So, the outcome of the Einfasen meeting was a good outcome, but probably not actually the best outcome, in my mind.
Well, it's the best outcome for Demodus, for sure. He's not dead and he's on his way to Timmony to work for King Gus, who I feel reasonably confident is probably a fair and just employer at minimum. It doesn't get much better for Demodus.
I'm kind of concerned for Groto, since it sounds like his promotion was based on his "visionary skills", and, uh, yeah. We know those aren't real. Groto doesn't, but Azune sure does.
And Azune. Ohhh, Azune. This was definitely not the worst outcome for him- he's alive, he's not arrested, he doesn't have to flee the city (yet). He was commended. And promoted. It all sounds like the best outcome on paper. But...
The impression I got during the Schemers table was that Lieutenant Nayar is liked well enough by his peers because he's very competent, easy to get along with (if a little dense when it comes to certain subjects), and keeps his head down and gets his job done. But he's not exactly considered a leader. It's heavily implied that he's the youngest officer and that he might have gotten promoted earlier than most people would have been. And probably the other guards don't resent that too much because it's clear he's a veteran and he's not one to peacock, you know? And, again, he's very competent, etc.
Are those same marshals going to accept that Azune's been jumped up to Captain unexpectedly? He's almost certainly leap-frogging more senior lieutenants. Aside from that, are they going to believe Azune even has the skills to lead the whole department? (Does Azune think he has those skills? I doubt it.) So, he's going to face issues with the people under his command, in addition to alllllll the stress he already has with dealing with the Einfasen.
Plus, he's probably going to have less flexibility for Scheming, which isn't going to help matters. I mean, maybe not, but usually the guy in charge is pretty chained to his desk.
I mean, it's possible none of it matters after the play. I don't actually think, personally, that there's going to be demons overrunning the city- I think they might be a little confused about what the Sundered Houses are up to, and I also suspect that Thjazi's ritual might have more implications on the Other Side, so to speak, than the physical world. So I don't think there's going to be mass carnage or anything. I could be wrong! There was a fuckton going on and I know I missed stuff. But if the day after the play looks much the same as the day before the play, I think Azune's situation actually got worse, not better.
#was thinking about this too#the higher up the ranks you go the more you have to keep track of#and the more you have to handle while trapped in the office giving orders and making moves with your own much-closer-now superiors#no more easy flexibility of doing street patrols anymore#casual visits to the Pentevral the Archanade and the Hallowed Round are gone#even just having a new captain's attire is going to draw more attention than his usual Arcane Marshal armor#sure he'll be able to get his hands on much more high level intel and large scale moves#but like you said there's the question of the guardsmen themselves#not just the Arcane Marshals but the remaining Revolutionary Guard and Einfasen's injected men#how does Azune maneuver all them on top of the Magpie stuff on top of the general Scheming on top of his mole work for Einfasen and Halovar#lists alone only do so much#AND there's the double-edged note left with the Einfasens suspecting he's secretly a bastard son of their house#Otto himself said that research was in order to track his sorcery#will that endanger his origin story as he told it to Harondus? will it uncover an actual shock ala his magic lineage#that Azune might just crumble under if it's one more identity crisis straw to break the camel's back?#that Nat 20 was a wish granted via monkey's paw (tags by see-arcane)
