Not really. You can pick up right where you left off, if you like.

That's an excellent idea, and she'll do just that – pick up where she left off, that is, not resume angrily ranting. She wasn't distracted for very long.

Gwen wants her to interrogate the gynosphinx devil child and his suspiciously dark-skinned companion, which seems like a reasonable—

Suspiciously dark-skinned? You need to leverage your rapport with the witness, not scuttle it by othering her over irrelevant physical characteristics.

Skin completely and uniformly black, hair lighter in color – unusual pigmentation for a natural creature. Other suspicious physical characteristics: pointed ears, sharp teeth, no irises. Roughly the same height as the male; hard to guess at her age from her other features. Her coat has ivory buttons and a fine weave, but it's covered in grime and the pocket stitching was ripped out hard enough to damage the waist. Stolen, most likely. Didn't get a good look at her shoes.

She's not going after this kid for wearing stolen clothing while there are bigger fish to fry. The fish she needs to fry is so much bigger than this goby that it won't fit in the spider. It's more of a dire shark, one with 'DEAD ADVENTURER?!' tattooed along its flank just in case anyone watching her struggle to fry it is confused about the metaphor.

Nightgaunts. Nightshades. Shadows. Shae. Umbral dragons. Unseelie fey. Darkness is not your ally, and those in whom the darkness dwells are not your friends. You can see it in the girl, and not just in the color of her skin.

You don't seriously believe she's a horror from another plane of existence. Much more likely she's a cave-dweller with reasonable aspirations of living on the surface.

Why would a troglodyte whose bloodline hasn't bathed in the sunlight for gods-know-how-many generations have more pigmentation than an epigean humanoid? She ought to be more pallid than the body.

True of animals, but prolonged exposure to Rovagug radiation from the Dead Vault gradually warps the bodies and souls of sapient beings.

Is that the technical term for it? 'Rovagug radiation'?

Who cares? An alliterative neologism in the hand is worth two obscure jargons in the bush.

Seeing as the most optimistic case for the annoying girl is 'unholy sewer mutant ancestry', she'll start with Cuno. What's he up to right now?

The Cuno has abandoned his art project of sprucing up the Church of Humanity, likely prompted by the angry shouting. Gwen's rope is still anchored to the cliff face and hangs down within arm's reach, but Cuno is ignoring it in favor of taking the same route back up as he remembers taking down. He moves swiftly and assuredly – not because of any great skill he has in climbing, though he has some, but because of the alief ubiquitous among teenagers that no amount of reckless behavior will ever backfire. He's almost reached the edge.

He has a distinguished career in burglary ahead of him.

If she and Cuno weren't chummy while she had magical personality enhancement on her side, the odds of convincing him to quickly give up his secrets now are approaching zero. She needs an angle on ingratiating herself, something that doesn't rely on her animal magnetism or offers to sell metaphysical goods. What else is in her repertoire?

Untrammeled sex appeal.

NO.

Feed him a narrative that flatters his self-conception. Tell him you're an inquisitor of Cayden Cailean and you need his help on a grand adventure to catch ne'er-do-wells and rescue princesses. Leave the sex appeal implied, like an unspoken promise between author and audience.