"You acted correctly. Bring the slave, Rend, here. I'll cast Zone of Truth and interrogate him. Have Conrad stay outside and cast Detect Thoughts."

Conrad and Damian will do that.

Rend will bow and say the same recited speech he gave to Damian.

"I'm willing to help you get to your master," at least for now, "but it might take a while. I don't recognize the Zmavli Imperium. It's either on a different continent or on a different plane. Right now I need to verify what you're saying. I'm going to cast Zone of Truth. It's a spell that prevents people who are inside its emanation from uttering things they know to be untrue. You might feel something when I cast it – it's important that you don't resist it or try to throw it off, or it might not work."

Just because the slave is rich doesn't mean he's educated – and he already said that he didn't know demons were real, so. 

He says words and waves his hands. Zone of Truth.

Obviously he's going to position the emanation so that only Rend is in it, and not him or Damian.

The spell does feel like something, but Rend doesn't know how to describe it. He obeys Ramon and doesn't try to ''resist it or try to throw it off".

Conrad can follow instructions and will cast Detect Thoughts exactly now.

What is Rend's INT?

The spell does feel like something, but Rend doesn't know how to describe it. He obeys Ramon and doesn't try to ''resist it or try to throw it off". His thoughts are...strangely sparse? It's like he has very diminished thought activity, like trying to Detect Thoughts an animal, except not – there's clearly something going on there, but going on the level of instinct? It's strange to see.

Rend's Intelligence is 14.

Huh. Conrad wishes he'd have Detect Thoughts-ed a Lawful outsider before to be able to compare. Very curious. Is this what all of their kind are like?

"Cheliax is the name of the country Damian and I were born in. Try saying 'I was born in Cheliax.'".

"I was born in...I was born in...I was born in...the Zmavli Imperium.

This drone is unable to obey your command, Sir."

"That means the spell is working."

If he wanted to be really thorough, he would have used Enchantment Sight to verify that he didn't already have any enchantments on him, and then cast Zone of Truth. That way, he could verify that it took. Sadly, he didn't have it prepared today. And in any case, Damian already checked him with Detect Magic and found no auras at all – though that isn't foolproof, since Magic Aura exists.

"What god do you and your master worship?"

"They don't have a word for 'god', Sir. The closest words are 'superintelligence' or 'superpower'."

That's...strange. Is the Zmavli Imperium in some kind of outsiderless demiplane? That would explain the not having gods and not having demons. Or it could be a place like Rahadoum, but more extremist, and they censor such knowledge.

"Use 'superintelligence'."

Damian will ask this!

"Neither this drone nor its Master worship any superintelligences."

Rend, on a surface level, doesn't think of anything other than answering the question plainly.

Really? None at all? 

He's kind of expecting for Rend to elaborate more on that in his thoughts, but there's that odd sparseness again.

To Damian, "So they do have the word for worship? And it means the same thing it does in Taldane?"

"Yes, Sir, that's what Tongues suggests."

Now intended to be translated for Rend, "What work do you do for your master? What's your job? And what work does he do, if any?"

"This drone works as a valet for its Master. It has a very wide job description: helping Master put on His clothes, doing secretarial duties, buying things, signing and authorizing things on His behalf, managing his other drones, stenography, bookkeeping, pretreating His clothes before laundry, and other things besides. Those are the main ones.

Master Damin's main job is being a farmer. "

Right. He's going to assume that 'farmer' means 'lord of an estate who collects tribute from serfs or equivalent' and not 'peasant'.

He wants to figure out more about the world Rend comes from, and the position of his master in that place.

"What about his parents?"

"Sir Bales is a member of the Imperial Legislature. Sir Sertes is a member of the Sranam Province Legislature."

Damian understands what Rend is trying to say, except that Taldane doesn't have a word for 'legislature'. They have words for 'imperial court' and 'judge' and 'minister' and 'advisor' – but not someone who just makes laws. 'King' or 'queen' implies more than just the capacity to make law – it also has executive and judicial powers.

"Sir Bales is part of the group in the Imperium that makes laws, except that group is only in charge of making laws. Sir Sertes is the same, but of Sranam Province."

That's...a strange way to structure a government...at least, at first glance. He wonders whether he should pursue this line of questioning – there's a limited duration on Tongues, and no one else has it prepared. He manages the prepared spells of all of the prepared spellcasters in his fort to make sure there's a good balance of spells available – and Tongues isn't essential. Most people at the Worldwound are from Avistan, and almost everyone in Avistan can speak Taldane, though it might be dialectal.

In any case, that explains it. He's the son of nobles – he's not sure how nobility works in the Zmavli Imperium but that's a very good analogy, he thinks.

Damian's Tongues will last for fifty minutes, but his Zone of Truth won't. He should ask the more important questions now, and leave the cultural exposition for later.

"Are you a mortal? You don't look like a human – what species are you?"