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."

Liches, they're everywhere. Well, it's just the one lich who's everywhere. Can't even visit the wizards without liches coming up.

“I’m curious how that works… Can you teach your familiar spells, or does it learn on its own, or is it though some divine patron?”

"Familiars can teach each other spells, or be taught them by their casters, or receive them from a patron--our patrons aren't gods, though, they're the same kind of spirit that shamans work with." 

"Mine do the same thing. Familiars share the spells. It's the best way to be wizard underwater."

"You're from underwater?"

"Indeed, miss! The great brackish lagoons around Acisazi are traditionally considered part of the Empire. Many people live underwater there. I'm the delegate from the Underwater county. It's not all underwater, just most of it."

"That's so cool!"

“Is that approach teachable or do you need a spirit or whatever to pick you like Gods pick clerics?  One of the limits on newer ‘working’ wizards is purchasing ink for spells…”

Well that sounds crazy. People are weird though. What do they want here? 

Yeah, spell ink is expensive, but putting spells in a familiar is probably more expensive. Everything's expensive. That's why Lluïsa's here for free food.

"Delegate Lluïsa! Delegate Leo! Thank you so much for attending our humble affair! I'm overjoyed you could both make it!"

"I learned it, and I never needed a spirit for it. We should talk."

“I personally am happy with my spellbook and finances at the moment… but you could revolutionize the economics of wizard education.”

He pointedly looks at Professor Coeliaris.

"You need to get picked to become a shalyene, but I have no idea if that's separable from how we do familiars." 

Professor Coeliaris doesn't like Fernando's idea at all. Books are the best, and spellbooks are the best books. 

She nods, seriously. "I shall give it my full attention as soon as I have a spare moment."

"My thanks. I have also with me my Employee," this sort of thing being a lot more ordinary among wizards, "who is a Librarian on its own Home Plane."

It has left her cloak and assembled itself visibly, indeed!

"Yes, greetings. I am certainly happy about anything to do with the expansion of libraries and education in this country."

"Uh, thanks for hosting. Dele-Professor Coelaris."

He doesn't know anyone else here, other than recognizing them from their floor speeches, which they are crazy enough to be giving.

"What sort of group are you organizing here tonight?" Because so far its a lot of magic theory he doesn't care about.

Whoaaaaaah. Liushna isn't sure what that is, but it's stranger than any forest-fairy she's ever seen. Beautiful.

"Fiducia Leo! Oh, it's merely a dinner party! You'll approve! Most of the dishes are purchased from various restaurants in the city, [Preserved], at the moment of cooking."

Okay, that makes him laugh a bit. "Well then, I bless this dinner. May Abadar smile on our stomachs and chefs' purses."

“I assume it’s the standard version of preserve and not Lady Eriape’s?”

She is attempting to joke, but her delivery is a bit flat.

She begins to cast detect magic to get a good look at the preserved food.  She hasn’t actually seen it in use before, so she has only the Lich version to compare it to.

Tillia giggles. "Yes, the standard preserve. My favorite spell! It's first circle, and lasts a week!"

Imagine being financially rich enough to have left over food and magically rich enough to afford wasting a slot on saving it.

Coeliaris looks at the outsider. "You are a heavenly emissary, I hear? What do you think of Cheliax and Golarion so far?"

“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.

"Hear hear! Every spell invented adds to the collective understanding of civilization- I'm overwhelmingly glad to hear those words still spoken in the home of Aroden!" Coeliaris blinks away a tear.

Wave. Wow, she hopes Victòria got an invitation to the wizard party and wasn't hired to come here in her capacity as a prostitute; probably not, the crowd's heavy on the distaff configuration of wizard.

Nice, she correctly guessed how to appeal to the foreign wizard.  And apparently lucked into Arodenite theology as an added bonus?  She should have figured, Aroden was a powerful wizard so it makes sense his theology would praise wizards.  Too bad Asmodeus killed him.

Liushna waves back at Victoria. 

"I...don't know much about liches, specifically, and I'm well aware that different types of undead are different, but I don't think ghosts are less responsible than anyone else?"

She's...not sure what Feather means by "we have to help them." Presumably she means the badgers, but Liushna isn't sure what kind of help she means. 

