Aina's excited about the party! She's been... bored... lately. Tillia is super cool and her professor is also very cool, but all the cool things they do require being a wizard, so Aina can't do them; the important part of the convention has now already happened and she can't muster much interest in the rest of it and she hasn't replaced her spinning wheel yet.

After leaving the army, Estella had intended to never come to the notice of anyone important ever.  But… she really wants to meet someone that can help her finish reconstructing Lady Eriape’s self transmutation spell.  And Coeliaris seemed potentially very helpful.  So she’s here at this party.  Her face is expressionless as always.

On the level of gut instinct she still doesn’t quite believe the friendly outgoing personality Professor Coeliaris appears to have.  But she’s not human, or from (modern) Cheliax… and Nuria Tosta is a human from Cheliax and manages to be the way she is, so maybe it’s Coeliaris’s real personality?  Estella’s not going to get less careful about other people though.

An important dinner party with important people!  In fact, he’s one of the important people as a delegate.  This is the sort of thing he hoped for coming to this convention!  And since he’s recently realized isn’t even a pending loyalty test hanging over him, he can enjoy his importance and status properly.

"Miss Estrella! And Delegate Fernando! So glad to see you both again! I always feel like it's so important to make contact with the real working wizards of a town, don't you agree?"

‘Working wizard’… it looks like Professor Coeliaris is already onto the minor jibes and insults stage.  He’ll keep his temper (and a straight face) through this dinner at least.  Actually… she’s foreign and nonhuman, maybe with that disconnect his bluff is good enough he can feign happy obliviousness to her insult?

“I’m glad to lend my perspective!  So many more powerful wizards lose sight of the value of the common working wizard perspective!  I’m glad you haven’t and are leading a committee with it in mind!”

The strain in his voice and smile is only barely noticeable to keen perception.

Her name is Estella not Estrella… but correcting the professor might reduce her odds of getting her to help test Lady Eriape’s spell, so she won’t correct her. 

“I actually had a more theoretical matter I was hoping I could recruit help with at this dinner party.”

Her voice is genuinely cheery, but her face remains expressionless.

"How exciting!" She raises her voice, and calls out "Tillia! Theoretical magic ahoy!", and looks around for her. 

Tillia is ordering the unseen servant about, and takes a moment to appear. "Yes, Professor?"

"Estrella here has some matter of theoretical magic to discuss! We'll have to bring out the blackboard!"

"Oh, gosh! My deepest apologies- is it Estella?  You'll have to pardon me- so many new names!"

Magic is interesting, and the professor and her assistant are both non-human. And Liushna knows even less about elves than she does about orcs and halflings. She shows up complete with adorable baby tiefling. 

"Delegate Liushna! So good of you to come!" She glances at the child in her arms. "And I'm afraid I don't know this little one's name? Estella was just telling us about a problem in theoretical magic."

"His name is Rojix! I adopted him." Snuggle for the small child. "The orphanages here are just awful. What's the theoretical problem?"

Rojix has taken to gnawing his shirt collar. Gnaw gnaw.

What sort of creature is that?  A strix?  Whatever, she has magic to discuss.

Her voice is energetic and enthusiastic, speaking quickly as she outlines the problem.

“The Lich Lady Eriape, commonly known as ‘the Badger’ has on two occasions published instructions for spells… not proper scrolls with magical inks you could directly transcribe into a spellbook, but detailed enough instructions and diagrams you could derive the spell for yourself if you have skilled enough spellcraft.  I’ve figured out one of them and got it working… it preserves food indefinitely… at the expense of ruining the taste and making the food poisonous.  The other I’ve gotten as far as figuring out is a self-only transmutation… but of course I’m not going to test it like the other spell, there is no telling what a spell that works fine for a Lich might do to a living creature, even assuming I’ve transcribed and derived it correctly from the instructions.  So I need either someone very very good at Spellcraft to predict the spell’seffect in advance… or someone that can afford a cleric on standby… maybe outright resurrection insurance?”

Or she needs someone overconfident in their spellcraft who will test it on themselves with inadequate precautions and tell Estella the results.

"Ah! A common problem! For spells which we are merely uncertain of, one might consider casting it, and diverting the spell to one's familar, such being a mere trifle to replace, but a lich spell..."

She shudders. 

"What do you think, Fernando?"

What is a lich. Liushna has heard the word before, specifically in connection with Badger, who does pamphlets, but she is still largely mystified by what it means. 

Possibly she shouldn't say that out loud, though. People tend to give her looks when she asks questions about human things...on the other hand, there aren't any nobles around, as far as she can tell...but she's not confident in her ability to tell. 

Also: replacing your familiar is easy? Liushna isn't sure if this is bullshit or if wizards are more dissimilar to shalyenes than she had thought. Either way she's not going to be the one to comment on it!

"Well, I can take a look at it, but I don't have resurrection insurance. ...The convention might have me brought back again anyway but I heard somewhere that apparently that trades off against other people being resurrected, which is bad." 

He has only a vague idea of how to identify spell’s schools from their transcribed form, much less other features like ‘self-only’.  The obvious move is to get another sucker to try it, but it seems Estella is already angling for that.  That does bring up another point he can distract from his own ignorance with.

“Is it really morally acceptable using a familiar as a disposable test subject like that?”

She responds to the Strix.

“I’m happy to share the current form in my spellbook to anyone that will promise to share and ideas or insight with me… just that spell, no looking through the rest of my spellbook.”

"Were I an Archmage, I would consider it a breach of my trust to do spell research with resurrections I paid for, certainly without asking first."

She glances at Fernando. 

"A good question. I don't test new spells myself, but it's certainly what my colleagues at the old Westcrown College of Wizardry used to do."

Why did she think the wizard party would be interesting.

When Coelaris invited him it sounded like a lot of fun. But then after the convention he went back to his room in the palace and tried to take a nap, and couldn't fall asleep, and instead just lay there. And now it would be time to go, but he really doesn't want to. He wants to stay and lie in bed, but he doesn't really want to do that either. And he felt that way the last three nights and stayed in and then had some drinks and didn't feel any better at all. So he's going to make himself get up and go to this stupid dinner. Fine. Just get up and put on the nice shirt and walk over there. Stupid.

Knock, knock, it's a guy with a big golden key on his necklace.

It sounds like Professor Coeliaris is probably experienced with passing the risk off to other people.  Excellent!

"Oh, I...don't actually know how to read a spellbook. I'm a shalyene, not a wizard; we're similar in a lot of ways, but we don't use spellbooks specifically. Our familiars serve that role."