"-Uh. Yeah, hmm. I just don't want to end up in trouble for something obvious and predictable that I didn't see, but I don't know what it is. Laws about... Making things? Selling things?"

...some things are illegal to have. If it's legal to have you can make and sell it, there are not separate laws about the making and selling. (Some places have guilds with monopoly privileges but Kenabres isn't one of them.)

If something she makes seriously harms someone else in a way that it really shouldn't have and wasn't advertised, she could be sued for that. Like, if she makes a magic sword that works fine except a year later everyone who's used it grows horns, there's no specific law against making people grow horns, but it's still illegal because it harms them. There's a technical difference between being sued (someone needs to accuse her in court) and prosecuted (the government is duty bound to punish her) but she should just avoid it. 

Also, if she has something that might be dangerous or harmful later, like keeping monsters in her basement, or a vat of alchemist's fire, the government can order her to stop doing it, even if it hasn't harmed anyone yet and there's no specific law about it.

Things that are illegal in themselves include:

 - Counterfeit coins. Coins are very illegal to make, even if they're exactly the same as official ones. If she has a bar of gold she's not allowed to stamp it into gold pieces. Melting down existing coin is theoretically a crime too but really no-one bothers about that law and if she just needs a little bit of silver the once then she can totally melt a coin and be fine.

 - Texts that accuse the Queen, Prelate, nobles, churches, gods, etc. of various (false) things, or promote the worship of banned entities, or those entities' unholy texts, or that generally incite people to disobey authority or to harm each other. They obviously don't publish a list of the things it's illegal to accuse the Queen of doing; she should just not make any accusations that she's not willing and able to prove in court. The banned entities list includes all demons and demon lords and these other gods but it's not meant to be exhaustive, if she's not sure if she's allowed to worship Someone, it's probably a bad idea. Good and/or Lawful entities are fine.

- Weapons enchanted to harm Good people more, and/or to work better when wielded by Chaotic Evil people and/or demons, except with the intent to send them out of the country. If you don't want to have to prove you're promptly exporting them, you can sell them to a trader that specializes in this and is known to the government. They'd have banned them entirely but they keep getting more off demons and cultists and they don't want to stop people from selling the ones they find, they just want them gone.

 - This Kellid drug that was a big problem twelve years ago and was banned

Some people have more restrictions placed on them, like slaves or prisoners or convicts, but she'd know if she was one of those.

Also, come to think of it, she can't make, like - fake contracts, or the coat of arms of a noble house on her own shirt, or public notices with lies in them. These are technically 'things' that can be 'made' but the important part is what they say and some (wrong, bad) things aren't allowed to be said, just like the lies about the Queen.

"So, make and sell a bunch of guns, maybe some cold iron ammo, sold to adventurers - seems fine as long as I don't steal stuff or hurt people or blow up someone else's smithy by accident or anything. And warn people that if the steam tank is punctured it might explode about that, and what circumstances they might fail to fire under. That pretty much answers what I wanted to know, so thank you very much, do I uh - owe you anything or anything like that?"

No, it's fine, he wasn't busy and it's nice to feel appreciated, have a nice day! (He is mildly weirded out by this interaction but it beats searching through tax records.)

"Feeling reassured?"

"Quite. Thank you for showing me around! Do you think the black spears will swing back by Kenabres at some point if I get a bit more settled in here and you leave without me?"

"Last week I'd have said no, this place doesn't have much to recommend it. But if you're here maybe we'll visit! And Desna moves us in strange ways, it's often unwise to make plans too far ahead."

"How long do you think you'll stay here? It's a real backwater, you know. If you're going to set up in a city long-term, and you have money, you can do a lot better. Even in Mendev, and definitely in Lastwall, if you want to stay and help with the 'wound."

"I want, like, at least a couple hundred gold pieces it sounds like, if I want to get started somewhere else, and ideally a lot more. A batch of steam guns... Shouldn't take me more than a week? But I keep lowering my expectations of what I have to work with and I really need to stop taking apart my armor any more than I already have. So maybe a week, or less."