Fins-to-Feet sounds deeply cool. Liushna is putting "contact with merfolk???" in her notes to bring home. 

She's not sure how she feels about spells being described as a Civilization thing. So far Civilization seems to be deeply, deeply overrated, but she's not stupid enough to say that out loud. 

Rojix has picked up that one waves at people and he also waves at Victòria.

"I'm not worried about it being worthless, I'm worried about it being dangerous or harmful somehow. Everyone would be better off if some particular spells didn't exist. Maybe you understand magic better, but also, all the wizards can do a new thing and it might be a very bad thing for them to be doing! Advancing understanding isn't worth everyone knowing how to - torture people at a lower circle, or something."

"If the lich passes around a spell without saying what it does, everyone will copy and learn it like you did. Maybe if you knew what the spell does you wouldn't want it; maybe it's so bad that Professor Coeliaris, or the government, or the archmages, would stop that pamphlet if they knew what the spell really does. So if the lich didn't tell you, I think it means she didn't have your interests at heart. An undead who makes other undead isn't going to be helping people."

"Or maybe it's something like - everyone foolish enough to cast it on themselves suffers horribly, and the lich has a good laugh, and it doesn't really matter on the grand scale of things, but it still isn't going to be good."

(She meant helping them by destroying them and stopping the lich from doing it to any more badgers!)

"...I mean, I still don't know? About liches specifically? But the undead are often, uh, limited, compared to alive people, so I wouldn't necessarily assume it was malice and not thoughtlessness?"

"Turning badgers undead out of thoughtlessness still hurts them just as much and needs to be stopped. The mysterious spell isn't definitely malicious but I think it's an awfully big risk to be taking and by spreading it first without knowing what it does, it's being taken in a particularly irresponsible way, because after many people have seen it you can't count on all of them destroying their copies if it turns out to be harmful after all."

“I think given the Lich’s other writings, a misguided flawed attempt at a useful helpful spell is much more likely than a self-torture spell.  Her other spell permanently preserves food and stuff, but renders it poisonous in the process, and a purify food and drink can later remove the poison, but the taste is ruined… but maybe with some appropriate cooking technique the taste alteration could actually be used beneficially, like how pickled foods have a unique taste.  So I’m hopeful the self-transmutation is intended to be useful, and might genuinely be useful with some clever usage.”

"You seem to have done quite the investigation, Miss Estella. Have you ever considered working as a research wizard? There might be a position at the College opening up."

Fernando wants to impress the professor also!

“Is there a… temporary undeadifying version of polymorph?  You could make yourself temporarily undead, and that way you’d be more similar to the Lich  and thereby likely to avoid any side effects, like poisoning, living creatures might take from the spell.”

“I’ve considered it… but I am in fact still first circle… I didn’t get well rounded leveling opportunities during my one term in the army.  And the raw power of higher circles is often confounded and confused with equivalent to skill at spellcraft.  But maybe with wiser leadership coming into the college my circle wouldn’t hold me back so much?”

Feather is somewhat dubious about the novel idea of preserving food by poisoning it. Maybe the poison protects it from mold and such?

"I hope the poison isn't any worse than what someone could make anyway, or less detectable or something? I don't know at what circle a wizard can poison a lot of food, if they don't know how to do it nonmagically."

She waves at the little devilspawn toddler. She is trying not to be uncomfortable about the fact that it's a devilspawn, it's a toddler, it almost certainly hasn't done anything Evil yet. (She is not totally succeeding at not being uncomfortable but she's succeeding at not showing it.)

“You are correct the spell isn’t much more valuable than a bottle of vinegar, maybe less so given standard recipes can positively leverage vinegar, but still, permanent and indefinite duration spells are unusual enough that any examples of them, especially at first circle, are quite valuable from a research standpoint.”

Wow what a ludicrous idea going against every fact about life and wizardry, polymorphing is totally different from inverting the processes of life to running off negative energy.

"What an Intriguing Concept it is, to Assume the Form of Unlife Temporarily! Has your Research tended down this Road? I myself do not much practice Necromancy, but All Spells are Wondrous Knowledge, after all."

