"We didn't have you bring Comprehend and Zone of Truth because we wanted special spells for the plane flight, and that's what they've got to really be in a hurry about, getting started with wizardry. And if I were you I would want to eat and sleep before this, because it helps with thinking, and also to wear fresh clothes and bathe, because it's nice to make a good first impression."

"All right, tomorrow then."

What even is his current clothes availability situation.

Someone's stocked a wardrobe.

There's a selection of clothing that's pretty similar to what he wore at the Antarctic base, aside from being less worn, in different colors, and not having any words or pictures printed on any of the shirts. (Someone has clearly had the idea that if they can pick the color of something, it should be white or red, but the pants are still blue and brown.)

There's also an outfit with a button-down shirt and not-very-insulating jacket, like the ambassador wore during the call, along with a pair of pants that match the jacket, several different sizes of the same model of shoe, and another gambeson. (This one is not squeaky.)

........ he is going to need Chris's help to know which clothes are appropriate for a meeting.

"The matching jacket and pants and the shirt with buttons. Normally you'd also wear a necktie but it's complicated to tie and it might clash with your holy symbol. In the future if you want to dress in the traditional manner you should probably get a custom tailored outfit like this, and maybe a pin version of your holy symbol so you can wear a necktie also."

"A pin, huh. All right."

With this advice he will show up maintained and appropriately garbed to his meetings the next morning with meeting-y spells prepared.

Francis is there with a few other people, all of whom are dressed similarly to Blai.

"Select Artigas, Mr. Clement, it's good to see you."

He speaks slowly, and one of the people with him translates this into Taldane, also pretty slowly.

Blai has had more magical assistance and native speaker exposure than the person who is translating into Taldane, in his own attempts to learn English, but this was of course compensating for him being no inherent great talent at languages so perhaps the translator is better at Taldane now than Blai is at English? "I am glad to have made it here without incident."

"We are also glad you have made it here without incident. Antarctica is a long way away."

"So I've gathered." How much meaningless pleasantry does he have to be scrupulously honest through in this culture.

Francis is better at telling when Chelish people are impatient than Chris is.

"I can testify under Zone of Truth to the original scans of the Acts of Iomedae being deleted, and that I expect I would know if I have been deceived about this, and bring in many other people who can say the same, to mitigate concerns that someone simply resisted the spell."

"The original scans and all copies."

"You can pick a wording of your choice."

"The best practice is to agree first, not on just one reading but an entire conversation, and only then cast the spell to check that the conversation was right."

"We can have an entire conversation, then."

"What is your understanding about why to delete the scans?"

"You only shared the data to begin with due to a miscommunication, and the information being available could enable people to get powers like yours, but from hostile entities who would encourage them to do bad things."

"It is also bad to interact with these entities even without getting anything out of it, and they would have a particular ability to choose people, if they chose anyone, who would be naturally inclined to do bad things without encouragement."

Francis takes some time to respond.

"I can take your word for it."

"...if you have questions I may be able to answer them."

"Are you concerned about harm caused by people taking purely mental actions?"

"...yes. Gods can hear prayers."

"We have acted on these concerns in this case by deleting the original scans of the book. But we can't in general tell people who they can pray to."

"It is very hard to police," Blai agrees.

"It would also be against our Constitution. I don't want to sound like I'm saying we'll do that when we won't."