"Alright," Tattletale says, sounding pleased. "Bug, let me know when we've gone two blocks. At that point, we'll want to make a left ..."

"Right," the other woman agrees, and they start making their way down the street, just slowly enough not to trip in the dark.

Tattletale directs them through a series of twists and turns.

"So to answer your other questions — this is Brockton Bay. On the east coast of America. I've never heard of Avistan before, or the Verduran forest. Do you know where they are on a global scale?" she asks.

"Avistan is the continent west of Casmaron, north of Garund, and south of the Crown. If the names don't translate" - she puzzles about this for a bit - "do you know all the continents? Tian Xia is the bigger standalone one, Arcadia is the smallish one, and the last and biggest bit of land is traditionally divided into several parts, of which Avistan is in the northwest. I can sketch them once we're out of the darkness. Or if you tell me about the creatures and plants around here I might recognize something that's not found anywhere else."

"Yeah, none of those names sound like places I'm familiar with. Going by your descriptions, we would be in Tian Xia, I think, but no language I've heard of calls America that," Tattletale responds.

She has them pause for a moment, and there's a shuffling of fabric. Tattletale and Bug's scents don't noticeably change.

Then she leads them to a door, and through into the dilapidated lower floor of a building. Grue's darkness spills like a liquid through the door and around their ankles until everyone's through and the door is closed again.

Tattletale and Bug are still wearing their masks, but have otherwise changed into different clothes. Angelica has shrunk down from the size of a horse to the size of a wolfhound, and started looking more dog-like and less lizard-like.

She observes the shift-down with interest! None of the spells she knows are so gradual.

"That makes sense. I haven't been to Tian Xia much, and the languages are very different. I arrived here through a teleport trap installed in a poor snake's mouth." (Upset vibes about the snake!!) "Now that I'm here I'll probably stay a little while. So what can you tell me about Bitch?"

Tattletale leans back against the wall.

"Bitch is ... good with dogs, to the point of not being so good with people," she explains. "She can't control dogs or anything, though, just empower them. So she spends a lot of time caring for and training them. If you end up talking to the heroes about her — they think she murdered someone when she first got her powers, but she didn't. She was trying to save a dog, but she couldn't control it, and it killed someone. She's been on the run ever since."

"I have a few questions about you as well," she remarks. "You said you didn't want to hide from our enemies — but around here, people with powers are either heroes or villains. And you don't seem too upset about us robbing that bank. So which are you?"

Beside her, Bug tenses, before deliberately relaxing.

Bitch is sounding more and more like a ranger or low-level druid! She really wants to meet her and get her perspective on things.

By heroes and villains, does Tattletale mean everyone powerful is either Good or Evil? Gods, what a depressing new perversion of nature, to rule out the Neutral middle instead of celebrating it as natural and easy. At least back home cities are backed by morally Neutral gods!

"I'm Neutral. And also a druid, which means I'm committed to some kinds of neutrality and balance, besides the morally Neutral alignment. I promote Nature and the well-being that comes to all creatures naturally absent coercion. So you're Evil?" She's worked with Neutral Evil druids before; they had enough shared interests to part amicably.

"Also, what kind of creature is a bank?"

Tattletale pinches the bridge of her nose and rubs it gently.

"We are not evil," she replies. "We just ... can't get along with the government for various reasons. They call everyone with powers who doesn't work for them either 'villains' or 'rogues'. Rogues are theoretically neutral, but in practice heavily restricted in terms of what they're permitted to use their powers for. Which is the system pretty much everywhere in the world except parts of Africa and south-east Asia."

"And a bank isn't a creature — it's a building where lots of people keep their money. It's better to steal money from there because they have insurance and there's a lot of it in one place, compared to getting money by stealing from people."

A Lawful country that regulates all use of magic, or maybe all adventurers? She wrinkles her nose. This can't possibly work. But maybe these so-called villains are more Chaotic than Evil, after all.

"The way things work where I'm from," she says, "is that no government is powerful enough to tell all mages what to do and have most of them obey. And no government is popular enough to have most of the mages work for it, or rich enough to pay them, or wise enough to tell them all what to do. Most powerful people do their own thing, alone or in small groups, and this is usually better for themselves as well." She also thinks human governments are kind of fake, but that's a longer argument and she's not invested in convincing Tattletale; she's still trying to learn about this new place.

"When you say it's better to steal from a bank, you mean it's more convenient for you," she remarks. "Why do you need money so much you'd fight these heroes over it, if you're not Evil?" Understanding people's constraints and needs is the first step in getting to know them.

Tattletale is looking increasingly pained as this conversation continues.

