"So wait, let me get this straight. You dominate them and I pay them? Is that the deal you are proposing?"

"It's more that you pay to create the possibility of my dominating them properly, and then they meekly fall into line until you tell them they're no longer useful and leave them sobbing on a lightline charging circle."

"--this, to be clear, has not always worked on the first try."

"I have to admit, 'leaving them sobbing' is not typically what I'm aiming for with people who've joined my team. I'm usually more interested in forging lasting, trusting bonds so that we can count on each other in adverse circumstances."

"I realize this is entirely counter to the premise of this prison! And yet, that's what I want."

"Not averse to you getting plenty of quivering, happy subs out of the deal, though, if I'm getting what I want too."

"I'm curious what percentage of your previous relationships have ended in lasting trusted bonds versus people sobbing."

Oooof. Iilasir!

"Many more lasting trusting bonds than you're probably guessing, even among the people I've broken up with. Not that there wasn't some sobbing along the way, but I've retained probably 80% of my closer relationships as friendships."

"With people on your own level, wherever you're from?  Not just minions that you go on paying for lesser services after you dump them from your inner circle?"

"There are some assumptions in your question!"

"I have never really had romantic or sexual entanglements with people I'd call my 'minions.' I've had minions in a work context, but that's entirely different."

"I sort of expect that this isn't going to make sense to you given how intertwined these concepts are here."

"No, it actually makes perfect sense in retrospect, I'm just failing to track the implications of 'magic not existing' fast enough."

"Well, that's very impressive if true.  My curiosity to see it in practice, especially if you can pull it off within this lovely Facility, far outweighs any thoughts I have about how you could get better results faster by being more cruel to your lovers."

"Would you mind telling me a bit about what hierarchy you're currently a part of, and how that functions? I am happy to pay for that information with lore of my universe."

"I'm not very affiliated with any faction inside the Facility, but Duchess Carnidine to the extent it's anyone.  They do me favors, and I them."

"Though, I think most people in this universe would have interpreted your question in a way where the answer is that I'm in the Facility and therefore chattel to a bureaucracy that answers to the Prince whose death you causally participated in somehow--I have updated against your having directly murdered him on a whim, based on the rest of this conversation--under the Dread Emperor."

"Why do your sexual partners stay with you, given your low rank? I'm assuming it's because dominants are so rare here, and they enjoy their time with you? And you get tokens as favors from Carnidine and Muhulla? Or... I think you said maybe you make your subs provide the necessary tokens?"

Wow, being a true dominant in here is its own kind of currency, if Opalyn is understanding this correctly.

"Essentially yes.  Pure dominant, male.  Not every sub wants that, and not every switch here is adorably inadequate, but it's rare enough that they'll bring the tokens and get me off even if they can't get off themselves."

"With longer-term relationships I'm careful not to modify or inhibit my natural alienness about what feels like the obvious right thing to say or do; and to many subs that reads as a cruelty that some subs fall in love with, which leads into a lot of romantic tension ending in disaster.  So I'm also not completely hopeless when it comes to boosting someone's lightline charging."

"I think being careful not to modify or inhibit your natural alienness is the very best way to create a durable long term relationship! If you pretend to be something you're not, it's not really you in the relationship, and at some point the mask is likely to slip!"

"I hope you are keeping score about how many things about my world I'm supposed to tell you. Cash in when you like. Meanwhile I'll just keep asking nosy questions that you are free to decline to answer without any associated death threat!"

"Will Duchess Carnidine be upset if I form an alliance with you, and how important is it if she's upset?"

"I think she'd be almost zero upset, unfortunately.  Nowhere near a degree of upset that Administration would reward you for producing in a Duchess."

Opalyn keeps forgetting that upsetting people is considered a virtue, here!

"So are you any closer to being able to recommend a Count or Countess for me to invite to my team, or do you still need more information from me?"

"Closer.  Not really at the point where I'd say I'm there."

"Are you looking for administrative ability?  Willingness to mildly beat somebody up at your direction?  Already having a battle harem or service harem that they bring to the table?  Are you planning to dominate a male, or a female, yourself?  Am I dominating them?  Are you bribing them with your full supply of chastity tokens or only one a week?  Are we doing the thing where we end up as friends forever despite this entire Facility, and if so what sort of qualities or relationships lead to that?"

"Administrative ability: Ideally, yes."
"Beating people up: No."
"Battle harem: No."
"Service harem: Only if someone else in my organization requires that."
"Dominate anyone myself: Ideally not."
"You dominate them: Sure, if you'd be into that, and you and I have a mutually agreeable arrangement that includes that as one of the terms."
"Full supply of chastity tokens: Probably best not to promise the full allotment from the start, in case we need to expand the team later."

"And as to the last question, are WE doing the friends forever thing, as in you and me, or as in me and every single person we hire for the team? I think it's too soon to tell! I generally like to be on good terms with most folks I interact with to any degree, but it takes a while to build up to 'friends forever.'"

"The list of important qualities is long and could take a while to explain fully, but let's start with honesty and living up to promises. I am not sure how many people here ever even attempt those things since they're rewarded for the opposite, so it's possible I won't make any forever-friends here at all."

"That last requirement narrows it down a lot, around here.  Hm.  I can think of one Countess who was designated as lewd for masochism, designated as dramatic for having not backed down from a couple of dramatic fights.  Hasn't actually fit in well in Lewd Dramatic Prison, seems medium-unhappy about the amount of lying and unreliability around here, and... strikes me as someone I could work beside without us mutually annihilating.  Good organizer of what is chaotic, not so much a commander of souls."

"We'd be stealing her from Duchess Carnidine and chastity tokens alone won't cut it to seduce her, or the promise of greater authority.  Maybe greater license, but only if we had non-land territory to give her license over?  I think we'd have to seduce her mostly with the work itself, whatever that work is... I admit, I don't really understand our organizational goals just yet, or the operational responsibilities for a Countess."

"I'm not actually sure yet! There is so much I still don't understand about this universe in general and this prison specifically. The main thing I want right now is to have some allies of various ranks. This is mainly because the token system is set up to require various ranks; I can't just pick anyone I happen to mesh with, I do actually need to build a hierarchy of approximately the right shape if we want everybody to get all the correct chastity tokens as needed."

"I'm interested in this Countess you mention. It sounds like she has some qualities I value a lot, and I'd like to get to know her a bit. It's often easier to create good deals once you understand the other person's motivations better. I won't immediately be able to describe work duties to her because I don't know that part myself, yet -- but it always turns out there's work to do. Always. Every single time. Never fails."

"Think I understand that well enough to know what the next steps would be if you set off the bomb on it.  Namely, we hunt her down when she's alone, corner her where she can't escape, and have a friendly talk."

"I am just never sure when you're kidding!"

"Does... she prefer to be approached that way? Or just by you?"

"It shows that we respect her escaping abilities."

"Huh."

Opalyn is going to take this at face value for now but is going to 1) make it clear that it was Iilasir's idea and 2) ask if this Countess actually does enjoy that.

"All right, I think my last remaining question is about how the chastity belts work. People are going to start wanting token allotments and so on as soon as I start building the team and I should know as much as I can about how these things actually work."

"Chastity dynamics are constantly being changed by the administration. You might think that they'd systematically try out different possibilities and determine a single best drama-maximizing set of rules and then stop there; but either they're not that smart, or it doesn't maximize drama one level up to have constant and predictable rules."

"I think this week the key relevant rules are that it's something like a tenth of a token to permit any interesting sensations down there, a quarter of a token to get close to orgasm, and a full token to go over the edge. The rule I mostly set for submissives is that, if they want to be hurt by me at all, they need to bring with whatever it takes for me to have an orgasm."

"Oh, I hadn't realized you could spend fractional tokens! If someone spends a fractional token to get interesting sensations or to edge, how long does that last? It kind of sounds like the full token is used up when the orgasm happens."

Have these people implemented edge detection? This would go for big money back on Earth, though if it's implemented with magic then it wouldn't transfer back.

Not that Opalyn ever gets to go back.