"Daphne has ambitions towards a Ph.D in biology. She thinks there's plentiful unconquered ground, scientifically, in critter biology. The cognitive accessibility notion is intriguing. I wonder...if crittering someone is something that happens by accident sometimes, if it's possible to do it on purpose? Once we have the medallions thing figured out, of course, and using consenting volunteers."

"She might have trouble submitting work on critter biology to any normal university, so she has her work cut out for her. But turning people into stuff on purpose sounds like an 'eventually', yeah."

"She has long-term ambitions to be the founder of a new sub-field once the masquerade has been peeled back enough that that's feasible and doesn't mind mooching off of Jaromira for things like living expenses until then."

"Ha. Jaromira has the financial discretion, or is planning to make a million bucks, or...?"

"We...have trust funds. And, you know, it used to be that one man's salary was supposed to be enough to feed him and his wife and kids, so."

"Ah, gotcha."

"...Actually I think it's mostly going to be the trust fund thing; I think it's Jaromira's ambition to be a starving-artist type without the starving. But, you know, if she can afford to be a poet instead of anything you can support yourself with..."

"Then that is entirely reasonable. Me, I plan to be a wizard tycoon. They'll make one of those computer games about it: Wizard Tycoon."

"Will it have extra lives in case your character miscasts a spell?"

"Yeah, probably. None of the other tycoon games have to have that mechanic, it'll be its gimmick."

"I do not actually know anything about this particular genre, so I'll take your word for it."

"The only one I actually have is Roller Coaster Tycoon. It's pretty good, if timewasting in the way that computer games are by default."

"I usually favor puzzle-type games when I have reason to waste time in such a way."

"I like Civilization. Because anything is improved by adding 'and also May rules the world'. It is a computer game but also May rules the world."

"This is true."

"There's a space Civilization, too, Alpha Centauri."

"I think I've heard of that."

"It's good. But it's less interesting than spellcrafting."

"That's because spellcrafting is the best."

"It's interesting, though. Have you ever played Sudoku?"

"It's fun in the same way that Sudoku is fun. You figure out what to put where by comparing numerical values."

"But I don't like Sudoku and do like spellcrafting!"

"Spellcrafting is more complex and useful than Sudoku."