debts real and imagined | Glowfic Constellation

reigninhell

He had not quite got around to having a conversation with Delegate Tallandria when the convention took an abrupt and lengthy recess. He was going to wait for his political reputation to be clearer, or at least less top-of-mind.

On the morning of Sarenith 5, he decides to go looking. She did him a favor, and she ought to know he intends to pay it back. He is no longer anyone's primary problem, he might as well start doing things again.

The Palace is not housing anyone by her name. He is able to get someone to confirm she checked in as alive. (He had to bribe them for this, on both counts. Which is lawless, but he can't even be mad. He might order his guards to require bribes and then report the amounts and bribers, if he was organizing security for this, given this past week. Mobs and counter-mobs aren't much good at paying bribes.)

Where should he look? He read the committee transcripts - probably slightly garbled - and Tallandria is extremely enthusiastic about the right to read. She'll be getting pamphlets.

He asks at the Cafe, but Citizen Queralt is either unfamiliar or uninterested in sharing; he's a very good liar, for a foreigner. But there are networks of distributors, and chasing them back to their source isn't that hard, if you know the city pretty well. Urchins are easy to bribe, and peacefully being a wizard and asking polite questions of the urchin-masters with marginally larger bribes is fairly effective.

"I'm looking to talk to another Delegate Korva Tallandria. Woman, early twenties, stud here, eyebrow ring here, usually a headband, roundish face, narrow eyebrows. Do you deliver to her?", he says a dozen times before there's a glimmer of recognition, and then a dozen more before it's an honest one.

But after a couple days, he finds one. who recognizes the description. He's commendably protective of the precise addresses of his clients, but he accepts a short letter, paid half on confirmation she received it.

Delegate Tallandria,

I'd like to speak with you, if you're amenable. You did me a favor, and I'm grateful for it. I can be found in the Rego Sacero in the Plaça Goya, though my temple is presently closed; I am likely to be present whenever there isn't a notable trial to attend, and can promise being home from an hour before dusk. If you'd prefer, send a message with a place I ought to find you. If not, I suppose I'll see you when the convention resumes.

Yours,

Delegate Theopho Lebanel

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ruin-of-souls

"...yeah, I think I spent that staring in horror into the middle distance. Blanxart insisted on asking him a bunch of questions after Valia got people together to vote to kick him off the committee. - is everyone reading committee transcripts?" Korva wasn't, she didn't think you could without having your own people make them.

reigninhell

"Everyone with money, probably; it's been about four silver to get everything from the previous day, the priciest was four copper but most were one or two. Most of the nobles who send in scribes are happy to sell copies on the side later. They might be edited, but I've tracked Diabolism with multiple sources and it looked like only accidental errors."

ruin-of-souls

"Technically possible on the sortition allowance." Hurts quite a lot if you're trying to save for the rest of your life, though, which she is. "I suppose I should also be thinking more about the fact that they're all reading everything that's said."

reigninhell

"Possibly. I think we'll see pretty soon how serious Cotonnet is about protecting delegates. And if he isn't... well, there's always a ship bound for Absalom in the harbor. Like that merchant who wrote On Galtans."

ruin-of-souls

"I think that option may be more available for people who were not kidnapped. I realize it's very hypocritical to complain, after having spoken in favor of kidnapping people."

reigninhell

"Fair enough. ...If you don't mind indulging my curiosity, why do you think you read Neutral rather than Evil? From what I've seen of Westcrown orphanages, it's pretty terrible for everyone, and I'd be shocked if Egorian was better."

ruin-of-souls

Well that is deeply personal, and the sort of thing she should have thought more about everyone knowing about her before she agreed to let the Pharasmins check, but she was willing to be tested and she doesn't suppose it can reflect poorly on her, phrased like that. She does take note that all of the events of even the unofficial diabolism session seem to have made it - oh, no, Valia said it in her speech without using her name, you just have to look at the roster to see who the only sortition was.

"I don't really know what combinations of things result in reading what way. But if I had to guess - Cotonnet flattened the entire city, right? Everything completely destroyed, at night, when people were sleeping. Had to dig myself out of my house, and I figured I'd stay until morning and dig my possessions out, but - there were fires, where the orphanage was. And I didn't make any moral calculation at all, I just ran. Quarter of them died in the collapse, and another quarter probably burned alive before I got them out, but - I got half."

"It was probably stupid. Half of them will die in the Iomedan orphanages anyway, they're worse right now than ours ever were. But I'd guess it's that, if it's any one thing."

reigninhell

"That sounds like it would do it, if you weren't that far in the red to start with." And like it suggests a person who is, innately, much more Good than most, and certainly him, if she didn't think about it. "I had to maintain Neutral for professional reasons, to sell channels, so I had more sense for the boundary than most, which was why I was... mildly surprised."

ruin-of-souls

"I almost wish I wasn't, maybe Valia wouldn't have gotten hundreds of people killed. But only almost."

"You ever see the boneyard before?"

reigninhell

"No, and I doubt I'd be received happily if I was there. I've heard the usual stories, of course."

ruin-of-souls

Smile. Right.

"It's an Egorian orphanage. But worse. Which I suppose is about as fair as eternal rewards get, really."

reigninhell

"I have heard She doesn't keep anyone there who doesn't want to stay. Bumps them off to Nirvana or Axis or the Maelstrom at the slightest provocation. Though I've also heard Nirvana sends a lot of them back to help as volunteers."

ruin-of-souls

"Really? Surely She doesn't let you just pick, or let you refuse to leave until you get the one you want."

reigninhell

"I'm not really sure, but she sends children away the minute they show a little propensity toward any alignment, and as far as I've heard the same for adults, if you lean a little bit Good you're off to Nirvana straight from the Court. Somebody has to be the ones who stick around and get turned into her psychopomps, and I think it's people who volunteer to stay and take care of the babies. Unless she just makes them out of nothing, it's not like she follows the normal rules."

ruin-of-souls

"I suppose not. Well, regardless, it's certainly no worse than I've been expecting, even if it is exhausting to contemplate. I think I will not contemplate it. The week has had enough things in it."

reigninhell

"It sure has. May there be fewer in the weeks to come."

ruin-of-souls

"We can hope."

She eyes the sky. The clouds are looming darker and the sunlight is fleeing.

"I should head out soon. Thank you for the offer. And thanks for - it's nothing personal, about the temple." The only sentence she can think to follow that with is I used to clean houses, but she's pretty sure that's a non-sequitur, so she stops there.

reigninhell