She nods. "May need to workshop the phrasing of that skill some. The idea was just enough courtly behavior to get me both to and through the meeting. Bribes are an option too, though. Three token ident as a wealthy merchant with some clout, upgraded equipment to fund bribes brings us to four, sincerity brings us to six, two token persuasion, two token talking-slash-bribing one's way through the royal court to wherever you're trying to be?"

She purses her lips. 

"Or perhaps a favour... I can give you a skill download for contemporary politics, which I think should serve?" 

"Would that cover How To Bribe too?"

"If that's part of the political process there, yes." 

"Okay, so two points of persuasion and two points of that. Yeah, that probably works, and it fits into ten points, which means it can be my buffer before the space battle."

A little acknowledgement in her eyes, a brief moment of tapping at her keys and glancing at her screen. 

She nods and makes a few more notes. "So Xazar. What're your thoughts on how paranoid the adventuring party is likely to be?"

"Adventuring parties have a habit of being meticulously diligent about the precautions that have been drilled into them, but impressively reckless when colorable." 

There's a faint disbelieving - if wistful - tone in her voice, and a headshake she mostly represses. 

"The dynamic changes a little, with less durability and healing magic in the equation, but less then you might hope." 

A wry smirk flits across her face. "Seen that first-hand, have you?"

"Quite." 

Her head bows down with a breathless snort. 

"There's a certain... excitability that is hard to train away in many of the people who develop the talents for it, and when there's so much at stake, it can be hard to blame them, especially when much of it is a reflexive adaptation to make the best use out of a heroic destiny, but well." 

She tilts her head to the side. 

"That does unfortunately little to make it less stressful, and much to make to make more proffesional operations pleasant, for all those can be stifling, at times." 

She nods. "Well. Probably this bunch won't've been trained to be suspicious of new faces, then, which means I can talk my way onto the party and save them from the traps. Magic here, I think, for peak flexibility and adaptation."

"Actually... Would you wager there's much that'll parse as unhealably cursed wounds?"

"I'd expect that to be a threat (alongside curses that don't inflict conventional wounds) yes - not that they'd nesscarily be unhealable with the tools that they have at all, but that it's quite a plausible threat that it would make it an issue not likely instantly remediable the way it might normally be." 

"Hm. If I heal everything that isn't cursed to bleedin' hell, and I can maybe at least stall some of the cursed shite in the field, then they can probably recover from the rest. Hopefully. Maybe."

She nods lightly. 

"A worthwhile approach -  for all that Xazar isn't the type to avoid quick and efficient kills, when he can get them, for all that he is inclined to cruelty." 

"Ah. That's good, then. I can abuse physical shields down most corridors and keep bubblehead charms on everyone. to avoid their getting gassed."

Her brow furrows a little. 

"A wider variety of threats to handle is hardly good news. I'm not too sure if it would be quite that simple to use Hogwarts graduate for that, either - as I understand it that system of magic has a particular focus in their protections on the strictly personal, which might make that less than practical." 

"Good point, never was depicted being applied to others. Hm, what about getting a pile of gas masks with my equipment allotment?"

"That should be reasonably possible, yes." 

"And a backpack compatible with expansion charms should be cheap too, that'll let me fill it up with supplies like the gas masks and everything else we'll need. Think I'm missing something obvious here?"

"A ten-foot poles are a must for the daring dungeon-delver." 

She laughs and smirks. "Too true. Definitely wedge a few of those in the sack. And a towel, of course. A hitchhiker should never be caught without her towel."

"Quite." 

She smiles wryly. 

"Beyond that... materials for a specialized wand, perhaps? A map of the area around the mission site is customary as well, as is paper for further notetaking." 

"Absolutely. Presumably the rules of the Hogwarts Graduate perk mean that I can always make wands or other foci out of either or both of shite from the allotment or shite I scrounge up?"

"A wand is included gratis, as are the skills to relatively easily make one with the materials available in the mission world. I would expect three days to be more than enough to ensure you could ensure the usability of an additional wand or two, if you desired - though the overall performance quality will likely be a little worse, without acquiring quality magical reagents suitable for the task outside the scope of the free level of the basic equipment allotment."