"...understood, thank you."

"When I announce it to the rest of the group, I'll describe more what to expect on that and other fronts."

When the new information is announced, the rest of the tagalongs decide to leave: they ones that are headed in that general direction aren't super keen on going to Khelt, and the way back is apparently still open, so they're just going to backtrack. It's just Blai and the caravaners now.

Notes on Khelt, aimed towards some of the hired first-timers as well:

• Foreigners must at all times either carry a visa, or be guaranteed by a visa-holder in the same city or same traveling group. Gellis is the visa-holder and guarantor for all of them.
• Foreigners may only travel on indicated roads and enter indicated cities on this list, and must stay within the clearly demarked zones.
• Individuals are subject to the law of Khelt while in Khelt. They're mostly common-sense, but Gellis will highlight notable divergences, including:
  • All undead, natural or raised, within Khelt's borders are either sentient persons, or property of a specific necromancer, otherwise by default property of the nation; and considered similarly to summoned creatures, golems or slaves.
  • This means unprovoked destruction of undead (even natural undead, he emphasizes) is destruction of property, seizure of control of them is theft, but self-defense against undead is legal, and crimes by undead including assault can be sued to the relevant owner.
  • Laws against "disruption of peace", "political proselytization" and "harassment" are more broadly construed and easily committed than may be expected; keep small talk with locals short and avoid heavy topics.
• Additionally, both legal or illegal poor conduct may incur penalties on the guarantor at the King's discretion, potentially including withdrawal of visa resulting in immediate expulsion of the party from Khelt.
• Don't fuck the locals. It's not illegal, but if you get someone pregnant, civil court is going to be a headache and your pay will get docked (this part obviously doesn't apply to Blai).

Most importantly:

• The undead won't hurt you. Just ignore them.

Okay, he can live with that, though one of his self-defense options if attacked by undead is an area effect, where would that fall legally?

"It might depend on what the area effect is, but—the same as if someone's golem attacked you and you used an area effect that might damage other people or things? It's going to be exceedingly unlikely, though. Khelt keeps a tight handle on its undead."

Nod nod.

They have to go off-road to find their new route, which is slightly less a problem for the walkers than the carts, but they manage. Two hours later they get back on a different road and are properly headed for Khelt. Night falls, and they have to find a spot to camp; the next morning, they keep going.

The border of Khelt is marked by a white pillar by the road, which Gellis calls when it's in sight.

As they draw close, a something erupts from the ground—a skeleton, first an arm, then a skull, scrabbling to claw the rest of itself out of the dirt. It turns to face the approaching group.

...is this a tame Geb-style skeleton or are they not in the zone of tame Geb-style skeletons yet.

Some of the guards look alarmed but others do not.

The skeleton's eye sockets flare with pale light. Its jaw drops open, and a voice comes out, terse but civil: "Long Skies Trading Company? Present your entry documents."

    Gellis walks up, draws a piece of paper from his coat and unfolds it for the skeleton. "Raimi Gellis," he says.

The skeleton examines it for a few seconds. Then, "Welcome to Khelt, [Caravan Leader] Gellis. You may proceed. This skeleton will accompany you." The lights in its eyes dim again, and its jaw closes.

When the caravan moves again, the skeleton walks alongside the road with them.

Okay, so not only tame but possibly remotely operated, that's vaguely interesting.

The guards near the head of the caravan look mildly uncomfortable with the skeleton escort, but don't say anything about it. Hazards of the job.

The first few miles into Khelt, the landscape looks much the same: arid land, dirt road, cold skies. As they go deeper in, though, the road becomes pavement, even with the next town only a dot on the horizon. The vegetation turns from hardy shrubs to arid grassland, with spots of trees.

Then they begin passing farms.

They're vast and well-ordered, and irrigated by channels: the first Blai has seen in Chandrar not dried to a trickle, this time of the year. It's early winter, so the fields are being ploughed or sowed for the off-season crop. But not by living people—by undead. Skeletal horses drag the ploughs while rows of skeletons till and plant the fields with tireless precision. Undead waterers, undead sowers, scarce a human in sight.

Not only the farms, too. A team of road repairskeletons pause their work and set aside their tools to let the caravan pass, the blank stare of their glowing eye sockets unsettling the guards. Some type of nonhumanoid undead with large digging arms is excavating next to a field under the supervision of living humans.

Yeah, this is probably what Geb is like. Geb is an atrocity but not the kind you invade. Blai's not even positive the local kind of undead is the same, maybe these should be modeled more like golems that happen to be made of bones.

When they pass through a town, he'll get a better look at the actual living locals. They don't look like they're experiencing or anticipating any postmortal atrocity, but that's not in itself necessarily indicative of anything.

The most striking is that they look—rich. Healthy. Nobody looks emaciated or sick, everyone is tall and hale the way those born to wealth tend to be, pudgy more often while most humans of Chandrar were thin. There are no beggars, no slaves, no street urchins, and every person wears clothes as fine as the servants in Reim's palace.

And they're happy. Not everyone walks about with a smile on their face, of course, but there are bards singing on street corners and people clapping along, bakers handing out pastries to passers-by, there are unattended children playing and laughing in playgrounds of wood and rope.

The buildings, too, seem exquisitely architected and maintained, built of fine stone and glass and marble, not deliberately ostentatious like a king's palace, but stylish and functionally beautiful, as if built by one with no care for cost but also nothing to prove.

