"I'm Raimon Pages, cleric of Calistria and a splash of sorcerer, which I was for some reason under the impression qualified me to be here even though I'm not a wizard nor raring to be one and certainly not a god."

"Carme Bonaventura. Conjurer. Kintargo Academy."

"Alonso. I am not a mage of any sort." He turns his head towards Raimon. "This convention is for the citizens of Cheliax, wizard or no, magical or no; its laws should be shaped according to the opinions of all of us."

"I jest. I was invited in advance."

She turns to Alonso. "Most certainly it is, Delegate. All are welcome."

“I’m Fernando, elected delegate.  Conjurer.”

Hopefully they don’t ask what circle he is.

“Uh, good afternoon everyone. My name is, uh, Molochio. I’m a cleric of Nethys and an alchemist of the first circle.”

"Aspex Ibarra," he says, hopefully making everyone else tremendously uncomfortable. "Elected delegate, enchanter."

Raimon's never had an opinion about enchanters or assholes who make people uncomfortable on purpose in his life.

"And I am Condesa Lucía Velacruz i Montemayor, lightning sorceress!", Lucía says, arriving on her usual cloud.

Pity the room has chairs. It was a nice sittable cloud.

"Lluïsa Oriol i Cornellà, of Westcrown, graduate of its Academy under the Unlamented Former Regime, and of the Lodge now Crushed and Demolished, during the same Diabolical Regime."

She smiles. "Welcome all! If there is anything you wish to say or interrupt, or bring onto the agenda, do not hesitate to bring it to my attention with a shout or cantrip- my apprentice Tillia will write it on the blackboard." 

"First on our agenda, and near to many hearts, is the laws of magic themselves. It was the case under the Cheliax of Hell, that no teacher of magic teach another without a license from the Queen and Church, and that many were taught who did not desire it. I move tell the floor that the sense of the committee is for magic to be taught freely across all Cheliax to all who desire it, and none who don't, as part the new Constitution of Cheliax."

"It will put the schools underwater."

Alonso raises his hand. "The licenses came with reporting requirements useful in the detection and punishment of illicit use of magic. I don't think we should abandon those requirements, even if we hope to broaden access to magical education, and any proposal to do away with educational licenses should view that as a constraint." 

The wizards schools collapsing would be great.  Having to suck up to a single master as an apprentice would be better than all the teachers and older students abusing you as a student.

He’s aware revenge isn’t good or even exactly lawful, so he’ll avoid voicing his hatred for now.

"No country outside the smoking ruins of the Asmodean state has these reporting requirements, recognizing as they do that they ban apprenticeships, that method by which wizards across the world are taught. They are a relic of Asmodeanism, pure and simple, and of an attempt by the corrupt church of Asmodeus and of the wicked crown that served it to exercise a level of control over wizards that nearly every wizard in Cheliax with the option of refusing it did. An attempt to make every wizard regularly report to a government official will lead to every powerful wizard leaving the country unless first offered truly tremendous incentives to remain, ones that the state will ill wish to pay."

Alonso narrows his eyes at Ibarra. "The licensing regime might have banned apprenticeships, but the reporting requirements do not. If anything, apprenticeships are better, as they more clearly identify who is responsible for a wizard gone mad."

He steels himself, then plows on. "And I do not believe for a moment that wizards do not need to be controlled, or that we should not try because they might find it inconvenient. It is one thing to rebel against Hell's petty rules, but our current queen seems to be wise and just."

