"Great. Were you able to learn Arazni's Endure Elements? I asked for a couple others that I can do like that, in case you can learn them."

" - oh. I, uh, didn't get around to testing it, I sort of forgot." Or maybe she used all of her kennings on other things, she doesn't actually remember. That's embarrassing. If she left one unspent yesterday then that's worse than embarrassing, she could have sent - either another person or another patrol or two out, depending on whether she could hang Arazni's version. "I - guess if you have them anyway I ought to see them anyway. I'll check when I go back this time."

Arazni's Dispel Magic! Arazni's Protection from Evil! Arazni's Divine Favor, though a song-sorcerer probably can't pick that one up!

Well, she can try. She's copied cleric spells before.

...later, though. Tonight she's going to spend her powers on trying the endure elements, and see if she can send an extra patrol out.

"Thank you. I'll be back in two days, then, unless there's anything else."

"Nothing else, though Alfirin will go back with you to start working with Morgethai and Aivu on the spell. Good luck."

All right. She can take Alfirin back across, then.

...and she can call Marit and Regill to the command center, because a hundred thousand and a hundred and twenty thousand are both large numbers, and she'd like to talk about what in particular they could do with either amount of gold, and whether an extra twenty thousand in a month is worth more than having somewhat less money now.

(Also maybe Marit can explain why she's getting this money at all? Possibly? It's very nice to maybe have a bunch of money, but it would be slightly nicer to have any idea why.)

" - yeah, that makes perfect sense, it's - the thing you get if you are trying to make your trade partners not have to play against you very guardedly. 

You could've gone to the Church of Abadar, right, instead of to Allandra's people?"

"I - guess I could have in principle? I'm not very sure where - no, I suppose I could have gone to them in Kintargo. But - I didn't."

"Right. But - Allandra could also have suggested to you that you go, and told you that they'd probably give you a lot of money. Right?"

"...sure. It would have been doing us a favor, but I guess you guys have done us lots of favors."

"I think it'd have been - a pretty small favor? I think if she'd had that thought and decided to hope you didn't think of it so she could get the money herself that'd be - not just a neutral act, not just the absence of a favor, it'd be - being an adversary. 

I'm pretty confident she didn't think of it because we weren't expecting the initial accident to be easily repeatable. But - the principled thing to do doesn't depend on what thoughts you had in what order. Not being an adversary means - not putting yourself in a position to hopefully benefit from a mistake, by someone who has only treated you as a potential ally. And so, when she did think of it, she just asked 'what is the fair share of this which is Korva's - what money would Korva have made, if everyone involved had been dealing fairly with each other, and not as enemies - and the Church of Abadar is very interested in the question of how money ought to be divided, if everyone involved is trying to deal fairly."

"...but I didn't do anything for the church of Abadar. I understand that I could have gotten money from them if I had done the work of ferrying things across for them, but I didn't. You - don't normally get money for being capable of doing things and then not doing them?"

"The Church of Abadar just calculated how much, of the money they were giving Allandra, Allandra would give you, if she were being fair. And then, because she's Allandra, she's obviously giving you that much. But as far as the Church of Abadar is itself concerned, it just performed two services: offering a bid on interworld transit, and offering an analysis of the fair split of that money. If Allandra were to have then gone 'thank you for telling me what a fair split would be, I'm actually going to not give her a penny', this would make Allandra no longer the kind of trading partner who gets favored status with the Church of Abadar as a fellow party which trades fairly, but they wouldn't go out of their way to give the money to you. ...they might have sent you a message inviting you to bid yourself, if Allandra had done all that and not negotiated their confidentiality."

"I am mostly confused about the repeated observation that Allandra has to give me money to be fair, when Allandra is the one performing the service. - I mean, I guess technically actually some other people including apparently Aivu are performing the service, but - whatever. Where does the idea of a fair split come in for a service where one party isn't actually performing that service."

"I think it's based off - how much the Church would've bid, if you'd showed up and asked, which everyone agrees you would've done if you'd thought of it and if we hadn't been trying to keep things under the radar... which we are kind of doing for the benefit of Allandra."

"I guess," says Korva, who is still kind of suspicious of this entire business of being compensated for things you didn't in fact do. Usually she has a hard enough time being compensated for things she did do.

" - say that Allandra sent us the wands of endure elements, and then someone showed up at base and offered us a hundred thousand gold pieces for each wand of endure elements we'd sell, wouldn't you feel somewhat like the fair thing to do was to split the windfall with her, even though you'd be the one reselling? You might feel that way and then not do it because fairness isn't the only thing that matters, but do you have the impulse that that'd be fairer than not doing it?"

"Uh..... no. I mean, that could easily be right, it just isn't obvious to me."

"Then I expect most of my explanations will not be very persuasive, they're probably just pulling on some intuitions that didn't actually make sense in any contexts you have operated in."

"...okay. Well. I guess it's not very important. I - guess I have the impulse that if our needs were met then it would obviously be dishonest to ask Allandra for anything further, and if all of our problems were solved then I guess it would be - fair to repay her, for the aid that she gave us earlier, and I guess maybe if we had more resources than her to see if we could help her in turn, but - that isn't exactly the same thing."

"Probably it doesn't matter, as long as I'm not - missing some additional expectation that's implied by the payment."

"No. It's not even - generosity, on her part, it's just playing by rules she is known, and wants to be known, to play by. You do not need to do anything except use the money to win the Crusade and - yeah, once we've done that, it'd be right to repay the other aid, I think, but one thing at a time."

"All right."

"Next question, then, is whether we want around a hundred thousand now, or around a hundred and twenty thousand later. I have no idea how long spell development of this magnitude takes and therefore don't have much idea how long it'll be. Twenty thousand is - maybe not quite enough for a month of back pay, for all the rank and file Mendevian soldiers and the neather and wintersun soldiers, but it's close. I'm not sure whether that's specifically the thing we spend that money on, I'm assuming we probably try to pay everyone a remotely decent amount in either scenario, but that's the approximate magnitude."

"I guess the question is what we expect to lose in the meantime."

"I suspect we want the money now. Being better prepared for the spring offensives is very valuable, and if the spring offensives go well it'll be easier to fundraise for the crusade in the future." Also he's expecting a change in leadership in Cheliax, plausibly by spring and likely by summer, but he's not going to say that.

Nod. "Regill?"

"I concur. We are, at present, not ready for the planned spring offensive. We can hold the line, with our current forces, but we can do little more. Twenty thousand gold is a considerable sum, but it will do us little good if we miss the narrow window during which we can push the wardstones forward. Spell development may take months, when it doesn't take years. The crusade will not wait that long."