Well, he doesn't remember. His wife knew but mostly didn't like to talk about it and now she's dead. Whatever it was it involved him getting stuck in a brothel and dwindled a lot really fast.

Ah.

The Revel House is super not allowed to have redmages. His minder lets his old clients visit him for the usual per sitting fee though. He loves them, after all.

Yeah, he'd read that it worked that way. 

He thanks them.

He goes around to find and talk to more people.

There are lots. He can even talk to Liatsi's old redmage's minder, who is giving him and the Queen privacy.

He really likes talking to people! He tries not to be rudely inquisitive about the quality of life and how people feel about dwindling and so on.

Iamica is perfectly chatty about everything. Yes the servants here are paid well and could leave for other jobs if they wanted except not the minders for reds and blues whose mages can't replace them (but those are assigned by personal closeness and would generally not want to leave their charges). Yes they have birth control, the mages all take it, they adopt all their children, they pick healthy smart ones who won't die or dwindle to nonfunctionality as quickly. No she hasn't heard of eugenics why do you ask.

It's really good about the birth control. Is that available to the population at large...

She assumes the apothecaries sell it to everyone. The brothels have it, definitely.

Elves don't have brothels, are they - popular.

Yeah, most people can't afford redmages.

He thanks her for her time. 

He's welcome.

There's somebody out of uniform over there, mid-teens if Bright can judge human ages. "What're you so curious about everything for?" he asks.

"There are no mages in my home world, and we are trying to learn about this society and how it works for the people living in it."

"Come to any conclusions?"

"It is delightful to see how highly the people think of their Queen. She seems very capable." Human hearing can't be so bad they're out of earshot of other humans right now, can it? "My hope is that when your world has more - plenty - peoples' lives will be easier."

"Mages are sorta economically delicate."

"Yeah. Do you have any ideas on how to make things better for mages?"

"Which kinds?"

"We might have a fix for goldmages, we are at a loss with respect to everyone else."

"Being a redmage would be better if they didn't pile on the clients as much as they do, but the money for the servants and everything has to come from somewhere."

"We could maybe just pay them not to give redmages too many clients."

"You have that kind of money?"

"You can assume money is not an obstacle at all, does that change the proposed solutions?"

"You could pension everybody off real early. Drive up the prices. The Temple-Guilds would take fewer kids though."