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a Lucy is born in Geb
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Wenduag has taken up a position in the corner of the main room, about as far as she could get away from Lann without making it blatant that was what she was doing or giving up on being able to monitor the entrance. She notices their approach well prior to them arriving, but instead spends the time observing the new addition now that they're not in the heat of battle. She wasn't totally sure at the garrison, but now that she's seen more of the uplanders the way in which they differ from everyone else around them stands out. They're obviously from at least the same tribe; being siblings makes sense. The biggest question is if he holds the same power, or if he's only important for being close to Luzai.

"You'll never meet a better hunter."

 

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What does he say to that. "I'm more familiar with farming than hunting." Wait that's terrible, not only does it ambiguously put down hunting it implies he knows anything about agriculture. "By which I mean, Father owned a small slave farm." That might have been worse! "That's where he got our mother, and the mothers of most of our half-siblings." Thaaaaat at least seems okay? Probably? 

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Is he propositioning her? She's not sure how else to take someone bringing up that they enjoy slave farms like the one their father got their mother from, and she's well aware of her own popularity in Neatholm, but the uplanders are strange in a lot of ways. Wenduag looks at him assessingly. He doesn't seem very muscular, but not being muscular didn't stop Luzai from defeating Savamalekh and he does look like he regularly eats. He's at least an okay shot with a crossbow, plus he has magic, and if the claim is true his family is presumably rich as well. She could definitely do worse, but she might be able to do better as well. She'll see how he reacts to pushback, then, and reply with a smirk.

"I'll think about it. I think you'll find me more of a challenge than you're used to."

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"...What?" 

Did she read subtext into what he said? Oh no, he doesn't know what subtext you could extract from what he said but it can't be good. 

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As near as she can tell, he's genuinely surprised by that. Which implies that either he doesn't usually get that kind of response to his offers, or uplanders have some script for it that she's not following. Well, whatever; she already knew she wasn't like the people on the surface.

"I'm saying you'll have to work for it, wizard."

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“Work for what.”

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Fortunately for Villibor, despite her lack of charisma Wenduag is wise enough to usually think through what she says before speaking. Unfortunately for him, she does not have a sense of shame or indeed any reason to consider this something she should be embarrassed about.

"To breed me. I'm not going to sleep with someone who can't give me strong children."

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"I have no idea how you got that from what I said. --Is it because I mentioned my mother?" He doesn't really see how that would lead to, uh, that, but then he doesn't know anything about underground people culture??? Maybe you never mention your parents if you're not courting someone. 

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Now Wenduag is confused.

"Why else would you bring up that you enjoy farming, like where your father got the mothers of his children?"

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"--I don't enjoy it! I just know anything about it! And I don't know anything about hunting, and--hunting and farming are supposed to be the two ways to get food." 

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Now she's totally lost and isn't sure how to respond.

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"Villibor is not great at social interactions and brought up the farming thing in response to hunting because 'say something related to what the other person just said' is usually a workable rule of thumb for talking to people if you don't know what else to say." Finally someplace Luzai has any idea what's going on! 

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"Usually when I say the wrong thing people just call me out on it or give me unimpressed looks." 

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Well, if he is interested what she said still applies and if not there are plenty more people on the surface.

"I see."

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He nods. That's. Probably safe?

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"So, hey, how d'you feel about money, it's probably way more useful on the surface when you can buy lots of things than when you can really only use it with Dyra. And Horgus Gwerm is offering us a bunch of it to escort him to his big fancy house."

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"Is that the blusterer we had to guide out of the caves? I thought it was odd how people like that paladin took him so seriously. Is having lots of money how you get people to respect you up here?" 

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"Hmm. Sometimes it is. That is, it's one of several ways to get people to respect you. I don't think Irabeth Tirabade has a lot of money, but everyone respects her. Power gets people to respect you, I would say, and money is one kind of power." 

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She still doesn't understand how the money does that, or why anyone other than people like Dyra cares, but she doesn't need to understand to not want to pass up a chance to take some of their strength for her own. Maybe she can figure it out once she has some.

"Then I'm in."

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"Awesome." 

It occurs to Luzai only belatedly that mentioning that Lann wasn't coming might have been a bonus, but it would probably be sort of weird to mention it after the fact. 

...She should probably go talk to Irabeth, if only because keeping an eye out for more Lilitu-sized problems is a better idea than talking to Mom in the heat of the moment. Camellia already noticed that she was acting weird that one time, she would really like to not form a pattern. 

Irabeth is in charge and Luzai is only a first-circle wizard under her sort-of command, so Luzai...approaches her sort of obliquely, making her way through the crowd of refugees such that, if Irabeth is busy, or anyone looks at her like she's out of line for just showing up to talk, she can veer off with some kind of plausible deniability. 

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Irabeth does seem to be reasonably busy. She's commandeered a relatively private alcove on the first floor of the inn, and is seated at a desk with what looks like a map rolled out in front of her. Anevia is sitting across from her, as is an unfamiliar adventurer; their conversation is occasionally interrupted by people delivering reports.

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There are also a pair of paladins on guard to prevent unnecessary interruptions and keep any cultists from listening in. One of them is even a familiar face, although unless she's quick on the uptake he'll probably recognize her first. He seems significantly more tired than he was a few days ago at the eagle's watch headquarters, but he responds to catching sight of her with alacrity.

"Do I need to clear the room again? Or, er, as close as we can manage right now?"

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"Oh, uh, no, no this time!" 

Somehow the fact that people remember her as the girl with the warning prickled at her nerves less when she hadn't just asked her mother to intervene again. Whatever, she'll get over it.

"Hi Irabeth, I just wanted to let you know I bought a scroll from the cleric of Abadar and Villibor and I can prepare Protection from Evil tomorrow, and also wondering if you had any specific plans for us anytime soon." 

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While it's not that she wasn't very glad of the warning - and, in fact, would prefer it if she got that kind of heads up every time - part of Irabeth can't help but be glad that there isn't another crisis about to drop in her lap.

"Not unless your magical expertise also includes figuring out why the wardstone isn't zapping demons properly and how to make it start again. When you prepare spells tomorrow it will be a different story, but cantrips less so. If you're looking for something to do the patrols could always use extra backup, or detect fiendish presence if you have it, but nothing critical."

Personally she somewhat hopes the girl will take a break, both for her own sake and because even first circle is enough to make her one of the stronger wizards they have.

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"I don't have that. I would be happy to swap for it if there's anyone who does have it who doesn't have something I do." She sort of wishes that there were just, public libraries, full of spellbooks, and people would come in and put in new ones the library didn't already have, and could copy down any ones they wanted, so every wizard's repertoire were just a matter of how they decided to specialize and how much time they were willing to spend learning new spells, but--this is not that. She can share spells freely with Villibor but most wizards are not actually down with "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." 

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