1.3 - mad investor chaos and the woman of asmodeus (cont.)

Keltham: "Persuasive pitch, if so," Keltham says, learning, as he speaks, to speak and clench his stomach muscles at the same time. "I'll pause to take my expensive shirt off first not to ruin it, and I'll want somebody to pay me afterwards, but I will, in fact, jump into waterholes to save drowning children."

"My theory is that Zon-Kuthon of the inverted values is the god that has an effectively unnegotiable incentive to oppose everything we're doing here and want us all dead; that the vision uniquely identifies Zon Kuthon though why it had to come in that form I don't know; and that we're being warned that the security precautions we had at the time I got my spells this morning, plus any further precautions we'd take predictably to my god, without this vision, are not adequate to navigate that with acceptable casualties."

"Can Zon-Kuthon just - take people, could he take somebody here, especially if they're Lawful Evil, if his clerics attack us - or does Asmodeus -"

lintamande: "Asmodeus has the stronger claim on our souls," says Security firmly. And then shuts up, it's harder to get in trouble for saying too little.

Carissa Sevar: "And your god has on yours, you're Their cleric. I....have no idea what would happen if Zon Kuthon tried everything He can try, but Asmodeus is stronger than Him."

Keltham: "I have two more spells. Fourth-circle abjuration. Fourth-circle divination. I'm going to just go ahead and cast those now, in that order. Maybe one of them sheds some light on things." Keltham has discarded any senses of oncoming doom because the current situation is more important than feeling doomed about it.

Keltham: Fourth-circle abjuration, go.

lintamande: "Spell Immunity," says Security instantly. "Makes you impossible to target with one specific spell of fourth-circle or lower of your choice. - I am not thinking of an obvious spell you're supposed to protect yourself from."

Carissa Sevar: "I'd go scrying if we weren't already unscryable?" Malediction, but they're absolutely not admitting the existence of Malediction. "...yeah, if it's meant for a specific thing rather than just for added protection I don't have a guess what the specific thing is."

lintamande: The spell is lingering invitingly in the air in front of Keltham, refusing to be flicked free of his fingertips.

Keltham: Does it take the input "the spell on me right now that's affecting my mind or perceptions" or "the spell that's on me right now"?

lintamande: The second one works!

Carissa Sevar: "....huh, I didn't know you could target like that."

Keltham: Keltham realizes he no longer understands what Carissa just said.

It takes him a few moments to remember that one spell that was still on him.

Keltham is an idiot.

Well, he was distracted, but being distractible is part of what being an idiot is all about.

Carissa Sevar: "You definitely gave yourself immunity to something but I don't know exactly what because you didn't specify the spell with the spellform, you specified it -" her fingers are moving without her conscious attention - "did you specify 'the spell effect I already have ongoing' or something -"

Security guy whistles.

" - literally everything else about this situation is not my specialty but this is."

Keltham: "Guess who just lost their Share Language spell," Keltham says in Baseline. "And yeah, sorry, I didn't understand that," some words maybe, but not the sentences of Taldane just yet.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa was pretty chill about the torture but she's awfully disappointed, about Keltham not getting to appreciate her spellcraft.

" - oh. Well, that's what he did. Do you have Share Languages..."

"....nope, and it wouldn't work on him if I did."

"Tongues."

"No."

"Does anyone else on duty -"

"We're running the duty roster a little thin right now."

Oh. Are they all in a lot of trouble. Probably they are all in a lot of trouble. Carissa isn't even sure what she did but she's sure some of it was very stupid in hindsight. "Can you prep it?"

"Sure thing, I just need an hour. And by then probably six dozen paladins of Iomedae will enter through the sewers while Aroden returns from the dead just to animate all the furniture and make it sing songs."

Keltham: If it wasn't meant to negate a spell already cast on him, like a mind-controlling one... in dath ilan, this would be a message to the effect of, think about what spells could be cast on you that you wouldn't want cast on you, maybe. It's a spell that requires you to know what's coming, forming a requirement of prediction.

Then Keltham catches the word "Iomedae." That sounds potentially urgent.

Comprehend Languages, gesturing the spell slowly so they can see it.

"Iomedae?" Keltham says after casting; he can hear, now, but can't speak.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa can cast Comprehend Languages too! "Oh good! Uh, your Spell Immunity should wear off in an hour or two and then we can give it to you again."

Keltham: "I observed some guy mention Iomedae, with possible inferences not ruled out to me including that Iomedae's faction might also attack here, or that it might be invited to likewise oppose Zon-Kuthon; this seemed relatively urgent and was the reason why I cast my Comprehend Languages instead of reserving it further. Though it's also nice to speak in a language where sensible meanings can be conveyed in shorter codes." Speaking in Baseline, not just thinking in it, helps reimpose abstraction, which is a form of distance; some part of him was starting to go a little Taldane from speaking it all the time.

lintamande: "I'll repeat exactly what I said but it was of no such urgency, sorry; Sevar asked if I could prepare Tongues for you and I said 'Sure thing, I just need an hour. And by then probably six dozen paladins of Iomedae will enter through the sewers while Aroden returns from the dead just to animate all the furniture and make it sing songs.', which was not a genuine prediction."

Carissa Sevar: "Iomedae might ally with Asmodeus against Zon-Kuthon for this but it'd be a direct god-negotiation, we can't expedite it. I don't think her faction would attack and the illusion-vision definitely doesn't reference Her faction."

Keltham: What the guy said containing 'Iomedae' matches the non-understood sounds of the last sentence containing 'Iomedae', near as Keltham remembers. Fair enough.

"I should've asked whether my earlier interpretation was at all plausible. Probability distribution over Zon Kuthon attacking here within the next day, next 8 days, next 64 days?"

lintamande: Security will let Carissa generate numbers for the madman, thank you.

Carissa Sevar: That's good because there are things that are obvious to Carissa that wouldn't have been obvious to her a day ago about the giving-numbers social ritual. Keltham's hypothesis is a useful one for him to be on and she wants to encourage him in it but if she makes it seem too probable then they look stupid for having missed it. Let's say 4%, 10%, 40%, she thinks at Security.

lintamande: "Uh, 4%, 10%, 40%."

Carissa Sevar: Given the message from your god. We thought it lower before.

lintamande: "Given the message from your god. We thought it lower before."

Keltham: "That's... higher probability than I was expecting for a first guess that wild. Do Zon-Kuthon attacks happen a lot around here?"

lintamande: UGH.

Carissa Sevar: This wouldn't be expected to be Carissa's expertise so it'd be weird for her to be answering even though she's either better at or less scared of improvising in Kelthamish terms.

No! I can think of a handful of known instances in the last two centuries! But direct divine intervention in general is incredibly rare, and there have been three instances of it here in the last twenty-four hours...

lintamande: "No! I can think of a handful of known instances in the last two centuries! But direct divine intervention in general is incredibly rare, and there have been three instances of it here in the last twenty-four hours."

Carissa Sevar: "And the reason direct divine intervention is rare is because the gods pay each other so only the one who cares most intervenes, and one case where that might be expected not to hold is a god who can't reasonably do value-trading with the other ones." That's just analysis and she may as well do it herself. "And - I'm not thinking of any reasons for the spell that aren't 'your god is predicting or requesting conflict with Zon Kuthon', so fundamentally that's got to shake out to 'He starts it' or 'we start it'."

Keltham: "That's... an odd way of forecasting, and I'd have to think about whether or not what you just said makes any sense, but at least it's not obvious nonsense - to bump up the entropy of all your probability distributions after encountering a series of low-probability events, if that makes sense when I say it to you in Baseline. How long do I have left before Taldane goes incomprehensible to me?"

lintamande: "Seventy minutes, which is also the duration of your Spell Immunity, so someone can prepare another Share Languages for you and have it ready by then."

