Ilda is here as well, have ridden in the carriage, spending most of the time in silent mediation.  She would like to find and brief Thea as soon as possible, but it isn’t actually that urgent (compared to the mission of protecting the Condesa) so she’ll wait for instructions or until she is dismissed or at least a lack of active instructions.

“Thank you for taking me with you Lady Nuria, you’ve made my return journey much faster.”

Lady Núria has been looking more and more worried with each passing hour, and she barely hears Ilda. "Let's try to find out if the Condesa has been resurrected."

She’ll follow along then.  It’s just as well Nuria isn’t paying attention to Ilda, Ilda can’t bring herself to fake an appropriate level of concern about the Condesa’s fate, even if she does (or did) have a nice port town.

She walks rapidly, looking through the bodyguards lazing in the sun. "You!"

"You!"

"uh"

Pau scrabbles backwards. 

"Don't worry, don't worry, they brought her back, she's inside right now!"

Núria rolls her eyes. "I'll let you deal with this idot, Sir Bernat. I'll go inside."

This is the convention location?  And it started about a week ago, So Thea is presumably inside herself?  She’ll follow along inside.

Núria whispers to one of the real guards, shows him the seal on her orders, and whispers again. He pulls a messenger boy into the conversation, and after a moment, he takes off inside..

"We'll need to wait to be declared official delegate support staff. I instructed him to go to your mistress after the Condesa." 

Hopefully Thea isn’t getting interrupted on anything urgent?  Ilda isn’t actually clear on what goes on during a convention.

She nods at Nuria.

Mercè skulks over to the entrance, looks them over, signs hello, and thank you for coming, we need you to Núria, and holds out a piece of paper to both Thea and Nuria. 

It’s identification of her as working for Thea.  She can go inside…

And it’s a massive room with hundreds of people and a line of people to speak at a podium… she’ll just wait for some type of break so she can look for Thea.

And Nuria walks up almost to the podium, spots the Condesa, and wanders over. 

And the Condesa lights up, hugs her and begins whispering to her all about what's been happening.

It's not dignified, but she can accept a hug.

Kind of a pathetic display of emotion, she already knew the Condesa was like that, but she thought Nuria was more capable.  She continues to look for Thea.

She continues to have little idea how the convention is supposed to work, but she’s figured out it has four divisions based on clothing and holy symbols, so she’s looks for Thea among the people with religious symbols.

She’s concentrating on the speakers and occasionally whispering and does not notice Ilda!

Being hugged by the Condesa would probably be part of any vizier's job, in Halmyris.

She whispers to the Condesa, and points to Ilda. 

The Condesa waves happily, and points to Thea.

Ilda is back, alive and unharmed!  It’s probably a moot point, the monastery itself is a pretty valuable structure (she’s come to realize this over the past few weeks taking on tenants) so that’s a strong point against relocating, but she might as well keep her options open.  She gives a friendly wave to the Condesa and motions Ilda over.

She heads over to Thea, she can give her report after the speaking portion of the convention ends for the day… whenever that is, it’s quite line of speakers…

Lunch time eventually comes, as it always does. 

When they finally have a chance to talk, Ilda has extensive praise for Halmyris as a city and Nuria as a potential ally… but the physical building sounds pitiful even when not compared to their current excellent facility.  So Thea will try to keep her options open, but she is definitely not going to commit to anything.  In fact, if pushed for a decision, she will simply refuse relocation.

Also interesting, it seems like Ilda met a family member of a delegate.  Working through her notes on names, it is one of the former diabolist committee members and on committee with her in Virtuous Churches.

After lunch and before committee meeting get started she looks for the Condesa.

"So what I'm saying is that if you go to the 'boring noble parties', you can influence policy more effectively, and you could wear cute outfits and impress all the handsome boys."

Lucia blinks. "That does sound good."

She waves. "Oh, hi Thea!"

Boring parties are probably where all the critical backdoor dealing is happening that lets the nobles line up a half dozen approving speeches for their proposals in advance.  She isn’t sure if Lucia is actually on the reasonable nobles side, so she isn’t sure if she should point it out (besides the fact that it would be intruding into their conversation).  She could try to point Lucia in the Duchess of Chelam’s direction?

