"I could put some random number of coins from one to five in my hand, and then you say your number, and I open my hand.  Or we could do the reverse.  Either's fine."

"Better hurry, though, the spell only lasts a minute if you don't use it."

"Sure, you put some coins in your hand, then."

Pilar reaches into her uniform, takes out five platinum coins, and shuts her hand around those.

"Two."

"Nope."  She opens her hand to show him the five platinum.

"Wealthy, aren't we."

"Yep.  May I have my gold piece back?  You did lose the game."

"Of course."  He passes it back to her with a friendly smile.

This isn't exactly a normal conversation, but it's fun, and... honestly this is more normal than any conversation Pilar has had in a while.  At least that went on any longer than 'Pass the butter.'

"Any interesting gossip in Ostenso?" says Pilar.

"Depends.  What does somebody like you find interesting?"

"Good question... do you know whether or not there ultimately turned out to be any disguised ancient dragons hanging out in town just in case Keltham passed them by?"

"Sounds like I'm missing some gossip myself, actually."

"Well, it's known, now, that Keltham was somewhere around Ostenso, before he left Cheliax, but not in Ostenso, so one of the speculations was that there would've been disguised powerful entities hanging out in Ostenso in case Keltham passed them by.  Any mysterious powerful adventurers wander into town about four months ago, and then suddenly disappear about five weeks ago?  That'd be the indication, there."

"Not that I know of."

"How boring.  Well, do you know any gossip, then?"

At this point in the conversation, he does not wish to give the appearance of needing to be asked twice.  Sure, he knows some gossip about the state of things in Ostenso.

What a normal conversation she's having!  It's great!

...he'll eventually observe, in the tone of somebody who isn't drawing any inference from the fact, that the horses do look a little more tired to him, now.

Pilar will cheerfully hop off the cart and start walking again.

He would, in fact, sell her a ride all the way to Ostenso for five platinum.

Nah.  She's had her rest.

The carter drives off, doing a great job of not being too overt in glancing uneasily behind himself, nor giving too much visible sign that he's wondering how close he came to dying.

It's - strange, that Pilar is thinking to herself that she was Evil, there, and enjoyed it.  Why should that be surprising?  Pilar has been a faithful Asmodean all her life, hasn't she?

That couldn't have happened that way in Elysium.  The stakes wouldn't be real, the carter wouldn't be really scared.

Why is Pilar surprised that - part of herself would be sad, if nothing like that ever happened again.  If nobody got to be sadistic like herself, or under real pressure like the carter.  Pilar has always believed it would be terrible if everywhere was like Elysium, there'd be no place for Pilar there.

It's not literally, but very nearly, Pilar's first time enjoying being mean to somebody, and not just enjoying other people being mean to her.