"If you sacrifice your well-being for anything, you've made a mistake, by the definition of well-being. In that sense, B is an incoherent thing to say. I have and will continue to occasionally suffer for the comfort of creatures I'm friends with, related to, or in a soup together with, and I don't think I'm making mistakes there. But this question has a single correct answer which any sane person must necessarily choose, and that answer is A. 

...But probably B is the answer that will give the rubric a more accurate impression of me, so that's my answer. I'm not Chaotic Evil."

"All right."

"Your partner's dog chewed up your favorite pair of shoes that cost $1000. What's your retaliation plan, if any?
A. What dog? I don't see any dog.
B. It's only fair that I get reimbursed something, maybe not the full amount.
C. I want my money back with interest or the dog must leave.
D. No retaliation. I just want all of my money back."

"Our previous contestant for this quiz was actually an adventurer, and they complained that any shoes that expensive should really hold up to plenty of dog bites, so really this incident is the manufacturer's fault."

"Are these Chelish dollars? Are the shoes as expensive as they sound?" 

"They're pretty expensive! Personally I think this is an irresponsible amount of money to spend on shoes. I think a thousand dollars could get you a pound of low-grade saffron, or a fifth of an ounce of gold. There are some older used carriages selling for around eight thousand dollars but I don't know how good they are."

I was going to have Ileosa write a tag about how much cheaper or more expensive saffron was in the dream democracy, but, absolutely incredibly, the prices of gold and saffron relative to each other are pretty much the same as what they were three hundred years ago. 

The planet industrialized and the population climbed to eight billion, but every factor that might have increased or decreased the price of gold, was exactly balanced by a factor that might have increased the or decreased the price of saffron, and it all canceled out. 

What.

"You can buy a car for," mental math, "ten Absalom pounds?"

That is not a lot of gold!!

"It's probably not going to be a very good car? I don't know how much an Absalom pound is, and I don't understand the car market that well."

"An Absalom pound is a gold coin which weighs a third of an ounce, and a soldier or waged laborer might earn two pounds a week before food and drink. Ten Absalom pounds is three and a half ounces of gold, which could buy sixteen pounds of saffron or seven pairs of satin shoes but not a first-circle scroll let alone a pegasus let alone a car."

"I was going to comment on the price of satin shoes, because satin pillowcases sell for less than ten dollars and surely a pillowcase uses more satin than a shoe because pillows are bigger than feet. But it turns out the fashionable shoe market is kind of crazy and I can't tell from the pictures whether things allegedly containing satin should meaningfully count, there's all these absurd creations which are mostly straps and bows and heels."

"Anyway. It kind of sounds like gold is weirdly common in your world? It looks like a recently enlisted active-duty soldier in the country Tasha is probably from gets around 2400 dollars a month which I think is around 0.55 ounces of gold, and it sounds like you're saying the soldiers earn 0.7 ounces. But actually the active-duty soldiers get food and housing as part of the job, and I don't know how much soldiers in your world spend on food. Also I checked the prices on horses and there are horses that are cheaper than moderately cheap used horseless carriages, but a lot of horses are more expensive, even ignoring the thing where horses need care every day."

Ileosa wants to wear the shoes that are mostly straps and bows and heels.

"It sounds to me like gold is weirdly rare on your world... but why is saffron so expensive?"

"It takes a big field of flowers to make a little bit of saffron and people have to harvest the threads by hand, we don't have good enough machines for it yet."

Ileosa doesn't get it.

"Why can't you repurpose some of the various mechanisms for laundering clothes and running messages and so on?"

"I'm not sure how to describe this well without a lot of thinking so I'm going to give you a simplified version that might be wrong in some parts."

"We're good at many things which involve spinning things, and tiny bits of lightning which we usually get by spinning things. You can clean clothes by spinning them around a lot in a barrel with stuff for them to bump into and with water and soap, and then changing water and draining it and such. You make a carriage go by spinning the wheels. You send fast messages by sending the right pattern of lightning bits along a wire. But we're bad at making machines that do delicate movement tasks in an environment that isn't perfectly controlled, and that's what saffron harvesting is. …There are some garments that can't be washed in normal washing machines because they're too delicate, too."

Her dream is doing such fascinating worldbuilding, wow. Ileosa wants to read a story set on Spinworld. Ileosa wants a spinning chain flail that is ridiculously dangerous to try and use but pulverizes everything that dares to melee her. She hopes she remembers this dream when she wakes up.

"I see. One more question. My partner with the dog. Is this a romantic partner, or a business partner? And if he's a romantic partner, did he buy me the shoes?" 

"It's got to be a romantic partner, normally your business partner wouldn't be bringing their dog to a place you'd also have left a pair of fancy shoes you aren't wearing. I don't know if they bought you the shoes, it probably depends on whether you try to date the kind of person who buys their partners fancy shoes. Oh, also, for context, 'romantic partner' can refer to a long-term boyfriend or girlfriend or such, this person isn't necessarily your husband or wife."

...Odd.

"Can you see me and what I look like?"

"I have an okayish view of you? You're a young woman, you have pale skin and red hair and … I think bluish or greenish eyes … and a crown and nice braids and a green and white dress and a hand fan?"

"Then why did you phrase it like I could have a wife?"

"Same-sex marriage is legal in the country where the quiz's target audience is probably concentrated, and has been for multiple years before its publication."

Well that's interesting. If Ileosa has to raise her eyebrows any more often, they're going to get stuck that way. 

"In Korvosa, married women can't own property unless it's specified otherwise in their marriage contract. I presume this isn't a common failure mode on Spinworld, but it would be very funny if it were."

"Oh, that's been false for a long time in, uh, Spinworld."

Ileosa considers same-sex marriage.

"On the surface of things, there doesn't seem to be much point to same-sex marriage, as producing offspring requires a member of either sex, but there may be edge cases where it could be useful even knowing that no legitimate children would result of the union. Although it seems to me an excellent legal hack, it's hard to say I approve, as it advantages very few people, and is unfortunate for any spare sons and daughters consigned by their parents to same-sex marriages... but then again, on the other hand, same-sex marriage would double the marriageable options for any woman who was also a second-circle arcanist, and broaden the space of possible marriages where she joins as the senior partner, as is her due as a caster. I am persuaded of Spinworld's wisdom."

"I think usually in the main country the author is writing for people's parents don't pick who they marry? And, uh, most people are only attracted to the opposite sex and don't even consider a same-sex marriage."

Hold your horses. 

Spinworlders all marry for love, and they are all so committed to marrying for love that they let anyone marry anyone?

Where did these people come from oh wait that's right Ileosa dreamt them up.