“Hello Condesa Lucia.  I’ve gotten Ilda’s report, your city sounds quite nice.”

"Yes! Halmyris is amazing! I knew your what-her-name would love it! So will you come and live there?"

She was hoping for more room to keep her options open.

“I think the actual building I have here is quite nice.  The old tower at Halmyris… sounds like it needs some work.  So… well… if there are further riots and disturbances here I might rethink my options, but as it currently stands, I believe my preference is to remain here.   You would be my first choice if any anything forces my abbey from this city.”

She didn’t mean to say it like that… she doesn’t think the Condesa has the political leverage or scheming nature to conspire to drive her out of Westcrown, but no point giving her any incentive in that direction.

She swears. "DEVILS and DAMNATION!"

She glances at the guardsmen at her table, then at Nuria. She was really hoping that finding a new guard captain would be easier than this. Well, Nuria can probably find someone. 

"But we're still best friends, right?"

“We’re still friends… which reminds me I’ve been meaning to find time to talk to you about your ambitions for the convention now that’s it’s actually under way.  I originally had some optimistic plans-“ and some catastrophic worries “-but I’ve found a lot of my energy goes towards trying to moderate more worrisome proposals.  Have you paid much attention to the Duchess of Chelam?  Her voice has proven quite reasonable don’t you think?”

Dia is tagging along as usual.  She catches that glance… was the Condesa looking to supplement her guards with some muscle?  Or looking for a backup to less than loyal or competent guards?

“You know, if it’s some extra… martial support you want, some of the older members of the abbey were thinking of spending some time outside if it? We aren’t clerics like Thea, but we’ve got a few tricks…”

Children. Why is she constantly surrounded by children?

Nuria rolls her eyes. "We need clerics." She gestures come-here to Dia- low, so that the guardsmen don't see it. 

Yeah, fair enough she should have been quieter with the guards so near, even if they do appear to be idiots.

“Hey, we can be really useful!  We can punch hard and stuff!  You should come by the monastery to watch us spar, we can spar really good!”

She plays up the childishness of her voice for any guards that are paying too much attention.  Hopefully Nuria will realize the opportunity to play along.  And she comes closer in case Nuria insists on the conversation here (although hopefully she’ll take the invitation to the women’s only monastery and they can have an actually secure conversation).

Great Dia saw something and is now passing subtext with Nuria.  It’s a good move getting her to monastery though.

She sighs. "Perhaps I ought to see this monastery."

"Oh yeah, it's amazing!"

“Yes you are certainly welcome back if you’d like to meet there!  Some evenings I’ve been busy with convention business meeting other delegates so I would like to know in advance so I can make time for you, which I certainly will!”

"Great! It's really fun training there! You could learn how to become an assassin, Núria!"

What is wrong with this child?  How did she survive this long?

Thea is realizing she wouldn’t want to move to Halmyris even if she could take her entire underground base with her.

Forced smile.

“We no longer train techniques and skills only useful for assassination.  Our training is aimed at general martial skill.”

"I'd love to learn some general martial skills!" Núria smiles much more realistically, and does not say anything more or show any hints at all about any interest in assassination, which it may come to eventually. 

“Well, let me know what evening you would like to come visit then!”

Her evenings are currently open as unfortunately she hasn’t made much progress on setting up or getting invited to any political faction meetings.

"Ah- how's tomorrow?"

“That sounds excellent.  I have no other plans for tomorrow evening.  My mornings and afternoons are, of course, taken up by the convention.”

"Núria is my best friend and vizier! She'll be here with me too, advising!"

How many ‘best’ friends can this girl have?  Hopefully (for Lucia) Nuria can keep her from openly proclaiming avaricious desires of conquest and similarly impolitic ideas.

“Of course.  I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Thea turns to leave for her committee meetings.

"Bye!"

She turns to Nuria. "Now let's talk about which men on the front row are the handsomest!"

"Of course, My lady."