Keltham: "Thank you. I apologize for requiring that resource of you, especially since the way in which it came about, that of my attempting to immunify myself against any economicmagics cast on myself without my knowledge, reflected both my ignorance of whether to trust you and my stupidly forgetting the spell already on me."

"Last spell cast, now." Keltham casts his fourth-circle divination. Maybe it brings answers, if it's the most powerful answering-spell.

lintamande: Some spells have more of a subjective sensation to them than others; this one has a strong one, of magic radiating out like pressurized water, stripping away whatever it encounters. It doesn't do much, though; a drawer concealed in the desk glows, and there's a sense he could look in a direction that's none of the three dimensions he's familiar with.

Carissa Sevar: We're going to have to revise all materials referencing Glimpse of Truth to claim it's just a more powerful Invisibility Purge that also finds magically hidden things. So he's not trying to stack it with Abadar's Truthtelling. ....maybe it's mostly meant for seeing enemies lurking on other planes, but he doesn't need it now that we've got a Forbiddance up. Call it, uh,

"Glimpse of Beyond."

Keltham: "There's a drawer -" And it's gone. "A concealed drawer in that desk right there was calling my attention." Keltham points it out.

lintamande: Security casts Dispel Magic and then uses a Mage Hand to tug it open. It's empty.

Carissa Sevar: "Detects secret doors and secret compartments, and people Polymorphed into other people, though the main thing it's for is detecting people hidden in other planes. I'm...not sure if that part of it would work with the Forbiddance up."

Keltham: "I felt like I could look in a new direction that wasn't the standard three-space-one-time, but the spell ended before I could explore that. There wasn't anything there, in that direction, that I saw... I wish I'd known to use that spell before the Forbiddance went up, just in case there was something there before."

"I'm very much playing amateur-security at this point, but, like, maybe check everyone here for 'people Polymorphed into other people' if you don't do that on a daily basis? Or if you've got a version of this spell that lasts longer, look around for secret doors that aren't on the consensus-social-reality map here..." Keltham sighs. "You'd probably have thought of that already, I'm guessing, but, trust but verify, I should say it aloud myself even if I think you've already thought of it, because security."

lintamande: "We do routinely check for secret doors and for Polymorphed people," security confirms. "And would be routinely checking for attackers or spies from other planes, if not for the Forbiddance."

Keltham: "All right. That is everything I had planned. I think next I... well, next I talk to Ione briefly, and then go to bed." He needs a book of the standard cleric spells, one that goes up to at least fourth-circle; hopefully Ione didn't use up all her book-borrows for the day. "Though if Ione doesn't have Comprehend Languages..." Then he needs a translator. Carissa or Security? Which would Ione prefer? Keltham's guessing Security; they're more professionally obliged to keep confidences. "You okay sticking with me slightly longer as a translator?" Keltham says to Security. "Should be brief."

lintamande: "Not a problem."

Carissa Sevar: "Good night, Keltham."

Keltham: "Until later, Carissa. On net and in total, it was still a pretty nice day in terms of direct causal impacts on me, if not in terms of the net total direction of all the evidential updates I executed."

Carissa Sevar: "Same to you. I think."

Keltham: Keltham turns to go, gesturing Security to precede him. "You're the one who knows where to find Ione, or find somebody who knows where to find her," Keltham says.

lintamande: Security will lead Keltham to Ione. In the library. Since apparently she has to stay there.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa will ask other Security to make her invisible and go with her there as well, in case anything requires her intervention.

Ione Sala: Ione almost starts a genuine if faint smile on seeing Keltham, before Ione sees the Security with him. "Keltham," she says.

Keltham: "Please ask her if she's got Comprehend Languages prepared, or if Security needs to translate for her."

Ione Sala: Ione does not have Comprehend Languages prepared, as it happens.

Keltham: "Wanted to ask you a question about a book, but only if this is a good time," Keltham says.

Ione Sala: "It's a fine time," Ione says, after the Security officer translates, correctly decoding this question as being about the Security officer's presence. "Any time is a good time for questions like that, now that people have seen me do it once."

Keltham: "Gratitude-for-inconvenience-incurred. Book containing a maximal number of descriptions of cleric spells up to fifth circle?" His god may not have played its full hand, and it seems good to know about the fifth circle too.

Ione Sala: "Books about magic aren't always... let me think."

There's - what is there in the Ostenso library? They have a copy of a book she knows about that includes all known cleric spells, including up to 9th, including some Asmodeus's clerics can't get. Is there a book that only lists cleric spells that Asmodeus's own clerics can get? Either that doesn't exist or Ione needs to know more about it.

Security needs to give her some sign about whether that book is available today or if all the copies are out of the Ostenso library but Ostenso can request they'll be returned soon, or, or what? 1 if book available, 2 if not a kind of book that can be retrieved, 3 if the only copy is out of the Ostenso library but they can ask for it back, 4 if Ione should go on thinking until somebody can give her more instructions.

lintamande: ...they are going to want it to have a couple modifications to, say Glimpse of Truth that aren't yet completed, so...3?

Ione Sala: "Um," Ione says, glancing at Security, and then sighs, as if giving up on something (in the character she's playing, on directly admitting in front of a Chelish government official that Ione retrieves books from other libraries). "Ostenso is a wizard academy, there's only one compendium of cleric spells in there and somebody currently has it borrowed. Uh, you could ask Security to send a message to the library to get the book back, and I could try again later."

Keltham: ...somewhat suggestive of them wanting time to quickly reprint something? Actually, though it's a bit post-hoc, Keltham thinks he'd have guessed a priori something like a 30% chance that a real wizard library would have no unborrowed books on all cleric spells and... it's not quite fair to say 100% if they want to fool him, because they could choose other means of fooling him. Call it 2.5:1. You don't actually want to ignore your 2.5:1 likelihood ratios, they can logarithmically add up pretty quickly.

"Thanks for looking," Keltham says. "Anything that just has a brief list of all the cleric spells up to fourth circle by name? Even in passing?"

Ione Sala: "I - I don't think I can look through all the contents of all the books that narrowly, if it's not what a whole book is about," Ione says honestly.

Keltham: "I hate to ask this," Keltham says to both Ione and Security, "but can somebody maybe just flatly write down a list of a bunch of cleric spells they remember up to 4th circle, with, like, one-sentence descriptions of what they do."

Ione Sala: "I can," Ione says without hesitating, because she doesn't see Security telling her to pretend like she couldn't do that. "Come back in... maybe an hour?"

Keltham: "All right. I'll just ask for some paper for notes, then, and find other things to think about for an hour," so he can forget what he saw as much as possible before he has to think about it any more. What else is there to think about instead? He at least needs to itemize all the things he wants to ask Carissa about sex while they're not actually having sex, but some other things happened today too. And he can work out a rough general spell-granting code, for attempted communication with his god, in advance of knowing which exact spells he could ask for to signal various conditions.

Keltham: Off with Keltham!

lintamande: "The fourth circle divination Glimpse of Truth is called Glimpse of Beyond, and detects Polymorphed people, secret doors, and things hidden on other planes," Security tells her once he's definitely gone. "The books will back you up by morning. Keltham's god isn't known. Otherwise just show us your first draft."

Carissa Sevar: "Don't lie to him - about anything - unless you've checked it with me first," Carissa adds.

Zon-Kuthon: Zon-Kuthon keeps mostly to Himself, by His own choice, but also by choice of the other gods. When somebody of the same kind as yourself wanders into the Void and comes back with inverted values, there is an uncertainty about whether, if you talked to the victim too much, something infohazardous might start to happen to you. Zon-Kuthon negotiates little, or not at all; He has little, or no, use for alliances and dealings. He keeps to Xovaikain, His true realm, and to Nidal, the material shadow of it.