"If it's just a week we might wait for you, if you want to come with us after! Or we could go fight some demons, then pick you up next week. If we want to go to the same place after that, of course.

"Do you know where you might want to go? We don't like to go back where we've been before, so it's south to Nerosyan for us, and then Numeria or more likely Ustalav, but you could go west instead and find Lastwall's forces at the border if you want to make it to their country. Or if you to go south to the Inner Sea, where all the big rich countries are, you should probably go down the Sellen all the way."

She glances at Waltana and sighs. "Sorry, I know the names don't meant much to you yet. You don't need to decide anything right now! Figure out what you're looking for first, then find the place that has it."

"Yeah, there's... A lot. A whole lot. I don't even properly know what to look for? I think I want somewhere I can buy weird metals and custom-order tools, and sell things that aren't weapons. But locking myself into a workshop isn't the whole thing either, even if I get total freedom on what to build now.

...Breakfast was nice, I want stuff like that. And I want to learn magic in case it works well together with the Spark."

Viatrix stops walking and looks her in the eye. "I want you to take what I'm about to say very seriously, Waltana. That was not a nice breakfast. It was the lackadaisical effort of a poorly trained cook from a provincial backwater, using imported intrying to follow a recipe she never saw done properly to please men with more money than taste!"

"You'll build wondrous things and sell them for a lot of money and be able to settle in any city you please and it's very important that you do not settle for, for so much less than you could have if you took the time to travel widely and see for yourself what the world has to offer!"

"...anyway. I can tell you about some places I've seen, and so can the others, and you can ask Otho about learning magic. And you can learn more about different countries and cultures, they're all very different from each other, which is why we travel around to see them. It matters a lot of what kind of people you'll live with and what they like and allow and care about, and not just what kind of tools they can sell you. Although some places probably won't sell you any tools, so you can strike off Osirion, and don't go to Cheliax or Nidal and - I'm rambling, sorry." She takes a deep breath. "You just seem so - uninformed about the world, and unprepared to make big life decisions until you learn more, and I'm afraid you'll do something because you don't want to spend a year traveling and learning things, and then a year later you'll regret it."

"-My home is probably bad, I get it. What about those huts we slept in, eh? What about this huge mess of a city? I doubt they get coffee and pastries for breakfast. I- Rrrgh. I don't really want to settle in here, no, the place is a mess and there's tons of demons around, right? I just- Going from nothing to everything is dizzying. I want to settle in a bit! I don't know."

"I didn't say anything about your home!! You told me not to ask about it and I haven't even thought about where you might be from!" or how Viatrix might travel there. "This place is a poor backwater compared to most of Avistan! - that's the continent."

"I'm sorry for implying your home is bad by comparison, and I definitely don't want to tell you what to do or not do. Many people who grow up somewhere poor and become wizards or artificers or adventurers move somewhere richer - that's probably what makes those places rich, people want to live there. I think of you as someone like that, a bit, because I don't know you well enough yet. I won't give you any more unwanted advice, I'll just be here so you can ask for it, or for help."

"I - rrgh. I'm being unfair to you. I want to not talk about it, but I also want to talk about it. ...Sorry"

"I'm afraid you have to do one of the two! Or you could talk to someone else. Or wait a day or two and see if it gets any clearer, I'm not going anywhere in the next two days."

"And I truly do appreciate it. Imagine if I had found the vrocks alone, or went into paroxysms of paranoia about whether I could trust strangers... Mmh, to the smithy and to work, I think."

She can go back to the smithy, where she won't be disturbed (the owner might come watch for a bit). And she can find one of the local adventurers where they said they'd be, to close the loan and arrange to actually pay for the smithy and materials.

She might also want to hire an assistant, smiths usually have someone feed the fire and work the bellows and fetch tools while they're working.

ACTUALLY, Order of business is: Finalize the whole loan thing first. Smithy second, start setting up for a nice bout of Spark-work. Remember that assistants exist when she doesn't have any power tools BAH!

