She shrugs. "Not in my experience, but yours might be different." ('Forces that are unfamiliar with each other and hate each other' are what make up realspace raids, and behold! Realspace raids work.)

"I'm used to needing tight coordination, especially in areas famous for their traps."

"I'll admit traps isn't my expertise,"--or at least non-Drukhari traps aren't "but I'm pretty sure the rest of our crew has some people who know a thing or two about 'em"

"We have everything from a wizard to me, and mom's aura of devotion has gotten powerful enough to aid her allies in avoiding things like that."

"And I have a quite encyclopedic knowledge of the undead," Decima says with a smile. "Not that you're expressing your actual worries."

She snorts. "I'll help you open the gate, because I'm not enough of an idiot to try to fight each other like this, but I'm not going to baby you all through the dungeon."

"I don't imagine we'll need that, and I'd be insulted if you tried?"

"Fine. Then let's get going."

She's convinced someone, yay! (No, she's not looking this gift horse in the mouth, because what if if gets shirty once you've tried to take a peek at it's teeth?)

Emes starts spreading commands, for people to bring the cubes from where they're hidden, for help with scouting and then clearing Acererak's guards on the entrance...

They're still down Ras Nsi's cube, right? They're not going to get very far without that.

"Ras is thinking about what he's going to do-- contingent on some research on Our Pal Lichyboi of Death Curse fame."

"We have enough people by now to take him, but I do suppose we'll do better if we don't deplete our forces first."

"Also, from the way he acted when we told him the news, he'd probably be quite keen to punch Our Friend The Lich in his decomposing face, so."

"From what I've heard, I believe Ras Nsi is afflicted by the Death Curse himself, though he's been covering for it well."

"Oh, he's super gonna want to punch Lichy McLichface."

"Effectively poisoning your allies is in fact not a good way to keep allies."

"That's 'Having Allies 101'! Our Friend The Lich may have expected to keep it secret for longer, but that was a bad expectation."

"I think it's been a few millennia since the last time he had allies."

"I've known people who've done longer stretches and managed to avoid doing stuff like that, or were at least subtle about it."

"My impression of him isn't 'subtle.'"

"You'd know more than me. I'm used to the subtler types being more successful than the others, but it takes all sorts." She shrugs.

"I think he was mostly successful this long because no one was looking at this region. And then now that he's being dramatic he has his fortress fortified already. I don't expect him to succeed, though - he is being stupid."

"Powerful idiots can be quite a worry-- but there's limits to what they can do if they piss off all their allies."

"I don't think he's an existential threat, no." Actually if what he's doing succeeds he will be, but Emes should probably start playing down what he's doing if she wants a chance at it.

"Eating people's souls does not end up well for the eat-ees, in general."