"A response to the first part of my claim, and one I could respond to this, but one that neglects the second. If I am here it is for my expertise as a Chelish wizard, born and raised in this colony of Hell, so let me explain my knowledge of the wizarding kind thus:

 "If you attempt to control wizards - powerful wizards - in a way they dislike, they will move, and then you cannot tax them or recruit them or profit by the spells they sell or the items they craft, because they are not peasants, and so can pick up and leave. There are therefore three kinds of wizards - those who can't move, those who live in the place they most prefer and so must be lured, and those who need to be assassinated. Wizards do not want to have their workshops and training mechanisms surveilled by Crown auditors, and so every time you impose such a cost on them, some of them prefer to live somewhere else and your country grows weaker, while Absalom and Korvosa grow stronger. Cheliax attempted to keep its wizards in place by close confinement, dire threats, patriotic lectures, constant surveillance, and forcing them to sell their souls. Then it was defeated by three archmages, one of whom was formerly Chelish before seceding and one of whom studied in the tiny city-state just across the Chelish border to which Chelish wizards who don't want to be Chelish wizards so often escape. Absalom -" he nods to the Professor "- instead practically headhunts wizards, luring them to its gates with promises of autonomy and freedom of practice. It has also never been conquered in all the history of the world. These are not coincidences."

"As Aspex says- those we wish to keep, we must want to desire to stay.

Our wizard schools have to be attractive to the student.  Likewise, the country has to be attractive to the wizard.

Note that this does not mean that we do not want to control what evil wizards do, or what miscreant students do- it is clear that many things that a evil wizard or miscreant student might do is wrong and evil by the reckoning of both druids and paladins"

"In fact, are the Schools of Wizardry not most qualified to govern in Matters pertaining to Wizardry? Of other Forms of Magic I can say less, being only a Wizard, but there are Natural Organizations of each major Form of Magic, not even excepting those Sorcerous persons, who belong each to his own Family."

"This being noted, the idea of the Regulation of Magic qua Magic is Dubious; Magic is a power Fearful only in that it is a Power. Consider even the Vilest Necromancy; to raise an Army of Putrid Corpses is not an offense of Magic, it is an offense of raising an Unlawful Army, of defiling the Land with Vile Undeath, of Desecration of Peaceful Graves."

"Rather, the question of Magic as it pertains to Foul Crimes is merely the Difficulty of performing an Arrest upon any Mage, and again I ask, who but the Schools of Wizardry and other such Institutions is more qualified?"

"Defiling the Land with Vile Undeath seems to me a regulation of Magic qua Magic. I do not know the present laws against unlawful armies. Likewise, as a professor of magic, I would not wish to arrest any adventurer such as Aspex- he is ten times the fighting mage that I am, and a century ago I was second circle, whereas he was not yet a even a smile on his mother's lips-"

Are elves just like this? No wonder humans are the dominant species. "I doubt you'll have to personally enforce all the laws."

"There is at present a Surfeit of Archmages," with a little smile. "Though such Luminaries are hardly to be relied upon."

"Our legal delegate says that schools of Wizardry are most qualified to govern in Matters pertaining to Wizardry, so Govern, perhaps yes, but enforce- that is as difficult as Aspex says. Absalom has a force of special guards, the Varlokkur, to enforce their laws on magic, but they are not many, and are generally of the third circle and below, and they answer to the spell lord. Perhaps there should be a spell-lord of Cheliax? That does bring us to the restoration of the paratitles, which a great many wizards have brought to me as their foremost concern."

"If an Archmage could be persuaded to serve in such Office, much would be simplified thereby. I am curious, considering this, what Authority is held by Morgethai, whether Formal or Understood, among the Mages of Andoran. Though at any rate in Difficult Cases it would be the Authority to commission a Party to destroy or apprehend the Lawbreaker that would fall to the Schools, under my own Musings. Though the Funds would have to be of the Crown, at whose expense Justice is done, for is it the fault of the Schools if a Mage turn to Villainy?

"I would say, very rarely, though I have seen some colleges of Necromancy be not all what they should be. It seems to me that the system you propose does bring advantages. As to Morgethai, in her letters to me, she has portrayed herself as a mere Provost and not political. Though to an archmage, even sitting on a chair not speaking becomes political, as we have seen today."