He’s sensing some dry sarcasm, or maybe outright mockery?  Either way he’s not high enough circle for even alter self, so he doesn’t know much about polymorph spells.  Subject change!

“I’m more of a Conjuration specialist.  Healings done with eschew materials (and thus no evil component) have been selling quite well over the past year.”

"...I am sorry for butting into a technical wizarding conversation, but" it is showing the classic wizarding lack of Wisdom "making yourself temporarily undead is the worst possible thing you could do! Becoming undead warps your mind and makes you want to stay undead, and possibly to make other people undead, that's probably how we get most undead in the first place!" And also makes you hate and try to destroy everything Good and Natural - these people might not care about that. "As well as being reportedly excruciatingly painful. And definitely extremely Evil."

Nod nod nod at Delegate Feather. Raising people as skeletons doesn't stop being wrong if you're raising yourself as a skeleton.

"...Most of the ghosts I've met would rather still be alive than be ghosts? Maybe it's different for corporeal undead, being a ghost can be annoying." 

Okay it was a stupid idea.  There probably isn’t a spell like that.  Can they stop mocking him about it?  And it seems hypocritical from a Druid that thinks monsters should get votes or whatever that she can’t appreciate unlike.

He doesn’t say this out loud, hopefully no one has detect thoughts up.  Hopefully the topic changes soon.  He’ll keep silent until it does.

“I think Ghosts are possibly the least Evil of undead?  Many of them don’t have a hunger for life, or innate murderous impulses, and they have more lingering traces of their mortal sentiments which puts them ahead of all other undead I know of.”

She specialized in necromancy, but she generally tries not to draw attention to that.

"Consider however the Possibilities; why, it is said the Undead are Immune to many Ailments of which the Living suffer. Moreover it is Harmful Negative Energy which Heals them. Why, the Advances in Medicine could be Vast. Perhaps you should Apprentice yourself to the President's Wife!"

"I think ghosts aren't really undead, they're just - dead but still here. So they're more like people in afterlives, who also often would rather still be alive. It's still wrong to be or make a ghost, it's not the natural order, maybe unless it's - trying to escape Hell or something - but it's not always and necessarily hurting and wronging them like making them undead would be. They're like undead only in the sense that they're hurt by cures, not in all the other ways undead are like each other."

"...also, I've never heard of anyone making themselves or someone else a ghost on purpose. All the other undead are made on purpose, or by a disease or something."

She actually working on a way of diverting bits of spells’ energy into bits of healing.  And not just necromancy spells, any spell.  She’s not getting the feeling the lawyer is interested in productive conversation, so she’ll keep quiet and let her bully the other ‘working wizard’.

That’s a lawyer mocking him, right?  At least his soul isn’t sold to Mephistopheles, so he has a chance at not burning in hell for eternity.

"I thought Nex and Geb made themselves ghosts so they could fight forever. And turning yourself undead for a minute obviously isn't the worst thing you could do. I bet you'd rather that than - what was it, killing dryads?"

It's impossible to tell whether Lluïsa is being mocking or serious. Her affect is too weird.

Everyone's affect is equally weird to an archon who was never human, though.

"Even if it may be so in theory, undeath bears far too many risks for this to be possible at all ethically."

"Just because something isn't literally the worst thing you could possibly do doesn't mean it isn't bad."

"Turning yourself undead 'for a minute' is the path to figuring out during that minute how to stay undead and then you're on a short road to killing dryads while laughing maniacally as the forest burns in the background. And I heard Nex and Geb were archmages so they don't count for what is or isn't possible."

...Huh.

Liushna doesn't really think of zombies as evil, generally; they're not smart enough. But...they are pretty violent. This is usually fine, you can just keep them corralled until there's someone who needs violence done to them and then point them at the enemy, and zombies don't happen that often anyways. But, uh, if zombies are more typical of undead than ghosts, even intelligent undead...that would actually explain a lot of things that had been confusing her about how humans were talking about undead. 

But also, Feather, what. 

"Sorry, I'm confused, why would being a ghost be bad? I mean, if someone would rather go to an afterlife, then sure," she's still not great at automatically incorporating the afterlives into her model of the world but humans mostly do not have this problem she thinks, "but if you're a ghost, then you can still help your kin, by sharing knowledge or keeping a lookout or being a messenger or basically anything that doesn't require, like, hands."

