In theory, the city guard checks everyone who passes through the gates.

In practice, it is counterproductive to pay more attention to the rich and powerful: if they have something to hide, they have the resources to hide it well. And adventurers come by on a regular basis, and they can be very exotic indeed, which means hard to understand and harder to profile. Worldwound tourism is a thriving industry and Kenabres sees a sizable chunk of it: complain as you might about callous foreigners who come in expecting to hire native bearers for a tour of demon-shooting, they don't dare turn away anyone who brings in much-needed money, and perhaps a chance of donating their fancy equipment to the cause if the demons happen to get lucky.

Even among this jaded lot, though, Waltana's armor raises some eyebrows. "What's that, then? If you, uh, don't mind me asking."

Her canopy is open, and has been since they were approaching this place. Her whole head is visible now, not just the top, a small modification.

Stone walls? Stone buildings? It does indeed seem kind of... Primitive. Where's the smokestacks, the power lines? How do cities work, she doesn't know. Is the gate guard like a Scout, or like the inner ring guards...?

Well. She pops the collar to reveal more of herself, glances at Viatrix for reassurance, then says, "Steam armor. I'm driving it. I... Have the ability to make devices like this. I also have weapons," she nods at the prominent boxy plasma gun on the armor's shoulder, "And I can make more things like this, with raw materials. I'm considering selling some?"

An exotic arms dealer (?) and smith (??) wanting to set up shop in the city is probably something the Inquisitors will want to know about!

It's not that the guard enjoys calling them in (they're busy! and scary!). And he doesn't think these people are any more likely to be cultists than the next guy (meaning about one in ten, in his private opinion); they could have brought in the armor in the carriage and no-one would have noticed.

But when he got this job, it was explained to him very clearly that among his duties was mandatory reporting. To wit, he must report anything the inquisitors would want to hear.

No-one is punished for reporting something unimportant. People with poor judgement are assigned to other duties, which just so happen to be... less enjoyable. And spending quality time with the inquisitors you summoned, explaining why you interrupted their luncheon, is its own kind of punishment. Gate guards who survive this develop a very good nose for prospective inquisition business.

"The Prelate will send someone to talk to you," he says resignedly. "Please wait over there, it shouldn't take long." This is a lie but such an obviously transparent white lie that he figures it doesn't really count.

Uhhhhhhh.

"...What do you think?" She asks Viatrix. "I don't know how you do things around here but, uh, lying seemed like a terrible idea. What's a Prelate?"

"Oh no, you shouldn't have lied! You probably didn't have to volunteer all that, either. But I'm sure it'll be fine! There's a church of Desna in the city and anything goes wrong they'll vouch for me."

    "I've heard of this Prelate, I think," Otho says, "he rules the city. Or governs it for the Queen, or something? I don't really know how Mendev works. Anyway, he's one of the local authorities."

"If he doesn't come around soon, I'll ask for an inn's address and tell them to have him come there," Viatrix says firmly. (The guard shudders.)

Luckily for the guard, someone does come fairly soon. He's wearing a red coat with a sword-in-a-sunburst emblazoned on its chest (and an actual sword at his hip). The guard bows respectfully, and whispers in his ear.

"You intend to make and sell weapons?" he asks. "May I ask where you are from?"

"Hi! I'm Viatrix and we're the Black Spears adventuring company. Yesterday we were attacked by a flight of vrocks, just south of here, and Waltana appeared out of a magical snowstorm and helped us fight them off, and then it turned out she's probably from another world."

He gives her a slightly disbelieving look.

"Look, I know it sounds suspicious, but I'm a cleric of Desna! These things happen to us!! And I checked and she's definitely Good!"

These things do, indeed, happen to clerics of Desna. Liotr knows this all too well, since he has a pain[*] of such clerics in his city and regularly runs interference for them with Hulrun to prevent well-deserved explosions (of temper and munitions both) from taking place. Adding another cleric might graduate them to a permanent migraine, or it might induce Ramien to leave the city; his fondest hope is for the lot to fly away one morning, like autumn butterflies, off to coccoon themselves in a distant tropical land. 

However, while he cannot stop a Good cleric from entering the city (nor does he truly wish to, no matter how much harder it makes his job), this supposed visitor from another world is a very different matter, and deserving of the deepest suspicion. He won't turn them away, of course, that would only move the plotting out of sight. Surveillance is the order of the day, and he even has a good excuse for it.

"The government may be interested in buying your weapons," he says smoothly. "Let us know where you intend to set up shop, and we will send someone over to inspect them."

And tail them every step of the way, of course. Like most of his tactics, it's far from a sure thing. Running surveillance is hard when adventurers can teleport and turn invisible and into fog and have a thousand other tricks besides. But stack enough nets on top of each another, and you may catch yourself a minnow - or a dretch, as the case may be. And so he spreads his nets as he smiles his friendliest smile.

