"I hope we can help Amentans as much as they can help us. So far, you have been a bearer of much good news. Thank you."

"You're welcome! I'm glad having formians as neighbors was suggested to me."

If there's nothing else that Lintalai wishes to ask them, the workers and warriors (and few taskmasters that accompanied them) will head back underground.

Intrepid, who turned out to be rather superfluous, canters up.

Lintalai. I hope your conversation was enlightening and productive for all.

It was! It's so convenient there are locals who want aboveground neighbors!

Arcadia aims to be convenient to any who are good and lawful. I am glad that the formians will be good neighbors to your people.

Amentans write a lot of stories about finding aliens who live underground, or on the water, so that we can share planets with them easily.

How interesting! Would flying people be similarly good neighbors, in these stories?

I don't think I've read any of those but maybe if they didn't have to land much?

You will certainly have a very good story to tell them.

And they can head back to the not-hotel.

She's in a good mood. She asks her talking skull about formians to see if she can get more clarity on the needing to have babies for health reasons thing.

"Oh, that? Life cycle thing. Queens who stop producing babies stop being queens, and that's bad for the lower castes especially. Imagine being an arm cut off from your brain."

"Oh no! Why hasn't anyone wanted to vouch for letting them expand before?"

"Well, they're not good. I wouldn't want to be their neighbor either. The Harmonium sees them as a threat."

"What effects does not being good have on their neighborliness?"

"They punish outsiders who break formian laws, they don't take steps to improve quality of life for their neighbors, they exploit Arcadia's natural resources faster then they replenish, and they don't take care of their own. Workers have a really high attrition rate."

"Oh. Arcadia doesn't have limited natural resources though, does it? Since it's infinite?"

"...I don't think I know this one. You might need to ask a proper Arcadian."

Is Intrepid still around?

Intrepid is hanging about in the courtyard, pretending to sleep for politeness' sake.

The resources are not finite but they are limited by imagination. Very few people believe strongly enough in infinite resources for them to be readily available. They replenish, of course, but some petitioners retain the impatience they had in life.

So it would be really good if Amentans arrived pretty convinced that all the resources would grow back quick like plants do?

Yes. Intrepid's 'voice' sounds warm and approving.

I think Arcadia and Amenta will both be very grateful that you arrived in the Peaceable Kingdoms, Lintalai.

That's the plan! She settles in to write another update to her family.

Wizards proceed in their study of wizardry. They make improvements to their object sending spell, enough that they think they can send something to a plane based entirely on having a native of that plane nearby. They begin testing the spell using the already well-documented Prime Material Plane and items that came from it.

Tyshvian continues feeding Lintalai a steady stream of wizardry notes: the wizards think that it would be easier to send an object if it came from Amenta, the wizards say that the object should be smaller than a chair, the wizards want live animals to practice with...