"I've got an erstwhile bodyguard with a power that could be funny here. She's considered-unimportant by default - except to me, and herself - and has to suppress her magic for anyone it works on who's encountered it unsuppressed to be able to consider her significant."

"...that's horrifying and I like it. Okay. One-off power or something a significant subset of people in the setting can do?"

"Lots of 'em. When Addy borrows her power they work on each other!"

"What's the government like, how does it work if people habitually can't find the rulers or their decrees interesting?"

"Allirea's downstream consequences can be interesting as long as they're sort of anchored to something that can be perceived independently. She has children, for instance; if she explains an idea to someone while she's unfaded then when she fades again they can remember it if they've assigned it enough importance. And if she suppresses the effect it lifts for everyone at once."

They spend another twenty minutes hammering out setting details and then settle down to play. "...I would strongly prefer not to meet your bodyguard, if that can be arranged. The Enemy does a lot of tampering with my head and memories and perceptions and even if she's not doing it deliberately it doesn't feel any different."

"Believe me, I understand. Most people close to me had already been exposed by the time I took over the world and she has to sleep if nothing else, so I let her slide that far, but I don't think she has the slightest interest in leaving Aurum anyway. Addy I'd worry about, but Addy usually can't remember Allirea is interesting either."

"You're the Bell with experience running a society of reformed terrible people; do you have any insights for the rest of us on the evil planet? Loki and Cam seemed quite - stuck."

"I have a pretty good understanding of how vampires got that way, is the thing. That and I operated significantly with the threat of lethal force and availability of a precognitive. Evil Arda's etiology is mysterious and Alice's witchcraft doesn't work outside Aurum."

"What a mess."

"Yep. I wish I could be more help but I'm not as specialized for it as I look. Siobhan might help - her witchcraft is making plans that succeed - but she'd need more information to go on to get it working."

"Thanks anyway." And they start the game. 

(Findekáno'd taken the news there was an evil Arda pretty well. 'you shouldn't be comforting me', Maitimo'd muttered at him at one point, and Findekáno'd said 'you're right, I'm sure the Maitimo who got his boyfriend confiscated is much more in need of me' and Maitimo made a strangled noise and Findekáno kissed him.)

Bella writes lightning-quick notes and identifies things Kib misses and sometimes forgets to blink her pretty golden eyes. She's not as good at Governor as Loki, but that winds up meaning she asks Kib more questions; it seems like that helps more than merely flinging the game at him.

They'll be as to-the-point as they can, this game; he really doesn't want to make Kib feel toyed with.

It's closer. Kib still loses.

Frustrated, despairing?

Grumbly. Well, it took me a few tries when I first picked up the game.

It did! And I thoroughly enjoyed that while it lasted and it didn't last very long and I'm going to enjoy this and it's not going to last very long.

Here's hoping.

Reading my notes helps, some.

We can get you that speeded perception thing, we shouldn't have much more wait on our eidetic memory necklaces, we can bother variants on my father for more cognition-enhancing stuff, he'll be all over that.

I feel like if I lean on that I won't know how improved I actually am.

Is it your baseline cognition that matters to you or how good at thinking you actually are because it makes more sense to care about the latter.

I do care about the latter, but if I miss an improvement I could have made to baseline because I had other stuff to patch the gap then the improvements won't get me as far.

Fair enough. Let us know how we can help. 

If I think of anything, will do.