(Professor Coeliaris has exchanged two letters with Morgethai, over the course of the last century, almost completely in magical argot and formulae)

"Traditional adventuring parties are mixed to cover one another's weaknesses. I imagine, perhaps too fancifully, a system where the churches enforce laws against the mages who enforce laws against out-of-control militaries who crack down on ill-behaved churches. It has a symmetry to it."

Alonso's heart is racing, still a bit overwhelmed from confronting Ibarra. He steadies himself. He doesn't have opinions on the paratitles, and so that topic sailed over his head. But now they're back on who should do the enforcement.

"I agree that the academies, or any wizard who takes on an apprentice, should not be responsible for bringing down the ones that go bad. I think they should just be held responsible for having educated them to begin with, and aid in efforts to capture them."

He nods to Carme. "There is a Hellknight order that specializes in handling mad wizards and clerics, especially as they form cults. Perhaps we should encourage the convention to establish them as the Chelish Varloaker, and set some other organization to watch over them." (He doesn't manage to pronounce it correctly, having just heard it for the first time.)

"That's 'Varlokkur', but otherwise it seems a valid proposal. As to the symmetric system that my fellow educator proposes, I suggest that it may be rather too symmetric- churches frequently have fighting men, us arcane folk have golems, and in some circles the undead. It seems a recipe for one faction becoming dominant over the other two. The actual composition of the enforcing body does not seem as significant as the governing body. I might suggest spell lords such as in Absalom, though perhaps only those with an ongoing endorsement by a Good church? But we're getting off topic. Education- shall we allow unlicensed magical education, or not?"

"Why not start with, shall we issue licenses, if so how, and if so what will become of magical education outside of this licensure."

"Certainly. I rather believe we should hold a vote to see where the sense of this committee lies on the question. Speaking for myself, I am in opposition."

"I am in favor," he says quickly, "but am also a bit confused about the point of this convention. Are we settling the law ourselves, or merely making our wishes known to the Queen? If the latter, it seems better to tell her why we want licenses, rather than that she must issue them."

"I am also in opposition, but I believe we are here to make laws on behalf of Her Majesty, which laws she has promised to accept as a favor to Archmage Elie Cotonnet, who I believe with his wife possesses most of the magical power on Golarion."

"I am opposed, though not to hearing your Reason. A Constitution sets down in written law those Customs and Practices for which the Law traditionally appeals to Precedent or Immemorial Custom, and is the First and Highest of all Laws; the purpose of this Convention is to draft such a Document, which the Archmage shall set before her Majesty. The form of this Document is that of a Law or Code of Laws."

He doesn't have a really strong opinion, probably licenses or no licenses the schools will find a way to screw over the working citizen wizard.  And he can't tell which option is more loyal or more good.  It looks like the majority is opposed, so he'll join with that.

"Opposed."

Hopefully they get to loans sooner than later.

"Against licensure."

"In favor, however futilely."

He can't do fancy wizard math, but he can count; the licenses have lost this committee vote. But at least he wasn't totally alone, and that's enough encouragement for him to give a little speech.

He turns to Lluïsa. "I don't pretend to understand magic or how best to govern it. I simply believe that it is too powerful to not govern. I am here because a wizard of moderate power can wreck a village with a single spell, and a fresh academy graduate can wreck a life with a single spell. It is already illegal to murder, steal, and rape, but magic enables those crimes at grander scales than a normal person could manage."

"Licenses won't stop that," he says sadly, "but having a list of wizards in a city can help narrow down investigations, and some criminals were caught because of school record-keeping. If you tell me they have a better solution in Absalom, I don't see any reason to doubt you, but let us not forget who our laws could protect, and leave them unsheltered."

Lluïsa nods. "I myself possess fireball, though it is not among my Typical Choices for Preparation. Were I to go Mad, and cast it in a Populated Area, I would expect to be Apprehended presently, notwithstanding any Regime of Licensure; but Law-Abiding wizards look with Skepticism upon such a Regime, envisioning that an Official with whom they have a Petty Quarrel would forego any true Investigation, naming them as chief Suspect based solely on possessing Wizardry. As for Prevention, I do prefer the City in its Unburnt State; absent Prophecy such Preferences are perhaps the only true Restraint on Crime." Small smile.

