Carme's least favorite thing about being on a committee is that it makes it look more likely than not that she voted for each of these, even the silly ones. She can clarify if someone asks, but people aren't going to ask before forming opinions.

Alonso applauds, hoping that it will catch on around him.

Aspexia-Isona thinks all of this is very silly, but it's probably worth taking a break from all the fighting earlier, right?

Personal apprentices! Hear, hear!

“Most interesting” he mutters to himself, at what his peer has proposed. Figure she’d go for the Absalom model over the Nex model, of the only two governments with reasonable takes on the role of wizards.

Lisandro doesn’t think archmage Cottonet wants to be spell lord. The ‘arch has a full time job revolutionizing the economy, and won’t want another one herding all the lesser wizards. From how haphazard it was, this constitutional convention is probably a side project, sort of like how it is for Lisandro. 

Or— Coeliaris probably knows Cottonet will refuse. Is she angling for the position herself? That would explain the legitimacy speech about how she belongs here, and why she’s drawing all this attention now. He should have seen it coming, that’s the ambition of an old school Arodenite right there!

(Impressed. Feeling a bit small, she’s playing the game seriously and with a goal, while he’s just reacting. But mostly just— good for her!!)

Oh, and fixing the wizard schools. That’s important too. 

Carlota mostly wants this to end as quickly as possible so they can do censorship but they can't give the Archmage a position in their government.  "I propose that the Spell Lord must be a subject of Her Majesty. ....and I propose that all of this go through more revision in committee, truthfully. It does not seem urgent, and there is urgent work before this convention today."

Oh, someone like a certain elf who just showed off her 'being a subject of the queen' credentials? Either she planned this with the noble already, or she's just always playing two moves ahead like a proper wizard. 

Yeah, he really doesn't think this is a good time for it.

After some of the Archmage’s words this morning, he is starting to doubt that the Archmage would want to be Spell Lord (or even appreciate the symbolic gesture, since that is what it really is) so a chance for more revisions to remove the ‘Spell Lord’ idea seem would be nice.

"Duchess! While riots and worldwounds and conventions go on, the truly essential work- the work of building a better world- of teaching the next generation, of crafting spells to make a paradise- must still go on. We must still make an age of glory." 

"No improvement to the condition of Man has come but from magic, though generations of statesmen have attempted their perfection."

"As it stands today, it is not clear which acts of magic are legal or illegal. Nearly all chelish wizards are in chains of debt. A woman was justly, charged for casting fireballs within city limits. A lich occupies the sewers. I hear that a wizard's new species spreading widely in Longmarch. I have heard differing opinions as to the legality of Animate Dead for mining. An portal to the lower planes exists within the borders, or so I understand. The President is changing the face of cheliax with his new spells, and building gates across continents. The legitimacy of the orders of hellknights are on shaky ground. I could see Certainly see accepting that the spell-lord must be a subject of her Majesty, and the committee on magic would certainly be willing to, if so instructed by this house, revise these proposals. The fact is, all these passed in committee, according to all the rules and regulations set forth by the convention."

Wizards. 

(Yes, she's a wizard. But she's not a wizard.)

"These are many of them proposals to bar men from selling their services to other men at the price they both choose, and so anathema to Abadar, and generally understood to produce a world with less of the thing so regulated, not more of it." Eulàlia is a very bad Iomedaen but Abadarans often make satisfying sense. "Precisely because magic is so important they should all -" be voted against, she'd say usually, but her allies want the censorship bill not a big argument - "be revised to not do that."

The Professor's not very good at politics, is she. Well, maybe she's better at academic politics, that's a pretty different beast from this kind.

Most of these aren't specific enough to know whether anyone should vote on them, and half of them belong in education. Looks kind of power grabby to say so, though...

- oh, no, wait, the text in the air is different from what Coeliaris is saying. That's got to be some kind of procedural issue, anyway; it prevents the illiterate from fully participating or knowing what they vote for. She squints at it, trying to quickly puzzle through it.

No improvement to the condition of Man has come but from magic, she says. 

