Nod. "How'd you decide you wanted to adopt a toddler?"

"Well--once I understood the situation with the orphanages, it was obvious that it would be good if I could, but it didn't seem like it would work to bring one home after the convention was over until I heard there was one with wings." 

Coeliaris smiles, rises from her plate, and walks to the door. "Delegate Kicharchu! Thank you so much for coming! You're right on time, we just served the first course. We're having dire crab? Please come sit down!"

"Dire crab! Amazing!" Well, it smells good at any rate. He plops into an empty seat and sets to.

How does Rojix feel about a soft little piece of dire crab.

Okay, THIS he's supposed to bite for sure. Nom nom nom. He wrinkles his nose but doesn't spit it out.

"Delegate Kicharchu- I'm particularly glad you could come, because we do not get much news from below Cheliax. When I was living here before the Cheliax of Hell, there used to be at least some intermittent contact with our- uh- low-reflectance cousins."

"Your cousins? Oh! The drow! They are there yes. I do not know what is news to them."

"I am... glad to her they're still there. What is new with your folk, if I may ask?"

"We do not all come talk to everyone about everything! I think maybe this should change, and then I would know. But it has not so I do not."

She smiles. "Of course! I do wonder if a research project for kind of shaft for magical levitation might be doable- it would much simplify both communication and commutes with the so-called 'darklands', and, of course, make your life easier."

"A shaft? What is this thing? - do you have the spell of making me know words?"

Coeliaris is both a good hostess and a good wizard, and both of those involve proper preparation for all eventualities. She releases [Share Languages] from her scaffold with (if anyone is able to appreciate it) incredible precision.

“A shaft… a floating disk that interacts with adjacent walls instead of the floor?  Thereby working around the limited height range of the original spell?”

"Thank you! So the idea would be a way to go straight up and down, no stairs and no climbing? This would certainly be a thing to fight over! There is already fighting over control of the good routes that are not so convenient."

"A very clever solution, Estella! Perhaps we might speak to that strange young woman who seems to specialize in the spell. Delegate- this would perhaps be such a good route that those of your folk who controlled it might grow sufficiently rich and powerful as to obviate any fighting."

She addresss the Kobold.

“How many Kobolds are sorcerers or wizards?  It would only be of any use to someone that had the spell, although it would probably only be first or second circle if it’s based on floating disk, so Cheliax could provide casters for it if the Kobolds would pay or trade fairly for it?”

"I do not know any to be wizards, at least not hereabouts. Nobody sent us to school! Maybe somebody is a wizard pretending to be a sorcerer so nobody steals their book. Sorcerers are not too rare though, my band had one and there were only usually around ten of us."

"That's certainly more frequent than humans. If your sorcerers have reasonable spell assortments, I would imagine it would be quite profitable to hire out their services to the city above."

"What makes an assortment reasonable?"

"Spells that have market value. For first level spells- I don't quite know the current meta*. Fernando? Estella?" (meta is a Utopian loan-word)

“Healing is selling very well everywhere… if you can cast it without a fiendish component.  Which most people can’t, but maybe that’s different for sorcerers?”

He smiles in pride at his one good trick.

“Endure elements is a mainstay, but depends on the weather being bad and selling in a city with merchants.  I’ve heard ant haul sells consistently, but at only a moderate price, in areas with docks like this city.  Mount depends on a city big enough to have buyers but also sells at a good price if inconsistently.  For cantrips, in cities icemakers have their tricks to maximize how well the ray of frost does, and the guard them quite aggressively, at least they did in Sirmium.  Scriveners is probably collapsing in price with the banning of pamphlets.  Mending is always good for a bit of money everywhere.  Laundry is too common to make a decent living off of.”

“Delegate Fernando seems to have covered the standard spells well.”

And she wants to keep her less standard spell to herself for several reasons.

"I myself usually prepare [Scrying]s, when my work at the university does not take up all my spells. Although, at the current rate of hostilities, I might be [Teleport]ing all over the place by the end of the Convention."

It's a shame there aren't any orphans who are something like at least eight years old already and of vastly above average intelligence. Doing Erastil a favor is fine but not so big a favor as adopting an average-intelligence child who'll probably struggle with the second circle.