Ma'ar nods. It's nice how it's so much easier to have a reasonable calm conversation with Lionwind because he isn't constantly saying things that are incredibly stupid. He's jealous that Azabel gets such a good teacher. 

"I thought about mages having other options and it's true, but some of them hurt people a lot more, and might kill them?" 

"I would expect a compulsion to cause significant harm, actually! Not physical harm, but - as a Mindhealer it is a very difficult decision, judging if a patient is about to hurt themselves or you and you need to intervene, because being set-commanded is traumatic." 

"...I guess." Ma'ar thinks he would still prefer it to being stabbed, probably? Since if someone stabs you wrong you might bleed out before a Healer gets there. "- Could a mage use compulsions to, uh, I guess stop someone if they're about to try to kill themselves? I feel like that should work." 

"I...suppose so...but I am really not sure when that would come up! And by itself that is not enough reason to have compulsions be allowed for non-criminal intent, I think, since there are so many more ways to abuse them than to use them helpfully." 

Azabel writes down that it's possible actually that with a light enough touch compulsions could do some replacement Mindhealing tasks and that would make it less of a problem that there are so few proper Mindhealers but it doesn't seem like it needs getting into in this class right now when she can ask Lionwind in private later.

Another student raises their hand. "Are they allowed other places? I know some countries are more horrible than Tantara and use blood-magic in war, what about this?" 

"- Oh, you know, I do actually have some stories about that! One of my own teachers is a Mindhealer who traveled to many parts of the world, and further south in the Ceej, placing compulsions on someone secretly or against their will is illegal - though poorly enforced, I hear - but it is allowed, and as I understand it not uncommon, for nobility to require their servants to be under compulsions - they call them 'loyalty' compulsions but as I understand it, they are mostly just making them not able to assassinate the people they serve or be agents to other families. Apparently otherwise the other nobles will try to get spies and assassins in. It all sounds rather exhausting." 

"- Huh, you can do that? Put someone under a compulsion they agree to, to not murder you, and just - have it stay there?" 

"...Yes? I think they do not last forever, but - months, at least, and these nobles would have house mages to check. And I imagine it works better if it is not something the person is fighting very hard - which likely the servants are not, since this practice makes it less likely that they will try to be assassins, if they expect to fail anyway." 

"That's gross," someone mutters. 

Ma'ar is looking very thoughtful. 

"It is kind of gross and I sort of think it might be sticky? If you stop compelling all your servants one day then you're fine to begin with because nobody tried to be your servant in order to assassinate you but sooner or later you have to hire a new one and that one has probably heard that you're the only person in town who doesn't, and maybe that gets you some perfectly normal gardener who just doesn't want a compulsion on but maybe it gets you an assassin, just because all the other targets are harder to reach, so nobody will be the first to stop and it would be better to find some other way to solve your assassins problem."

Ma'ar is frowning. It's hard to find the right words for the point he wants to make, and he wouldn't even try with the normal teacher, but Lionwind is smart. 

"I...think it'd be stupid to do in Tantara where mostly there aren't assassins anyway," he says slowly. "And - it seems sort of bad to do to servants serving nobles, because - the nobles already have more power than the servants, right, they get to make the rules, they have other options. But...okay, if it's the city Guard, not in Tantara where they're mostly following the rules but - in Predain the Guard is really corrupt and - and that's sticky, I think, it's - it pays horribly and it's not fun if you're a person who - cares about things being nice and the law being followed, I think, because they're not. And - and the Guards are the ones who have power over everyone else and they use it to hurt people and take their money and - and rape them, because they can get away with it, they're stronger." 

Shrug. "Just, I - think it'd be different if someone made a rule, all right, if you want to be a Guard who's allowed to carry a big sword and arrest people whenever you feel like, and have them be scared of you, the rule is you need to have a compulsion not to rape anyone. Because then that would be the thing that was sticky, and - and I don't know how else to get away from the problem where it's hard to make the Guards not corrupt and horrible because mostly only people like that want to have most of their colleagues be like that..." 

Lionwind's expression is very carefully controlled and everyone else including their regular teacher looks COMPLETELY HORRIFIED. 

"I think it might be good to read more history in this kind of class? And try to figure out why it got like that in Predain in the first place and why it isn't in Tantara, in case there's something else you could do instead. - also you'd have to be really careful with the exact kind of compulsion even if it's only on people who are like 'yes go ahead I want this job anyway' - for them, of course, but also if one finds a way around it then there being a compulsion would mean nobody'd believe their victim -"

"Yes, that is a good point, Aza," Lionwind says, looking grateful. "And, yes, I think this type of question is mostly about history, and ethics and some philosophy, rather than anything specific to magic. ...To be honest this is true of Mindhealing as well, many problems that patients can have depend on their life situation in context, which has a great deal to do with the history of the world around him..." 

This is extremely a digression but it's interesting enough to get the room's attention onto something else, and then Lionwind segues into asking whether the book Ma'ar read had other types of illegal magic listed. 

Ma'ar is feeling very scared right now because it feels like he said something wrong but he isn't sure what. "Uh, demon summoning. And making artifacts that secretly murder people, and enslaving elementals. All of them seem like they should just be illegal, I think? Unless elementals aren't people but I think they are."

"This is well outside my expertise now! I think I will prevail on your usual teacher - do you know the answer to his question...?" 

Lionwind keeps almost-but-not-quite glancing at Azabel, like he very badly wants to Mindspeak something to her, but he doesn't through the end of the class. 

Ma'ar is still and quiet and doesn't talk again. 

Aza has uncontroversial opinions about those three illegal kinds of magic. She loiters a bit to let Lionwind say whatever it is, after class.

This is somewhat awkward because the teacher is also loitering, apparently angling to talk to Lionwind too, and - she makes an abortive movement as though to go after Ma'ar and tell him to stay behind, but shrugs and does not do this. 

Lionwind sighs very heavily. 

"I apologize," he says to the teacher, "I have another commitment - if you wish to speak to me I do have office hours for that..." 

:Aza, could we talk for a bit: 

Ma'ar would really like to talk to Azabel! However he really would not like to talk to either the teacher or Lionwind! He flees to his room.

:Yeah, of course:

:Let's walk to my office - unfortunately I really do have a session in half a candlemark, this ran longer than I'd expected: He starts walking; he seems more distracted than usual, because he walks too fast for Azabel at first and only catches himself after ten seconds.