I will actually pay attention, you won't talk continuously for a year to keep me trapped, you won't talk at a volume that hurts me, if I accidentally learn something compromising about you I won't use that information against you, you won't poison me, etc?"

"Right on for my promise of no funny business, miss barrister, but I meant that I want to hear what your story and business is earlier than most and," he affects an accent, "Thereby accrue first mover advantage."

"Ah. Am I to be forbidden from telling others for some period of time, then? That's not acceptable to me.

What is Thief's Honor? What happens if we disagree on whether something was funny business or not? Is there an authority you would trust to judge that?"

"Not even if it's just a bloody hour? Look, who even attacks over tea? Tea is practically sacred. Nobody wants the knives to come out." He spreads his arms and grins. "But the jack boots are high strung enough that I bet you won't get a word in if you go to them first."

"The constraint I'm under is that if my god sent me to this particular location in order to fight someone or ally with someone, I'm not supposed to hide my nature or business. Delaying an hour might be hiding, if in that hour someone departs, or dies, or learns of me and considers me to be hiding. Is there some other payment you would accept? Mind-reading, violence, sex, exploring dark areas?

Alternatively, I already suspect my destination on this planet was random. Not enough to be sure, but maybe you have additional evidence for that?

As a made-up example of a conflict, suppose some of my fur collects on your floor, and you later discover this and decide to use some ability I currently don't know about to hurt me through the connection. Or you're upset with me for getting your floor dirty. Is that funny business? I'm not sure. How would you handle it? Normally, my superiors would decide, potentially escalating as far as my god, who would talk to the other gods. Here, I don't have any superiors other than my god, who is unlikely to intervene. That's why I'm so interested in what rules you would follow. I will probably follow similar rules, although I might interpret them myself rather than submitting to an authority I don't trust. It sounds like the authority here, the 'jack boots', are not trustworthy?"

His eyebrows shoot up high at 'mindreading', and higher at 'sex'.

"Free tip, careful calling yourself a whore. Not exactly respectable a profession in the eyes of most. What a fascinating worldview. I'd certainly claim so- Just look at the promises they made to evacuate all of Bristol, and who actually gets on the evacuation transports, eh? Rich folks, and folks with connections. You know what, I'm tempted to tag along and watch the chaos unfold."

"I'm not a mortal woman and don't need the support of a man who must be assured of the paternity of my children. Why would they judge me? For setting a bad example?"

That seems like a thing Good would do... In her opinion, if stupid people make stupid choices, that's not her problem, even if they were inspired by her. Unless they belong to her, in which case she would simply force them to make better choices.

"So is tea cancelled? I would still like to hear about your religion. What's Thief's Honor, or is there a reason you evaded that question? You want me to contact the Jack Boots? Do you expect that to go well for me?"

"They'd judge you because it's just a fact that it's bad, in their heads. Most people aren't great at taking new information into account, yanno? And you're kind of asking three at once, I'm forgetting 'em. It means I might steal from you, but I've got standards. Thief, not highwayman, not murderer. The smart people know things are gonna get real bad, and are preparing. I like to flatter myself on the subject of intelligence, and be a showman at times."

"A disappointing sort of shallow obedience, but understandable. Is forbidding prostitution a preference of your god? Where I'm from, the creator of our universe decided that cannibalism is Evil, for instance. She doesn't even call Herself Good, She just decided to define Good and Evil that way for everyone else.

You flatter yourself correctly.

We're in Bristol now? Where is the evacuation to? Why?"

"Answer me this and I'll answer you those, what's that mind reading like?"

"I can read people's conscious thoughts if I touch them. I can also get a look at people's deeper desires and fears, which oddly enough does not require touching them, but it's more expensive for me and I can only do that a few times a day. I have not read your mind by any of those methods."

"Huh."

Yeah, he's not trusting that she really hasn't. If she's not lying and keeps to her own rules religiously, how can he tell the difference...

"In order then, it's a bit complicated, but the opinions are about how it's bad for both men and women to be led to desperation and faithlessness. Though old Yahweh himself hasn't said things, his prophets and disciples and angels do, and them centuries and more ago. Yeah, this is Bristol. Shipbuilding and steel industry, isn't the seaside air just lovely? The evacuations are to new fortified city sites on geothermal areas up north- Generators, to outlast the bitter winter that awaits us all. They're saying it's the last autumn. All over the world, it's getting colder than it should, and faster, and is going to keep going. Nobody knows why, just that it's happening. And lucky us, the British Empire is in a position to try to save itself. Crops already started failing. Famine leads to war. Last estimate I heard was sixty-five days till the sea freezes over. Best to leave to one of those lovely Generators well before then."

"...I suspect your god is dead, or has abandoned this area, if He hasn't chosen any 'prophets' and 'disciples' in centuries. What were His 'angels' like? I'm very interested in any other gods you've heard of!

Lovely sea air, yes, reminds me of the fragrant wind blowing in from Hell.

How do Generators work?"

"The mysteries of the machines are for engineers. I've got to scoot, see there?"

He points to where a pair of blue uniformed men are walking quickly down the street towards them.

"My invitation to a secret place stands, otherwise good luck avoiding a public indecency charge! Ask around for Green Gulliman if you want to chat again later!"

He sketches a bow and turns and starts walking away.

She really wants to hear more about the other gods, but not from him in particular, and it wouldn't be enough reason to run after him if the Jack Boots weren't coming (if that's who those people are) which means that choosing to follow him now would be hiding.

She nods at him and turns to face the approaching pair.

They seem nervous. They look at each other and one makes a 'go on' gesture at the other.

"Ma'am? I'm officer Smithers, with Bristol police, and your... Appearance is alarming people. I'd like you to come down to the station with us for a discussion, to - prevent anything unfortunate from happening."

"Hello, officer Smithers. I'm Kireh, an outsider of the god Marra. I'm new here and need an explanation of your laws. If you have a copy of the code at your station, that would be excellent.

I'm already aware that you forbid killing, stealing, malingering, torture, harassment, and quote 'basic stuff' unquote which I will require to be explained in further detail, and I have questions about the rest of the list.

What unpleasant events are you worried about?"

She'll follow them with her usual relaxed demeanor, but she readies herself to cast Haste if they attack or try to restrain her.

One of them will walk ahead of her and the other behind her, actually, but they don't move to touch her.

"Right this way. We can get you the common law and local declarations. The full law of the land is extensive, and not necessarily relevant. The Queen declared a state of emergency a few days ago, granting broad discretionary power to Captains appointed in various regions. Captain Andrew Blemwick is the emergency authority for Bristol, superseding the governor by royal order."

"And none too soon. Blemwick is actually doing things. Thank you for coming with us. We'll get you something to wear, and all shall be well. There's a lot of tension and superstition- Superstition is dangerous if you let it get out of hand, and unusual people are the sort of thing that invites it. Someone might decide to attack you or take your presence as a sign and cause trouble."

She keeps an ear on the one behind her while pretending to ignore them, and refreshes her readied action each round.

"A sign of a god's interference? I was in fact sent here by my god. What other superstitions do people have?

Anyway, what are you supposed to do if someone attacks you? You can't kill them, right? Non-lethal injury and restraint could count as torture by my understanding, though? How do the laws you refer to overlap with your god's commandments and with 'Thief's Honor'?"

"...Thief's honor! Whoever told you that was jesting or dangerous, miss. No such bloody thing as an honorable thief. And I'll thank you not to inflame the superstitious with such claims."

"Self defense is permitted, of course," Smithers says more calmly. "And the defense of others. So long as you don't unreasonably escalate- Don't maim a pickpocket, but if someone threatens you with a blade you'd be within your rights to defend with lethal force. And to restrain them, but not chase and kill, if they flee, mind, reasonable response is the rule. It would likely go before a judge if such a thing happened, but best to avoid it in the first place."

Well, she's not going to lie about what she is.

Their legal system sounds okay, for mortals. She'll ask for statistics on the reliability of their judges, but later, at the station maybe. (Set a reminder for that.) She would like more clarity on what's 'reasonable' but it's probably easiest to ask someone else, to get a different angle on it with different examples, so set a reminder for that too, also for when she's at the station.

"What has Captain Blemwick been doing? Is all of Bristol evacuating together as a unit?"

"Oh, we're-"

"Best not to talk about that in public! There's a plan, it relies on order and nobody panicking, Blemwick has been reorganizing the factories and ships and working closely with the IEC."

Fascinating. "What's the IEC?"

"That's the Imperial Exploration Corps, ma'am, responsible for siting and building the shelters."

If the thief was correct that not everyone will get to go to a shelter, the IEC has come up with a brilliant plan for leaving the dregs behind and building a new society with only the best and brightest. However, if they're taking nobles and leaving behind smart ambitious people like Mr. Green, she's disappointed with their filtering.

She doesn't need to eat and is immune to cold, so if they're being pragmatic they might let her follow the evacuation to a shelter, where she could draw from the supposedly-best-and-brightest while competing with everyone else who wants power.

Alternatively, she could stay and pick out the overlooked gems here, with less competition. Assuming that it's possible to survive here at all without a Generator. She doesn't have any healing or protection spells herself, but if Marra can reach here, or there are acceptable local gods, they might be able to get a cleric, with Kireh's help shaping their minds.

She doesn't know how to do arcane magic and can't teach it... Maybe she can buy knowledge from the secretive 'engineers'.

"Have any of the shelters been completed yet? What are they like? What exactly do the Generators do? Is there an engineers' guild that controls them?"

"The Generators will circulate superheated steam in a wide area, warming homes and powering industries- A lot like the steam cores they use in the factories, but bigger and better. I definitely remember hearing that some are ready. We can get you a newspaper when we get to the station, it's just up there, that three-story building with the arched windows. Though guilds are a thing of the past- 'Engineer' is more a title of education, these days, and includes doctors and scientists and other academics too."

"Where are you from, how did you get to Bristol?" The god-suspicious one asks again. "And what is your business here if anything?"

So only the stream cores are the secret part?

"I'm from Stonepeak, and before that, Heaven, and a planet called Golarion. I don't know exactly how I got to this city or planet or plane or universe - I'm not sure how far I've come - but it was some sort of divine magic.

Marra might have intended me to do something specific, but She didn't tell me what. My goals here are to improve people's self-esteem and true level of accomplishment, their effective use of hierarchies with clearly-defined duties in every direction, their ability to guide others better than they could guide themselves, and their use of rules to streamline social interactions and impede corruption and emotional manipulation.

I am open to working with you, which I will do diligently and honestly, as long as you reciprocate. For example, you could employ me as a teacher, sergeant, spy, therapist, scout, organizational consultant, or guard."

"...Well, that's a bit above our pay grade. But people willing to work, and work hard and smart, are always welcome."

"So you come from something like a holy order of duty and discipline, and think you're sent here on a holy mission? I don't know much about those Hindo or whatever gods - the colonial ones-"

"Basically yes, but to be completely clear: I'm not in a holy order, such as living beings might form under the guidance of a 'prophet' or 'disciple'. I'm a different kind of immortal being of the same general sort as angels and, say, devils, axiomites, demons, azatas?

Marra cares about more than just diligence and duty. Specifically: taking joy in one's own existence and capabilities, duty between superiors and subordinates, and in particular around optimizing and being optimized, and duty in other, non-hierarchical relationships.

She, and I, are categorized as reliable and honest, as opposed to impulsive and slippery; and as disapproving of self-sacrifice, as opposed to militantly self-sacrificing by means of emotional manipulation. Where I'm from, all gods and beings like me have clear measurements on those two scales, as do many living beings.

To use standard terminology from my home, Marra cares about vanity, feudalism, paternalism, and rules, and we're considered Lawful Evil. Yes, the side that tries to make people more vulnerable to social pressure to destroy themselves is called 'Good' and the side that opposes them is 'Evil'. Probably because Evil also includes beings that torture and destroy as much as they can, which gives our side a bad reputation, while Good visibly fights those creatures, and only later subtly oozes their poison. We visibly fight too, but Evil fighting Evil is harder than Good fighting Evil. Remember, Good and Evil, and Law and Chaos, are fundamental traits for us, just as fundamental as the pressure of steam. Another effect of this is that there are measurement spells sometimes used to filter out Evil people from civic life, which is understandable, but unfortunate.

I don't know much about your gods here and would be interested in learning more!"

They seem vaguely uncomfortable about the theological information, and promptly decide to pretty much ignore it.

Anyway. Here's the station. They explain to the front desk that Kireh is the 'demon or lunatic' they've been getting reports of, a strange person saying strange things, but is acting cooperative and seems religiously inclined to law and order, so they want to put her in an interview room and let the patrol chief decide what to do about her.

...Front desk person blinks at her and says, "Alright then, go ahead."

"Oh, and some clothes and a newspaper. And-"

"Just write down what you take from the storeroom."

"Right this way, miss Kireh."

She follows, keeping track of the exits and continuing to refresh her readied Haste.

(Weird how they clammed up about religion. Maybe there was a war recently and they're trying not to inflame tension? With the 'heathens and anarchists'? Or maybe the old god here had an inquisition that outlived Him and she was speaking heresy?)

"I would also like to see statistics on the accuracy of your system's arrests and judgements. Do you have any external auditors?"

Real Lawful people with access to sufficient mind-reading, or Lawful outsiders, would be immune to conflict of interest and wouldn't need auditors, of course, but she's familiar with mortal failings from her experience ironing them out. (Well technically, clawing them out, usually.)

Honestly, the pair seem to find her unnerving and want to be gone. They show her to a fairly bare room with a table and chairs and a window to let light in, tell her that she'd need to go visit city hall for those kinds of records, and aren't sure what she means by external auditors- Do imperial police who handle national crimes count? -And say someone will be by shortly to get her something to wear- Public indecency is a crime, after all - And bring a newspaper:

Coast Runner News, August 25, 1892
CROWN JEWELS SOLD?!?
It was reported to this news-house by a member of the court who asked to remain anonymous that Her Majesty has completed the sale of further items of the royal family, including items from the monarch's personal regalia, with the raised funds immediately transferred to the I.E.C. and 'related efforts'. While this action is surely indicative of Her Benevolence and Kindness in leading our great empire, this reporter fears that some actions cause irreparable harm to the dignity of the great English people and our proud history...
GRAIN DOLE DOUBLED FOR WORKERS' FAMILIES
NANSEN: VAST MINERAL WEALTH BELOW ICE
TROUBLES IN THE RAJ - FAMINE LEADS TO CHAOS

And a small bound copy of The Handbook of English Common Law, for Police, Jurors, Sherrifs, and Laymen 1886 ed.

The Common Law is, apparently, the result of a massive bureaucratic effort to unify and simplify over a thousand years of laws from around the Empire. Removing contradictions, clarifying ambiguities, updating for the changing times. It's still... Mediocrely aimed at vaguely-good confounded by entrenched interests of the nobility and wealthy, by her standards. Slavery is illegal. Tax law is a mess. Corporations are legal entities that can be held liable separately from their members. Prison and 'transportation to the Colonies' are common punishments. There are certain freedoms everyone is supposed to receive. They have jury trials with the right to hire a representative to defend you in criminal cases, and trials by judge in civil cases, the boundaries of which are occasionally vague.

After a few minutes, an old woman comes in with several bundles of cloth and busies herself tailoring Kireh a nice dress from what's available- Loose, for the fur, of course, and does this pattern look better to her or that one, and don't mind her fool grandson making faces at her a few minutes ago, he's just very anxious really, he should come to Church more often- Her fur is really quite wonderful and she thinks Kireh could sell it for a coat lining, though of course that's probably like selling hair which means almost no woman will do it- And proceed to ramble and gossip as she works. She can be steered towards repeating some Church sermons with moderate effort and doesn't seem to care that Kireh is part fox.

Juries would be a neat idea if they didn't allow the jurors to talk to each other, and required them to come to a unanimous decision anyway, but as is they just seem like a way to sneak in more Good. With no auditing or staged cases for calibration, she thinks that the system is Lawful enough to cooperate with somewhat, but if she ever goes before a corrupt or biased judge, or if they want to put her in a more vulnerable position, she'll object and possibly flee.

From Marra's perspective, corporations are a waste of opportunities for personal power and vanity, but they speak favorably of this country's Law, as does the overall project of assembling the 'common law'. She has mixed feelings about slavery being illegal. On one hand, slavery is a terrible waste and source of pointless suffering, and of course a bastion for Asmodeus. On the other hand, it would have been an easy way to acquire people who were firmly hers (in the Marran feudal sense).

If the queen is selling the crown jewels, they must not be powerful artifacts. Maybe her artifacts are separate and for some reason not associated with her office, or maybe arcane magic just works completely different here, as already suggested by the 'steam cores'.

Patterns with lots of triangles and rectangles remind her of the current trends at Marra's library camp at Stonepeak, and of course Marra's blue and red are always appropriate. Personally she also likes designs with letter-like shapes. Practically, mixed shades of grey would be better for camouflage, but she's already good at stealth and thinks it's more important to feed her personal vanity.

The old god seems to have been Lawful Good, as she was suspecting. She's not sure how much of His supposed commands are His true desires, important to Law somehow, distortions introduced over the last centuries, or important to how gods work here. Reminder: when she prays, actually do Marra's obedience and any other gods' obediences that she can remember, in case that makes the prayers work better here.

Yeah, she'd rather not sell her fur; she likes it.

"How do nobles relate to other people? Is it possible to become a noble?"

"Oh, not so much these days, it's the modern era! The Queen knights people for service sometimes, but it just comes with money these days, not land. Factories and education are the future, you hear? Not old counts in musty estates. The lords and ladies were the same for a thousand years, until the steam engine came along. It used to be education was too expensive for most people and they really were the only ones who knew how to run things... Bit of a shame, all the fuss in Parliament and the papers these days is unseemly, but there's no putting the genie back in the bottle."

She'll just have to get people consensually, sigh.

Meanwhile...

"Bird claims she can read minds by touch, and around her but not all the time. I think we can put it to use. You know the cops are going to."

"That's not a bloody bird, it's a fox. And how do you know she's not having you on, anyway?"

"Call it a hunch. I've got a good feeling. She's alien - fey, or rather, an outsider. It's obvious if you talk to her for ten seconds, there's nothing really human going on in that skull."

"If there's nothing human in her, you can't make any prediction at all what she'll do."

"Nah, she was going on about law and gods, asked what was illegal here first off, of course she's going to help the cops."

"...Point. Fine, if you make sense about it, I'll bring in Westy."

"Nah, he's a squirrely fucker, he'd rat us out in a heartbeat."

"Point. Again. How about Leo?"

"Leo works."

"So what's your plan?"

"To score some supplies, what else? So, we're going to need some witnesses and accomplices who see the right thing, and sincerely believe it..."

The finished dress is a slightly faded burgundy with patches of denim and a few bits of a blue silk handkerchief sewn in, mostly in places they can fit as triangular, square, or letter-shaped trim. The old woman tuts, unsatisfied with it, but it's the best she can do given how few spare clothes are around this time of year. They converted all the mills for tent, airship, and sail cloth, you know. There's a hole for her tail. She'd probably better put it on before the Police Chief, McAllen, comes to see about hiring her.

Chief McAllen is an eternally frowning man in his fifties, wearing a neatly trimmed uniform and beard, with dark bags under his eyes. He introduces himself politely, and indicates a seat at the interview table. Another officer follows him in with a plain tea set and a platter of slightly stale biscuits, then stands in a corner. He pours hot tea for two. There's a small container of sugar, which he ignores.

"Miss Kireh, correct? You are really quite novel. My apologies if the hospitality has been lacking, but 'outsiders' that don't turn out to be hoaxes are, well, unprecedented. And to cut straight to the heart of things, I imagine you are in need of funds?"

She wasn't expecting the dress to be adjusted to fit and decorated! She's not grateful, but she is pleased and makes a show of admiring herself in it. (Just in case the dress concealed a cursed item, she switched to readying Charm Person while putting it on, triggered if she had a sudden change in emotions, thoughts, or values.)

She nods and sits. Keeps readying Charm Person and smells the tea.

"Police Chief McAllen? I would be happy to demonstrate my abilities if needed to resolve doubts." She gives a brief description of them, describing Haste only as 'a minor defensive spell' and emphasizing that Charm Person is only for combat or people who are Lawfully hers. She can see well in the dark and cannot be damaged by cold or electricity.

"Money would be useful for many things, to be sure. I am also interested in a few things that are harder to buy: certainty in my own position, endorsement of my Lawfulness (to the degree you can provide that), and power."

(Well, old lady Smithers has pride in her work, so she gets a pleased nod as she admires it.)

"There is a lot going on, as you can imagine. I think it would be quite premature to deputize you, and your position is a bit clouded, yes. A statement on my authority declaring that you have engaged in important work for the city, perhaps... The actual work I would ask of you is interrogation of several people involved in various incidents. I will not submit them for judgement on your claims alone, but information gathered this way could rule them innocent or open new avenues of investigation and save a lot of time. Something that is in ever decreasing supply."

"I can perform interrogations, yes.

What would such a statement by you accomplish? Beyond dispelling alarm at my appearance?

I care a lot about certainty in my obligations and powers, and I'm happy to accept a narrower position in exchange for more certainty.

I read that criminals may be exiled to 'the colonies'. What happens to them there? Would remanding them to my custody be an acceptable sentence? I would strongly prefer to have a veto on who I accept, and would filter on potential loyalty to me, among other things, so I'm fine with a requirement that they consent." For now. "The longest contract that I'll negotiate with you now is two years."

"Transportation usually means to Australia, a wide and sparse land. It was proposed as a kinder alternative to prison- The guilty may choose to be sent there with a small amount of supplies, to start a new life, but that is suspended given the frost. It would just be a roundabout execution, not to mention tying up valuable transportation capacity. I can't remand anyone to your custody in good conscience without getting to know you, miss Kireh. Even if I did, I would want assurances that you would treat them as one of Her Majesty's prisons would, or better. And two years... No, I think we had better work on a short-term arrangement and extend it later if it continues to be acceptable."

"If it reassures you, I can alter the language I was planning to use within reason. The statement would authorize you to live in Bristol, hopefully dispel alarm at your appearance though there is never any guarantee with the public, and impress upon people that you ought be treated as a free and respectable person- As opposed to a vagrant or criminal, that is. I do have a letters patent, a royal order authorizing me specifically as chief of police to take action, if that would reassure you on my authority. This is not the original, but a copy."

He pulls it out of his coat pocket and unfolds it.

Our advisors inform Us that the unending winter of the last year, is likely the return of the great Ice Ages of yore.

Furthermore and disturbingly, that a strong chance exists that this return will birth great storms which will scour the Tropics and Temperates, saving only a rough oval in the North and Centre of the Near East.

Our advisors furthermore inform Us that you, sir Timothy McAllen, have served nobly and well, and are of good temperament and character.

Accordingly, Our response to this Ice Age is to charge and empower You to maintain order in the city of Bristol, superseding the Governor and any similarly appointed Captains.

Your duties in this matter are chiefly concerned with preventing the dissolution into barbarism that We have observed in some of Our territories.

For this duty We do issue You the position of Grand Sherriff, and give authorization to dispense Justice and Punishment in accordance with Our laws, to issue ordinary civil command and permit in Our name as one of Our judges, and to issue writs of Labor, Requisition, and Permit at your discretion.

We charge you to uphold your honor for the better preservation of the Our people and industries in Bristol and all of the Empire.

It is of particular note that Bristol's shipyards provide vital transportation to Our realm, and any completed vessel shall surely preserve many lives.

Thus We also charge you with ensuring the ship construction continues uninterrupted as much as possible.

In this manner We hope to have the best chance of preserving the future.

God Speed

Victoria R.

"As you can see, I answer to the Queen and Her agents, and do not answer to but cooperate with the Governor and I.E.C. Captain Blemwick. I have permission to give you a position. I will require you to keep confidential things that you discern during interrogations except from myself or officers authorized by myself, except for topics I specifically permit as no longer secret."

"How would you define and measure treatment equal to or better than prison? If I were to acquire subordinates some other way, as feudal vassals, not as slaves - I understand that slavery is prohibited - would our relationship be recognized, for example in not interfering with me hunting them down if they change their mind and try to leave?

Among Marra's followers where I'm from, there is a custom that if you save someone's life, they're yours, with the exception that you have to offer them the alternative of a quick painless death. Do you have any similar custom here?

A shorter contract is fine. The shortest duration I'm willing to negotiate now is ten minutes; 100 rounds.

May I be authorized to live in Bristol and in a shelter that the people of Bristol are evacuated to? Do you have that authority?

How would I go about verifying your letters of patent? How would one verify the statement from you?

I would swear not to divulge by any means information that I learn because of interrogations I perform, unless I already know it or later learn it some other way."

"...If you 'hunt down' anybody, I will have to arrest you for assault. We don't have such traditions, as I said, slavery is illegal. You are not a noble and I cannot make you one, I cannot recognize people as yours in any other manner than marriage or employment. Or adoption, I suppose. You can hire people, and sign contracts with them that they would owe you labor or money if broken, but if they break the contract you would be entitled to report this and file civil suit, not enforce it yourself. I can authorize you to live in Bristol and am willing to as part of payment, I can't make promises about the I.E.C. evacuation."

"I can show you the original letter which is sealed with the royal seal, and you can ask the Governor's people at city hall about the letters. The libraries would also have information indicating that letters of patent exist. I would post a complementary statement publicly before the station and make it known among officers that I have done this. I do hope we can both have things we want, here, but you are not in Stonepeak."