"Licensure fails, then. As to our other topics, we then" (she nods at Carme) "have the financial survival of Wizardry and its Academies. I believe that until this moment, the academies were funded by the debts of the wizards?"

"By their tuition fees. Entrants who did not need to take on debt to pay them were not required to do so anyway."

"By their debts.  The wizard schools take on children at a variety of levels of potential, then fail out a third of them by their failures as teachers and their Asmodean cruelty and their Infernal petty tyrannical power games and their inability to recognize the forms talent can take.  The novice wizards' debts can then last for a lifetime given the interests rates they need to pay down.  Even if the novice wizard can later claw their way up from cantrips to 1st circle there isn't a way to earn enough to pay down the debt given the typical rates 1st circle spells actually sell for.  If being cut off from this Asmodean con game of borderline enslavement puts the schools out of business, then let them fail and let better schools which don't have deliberate failure of a third of their students built into their basic methods of operation take their place."

He is visibly angry by the end of this speech.

"No screening method is perfect. A student who appears bright enough to succeed as a wizard to Detect Thoughts may be unable to keep up with the required work ethic and challenging educational environment. That does not mean that their teachers should work for free."

Yeah he can see the obvious insult there, but he has a worse one ready to deploy: disloyalty and heresy.

"The teachers should be obligated to work without inflicting their petty Asmodean bullshit on students, and those students that endured such should not owe them money for their failure to teach, and anyone that says otherwise should be reported to the Excising Diabolism committee for their clear Asmodean sympathies."

She may out circle Fernando, but her loyalty is far more questionable.  If he's lucky, maybe she's at least 3rd circle and will have shown up to the detect evil search the excising diabolism committee ran earlier.

"Now, now, we can all agree that it would have been better for you not to have been misled into thinking that you would be likely to be able to pay off your tuition costs, but many students from marginal backgrounds have benefited from financing options. Else we'd only teach the rich."

Mephistopheles demand specific performance Erastil burn the seed corn what is with today and throwing around accusations.

"I have a simple set of proposed rules for loans applicable not only to wizard schools but also to apprenticeships, indentures, and emergency financing which should help set things right in this land, no, in this Nation, by undoing the treacherous work of Asmodeans in binding its people, its citizens, in underhanded contracts.  Although this committee's work will naturally be focused on wizard schools, with proper care to wording and detail, our proposed legal terms may be useful to and draw support from the abolishing Slavery Committee and the Excising Diabolism Committee."

His voice is energetic.  For once in his life his stutter hasn't interrupted him at a critical moment.

"Go ahead, Delegate. Let's hear your proposals."

Coeliaris passes a note to Carme, using a mage hand. What are the cunning thresholds for schools?

We'd take anyone at 13 or better; sometimes they grow into it a bit if you're getting them young. She Prestidigitates it back, not having Mage Hand prepped today.

Passing notes?  Well he'll keep an eye on Delegate Coeliaris.  Even if all of them reject his ideas, he'll want to know the ones to prioritize reporting for Asmodeanism.  Still, she encouraged him to continue, so she's safe for now.

"My proposals are are relevant to loans, apprenticeships, and indentures in general and I believe the application to wizard schools will be obvious."

"Firstly, tuitions, apprenticeship fees, similar costs of education and loans paying for such are automatically forgiven for, at minimum half the amount should the institution, educator, or apprentice-master fail to teach the subject the student or apprentice the subject they represented themselves as teaching.  In the case of gross negligent failure the amount may be judged to be fully forgiven.  In the event of partial success, for example, at least teaching cantrips in the case of wizard students, one-fourth of the amount is to be forgiven.  This likewise applies to indentures that claim to teach the indentured a skill."