Before Zon-Kuthon, there was Dou-Bral, who helped fight and imprison Rovagug. It is unclear whether Zon-Kuthon would in some new battle fight to preserve all the pain that exists in the world; or if, Dou-Bral having once thought that the joy and beauty of the world outweighed its pain, Zon-Kuthon would now think there was too much pleasure in Existence, and that it ought therefore to be destroyed. Or perhaps Dou-Bral was too optimistic, in the days when Dou-Bral fought to defend reality; and if Dou-Bral knew what would have become of Pharasma's world, He would have tried to destroy it, even as Zon-Kuthon apparently seems content with its continued existence.

No other god in creation likes Zon-Kuthon. From Asmodeus's perspective He is a pretender to Lawful Evil; from the other Evil gods' perspective, an obsessed fanatic of no use to anyone; from the perspective of Neutral gods, an impediment; from the perspective of Good, a horror.

Why then does Zon-Kuthon continue to exist? Among the less pleasant facts of reality is that among the real reasons why the other gods don't band together to destroy Zon-Kuthon is that, as the last Lawful Evil competitor to Asmodeus of any significance, He is a threat for other gods to hold over Asmodeus - that there is at least one other competitor they could back for Asmodeus's position, if He grew too troublesome. Iomedae and Sarenrae, to be clear, would not keep Zon-Kuthon around just as a foil to Asmodeus, if those four were the only gods that were; but in a world where the existence of Zon-Kuthon is a constant weight on the negotiating positions of Asmodeus and say Gorum, trying to destroy Zon-Kuthon could be a mistake even if that were possible. Iomedae is more calculating now than when She was human, because She is better at it; She would not destroy Zon-Kuthon if the end result was for Asmodeus to grow stronger and for Hell to last victorious.

Nethys: Of course, some gods are less scared of talking to Zon-Kuthon than others, if they've already seen all the way to the end of the Void, where lies the Double Void, which flipped Nethys's utility function's sign right back! No, that's not actually what happened, but it makes about as much sense as anything else that Nethys could or would tell you about it.

Hey, Zon-Kuthon, Nethys sends. You see this mortal over here in Cheliax, the one who fears you and is horrified by you? You're admittedly missing some context, but it'd be hilarious if you sent some minions to assault his location sometime soon...

Carissa Sevar: And Carissa goes back to the temple to look for Maillol. She is very tired and suspects, somehow, that this won't be a nice quick twenty minute debrief before bed.

Ferrer Maillol: It sure isn't. Maillol acidly tells Sevar that nobody needed to promise Keltham that people were actively working to identify his god, up until that point they had the option of saying later that somebody spotted it as Abadar but that they were worried about his adopting Osirion's sexual morals or just that people were still consulting each other about if that was allowable to disclose.

This is, mostly, the fault of somebody whose screaming can be distantly heard in Maillol's office, because he was fucking fed up with this whole scenario and this screaming is at least a little consoling. Much worse for that guy, he's getting a permanent notation on his file saying that he doesn't think fast enough on his feet to take point on complicated situations, like that incident with Otolmens's oracle. Whom Carissa was also responsible for remembering the existence of, even if it wouldn't have been her job to try to yank the guy out of the room fast enough.

Maybe it was somebody else's fuckup who put her in a bad situation, but she is now the one responsible for recoveries, and on the Abadar thing she muffed the recovery.

"You're going to spend an hour practicing with Elias," Maillol tells Carissa. "He's going to throw situations at you where Keltham runs across something we've been hiding or sees something he shouldn't, you're going to come up with excuses, fast. If they involve you saying that you've got to talk to me before you can figure out what you're authorized to say now, that's not great, but Elias won't hit you." Ferrer's sickening fake smile vanishes. "Any time you start saying too much in front of Imaginary Keltham and making up excuses that are any more complicated than they need to be, Elias is going to hit you."

Carissa Sevar: "I acknowledge my errors. I acknowledge I need the practice and I know if I argue you're going to make it longer, which you are very welcome to. To my mind we never meaningfully had the option of telling him it was Abadar. Abadar has a country right near here and he already knows that, and it's an incredibly obvious place to go when he gets fed up and leaves. If you want him to even contemplate hiding out in a forest or extradimensional space somewhere and not contacting other governments he needs to think he has an obscure god, not one running a country right next door. He's not stupid enough to fail to think that I might be lying about the sexism or that there might be a good justification for it, and it's not an argument-against-Abadar strong enough to stop Keltham trying to contact them. You should find him an obscure Tian deity.

I appreciate that you are monitoring a tendency towards excuses more complicated than they need to be. I am noticing a tendency towards plans that require using a degree of ability to manipulate Keltham's environs which I would prefer he believe Golarion magic does not enable. The High Priestess asked me, this morning, if my recommendation that we explain Otolmens to Keltham overrode her very reasonable heuristics about sharing less about Otolmens, and I was not willing to persist in a recommendation against such advice, but if I'd thought through that her plan involved us consistently deploying reflexive counterspells to protect the invisibility of Otolmens' representative while Keltham flings around fourth-circle cleric magic aimed at discovering concealed things, I would have persisted in my recommendation. If Invisibility Purge hadn't discovered Otolmens' oracle Glimpse of Truth would have, you can't inconspicuously counterspell True Seeing, and then it's apparent we deliberately hid him from Invisibility Purge discovery. If I had thought of the oracle fast enough I would've told Security to do nothing using abilities other than 'put people in other rooms', and if that wasn't fast enough to solve the problem, so be it. Abadar's going to keep giving Keltham spells in that genre, and honestly the oracle is the most innocuous explanation for them. 'have an invisible person running around with Security constantly counterspelling and actively interfering in Keltham's efforts to discover them' is an extraordinary expenditure of our effort to keep a secret I at this point forcefully recommend we stop keeping. Otolmens is the kind of institution Keltham is used to cooperating with and we should tell him sufficient true things for him to conclude that."

Ferrer Maillol: "Your argument on Abadar is reasonable and I have downgraded my estimate of the severity of your error. It remains that your current excuses are too visibly extemporized. Your excuses wouldn't fool me, Sevar, they look like excuses to somebody who knows what that is. I'm not saying you should be choosing excuses to fool me, you should be choosing them to fool Keltham. But right now, we're only getting away with this because Keltham is an outsider, and that makes us pathetic and unworthy of the responsibility Asmodeus placed on us. Yes, you need a dose of that practice now and not just later. That you're already exhausted is part of the point. Twenty minutes with Elias today, more later, and don't mistake the reduction for mercy, it's about the degree to which you being slightly better-rested tomorrow is a military priority."

"I've filed your request for somebody who can train you in conventional honeypot tactics. I've filed your request for the alternate Taldor history, and put my own commendation and priority on it; it's not just a workable idea, it gives us an organizing principle that this chaos of an operation desperately needs. We'll tell Broom that we're fine with Keltham's terms for showing himself in front of Keltham, and ask him politely not to stalk Keltham invisibly until we see how much Invisibility Purge Keltham throws around, assuming that's what you meant. I'll re-query our policy on keeping Otolmens's existence a secret to the people authorized to make decisions that potentially destroy Golarion. You'll brief the girls tomorrow morning on your new plans. Am I missing anything, Sevar?"

Carissa Sevar: "No, sir." It is in some strange way cheering, to be told that they are pathetic and unworthy of the responsibility Asmodeus placed on them, because of course all humans are pathetic and unworthy but it only merits comment if in this context they are expected not to be. Maybe sometimes when the stakes are high enough some humans figure out how to not be pathetic and unworthy. Or at least how to be less so.

She looks over at Elias. How much does he look like he would prefer this training to involve hitting her a lot. ...yeah, valid. Carissa, too, if she were in a different role in this operation, would feel like hitting Carissa a lot.

