Met the party at The Footprint Pools, riding out alone from the traveling camp — five-seven, dark skin, dreadlocks pulled back off her neck, the Watch's dark brown hat and khaki field jacket, a crimson neckerchief that's the only thing on her that isn't strictly functional. Short sentences, no sentiment.
At The Watch Post she briefed them properly: Dumara stopped three weeks ago, tilted noticeably off-level, its water pumps down, refugee paperwork backed up, the east corridor cut off for a hundred years. She named the factions running the city — the ruling guard, the architects, The Water Board, the traveling camp and the Walker Shrine, the Listeners — and gave her honest read: "If I had to wager a guess, I think something's gotten into Dumara — I don't know what, I don't know how." She was plain about her own ceiling, too: she can get the party into the city, not in front of the civic board. On hearing they meant to help get Dumara moving: "You and everybody else. I'll take all the help I can get."