"Just because people call something bad doesn't mean you should never do it"

"If only there were Magic to Alter the Fixed Obsessive Mind of a Lich, it might prove Simpler than Annihilating their Phylactery to simply Alter a Captured Lich like the Infamous Tar-Baphon into a Second Badger-Lich," muses Lluïsa. "Though Lichdom would remain Ill-Advised."

“Threnodic metamagic and a full array of high level enchantments wouldn’t do it?  I assume no one has tried because the overlap between ‘trying to redeem evil’ and ‘master of undeath metamagic and enchantment spells’ have very little overlap.”

"There is actually a spell to take on the appearance of the undead- [Undead Anatomy], but it's not a very useful spell, on the whole. It makes you look undead, and take negative channels. I never bothered getting it, but my friend Vie, in the Necromancy department has it."

Glancing at Estella. 

"First circle is absolutely sufficient to be a research wizard. The key is to have the right mindset. You said the flavor was bad? Instantly detectable on the tongue? I'd sooner expect students to use it for pranks. I wonder if it could be made merciful."

"I do suspect that any Truly Great Necromancer is Not Unlikely to be Himself a Lich, alas."

"Do your people know how to turn into ghosts on purpose? Or does it just happen a lot? I thought people became ghosts when they died in some really horrible way or something else very bad happened, and then only rarely and unpredictably. And they might not be evil but they are generally sad or angry about the thing that happened and want to fix or avenge it somehow. Being a ghost might not have to be bad - if a ghost told me it was happy I suppose I'd believe it - but ghosts happily staying around to help their descendants sounds like... maybe we're talking about a different thing after all?"

"...Well, obviously you shouldn't not do things just because someone said they're bad, the Asmodeans said it was bad not to worship Asmodeus, but you shouldn't do things that are actually bad just because there's other things that are worse. Like raising people as skeletons."

The eavesdropping quality at this job is top notch so far, wow.

"I don't know if I would say often? It does happen more often when someone gets murdered than when they die of natural causes, but some of them stick around for a long time, so they tend to accumulate. When I got murdered I was hoping I would be a ghost so I could continue to work on the convention, but instead I got raised and that's even better." 

"Something bad has happened to everyone, there's no way that's what makes you a ghost or there'd be a lot more ghosts around." And sure, yeah, the whore knows what's Good. Uh huh. "I don't trust anyone other than Abadar to tell me what's right or wrong, you included."

“The taste and smell of food subject to the spell is blatantly, pungently bad, only a creature with no taste or smell like a Lich could fail to notice.  So no risk of it being used for poisonings.  I do think I have the mindset for research, yes.”

And addressing the other topic that has branched off…

“I think Infernal Cheliax had a few necromancers investigating inducing circumstances of death that together with a create undead could manage ghosts consistently… but their ideas for inducing such circumstances were very evil.  I wonder if any Good mindsets could induce ghosts more frequently?  Like wistful regretful atonement?”

A ghost vengefully showing up and voting is a very bizarre image! Feather isn't sure they're talking about the same thing at all!

"I guess there are different types of ghost? All the more reason not to think of them as undead, they sound completely different."

To Leo: "priests of Pharasma spend a lot of time dealing with ghosts, otherwise there would be a lot more of them!" Pharasmins are one of the few semi-institutions shared by the Forest and the Outsiders.

To Estella: "if that's true there should be a lot of ghost paladins!"

"That's a good question. It might be possible to interview a lot of Itarii ghosts...my tribe only has the one, right now, but we're a smallish tribe. If anyone but me did the interviewing, though, they would need a guide to vouch for them, since humans who come up the mountain usually aren't friendly." 

He wishes she mentioned his idea was valid sooner… but better yet opportunity for a topic change!

“I think the Good Gods are competent to tell us what is Good… although their less powerful clerics can certainly get awfully confused.” He makes a pointed glance at the Calistrian 

“And I’ve read some interesting treatises by some gnome moral philosophers on deriving Goodness from first principles and basic axioms.”

