"It looks like suicide, at this point.  The person responsible for that is no longer with us."

"Same person who tortured your project manager?"

"Actually, that was the project manager... sort of, arguably some of the fault lay with his manager, for not giving him different orders, and her manager, who thought it was a good idea to... go back to a more traditional Asmodeanism on the project... and now all three of them are gone."

"And it was also my fault, because I could have said something, or done something, and I did not.  I guess, in a way, I'm the last one left."

"See, that is a management casualty rate that makes somebody not want to manage any project.  Let alone that one."

"Is the only reason you're still in Cheliax, and not being a full project manager in Absalom or Andoran, that you don't have an exit permit?"

"Naive question.  I wouldn't have any reputation there, with project managers in Absalom.  Who's going to hire an ex-Chelish assistant to be the shadow manager on their project?  Or make her a manager when they don't know her?  I wouldn't know their system.  I'd have to start all over."

"And if the Church asks, I like the part here where everybody shuts up and obeys orders once they're given.  That's even true."

"Suppose hypothetically that I was on a very important Crown project... well, technically a Church project, but really more of a... let's just say both Church and Crown."

"Pharasma help you."

"It needs a new manager."

"After bad things happened to, if I was tracking that correctly, the last three people in the chain of command?"

"Yes.  That is our situation here."

"Why isn't this hypothetical project drawing from one of the many proven, experienced managers already known to Crown and Church?"

"Because there's stunningly few people who could even try their hand at a Project like ours, when a fifth-circle cleric of Asmodeus with twenty years managing a Worldwound installation was not enough.  Because all of those people are busy and pulling them out from their current jobs would be injurious to the state of Cheliax."

"And because you'd be better at it than them."

"Really.  Why would I be better at it?"

"Maybe you'd actually use the correct amount of torture or... no.  That's probably not it."

"You're probably somebody who can see what's real, and say what's true, and get along with others doing the same, in a way that would've been more difficult for somebody making their way up the traditional Asmodean system from inside of it."

"Uh huh.  Well, for a wizard apprentice bluffing her way through all this, you sure know how to deliver the flattery."

"Splendour 21."

"Buuuulllllllllllshiiiiit."

"Comes out of a headband and I'm still new to it."

"If you persuaded me to take this hypothetical job, wizard apprentice, I'd believe you."

"There's some set of guarantees and bribes that would work for you.  Why not just tell me what that is?"

"What, like, a compact personally signed by the Queen of Cheliax saying that at worst I get fired rather than tortured, a thousand gold pieces a week salary, and a Barony in Nidal if I meet clearly defined and reasonable project targets?"

"Would that do it?"

"If it was literally that, yes."

"Well, I don't personally have the authorization to offer you that, because 'the system doesn't have an option for unlimited authorizations, or rather, the system does have that option and it's called "being the Queen of Cheliax"' and I am far too loyal to even think about that."

"So you're going to have to wait a few rounds until the person on the other end of this scry gets your request to the Queen for approval."