"Iilasir."

"More on my wavelength than any Baron I've met, let alone Duchess.  Substantial probability she ends up a rapidly rising star.  Has interesting opinions on alternate political structures."

"I do believe I've never seen you cause an enormous amount of drama by finding somebody else worthy of your backing, Iilasir.  This should be interesting."

"She's literally ended up in prison immediately after awakening her sorcery, hasn't she?  That is rather the bad luck."

Opalyn phrases this very carefully. She's been walking a tightrope with Marina; everything she has said so far is the actual truth, but she's also not spilling her real backstory anymore. With Iilasir's help and her own increasing store of information about this world, she might be able to be a lot more selective about when she shares her isekai story.

"It's true that I have had very little practice with my sorcery. The vast majority of the time that I've had it, I've spent in magic-suppressing cuffs or this collar."

"Well, Duchess, you've certainly picked the correct place to be a powerful and entirely untrained sorceress, since a lack of magical sophistication is no disadvantage here.  And an especially ideal time to be a Duchess, as well.  Is Iilasir taking you shopping for factions?"

"At my request, yes. In my experience, no matter what it is you want to do, it's more effective to do it with a team. I don't know yet what I want to do, but whatever it is, I'll want support."

"Are you happy with your current Duke or Duchess, or whatever hierarchy you're a part of?"

On Earth, Opalyn might ask this in a more roundabout way, but apparently upsetting people is a virtue here.

"I'd hardly say otherwise where others can hear.  Carnidine hasn't lost my loyalty yet."

"You mean to form your own independent faction?  It's a bold decision, where by bold, I mean, doomed unless you have something unexpected strapped to your thigh-garter."

What would someone have strapped to their thigh-garter? A dildo? A vibrator tingler? Theoretically those things could help form a faction, Opalyn supposes.

"Do people of my rank typically throw in with others? I wouldn't rule it out, if I thought some existing faction were sensible and well-run and I liked the people. Are there any such?"

"Why, Duchess Carnidine is the obvious choice, I'd say.  She's been penalized several times by the administrators for averting too much drama, and has some of the most intelligent, competent, and likeable Countesses you'll meet in the Facility."

Opalyn takes this statement as Marina reading her lines and does not ascribe a lot of truth-value to it, though she will actually investigate directly. That Carnidine has people willing to recite lines like this says something about her -- either she's actually worthy of the loyalty, or she inspires great fear. Either way, Opalyn wants to get to know her.

Also, Tiraff was kind to Opalyn, and Tiraff is in Carnidine's service, and Opalyn hasn't forgotten it.

"Thank you for the recommendation! Would you be willing to arrange an introduction for me?"

"I think she'd be more than pleased to receive you right now, in fact."

"There's some implications there I should talk about with you before you accept any offers, and particularly before you pledge directly to a Duchess rather than Grand Duchess."

Opalyn had no intention of pledging anything on the spot!

"Noted! Now, or in private?"

"Private."

"If you're trying to hide that she's so new to nobility that she doesn't see the implications, you've already failed at that."

To Iilasir: "Yeah, I don't think there's any hope of hiding that, and I don't like to pretend to be more competent than I really am. That ends badly. That said, I'm happy to wait for the briefing in private. Meanwhile, I don't see any harm in speaking to Carnidine. It's just an introductory meeting, and I won't be pressured into pledging anything on the spot."

"If you disagree, please speak up, I would like to hear if I'm wrong."

Will he be able to bring himself to disagree?

"Duchess Carnidine is one of the better friends and worse enemies, and right now is definitely a time when she'd like to have a new Duchess to present as an ally that she brought in.  But your call as to whether you're ready for it, it's not a game on easy mode."

"Thank you for that helpful additional context!"

He disagreed! Look how Opalyn's not murdering him about it!

"Given that, perhaps I should wait a day or two."

To Marina: "I would enjoy getting to know you better on a future occasion. What is the best way to reach you after this?"

"Why, just drop off a message with anyone you're quite sure is still with Carnidine's faction.  All we who once served in common under our faction's Grand Duke once claimed for our own a little garden-room in Section Four, coordinates 3-neph by 0-blap, but who knows if that's still occupied and by the right people given the present chaotic situation."

"You will get better offers if you go today than tomorrow, you know.  The Grands have nothing to offer you, any more; and while you could find Dukes more desperate and making you larger offers than Carnidine, I rather doubt you'll get along with them as nicely.  Shall I, perhaps, linger over my food a few more minutes whilst you speak to Iilasir on the matter?"

"That's kind of you, please do. One of us will be back soon either way."

She nods to Iilasir, hoping he'll lead the way to a private place, because Opalyn certainly doesn't know how to do that.

He can find a private place nearby, yes.

"Not reliably private," is the first thing he says there, "so we should still speak in circumlocutions, but, you're not hiding information perfectly, and Carnidine's court is less stupid than most, and more capable of noticing more things about you, if you radiate hints."

"A 'High' noble is one that holds authority over other nobles of equal rank.  They wouldn't call Carnidine a High Duchess the moment that you bowed to her, but it would be an attention-grabbing implication, greatly increase her status, and somewhat lower yours."

"There's something very odd about all of this. Are Princes so hard to replace that people expect the Grands to be useless forever? Without knowing anything else about this world, just knowing how bureaucracies work on Earth, I rather expect that either we'll get a new Prince or they'll do some Facility-merging so we can share Princes with some other Facility, or something. It makes little sense to me that there would be a permanent rearrangement of power."

"Princes don't work however bureaucrats do in Mayvos.  Princes are independent.  The Dread Emperor forbids fighting among them, and aside from that, as I understand it, issues very little in the way of orders--certainly now, but reputedly also for at least several millennia."

"So Princes don't fight, and that means, nobody can make them do anything, not even an alliance of other Princes."

"I don't actually remember offhand how Prince Purplegray got assigned to oversee the Farm.  I think he might have fucked up a few thousand years ago and the Dread Emperor told him this was his punishment?"

"There may be a Prince out there who would like authority over the Farm, but it would have to be one of the non-noble Princes who dwell in Capital because nobody's going to abandon a planetary territory for that.  And then there's the question of who even decides who gets the Farm, if there's more than one applicant, or no applicants at all, and the Dread Emperor does not conveniently hand down a decision about it."

Oh. This is not how Opalyn thought it worked at all. She keeps finding new layers of incomprehension. Was it only a few minutes ago that she had the illusion of this place making sense?

"I have several questions! I will say them quietly, but I do want to say them all at once before I forget any of them."

"First, I think I'm confused about Farm vs. Facility. Are these the same thing?"
"Second, how long do people typically live around here?"
"Third, who is actually in charge here right now, with the Prince dead? Not amongst the inmates, the silly political factions and whatnot, I mean who is actually running the place?"
"Fourth, what do you think they're going to do with the Grands, if there's never anyone to supervise them again? Seems like a huge liability to keep them around."

"The Facility is the lewd dramatic section of the entire prison for sorcerers, which is the Farm."

"More powerful sorcerers live longer.  No Prince has yet died of old age."

"I would guess that the Supreme Lord of Operations took authority, that was the person who was running things for the Prince."

"The Farm is unusual in that if somebody smashed all our collars, there'd be enough Grand Dukes here to defeat a Prince, so the Farm is already in principle counterbalanced by the Princes who dwell in Capital and ultimately by the Dread Emperor.  That said, the Farm is certainly in more of a state than usual, of it not being outweighed in force by the authorities set directly over it."