The intelligence records are easy to find. Sarima, of common birth 20 years ago near Kantaria, performed well in school as a child, selected for wizarding academy, graduated in the top 10% of her class. Recommended by the dean to the Paracount, they were engaged after a single conversation and shortly thereafter married, two years ago. The bulk of her record is “interview” reports; the summary is a relatively light disciplinary record and estimated low loyalty risk.

The Paracount’s records are much longer. Coro Leptus Sabinus, appointed a Paracount by Her Majesty Carellia Thrune in 4688, appointed a Parabaron by His Majesty Terthule Thrune in 4675, distinguished graduate of the Academy in Corentyn in 4653, born a commoner in Corentyn in 4632. Three decades of service at the Worldwound, nearly as much service domestically. His killcount has more demons than humans, but it is a less favorable ratio than one might hope for. Soul-sold as he approached 5th circle, with no record of complaint; he reached sixth circle within the last ten years. The personality profile is not particularly flattering: intelligent, paranoid, ambitious. His confessor viewed his primary virtue as Pride, and his superiors considered him easily flattered and motivated by titles and comparisons to others. (Not every wizard seeks out a parabarony, but he did at the first reasonable opportunity, and celebrated his later promotion to a paracount.) His disciplinary record is substantially longer, but his loyalty risk was viewed as minimal; too attached to his family, to the opera, to the life he had built as a faithful servant of the crown.

Sarima is his third wife, and Auronia, the infant, his eighth child. His descendants are scattered throughout Cheliax, a broad web of marriage alliances and pulled strings. One daughter is married to a baron in Menador; one son and two grandsons serve with the Chelish navy. These connections are richly detailed in the record, viewed both as prime hostage material and to keep a check on his ambitions, to ensure they are not growing out of hand, or that he is being bent to some faction’s will. His confessor approvingly reports that his view of his family is ‘possessive’ instead of soft. Only a handful are dead; a son at the Worldwound many years ago, his second wife and one of her daughters burned in the manor house they were residing in during the recent troubles, with the much more deserving owner, the grandchildren elsewhere in the service of Cheliax. A case twenty years ago involved a teenaged grandson convicted of disloyal behavior; given the opportunity to help him escape the country, Coro instead aided in his capture and execution. Memos between security disagree on whether he saw through the trap or genuinely viewed him as a stain on the family’s honor.

The negotiations go rockily.

The paranobility has been abolished, as she well should know.

He is an old man with a deep well of pride, she counters, who earned the title thru service to the crown and is eager to serve the new crown.

She is reminded that some of that service was of the sort where he should be asking for a pardon, not a reward. Not all of it was at the Worldwound. But a pardon is on the table, and reincarnation to help him escape damnation.

She will confer with him and return, she says, and departs with her daughter.

One does not reach 5th circle in Cheliax without a healthy dose of paranoia. When it became clear that the state had collapsed, that Asmodeus had abandoned Cheliax, and that the new Queen did not seek to preserve the methods of the old regime, nearly every wizard who could teleport somewhere else to wait things out did. The Thrunes had many tricks up their sleeves, and it would take time to convince them that there were none left.

But as time went on, as Asmodeans did not regain their powers, and as only the vilest of the junior wizards were purged, the senior wizards began to confer among themselves. Some were glad to be quit of Cheliax, wandering the streets of Absalom with an assumed face, looking over their shoulders to ensure they were not followed, or relaxing on the beach of an uninhabited island. Others had immediately proceeded with schemes they were now free to pursue, without orders from the state occupying their time, and were not in a hurry to dive back into the tar pit of Cheliax. But some had deep ties to the country, more than could be extracted with a handful of Teleports, and eventually one of them volunteers (as much as any Chelish person ever does) to be first.

Coro Sends to his wife, as he has done to check in on her, and this time he gives instructions. When she reports defeat the next day, he Teleports back, collects her, the child, and a handful of possessions, and then Teleports away again.