"Right, everyone in your mind controlled empire thinks this is reasonable, but they're also not really allowed to think otherwise! What I'm curious about is whether - Osirion's Abadaran, right, I'd be kind of surprised if they enslave their senior advisors? Though probably some of them know too many state secrets to be allowed to literally just go wherever? Lastwall's unbearably Good, do they enslave their senior advisors? I'm genuinely not sure! I can imagine the paladin in my head going "the work we do is too important to just give people our blessing to walk away from it" or going "no, we are Good and slavery is bad" and I just don't have any idea which it is!  In the Lung Wa Empire was it legal for senior advisors to go decide to retire to religious seclusion? I think so! To retire to start a merchant house? I think not! But I don't - know the moving parts there either!"

Altarrin looks thoughtful. "Compulsions are not as common elsewhere in places with fewer mages and worse education for them, and - certainly they are not as standardized anywhere else in the known world. I think lifetime oaths of service are quite standard, though, and - I imagine most rulers are strongly incentivized to lean on their top advisors not to randomly leave and start projects elsewhere." 

"So maybe it's normal. I'm not saying it isn't, I just - wish I'd heard of any other places. 

I'd've let someone quit Project Lawful, if only because they were likely to fuck it up if they wanted out and were being forced to stick around, and because pretend Project Lawful was the kind of thing that'd let people quit."

"I would certainly prefer to have created an Empire that worked that way! I...think, empirically, that is not the Empire I created. And I do feel significantly responsible for steering Bastran into the position he is in now, and...while knowing on some level, or at least - in a context where I could have known - that it would not at all be good for his personal flourishing."

He shakes his head. "I do think it is simpler with most people, who will predictably do a job badly if they are being coerced into it when they would rather not. I...think both Bastran and I are people who will do a better job than the next-best candidate anyway, and he knows that about me. It would harm the current functioning of the Empire on net, if I left, I just - think it is worth it anyway, on the timescales I am used to planning around. Whereas Bastran is understandably used to scoping his planning around his own lifetime and feasible avenues of influence." 

" -were you, on some level, trying to - work yourself to death?"

He looks thoughtful for a long time. 

"- I had not framed it that way, but - maybe. Or at least - trying on some level to convey to you that the situation was not stably sustainable? I am not sure - I did fall behind on recordkeeping, at least the kind where I look at the bigger picture and review my own decision patterns, that - should maybe have been a flag that something was wrong." 

- nod. "All right. I think I'll - talk to the Emperor, and then worst case spend the rest of your natural life becoming very powerful and reinventing my world's magic, and - catch up with you later."

"...I have a century or more in this body with the standard life-extension magic if I avoid assassination. I really, really do not want to spend the next century entirely dedicated to being Bastran's Archmage-General, and - I think I can persuade him in much less than a century that it is not the ideal use of me even from a narrow perspective on the Empire's flourishing. But...I suppose we will see." 

And he'll contact Bastran and schedule a meeting time the next day. 

That evening he doesn't seem stressed about it exactly, certainly not scared, but he is radiating vague misery again. 

Carissa will lean on him. She's been being more unapologetically affectionate; he hasn't rebuffed her about it yet. "I think we can make this work, for what it's worth. And if you're stuck for a century then that's a century in which we can lay lots of plans that won't get an immediate response from the gods because they'll be on too long a horizon to be visible to Foresight."

He hasn't rebuffed her! If anything he seems appreciative and grateful for the physical contact, though perhaps slightly confused about this fact. 

"I know. And - at the very least I can delegate, it will not take me that terribly long to train up some assistants and - maybe a decade, to groom a replacement candidate for Archmage-General. The compulsions do make it harder but - I think I could do a better job of working around them than I have to date - I have been trying to take the time to think about strategies for that this week, since I have a rare opportunity to think without them. I - am leaning toward not having Arbas replace them until I actually return to the capital, the conversation with Bastran seems easier without them and he did sign off on this. - Arbas asked me to put his back days ago, I am not sure if he mentioned. He said it turned out that he disliked not having the compulsion for loyalty to Bastran." 

"That makes sense. Mortals are not actually very good at - relating to our goals the way we mean to, even when they're really ours -

I'm terrified of being made subject to the Emperor again but I'm not going to - make that his problem - I'm just going to try to help him figure out what he wants -"

Lean. "What consequences are you afraid will happen? I - think it might be useful to go into the conversation with at least both of us being on the same page, I assume it would affect his goals as well as yours." 

