She isn't going to find it hilarious until Marit is safe and she's apologized to him but she can anticipate in advance that once she's done that she'll think it's really funny.

Ellitrea bites her lip again. :He - wasn't sure. He thought Alfirin could do it if she tried really hard. ...But he also thought Alfirin would be watching him, if that were the case, and would make sure neither of us survived to get word out. So I'm not really sure. It's...probably not the most likely explanation, at this point, since we're all still alive.: 

:Hmm: The Emperor looks unconvinced, or maybe just indecisive. :I really don't like - not knowing what the goal is here, or who's steering it. It’s - probably still internal, or at least involves an agent 

He sighs heavily. :Think I’d prefer to keep the investigation quiet. I’ll give you some standard Imperial orders to cover the secrecy, exempt you from random Thoughtsensing checks.: He frowns. Rubs the back of his neck. :And I’ll report to Siman myself, I think. I want you back on site at the facility.:

...Right. Which is code for "the Emperor doesn't know whether he can trust Siman", probably, and...maybe also some more elaborate facet of court politics that she does not want to make her problem right now. She is content with the plan 'Ellitrea avoids drawing the attention of more powerful people engaged in powerful-people scheming.'

:Thank you, your majesty. I'll report any - other strange events - right away.: 

And Altarrin sits down in the Emperor's office, and considers the most discreet way to handle it from here. 

If he wanted a mystery like this actually solved, he would be inclined to push for healing Kastil and throwing him at it. However, he in fact wants the opposite. Cutting out the Office of Inquiry entirely would be incredibly suspicious. ...Bringing in a trusted Inquiry investigator and telling them the truth - or a version of the truth where he, as 'Bastran', admits to having written the letter but claims to have recovered his wits now - would be, well. High variance. It's - honestly what Bastran might be inclined to do, if he really had managed to pull himself together enough to stay in Jacona, but that does not at all mean Altarrin is inclined in that direction. 

His current thought is to inform Siman that the matter turned out to be more sensitive and politically fraught than he expected, and that he would like to request a specific trustworthy Office of Inquiry investigator and have them conduct the investigation in secret, wearing a Thoughtsensing talisman and reporting to him directly. This avoids snubbing the Office of Inquiry too badly, while still suggesting the subtext that he's worried the goal of the letter was to cause one or another court faction to incorrectly set off a contingency-plan and sabotage their diplomatic efforts, which is among the better and less suspicious justifications for keeping the investigation very quiet. 

(Then he'll ideally ask Alfirin to undetectably-Dominate the lead investigator as well, just as a backup, before giving them an official Imperial order to keep this secret, and then - giving them access to the real contents of the letter, because trying to fake it just adds far too many ways for this to explode. With the headband, he thinks he can pull off a conversation that will leave the investigator assuming this was clearly a plot to discredit the Emperor, and not particularly suspicious that the Emperor is lying, let alone an imposter.

At that point, hopefully ordering them to conduct an investigation with the utmost discretion will also ensure that it moves slowly, and in a few days he should know more about which way he wants to steer.) 

He'll pull out the list of Office of Inquiry staff. He wants someone who will without question obey Imperial orders, who will keep their head down, and who is more a thorough plodding type than a brilliant detective, but - importantly - someone with at least some principles toward uncovering the truth even at the cost of political expediency, someone whose name won't have Siman jumping to the conclusion that the Emperor wants something buried or mishandled. A mage too, ideally, since otherwise they would have to bring someone else in for pastwatching and any other magical analysis. 

Who are his best options? 

Mage-Inquisitors Jemon, Tenos, and Doral are all available options? Jemon is known as an plodding, strict worker with a focus on paperwork instead of social situations whose usual specialty is going deeply into the files of an organization and emerging a month later with itemized lists of all the crimes of everyone involved and how best to recover the money, Tenos is a fanatical and obsessive servant of The Law but, and this is important, a complete willingness to obey orders instead of not obeying orders (people not obeying orders is where problems come from in the first place) with an obsession with thoroughness, and Doral is a talented, driven and devoted mage who is recently returning to service after, honestly, burning out for ten years around age forty and spending those years under medical and psychological supervision - he wouldn't normally be a pick, but Bastran's a soft touch and he was a rising star then. Anyone else is either sufficiently corrupt or sufficiently obscure to seriously shock Siman. (He will, of course, be mildly shocked by the Emperor going over his head to anyone except Kastil, but Kastil would be overworked even if he wasn't in a hospital bed.)