Ghost Paladins… Iomedae has been short on newly empowered followers recently, right?  Maybe she can get some research funding and some progress away from hell in one move!

"It seems neither good nor Good to induce ghosthood. And it might prove a moral hazard for paladins if it were."

(Victòria is pretty confused about why Liushna keeps defending ghosts but maybe it's like she said before and they aren't actually undead, they just look undead? If they're not actually undead maybe they're fine.)

"I don't know why you'd listen to the god of getting rich about what's right and wrong," she says to the Abadaran, whose name she still doesn't know. "Iomedae knows it's wrong to raise people as skeletons, even if you can make a lot of money from it." She's pretty sure that's true. Iomedae fought Geb, that's what her holy book is about, she's probably even more against turning people into undead than most Good gods.

She’ll bite.  To the archon:

“What’s the moral hazard?”

Liushna also wants to know the answer! 

"Paladins might decide they were obliged to become ghosts, if it were possible. Or fail to be counselled out of poorly-conceived oaths extending past death. We of Heaven do want them to join us, not to bind themselves to unlife out of a sense of duty. We have duties enough for the taking, if they prefer it!"

It doesn't exactly find mortals to be competent to make oaths, and natural death is a useful backstop against really bad ones, but that would be tactless to say straight out, probably.

"Oh right, because it's so much better to listen to the goddess of killing people because you're mad. Following Abadar's rules makes everyone better off, even if they don't realize it." Like you, case in point. "If you want to be good and raise a bunch of skeletons to make money, just donate some of the money."

"As we have an expert from Heaven- someone who ought to know their pharasmic vectors- here with us today, I feel I must trust in their wise judgement," she says, blandly, though generally she agrees. "And I do think you should come by my office some day soon, miss Estella, and we can speak more of the research possibilities."

He will continue to push the topic change to morality and alignment!

“If the Evil of the creation and suffering of the undead outweigh the money you make from them, you will come out net Evil even donating all the money you make with your undead slaves.”

“Of course, I look forward to it.”

With no more pamphlets to read, a productive and interesting research career under a foreigner that doesn’t think torturing your subordinates is standard sounds great.

"Obviously you should only do that if you're going to make enough money to make it worth it, but that's the same for everything."

"If Calistria told me to do something Evil, I wouldn't listen just because I'm her priestess! And I don't see how it makes it not Evil if you donate the money after, you still did something Evil. If someone offered you a bunch of money to murder an innocent person would you take it?"

"I think, Fiducia Leo, that the Church of Abadar has some research on the financially optimal way to spend and gain positive pharasmic alignment. It turns out, Avenger, that Pharasma does care. You give money to Iomedae, which increases your pharasmic alignment. I do it myself, though I have not actually, as far as I know, committed any negatively aligned acts."

He nods to Coelaris. "If it was enough money to save a hundred innocent people, would you take it? A million innocent people?"

“Exactly.  In this hypothetical can we get a volunteer innocent person?  For enough money… find someone that wants to accomplish a lot of Good, agree on a mutually agreeable cause and donate the money to the cause.  For enough money it could mean enough Good to come out net Good for both you and the murdered person!”

"I think you're playing tricky word games because you don't want to admit that raising people as undead is wrong even if you make a lot of money that way," she says to the Abadaran.

"That's not murder, that's someone nobly sacrificing themselves for Good," Feather objects.

“What about raising animals?  What are people’s thoughts on that?”

This morality conversation is boring, but necromancy is cool.

 You don't get to decide what's wrong, bitch. "I'm not playing tricky word games, it's a question you asked me! How much money am I being paid for killing this person, or raising this skeleton?"

He's ignoring Estella because Estella's conversations are boring.

"I don't think Good does this offsetting Evil thing. Maybe Lawful-and-Good does, maybe it's in the Lawful bit. But it's telling that the ones arguing for it are Abadarans and not Sarenites."

"I don't know, how much money would someone need to pay you for you to kill an innocent person? Or raise someone as a skeleton?"

Liushna would bet money that Feather doesn't think raising animals as undead is better than raising people.

To Estella: "obviously you shouldn't torture animals! And raising them as undead is torturing them." She'll skip the part about what people think, it always goes wrong when she brings that up with Chelish humans. 

