"Ha! I assume that doesn't work well because I know somebody's tried it but it'd flummox a garden variety idiot."

"Please don't try it on any real babies, I expect they'd miss developmentally essential nurturing and turn out terribly wrong."

"That would be my guess about why it's not popular downstairs!"

They're starting to attract stares. 

He shakes his head. "All right. See you tomorrow! Thank you!"

"Seeya." She goes into the Onyx with a wave.

And they drop by the next morning for an overpriced brunch.

"I did a couple scries," he says. "None gave us anything good to get a location off. It's worth trying to get more names from her, I think."

Belmarniss wraps up some breakfast pastries as bribes. "What all did you see?"

"One of them was sleeping. He did very considerately leave a light on next to him but I need angles of shadows to start guessing at a location. Another one was abovedeck but it was cloudy."

"And we don't have weather data, all right."

"I'll keep trying both of them and probably catch one abovedeck eventually but some more to work with would also be good."

"You noted the time in case they have consistent sleep schedules?"

"Yeah. Got one last night and one this morning." He makes a face.

"He spent three hours scrying this morning and two of them made their saves," says Hagan, patting him on the shoulder. "We should all be in awe of his sacrifices."

"Poor Mahdi. So long-suffering. So well-incentivized to get me leveled."

"We should go fight a sea dragon right now."

"Here're the names that I want you to check."

She takes the list. "Unless anybody wants more cantaloupe or something I'm ready to go."

"Sounds good!"

Onto the carpet, up up and away.

Hagan takes his mask off and flops with his head in Mahdi's lap to sunbathe. His snake curls up on his chest.

"Where do you get a snake if you want one?"

"I found her near the road from Sothis down the coast, when I was a kid. They also sell them, but you wanna make sure you get something that likes the climate, you know? If someone imported it from the Mwangi Expanse it's going to be real pissy all the time about the weather." 

"They hard to tame?"

"Nah. Snakes have really clear body language, they'll let you know if they've got an issue with you. Just got to get to know them. ...take this with a grain of salt, I've never met an animal I couldn't talk around and I assume most people do not have this experience or they wouldn't be so bewildered by their misbehaving pets."