"Yes, I understand."

It doesn't sound like he does. But Miko doesn't know how to explain her point any better than she already did.

"Do I still have to keep working with her?"

"If it causes you this much distress, no. And… I'll talk with her commanding officer. Make sure she's not wasting city money."

Miko isn't a paladin anymore. She won't lose her powers if someone she associates with behaves badly and she does nothing to discipline them. But it still feels dirty. Hopefully when she gets to the surface Camellia will choose independently to go her own way.

"I'm glad you were able to prepare better spells. We'll be on the surface soon."

"And I can return to my customary wasteful indolence... don't think I missed that look, dame Miyazaki." The smirk on her face is nearly indistinguishable from the one that was there already, but it's a little sharper. "I don't pamper myself senselessly, and I would think even you could tell the reason."

"It's not actually my job to ensure that everyone conform to the standards of my paladin order," says the woman who has frequently taken it upon herself to enforce standards tighter than that of her paladin order.

She… actually couldn't tell the reason, so now she probably should make an honest effort to guess.

"Does it help you focus on spellcraft? Or… I think there are some Western gods who highly value cleanliness and hygiene, is that it?"

Camellia shakes her head a bit more showily than necessary; her perfect hair bounces and flows like a deeply anachronistic shampoo commercial.

"You don't know, so I'll let you in on a little secret. If you go into a cave and see a gnarled witch, waving a stick at you and chanting, you should be concerned."

She leans in closer. Her lips are so red.

"If you see a beautiful young woman, and she smells of roses, and she smiles at you just like this... you should be afraid."

Miko hasn't felt afraid since her third paladin level! She is, however, not literally incapable of understanding figurative language: it sounds like Camellia is talking about the difference between, upon walking into the ruins of a wrecked neighborhood, encountering chipped and cracked dishes or dented pots versus encountering a single flawless cup. The gnarled witch in the cave is, to an extent, normal and defeatable. The beautiful young woman is probably a vampire.

(This all sounds like something a bard would say, but… they're not always useless.)

Anyway.

Camellia doesn't seem like a vampire, so she's probably talking about circumstantial bonuses to Intimidate checks.

"I see. So it's in your strategic best interest to be pristine."

"Just so!"

She leans back on her heels, point apparently made. "At any rate, I will be happy to be on the surface, but honestly, it'll mostly be for the better class of enemies. It hasn't been a day and I'm sick of lizards - and it wasn't more than a few minutes up there, but I've somehow already developed a taste for demon blood."

"Careful," Finnean comments. "Those outsiders can be tricky."

Camellia glances down, then back up. "...new sword?" she asks.

"Only as new as the rest of my equipment. He didn't talk before we rested, though, I think he was… whatever swords do instead of sleeping, until I deliberately got his attention."

Camellia's mouth twitches - as if she might lick her lips, were she not aware that people find that disturbing.

"You really are just a halfway-house for lost spirits, aren't you?" she asks instead, sounding conspiratorially amused. "The angel's blade, that... child-thing... and now another of your possessions wakes up. If your smallclothes begin to speak, I'm going to start forming theories."

Miko grins.

"Well, that hasn't happened yet, but my old paladin mount did follow me into this… situation."

Shrug. "I've no particular expertise with those. Not the right kind of spirit, I don't think."

"They're somewhere between a wizard's familiar and a summoned celestial ally… is my understanding, I don't have any ranks in Spellcraft."

Miko remembers what she initially came here for!

"Oh, also—if you have need of any rations or supplies, Dyra told me that she knew where they could be bought. I declined, mostly because I don't yet know what I'll need that I don't already have on my person. But I told her I'd pass the offer along."

"Exciting," Camellia deadpans. She pauses. "...I say that, but actually, I should check if their mushroom stockpiles have anything interesting. Thank you for letting me know."

Miko is getting a good grade in… okay, she's not sure what precisely she's getting a good grade in, but the important part is it's a good grade.

"Of course. She was outside my tent, but if you have other business I can't imagine it would be particularly hard to find her later."

"I can follow the lanolin," Camellia nods. She wanders off, thoughtfully half-humming a tune that involves a lot of repetitions of the word amanita.

… Presumably she's planning to do some sort of potion brewing with those. Or something.

She's not sure what schedule Lann keeps, but it might be a good time to find him, before things get busy. Off she goes, hoping that she can catch him separately from Wenduag.

He's up! Sitting near Chief Sull while he hammers out a sword. (His hours are currently "whatever hours the surfacers are keeping, because he's questing with them".)

His eyes are closed. Sull nods to her, not letting up the hammering. "Greetings, uplander. The boy's meditating; d'you need me to wake him?"

"Greetings."

She shakes her head in response to the question. "No, I don't have any urgent business."

She did come up here for a reason, though.

"How did he get chosen as the next chief? Are the two of you related?"

Sull shakes his head. "Šons of chiefš make bad chiefš. Or no better than anybody elše. The boy's clever and štrong. And..."

After a pause filled with ringing hammerblows, he shakes his head. "That'š how a chieftain needs to be."

Well, that's obviously ridiculous. Shojo may have turned out to "have some flaws" and Hinjo may be inexperienced, but they're still the best candidates for Lord of Azure City. Even if there might theoretically be some sort of political genius born to commoner parents who would do a better job, they don't have the same training and legitimacy.

Then again, this community is small. It can't support the same sorts of institutions that Azure City can, or provide the same kind of training to children of noble families. It's easier to find hypothetical political geniuses if you can know everyone in town.

She knows what Sull means, anyway. She's seen the spark of something that could very well be what he's referring to, that's how a chieftain needs to be.

"He cares about the future?"