Tarran's reaction to her lift was a slight smile of amusement, as if he was liking her in spite of himself. "Sadly, most of us don't have that luck. And I am going the magic route. I just apparently made a minor error in the spell casting, and it failed early on me."<br/><br/>He listened to her speech with a raised eyebrow, most who knew of the drow knew they were matriarchal, but the few drow of Ellistraee were understandably reluctant to discuss their 'darker' kin. Once she started making insinuations of threats, however, his eyes narrowed slightly, before shrugging. "He is easily controllable, and the moment he does something we can prove, we will drag him down and incarcerate him for the rest of his shortened life. People like him rarely do well in prison for some reason. Something about the environment, it leads to such odd, unusual but still perfectly valid and understandable suicides. And each seat is traditionally selected among the possible applicants. I got my seat by meeting with the other mages, and when the archmage of the academy found out about my fascination with politics, I was in the seat before I knew what had happened. The archpriest was the same way, though he also had to renounce several things as well, such as his religion's dislike of other gods of knowledge among other things, to take the seat.<br/><br/>The noble isn't going to be a problem, he is worried about his own prestige, then his families, then the rest of the nobles, and then finally the kingdom. And while the King could use a decree, that would incite... unrest among the other merchants, who could easily hamstring our economy by simply refusing to deal with us. It is about efficiency, and punishing those who go too far. The merchant, his name is supposedly Rothgar Goldengleam if you care, is right on the cusp of going too far, but has managed to just stay on this side of that line. And sad as the thought is, but Rothgar and Torthin, the noble councilor, are better than some of the alternatives."