Her Typhon doesn't try to steer her away, but as they approach, it borrows her eyes to scan the surrounding area. It doesn't kick her out entirely, but it seems that it wants to be very sure that something isn't there before it lets her go any closer.

It seems to be satisfied by the answer, because it returns control once it's done.

"That's really annoying, just so you know," she mutters, although she's fairly sure it can't understand her.

She examines the light-web, circling it to get all the angles. It's... well, alien. Pretty, though. What's it for?

Nothing pops up with an explanatory pamphlet, and there's no obvious purpose to it.

There's more of it in larger abundance up ahead. It practically covers the street.

...hm.

What happens if she tosses a rock at the edge of it?

It passes through without disturbing the web at all.

Hm.

What happens if she pokes it with a stick?

It feels exactly like poking perfectly innocent air with a stick, and the web is visually unaffected. No reaction or movement, and no space spiders popping out of it to eat her.

Okay.

What happens if she touches it?

There's no direct tactile sensation from it, but her fingers tingle a little when they pass through it. Like if she encountered something with a very subtle electrical charge. It's hardly even noticeable, if she weren't watching for it she might miss it entirely. Otherwise, it's like moving her hand through air. The web is completely undisturbed, and there are still no space spiders.

She keeps an eye out for space spiders, but plays with it a little more, running her fingers along the intangible lines.

The almost-feeling is definitely more concentrated where the light's more concentrated. If she pays very close attention, she can feel it ebb and flow at the brighter points, in time with the subtle pulsing.

Hm.

Well. She can't think of any obvious further experiments. Time to move on.

No space spiders accost her while she departs.

There are some duplicate items up ahead.

She stops, some distance away from them.

Her new friend eats mimics, apparently. How good is it at spotting them, though? Does it have mysterious alien senses that make them obvious, or does it have to rely on pattern recognition like anybody else? If the latter, it probably has some trouble with all this human nonsense. Whatever environment it's used to, there can't have been broken beer bottles there.

Feeling a little silly, she points at the broken bottle, then at the suspiciously similar half-bottle a few feet away. (This is one of those times when it's really obvious which one is fake.) Then she approaches, crowbar in hand.

She's a few feet forward, and the suspicious half-bottle is no more.

Well. Onward.

Onward!

There are some more abandoned cars, if she'd like to salvage from them. These don't have any of the bloodstains the other set do, though one's got a completely shattered windshield.

Abandoned cars without bloodstains! Why, that's her favourite kind!

Oh, good. The cars have no opinion on whether she's their favorite, but nobody asked them, anyway.

There are a pair of hiking books that are only half a size too big for her, a bottle of hand sanitizer (ocean scented), a pocket knife with a fold out blade, a lighter (with a packet of cigarettes), and several different types of alcohol. Also some trail mix.

Still no corpses! This is starting to get weird.

She tries the boots on and manages to get them to fit comfortably with a bit of patient re-lacing. The alcohol and cigarettes are of no interest to her. The rest of the stuff she distributes to pockets. Her shoes can go in her backpack, in case something turns out to be wrong with the hiking boots.

The world is her oyster! Would she like to follow the larger road that leads deeper into the city, investigate more of the strange orange glow down one of the smaller roads, look through some more houses, or do something else entirely?

Hm.

...deeper into the city, she thinks. It is no longer in her interest to leave it.

".... Let me go. Let me die. I-I can't, I can't, s-stop -"

That voice doesn't sound 'almost' human. It sounds very human.

Okay, she'll investigate that.

As she approaches, more voices echo along with the first. A whole chorus of strained, pained voices.

"- fucking, piece of, of s-shit, n-not your, not your puppet -"

"- let him go, he's - he's only seven, please, please -"

"- has to be a way to f-fight, how do I keep you out, how -"

"- hurts, hurts, stop, stop please stop -"

It's hard to pick out how many there are; many of them are sobbing.