"To be clear, I am now much less motivated to save the lives of strangers at my own risk. Are there rewards for that?

How does marriage work? Can anyone at all make me a noble? Can I marry into the nobility?

If not, I can work with temporary, consensual relationships with my subordinates. I will, of course, obey all local laws, to the degree that they are intended to be universally obeyed.

How are new laws passed? What areas are under the jurisdiction of the laws that have been explained to me? What happens in abandoned areas, such as the tropics if the storms mentioned in your letters make it uninhabitable?"

"Not specifically.

Marriage is a sacred, lifelong bond between two people, a set of vows to raise a family together. You could marry into the nobility if you found a willing noble, perhaps, other than that- Just the Queen herself, and not something I think you should be focusing on as a legitimate possibility. The legislative process is summarized well in several books which I shall have lent to you. In abandoned areas the laws are what you agree upon and can enforce, I suppose, though making your own laws will lose you any association and protection with those of the United Kingdom unless some agreement is come to. Let's do some verification exercises and finish our initial deal. Mr. Comb, you read my instructions?"

"Yessir."

"If you can elicit the instructions I gave to Mr. Comb from his mind, I will consider your claims of reading thoughts verified."

Mr. Comb frowns dubiously at her from the corner.

"To read his thoughts I'll have to touch him..." She carefully gets up and walks over to touch his shoulder. Marra's Inquisition.

Casting a spell and then concentrating means that she can't keep readying actions each round, for at least three rounds. On the upside, if they attack her unlawfully she'll be free of their laws too.

Mr. Comb has a feeling like someone is listening, engrossed by his every word, and he can't turn away or stop speaking to them.

"Uncanny."

He's not going to make it easy, though. Criminals would at least try to be squirrely, you know, and think about anything but what they're guilty of. Like lunch, which was terrible. They're running out of tea and jam, and it's going to get worse, but he feels entitled to complain about it anyway.

"There's some instructions Police Chief McAllen gave to you... did he hand you a piece of paper? Or leave them out for you to find... Perhaps they were delivered to you. In an envelope, or on a nice sheet of paper, or written on the wall, or in a notebook... How thoughtful of him to give you the chance to participate in this experiment... or maybe not... Did you consent to this? ... Of course a criminal being interrogated might not know exactly what I'm capable of... Maybe I can get at your memories directly, or guide your thoughts towards those instructions. It'd have to be subtle but do you feel the pressure? After you ate lunch, did you get them then? It would have been nice if the instructions were written on your plate with jam..."

This is harder when she can't use pain and pleasure to guide his thoughts.

He's not a pushover in the realm of smarts, but also has no practice with this sort of thing. He makes it annoying, and tries to lie in the thoughts and bring up the wrong instructions, but it's obvious this is a lie. It's not too difficult to tease out though. His 'secret instructions' were to find a particular record in the records room, 144345, and bring it to McAllen, but not until late evening, and not to let anyone else know a secret test was going on.

She drops the spell and readies Charm Person again. "Is this a private place in which I can tell you information I gained from an interrogation, Police Chief McAllen?" It's a genuine question, but also lets her subtly delay until she's covered by a readied action again, just in case they were waiting to attack her until after they got the results of the test.

"Private enough. It's what interview rooms are for."

Nobody attacks her! Funny how often that happens.

"Fetch record 144345 from the record room, bring it to you late this evening, and don't let anyone else learn of these secret orders."

This is normally where she might ruffle Mr. Comb's hair, but as an entity who only forms habits when she intends to (yay), she easily dismisses this thought and is not at any risk of doing anything untoward.

(So what if they're still not attacking her. She has nothing but disgust for the strategy of being nice to someone until their positive feelings spill out and corrupt the rest of their judgement. She is thankfully immune.)

"Correct.

What say you to four hours of interrogations today and four tomorrow, in exchange for a writ of permission to reside in Bristol, a notice that you are engaged in important work, and fifteen shillings?"

(Mr. Comb's pay, as he thought of while trying not to think of his instructions, is one pound sterling - twenty shillings - a week.)

She nods. "Deal. I swear never to divulge by any means information that I learn because of interrogations I perform at your command (direct or delegated), unless I already know that information or later learn it some other way, or unless you release me in whole or in part, or your delegates or successors, determined as best as I can reasonably-by-my-standards assess who you would endorse as representing your intent."

Does the dress have pockets?

The dress does not have pockets.

McAllen proceeds to write down the details of the deal and tells her that he'll have officers bring the people to be interrogated in one at a time, with a list of topics to question them on. She is not to deliberately lead their thoughts outside of these topics and is to stop the read if she encounters something obviously irrelevant, because if people think the police are on a witch hunt for anything they've ever done wrong in their lives it will cause problems later and the easiest way to prevent that is to simply not do that, and they'll be permitted to tell her to stop, though of course they'll understand that doing that is extremely suspicious. He thinks they'll be able to start in half an hour if she wants to go read something or perhaps shop close by first. Here's six shillings.

She's impressed with his Lawfulness.

"If they deliberately think about lunch, I'll interpret that as asking to stop. If they accidentally think of something irrelevant and I stop, can they ask to start again? If that happens a lot - some people are easily distracted - can they consent to me continuing past irrelevant thoughts?

Should I clarify the policies myself, or assume that they have already been explained?"

"Yes, yes, and you should explain it again even if they have already been explained. Some people are slow."

"Aye."

She'll need a handbag or purse of some sort to carry her money and letter, but that can wait until she actually has the letter. (So she knows how big it is, and to calm any panicking shopkeepers.)

She continues reading the law books.

McAllen departs.

The Queen is technically all powerful, but in practice delegates legislative power to the House of Lords (nobles) and House of Commons (elected commoners). There was much recent protesting about some laws regarding the spread of disease being unfair to women, until said laws were repealed by royal order. Some of the most recent laws are those regarding Steam Cores and the automata that can be constructed from them and boil down to 'you are responsible for the actions of automata you own, and can be charged with manslaughter, maiming, and destruction if they kill people or break things and it's judged as negligent or deliberate'.

A pair of very official looking writs on fancy parchment arrive a few minutes later. They're perhaps a foot long and half that wide. One of the off-duty officers will escort her and explain, just to head off more reports of her at the source and save everyone some trouble until her existence is a bit more known.

So slavery is just fine if the slaves are automata?

She would like a handbag that can strap firmly to her body so she can move and fight with it, a hard case for the letter (it doesn't have to be fancy; two pieces of wood or stiff leather would be fine), and fabric to pad it. How much are healing potions? Does this store post advertisements? She'd like to offer her services as a teacher, therapist, scout, organizational consultant, guard, or 'any other legal activity you might care to use me for', with a description of her abilities and appearance, and stating that she can probably be found near the police station.

Er... A handbag and protective case and fabric scraps can be had for about a shilling. Automata aren't people, they're machines... And healing potions are not a thing. The chemist has medicines of various kinds available, of course, depending on what's troubling her...? And she can post something on the notice board for two pence if she writes it up herself and it's not, um, disturbing or heretical or anything. A sheaf of paper (counting twenty) and a pen is eight pence.

(She would still like to try mind-reading one, but it's not urgent.)

She's in perfect health herself, but she's worried about accidentally injuring someone with her claws. Or deliberately, and doing more damage than she intended.

Those prices are acceptable. If her advertisement doesn't say anything about religion, is that sufficient to avoid heresy?

This shopkeeper thinks that her best option there is antiseptic, bandages, and gauze. Which the chemist will have. And he doesn't. And it's not like he's a priest. It will probably fine if there's no mention of religion? And they keep paid-for advertisements up for at least a week.

It's a deal.

When she finishes writing out the advertisement, is there time to go to the chemist? Also, is it common for the police to work to a precise schedule, and if so, how do they tell time? She might need to buy a timepiece...

The officer escorting her says they have three overlapping patrol shifts. Most people work eight to six; It's one in the afternoon now. Timepieces are a bit expensive, you're looking at a pound even for old models and at least a couple pounds for a new one. He also thinks the nearest chemist would... Probably try to interrogate her extensively, and that could be time-consuming.

Okay, no timepiece then, and she'll go to the chemist later. (She's slightly wistful; regulator marrenai have built-in clocks, but cantors don't.)

On the walk back to the station, she asks if there's a visible or audible clocktower?

There is, it's just barely visible from out here and sometimes not even audible, but a bit further north and you can see it clearly. The factories have shift alarms too, once every four hours.

The actual interrogations they have her perform are mostly sort of anticlimactic. This person accused of murder firmly believes he is innocent. This one accused of sabotage seems to be guilty, having done it in a fit of drunken pique. This one hauled in for being in contact with suspicious characters has agreed to describe everything they know in exchange for leniency and Kireh is verifying. A courier who waylaid a vital package; Incompetence, not malice. A smuggler argues that he had good intentions and was helping people and should be let off. A woman who stole from her husband and fled to Bristol; Her husband was beating her. A dozen more men and two more women in ten minute interviews. These people are all fairly unnerved, and mostly innocent-ish. The officers take everything down diligently.

-And a child is brought in, eventually. She has a bruise around one eye, and rough clothes. Crosses her arms and tries to look unimpressed at Kireh and the officers.

"The orphan Waltana Hampson, age fourteen. Approved topics are why she was in a restricted industrial area, what she was doing with an automaton, what she changed in it if anything, what it was intended to do, how to reverse it, if she intended to benefit or cause trouble from altering the automaton in any way."

"I'm telling you, it will work better now. All you have to do is turn it on."

"Miss, please sit at the table."

She huffs and sits.

Kireh realizes she made a mistake. Some of the suspects are trying to lie to her with their thoughts. Not successfully, but she can imagine a future optimization-race between her techniques and criminals' deliberately-muddy minds. She doesn't like muddy minds.

She thought this project was just a way to make money and establish a reputation, so she could gather followers later, for her to shape as she's used to shaping her petitioners and summoners. She didn't think about how it would impact Marra's interests over the whole city.

It might not be that bad. The innocent try to bare their minds to her, if they're not too afraid, and it would be great if people who expect to be innocent in future interactions with the Bristol police practice clarifying their minds ahead of time.

And Marra Herself might be willing to discard criminals into the pits of ambiguity and self-deception. They are, after all, mostly less Lawful and thus less useful, less likely to be awesome. (Maybe Marra even predicted that Kireh would make this mistake... drop that thought; she's not supposed to speculate on Marra's predictions of her.) But Kireh is sad about wasting, say, the Green Gulliman, who does have a sense of Lawfulness.

Even if the outcome is positive, she still made a mistake by not thinking about it first. She already knew that overusing Marra's Inquisition damages petitioners! Normally, now is when she would find a superior to correct her: the main camp's regulator, one of her three semi-superior cantors, Marra Herself. But she's alone here. Marrans aren't supposed to be without a superior! Marra's choice to ascend and leave Herself unguided was a sacrifice. Kireh can patch the habits that led to this mistake, and maybe that's good enough, but it's still wrong. 

- Kireh might not be alone here. She might find a superior, or another cantor for them to be each other's semi-superiors. Or she might train a cleric for Marra: a second-circle cleric as a semi-superior, or a third-circle cleric definitely above her.

She patches the error, but crudely so it's easy to reverse, and sets a reminder to consult a superior when she has one.

"Hello, Miss Hampson.

I'm going read your thoughts, only the topics the officer just mentioned. I will stop if you drift off-topic or if you ask me to stop. I will not report any other information to the police, certainly nothing about any other crimes, past or future, committed by you or anyone else.

My personal advice is that you relax and let me guide you; lying to me is very unlikely to work, and by attempting to lie you will do yourself injury.

I'll need to touch you."

Kireh stretches an arm across the table. Her claws don't retract, but she keeps them pressed together and curls her hand to point her claws back at herself.

She takes a deep breath first, and puts her hand on the weird clawed one.

Marra's Inquisition. Wait two rounds for it to settle.

"What were you doing with the automaton?"

That is weird.

"I was fixing it."

Or not exactly fixing, but optimizing. They're beautiful.

"Or well, improving it. Look, if you're reading, can you see-"

It just makes sense, see, when it pauses during its walk like that it's deciding where to go next- Rotors and dials and wires- But it stops, here, and that triggers this, which starts that, and it checks where it is and where it has to go, and then moves again. But if she has this part start from this over here,

"See, it can do the figuring out where to go while it's walking instead, it's faster. And nothing I did can't be changed back..."

Ooooh.

She's an engineer!

Kireh wants her.

"What did you expect to happen after you changed it? To it, to you, to the owner of the automaton?"

She's smart, too.

(Huh, so automata are just machines after all.)

"Uh, I was sort of hoping they'd notice it was working better and then I could be all - Hah! Behold, I did that, hire me! But- They told me it could have caused an accident instead."

Which, duh, and yikes, and now she's in all sorts of trouble but it's not like her other option (stay put in the orphanage and wash clothes or something) would have been much better.

"Why were you in a restricted industrial area?" She's not sure how big the area is and if Waltana could see the automaton from the outside, but she's keeping the question open.

This seems like the sort of youthful indiscretion that Good people love to make a show of forgiving. In the interest of keeping Waltana in Bristol and out of prison, can Kireh make that outcome more likely? If she asks about reversing the change, Waltana might promise to reverse it herself. Which would be helpful for impressing the police. But witnessing that promise would be outside the topics Kireh is approved to read, so is she allowed to maneuver in that direction?

Iomedae would say no: the police are not expecting her to subtly arrange things in her interest, and she needs to follow their unwritten expectations... (Kireh thinks Lawful Good has caught themselves in a trap where they're expected to be nice and so their Law compels them to keep doing it.)

Abadar would say no, because the police didn't show much skill in negotiating her contract, so she should try to predict what they would have agreed to if they were better at contracts, which would have included a clause about not modifying interrogations for her own purposes.

Asmodeus would say haha fuck them.

Marra is Lawful Evil, but She's not Asmodeus. Marra says that if there's ambiguity, do something reasonable (and ideally reversible or fungible) and consult with a superior later for mediation and, if needed, correction.

A reasonable thing here would be to not modify the interrogation now, and then ask the police chief later and request compensation if it turns out she could have behaved more freely.

"Uh- To fix up the thing's pathfinding? Because it was bugging me seeing it pause like that when everyone says the industries need to go faster and they wouldn't give me a chance when I asked nicely?"

'Go home, little girl' 'Stop bothering me, you urchin'. Fah. Right. Is this a trick quest- Ooooh, they probably thought she was stealing shit. Well, she wasn't. She thought it'd be easier to ask for forgiveness for engineering than stealing.

That seems to be enough? She pulls her hand back.

"She's telling the truth. She wasn't trying to cause trouble, just wanted to improve the automaton, as she said."

And now that she's not reading, she can say what she likes. "Officer, was there a better way to demonstrate engineering talent, for someone who doesn't have money or connections?"

"I don't think so, but that's not my department. Uh, you're sure there is no other motive? Not selling information to anyone, not testing the security, not trying to sabotage anyone or anything..."

"No! It's just that nobody gives me a chance for anything just because I'm young! And a woman!"

The officer sighs slightly. "Please, just that, and we can be done here. I'm sure you'll be fine, if you truly had only good intentions, but we have to know."

"Her motives seemed straightforward to me, but I can check more thoroughly..." She reaches out again.

"Did anyone ask you about going to the industrial area? Were you planning to approach anyone with information you learned? Were you thinking of coming back to do something else later?"

Siiiiiigh.

Fine.

She told a couple fellow orphans she was 'up to something' and paid them so they would cover for her absence. They asked where she was going and she told them, and they laughed at her for liking to watch the machines. She wasn't digging for information exactly, and didn't go looking with the intent of telling someone else. If things got really desperate for her she might have come back to steal things, if there weren't any better options.

Kireh passes this on. "Were you observing what would be worth stealing?" She doesn't want to ask that but she's doing her job Lawfully...

(What's the issue with being a woman? Do male engineers have a tendency to do unsafe things to 'impress the girls'? Ohh or it's an honor thing? And they don't just segregate them because... that's not worth the cost somehow? Maybe female engineers are rare for some other reason. Maybe it's a weird sort of sorcerer bloodline?)

"No! Or not on purpose anyway."

Obviously the things worth stealing would be, the whole automaton. Kind of hard to hide. Or some of the tools, wire, maybe the pneumatic plugs or valves and stuff. She has no idea how to fence them though and only vaguely is aware that 'fence' is the term for selling stolen things deniably.

(Her thoughts are currently centered on machinery, not sexism.)

The officers accept this once Kireh relates it and try to send her back to holding.

"What, not going to let me go now?"

"We'll probably let you go, but that's for Chief McAllen to decide, not me."

"Fine." She glances at Kireh again. "I never thought the government would find magic and immediately use it to punish criminals, though. Hmph."

"Come along, we have more interviews to do." 

She comes along.

...The rest of the interviews are generally unremarkable. The focus of the police's questions are trying to find associates and the real reason behind various troubling events. Though apparently a lot of their suspects are refusing to be mind-read, quite reasonably really, and this won't be held against them, it just won't do anything to clear them, either.

Chief McAllen comes to see her after her four hours are up.

"I think that went alright. We can let people out and back to work now- I'm not entirely sure how news of you will spread, but use of your ability sanely and consensually will soothe the worst of the fears, I think. And I do of course understand that you're just fulfilling a contract, as it were. I think it will be a good deal from my perspective after tomorrow. Any issues from your side of things?"

Find 'magic'? Hm, engineering could be an Extraordinary ability, rather than Supernatural or Spell-Like...

"I am worried that, as the news spreads, criminals might deliberately confuse their thoughts or deceive themselves. I said, in my explanations today, that it's almost impossible to lie to me in their thoughts, and that's true today, but it might not always be true.

I don't want that to happen, and if you continue to employ me I expect you don't want that either. I would be interested in collaborating to prevent it.

I have a question about what I'm allowed to do. According to the letter of our deal, I have a lot of discretion over the order I ask questions in, how exactly I phrase them, and how I approach a thought from many angles. Am I allowed to arrange those subtleties as I wish, for example to influence the story that gets told about a suspect, and possibly thus their sentencing? To be precise, if I did that, would the average officer in your position feel that I was showing myself to be hard to negotiate with, in a way that made them regret how they had dealt with me earlier?

A request: I would like to be partially released from my oath, so that I can offer jobs to suspects who impress me. Specifically, I would like to divulge one small fact, merely that I was impressed, with no other details, in two ways: directly to the candidates themselves, and to observers by my actions in approaching and possibly employing the candidates. If you're worried about their association with me implying criminality, I can say that I expect to hire people other ways too, but I have no specific plans at the moment.

I'm willing to pay two shillings per candidate for this privilege."

"-Allow me a moment to think, please."

"You are correct that the letter of our deal is a bit sparse. That is probably a mistake, and probably which I made because I am in a hurry. Interrogators are expected not to manipulate the story for their own benefit, and to try not to manipulate it much at all. I did intend and still do intend to use your interviews as information, not evidence, of course, but- Well, we are bad at keeping these things straight. We try to avoid conflicts of interest for this reason. And you come from a different cultural context, all the unstated assumptions may need to become stated... To answer your actual question, yes, an average officer in my position would feel you were twisting the negotiation if you deliberately arranged the interview questions for a particular outcome. It would make them more hesitant but not impossible to deal with you in future. It looks to me from the transcripts like you did not do that. I appreciate the discretion, if so, and it looks like you're acting in good faith."

"And to act in good faith myself, I have noticed a mistake in my confidentiality clause. It is intended to protect the interviewees from harm by disclosure, not intended to protect the police. So, you may ask each interviewee for permission to discuss their interview in the same manner you would do so for me, so long as you do not coerce, threaten, misrepresent the gain they would get from this, so on and so forth- Asking them in 'good faith' as it were. 'Good faith' meaning to me that you treat the opposing party in a negotiation fairly for a value of fairly that I am finding it a bit difficult to put into coherent form. Essentially, would they regret trying to negotiate at all, I suppose?"

"Understood. I was only tempted to manipulate one interview today, but to be clear, in case it happens more often in the future: when I have to carefully act as if my desires are different from what they actually are, my thinking is slower and slightly worse. The same is true when I have relevant knowledge that I can't use - and that might be a problem if we continue to work together and I interrogate people who have connections to prior suspects. I'm trying not to remember the details of interviews, but I do not have the ability to erase my own memory at will."

(Cassisian angels have that ability.)

"I like that phrasing, of not giving the other party reason to regret negotiating. To clarify further, my normal standard is to avoid causing regret to the actual person I'm dealing with. For the pair of us here, I instead use the average officer in your position, because I'm really dealing with your organization, not you personally. It's not my job, however, to imagine what someone might theoretically think if they were much more intelligent and wise; I only predict them as they are. Is that an acceptable standard of 'good faith' for dealing with people I have interviewed, according to our agreement?

I think I still need your permission to approach former interviewees at all, before I can even ask their permission to continue contact. Unless I adopt the policy of asking everyone I meet, which would be inconvenient."

"Yes, that's an acceptable standard of 'good faith'. And yes, you may approach interviewees if you do it in good faith... Though I will note aloud that good faith does not always lead to good results. And that doing so in public can attract unwanted attention to them. Hrm. For your interviews tomorrow, do you have any objection to beginning work at two o'clock, or to specifically ordered courses of questioning? Also, I would like to politely request that you not stray too far tonight. Until you have more context and the locals are more used to you perhaps. While I am not attempting to control your movements, I... Anticipate disturbances when you interact with the public. Finally, I've been told that you're offering services as an 'organizational consultant', and a teacher, I'd like to hear a bit more about that."

"I'm not sure what you mean by saying that good faith doesn't always lead to good results - I'm aware that they might refuse to talk with me, or attack me, etc? I'm also not sure what you intend by saying that approaching them in public might attract unwanted attention. As I said earlier, our agreement restricted my interaction with them because that leaks the information that I might have met them in an interrogation. I thought you just released me from that, but are you saying that you interpret our deal to mean that I must approach them discretely?

If you, for personal reasons, are simply stating information that I might find useful, then I will respond by saying that I already know (so that you are better calibrated to what I do and don't know) and that I do not want my employees to have a reputation of criminality (so that you know my values better, for future negotiations).

I have no objection to beginning work at two o'clock. I do not object to the general idea of preset courses of questioning, but if standardized questions are easier to befuddle and more people damage their minds trying to lie to me, I dislike that outcome.

What do you mean by making a 'polite request'? I intend to quietly sit in a public place tonight, visit the chemist and some other shops tomorrow morning, and wander further tomorrow night. Is that acceptable to you?

I am open to mutually-beneficial trades. I'm aware that trading parties who understand each other's values and have confidence in each other's Lawfulness sometimes take unilateral action in expectation of retroactively negotiating a deal. I do not, however, give or receive favors, in the 'Good' sense. I sometimes do altruistic things because they please me, and likewise if someone's whim benefits me I won't turn it down, but I don't see that as any sort of relationship.

I can somewhat help a person learn almost anything, by reading their mind, identifying confusions, and directing their attention. I can, much more effectively, help a person learn something I know myself: reading, cooking, sewing, fighting, my religion, teaching, contract law as practiced where I'm from, and another kind of law that's possibly heretical to mention and possibly irrelevant. I'm very good at helping people improve their own minds, which works best if I can provide positive and negative reinforcement.

My organizational skills are very informed by my heretical religion... do you want to hear more?"

"...Hold on, there are two conversational tracks here, things might be- Ugh."

"You are very visibly not normal. You approaching people at all in public means that those people will be the subject of gossip and speculation, and some of those people might disprefer that. My release to approach your interviewees regarding disclosing contents of the interview in good faith was meant as 'if you predict they won't regret it'. If you say to someone in a crowded bar 'I want to talk to you about your interview at the police station, is that alright?', this makes everyone know that they were part of an investigation and think they are a criminal, which would probably make them regret it. If you approach someone who has not much reason to be interacting with you at all, and it is known that you are doing police interviews, the same thing might happen by assumption. Not that you can control others' assumptions, but..."

He rubs his temples. "I'm saying that without social context you don't necessarily have a good model of what will cause unexpected harms, I suppose, and should keep that in mind as part of not giving people cause to regret asking them to talk about the interview. If you don't need to sleep, spending the night in a park or something should not lead you too far astray. And yes, a 'polite request' was essentially me asking for a small favor. I would provide you a room to stay for free on the condition that you actually use it overnight, because this reduces the chance of idiots causing trouble. To make it an actual deal, instead of a favor."

"I see. I'm used to thinking of 'good faith' as only applying to the actual negotiation. I would not pretend to parley with someone to distract them from an attack, say, but I don't have rules forbidding genuine attempts to negotiate. In fact, I consider deliberately giving the wrong impression to bystanders to be lying.

At least in my normal context. If, here, it's widely understood that Lawful people try to keep knowledge of their relationships from causing issues for each other and that this is not lying, then it is actually not lying. Is that in fact true? When I said that I can use my more-expensive form of mind-reading 'a few times a day' rather than stating an exact number of times or a description of my constraints, I expected that you'd know that I might be deliberately vague about my capabilities, and would not consider my statement deceptive. Is that correct?

I do not particularly need a room at the moment, but I would like to avoid trouble, and I might have more use of a room in the future. What curfew would you want me to obey? Can I bring other people into my room? Are there any other restrictions?"

"I think we are talking past each other. I also think you are overestimating the average - lawfulness - of the average person on the street, and- Rather than trying to debate the nature of 'in good faith' we should do something less frustrating and make a different rule that serves to not confuse you and satisfy my moral impulse.

I don't think it is unfair to hide the exact details of your capabilities. I don't consider it lying. I don't understand your question about relationships and lying.

