At the bar Aire hears mostly more variations on the rumors she's already heard.

Nothing she doesn't already know.

Though while she's out, one of the public postings of the written copy of the warning about the Red Queen is nearby, if she'd rather get it first-hand.

Seems worth the trouble. What does it say?

Word brought by exiles from the east and confirmed by the gods:

"Red Queen" a monstrous world-scale threat rising in the Pink.
Uses powerful mind-control to absorb all Tentacled life within her sphere of influence into herself.
Destroys minds to create drones and mana-batteries under her direct control.
Spread contained by psychic barrier maintained by united resistance that calls for aid.

"Red Queen" makes heavy use of purpose-bred parasitic clothing to ensnare, enslave, and brainwash non-Tentacled victims into her service.

You are urged to suspect any hostile Tentacled of being an agent of the Red Queen sent to deliberately stir up anti-Tentacle sentiment!
You are urged to protect yourself via any means against capture by these false Tentacled, lest you suffer a terrible fate!
You are urged to remain calm and remember the might of the Dragon Empire!

It is perhaps obvious that this has been edited somewhat by the government.

That is rather obvious, yes.

The confirmation by the gods makes things worse. Much worse. She's heard enough to know that the gods do not act in anything resembling unison. For this to have been confirmed by "the gods" instead of, say, specifically The Fair Queen, means that this is real. And not just real, but important enough to drive enough gods to act in unison for the acting coalition to just be called "the gods". 

Well, if the worst happens she can grab a few people from her cult with useful mutations, find a deep, dark cave, collapse the entrance behind her, a while away the centuries. Perhaps tunnel downward and fill in the tunnel behind them? 

If the gods are acting and the phrase "world-scale threat" is taken uncomfortably literally, that may not be enough.

Well, in the very short term she can kill two birds with one stone and point the Dragon Empire more thoroughly at the Red Queen while ensuring the Lord-Commander does not target her. 

And her secondary body can get to work on finding places to hide.

She heads back to the cult. Did all of the other dispatched cultists hear the same rumors she did? Or did one of them chance on something more interesting?

Most of them just heard more of the same, but this one saw with her own eyes that Alard Drystan's dragon has been put in a cage on the roof of the inquisitorium, and there's been a lot of people coming and going from that roof ever since.

This one heard from the daughter of a Dragoon functionary that her father will be working late on the Lord-Commander's order, though nothing more detailed than that.

Could she learn something by using Christa's telepathy on the dragon? Unlikely, but likely not particularly risky if there's that much traffic involved. There is the potential problem of Yui recognizing her scent and things somehow going wrong from there.

The late hours of a Dragoon functionary provides some new information, but that could easily be a response to either the Red Queen or Alard's imprisonment. It doesn't, she think, give her much more actionable information, as something similar was predictable in advance.

Wait. She's been an idiot. She should ask Jasmine if faking Christa's murder by Alard sounds like something Rele would do. And surely others knew Rele to some degree, she should ask them as well.

She needs to adjust to her new cult being valuable not just as additional hands, eyes, and ears, but also as additional minds. 

Somehow, thinking about the questions she should ask helps her feel out what she thinks her own answers should be, hinting to her that she was over-anchored on her original idea that the Lord-Commander was responsible. But she goes through with asking her questions anyway.

So, she telepathically asks Jasmine who knew Rele or the situation in the city at least somewhat well. And then, she can go one by one and ask each individual a few questions telepathically, to avoid any answer biasing any of the others. Does something like Alard's false murder of Christa look more like an odd move by the Lord-Commander against a Christa that he thinks killed one of his agents, or Rele frantically attempting to cover for an absent Christa and erring in determining the amount of attention such a thing would bring? And what, in their opinions, are the most likely things to have detained Rele? 

The value of the answers she gets depends on how well-known Rele's personality is in the cult, and how well-informed the cult is on the city in general and the Lord-Commander in specific. How does all that shake out?

What could have detained Rele?

If Rele's been captured or caught, they would've heard something by now, surely. That part is still very confusing.

As for Rele framing Alard for Christa's murder... well, the problem with that is that Rele knows Christa is alive and safe and making it look like she was killed draws a lot of attention... so something else would've had to happen, first.

But Rele does have even more of a grudge against the Dragoons than the rest of them. If somehow it became true that faking Christa's death and framing Alard for it was to Aire's benefit, then it wouldn't be out of character.

Rele was, well, bad at interacting with Aire, off-putting enough that she found herself annoyed and irritated despite the actual situation being that Rele was personally committed to Aire's safety, had already saved Aire from a terrible mistake, and then followed that up by introducing her to her largest and most valuable resource. It seems entirely plausible that she simply has a blindspot when it comes to standard human psychology. And so if Rele found herself watching an increasing disturbance prompted by Annabelle or perhaps one of Christa's instructors, it could very easily seem that the best option was to halt that now, quickly, and that in doing so she simply erred in understanding what likely responses would be compared to Christa simply vanishing.

