Baron Pierson will show up with all the relevant files for everything he expects His Majesty the Emperor might want to talk to him about! (He doesn't look like he's been short on sleep, precisely as formal and precise as ever.)

Why, Your Majesty, of course! He understands completely! Everything is being perfectly managed, he's happy to deputize people he can use to support them (and spy on them). Thoughtsensers? Well, State itself has very little use for thoughtsensers for its internal operations (but his political allies) - he'd be pleased to put some names forwards nonetheless for people who he's sure aren't being used to capacity where they are...

(Altarrin will ask a few sensible questions, and throughout will radiate tiredness and wanting-this-meeting-to-be-over.) 

Are any of the Thoughtsensers proposed by Pierson overlapping with the list he made before? 

(He would like Ellitrea, who is certainly being under-utilized right now, and who he doesn't think was especially burned by her association with Altarrin, since she would have been able to testify under Thoughtsensing and compulsions that she hadn't seen him in weeks or been involved with the otherwordly artifact-research. There are also a few other candidates who he would be fine with, if they're on Pierson's list, it will slightly reduce suspiciousness if he doesn't end up offering a rejoinder with his own suggestions.) 

Yup, Ellitrea is on the list!

Baron Pierson has learned how to project an aura of sympathy to being tired and wanting the meeting to be over, even though he LOVES meetings and paperwork and figuring out the right job for people, but he knows that the Emperor is strange, because many people are.

Then he'll thank Baron Pierson for his advice, and jot off a quick note to Siman, telling him that Pierson will have an update on the Office of Inquiry's new facilities to him soon - and an offhand mention that on Pierson's recommendation, he's assigning this (non-Inquiry) Thoughtsenser to take over at the diplomatic site and assess the loyalties of the current Ministry of Barbarians staff, including the junior Thoughtsenser involved in the weird overnight events. She will report to Siman and to Bastran directly, not the Ministry of Barbarians side. 

(Siman can make his own assumptions about why Bastran went with someone else's recommendations. It's not necessarily even that significant, Bastran is known to be indecisive and, in cases where the decision is a lower-stakes one, often goes with the recommendation of the second person he consulted.) 

And Ellitrea can be dispatched to the diplomatic site immediately, while Altarrin prepares for the next larger meeting to discuss Tolmassar and Oris.

Indeed! He does not see anything really weird in this, other than that he thought Bastran was in better shape than that from their meeting.

Pierson is always happy to advise the Emperor about any important subject. It is no trouble at all.

Marit's Rope Trick expires midmorning. He slept in it, and then prepared spells in it, and then has been pacing in it contemplating how the Empire executes people accused of participating in bizarre coup attempts. He is in a very bad mood by the time it deposits him back in his room. 

His thoughts reveal that he's scared, but not many details unless they're going to be very conspicuous; he's not contemplating the details. They've left him breakfast. He doesn't need it, but he'll eat.

Ellitrea is pretty confused herself! She doesn't usually do random top-secrecy missions for the Emperor, and while she overall thinks she came off reasonably well after Altarrin's baffling disappearance, she wouldn't have expected it to put her higher on the list of trustworthy not-particularly-affiliated Thoughtsensers. Though...it is true that she's one person less affiliated than she used to be. 

(Or maybe it's that it makes her expendable, but she doesn't really think that's likely, and isn't going to dwell on it.) 

It's not additionally that weird to have received a face-to-face Imperial order from the Emperor, asking her to report to him before she reports to Siman. Probably the Office of Inquiry is under suspicion, maybe of having had a defector in their ranks who helped get the rebel general's suicide-strike mage a Gate-location in their facility? 

She will get what she can off surface thoughts, and once she's sure it won't be useful, she'll head into the room and sit down opposite him. 

"Good morning. I hope you slept well. ...We do try to give you privacy, to the extent reasonable, but the Emperor wants to know what last night's letter was about, because the department in charge of this," handwave at the room, "didn't know anything about who sent it or why. Seems it just appeared from thin air on some junior clerk's desk. Think you can shed some light on that for us?" 

"Yes," he says reluctantly, and pulls the letter out of his pocket and gives it to her. "The letter purports to be from the Emperor and claims he wants to defect. I'm sure it's forged. I assume someone - trying to discredit him. I - didn't know what to do about that - I didn't want my people to be blamed for whatever plot it was -"

His thoughts convey mostly the same thing, with the added color that he absolutely now expects to be blamed for it and is terrified of her and very resentful about being in this situation, though he hopeshopeshopes that Iomedae's not being an idiot and something better will happen.

She reads the letter, keeping most of the faces she's making internal, and then switches to private Mindspeech. 

:We're not going to have you executed for being the unwitting recipient of an attempt at some kind plot. I - don't understand what the plot could possibly be aiming at - under what circumstances it would be even slightly believable that the Emperor wrote this letter...: 

She focuses very intently on him. :Tell me exactly what actions you took as a result of receiving it. ...If something is a secret you'd rather not share, you have the right to flag that under the current diplomatic terms, but the most important thing here is determining whether you were complicit in whatever baffling scheme this was, so I think you had best keep that in mind.: 

He's going to die horribly and he's very annoyed with Iomedae about it. 

