Ishaza nods. "I am tired from the healing, and there is no reason for me to stay awake now. I think I will leave you two to your night." 

She looks over at Crin. "Unless, of course, milady objects."

"I do not. Get some rest, Ishaza. You will be needed to sanctify the ground tomorrow morning."

"By your command."

She looks over at Nikola. "I will require a room for the night."

"There is one." Nikola smiles as if Ishaza's request is a private joke. 

"Good rest, hyshandra." 

"Good rest, vabrosva." 

Ishaza walks up the stairs to the top landing, hooves clicking against the steps, and lets herself into a room.

"It seems it's just us for the rest of the night, then." 

Crin sits back in her chair. "Let us try to speak of lighter matters if we can."

"I am strongly in favour of this plan. Hmm. I find myself suddenly at a loss for conversation topics. Well, absent a good idea, I will make use of a bad one. Are your hounds of the bone-chillingly-terrifying variety, or are they surprisingly personable if one is their mistress? Or perhaps both."

"Both," Crin replies. "The largest of them are goblin war wolves I 'reclaimed' from the local tribe. They're surprisingly tame, but still fundamentally predators almost the size of you."

"Reclaimed war wolves! And I suppose "both" would be the best option, for someone in your position. Just imagine if it was discovered that your terrifying-sounding hounds were secretly a pack of friendly retrieving dogs."

Crin actually chuckles at that. "Quite." She runs a hand through her hair. "My fellow lords and ladies tend to keep less wholesome retinues, so I have to keep up somehow. I don't use Necromancy if I can help it; the Dhar involved scars the land with sufficient use, and is part of the reason why there's such contamination. And it makes me a person I don't like with continued exposure."

She suddenly finds herself wanting to ask if she knows whether the common belief that raising even non-spectral undead disturbs a soul's rest in the realm of the dead is true, but that is not particularly light conversation.

"I thoroughly approve. It's a clever solution to the problem."

She grins.

"If you ever somehow manage to become truly unassailably powerful you could try having a small group of hounds that are in fact incredibly friendly retrieving dogs and see how long it takes anyone to notice."

"That would be an entertaining experiment, I agree. Perhaps one day." 

She folds her hands together. "What do you think of Ishaza? She's quite the individual, I must say."

"She really is. I quite approve of her principles, even if I don't think adopting rules quite as strict as the ones she argues for is my in-expectation best option."

Also both she and Crin are very pretty but she is steadfastly ignoring the bit of her brain that's paying attention to that.

Crin takes a few moments to speak, considering her words carefully.

"She's quite... unique. I think in a different world she might have chosen a different career with less blood and suffering, but that unshakability of hers is a great asset to a healer. She wasn't born with her ability to control Hysh; she beseeched her goddess for it, through the intermediary of the draenei's guardian, and recieved it as a blessing for her conviction. It's strange to act in concert with one touched by the gods, but I suppose necessity makes odd bedfellows."

She nods.

"I haven't run into many servants of the gods, in my time. Certainly not an abundance of ones who've managed to earn the ability to control Hysh. So I suppose I don't really have a handle on how unique she is, lacking comparisons as I am. Perhaps that someone like her is working with you says something about what at least one of those gods think of your projects. I don't really- know much about what they're actually like, in any real way. You hear things about their servants, if you're me don't actually encounter said servants directly particularly often, and that's really all the information you usually get."

"I think Ishaza would be better to ask for details on the deities. She has some familiarity with the wider pantheon through her work, though she is primarily dedicated to Rhya."

"That makes sense. Perhaps I'll ask her about that back at Konigstein, or on the trip there."

Does this world have the printing press? Are books cheap enough she and Crin could simply bring things along to read, if they wanted? Probably if it has either Crin doesn't read for leisure or else actually good fiction still isn't much of a thing.

Something in the back of her head is saying she should use Dragon Fairy Elf Witch on Crin, in case her vampire lineage has more and more interesting abilities, but that feels- sort of rude, somehow? To do it without permission? And she's going to be an ally, hopefully. Better not to be rude.

"Do you havs any questions about broader Sylvania? Nikola mentioned to me that you seemed a little lost."

"I, uh, am, yes. I have some vague knowledge, but- well, you may have heard that I literally did not know who the current Emperor was, or whether there was someone in Drakenhof who ruled all of Sylvania. Or, in fact, where exactly I was in Sylvania at all. The reason behind all of that is, well, part of the frankly-unbelievable story. How is the political situation in general? Are there large parts of Sylvania that are arranged into a hierarchy of nobility, or is it mostly individual independent holdings?"

"Sylvania is largely independent holdings," Crin says. "There was a major Empire offensive some decades ago that made most of the real powers go to ground. Sylvania wasn't held then - it's never held permanently, the contamination is too pernicious - but they killed a number of the major players and pacified the orcs, so things have been relatively quiet since. I am not sure who is truly dead and who is merely in hiding, so I will not give you details I myself do not trust."

She nods.

"I appreciate that. Hmm. If someone had mostly heard of Sylvania through hearsay and the occasional snippet of a history of the region, what would they arrive incorrect about? What would be the most important things for them to learn about quickest?"

"That's a difficult question to answer, speaking as someone who's lived in Sylvania most of her life. I think I would say the most persistent false belief is that Sylvanians abduct travelers from inns for the Blood Tax. Hospitality is taken very seriously, here; you might be waylaid on the road, but if you're staying as a guest you will be protected."

"I suppose that makes sense. And I've noticed the hospitality- helped make it a bit easier for me to help, I think, that Nikola was more willing to believe I wasn't the likely cause of the problems. Who knows if things would have gone as well if I'd been working more independently."

"Hospitality is a very practical thing in a land as haunted as Sylvania. If you do not offer it to your neighbour, you will at some point sorely need it, and be refused."

Nikola comes over to the table across the tavern, shadows cast about from her in the low oil-light. She bows to Crin. 

"I sleep, soon," she says. "Is anything needed?"