"Indeed. Even Crin has felt the pressure. One way starvation and poison, the other starvation, rebellion and a culture that would see Crin dead. It is hard to chart a narrow course between the empire and the vampire counts."

"Indeed. I'm impressed with her for managing it as well as she has for- well, I don't actually know how long but I certainly get the impression it's been a while."

"Fifty years. She's improved with practice and good guidance. She used to keep far more undead and fewer wolves."

She blinks.

"Honestly, that she pulled back from using undead like that, that she decided to do so- that's more impressive still. By 'good guidance' do you mostly mean yourself, or did you have- predecessors?"

"A few. Crin doesn't talk about them. I understand she made mistakes that cost her people close to her. Nikola, whom you've met, was one of Crin's people when she was fighting fit. Now she has asked to retire. Crin wanted to give her more than a tavern, but she didn't want to waste the fief's resources."

"Nikola certainly struck me as- incredibly impressive. Good of- both of them, honestly, to think that way about things."

"She is the better kind of person this land builds. Honorable. Practical. Strong."

She looks down at her sandwich, takes another bite. Swallows. 

"I would like to aspire to a better land anyway."

She nods firmly.

"There can be virtue born from hardship. But it is not worth the cost. And all too often vice is born of it instead."

"Just so." 

Ishaza seems to have just remembered her sandwiches again; she takes a few more bites.

"You know, in the interests of letting you actually finish those, why don't you ask me a few questions as well? Some of them I'll predictably have to decline to answer, but I'm sure we can stumble on some where that won't be the result."

"Well, then, I'll reverse one of your questions; what do you think of Sylvania?"

"So far it's been- kind of impressively itself. It's ominous and frightening and I can actually feel the air trying to corrupt me slightly. I interacted mostly with Nikola and you and Crin, thus far, so my opinion of the people of Sylvania is- mostly not yet formed. The people I met all parsed me as, well, a strange foreign vampire, and I could rather tell that that was- the dominant factor in our interaction. It's- there's so much wrong, and you can tell just looking around. The countryside is quiet in a way that feels deeply abnormal. There's this complete absence of standard life out here, beyond plants. I walked for hours at one point and encountered nothing besides some crows, something dead by the road, and a ghoul. I suppose that the various things out in the dark preclude the population of anything that can't flee, hide, or defend itself from growing too large. And in retrospect Crin's sizable wolf pack likely somewhat responsible for that as well. The thing that struck me the most, immediately, was just how- viscerally off it felt."

"You get used to it after a while living here, but... it has certainly taken more than five years to it."

"Well, I suppose that means I need to get started on getting used to it as soon as possible."

She pauses for a moment.

"Hmm, what else is there. Well, I'll say that the constantly overcast skies are rather impressively dreary. I'm not quite sure I know what causes that, but it can't be good for crop yields. On the other hand, it is good for our ability to travel during the day, so I'm not sure whether or not I hope sufficient cleansing of the soil helps on that front."

"I theorize it's an aftereffect of so much necromancy being done here, though I'm not certain. It could simply be that this is a gloomy, overcast part of the world. I haven't been able to find records going back to before the Vampire Wars."

"Unfortunate, records like that would probably be useful for all sorts of things."

Perhaps Castle Drakenhof has some? It feels like the likeliest place.

"Hmm. I think that's most of my crystallized Sylvania opinions, unless you have questions about specific things."

"I hadn't realized you'd encountered a ghoul. How did that go for you?"

"It was- unpleasant. It was the first I'd encountered, and after I defended myself by throwing a rock at it the sounds it made were disconcertingly human, and I wasn't entirely sure for a moment if it was- just a mutated person who was very sick. I was glad when I ended up- completely sure, later, that it was a ghoul."

Ishaza winces. "That sounds unpleasant. Ghouls... technically were people once, but the hold of their corruption on them is so strong they aren't able to reason beyond trying to kill and eat things, preferentially people. It's a kindness to them to put them down."

"I think I probably shouldn't be relieved to hear that, but I am. I'd- heard that there was that little of them left, but I wasn't entirely sure."

"There are occasional relatively smart ones that become a kind of... pack leader. Necromancers find them easy to manipulate with fresh meat. But the vast majority of ghouls are not reasoning beings, and it's highly unlikely that a lone one would be."

"I did- try to speak, after I heard the almost-voice come out of its mouth. If it had said anything at all like words I would have- tried to help however I could have, I suppose. It didn't make anything like words, and I- well, I made sure it didn't suffer."

"You killed a dangerous animal, then. The intelligent ones can speak. Not lucidly, not - so they'd be able to hold a conversation on any topic other than meat - but they can."

She takes a deep breath, and a little tension leaves her shoulders.

"Thank you."

"So! I stand ready to answer additional questions, if you have them! Fair warning, if you ask what's in my backpack besides clothes I will facetiously answer that one component is air."