"On philosopher's stones?"

"Yes."

"I've never actually seen one. They're kind of - half mythical. Supposedly, you can use one to substitute for any ingredient in a transmutation, even esoteric ones, and you can make bigger trades than otherwise possible or safe. We started looking into them because we thought they might be a good enough trade to get our bodies back, though we didn't know anything about how to make them then. The thing we've been doing the last while is decoding the alchemy journal of someone who used to make philosopher's stones for the government. Alchemists might think your spells are running on a philosopher's stone if they see you using them? Alchemists doing things people didn't know alchemists can do sometimes gets rumors of them having a stone started."

"Eesh."

"Government having a stockpile's probably bad, especially since the only time we've seen evidence for them being used is in the war..."

"Elaborate on that?"

"The stockpile being bad?"

"No."

"The war?"

"Yes."

"Most of it was when I was really little so I don't remember what things were like then - I think it started like... Fourteen years ago? And ended six years ago. It's called the Ishval Civil War officially - we annexed Ishval a really long time ago, and Ishvalans weren't really allowed to live other places, and there's always been tension with the state. There was a period of higher tension, I think, so more soldiers were sent to occupy Ishval - one of them killed a kid during what he claimed was a building riot, which started real riots which kind of spiraled into a rebellion. The war spilled to neighboring areas, and a lot of the country ended up being a war zone. It ended when the Fuhrer ordered alchemists mobilized for war - that hadn't really happened before, not as direct soldiers - and the state alchemists wiped out most of Ishval's population."

"Ended up being a pretty convenient power grab, since State Alchemists never actually got demilitarized."

"Eesh."

"Government's not usually that blatant, but there's a lot of centralizing power - especially military power - whenever they see the chance, without really caring at whose expense it is."

"Elaborate on Fuhrer?"

"The commander-in-chief of the military and the leader of the nation. Whenever the old Fuhrer dies or steps down, the new one's chosen - generally from among the Generals, though sometimes a really exemplary lower ranked soldier's picked, especially if the last Fuhrer stepped down instead of dying. The process by which a new Fuhrer is picked is somewhat opaque, but I'm fairly sure the Generals don't elect them."

"Fuhrer Bradley has been in office for about twenty years. Don't know much for sure about his predecessors, since the history books are pretty heavily censored."

"Eesh."

"Technically we also have a parliament, which is democratically elected, but the Fuhrer can veto even unanimous laws and motions, can dismiss any parliament members or even force full reelections, and can put Orders into law which are just his office and which supersede laws passed in parliament - militarizing the State Alchemists was one of those. Still, parliament has control of a lot of minor stuff, probably to give them an illusion they're getting anything done."

Nod.

"Pretending to have a democracy's kind of more insulting than just admitting how the government's run - everyone knows what the government's like but you're not supposed to say so."

Nod nod.

Shrug. "Do you want to try getting back to our room soon, or have us keep explaining things?"

She's got the numbers written down. "One."

"Right."

Emma starts packing away their notes, separating out the original - which needs to stay here - from the translations - which are currently her property.

"Easiest way's a ride back in Bellona's armor."

Belmarniss eyeballs the size. "...yes," she says dubiously.