Daernir will knock on her door before they turn in for the night.

She opens the door. "Hi, what's up?"

"Hey, uh. Can we talk?"

He tries to peek to see whether the skull is within ear(?)shot.

It's sitting on the room's dresser. "Yeah?"

"Um, want to talk outside for a minute?"

"Sure." She steps out.

"I wanted to ask whether armies are important. Not everywhere in Arcadia has them- most places don't, really, but we do have the Harmonium. And the Harmonium seems kind of bad. So maybe the skull is right. I just wanted to make sure you won't let the skull talk you out of something Amentans need because it thinks you might be an evil wizard."

"So there are a bunch of reasons to have an army. One is to make it obviously a bad idea to attack you. I don't know if we need that, or, if we need it, whether an army is a good way to get it, here. And another is to make sure there's something greys can do. Soldiering is a common popular grey occupation and if I'm bringing people here to let them all have babies some of those babies will be greys. We can slowly reduce the numbers in the military, if it turns out they're not useful against whatever angels fight and we don't need them for deterrence, and greys can do exploration and dancing and policing - we might need more police here if we have to keep the crime rate down particularly low to be acceptable to highly lawful neighbors - and whatnot, but I should probably not just say 'no army here' right off."

Nod.

"Gods and wizards help with the first part. I don't know how to help with the greys, but maybe some of war-gymnastics is grey- some kinds of magic are more like things anybody can learn some of and some are more like jobs. I don't know much about it, though. And if exploration is grey, there could be a job to map more of Arcadia- it's infinite, but it's important for Amentans to have more space, right?"

"Yes. It will help to have more things greys can do, and if it ever makes sense to have no military at all, we can do that."

Nod.

"I think if I become a powerful wizard, I'll do evil wizard things, so I shouldn't be the one asking the skull things. Do you think your assistant should do it, or are there Amentans who would want to?"

"...what evil wizard things are you going to do?"

"I'll probably want to hoard my knowledge instead of sharing it, and make servants, and live in a tower where people can't bother me to help them with things and punish people who try to steal from me."

Daernir doesn't mention necromancy because he thinks that would just be upsetting. He'll have to talk to Usir or one of his priests about it, even though priests are terrible.

"...do you not like helping me with things? You don't have to."

"No, I like helping you! This seems interesting. I don't want to just help people because they need it, though. Maybe I will help people through good people that I like? I think that's still evil or at least neutral but I don't think the skull cares about that. It's still being an evil wizard to live in a tower and not help people and punish them when they bother you, probably."

"You should probably have signs up so people don't bother you without knowing this about you. I think towers and not being especially helpful aren't very bad though. You don't have to talk to it if you don't want, anyway."

"I still want to make the colony better, though. Is there anything you need an evil wizard to do? I haven't specialized yet so I could be any kind of wizard. Except an evoker, evocation is boring."

"Well, I need portals. Even if I get some people who can do portals I will probably always want more."

"Okay, I can focus on that. That's all I wanted to ask without the skull around, I think. Did your dads send anything back yet, or will it still be a long time?"

"They might send me a quick response any day now but they'll take longer to read all the stuff I sent so the quick response will probably just be like that they love me and are proud of me and hope I'm safe."

"That's good. Do you think you could show me more Amentan things on the pocket everything?"

"Sure! Anything specific?"

"I liked the one where the person was building the piano. Maybe not building though, just anyone doing work they're very good at."

She finds him a timelapse of landscaping work.

Daernir finds the video enthralling. When it ends, he thanks her quite earnestly and wishes her goodnight.