"It's hard when they're new if you don't have any servants."

"I think lots of people are legitimately having a really positive experience, even if they'd probably choose to have fewer if it were their choice."

"If you say so."

"Her given name is Abada. She was going by the Dread Dagger, when arrested."

"I haven't heard of her but I'm not really up on my maritime villain flashcards."

"They're as melodramatic as adventurers, it's terrible."

"Hey, Belmarniss is my real name. It does mean 'bottomless pit' but that's just how drow names are, man."

"Met a guy the other day who claimed he was the resurrection of Aroden. He had the same beard as the one portrait in most Osirion history books, that was the only resemblance."

"When I started adventuring there was this asshat who claimed that his family was eaten by the Tarrasque." 

Hagan flicks a pebble at him.

"Investors like the dead twin angle on my research project, it's sort of cute."

"Investors are all very dense and I don't understand how the industry survives. Someday the money will stop flowing and everyone will have to get day jobs."

"Wanna make ninth first," he says fervently.

"Do they not get okay returns?"

"The returns are quite good when they don't get wiped out by legal problems or party deaths, but those happen often enough to make the overall returns worse than for shipping. - at least, worse than for shipping when there's not a weirdly organized pirate ring on the seas."

"Are the shipping folks subsidizing the adventurism investors?"

"That's a good question. I ...think so. As are various governments with interests both in adventuring and in having a population of high-level retired adventurers."

"There's government interest in that? I guess there would be."

"So they can put you to work, if we're ever invaded. Plus the crown is the most significant purchaser of the most sophisticated magic items. And they need people who can scry, for all those afterlife statistics."

"And give tours of Axis. That's the main reason I'd like to make ninth."

"I can see you as a glorified tour guide."

"I'm not sure that's a compliment." But he's grinning.

"I want to sell Teleports. Make 900 gold once a week, spend the rest of my time picking up a literature hobby or something -"

"You'll get bored."

"Nonsense. Boredom was made up by rich people so poor people wouldn't be jealous of them."