"How are mushrooms grown, on farms in caves? Do they not require any light at all?"

"No light. The slaves need light to work by but the mushrooms have no such requirements. They grow in compost and nightsoil."

"Huh. How does the cost of a meal compare to how much a laborer can make for a day's work -"

"The slaves do not possess currency and drow are almost never doing unskilled labor and if they do it's in some situation where most of their value add is in being a drow instead of a slave. A relatively poor single drow lady who has been between jobs for a while can almost certainly still eat because the ones who'd be between jobs for a while and squander their savings and be on bad terms with their moms do not make it to adulthood. But some relatively poor single drow lady who doesn't own her home, not making much cash in her capacity as an... overseer or restaurateur or something... spends maybe half her after-rent income on food? And with a high mushroom to other ratio."

Nod.

"It's not all mushrooms, they just appear in many foods in high volume like humans' regionally preferred starches do. There's lighted gardens and meat and fish and also theft."

"From the surface? Seems like it'd be such a hassle."

"Humans'll do wacky things for spices. Drow do it for those and also, like, sugar and wheat."

"Well, maybe they'll agree to trade with us for those, then."

"Probably. It'd simplify transport a lot if you dug a shaft and had a way to lower stuff down."

"That doesn't sound impossible but I don't know much about engineering."

"It can be done but I don't know the details and it's possible it's more complicated somehow if the top is the surface instead of just a higher cave."

"Well, I'll write the paper, someone else will have to figure out the rest."

"What's the submission process?"

"You bring it by the office of the journal, in Sothis."

"Sure, but do you have to be a cleric, do you have to be a man..."

"You can submit them anonymously. I think that most successful submissions involve getting lots of advice from the sort of people who do it all the time, though, and who can help you revise your submission until it works."

"So if I ever take it into my head -"

"I can try to help."

"Cool."

"Gonna be a bishop someday?"

"I think you need connections."

"I know the regional governor of Tephu! If he ever sees me he'll kill me but I do know him."

"Different sort of connections. I think."

"Why will he kill you?"