"Secondly, loans may only charge a a total amount of interest equal to twice the amount of the principal (for a total repayment of three time the original principle).  Any amount in excess of this is herby abolished.  Thirdly, loans and indentures may not exceed 10 years in duration.  Any loans or indentures that have lasted longer than this are herby abolished.  My second and third points prevent schemes were loans are used to propagate a perpetual term of servitude, spreading the Asmodean principles of treacherous contracts, tyrannical hierarchy, and slavery."

"Fourthly, schools, educators, apprenticeship masters, and holders of indenturers are hereby liable for maiming and destruction of property on their students, apprentices, and indentures.  This includes destroying their in-progress spellbook upon expelling them, physical injury reducing their capacity to work, and even scarring that damages their public appearance and thereby their reputation, for a charming face can be quite valuable.  This amount can be assessed as people apply for damages but applies retroactively."

"In order to purge the infernal taint on the land, I believe making these terms fully retroactive is necessary.  I'm open to various schemes of partial retroactivity.  But these things are clear signs of Asmodeanism, so I think the best way of judging partial cases and such would be a commission, the setup and composition of which is to be recommended to the Queen by the Excising Diabolism Committee.  And of course, I am open to additional proposals on signs of Asmodeanism and Diabolism in our Nation's wizard schools and loans and indentures that we might purge them."

He's on fire... in a good way, speaking unhesitatingly with passion.  His fourth point was partly ad-libbed upon thinking of a way to appeal to the masked wizard.

"This body is not empowered to impose retroactive sentences for crimes."

Shit, he shouldn’t have ad libbed his fourth point.

“Oh yes, I wasn’t clear with the details. Uh oh-“

His stutter is back.

”For my fourth point, the amount would go towards reducing the tuition owed to the school or educator.  And it’s not a punishment, it’s due financial compensation being set, uh, right.  And for my other points, it’s not punishment, it is setting ongoing evils right using past conditions in assessing those Infernal Asmodean evils.”

"If you make something illegal, and then determine that the consequence for violating that new law is to be a fine, that is called 'punishment for a crime'." She might be speaking a little slowly and exaggeratedly.

Alexandre can't help it. He starts laughing. "Ladies! Gentlemen! Wizards! I believe everyone here excepting only the wise Professor Coeliaris may be working from a flawed understanding of contracts and what they are and can do specific to those who are used to Asmodean Cheliax and have never departed it. Namely, if you kidnap a man and force him to sign away his fortune to you through beatings, tortures and compulsion spells, that is a legal contract in Cheliax and not anywhere else. And that is the precise status of every student in wizard school in Cheliax. I do not agree with all of Fernando's points," he has taken wildly worse loans than that and paid them back on time and it was an excellent deal for both of them, "but what he sees and you, Carme Bonaventura, do not, is that under exactly normal laws as practiced everywhere in the world other than Cheliax, these contracts are invalid, and under exactly normal Chelish law excepting only the invalidation of these contracts, every beating, maiming, destruction of property and every other evil deed done to these students was therefore illegal and only our great queen's amnesty prevents these instructors from suffering the punishments they have brought down on themselves, those same punishments brought down on every kidnapper who forced children who wished to remain home, and alas more importantly under the relevant legal codes, whose parents wished them to remain home, far from home."

"Fernando: You are right. Every wizard school debt ought to be abolished. The schools have failed half of their students and killed the other half." His iron mask with its decorative acid scars is very, very obvious, right now. "Your general proposal for loans, however, is unsuited to this particular committee, and should be presented before the general or in a committee on finance - we have wildly more than enough such - or on education."

"Bonaventura: You are correct that we cannot seize property as a fine. But oh, how this committee is empowered to seize property as a nationalization! Slavery is to be abolished, and my little birds tell me it is to be abolished without compensation, two words that should send shivers down the spine of every person whose property is located inside this country. Who has property, at least. So while it might be a bad idea, we can certainly propose that any wizarding academy that injured more than, oh, five percent of its students should be abolished and its assets sold off to pay for whatever wildly impractical schemes the committees on education and war are planning."