I would be renting an inn room in your name and would like you to stay there from midnight to six for each day I do so. Absent emergencies or other exceptional situations. Yes, if you're not kidnapping or coercing them, and you can't prevent them from leaving. I would call the other restrictions - usual inn courtesies, but I'm not sure you know what those are, so. No excessive noise, you may be charged cleaning and repair fee if you go beyond 'normal use', by breaking the furniture, coal for the hearth is included and soot from a fire and rumpled sheets on the bed counts as normal use, laundry and breakfast and hot baths and anything of that sort are all extra charges from the room itself..."

"I care about following the highest standard I can imagine, as adjusted for the norms of the most Lawful people here. The opinion of the average person on the street is maybe informative about local norms, but I'm not going to lower my standard to theirs. Also, we can't just make up a different rule; the rule is already fixed as the result of our hypothetical negotiations as they would have happened earlier today if we had had plenty of time to think and communicated perfectly with each other.

My question was about a generalization of this situation. Maybe, instead, I'll ask about some examples: what are the rules for regular police officers approaching people they previously met while on duty? If you have specializations, what about a police officer who is known for dealing with, say, prostitutes? A doctor who specializes in a disease of notorious origin?"

She considers asking if she can keep people from leaving her room if they consent beforehand, but without truth spells, that consent would be pretty hard to verify.

"I accept that deal for a room."

"I think it would not make sense to have principled rules about those example situations separate from the generalized rules about slander, harassment, unnerving or frightening people, and general good conduct of an officer. Doctors swear a hippocratic oath and are generally held to high standards. We don't in fact have such specific rules. A police officer known for dealing with prostitutes would have to be more careful about accidentally slandering or harassing women, but there would not be a separate rule about it. That is what I am trying to- gesture at. There is no hard rule, just context. I'll have a runner pre-pay the room each day, do let me know if you wish to cancel the deal. The inn is the Roadster's Rest, just one block north of here."

"My intent is to approach someone and say 'I would like to talk to you, in my personal capacity, not as a contractor for the Bristol police. If this isn't a good time, you can probably find me at the police station, the Roadster's Rest inn, or somewhere else announced on my advertisements' and then I'll wait a minute for them to respond, and then leave. I might try again later if I have a new, very different proposition for them, or if I have good reason to think they might be more interested, and they haven't clearly said not to contact them again. I think that follows your laws about slander and harassment. Does it satisfy your personal values?

To be clear, I am still trying to approximate how our earlier negotiation might have gone, not making up something new."

"...I think this is acceptable because there are time and mental fatigue costs trying to arrive at a more perfect approximation, which I don't consider likely to be worth it on this specific point.

I understand your goals to be approximately - establishing a reputation, accumulating resources, maintaining your lawfulness, maintaining your faith. My goals in addition to personal reputation and resources are approximately preserving the life, happiness, and fulfillment of the people of Bristol, as Her Majesty has charged me. I think we may well have more to talk about, much more, but I am tired and busy."

"Understood. 

My goals are approximately that, yes, and also broadly influencing this society to be more vain, hierarchical, and rulebound."

Before, her altruism mostly took the form of pushing mortals towards shapes that would be happier once Marra perfected them - "And I might develop other goals as I learn about this world and reflect.

May I legally try to talk to people currently held here by the police?"

"You may like anyone else. We have procedures for visiting hours, you should go to the front desk to arrange this."

McAllen is rubbing his temples again.

"Understood."

She goes to the front desk. "I would like to visit Waltana Hampson."

"-Visiting hours end at eight o'clock. Name and reason for visit? We'll ask her if she wants to be visited, if she does, you'll be shown to a visiting room and so will she. There will be a guard outside the room to prevent escape attempts. You may not bring contraband into the visiting room, that includes tools, alcohol and other drugs, mostly. Due to the need for a guard visits are restricted to an hour a day."

"Cantor Kireh Sarl. No comment on the reason."

"Thank you, please wait for a response. Should be just a few minutes."

The front desk officer walks a note into the back office.

The eventual response is- "Young miss Hampson will see you if you promise, er, not to read her mind, and says she doesn't promise to talk, just listen."

"I only read the minds of people who consent or attack, or I have the right to, which I currently don't for anyone on this planet. I additionally promise not to read her mind today for any reason."

She is led to the visiting room after promising she doesn't have anything from this list of contraband and letting them check her handbag (or leave it at the front desk). The bag and case and writs and writing materials don't count. The officers still seem to be acting a bit oddly towards her, but it's at least less tense and ready for a fight by now.

The fourteen year old is sitting in a chair in the visiting room, which appears to just be an interview room being used for a different purpose, arms crossed and scowling. She just nods at Kireh.

"I would like to talk to you, in my personal capacity, not as a contractor for the Bristol police. If this isn't a good time, you can probably find me at the police station, the Roadster's Rest inn, or somewhere else announced on my advertisements."

"...Not with the police. Okay, go ahead and talk."

"I was impressed by your ambition, intelligence, and engineering talent. I'm not sure how engineering training works here exactly, but I would like to hire you to study and consult for me, or to sponsor your education, or whatever.

As an example of one thing I want to consult on: I hope to build a shelter. I am immune to cold, and I hope that the maintenance of the machines can be done cheaper than usual, if I do it, rather than fragile commoners.

If I continue to work with the police, I estimate that I can pay you, including costs for education, a total of six shillings per week, and you may use my room at the Roadster's Rest to stay and/or store your possessions."

"...Uh-huh. There's a library. One of the few nice things about this city. I read a lot of books before mum passed. These things just make sense to me, it feels like people are blind when I explain it, but I don't have an actual education, I don't know the things engineers are supposed to know, so they dismiss me as a fake or a dabbler.

And I don't know what you are. I don't know what you can do. I don't know how you think. I have no reason to trust you. Six shillings plus room is not that much more than what I make washing clothes. As for a shelter... I'd need to see some of the I.E.C. plans to even have an idea where to start... You'd need a steady supply of fuel, that's why they're - I read they're building the Generators on top of coal seams-"

That's like a wizard school turning down a sorcerer because they're clearly just pretending to be a wizard.

"What angels are to the endorsed god here, I am to my god. I can read thoughts and feelings, control feelings a bit, defend myself, see in the dark, and tolerate cold and electricity without harm. I have various skills, most importantly teaching, especially teaching how to think clearly and efficiently. Compared to the average mortal, my thoughts are more structured and less susceptible to emotional distortion, but I do have emotions.

I'll say that you can trust me to keep my word, straightforwardly, trying not to give you cause to regret dealing with me. Of course, just saying that isn't convincing. I don't think anyone here has had the opportunity to observe me keeping my word in a high-stakes situation when I would benefit from breaking it, though.

If you want to trust me to have your best interests at heart... that mostly doesn't exist. People who say it does are usually fooling themselves and sometimes outright lying.

In a few days I expect to know more about my budget. Can I contact you with a better offer, and how should I do that? If your education requires books or tools that I can buy and loan to you, I might be willing to do that in addition to what I already said.

In any case, I would pay you 10 pence to answer my questions about engineering for the rest of the hour we're allowed to talk."

"...Now, yes, I agree that people are mostly looking out for themselves. Mostly? Some people are nice? Even if you can say they're nice because being nice feels good, oh look how generous I am for giving the urchins fresh bread. And moaning about it doesn't help, you have to do something about it... Also, the Church certainly doesn't have much more proof of their claims than old books, so good on you for actually having supernatural powers, honestly, that's pretty convincing.

Also, see, 'for the next hour' is a lot more reassuring than a nebulous 'sponsorship' that creates a sense of responsibility and puts me at your disposal- to be disposed of, even- Or may let you decide I haven't been working hard enough and now owe you the grant back with interest or something. If you want me to fix a broken clock I can do that. If you want me to research something for you I can do that. But there's all kinds of horror fiction about making open ended deals with magical beings and I figure it's not bad advice to be careful about it. I'll answer your engineering questions with the caveat that I don't have reference books and I'm historically kind of bad at... Explaining my intuitions."

"I'm not saying that altruism doesn't exist; I'm saying that society works better if you don't expect people to be nice. Certainly, don't expect me to be nice; expect me to keep my word when I say I'll do things for you. In the society I want to build in my shelter, everyone will be reliable when they make agreements, and emotional manipulation will have no place. I hate the practice of breaking people's vanity so that they can be punished by anyone who happens to want to hurt them. Of course, in the society you actually live in, I recognize that there is currently an equilibrium of people breaking their word and needing to be controlled instead with the tyranny of social capital, that it will take a long time to change, and that you can't instantly heal from fourteen years of abuse.

I was speaking vaguely of 'sponsorship' because I don't know the details of how things are done here, but I want to make a concrete agreement with you that you won't regret."

She puts 10 pence on the table. "Let's start with that. How are engineers trained? How common are people with an intuitive grasp like yours? If you're rare, would you learn best in a normal engineering school, or something else? People at home might learn best with successively harder dangerous tasks, or they might need to relax and take their time, or they might need a careful balance of challenge and ease - do any of those approaches sound correct for you? When did you first notice your ability? Has it improved over time, and if so, when?"

"...Gonna leave all the new society stuff aside for now. Um... I'm not sure if I'm just smart or if it's something else. I think it might be something else. When I'm in the flow it's a little bit like when you were reading my mind, it's a thing... Uh. People talk about the 'spark of genius' sometimes, that Nicola Tesla builds things that just shouldn't work at all. Scott's predictions of the weather are uncanny intuition, not carefully reasoned conclusions.

Engineering is supposed to be about, you know, careful mathematical work to find the best spot within a set of constraints, machines that are just a bit different in a hundred tiny ways. A normal engineer background is getting a relevant apprenticeship for a few years, then applying to a college and going through their program for four years, and then work experience. I don't think there's time for that.

I'm not sure how I would best learn. I've just been kind of... Doing it? I read about something, I get an idea, I write down some notes and notice problems and write corrections and eventually make something. I'd need tools and goals, though. It goes a bit better if I need something. Maybe someone to discuss things with, trying to explain something can help. And useful stuff would happen along the way, so."

"It goes better if you need something personally? Would it will go better if you needed the money from selling the finished product, or if someone were threatening you?

How much do you know about Generators and steam cores? How much does that average engineer know? If you had plans for a shelter, and sufficient tools, materials, and untrained assistants, could you build it as well as the IEC? Worse? Better?"

"Probably worse because I'm fourteen and they have hundreds of real, experienced engineers! And planners! And administrators. And I don't exactly have a lot of data on what makes tinkering around go better, it's confounded by other stuff I had to do and what tools and materials I had too. I'm kinda guessing but I think I have to need it, either directly or as a big part of a - scheme. Like the walking configuration on that cargo loader."

"Hmm." Right, a shelter is like a fort with a couple of spells that you need a powerful wizard for, and also need lots of masons and smiths and carpenters and managers etc to build the rest of the fort, not a single spell you can cast wherever.

"Are there any engineers at all who understood that you had a 'spark of genius'? Anyone else who would be useful for me to talk to?"

"-So, sorry, forgot a question. The big deal about steam cores, is that they are mass produced. Relatively. There's all sorts of ways to build electromechanical control systems. But a steam core? Industry standard. Plop it down, plug it in the right way, and there's your money, it'll just work. Need it for something else, yank it out and change some levers and put it back in. And because it's standard like that, they can make them on an assembly line. I bet the Generators are the same way, someone made a set of plans that will work and doesn't need a genius to put together. I could make a little automaton probably, it'd just take longer than using a steam core and a few big cylinders and leg armatures.

Um.

I don't think so. The whole reason I'm here is because I was trying to get an in with the IEC. Some of my friends will agree I'm good at making stuff, but... You could probably talk to Ms. Penn, the librarian? She's good at finding things. The library charges fees though."

If steam cores aren't magic, it's more like an art school turning down a bard who can't play a scale. A mistake, but more understandable.

So then where does the engineers' power come from? Actually, they don't have much power nowadays; 'engineer' as a title has lost its distinction. Maybe true engineers were a sort of cleric of the old god, and that's why there are so few of them now.

Which means that Waltana, who is definitely not Lawful, is probably Neutral Good, and pulling her toward Evil will break her 'spark', and Kireh would prefer a less combative relationship with the Lawful Good old god, who is apparently still alive. Queue that.

"You could use your intuition with the cargo loader because you wanted to make it work better, though, not because you needed it to? What was the 'scheme' there? Do you often get spontaneously invested in things like that?"

"To show off and get a job, of course! It was kind of stupid, though. I was excited about it, and thought it was cool to program an automaton, and it was bugging me how it was obviously not optimal, and I sort of think I made up a reason it was a good idea after I'd already decided to do it."

"So your spark of genius works if you want something for its own sake, or as part of a goal that you want, but it has to directly contribute to the goal? Or possibly only when you want things for their own sake?

It seems to me that you would benefit from being able to direct your inspiration and desire, which I might be able to help with. How about I buy a variety of materials and tools - I have some specific ideas but I'd rather not tell you in advance - and read you while you think about them. Anything you make in a week, we'll sell and split the profit half and half, and I'll guarantee you at least six shillings and room. I don't know how much I'll be able to help. I'll stop reading you if I notice that it's damaging you, or you ask me to stop."

"...I want to think about ways this ends badly some first. On the one hand there's no time to lose. On the other hand, divine fox person? From a whole different god? I mean..."

Sigh. "You do this sort of thing a lot? Reading people and saying things to point them the right way?"

There's no one who can vouch for her, so she doesn't comment Waltana's doubts.

"I've spent the last two decades doing things like this, yes. But more focused on making people think like I do, and enhancing the things they like about themselves, and giving them the mental infrastructure to follow rules consistently and manage their emotions. When followers of my god die, they become beings like me, any of several varieties of angel-equivalent that my god has. That's my job, with help from the ambient alignment and some divine magic. I also advise living mortals sometimes, but then I can't read them and can't give them negative reinforcement - positive reinforcement is still allowed, due to a technicality in the treaty between gods about what spells they can give to their 'clerics'."

...She nods. ('Negative reinforcement' sounds like the nanny pretending 'light' hits with the switch are good for you somehow, so... Good that it's not allowed?)

"Returning to engineering, I expect that I will be able to get plenty of materials for my shelter, plenty of common reference books, some professional advice, lots of untrained labor but very little trained labor, and definitely not a good geographical location. I think that means that fuel will be tightest constraint? The non-standard resources that I have are my immunity to cold and electricity and my ability to keep discipline in the shelter, even if the quarters are tighter than usual and the environment less comfortable. It is possible, but not certain, that I might also have access to magical healing, a supply of water, the ability to give a weaker version of my cold immunity to one other person, and the ability to move heavy objects. Do you have any thoughts about these constraints or resources?"

It's fine if she doesn't have any thoughts right away - hopefully talking about details will get her interested in the engineering problem for its own sake.

"...I think it means there's a lot of planning to do before I can even give a good estimate. It feels larger than me, I mean, protecting that many people..."

She's not skeptical of that discipline bit at all, nosir. 

"Immune to electricity... That'll make some repairs easier..."

She sucks in a breath. "Food is going to be a problem... I think I'm interested. To work with you for a week's trial, so long as there's- conditions. I can quit and not get paid if I do, but nothing worse. No." She waves vaguely. "Chicanery, cornering me into things. Stop the read and any other magic if I say so."

"Yes, either of us can end the contract at any time, with you receiving the pro-rated minimum, or half of the profit. I won't punish you for quitting but I might be more reluctant to hire you again, and if someone asks me about you I'll tell the truth.

My minor defensive spell can be shared. If you ask me to stop doing all magic on you and I think stopping the defensive spell will endanger you, I would prefer to leave it unless you clarify that you mean to stop that too.

I am opposed to all 'chicanery' in principle. If we have a dispute that we can't resolve by ourselves, I would normally defer to a shared authority. I have no proper superior here at all, but for this narrow concern, I would accept mediation by Police Chief McAllen or someone he delegates, or take it to an English civil court unless I think the judge is corrupt, biased, or incompetent."

"That sounds... Fine?"

The more she thinks about this, the better this crazy idea sounds. The fox woman who's immune to cold is going to survive the frost, and even if she thinks in strange ways, don't you want to be close to that if you want a chance yourself?

"Uh, some ideas for quick cash engineering projects in escalating order of ambition- Fixing broken clocks, laundry or sewing devices, fans or ventilators, light industrial machines if anyone will listen to you about it, I'm talking conveyor belts or stationary saws or lathes, I'm not sure how far and fast I can push things... Something inane for rich people but I have no idea what rich people even do... Cameras...? Automata in general can be made to do one or two simple tasks forever, like cutting timbers or moving heavy things... Refrigeration is a fascinating concept but it's kind of the opposite of what we want, and even if you run a heat pump in reverse I don't think it's worth all the extra effort. There's this really interesting effect called 'trompe' that had me thinking about unconventional sources of power, it's basically a way of turning the motion of a river into compressed air. They're making articulated prosthetics these days, what if you did that with things like big saws or crowbars? I don't know as much about chemical engineering but maybe cooking up better insulation is possible, reduce the amount of heat we'd need. For fuel there's all sorts of things that burn, if nothing else there's plenty of forests and charcoaling isn't that complicated, an automaton sawmill would be fairly spectacular, there's lots of forest outside of town..."

"Great.

...Wait, automata run forever? Does each one have its own steam core? Are prosthetics powered by the person using them, or do they have a steam core too, or something else?"

"Automata need fuel, but you can have one of their steps be 'go to the coal bunker and get some coal!' The prosthetics have to be powered, yes, the simple ones with muscle power. Straps and levers attached to other parts of the body, like the legs for a prosthetic arm. There's electric ones but those are heavy, there's pneumatic ones you hook up to an overhead line, there's a lot of ways to do it."

"Ah. Hm. Could Nicola Tesla make an automaton that doesn't need fuel? Could you, someday?"

"...No? No. Everything needs energy. I mean, there might be some exotic fuel source that is constantly recharging, so it doesn't need fuelling... Solar, maybe..."

"Back up. I have at least one misunderstanding. What is a steam core? How are they made? As far as you know, is there a religious aspect to any part of engineering? Are there any engineering techniques which you have heard of, which can be taught to others, but which are kept secret?"

"So- Hrm, I don't have my notebook to sketch with but a steam core is a metal device about the size of a wagon and rather heavier. It contains a miniature furnace and electric and clockwork systems that can do simple mathematics. It has eight powerful actuators, sixteen inputs for sensors, and a variable but large number of memory rotors, and rows of switches and wire plugs. And a clock. The sensors tick signals on and off, and the switches and plugs do things like add two numbers, or check if one number is bigger than another. The memory rotors can be set to a number, one through six, and then read that number back later. Put it all together, if you line up the instructions right, you have a sort of extremely simple mind that follows simple instructions... As long as the sensors give the right numbers, and the memory rotors don't slip, and the machines attached to the actuators give the right result, and none of the switches got disconnected or damaged, and you didn't make a mistake setting it up. You usually want someone minding it in case it goes off the rails?"

"All of it, as far as I know, is mundane. Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace partnered to develop the first Steam Cores, called Analytical Engines at the time, but that was decades ago and eventually they were understood enough that that could be made in a factory. There, each person or machine has one very simple job that they learn to do quickly and efficiently. One person takes bits of metal and uses a heavy press to flatten them out, then passes the discs on. Next person cuts a small hole near the side. Next person puts a bolt into that hole and attaches two pieces together. And so on. Engineers design and oversee the process, but ordinary people or dumb machines can do each individual step. I think there is a major steam core factory in Chicago, across the ocean, and one in London, capital of England. I recall reading a newspaper article saying that it produced over three dozen steam cores per day."

"I don't think any of it's religious? People curse or hit their machines, or swear they're malicious or only like one operator or won't work if you don't ask nicely, but that's superstition, not religion. I mean, I never managed to explain to the other orphans how I made the pressure cooker and they jokingly call it witchcraft... It didn't feel like magic or religious fervor, though? Even if I don't precisely recall the exact steps I took? You don't need to bless your engines with holy oil or have a priest say benedictions over them or anything. But maybe it does help. As for secret techniques, like, yes? They call it trade secrets- Something someone came up with that they want to earn money off without revealing how it works to everyone else."

"-My thing might be different. Might. I can't explain it and if you have magic too, maybe magic is a thing now, just something we don't understand. I think engineering as practiced by most people involves more hard work. Making me kind of a poser after all. Maybe better to call the other thing, where I get flashes of insight, uhhhh, sparkiness or something."

"Hm, I would like to try mind-reading a steam core, but it's not urgent."

If steam cores have souls, and they're all Neutral because they just sit in factories all day, Pharasma must be annoyed. If this universe is Hers.

"How old are the most important trade secrets?

Do sparky people tend to have similar personalities, politics, or interests? Are they as dismissive of the Church as you are?"

If superstition is widespread, that would give cover for genuine religious practice, so the clerics of the heretical god of sparkiness, or other gods concerned with engineering, can hide from the inquisition.

"I don't really know. I mean if I'm thinking old old, Archimedes' Fire, his mirror ray, shipwreck claws, nobody ever exactly replicated any of it. More lost knowledge than a trade secret. Thousands of years old. Darwin's animal breeding techniques... A few decades. The Bessemer process was secret for a while but other people invented it independently. There's a monastery in Germany that brews healing beer that does seem to actually work and not be superstition, a few centuries, and that's a secret, and the swiss tunnel melters are from last century... I don't know that I'd class any of these as really critical. Maybe the beer."

"Superstition is pretty common. Sparky people tend not to be religious, I think, but not as a hard rule. Darwin was religious. And tend to be, uh, headstrong and eager?"

"So not correlated with the Church's power or loss of power... I think it's possible that sparky people are chosen by a god different from the main one, and also different from my god. You're not a cleric or oracle or paladin as I know those things, but I think their precise nature is determined by agreements between gods which might not apply here. Which suggests that I should not expect to get a cleric of Marra, but if I succeed in training someone who would be a cleric at home, they might be chosen by Marra in some other way.

Or maybe your ability is not associated with any god. How much do you know about your family? Any unusual ancestors? Did anything unusual happen to you before you noticed your sparkiness?"

She scowls. "That's not exactly an engineering question. My dad is a worthless deadbeat who left mom to take care of me herself when I was about six, and my mom died of pneumonia because of that. I'd stab him if he showed his face, not ask about his ancestry. So, I don't know. He was tall, I guess."

"Debatable, but if the point had come up when we were negotiating, I would have agreed not to ask you about your past, so okay.

I don't have any other specific questions right now. Is there anything else about engineering you think I would want to know?"

Sigh. "I can't think of anything that would, like. Make me the child of a witch or have a ghost inside me or have glimpsed beyond the veil of reality or anything. No nonsense like that at all."

"Lots of specific stuff, like, how to sound like you have any idea what you're talking about. How much tools and materials tend to cost. What things have been invented recently in case they're informative on new ideas. Maybe the basics of what simple tools and processes are- So you can sound like you work with technical people even if not one yourself?"

That all sounds useful!

When the hour is up, Kireh stops by the inn and then walks back to where she met the Green Gulliman.

The inn workers are stiffly polite to her and show her the room and give her a key.

There's a lot more people on the streets now. Parents pull their children further away from her. Whispers echo in her wake. Street vendors shut covers over their wares as she passes. A few men venture so far as to say 'hello' or 'good evening' to her.

And then as she's approaching the alley where Gulliman was lurking, a young man dressed in somewhat nice clothes and carrying a large notebook runs up to her. He's wearing an odd hat that has 'PRESS' stitched into it.

"Miss! Miss, a moment of your time!"

Ooh, an engineer?

She stops and turns. "What do you want?"

"I'm a reporter with Coast Runner News, I'd like a moment of your time for some quick questions since you're such an exciting new arrival!"

"So you want to trade advertising in exchange for information? Okay. What are your questions?"

"Thank you. First of all, may I have your name? What sort of business do you intend in Bristol? How are you finding our city so far, and how did you arrive here? I've heard you're going to be cooperating with the police here, any comment on that? Do you have any comment on the I.E.C.'s evacuation plan or Britain in general?"

"My name is Kireh, or Cantor Kireh Sarl, or 'Kireh Sarl, the eighth formerly-angelic cantor'.

I am currently interested in providing almost any lawful service. I can read thoughts, desires, and fears. I'm skilled at using this ability for teaching and mental refinement. I'm immune to cold. I'm not great in a fight, but better than an unarmed commoner. I can organize social hierarchies efficiently. If any other jobs I could do catch your readers' interest, I am happy to receive offers.

My general goals are to spread the use of effective social hierarchies to strengthen people and accomplish tasks, build people's resistance to emotional manipulation, encourage people to take joy in themselves independent of external judgement, make social rules explicit and standardized, and increase reliability and decrease crime.

I would like to talk to criminals to learn why they break the law and what I can do to reduce it. If they are trapped with a bad reputation and no legal way to support themselves, I would like to train them to be reliable, using my mind-reading to help shape them, and then I would endorse their newfound honesty, or possibly hire them myself. I will probably wander around most early evenings, and I'm currently living at the Roadsters' Rest inn near the police station.

In the long term, I'm considering building a shelter of my own. I would also like to marry into the nobility. I want to train students, as I described, and also for heretical reasons.

If you're asking how I like the city because you want me to say things to make you feel good, I would preface my answer by chiding you not to be dependent on others for your self-esteem, and that a city is the wrong sort of thing to submit yourself to, a mere slippery idea - you should find a person to submit to instead, who is competent and dutiful in their treatment of you. But I will answer your question, because I keep my word. I am finding Bristol to be overall pleasant, although smelly. I'm impressed with the trustworthiness of the police who I have spoken to so far, although I have heard gossip to the contrary.

