"Ah. There isn't really a good solution to the thing with gnomes in cases like this; there are approaches that go more or less smoothly but there's no getting around the fact that not answering bothers them, so in the end you're generally going to have to choose between telling them something you don't want to and letting them be bothered. It does sometimes work to make them think that not getting an answer was their idea - you could try 'I think you'll regret finding that out' or something like that - but it doesn't usually work and sometimes backfires."

"My plan was to try distracting them with the reusable zeroth-circle spells but I don't know if they'll all have the spellcraft to be interested."

"That'd also work sometimes but their memories are mostly better than that," she chuckles. "Not a bad try, though."

"Maybe it won't come up. I don't know how common they are and they might as easily be interested in anything else about me."

"They're the least common of the common species and they're pretty rare in human cities outside of their own districts, they find us frustrating. I'd expect you to run into one sooner or later, but maybe not in the next six months, especially if you're trying to avoid them."

Nod.

"I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. Raafi might have a better idea of what to do, I can tell him you have a secret he shouldn't ask about and he won't. So could you, actually."

"- well, I'm not actually sure I'm supposed to keep it a secret. It doesn't exactly come up in the Acts. I have been assuming I don't have to proactively announce it to everyone I meet since that would plausibly have come up in my limited correspondence about the subject but it would not be the most surprising thing I could learn if the Commandant I wrote to simply didn't know such a theological implication."

"How useful would it be to you to have an answer to that question, if we count letting you avoid anxiety you'd rather not have as being useful in addition to all the other ways something might be? On a scale of one to ten with ten being the most useful, or in comparison to other things that could happen."

"...for the next six months, it does not matter how useful it would be for me to know this, because I cannot ask anyone who knows without disturbing people whose time uninterrupted by Sendings from strangers is definitely more important than my accuracy here."

"That does complicate it - if you'd call it a nine or a ten I'd start thinking about whether we could get anywhere with divination, or maybe one of our gods can answer to your satisfaction, but I expect you're right that you'll need to do without. Another angle you could take - and I don't get the impression you'll like it, but you might like it better than the alternative - would be to talk this over with a counselor Lawful enough to suit you, and if they say you shouldn't tell people when you aren't comfortable with that, or under whatever other conditions, you can give that as your answer."

"If it were just a Law puzzle I'm all right at those, but it's a matter of - what I am representing and how much annotation I need to provide to that representation, where the established Church is inextricably associated with me even though I am not yet qualified to formally belong to it because Iomedae's church has separate additional steps after clerical selection to join the chain of command. I don't think it simply boils down to a Law puzzle. And it would be surprising and, frankly, dismaying, if the correct policy on this matter consulted my comfort level."

"In cases where we don't at all know which option is right and have no way to find out, comfort level seems like as good a way to make the decision as any to me, but then I'm Chaotic, there's a reason I didn't volunteer to counsel you on that." She shrugs. "Do you want me to keep brainstorming on this one or would you rather leave the question be?"

"It seems unlikely that we will progress usefully on it."

"I don't mind keeping going on the offchance we will, but if you're satisfied with as much effort as we've put in that's fine with me."

"As long as I have you here - I think he has cut it out but there were moments early in our acquaintance where it would have been ambiguous, in my native culture at least, whether Traveler Raafi was expressing sexual interest in me, and if there is a polite way to make it absolutely clear that the answer is no should the situation recur I would benefit from it."

"I doubt it'll come up again, it might not've been obvious to him in the beginning but you're not his type. You can be blunt about that sort of thing without offending him, though, if it does."

"- the aim of being polite is not entirely to avoid actually-caused offense."

"I'm not sure what exactly you're worried about, but I wouldn't expect him to treat you any differently apart from stopping or to be bothered, except in the sense that if he'd been misbehaving and you pointed it out he'd rightly feel bad about the misbehavior. And he wouldn't take that out on you or anyone else, either."

This person is Chaotic so that will have to do. "Thank you."

"You're entirely welcome."

"If it sounds like a straightforwardly good tradeoff to you, I expect Raafi will prefer to know about your background so he can take it into account; only if it does sound like a good tradeoff to you, though. If we tell him that you're not sure whether you're allowed to consider it a secret or not he'll treat it as one until he hears differently. And in either case - he likes to tease paladins, a little, and I'd bet you're getting a little bit of that from him, and I'll tell him to knock it off unless you'd rather I not - if he hasn't put his foot in his mouth yet it's just a matter of time, though."

"I did not observe him teasing the paladin I met but it might be the sort of thing that wouldn't translate well. I am - unsure how to broach the subject with him."

"He doesn't do it every time, but if you're going to be around him regularly it'll come up. Anyway - if you're only going to tell him what you told me you should warn him that it's a difficult topic but I don't think you'll need to do anything else unusual. If you want to go into more detail than that it'd be better if I was with him, he'll want the comfort. I can also be the one to tell him, if you'd like."

Wow, she'll just have uncomfortable conversations FOR him? "Would you?"

"Of course. Do you want to be in the room for it, or not?"