"I looked at a map and picked some spots I might try building a house. I'm not sure what else I'd need to settle in. What have you heard so far about the concerning magic?"

"That it involves mind control."

"Yeah, it's a problem. I... want to try to explain but I'm really not sure where to start..."

"Understandable."

"Okay, uh..." Her crown swishes restlessly around her head again. "...I came from another world. It's, uh, bigger, and more cursed. There's... people there who can do a kind of magic that involves, I guess you could say, collecting, people? And when you collect someone then the magic makes them like you and respect you and look up to you and want to do what you say, and the magic feeds off of that and then you can do other, useful stuff with it. I got into the middle of a fight between some of them and ended up with the same power and it was really upsetting because I think I might be the first person with that power to think to myself 'how do I avoid screwing over the people I'm collecting?' and I'm not nearly as good at it as I'd like to be. —um, collected people can decide to leave, or so I'm told, but uh, they don't, mostly. I don't know if that's because the magic makes it hard or because the other collectors murder anybody who tries to leave them and I'm so nice by comparison that nobody wants to leave me. Um, anyway, I eventually got fed up with all the fighting and the trying and failing to be good to people who depended on me and the being watched all the time by a guy who was going to murder me if I didn't do what he said, so I gathered up all the magic I could and ran away as thoroughly as possible so nobody could follow me, and I landed in Lia's garden."

"That sounds like a horrible situation. I'm so sorry."

Her little grey face scrunches up and her hands wobble with skeptical uncertainty. "I see what you're saying but I sort of feel like despite all the attempted murder I had it better than most people do. I got to leave."

"You're the person in front of me. We can discuss rescue attempts and whether they're a good idea or possible if you want."

"Rescue attempts miiiight be possible but I think they're a bad idea unless I can collect so many people that I get to be more powerful than all the other people collectors and kill them and take their stuff, and even then I'd have to find my way back and I deliberately made finding my way here as hard as possible so finding my way back is going to suck too. I wish I could, though, it really sucks there."

"It sounds like it. Are you, in fact, hoping to collect people here?"

"...well, I have to, if I want to do much in the way of magic. And it seems like you guys could use some magic done. But mostly what I am hoping to do is build a cabin in the woods and grow vegetables."

"We do need magic done and it does call for sacrifices, and it is definitely worth exploring alternatives, but Sathend was a safe and prosperous place before you came and it can continue to be one if you retire to a cabin in the woods to grow vegetables. If you want to do magic and others want to be collected, that's fine, but I want you to know it's also fine if you don't."

"...I'm... probably okay with collecting people, if they're okay with it, to help this place be even better. It's much nicer than where I came from but it seems kind of, small, and terrifying? What with people needing to be tortured so it keeps existing? I think it would be better if... not... that."

Carey snorts. "It would be."

"So if there's people okay with being collected that I'm okay with collecting then I can collect them and try to help out. ...maybe try to find whoever's most okay with being collected, and have them check, if they can really leave. And if they can't, then, well, then we know that, but if they can then it's, you know, lower stakes, for everybody else. —oh also I can bring back the dead, if I've collected them. I don't know if it still works if they leave but I thiiink it would." She considers for a moment, crown swishing a quick inky circle around her head. "Yeah, I think it would. So that's, a consideration, I guess."

"...Huh. We have awful throughput on resurrections. What kinds of limitations do you have and how often can you do that?"

"I think there's no limitations apart from the fact that I have to have collected the person I'm resurrecting, and I need to have enough power to do the resurrection, and enough people collected to, uh... to do it with? To witness it?" Her little face scrunches up in a frown of insufficient vocabulary. "I'm not sure how to say it right. But I think I need either a few people collected, or a lot of stored power to make up for not having any, before I can do a resurrection. And some other setup, the right buildings and magic stuff to make it work. But once I have all the right stuff I can do it as often as I can get the power for it. Maybe once every few days, if I only have a few people collected? And more if I've got more. ...um, when I resurrect people they show up vomiting gross sludge, I'm not sure that matters to anything but I thought I should let you know. It doesn't seem to affect their health once they're done throwing up."

Carey just nods along thoughtfully until the sludge part, at which point she makes a face.

"...Why?"

"That is a great question that I wish I could answer."

"...Well. So, there isn't any prior art in your world about how to behave ethically with powers like yours, is that right? I'm interested in hearing about the sorts of principles you abide by or want to abide by."

"Iiii am not sure I really know what a principle is. I mean, I know what the word means. I just, I guess, so, um, I grew up in the deep woods with no neighbours closer than a mile and then I got sorta murdered and became slightly a god and suddenly had to own a bunch of people or die horribly, and all I know about how to avoid treating people badly is that it's really hard and you can't manage it just by wanting to and I want to and I keep screwing up at it. Um, and if people won't feed themselves for cultural reasons you really gotta remember to feed them and not forget about it for a whole day because you're too sad. But that seems very specific and probably not applicable here."

"Hmm. So, more broadly, when people have made part of their wellbeing your responsibility, you need to remember that and take that responsibility seriously?"

She takes a moment to consider this framing.

"...yeah. Yeah, I think that sounds right."

"It seems to me like it would be a good idea to talk beforehand with people about what responsibilities you're taking on, and maybe write down a list. And that seems like it would also help with making sure you're doing this consensually - making sure to get on the same page with people about what exactly will happen, and agreeing to it explicitly. Does that sound to you like a good idea?"

"I... think so," she says hesitantly. "...I might not be very good at writing things down. I guess I also couldn't talk with my hands before I got here and maybe I will mysteriously be better at writing things down now because of the language magic."