"If it weren't for the resulting negative aspects in pharasmic alignment, I'd certainly support men volunteering to be undead. As for Animals, I'd welcome [H̴̺̏e̵̪̚ḁ̸́v̵̼̇e̸̯̕n̸̫̑ḽ̷́ỷ̵̱ ̶͔́Ġ̷͓l̶͓̆ȯ̴͉r̷̨͝y̵̩̌]'s thoughts." (Her celestial is rusty, but serviceable)

(Victòria doesn't really see what's wrong with torturing animals, but you shouldn't raise them as undead.)

“50,000 paper Chelish dollars would be more than enough to buy raising someone else.  And if you’re getting paid enough, you could also buy scries on potential targets of animate dead to make sure you’re dragging them out of evil afterlives, so there isn’t a net increase in suffering.”

To Feather:

“I think most people would animate undead animals to save a human life, we eat animals after all.  And they don’t have an afterlife necromancy is dragging them out of.  It could be a nice compromise, if we get undead animals as labor instead of undead people.”

And she has some experience animating and using animals, although with a variant of the familiar ritual, not with the normal spell.

Feather would love to hear a Good outsider tell them that everyone is people and hurting anyone who can be hurt is wrong and she's not at all sure what a Good-and-Lawful one will say, but probably she can ask it to also say what the people in Nirvana think?

To Estella:

"Eating animals is fine. You kill them cleanly, they don't suffer. Raising them is torturing them horribly for every second they remain undead. They already work for you when they're alive! And animal spirits go back to the world and are eventually reincarnated into new animals, not that it really matters, you shouldn't torture them even if the spirits were going to be destroyed when they died."

"More to kill someone for no other reason than to raise a skeleton." No one is actually innocent. He pauses and thinks - "At a guess I'd say - four thousand in paper, or five hundred in gold. Maybe less or more if I'm misremembering how much the Archmage Naimah needs to save a soul. For a skeleton, are you including the value of their work in the cost, or separately from that?"

Responding to Feather: “I think there is some variability in the amount of suffering undead experience.  Careful usage of the right techniques and variants on the standard spells in reanimating animals might render it more as a dull detachment and warped mindset as opposed to active torturous pain.”

Man, Abadarans are creepy. It's not an unreasonable question, but his attitude towards it is rubbing her the wrong way. 

On the other hand, at least he's not claiming that a halfling is the moral equivalent of a blueberry, so he's got one up on the other guy. 

She is completely failing to answer the question in favor of looking horrified at the idea of murdering someone for five hundred gold! Especially when for all you know you might buy souls from Hell that deserve to be there, that seems like the sort of trick a devil would pull.

"I do oppose the creation of undead in full generality. The existence of the Lower Planes may occasion some compromises with Evil, but" mortals are not competent to maintain a compromise with Evil and should generally not do it "it is very easy to call something a beneficial compromise with Evil when it is not. Are these skeletons and the souls trapped within often transported to Nirvana, which would admit them, when they crumble? I suspect not frequently. And cruelty to animals is, I agree, an Evil, and Awakened badgers are most likely done ill by, though I have not interviewed one."

She brought it up! He really doesn't know what she expected.

Oh right the badger issue. Liushna had sort of forgotten about that, but if non-ghost undeath is typically bad, then that situation is a lot worse than she had initially thought! 

Wait. 

"When you said 'help them,' did you mean 'kill them again,'" she asks Feather, because with her new context that would actually make a lot of sense!

Well the archon is a buzzkill.  (If she ever makes Good she’ll make and break a bunch of oaths and minor laws to aim for Elysium).  She’ll exercise discretion before she’s outed as a necromancer.  She can talk to Professor Coeliaris later about her more promising ideas.

"Yes! So their souls stop suffering and can go to afterlives. They have souls now because they're Awakened, and I hope they wouldn't be judged for any Evil they did while undead, because they weren't... really themselves? Do you know?" She asks the archon.