"Keltham figures out that you don't really love him," Elias says, smiling at her.

Carissa Sevar: "Gosh, accusations about drawing ones internal conceptual boundaries wrong are the kind of thing I'd have guessed would be Complicated Romance in dath ilan. In Cheliax no one's running around with a baseline expectation anyone could possibly have drawn them coherently in the first place."

lintamande: " - that's not even an excuse."

Carissa Sevar: "Best excuses usually aren't. - I think I should get to hit him if I have a really good one," she tells Maillol.

Ferrer Maillol: "Hold still," Maillol says, and delivers three hard, carefully measured punches into the pit of Sevar's stomach.

"You just lost some of the respect I was gaining for you, Sevar," he says when he's done. "Any spite you hold for him is something you can work on while you're not doing something I told you to do. Elias, if she acts unprofessional or like she's not taking the exercise seriously, punish her no less than Asmodeus's Law calls for. Punish her any more and I expect Hell will have something to say about that too, in due time. Now take this somewhere else." Maillol has infinity plus one paperworks to file.

lintamande: Some parlors have been repurposed into common rooms.

"Keltham learns about malediction."

Carissa Sevar: "In general there are spells for changing your alignment to what you want it to be before you die, called Atonement, but they're expensive and really hard to access, so Asmodeus made a Asmodeus-specific one that's cheaper."

lintamande: "Oh, so it only gets used on people who want to go to Hell?"

Carissa Sevar: "Why in the world would you try to use it on someone who wanted to go somewhere else?? There'd be an enormous god-diplomatic-incident about it, I'd expect!"

lintamande: "Keltham learns that the girls aren't getting paid."

Carissa Sevar: " - are they not? Fucking pay the girls, we aren't telling any lies that we don't need to."

Slap. "Not an excuse."

"That's bizarre and I'll go ask site leadership what went wrong immediately."

"Keltham learns that the girls were drafted."

"When you enlist in the Chelish military you promise to go where you're needed. That is how every military in the world functions; do dath ilan militaries not require such oaths?"

"Keltham learns that you're getting sex training."

"....well obviously I'm getting sex training, he's had it and I'd like to keep up! Also I figured I should see a professional about my relaxation problem."

"Keltham learns primary worship of other gods is illegal."

"Primary worship means, like, breaking other local law specifically on the command of foreign gods; it's mentioned as separately illegal from the breaking other local law because most of the general rules about criminal conspiracies don't apply very neatly to criminal conspiracies where you never interact with your co-conspirators and don't know anything about what exactly they're trying to achieve. Obviously if you're not breaking any laws in the first place then what would it even mean to make it illegal to worship a god."

"Keltham learns Cheliax executes people for lèse-majesté."

"I've never heard of that actually happening. It's a thing people say about kings they dislike and probably at some point in history was true of some of them but Abrogail Thrune's not a thin-skinned maniac whose brain stopped fully functioning thirty years ago, like a lot of kings are, and most king-related abuses are those kings."

"Keltham learns that the girls sold their souls."

"Most people make arrangements before they die, with a devil who has a specialty they're interested in or who lives in the plane of Hell they want to live in or whatever. The alternative is getting thrown into general processing, which can be slow, when a lot of people die at once, and it can be expensive and take a long time to get somewhere right for you. The girls hadn't yet because they're so young but now they're at elevated risk of death and also have highly secret information so I'm not surprised they made arrangements."

"Keltham learns that that vision was of Asmodean Hell."

Carissa Sevar: "- Keltham we've got to get out of here - Security'll have scrolls of Teleport on them and I know how to read one, do you have something from your god that'll take someone on Security down if we take them by surprise -"

lintamande: "I assume there's a plan, from there."

Carissa Sevar: "Well, not yet, but hopefully there will be by the time it's relevant, if it is. - does Security carry scrolls of Teleport, if not I'm not sure how we can make our implausible escape."

"Sometimes, but we're in a Forbiddance."

"I do have a plan for that, I'm going to fly out with him clinging to me, both invisible, and then cast the Teleport from midair. Luckily no one will see us."

"That's a lot of thought to have put into your romantic escape with Keltham."

"Look, if you think I'm a traitor it doesn't make any sense to mildly chide me about it, and if you don't then it doesn't make any sense to mildly chide me for looking it."

"I think you're enough of a chameleon to be a traitor if the circumstances presented themselves. - Keltham finds out you tortured some orphans to death for practice."

"I absolutely have not done that!"

"Keltham finds out most people don't want to go to Hell."

"Good is popular because they run soup kitchens and orphanages and so on. People think of them as the people who helped them when they needed it. So they want to be Good, but that doesn't actually get you Good, it's not Good itself, it's just vague identification."

"Keltham finds out you reported people to the authorities for disloyal thoughts."

"Some demons at the Worldwound can fuck with your mind. We have a monitoring system set up to catch anyone who gets infected before they slit all their bunkmates' throats in the night and eat their eyeballs, yes, that has happened, yes, I've reported people for further monitoring who I thought had thought-patterns that might point them that way."

Carissa loves her job.

Ione Sala: Ione doesn't mind this part of her job at all! In accordance with the general instruction to tell no lies that Security explained to her - apparently Carissa Sevar is running this show now which ??? but fine - Ione is actually remembering and writing her own descriptions, without secretly grabbing the cleric spellbook and cheating. Though that makes some sense, even; if Ione's descriptions looked too much like the book descriptions, after the book gets 'returned to the library', Keltham might notice.

An hour isn't really much time to write down that many cleric spells and one-sentence descriptions, but here's what Ione's got!

Ione Sala: Cantrips / Orisons:

Create Water -- Creates 2 gallons/level of pure water.Detect Magic -- Detects spells and magic items within 60 ft.Detect Poison -- Detects poison in one creature or object.Guidance -- Touched creature gains +1 on one attack roll, saving throw, or skill check.Light -- Object shines like a torch.Mending -- Makes minor repairs on an object.Purify Food and Drink -- Purifies 1 cu. ft./level of food or water.Read Magic -- Read scrolls and spellbooks.Resistance -- Touched creature gains +1 on saving throws.Spark -- Ignites flammable objects.Stabilize -- Cause a dying creature to stabilize.

1st circle:

Air Bubble -- Creates a small pocket of air around your head or an object. Ant Haul -- Triples carrying capacity of a creature. Bane -- Enemies take –1 on attack rolls and saves against fear. Barbed Chains -- Hellish chains attack and cause a target to become shaken. Bless -- Allies gain +1 on attack rolls and saves against fear. Bless Water -- Makes holy water. Cause Fear -- One creature of 5 HD or less flees for 1d4 rounds. Command -- One subject obeys selected command for 1 round. Compel Hostility -- Compels opponents to attack you instead of your allies. Comprehend Languages -- You understand all spoken and written languages. Cure Light Wounds -- Cures 1d8 damage + 1/level (max +5). Curse Water -- Makes unholy water. Detect Chaos/Evil/Good/Law -- Reveals creatures, spells, or objects of selected alignment. Detect Charm -- Detect strength and location of charms, compulsions, and possession auras on creatures in the area. Detect Life -- Determine whether a creature is alive or dead.Detect Demon -- You sense the presence of a specific kind of evil—that of demons, their servants, and the Abyss. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject. Detect Undead -- Reveals undead within 60 ft. Diagnose Disease -- Detect and identify diseases. Doom -- One subject takes –2 on attack rolls, damage rolls, saves, and checks. Endure Elements -- Exist comfortably in hot or cold regions. Hide from Undead -- Undead can’t perceive one subject/level. Infernal Healing -- Touch a creature with devils blood, giving it fast healing 1. Inflict Light Wounds -- Touch deals 1d8 damage +1/level (max +5). Keltham's Truth Spell -- One touched target can only speak truth. 2 min / caster circle.Lighten Object -- Halve the weight of one object for 1 min/level. Size of the object is limited to 1 cubic foot per level. Magic Weapon -- Weapon gains +1 bonus. Moment of Greatness -- Doubles a morale bonus. Murderous Command -- Target is compelled to kill its ally. Obscure Poison -- Make it harder to detect a poison or a venomous creature. Obscuring Mist -- Fog surrounds you. Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law -- +2 to AC and saves, plus additional protection against selected alignment. Read Weather -- Precisely forecast natural weather phenomenon that will occur in your area over the next 48 hours. Recharge Innate Magic -- Regain one use of all 0 and 1st-level spell-like abilities of a racial trait. Remove Fear -- Suppresses fear or gives +4 on saves against fear for one subject + one per four levels. Remove Sickness -- Suppress disease, nausea, and the sickened condition. Rite of Bodily Purity -- You energize your body’s immune system, improving your ability to resist toxins and ailments. Sanctuary -- Opponents can’t attack you, and you can’t attack. Shadow Trap -- You pin the target’s shadow to its current location, causing the target to become entangled and preventing it from moving farther than 5 feet from its original position, as if anchored to the terrain. Shield of Faith -- Aura grants +2 or higher deflection bonus. Summon Monster I -- Summons extraplanar creature to fight for you. Touch of Blindness -- A touch from your hand, which is engulfed in darkness, disrupts a creature’s vision by coating its eyes in supernatural darkness.

