Beka is not sure what she was expecting as a result of walking into a snake monster but an Elf city would have been very low on a list of possibilities if someone had jumbled a lot of random words together into place-phrases and had her rank them. "Elf city" would probably have been under "spider void" and above "grape juice ocean". And yet here she is.
"Oh dear Elf hair is really quite a big deal. They were so alarmed about the potion ingredient question."
"The Elves were very very distraught about the hair. I was unclear at first on whether that was because they had missed the implication about the sexual slavery but I think they actually think the hair thing is worse."
"Anyway, we are strongly opposed to turning anyone into anything but if you want to throw creative ideas which will not be acted on around that'd be a reasonable way to feel about it."
"Aitim and I, with Aitim providing insight into how to get the new Elves on board with better life choices and me being less likely to get a lot of criticism for suggesting things."
"...okay, that would strike me as an obvious early question for getting him to... not... but presumably you know your business."
"I mean, I think he'll probably stop because it'll be politically unpopular. Understanding why he did it would be useful for, like, getting him to understand why he shouldn't do it, but as long as he's not doing it then, well, as far as I'm concerned his true feelings are between him and his appalling-sounding gods."
"Their Valar seem way more involved and way worse than the already dismal standard. They mindread and mindcontrol everybody, a lot. At least part of what he gets out of the current arrangement is that the Valar would have edited it out of him if they could and so it serves as - standing proof that they haven't, I think."
"Honestly my best big-picture guess about the new Elves is that living under those conditions just thoroughly fucks up their ability to make good decisions or trust their own intuitions and once it's dealt with they'll be much better. But they might not, they might just all be very callous and selfish, it's still fine as long as they stop the sex-slave thing."
" - not really, it probably still sucks to live in a place ruled by people with that problem."
"Not more than it sucks to live in Calado. Conquering places because you think you can do better is usually a bad idea and if it were a good idea I'd start with Rabka's world."
"We should see if there are other places that'll take them in, and we should see if they get better once the Valar can't hurt them."
"Oh, it's just preindustrial with humans - preindustrial with Elves is less bad, they don't need to work nearly all the time to produce enough to live and they don't have child mortality really and even when fucked-up they're not actually that bad. Preindustrial worlds with humans or Amentans suck and will be good first priorities if we can ever travel."
"Yeah, she wandered into a patch of magic - space that causes random unpredictable effects - in the hopes that her owner wouldn't have a way to get her out, because he was trying to sell her newborn."