Very specific, potentially narrow window opportunities that implies someone close to Mathilde is devoting full-time attention to as opposed to reading about it at the end of a one or six month period, such as this:
I would not mind finding out about a Shallya group in trouble and dealing with it with our coin set to protector. Seems like the best way to go about getting a blessing from them.
True, but if a guy in Altdorf is selling some Nehekhara Talisman it may be interesting to have the option of purchasing it...
Plus it seems like a great tool for plot hooks...
Or this. These seems like very granular, specific opportunities that can only happen if Mathilde had a competent enough assistant more involved in the day to day affairs of Mathilde's intelligence network, than Mathilde. I believe those were the two suggestions that started the ball rolling until the question about economic actions in the EIC were raised.
Because Mathilde, as a one-woman - many handler operation is
going to miss out on these interesting things among all the noise, and her very many other priorities occupying her tie. A
well-trained , experienced Second IC, say a College Perpetual with ten years of experience being Mathilde's day to day personal hand and emissary among the Handlers on the other hand, is going to pick this up amidst the noise,
knows Mathilde well enough that such things
might interest her and can quite literally walk into Mathilde's office to let her know.
Very granular, very issue-specific stuff like this seems to be sort of thing
a deputy involved in day to day management as his/her full time job would detect, up as opposed to a distracted Loremaster with her attention split eight ways every day. Basically, if you want interesting granulity and plot-hooks as opposed to broad, high-level policy directions, train a Second IC that can pick those up among the noise, and do it as soon as possible.
Mathilde can do that now, she spends the half action to distribute word to be on the look out for it and then monitors and reacts to the response she gets.
These are examples of what I mean by fine-grained opportunities drifting in the general noise of Handler data. Mathilde is more likely to learn of an opportunity Shallyan cult on a particular week, as opposed to whenever she has spare time to read through reports in-depth, if she has a sufficiently trained deputy who is sorting out the noise.
Mathilde herself
cannot personally verify every lead if she was to put the word out because of her limited time, but a well trained Second IC can figure out which leads are legit and which leads are just noise.
If this is not what a Second IC can help Mathilde in, what is that a well-trained Deputy helps Mathilde to do precisely that Mathilde herself cannot do with her limited time? In what ways could a Second IC become useful in a way ordinary handler networks can never deliver?
