“It sounds like quite the handy spell, I don’t actually have the normal version in my spellbook, just the Lich’s poisonous version.”

She is studying the food intently with detect magic.

If she could identify some high value rapidly spoiling food it could be another key money making spell…

"I am still in shock that a country was successfully sold to Hell! My own opinion is that the battlefield victory over Hell is only the beginning, of course. It's a quieter war, but no less of one for lacking the slaying of foes in pitched battle."

She nods to Estella. "Yes, I like to imagine that one day all our farmers and butchers will be able to cast [Preserve], or at least once we've managed to bump up the mass capacity. One of my colleagues in Absalom is working on just that, and has managed an additional two peppercorns in weight per circle through precise topological alignment."

She nods to the outsider.

"You're a librarian, I understand? Are you familiar with Aroden's universal book cataloging system? We use it in the Arcanamirium."

Feather enters quietly and waves to Liushna. 

The Professor Coeliaris is an elf who learned to become a Chelish human so well that even the born-humans acknowledged it. Naturally, Feather admires her and wants to learn her wisdom (not that she can think of anything to offer in return) but more than that, she feels heartened standing next to the material proof that understanding the Chelish humans is possible. Even if it requires an elven lifespan, she now knows Reincarnate exists, and so she can allow herself to hope.

Her guests are an interesting bunch too, as befits someone old and wise! All kinds of magic-users. An underwater magic human... oid? - she doesn't parse exactly as human but that could be just because she says she's from underwater. Probably she's something else at home and just doesn't know how to become a Chelish human perfectly yet. (She's still doing much better than Feather!)

And a really cool-looking person who might be a magical construct or - oh, they're just an outsider, how disappointing. She supposes she can still admire them as a pretty-looking exotic creature even if they're not native and so not worth spending the time to learn more about.

"Druids are taught too," she offers as a way into the conversation.

Coeliaris turns, with a smile. "Delegate Feather! So lovely of you to come, we would have missed you otherwise! Drudic magic is certainly on everyone's mind, these days!"

"How do you learn it, do you have to talk to trees till one talks back?"

It is? "It is?"

...was Voshrelka right all along that plant growths are a huge deal and even one druid's worth is enough to be on everyone's minds, as long as you successfully perform an incomprehensible groveling ritual otherwise they'll spurn your offers?

To Aina: "It usually takes years and you have to study a great many things! And trees are very important to how the world works, so you're sure to learn a lot about them. One of my own teachers is a treant, but I suppose talking to trees isn't literally mandatory to learn to be a druid, it would just be too hard to avoid meeting any in the forest!"

...wait, the way she phrased that - "If you mean regular unawakened trees who aren't treants or anything, you need a spell to talk to them, so you can hardly do it before becoming a druid. Although other people can tell you what the trees say. Speak with plants is third circle, though, not beginner material, it's much easier to be friends with a treant." And a giant owl.

"Why yes! There's certainly been much discussion of [Plant Growth] on the floor, the Badger is apparently offering Arcane [Awaken]s for three thousand pounds, and Delegate Voshrelka is apparently feeding multiple temples by herself through [Bountiful Banquets]."

Arcane Awakens? Are the archwizards just going to wizardify every core druidic spell now?! The only silver lining is that, if all the wizards learn awaken and reincarnate, the druids with those spells won't be afraid to leave their forests. Although Voshrelka as good as told her there were other secret spells, which only makes sense...

"Who is this Badger? And - you proposed a law to regulate wizards creating new species; are they being responsible with who they sell awaken to, and more importantly who they share the spell with?"

Personally Feather wouldn't trust any city wizard with awaken. Granting sapience to people should only be done if you're very Wise and can help the newly awakened adjust and come to lead a good life, not sold to random ex-Asmodean city people who only banned slavery this morning. Nobody should graft souls who isn't ready to be a parent.

"Hm, Aroden's? I know the indices his people used in Axis... I served a sevenyear on the Committee on Cataloguing once, chiefly working on revisions to the typology of folklore."

"The... Badger," do you admit you're apparently the lich's lawyer, probably not just straight out, "is said to Awaken only Badgers Specifically. I do wonder whether it is a Limitation of Magic or a Preference."

Nothing wrong with badgers, but that doesn't address any of her concerns!

If the archwizards can only do badgers for now, that will probably limit how they use the spell but Feather isn't sure how. Maybe that's why they're just selling it for now?

"There are some spells that seem to be species-exclusive. I myself use [Fins to Feet], which apparently only works for Merfolk."

