"A way to keep him in one place is really half the battle, here. It's hard to get a Forbiddance placed to stop him even if you coordinate for the casters to time it right because, Disjoined, he'll fall, and he'll only Feather Fall when he's clear of any spells we've cast on the area. I can cast an antimagic field from a scroll but then I can't get to him."

"Time Stop will give me enough time, especially if I take Alfirin with me."

"Yep. I think it's worth a try."

"We just need to wait until he decides to show for a fight... or something to draw him into one, though if we have something like that I'd rather keep it in reserve in case we think we'll be able to soul-trap him in a prepared ambush."

"I can pick some fights he'd be unwise not to show up to, and if he declines to do so that'd be informative about his estimate of whether we can ambush him."

"Or I could wait for him to visit my dreams again and see if I can bait him."

"That could work... I think Iomedae picking fights though is probably less informative to him. You letting slip information that baits him into a trap tells him we were trying to trap him, Iomedae picking fights could also be explained by us being more confident."

"And if he's in fact too nervous about an ambush to face us then we should be pressing the advantage as far as possible as fast as possible. I'll probably tell you some things I'm all right having slip, Elie, but I think for the most part we can play this fairly straight, we have abundant reason to try to draw him out. 

- also, we are all very busy, and incurring some real risks when we're all in one place like this, so if there's nothing else urgent -"

"No, nothing else urgent. Élie?"

"Nothing urgent. I have experiments I should be getting back to."

And he can plane shift. 

– but when he gets back to the demiplane he's entirely lost his train of theought and the idea of staring at the crocordiles for another six days or even another six minutes makes him feel rather sick to his stomach, so he plane shifts again, and teleports to a little café in Isarn. 

They recognize him! It's been less time objective. "Your usual?" asks the server, even though he's only been there the once.

"Please."

Élie does in fact remember what he had last time, but that's with magical assistance and he's impressed. Anyone here he recognizes?  

The man he had a debate about opera with isn't here right now, but some of the other people who were in the shop are; some of them quite evidently spend the whole day there, reading and talking and gambling. Someone'll wave him over, if he looks to be looking for a place to go. They're talking politics. They have complaints about the imperial governor, surprising no one.

He hasn't been home very long. Is this one somehow worse than usual?

Well, taxes are higher, to support the war of conquest in Ustalav, and they've been arresting people pretty freely for political writings, and also he has various annoying personal qualities of which it's possible to make much hay. Right now people are worked up about the arrest - for, supposedly, espionage - of a wizard who had been writing some essays viciously critical of the archduke's personal conduct and character and paternity and so on.

Poor fellow – the wizard, that is. He's not so brave, himself, he always wrote under a pseudonym before he could teleport. 

Oh, it was technically a pseudonym, but it'd been the same one for a decade and everyone knew who it was. He'd escalated with the criticisms, over the years, perhaps emboldened too much by the pseudonym. 

What has Elie written - or, rather, any anonymous writers Elie would recommend?

Nothing they'd have heard of. He was really rather a child when he left Galt. 

Well. People are saying that if there were to be a rebellion, it'd be better for it to be soon, while the Empire is at war on two fronts and can't afford a third.

People are also saying that the pastries here are excellent, he should try the peach. And they're saying all kinds of things about the opera.

Right. They're due for a rebellion soon, aren't they?

He'll listen, and say approving things about the tarte aux pêches, and pay particular attention to who seems the most personally exercised about the archduke's vices – purely out of habit, of course. 

Some of the young men are - bluffing, or something similar, they're doing the same thing with the complaints about the Emperor's vices that other young men do by bull-riding, showing their bravado off to each other. 

For some of the others it's more deeply felt. The taxes are very high, and impoverishing Isarn, by birthright the center of arts and learning in the world, in favor of distant buffoons and even-more-distant wars. To this injury is added the insult of an archduke who can't even seem to comport himself in accordance with Taldor's own claims to greatness. He's shortsighted and petty and greedy and selfish and vicious and surrounded by bootlickers and his title is clearly meaningful to him only for what it gets him in Oppara. He picked up some talent with a sword somewhere but no one can with a straight face claim they'd be cheered to follow him into battle. It wouldn't happen, in a place the Empire actually valued, and perhaps for some of these men the fact the Empire doesn't treasure Galt stings as much as the fact the Empire controls it. 

Well, why should the Empire treasure Galt? A play or a poem benefits anyone who hears it. They can't be carted off to Oppara or displayed on the wall or used to hire mercenaries. Besides, nobles are just as likely to be fools as peasants, so it wouldn't do for them to put too much stock in learning. Royalty are the same everywhere. 

The thing is that a fool of an ordinary man will just fool himself into penury but a fool of a noble can do it to the whole land. 

Were Galt free, it could stay that way; Taldor is in no position to muster yet another Army of Exploration, and their alliance with Druma will hold a while but isn't so comfortable as for Druma to let armies of exploration march across their land. The mountains stand between Galt and the Empire's heartland. And while no one here has anything good to say about the Shining Crusade it's known they mostly don't intervene in imperial affairs anywhere else.

Free and independent don't necessarily mean the same thing, do they?