The two sides went back and forth for several more rounds before Rose finally gave up struggling... she suddenly realized that the Undead opposite her seemed to be using her to practice his verbal sparring. He grew more animated the longer he talked, completely unconcerned about whether the negotiations might fall apart.
But she did not want them to fall apart.
"Ruth" was increasingly coming to appreciate how useful the Undead could be... in the past, whenever she wanted to seize some particular object, they had been a real nuisance.
They could always find that desperately coveted object somewhere impossible, and anyone trying to snatch it afterward might suddenly run straight into some Greater Divine Power.
If it were only the Elven Pantheon, or even Corellon, that would be fine. Rose had dealt with them so often that she could always find a loophole.
The problem was that Rose had no way of knowing whom the Undead might summon.
Most annoyingly, they might bring Lathander over for the tiniest thing.
Who the fuck could stand that?
Most terrifying of all, they could get Shar and Selûne to join forces, with Lathander supporting them from the sidelines... ah, now they would certainly have to add that Goddess of Magic who was clearly Midnight reincarnated but insisted on calling herself Edna.
What a bizarre creature. How had she even thought of nurturing a fragment of her previous incarnation's soul into her own subordinate goddess, then sending her off to her former lover?
How could anyone reject everything from her previous life so completely... Edna was effectively relearning the Goddess of Magic's various abilities through the Magic Weave now. She had not even reclaimed all her divine portfolios. The time and effort she would need to regain the might and power befitting a