“Miss”, if you must, please. I may likely be your elder, but there’s no need to whip out the “ma’am”s. Not today at least.

[It almost feels as if she’s simply forgotten that she hasn’t provided her name- or perhaps, that she simply assumes most people to know it, somehow, even in a different world.]

Now, I can’t say I love that phrasing… it makes me sound terribly materialistic. Choosing based on what I’m offered…

I prefer to think of it far deeper.

Something like… “choosing based on what its members were willing to go out of their way to do, even with no promise of a reward or the guarantee of a powerful ally”.