Ione already suspects some of the edits they'll want from her.

2nd circle:

Abeyance -- You suppress the effects of a curse on a creature.Aid -- +1 on attack rolls and saves against fear, 1d8 temporary hp +1/level (max +10).Alchemical Tinkering -- Perform one of a limited number of possible alchemical transformations. Align Weapon -- Weapon becomes good, evil, lawful, or chaotic. Ancestral Communion -- You contact your ancestors to bolster your own knowledge. Animate Dead, Lesser -- Create one skeleton or zombie. Arrow of Law -- Harm and possibly daze chaotic creatures. Augury -- Learns whether an action will have good or bad consequences over the next half-hour. Bear’s Endurance -- Subject gains +4 to Con for 1 min./level. Bestow Weapon Proficiency -- Grant a creature proficiency in a single weapon for short period of time. Blood Blaze -- Aura that makes injured creatures spray burning blood. Book Ward -- As protection from energy, except lasting 1 day/level instead of 10 minutes per level and that the spell only protects against acid and fire damage (and while energy protection remains, the item is also completely waterproof). Bull’s Strength -- Subject gains +4 to Str for 1 min./level. Calm Emotions -- Calms creatures, negating emotion effects. Conditional Favor -- Provide another spell whose effects reverse if the target breaks a restriction. Consecrate -- Fills area with positive energy, weakening undead. Cure Moderate Wounds -- Cures 2d8 damage + 1/level (max +10). Curse Terrain, Lesser -- Curse an area with three mild hazards. Darkness -- 20-ft. radius of supernatural shadow. Death Knell -- Kills dying creature; you gain 1d8 temporary hp, +2 to Str, and +1 caster level. Delay Disease -- Gain immunity to disease for 24h. Delay Pain -- Ignore pain for 1 hour/level. Delay Poison -- Stops poison from harming target for 1 hour/level. Desecrate -- Fills area with negative energy, making undead stronger. Detect Magic, Greater -- As detect magic, but learn more information. Dread Bolt -- Harm and possibly sicken good creatures. Dress Corpse -- Doctor the evidence on a corpse. Eagle’s Splendor -- Subject gains +4 to Cha for 1 min./level. Early Judgement -- Show creatures a glimpse of their judgement in the afterlife. This fascinates good, confuses neutral, and shakes evil creatures. Effortless Armor -- Armor you wear no longer slows your speed. Enthrall -- Captivates all within 100 ft. + 10 ft./level. Find Traps -- Notice traps as a rogue does. Flotsam Vessel -- Creates a sturdy raft and oars from driftwood, reeds, and other river detritus. Gentle Repose -- Preserves one corpse.Grace -- Movement doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity.Hold Person -- Paralyzes one humanoid for 1 round/level.Inflict Moderate Wounds -- Touch attack, 2d8 damage + 1/level (max +10).Ironskin -- Your skin hardens and takes on the color and texture of rough iron.Lay of the Land -- In a flash of recognition, you learn about the geography of your surroundings within a radius of 1 mile per 2 caster levels (minimum 1 mile). This instant familiarity grants you an insight bonus equal to your caster level (maximum +5) on Knowledge (geography) checks and Survival checks to avoid getting lost so long as you remain in the affected area.Make Whole -- Repairs an object.Marching Chant -- Allies can hustle without penalty while you sing or chant.Masterwork Transformation -- Make a normal item into a masterwork one.Muffle Sound -- Allies gain a bonus on Stealth checks but risk verbal spell failure.Owl’s Wisdom -- Subject gains +4 to Wis for 1 min./level.Pilfering Hand -- You may seize an object or manipulate it from afar.Remove Paralysis -- Frees creatures from paralysis or slow effect.Resist Energy -- Ignores 10 (or more) points of damage/attack from specified energy type.Restoration, Lesser -- Dispels magical ability penalty or repairs 1d4 ability damage.Sense Fear -- Perceive nearby creatures that are experiencing fear.Sense Madness -- Determine mental disturbances in nearby creatures.Share Language -- Subject understands chosen language.Shatter -- Sonic vibration damages objects or crystalline creatures.Silence -- Negates sound in 20-ft. radius.Silent Table -- Give yourself privacy by muffling sound.Spell Gauge -- Reveal a number of spells – lowest first – that the target creature knows, up to your caster level.Status -- Monitors condition, position of allies.Summon Monster II -- Summons extraplanar creature to fight for you.Suppress Charms and Compulsions -- You can grant a bonus to saving throws against charms and compulsions or suppress an existing, in-effect charm or compulsion.Track Ship -- Track a ship's location and movement with the aid of a nautical chart and a piece of the ship to be tracked.Undetectable Alignment -- Conceals alignment for 24 hours.

She writes down spells like Augury and Conditional Favor on a separate piece of scrap, since her guess is that those spells won't get passed, and if she guesses right she can maybe save herself rewriting the whole list.

3rd circle:

Agonize -- Pain encourages an outsider to obey you.

(Would that spell work on Keltham himself?)

Animate Dead -- Creates undead skeletons and zombies.Aura Sight -- Alignment auras become visible to you.Bestow Curse -- –6 to an ability score; –4 on attack rolls, saves, and checks; or 50% chance of losing each action.

It's at this point that Ione gets interrupted to ask for her current draft, Ione realizes she lost track of time, and Ione frantically tries to write down at least some 3s and 4s while her 0s, 1s, and 2s get reviewed.

Continual Flame -- Makes a permanent, heatless light.Create Food and Water -- Feeds three humans (or one horse)/level. Cure Serious Wounds -- Cures 3d8 damage + 1/level (max +15).Dispel Magic -- Cancels one magical spell or effect.Inflict Serious Wounds -- Touch attack, 3d8 damage + 1/level (max +15). Invisibility Purge -- Dispels invisibility within 5 ft./level.Locate Object -- Senses direction toward object (specific or type).Planar Inquiry -- This spell calls a creature from another plane to your precise location, functioning like lesser planar ally except as noted.

Why is she thinking of so many spells they shouldn't tell him about!