The way I arrived is heretical. Do you want me to say more?

I am currently working with the police, yes, but only for interrogations. I am not otherwise associated with them, and will not report information to them unless legally obligated to. I would like to discourage your readers from bending their minds into self-deceptive knots in hopes of lying to me via mind-reading. My interrogations are currently only used for clearing people of suspicion, not for finding evidence of guilt, and if I continue to work with the police I will try to get that restriction set as part of my contract. This means that if I see that you've messed with your mind, and lack the time to interrogate your brain-tangle properly, I will have to end the interview inconclusively, with no chance of clearing you. Trying to lie to me will only make things worse for you, never better.

I don't know enough about the I.E.C. to comment. If I build a shelter of my own, I'm not intending to compete with the I.E.C. for materials, fuel, or other physical resources, and I would be happy to trade with them.

I like that Britain is regularizing its Common Law."

"I see I see, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, hmm? I'm not sure you mean heretical the same way I mean heretical! I mean, heresy is incorrect doctrine within the church, you're not a heretic you're a heathen, one who does not believe at all- But that's beside the point!"

He has not stopped quickly writing.

"Honestly our readers want to hear that foreigners find Bristol impressive. I'd be interested in some sort of demonstration to prove these supernatural powers! If you plan to build a shelter of your own, who would you admit, how would you fund it? Don't you think the I.E.C. would prevent such a thing since they have near total priority on resources and that would make getting anything from them difficult? The common law is honestly wonderful, no more ancient loopholes and stupid traditions, like the church road tolls or noble wharf privilege. I couldn't comment on where to find criminals or what their motivations are, except that the ones who steal just because they're hungry make for terribly boring stories much of the time..."

"What do you mean by 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear'? I do not tell the police about anything other than what they specifically asked, and these interrogations happen only with the suspects' consent.

I was told that my background was heretical... do you want the information or not?

I'm happy to demonstrate my mind-reading. Think of a phrase for me to read from you?

I was assuming that the I.E.C. didn't need literally all the metal etc. If needed, I'll make do with substitutes, or buy from them if they have a price I can pay, or join them... I'm hoping to make a lot of money once the most valuable uses of my abilities are identified. I will only admit people who are honest and reliable, with a very few exceptions. If I can be more selective, I will favor those who are dedicated to my principles of social organization."

"Why, the notion that if the average citizen is not a criminal, they have nothing to fear from the police being more powerful. Some disagree because of the incentives and opportunities such a thing creates. I'll accept anything you wish to tell me, though of course I don't want to overstay my welcome!"

He holds out his hand. The phrase he's thinking of is 'red herring'.

"I think people should follow the law, as long as the laws are intended for them and full obedience is expected not just by the authorities but also by their fellow subjects. If not, the laws should be changed.

I was sent here by my god, Marra, who is different from your god. I don't think She was aiming for Bristol - travel between planes is hard to aim and presumably travel between universes is even harder to aim. I would be interested in learning more about the gods of this universe, both the main one and the lesser-known ones."

She presses her palm to his hand. Marra's Inquisition.

"The phrase you're presenting to me is 'red herring'; is that the answer I'm supposed to give, or should I dig deeper?"

"That's proof enough for me!" He's also thinking wildly about how best to present this story. Law and order? Yeah, law and order, though the editor might disagree. With a healthy dose of 'wow look at the scandalous strange thing'.

He pulls his hand away.

"So the laws must be just and fair, and people ought to follow them- Even those in power? What is Marra like? The church of God and Jesus Christ principally teach love, forgiveness, faith, and repentance. And those heathenistic beliefs like the Norse or Greeks, while glamorous, are clearly wrong. If Thor or Ares exist at all, surely they are just aspects of His angels."

"Just and fair? Not exactly. Laws should be explicit. If the law says no stealing except that the Queen can have any land she wants, and everyone knows that's how it works, that's enough of a law to be worth following. If it's, de facto, no stealing unless you have ties to the judge, that means anyone you meet might steal from you! That's useless for letting strangers work together without fear of theft, if that was your goal. And if that's your goal, the people in power benefit the most from the laws. 

Laws can have other goals, too:

Standardized interactions between people leave less leeway for corruption. If you're a merchant and you give a better price to your 'friends', people will manipulate you into liking them.

If I'm teaching someone, and they know they can give up at any time, they won't try as hard as if they sign a contract saying they have to finish, especially if the law were to allow me to prevent them from leaving.

Mortals easily forget their duties, especially when they have power over others, and need clear structure to keep them from tyranny. 'Check for conflict of interest, using such a definition, and counteract it like so' is more actionable than 'act justly'.

Marra is the god of people who like themselves, follow laws and personal rules, optimize others where they have authority and accept optimization from their own superiors, and overcome their mortal emotional vulnerabilities.

Who is Jesus Christ, the Church's most powerful cleric? What exactly is 'faith'?"

(If this god had worshipping gods as an area of concern, no wonder He dominated the other gods!)

"Faith is... Belief, I suppose. I'm not a priest, ma'am. Jesus Christ is the son of god, who came to earth to profess the faith, and allowed himself to be crucified by the Romans to redeem mankind of their original sin. You can probably buy a King James Bible in any bookstore."

He's the god of having beliefs? Wow. What killed Him so thoroughly that some people now doubt His entire existence? Queue that. She needs to talk to a 'priest', and followers of the other gods. And to eventually to read the old god's holy book, but right now she needs to save her money for her project with Waltana.

All mankind - meaning all the people in the planet, since humans are the only breed - were under a curse of sin-magic? Set a reminder to pray to Lissala about that.

"Impressive."

She nods at him and turns away to keep wandering, looking for the Green Gulliman or someone like him. Or any shops selling broken machines, scrap materials, tools - if they'll let her in?

Interview seems to be over, then. The reporter wishes her good day!

There's a lot of pubs. Drinking alcohol seems to be the principal source of entertainment in this district. She gets a couple of catcalls and drunken lewd comments about her.

The 'shady types', people who have the same general stance and bearing as Gulliman, are relatively few, and mostly not drinking as much. They might even be acting like unofficial enforcers- She sees a pair of them remove two men from a bar for fighting at one point.

She spots a pickpocket, a child even younger than Waltana, lift a few coins from a man while a presumable co-conspirator distracts him by dramatically begging in front of him.

Someone suggests she ought to go join the fighting rings. They'd bet on her, it doesn't seem like those claws are for show!

A heavy lorry with the I.E.C. logo carrying crates under a tarp thunders along the road at one point, and the drinkers jeer at it. One throws an empty bottle.

Perhaps a third of the shops will let her in, the bars mostly won't. A lot of the local ones are general stores, selling food and items like brooms or kitchen knives. Quite a few clothing stores, some of which specialize in hats or boots or fancy shirts specifically. There are some hardware stores, with a dusty, grimy miscellany of indifferent-quality coal, old hammers, hinges, nails, glass panes, corrugated tin sheets, repaired old pots, spare lumber, scrap cloth and rags, machine oil, and the like. A shiny coffee percolator is displayed in a place of honor and priced at eight shillings in one. There's smithies, bakeries, butchers, carpenters.

And exactly one explicit scrapyard- with hulking piles of rusting metal, broken glass, bent pots, splintered wood, and broken machinery out back, with signs saying 'JOES JUNK - WE BUY AND SELL JUNK BY WEIGHT - BEST PRICES'.

Any drunken lewd offers of money?

Hm, getting something for Waltana to start with is the most urgent priority. It's more crowded now than she expected, and she doesn't want to publicly approach a likely-criminal to ask about the Green Gulliman. She'll wander back here on future evenings, when she has more time to skulk through alleys.

What's the deal with the fighting rings? Specifically, how do you make money fighting? Do people often die? She doesn't have time tonight and wants to visit the chemist first, but it sounds fun!

How much mass of junk per shilling can she buy at the scrapyard? Is there a limit on how much time she can spend picking through it first?

No drunken lewd offers of money in such explicit terms. (There's a 'you couldn't afford it, you blighter!') Not right out in the street, anyway. (She kind of looks like she might kill you for asking).

Most of the comments about her, apart from the drunk catcalls, carry a faint note of disbelief. Some are insulting.

The fight organizers pay you a cut of the betting, or sometimes just flat, as long as you're an entertaining fighter! You have to be good at mauling the other participant and making it look good, without actually causing permanent damage or trying too hard right away. Nobody likes a fight that's over in ten seconds. Deaths in the fights are rare, maybe a couple a year across the whole city.

No time limit, they've already picked out whatever good bits they bothered to look for. Five pence per three kilograms, except this section of relatively good stuff, which is three pence per kilo, carry it all away yourself. Wheelbarrows available for rent, 6 pence/2 hours with 2 shillings as a deposit.

Okay, so she currently has 13s 4d. She promised Waltana 6s. She's not going to count on any future income except one shilling for fighting, so she has to save 5s, but she's willing to use her reserved savings for the wheelbarrow deposit. If she spends 2s at the chemist, 6d for renting the wheelbarrow, 1s on tools, and saves 2s for unforeseen needs, that leaves her a budget of 2s 10d for scrap.

Outsiders aren't supposed to give information about technology to mortals... which may or may not apply in this universe? Anyway, Kireh has never been to Axis and doesn't remember much about the Axis representatives she's seen in court. Which might be a reason why she in particular was chosen for this mission? That's forbidden speculation on Marra's motives, though.

The hardware stores were selling repaired pots and there are damaged pots here, so that seems like an obvious, if boring, opportunity. Any broken clocks or laundry devices or sewing devices, as Waltana mentioned? She collects some clear pieces of broken glass to grind into lenses.

Projects useful for Kireh's plans: heat sources, so she looks for containers to use as combustion chambers and steam tanks, and pipes for air and steam and fuel? Healing beer, so more containers that can be easily cleaned.

Stuff that's generally useful: wood to carve into various parts, fasteners, bearings, oil, valves, pistons, belts, wire, sheet metal.

And now the fun part: things to inspire Waltana. A geartrain, some weird glass tubes, a grinder, a bellows, a tapered metal rod...

How much of that can she afford? What do they pay to buy junk, if she ends up bringing back the leftovers?

34 pence will get her anywhere between 11 and 19 kilograms worth of junk, depending on how much comes from the better section. They have a big countertop scale. The frowning man at the counter says they usually pay about half for sales back.

In terms of machines and not just random pipes and bowls and parts, there's a broken spaghetti mill, some sort of gas powered torch, part of some sort of large drill, a sort of mixing bowl contraption, some sort of balanced armature (A spinny thing festooned with little pipes and wires), a broken set of lenses and clamps and pads on the end of a series of articulating arms, a sort of screw press rusted shut, and a battered looking grandfather clock (which weighs over 20 kilos all on its own).

The torch will be useful! The drill part, the thing with the lenses and arms, and the armature might be worth making something out of, although she doesn't know if they're fixable for their original purposes. She takes them to be weighed, and they total 16 kilos, which is pushing her budget. She puts the armature back, freeing up 4 kilos. With three kilos more of the regular junk and three kilos of the good stuff, her total would be exactly 2s 10d... but actually she wants more of the loose parts than that. She puts the drill part back and get three more kilos of regular junk.

(It would be nice to be able to weigh things by feel, so she doesn't have to keep carrying them to the scale. That's going to be her next self-improvement project!)

Here's 5 shillings and 4 pence! Straight back to the inn, and then to return the wheelbarrow. Are the hardware stores still open? Does she have time for more errands before her curfew?

It's about eight o'clock, so four hours left before her midnight curfew, and most stores are closing up by now. It's dusk, but the nicer streets and many of the places of business have lights of their own coming on.

The drunkenness is getting louder and bolder. One of the proprietors comes up to her and mentions seeing her ad, and politely asks if she's any good at singing and dancing - or maybe reciting poetry or debate, but that's a bit intellectual for this crowd. Just being exotic isn't as good as some sort of act, is all. Good reflexes or balance? Good at cards? Riddles? Palm reading?

Okay, she'll get tools tomorrow morning, then.

Her main skill is training petitioners, which involves being an awesome cantor who makes people awesome while playing them like a harp, but she regrettably doesn't know how to play an actual harp. Her other skills are either too slow to be entertaining, like sewing, or too energetic - but she's planning to fight at the rings in a few days!

For now, she could tell some stories of her home, fictional or real, or of course talk about her religion if they want that. What's palm reading? How much will they pay her?

Temporary entertainment usually works for tips from the patrons, and his bar is one of the most popular on this street, and slightly less lower class to boot. But he'll guarantee her at least a shilling if she doesn't get that much in tips, if he likes whatever act she comes up with. Palm reading is a bit of an act - looking at peoples' palms and claiming insight into their lives and dispensing common sense dressed up as supernatural insight - like, 'ohhh I sense you are worried about your wife, but know that communication is the key to improving your relationships, talk to her more often and understand her worries so that you might reassure each other'. He just thought the mind-reading thing would synergize with it... Or something like that, anyway.

People like that? Okay, yeah, she can see Good people being into it. 

Hm, she wasn't thinking of her mind-reading as being for entertainment, but now that he mentions it she has some ideas! She has to leave in three hours, how much money will he guarantee for that? She'll tell a few stories and do two mind-reading demonstrations.

...He's sort of worried she'll cause some sort of scene... But then, any gossip is good gossip from certain perspectives. Yeah, sure, he'll guarantee a shilling but she'll probably get much more in tips. And he might decide to give her a bonus if it goes well. Nothing too lewd. Does she need a bouncer or props or assistance?

Sure, nothing too lewd or openly heretical. She can protect herself and isn't going to deliberately start fights, and can probably break up any fights that she accidentally starts unless the whole room riots or something. She's thinking of demonstrating her deep mind-reading of fears and desires, which gets everyone in range. She thinks it's illegal to do that without consent. She can't control the range herself but she can weaken the effect by putting some pots on her head - she needs several pots that fit inside each other and have a total thickness of 2 centimeters or a little more. If he doesn't like that, she can substitute something else.

They have old pots and things, sure. That'd reduce the range down to a few feet, so only those who feel brave approach it? Seems workable. He'll shake on it and then escort her to the Flying Fish tavern.

Her natural range is fairly long, so the shielding has to reduce it almost to nothing, relatively speaking, which means it's sensitive to the exact thickness. But she's willing to waste a charge to calibrate before the show.

"Hello! I'm Kireh, the mind-reading outsider. I'll demonstrate that later this evening, but first, here's a story from my home.

There once was a family of farmers in a poor remote village. Times were hard and children often died from accidents and illness, and especially from the swarm of frogs with their backs covered in knives which engulfed the fields every few years, eating the crops and causing many injuries to the farmers. In hopes that at least one child would survive to work the farm as an adult, the family had many children. This was a frog-summer, and they were taking heavy injuries as they tried to protect the fields.

This particular summer, however, a wandering doctor-adventurer was passing through the village, admiring the exotic musical traditions that had developed in isolation. The doctor healed the injured villagers, including all the children in this family, and killed many of the frogs. At first, the parents rejoiced, but as winter approached, their joy turned to anguish. For they realized that with the crops half eaten by the frogs, and all their children alive, thanks to the generosity of the doctor, they could not all survive the winter. And the doctor was no help, for he had already left for the next village.

The family had three more sons than they needed, and three extra daughters. The parents went to the sons first, and explained that they would have to leave the village, perhaps to seek their fortune as adventurers. Like the wandering doctor, right? Wasn't he so brave and noble?

The three brothers were inspired by their parents' words, and set off to learn to fight. The first brother joined a monastery, where the monks were said to be able to slice off a wolf's head with a bare-handed chop. The second brother joined the city guard, where he would fight real criminals every day. The third brother watched at a fighting ring until he saw a man with a build like his own and approached him for an apprenticeship.

The first brother labored day and night, chopping wood, raking the garden, serving the monks at their supper, painting walls... and when the monks had no more work for him, they set him running laps until he collapsed from exhaustion, sleeping the night on the bare ground where he fell. They told him that the work he was doing was training him to fight. Whenever his stance with the rake was wrong, or he let the soup ripple as he set it down, they beat him, punching him on the forehead and kicking him in the belly. When he asked what he was doing wrong with the rake, or how to carry soup more steadily, they laughed and beat him more. After a year, he stopped speaking, stopped trying to think about learning to fight, and stopped planning for the future beyond how to avoid getting beaten in the next hour.

The second brother patrolled with the city guard, wearing his new uniform and shiny sword. After walking about the streets for a few hours each day, the guards would retire to a pub, where they told of great criminals they had captured, duels they had fought, ladies they had wooed. They would go out onto the street" - Kireh staggers into a wobbly fighting stance, miming drinking from a glass in her off-hand - "and talk about tempo and measure, the cavazione, the molinello." She illustrates the moves with sloppy melodramatic flourishes.

"The third brother watched his master's fights for a month, sparring with him in the afternoons before the fighting rings opened. At first, his master moved slowly, as if in armor, gradually speeding up as the third brother learned to see the movements of a fight instead of a bewildering flurry. He focused on one flaw at a time, striking the third brother hard so he would remember the lesson, and letting himself be struck when the third brother corrected the error, sealing the new knowledge with the signet of satisfaction and confidence. He himself feigned various styles, challenging the third brother to deduce the weaknesses of each. After a month, the master arranged fights for him in the rings, and began to teach him to use, not his fists, but a brace of daggers.

Now, in the city, with the monastery, the guards, and the fighting ring, there was a clever, beautiful thief. She heard that the monastery stored the notebook of the great engineer Archimedes, so she snuck in to steal it. The first brother was raking the garden as she sauntered past. The monks were supposed to be celibate, but if one of them was having a dalliance, the first brother had no desire to report him and get beaten. Because anything he did out of the ordinary would surely get him beaten, even enforcing the rules of the monks. So he pretended not to notice the thief, and she stole the legendary notebook.

Next, the thief went to the city guards. They had no great artifacts, but she thought it would be funny to have a uniform and sword. She followed the guards to their pub of the day, where she seduced the second brother, took him to an inn, and walked out with his uniform and sword while he was asleep.

She then went to the fighting ring to flaunt her new possessions, and fought the third brother. He recognized that her stance didn't match the creases in her clothes, and she was swinging her straight rapier as if she was used to fighting with a heavier, curved sword. He named her a thief then and there, grappling her before she could run away, and called for the actual guards.

The first brother despaired of learning at the monastery, despaired of having any future at all there, and left in shame, penniless. The second brother was expelled by the city guard, the very same people who had congratulated him for catching such a beautiful woman on the previous evening, slapping his back and calling themselves friends. The third brother, at his master's orders, left the city to face greater dangers and become a real adventurer. And so, the three brothers traveled together back towards their village.

On the road, the three brothers were accosted by bandits. The first brother fought viciously, wielding a stick like the rake he so hated. He killed one bandit and threw the bandit's sword to the second brother, but the next bandit he engaged punched his forehead, and he froze, reminded of the beatings he had gotten from the monks. This hesitation  was enough for the bandit to kill him. The second brother swung his sword with glee, at first, but was flabbergasted when several of the bandits attacked him at once. That's not an honorable duel! That's not how the city guard fights - they're supposed to be the ones in a group, surrounding a lone criminal! And so the second brother also died. The third brother had fought against multiple opponents before. His daggers flickered and flew, he retreated and circled the bandits, and eventually he killed them all. Covered in sweat and blood, he continued down the road, now a real adventurer. He had some frogs to kill.

But what of the three daughters who were sent away? What did they do? I'll get to that in a minute, when I've rested my voice.

In the meantime, we're not yet at the part of the evening where I demonstrate my mind-reading, so if you want another drink, you'll have to ask!"

She has everyone's attention, for sure.

Ah, the risk of famine. Ain't it ever so. Why, not a hundred years ago many in the countryside were in the same position - And still are!

What kind of doctor kills frogs? What, did he poison them? And of course he didn't stick around, and they had to go back to dealing with things their own way. Cityfolk! (We're cityfolk, another responds, to which the first man argues that they're the good kind)

Aren't monks supposed to be peaceful holier-than-thou scholars? Well, it's not like the church is always lily-white and pure, is it. Sounds more like an old hunting club, but who are they to judge foreign monks.

Everyone has a good time jeering at the image of overly-proud guards, so quick to glorify themselves and so confused when it comes to a real fight.

They yell and interrupt, demanding to know how the thief is beautiful. Tall? Brilliant smile? Sunny hair or silvery eyes? Impressive bosom and shapely thighs?

Oh, what a fool everyone except the last brother is. The thief should just have left the city- What, did she think the second brother wouldn't come after her after such a humiliation?

After the story ends there's a few murmurs about how some people are bastards, seemingly no matter what. A few drinkers drop half-pence or pennies in the bowl the barkeep provided for Kireh. Others seem to be considering it, but waiting. The waitresses start distributing another round and a few meals.

And then there's a drinking song about Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. It's sarcastic and bombastic, and pokes fun at the Hood himself for living well-off in a forest with his entourage and robbing the very man he'd given money to earlier, when he comes back a rich merchant. After that, another pair of drinking songs- About a man working on a train, lonely as the world passes by, and a sappy love story between a sailor and a seamstress.

An adventurer-doctor kills frogs, and he did it by using his knowledge of chemistry to make a whole bunch of arrows to shoot them with.

The thief was tall and lithe, with eyes like emeralds - "and lustrous fur, and pearly claws the length of this gentleman's dagger, uh, I mean lustrous hair and a bosom out to here" -

Like many thieves, she was more Intelligent than Wise.

Kireh doesn't really like the lyrics - too Chaotic and too Good - but bounces along with the music. (Okay, the train song is alright.)

Hey, she used to be a seamstress, a very long time ago! - "I was a blind orphan living at a church, frustrated with how the people around me kept screwing up their lives and there was nothing I could do about it." - Sometimes the church officials themselves broke the law, denying themselves future opportunities that they seemed incapable of even imaging. Eventually she turned them in - "and it gets complicated but I ended up in the military, sewing uniforms" - speaking of the military, here's a story about two countries, Iomedia and Loamcreek, and a brave soldier who defected from one to the other.

They have a good laugh at the corrected description! And joke about how if you're going to have claws it's better they be bigger than smaller. Her fur is pretty, as well.

...They don't like the defection story much. Soldiers ought to be loyal! If a bloody French trooper defected to England they'd be kind of despicable! Different story if he runs out his enlistment first, of course.

"I skipped this part earlier, but the soldier told her commanding officer that she was defecting, and they arranged for her to wrap up her duties and peacefully leave. Because that's way better than having her stay as a spy or saboteur, or slip out abruptly when they need her most. That's the kind of mutually-beneficial arrangement you can have when you're very serious about following the law and keeping your word!"

This seems to be a bit too intellectual of an argument given the general level of inebriation. Defection is bad and they're here to get drunk and laugh, not be confusingly moralized at. What happened to the sisters?

(The place is getting more crowded as those who left return with friends to see the supposedly-otherworlder in person.)

(Drunkards are disgusting, sigh.)

"So what happened to the family's three extra daughters? The adventurer-doctor left the family with three more sons and three more daughters than would be able to survive the winter. After the parents sent away the three sons, they gathered the three extra daughters. 'How about you go into the city and show off our music? The adventurer-doctor, who was so handsome and daring, came all the way to our village to hear our musical traditions! In the city, there are surely many more like him who would make you good husbands for you.'

And so the three sisters traveled to the city. The first sister followed her orders precisely, like an automaton. 'Show off our music', she thought to herself, and the only music she could hear in the city was in the taverns, so she got a job as a barmaid at the Swimming Bird. She didn't think her village's music was nearly sophisticated to impress this city folk, and didn't think she was a very good singer, but she followed her directions and sang while she worked.

The second sister understood that their parents had sent her away to die, telling themselves a story about her gaining fame and riches in the city as a way to lie to themselves. She had no intention of obeying her parents, but, as it happened, she was going to display her music anyway. Her parents were fools, thinking that she would just sing and prosperity would rain upon her, but the village's music was way better than the watered-down chirping of the city, where they sang the same three songs over and over for people who couldn't even tell those three songs apart. Stalking past the worthless taverns, she found a beggar singing on a street corner. 'What is this, yesterday's pig-slop? Do you have any creativity? You're singing every note the same. Can you waver? Can you creak? Can you rasp or growl or purr? Listen to me. I've never heard this song before today and I can already sing it a hundred times better than you can.' The beggar stopped. 'Growl? What a primitive idea. I'll have you know that I was educated in the vocal arts by an adventurer-singer. I can spit fire with my voice, light and darkness, inspire fear and affection. Who are you, with your subhuman yowling and screeching, to criticize me?' And so the second sister and the beggar had a wild argument, with passersby gathering to support one or the other, and even getting into some fights themselves.

Late that evening, the second sister was startled when the beggar wandered away in the middle of a demonstration of vowel tuning, waving a hand dismissively... 'You'll be back tomorrow morning? Your cut for today was probably almost a pound, but don't expect that much tomorrow.' What? But she had seen only a few pence go into the beggar's handkerchief? Well, the beggar worked with a pickpocket, who had had rich pickings from the engrossed music aficionados. And so began the second sister's life of crime.

The third sister obeyed her parents, but she thought about her mission rather than simply following each word one after the other. They wanted her to find a husband? She went to a matchmaker and explained her position. She had no opinion on the merits of the village's music, but she loved her voice and sang whenever she could, and the matchmaker was charmed by her rustic beauty. And after a few days, the matchmaker found a suitor for her. 'Will marriage distract from my singing?' she asked nervously, thinking of formal dinners and babies needing to sleep. 'Not at all, my dear. Just bare me children with voices as beautiful as yours!'

