"So it'd be nice to delay their learning that, and it's absolutely critical to prevent them from realizing that you can not only resurrect chip Elves but you can also fork them from arbitrary points in time."

"They could have picked it up from Bar in the time we weren't here and your alt came in, if he'd have gotten a rundown of the place from her..."

"Notes from Bar to my evil alt?"

"She can do a thing with salt for secure messages Findekáno knew about but -" Napkins?

Just the ones from this morning when he inquired about security.

"So if they talked it was securely but maybe he skipped it."

"Okay.

I don't think I can get anywhere on bringing him around or even on settling him down for some games while killing him is still on the table. I think we need to decide soon which approach we want to commit to, if I'm going to have enough trust to do things like go outside with him."

"What would we actually do with Findekáno if your alt were dead. Supposing pessimistically that the sorcerer can't clear the oaths."

"...leave him alone for subjectively a few decades and hope he bounces back? Or fork an instance of mine who can try to help him out - or if anyone knows a really good therapist - if we can't do anything about the oaths then maybe he's better off with my alt alive, what if my alt would want him to kill himself or avenge him or both -"

"...I'm not certain I can decide to not kill him no matter what."

"Can you get to 'given the unknown situation on his side of the door and what we know of the preferences of his Findekáno, killing him serves no one who actually deserves a say in this, and if once we've gotten Findekáno's oaths cleared he wants him dead we will give him a gun but until then or until we get substantial new information, it's not helpful and not happening?"

"I can do, 'I won't kill him unless given a really good reason I don't currently have,' yeah."

"It sounded like he may have recently revised the standard orders - I should have bugged him -"

"...yeah, that'd have been useful. Next time."

Nod. "Won't tell us what's already been said though."

"If I were him - no telling us oaths or orders or bringing it about that we know of them except by following through on them, no helping us circumvent oaths or orders, the next time he sees us commit to overwrite his head if the Maitimo's kidnapped or killed -"

"Should we worry that even if us demonic types react instantly on hearing the word 'swear' it'll be phrased with that last or something?"

"Are you even allowed to do that in the bar -"

Applying drugs to another patron's person does constitute violence.

"Caramel?"

Gray area, Security discretion, not an expulsion offense for the first case.

"We can make ourselves all deaf."

"Have to do it obviously."

"Giant rocket-launch-muffling headphones? I should - 'negotiate' with my alt, say that I can swear to him that barring a lot of new information I will ensure he's safe if he just promises not to make the Findekáno swear anything new..."

"- I'd want to know what the baseline is before assigning that promise too much value."