Well, yeah.

"What I've always done, for the big mistakes, when I have a little perspective on both what I did wrong and how bad it was, is to create physical memories. I write down the lists of names on a scroll, and keep them somewhere safe, and it hardly matters that I can read them as long as I know they're there. It helps, more than you might think, to... hand it off. To know I can remember it all, makes it easier to let it go, most of the time."

Why do all important powerful people keep wanting to rub it in that - "I cannot write. I never learned how. I would - carry a list, of the names, if there is a known one."

"I know," she says apologetically, "I don't think writing it yourself is the important part, or I wouldn't have suggested it. Maybe some other way of tracking it would work better for you. Or even for me; it's not like any of us in Infernal Cheliax had experienced allies to ask, about how to strive for Good."

"I am more worried about -" she is still not willing to say the names of anyone who she wants to live - "the people still alive. I'm worried that people - will not be done being angry, that they will decide that whatever happens to me at the trial is not enough."

"It's a problem. I'm working on it, to be able to do something if a new mob starts. Within the convention... I won't promise anything. But I'll do what I can."

It is kind of fascinating how much more time people have for you once you have gotten hundreds of people killed. She wouldn't have expected it. She could make sense of it by saying they aren't Chelish and pity her, but the Archduchess whatever else you want to say of her is Chelish and also they all keep insisting she isn't going to die. "I am grateful. There's been peace, since the night of the 3rd?"

The thing about getting hundreds of people killed is you can't do it if you're irrelevant.

"A handful of executions, some vandalism at the Galtan coffee-shop for encouraging it, and a lot of delegates hiding behind the palace walls. But yes, so far. The archmages have been keeping the rain coming every night, but there's still a lot of the dangerous nervous fear, and it's not far from there to anger again. I won't relax until we have at least a week of peace."

There's something strangely comforting about 'a handful of executions'. She realizes she had certainly been imagining that the crown was rounding up the rebels by the hundreds at least. "I am glad to hear it."

"I'm glad it did, and glad to share it. ...Do you want to hear what I know of who was attacked, and what happened?"

"Very much so, ma'am." 

"All the Menadorians here were lodging in the same home. They had two lay priests from Lastwall, Archduke Blanxart, and their families and servants with them. A mob approached, one of the men from Lastwall tried to talk them down - because you try even knowing you'll fail - and they sent for help, sent the servants and noncombatants to the cellar to shelter, and drew bows. Dozens of those attacking them died, and of the delegates, only the Archduke. Most of the children died; one on his father's back as they ran from the fire. A young tiefling lady, Regent Napaciza's daughter, guarded the noncombatants at the cellar door, and when it started to fill with smoke, she was the last out, and died of it. A dozen or so servants dead, mostly locals, a half-dozen children, the two men from Lastwall, and several dozen of the mob that came."

And none of the actual targets. It's madness to go after them in their home, though this isn't the reason she'd have identified it as madness; she'd have assumed it was madness because they'd have a Fireball-capable wizard and if scaring people off didn't work they'd fry them. She's confused that this wasn't the case but -

"Oh. Thank you. I - didn't want that, obviously. I did know things like it might happen eventually."

"They're almost all powerful warriors, nobles in Menador. Anything less dies keeping the monsters away. The children and Archduke are being raised by the archmages. Not most of the servants, though some the lords may choose to do so themselves."

"...Delegate Ibarra, to everyone's surprise who's heard him speak, made every apparent effort to obey the law and reduce casualties; he warned them off, used webs instead of raining destruction on them, and killed only three or four, adventurers who had joined the mob because he was obviously very dangerous and tried to breach his walls. But someone in the crowd set the webs alight - safe if you do it right, but they didn't. The fire spread across the neighborhood; from create water's range to a block away in every direction, before the rain hit. Dozens dead, as much from the neighbors as the mob. No one harmed in his party or retainers."

He's a fifth circle wizard. You don't go to their house, you ambush them in the street. She really shouldn't say that. "I imagine he is tremendously pleased by everything. In the speech where he confessed to being a Norgorber cultist he expressed particular pleasure that I was - unskilled enough - that anything I tried to do about it would only make it worse. The wisdom of inviting evil Norgorber cultists who want everything to go badly to the convention is no more apparent to me but I am glad that he did not try to hurt the people who attacked him."

