"I can lay enchantments for spells I can't cast, if I ended up stuck at third circle it wasn't going to affect my business any." They're adventurers, probably it'd be offensive to say that Fireballing things seems like a waste of time when you can make flaming swords that'll work forever.

"You can lay enchantments for spells you can't cast? How?"

Oh good. "I think anyone can do it, just, most of them mess it up and burn their materials enough it's not worth it. I can't do divine spells, obviously. But I've done spell resistance, I've done withstanding, I got a good look at a sword of Ghost Touch once and I'm pretty sure I could do it even though that one's spell base is Etherealness. - I can do most magic item enchanting at double the normal pace but I can't reliably do double the normal pace and a spell I can't cast, unless the item's very simple."

" - huh. Do you have anything on you - or did the paladins confiscate it - that you made?"

"Not for myself, no. I was saving up for a headband."

"There's a jeweler in Sothis who can do that. She's not even a wizard," remarks Belmarniss. "I considered going there when I wanted my anklet but she only works in jewelry, the guy I went with was a touch cheaper since he was only buying spellsilver and not gold and I can cast the spell myself, so I don't know much else."

" - now that's weird, if she's not even a wizard what's she doing - I guess you could just memorize literally all of the physical correlates of the spell being in the right place but that sounds incredibly hard..."

"I'm not a particular expert at magic item crafting myself, I have no idea whether that'd work."

That's good because it'd be appealing to him to have someone on hand who can do it and bad because he won't have the context to appreciate when she's particularly clever. Or forgive understandable mistakes but she's already realized she's going to have to never make any. "What do you specialize in?"

"Teleportation. My retirement plan was to pick up Sothis to Quantium, or Sothis to Katheer, ten minutes of work every morning and it pays a couple hundred gold a day."

It would be better if he worked more. She nods, smiles. "Nice work if you can get it."

"He keeps threatening to write a book once he retires."

"I will obscure all of the details so no one can identify you. They will have no idea which of the many drow wizardsorcerers I am talking about."

"I still bet in six months you'll get antsy and start daydreaming about how to provoke a dragon into attacking Sothis."

"It will take six months just to convince my mother that I can leave her sight without returning to my dreadful adventuring ways."

Snort. "The other option floating around is if you get an Atonement. Those don't work if you don't mean it, so it'd be pretty credible - probably it'd be advisable to keep an eye on you so it'd be apparent if you began corresponding with Asmodeans and they tried to convince you the other way again but I think maybe you wouldn't have to be pinned down so airtight. Of course there the sticking point is you have to mean it, whereas Mahdi is easily fooled if you smile politely."

She's not tricking anyone; they're playing a game with her and one of the rules is that she has to smile the whole time. "The paladins mentioned - well, not directly - but I wouldn't really know where to start. I don't want to report anybody to Asmodeus, but I - don't think that's the thing that Good cares about, or more people would count as it."

Belmarniss shrugs. "You don't have to come around on literally everything. I ping chaotic good and I would eat a baby if I went to a dinner party and somebody put it in front of me and I strongly suspect Pharasma's full of shit on her assessment of undead though I haven't yet done a research project to check. And I don't think you have to get all the way to Good, though if you're seriously considering trying the Atonement we should clear up with relevant parties how much they're holding out for in that department just to be sure."

"I have never - eaten or otherwise disposed of - any babies, and I don't contest Pharasma's right to do as she sees fit with people. I wouldn't be stalling about an Atonement if I were clear on a specific opinion or action I am supposed to atone about, the problem isn't so much that I haven't got enough as that I have no idea what I'm supposed to do at all."

"Hm. I mean, you might just ping because of participating in the Chelish armed forces, though you really shouldn't if you're specifically doing it at the Worldwound - I assume someone has in fact checked you read Evil, or did they just kind of forget to do that -"

"- I didn't see them do it? Don't paladins just kind of detect evil all the time?"

"At will, yeah."

"So maybe you are actually lawful neutral except Cheliax does something to make a startling number of people count as evil even if they're just, like, I don't know, florists, so that probably got you and they probably checked but before anyone breaks out the incense and starts yelling 'Iomedae she's super sorry we promise' we should follow up on that... Drow also have an awful rate of people being evil but I think it's probably just all the murder, did you murder anybody?"

"No!

I don't think - it's Cheliax specifically doing something - I think evil is just kind of where you end up if you try to do things, and aren't specifically serving some good god who can give you lots of random rules to follow."

"I do things and I'm not remotely religious unless I somehow count as worshipping my future self via time travel, which would be a very circular way to count as Good."