Now, do you remember the second brother, who joined the city guard? One day, the guards rested in the Swimming Bird tavern, where the first sister worked. 'Dear sister! My friend over there, with the ruffled sleeves, thinks you are quite the nightingale! Do me a favor and show him a good time, okay?' She was not at all pleased about this, but didn't dare cross her brother and a roomful of guards.

One day, the second brother saw the second sister's pickpocket at work. 'Dear brother! Little brother who should mind his own business! Take this shilling and buy a round of drinks for your company.' And that worked, for a time, until a different guard caught the pickpocket and hauled the three criminals to jail. 'Brother! You know I'm innocent!' Well he remembered all the times she had blamed him, for the broken spindle, the dead piglet, the knife-backed frog that had gotten into the house. 'I'm not your brother, ma'am. Have you eaten anything funny recently?'

And one day, the city guards tried to hassle the third sister, but she simply showed them her ring. 'I'm a married woman, you ruffians!'

After about a year, the city was shocked to learn that a notebook belonging to the great engineer Archimedes had been stolen from the local monastery. The first sister felt sick at the thought that someone might do something so visibly illegal. The monks must be so angry! The second sister thought this was hilarious and wished she could meet the daring thief, and was astonished when her new cellmate confided that she was the one who had stolen the notebook! The third sister thought it was a shame that such a useful notebook had been kept locked away. Of course, it was wrong to steal it, but surely there was something better that could have been done?

The monastery offered a reward of 5 pounds for the notebook, imploring everyone in the city to search for it. The first sister dutifully checked every table she served for the notebook, but apparently whoever had it was not reading it openly at the pub. The second sister beat her cellmate to get her to say what she had done with the notebook, but the jailers separated them. The third sister thought carefully. She didn't want to break the law, but... suppose that the thief had actually been a broker helping the monastery sell the notebook. Could such a deal have existed, if anyone had tried for it? Was there a sum of money that the monastery would accept for the book? Could she arrange for everyone to agree to a new deal that left them all better-off, as if the thief had behaved lawfully all along? She knew that the second sister had criminal connections, so she visited her in jail to ask. 'Yeah, that bitch who used to be my cellmate did it. Squeeze her for everything she's got!'

And so the third sister asked the thief what she had done with the notebook - sold it for 30 pounds - and proposed to split that three ways, among the thief, the third sister, and the monastery. They shook on the deal, and the third sister went to negotiate with the monastery. The monks were unhappy about losing their famous relic, but they had also just lost the junior monk who they had been making do all their work, and they eventually agreed that the money would be nice. And the third sister went home, soon to be 10 pounds richer, and perfectly law-abiding - not just law abiding, in fact, but the opposite of criminal: she had made a crime disappear by her clever thinking and solid reputation as an honest, respectable member of society. And she sang, and loved her voice and cleverness and honesty, and she was happy."

There almost seem to be two separate crowds forming- The drinkers (those who were already here) and the thinkers (most of the newcomers).

What kind of horrible brother points his sister at his friends like that! If anything he ought to be messing with the sleeves guy! But then they already knew he was an idiot. There's a round of distracted speculation about what Africans and Russians do with women, after the bit with the pickpocket and thief. He's heard that Russian women can wrestle bears one-armed. One of the waitresses shows off her muscles in response. This seems to be an inside joke. There seems to be some confusion why a simple notebook is worth so much, until someone explains that the printing press is a newish invention. Then there's confusion about why it's worth so little. Why not just copy it out by hand, if some dead Greek guy's writing is so important?

It's obviously a parable and you can't get hung up on the details too much, go the mutters of the more thoughtful part of the crowd. The notebook isn't the point. Of how there are many ways to go wrong and only a few to go right, perhaps? The structure of failure-failure-success is a familiar one- Too meek a lamb, too bold by half, and somewhere in the middle and terribly clever, to boot. The nature of the deal at the end seems to confuse everyone until they mull it over a bit- What if the monastery didn't want to sell it at all? Perhaps 10 pounds is better than nothing, but it's hardly what they would have been willing to part with it for. Perhaps they could have tried to recover it, but thought such a thing would be expensive and unlikely to work, or perhaps the value was in the secrecy of the knowledge and it was worthless once revealed so they might as well get something, but what a bitter consolation, really. 

The thief profiting at all from her crime sparks a loud debate. Crime oughtn't pay, if it ever does, with someone forgiving them after the fact, then the deterrent of punishments goes away, criminals will just think a sob story will save them and that's hardly rule of law! Versus the other side who advocate mercy and how interviewed criminals usually say five years hard labor or ten didn't make a difference to them when they were considering a crime, and many don't consider the consequences at all. It's much scarier to know they'd definitely be caught, and corruption is the problem!

(Everyone agrees that corruption is really bad, and they bid three cheers to Chief McAllen for having a ring of corrupt tax collectors publicly flogged last year.)

They do think it seems reasonable for the last sister to walk away with some of the money for making a problem vanish into thin air, but a whole third of it? And a good portion of people continue to argue that the thief ought to feel lucky just to be out of jail. And what of the person she sold it to, are they just out 30 pounds and don't even get the notebook? Well, that might be fair enough if they knew it was stolen, which they couldn't not.

Great, the story got them thinking! That's its purpose, so she only makes a few comments, to clarify that the buyer of the notebook got to keep it, and yeah in real life there would be a lot more detailed negotiation on exactly how to divide the money, if the monastery was willing to do it at all.

After a few minutes, she returns to the center of the room. "And now, it's time for some mind-reading! I'll start with the kind where I read thoughts, which requires touch. Anyone want to help me demonstrate?" She lingers by the one who said her fur was pretty earlier.

Lots of people are curious what it's like! They form a surprisingly orderly queue around the tables, despite all being a bit tipsy. First up is a woman wearing a fur-lined coat, goggles, and a leather hat, one of relatively few female customers. She holds out her hand with a confident smile.

Marra's Inquisition. Wait for it to settle...

"Wow, there's a lot of you! I'll go ahead to the next part, then. If there's anything you wish you could say to someone else in this room, but you're afraid of the consequences if they rebuff you, you can secretly think it at me, along with a secret sign I can give you if they have a sincere compatible interest. Anything: personal attraction, a business deal, engineering collaboration but you don't want to reveal your own secrets first, coordination to strike or something and you want to be sure that the others will stick to their commitments. I'll verify it if it can be verified by passively reading your current thoughts. If you want a more thorough interrogation, or you want this arrangement with someone who isn't here, my services are available for hire. Of course, I will never disclose your secrets in any way.

- and you're thinking about operating a flying machine. That's so cool!"

"Her Majesty's Airship Service, at yours!"

A lot of this is kind of vaguely confidential and but honestly she doesn't give THAT much of a fuck, she is under the impression that it's mostly to prevent stampedes. This strange fox lady is probably not, actually, trustworthy, but again she doesn't really care, she's interesting, and Debra is here to unwind a bit. She's essentially a test pilot, running every new Model H through its paces out over the bay, burning through light gas to do so and occasionally running important passengers or cargo. She's actually ENCOURAGED to do stupid shit like sudden, sharp maneuvers to see if anything breaks. They can't really simulate the arctic, but there's still a whole checklist, which would usually be labelled 'never under any circumstances do any of this'. Like venting gas and staying aloft just using the wing effects on the balloon envelope. It's a huge thrill, knowing that you ought to be falling like a rock, but not doing that. 

"I dunno how long each of us should get? This is neat, though. Like standing before a judge almost."

Like that moment of stark clarity when you're in the sky and things are going wrong and you have to be SHARP, really. This feeling would be handy for newbie pilots panicking on their first run. What was that about connections? What, like a guy to take to bed? Nah, she likes girls. Regular girls, not fox people. That's secret. It's scandalous or something. She maybe likes guys too and mostly just doesn't want to risk motherhood because she would DEFINITELY accidentally kill a baby, she injures herself at least twice a month, nobody wants that. She's still pissed off she had to pretend to be a guy to get into flight school. Probably don't bother matchmaking her or anything, that would just be a mess. If Kireh knows engineers, Debra is up for flying whatever weird contraptions they come up with if it seems interesting and at least low-ish-risk.

She does not acknowledge any of the interesting points that Debra just thought about, of course. She wants to remind Debra that she needs a way to contact her (if she later finds a suitable engineering contraption), but that was after the part deliberately presented as a thought to announce aloud as part of the demonstration... and this isn't just a private agreement that can be retroactively refined; Kireh promised publicly and unambiguously not to change her behavior in any way except for indicating people to each other.

"Hm, five rounds each, including the initial delay. That's two per minute. Next!"

The next one in line nods at her and goes to the end of the queue with a thoughtful expression.

This guy wants her to guess out loud the numbers he's thinking of! The next guy has a brilliant business idea he's trying not to think about too specifically and wants investors, but seriously, it's definitely brilliant (and involves old farm equipment). The next guy gets stuck in a self-conscious loop and yanks his hand away as if burnt when he starts thinking about sex. One of the waitresses wants her to know she likes the baker - that one with the blonde hair - she can order 'cheese roast' from her if somehow he also likes her but he probably doesn't and she's too scared to do anything about it but somehow this doesn't count as doing- The next one is wondering if he can possibly discomfit her and focuses on thoughts of violence and sex. He doesn't really compare to a devil in creativity, though not for lack of trying. The next wants to somehow guarantee his family (a wife and one child) a Shelter spot and is willing to do bribes over it. Many of the rest are simply curious what the 'like standing before a judge' feeling is. Aside from the pilot there's only one engineer, who wants to sabotage the I.E.C. because his son died on an expedition, and gives her an address to inquire at.

Other interesting private-intents given to her include: A few who all have the idea to introduce her to 'the union boss' about strikes but is unclear how to arrange this discreetly (and are thinking about long hours in the shipyards), two different men who want to have sex with her and manage to form the intent to think about paying for it instead of mentally ducking away from the 'inappropriate' thought but have no idea what sort of rates she might charge, one person who confesses to a murder to her and says he couldn't go to a priest, he can't say it and is terrified of doing it again and is terrified of going to jail and might kill himself, a man looking for a loveless marriage where he lives with a woman for appearance's sake but does not have sex with her, and a middle-aged man who claims to be secretly wealthy and wants to talk to Kireh privately some other day about how to use money to get what he wants without inviting a bunch of fucking vulture distant-relations to flit about over it. He also gives an address.

"17, 3, one million two hundred, ..."

She's not bothered by thoughts of violence and sex - anything he's thinking is Not Her Problem.

There are so many interesting things that she needs to forget about! Like why doesn't flight school admit women? But the more she thinks about the people's private thoughts, the more she'll have to mark her own thoughts as contaminated by the secrets and painstakingly simulate her own uncontaminated thinking. So she queues each of the parts she needs to remember and distracts herself from the rest by focusing on the texture of each person's hand.

When the line is done, she announces to the group: "Remember, if you didn't tell me a secret sign or another way to contact you, you'll have to check with me yourself. I'm currently staying at the Roadster's Rest inn and I'll put any other addresses or ways to contact me on my advertisements." And her advertisements - she should put up one at the inn if they let her, set a reminder for that - say that she's a 'teacher' and 'therapist', but the murderer might not think to check or might not think that applies to him! But, she reminds herself, although normally she only reads people who are hers, the tavern patrons are Not Hers and Not Her Problem.

"Let's pause for a minute. I may or may not know for a fact that some of you want another drink, but I can't say, so if that's true you'll have to ask the barmaid yourself!"

The people think this whole exercise is interesting and novel - even if not everyone agrees it was fun. Tips into the small basket provided for her speed up as people mutter and discuss this. Definitely at least a shilling now. It might be gauche to pause and count it. They wonder is it truly magic? Or just science man has failed to understand quite yet? Is Kireh an omen of things to come?

What's the difference, and hopefully yes.

Why, magic is a charlatan's game and ancient superstition we now know better than to be duped by! While science is a careful study of the natural laws in order to apply them cleverly with human ingenuity. Science admits it's wrong when people learn more! Magic just says 'god wills it' or 'the hidden forces are mysterious' or something like that.

(A few people sheepishly give her ways to contact them after her announcement makes them realize they forgot to do that. Nobody mentions what their private concern was out loud, of course.)

"For my grand finale, I'm going to use my deeper mind-reading that gets your currently most-pressing fears and desires." She dons the pots solemnly and stands still. "With this technique, I can read anyone within two meters."

"By default, I will simply describe out loud what I learn. But for the very bravest, I offer to instead secretly plot to help you. By attaining your desires and avoiding your fears, or by redirecting your desires and soothing your fears. I will not break the law or my duties or my honor, and I can promise only a limited effort.

If you're interested in helping me help others this way, you may approach me now or later, and be prepared to have your intentions scrutinized."

People will line up for this as well, a bit more nervous than before! Having your desires and fears spoken out loud is a bit intimidating.

One of them pushes ahead. "Go ahead and plot for me," says the test pilot. "I'm sure it'll be fun!" She wants to be famous, to be spoken in the same breath as Nansen, Tesla, and Queen Victoria. She fears - Criminals, kidnapping, a knife against her skin. Something in that region.

Hardly anybody else is brave enough to volunteer about a secret plot- Just one other man, whose greatest fear is starvation, and whose greatest desire is to find a good wife.

People who willingly walk into her aura and don't want her to plot for them want: To be rich, to have sex with various people, to have everyone think they're virtuous, to show up their petty rivals, a simple life in the countryside, learn to be an engineer, to get a safe spot in a shelter, to be famous/nobility, to master their craft, more beer, to become a shift boss in the steel mill, to agitate for a labor union, to find their lost sister, to have the Queen knight them.

And fear: Freezing to death, being rejected by their families, going to Hell, starvation, violent crime, making a public speech, injury and disease, the police and the Army, growing old alone, drowning, not being able to make rent, spiders and mice and other vermin, not having enough food for their family, their children meeting some terrible fate.

She tells Debra and the man that she'll be able to plot for them better if she knows more about them. "I need to leave at eleven, but you can walk back with me. And I don't need to sleep, so you can stay the night and use my bed in the inn, if that would give us more time to talk - that offer is only for tonight, though."

Wants to be an engineer: "I've heard the library has some books you can learn from. I can help you study, and I know someone who might be able to tutor you, and if you show aptitude I might be interested in hiring you."

Wants fame and nobility: "I want to become nobility too! I hope there are ways we can work together on that."

Wants to master their craft: "What are your obstacles? Do you want to work faster and more intensely? Or I can read you while you work to see if your thoughts can be streamlined." 

Afraid of rejection by their family: "What would happen if they rejected you? Are you dependent on them?"

Afraid of going to Hell: "How do people end up in Hell here, or Heaven, or anywhere else?"

Afraid of the police and the army: ...well that's concerning, and reminds her of the Green Gulliman's statements about the 'jack boots'. She addresses the crowd: "Is it common to be afraid of the police and the army? Why? What are people doing about it?"

They both... Really don't think staying in her inn room is a good idea? They'll wait patiently for her to be done with the others, though. Well, the man, whose name is Daniel, will. Debra will wait impatiently, instead.

Wants to be an engineer says he doesn't really know where to start, and after all things are very busy these days.

Wants to master his craft is a glassblower, he thinks the problem is part insufficient tools and part bad habits and part simple inexperience. He thinks it'd be interesting to have her guide him as he works, if she'll accept payment in glass things.

The one afraid of rejection... Isn't, really, dependent on them. He has a job. But they're still the ones he feels closest to, the people he wants to spend time with and who he knows and, mostly, trusts. It's just that he can't live up to their expectations. (...And drinks too much maybe.)

Why, people are judged by Saint Peter when they die, and welcomed to the paradise of Heaven forever more, or condemned to Hell if they were sinners and did not repent. Oh, there's also Purgatory, which lets you into Heaven eventually. No, purgatory is heresy! No, every person's soul is predestined to Heaven or Hell by an omniscient God before they are even born! No, that's heresy, you bloody Calvinist! Why is a Calvinist in a bar! No, God is a lie designed to keep the People meek and compliant! (All participants turn on this last guy.)

(There is a short break while a pair of bouncers cool things down.)

Well, the people in power mostly only look after themselves, don't they? Everyone has a litany of historical abuses to cite. The Potato Famine, which was a horror beyond horrors because a bunch of aristocrats were lining their pockets. Jonathan Wild, who spent a decade organizing crime and bribing judges. The South Sea Company, which was a shameless scam from start to end. They conscript people sometimes, especially the bloody press gangs, literally kidnap you onto a ship and sail away, not a chance to pack or say goodbye. And one hears rumors of more recent incidents too- Beating a block of protestors outside a factory with truncheons so they'll go back to work, and the like. Victoria's a saint, bless her soul, but historically kings have been... Bad. King Henry VIII divorced and executed his wife and married another! Seven times!

Wants to be an engineer: "During the next week I'll have an engineering consultant you can talk you about where to start!"

Wants to master his craft: "I might accept payment in glasswork, let me ask my engineering consultant."

Afraid of rejection: "What duties do you have towards your family? Are you fulfilling them? It sounds like you feel bad because you think you have an infinite duty to please them in every way, which I suspect isn't actually true. In any case, I can help with your drinking problem."

Hm, so this universe has only moral alignment, and people aren't sure whether prophesy works...

She nods along to the complaints. What an interesting mix of Lawful and Neutral and Chaotic Evil... perhaps as to be expected in a universe with no systemic alignment. "Are press gangs legal?" If so, she wants one of her own.

Debra: "What do you imagine doing with your fame? Have you had particular bad experiences with criminals?"

Daniel: "What kind of wife do you want? What obstacles are in your way?" It would be convenient if Kireh knew how to make a Ring of Sustenance, or if Marra could choose a cleric here who worked the same as in Pharasma's Creation, but she'll just have to be creative...

Afraid-of-rejection knows his brother's wife and kids will suffer without him helping out, but... Will think about that. It's not like there's a contract or anything, and he's not married... But family is family. Quitting the drinking would be good, anyway.

There's some arguing back and forth about press gangs, but they're pretty sure it was a right specifically afforded to the Royal Navy. It's not used quite so much anymore, anyway, modern sailing is a more skilled job than it ever was before. And there haven't been as many wars lately. They seem to enjoy the chance to argue about things.

Why, being famous! Having people look up to her, having big parties, getting all the coolest toys... Oh, and saving people, yes, that too. Eh... Well, she probably does have to talk about this doesn't she? Fine, fine. Debra's expression darkens. Back in flight school she was blackmailed for a little while, then at one point kidnapped held hostage for a bit by a bastard of a man who mostly got away with it. If Kireh really needs the gory details, some other time?

Daniel would like someone - compatible. Calm and kind and who he can get along with, which isn't easy to judge from a distance. Pretty would be nice, of course, but a 'good family' would be more trouble than it's worth. The big problem is that he's - a bit of an idiot. He knows this and struggles with it. He doesn't recognize faces or voices, he doesn't recognize a lot of social cues without deliberate effort. Not quite to the point where a doctor would call him a mental cripple, and he thinks he's clever enough aside from that. He's a telegraph operator, you have to be a bit clever for that. But he doesn't know how to go about courting the acceptable English way, he'd be terrible at it, and courting someone and messing it up rather kills your future chances, doesn't it?

(Her total take in tips, when she counts it all up, is 14 shillings, 7 pence, and 3/8 pence (with the smallest coin in use being a 1/8 pence). Debra the test pilot casually dropped three of those shillings, and also bought a round for the bar a while back.)

Okay, she'll want to talk with Debra and Daniel more later, but that's enough for now, for her to start thinking.

That's more money than she was expecting!

She goes back to the inn.

She prays to everyone on her list except the Lords of Hell - this is a totally different universe that Asmodeus might not know about yet. She asks Lissala for guidance on the sin magic here, but, as expected, doesn't get a response. Lissala is, unlike Marra, able to give visions, but She's even weaker than Marra.

Kireh thinks about separating people who can be awesome from the boring pointless masses... studying petitioners to find each urge towards Good and Evil, Law and Chaos, Awesomeness and Boringness, Diversity and Uniformity... choosing paths for petitioners (Gofiere, Cantor, Sietaziz, part of a Regulator or Rector)... guiding mortals... punishing new petitioners for their failings in life... Saint Peter, I'm from a different universe with a different judge. I would like to trade with You. The judge of my universe prefers souls to have clear alignments. If You like that too, or if You prefer complicated cases, tell me how to make my followers more clearly Evil by Your standards, or more interestingly ambiguous. I want to know more about Hell and how to arrange a suitable fate for my followers, in Hell or elsewhere. There might be other things You can do to pay me that I don't know of.

She prays briefly to "God" and Jesus Christ, just in case the restrictions on prayers stretching across alignments is different here (and either of Them is still alive). Prays to the god of sparkiness as best she can aim, asking to cooperate on using Waltana.

She reviews the rest of her queued items without much progress. Discards the ones about her petitioners in Stonepeak.

There's not enough time for a long rest, but she spends the rest of her curfew lying on the bed, stretching her body and working her mind, enjoying being such an awesome creature as a Cantor.

And now to see the chemist! If they're not open yet at 6am, she wanders around looking for criminals, people from the tavern who want to talk more, or anyone else interesting. Is the shipyard close enough to stroll through in case the workers want to talk to her about their union?

The chemist opens at eight! This early, most people are dull and groggy. All the people who wanted to keep talking to her from the tavern last night ended up giving addresses to call at.

It's not hard to find the shipyard, and the place is- Impressive.

It's a somewhat sprawling complexus of docks, warehouses, cranes, and factories along the bay. Much of the city is focused on it, with vast streams of workers heading that way. There's a fence or gatehouse with men checking papers before most of the actual industrial areas, but the roads leading around the area are open. While the passing workers do shout a few questions at her, everyone seems focused on getting to work and being productive. There's a real sense of urgency in this district of the city, compared to further out.

There is steel everywhere. Vast quantities of the metal, being used for everything. Bridges. Cranes. Gatehouses. The ships themselves. Carts. Tools and machinery. Signs.

She can see tugboats belching smoke from their short funnels as they move around, pushing barges full of materials or larger ships. There's a long line of slipways, with over two dozen vessels built to the same pattern under construction- The earliest one a bare steel skeleton, the latest looking essentially complete. Dozens of men swarm around each slipway, with engineers and overseers crowding around as they work. Gargantuan automata, masses of metal stomping around on four slow legs, look almost spindly from this angle despite their obvious strength and power. They tower thirty, forty feet in the air, walking with great thumps, hauling heavy loads, lifting large pieces of metal for the ships, with slow, ungainly movements and frequent pauses as if they're stopping to think. At the far end of the dock, past more stringent security and what looks like actual fortification, guarded by very soldierly-looking types in blue uniforms, are several ships that seem rather different in character.

One of the pairs of I.E.C. guards, wearing I.E.C. uniforms with a prominent patch, will approach her if she lingers much.

Cool!

Probably not much for her to do here, though. She looks around long enough to attract the guards' attention and gives them a nod as they approach.

"We don't need suspicious characters hanging about, much less so-called mind-reading ones. State your business here, or leave if you have none!" The one in front brusquely demands.

"With what authority are you speaking? I'm just looking around peacefully, on public property. I won't mind-read anyone without their consent."

"The I.E.C. The Imperial Exploration Company is in charge of major industrial areas for the duration of the emergency. I'm sure they appreciate that."

"In other words, this is not public property? I didn't see any indication of that. How might I avoid trespassing in the future?"

"You're not trespassing, you're loitering. We'll put up signs if we must."

"Ey, boss, isn't this a bit..." The other one trails off, hesitantly.

"She's disrupting work, look, they're gawking instead of riveting over there! This isn't a park, here, it's serious and heavy work. Not safe for just anyone to be about! If you'd like to contribute to the survival of everyone around you, main office is right off College Green, they will sort you out."

"I'm looking at the shipyard because I'm interested in engineering, which is neither 'no apparent purpose' nor an illegal intent per the Vagrancy Act of 1824. And other people's responses to my presence is not my problem.

Anyway, I'm leaving now - which way is College Green?"

The guards will furnish her with directions. It's hard to miss, big square just downriver on the right of the fork in the center of Bristol.

"Hello. I was directed here by some of your guards, about how you might have use of my services?" She can explain who and what she is, if needed. "I'm also interested in buying plans for a shelter."

The IEC office is hectic.

However. They had instructions for this. They'll show her to a private office where a bespectacled man will meet her and say, "There's currently a lot of confusion in the IEC about a lot of things. Exceptions to the expected course of things as large as you are, were not expected. I am at liberty to furnish you designs for some pieces of survival equipment, by order of Her Majesty such that all may prepare. However, I'm unclear on what services you might offer that an ordinary laborer cannot, and what intentions you might have in offering them."

"Indeed, you should not employ me as, say, a blacksmith, and probably not on some common labor that I can do slightly more efficiently by foregoing safety equipment for cold or electricity. My best assets are my mind-reading and my skill at using it. I could screen people for critical technical or leadership positions. If legal, I could search for the disloyal more generally.

I can help people improve their skills and motivation. I'm about to start such a project with an engineer in my employ, and don't yet know its success... Are you aware that there exist both trained and intuitive engineers? My impression is that intuitive engineers can be overlooked. If a lot of people claim to be intuitive engineers and it's too expensive to offer them all work-trials, I can identify the genuine ones.

