Cassie grinned at Astarte's back. Guess she touched a nerve. As the siblings began to act all sibling-like with each other, a shapeshifting mage became extremely excited over her cannon. While the constant shifting would probably be slightly jarring, Cassie grew up in the land of the mages. This sort of stuff was too common to really bat an eye at, even if the mages seemed to think everything they did was some grand display of amazing power. She grinned, putting one gloved hand on the boy's...girl's...thing's head with a ruffle.

"It is a cannon, it's the Howler in fact. You can touch it, but as for getting one, you'll need to spend a small fortune. I don't know many gunsmiths who still make them that don't belong to the military."

She gave a wink with another hyena grin.

"I've modified it to Hell and back. Military grade is fine for small jobs but if you want something done right, gotta customize. Won't find another like it. But it should make that spider explode like a big slime-filled bubble. Boom!"

She gave a short bow of sorts, adjusting her monocle as the mage said it's name.

"Wonderful to meet you Nex, I'm Cassie. And if you like explosions as much as I do, we'll get along famously."

Then she heard Hazael openly announce her plans. And the resulting reactions. She tapped her chin for a moment. Cassie wasn't the sharpest sword in the armory, but even she could see the flaw of just about every plan that was just announced. Years of working on bringing large scale problems down had taught her to look for smaller details that most would miss. She looked around, relieved to see that the gate was MOSTLY deserted except by some civilians who weren't particularly interested in a large group of military people.

"Okay, step by step I'm seeing some flaws here. First off, Knight Lieutenant, though honestly openly admitting to rebellion sort of removes your rank, as our happy Lord Captain here has stated, you may have already gotten the royal family killed by announcing your intention. If the Minister, and I'm only saying this as a for instance, heard of your intents and was indeed guilty, then there's no reason to hold off on his plan until the Arachnoblast arrives, but rather speed it up to prevent our intervention."

She made a slight bob over to Bristlebane with a grin.

"Which relies on us killing the monster to avoid it being used as a living siege weapon, oh I like that, can I be referred to like that? But yes, I do believe we are going to go kill a giant spider."

She then focused on the assassin with an ego.

"And let's, again just for fun, pretend you DID manage to bring down the target, as every member of your occupation claims they're the best and I'm sure you're no exception, so an entire castle of guards, mages, and people trained from youth to stop your kind clearly makes nooooo difference. Then what? There's now an entire nation with no leader, fired up over expansionist ideals, and someone with less subtlety than the Minister takes control and makes the situation worse. Or someone who supports the current way of doing things takes over and does an inquisition to find MORE traitors. Or you fail, you're head is piked, and he once again speeds up his plan since he knows he's been outed. You're asking for a lot of money for a bad outcome either way."

She slid the cannon off her shoulders, letting it thud into the ground as she leaned on it, eyeing everyone from behind her monocle.

"Now, doubling the guard doesn't make sense either. Doing so would make the Minister suspicious of why you're doing it. How many of your guard support Donat and how many oppose him? You could just make things worse. You're all shooting at the wall, hoping to break it down, when you need to hit all the foundations at once. If you're goal is to stop a coup, you need to make them unable to move forward but unable to pull back. Or at the very least, force them to start from a weakened position."

She pointed at the assassin.

"A fake attempt on Donat's life, not to kill him, but to let him think something unrelated to his plan was at play. You could stage a fight with the Lord Captain here pretty easily, which leads to..."

Her finger draped over to the Lord Captain.

"Doubling the guard due to this assassin's attempt on his life. Hand choose a select few for duty around the royal family, only ones you KNOW don't support the minister's current plan. No one will question why they have extra protection, and will assume you just picked your elites to do so."

Her finger rested at Hazael's direction.

"Kill the Arachnoblast, as he can't announce that the beast is supposed to arrive alive. He needs it as a surprise. An open conflict with just his supporters could probably go either way, that thing is his trump card. You have orders to kill it. It wouldn't be hard to say the battle became too heated and the body was destroyed in the process. Along with the mage controlling it, who remarkably, had a contract on his body for the assassination of the Minister."

The folded her hands under her chin, tipping the cannon slightly as she grinned.

"Stop the beast. Double the guard. Avoid a power vacuum. In theory, this would hold Donat in place until he finds a new card to play for an advantage. Or, if he makes a move with limited support, the royal family is surrounded by loyalists who get them out of the city, and your coup begins anyway. His power struggle begins with less resources and ahead of his schedule, putting him in a weaker position. No matter what you do, people are going to get hurt and people are going to die. Mostly the innocents. But as I said, this is all just a for instance."