Well, it's a mildly shocking situation (thinks the mental model of Bastran that Altarrin has been running.) 

Altarrin knew Doral a decade ago, of course, and thought well of him then. He's not a completely unsurprising pick, but - he's a name that would be understandable for Bastran's eye to snag on, if he was skimming down a page for someone trustworthy and reliable and capable of creativity. Jemon is a strange pick for investigating a political plot, and Tenos...mostly just sounds frustrating to manage, even though Altarrin is confident he could handle it fine. 

He writes up the letter to notify Siman, naming Doral as the investigator he wants on the secret case. 

(And warns Kietres via Telepathic Bond and asks him to ask Alfirin to keep an eye on Siman's thoughts as he reacts to it, they shouldn't have to intervene but it'll be good to know whether he's suspicious and if so in what directions.) 

Siman is annoyed and a little worried he's being bypassed (twice now!), but he's mostly just worried that he's failing at his job-of-keeping-the-Emperor-happy, and the first conspiracy in his thoughts is "the Emperor is planning to replace him." "The Emperor is impersonated or under mind control" has not risen as a hypothesis to his conscious attention.

Doral will be notified; does Bastran want to see him immediately or should his secretary add him to the schedule later?

(Altarrin isn't very worried. This is an understandable response and he doesn't especially expect Siman to act on it until he gets a lot more spooked. Bastran does sometimes have department heads replaced, but he doesn't exactly have a reputation for executing anyone he replaces or even stripping them of their wealth and titles. He does want Alfirin to check on him intermittently and, if necessary, prevent him from taking any actions to secure his position that would have messy results in the actual situation.) 

He tells his secretary that he really can't fit in speaking with Doral right now, he'd like that scheduled for immediately after his upcoming ministry meeting, which he really needs a few minutes to prepare for where by 'prepare' he means 'hide in his office with no one looking at him'. (Altarrin has practiced the facial expression Bastran makes when he needs a few minutes of peace and quiet to "prepare" for yet another exhausting meeting.) 

(In actual fact, he'll spend the time doing some independent scrying-checks under his desk, where the spell won't show up to mage-sight even for someone scrying the room itself.) 

The real Bastran, in the magical operations mansion on the other continent, sleeps for much longer than his impersonator back in Jacona. 

Eventually, though, he wakes up and takes a few bleary seconds to notice - mostly via poking at the complete lack of motivation to move or get up or do anything - that his compulsion is missing.

He sits bolt upright and gets half a second into, of all things, trying to reach for Altarrin with the comms-spell, before he remembers where he is and why. At which point he very predictably and stupidly starts crying. 

(Altarrin is in Jacona, Altarrin is - doing his best right now to clean up after Bastran's horrific mistakes - and he's pathetically grateful for it but it's also so upsetting, poor Altarrin, when he had only just gotten out...) 

He is not particularly going to be functional enough to call for anyone. 

There's a guard at the door, in shiny magic armor, though his job is things like 'make sure the prisoner has access to food and water' and 'answer questions if the prisoner has any', not 'soothe the prisoner if he bursts into tears'.  He'll, uh, wait a couple of minutes to see if it resolves on its own like a sneezing fit?

Not really, no! Bastran has completely failed to notice the guard's presence, though he is at least somewhat tracking that he's Iomedae's prisoner (and Altarrin isn't here, he wishes pointlessly that Altarrin were here.) He can probably calm himself down eventually but it would take more like twenty minutes than a couple. 

Then after a couple of minutes, the guard will say uncomfortably, "Are you - injured, or - hungry, or anything - I can call in breakfast -"

There's a person there???? This is terrible. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Why. He just wants everything to STOP. 