Once the cold sets in, I can travel between shelters as a courier, or to provide a service to every shelter which would not be valuable enough if I could only do it at a single one. Checking for rebellion and lawbreaking among the shelters' leaders would be the obvious task.

I want to build my own shelter so that I can rule it absolutely, as much as is permitted by law. To that end, I offer my services for money, or to barter for information, materials, equipment, or legal permission.

Regarding the designs that you're not willing to divulge, I have some comments - I am not attempting to extract hints from your reactions; I'm keeping my eyes and ears pointed away from you. If the machinery is dangerous" like a Wish spell "I could swear to use it only for limited purposes and keep it secret. If you want to deprive your enemies of the knowledge I could swear neutrality in conflicts and keep your secrets. If using your secret technology depletes a common resource, I can compensate you. If it has psychological effects that are against Her Majesty's interests for her subjects, I could try to correct them?"

"I think positions of high influence and trust are off the table," he says with finality. "I'm also not actually aware of the reason for redacting individual designs- I was, however, told that the primary reason is complexity, likely inability for individuals to do anything useful with them in time, and secondarily, yes, powerful technologies proving dangerous to our interests in factional hands. By intuitive engineering, do you mean the so-called spark of genius? One of which disrupted operations just yesterday..." Suspicious staring!

"The one intuitive engineer I've talked to used the term 'spark of genius', yes. I'm guessing that my engineering consultant is the person you're referring to, who I am confident is genuinely an intuitive engineer. I hope to inspire her to more Lawfulness in the future.

I believe that plans which are too intricate for a trained engineer might still be useful for a 'spark of genius'.

Have you considered a treaty against combat uses of your secret technology? I would be willing to sign such a treaty and use violence to enforce it. My mind-reading and emotional control could be devastating in a lawful war against an enemy without the countermeasures used in my world."

"That's above my pay grade. We explore and build shelters, not fight wars. Now. Copies of the plans are a shilling or two each, per design, for the paper and clerical time." 

He hands over a printed list.

Survival Lamp. Standard Prosthetic Limb. Survey Beacon. Radiotelegraphy Set. Steam Lorry.

Mining drills. Drainage pumps. Ventilation pumps. Hunting equipment based on northern explorer feedback. 

"Whose business is it, and how can I contact them?

I'll buy the plans for the drainage pump now and return after talking to my engineer."

"Room 204 is the place to do that. I'll show you on your way out. That would be the Captain, to even discuss the possibility with any confidence. Or Her Majesty's Government in London. We certainly can't agree to anything like that in a position of ignorance and on our own recognizance."

"Can I make an appointment with the Captain? I expect to be available any day between 7am and 8am, evenings 8 to 11, or mornings sporadically."

"Captain Blemwick is a very busy man. Perhaps a meeting with one of his assistants could be arranged in a day or two."

"Okay, I will return to discuss that appointment further."

When she leaves with the copied plan, is the chemist open yet?

The chemist is open! It contains a sleepy teenage boy, who fetches his boss from the back room, a rotund but excitable man who immediately bombards Kireh with questions about her physiology! Is her fur the same structure as human hair, or as fox fur, or something else? Did she have baby teeth? How many teeth does she have for that matter? What bone is her tail connected to? How does the musculature in her neck work-

"I don't know the anatomy of each individual hair, but I have two layers of fur, 1cm long and 3cm long. They continuously grow and fall out. I have 36 teeth, no baby teeth - we don't reproduce like that, we're made out of raw souls, which takes centuries to millennia, with frequent manual adjustments; or made from other kinds of outsiders, which takes a few years of intensive surgery and spiritual training. If I lost a tooth a new one would form from my jaw and then spilt off and emerge.

My tail is continuous with my spine... you may examine me." She's not going to charge for that, as she's very pleased to be the object of such fascination!

Her neck has ribs in it, with her neck muscles all attached to her spine. Her tail has twenty vertebrae.

Her limbs are humanoid, weak knees and all. Her hands are wide and heavy, with muscles on her fingers and no floating bones in her wrists. Her feet are very similar to her hands, just a little larger and thicker.

Her fangs each have an elongated hole on the inside edge. "That's for my venom, which is stored in my head." Speaking of which, her skull has some flexibility and blobby tangles can be felt inside.

She doesn't have a heartbeat, but a regular pulsing is palpable in her chest, surrounding three hard lumps. "My heart is a coiled tube that pumps like an intestine, and that's my brain in the middle." She doesn't have intestines, or most other human internal organs, just a vestigial digestive tract that goes straight through and a single lung. Most of her abdomen is a firm mass of flat layers.

"You can have some of my blood, but I'll charge for that: 2 pence per ounce."

This is all Extremely Fascinating, particularly her heart and chest-brain arrangement. He takes her back to an exam room for this, and wants to know more about the physical process of changing. The chemist keeps up a fast-paced ramble about how this Changes Everything We Thought We Knew, or, well, not really, but WOW. They can't do that much with various samples, the body is hideously complex and very mysterious, but he'll buy a blood sample to check under his microscope to see if it has all the parts of human blood. And also brag; It has 150x magnification! Does she know if she responds as humans do to medicines and chemicals? Does capillary action, inflammatory response, and so on still affect her? Can she get infections?

She's enthusiastic about being examined!

"Starting from a raw soul, most of the time is spent waiting for the ambient planar alignment to convert the soul's material into aligned essence. You can do some mental training during this time, that's all. A living soul has bits of alignment stuck to it, at least where I'm from, and bits of the matching alignment make the process go a little faster if you measure closely, but this is only practically relevant for very strong souls holding lots of alignment bits.

An outsider who is already fully aligned, not matching the plane's alignment, won't change at all just by sitting around, and if you throw a bunch of aligned energy at them you'll kill them. Instead, you have to have them focus closely on pulling the old alignment away from a piece of tissue while you slip the new alignment in, continuously feeding both parts of their body with the right alignment.

For example, I used to be a type of angel that is sustained by their wings. When I became a cantor marrenai, first one wing was converted into my abdominal actuator. Then, each part of body other than my wings was surgically isolated from my Lawful Good bloodstream, converted, and connected to my Lawful Evil bloodstream. Eventually all my Lawful Good was concentrated into the remaining wing, which was removed and shipped to Heaven, probably, no sense wasting it. At that point I was anatomically a mess and needed two more years of surgery to take my current form.

Switching alignment needed all my concentration to not die, since Good and Evil are corrosive to each other, but during the ordinary surgery I could do mental training. I practiced thinking about priorities and remembering to do things until I developed specialized parts of my brain, which were then untangled from the rest and trained separately to become my Queue and Reminderbank, the two smaller lumps you felt earlier.

That's an awesome optical device!"

Her blood is slightly more viscous than human blood and homogeneous.

"I've never tried human medicine since becoming an outsider... medicine that kills a disease directly would probably work, but other stuff probably not. Capillary action? Oh, I see what you mean, I don't know if I even have 'cells'! Want to take a flesh sample and find out? 2 pence for a scratch, 2 shillings 8 pence for a coin-sized chunk.

I can get infections. Some material diseases don't spread to me at all, and most of the ones that do can be killed with electricity. A disease of opposing alignment will die immediately inside my body unless it's magically empowered. A disease of neutral alignment could be a problem, but we don't visit the Neutral Evil plane or True Neutral plane, and the Lawful Neutral plane is very careful with their public health. A Lawful Evil disease, if I were back in my world, would be trivial to cure if I noticed it at all, and might even make me stronger, but could be a problem here if I got sick and disoriented enough to be unable to assimilate flecks of Lawful Evil...I would probably have to get infected at exactly the same time as I was seriously injured.

I've never actually seen a sick marrenai, but I saw an angel's leg swell up and turn pink once?"

The chemist will pay for samples to look at under the scope and expose to various things!! And write all this down! And comments that it's rather hard to believe all the rest of the stuff without seeing it for himself but she's definitely an alien of some sort and that's very exciting. Most humans can't really survive extensive surgery, so it's medically indefensible to try, really. And he's not a surgeon. He's a chemist. If she needs a chemist for her shelter and the I.E.C. evacuation doesn't scoop him up she's probably got one, provided there's signs it's going to be led sanely and doesn't look like a death trap and so on and so forth. A police officer told him she wanted to learn to treat injuries- Well, there's a new fad the I.E.C. picked up called a 'first aid cabinet'. A box full of standard kit, meant to be carried around in case of injury in a remote area where no doctor is available. Illustrated aid manual, gauze, adhesive plaster and splints, bandages, anti-infection sulfa drugs, pain-killers, sutures, hand soap, basic tools like tweezers and scissors, medical alcohol for sterilizing. Three shillings. You have to sterilize yourself and your tools before working near wounds, infections are serious business.

"I'll keep you in mind.

I would like to buy a 'first aid cabinet'. How big is it? I might want additional items that I can fit in my bag, specifically for treating injuries from my claws.

I also want to buy chemicals for engineering. I don't know what I'm looking for here, but probably some acid, lime, borax, charcoal? Do you have gas fuel for a torch? A crucible?"

It's a two feet by one foot by eight inches- A sizable box. A few more bandages? Alright. You know, that description really was some terrifying fantastical surgery and he's not really sure he believes it. He does also sell things that aren't directly medicine, yes! Ostensibly for household cleaning, a lot of them, bleach lime borax charcoal ammonia acid, and he has propane and butane both, though some torches need specialized gases because of the different ways they burn. Butane is basically lamp fuel, propane is bunsen burner fuel, a nice even flame for chemistry work. Welding and cutting torches need acetylene, which burns hotter, or more exotic supplies.

She doesn't have any proof of her story and doesn't care to argue about it.

"I'll take the extra bandages with the first aid cabinet, some of all those cleaning chemicals, and a tank of propane.

What are you looking for in a shelter? What are you expecting the IEC to offer you that I can't?

I intend to rule my shelter firmly and Lawfully. I would like to train my subjects to be awesome, if they swear full obedience to me, but I'm willing to accept useful people who obey fewer laws. I will not take on more followers than I can protect." 

"The industry of all Great Britain behind it? A better chance of making it through everything without falling apart. Leaders who understand us, who we can more or less trust. You've mentioned some seriously concerning things to me and to others! That kind of total authority makes me nervous- P'raps with a veto mechanism, though of course, the unofficial one is armed revolt."

He'll start ringing up her purchases. First aid cabinet, 3 shillings. The propane is expensive; Four shillings, but he charges just a single shilling for refills and mentions that a few other places also fill propane, they're not used on every street corner, but enough. The tanks are hard to make, apparently. Bandages, five pence. Small glass bottle of bleach, four. Box of powdered lime, three. Box of borax, four. Charcoal bag, two. Bottle of ammonia, six. Small bottle of acid with a fancy stopper and danger warnings, eight. 

Total, 8s12d.

"How are you expecting to gain from the industry of all Great Britain? I'm hoping my shelter will be mostly self-sufficient...

I'll be a leader who understands everyone, thanks to my mind-reading ability! And I am completely reliable to keep my word, if that's what you mean by trust. If you mean that you want a leader who likes you and owes you care according to some vague social debt, I won't do that.

Technically, I don't need or want full obedience, I just need to be absolutely sure of obedience in a narrower scope, with the authority to punish transgressions and prevent escape. I don't know if that fits neatly in English law, though; I think it will be easier to ask permission to have slaves than to ask for my entire legal system to be combined with yours. My laws impose significant duties on me toward my subordinates, and if I were to break my word, which I won't, but if I were hypothetically to break my word, those I betrayed would be entitled to freedom and redress."

Good thing she made so much money at the tavern! Here's 8s12d.

"IEC's got nearly everyone working on it. From the bloody Navy down to old Hoosier's charcoal mill down in Wales. Who do you have? Also, see, now you're saying ominous things again! I don't actually object to prisons but you're describing them in an upsetting way! Anyway, thank you for your purchase. I might want to hire you if I think of worthwhile tests later."

"So you want to live in a shelter that's well-built, not whatever I have that was made by a single engineer with a spark of genius and bunch of untrained laborers... I'm hoping to make a lot of money somehow, once the most valuable legal uses of my mind-reading are identified, and then buy support from the IEC - I'll let you know how that works out."

Ooh! "I'd be happy to do more experiments."

She takes her new possessions back to the inn and organizes them, then waits outside for Waltana, or anyone else who has business with her.

The innkeeper makes a sullen comment about this being an inn, not a warehouse, but doesn't confront her about it.

A middle aged man from yesterday at the pub finds her not long after. He holds his hand out for a handshake. "Good show, good to see you again. I've got a bit of a job, though I want to keep quiet about it." He waggles his hand.

"Okay. Do you want me to keep quiet about it indefinitely or for a limited time? By 'keep quiet' do you mean as much secrecy as possible, which takes effort for me, or just that I don't take initiative to tell anyone, or something in between? I'm not going to break the law, my duties, or any other promises I may have made."

She'll follow him to someplace more private, keeping a Haste readied if she's attacked.

"The latter, and I was hinting that you should read me, but ah well. It's not some sort of master spy I'm trying to keep hidden from, just greedy relatives. You're already known to be wandering about and buying odd things- I want to hire you as a discreet shopper."

"I see, I thought you might have had a tremor and didn't want to risk guessing wrong. Going forward, you can use the signal of folding over your index finger and flexing your middle finger twice." Which is a part of the Marra's Inquisition somatic component, as cast by clerics, which she has seen many times. "I'll buy any legal goods for you. You pay expenses. For today, I'll charge 5 shillings per hour for my time, as if I had combined your errands with my own as best I could. I might charge a different amount in the future. If there are risks involved, I will value my life at ten thousand pounds."

Marra's Inquisition.

"I'm not sure you have much ability to collect if you die, or would you charge danger pay based on risk?"

He's thinking that this will be funny, a refuge in audacity. 5 shillings an hour is somewhat steep, closer to skilled professional rates than busybody rates, so she'd better do a good job. He doesn't expect it to be dangerous. He wants a nice house rented for him, and a maid or butler who's quiet and competent and won't blab hired. He wants a discreetly acquired weapon or two. He's the nephew of a bloody Baron, for all that's worth, his inheritance money should at least get him a nice place to wait for the end of the world instead of that miserably harpy Claire getting her mitts on it. Actually surviving past all this is a distant prospect, and he's waffling between wanting comfort in his last days and trying to actually survive. He wants fresh tea and coffee, and fancy furniture, and to lay in supplies for when things get bad. He might want to bribe someone for materials while the Pound Sterling is still worth something- He's heard Kireh wants to build a shelter, but doesn't really think that's going to actually happen, so he's considering who in the I.E.C. might be willing to accept whatever a few thousand pounds can buy (scrap steel, scrap wood, desperately needed machines?) for a priority spot.

"-But the house and maid are a priority, the sooner I can leave my current residence the better off I'll be." The whole family's rotten and just waiting for him to keel over and die except perhaps for little Benjamin, who's at the tender age of five. It couldn't be any more obvious, and he hates them.

"Danger pay based on risk."

She checks for eavesdroppers. "What's the budget for the house? May I stay in the house, or may I tell the person currently paying for my lodging that I don't actually have access to the house I bought? Do I need be listed as the owner of the house going forward, or do you just want me to negotiate for you? What are your requirements for a maid or butler?"

This seems pretty straightforward! When she read him at the pub she thought 'using money to get what he wants' meant political intrigue or something.

If he's paying for the place and Kireh's going to get some use out of it, she'll have to pay him rent in turn, but he's not going to be a Charles Boycott about it. Maybe her rent can just be the work of arranging groceries and upkeep and coming in and out so as to make the place obviously hers, she can have a basement and a guest room and a smallish stipend for that. He's not expecting a lot of visitors. He's not sure about the Bristol housing market but something in the range of about fifteen, twenty pounds a month. On the upper end of what an high officer, factory manager, or successful lawyer's salary would permit. She can say she's renting on behalf of someone if that makes things easier, but he doesn't want his name circulating (this is why he hasn't told her it). His requirements for a maid or butler, either way, are mostly quietness and diligence, with ability to cook a bonus, and letting Kireh read them and determine that they probably will take the job seriously, he'll pay them a pound a week, Sundays off, which is a really quite good for servant work. Even better if the one she hires has clerical or bureaucratic experience or connections of some kind. He'll be making inquiries with the IEC and City Hall. Again, it's not like money is really going to matter in a month or two. He does not, he makes sure to deliberate on, as some rich men paying this well do, expect the maid to have sex with him. Though saying so flat out will spook people- She could call him a widower, or a recluse, or a chaste and reserved man, as a euphemism, if it comes up at all, which it might not. It has not escaped him that she talks like an alien.

Charles Boycott is a... tyrannical landlord of farmers? 'Not tyranny' is kind of vague but she's not actually expecting problems. He doesn't need groceries of his own? Is he an undead or something? ...no he just wants to relax and not have to make shopping decisions.

Too bad none of the people she read at the tavern were looking for jobs as maids or butlers. "If the IEC doesn't work for you, I'm hoping to build my own shelter. Everyone in it has to follow my rules for safety, order, and survival, but you don't have to otherwise belong to me if you're providing funding or useful labor."

...It's remarkable that he can think about the idea of telling her his name without actually thinking his name. He might not be an undead - the undead she's familiar with would be completely impossible to read - but something is up with him. "How did you train your mind so well?" Is there some other kind of mind-reading already in this world that he's prepared to resist? Is there someone else teaching mental discipline, for whatever reason, who she could work with?

"Oh, you pick some things up here and there."

Everything you think turns into tells on your face one way or another. If you get emotional, it shows. If you know something, other people can infer you know it by how you react or fail to react. It's dizzyingly complicated, that stupid kind of intrigue. He only avoided the misery of politics because he learned this quite young and started tracking what to do to change what other people expected of him. (-a view of the ocean, betrayal and anger- and then it's gone-)

Everyone around him seemed to want- Cancel that. Kireh is strange, he can't predict her at all. It's fascinating and a bit refreshing. A shelter run by her would probably have some interesting problems when the misunderstandings run into each other, or base greed and group fear runs into her way of doing things. Or maybe she has a way around that. Maybe he could give advice.

That sounds so incredibly exhausting. He hates having responsibility for things, because then if he makes a mistake, it's his fault. Doing nothing is also a choice he is making, but it doesn't threaten to drive him insane. It was difficult to cultivate the image of a somewhat competent but mostly useless and irrelevant old uncle in the first place. The problem is, he's done that too well, and the hangers-on won't leave him be unless he makes a clean break.

"I could probably have become someone important, done something in politics, but the simple truth is... Don't wanna."

Oh, and his name is Marcus Cromwell.

He's self taught? Impressive. "Can you teach others to control their thoughts?" She's not sure whether to admire his efforts or distain his lack of ambition - it depends on if he was aiming elsewhere or just lazy. "What do you like about yourself?" Because that's what Marra wants people to strive for: vanity, of any sort; as a leader, a warrior, an artist, a fun masochist, a beautiful loner, an organized clerk...

"What advice do you have for my shelter? Or do you need to see how it's going before you have opinions? I am confident that I can handle it, but that includes appointing deputies. My way is that all duties are clear and limited. You can be sure when you have fulfilled your responsibilities, with no fear of being blamed unfairly. If my vassal makes a mistake, I fix them so they don't do it again, with a punishment appropriate to the mistake, not an overblown emotional reaction. If you join my shelter without belonging to me, we can negotiate rules that you accept."

He pulls his hand away and chides lightly, "I'm here to hire you, not be interrogated. And I do think I'd need to see some progress before I have useful opinions."

His loss. "Okay. I'll contact you at the address you gave me earlier."

She writes up a few copies of her advertisement, with the additions that she's seeking a maid, a butler, a guide to local politics, a house, a musician, an engineer, and a blacksmith; and she's offering entertainment, romantic matchmaking, employment matchmaking, and is building her own shelter. Does the inn post advertisements?

The inn does not post advertisements, and if she's going to get up to strange business the innkeeper may rethink his deal with Chief McAllen regarding her.

"How much notice must you give before cancelling the arrangement?" She wants to argue that she's not doing anything objectionable, but suspects that he can reject her tenancy whenever he likes, and that he mostly objects to bring visibly associated with her at all. Which is pathetic but there's nothing she can do about it.

"I'm not cancelling the arrangement, I'm saying not to push it. If I do decide to cancel it, I'll give you a last night to find alternate arrangements, unless you're being egregiously disruptive. Coin is pretty convincing otherwise, of course."

Kireh is repulsed. She sets the feeling aside. What would lecturing the innkeeper accomplish? Make him dislike her more, probably, but she doesn't care about that. To her, trying to make him like her is morally equivalent to using Charm Person on him, which is disgusting - Charm Person is only for combat and for new scared petitioners who belong to her. And it's illegal under English law, too; she thinks it's assault.

Will it get her thrown out? Maybe, but she can find other lodging. Even if Police Chief McAllen stops paying, she'll be alright. Will it change his mind, or the mind of observers?

"You're making four mistakes here. First, you're trying to change my behavior with social pressure. I'm Evil, I don't care what you think of me and I find the idea abhorrent. But that's just me, maybe your strategy works fine with Good people. So maybe I shouldn't call it a mistake.

Your second and third mistakes are much more serious and will hurt you in more of your dealings, not just with me. You're not clearly setting rules, and you're not clearly setting prices. Because I don't know what I can do in my room without angering you, and I don't know how much you'll charge to let me do it anyway, I might hold back, which means that I find staying here less valuable and leave sooner, depriving you of the money you would have made if I had stayed longer. Or maybe I do something I think is fine and you consider it egregious and throw me out, but if I had known ahead of time I wouldn't have done it. Again, you lose out.

Finally, and this is just a guess based on what I know of how people think, but I suspect you won't charge enough. If I make noise during the night and now all the other lodgers are fatigued or an hour late for their work, that's a blow to your reputation. You shouldn't just overlook it for a shilling, you should think of the total cost to your business.

Anyway, I'm planning to do some smithing and engineering during the day, and might produce bad smells but I'll try to vent them up the chimney. Is that acceptable?"

"This is an inn. A place for travelers to sleep and relax at. For them to get a room without much fuss as they're passing through. Not a house or a workshop. I don't want you doing any smithing or chemistry, that sounds like a fire risk, an inn is a place to relax and sleep. Feel free to quit the deal and find somewhere else."

"Understood, I won't do any smithing or chemistry."

She goes outside and holds up her advertisement. "Looking to rent a house within the next day! Hiring! Looking to rent a house within the next day! ..."

Hiring? That will get her lots of low-paid laborer types eager to reassure her about their strength and diligence! Does she need stuff moved around? Construction work? Intimidation? Cleaning?

Fewer people who offer houses to rent, at least in this neighborhood. One who owns a narrow rowhouse which sounds too small, one who'd rather sell their place outright than rent it.

Roughly half of everyone pointedly avoids her, most of the rest seem to be treating her a bit cautiously or a bit like an interesting show.

"Yeah, are you willing to be mind-read about your diligence?"

"I'm looking for a full-time maid, is that a kind of cleaning you can do? Can you cook?"

"I'll need to move stuff sometime in the next day. I'm willing to evaluate you now if you want, but I won't pay a retainer until then."

"I'll need construction work later. How can I contact you then?"

"I might be interested in buying a house, but I can't promise that at the moment. What's your house like? Can I look at it today, eleven to one, or sometime in the evening?"

She clarifies for the illiterate what she's looking for, and the services she's offering.

The mind-reading scares some people off. The not-hiring-right-this-minute shoos some more, except some of these leave her with names or addresses. But there's still a half dozen men willing to do construction and teamster work, their minds mostly indicating that they have families to feed and will work hard if it gives them the money to do that. And two women interested in the maid job, one a young widow whose husband was lost at sea and the other unmarried and wanting to ease the burden on her family housing and feeding her, who wouldn't necessarily be opposed to looking for a husband but doesn't really trust Kireh's matchmaker credentials.

The house-seller is happy to arrange a tour at any time of the day, and can be found inside said house. There aren't actually many total illiterates - only small children and some of the poorest laborers, maybe one in ten.

She spies Waltana's distinctive hair as she watches Kireh from down the street, after a while of this. She's not approaching, though.

She nods at Waltana with a wave.

"I'll come look at the house at noon, then." The other option is to do it after Waltana goes to sleep, but she's actually interested in what Waltana thinks of the house, both as a general way to learn more about how her mind works, and because this might possibly be where her shelter goes. And if her evening is free, she can try the fighting ring.

Oh is the widow open to a marriage-for-appearances with a man who's not interested in the usual interactions of a married couple?

(...She'd have to meet the man in question, she says doubtfully. Also that discussing it openly will kind of ruin the point.)

Waltana waits for a moment when most of the excitement seems to have died down - though there's still several gawkers - and walks past Kireh while handing her a piece of paper.

J. Theresa North Orphanage - meet me here and tell them you're hiring me for engineering, please. We might be able to claim the pressure cooker I made a while ago. I think it's at least a little 'sparky'.

With an address.

She takes the paper. Doesn't otherwise respond.

Obviously she shouldn't immediately head over there, so now she has even more time to fill... She recruits for a few more minutes, puts the advertisement in her bag, and ambles in the direction of the orphanage, keeping an eye out for stores with advertisements posted and people lurking in alleys.

Several stores have ads! She passes through a richer-seeming area where the stores are more fancy boutiques and safe shops and clothiers and a watchmaker and a spectacles-maker and furniture stores and an industrial equipment supplier with large banners of steam cores and automata that's shuttered with a sign saying 'closed for business - inquire with the I.E.C.' and cafes with music playing in the background, and an aggressively brightly lit-up 'electronic appliance emporium'. Then back towards a poorer-seeming area, out of the densest part of the city where the buildings are one or two stories and have poorly-kept gardens. The orphanage is next to an obviously recognizable church, the cross that is the local holy symbol prominently on display on a tower.