There’s a story they like to tell, back home, on one of Erastil’s holy days. The story of the time before Aroden, how Erastil and his first followers laid the groundwork. Men did not always hunt with bow and arrow. It’s the story of how someone— in some tellings, Erastil himself as a mortal— made the first one. Of the covenant with dogs, humanity’s oldest friend. Of the men and women who brought cow and horse and sheep all into the fold, who first negotiated with the animals to take humans as their keepers. 

Of the first man to clear the land of trees, the first woman to plant grain in the soil. Of how generation after generation cleared the land and worked the land, families living and working and dying. All that before humanity was ready for Aroden to be born and invent wizardry and build the age of glory. 

But no, only magic has ever done anything important. Wizards.

Does the convention want the full text of the law? She can read the full text of the law! She loves reading out loud!

“What of enterprising men with no wizardry? Surely, spell circles are not the only mark of those worthy of a metatitle?”

"It's a matter of exclusivity, isn't it? Will the Crown make more money from wizards if it's only available for wizards, wizards being as a rule a prideful breed who look down on businessmen no matter how skilled, or will it make more money by allowing those exceptional businessmen to buy them? I suppose as an intermediate position we might allow non-casting adventurers but not civilians, but I think that can safely be discarded as not worthwhile; they usually prefer to marry into the traditional nobility, except the priests, who are unlikely to be interested at all."

The Judiciary vote was scary because she didn't know what the right answers were, but this one is just confusing. She doesn't understand what half of these even actually mean.

She’s so confused. Are they trying to say she can become a noble by spending money. Or, she could if she had one more circle? She doesn’t think she really wants to but it’s baffling that they’d make the offer.

She's suspicious of metatitles. And nervous about potentially really expensive stuff going through non-education committees. Actually, now that she thinks about it, she's kind of annoyed with Coeliaris for trying to ram though education legislation without talking to her at any point; if she weren't on education that would just be politics, but she is???

Well. Guess she's heading up.

"Creating a whole class of new titles does not seem obviously within the remit of the committee on magic, and deserves more deliberation than we should spare for it this morning. I would also ask to wait to pass anything about the specifics of how the education system ought to work; it is at present deeply unclear what funds we have now or can expect to have in the future, what rules of conduct we can expect to hold teachers to, who our teachers will be, or what our schools will teach. We should not pass specialized education measures before we know anything about the basics of our school system, or the laws which schools will be subject to. As a set, then, whether these laws are good or bad depends on other laws that haven't been written yet. I agree with the Duchess of Chelam. We are in a state of near-emergency, and while important, these proposals are not urgent on a scale of days. I'd like to wait on at least the education proposals until we know to what extent we are to continue having an education system, and for now move on to more pressing business. If we must vote, I suppose I ask people to vote the proposal down, not because I know it is bad, but because it contains a roof for a house that currently has no floor. We can easily return to it when the floor is complete."

(The Metatitles are plainly selling the dignity of the country for money. But the country needs money, and she can't hiss 'with what money' at every other proposal and then be irritated at this one for having an answer, even if it's an undignified answer.)

"Most of these laws only make sense if we keep the schools open. I think we should close them, and I don't think the Magic Committee should be trying to make that decision for everyone else."

"I think ninth circle casters who purchase a meta-title should be a meta-archduke, for completeness."

Lisandro is also in favor of taking a couple more days to discuss things. So a certain wizard and his pet delegate can worm their way into the committee and participate. 

Jordi is in favor of continuing to be bribed by the wizard for as many days as possible, and getting a stipend for as many days as possible. They should take a loooooot more days to discuss everything. Hey that's another political opinion! He has two now!

She nods to Korva. "I was not here for the first day, as I was engaged in the business of the Westcrown College of Wizardry. A matter of summoning circles, that could have loosed demons across Westcrown if it had gone amiss. Today I am here again, but who knows for tomorrow? I am a working teacher, and I would welcome positive outcomes from the committee on Education in whatever form they take, whenever they arrive. All these Great Men-" (She indicates the nobles) "- need soon to return to their homes, to preserve their lands against the terrors of the forest and the earth. Many of these Worthy Men-" (She indicates the Sortitioned) "-need to see to their farms and families. There's yet tomorrow to work, but that's no reason not to hasten today's work."

