"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."

"Writing the literature or just reading it?"

"I think the fashionable thing to do is to say you just read it, and write things in secret and tell your descendants to burn it, and then they'll read it and obey your wishes if it's dreadful and publish it only if it's so good that it was worth defying you for the sake of Art."

"You'll mess with their alignment," he says disapprovingly. 

"We're getting a little ahead of ourselves."

"Oh, Hagan doesn't want to tell us his retirement plans, drat."

"Maybe I shan't retire. I hear Chaotic is hard to maintain retired. Maybe I will adventure until I've started calling everyone 'foolish youngster'."

"Could aim for neutral good, when you retire."

Shrug.

"I've been working on it in my spare time! The people teaching those econ classes they give out for free have no idea about the depth of my scheme to cunningly only ask questions after raising my hand and being called upon."

"Sure you want to join us on a piracy-related adventure? Fazil's clung on to lawful but only by stepping up his prayer habits, Mahdi dipped into neutral."

"I have time. And Nirvana's plan B anyway. Praying is lawful, or is it only if the god is or only if you do it regularly?"

"Structuring your life more can be lawful, and praying to lawful gods is. I don't think I was actually very close, but it'd be more disastrous if I hit neutral than it is for Mahdi so it seemed prudent to take no chances."

"I will drop my tentative plan of repeating 'hey there Desna you might be vaguely acceptable' for an hour every day."