"Plus the pendant, I guess. I - am trying not to feed the urge to attempt to rip it off, and I think it's trying to be polite, but - it'd be annoying to be stuck to a normal necklace this tight, let alone a - weird mindreading entity that really likes talking about my feelings."

"That sounds annoying. Are we allowed to trade it off, or does it have to be on you?"

"Says it can't be removed until the quest is completed."

"Well, okay. Be polite," he says sternly to the amulet. "Can it hear me?"

"Yeah. Says it's trying. And that it acknowledges that the circumstances are unfortunate."

"Well, let us know when you see an opening to end it," he tells the amulet.

"Says we need enough money for passage to the city that has the hall in it. And then we need to investigate how to get inside, it's probably guarded."

"Well, if they don't know much about magic around here that's solvable."

"Yeah. Lawgivers likely have more abilities than regular people, though, we should still be careful. Pendant doesn't have specifics."

"Is there a way to identify a Lawgiver -"

"Hooded brown cloak, long black staff. Says they're not very subtle."

Nod.

Sigh.

"I'm really glad you liked the horses."

"No such thing as a bad horse."

"I buy that. I looked for anything with kids but the pendant suspects they don't have anything besides the schools."

"What do they even teach, here?"

"Dunno. Seems like most people are literate, if nothing else."

"Hope it's not too rough a transition to being a free society."

"Might not have to do it all at once." She pauses. "Pendant says it's not planning to overthrow Landru. They're supposed to be together. Once they are they can guide society towards something less horrendous. It hopes."

" - huh. What's it aiming for?"

"Says that's a very general question. A good society, one that strives for Landru's ideal of peace and tranquility without trampling on the freedom of individuals. But getting there is going to be complicated. It doesn't actually have a concrete plan, right now, that's - I guess the artifact is sort of the guardian of the system's values, but the entity that's running everything we see is pretty necessary for implementation details. This one isn't very good at that."

"I guess lots of places are run off dumber ideas than that."

"Guess so."

"I think I'm really bad at this talking thing. I'd take a walk except that - that just means talking to people I can't frown at, mostly."