Those are good questions. I recognize good questions, because I can come up with them myself.

Ever heard someone tell you that hard physical labor can be soothing? Can take your mind off your problems? Can leave you feeling better? I’d heard that. In my opinion, hard physical labor gives you blisters, and the only real distraction I got was trying to remember the spells I’d once known for curing them. He was much better than me, by the way; turns out there is even skill involved in digging holes. Who knew?

Do you think it’s possible to discuss politics without preaching?

Your job is to find better ideas, mine is to cut holes in the ones you have, and you’ve already done that pretty well.

As I passed a market, I thought I saw Devera, Aliera’s daughter, looking at me. I almost stopped, but when I looked again she was gone, so I decided I was either imagining it, or she didn’t want to talk to me. She is a very unusual child, but I guess now isn’t the best time for that conversation. I put it out of my head and kept walking until I reached the Imperial Palace.

Ah, you poor fools, walking so tall and haughty with your guns and your sticks and your wide belts full of gear like the second coming of Batman, sitting in your little cars full of mechanized fear as you reach for your little radios at the first sign of anything more worrisome than a jaywalker.

There’s nothing to tell.” I gave her a brief discussion of fertilizer. She seemed unimpressed with my agricultural expertise. “Believe what you like,” she said. It was good to have permission, but I resisted telling her so.

Boss, what, exactly, are we doing here?” “Feeling maudlin.” “Oh. Good. How long are we planning on doing that?” “Don’t you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?” “What?” “Never mind.

I’d rather be running the game than playing it.

I once had someone explain to me that we don’t have real interactions with people, we have interactions with the image of those people we carry in our heads. I don’t know. Maybe. But I figure if I stick a Great Weapon into a guy’s eye, it’s close enough to a real interaction for most purposes.