Knowing that they would expect to hear something by now if Rele was captured is very important information. That makes it substantially less likely that she was captured by the Dragoons, and so correspondingly more likely that she was captured by something else or is off doing something of such incredible importance she cannot respond to their signal.

Yes, all of this pushes her in the direction of thinking Rele was the most likely culprit. And she feels like that should tell her something, like this is a pattern that she should notice explicitly.

She'll move ahead on her mainline plan under the assumptions that Rele framed Alard, and Rele has not been captured by the Dragoons.

This is not to say she can't or shouldn't have plans ready to go if her state of information changes. But she only has so many hours in the day.

The most obvious way to cause people to believe the Red Queen's agents were behind framing Alard is to impersonate one such agent and "fail" to interfere with the ongoing investigation. To manage that, she needs to know who, in either the Dragoons or the Inquisitors, is investigating things.

If she were the Red Queen and she wanted to paralyze the Dragon Empire and leave it ripe for conquest, what would she do?

Create a rift between the Dragoons and the Crown. 

Well, there's the reason for the Red Queen's agents to frame Alard. Lord-Commander Drystan would know enough about his son, due to the spies if nothing else, to know that clearly someone was framing him. And then if they can suborn one of the inquisitors, or one of the Lord-Commander's own agents, they can arrange for things to point in the king's direction. Even if the scheme is doomed to failure by close relations between the king and the Lord-Commander, or some other factor, living clothing from the Pink would not necessarily know that.

Which means now she needs to know who the correct target would be for the Red Queen's agents to attempt to suborn.

Does the inquisitorial cook know who there is involved with the investigation? Or, in fact, if there even is an ongoing investigation?

If the Lord-Commander were attempting to prove his son's innocence, does anyone know how how might he go about doing that?

The inquisitorial cook doesn't know the current state of the investigation. It was ongoing this morning but, obviously, said cook has been here and doesn't have updates on that. It sounds like they already thought of having the dragon interrogated by a telepath, though. They might know that said dragon did indeed use Christa like a cocksleeve, and without context...

The Lord-Commander might do any number of things; he's also powerful enough to just, let his son get away with it, if he wanted to. It doesn't seem like he wants to come to his son's defense, but on the other hand, Christa turning up alive sure would prove Alard's innocence... on the murder charge, at least.

He apparently watches his son with spies but doesn't pay for his dragon's food. Aire is far more willing to believe he's doing something secret and clever, or has found some way to use this to his advantage, than that he isn't invested at all. Perhaps it is simply that he knows that his enemies might target Alard as a way to get to him, and so uses him as bait? No, he would be better served in that scheme by appearing invested even if he weren't, so that doesn't neatly explain things. 

Does the Crown have access to its own forces, separate from the Dragoons? If the king or someone associated with him had wanted to frame Alard for something, how would they go about that? She doesn't need a good answer, just something someone on the street might think plausible.

The Crown keeps the Dragoons on a short leash, and the Lord-Commander answers directly to the king. Speculation on tensions between the king and the Lord-Commander is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Rele.

The story comes out as such:

Rele witnessed Christa's roommate raising an alarm about Christa's absence. Both that and Aire's previously expressed preference to withdraw Christa from society led Rele to fake Christa's death and pin the blame on the dragon-rider boy to distract the inquisitors. Rele believes this is working as she intended, though she isn't sure. See, shortly after planting the last piece of evidence, Rele encountered that 'Lavich' woman. All Rele remembers is brief pain and darkness, then Rele woke up about a quarter of an hour ago in a closet, with her host alarmingly low on blood and her own person alarmingly close to being discovered.

So. That's where Rele has been.

Ah, so it was Lavich. 

And Rele made approximately the choices Aire thought she did, and for the reasons Aire thought she made them. Good news for Aire's sense of her own competence at this plotting business, even if it did take her an uncomfortably long time to zero in on the idea as the obvious correct one.

She doesn't think she'll directly point out the flaws in Rele's plan, or contrast it with Aire's immediate alternate better plan. Not in public, anyway. That would come across as a power play, and the thing she wants is for Rele to think of Aire as possessing a form of expertise Rele doesn't. That way Rele will ask for advice in the future, before trying something like this and causing a number of unnecessary problems. 

She finds herself not actually annoyed with Rele for making this mistake; it feels like blaming her for having one giant eye, rather than two smaller ones. Completely pointless, and faintly ridiculous to boot.

Aire confirms that things are working approximately as intended, and in fact Alard and his dragon have already been imprisoned. At the moment, Aire is attempting to come up with a plot to frame someone else for framing Alard, thus ensuring the Lord-Commander wastes any retaliatory strength against a major enemy of theirs.

Did Rele miss the new information about the Red Queen while she was unconscious, or did she manage to pick it up from people's minds on the way here?

Neither. Her eyesight is good enough that she just read one of the public postings from a nearby rooftop.

But yes, she's aware.

Aire plans on framing Red Queen agents for framing Alard. To that end, just before Rele arrived, she was attempting to figure out who, precisely, the Red Queen's agents would want to frame for framing Alard.