"I'm just really attached to my present goals and my goals being changed is a lot of power and capacity directed at other goals I don't have, and not necessarily in a retrievable way, if it's done well, since I won't want to change back. I want the ability to make promises and mean them and it doesn't play very nicely with other people being able to sculpt my priorities at will. I think most people get away with having other priorities besides their compulsions - or for that matter just other priorities besides their top compulsion - because they're muddled in a way I'm not reliably muddled."

"...Huh. My top compulsions is to obey direct Imperial orders, and I think most of my top priorities are not that. And that I am usually not very muddled, although perhaps the last several months have been...not my best showing...on the not-being-muddled front. But - I suppose overall I do not think of the compulsions as - the kind of thing that even can change my underlying priorities, as opposed to just - constrain how I can pursue those priorities." 

"I can - try thinking about them that way? Maybe that's how they work if you know how they're supposed to work. I think my original ones were - making it seem important to serve the Empire, not just constraining me to courses that no one would call disloyal to the Empire -

- or, I could've thought of it the latter way, but then it would've been harder to refuse to surrender until it was safe -"

"I - have the sense that in general, you may do more shifting around of your internal sense of priorities based on what you judge is safe? I think I shift my actions, obviously, but not my ultimate goals – though also I would probably not have survived living in Cheliax, I understand why this feels like an important move. And maybe the Inquisition would want you to do that before they felt comfortable, but I really think that 'making the Inquisition comfortable' should not feature among our top fifty priorities here. Bastran is not going to ask that of you. Or me. He - is not upset that I think our highest long term priority is to build a god. He just - thinks that if I were to leave now we would probably lose Taymyrr and that would be costly." 

"Costly how? For who? What do you need Taymyrr for? - it probably doesn't specifically matter -"

"Having Taymyrr pacified would make it less costly to hold onto Oris. Which - is sort of circular, I know, why does the Empire need Oris so badly, it is not even net-positive on food and natural resource exports yet. I think partly the previous administration in Oris was genuinely much worse for its citizens in many ways and partly it - just looks bad, to be the Emperor whose administration is losing rather than gaining territory. And of course the situation at court is more stable when there are new governorships and other such prizes to hand out." 

"Yeah." Sigh. "I don't know how to think about this if you're not going to be wildly principled and say not to conquer countries unless they start it. I guess in some ways I'm - glad that you think the Empire would fall apart without you, that seems better than it being - sticky -"

Sigh. 

"...I think it it stickier than I would prefer, actually, if I left now with no preparatory steps I suspect there would be a bad few centuries and then it would stabilize into some new equilibrium, which might be less expansionist but I am not sure. If I were founding a country now I would not push a policy of expansion, but - I think it looked very different at the start, when the land we were conquering was not even countries yet, and if I were doing it again I would know that expansionism is sticky as a policy, but - might still have been justified, people were starving..." 

"And you need geographic distance from the gods' areas of power, probably. I'm not saying you did it wrong for your goals; I don't know."

Shrug. "It would be so much simpler if I were sure the Empire was - doomed, or that it will never get better than this, or that the world would be better without it. I - think overall if I were free to choose, I would choose to move on, but - I would be giving something up and it would not be mostly me who paid the cost." 

"I guess we'll see what the Emperor's will is."

"I suppose we will." 

And they're kind of talking in circles, so at this point maybe they can...stop doing that...and just cuddle, and get some sleep. 

The next day, he raises a Gate for the Emperor to cross to their facility, alone. 

Bastran looks...older than he did the last time Carissa saw him, in some indefinable way that must have more to do with his manner and body language than anything related to lines on his face. His expression is surprisingly unguarded. He has the air of someone who isn't looking forward to this at all. 

He doesn't speak until they're in the conference room and Altarrin has raised extra shields. (Arbas is outside, acting as a guard in the hallway for the remote possibility that something happens, but he's not invited to this conversation; he already knows more of Altarrin's secrets than he really should, and his commitment to being utterly incurious about further details is the only reason neither Altarrin nor Bastran are panicking more about this.) 

"Carissa," he says, a little stiffly, once they're seated. "I - suppose I owe you that apology you had requested."