...Liushna does still feel a little weird about re-killing someone without their consent, but...they came into existence as people just before becoming undead, which means they wouldn't have families to want to work to benefit, probably. They might still feel attachment to their animal-badger-kin, but she doesn't know for sure. And even if they did, you can't...tell oral history...to badgers. Well, they're corporeal, they could hunt for them. She doesn't know if they could even find their badger families, though. What a mess.

Estella wonders if only being fully ensouled mortals briefly would give the badgers a better or worse tolerance for the psychological problems of undeath.

"I have not worked in Pharasma's court personally but suspect it could be decided either way. It is not a Lawful court and seems to hold to precedent chiefly as a means of rushing its proceedings. We of the Good planes would of course argue against it; getting any class of Evils done thrown out of evidence is helpful to us."

That's not an encouraging description of Pharasma's court.

Victòria thinks there are lots of Evils that you shouldn't be trying to get thrown out of someone's afterlife trial but probably the archon thinks some of the same things — same confusing things — as the azata. Probably it's fine to throw out Evil someone did while they were a mind-controlled undead, getting mind controlled isn't your fault.

She's just not going to answer is she. Leo will put a mental tally in 'Arguments Won.' This was a gimme but it still counts.

"And on that note, dinner is served!"

Finally, some Free Food!

They sit down, and the Unseen Servants go around, in the new Irrisen style, serving little glasses of a white substance. "The first course is Dire Crab cocktails."

Civilization: take a really big crab and cut it into very tiny pieces, to make it evident most of it is missing. This presumably has some cultural significance? Maybe half the crab goes to feed the poor or something?

There's no cock tail but also no alcohol, so: om nom nom.

How are you even supposed to start a conversation about how the person you're talking to is back from the dead, and also it might be kind of accidentally your fault, and also there are a bunch of strangers here who apparently think murder is fine if it gets you rich.

"What's his name?" she says instead, pointing at the little devilspawn boy.

Oh no. What are you supposed to do when people point at you. Is it bite their finger? It might be bite their finger. Leaaaaaan and - she's not quite close enough.

"I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of food for children-" They seem kind of pointless- "but your child might enjoy the tigerfish soup, which is next? Or the main, which is a whole roast Terrorbird leg?"

To the professor: "He hasn't got all his teeth yet, but the ones he does have are pretty sharp, he doesn't need baby food, but thank you for your consideration." 

To Victoria: "His name is Rojix. The lady at the orphanage had been calling him Roderick, and I didn't want to change it altogether but I also didn't want to give him a name that wouldn't fit in when I brought him home." 

She recognizes tiny-child-attempting-to-bite behavior and gently tugs him back towards her. 

Oh, maybe this was not a biting situation. What ARE you supposed to do with pointing fingers, though. It is a puzzle.

Kicharchu is new to finding places by what their address is but he figures it out eventually! He is an Invited Guest! To a Party! Which has Dinner! In he saunters. "Hello everyone of the party which has dinner!"

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.

It hadn't remotely occurred to her that she could just go to the orphanages and adopt a toddler. Not that she wants to adopt a toddler, or anything, and it would probably be a bad idea given that the toddler might get murdered. 

...Given that Liushna was actually murdered it really seems like that might be a problem for her too.

"Have you thought about getting a bodyguard?" she says to Liushna quietly. "I don't know exactly what happened, but — I heard—"

"That I got murdered? Yeah, but a bodyguard who can't fly would just slow me down--they only managed to get me because I stopped to help someone, and a bodyguard wouldn't help with that because if I were sticking with a human bodyguard I wouldn't have been there to help them in the first place." 

He's annoyed Coelaris didn't ask him what spells are valuable. Fernando got it mostly right but still, it's the principle of the thing.

"And you'll still be able to fly with Rojix?"

"Yeah, he's still little enough I can carry him fine. An itarii his age wouldn't be able to fly yet, either, our flight feathers don't grow in until a little older." 

Nod. "...I'm glad you're okay, I was really worried."

Nod. "I was worried about you too, after...everything." By everything she more means Valia getting arrested and attendant events than the actual riot. 

"So, Delegate Kicharchu, is the convention the most time you've ever spent with humans? What are your thoughts the humans so far?"

"It is the most time I have spent with humans who could see me! They have so many opinions! It's terribly exciting."