She places ads with as many stores as she has copies written out, split evenly between the richer and poorer areas. She tries to spread them evenly between different social groups, as much as she can guess at that: only a single clothier, a single boutique, not both the watchmaker and spectacles-maker, only a single pawnshop and bakery and tavern.

If she's back this way she might visit the church, but not now. There's plenty of churches elsewhere.

She knocks at the orphanage. "Is Waltana Hampson in?"

The nun who answers the door sighs, then answers, "Yes, she is. I see she wasn't fibbing after all? Why don't you come in for a discussion, hm?"

Waltana is sitting in the small room she's shown to, looking smug.

"I've been informed that you appreciate direct and clear statements, and to act in close accord with the law, yes?"

There's going to be a discussion? She thought they'd be happy to have one fewer mouth to feed, and away at a respectable job too.

"I have already contracted with Miss Hampson for the first week of work - room and half the profits or at least six shillings - but of course I have no complaint with you advising her on further negotiations.

Yes, I prefer explicit, honest communication, with later issues resolved by imagining how we would have agreed if the issue had been considered. To be precise, I follow laws which are intended to be widely enforced and which are widely followed by others, not all laws, and I also hold to my own principles, such as not breaking my word or not using emotional manipulation."

Distinctive clothing, religious symbols, right next to a church... "I see that this orphanage is a religious organization? I am not planning to cause religious issues for Miss Hampson, and wish to collaborate with your gods and your church as much as possible despite our ultimate differences."

"I do not, actually, have the legal authority to prevent miss Hampson from leaving, if that is what she wishes to do. Nor would I exercise it if I had such a right. I can send her off with my well-wishes and support, or I can throw up as many petty obstacles as I can think of. For example, her current meager belongings were provided by us and remain our property.

I don't want to do that. It's petty, cruel, and against the ideals I am meant to uphold. I am merely trying to do what is best for my charges, in accordance with the last wishes of her parents as I know them, and with the will of God. Just as I would resist to send off one of my charges with a man known as a drunk or molester or destitute and unable to care for them, I hesitate here. I think that moving out of a place of faith, to work for a being that describes herself as Evil, is a terrible decision that will only bring woe, and it's my duty to attempt to prevent it. Please, why are you evil? What is evil to you? I pray that it is merely some terrible misunderstanding."

"Miss Hampson, have I not tried my best to get you an education, such as it is? I only want what's best for you."

"I know. You paid for Ms. Stenner to come teach, when you could. You were trying. It wasn't really good enough, and that's not your fault, but- Yeah. If talking to Kireh can reassure you, I hope it does. But I'm leaving either way."

The argument that grabbed Kireh, when she was a Lawful Good angel, was basically just an offer of power, aimed at her frustration at helplessly watching people make mistakes. When she recruited other angels, some wanted control like her, some were tired of tearing themselves away from interesting tasks as soon as they were no longer the highest priority, and some wanted to be emotionally resilient outside the hothouse of the Good planes. Or they were recklessly fervent, ready to destroy themselves and become whatever Marra needed, in order to oppose Asmodeus.

When mortal Marrans deal with Lawful Good, they usually focus on Law and avoid each other. Recruiting from Lawful Good is rare - there are enough desperate already-Evil people to choose from.

If only this follower of a Lawful-ish Good god had a better understanding of Law... but this universe doesn't have systemic alignment.

She could say 'followers of Marra are allowed to be nice, if it's clearly marked as a whim, or as part of a duty or personal goal', which is true. It's not deliberately misleading, but it's too emotionally manipulative.

"It's possible that moral alignment in this world is so different from my own that I'm not Evil here. I tried praying to Saint Peter for guidance, and I plan to visit a church and read your holy book in the next few days. Can someone here instruct me? Does Saint Peter have disciples?

In my world, the fundamental forces of Good and Evil, and Law and Chaos, were defined by the creator, who then set up a system where lawyers argue to convince a judge what afterlife each mortal soul is sent to. The results of those trials don't always line up with the mechanism of naturally-accrued alignment, which must be periodically updated to better match the opinions of the judges.

The original intent, as best I know, was that making people happy is Good and them sad is Evil. But faced with the overflowing creativity of the mortals and the lawyers arguing for them, the judges - and sometimes the creator Herself - added more and more complications.

Good came to mean healing the poor, putting up with abuse, diligently teaching your children your trade, injuring your children so they behave in the social role expected of them, fighting monsters, fighting Evil, making people do things against their will if they're things 'everyone' approves of and in particular things that strengthen the forces of Good, using certain psychoactive substances and rituals, giving people hope even if it hurts them, and some kinds of suicide.

Evil came to mean torture, social self-sufficiency, murder for any reason other than self-defence, diligently teaching your children your trade if it's a trade She doesn't like, making people do things against their will if they're controversial or strengthen the forces if Evil, any sort of business deal involving souls, giving people incentives if you like doing that too much, liking some people more than others, creating or employing or being some kinds of creatures, breaking people's will even if they're happier afterwards, and all the other kinds of suicide.

My god cares that people like themselves, without relying on others' opinions, even seriously spending resources to make themselves more awesome; that people follow comprehensive rules so that they never worry about whether someone likes them or not, because being liked wouldn't change the outcome; that people's lives are shaped by experts, rather than letting them blunder where their feelings take them; and that people are organized into hierarchies with clear, limited duties.

If you're worried about woe for Miss Hampson, I am confident that she will be more successful with this course of action than with any others I know of. I don't know her well enough to say whether she would be happier. Normally, I want my vassals to be happy, but Miss Hampson is not mine and probably never will be, so I can imagine her suffering emotionally in my shelter, surrounded by my people, with me unable to fix her.

If you're worried about woe more broadly, I think it's likely that her help building my shelter will cause more people to survive the cold, and with lives that they consider better than death. If you're worried about me gaining power and converting others to my Evil ways, yes that's exactly what I intend to do and it's quite understandable that you might object to that.

On the topic of Miss Hampson leaving this 'place of faith', it is important to me to encourage her relationship with her god, whether that's 'God', Jesus Christ, Saint Peter, or one of the other gods or lesser entities in this world."

(She rolls her eyes at the last line.)

The nun nods slowly.

"There is a lot to digest in what you said. You seem to think you are from a different place entirely- That the one God, Yahweh, is unknown to you, and instead these judges of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos reign? I can certainly instruct you and would be happy to, my other duties permitting. The Protestant Church holds there is only one true God, all powerful, who created everything that is and all there ever was. Perhaps your world is part of His plan, but has no knowledge of Him. I think that at a first listen, my knowledge of good and evil broadly match what you described- with the possible break of making people do things everyone approves of, and of self-sufficiency and liking people more than others. I don't think I understand your meaning in those. Trade in souls is certainly a sin of the highest order, and consorting with Lucifer and his ilk so is something that none should ever do. Suicide is a sin. Torture and murder are sins.

The things you call Gods must surely be powerful beings, but they are not all powerful, not all knowing, as God himself is. They would be His unknowing tools in shaping the world, rather than gods in their own right. I'm worried you will harm young Waltana in some way, abusing or exploiting her brilliant mind. I'm worried that without spiritual guidance she will fall into sin and despair, never repenting and becoming evil-in-the-way-I-mean-it when she could have been saved, and be denied Heaven in the end. I'm worried about your power as well to an extent, as proselytizing a false faith will damage the souls of many and harm them in a greater way than any other harm upon the final judgement. Preserving lives would certainly be good. Having something to work for would be excellent. But if it includes a break from faith- It's not this world I worry for, but the next. Miss Hampson, you must have faith in the Lord. If you go with Kireh, please at least continue attend mass on each Sunday, and talk to Father Holcomb if anything weighs on your mind. Miss Kireh, I would ask you to allow a priest to tend to your followers should they request it. And you are free to join mass as any of His creations are, of course."

"What if I don't really think God exists. I know, I know, there's a plan, we have to have faith. But... I just don't. I can't believe it anymore, not after everything I've heard. You know, the people in power are more of a threat than anything? They'll lie with a smile and talk down to you. The IEC tried to threaten me into working with them!"

The nun raises an eyebrow. "He exists regardless of your doubt, young lady. Perhaps because you committed a crime?"

"Not according to the chief of police! He let me go!"

"Miss Hampson. Kireh is otherworldly, and possibly evil. I'm not asking you to withhold forever, as you can hear, there are some points of misunderstanding we might come around on-"

"No! I'm not waiting. Have faith. Pray. Work diligently. Good things come to those who wait. That accomplishes nothing! Like hell I will!"

"Waltana Hampson, you will keep a civil tongue in your head!"

"Or what? I'm leaving. Are you going to hit me for it?"

The nun grimaces and takes a deep breath. "Not if you truly are set on leaving. I will have nothing to so with you going forward, if you leave. If you stay, swearing and disrespectful behavior will earn you hits with the switch, yes. You are a child, you don't know what you're doing. It's akin to witchcraft."

"Uh, the way I figure it, Kireh's never tried to screw me over yet, and the British government has, and the Church hasn't actively betrayed me but is kind of useless for what I want to do. So, yeah. What do you say to that, Kireh?"

"I don't know much about your experiences with the government and Church. It's not wise to trust someone's Law based on a single day of low-stakes interactions. Where I'm from, you can verify someone's Law with mind-reading or spells to detect alignment or spells to prevent lies or their endorsement by Lawful gods, to some degree, or by receiving divine revelation, but I suppose none of those are available here."

To the nun: "I have much to clarify, but first, you raise a vital point. What afterlives are available? What are they like? What do people become there? Heaven is available only to followers of Yahweh? - are other afterlives similarly gated?"

"Yeah it's not like I'm not gonna make contingency plans, sheesh! It's just that if you know all the games but one are rigged and the last one might be, that's better than definitely."

"Heaven is open to followers of the true God, who sometimes goes by the name of Yahweh. Hell is the fate of those sinners who refuse to repent, refuse to submit to God and have faith and ask for forgiveness, where they suffer forever. All shall fall to Heaven or Hell, though some may rest in Purgatory for a time before ascending to Heaven. Those who have not heard the word of God in particular, or those who deny it, shall be given time to understand and come to have faith."

"What's a 'sinner'? When you said 'sin' earlier I gathered that it meant doing things which are Evil here, but now I'm confused. What happens to people who do more Good than Evil but aren't followers of Yahweh?

What is the suffering in Hell?" She's leaving that question open-ended, but she's thinking like is it closer to Xovaikain or a normal mortal amount of suffering or merely the absence of perfect bliss? The demand to repent sounds kind of Sarenran...

"Can you be more specific about what Heaven is like?"

"Sin is a word for all things that go against the will of God. All evil is sin, but not all sin is evil. Sins can be great or small. As for the precise nature of Heaven and Hell, I am not a theologian deep in such matters. All we have to know are the words of angels and saints in the Bible."

"For example. 'And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell'. - Matthew 10:28."

"So almost everyone is a sinner?

Can you direct me to someone who knows more about Heaven and Hell? I might decide that I prefer people to go to Heaven! Although I myself will probably still be Evil.

If souls are destroyed in Hell, what remains to suffer, something like an animal?"

"Everyone is a sinner, and it's only be repenting of your sins that you grow closer to God and Heaven. I think you should direct such questions to Father Holcomb. My personal understanding of the natures of Heaven and Hell is limited, as a humble sister of the Order of Mary the Mother."

"Okay, I'll consult with him." And maybe he'll have a comprehensive explanation of Heaven and Hell but she's suspicious that he'll be just as vague. Something to do with the god of believing things sticking beliefs into His followers? Implying that He's not dead at all but it serves Him to pretend? Kireh holds out a hand. "May I read your mind?"

"For what purpose, and what benefit does it bring me as opposed to you?"

"To observe your thoughts about Heaven and Hell directly, to aid my understanding."

"I think not. I admit my own ignorance and there's little for you to learn, anyway."

"Okay.

To clarify from earlier, then:

Making people study a trade is usually considered Good. Making them behave according to the rules of their role in society is can be Good or Evil, depending on the rules. Making them behave according to your personal aesthetics is usually Evil, for example punishing them for saying certain words.

Good societies operate on the premise the everyone feels some empathy for everyone else, and trains their children to be vulnerable to the appearance of distress. People who don't have this vulnerability are shunned - which means fined in the social currency, by random people with no authority - until they pretend to have the required empathy or leave or die.

Liking some people more means, for example, objecting to a 'brilliant mind' being exploited but not to a stupid mind being exploited, or protecting your favorite lover from monsters while running, leaving your neighbors to die."

To Waltana: "I think we're finished here. Are you ready to leave?"

"Can I take the pressure cooker."

The nun nods. "You did build it, very well. I still think this is a mistake, and I think we have the same judgement of good and evil, Kireh, and perhaps punishment for swearing is indeed a sin that I have committed. We also indeed assume that all feel love for one another. One's family or friends perhaps more closely. Diverging from this foundation is dangerous... I will discuss the matter with the Father. But it seems you are done here. I hope both of you fare well."

"Great. I only needed the first sentence."

She stands up and leaves the small office, taking a right to duck into a kitchen. She comes back with a backpack sized brass contraption in her arms a bit later.

(Kireh is still annoyed about how Waltana owns the pressure cooker but wasn't totally sure if she did or not. Clear ownership is the base of all transactions!)

"We're going to my inn room first. We can't do much there, but you can look at the supplies I got. At noon I have an appointment to look at a house and I want your opinion unless it would be too costly to break your concentration. If the house is good, I'll hire people to move the stuff. Do you care to supervise the moving?

Do you need to get food now?"

"I don't need to eat right now, I want- I want to get to work, I wanna make something. But I want to discuss the deal again first, make sure I remember it right- Six shillings minimum for a week, or half the profit if it's greater? And you'll do your best to understand and sharpen my, uh, sparkiness? That's the part I'm most excited about, I don't really understand it myself. What are you thinking to try?"

"Yes, plus room, not board. I'm not going to do the best I can to improve your sparkiness, but I will devote my time to it when I'm not working for the police or future employer and when I'm not on urgent business, such as finding a place to live, and without going to 'extremes' like running through the streets when returning from my work." Set a reminder to check what Police Chief McAllen thinks of running - will he pay her not to?

"The innkeeper forbids smithing and chemistry, and I think anything with things hot enough to start a fire outside of the hearth. To be on the safe side - ick - I think no loud noise at all.

So for today I will watch you examine the materials, watch how you respond to suggestions of what to make, and maybe watch you do some quiet work. If there's nothing you can do in the inn, I'll have some errands for you, which I'll pay you for separately."

"-Reasonable. Okay, let's get to it then!"

She smiles, anticipating getting some real work done.

With a hand on Waltana's shoulder and a settled Marra's Inquisition, she unlocks the door to her room at the Roadster's Rest.

The thing with the clampy-paddy-lensy arms stands by the hearth. The bed linens cover piles along the back wall. The pillow, on the bare mattress, seems to be covering something too.

Kireh doesn't say anything right away. Where do Waltana's thoughts go first?

As Waltana focuses her thoughts on tinkering, her annoyance at the odd feeling of the Inquisition fades. What has Kireh gotten her to work with? No smithing, no chemistry, so maybe electricals of some sort? Or just assembly of bits and pieces, refurbishing something? What would be useful- Weapons. A spring loaded blade. Electricity arcing between knuckles on a special glove. Pneumatic pressure to fire a gun without explosive chemicals. (These thoughts are distinctly excited, faster and more intuitive.) ...But no, practical tools first. She thinks about automaton arms a lot, something like an arm-sheath rigged up with wires to control a far larger arm, perhaps? There'd be so many little gears, especially at the hand, to get enough dexterity...

"Ooh!" Examination lenses and articulated arms. Those will be a nice base for the remote-arm! She can play with them to figure out how to translate small motions into large ones - or the opposite - and they're nice sturdy bits of brass already, so carefully balanced, held in place by friction so they don't slide around- She walks over to them and starts picking apart their conditions, ranking them in order of usefulness for her idea of a motion-matching arm, and in order of usefulness as spare parts for that. Wires and pulleys, the first mental image of the linking mechanism comes into her head fully formed, she can take the seams out of the curtains to get some string to work with, and she pulls out a small work knife and goes to start on that, the thought that they might want to keep those intact not even really entering her head-

Where are all these thoughts coming from? In Pharasma's Creation, it would be so expensive for a god to send all that information, and magic is scarce in this world... but maybe it's something like Guidance, or Brigh's obedience blessing for sabotage.

This observation makes it relatively more likely that sparkiness is just an Extraordinary ability. Which means that improving it - rather than improving how Waltana uses it, which is what Kireh is doing right now - will require mundane risk unsteered by pleasing the patron god... which might actually be easier. (Wait, how do souls grow here?) The big upside is that if Waltana doesn't have to maintain her clerichood-equivalent, Kireh can tempt her to Evil! ...But no tempting people to 'sin' until she learns more about the afterlives.

She was already thinking of suggesting a weapon for her rich client - the most discrete weapon is one no one else knows exists - she'll still try it but now it's a different experiment if Waltana has previously thought of it herself.

And now she's pulling a knife on curtains, the thoughts moving so fast - they look cheap, cheaper than the linens, and Kireh doesn't have a good substitute. She could tell Waltana to do a different task for now while she goes to buy some cord, but she wants to let her do a project without inference to get a baseline, that's important - and there go the curtains, no sense worrying about it now.

Without letting go of Waltana, she uncovers the piles of parts and regular junk as much as she can. She was hoping to have a few minutes to observe Waltana coming up with ideas before carefully showing her the materials, but that plan isn't going to work...

(The torch, propane, and chemicals are still hidden, as are the special fun objects under the pillow.)

-She notices the newly revealed bits and pieces, so many little things, wires, cloth scraps, little gears and brushes, and more- Then blinks, and feels a sudden rush of embarrassment and shame, and stops her assault against drapery.

Her thoughts go slow. Damn, that was a strong one! She must have been really excited about it, and it's still there, buzzing, but she can push it away and think about whether to lean back into it or not.

"Uh- Sorry, I just went right to work, didn't I." It usually goes better- Or at least, less random disassembled things and yelling, more predictable results- If she makes a plan first instead of just starting building. "Should I keep going? What do you think of the tool-arm idea?"

Distracting her at all breaks her state of sparkiness? Inconvenient. For a moment Kireh worries that each object can only inspire Waltana once, but thankfully not; she can resume work with previous inspiration.

So Kireh needs to get her a room with a huge variety of materials, nothing that would be bad to destroy, and no distractions? And maybe cabinets that an outside observer, ideally an engineer, can quietly slip additional materials into, so Waltana can reveal them on her own schedule, if that's less disruptive?

Still inconvenient. If Waltana can't be interrupted, Kireh can't give her real-time feedback.

"The curtain is fixable. If the innkeeper allows it, I'll fix it between interviews with the police today.

I think our first exercise will be tolerating interruptions, but I want to see you finish a project first, as close as possible to how you would normally do it, before we actually do that exercise.

Let's talk about your plans. My intuition, from a different world, is that the tool-arm would be commissioned by an individual customer, not made speculatively. Is that true here? If you can use it yourself, you can go ahead and make it, though, and you can buy it from me for the cost of the materials.

Are there other materials you need to make the tool-arm? Are there other things you can make starting from this object? Don't worry about remembering your thoughts, just list out whatever ideas you have and I'll keep track of them."

"I don't really have a normally. My previous projects worth the name are- The pressure cooker, a new automaton routine, improving the orphanage's furnace, fixing a broken lamp - I barely count that, it was just a loose wire, only I maybe knew exactly what the problem was without checking? - And some old toys I made before my mom d-died that I don't have anymore... Um, the tool-arm I'm thinking would be made on commission, yeah, or join my toolkit. My thought when I chose it was, um, I wanted to mimic automata arms and get a better understanding of prostheses," and it was COOL, "I need to change the idea to make it more practical though. There's not the heavy stuff here for a large work arm, but a really little, really delicate one for working on jewelry or something, that would be useful going forward."

It could have TINY KNIVES and maybe a SUTURING THING, that would crawl along disturbed skin smart-quick to fix it up, sewing machines can make very fast stitches with a clever little wheel, that piece she saw out of the corner of her eye IS such a machine's doohicky, so why not sutures, not that she really understands medicine but she's done sutures on George when he split his head on a rock-  "Hmm, and a thin tube to dispense disinfectant perhaps? Tiny, steady tools might be wonderfully useful for medicine now that I think about it, though I'm not a doctor and it kind of grosses me out... Hold on. Hmm."

It's stupid to just go with the first thing that pops into her head, no matter how COOL it would be. Maybe if she were playing around or relaxing, but this is serious. Work. Self improvement. Come on, isn't MAKING MONEY cool? Think! What else could the articulating arms become? Some sort of prosthesis? They're not that strong, not that sturdy. The lenses themselves are mostly good for getting a close look at things, or perhaps you could direct a filament's light all in one direction with mirrors and lenses? She read about diffraction, it won't keep going forever, but that'd still be handy. Maybe something to reach and pick items off distant shelves, to inventory-keep, though the useful part of that one would be all in the automata-controls, to control what to grab and when. She's not thinking of all that much to use them for, they're just too small! But if you break them apart, what do you have? A bunch of smoothly adjusting rollers that can lock in place, some lenses and levers and tiny adjustment-arms and clamps, and brass rods.

Her mind wanders, picturing a cooking-automaton. Thin clawed limbs from above scoop and mix flour and nuts, beating it for however-many cycles before flattening, cutting vegetables and adding water- There's no MOTIVE FORCE in this thing, it's entirely PASSIVE, which just isn't good enough! Even for her tiny-tools idea, she's going to need ways to apply force to the rotors. The balancing they have going on is wonderful, she doesn't want to be bothered by the weight of whatever sticks on the end, tiny adjustments for tiny motions- Wires in tension, or string in tension at the very least-

"I should probably make a bunch of SKETCHES to work out the best way to hold it together." And as for the actual arms on the end, she'll need to shape them into a hand-of-sorts... All she has useful for this from the orphanage is the cooking ball (the tiny boiler inside would be enough for a small tool like this with the right sort of conversions...) and a small bag of hand tools. What does she need? Metal and wood pieces to carve, string and wire, little springs to hold the tension just so, gears to translate the motions down in scale- She'll need tools to actually go on the end, maybe a little saw or sandpaper wheel or drill? And a way to get power to them in nice, safe amounts, that means either some sketchy business with tension or twisting string and wire, or more electricals, copper wire, and either expensive standardized parts or improvising them with lead and acid and wool or whatever else, electricity is SO INCREDIBLY FINICKY but she'll be able to figure it out, you'd need something to coat the wires with and woven wool still catches FIRE sometimes and rubber is expensive but it comes from a tree so maybe you could make something else into rubber, life is just chemistry in the end, honestly the twisty-wire might end up being easier even though it sounds very delicate-

"Good." No hairpet, Waltana isn't hers yet. "The medical tools sound useful, but I'd like to ask the chemist what he would want before building something. For now, make sketches of the most useful tool arm for your own use."

(Set a reminder about making rubber once they have a place where they can do chemistry...)

And then off to talk to the chemist, asking about the curtain on the way out - "I can fix it myself, if that's acceptable to you?" - and then to a hardware store.

Kireh drops the mind-reading when they leave her room - "observing a mortal mind too much can damage it" - and catches Waltana's shoulder again at the chemist.

"Will do. I uh- I think it makes you self-conscious, but I wasn't, so much caring about that or noticing it, while I was in the flow, working under the reading is intense, it like - magnifies attention?"

(The inkeeper rolls his eyes and says fine whatever.)

The chemist is at the counter of his store today. He stands and smiles when he sees Kireh.

"Ahh, ma'am! Welcome back! I haven't had a strike of inspiration for useful experiments yet, save perhaps some sort of artificial heart but I wouldn't know where to begin. Anyway I've sent several telegrams - the fools think I've gone mad, I fear. Ahem. I see you have a - friend today?"

(Waltana is thinking that she looks weird walking around with Kireh people are staring at her and augh.)

If Waltana doesn't flinch from observation, great! Fascinating that it affects her spark. Kireh has seen plenty of people who focus better under pressure, but this is different... "Have you worked in front of an audience before?"

"If you or your correspondents were more Evil, it wouldn't matter if they think you've gone mad.

This is Miss Waltana Hampson, an engineer. I want to consult with you about chemistry and the healing arts. I can pay 5 pence now, or one fifth of the increase in profits that I judge to be due to your information, with the understanding that payments after the cold might be delayed or forgone if I can't find you, if you're not in my shelter. I might be traveling to visit a lot of shelters, but I'm not guaranteeing that. - Waltana, are you willing to agree to that deal, if you go into business separately from me? If not, only the immediate payment is available." One fifth of the increase in profit because there's her, Waltana, and probably about three chemists easily available, and this math seems about right?

"I want to know what sort of unusually small, unusually large, or remotely-operated tools would be useful for a surgeon, or for a chemist. I want to know about making rubber. I want to know about making beer." Partly because of the rumor of magic beer, partly as a distraction.

Waltana will probably calm down in five minutes, but if not they can do some proper exposure therapy. Is it especially stressful being seen touching?

