"Doubling things onto ourselves is a personal, internal action.  It's not that we can't operate in groups, it's that I'm not sure doing so would prevent us from becoming demons."

"The point of the group would largely be to kill you if you did that."

Should he be worried that Feradi was right about Creta and that Fia's innocence has worn off on him?  - No, Feradi also looks surprised, to the extent he's having a facial expression at the moment.  "...I suppose that's another reason to keep us together, so we can keep an eye on each other's dispositions.  Unless you think it would certainly be obvious to anyone watching."

"It might not be visually clear, no. It'd ping to Detect Fiendish Presence unless you somehow collected important features of a demon and did not magically qualify as one."

Is that one of the ones that's infinite for lots of people or just for them or for no one.

It's a cantrip/orison.

Nod.  "What are our chances of being resurrected?"

"You have no insurance. I can put in a request but you're not currently well-described by the official threshold for use of the scroll, and also I only have one. However, I expect if you die that I'll describe your abilities to Fiducia Boian, the Abadaran insurance adjuster, and he might take a personal interest. He'll want to be paid back and I can relay to him in this event what you have to say about that."

"How could we get insurance?"

"The Fiducia has a sideline in it. I can send him a letter asking that he make his way here sooner than later but Worldwound mail is slow and unreliable."

"Would we need money?"  What's a sideline in this context.

An occasional business dealing which is not his main occupation. "That is the traditional way to pay for things, but you have valuable skills and could perhaps arrange to repay your insurer in that way."

"About how many Endures would it cost, if we charged for each one?"

"The Fiducia would come up with some elaborate formula about this because they are not all worth the same amount - we need them more at night than while the sun is up, in winter than in summer, etcetera, and you're using them in many situations where normally we'd simply oblige the men to go without, which is advantageous but does not in a strict sense save money. The figure for wand charges is some fifteen gold apiece, but yours will average less costly than that for this reason and because you don't represent a specialized materials supply chain and tying up a crafter for the time it takes to make one, as well as because you lack the convenience of allowing any caster to expend the needful charges on the spot."

"And insurance itself is on the order of..."

"Depends on how likely the Fiducia believes you are to die and how retrievably; part of the purpose of insurance is to create incentives to steer towards legibly lower-risk behavior. On the order of thousands of gold if you want to be assured of a serious attempt at retrieval even if you require a better grade of spell than a Raise Dead."

Nod.  That seems... tentatively achievable.

"So, chess."

"What about it?"

"Do you have a set?"

"No, I Prestidigitate the pieces."

"- Prestidigitation."  And there's a white king in his hand.  He examines it.

It looks and feels flimsy and unrefined, but it is identifiable as a white king and not a different piece and will hold up to gameplay-typical handling. "Yes, like that," says Commander Artigas. "There are variants for which an ordinary set wouldn't be suitable anyway."

"How about the board?"

"The same. Are you proposing that we set up a game at this very moment?"