"All the things you do that are impressive reflect on me and my family, so if you accomplish what you say we'll be very highly thought of and I'll get a better marriage and so forth."

"But you won't be telling me what I can and can't spend the money on? I just have to go forth and look impressive? Because I am definitely more impressive when I have less red tape."

"Yeah, of course not. I don't know anything about what to spend money on."

"Excellent!" She beamed. "Then I'll go scout for business opportunities and get back to you."

I'm going to take over the world! I'm going to take over the wooooorld! I'll banish evil; I'll banish malice; and, most importantly, I'll banish economic inefficiency!

Gimlith is watching,  amused, and beams at Carmen when their host leaves. "That was brilliant. You're a natural."

"I'm pretty sure I didn't do much of anything. Did you know that you could get sacks of gold just by sperging out hard enough about the magic of markets? I mean, if people are throwing out largesse to anyone who starts circlejerking with the invisible hand, why hasn't anyone taken this opportunity before? This is as close to literal money on the ground as you can get without being cliché."

"You speak like an educated person, you are immortal, you have most of the things our society looks for to decide whether people deserve opportunities in the first place."

"Huh. Should I just... Be exotic in public a bunch to acquire supporters? I mean, if I'm building a business empire, I'll still need to get people who know what they're doing. I'm not naturally an entrepreneur, so I'll need to get all the best people so they can make the best plans. That's how you build things; that's how you become a winner. Terrific."

She may need to slow down and take a deep breath. Finding out you're going to take over the world is a bit of a heady experience.

"You should learn Sindarin, probably. Rich people mostly don't even speak Adunaic. Then you should be immortal in public, yes, very definitely. You really think this is going to work?"

"I can learn Sindarin. I'm not sure how to demonstrate that I don't age, though. It's not like I'd survive being shot in the chest, so I can't demonstrate that...

Anyway, I think the Take Over The World Through Business plan should work. It was originally just a boast about how superior my economic system is but, to be honest, the type of society that avoids money probably has a ton of other inefficiencies too. Especially things that would look obvious to me, seeing them from the outside. If I can get enough capital and seize enough opportunities, I can probably get enough money to fund useful social things. Like rebellions in the colonies, maybe."

"I am sort of expecting that by the time you are wealthy and successful that won't seem as important to you as it does right now."

"Why wouldn't it? I don't like living in a world that's broken. I didn't like the fact that we were eating animals in my own world, and I don't like the fact that there's death and slavery here. Luckily, money is magic, and I can throw a bunch of it at these problems. Sure, it's not as convenient as if someone else had set up the organisation already and I just had to fund it, but that just means I have an extra step."

"Most people, once they can insulate themselves from bad things in the world, do."

"I'm already insulated from most bad things - or, at least, I was. I suspect I still am. Anyway, I've never lived on a farm having my blood drained, and yet I care enough to spend some of my time and money on making that stop happening. I wasn't a slave when I got here but, the moment I learned your people had slaves, I wanted that to end. There is definitely a certain personality type that looks, unflinching, into the darkness, and says 'you shouldn't exist'. There is also a type who runs headlong into the darkness with a single torch," she gestures at Gimlith, "but I wouldn't describe myself as that extreme. Yet I still want to make a dent in the wrongness in the world - the biggest I reasonably can. Until someone went and threw power at me, I never thought of myself as all that ambitious. However, now that I think about it, if it's the only way to fix the world, then I'm willing to conquer it myself."

She tries, and fails, to not think: All hail the Dark Lord Carmen. Or Dark Lady. Actually, no, I'm a Light Lady. I went with that motif in my speech and I can't back down from it now.

She's smiling. "I'm not sure I trust you to be right about yourself, but I trust you to mean it and try it and that's good. Great, really. Thank you."

She shrugs. "If my previous life of academic comfort didn't prevent me from caring about creatures of a different species whom I literally never had to see, I should find it odd if I could ever grow accustomed to living in a slave society. But I understand if you won't believe it until you see it. If only you were also fabulously wealthy, so I could bet a fortune on not changing my values. After all, if I lost, then the future you could use the money to fund the thing I currently care about. And, if I win, I get the satisfaction of being right and saving the world. What's not to like?"

"If I were fabulously wealthy you'd rightly conclude I didn't care about the things I claimed to care about."

"If you were fabulously wealthy and not funding an armed resistance in the colonies while campaigning to abolish slavery and also funding life extension research - then yes, I'd think you didn't care. However, there are some rich people who do pour their money into what they say they care about and, if you were one of them, I'd trust you to say what you mean and mean what you say."

"There aren't any of those rich people in this world. Not that I know of."

"No philanthropy? Not even of the probably-a-status-game kind? How peculiar..."

"Oh, plenty of that. No philanthropy aimed at an armed resistance in the colonies or a campaign against slavery."

"What do philanthropists around here care about? If you're right about people respecting what I have to say, I might be able to convince them to do a less-stupid version of whatever they're currently up to. Although that should probably wait until after I have a business plan. Ahhh, so many plans!"

"Preservation of grand monuments and hunting ranges and nature preserves. Orphanages. Scholarships for people who remind them of themselves."

"...OK. Um, that may be harder to turn toward noble ends. Nothing for public health? Poverty? Refugees? Your rich people are boring."

"Selfish, I call it."