"We're not keeping them around for the decor but they're usually people who live in a nearby village, no one can identify them weeks later when guards go out ..."

"How do people game the school statistics?"

"You have to report if you discipline a student? We'll have all kinds of routing for students who are disruptive or causing trouble that doesn't technically count as discipline! You have to report how many of your students get jobs? Hold them back from graduating or try to claim they're disabled if they're not promising candidates for employment yet! Or have a friend 'hire' them but not in the field they studied and not under good conditions; if they stop going to work after a week that doesn't show up in the statistics."

"They don't count if they're disabled? Do schools try to attract disabled students?"

"You've still got to find disabled students jobs but you get more time and extra support, there are programs specifically for getting disabled people work that suits. Some schools try that - which is fine as long as they're not misleading anyone."

"Aren't there people who can't work at all?"

"Yes, but if schools get to decide some people are too disabled to work they might write off the wrong ones - or just all of them, helps with the statistics."

"They can not admit them though, right -"

"Schools can't turn down students of the right caste unless they're admitting entrants by lottery and they're full, or they're a special program or something. Otherwise everyone'd boot all the least promising students."

"Huh."

"I could get you a book with descriptions of how everybody does it, if you'd like. Compare strategies."

"Or some kind of - historical walkthrough, if you've been through a period like ours -"

"We did, yes."

"So that might help us go through the process faster with fewer dead ends."

"For sure! I'll have someone send you a really thorough summary. On other topics, too, though maybe you won't want to copy us on bandits."

" - they execute people a lot. It's kind of horrible."

"...is there a reason why that is important besides bandit-minimization -"

"Low crime rates and we also had way too many people and found it horribly painful not to be able to have children. I don't think it makes sense for humans to be as strict, though you should probably be willing to kill some people in the cause of no-bandits, trade will make you way way wealthier. Seriously."

"Do you have a Nistar -"

"Name doesn't match but I'm going to wildly guess you mean my fourth-born brother. Kantil."

"That's the one, if birth order matches."

"It did between me and Maitimo - this whole thing is so strange -"

"Yes, but it's nice to see a friendly face in the apparently, uh, vast multiverse?"

"Indeed. Mitros says the rest of us should be disappointed not to have married you."

" - I will concede the merits of marrying a man, if that's a thing. But you should have an Iobel."