She leans forwards eagerly. "Could you make sorcerers? They're very rare but you either are one or you aren't, it's not a talent like wizardry."

"Well, if you're going to change people you'd better be really sure you did it right, right? ...I haven't studied sorcerers in detail, I wouldn't know yet. I have my doubts that anything is truly impossible, though."

Promising. 

"What would you need to get started? It's possible I might know where to find a sorcerer."

And the extremely secret location of the blasphemous sepulchre of the nameless sorceress-queen, said to have frightened the gods so much they had to kill her seven times, so if she can acquire Dr Baika's knowledge and use it for herself...

"Does this rely on the same basics you mentioned for other things?"

"I can't really say anything about this with confidence until I learn more about wizardry and sorcery. A proper understanding of biology would help, I'm sure. -Oh, you meant my tools. Yes, absolutely, I need those. It'll come in time."

"I have known a sorcerer." It's possible that she should play her cards closer to her chest, but she's risking being left out here. "It moves in bloodlines, but often skips generations, sometimes many. There are theories on where it comes from."

He does not at all consider himself worthy to interfere here, but then he did not think himself worthy of divine attention, and now his feelings don't matter. 

"Excuse me." 

(This particular translation magic is not like Naevys's Spell; it's managed to render his voice with an appropriately rural accent, not that he particularly knows this. He's trying not to sound stupid.)

"...I do not know if this is normal for all of you, but you are talking about big and strange things." And he's heard stories about what heathens get up to. "Can you tell me about what you think is ethics?"

She likes the kid. Though she's always had a soft spot for the street kid type.

"Ethics is the process by which we decide what is right or wrong, good or evil, correct or incorrect behavior and decisions. One key point of the ethics I hold to for my personal code as a doctor, as a person who does things to other people's bodies and minds, is the notion of informed consent. Before I do anything to someone else as a doctor, ideally they would be informed about what I am doing- The goal, any risks, and that I've answered their questions to their satisfaction. And they should consent to it, meaning they are genuinely willing and approving of it. Not being threatened into participation as a test subject, not being lied to about important facts..."

She's a little unsure if she should continue on. While she does enjoy expounding at length, those priests might be annoyed at any perceived usurpation of their moral authority...

She's not convinced having "ethics" is actually important, but the world is full of the skulls of wizards who disregarded ritual rules because they didn't seem important, often with the magic that killed them still etched inside. She should know. 

"Does it count if you pay them? Because I can buy you some debt-bondage contracts if you need subjects. I know people."

"...Forgive me, I think that would be a very great sin." He shoots a look at Dr Baika. "And... unethical for you, yes?"

See this is why they shouldn't just let random humans study magic. At least have a priest interview them first. An actually properly catechised one, not a shepherd's boy with big ideas.  

"If we're going to debate the nature of good and evil with a cleric we're going to need all night and much more wine. My room?"

"...Not today. I have a headache from something earlier." And Caterina is reminding her a bit too much of Generic Corporate Executive. "Anyway, he's right, it's all sorts of dubious to do experiments on people in desperate situations. It can be okay if I'm very sure it's safe already and they have the option to stay where they are instead, but... They'd absolutely be fucked over by whoever holds the debt if they don't, right? Or at least it would be a concern. So it's impossible. I'm going to need time to build up to anything worth testing anyway. Got self-repair to do first."

"One is not permitted to torture debtors in these lands." Which is more than can be said for most places, she's pretty sure. "I believe you would have great difficulty, persuading the Inquisition that this did not count as such. It is the sort of argument to which I imagine pitchforks would be brought."

"I'm sure you could find someone willing to genuinely agree to it. It's permitted if they understand what they're swearing to. Why do you have the right to force them to dwell forever in poverty instead, against their own will, Dr Baika?"

Well, if people are going to positively insist on being rude to the Visitor that's their problem, serves them right if they don't get to try the magic pills. "Self-repair is the important part here. Most people can't go that far that fast, it must have hurt."

"I'll be fine. And why would they have the right to my money?" She says, a bit hot. "I haven't any right to bar folk from seeking employment or deals with others, but I also have no obligation to provide it myself. I don't like slavery, or debt slavery, and I'm loathe to compensate those who make it their business, but it hardly obliges me to do anything about it. At that point it would be a compulsion on me, or at least a tax. We can come to an equitable trade, or not."

"I think Lord Moradin would like you." 

"How very self-possessed of you." He doesn't sound disapproving, though. He tilts a glass to her with only a little bit of irony. 

Sometimes she misses home. 

Dr Baika is really... surprisingly confident that she'll be all right for someone who'd never heard of magic this morning and has no idea what the effects of spellburn can be. Then again, she's a wizard already and she's still sitting upright and forming sentences and everything! ...She kind of likes it. 

"Nobody here is going to make anyone else here make any deals against their will unless they want me to be quite upset." She idly shakes her hands loose from her sleeves, which might be lost on their visitor but is the arcane equivalent of cleaning your fingernails with a dagger.

Her Shard will help her, and there's always her backup plan of [redacted]. She'll be fine.

"Bah, enough moralizing for now. I'm not doing anything like that soon anyway. Someone tell a story?"

People glance towards her, of course. It hasn't been long enough that she's used to it, but she has worked out that it means something different up here. She's still not totally sure what. You'd need to be unusually observant, or have more than merely biological powers of vision, to notice the little flinch.

"All right. You have maybe noticed what I am," she says with some irony, and only a moment later realises that perhaps nobody has ever heard about the drow where Dr Baika comes from. She's not sure she believes the rumour about the Far Realms, but the woman is obviously from far away.

Apologise? No, that makes surface people... she's not sure, she thinks contemptuous or possibly frightened. She doesn't really understand Dr Baika's place here, she doesn't really understand anyone's place here, but something about her manner is a little familiar.

"I am a drow, born deep beneath the earth. It is a different sort of place."

She of course has not approached the Church, but she has read the books very diligently, and they do not emphasise having to watch what you say, which is naturally not reassuring. 

"I was a student of magic. It is taught differently." So far she's gotten away with not specifying exactly how. "I was a great talent for my age. So I called then a familiar spirit. It is not lightly done. They are not of this world. I have heard that there are special magics here to do it much more safely," which is probably a trap, "but these I did not know."

"It... did not have the shape it should. It made offers that I refused. But I was put on trial in any case, for collaboration, for departing from the Mother. I did not know what the penalty was to be but I did not think I could survive paying it and stay myself," she has worked out that you're not supposed to go into details about that kind of thing up here at all, "and so I fled. I was very lucky, they did not know how far my talents had come and did not much restrain me." She hesitates.

"Caves are not like what you think, when you go deep. Very easy to be lost, easy to hide, easy to die, wizard or not. There was a -" something in the quality of her voice changes as she borrows a word from another language (she knows there's translation magic, but what advantage is there in showing her disloyalty?) "letterbox-squeeze - a gap to fit through, if you breathe out all the way and reach forwards and let all your muscles melt, and crush yourself into the dark. Flooded sometimes with hot water, and it went down, down. So I hoped they would not be keen to follow. I lived, and I was beyond lucky. It came to a passage made by dwarves, long ago, one of their ancient places now sunk. Still passable. It was a very long climb. There were things in those tunnels too. But it ended in the mountains not far away. I saw the sun and I stared, I did not know this was unwise."