"Different members of our team have different reasons," she hedges, looking to see Aria's reaction. "For myself, I use that money to pay for housing, food, and continuing education. Bitch uses her share to take care of her dogs, and rescue more dogs from bad situations as she's able. Bug, Grue, and Regent have their own reasons, which they can share with you if they like."

"As for the government being powerful enough — it's not," she states. "The villains outnumber the heroes about 3 to 1. But the government is hardly going to admit that they're not in control of the situation. They just do their best to keep a lid on it and prevent the worst of the ... evil parahumans from terrorizing people. And do a lot of showboating to try and convince people that they are still credible."

Bug shifts uncomfortably at this description, but doesn't refute it. She crosses her arms and looks away.

Bitch continues to sound like the most reasonable person around here!! She can't wait to meet her.

"I don't really understand how you can afford one or more mages on your team, but not to pay for food and housing without fighting," she remarks. "Unless fighting is its own reward for you. But I don't mean to pry into your lives - I'm really interested in meeting Bitch. Anything else you can tell me about her would be welcome, and I'll ask Angelica too. What kinds of bad situations are dogs in here, and what does she need to do to rescue them? And who are these Evil... people with supernatural abilities, the word didn't translate exactly, let's call them 'supers'... who are terrorizing the locals, or did you mean that in general and not right here and now?"

"Oh! And you can ask me and Tora questions, if you want, or something else in return for you help. I can cast a spell to let Tora speak out loud, but only for a hundred minutes, so I'm saving it until she wants to." She looks a question at the other tiger in the room.

These people are boring. Let's go somewhere nicer! With sunshine and meadows and deer.

...but if we're here I don't mind answering questions.

Aria can read Tora's face well enough. Even without a mind link up, they share a closer bond than most humans will ever have.

"Sorry, dear, I've been neglecting you a bit, haven't I? The Suddenly City isn't fun. I promise we'll do something nice later today." She licks Tora's cheek affectionately.

"What do ..." she begins to say.

"If you don't mind questions, I would love to know more about what, ah, magic you're capable of," Tattletale interrupts. "I don't think we really have anyone like you here. You can speak to animals and ... assume their forms?"

"Those are the main things, yes! I can talk to them and help them and heal them and ask for their help in return, and I help people understand the animals they live and work with, or negotiate with them. And I can make plants grow, which farmers often appreciate a lot."

"Druids protect the natural order, and our powers reflect that. Cities are unnatural and most druids shun them and focus on protecting forests from being turned into more cities, so it's not your fault you don't know much about us. But we signed a deal with the human Emperor back home to protect our forest, so now I can afford to travel and help the people who are suffering in cities. - I don't spend all my time in cities, of course, my ambit is broader than that."

Cities are dens of evil and iniquity.

(Tora can't follow the conversation in English, this is just her general opinion on being reminded of the Suddenly City.)

"And Druids all share these same powers?" Tattletale questions, leaning forward intently. "Not just similar powers, but all the same?"

"Yes, but possibly not the way you're thinking? It's not like there's a magic ritual that makes someone a druid and grants them exactly these powers, or a spell that a wizard copies and casts just the same way as every other wizard. We can have different... affinities, and preferences, but almost all of us study and practice these core skills because they're what it means to be a a druid. Of course there are differences of strength and skill, but we're learning the same things from the same lore." That much, at least, is safe to share in public.

"I didn't think that was how powers worked," Bug remarks, frowning.

Tattletale grins.

"It isn't! Which is what makes our feline friend so interesting," she agrees. "So ... what does 'helping people suffering in cities' entail, exactly?"

"Well. Sometimes Evil people enslave or torture or wantonly murder people, and I stop them. Sometimes I meet people who are just really unhappy, because living in a city is bad for almost everyone, and I help them move out and teach them how to lead a more normal life and help them join or form a new community. Sometimes - a lot of the time - they're ruining the nature around them, cutting down forests or draining swamps or damming rivers or mining the hills, and this is bad for them too in the long term so I try to teach them better and not just stop them, although I do of course stop them. Often it's the animals, cows and horses and dogs and so on, who need my help because the're being hurt by the humans they live with, and it's not because the humans are all cruel but because they don't know any better, and I help them talk to each other and figure out how to live better together." And just as often the humans are cruel and she has to put them down.

"And sometimes people in cities have the same kinds of problems people everywhere might have, like disease or famine or monsters or bad weather, and I can help with those but I'm not that much better at it than a cleric of Erastil and there are a lot more of them, so I usually don't bother."

"I think your 'teleport trap' sent you a lot farther than you thought," Tattletale tells her. "People in the city mostly don't keep cows or horses — or any animals, really. Dogs and cats are the exception. Most of those are treated well, although Hookwolf — definitely an evil person, he's part of a nasty gang — runs dog-fighting rings. Our team tries to shut them down, of course."