"Archmage Naima! Sorry, no, he was in Vigil as of this morning and we have not seen him today."

"Oh, that's all right. D'you expect he's still in Vigil? Anything I can usefully take with me if I head over?"

"I don't know anything more about whether he's still in Vigil. If you give me five minutes I can determine if there is anything waiting on transport to Vigil but I do not expect that's worth your time. There is nothing urgently awaiting it."

She misses her time not being so important. She will try not to be visibly disappointed about it. On the other hand Vigil will be happier to see her if she has a present, even a small one, and she would quite like for the Iomedans to be pleased to see her instead of annoyed, even when she does it without even determining what city they're in first, like this. "I can wait five minutes, it's not so much trouble in the middle of the night."

She'll take out her notebook and scribble a bit to herself about her pamphlet plans.

Then Crina will run and check what paperwork has been copied for eventual transfer to the Church and not transferred yet (most of it went back with De Luna and Cansellarion the previous day, but not all of it) and whether Iustin has finished his supplemental to the incident report (he hasn't, but it proposes a form letter he ought to send the Church and he can send the Church the form letter they just proposed he send them). Also there's some mail for Valia Wain. 

Naima can be presented with all of these.

"Cool. Thanks."

She knows how to teleport to Vigil without landing in a teleport trap these days. Here's some mail, is de Luna about?

In his home, where he lives. "Archmage Naima! What can I do for you?"

"I read your report! It was very nice. It did not include any recommendations for me, so I am coming to ask your advice in person, and also to argue with you about some things you said in it. I'm sorry not to have made an appointment, but if it would be interesting and not boring for you I would also like to invite you to some planning I am doing about how to fix Cheliax, and that's happening tonight."

"Of course! If we might touch on anything sensitive we shouldn't speak here, though, we can go into the castle and get a conference room. - Archmage, this is my wife, Iolanta. Io, this is the Archmage Naima. I may be out until morning." And he will get his coat on.

"Hello! I'm sorry not to have much time tonight, but we should talk later!" Did she know that de Luna was married?? This is a fairly embarrassing thing not to know. Someday she'll - oh, bother. "Actually I was going to invite you to my demiplane."

"That works too! Only give me a moment first." He will study her carefully for a moment to satisfy himself that it's actually the Archmage Naima and not an impersonator here to kidnap him.

Yeah, that's pretty valid.

She's mind blanked, of course. "Would you be willing to do your healing?"

"Sure, you got anything that needs - oh, forget it. My finger work, or is that too possibly illusory?"

He will draw his own sword and cut his own finger off at the highest bone. "Go ahead."

Bam. New finger, no spell or material component. She's pretty much the only person who can do that.

She is! He'll take her hand for the Plane Shift.

Cool. Plane Shift.

The main room of the Cotonnet demiplane is fairly carpeted in bedrolls right now, teenagers and secretaries and her own kids reading or sleeping in various corners. Her room is clear, though, and has a table set for tea. With an option for actual tea, if desired, because unlike Elie and Shawil and Catherine, de Luna hasn't had his politically valanced beverage privileges revoked, though she also has coffee and sobia and mango juice.

"To be perfectly clear, for me it's the beginning of the day, not the end, and you should feel free to tell me that I'm being very rude and you need to sleep first."

He'll take tea.

"I don't need to sleep yet, or every night, and I will notify you if you strike me as extremely rude. I am delighted you read the report, actually. There is not usual widespread interest in them outside the Church."

"It was a good piece of writing! I cheated, of course, I never have time to read things without magic these days. I did feel a bit left out, though. In hindsight I expect that you did not include recommendations for me because it doesn't actually make sense for me to have been responsible for staffing the convention, but in fact most of the staffing we did have when we opened was through me, and I'd like to think a bit more about what optimal staffing would look like. Elie did implement your suggestions for making bodyguards and general legal advice available."

"Ah! I should have asked Elie more questions, to discover that. I'm glad that you're offering bodyguards and legal advice. Beyond that - it seems like it would be a good idea to have some people monitoring the convention and the city for Elie, and reporting to him on things like what bills people are planning to introduce so he isn't taken by surprise, unless that seems too - underhanded - to him.

Generalizing away from this specific situation - countries have an entire diplomatic apparatus. They have embassies to all of the countries with which they are on remotely lawful terms, and exchange ambassadors. So that when they have something to say, there are people whose job it is to know how to say it to that audience without causing grave offense or any effects that aren't the intended ones. I think that possibly archmages have all the reasons that countries do to have a diplomatic apparatus."

"This does seem likely. I actually also want your advice on how to expand operations on that front in other countries, I am about to attempt to beg a large number of favors from - well, approximately everyone for whom I can think of useful favors. But if you mean communicating effectively with six hundred Chelish people selected from every possible walk of life, I'm not sure anyone knows how to do that. ...we have admittedly not been giving that responsibility to any of the people I know who might."

"I know Codwin recommends dinner parties with groups of five to ten of them. It worked extremely well for him, obviously, but at the same time - it would be foolish for you and Elie to take Codwin's advice about the best way to personally kill a devil in single combat, being very differently specialized from him.

I know Iomedae would sometimes give sermons and then pay people for extremely detailed explanations of what they thought she was trying to say, and then repeat the activity until new listeners were walking away with the correct impression."

"Imagine having time for dinner parties," she says, wistfully. "Someone should be doing it, I suppose. I'd love to - which is not at all to say that I think I'd be any good at it, I am sure when I started I'd be awful. But it'd be, what, eight thousand gold, and some number of hundreds of lives."

"I would ordinarily think the Queen should be doing far more public and social events of this type but given the very unusual circumstances surrounding the Queen I feel reluctant to give her advice premised on her public persona. In general I hesitate to advise any of you in anything, really, because when left to your own devices you kill a great many dukes of Hell under confusing circumstances, and if that's what someone is doing most possible suggestions about what they should be doing instead will be in error."