Someone should get all of the forces of Good working together, to whatever extent they have shared aims, but Sergia isn't going to be well placed to do anything about that for years if ever and it goes on the pile of long-term things. 

"There's coordination between the kingdoms, though, right? At wars, if nothing else. Also, how coordinated are the demons? Are they more like a bunch of organizations or a bunch of individuals or a bunch of rabid possums or a type of weather event?"

"Yes. We all send forces to your former kingdom once a year, for example, because there's a really nasty old god under Cooper's Lake - think a Cthulhu type of thing - and we put it back down whenever it annually attempts to wake up. That's Pennsic. Though for the most part we're dedicated to handling our own local problems." 

"Demon is a catchall term for all sorts of things that are either made of magic or use magic or were transformed by magic. I think I mentioned before that they're not fundamentally different to the artefacts we use. Your friend Lucia, for example, has an artefact involving pure holy fire which can and will burn you very badly if you touch it without being worthy of it - up to and including disintegrating you if you try to misuse its power too badly. Scale that up a little, have it be a creature with some real agency rather than an object that needs a bearer to do anything, suddenly you have a fire-demon going around killing people for being unworthy. In a case like that, we agree with the artefact that it is excellent when people like Lucia exist, and we disagree that it is okay to kill people for not being Lucia, so the difference between a useful artefact and an evil demon is mostly in how much we can keep it under control. In other cases, the magic is made out of values that we really don't agree with, like the ancient force of all the people who ever truly felt that killing their enemies was good and virtuous." 

"So the short answer is that most of those sound like things that I've encountered - there were things that were more like weather events or rabid possums, and other things that were more like organizations. Sometimes it's more like a raw expression of magic shaping itself into a ghost, and sometimes it's something more like a dragon that has a deep and transformational relationship with magic but is generally made of bone and sinew rather than pure ambient ether, and sometimes it's a human being who got hold of an artefact they shouldn't and kept doing very bad things with it - you'll sometimes hear that kind of person called sorcerer or witch. And very occasionally it looks a lot like an old god that throws thunderbolts at anyone who offends him, which sometimes means we have to placate rather than slay." 

As many as several of those things are unpleasant news! Lucia being in danger from her own artifact. Enemies too powerful to kill. Potentially having to fight other humans. "What does placating the ones we have to placate look like? Are there a lot of sorcerers? Are they or the ghosts ever possible to talk into making better choices?"

"It looks like diplomacy, basically, except for the fact that you are negotiating with things that aren't human. This is actually something we should discuss, because I'm a Rose as well as a knight. It's very rare in Atlantia, but Roses are a peerage order and we can take dependents if we really want to - obviously you can't become a Rose except by being the inspiration that wins Crown, but we can have retainers who are also students in the arts of grace and courtesy. If you want to be just a squire I'll teach you to fight. If you want to be a Rose's squire, I'll buy you a serious-duty sewing machine and we'll consider things like learning French." 

Nicole shoots Sergia a sideways joking grin to let her know that she is not seriously criticising Sergia's garb, but she is serious about the offer to make sure she has everything she needs to work on improving her garb. 

"Convincing people to make better choices should always be the preferred option, in my opinion. Some of the knights disagree, because both demons and people can lie and say they agree to not kill anyone and then go kill someone. I trust that every good Atlantian honourably tries their best to do what they think is right." 

"I agree that diplomacy is better than violence whenever possible. And I appreciate the offer to teach me grace and courtesy and sewing and French, but I think that's not where my talents lie and not what I want to focus on at the moment. Unless Atlantia really needs more diplomats such that it's worth my putting the work in even if it doesn't come naturally."

"No. A diplomat who isn't good at diplomacy can very quickly do more harm than good. If you just want to be a squire and learn fighting, then you should be a squire and learn fighting, and we'll keep you sensibly far away from anything shaped like a fey being that will do terrible things if you offend their incredibly elaborate politeness rules. You'll need to be introduced to Spike, obviously."

"Cool, great, fighting it is. What does it mean to introduce someone to Spike?" If the seahorse on the populace badge represents, like, an actual talking seahorse or something, that would be awesome.

"We get on a boat and you go meet the unicorn seahorse from Atlantis." 

"That's totally awesome!"

Nicole allows herself a rare undignified snort of laughter. "Yes. She is, in fact, totally awesome. It's like we have the Lady in the Lake handing out magic weapons from Arthurian myth, but the fair lady of Atlantia has a way bigger lake. Absolutely nobody can pronounce her full name so we call her Spike and she doesn't mind." 

"I look forward to meeting her. Speaking of going out on a boat, how much time a month do people usually spend on demon-fighting stuff? It sounds like a stupid question when I put it like that but I know there are peers with demanding jobs, it can't be completely all-consuming."

"I won't lie, it's tricky and it's a lot of your evenings and weekends, but we try to really prioritise people maintaining modern jobs and families. It's important for keeping us in touch, so we don't forget that we are modern people with modern values and a wealth of not-very-period scientific knowledge. Occasionally people have gone a bit off the deep end who didn't keep in touch with that." 

"It's important work. I'll keep my grades up and not go off the deep end."

"Next question: you mentioned there being someone who can edit memories, and that this gets done to people involuntarily. How often does that happen? I acknowledge the need for secrecy, I just want to know--how much of a cost we're paying for it."

"We really can't do a lot of editing in the sense of implanting false memories. It's really mostly just making people forget about magic they saw. And we try to avoid it, as much as possible. If someone's report of seeing a sasquatch is going to be basically dismissed as a crazy conspiracy, we're happy to leave them alone and talk about it online. Other times people can be magically sworn to secrecy on various things that will actually hold them to it. But if it's someone like you, who has enough of the full picture that you could explain it in a sensible way, and you'd know where to look for evidence and how to record enough evidence that you could get major journalists to take you seriously, and you're smart and knowledgeable enough that you might be able to hint at things or work around the exact wording of a magical oath enough to convey that to someone else - then, yes, you have to make people forget." 