The undead aren't common in town; mostly people are advertising their own wares and carrying their own bags. Still, here and there can be seen a skeletal gopher or an undead wagon horse, and the locals seem unperturbed, wholly accustomed to it.

Huh. Cheliax used to do "we're evil but at least we're rich" and they did not pull off "happy" and weren't really trying to. It's a sort of unsettling vibe, though if skeletons are actually just atrocity-free construct labor this seems great actually probably?

Some of the residents wave at them as they pass through. The caravan seems to be a sort of odd foreign curiosity; some parents remind their children not to bother the strangers. In a politeness way, not a stranger-danger way.

They're only passing through, this town, but at the next one they stop for the night. This isn't their destination, yet; they're headed for the capital, Edojaf.

They'll find an inn that's not specifically anticipating their arrival, by the way they're greeted and counted, but whose owner seems to know Gellis and which must cater to outsiders, judging by the multilingual signs and menus. There's even Drake script! It's a bit off from what Blai knows, whether it's spelling drift or a different convention or just mistakes, but it's perfectly readable.

They can pay in goods, services or coin. The coin prices are atrocious, one gold for a night, more than ten times even the upscale places in Reim or Germina.

Gellis offers news from Germina and a dinner retelling of a ferocious monster attack during their travels which they fought off only with the help of plucky traveling adventurers, and the innkeep laughs and knocks a third off their price.

If Blai doesn't have the liquid funds, Gellis can cover it, but they're already looking at a big loss from the disruption with the war and the spice shipment's seizure, so any business expenses are going to be scrutinized by the people up top, so Gellis would be paying for him out of pocket... (He looks awkward and apologetic about this.)

He can do a channel and/or create water if there's market for that here.

Khelt's citizens aren't in want of any of those, but they're interested in seeing a channel! It sounds cool and unusual, even if it seems a lot less convenient than a healing potion. The takers don't fill a room, but people will show up and overpay for the novelty, more than enough to cover the room. Some of them are completely uninjured.

What's his class, someone asks.

"Cleric. There should not be any undead within range - underground or behind a wall is fine but what heals the living damages the undead. Are there any I'm not seeing?"

"Imagine that, invisible skeletons—do you think Dorishe would do it if I asked her to? Are we allowed to, actually—"

    "You have the weirdest ideas."

"But imagine the applications—"

        "What, in puppet theatre?" To Blai, "You're good. Nothing's going to be hiding under a table or something."

Channel!

Kheltians have acquired an interesting experience and Blai is a few gold pieces richer.

The next day, the party will arrive in the capital.

Edojaf is as grand and sprawling a capital city as one would expect from a kingdom of vast riches and unlimited labor. It has no walls, no gates, like the towns before it, its limits only marked by the levees that keep out the weather. There are canals as they enter that flow out from the urban heart into the farms, with boats traveling up and downriver at sedate pace. The buildings grow denser as they progress farther in, tending tall and built of sturdy stonework, in not one style but many. The architecture is almost dizzying in its variety, nigh unconstrained by cost and reason.

There are more skeletons sighted in these streets, sweeping and carrying and assisting, but conversely the populace feels even more alive, brimming with vigor and rushing from place to place, speechifying on street corners, performing in the squares. As dusk falls, hanging lanterns glow to life from columns and arches, radiating a heat that banishes the night chill from the bones, and the city does not quiet.

What may be the palace rises to the west, a grand gilded complex presiding over the spires and raised walkways that mark the city's heart, even more glorious than the rest of it. If one were to choose the monument of Khelt that tips from wealth to true excess, that would it.

The caravan stops by a grand exchange, where the merchants will need to talk business with the locals. The guards and anyone else not required for this part are dismissed, with the following recommendations for lodging; note the permitted area you're allowed to wander and sightsee and shop, marked by this inlay and these arches; you're issued a token which will vibrate to remind you if you miss it.

Maybe people are this happy in... where. Not Geb, live people aren't in charge in Geb. In... uh... Hermea. Maybe people are this happy there. But that's a real reach. They're so fucking cheerful all the time it's creepy.

He puts the token in his pocket and gets a recommended lodging. Doesn't really feel inclined to sightsee on account of how it's creepy here.

Not everyone is cheerful! People have a resting neutral face, or look bored, or are angry with their boyfriend, or frustrated about a project that's not going well, or look harried because they're late to an appointment, or are trying to be polite about escaping a conversation with an annoying person. But probably compared to the Worldwound or Chelilax people look unnaturally cheerful. And there's certainly a sense that people are—conducting themselves without particular urgency or stakes, inconvenienced more than distressed—well, except that guy who's blowing up at his boyfriend, he seems pretty distressed—generous with their time and work...

Well, "generous", but prices are even more obnoxious in the capital. Channeling is repeatable, though, and yields gold proportionate to the cost of living.

He will do two channels a day while they're here if people'll buy them. Nobody's doing heavy lifting, which somewhat limits his ability to sell other traditionally marketable spells, and he does not find within himself the urgency for cash that would correspond to an effort to actively market Share Language or 1d3 Tiny Axiomatic Weasels as spendy novelties.

He can get paid! Channel uptake is not going to be huge after the first couple of goes, but he's going to come out of this with more money than he started out from Reim with.

...Tomorrow, a fancily dressed messenger will show up after a channel and say he's being summoned by the King.

The locals seem very impressed and excited about this. It's a great honor! The King is so cool! (The last one is said by a bouncy little boy.)