Ohhhh so that's how she's from underwater.

"Ah, Delegate Feather- There a lich, Lady Eriape, living under Westcrown. Liches are a type of undead, awake, sapient, magically created by themselves, and quite evil. She- her organization- is distributing pamphlets. She's called the Badger, because of her obvious fondness for the animal, and as it is the title of her pamphlets. We should, perhaps, constrain the use of the spell to those responsible. I'll bring it up in committee, thank you."

"An undead wizard... having awaken sounds like - a very bad thing! I really don't think undead can count as responsible!!" Why is there an undead wizard living under Westcrown, aaaaaah! This isn't objectively any worse than the devils that in all probability also live under the city (and in Tuimfane's forest) but it's more of an embarrasing own goal; undead are a home-grown disease, not an invasive species.

"Why is... anyone who's not insane undead... paying her to awaken badgers? What are they doing with them?"

(The merfolk loses points for using a wizard spell to shapeshift, but Feather's too busy to pay attention to that right now.)

"She awakens badgers, and then turns them undead, and calls them her friends. I shan't comment on why, as it seems utterly senseless. I've heard rumors of one briefly appearing in the city, on some strange errand."

She turns back to the outsider. 

"Our guest from Heaven- I do not have the honor of your name- would you be willing to share anything of interest in regards to your preferred cataloging system?"

Librarians are so easy to please at parties. You just talk to them about cataloging systems forever.

"As the Deranged Singleminded Obsessions of Liches go it is not the Worst." Presumably the worst is Tar-Baphon though Lluïsa is not entirely sure what he did exactly to deserve all those crusades. "At the least she is a Largely Law-Abiding Lich, not that there are Many Laws available for the Breaking."

It certainly has arcane things to say about cataloging, and its name is fairly pronounceable if you know some Celestial phonemes!

She grants people sapience. She gives them souls. And after a brief moment to revel in their new-found selves, she turns them undead.

This isn't the mundane kind of Evil, someone advancing their own goals at the expense of others. It's not just someone awakening people without being ready to be a parent. It's almost as if someone deliberately set out to do the opposite.

Why is everyone turning away and dismissing this like it's just another conversational topic? There's an undead wizard breeding more undead under their city and they're fine with that as long as she's Lawful? Are they so used to living with devils that they're not bothered by undead neighbours, as long as they only torture badgers and not humans? Or is this about the thing where they don't think badgers are people, even awakened ones?

"We have to help them," she says helplessly, to Liushna but mostly to herself.

Druids learn how to change into animals, right?  And for much longer than wizards can at lower circle?  And they actually put in the knowledge and work for their spells?  So that means they would have to be pretty good at transmutation spells?

”Delegate… Feather, do you have any talent for transmutation magic?  I’ve got a spell of the Lich’s I’ve deciphered from diagrams in one of her pamphlets that appears to be a self-only transmutation, but I haven’t deciphered the purpose of the spell yet and the original pamphlet was vague on actually claiming what the spell is supposed to do.”

Victòria had not actually realized, when the slip gave her the invitation, that this was a powerful rich wizard party. Admittedly, she's not really sure what she was assuming it would be like, other than "not like this."

She looks around for people she knows, waves tentatively at Liushna, Lluïsa, and Lluïsa's archon, and tries to make her way over to Liushna. She hasn't actually talked to her since she came back from the dead. 

Feather slooowly turns her head to stare at Estella.

"You got a spell from an undead wizard. You don't know what it does and she didn't say. Meaning it's not a spell other wizards already know. Why do you want it? Are you Nethysian or something? It sounds like a really bad idea! And it's really alarming that people are going around spreading an undead wizard's spells without even knowing what they do!"

"...also I'm not a wizard and know nothing about wizard spells."

(Victoria's bodyguard takes up an unobtrusive position behind her once she's picked where she's going to hang out.)

Well that’s not helpful.  There isn’t really a point to continuing the conversation but she wants to defend herself.

“I’ve already successfully deciphered another of the Lich’s spells from a pamphlet.  It mostly does its job worse than another more conventional spell but I think it might have niche applications.  Every spell invented adds to the collective understanding of civilization, and even ‘worthless’ spells can inspire or act as a building block towards more useful spells, and sometimes ‘worthless’ spells can have valuable unconventional uses if you’re clever enough.”

She’s not going to give away her big first circle money maker, but she really thinks this is a valuable point to understand.  Oh wait, she’s a Druid… Feather’s not going to care about civilization.