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Once the speeches and motions are finished for the day, Alicia starts walking over to the noble section of the convention. The diabolism committee is good on religious delegates, and she has no intention of quitting herself, but the way the Abadaran blackmailed the slavery committee to try and keep slavery alive suggests a serious problem if the archduke continues to play his stupid political games any time they try and get something done. Instead she'd like to solve the problem in advance, preferably in a way that maintains plausible deniability about it being an attack on his power, and the fact that they've been removing delegates is a perfect excuse. Who among the nobles seems like they would be receptive to a pitch to join, and wouldn't be doing it to hobble their efforts to improve Cheliax?
This noble looks young and friendly, if a bit out of his depth! He seems somewhat lost in thought.
He's not one of the ones that detects evil, and if she remembers the peerage correctly he's both a new noble and not one of the heartlands nobles that would have to defer to Blanxart. He might still defer anyway, nobles being as they are, but it's worth a shot.
"Hello! Do you have a moment?"
"I'm on the committee for rooting out Diabolism. I don't know if you remember it from earlier - there were a lot of stuff around it that drew attention, understandably - but we had to kick out one of our member for being an evil Norgorberite who burnt down houses with kids inside, and that leaves us down a member. I'm looking for someone who can replace them, and - one of the most important jobs we have here is that a lot of the modern nobles are evil, which makes it all the more important that we hear from nobles who aren't and know what the job is supposed to be like from as many perspectives as we can. Would you be interested in helping out?"
“Yes! And I’m definitely not evil, just returned from Axis. I can help you!”
He does have his own people to look out for…
”I should be upfront I have one small thing I need that I think fits your committee’s remit? For my people, not myself…”
Three days ago she might have been slightly bothered by that but at this point a noble who's willing to say what he wants for his support outright feels like a good sign.
"Certainly. I don't speak for the entire committee, obviously, but the reason to invite you to the committee is so we can benefit from your perspective on what needs to be done. I'd be happy to hear you out even if you don't end up joining."
In other words, I won't agree sight unseen but I'm willing to play ball; make a reasonable offer.
“Of course. As you know the Queen issued a general amnesty for a lot of actions during the Four Day War, but the news took time to spread, so I have some peasants who may have carried out some actions afterwards not covered by that amnesty. They are technically arguably still in rebellion, not having paid their dues or rents, but I’m more than willing to overlook that to bring peace and I just want to make sure I’m on solid legal ground with forgiving their… over enthusiasm that extended past their initial rebellion against the Asmodeans.”
"I think you might also want to speak with someone on the new courts committee about that to be sure, but - rebelling against Asmodeus is a very good thing, we're all in agreement on that, and if their count thinks what they've been doing since was an understandable decision I don't see any reason to doubt him. If you think that another voice speaking sense on the subject would help, I know a few people who signed up for that committee I could talk to."
She doesn't want to overpromise and end up accidentally lying, even though she doubts he could tell, but it really does sound like something readily within her power to accomplish for him. She's not sure if he's just a reasonable person or merely doesn't consider what she's asking to be a big favor, but either one is a promising sign.
“Right, we’ll need to work out details, but that sounds good to me! Off to the meeting then?”
He appears outright giddy by modern Chelish standards.