They contain stories of old Zora kings and princes doing brave and/or dangerous things to protect their people! Sometimes 'the Hylian king' is mentioned. Some of the stories are more neutral, records of why this place was chosen and what it was like before the dams were built and Zora warriors helping Hylian villages with sea monsters and the time when monsters nearly destroyed everything but Hylia stepped in and gave them the strength to resist and so on.

Wow, everything is so dangerous here, Valanda's starting to expect to be attacked any minute now. Some things about the records feel alien but so much so that he can't quite figure out why.

"That's all of them. Is this a good place for us to talk?"

"As good as any. You want to learn to rule with morality, hm? Well, there is ruling effectively and being moral. They are two very different skills. You will need both, I think."

"I will, yes. Do you know about both?"

"The former not as much as the latter. But there are very, very few who are truly skilled at rule. Few ever have the opportunity to practice, after all, and the rest of us must make do with reading what they pass on. These stones are all adventure stories - some of the other inscriptions are more practically useful, even if these are the most, hm, iconic."

"I'd love to see those stones if they're available for public viewing. We can talk later about preserving them, too. Which of your teachings did the king find most useful?"

"I will arrange for you to see them. I cannot honestly say one has been more valuable than the other to him. He was taught many things by many people, you see, it's difficult to tell precisely what contributed to the man he is today. What do you wish to learn?"

"I have questions but I'm afraid I know little enough that I might not ask the right things. I want to know how to protect children from cruel parents. Slavery is legal where I'm from and I'm hoping I can reduce it with taxes or something. I worry that a sudden ban would be unpopular and leave me with a lot of new free people who don't know how to follow the law, but maybe I'm being too cautious about unrest and not decisive enough about protecting people. What are the most important functions of a moral government? What's the kindest way to tax people? How do you take care of people who can't take care of themselves?"

The priest does his best to explain the principles of governance and ethics.

The duties of a moral government are to look after the best interest of the people. The job of a ruler is to figure out how to make people as fulfilled and happy and safe as they can be. Listening to their concerns is good but doing exactly what the people ask for doesn't turn out well, random people can't see the long-term consequences of what they want or don't take into account what other people want and so on.

When the priest talks about Goddess Hylia and the lessons of mercy, compassion, etc, there's some kind of... Disconnect. The religious aspects and Hylia's teachings probably work better if people have a sincere respect and awe and devotion for the Goddess.

There are stories from when slavery was ended here and there in Hyrule's history. Resettling former slaves and giving them a lot of subsidized housing and food and help finding jobs and friends seemed to work the best in the long term, out of things they tried. Some people are just not capable of peaceably participating in a society. Finding them slightly different societies - a soldier's life instead of a craftsman's - doesn't always work, either. At some point it's not worth it and you need to spend effort more efficiently, on things that will benefit many people.

Proper incentives for people are very important. In a moral society most people are good but not selfless, so you need to make it easy to be moral and difficult to be immoral when possible. General education is important. Good education ensures every person has the ability to participate in society even if they end up with no friends or family.

Valanda keeps the priest busy with questions and requests for clarification until Link gets back.

Link isn't back until the afternoon. After a while the priest has him preserve some more things - after a short argument with other priests which Prince Sidon settles - before continuing the lessons.

Link comes back looking rather grumpy, but not worse for wear. "Hey, Val. How'd it go?"

"I preserved some records. Are you okay? Did you get the arrows?"

"I'm fine. Fine. Just tired. Yeah, I got 'em. Almost thirty - before the Lynel spotted me and I had to jump off a cliff and glide to safety, that is. Lynels are nasty."

"Need any enchantments on your arrows?"

"The magic is released when they break, so making them indestructible would kind of defeat the point. And for regular old arrows, they're cheap enough it's probably not worth the time. Did you learn a lot?"

"I did! It was very helpful. Do your magic arrows always break when they're supposed to?"

"So far, almost always yes! Any solid hit triggers them nicely. Sometimes a glancing blow doesn't set them off correctly. I think there's a little bit of intent to it? Not sure."

"Intent like the magic is reading your mind or like you're doing part of the spell? I guess you might not know. ...I'm glad you survived the trip."

"Aww, thanks. I'm glad too. I don't think I was in any real danger though, I'm pretty good at getting away. And pretty tough. My Heart Containers and this armor aren't nothing."

"Are you going after the Divine Beast now?"

"Not quite yet. I'm kinda hungry. And I have to find Prince Sidon. Say, can you make something immune to electricity?"

"I know it's possible with my magic. I've never tried before but I might be able to get lucky and guess right about how to do it. Have anything replaceable for me to test on?"

"Yeah I do, but it's not urgent really. It'd be nice to have, but just nice, not essential. Say, priests are a bit stuffy and preachy sometimes, I hope what you're learning from them isn't too far off from how the rest of us think."

"I wouldn't know, I don't know how the rest of you think. How are priests different?"