"- I'd want to estimate how good the expansion of schools is in equivalents-to-innate-intelligence-increase, and then a range of plausible effects Keltham might know of of lead on intelligence."

"Figure that out. And then the pipes are - five times as expensive as that? Ten times as expensive? Is the proposal to stop having pipes and set up more water distribution sites?"

"That seems like a grave wrong to You, your majesty," the sanitation manager for Sothis is moved to object. "Your people would be worse-occupied and your city impoverished."

"Well, that's what we're trying to figure out. What if we make the pipes out of wood."

"They won't hold water, your majesty."

"Gold."

"....we can't afford that, your majesty."

"What are your top three options if you have to replace all the pipes."

" - clay, Stone Shape, or - asking Nefreti Clepati to do something. Your majesty."

"All right, figure out how expensive clay and Stone Shape are, and how bad leaded pipes would have to be for that to be worth it, and then ask Merenre to figure out how sure we ought to be that leaded pipes are that bad, given that Cheliax implied Keltham said to switch them out at once."

"It's - fairly promising, as a first thing for Cheliax to be doing presumably at Keltham's request. And they also offered to bet that we'll end up thinking they were right."

"Huh. - too bad one can hardly bet with Cheliax, because they are nearly ideologically committed to only making agreements they think they're able to cheat at."

"I know. I want international governance to involve more commitments of that form but agreeing to one with Cheliax just looks - and probably is - foolish. - we could offer such a bet, on our own terms, to nations intrigued by what Cheliax is doing but too sensible to bet with Cheliax."

"Betting against you is hardly less ill-advised than betting against Cheliax."

"Sure, but if they don't know that it seems good for them to learn it, and if they do know that they can trust the number we quote them, though I don't know what that number is yet, I've called in the alchemists who conducted the tests on lead pipes and concluded they seemed fine to ask why they think that."

"We could also just tell Iomedae to have her countries do it, on the grounds that she prefers their populace not suffer Chaotic Evil damage; She'll pay us, if we're right."

"That will probably work better than offering Mendev terms on a bet about whether it's worth it but I find it objectionable, that that'll work better."

"Well, you can offer the bet first, and then when Mendev and Lastwall turn you down because they don't know what to do with offers to bet, then We can give our current estimates to Iomedae under an agreement where she'll pay what they end up being worth to her, and then you can point out to Mendev and Lastwall they could've saved their goddess an intervention."

"Forgive me, your majesty, but I wonder if we'd serve you better by contemplating what this proposal says about Cheliax and about the progress of Keltham's work there."

"Right, there's also that. Why this? Why now? It doesn't seem like the sort of plan they've had in the works for nearly two months."

"Keltham may have just learned about it, or connected the metal in front of him to some discovery in his world of origin. Or he may have demanded some sort of external cooperation from Cheliax, which he could verify happened, as a sign he's not being systematically misled about the international community and the potential for his work to be disseminated -"

"But they can just lie to him about the result!"

"It could be this doesn't come from Keltham and is an effort to distract us and spend down our resources while Cheliax in reality plans for conquest."

"Or does come from Keltham, at least in the sense he mentioned it, and is nonetheless being entertained by Cheliax for that reason. It'd be - more of a departure from their usual diplomatic strategy than I'd expect from them without some kind of unusual impetus."

"Unless they're refraining from prediction markets for all the questions they consider genuinely high-stakes or sensitive, I don't benchmark them as being very near prepared to wage a war on all fronts. Their chemistry prediction markets indicate a lot of recent progress on acidmaking and spellsilver refining. That's - a major advantage, once they have it as an industry, but it's a major advantage on the timescale of a few years, not one right now."