"Sounds like it's not getting used very often, then. Do you ever get someone who sees a sasquatch-or-whatever and goes digging and ends up joining us?" That would be the weirdest way to get into this hobby of all time. "I guess random hikers are unlikely to want to cultivate chivalric virtue."

"Nope. Stumbling on something by accident doesn't prove that you're the kind of person who can handle this. You have to be the right sort of person first. I suppose if we were going to memory-wipe them but then we found out that they're actually an ICU nurse who fosters kids and spends her weekends volunteering at an animal rescue, then that'd be worth considering." 

"Yeah, that makes sense. What else did I want to ask . . . oh, what happens if someone fights demons for a long time and then gets permanently injured and can't fight anymore, or has a crisis of conscience and can't use any artifacts, or, um, gets R&D'd? I assume the answer in the first two cases is just that they stop coming to fights but can maybe still make things."

"You can retire. Lots of the older folks do. They teach, and lead, and they craft stuff that will become magical once it's been passed down a few generations - or they use magic tools to craft stuff that will have some magic immediately. Or they go back to being medieval re-enactors who are involved in an educational nonprofit which teaches people about ancient and Middle Ages history, which is a perfectly fine thing to be. If someone's R&D'd then it's usually going to involve a memory wipe." 

It's good that this is a situation it's possible to retire from even though she hopes not to have to for several decades. Also pretty freaky that it's possible to lose all your memories of something you were doing for years, though she's not personally worried because she can just choose not to suck.

"Alright. I think that's everything I was nervous about on the demon-fighting front, though I'll still want to talk about your expectations of your squires at some point. Yesterday I wrote down all the historical virtues I could think of and unless I'm missing something I think I should go for something like loyalty or honor or justice, or if there's Roman stuff that needs virtus or Greek stuff that needs reason and philosophy I could do one of those. Though possibly I should start by trying all the poorly understood artifacts from Atlantis to see if I get lucky. I can show you the whole list once we're parked if you want."

"We'll talk about expectations before we commit to anything, yes. I will let you try some of the Atlantis artefacts, but until you know more and I know more about you, you are not touching any of the ones that are known to burn people or eat their hands or rot their flesh off their bones. If none of those work, it would be perfectly traditional for me to give you a gift, and I have one that works on loyalty. If you're very attached to Greek ideas of reason, I'll probably ask Layla if she has any ideas or thoughts for artefacts along those lines. For justice, I'd check the archives. I poked around a bit yesterday night to see what's available, but I wanted to hear from you before I got too deep into it." 

Layla is a Laurel in Nicole's household who does Arabic mathematics and science.

"What made you pick those ideas? Loyalty, honour, justice? Do they feel easy, or do they feel uniquely you?"

She doesn't want to touch things that will rot your flesh off! Unless there's a very good reason and it sounds like there isn't. 

"So, the things that feel uniquely me kind of are the things that come easily to me? They're the things I think I can embody best, because I'd be working with my natural inclinations instead of against them and making myself more the person I want to be. Like, consider the difference between obedience and loyalty. I could work on being really obedient, but I think it would push me in directions I don't want to go, make me less willing to use my own judgement and take initiative and question things that don't seem right. And then loyalty is similar in terms of actions, sometimes, but the mental framing works better with my own sense of rightness--obeying someone because we share the same goals and I trust their judgement about how to achieve those goals, not because I'm ignoring my goals in favor of theirs. And then also the aspects of loyalty that are about helping your friends out when they're in a jam and valuing their well-being like your own are also natural and easy. So I can push myself in the loyalty direction with a lot less effort and internal tension than pushing myself in the obedience direction. Does that make sense at all?"

"Makes perfect sense, and that's solid reasoning. Loyalty's a good value. I think it comes easy to be loyal to a fair kingdom like Atlantia, but I suppose that's the loyalty talking." Warm, easy smile.

"I use some virtues that don't come easy to me, and they do push me in directions I don't necessarily want to go. That's just magic. Morality has power, and power accumulates over time, and so old morality has power. I find that it's worth it to walk that line and that careful balance. If you don't, you won't be useless even if you stick just to loyalty and other things you're comfortable with. If you do, you might be able to better serve your kingdom. But I'll certaintly never be the one to push you towards obedience - that'd be way too convenient for me. If you go that direction it'll be because you came up with it yourself." 

"I've been assuming the standard thing is to start with one artifact and expand over time, and I'm definitely willing to do harder virtues If they're strategically optimal. If it turns out the kingdom needs someone with a focus on, say, temperance or fortitude or something instead of loyalty, I would make it work, but probably not as well all else being equal."

"To a first approximation we always need the virtues that are difficult for modern people more than we need the ones that are easy for modern people. But for now we will start you off with easy things. You'll need some kind of weapon that is just barely magical enough that demons won't all be completely immune - my household has some swords that have been passed down among previous generations of the household and that'll be sufficient, you only need a few decades for that - and we'll try to set you up with one actual medieval artefact, something centuries old with an actual power you'll need to learn to use. Just one of those, for now. Eventually everything you use is likely to be varying levels of significant or magic." 

Nicole turns off the rural road into a tiny hamlet, which has a large supermarket right on the edge. She parks the car carefully at the edge of the market and looks across at Sergia.

"I can leave you in the car if you need a few minutes to think. If you want to come in, people might overhear us, so we can only talk about stuff that you would've talked to me about before you learned about magic. Up to you."

"I'll come in, it'll be a good time to ask regular squire questions." She hops out of the car and follows Sir Nicole towards the supermarket. "Have you had a squire before or would I be your first?"