"Ordinary Norgorber cultists don't flaunt it. I don't understand the man, and that's fairly unusual for me. What else... The Lord Mayor. The previous Lord Mayor, Aberian Arvanxi, was one of the most vile men in Infernal Cheliax, killed a dozen slaves a week, and remodeled his palace accordingly. A mob went hunting him and burning it. Unfortunately, he teleported away in the first hour of the Four-Day War and the place is currently held by Lord Mayor Pau-Roger Santcliment, a friend of Inquisitor Shawil's who has been supervising reconstruction of both the palace and the city. The mob didn't know the difference. They killed his guards and nearly killed him as well. No wizards or great warriors; a couple dozen ordinary people dying on opposite sides."

"Did you - Feliu told me that he thought the speech would cause riots in Westcrown if it was printed up and circulated. I hadn't been expecting that, but I'm not of Westcrown. Was everyone else expecting this?"

"That there would be riots that night? Not really. But it doesn't take that much to start riots. Especially not when housing is scarce and bread is expensive and no one really knows what the law is or whether they're damned or what they can possibly do to escape damnation."

'For him the Summerlands'; four words more dangerous than any power words.

"Things aren't that bad in Pezzack, but we got rid of our nobles and haven't replaced them and had gotten rid of all the Asmodeans much earlier... I would have said, yesterday, that if things are that bad then the people aren't wrong. But Feliu thinks that it's better if things just - bubble along not quite bad enough to rebel - and I guess you think so too -"

"Mobs are hard to control. If someone with charisma and integrity is leading them, they can be kept on target, hunt only those who earned their anger legitimately. One of those backed down after killing a dozen assorted nobles, when Archduke Requena shamed them, and I have no doubt that when you've lead one personally you'd have talked them down if it had to be done. But anger and mob violence spread like wildfire. Mobs attack people who they can convince themselves wronged them, or who are rich and vulnerable, or who are just in their way and strange. The str- itarii delegate died that way, though she's raised. And... bread riots outnumber revolutions hundreds to one. No anger is senseless, but most of it is not directed. I think that everyone is right to fear mobs, noble and commoner alike, and riots almost always make things worse."

Valia isn't sure she agrees with the last claim but it's not useful, here, to argue once again the argument they had on the floor in which she got upset and acquitted herself badly.

"The Archmage Cotonnet wanted me to have a good answer to - how I should have approached his convention in order for it to go well." Valia doesn't want to think about this question, deeply resents it, and is pretty sure "not going" is the true and correct answer, but it would be very stupid to ignore powerful people giving her hints about the script just because she thinks the script is not a very good one. And the fact she is too frustrated by the question to think about it clearly is precisely why to ask other people.

"Hmmm. That's a difficult question. The obvious answer is to arrive as soon as Pezzack could spare you and spend the days with the foreign Iomedans trying to learn how they think about things, but I'm not sure they'd notice it was important to help you, they're all very busy. If you had any politicians you trusted, in Pezzack or here, consulting with them before any big speech - my door is open, if you decide I count, but that hardly helps as a plan - would have helped. And with others you trust to be Good, but I suspect you did that with some people from the Diabolism committee, and other than the Avenger and the ones you ejected I wouldn't say any of them were bad choices. Be more cautious? Move slower?"

"The awful thing is that I thought the speech was - more cautious - there were all kinds of rumors about the committee, that we wanted to kill all Evil people - we admittedly discussed it. I thought that it would be helpful to clarify that we were only considering going after a small set of people and that our advice to them was to repent, that it would stop everything snowballing like it had with Ibarra.

I have people I trust in Pezzack but they told me that this was dangerous and a bad idea and I should stay home, or if I felt the call to travel go to - Kintargo, actually. ...where I would possibly also have caused problems."

"Well, mistaken judgment, but a noble intent and a good instinct. ...I suppose the advice might have been right. Steering the constitution will affect a lot more than a hundred lives and souls, but it's hard to say how far one Splendid delegate can shift the ship. It's possible you'll be allowed the chance to keep trying, but it doesn't look good. Only the gods can say whether this was all so inevitable that it was wrong to accept the chance to try.

...You would have been fine in Kintargo. The Silver Ravens would take you under their wings the minute you let them, or Shensen and Lord Rexus Victocora, who organized the rebellion-in-waiting for me before the Ravens were raised. I am dearly fond of all of them, but they're all much more like you than me, except maybe Rexus."

Oh. It hurts, somehow, to learn that the next-best plan thrown out by worried people in Pezzack was not an equally doomed one but would have gone well. She nods, bites her lip just slightly. "Well. Maybe I'll visit sometime, if you wouldn't mind, if - other things work out."