Bastran grits his teeth until the crying is slightly more under control. "I'm not injured. I - don't need anything - can I please just be alone -" 

It is not standard protocol to leave crying spellcaster prisoners alone on request. Iomedae did say that security was not in this instance her highest priority and that the Emperor was a friend of Altarrin's and should be treated with kindness and understanding. Does that mean to leave him alone? 

"I'll ask the Knight-Commander," he says, "I'm not actually sure. We don't want to hurt you, or make this any harder for you than necessary, but this is a very unusual situation, and you're a very powerful spellcaster," and absolutely have the bluff to be faking this crying fit.

Well, they're the ones holding him prisoner and they get to make the rules. Bastran will mumble out a 'thank you' and roll the other way so he can at least slightly pretend he's not crying in front of a random stranger who works for Iomedae. 

(He wants this to not be happening.) 

(He wants the world to go away.) 

(He is not quite at the point of regretting that he missed the opportunity to quietly kill himself when no one could stop him, because - okay, he's pretty sure there were good reasons even if they're not really coming to him right now - but between this and the fact that Altarrin is trapped back in the Empire and under a compulsion again as a result of his decision, it's - kind of hard not to regret it.) 

"Knight-Commander."

       "Yes?"

"The prisoner's guard wants to know if he should at the prisoner's request leave him alone."

       - sigh.  "Altarrin's going to be very grieved, I think, if he kills himself right this very minute. And it - reduces our options. The poor man, though. - tell them no, and that I'll be right there."

She enters without announcing herself, a few minutes later, and if Bastran is still facing the other direction he may not notice.

Bastran hears the new footsteps, but he can't see who it is, and can't especially bring himself to care. If they need to interrogate him, well, for one he's utterly dreading it, you would think that the fact that just existing is misery would make additional misery stand out less or something but it still sounds awful. And also he cannot at all find the motivation to try to be helpful on purpose. He's just going to lie here unless someone demands something of him. 

Then Iomedae will have a desk dragged in and will work from here so she can intervene if the Emperor wants to kill himself. 

(And anyone he could conceivably take with him if he does can be outside the blast radius.)

(This is incredibly annoying but they need Alfirin's Dominates for possible emergencies and it'd also be - a step she doesn't want to take, when the man has spent three conscious hours of his adult life not mind-controlled.)

Bastran will stubbornly ignore the sound of someone apparently...doing paperwork??...nearby (why?), and try to go back to SLEEP. He isn't even especially thinking about killing himself, right now, it - would upset Altarrin - it's just that he can hear someone else breathing and it's like a crushing weight on his skin and he just wants to be somewhere no one can see him or interact with him.  

Sleep is not particularly working.

And it's...probably rude? to just keep ignoring everyone here? It seems. Not really sustainable on the level of days. And it seems like he probably should want to know what's going on. It's - tomorrow, probably? He thinks he slept. He vaguely thinks he remembers someone telling him they could do a spell to help him sleep, and it must have been a really good spell, he doesn't remember lying awake miserably at all. 

He eventually rolls over to see who's there. 

All right, but surely Iomedae of all people has better things to do with her time than do paperwork in his room? 

He drags himself into a sitting position. "Er. What are you doing here?" 

"I am Iomedae, the Knight-Commander of the Shining Crusade, and I am trying to ensure that it will be swiftly noticed if you decide to Gate out of here or start attacking people. I could enforce with magic a restriction against doing that, but it's my present impression that you've been subject to entirely too much of that, so I'd rather not."

Wow. He is incredibly not going to do either of those things. That would require...being motivated to do anything. 

He hugs his knees. "I don't mind if you want to do your kind of compulsion, I - wasn't going to try - and you must have a lot of work to do." 

(She didn't say anything about magically preventing him from killing himself. He wasn't even thinking about it until he noticed that, but - wow, he would actually be very very upset and angry with her if she tried to compulsion him against it.)

"I am not much impaired in doing it," she points out. "And I did, actually, intend to talk to you today, if you were up for it."