"I have no intentions of letting them start a new war with you once this one's ended, you know. But all right." She has detailed notes and will pass them on to Altarrin.

What she intends now may not particularly matter, when she goes back to her life of trying to solve whatever the largest problem in the world is and he becomes merely another national leader.

"An assurance I did not need, but still appreciate."

Marit and Legate Sterngal spend the day working on proposals for the trip to Axis. Marit wants it to be six people or fewer, for ease of transportation, and wants all of them to agree to their intent to follow Axis's laws (against theft, property damage, violence, or the use of magic on other persons or in a place where it may affect other persons without authorization). They should be unGifted, but he wants them agreeing to the rules as well. The Crusade doesn't need them compulsioned but if that's how the Empire wants to ensure that its delegates follow the rules the Crusade won't tamper with their compulsions, though it's possible there'll be an antimagic field somewhere in Aktun they pass through, which suppresses all magic.

They can't make magic item purchases in Aktun. Maybe a future trip. They can do sketches, if they'd like, and conduct interviews of the locals, and pay for those interviews if they want.

Sterngal is less inclined to argue about the magic items given that they've agreed on un-Gifted delegates who won't be able to get much out of window-shopping with mage-sight. They'll almost certainly want to conduct interviews of the locals. Is paying for interviews the norm. What kinds of currency does Aktun accept? They should presumably avoid asking questions that might leak any sensitive information about Iomedae's war; are there other topics to be careful of? 

He will also want to clarify the laws of Axis in depth, but the descriptions aren't actually confusing. 

Aktun accepts all currencies and changes them at a moneychanger for the currency used in Axis. The exchange rate won't be favorable; even Emperors find their money doesn't go far in Aktun. Paying for interviews is typical, but there are absolutely people in Axis who'd find an interview from a curious mortal to be entertaining such that they'd do it for free, it'll just take a little longer to find them.

He can provide in depth clarifications! Aktun doesn't make its laws for visitors hard to know! They're really really serious about contract violations, but this is easy enough to avoid if you are just offering people pay for interviews and then in fact paying them, or asking people to do free interviews.

It's of course not Legate Sterngal's decision how much to budget for this trip, but he will nonetheless try to extract some estimates of how much paid interviews would cost for various demographics. ...Which he also has questions about, actually. Does Axis have cities and towns? Do they have mayors or magistrates? Is local authority hereditary usually or by vote or by appointment or something else? Basically, what's the power structure, and who are its important components? 

Axis is governed on a fairly granular level, by whoever the local landowner is; they can set any rules, within the bounds of the general rules of Axis which prohibit theft and violence and not-agreed-to magical manipulation. Some parts have no more laws than that; some have tons of very specific laws, and mostly don't allow mortals at all because of the mortal propensity for lawbreaking. (Really it'd be something like, they only allow people with insurance against the costs of their lawbreaking, which mortals can't afford, because it'd be expensive because of their propensity for lawbreaking.)

Aktun is the part of Axis owned by Abadar; Aroden's Court is the part of Axis owned by Aroden. They both have few laws; Abadar because He wants to host a center of prosperity and trade and Aroden because He wants to be the foundation on which everyone can build their own thing. (The two gods get along). You can of course purchase some of Axis of your own, and then your laws apply there. You can of course when you purchase some land make a rule that it'll be governed by majority vote or by appointment or something, which you might do to increase rental values because people will be more excited about building things on your land if your land is well-governed.

There are said to be a million portals in Axis, so no part of it is very far from any other part, and mostly incompetently governed parts of it just end up having no one in them as people go somewhere that isn't incompetently governed.

It's not really Marit's thing but it's objectively very impressive and probably specifically persuasive about whether there are gods that understand Law and support human progress.

Oh. Sterngal kind of wishes he could go, now. It sounds like something the First Emperor would have written about– no, not exactly, it sounds like something Arvad, renowned scholarly advisor to the First Emperor, would have described in a treatise about his vision of the true future Civilization. 

