"If everyone's going to decide that whether Mahdi's sleeping with her is the determinant of whether she's all right you'd expect it to be in the other direction."

"Yeah, it's dressed up better that way but it being dressed up better that way is dependent on buy-in from the wives that we are not going to get, here. In theory I could get a place in Shazeun and keep her there but I don't have sixth circle spells and even if I did I'm shit at enchantments, mostly because they skeeve me out... also in Shazeun someone might, like, steal her, or her materials."

"Osirion will let us import her if the paladins will let us take her, I looked it up. There's an extra tax and a reporting requirement, but." Shrug.

"If we just steal her, do they actively have to stop us."

"We are not stealing prisoners from Lastwall."

"Yeah, even if they don't have to stop us they might do it anyway."

"We could - plan a marriage and have some sort of framework in place until the marriage takes place and then she can keep refusing the marriage? This requires her cooperation, I don't know how much we should expect to have it."

"I mean, probably a lot if the alternative is turning her into a statue and probably not much if the alternative is escaping, what kind of framework do you mean?"

"I mean, we agree with the paladins that I will marry her, if I have her consent, and that in the meantime I'll keep her supervised and geased and making magic items, with you all checking up that I haven't touched her, and that I am bound to keep doing that even if she refuses the marriage, and see if they'll release her to us under those conditions."

"I feel like we are just putting the same item in the shop window over and over under different labels and seeing which gets some passersby to buy it."

"I think there is a non-cosmetic difference here."

"It seems pretty cosmetic but it might - free her up to not be trying to optimize on several axes at once? If she doesn't have to appeal to Mahdi she can do other things with that energy and that - presentation surface area; if she doesn't have the statue thing hanging over her head she can have a little more space to breathe?"

"Yeah."

"I can run it by the order."

"I can go tell Carissa. Unless you want to."

" - I think it's a good idea for it to be you. Thank you."

"You're welcome." He leaves this bunch of weird people in his room and goes to Carissa's cell.

"Hey."

"Hey. They have a new i- they have combined their ideas into a slight variant idea."

"- oh?"

"The slight variant idea is they set everything up like he's going to marry you but then he doesn't actually do it until you say so, which could be never, and he still does the geas thing but his friends check up on him to make sure he isn't touching you. The purple one thought this might give you more space to think or something?"

" - huh. I ...don't see what would appeal to them about this idea."

"I assume he would probably still take the money you make off magic items and also they don't seem to like slavery and this way they don't have to call it slavery."

"...I guess? But it gets him strictly less than doing the same thing and calling it marriage, and his friends have to bother checking in. Unless they're just intending to assure the paladins they'll do that and then do it very halfheartedly?"

"I'm not sure. You could ask them next time they come by or I could go ask now?"