The object of this entire series of framings and framings of framings is twofold. Firstly that the Lord-Commander thinks he already knows who framed his son, and so does not look into Christa, and from there perhaps discover information about Aire. And secondly, that the Lord-Commander pushes for increased opposition to the Red Queen in a way that hopefully simultaneously damages them both. 

This relies on them confirming the information about the Red Queen, what the city knows thus far is clearly at least partially propaganda. They don't want to risk directing the Lord-Commander's attention towards one who could be an ally. But Aire's host, Christa, is capable of Astrology, so that can be managed with relative haste.

The Red Queen used to be so cool. She was doing all the awesome things. It was great. The Wicked Mother was all like, "Yeah! Take! And control! And parasitize! I'm so proud! WAIT NO NOT LIKE THAT!!!"

The Red Queen is destroying everything of value, even to the people who value things like what the Red Queen is doing. Yes, this is more than a problem, more than a disaster. It is a blasphemous abomination, a puppet show mocking the life it anihilates.

Well. That rather settles things, doesn't it?

What is Rele's opinion of Aire's plan?

Rele thinks its well-prioritized but dangerously ambitious. The danger can be mitigated, however, and the priorities upheld.

Rele has no objections in principle and is ready to carry out Aire's will.

There are additional details that shouldn't be discussed with those without Rele's strong mental shields. Parts of the plan, and more importantly additional pieces of information that make those parts viable. Beyond ordinary paranoia, there is now the possibility of the Red Queen suborning a member of the cult. Hopefully she will be stopped before her forces are knocking at the gates of Arcadia, but if not, it would be better for certain abilities of Aire's not to spread.

Aire has an additional body. It is several hundred miles from this location, safe, and well-hidden. In the event that this body dies, she will simply make a new one. This is important context for why the next part of Aire's plan is not rank foolishness.

Aire plans to impersonate Living Clothing serving the Red Queen and "fail" to take control over an individual to sell the idea that the Red Queen's agents are already active in the city. Ideally, they will gather more information first, and Aire can "fail" to take control of someone who would be well-placed to cause conflict between the Lord-Commander and someone else of importance by "discovering" that some organization or individual had framed Alard for Christa's death. Aire's "failed" attempt to gain control over this individual can then include a supposed attempt to puppet them to lie about having discovered damning information about whoever they end up deciding the Red Queen's agents should be trying to frame.

There are, quite obviously, a number of holes still to be filled in. That said, is Rele opposed to what Aire has laid out here?

Violence to Aire's person is not the only danger.

But no, Rele is not opposed to this plan.

An obvious candidate for someone else of importance to pit the Lord-Commander against, is the High Inquisitor. Perhaps too obvious. The Lord-Commander and the High Inquisitor plotting against each other is more cliché than reality. If the actual Red Queen actually tried that, it would be doomed to failure.

To be entirely clear, and not risk miscommunication, Aire's goal with this plot is primarily to control the Lord-Commander's state of information. When Rele was forced to kill the Lord-Commander's spy, the obvious guess for the culprit of the murder was Christa. This was cemented when she vanished and Alard was framed for her murder the next day. The Lord-Commander certainly knows that Alard is not the type to feed a girl to his dragon. To the Lord-Commander, this will look like a relatively well-informed person deliberately moving against him by disabling one of his pawns. All of that suggests Christa had some rather interesting secrets, and was not who she appeared. This is, unfortunately, true, and very much not something they want the Lord-Commander investigating, lest his investigations lead him straight to Aire. Or at the very least to deducing that something took Christa's place after her return from her most recent trip. Aire is safest if nobody outside the Black Eyes even suspects she might exist. 

The result that the Lord-Commander ends up pointed at the Red Queen was, initially, a happy accident; she doesn't know who she'd have chosen, if the news of the Red Queen hadn't rolled in that day, but she would have picked some group or another. The goal, when forming the plan, was simply to ensure that Lord-Commander Drystan would not continue investigating Christa in too much depth. If he thinks he has already solved the mysteries involved, he is less likely to keep investigating. The importance of that changed drastically when Christa's astrology responses came through and they learned that opposing the Red Queen is their holy mission, but it was not, initially, the primary goal.

Hmm. Perhaps even attempting to pin things on the Lord Inquisitor would not ring too false, as the culprits of the plot are supposedly relatively new fresh from the Pink, and so plausibly working on cliches themselves. But no, that's an option of last resort, better to have something that doesn't rely on the supposed Red Queen agents being incompetent.

Are there figures in the hierarchy of the Dragoons who would benefit from scandal falling on the Lord-Commander? Someone nearly well-positioned enough to make a bid for the position, but held back by the Lord-Commander's good reputation? This would not be enough on its own to change that, she thinks, but it could plausibly be the first step in a longer plan with those aims in mind.

There isn't anyone within the hierarchy of the Dragoons, no. No one obvious, anyway.

However.

There is the Veterinarian-General. The Lord-Commander's left hand, and, it is rumored, his jilted lover.

Well, she seems the obvious target to beat, then. What else is known about this woman? She would also appreciate some information about the position of Veterinarian-General, and how precisely that caches out in terms of power within the organization, if Rele knows.