Narikopolus is pretty sure that investigations mean that you're in trouble, which is... fair... in that he just got two of the Church's priests killed. It is probably not so much trouble that they're going to stop working with him. It is not, he imagines, going to be a pleasant conversation. But he's being an Iomedan now, and part of that is not hiding when you've done wrong and been called on it. If he starts trying now, he won't last the year. 

He has time to meet in person, at the mansion. 

"Archduke," he says, and bows deeply. "We are very grateful for your time, and will endeavor not to take too much of it. This is my colleague, Sir Vittorio Cantes, also of Lastwall. Would it be  useful to you if I began by explaining how incident reports are conducted, or would you prefer to get to our highest-priority questions?"

"I'd certainly prefer to understand the process, but I expect the Church is currently more pressed for time than I am. If you have urgent business elsewhere, I won't insist that my interest keep you from it."

The Chelish nobility are really all surprisingly reasonable for nobility. He is starting to think that 'kill the worst four fifths of them and raise all the best ones from the last several centuries' is in fact a viable reform approach, if probably kind of Evil under circumstances less extreme than these. 

"The process is much more useful if people - use it - and so I will happily explain it, if you can spare the time. When something goes seriously wrong and the Church could probably have prevented it, or mitigated it, we try to figure out - how, and why that didn't happen. The aim is generally not to figure out whose fault it was. Most serious things that go wrong required a number of different errors of judgment, or if there were a situation where a single error of judgment could cause a catastrophe then almost by definition something went wrong earlier; we do not aim to run the Church such that single errors of judgment cause catastrophes.

It is hard to change the decisions that men make in the moment, under fire, and easier to change the decisions they make in calmer circumstances, when they sit down to plan, so we tend to focus more, though not exclusively, on the leadup to an incident. For example, if a team at the Worldwound gets killed and replaced by a bunch of shapeshifting succubi who decide it'd be fun to imitate them and infiltrate the fort, and they make it in because the man on guard is supposed to Detect Magic and doesn't recognize the auras he checks for, we can reprimand that man, if he's still alive, but - why was that the only layer of defenses? Why didn't he have more training, if his role was security-critical? Can most men in that role get it right? Did he even make a surprising mistake? 

The reports are meant to be helpful to everyone who is trying to improve their handling of similar situations in the future. You are, of course, our ally, not in our command, and have every right to ignore our recommendations if they strike you as in error. But the hope is that nothing like this will happen again, if we can figure out why it happened this time."

Narikopolus doesn't exactly believe that nothing worse than criticism is going to happen as a result of this process, but he's pretty good at doing things that are obviously the thing to do when interfacing with systems that are quite possibly going to kill him in the end, regardless of what he might or might not believe about the outcome if he bothered to worry about it. It doesn't especially matter what he thinks is going to happen if he cooperates. There has never been and is never going to be some safer option where he doesn't cooperate with the Church or the Crown in any capacity.

Anyway, he can learn how it's done, and see if he can put it into practice himself. He's learned one way of ruling, and he can learn another. Or die, and he'd kind of prefer not to do that yet.

"I see. Do I understand correctly, then, that it's meant to help everyone involved to reflect on the decisions that led up to the events investigated, as opposed to being carried out solely for the sake of the Church in Lastwall?"

"Yes, that's correct. We publish - redacted versions, as many people want to keep the details of their security procedures or other information private - but we publish the bulk of each report. You are welcome to read any past ones if they're of interest to you."

"I'd be interested in those, though I doubt I'll be able to make a proper study of them until the convention is over. Where do we begin, then?"

"When did you first receive an invitation to the Constitutional Convention? Can you describe your thought process around attending it? How did you decide who to take with you?"

"I knew about the convention shortly after it was announced, and received a formal invitation not long after. I believe it was Abadius, but I'm not certain. I didn't make immediate preparations. I'd thought at the time that I would stay with my sister in Westcrown, and that not much preparation would be necessary within the city. I spent more time satisfying myself that the archduchy could do without oversight for a period of several months. I wanted to bring Marit and Arn for counsel - I'd say because the convention seemed like the sort of thing one would need good counsel for, but the truth is I've been relying on Iomedan advice fairly constantly, and wouldn't have wanted to go without it in any situation. I wanted to leave Select Irek in Kantaria. I thought it would be a waste to bring our only Select with us when what we needed was theology, and Marit and Arn were perfectly capable of providing that. Kantaria needs the healing, and it matters much more to the people to have an empowered priest, to know that the goddess hasn't abandoned them. So - Marit, Arn, and a small handful of attendants who have served for many years. I might have brought my son Armand, if I hadn't sent him to the wound, but he does more good there, and - learns something, I trust, if not what he would learn here."