Do they pass his alignment check? Of course they do, they wouldn't have proclaimed their alignment otherwise. Lie check, passed. Thoughts check? Are they disciplined enough to think only innocuous thoughts?

[*] The collective noun for a Desnan congregation established in a nominally Lawful city.

She passes the save for his Detect Thoughts, but doesn't seem to notice.

"Not necessarily weapons. Though it seems like you could use them if more constructs are around. Demons. More demons. I have ideas about powered wagons and other things. Uh, where can I find out the local laws? I bet they're very different from my hometown. And I can just move on if I'm not welcome."

"I did not say you were not welcome." Stay where I can see you. "To the contrary, we welcome trade, so long as it is honest and well-intentioned. I am very happy to hear that you intend to follow the laws" - not a typical Desnan concern - "and you are welcome to read them at the town hall. You can also consult the magistrates who judge civil disputes, although you may have to pay for their time."

This isn't the best venue for an interview; there are too many of them, all together, and Waltana seems to have gotten her back up. He saw them, and decided to let them in, and that's as much as he can do right now. "Welcome to Kenabres. All hail the Inheritor, may She prevail," he says, and strides away.

Um. Okay???

She will follow Viatrix into the city. Presumably they will find an inn or something. Inns often feature in the stories. And they don't have... Assigned residences... Or work shifts here? Are they treating the Black Spears like scouts, ranging far and relatively free when they do come in?

She doesn't want to leave her armor unattended, though it's inconvenient. Maybe she can find someone who could use hard labor done by machine? Or sell some spare tools or something?

Finding an inn is easy: there's a convenient signpost by the gate, advertising churches, markets, civic buildings, and several inns. They follow a sign to The Defender's Heart ("Best and biggest! Parties welcome!")

The city is built on a hill, and its bulk hangs over them, with two more concentric walls visible. It cramps an astonishing amount into a few square miles: rich houses with lavish gardens and cramped tenements, well-dressed people passing beggars in rags, men and women with skin every shade under the sun (green not excepted), some twice the size of others, sporting fashionable tail and horns and wings and the latest fashion in metalwear. Everyone seems to be going somewhere, and everyone seems to be ready to stop and chat or stare or run away at the sight of well-armed soldiers.

There's a farmer's market, vacant now except for a few stalls, and shops selling everything from fish to nails, and people wearing twenty different sigils and liveries and stranger marks that might be fashion or the symbol of a holy order's vow (or both, for Shelyn's followers). It's all rather overwhelming, if you're not used to cities with more strangers than locals. Kenabres is the crusaders' staging-ground for the eastern border, and the site of the Fourth Crusade's greatest battles, and four out of five of its residents weren't born here and don't plan on dying here either.

The inn is also in the lowest ring, on the far side from where they came in. It's got a stable and a big yard for the carriages (though theirs are going to poof after they unload them), a big common room and a bar (mostly empty, at this hour), and enough rooms upstairs to let them rent one each (they don't, to the innkeeper's pretend dismay). The prices are a balance of high (adventurers!) and low (this is the poor countryside of a poor country, not the Inner Sea) and Viatrix gives every indication of not really caring either way.

They can have a bath and a change of clothes, hot dinner will be served in an hour. Would they like to rest, or go out, or maybe chat with the bartender (buy one drink, get one chat free)?

She locks down her armor in the carriage yard, but feels unsure about just ... Leaving it there. The door here, unlike the one on the scout depots, is not big enough for it. Of course not.

Also, "...How does this place even still exist??? The roads were laid out by a drunk, the buildings aren't going to any kind of standardization or code, there's filth everywhere and probably no kind of competent drainage or sewerage, the signs are confusing and unclear, I don't see - work assignments, or resource storage, or tramways or- Anything else a competently laid out city is supposed to have-" She waves vaguely. "It's so loud. Is there even anyone in charge?"

It's a small city in a poor country, with adventurers and crusaders and occasional demons blowing through, and no budget for anything that doesn't pay for itself in a month! Any spare money goes to wall repair!! Who cares if the streets smell a bit?

Otho clears his throat. "It's no metropolis, that's for sure! Cities like this are rarely planned, they just - grow and agglomerate. I doubt they built those inner walls for defense in depth. The city just kept growing outside the walls, and then they added more walls to protect the new bits. But they didn't have the time and money and, frankly, foresight to plan out the new bits. Because they weren't part of the city when they were first built, you see, people just built more houses outside when the lots inside got too expensive."

The rest of the men join in.

