"I understand, Lady Saffron." He wants to ask what 'egregious problems' counts as, but she said not to ask. Maybe he will ask later.

"When I was at Alphazon, they would simply give me tasks to do, and I would do them, and would spend the whole time in my room otherwise. I am not sure how you assign and handle workflows of your clients. What will working be like, generally, in your estate?"

"I would never confine you to your room when you're not working! I suppose one shouldn't expect better from Alphazon. Still, it's quite crass of them."

"Still, just because we've established what we're not doing, that doesn't mean you know what we are doing. I think we'd be looking at, oh. Four hours a day of work and a similar amount of time spent on study, assuming things pan out, and an expectation that you remain on or near the estate most of the rest of the time, with me knowing where you're going if you go somewhere else, at least for the first several months. I can pre-approve some places to spend off-estate time if that concerns you, though I'll still want to know where you are. If things don't pan out regarding your skills, we're looking at more like eight to twelve hours a day of work, depending on how much they don't pan out? But you sound like a talented person. If you're representing yourself honestly we should be fine. You'll get the usual holidays off. By default you'll have a room here that you can decorate to your own tastes, but if you don't need to sleep and you have poor memories of having a room, you don't have to."

That's a lot less than at Alphazon! He averaged sixteen hours a day doing practices, usually divided into one period studying and another period doing live training.

Conrad sees nothing wrong with your employer knowing where you are at all times.

"That is fine with me, Lady Saffron. I think I would want to spend time in parks and gardens sometimes, but I have not been to anywhere else in Lunabella aside from here and Chasmapolis.

I do not know what the usual holidays are."

He gets to decorate his room!!!!!!!!! He is So Happy.

"Oh, Chasmapolis public parks and gardens are fine. It's Chasmapolis. Everyone portals there, so the city always has to be ready for trouble."

Saffron smiles at him. "Well, I think this has been a promising conversation. I'll want a skill demonstration after dinner. In the meantime, you should enjoy the food and converse with my household, see if you think you can get along with them."

That's great! Chasmapolis is great! Admittedly he has a sample size of two (2) bubbles of Lunabella, but still! It Is Great.

"Yes, Lady Saffron," he will say.

He actually doesn't know how conversing without a specific goal in mind works. So he is just going to remain silent and eat until or unless someone initiates conversation.

After an awkward pause, Cumin can take the initiative. "So, Conrad, do you have a favorite of the foods served so far?"

"Yes, Madam. I really really like these," and he will point to the crab cakes. "I also like these and these," pointing to the cherries and dates.

"Oh! Those are crab cakes and cherries and dates. I like crab cakes and cherries, but I'm not such a fan of dates. And I like the deviled eggs."

"I don't like the sauce on the deviled eggs."

"Strange, I think it's the best part. No arguing with taste, I suppose."

More members of the household are trickling in and filling up the table. Apparently Cumin and Conrad arrived on the earlier side. The invisible servants return to serving food. Someone looks at Conrad in a strange, assessing manner.

Saffron scowls and raises an eyebrow. "This is my guest. He has dealt with too much unrefined behavior as is. But now he's here, so he shouldn't have any such problems, yes?"

The witch being scowled at slinks back. "Yes, lady Saffron, I understand."

Saffron turns to face the table. "Ladies who are now arriving! This is my guest, Conrad. We're considering whether he should join my household."

With this many people at the table, there are now some who are operating their utensils telekinetically, or just picking up the food with telekinesis. Apparently the issue is with touching some specific foods with one's hands.

Conrad doesn't pay any special attention to the person that looked at him like that. Assessing looks are the opposite of strange to him! He doesn't understand why Saffron is so upset, and he wants to Send to Cumin, but casting Send would probably take him thirty seconds because of lack of practice. So he doesn't.

Ooh. He wants to pick up his food with Windkeeping, but that's probably a horrible idea because his close precise control of it isn't as good as with Metallurgy. He might end up blowing the other food around. He doesn't bother with using Metallurgy to control his utensils, though. Using utensils is still very fun and new!

Is new food brought in with the arrival of the other people.

Not immediately – the other people mostly arrived in time to catch the end of this course.

Someone with shiny scales is seated across from him now. "Hi, Conrad! How's your day going?"

Ooh. Do they look similar to Zamira?

"Very good! I got attacked by Alphazon agents but I fended them off and got away!" He is very happy about that!

No, her face is much more humanoid than that, and the scales aren't all over her skin, just on parts of it.

"Wow, that must have been exciting! I had a nice day but the most exciting part was that I feel like I have a grasp of matrix multiplication now."

"It was! And I'm happy for you too. Matrices are very useful. Math is very useful in general, but geometry is most fun for me. What else do you study? I'm probably going to learn a lot about software if I join Lady Saffron's household."

"I'm pretty focused on the portals-aethernautics-physics cluster, which integral calculus and linear algebra are relevant to. And I'm trying to learn enough Orcish to properly appreciate their poetry and theater, but I'm not prioritizing it, so it's been pretty slow going. What do you like about geometry?"

"I know some aethernautics and physics, but don't know anything about portals. I only know English. What is good about Orcish poetry and theatre? I have not seen English poetry and theatre either.

I like it because it's good for navigation. And also very good for things like construction and art. And I find it very easy to understand. It's...spatial. I can intuit it better than other areas of math."

"Oh, Orcish poetry and theater are just so raw and passionate. At least in translation. Though English is good too! And Lunabellan Greek, there's a decent theater scene up here, though a lot of it is either repetitive or only interesting if you've been keeping up with everything for the past few centuries."

"And you're right, geometry is good for art! They're not very popular around here, but you might want to look up the tilework on the Watcher's Cathedral, or this human artist Escher?"