"Ah. Um."

Jesse waves a hand vaguely.

"There are plenty of local villains, and I certainly wouldn't mock them, but they're, like, on less of a hair trigger? Lung is fucking terrifying, but he's not going to care what you're wearing, as long as it isn't, like, disrespecting asian traditions or whatever."

Maybe this Lung is so Lawful Evil that he cares more about disrespect to traditions than disrespect to himself. Or maybe this poor man is obsessed with Evil people who might object to his thoughts.

Aria does want to talk to the locals, to hear about this city and its local evils and perhaps some mention of Hookwolf, but she is on a sundial here.

"I need to buy a map, or get someone to sketch one, and ask where some places are in this city. I can't read the local language, so I'll need to take some notes, and I'll pay whoever helps me for their time. Can you tell me where to go? And if you want to tell me more about local Evil... uh, villains, I'd appreciate that too."

This is rapidly becoming the most surreal conversation of his month. He had originally come over here more to impress Ellen than anything else, but now that he's caught in the flow of the conversation he's strangely reluctant to break it off. This could be, like, an incredibly weird new cape, which is pretty cool. And getting paid is, if not cool, at least worth it.

"Uh, sure. I think the Brockton Bay Merchant's Association gives out maps, so, like, people know where to go to buy things," he mentions. He cranes his neck, and then points to a little collection of plastic pockets containing various pamphlets that has been attached to the wall between the entrances of a t-shirt shop and a place that sells chicken.

He walks that way, awkwardly half turning to see whether Aria is following him, and then plucks the appropriate folded paper from the piles and holds it out to her.

A merchant's map advertised to strangers should be good for locating major landmarks. The maps she saw in Oppara had important temples and palaces drawn much larger than life, to draw the eye and to assert their importance, and while they didn't much look like a bird's eye view she had occasion to learn to mentally translate between the two.

She assumes it won't have enough resolution to find a random street address, but she's still off to a good start!

Aria accepts the map and carefully unfolds it. What does it show?

It is just the sort of slightly exaggerated map she expected, although not too badly distorted. It shows a sprawling city built on a roughly circular bay. The map focuses on the downtown area (with an inset for the area right by the beach at higher magnification), where a number of shops are highlighted, but it also includes some other notable locations, including a building floating in the middle of the bay. The streets are laid out on a fairly regular grid, with the occasional existing street cutting across them.

The streets are labeled, although that doesn't help her much. It's difficult to guess whether the meeting spot would be shown on the map or not, because the map doesn't go all the way to the edge of the city.

Jesse helpfully points at one of the highlighted buildings, on the north side of the downtown area.

"We're here — this is the Greenrun Mall, but people mostly just call it the mall."

A castle on an (artificial?) island out in the bay implies the rulers care more about security than ease of access, which fits with Tattletale's story.

With Jesse's help she locates the 'bank' and mentally reproduces her travels so far. Because of the rain, she didn't appreciate the true size of the city; it sprawls out well past what she could see.

"Thank you. Who are the main gods worshipped here and where are their temples? I might not be familiar with their local names; tell me their main areas of concern."

Jesse blinks in surprise.

"Um. Well, I think it's mostly just the one god? I mean, plenty of people just aren't really religious. But I think the most common religion is Christianity, since it has a lot of variations. And Islam and Judaism aren't nearly as common, but those three religions all worship the same god, I think, but, like, in different ways."

Jesse casts his thoughts back to half-remembered Sunday school. 

"And God is mostly concerned about ... people not doing bad things so that they don't go to Hell, I guess is how I'd put it. There's a lot of rules like loving your neighbor and not eating ... fish on some days? Or maybe it's only eating fish on some days? It was a long time since I've been to church."

"I guess there's plenty of refugees from Japan that follow the Shinto gods. I think the leader of those is all about ... storms? And maybe farming?" Jesse tacks on, lest someone think him narrow-minded. "And there's also, like, Buddhists and so on, but I'm not really sure if they have gods in the same way — I think the Buddah is different."

That sounds pretty reasonable! One or more local Good gods, and a bunch of others mostly worshipped by immigrants, or perhaps just ethnic groups this man is unfamiliar with.

It is never not weird to hear maybe-Erastil and probably-Gozreh referred to as minority gods, but farming and the weather are not, fundamentally, city concerns. This man must come from generations of city-dwellers who think farming means the drovers coming in on market day. Captive generations, born and raised in the artificial heart of the city and unable to survive outside.

"Please point out the biggest temples on the map, where people go to worship and for healing. And then I'd like to learn how to find places with an address given. I can't read this language, you see, only speak it." She has a vague hope he'll think of a solution she hasn't but failing that, she's like him to read out the names of the biggest streets and quarters for her.

She takes out a quill (she made it herself, naturally) to make annotations in Taldane, and a tiny traveler's vial of ink (guaranteed no spills!)