Is it straightforward to go out in the street and yell about this until someone will come help for some number of coins? She won't subject Viatrix to menial labor. And she does have a hand weapon for herself now, in case anything happens.

Yelling will eventually work but probably won't land you a good assistant.

The forge-owner is happy to recommend one of his own assistants who already knows his way around and where his tools are and wants to keep working for his usual wage of 1sp/hour while someone else is using the forge, but he's not going to work through the night, he needs to work tomorrow's shift too. He'll ask around to see if anyone who knows their way around a forge wants to work nights for the next week.

She can find one of the adventurers she met this morning. To finalize the loan they need everyone who's pitching in to meet again that night, but they're willing to give her their part right now so she can start working right away.

-Yes, sure, fine, whatever gets her to WORK the fastest. She is getting IMPATIENT takes the money and hires the forge-owner's recommended assistant and brings in her armor because it's the only source of PRESSURIZED STEAM she can access right now. Aaaand let's go buy bar stock. Quickly So the key need is a small steam tank-

The things she's doing are fairly incomprehensible and chaotic (in the non-alignment sense). Hisses and crackling sounds. The whine of a drill. She does something with a draw plate that results in a machine that continuously makes copper wire from a stack of ingots. Lightning flies at one point, to create smooth welds between different parts. Copper and iron and steel are drawn out into odd shapes in processes that don't look like they ought to work, hammer blows shaping them far more than normal. Acid mixed with charcoal for some reason.

It's alright though. She has practice at this, at letting the Spark out just enough to make the impossible possible, but without being so frightening and destructive as to become a problem. The assistant will probably be fine as long as he doesn't actively get in the way. If he leaves when she really gets going, once things are set up and the forge is lit, she doesn't mind either.

...By dinnertime, the stack of odd parts has grown to encompass two large tables, and a weapon very similar to a short rifle except with a slightly bulbous 'main body', paired with a large backpack that has a few gauges and ports and a rubber tube connecting to the weapon, has taken shape.

...She packs up and puts things away. And takes the forge's draw plate out of her wire machine, and double checks that she didn't disassemble or incorporate anything else that wasn't hers.

Nobody here knows what a rifle is, but word has spread of the weapon she demoed last night (it went right through a pile of logs THIS big!). The assistant is suitably cautious about standing in front of the business end of any novel ranged weapon, even before the lightning starts flying around.

A few hangers-on who seemed curious about the process seem disappointed she's not staying to work through the night, but they leave when the place is locked up and don't follow her home.

If she stopped working at dinnertime, she can make it back to the inn in time for a hearty dinner!

The locals are back! They've heard she started working and will cheerfully offer her money.

Otho is telling everyone about the local library, called the Blackwing. "It has demon parts hung up everywhere! They say they're trophies but they creeped me out. I am willing to read about the best spells to use against vrocks, but I do not need the remains of those vrocks all around me! They do have a section on planar travel that was quite nice for such a remote location, I could spend a few more days there without complaining."

Otho and Viatrix have also started selling spells, a reliable source of income in almost any city; the trick is, for Otho, preparing the right spells, and for Viatrix, not undercutting local clerics by too much.

She is back in time for a hearty dinner! And showing off to various parties the FIRST steam gun! You have to fill the backpack with water and then heat it over a fire until this gauge gets into the yellow, and this is how you load the dart-shaped metal projectiles, which ought to penetrate at least somewhat- And then it'll fire once every time you pull the trigger until you run out of ammo or steam pressure, up to about two a second.

You're supposed to haggle, right? She'll haggle, or something, talking up the weapon and letting people shoot it at the wood pile, before gathering everyone offering loans up and working out the rest of her short-term loan. She plans to work on these for a few days, maybe up to a week, and then might move on. Maybe knocking out a dozen or two in total, with some variation, or maybe a huge one if any of them have a use for that.

"-Otho, how would you recommend I learn to read Taldane the quickest? Is there a usual way? I'd like to think I'm bright, but the Spark is confounding and doesn't lend itself to other things."