"Not just for me, for anybody trading with them. They are not predictable pacifist types downstairs."

"That I've heard. People do trade with other countries even though they're mostly lawless."

"I don't think, uh, Absalom or whatever is the right comparison here."

"Can you describe the differences?"

"...bearing in mind that I have never been to any of the three countries that might be below you and am from the other side of the sea, sure. I do think that drow countries are less different than human ones if only because the generations are longer so we've had less time to differentiate.

"The prevailing understanding among drow is that Pharasma doesn't care what we do and will send us all to the Abyss regardless and that the Abyss is more survivable if you're in good with a demon lord and more comfortable if you have committed appetizing evils in life to distinguish you from the rest of the writhing larvae. - I'm not confident that's false about drow who don't die as infants, though it is false about the infants. People vary in how far they take this but you should expect about half the total population to be non-drow kept as explicit slaves, half the drow to be men and not explicitly called slaves only because they think it doesn't require specification to be clear that men are chattel, and every adult woman you meet to have murdered about half her children. We're still elves, it's not that people can't just not have them, it's very deliberate. Politics is expressly conducted as a matter of timing one's betrayals correctly. Many people hold it to be the case as a philosophical matter that drow are superior and everybody else is slave labor waiting to happen.

"This doesn't actually mean they can't conduct trade. They do. We can if we're lucky lead long lives and don't have to be in a terrific hurry about doing anything in particular with them including the bad stuff, so once you get anything set up it could run smoothly for decades, set up a pulley system and send a sack of wheat down and get a sack of dried mushrooms up, whatever. Trading's less effort than stealing all your stuff. But you won't be dealing with people who'd, in the main, actually object to stealing your stuff, or be thought less of by their friends if they stole your stuff. Also the sexism goes the opposite way up here and I'm not sure how well that can be diplomacized away."

"We don't treat women as slaves," he says indignantly. 

"I said opposite way, not identical magnitude."

"Huh. Will they talk to men, or will that cause problems all by itself?"

"They'll talk to you, they don't have the chaperoning custom - again, unless this drow country is unlike mine."

"Well, all of that is very discouraging but Abadar seemed to approve of our attempting it so maybe it really can all be priced in."

"Abadar's been consulted? I guess that's encouraging if he likes the idea."

"I think so. Would you want to be involved in coordinating it?"

"...sounds fun. Not on a long term basis, but between adventures, sure, why not."

"Excellent. You should get in touch with Luay, in this office, I think he's out now, works under the Prince Merenre -"

"Gosh, okay. Should I just come back tomorrow morning?"

"Unless you want to hang around, yes."

"Should check into my inn and collect my share of boat proceeds and stuff."

"All right! See you tomorrow."

"See you!"

She goes and catches up with Hagan to see about the boat.

Boat can be sold for a tidy profit. 

"Technically we could cut Mahdi out since he was asleep. Do you guys have policy on that?"

"If we all went in but someone happened to be in a different hallway or on their sleep shift or knocked out in the first round or whatever they're still in. You don't want people making tactical decisions off being in the place where the money will be."

"Legit. Quarters make it..." She performs the division. "Nice. Uh, guy offered to have me consulting on the... drow trade thing. I'm going back tomorrow to meet some guy who works under Prince Merenre."

He makes a face.

"It'll be interesting!"