"And obviously it wouldn't be good for Osirion to be a target for Cheliax."

"That's one advantage of neutrality, yes. Low-priority target all around."

"I think if Abadar is right then someday Osirion will be richer and more powerful than Cheliax. But it doesn't make sense to pick a fight before then."

"Well. Let's get the girl her legal arrangement."

"I'm working on it."

"Is it looking doable?"

"I haven't heard back from anyone yet but I can't see why it wouldn't be doable in Absalom and maybe it could also be made to work in Sothis."

"Absalom's neat. I'm planning to stash my parents there when I get 'em back."

"It would be frustrating to have to burn a Teleport every time I wanted to check on her but I'll probably want to visit Absalom regularly anyway."

"And you'll have to give us a ride there regularly. Sounds like a win all around."

"She was very offended, that you'd check if she was all right. - I still think you should, obviously."

"I wonder why - I could see exasperated, but offended?"

"I think she thought if I was a decent person I wouldn't need you to check, and if I were a strategic person I wouldn't want you to? It was a bit hard to tell."

"You could ask."

"Probably should." Sigh.

"You don't like her?"

"She's hot, which isn't very helpful to think about, and she's smart, which would suit her better if she wasn't evil."

"I wish we knew why she was evil! She's disposed to evil but that by itself - I'm just going in circles there, I should drop it till I have a stunning insight -"

"I think probably we should assume that prayer to Asmodeus counts for more than prayer to demon lords, on the alignment axis."

"Guess so." Sigh.

"I think tomorrow I'm going to go to Absalom, fire paperwork, maybe pick up Kyeo a present."

"Awwww, that's a good idea. I think he's really bored. You should get him - a castles set. or a magic hamster if those are still dirt cheap..."

"What's magic about the hamsters?"

"Zana Armadi, a transmuter in Absalom who I am vaguely acquainted with, came up with the idea of little pets that, at a command word, turn to stone, so you can take care of them on your schedule not theirs. Big upfront effort but the idea was that it'd breed true. It didn't breed quite true, though - the next generation did have the ability to turn to stone at a command word, but it was a different command word for each one, and no way to tell what it was. So the guy had a thousand hamsters that were totally normal unless you happened to somehow guess, and he was giving them away to anyone who'd take one."

"Huh! Were the command words in fact words, or just - series of sounds -"