Remove Blindness/Deafness -- Cures normal or magical blindness or deafness. Remove Curse -- Frees object or person from curse. Remove Disease -- Cures all diseases affecting subject.Stone Shape -- Sculpts stone into any shape. Summon Monster III -- Summons extraplanar creature to fight for you.Vision of Hell -- Illusory hellscape makes creatures shaken.Water Walk -- Subject treads on water as if solid. Wind Wall -- Deflects arrows, smaller creatures, and gases

4th circle:

Aura of Doom -- Creatures in your aura become shaken.Conditional Curse -- Bestow a curse that is difficult to remove without fulfilling a condition.Control Summoned Creature -- Direct a summoned monster as if you had summoned it.Control Water -- Raises or lowers bodies of water.Cure Critical Wounds -- Cures 4d8 damage + 1/level (max +20).Death Ward -- Grants bonuses against death spells and negative energy.Dimensional Anchor -- Bars extradimensional movement.Discern Lies -- Reveals deliberate falsehoods.Dismissal -- Forces a creature (like Keltham??) to return to native plane.Enchantment Foil -- Trick opponents who try to cast enchantments on you.False Future -- Cause divinations of the future to reveal the result you choose.Glimpse of Beyond -- Reveal hidden things and shapechanged creatures, peer into EtherealInfernal Healing, Greater -- Touch a creature with devils blood, giving it fast healing 4.Inflict Critical Wounds -- Touch attack, 4d8 damage + 1/level (max +20).Make Whole, Greater -- Repairs 1d6 +1 points per caster level on a construct (maximum 10d6+10) and can fix destroyed magic items or technological items (items at 0 hit points or fewer), and restores the magic properties of the item if your caster level at least equal to that of the item. This spell otherwise functions as make whole.Malediction -- Fuck with the entire afterlife system and send a paladin to the Abyss, it's not like Pharasma really gives a shit.Neutralize Poison -- Immunizes subject against poison, detoxifies venom in or on subject.Planar Ally, Lesser -- Exchange services with a 6 HD extraplanar creature.

Or is that safe to tell him about, now that they're under Forbiddance anyways?No, because Keltham might ask to walk outside under guard for a few minutes.

Sending -- Delivers short message anywhere, instantly, to someone the caster is familiar with.Summon Monster IV -- Summons extraplanar creature to fight for you.Tongues -- Speak and understand any language.

Aaaaaand she's out of time, Security wants her later drafts too.

Ione Sala: Ione, on reflection, is feeling concerned about Cheliax's chances of fooling Keltham if Abadar grants more carefully-chosen spells like Abadar's Truthtelling. The Asmodeans may be out of their depth here; possibly she, as a smarter Nethysian, should actually grab that library book and start working out strategies for Cheliax to follow if Abadar grants Keltham a spell like Lesser Planar Ally, or a Conditional Favor that Keltham uses with a condition of 'don't lie to me'.

Well, Asmodeus isn't actually stupid like some of His worshippers, Ione doesn't think. Maybe He'll grant the clerics here appropriate spells like False Future in case Keltham gets Augury, and Undetectable Alignment in case Keltham uses Aura Sight on Ione, and obviously Spell Gauge so they're not caught off-guard by what Keltham receives... though Spell Gauge only goes up to 3rd circle, and you'd need a 7th-circle caster to get all of Keltham's spells up to there...

Does Cheliax have a plan B? Is Ione part of it? She's an obvious person that Keltham might try to whisper to, if Keltham notices something wrong. She should ask about that later.

lintamande: Security comes and takes a look and adds back in Aura Sight, since he already knows that it exists (but not Invisibility Purge, since ideally it wouldn't look like they added everything he knows exists.) Other than that they're satisfied.

Ione Sala: "Is there a plan if Keltham gets suspicious of something and wants to talk to me about it?" Ione says, as she starts to recopy that particular page. "Voice of reassurance, worried ally who'll help him investigate?"

lintamande: "Help him investigate; if he wants to flee, flee with him, but convince him that no other church or government is worth going to either. There'll be a more detailed briefing on the plan and various contingencies in the morning."

Ione Sala: Oh.

Ohhhh.

Lord Nethys does have some secret plan that encompasses His intricate understanding of every move that lesser beings make, thinking their choices their own.

Going to fantastic lengths to make sure Keltham can get five books a day faster than Security could order them from Chelish libraries... doesn't make that much sense as the sole object of an expensive divine intervention, so Ione had supposed that she was going to be there to influence Keltham in a subtle way, or maybe see something that Asmodeans wouldn't see because they're too busy gouging each other's eyes out.

"If you get Keltham to flee to a remote wilderness hideout, or some old dungeon that's blocked from scrying, he's not going to get much research done unless he has a library oracle with him," Ione observes. "Keltham knows that. He'll come to me early on. Maybe first. I'll need enough books to turn some room wherever I go, into a library... I think one full bookshelf should do it, but two would be better." She wants to ask, rather acerbically, if any Asmodean even noticed that their plan wouldn't work without Lord Nethys propping it up, but she is not quite that courageous yet.

lintamande: "Yes. We're creating modified books as fast as we can; I'll try to get you a list. If you have thoughts on a plausible use of your powers to help Keltham escape, we want that to look organic and not strikingly lucky."

Ione Sala: "I can't directly travel through Polyfractal Library Space until I'm more powerful," Ione replies before she quite realizes what she's been asked.

Keltham: Keltham is still trying not to access any audiovisual memories of his vision of - wherever, whatever, that was. Probably not literally a video, because, because you probably shouldn't be able to scry like that across a Forbiddance okay blatant rationalization but it creates a self-consistent branch of reality he can tell his emotions to shelter inside while he absorbs the blow.

By way of distraction, he first wrote down memory-anchors for all his pending sex questions to submit to Carissa later while they're not in the middle of sex - this being, in dath ilan, a completely reasonable and well-known tactic to overcoming the distracting conversations that are the fundamental obstacle to sex. Plus, he needed to do that before they slipped his mind.

Currently, he's trying to invent a signaling code that his god can use to send him information via that god choosing Keltham's spells.

Since he doesn't have his spell list yet, what Keltham can do right now is note down which conditions he would like to distinguish, which is in any case a good first step for designing a code.

Keltham: The first thing he should do is reserve a condition for "my god can't communicate with me in this way". Arguendo: This could obviously be done by expending one spell slot to signal just 'this communication channel works at all', which spell's absence then means that nothing else worked. Counter-arguendo: that might be redundant if the other consistent states of the code seem sufficiently unlikely to arise by chance or optimization around other criteria, since the absence of a consistent code state would automatically imply channel failure; Keltham isn't going to pick some intricate code that makes full use of every possible bit of information in every spell choice, since that might not make it across the 'prayer' communication medium going the other direction. Counter-counter-arguendo: During initial establishment of this communications channel, probably a lot of bits should be expended on error codes. Suppose for now that some very exotic spell gets picked to signal the condition 'this works as a communication channel at all', and its absence indicates failure of the whole scheme.

Or maybe, if he gets a long enough spell list, he can have a choice of four otherwise unused spells, signaling:

Question 1: Does this communications channel work?

Spell 1.1: This communications channel should work fine.Spell 1.2: This communications channel works at all, but may have errors.Spell 1.3: This communications channel is very expensive. Use it very sparingly.Spell 1.4: This communications channel is both expensive and error-prone.1.(none of the above): Basic channel failure.

Plus actually:

Spell 1.5: Some element of the code you used is problematic. Try again with a different code. Other spells received should not be interpreted.

And Keltham should not ask too many questions, on the rest of this first try, before he finds out whether cases 1.3/1.4 hold.

What does he really really need to know?

Question 2: What overall strategy is appropriate to his current situation?

