"Ah.  Right.  ...Hang on, couldn't we use the Force as a multiversal signature --"

"Second-order infinities."

"-- but only one is here --"

"...Do go on..."

"Rubberbanding?  And we know that the beacon design I made, worked, even if it technically worked a bit too well..."

"Leaving aside the question of whether there will be such a snapback as you posit, I am not letting you out of the universe.  Your parents will have my hide."

"But somebody would need to - are you suggesting you would?"

That is an unfortunately valid point.

Though -

"That's Deskyl's choice to make regardless, is the thing."

"...Come to think of it, I don't know how the translation would work going the other way - or if our magic would work over there."  She seems almost more annoyed by that than anything else.

"Then you are definitely not going, and I am definitely not going, and I might be convinced that a probe could be a wise choice.  But right now you have other projects."

"...Right.  DZ. do you want to watch me work on your chargers?  Or the materials for them, given we will probably want more metals later.

"That sounds good, yes ma'am. First, though - on master Deskyl's behalf I suggest in the strongest possible terms that you not do anything that would risk you appearing in Lord Pritruth's compound, especially if you might have access to magic unfamiliar to him. Most possible outcomes of that - or of interacting with most Sith, but Lord Pritruth's household is especially bad in this regard - would be substantially worse than your death."

"...I really do appreciate your concern.  I want to make that clear.  That you warned us off of this speaks well of your character.

"Having said that, I think you're underestimating our throw weight.  I'd be worried about running into the Emperor for sure, having some idea of just what he's done, and nervous about any given Darth - but while I'm nothing to write home about when it comes to melee combat, I don't need melee combat to cause some Sith to regret their choice of death.

"That said, I'm apparently not going.  Which is probably a better choice, really.  Which means that it would be one - or more - of Great-Aunt Ophelia's veterans.  And when it comes to Great-Aunt Ophelia's veterans..."

"Yes ma'am." The duchess mentioned getting Deskyl's go-ahead, presumably she'll get a report on Pritruth and his apprentices' capabilities too before she does anything. And continuing the conversation now seems like it will increase rather than decrease the possibility of Alicia doing something regrettable.

"...I would like to hear more about our likely opponents, before I can consider whether I truly agree with Alicia on this matter - but she does have a point.  One of Villarosa's 'exports', as was, is 'the sort of people who win impossible fights', and - if we openly entered that compound, it would be as belligerents.  Intending not to talk but to inflict a consequence for harms done and harms these people would do if left unchecked.  That said, Alicia...  You're getting ahead of yourself."

...

Yeah.  As much as Sith being near-axiomatically evil brings an urge to smite to the fore, she...doesn't want to know if she can kill a thinking being.

"...Yeah.  I...  Yeah.  I haven't exactly faced live combat like that before.  Certainly not for that sort of kill-or-wish-you-were-dead stakes.  And I don't think I want to.

"But knowing what I do about how much bullshit adventurers survive having thrown at them, I'd still give them good odds - on combat and infiltration both - unless the Sith in question have some really bullshit tricks up their sleeve.  I'd give an adventurer who knows what they're doing good odds on surviving the Emperor for long enough to escape the metaphorical instant death radius.  Though I think that assessment didn't involve additional combatants, which is probably stupid, because the Emperor picking a fight definitely comes with additional combatants built in."

"...Really, though, I'd throw - whoever the current Phoenix is, really - at the Emperor, if I wanted to pick a winning fight.  Them and maybe a warlock.  One that's very good at sneaking.  Chaos magic is really good at breaking things, especially if you don't particularly care about what state they're in afterwards.  And mind control can be surprisingly fiddly.

"...No offense to my homeland, but we just don't have as developed a culture of Light-wielders, even if their culture of Light-wielders is like that - and I think the Light has type advantage against a Sith.  Feelings of peace and calm and oneness with the universe are anathema, after all, and - while the Sith reject them, they don't constantly have to fight them to make their shit work.  ...Might not help as much with Dark Jedi, depending on their situation - they'd have a tolerance - but - well, we aren't dealing with those.

"...But I really quite digress."

...Really, must her grand-niece keep doing this?  That's a concerning power equivalence she's drawing.

"...We're not in a white-room scenario, dear.  I don't think that we're going to see the Phoenix stirred from their throne for an Empire that can't hurt them.  But we're also not going to pick that fight to begin with.  As much as I can see why you'd want to - how big is this Empire?"

"...Oh.  Damn.  Damn it.  Yeah.  We can't.  Even assuming that we did pull off miracles in pulling down the Emperor's power structure, there's not enough people in Villarosa to handle an entire galaxy's worth of governing.  Hell, probably not sufficient people on the planet, especially if we're excluding the obvious horrible choices like the Phoenix Kingdom."

"It's a few tens of thousands of inhabited planets, ma'am," DZ directs at the duchess, "though not all of those have Sith in residence."

"Goodness.  We very much do not have enough available capacity to govern to handle that.  And, well.  If we break it, we should be responsible for our actions.  So put your five-step plan to assassinate the Emperor away, please, Alicia.  We can't afford the cost of using it."

The moment in which a wry chuckle escapes her indicates that the 'five-step plan to assassinate the Emperor' is probably a joke.

"...Yeah.  We couldn't follow through."

"I still think that Pritruth - and anyone else involved in that plot - needs to die, though, because - why would they stop at Deskyl?"

"...As much as I am loathe to admit this line of argument, and loathe to tolerate the concept of official foreign-soil interventions outside of dire need...

"...If you can truly produce what we'd need to pull that off, I'll at least run the numbers.  I cannot say I'd be happy letting this matter rest unaddressed, either.  Not when it has already reached our shores."

"...Thank you."

"...At this moment, however, we cannot spend our time on speculation - there is work to be done.  You need to finish making your lightning generators.  Go.  Do that.  I shall see to DZ's library access."

"Thank you, ma'am." Does the library have poetry, she hopes it has poetry.