"Oh, find a young prodigy, did you? Well, I suppose the results will speak for themselves, won't they. I'm not a bloody doctor, keep in mind - chemists are three-fourths the way to simple shopkeepers, as they keep rudely reminding me." He sniffs. "I'd rather the immediate payment than some nebulous future kickback if you're offering, at any rate. Tools, hmm? Well, I'm no brewer, but I could probably manage a pot still if I had to. Rubber, though, I don't deal with the raw stuff, sulfur'd mats of it come in from India, already processed. That does remind me of an interesting monograph about the conversions of light oil fractions. They made all sorts of stuff with it, mostly useless of course, but a sort of hard rubber was one of them. For the tools, do you just want me to list some common ones?"

(She has a couple of times and it usually makes her more anxious, not less.)

"-We're going to need sulfur."

Her thoughts aren't exactly lingering on it, but the hand contact does seem to be making things worse. People glance and frown at the contact, as if something about it is odd, and she's keenly aware of it, even as her thoughts are mostly tracking what this man might be thinking of her and Kireh, and how weird and fake she is compared to real engineers, instead of something more useful.

(Maybe it's helpful to be observed by Kireh in particular, with her style of Lawful Evil where it doesn't matter how much Kireh likes her, she won't treat her any differently. Except when it comes to whims and offers of further contracts. But Kireh doesn't think she's explained that to Waltana? Her imperfect memory fails her on this. She'll try observing Waltana without using magic, or by casting Detect Desires or Detect Anxieties until Waltana makes her Will save, to see if that feeling affects her differently.)

Here's 5 pence, then. "Whatever you know about beer and rubber, or resources you recommend we study, such as that monograph. For the tools, if there are already tools that resemble prosthetics, I want to know what they are. If not, I want to know what opportunities there are for new inventions. Potentially-useful surgeries that are too finicky for human fingers; or tasks that require the strength of several commoners, introducing errors from poor coordination; or procedures to perform at a distance, say within a quarantine cell. Who would buy such tools?"

Most of Waltana's stress is easy, but on the way to the hardware store they should talk about 'realness', set a reminder...

The chemist can wax poetic about beer! It involves grain and hops and lots of careful heating and mixing and other things, along with fermenting with yeast, an odd little thing sort of like pond scum, at least in size. The good strains of yeast are kept to individual brewers mostly, of course. He knows less about rubber, but does manage to scrounge up a copy of the monograph he mentioned earlier and lets them read the relevant section- Three paragraphs on page 37/60, describing the process in rough order. You need 'naphtha', which can apparently be refined out of certain tars and oils, and coal and sulfur as well. Rubber's industrial value mostly comes in being pliable but quickly returning to shape absent of force- Indispensable for vehicle wheels, flexible seals on pipes and joints, and the like.

Something in that range certainly sounds damned useful, at least, but the biggest requirement for surgical tools is mostly that they be easy to sterilize, typically with a bath in strong alcohol and lots of scrubbing or extended immersion in very hot steam. There are drugs that treat infections, yes, but better not to need them in the first place! Bah! And there are indeed surgeries that would benefit from tiny, nimble fingers - particularly cases where they have to reach around some part of the body to reach what's underneath, preferably with an absolute minimum of excess cutting. A long, snaking tube, that doesn't have any sharp points to cut the vessels, and ideally that you could see out of as if it's a microscope, would be positively wonderful for certain kinds of internal ailments, though it's impossible as far as he knows. Glass is too stiff and fragile to move light like that. As for larger tasks, there are handcarts and pulleys a-plenty for teamster type work, but a big crate hefting arm on the back of a lorry to speed things up might go over well. As well as clamps and the like to handle corrosive or hot things at a distance. Those are mostly simple, repeating motions, which end up being done well enough with levers and such. Maybe a giant arm would be useful for for construction, for lifting and holding big steel beams flexibly yet steadily? Even better if it can wield a rivet gun as easily and delicately as a pen! Jewelers and those finicky electrical appliances might appreciate tiny, precise tools as well?

The beer... Gets a thorough 'meh' on the sparkiness front, in Waltana's mind, though there's some wondering if yeast could be induced to make non-beer things. She has more ideas about rubber, especially after reading the synthesis steps and the abstract- Polymers! -Yeah, she can totally do this process if they get the materials, it'll be easy, she's already picturing a reaction vessel. Heat and alcohol proof rubber for easy sterilization might be a slightly harder challenge, if she ends up using rubber in the tools. Ideas about construction arms really inspire her, imagine what you could do with a proper source of pressurized steam to drive the thing and heavy rotors to link it together-

Waltana tries to think sparky thoughts instead of loops of wondering how stupid she seems to Kireh and aborted half-formed suspicions against her being cut off to 'think about that later'. Eventually, she ducks away from the contact and blinks and mutters about how, yeah, maybe it is damaging.

Excellent, that was worth 5 pence. (It makes sense that Waltana wouldn't be interested in serving a patron of pond scum; she's not a witch. Dominating the yeast is admirably ambitious, if it can be done in accordance with the laws of Britain and Marra.) Does the chemist sell sulfur and other 'naphtha' ingredients? Does Waltana want to buy anything else?

"My intuition is that a machine to make rubber or polymer will be easiest to sell to the IEC. Or maybe a construction arm, but they have plenty of labor. I'm happy to build my shelter by temporarily hiring more laborers than can live in it, but in the future, for maintenance and expansion, a construction arm might be useful, if my initial permanent population is smaller than in an IEC shelter, and much less expendable. But right now I need money, not machines that will be useful a year from now. The surgery tools sound awesome, but I think we should wait until we talk with a doctor. What do you think of that?" She does not try to reestablish mind-reading.

Time for some lectures on the way to the hardware store.

"As a factual question, you're not stupid. You're a one-in-a-thousand prodigy, or you would be in my world. You're smarter than me; I'm only one-in-a-hundred.

I would prefer that you not worry about what I think of you. We have a week-long contract. Whether I offer you a longer contract is dependent on a lot of things, and your Intelligence is not one of them, unless you get attacked by a rare creature that curses your mind or something. Of course, if you were permanently mine, then even that wouldn't matter - I would be bound by my duties towards you just as permanently.

Anyway, the things I'm looking for that are under your control are mainly your ability to use your spark, which I'm not worried about, and your tolerance of mind-reading. So far I'm impressed with that too. You were correct to immediately pull away when you noticed your thoughts getting twisted. The best method you have to avoid thinking about something is to think about something else. To that end, I can help you practice focusing and aiming your focus. To suppress a thought while thinking flexibly about many things, you can either build a lasting habit of turning away from a particular topic, or you can restructure all the rest of your thoughts to follow a pattern which you can focus on as a single target, which is easier to adapt as the set of topics you want to avoid changes, but much more work to set up at the beginning.

Regarding being a 'real' engineer: as a factual question, it's normal in my world for some people to learn things slowly and some people to grasp them intuitively." Wizards and sorcerers are the obvious example, but also, sort of, fighters and paladins; and bards vary in how much education they have but end up with the same circles, as do alchemists. Clerics and oracles have a similar division, if you look at many of them on average; not with their spells, but with their spiritual development. "What is a 'real' engineer? Well, that's just a phrase, but an intuitive engineer is certainly good at building machines, which is the point of engineering as far as I know. You'll probably never teach at a school for trained engineers, and likewise a trained engineer is unlikely to teach intuitive engineers how to use their spark. However, the two kinds of engineers can probably collaborate profitably, and I want to hire a trained engineer to work with you at some point.

You might be able to become a trained engineer yourself - I don't know the qualifications but they mostly use their Intelligence to work, right? - but I don't recommend that unless you expect to be very isolated.

When you think of a 'real' engineer, though, I don't think you just mean a typical example of that concept. I think you're worrying about whether other people will approve of you. The usual ways to fix this in mortals is to give you structure and wait years until you trust that structure and feel safe letting go of worrying about other people's opinion, or by using emotional manipulation magic. Other Evil groups - not followers of Marra - also use overwhelming fear, or giving you power until you stop caring what your subordinates think, but that doesn't actually fix the mortal tendency to assign a value to every person and compare yourself to them, just suppresses or appeases it.

I'm willing to use emotional manipulation magic on you, if you consent, and if I'm sure that your spark is your own ability, or if it's a divine gift but I'm sure emotional manipulation won't damage your relationship with the god who gave it to you."

(She will buy a small box of aspirin with her own money. The chemist does have some naphtha, it gets used as a paint thinner sometimes, a gallon for a shilling, shall he look into getting a larger supply should they manage this?)

"...Well, I can definitely try to make rubber. Might have to use the pressure cooker, blech. It's already a high-pressure, high-heat vessel, honestly, more than it really should be. It's perfect for this, but I kind of don't want to."

She says nothing about the question of how smart she is.

"I would like to learn how to stay focused, I think. It's conducive to the spark. I'm pretty worried about your shelter idea- I'm not at all sure it'll work and considering if I had better go mend bridges with the IEC and try to get into the evacuation. As for real engineers- Hmm, yeah, part of that is that they still see me as a child, and also a woman, and low-class 'cause I'm basically dressed in rags, so I don't have the respect that 'engineers' ought to. I also don't think I deserve it, if what I'm doing is yanking answers out of the aether instead of actually putting in the work for them? ...It's funny how social people are. I'm not immune to it. I'm not gonna give you permission to use magic on my head without a lot more reason though."

(She buys a gallon of naphtha and tells the chemist not to get lots more yet, since they're hoping to sell the machine.)

Good for Waltana that she's pushing through her wince at using the pressure cooker, although Kireh thinks it best not to comment on it.

It makes sense that awesome people wouldn't want to waste their time being bothered by boring people, but that's not really what's happening there, is it? They just think it's low-status to be poor or young or female and don't want to be seen interacting with low-status people. If Kireh ran this city, she would interview everyone, and no potentially-awesome person would ever be wasted.

"Do trained engineers 'deserve' to be born smart and have someone pay for them to study?

Yes, people are social, that's what I want to fix. At least the part where they have emotional relationships - not just lovers, they have emotional relationships with everyone! It's fine to enjoy people's company, but not to get entangled and broken.

What do you think is going to go wrong with my shelter?"

Waltana is free to run away the IEC, sadly.

"If you make a new kind of rubber machine, can you draw plans for it? Can you make another one?"

Kireh wants a needle and would prefer thread that matches the color and fiber of the curtains - sewing is one of her vanities - but money is tight and she doesn't think the innkeeper would insist on an exact match. "Pick your string. Anything else?"

"...I mean, nobles and the wealthy or gifted are born into it, I know that, but it still stings. I think you need a Generator or some other massive energy source. If you have enough energy, everything else can slot into place, but if not..." Shrug. "So far all you have is talk. Uh, it sounds pretty unhealthy to - cut off emotional relationships? That sounds not great. The Church supports it even, love thy neighbor and all, not that everyone actually does.

If I tear down my precious pressure cooker to make rubber I wanna be compensated for that. I've put in a lot of hours of work on it over a year and a half now. It cooks food in half the time! And evenly! Steam injectors penetrate the heat deep into vegetables and meat without destroying the structure or burning it! I almost think you could sell it to a kitchen but nobody took me seriously when I tried arranging that!" (She is maybe emotionally attached and whining a little bit.)

"I'm hoping that by the time it's urgent, either I'll have enough money to buy a Generator, or you'll be strong enough to create a sparky one.

Sure, if you take someone who's lived all their life in a Good society and suddenly deprive them of their only source of emotional satisfaction, they'll be miserable and useless. Petitioners who weren't born in a cult of Marra take years and years to settle.

I will buy the pressure cooker from you, but selling it to a kitchen might be better, if they'll take an exciting newcomer more seriously." It makes sense to not take some people seriously, especially in a world without easy access to mind-reading and truth spells, but Kireh won't let that happen in her shelter. "It doesn't burn food - does it overall need less labor to operate? That would be useful for my shelter. Can you make another one?

Are you not guaranteed a spot with the IEC? I have heard conflicting claims about the capacity of their evacuation."

Kireh doesn't like whining but fixing it here would be complicated... since Waltana isn't hers, though, it's not her problem.

"It takes less labor but a bit of skill, and less coal, and it's fast. I don't know how much a kitchen would pay, I could make something similar with the right components... Murgh. They're saying they will evacuate everyone but I am well aware that I'm one of the first to be struck off the list if they start striking. And I don't trust the IEC to be especially competent."

"Could you make one with the broken pots and sheet metal I already have? Could you make a rubber machine with that?

The IEC would expel you even if you were working for them and they understood you have a spark of genius? Why, because they don't like your personality?" Kireh is going to filter by personality too of course but she thinks Waltana is great and in any case wouldn't reject someone so useful!

"You think their planning has too much bluster and they won't have as much space as they say, or some deeper incompetence?"

"I don't think that'd be enough. Need some kind of - well, a pressure vessel, a burner, a bunch of stuff, and it'd be slower. Uh, the guy who tried to recruit me was treating me like an ignorant child who he was doing a massive favor towards by forcing me to work for them, so. They kind of bumbled things. Go to jail. Wait, work for us. No, you deserve jail. No, you're going to go to London for unclear reasons, no why would we ask you what you want."

"I see, that's tyrannical of them.

Okay then, my plan is to finish up here quickly, get some more paper, and have you draw plans for the pressure cooker and rubber machine, as if you were making them with the stuff I already have and a few additional pieces. Then I have some things for you to look at that I'll keep a surprise. We look at the house, and when I go to my job with the police, I want you to think about a tool arm that would be most useful for you personally, and some other puzzles that I'm also keeping a surprise.

If there's time I'd like to practice focusing too.

In the evening, I'll accompany you to a kitchen to try to sell the pressure cooker."

"I do want to actually get something done. Writing out plans sounds good, yeah, but I can't really do it on the move. How much of a cut d'you wanna take from my pressure cooker?"

Kireh thinks entirely in terms of rules and values and incentives, gotta learn to speak the language.

"Giving you a cut makes you want to get the best price, sure, but... Depending on what that cut is it might not be worth it to me. And emotionally, there's some value from not tearing it down in a rebuild, seeing it go to someone who'll use it, I guess I'm not sure how to put a price on that."

"Do you think we could sell the pressure cooker now? I was imagining the kitchen workers would be busy. The only project you currently have that we can do now is the tool arm, and I would like to be sure I can leave you to work unsupervised in the inn... Maybe if the house and its terms are acceptable and we can move immediately, you can work on the rubber machine in the afternoon.

I approve of you being vain about your work.

Under the assumption that there's plenty of people who could accompany you to sell your pressure cooker, say 30 who you could find easily by asking at a church or something, and that the operation requires you and one of them, I should get 1/30 of 1/2 of the profit, or 4 pence on the pound. That's my usual rule. The unclaimed profit that would go to the other trustworthy people is yours to keep, for no logical reason, but you seem like the main person here. I could also say that I should get 1/31 of the profit, with the same assumptions but without any unclaimed profit, which is about, uh, 7¾ pence on the pound, but I am not in fact insisting on that.

A follower of the god of making all trades precisely fair would probably know a better way to do these figures, and care to do it, but I only care that my deals are endorsed after hypothetical extensive negotiation by the people actually involved."

"...Actually I think it would be more efficient to hire someone else to accompany you, which I can do easily, and in this case I would like a flat fee of one pence for that service, and you can negotiate with them however you like."

"Mm. You keep mentioning all these gods who have no evidence of their existence other than you being weird, magical, and saying so. Which isn't nothing. A God of trades? ...One in thirty seems fair, you're lending consequence. And the cooks might be busy around lunchtime yes. Hmm. Accompany me where exactly? I'm losing track of these plans."

"Well They might not exist in this world.

You mean 4d or 7¾d or 8d on the pound? If more than 4d, are you valuing me higher than a random reliable person walking by, or do you prefer to calculate trades without any unclaimed profit, or are you following your intuition, or something else?

Oh, I thought you had a kitchen in mind. We can stop by a bunch. By 'kitchen', do you mean any tavern or chop house or inn, or something more specific?"

"Eight, and yeah, you're locally famous which is an asset. Maybe intuition too. I don't have a location in mind, rich part of town would probably do- The places that sell meals to the middle class, like the Seven Spoons, they probably go through a lot of food and can use it to go faster?"

"I would have guessed that a cheaper place would care more about saving labor, although they'd both care about saving coal - your intuition is better than mine though. Is there anything your pressure cooker can do that can't be done otherwise? Then a fancy restaurant might be best."

They're back at the inn now. Marra's Inquisition.

"Hmmmm." Well it could probably power a light or two, or some fans, or some other moderately strong draw, off the drain tube. It cools and heats quickly, and it hits more pressure, and thus higher temperatures, than other pressure cookers- Three hundred, maybe up to three twenty. That's how it cooks fast. She doesn't really know enough about experimental cheffery to come up with anything else super clever. Though it's kind of a small bomb waiting to happen if it's breached while running that hot... The fact that it hasn't exploded, she attributes to sparkiness. Oh, you could use the release valve as a superheated steam weapon! Or as the launcher for some kind of projectile, or to drive high-impact tools!

"Good." (Kireh's not sure if rewarding her just for having ideas will do anything, or if she's just channeling ideas from elsewhere, but it's worth a try.) "Could you make a discreet weapon? How long can you store pressurized steam?"

"Even the best insulation isn't perfect, steam cools and condenses. Few hours, a day at most. Can I make a weapon. Yes." Half a dozen ideas flit through her head. Springloaded knife. Steam pistol. Air-pressure pistol. Spring pistol. Wrist-mounted crossbow. Electrical contacts in a suit sleeve, with wires on the knuckles. "I guess it depends on what the qualifiers on 'discreet' are?"

"It's for a customer. My understanding is that it should be easy to conceal and obtained without leaving a record, but it's okay if using it makes a commotion. I was planning to buy a gun from a criminal contact, which is legal as long as the gun isn't stolen."

And the idea about the electric glove is the same as before, which further reassures her that Waltana is able to be sparky about an idea multiple times.

"How cheaply could you make a spring pistol?"

"Bet I could knock one together with the stuff you showed me before. Springs are pretty easy. It'd be, uh, one shot and then winding it for a long time, though."

"Great, would it be quiet? Even if that's not what my customer wants, I expect to be able to sell it to someone."

Time to draw up plans for the rubber machine and pressure cooker and spring pistol, whether Waltana likes that or not, and look at the IEC plan for the drainage pump. "They're also selling plans for a ventilation pump and a mining drill and hunting equipment, would those be useful to you?"

And now off to look at the house!

Having actual, detailed, seriously engineered plans took at is a HUGE help!!!

She makes some progress on sketching out all of the above, hands constantly itching to start working instead of drawing, and goes through a considerable portion of Kireh's supply of paper, muttering under her breath and in the flow of IDEAS, intuition bringing one notion to the fore, then math about pressures and lengths and forces flipping through her head to see if it's sane- She's happy explaining the mechanics of steam temperature and pressure, there's literally a reference book in the library that's nothing but someone meticulously measuring the properties of steam at thousands of different pressures and temperatures and then making Complicated Charts, it's AMAZING how useful that is and how ridiculously tedious it must have been to work out, it's reasonable that the product of such work is expensive, she remembers some of it but that's not an actual reference-

-Right, the house.

"Are you sure you want me along? I'm visibly low-class and might inhibit your- mystique-"

"I wanted your opinions on the house, in particular if a basement room can be a workshop for you, but actually it's more useful for both of us if you stay here and think." She takes out a folded scrap of paper. "Here's a list of questions. Only reveal one at a time and be aware of breathing at least sixty times before going on to the next one."

What could you do with access to a flying machine?

What could you do with help from a glassblower?

What could you do with help from a trained engineer?

Can you make a person better tolerate the cold, or tolerate heavy clothing?

Can you get energy from the changing seasons?

Can you get energy from the ocean?

Can you make glass from rocks?

Can you keep ice from melting?

Can you keep water from freezing?

Can you keep a forest alive without putting it in a hothouse?

What could you do with my body? I can heal from most careful surgery.

What challenges would there be to living deep underground?

Can you make a flame that only produces light?

Can you reduce the amount of food a person needs?

The question about help from a trained engineer is somewhat answered already by Waltana's use of math and the remembered reference book, but Kireh leaves the question in to see if she has anything to add.

Now that Kireh is traveling alone, she stops along the way at the address of the engineer who wanted to sabotage the IEC.

The engineer glares, then eyes her in surprise and lets her in to a fairly large house, empty except for himself, and starting to become a bit shabby. He walks past a bedroom and a kitchen to a workshop, where a Steam Core takes up most of the room, nestled among a great pile of tools and parts.

"This little beauty... Can you guess what she does?" He asks with a malicious grin.

Reveal itself as a monster once installed in a shelter - no, it's a machine, not a construct creature, it does one simple thing. "No idea, but if it looks like a common machine to someone who could tell, I'm guessing it does the job of that machine slightly worse, making products that randomly fail, or behave misleadingly. If not, it's a weapon." Or makes weapons? Sewing violent Chaos in the shelters would only indirectly make the IEC look bad...

"To be clear, I am not going to break any laws intended to be followed and actually enforced, and I want to maintain cooperative relations with the IEC. I'm mainly here to learn more about what happened to your son. Was he killed by a lapse in Lawfulness? I can offer you justice.

Also, I would like to learn more of your motivation, in the hopes of providing you with opportunities more satisfying than sabotage, and more useful to me.

You don't seem to be using most of the space in this house; are you interested in renting it out, keeping only the workshop for yourself? Do you have any experience as a bodyguard, butler, accountant, or musician, or in working with engineers who have a spark of genius?"

"He was killed in a riot! A riot, because they couldn't control the fine folk they'd carted in to do the heavy lifting! Justice and cooperation, and here I thought you were evil. Well, if you don't want to help me I'll just have to do it myself. You swore to keep things to yourself that time, didn't you? Maybe I'd better not tell you anything else and just wish you good day, hmm? Those sanctimonious bastards got precious Jeremy killed, the only thing I had left that matters. I don't fucking care about much else unless you can resurrect people."

"I'm Lawful Evil. If there's a way for me to get the person responsible, for you to torture and send to Hell, great. I prefer coercion to cooperation, but I'm too weak and limited to coerce the IEC.

I'm happy to help you get revenge. Who was in charge of preventing riots? Who put them in that position? Who set their policies? Maybe the IEC as a whole can be blamed, maybe not. If we can figure out who to blame, you can focus the entirety of your effort on ruining the guilty without waste.

I will not disclose anything you tell me, or allow it to change my actions. The purpose of this visit is to pair you up with myself. Unless I find another person to pair you with, or you give me permission, I will not contact you again.

There is a distant possibility I might be able to arrange a resurrection someday. What is the condition of your son's body?"

...He takes a deep breath. "If there's anyone I might believe it of, it would be you. Though do no such thing if you determine that he's in Heaven, mind you. It's in a steel coffin in a graveyard in Swansea. Ought I retrieve it while I can?"

He'll fetch the note they sent him and wrack his mind for context and old conversations, with some prodding from Kireh to assist in poring over it all. Jeremy Clyde was an engineer at Site 445, on Severny Island, killed in a 'labor disturbance'. The official note is clearly trying to avoid blame, but he has letters from Jeremy describing the deteriorating situation. The Site Captain, one Roger Avon, imported huge numbers of Russian laborers who didn't understand English or have technical skills, didn't have enough translators, and things fell apart very quickly when the Russian government supplied moldy potatoes and inadequate steel for their part of the deal. Poor housing at the site, poor healthcare, alcohol everywhere, strikes and unrest. And he got hit in the head with thrown rocks while trying to keep things from escalating even further. Site 445 was declared a failure, abandoned and evacuated- Apparently over half of the workforce died. All because Roger Avon is A BLITHERING FOOL who DESERVES TO DIE!

"Thank you for directing my anger! I shall have to figure out where he was assigned next!"

"Yes, retrieve it. I don't know what the requirements for resurrection might be, as magic works differently here and I have much to learn, but in general keep it in a state close to how it was when he died.

It is good that you are focusing your passion." She is in fact delighted with his progress. "It sounds like the Russians also need to be investigated. ...What do you know of the current relations between the British and Russian governments? It affects both the official approaches I might use and my ability to take matters into my own, hm, claws."

"I'll look into it. I don't really know much about international politics. Russia's been closer and closer to the European powers. They lost the Crimean war, some four decades ago, mostly thanks to bumbling at sea, and their economy's worse. We're not at war now anyway, and we sold them the Generator designs for a bunch of Siberian islands they weren't using anyway, I remember hearing. England imports coal and wood and raw iron in vast quantities, exporting machinery and tooling." He sighs. "Russia is very poor. Not some savage tribe, quite, but they just don't have the industry, not like England or America, they're still mostly peasants. Perhaps they're to blame, but it's not as easy to strike a whole country with the tar brush as a single man who you know made mistakes."

"Hmm. There might be a single Russian man, but yes.

Can you make further inquiries yourself, or do you want me to, or do you want me to arrange a different intermediary for you? I can adapt to whatever budget you offer.

What does the machine do?"

"I can make my inquiries. Be a bit more subtle than you doing the same... Oh! Well, not much at first. Perfectly average Steam Core, London type. At least, until I fail to perform a certain secret procedure for too long, whereupon it will start to almost work, doing fine most of the time but occasionally sending the systems haywire. Losing track of cycle counts, hitting the valves a bit too hard, shutting down for ten minutes then acting like nothing happened. That sort of thing. There's the risk it simply gets put out of use before becoming truly dangerous, admittedly... But steam cores are rare enough that I can hardly see it standing idle for long."

"Ah, the part where it works until you stop suppressing it is clever. Are you still going to use it against Roger Avon?"

"Well, that depends on whether I can formulate a plan that actually hits him. Get assigned to his shelter, p'raps? If he has one, I'll be making inquiries there too..."