I think you’re making a mistake.

Imagine reading a story where the rich and powerful Field Sergeant of the Korvosan Guard meets a convivial old man living in her Vault, wearing the rags of a pauper and the mien of a fool. But about his head glimmers a glowing halo, in his veins course the blood of angels, and you know he’s got Wisdom in the double digits.

Any story that starts like that can only end in one of two ways.

Fate rewards the character for passing a hidden test of character.

Or the character is punished for failing it.

Real life has duller morals, like "don't trust things to pushy idiots that you don't want trusted to pushy idiots."

Offer rescinded.

Is it going to derail the plot if none of us are hired by her?

It's an open fucking world, you nincompoops.

Please forgive my friend. She knows that I have been saddled with a terrible debt paying for the healing of my dear... niece. Choryon's heart was moved to pity for my desperate situation.

If you don’t think I’d make a good jackbooted thug, I won’t protest. But don’t hold Choryon’s clumsy advocacy on my behalf against her.

She would serve your master faithfully, for that is her code, and the honor of a samurai is unbreakable.

Do you have any ranks in Bluff?

Do you have any ranks in Sense Motive?

What does Sabina think of these people.

Her initial impression was favorable. She heard of the brawl they’d broken up, which spoke favorably of their capabilities and at least somewhat of their character.

And then they looked visibly impressive. Any one of them could have racial hitdice.

At least three of the four have magic powers of some kind, be it wizardry or the blessing of a god or native sorcery.

But something about them raises flags as red as Korvosa’s muddy crimson standard…

…Ah, now she’s put her finger on what she finds unsettling most of all.

She is currently talking to the four happiest people in all of Korvosa.

Five in six Korvosans died this morning, and it isn’t even dawn. Most were damned. The survivors are in the most miserable conditions Sabina can conceive of, and no one has a scrap of privacy.

And these four people in front of her, laughing and joking, are without a doubt the cheeriest in the entire Vault.

They aren’t cracking jokes trying to cut the tension. They aren’t looking for a spot of levity in a sea of dread and horror.

They’re… just happy to be here. Engaged and having fun. With the possible exception of the four-armed thing and its dead shark-like eyes.

Even Ileosa is more subdued, after Eodred died without heir, and ten years sooner than anyone dared to hope.

Even Ileosa less exultant, after she installed her choice of Seneschal.

Her gut says to just walk. Sabina doesn’t have anything against non-humanoids but it does make her uncomfortable when they behave in alien and unsettling ways.

Perhaps behind that angelic smile and those shark-eyes hide sensible emotions appropriate to the situation. There’s no strong reason to think all four of them are complete fucking weirdos.

But if they were she couldn’t tell and that’s more than enough reason not to let them watch Ileosa when she’s sleeping.

When Sabina returns to Ileosa's side she brings some tough-looking dockworkers, an Endrin that knows her way around a sword, and a pair of Academae students who aren't averse to working late. (School, after all, is out for the foreseeable future.)

Choryon and Altronus would bowl through the seven of them as quickly as would any pair of fifth-level characters, but they can hopefully hold a tunnel for long enough that the Guard's higher level fighters can scramble for the scene.

None of these people seem very interesting to her, but if Sabina thinks they'll do their jobs adequately so does Ileosa.

Everyone roll initiative.

Eh?

Round 1

Each of the seven new hires have been disarmed of their weapons or have had their legs swept from under them.

Cressida Kroft is holding Queen Ileosa's crown.

That was a pretty poor showing.

Round 2

Kroft tosses the Queen back her crown.

The combat is over, we're no longer in initiative order.

Fine, I'll interview your people.

Cressida Kroft obviously wants to make sure that as they rebuild the Guard it is loyal to her, not to Ileosa.

It is necessary to cut her out of the the entire operation. The longer Ileosa waits, the deeper Kroft's tendrils will take root.

But Kroft knows that Ileosa knows this, and she has responded by trying to prove herself indispensable. It's unfortunately working. Korvosa is in a bad state. Ileosa has no palace to ride it out in. It's far from clear the city will ever recover.

She needs Kroft's competence if she's even going to survive, let alone become Queen of a kingdom worth calling that. At least in the short run.

In the medium term she's going to form a different another military branch under Sabina's command, cannibalize Cressida Kroft's Korvosan Guard, and sideline or disband it.

In the long term Ileosa will be waited on by an army of beautiful women who are unflinchingly loyal to her and her alone, and she’ll wish up all of her stats and make herself immortal and be loved and feared in equal measure as over the centuries she paints a map that puts Old Cheliax to shame.

And for old time’s sake, she’ll rub Cressida's face in all of it. Present her with everything that Kroft’s careful schemes and long intrigues failed to prevent.

Maybe she'll have the one-time Field Marshall reduced to slavery. Sell her to Katapesh. Or have her put under magical compulsion and made to serve loyally in Ileosa's Gray Maidens.

She'll come up with something fitting.

Subject to the Queen's approval, I'll pay you ten gold sails a day for the next ten days to serve in the Korvosan Guard.

It doesn't seem worth planning even eleven days out, what with how everything is in the air. But at the end of that period you can decide if you want to stay with the Guard long-term, and I can decide if you get to.

What does the job entail?

You’ll be assigned to a Watch Sergeant who knows the ropes.

For your first eight hour shift you'll be guarding the Queen, so she doesn't die on us and throw things even further into disarray.

No promises that you'll be on guard duty for the long run, and also no promises that you won't be.

But after that I mostly expect you'll be asked to patrol the Vault. Eight hours on, twelve hours off. Maintain the peace, respond to emergencies, investigate crimes, issue warnings and - gods willing - issue citations.

At dawn I'll set up a cage to hold prisoners, which will make the job easier. You should be liberal dumping people in there to cool off. Including nobles. If they piss and moan about it you can say it's good for their Law.

But not including spellcasters, unless it's absolutely unavoidable, and if you do jail someone important get me so I can smooth things over. Don't pick fights it'll be costly for the Guard to win.