A train of thought nears something awkward. It rolls off harmlessly, like a raindrop on a waxed umbrella, without him ever properly seeing what the thought is. It's not that he thinks the paladins are secretly mind reading him. He does that almost all the time, hardly noticing that he's doing it. It's a rare moment when Narikopolus is prepared to be fully honest with himself, and through long force of habit, he doesn't do it while talking to anyone else.

"What was your understanding at that point of - what the convention was, how important it was likely to be, how highly you or the Church ought to prioritize it?"

"I expected the convention to settle some number of questions of governance. I won't claim I knew which ones, and assumed that would be explained when we arrived. I expected it to be - really quite important to the Queen. I expect she fully understands the sacrifice it is to the realm to have all of the higher nobility occupied by something like this at once, and wouldn't call them together for something not important enough to merit those costs. Certainly not while much of the country is still suffering from the effects of Infernal rule, and the new nobility are still getting their bearings. Of course I thought it was enormously important for me to attend. The Queen called; I came. I would be surprised to hear that any of the archdukes even considered not attending, but of all of them, I have the most to make up for, and the most to prove about my willingness to fully participate in any reforms her Majesty wishes to make."

"I confess, I didn't consider anything about how highly the Church should prioritize the convention. I knew religious delegates were invited, but I assume that the governance of Cheliax is less important to the Church as a whole than to Cheliax's own nobility." 

"So you arrived here in Westcrown to stay with - your sister? When was that?"

"Toilday before the convention. I should have sent someone ahead, I didn't realize how badly neglected the estate would be."

"Why had it been neglected?"

" - well, the previous owners are dead," he shrugs, apologetically. "Charthagnion Manor had belonged to my sister's husband, and he and virtually all of the adult members of his line were executed. The staff had quit or been let go. The slaves had been sold off. My sister and some of the grandchildren were occupying the house with only a housekeeper and a cook, and had not been concerning themselves with maintaining it. I should have anticipated more disruption than I did, but I hadn't expected it to be completely hollowed out."

"Had you been expecting or relying on there being security already employed in the city?"

This one is painful. He's really only alive because he's supposed to be able to defend places.

"Implicitly, I suppose I must have been. I certainly expected the manor to have something. But I wasn't thinking about riots as much of a potential threat. On previous occasions when I traveled south, I'd been concerned about targeted assassinations and mind control, and I suppose I should have taken it as a more serious problem that the set of nobles I meant to meet up with wasn't resilient against those, either. It's - not what I had been most worried about this time."

"What would it have looked like, to have taken it as a much more serious problem? What would you have done differently?"

Raindrop. 

"I would have had to pull one of the remaining soul-sold wizards off of Worldwound supply or defending Kantaria. They aren't fully distinct responsibilities, so it would in many cases affect both. A larger group of lower circle wizards would obviously have helped in the situation we actually faced, and those would have been taken from Kantaria. But I don't know that it would do much if, hypothetically, the Archduke of Sirmium wanted me dead, or a party of teleport capable adventurers from Andoran did. If I'd expected to need emergency healing I suppose I should also have taken a cleric, but Menador has fewer than it needs as it is."

"Were you present the morning of 3 Sarenith for Valia Wain's speech before the assembly?"

"Yes."

"What was your impression at the time?"

"I was worried that she would successfully turn the convention against the holdover nobility, either with regard to our ability to get anything done at the convention, or possibly to the point of violence carried out by organized vote. I expected that we still had the main Church's support, and knew we had the Crown's, and I hoped that they would step in before the situation became genuinely dangerous. I did not, at the time, understand that Select Wain was not a member of the Church at all, but I was confident that her speech didn't reflect the opinion of the entire Church. Marit had intended to speak to her the next day, after hearing about it, and explain to her more about the situation. I'd hoped it would go some way in patching any damage that had been done, and that the Select would ultimately be able to correct herself."

"Did you change any of your short-term plans in response to the speech?"

"Not especially. I expected to see Count Cansellarion that evening, and thought he would be among the most useful people to discuss the situation with. I didn't expect that action needed to be taken in the next few hours."