"But if you're not more intelligent than them, you will think you've arranged matters so they have no alternative to obedience, when to them you're like a bear who has treed a tasty adventurer - sure, as far as your bear-mind knows, they're really truly stuck in that tree, but the adventurer is barely inconvenienced because there are so many solutions the bear can't think of. A horde of peasants who are wizards, even if you've Geased or threatened them all into line, is alchemical fire - the slightest contact with air and up goes all of Cheliax in flames."

   The cleric nods, showing a deliberate grim smile.  "Yes, the problem is that right now we have headbands and they do not; giving headbands to all is equivalent to taking away ours, in how it changes the structure of power.  I can only hope that with so much spellsilver and wizardry it becomes possible to build +8 or +10 items, as expensive as the +6s are now, to preserve the present balance of power between the strong and the weak.  Or mayhap Project Chemistry will learn to refine diamonds like they refine spellsilver, and with so many wizards we'll gain a 9th-circle to Wish up the rulers."

Noble:  "Eh.  I don't see why we couldn't just sweep every farm with Detect Thoughts every week, if we had a second-circle in every settlement.  We do chain soldiers and wizards to the Worldwound, by such means, including those wizards who perform Detect Thoughts themselves.  We can chain smarter farmers to their farms."

"Seems better than putting all one's hopes in Project Chemistry or whatever they're calling it these days pulling off a second miracle as great as the first."

   Cleric:  "If there's anything that Project Chemistry and the Scientific Revolution have promised us all, it's that we won't live in an age of just one miracle."

      Fighter:  "It's which miracles we'll get that I worry of.  No cleverness of wizards and alchemists will ever obsolete hand-to-hand combat, of that I'm certain.  But if one's got to swing some mechanical horror more complicated than an enchanted sword, next year's warriors may need more balanced abilitystats than I.  More Intelligence and Dexterity, less Strength and Constitution... and I might think to keep up with the right belt and headband, but the trouble is, my enemy'll have belt and headband too."

Noble:  "Sir Pascual, why don't you apologize to this lovely lady for calling her a fucktoy, and let her be off with her equally lovely defender?  I'm sure there's an interesting night ahead of them, one way or another, and I wouldn't want us to distract them further."

      Fighter:  "Aye, fair enough.  I apologize for naming you fucktoy, nameless thing of the Queen's."

"I would say I forgive you, except I think the Church said recently that's a heresy." 

"I've actually no idea what you mean by that," the man says, as he tugs her away. 

"Oh, I didn't intend you to."

"Well, if you won't reveal it before a larger audience, will you tell me privately, what secret spark in you drew Abrogail Thrune?"

She takes another sip of her wine. "...all right, but you must promise not to tell anyone."

"You have my word, my lady."

"She said that if I annoyed her she'd turn me into a statue lost to the world forever and ever, and the thought consumed me with horror so totally I could scarcely think of anything else, which she thought was rather flirtatious."

"I see. And you don't suppose she'll really do it, as soon as the followthrough is more fun than the terror?"

"Why do you ask."

"Oh, I don't know. Curiosity. Sympathy for such a beautiful thing, no less trapped than the shackleborn, and not, I think, an idiot who can't see it coming."

"I'm not an idiot."

"I hear it's your first time in Egorian. Have you seen the skyline from the palace balconies at night?"

Well, this is a game no one else has tried. Is he trying to ...steal the queen's lover. Presumably he is aware that's a terrible idea. 

"I don't think I'm supposed to wander off."

"Well, that's why I'm with you." And he tugs her firmly off towards a balcony. 

"Surprise."

There's a brief moment of horror interested surprise in the ballroom, as everyone stares at the corpse now collapsed on the ground in front of the pink-haired girl.

"Security?" somebody says uncertainly.

"Apparently I AM IN FACT Security for this event."

A Security who doesn't know the implications of 'pink-haired girl' starts forward, then notices the Grand High Priestess and Queen of Cheliax converging on the location and thinks better of it.