"Uh, probably not a million." He shrugs. Does he have to do math again. "I don't know the numbers. Liscor's army's two to three thousand strong," everyone knows that, "and the Walled Cities field, er, twice the number? Thrice? Each?" This mostly comes up when people talk about how badly the Walled Cities suck compared to Liscor. "I think only some of the them fought against the Hives... or was that just initially?"

He scratches his head.

"So, uh, probably less than ten thousand people. I don't know. And I don't know about, er, civilian deaths?" Now he feels awkward. People don't not talk about this, but they also don't really talk about it either? "And Klbkch didn't kill all of them personally, obviously."

"It did sound like an improbable number but I don't know what's normal around here."

Dross shrugs.

"Yeah, other stuff you might want to know..."

He's seen human adventurers around when the caravans come down from up north. What surprises them?

"The army's usually off fighting some Walled City or another, and people will badmouth whoever it is, but it's all a bit of theatre, really, don't take it too seriously. We'll be back buying their steel or whatever in another few months."

"Then... what starts the fights?"

"Well, it's different each time, right. Pallass raises new tariffs and Manus gets mad about it, or a diplomat gets accused of bribery, so on... oh, Liscor doesn't start the fights, usually. The Liscorian Army fights for hire."

"Oh, it's a mercenary army, that makes more sense of it."

"Yeah, that's the word."

Flyers be a-posted.

At the next gate they get to, there's an officer-looking Drake with a hat and emblemed tunic sitting at a table by the gate, playing chess with the stressed-looking Guardsman.

Dross can put up the flyer. Who's winning?

The officer has the advantage, though the other guy's position isn't unsalvageable. Some of the officer's pieces are missing in a way which suggests they were left out as a handicap, not captured.

And the board state was definitely achievable by two people actually trying to play a game of chess using rules Blai knows! That's so reassuring.

If he watches them, they seem to be playing by standard rules!

Dross comes back. Does Blai want to go or stay longer?

They have flyers to put up and at some point he should eat lunch and then he should go to his appointment. He reluctantly abandons the chess spectating.

"Is there chess where you come from?" Dross wonders aloud. "A famous [Strategist] discovered it in a ruin in Baleros, they say."

"Yes, there's chess. It's my favorite game."

"Like, for fun?" Dross sounds a bit dubious about the concept. He has tried it and mostly found it a bit frustrating. "Does it count towards [Cleric]?"

"...count... towards... it?"

Dross blinks.

"Like, helping you level?"

"I told you that doesn't happen on Golarion, right? I can improve as a cleric by surviving challenging adventures. Chess is a hobby."

"...I'm confused. Are you saying it's not you don't know your level, you... didn't have them at all? And your powers are a separate thing that also improves with challenges... how is that different."

"I know my circle, and it will go up, commensurate with all other indicators of power as expressed in clerics, if I do adventuring, and chess is not adventuring. It's possible that finer recordkeeping could reveal a finer-grained measure you could choose to call a 'level' in between full circle jumps, and indeed power normally increases in some legible ways between those events. There have been some attempts" may Hell be denied a soldier "at researching ways to increase people's power without exposing them to risks like that, but this avenue has not yielded useful results."

"Right, and that's what people thought about [Tacticians] and [Strategists]; they normally have to run military operations and lead soldiers against powerful opponents to get stronger. And that's why chess is a big deal, because people found out you can level in [Tactician] and [Strategist] by playing it, especially against other [Tacticians]. It counts relevantly as a battle, is what they think. But it doesn't work for other classes. So most people who play it a lot are [Tacticians]."

Which is COMPLETE BULLSHIT.

"Oh. Well, that didn't work at all on Golarion but maybe it would now that I'm here. What can Tacticians and Strategists do?"

"I don't know much about them... they can boost morale, or make armies march faster, so on? Famously, General Sserys could instantly summon a whole battalion to his location, and he'd have a [Mage] [Teleport] him past enemy lines and do it to hit them from behind."

"You can do that by playing enough chess?"

"I don't know if it's as effective at higher levels? I mean, fighting some goblins will get you to Level 10 but you need to do something more impressive to get stronger than that, right? Chess is still pretty new; General Sserys got his levels the hard way. But who knows, maybe Chaldion is raking in the levels right now playing against his commanders—he's Pallass' [Grand Strategist], really high level but no one knows what exactly.

"But yeah, you hear about people getting basic stuff like..." what has he heard of "...[Rapid Retreat] from chess."