"But, you know, all in all- do you...like them?"

"Yes!"

"Well, I ended up being fine in the end," she says to Liushna. 

She really doesn't want to talk about what happened in front of this crowd. For some reason she's noticed that it's kind of upsetting to talk about it at all, but that's kind of pathetic, whereas not talking about being arrested in front of some of the people here is just being sensible. It's not like anything actually bad happened to her.

"...Remind me after the party if you want the full story, I don't want to — distract everyone else." (It won't be the full story either way, but she's not going to just say that.)

"Speaking for myself, I rather like humans. Tillia?"

"I...suppose?"

"I expect this must all be terribly new for you, Delegate Imilce."

"Delegate Luishna- I believe I've heard rumors that you are in contact with Delegate Wain's little town- is that right? What are the present conditions of your people's trade relations, with them and otherwise? I imagine Delegate Leo might consider with interest the possibilities of traders not constrained by mountains or seas."

"Right now we have positive relations with Pezzack, yes--we trade with them, and our various tribes trade with each other, but we don't have regular trade with anyone else." She's not going to try to explain how the Itarii relate to the forests, right now. "The thing you have to understand is that the extent to which we act as a united government is--limited; the leaders of the various tribes do get together to discuss things, but it's rare that they make a decision meant to be binding over all the tribes. Not unheard of, but rare. And different tribes specialize differently, which means that different tribes have different ways of trading--like, the Waveskimmer tribe have started going out with Pezzacki fishing boats, which isn't trade exactly but is more like trade than it is like a lot of other things."  

To be quite honest, Feather doesn't like (Chelish) humans. She likes some individuals fine, but in aggregate... Luckily she is a druid, and knows how to like all life regardless of - personal interactions.

Liushna having died is as always terribly upsetting. She really hopes that now that she won't fly into danger now that she has a child with her.

...it's a pity there are no birds underground, or they could just fly up the shaft without magic. (Don't they have bats or something though? She has not studied the ecology of the Darklands, when would she have time.)

"Maybe you could work with climbing creatures, like giant spiders, to go up and down the shaft without magic?" she offers. Giant spiders she's sure about and they're also, well, giant and can carry some weight!

"Perhaps the Maritime Law is too limited in its scope and there should be a Law of the Air. For instance, if a Cargo transported by Wing is Dropped in a Fearsome Forest filled with All Manner of Monstrosities, does the Law of Salvage apply? It is Different, and yet Similar, to a Hulk on the Seas."

Lluïsa believes you can't have trade without lawsuits! Fun, exciting lawsuits.

"I think among humans trade by air is mostly conducted by wizards? That seems potentially relevant."

"I...  think it would be impossible to get everyone in a forest not to eat your dropped cargo, if it's edible," Feather says regretfully. "Unless the flyer comes down right away and picks it up. If it's inedible and you consistently label everything in a bright color, maybe we could teach everyone not to take it? ...really if you want to do it Lawfully the flyer who dropped it should be responsible for any damage it did falling down. A package falling from a great height could kill someone!"

"Mostly conducted by wizards for now, Delegate Liushna! As Aroden said, one must have the mindset for growth. I could certainly see your folk becoming a key aspect of the cheliax trade networks, with the concomitant wealth and influence" and assimilation.

“…I think that that would require a degree of assimilation really unlikely to happen in the next forty years.”

"Drow have some giant spiders but they are just impossible to train. They do not get the 'if task then food' feedback loop the way smart creatures do."

Yeah, that makes sense. Oops. "Then I guess I don't know what creatures live there who can climb well and are trainable, my instincts say there ought to be some and you should talk to an underground druid or ranger if you know one..."

"They have pigs! To eat, but they can train them first sometimes."

"Oh! If you can bring in surface animals, then there are definitely some who can climb well, and are large enough to carry big loads and intelligent enough to be trained. Like dire apes, or giant chameleons. I guess they wouldn't need to live underground, they could live up above and only go down when they're working. You would need to keep the shaft lit and maybe have some ropes or webbing, but a few lights are probably much simpler than a disk of force?"

"Seems like a good idea!"

Good food, good assortment of guests, good conversation. This is definitely the best dinner party in town happening today.