Spell 2.1: Take your current situation at face value and cooperate with the surrounding project.Spell 2.2: Your current situation is not what it seems, use tomorrow's code for more info; but it's still good to go on doing research.Spell 2.3: Exercise your supposed right to leave, as soon as you can use tomorrow's code to figure out where to go. Stall them on more valuable info in the meanwhile.Spell 2.4: They wouldn't actually let you leave. Ask about escape or other options using tomorrow's code. Stall info.Spell 2.5: You are in imminent danger. IMMEDIATELY ask to leave your current location and go somewhere else in Cheliax or a Lawful Neutral country if accessible, taking with only Carissa as a guide and not telling anyone else where you're going.Spell 2.none: None of those are good ways of looking at it.

Keltham has of course realized that there's variants of 2.5 which imply he shouldn't take Carissa with him either; but if the situation is that bad, they won't just let him leave; and if they won't just let him leave, he's going to need more communication to figure out what he should do instead. It's not like he can see any obvious escape plan as things stand.

Keltham: Actually, now that Keltham thinks about it... he was planning to use a more elaborate code, and ask more questions besides those two; but maybe he shouldn't even be asking any more than this, on a first try at a channel. It might not support that much weight.

Well, that does leave some room to potentially factor things, and maybe Keltham's own communications will be a bit clearer if he considers more branch points and fewer total leaves.

Version two:

Question 1: Does this communications channel work?

Spell 1.1: This channel works.Spell 1.none: Total channel failure.

Question 2: Is this channel significantly expensive to Keltham's god?

Spell 2.1: Yes.Spell 2.2: A little expensive, use it only as needed.Spell 2.3: Not at all, use it lots.Spell 2.none: Wrong question / channel failure / this question wasn't worth answering.

Question 3: Is this channel error-prone or noisy?

Spell 3.1: No.Spell 3.2: Yes, be careful.Spell 3.3: It fails only negatively; you may miss a spell you should have got, but not receive one you shouldn't have received.Spell 3.none: Wrong question / channel failure / not enough priority.

Question 4: Could this channel handle more complex codes tomorrow?

Spell 4.1: Yes.Spell 4.none: No or not priority.

Question 5: Should you be cooperating with your apparent coworkers, or stalling them on things that are really valuable/dangerous?

Spell 5.1: Cooperate at least for tomorrow, inquire in more detail later.Spell 5.2: Begin stalling, inquire in more detail later.

This question is sufficiently important that 5.none is a good candidate for just signaling total comms failure, but redundancy.

The other variations on v1's Question 2 don't actually imply any immediate change of policy besides stalling, except of course for:

Question 6: Imminent danger at current location?

Spell 6.1: Yes. Flee with Carissa and tell nobody else where you're going.Spell 6.none: Carrying out 6.1 wouldn't be a net improvement.

Keltham: ...that's actually 11 total spells to take on signaling meaning, compared to version 1... okay, the fine detail in spell 3.3 is not something he needs to know literally during initial handshake, which cuts v.2 down to ten spells total, and makes it superior to v.1 because of the lower local branching, clearer meanings, and more critical meta-info being conveyed earlier. Besides eliminating Spell 3.3, are there other improvements to be made here?

Actually, eliminating 2/8ths of the total code seems like the sort of thing that could easily cross some key threshold for feasibility on the first try, so if he cuts down on Q2...

Keltham: Version three, probably final:

Question 1: Does this communications channel work?

Spell 1.1: This channel works.Spell 1.none: Total channel failure.

Question 2: Is this channel significantly expensive to Keltham's god?

Spell 2.1: Not at all, use it lots.Spell 2.none: Yes / somewhat / wrong question / channel failure.

Question 3: Is this channel error-prone or noisy?

Spell 3.1: No.Spell 3.2: Yes, be careful.Spell 3.none: Yes / wrong question / channel failure / not enough priority.

Actually on further reflection, he doesn't really need 3.2 here either, since 3.none can safely convey that information mixed into a wider bucket.

Question 4: Could this channel handle more complex codes tomorrow?

Spell 4.1: Yes.Spell 4.none: No or not priority.

On yet further reflection, Keltham can just ask this question tomorrow, if he gets a 'no' on things being noisy. If 'yes' on things being noisy, but not expensive, he should construct a redundant code tomorrow instead of a complicated one.

Question 4: Should you be cooperating with your apparent coworkers, or stalling them on things that are really valuable/dangerous?

Spell 4.1: Cooperate at least for tomorrow, inquire in more detail later.Spell 4.2: Begin stalling, inquire in more detail later.Spell 4.none: Redundant signal of total channel failure.

Question 5: Imminent danger at current location?

Spell 5.1: Yes. Flee with Carissa and tell nobody else where you're going.Spell 5.none: Carrying out 5.1 wouldn't be a net improvement and/or this channel element failed.

Okay, this is a code Keltham can believe in, relative to his own level of design ability. It frontloads the most important meta-questions first, delays as many complications as possible beyond the fragile first attempt, and only requires him to keep five questions and six spell-meanings in mind to communicate across his own side of the 'prayer' channel.

Keltham: Keltham goes to seek the spell list from Ione.

Ione Sala: Ione gives Keltham the spell list. "I lost track of time while listing all the 1sts and 2nds and so there's fewer 3rds and 4ths," Ione confesses. "I could probably generate more if you gave me more time."

Keltham: Keltham gives Ione a smile of this hopefully being good enough (since he forgot that Ione wouldn't understand him unless he fetches Security again) and heads back to his room.

Keltham: Those spells, huh. Those sure are some spells.

Aura Sight is on the list, but not Invisibility Purge; Glimpse of Beyond, but not Spell Immunity. If they'd had all the spells he knew about, but no new especially interesting ones, that would indicate that they were being first-order blatant about telling Ione what to include or exclude. If they'd omitted Aura Sight too, that might mean somebody didn't update Ione about the new list of what not to tell Keltham. This pattern indicates... either nothing much, or that they're able to do basic damn reflection about what Keltham is likely to think of things, and avoided there being any blatant pattern in the spell list so it would mean 'nothing much'.

Anyways. He needs to pick his spell-request-pattern for tomorrow morning, and then sleep. There were probably other things he told himself to review today, but he is feeling a bit worn and not necessarily up for trying to remember what they all were. Hopefully they'll keep.

Today he got four cantrips, six first-circle, four second-circle, three third-circle, two fourth-circle spells. Keltham should not assume his god can do that every time, so leave some headway at each level.

He wants Guidance and Detect Magic among cantrips. If he had to pick spells on his own, he'd want at least one truth spell and at least one Comprehend Languages. Owl's Wisdom seems important to have in reserve for real emergencies, however dangerous it may be to dath ilani who didn't want to be Keepers, and you could say the same about Invisibility Purge. By default he's got the truth spell and Sanctuary to keep overnight, possibly cutting down expenses to his god some little bit.

Are there any spells here that form useful mnemonic patterns with his questions and answers? Though he should maybe also try to pick spells that his god wouldn't try to urgently assign him for other reasons. And he needs to pick spells where he can see what they do, upon a cast, and without those spells harming the target.

Keltham: Oh huh, Keltham thinks, as he starts poking through the list for something weird enough that there's no way his god would assign it unless the communications channel worked.

Early Judgment: give someone a glimpse of their currently destined afterlife.

Now there's a spell he wouldn't have expected Cheliax to show him if they were really trying to prevent him from figuring out his god, or for that matter, afterlives. Can he use that to see somebody else's destined afterlife too, and determine their real alignment even if they're not third-circle? That definitely goes on the list, not as a code, just as a default request -

(At this point, Keltham's translation spell runs out, but somebody is timing things pretty well, and somebody arrives back to cast Share Language (Taldane) on him again.)

Lay of the Land (2nd) grants instant knowledge of the surrounding lands; it sounds like an unambiguously interpretable spell to cast; and Keltham is unlikely to need it otherwise. Could be used to signal 'this worked at all' or to signal 'flee with Carissa'; semantically it's a better fit for the second.