    "What drains? It's a hill, water just flows down the gutter -"

"You shouldn't put sewers in a city, they tried that in Ostenso and the next year a plague of dire rats carried off all their babies -"

    "They must have warehouses somewhere, every city stockpiles food and stuff, if we haven't seen them that just means they're well hidden -"

"They had to get adventurers in special, I heard, to get rid of all the rats -"

    "I bet they'd get fiendish rats here if they tried -"

"What's wrong with the sign? It said That Way to the inn and it was that way-"

    "We didn't check the other way, maybe the sign lied and there was an inn every way, how would you know -"

"What's a code for buildings? Do you need, like, to know a secret cypher to decode the house signs? That's so cool -"

    "Tramways like in a mine? This hill isn't steep enough, regular carts should be fine -"

"I'd like it if the streets were cleaner."

    "You can always hire a laundry wizard."

"A building code is laws on how to build things so you don't have houses collapsing into each other or starting a fire that spreads everywhere or anything. And well, of course you have to have someone patrol the tunnels, that's what the guard is for, that's- Fine, fine, there's lots of demons, that's a problem, but it would be cheaper once it's set up at all and so much cleaner- Argh!"

"Fire-resistant houses are very important to cities! Some places have officials inspect new buildings and make sure they're up to snuff. I don't know if they have law about it, besides the official saying it's alright. I suppose you could ask."

    "How'd you make a house fire-resistant?" someone asks. "Is it a spell?"

"I don't know," Otho says, "I had mine built out of stone." Wizards, like the third little piggy, all dream of the day they reach third circle and learn Fireball, and accordingly never build their towers out of sticks or straw timber.

Most of the houses around them are in fact built out of bricks.

    "What about if they collapse?" someone asks.

"Then you have only yourself to blame, don't you? Collapsing houses don't risk the whole city, they're not dominoes."

"Collapsed houses are a cost to the rest of the city. Look at that lot, not being used, being ugly, maybe crushing someone unwitting on its way down, and all the noise and trouble of the cleanup. I don't actually know how cities work though, apparently?"

Her confusion is confusing, and might be hard to unravel!

"People who own houses want them to be built well. And builders want to build them well, so people will hire them again, and probably just because people want to do good work."

"Lots don't stay unused for long. If the owners don't rebuild the house, they'll sell the place to someone who will. People want to build more houses, that's why the city keeps expanding."

"Maybe if a lot of houses collapsed, the city would start inspecting the rest? But it's pretty rare actually, I don't think it's a big problem, not like fires."

"...Nobody assigns them? I guess that's why there were a few huge ones?"

"Assign lots? What, like a lottery? Why would they do that? People buy the lot they want, they don't want one assigned at random."

    "If you can't afford to buy a lot, then you can't afford to build a house, building costs a lot more than just the empty space! Unless it's somewhere important, like next to the biggest church. Why would you assign lots to people who can't pay to build on them anyway?"

"The big houses were built by rich people who could afford to. What were you expecting, someone to stop rich people from building big houses?"

"...So, at home, the people who work in the refinery get houses that are near the refinery. And the people who work in the farms get houses near the farms. And so on. So nobody has to walk very far when their shift starts, and everyone is close to their district's cookhouse and infirmary. Money is more to buy - tools and stuff, or nice clothes."

People who work somewhere probably buy houses nearby! The city isn't very big, though, it's not a huge deal to walk across it once or twice a day, if you happen to live far away from work.

People who work on farms have houses there, they don't live in the city, they just deliver the food to it when it's ready to eat. There are lots of small farming villages, some of them quite far away!

Who... gives the people houses near their workplace. Where do they get houses from to give out.

What happens if a person starts working in a new place, then they wouldn't live near their work anymore?

"Most families don't all work the same job," Viatrix adds, "someone's going to be going across the city. And then your children grow up and take up four different apprenticeships all in different places and what are you going to do, kick them out of the house?"

??????

"The Captain does. Or rather, the central ring people do it on his behalf, along with keeping all the infrastructure running, sending out scouts, managing education and planning for the future... He's kept us safe from the outside's constant wars for at least a century. And then... They get assigned a new place and move there? The houses are mostly the same so it doesn't make much difference? And there's interdistrict trams running every five minutes if you do end up working somewhere else. I know that this place very much... Does not do any of that."

"Sounds like you have a ruler who manages a lot of things?" Sounds like a tyranny, she doesn't say, it's bad form to assume. "Most places don't." 

"People need different houses though? Big families need bigger houses, some people need workshops or shops downstairs, someone wants a stable for their horse... Isn't it simpler for everyone to build what they need? That way the, uh, Captain doesn't need to know or track what everyone needs. And if someone rich wants to pay a lot for a big house, why should they live in a small one?"