She nods at Theopho. "The reason I would place these titles at the very first, in the hands of those who have circles, such as the priests" (she nods at Jaume) "the wizards (she nods at Carlota) and the sorcerers" (she nods at Lucia)- "is that it is very easy to see what circle and title that one qualifies for. If we were to grant them to the adventurers, perhaps we would need a standardized army of summoned creatures, always the same ones, and see how fast they might be killed by the great adventurers. Let us do so, if we want. This proposal does not eliminate the chance of another."

"The constitution and the laws are no house. If we make the lives of the indebted wizards better today, it will not make them worse tomorrow. I hear that the committee on forests is now considering farms. I hear that the committee on safe roads is considering cities. I hear that the committee on the monarchy is considering a senate. There's yet tomorrow to work, but tomorrow there will be more work to do." 

"Debt relief may be useful now, though it is not an emergency. It's the dual-track system I take issue with. This may be a fine idea, but I don't think it's an idea for the academies, most of which only serve adult students who have already mastered cantrips. It's an idea for the wizard prep schools, which are currently not in operation. As an anonymous delegate said a few moments ago, we have not determined yet whether we will have the rest of a school system. We should not make decisions about its teaching tracks until we have determined whether it exists and how it will be organized."

"The magic committee is to decide matters of magic. Not restricting things to only casters."

"Or else the committee full of wizards will decide everything should be a privilege only for wizards."

"Give education back to education! Give metatitles to a committee that knows honors are for the Queen to give out to whoever she pleases, wizard or no!"

Jaume gets in line.

"There is nothing wrong in principle with a system of tuition financing which expects more from a successful than an unsuccessful wizarding student. That system is not the same thing as a loan, and in particular it does not resemble the loans which have been heretofore issued. No intelligent lender will provide funding for a wizarding student under these conditions save for at interest rates that overwhelm the described permitted default, unless their incentives are already so entangled with those of the student as to obviate these regulations entirely - a parent taking out a normal personal loan unencumbered by this stricture for their child's education, perhaps, relying on the parental relationship to require an adequate outlay of effort; it will not serve to lift any potential wizards out of the peasantry who cannot be counted on to make good such a loan, and there in the peasantry they will languish. If the state of wizard student debt is objectionable to any person he may purchase some of that debt and then forgive some or all of it as his own property. Altering by fiat a debt that does not belong to you is barely disguised theft, anathema unto Abadar, and restricting what contracts free persons may make amongst themselves not much better. If the market price of any service - including a loan - is objectionable, it is your right not to purchase it, and that is the limit of your right to it."

He's completely right but unfortunately this is a Republic and people are profoundly stupid about the way that money works. They barely managed to kill 'no taxes forever'.

Abadaran says that doing anything about loans is theft, and the only right thing is give the Abadarans more money. Of course that’s what he says. Well, even if the Fiducia doesn’t like it, the gods and wizards chose commoners for the convention so people without money can still do things.

It actually wasn't your right, meaningfully, two years ago; sure, they had you sign an academy contract as soon as you turned sixteen, so it was technically voluntary, but most of the kids were boarders and only allowed to leave in the most theoretical possible sense. 

Not an argument to have on the floor right now, though.

Professor Coeliaris isn't that good at politics. 

"As a reply to the Fiducia- regrettably, under the Cheliax of Hell, you effectively could not refuse this loan. Wizard education under the Cheliax of Hell was mandatory, and as the contracts were not fairly entered, they cannot be treated as those who were."

Why not help a colleague out? 

Well, his motivation is also a bit personal. He reminds himself to find out of Cheliax has any backup copies of the debt papers burned when the academy in Andoran rebelled. Now that Cheliax is being freed, need to make sure they burn too.

Message to Jordi suggesting a reply, if it fits his opinions and stances.

Jordi likes wizards and doesn't like debt, that's a political opinion. Time to go under the secret identity spell and be a mouthpiece.

