"You sound very impressed," he assures. "Just, it's sort of weird to me. I don't feel like I should be in charge of anything, let alone an entire estate."

"Why not?"

"I don't feel very qualified. I - figured out a maze of shadow portals, killed the maniac in charge, this doesn't qualify me for being in charge of what he had, it means I'm good at problem solving and killing people. I have zero training or experience in managing anything and don't have any cultural context of or loyalty to the plane of shadow. I feel like there are really better people available, they just - didn't do what I did."

"You could've learned the stuff. But you'd have to stick around and you didn't want to do that, I guess, so at least your friend's helping."

"Yeah. And he is actually very good at it," he assures. "I might be tempted to stick around if he wasn't very good at it, for the sake of the estate. But it was definitely improving and becoming nice to live in. For a shadow-person. And no one can technically take over if I'm still alive and obviously in charge and just not present. They could muscle in on my territory, but it would be generally frowned upon because - tradition, something something. Fair combat and whatnot. I get the impression that Ksxksskrth would have a bit more trouble if, say, he were the lord, while he was present and easy to assassinate."

"Oh, that's convenient then. You're helping in absentia."

"I am! ... I don't know if I should be proud of being a good puppet warlord that's hard to kill. I'm going to go with yes because good is being done with it."

"I'm not sure if you're a puppet. Your - regent? - doesn't need to actually puppet you because you granted him direct authority."

"Hm, true. And regent's a good term for him, I hadn't given the entire thing a word before." Pause. "And when you word it like that I actually sound responsible. Huh."

"Maybe you have also done other, irresponsible things, but you haven't mentioned them."

"I do plenty of stupid things," he assures her.

"Should I ask?"

"I once walked into a den of mind flayers with nothing but a magic helmet to protect me from being turned into a mindless thrall." Pause. "And then I took off the helmet." Pause. "And then told them that they weren't getting the magical item they asked for from me."

"Sort of a series of them. I needed to talk to them to see if I could convince them to not join in on opposing side of the war on the basis that mind flayers are scary, and then the elder brain refused to talk to me while I had the helmet on and V- one of my companions promised to hit me over the head and carry me out to someone that could maybe fix me if I started drooling, and, uh. The magical item they wanted was a mirror that would help them quite a lot, and - they're - uh. Slavers doesn't quite do it justice, every illithid owns at least two mind-broken slaves, and that is considered very pathetic for the amount of slaves one has with them. They kept people in these - these giant pens, I don't even know if they ever got to, be themselves for any period of time. And I didn't want them to gain any more power than they had, even if it meant I'd need to fight them, because I mean. I'm - I have practice at dealing with the-kind-of-weird-that-can-do-terrible-things-to-people, I can fight back. Random innocent bystanders..." He shrugs, and looks away.

"Well, you did at least get out okay..."

"Yeah." Pause. "And then I and my companions agreed that actually fighting them there when we were right next to their physically defenseless leader and had the helmets on and ready to go was much preferable to later when they'd be fitted for war, and that was how we razed a city. After, uh, setting everyone free that we could."

"Good for you!"

He ducks his head, self consciously. "Thanks. It's kind of a miracle I'm alive."

"A bit, yes, but a good miracle."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."