"I'm about four thousand in short years."

"I'm twenty-eight."

"Oh, no, I'm glad I've been around orcs enough that I really understand that doesn't mean you recently learned to walk..."

How is the blue-haired fellow in the crystal ball doing?

Patiently listening to a lecture on pharaoh etiquette.

"Maybe if this doesn't stop happening you should write up a pamphlet for all the visitors to read and make them affirm they read it, save some time."

"We don't want to relax security in response to this because 'the eleventh person is very dangerous' seems like the sort of thing one might do. It's too bad about the first impression it makes, though."

"I suppose the eleventh person might be very dangerous if whatever's sending snake monsters hither and yon feels it necessary to sneak the danger past you but the implied spread of capabilities here is pretty disparate. If Cor could do his magic - since apparently antimagic precautions weren't necessarily responsible for him not being able to cast a spell -"

"It does seem pretty unlikely. But - maybe once we have a better idea of what's sending people -"

"I don't feel like each additional one is shedding a lot of light in that direction, to be honest."

"Really? I think Anaander was pretty clarifying, and maybe the new person will be once we can talk to him."

"Oh, what do you think is clarified?"

"That this is about - the cluster of people that includes me and her and your Maitimos. That some of them are very evil and dangerous people."

"Well, yes, but that doesn't tell us why or by whom at all."

"No."

"I suppose it could be one of you? Since you-ness is not as narrowly predictive as I might have supposed."

"My best guess was actually someone mad at one of us, and hoping to make a point? But it could also be one of us."

"So far the only sign of anyone mad at any of you... who is still alive... is Cor and he didn't do it."

"It'd be pretty astonishing if Anaander didn't make any other enemies. - new person's coming -"

New person prostrates himself on the floor and is announced by the attendant. "Aitim Neli, your grace."

"You can sit comfortably. - is something wrong?"

"No, your grace."

"'s very rude in his culture, to make someone kneel like that."

"I gathered that. It's not common in any of yours, either, though, and -"

"Do you have floor-cleaning magic?"

" - yeah, of course -"