Ione gets back to the Prime Material and checks in with the others. They are all very stressed and busy. Apparently the convention managed to go to shit in under a week, which is really much faster than she was expecting it to take. She borrows Naima's earrings and gets some tips on topics to listen for, then settles in to hear what people have been saying around Westcrown since she left.
The first topic she inquires about is the convention.
"- all kinds of monsters! A kobold, some beast with wings, more than one elf, I heard someone say something about a storm giant but thank A-a-Abadar that was just a rumor -"
"-Expect us to stand up to archdukes and monsters, well, they raised all the dead delegates after all so maybe it's true-"
"- got surprisingly used to being stuck in a room with all of the craziness but all the fluffy bunnies in Nirvana can know it that I'm worried it'll rub off on me -"
"—see the way he stood up to that Molthuni oathbreaker, isn't he so dreamy—"
" - three of them. It's a steady income, at least, though the night of the riots I was sure they'd come for us - "
"—know they won't all try to kill me, but I don't know how to tell which ones—"
"—heard one of them got hung for saying we shouldn't get rid of slavery, I think they're prosecuting it as diabolism — next month they'll be hanging the Fiducias as Mammonites—"
"-feel bad for him. Chelam isn't subtle, or wrong, that we ought to be starting some marriages and families, but I'm counting my blessings nobles are less ready to show me brothers and sons than a bachelor sisters and daughters-"
"- surprisingly reasonable, for civilization. I hadn't expected they'd actually raise her, so I suppose there is an iota of responsibility for we poor doomed fools known as 'delegates,' -"
Ione has to cut her listening short while she meets with her aunt. But afterwards, now more informed on the current state of affairs, she knows to start listening for what people have been saying about Valia Wain.
"-Hang her, yes, of course Iomedae just wants to burn everything we've built to the ground because we don't measure up to some stupid standard of perfection, got to show them-"
"—don't need to know if she'll be found innocent or not, you can just place money on innocent and money on the noose and you'll make a profit off all the people betting she'll be ripped apart by lions — normally you'd need to account for the Blade, but—"
"—heard she died storming the palace. If you ask me, they should bring her back so they can execute her properly."
"- thinks it's fine if we all die as long as some of us maybe don't go to Hell, so she's a fool as well as a bitch -"
"- glad someone who knew better stepped in before I had her on the steps reiterating the -"
"- doesn't know anything about how the world outside her own little city works and didn't come prepared to learn -"
"- people probably misunderstood her, she didn't say anything about halflings at all but -"
"- rather hard to take people seriously when they talk about wanting to spare people the fires of Hell, you see -"
"Why would I know anything about Valia Wain? Just 'cause I'm a delegate? I've never spoken to her, and all these rumors are going-"
"—the Queen just arrested her because she's mad at her. She didn't do anything wrong."
"—still not sure what we're supposed to think — to be Good, I mean, not to survive—"
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