What a blowhard. Is the chair going to put up with that?

A blowhard your last divination teacher bar one tried to torture to death!

He’ll take vengeance against the schools if he can’t see them fixed.  And it’s not like this loyalty test actually controls the fate of everything in the nation, he should remember it’s a test (at least when it’s unlikely he’s being mind-read).

He gives a smile and a nod at… what was that delegates name again?  He tries to recall it…

Delegate Aspex Ibarra.  Where had he heard the name Ibarra before?  This morning… during Select Wain’s massive denouncement of Evil!  He needs to report Bonaventura for Asmodeanism sooner rather than later to proactively counter any moves she makes against Ibarra.  It sounds like Ibarra is at least working against Asmodeanism, so cooperating with him should be less suspect than the clearly Asmodean Bonaventura. He works on keeping it straight in his head in case he is mind read or truth-spelled.

"Ah- some of the Delegate's proposals seem better than others.

- Should the school fail to teach even cantrips, it seems to me that a significant portion of the debt should be obviated. Half seems fair- it should not be much in any case - there's no use keeping people for very long if they can't do that. However, it is essential that any spellbooks in that situation be destroyed, otherwise we're simply asking our young wizards to cheat.

- Should the school fail to teach spells of the first level, that is still, to my mind, a failure of a Wizard school. It seems to me that we may need to separate teaching laundry wizards- the, pardon me, early teens, as one might say in regards to detect thoughts. One might track students into two tiers, for instance. Either way, one quarter seems fair.

- I tend to agree with Ibarra in regards to contacts, but we might well formulate a new standard contract for schools. I am hesitant to limit repayments based on time as you suggest, when we can just limit maximal repayments, perhaps based on circle reached. If loans are set for a maximal repayment for a percentage of the market value of the spell circle- an Abadarian would be useful here. Once we have reformulated such a contact, we could provide a legal option for existing contracts to be converted into the new standard non-Asmodean contract"

Wow… that actually sounds Lawful and Good!  He needs to remember not to let pretend revenge get in the way of maximizing his score of Lawfulness and Goodness.

He nods firmly at her words.

…And back to thinking how delegate Bonavenutra is obviously more Asmodean than delegate Ibarra.

"I have observed features other than raw Detectability to affect whether a student washes out or progresses; segregating them from the earliest days of school would be a disservice to wizardlings capable of one day hanging second- or even third-circle spells."

"Perhaps you're right. In either case, what are your thoughts on a two-tiered system, as a separate concept. There's nothing to say that we can't move students up and down based on performance?"

"At times my Academy has had a remedial track, if that's what you mean, which could be implemented as something cantrip-focused rather than as an intensive study with teachers specialized in classroom control over esoterica to get a student back on track."

In the meantime, Tillia has produced- by means of mage hand, the blackboard being quite tall- a table of proposals

-The establishment of a legally Good Spell Lord, to be offered to the President.

-The assignment of the relevant hellknights order to him for enforcement of such laws regarding magic as may be determined

-The establishment of a standard contract for magic schools to limit repayments based on percentage of expected income for each circle achieved

-The discounting of debts, past and future, for those who do not reach the first circle

-The division of schools into a supplemental and primary wizard track

"Well, then, we come the problem of funding for these academies. One proposal I have heard along those lines  is the reintroduction of Paratitles- not as a gift of the crown, but for Sale to the more successful Chelish wizards who have reached certain milestones among the Circles. I then suggest we discount these titles based on attendance at a legitimate school of Wizardry, and assign the profits thereby to the schools."

"Though the Practice may require a new Name. For the word 'Paracount' Evokes the Image* of a Lickspittle Lackey of Thrune."

* (Surprisingly, an accurate gloss of Lluïsa's weird-sounding Law Tome Taldane; for absolutely fascinating reasons this margin is too narrow to contain, the word for the Evocation school can be used more broadly than to describe things like Evocations proper, though it's an archaicism.)

