"Or for gnomes, wherever they live."

"I've never hung out with gnomes much. I guess none of them have been hard up enough for entertainment to try me even though I'm fascinating."

"They're missing out."

"I know, right, I have a tragic backstory and an ambitious quest and a funny sidekick who carries my stuff." She elbows him.

"I've tried making casters carry their own gear, they get encumbered two hours in and move like snails the whole rest of the way."

"I'm carrying my gear! I'm just not carrying the bolt of silk or the leftover mushrooms from breakfast. I figure I'll pass those out as free samples to your brother and all his church buddies."

"They'll love it. Or at least pretend to."

"You don't like the mushrooms? I think I was imagining they'd go over fine if you weren't having them three times a day for a century."

"I like them! But princes, you know, they're very spoiled. Adventurers will eat lots of things."

"Maybe they will want the fancy mushrooms. The ruffly ones that look orange in light, or the skinny pale ones. Still cheaper down here than a similar amount of oatmeal."

"Fancy mushrooms do sound like the sort of thing fancy princes would like."

"I hear they also like gains from trade but I don't know if that adds flavor per se."

"For Merenre? Definitely."

"I should charge him for his mushroom."

"It'll make him think it's tastier. If he were a drow girl he'd just want the most expensive husband."

"There are in fact boys with deliberately inflated prices specifically to cater to the conspicuous consumer market."

"Well, maybe Merenre wouldn't like that. Or would like it, he'd like it a lot, but not personally want to partake in it. He didn't auction off the right to be his wife, though he was thinking about it; I forget why not."

"Huh, maybe I can find a way to ask. Or, well, not ask, but induce him to explain probably by way of going on a tangent about the drow husband market."

"I bet that'll do it."

"The lady who gave us directions was dropping hints about her nephew. I think it's the book pocket in my backpack, it rather screams 'wizard'."

"That's - sort of sweet, really. Is there something else that says 'single' or do they not so much care -"

"I'm unclear how they show that in women but I don't look local anyway. Wrong accent and I'm not doing that high maintenance haircut thing and they all have kind of long noses even if you explain away the adventurer gear."

"You don't look different to me but I guess people can't usually tell as easily in other species."

"Longer generations, we probably objectively look less different."

"Huh, I hadn't thought about that. I also can't usually tell halfling ethnicities apart, though, let alone Dwarves or gnomes or whatever."