"The potential upside, as I currently understand it, is not so much that Bastran learns something, but that you two do."

"Caris, would you feel more at peace if you knew that Bastran actually cared about you and your goals, and that he only opposes you because of this compulsion that is external to himself?"

" - yeah. I'd want to save him. Instead of feeling - frustrated and like I mostly need to manipulate him so that he doesn't kill everyone by inaction."

"Have you ever thought about removing his compulsions before? And if so, what stopped you?"

" - that his security might have a way to notice and kill me? That he might be angry and put me back under the usual restrictive compulsions? That local mages spellcast faster than me and he could stop me if he realized?"

"It sounds like this is not at all a clear-cut decision, for any of us."

"I propose that we bring Bastran back in and do the final third of this question - see what Altarrin believes Caris and Bastran's complaints about him are. I have learned the hard way over time that it is a mistake to cut the intake questions short and start trying to change the system before I've seen all of it."

"Meanwhile, I'd ask you both to think more on the question of anti-magic fields and the tradeoffs. I'll think more about it too."

"Sound reasonable?"

"Yes." It's safer to do with Altarrin here than any other time or place, probably. And she could do it while Bastran's distracted. She doesn't actually have the spell prepared but she has one better, she has it Contingent (for a Final Strike near her, or her speaking a trigger word).

Altarrin has been trying to gently-without-actually-forcing-it nudge his way through some mental resistance in order to interrupt. 

"I think there is a significant possible upside for Bastran, personally. I think he is - unhappy, and mostly not able to think about that because admitting that he dislikes much of his work would feel too much like disloyalty to the Empire. I...suppose I am not sure it would actually be better afterward, if he needed to go back anyway, but - he could at least consider longer term plans to improve his situation. 

- it seems reasonable to wait and think about it, though." 

Ramona gets up, opens the door, beckons Bastran back into the room, and stretches.

"Welcome back, Bastran!"

Bastran nods to her, slightly stiffly, and retakes his seat. 

(He's a lot calmer than he was when he left. His feelings are IN THE BOX and he thinks he can manage to take them out one at a time if Ramona specifically wants to hear about them. He's managed to convince himself not to think much about whatever conversation they've been having in here, because it was private and Ramona will definitely tell him if anything pertains to him.) 

Altarrin is also calm and focused, and leaving it to Caris and Ramona to keep track of the conversation they just had, which he was only half present for anyway. He doesn't quite smile reassuringly at Bastran, it wouldn't actually help, but he nods to him. 

Caris is calm because feelings are not a threat to him. He is too Chelish for that. He will just judge everyone who is having them and not himself have them and thereby be safe. 

"All right, let's finish up this monster question. You all know the routine by now."

"Altarrin, if I were to ask Bastran and Caris for their top three or four concerns or complaints about you, what do you think they would say?"

Altarrin deliberately tried not to spend much of the previous conversation distracted by thinking about what to say on his turn. He takes thirty seconds to think about it now. 

"...I think Caris would probably complain that I spent much of the time we were working together, before the difficulties with the Office of Inquiry, being pointlessly sad? Which is not wrong, even if it was a grief I endorsed feeling. It probably was impairing me to some extent - I was definitely acting unstrategically in some ways, though mostly in failing to communicate more of what I was thinking through or working on to Caris - and it would be understandable if being sad made me unpleasant company. I am also fairly sure Caris was upset at the time that I was not actually romantically interested, but I am not sure if he would still hold that as a grievance." 

Answering the question for Bastran is...harder, for some reason. 

He sighs. "...There are grievances I feel that Bastran should reasonably have with me, that I somehow doubt are complaints he would actually make? Such as having created the Empire to be the way it is, or having steered him to be Emperor. I...think Bastran probably would complain that my current attitude toward the Empire is confusing and hard to make sense of? And of course I am imposing costs on him by feeling that way. ...Bastran might be upset that I did not tell him the full truth about Carissa at the start. As Emperor, he arguably had a right to know the full details on any intrigue I was engaged in in his palace." 

Ramona sort of expects that Altarrin is right and Bastran is not going to be able to complain that Altarrin created the Empire improperly, but this is a good chance for her to check her predictions about Bastran.

"Bastran? Do you think Altarrin botched it, when he created the Empire this way?"

Somewhat to his own surprise, Bastran mostly can think about it. At least if he's considering the whole question to be one mainly about Altarrin's feelings, and not the material reality of the Empire they've both dedicated their lives to. 

"I think we probably have more or less the same complaints and things we wish were different? I'm - not sure he had many choices, if he wanted there to be an Empire at all and for it to be stable during - periods where he wasn't personally around. But - yes, there are things I'd change in a heartbeat. If I thought they could be changed without - compromises we can't afford." 

"Can you say more about that? I can't tell if it matters to our work here or not but I'm just trying to build a picture in my mind of the world you all live in. What would you change?"

"I don't like ordering executions. - I'm not sure that's a thing about the Eastern Empire, specifically, I think basically all functional governments have to if they want the law to mean anything, I've never heard of a country that didn't execute people for murder or treason. ...I don't like that we have to kill the priests if we want the provinces to be stable. It's - still fewer deaths in the long run than leaving them alone, Altarrin did the math, but it's - not their fault that their gods aren't worth serving." 

Ramona pauses to consider opening up a conversation about capital punishment and whether it's actually a good idea or not and starts to think sad desperate thoughts about the prison industrial complex in her own home culture and decides not to weigh in. Bastran didn't come here for advice on running his country, and Ramona's not sure she's qualified to give it anyway.

"That sounds hard, making deliberate decisions weighing current lives against greater damage done later. I don't envy you that. It also sounds like you don't have a better idea for how the Empire could be, is that right?"

(The Empire actually has the death penalty for fewer crimes than most of its neighbors. It has a lot more options for keeping relatively less dangerous prisoners - especially un-Gifted commoners - alive and harmless under compulsions. Altarrin does not feel like this would be especially useful to bring up.) 

Bastran shakes his head. "I don't. I don't think Altarrin does, either. ...I guess unless you count his plan to go fight the gods. Which probably would help, if it - worked - but I, I just - don't know if I believe it's the sort of thing humans can pull off. Even Altarrin. And it would be such a pointless waste if he went and got himself destroyed in the attempt." 

"So is it true, Bastran? Is Altarrin's attitude toward the Empire difficult to understand? It sounds to me like you pretty much get what he wants to do and why."

Bastran makes a face. "I guess what he wants to do makes sense, if he thinks he could pull it off. I - think the way he feels about the Empire is confusing, but - feelings can be complicated. I guess." 

"And what about Caris? Do you think Altarrin really should have been more honest with you about him?"

"I'm not sure what his reasoning was for not telling me? If it was just - general operational security, reducing the risk of the wrong person finding out - then that's pretty reasonable, I don't expect to know everything Altarrin is up to. If it was because he didn't trust me specifically, then I'm...hurt, I guess? But I assume he would've had a reason." 

Helpless shrug. "It's - a smaller secret than not telling me he was immortal." Which is incredibly unreasonable to have expected, when Altarrin had never told a single living soul until Caris, and yet he's somehow still hurt about it. 

"Altarrin, it sounds like Bastran can't really figure you out some of the time. And because he can't read you, he's not sure where he stands with you. So it's not so much that he second-guesses your decisions, as that he just can't figure them out. At least in the case of Caris's backstory, anyway."

"Does that sound right?"