"That is a fascinating idea," Aspex says, "and I wholly approve. Though I propose the discount should be based on teaching at one, not graduating from one; wizards hoarding knowledge is a problem as old as time, and this may lure them here with promise of honor and glory." 

"With what enticements do you intend to bundle the new era of paratitles?"

"Thank you, Aspex, that is also an enormously appealing idea. I would do both, with different weights, as we do want to somewhat  incentivize people to attend our greater academies. As to enticements- I would ideally offer none but the title, and merely appeal to vanity- but as we have nobles anyway, we should align the titles to them, like perhaps metabaron, and merely assign similar privileges to what they get?" 

"I'm still hoping for a Senate! We could grant a vote in the Senate for the metacounts and above?"

He dips his head to Coeliaris in response to the thanks. "The senatorial vote seems reasonable, though there I might wish to tie it to responsibilities just as for the lords. That, though, would take it far from the initial proposal. Simple precedence, perhaps, equivalent to a lord of the same rank whose title had been created at the date the metalord was appointed?"

"Seems reasonable. Shall we have a little indicative vote, to see how these proposals stand? 

Tillia has made a little table on the blackboard, and you may each go and make your mark accordingly."

This committee is clearly one for showing off with one's arcane mark! At any rate, the proposals are sensible.

Proposal	Oriol
The establishment of a legally Good Spell Lord, to be offered to the President.
The assignment of the relevant hellknights order to him for enforcement of such laws regarding magic as may be determined
The establishment of a standard contract for magic schools to limit repayments based on percentage of expected income for each circle achieved
The discounting of debts, past and future, for those who do not reach the first circle
The division of schools into a supplemental and primary wizard track
The establishment of Metatitles (to replace paratitles), to be sold

He abstains from most of the proposals; he's not savvy enough to guess which way to vote to increase the odds of the other delegates voting for the proposals he cares about.

Carme places her mark (CBNVTR in an ouroboros) next to the "establishment of a standard contract" line, and the "supplemental and primary wizard track" line, and not the others.

“Can we call the ‘Hellknight order’ something other than that?  Maybe just knightly order?  Otherwise I approve of all of them and will approve of that one given the terminology change.”

The debts one would be better if it clarified how reaching first circle well after the fact was counted, but he doesn’t think the Queen will use these as is.

"I was thinking of the Order of the Pyre, which we could call it directly." 

"Splendid idea!"

Lucia nods, and puts the seal of halmyris by every question.

The problem is the Hellknights in general might be on the outs politically, but he isn’t sure and they seemed to have missed what he was going for.  Anyway he doesn’t waste one of 4 slots on an arcane mark, so plain writing for him.

Raimon doesn't have an Arcane Mark but he can put his name to the spell lord idea, why not - he doesn't want the hellknights doing any things, so not that one, if you want those people presently employed as hellknights doing something you disband them and then you invite them all to be part of your totally new thing that didn't even use to be called hellknights - standard contract sure, fuck the debt sure, abstain on the division of schools, and - sure, if idiots want to pay money to call themselves a Metacount or some fucking thing, probably whoever receives the money will actually manage to do a less stupid thing than that, with it.

"The President," Alexandre says, "will not take kindly to the suggestion that he be assigned an order of Hellknights to suppress the practice of disapproved wizardry across Cheliax." He puts his mark on the first, third, fourth and sixth, but not the second and fifth.

He doesn’t want to annoy the archmage…. but it seems like it ought to be flattering and the archmage could just refuse?  But Delegate Ibarra marked it down, it was just the Hellknights he didn’t mark for, so hopefully Fernando’s complaint is enough?

"if he disapproves of it, he may accept it, and merely not permit any persecutions, or, likewise, refuse it. At any rate, all proposals pass. Splendid work, delegates. I will place these proposals before the larger Convention tomorrow when we reconvene."

She glances at Tillia. 

"Would anyone care for some hot tea and pastries before we conclude the hearing? They're magically Preserved, so everything should still be fresh."

"Can't scare me."