"Agreement from the anonymous. A child taken from home and held against his or her will cannot meaningfully assent to a loan. The Abadaran principle of mutually agreed on contracts and debts is admirable, but the loans forced on the students of Cheliax are no more valid than 'loans' extracted at daggerpoint by robbers."

He’s kind worrying selling his loans to that Fiducia might not have netted him any progress towards Lawful Neutral.  Too late now.  He doesn’t bother getting himself cloaked in anonymity.

“I concur.  Under a simple minded reading of the letter of the law, prospective wizard students could have theoretically refused to enter wizard schooling with its subsequent loans.  Actually expecting this under Diabolist Cheliax would have been completely absurd.  Students were lied to about their prospects of succeeding, implicitly and explicitly threatened into entering wizard school, and subject to brutal Asmodean treatment in the schools.  Even with the Thrunes gone, the schools have kept up their Asmodean trickery, offering seemingly generous refinancing of loans to trick their loanees into changing paper money loans into silver.  It’s true that under actual fair trade conditions retroactively reworking loans by fiat would be unfair, but only a completely delusional person (whether by willful self deceit or naivety to the point of absurdity) would claim the loans offered in infernal Cheliax to prospective wizards students were fair.”

In his anger Fernando has completely forgotten to consider what the loyal framing would be or how drawing attention to unfair loans may reflect badly on himself.

Yup, all true, but other people are saying it.

Fine, limit the damage. "I move that this be remanded back to committee so that the committee can send us a bill with debt forgiveness - not just partial debt forgiveness, full and absolute debt forgiveness - for wizards who were forced to attend wizard school under Infernal rule. But if the banks suspect we will do this lightly, no one will ever be able to attend wizard school again, so I entreat the committee to in their debt forgiveness proposal, state also that there will never ever again be debt forgiveness now that loans are taken out voluntarily. If you fail to do that then you are simply making loans for wizard school illegal, and maybe requiring anyone who takes out a loan to certify they won't study wizardry."

And if that passes maybe they can - please please please please - get to censorship before the break.

"Seconded. The continued provision of wizards for the state is of vital importance, and should not be destroyed by laws crafted without the consultation of a Priest of Abadar."

Wait why would the law do that? It just bans Evil loan! Banning Evil loans is Good!

"It need not be done by Forgiveness; perhaps we are Empowered to make a Finding of Fact that Educational Loans were under the Infernal Regime Coercive, and a Finding of Law that no Coercive Contract is Valid, and thus hold all and only those Coercive Loans to have been Invalid from the Start. This Recognizes the Collection of Payments under these Loans to have been Criminal, of course, but that the Spirit of the Prohibition on Retroactive Law be Honored we Recognize Also the Queen's Amnesty to have Dealt with Most Payments, and Extend it to the Passage of this Law for These Specific Loans. However No Issuer of Loans Not Coercive need have any Fear under this Measure."

Says Lluïsa, a huge nerd. Politics, what are those?

"I support the Return to Committee that I may Explain this Proposal in Great Detail there."

"Even if we don't vote on the fourth provision, I think we should vote on the others, and see which we need to modify and which are currently acceptable to the floor."

Coeliaris sees where this is going. Her eyes go to Carlota.

[Message] "If I withdraw the proposed laws for today to give you more time, would you consider finding your way to supporting these tomorrow?"

"Not the debt and income ones, I genuinely think those are ill-advised," she replies immediately. "The rest, gladly."

"Done."

After a few more whispers back and forth with other people, Coeliaris takes the podium again.

"It has been made clear that there's supposedly more urgent things for the floor to consider today than that of the regulation of magic. I am therefore withdrawing this proposed slate from consideration from today's session, and will be reintroducing it tomorrow, identical."

And there's still time before the break to get to censorship. Phew.

Hooray! Time to explain her proposal in Great Detail to the committee!

He's disappointed by the delay, but speaking to the whole floor already took a lot out of him and he's not going to fight it more. He hopes the elf knows what she's doing.

He actually wants one more sentence to give the Archmage more room for graciously refusing the position of Spell-lord, so hopefully their chair allows small revisions.

She was kind of hoping to vote down the stupid "make more people nobles but without them even doing anything good like fighting monsters" law today but whatever, this is fine.