He spends a candlemark getting absolutely everything he can extract from Marit about Axis and Aktun and Abadar, and eventually thanks Marit and writes up his notes and sends a very thick package to the Ministry of Barbarians back in Jacona. 

He recommends they accept the offer. He recommends they send...historians, maybe? It's not a profession that absolutely requires Gifts, there exist brilliant and experienced un-Gifted historians, and they'll have the context to know what questions to ask and what claims to be suspicious of, but it should be easy to find scholars who don't know anything sensitive about the Empire's government or resources, because their area of specialization is 200 years ago. 

"It's a good opportunity to learn more," Duke Elnore confirms for the council. "The Ministry suggests an academic delegation of nonmages, historians and mathematicians and so forth." Smart people with no special information. 

The Emperor is looking through the notes provided. 

"It really does look like a good opportunity to learn more. Feels a bit - too good to be true -" Glance around the meeting-table. "If it's a trick, do we think it's aimed at anything more specific than, er, bribing us to work with their gods?" 

"Getting us to drop our guard."

"Espionage," he says, "and attempts to seduce Imperial representatives to the worship of false gods."

"Or more direct methods of influence, should they be able to convert our less - experienced - agents into their own eyes."

"To create the impression of overwhelming power, splendor and wealth," he says, "as they've already admitted, and so overawe us, without letting us to learn anything actionable."

Slow nod. "I definitely see the risk of espionage. I think we should do our best to send agents who don't keep track of current affairs, limit what they can give away. And - probably plan on quarantining them afterward, only passing on written reports." Glance at Siman. "I'll take advice on other precautions there." 

And he shrugs. "I mean, they probably are trying to overawe us. But - it's still information, right? We just need to account for their motives, and - where they could bias what they're showing us. ...And 'they want us to drop our guard' is something you could say about any diplomatic overture where they carry through on an agreement rather than betray us, isn't it?" 

Polite nod. His list of sensible precautions is right here, written down in advance for the Emperor's use.

"Oh yes, of course. I think it's worth doing."

"Maybe," he says. "Or the day before it happens, they kidnap us and have an army drop compulsions on everyone in the capital, while we think they're waiting to try to convince us peacefully."

The Emperor makes a very tired face at Macalay. "Does turning them down actually make that any less likely? I - there's almost an argument it'd make it more likely, right - even if we assume they're not negotiating in good faith, if they decide they can't string us on any longer..." 

"It does if we drop our guard because we think the fight's over," he rumbles.

Sigh. "Right. I know. But I think it's worth doing for all the other reasons, and - I trust you to be vigilant and not let down your guard, whatever decision we make." 

He turns back to the rest of the room. "Any other arguments against, or can we talk about Oris now?" 

The room is collectively prepared to move on to Oris!

Right. Oris. 

"So the diplomat thought Iomedae would accept treaty terms that put reparations on the Knights of Ozem - well, specifically if it was paid in resurrections, which I have - mixed feelings about for us - but I'm sure the rebels in Oris would be delighted." 

...Glance at Harleth. "Er, this isn't necessarily urgent, but if diamonds are going to be one of our most valuable currencies in trading with the other world - I was wondering if they're possible to make. I looked it up in an alchemy text and we think they're just the same substance as black coal but differently compressed, right? I don't know if that would end up being cheaper than mining, but you'd think it would save some of the work, if you're not having to cast high-power surveying spells and then blast tons of rock. And we could have it all done on Trusk Island where the gods can't arrange mine-collapses." 

(It's slightly pushing it, in terms of what's in-character for Bastran to think of when he's under this much stress, but - it's also characteristic of him in a different way, to look for clever magical solutions to problems rather than solutions that involve a lot of killing people.) 

"Physically possible, technically difficult. It'll be expensive, but we'll find a way." Seems like a decent idea.

Pelias Declane is idly wondering when Bastran had time to go through alchemy texts with just how busy everyone has been, but he can speak up anyway. "It would help with our budget."