"I doubt it was their friends that got them."

"Revenge? Wanted them to finish out a job? Good prices on their heads in Taldor?"

"You don't know the first thing about anything, do you? The treasure's secondary. Everyone who is still alive in this industry knows things."

"I'm catching up from all the time I spent living under a rock."

"What, this rock?" She kicks the floor.

"Avistanian rock, if you're actually curious."

"Are even the underground Avistanis whores?"

"I knew a poor lady who'd rent out her husband by the hour, but it's not understood to be classy."

- snort.

"You want an honest opinion? I think you're probably not getting paid enough. I wasn't getting paid enough and I was rich as sin. There's all kinds of idiots striving for control of the Inner Sea and a lot of them have a lot of money."

"Yeah? How much should I be asking for?"

"Hell, they're playing for kingdoms, ask for one of them."

"Tempting. How do kingdoms wind up table stakes?"

Shrug. "I have no idea how any of those idiots get into power. Well, except in Osirion, where it is widely known that you fire off a few Heal spells and say you're a god."

"It's foolproof, I don't know why more people don't do it that way. What idiot things are the idiots doing -"

"We were taking money from three different national governments and six dukes of Taldor, at one point."

Belmarniss whistles. "What's going on everybody wanted to know about so bad?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"It'd sure put me in good company."

"They all paid."

"And they're real mad at your friends and maybe just taking their time getting around to you. If they wanted more of it, after you all get caught's not an opportune time to pressgang you into another fact-finding mission... so maybe the info wasn't good."

"Figured they might just not know where I was. They all thought I was a man."

"Could be a good smokescreen, I don't actually know how my source knew where to find you. You want me to tell your jailors in case they can beef up security for if it gets around?"

"- they're one of the people that'd be looking."

"I think they're pretty serious about getting people into Axis and this is how they do it but if you don't want me to I won't."

"'s fucking stupid, right. As if I'd be different in Axis."