"Right."

"Some of 'em pick up a surprising amount anyway, I guess like Osirian girls who can read."

"Well, I haven't, so I'll be in character."

"Yup. If anybody hands you a book they will totally be reading your mind to check if you are extracting meaning from the text so it's a good thing you're covered on that front."

"Studied for years."

"Took them that long to give up? They could have saved some time by putting down the project for a bit when you were, what, five, and trying again when you were eight in case that helped, and then being like 'oh well'. I guess throw in a little more iteration time if different alphabets are different."

"My father really didn't like the thought one of his children was stupid. He's into all those heredity theories, you know, if I'm stupid it means he is."

"Wow, can't he just see how many spells a day he gets and assume if necessary that you were dropped on your head?"

"Maybe someone should've suggested that."

"Probably nobody drops princes on their heads. Especially when they're only carrying-around size for a couple years."

"And healing would probably fix it anyway. But it'd be good for him to have had an out."

"I mostly avoided this problem, I was just as interested in anyone as proving how smart I was even if you didn't factor in the implicit threats to my life."

"Well, see, if you're smart, proving you're smart is probably great fun."

"A little bit but mostly not implicitly? I knew I was smart. I think I was - curious what they'd do to find out more, curious what kinds of things it's expected smart people could do. And I wanted the leeway and freedom that came with it being common knowledge."

"What kinds of things is it expected smart drow'll do, be a wizard?"

"Yeah, lotta wizards. Clerics too if you're more wise than cunning. Military, government, our variant of banking, logistics ops."

"Can you choose to be a cleric? In Osirion lotsa people who dedicate their lives to the church never get a level out of it."

"Demon lords might be different. For one thing nobody keeps dedicating their life to one if a year or two goes by and they've got squat to show for it, they pick a different one."

"Ah. I think people in the church mostly believe that if you're being that conditional about it you don't have the right attitude for it."

"That's probably true, if you're picking your god on that basis. Less so if the whole thing is propped up by the desire to spend slightly less time as a horrible grub later on. That said I'm sure anyone who just deeply feels called to advancing the goals of Orcus can get a level out of him a bit faster."

"What goals are those?"

"He's into undead but he actually isn't very popular with drow as far as I know."

"Do drow slaves mostly go to the Abyss? Do you know?"

"Don't know. I haven't gotten enough crystal ball time to check ones I knew. They're not the ones killing the babies, maybe they get Maelstrom."

"Sure. Is the crystal ball checks just out of personal fascination or are you going to do something with it -"