"I thought it was plausible that the letter would arrive simultaneous with an attempt on the Emperor's life, or too late to stop it, and we'd be blamed for it. I didn't want to be mindread and have the Thoughtsenser on site learn of the letter; it seemed like whoever had sent the letter had probably intended that. I promised under your truthtelling compulsions I didn't intend to harm your Empire or Emperor, put up a Rope Trick, and then did a communication spell to my people, notifying them that I feared the Emperor was in danger and requesting they contact me. They did. I read them the note. I told them that I of course didn't believe the note but thought it might be timed with a coup or assassination or something.

They told me to wait for orders, and then eventually told me to stay in the Rope Trick until it expired and then cooperate with whoever the Empire sent." He's so alarmed and upset. 

:That would indeed have made sense, but the Emperor is fine, and in fact had no idea the letter had been sent until he read the morning report. Which leaves me very confused, and wondering whether the intended effect was for Iomedae to take certain actions as a result of your warning. Actions that would be predictable to the Empire's enemies, which could in this case include the gods. Can you tell me what you think Iomedae would have done when she received your report?: 

"Presumably they'd have checked if there was a coup in progress, what with how I said there might be one. After that - I don't know. Tried to confirm whether the letter was legitimate. Plausibly consulted Aroden about that, except I don't think he can see very well here."

:Would they have ways of tracking the letter's provenance?: 

"- only if Altarrin did, or if Alfirin can scry off just that, which she might be able to?"

Thoughtful frown. :Can you think of any way that the contents of this letter could set Alfirin and Iomedae at odds? Or any other way it could sabotage relationships between the Empire and the Knights of Ozem, not from our end but by affecting how Iomedae sees us?: 

She is reading his mind in as much detail as possible; she's willing to be a little bit noticeable about it, it's not like he doesn't know they've been mindreading him. 

There's the mystery of why Iomedae hasn't let Alfirin conquer the Empire. But the best plots aimed at that would've killed Marit, or killed whoever in the Imperial government Iomedae currently believes can be reasoned with; a forged note from the Emperor wouldn't do it. 

They might be divided on how to handle a real note from the Emperor? But if this were that, the Emperor presumably wouldn't be sending someone to interrogate Marit about it, unless this is just for appearances' sake and they're both to be killed once the duration on pastwatching is expired. 

..Marit doesn't think that'd divide them either. The thing that divides Iomedae and Alfirin is probably best approximated as "Alfirin's personal power she'd still have if the Crusade parted ways with her", or if you're of a more idealistic bent "Evil", and this note doesn't touch either. 

"Probably anyone who wants an invasion wants to convince Iomedae the Empire isn't competent to keep its word," he says. "But she isn't a fool, and this isn't even well-designed for that."

Huh. She looks unhappily at him.

(She normally avoids any emotional expression, during interrogations, it's mostly just more frightening to the person who knows she has the power of life or death over them. But she is unhappy, and this man is - very tough, emotionally stable, isn't going to panic or crumple or stop being able to think if she's slightly upset where he can see it. And she hates being confused, and badly wants him to go a little bit further to helping her resolve it.) 

:Do you think Altarrin would have done anything against Iomedae's will or without her knowledge?: she asks after a few moments of trying to think where to even go next with this. 

"Plausibly? I know nothing about the man, and everyone's been emphasizing how the defection was incredibly out of character, so I don't have much to go off in guessing what he'd do. ...Iomedae is too trusting, but she's not much too trusting. It'd be surprising if she were wrong about him."

:Is it even faintly plausible that Altarrin could get Alfirin to work against Iomedae? ...Not that I see how this letter could be aiming at that, just, trying to get a sense of what the possibilities are.: 

" - yes, that seems entirely possible." What with how they're both Lawful Evil archmages and Altarrin has something Alfirin wants and Alfirin has something Altarrin wants. 

He's frightened for Iomedae, now. Whatever the plan is, if she doesn't like it he probably dislikes it even more than that, and -

- and she's used to operating where Aroden can protect her, and here He can't -

Oh no. That - would be seriously alarming - though she still can't exactly see how a very implausible letter could cause that to happen, or - who in the Empire could possibly have sent it, unless it was faked by Altarrin himself to distract Iomedae - this is stupid, she's distracting herself thinking about bizarre hypotheticals that are straight-up incompatible with the facts she knows, focus– 

It does sort of feel like the first instance in this interrogation where she's gotten anywhere, though. 

:Do you think Altarrin would want to conquer the Empire? Or, I mean, what exactly does Alfirin have that Altarrin wants?: 

That one's easy. "She can probably figure out how to kill your gods, and would want to do it."

She can what. 

- Ellitrea would almost be sympathetic, if that were what Altarrin wanted. In fact, 'allies who can kill gods' is the first reason she's heard that would explain why the Altarrin she knows might choose to defect, though of course the problem with that theory is that she doesn't see how he could have known at the time, unless he was scrying in secret and learned enough about Alfirin, somehow...

She's continuing to get rabbitholed in silly counterfactuals, but - to entertain this scenario a little longer - if Altarrin were really allying with Alfirin in order to kill the gods, she wishes he knew he didn't have to conquer the Empire via elaborate schemes, if he just came back and demonstrated a lack of mind control and then convinced them that Alfirin was good for her word...okay, fine, maybe it would be a little more complicated than that... 

:I see: Ellitrea manages after a few seconds of looking visibly startled. :Do you think Altarrin, or Alfirin, could have dropped the letter as part of some kind of false-flag operations against Iomedae, to convince her the Emperor needed 'rescuing' - would Iomedae fall for that under any circumstances -?: