"Pff. Depends what exactly's on offer and how obviously evil and inevitably going to betray me they are. Switching sides at the drop of a hat is a bad rep to have so it'd have to be good, but you can't trust people who're used to being in charge. Nobles, merchants, priests, banks - they don't even notice the little folk they end up stepping on."

...It's possible she shouldn't mention being the princess.

"Gods are probably worse for that; Lirhan certainly seems to have enough of a problem with most of them. Our nation also doesn't have nobility in the way our neighbors do - inheritance is usually tied to how much divine favor you have. Which. Since divine favor of our particular pantheon is usually gained by helping people and lost by harming them, means there's a good bit of pressure to not be an ass. And while it's possible to be a powerful divine spellcaster and an atheist, it's noticeable if you have the favor of an evil god. Evil gods... Tend to be strength based. They rarely betray their followers, but they might abandon someone weak, and they wouldn't protect you from their other followers. Liches, which this might be, are about as varied as evil beings come. Some are chronic backstabbers, some like setting everything on fire because it's funny, some are out for themselves, some have a strict code of honor." And if this is a life-force sapping artifact like she suspects, anyone who can control it is liable to become immortal. Not that she's going to mention that, wouldn't want competition. Or to give warning.

"Pretty sure I just want to get enough to buy out my contract an' move to Albion and be a courier. And not die. And not get involved with gods."

"...Our opponent probably isn't an evil god, but it is possible. If buying out your contract's all you want, the reward for fighting the Blight will more than cover it, unless your contract exceeds the wealth of a small country."

"That's the goal, yep. Buy out the contract that has me risking my life, have enough left over to live it up a little. This is new and probably more dangerous than what I was doin' before - but also an opportunity. One last mission and I could be done. Shiny magic toys or sticking it to the debtors' prisons some way or another would be nice, but you can't have everything and I don't wanna risk my neck for lesser goals when what I'm trying for is the ability to not risk my neck anymore, ya know?"

...Ghost appears not to have noticed that this realm doesn't exactly have extradition treaties with her homeland. Well, Emes is hardly going to be the one to mention it.

And, hey - "Yeah. In a way, that's what I'm after long-term, too."

"I'm not quite as simple as all that, of course, hardly anyone is, but that's most of what you need to know about me." Shrug.

"I could just disappear into the wilderness right now, or any time in the last year or two, but that sounds like a great way to farm turnips for the rest of my life and get mauled by a bear one day. If I'm gonna retire, it'd better be with some gold... And there's always the chance that we lose the war against the Neuroi after all - or against the Blight, it would be here, and I die anyway."

"World-threatening disasters are rather inconvenient."

"I will say this about the Neuroi War, it's done wonders for the way Witches get treated. Also weapons technology."

"Convenient. The Blight hasn't had nearly as many good effects; magic's getting blamed for the whole thing in the first place, and we're losing heroes - especially lower-tiered ones. We used to have a few high-tier people other than the Queen; the Queen's always been the most powerful in the nation, but she's only sixteenth tier, and by now this group includes a solid portion of the eleventh-tier individuals. There's no one really between our level and the Queen's anymore, and I can actually now keep count of the people we have above fifth tier. - Tiers indicate power level and the strength of your spells, which's actually quantifiable. The highest recorded maximum is twentieth tier, though there's legends of higher tiers. Maybe we can import some technology from your world, it sounds easier to train someone in than wizardry."

"We don't have tiers, unless you count military rank. And, oh, definitely, you can learn to use a gun badly in a couple of hours. You can learn to use a gun well in a week, if you really want to. Compared to archery? Like eating cake. And the big, fancy guns are scary. You'll see if we have to cut up something with the emgees our 'wings have. Plus, there's radio, railroads, bombs, steam-ships, and so on."

"Wizardry takes years for someone capable of casting the most basic spells. Half of tier one never get to tier two. The army'd definitely benefit from some good weapons, especially if the Blight ends up leaving remnants hanging around. And I think the halflings will be plenty eager to reclaim their land once given the tools, our border guard's already half foreign."

"Witches can't be trained or made at all. Tech's pretty good stuff, probably, though. Never went to school for this stuff or I'd tell you more. You don't need your debtor-slave to know how materials engineering works, they just need to know how to carry shit from one place to the next and press buttons on machines. And since I got out of there and into the army, all I learned was how to fly and shoot and scout."

"- I think we might cross-train our people more, basic magical theory is, well, basic. Even most spellcasters can't make magical items, but mundane things it's good to know how it works. Of course, if your world's all humans, you might not have as much time for that sort of thing."

"Humans and witches for however much we count as different, yeah. Also, tech is complicated and most of it's new, but I take your point."

"Yeah, Ticceosia's mostly elves. Some other races, Lirhan's an elven tiefling for instance, Tess is half human, Raena's a wolf, but we're a lot longer lived than humans overall."

"Well, that's one mystery solved." She finishes gathering up arrows. "Don't suppose you have anything for eternal youth? Keep our witches powerful enough to actually do anything for longer?"

"...Wouldn't call it eternal youth, the only known path to immortality turns you into a withered husk. ...And involves mass murder." And she'd rather not be practically a skeleton. "There's advanced spells that can do deaging, so you appear and can act younger, but it's - artificial. You'll still drop dead around the same age you would have anyways, just with less warning." She thinks for a moment. "You could also become a god, those don't die easily, but that's near impossible."

"...A lot of us would still find that worthwhile, if it keeps us magical for longer. Witches have to retire by thirty-five or forty, most of the time. The power just evaporates, and it's linked to youth."

Hmm... She tries to remember what she knows about other people's spells. "It's not something I or Lirhan can do, but Tess and a wizard I know should be able to do it, assuming they know the spell... Tess can also reincarnate people into a closely related body even if they died of old age, and they come back young usually. Sufficiently powerful alchemists can reportedly stop aging; we used to have one like that, who was instead assassinated when my mother was a child."

"Worth investigating. You'll have a lot of folks who'll pay well, if it can keep us our Witchy powers for longer. Reincarnation would be nice too, but... I dunno, it feels dicier, somehow?"

"Yeah, if your magic cares what body you're in..."

"Can't say it's a well-explored topic. You won't find me volunteering. Well, unless I'm dead anyway, then I wouldn't mind even if I lost my magic."

"Makes sense. Any experiments would be on the already dead, regardless."

"I always thought having opinions on what happens after you're dead was a bit silly. God - the one, true god that so many folks from our neck of the woods believe in - doesn't seem to actually exist or do anything to you once you're dead as far as I could tell. Probably different here."