[Overheard at the banquet]

It's been another successful Alchemical Symposium. I think the limit of 200 attendants works well...the session-holders are grand, and all of the peer reviewers are on top of their game...

Well, yes, I've been high-profile this year. It's strange to think. I suppose my work on Critellium last year caught enough interest to get an invitation...

No, none of my replications were 'the best'. That's not why I've gathered attention; it's been about consistency. You're probably thinking of "Sergy, D."? He even matched my replication of Ravari, A.'s work with an alternative...

I think Sergy, D. is your safest bet for the best machines, per se. He is my fiercest peer reviewer...he so often finds something that I missed. It's been an honor to stand out alongside him, really.

Oh, you should see some of his hyper-etching designs, with the glyphs on top of each other so they destroy your tiles? I think I have a few old tiles on my transmutation engine that I need to get rid of, anyway. Here, I'll show you after the banquet...