Stone Shape (3rd) - clearly interpretable, unlikely to be given otherwise. Mnemonically it could mean '4.1, show them how to make things'. At 3rd circle it's expensive, though.

Create Food and Water (3rd again) - unmistakeable effect, mnemonically fits both '4.1 industrialize' and '5.1 flee'. He needs to look at cheaper spells though.

Okay, Obscuring Mist (1st) has unmistakeable effect and would've been an obvious fit for 'this channel is noisy', but Keltham eliminated that answer-spell leaving only 'this channel is clear'... it also works for immediately fleeing with Carissa. Silly spells for silly adventurers, everything's going to look like it was designed for fleeing with Carissa.

Air Bubble (1st)... probably not something his god would need to assign him otherwise, if he resolves not to do any chemistry experiments today, clearly visible effect, and it can stand for 'This channel is clear'. 3.1 or 1.1.

Light... uses up a relatively precious cantrip slot, but it sure is unmistakeable. Another good fit for several different possible mnemonics. Hopefully not one his god would otherwise assign him.

Create Water, likewise uses up a cantrip slot, but is unmistakeable and could mean 'this channel is cheap' because water is cheap.

(Do they seriously mean create water and not just teleport it in, by the way? Because then why can't you also create very large amounts of energy? E^2 = P^2C^2 + M^2C^4 and all that.)

Oh, Lighten Object (1st) would also do to convey that things weren't expensive.

Share Language (2nd) would correspond very well to 'teach them' but it's also something a helpful, deaf god might assign if it thought that a student being able to hear a lecture in Baseline might be helpful to them.

Silence (2nd) and Silent Table (2nd) are unmistakable and could mean some things. And Silent Table sounds less like it might be granted by a god that thought Keltham needed to flee. 2nd-circle is still expensive compared to 1st.

Oh, and Read Weather is 1st and sounds unmistakeable and otherwise-improbable-to-get even if it doesn't mean much. At this point Keltham is ready to compromise on some meanings.

So, attempted code, v1:

1.1 Read Weather (1st): This channel works at all, and can tell you things, like the Weather.2.1 Lighten Object (1st): This channel doesn't cost much.3.1 Air Bubble (1st): This channel is clear.

That uses up all his 1st slots if he keeps Sanctuary and a truth spell, and requests a new Comprehend Languages. Wait, didn't he want to keep one 1st-circle slot clear in case his god can't assign him six first-level spells every day? Well, it's probably a little safer if he's keeping some of his old spells... hopefully? He may not have better options. In 2nd, he already has a request for Early Judgment and emergency Owl's Wisdom, 4 slots total of which he should leave one free, and:

5.1: Lay of the Land (2nd): Run.

Okay, so instead of using expensive 3rds, what if on the topic of whether to speak freely or stall:

4.1: Light (0th): Shed light on their ignorance.4.2: Create Water (0th): Stall with a great volume of cheap stuff.

Those are alternates, so they only use up one cantrip slot, leaving the other two free for Guidance and Detect Magic, and the fourth for his god's choice, or empty because his god strained itself to give him so many spells before.

And then when it comes to 3rd and 4th... he could mostly leave that up to his god, but if his god wants any suggestions, Keltham will go on Invisibility Purge for 3rd and... he doesn't really have much he wants in 4th. Well, he could ask for Tongues and use that to free up the valuable 1st-level slot occupied by Comprehend Languages. Actually, can clerics request lower-level spells in higher spell 'slots'? That would make his life noticeably simpler in this regard and save his god money. Keltham should have asked this question earlier.

Keltham: Keltham starts to stand up, to go outside and call Security to ask this question, but then it occurs to him to try a different experiment. Just in case, you know.

"Security?" Keltham says to the empty room, not particularly loudly.

lintamande: On recently communicated orders Security is to be behind a wall from Keltham at all times it's feasible. They can keep a closer eye with a scrying sensor.

This summons is not answered.

Keltham: Keltham steps outside his bedroom and again tries the Security call.

lintamande: Security goes visible this time within his field of view, taking off a ring.

Keltham: "Wait, the reason I never see you guys until called is that you're also invisible?"

lintamande: "Yes."

Keltham: "You know, I'm going to ask explicitly, because I'm confused, if the idea here is that you were trying to hide the concept of invisibility generally from me, and that didn't work, so now you think there's no more point in hiding it or hiding the fact that you were hiding it, or if I reacted to that earlier incident in a way you considered weird and like you didn't understand why I was so offended and now you're trying to be more explicit about something you thought was innocuous or... what."

lintamande: "...Security is invisible when our visible presence has not been requested because, should anyone attempt to attack you, knowing our positions and numbers would advantage them over knowing we're around but not where. Security is trained to activate or deactivate magic items while alone where possible, emerging only once not occupied with activation or deactivation. Guidelines were recently updated to note that you prefer persons in a room with you not be invisible, and that this ought to take precedence over the rule not to activate or deactivate magic items in company, barring a time-pressured or dangerous situation."

Keltham: "...legit. Maybe when I get more used to Golarion local customs that'll change, but yeah, I currently prefer you be visible around me for now in non-emergency situations. Thank you for considerateness."

"My question was going to be, if you happen to know, whether clerics - always get the same number of spells, of each circle, every day, and whether they can request lower-circle spells to fill up a higher-circle slot if they'd rather have the lower one."

lintamande: "The same number and circle distribution of spells are typically granted to a cleric each day. You can request lower-circle spells in a higher-circle slot."

Keltham: "Thank you very much for that information. And, just to be very clear on my general policy, if Security accommodating my weird preferences means I'm probably going to die, please have an explicit conversation with me about that instead of doing it my way." Keltham heads back to his bedroom.

Keltham: So, if his god doesn't have anything better to do with them... maybe use one 3rd slot and one 4th slot on an additional Owl's Wisdom to potentially tap a student with, and an additional Early Judgment to see if he can look at somebody else's current afterlife destination with it.

And that's a plan for prayer tomorrow.

Keltham tucks himself into what passes for a bed in Golarion. Good night, Cheliax!

Iarwain: Zon-Kuthon cultists don't attack in the middle of the night, yet, growth mindset.

???: Before dawn, a mysterious and unnaturally-beautiful woman steps, without any sound whatsoever, into Carissa Sevar's bedroom. If you were to trust your eyes, looking at her, she would look like a very-high-level Asmodean fighter, with obviously magical armor and arms, decorated in barbs, spikes, stylized flames.

She lights a black candle that burns with a dark crimson flame, and then speaks.

"Carissa Sevar."

Carissa Sevar: - startles awake like someone who startles awake a lot.

She doesn't sleep clothed in Cheliax; her sleep clothes are for the Worldwound and far too warm. However she thinks that's not at the top of the priority list here.

"Yes," she says, because anyone in here has the security clearance to know that, surely.

???: "I am a high-ranking noble who chooses not to identify herself, for now." A playful smile, backed with such vast Splendour that even Sevar is going to feel, very briefly, like she is really being invited to some harmless pleasant game. "I'm wondering whether you'd be interested in overthrowing the Queen of Cheliax. Oh, and your little security wizards won't think there's anything unusual about our conversation while that black candle burns."

Carissa Sevar: Carissa wants to be that pretty and to have a voice that rings that confidently and to have lips that move that seductively-

- and to survive the next hour! Let's do that one first! It's a test, obviously it's a test, but there are all kinds of things one tests for. Loyalty, the willingness to say 'I serve my Queen' even when it's a losing move in the moment. Theological purity, going through the right mental motions on your way to the truth. Strategic competence, where one gets to contemplate considerations like how, if this is real, immediately angering the powerful stranger is a poor path to protecting the Queen or the country.

"I serve Asmodeus," she says, and bites her tongue, hard, so erasing her memory of this conversation will also require healing her, and there's still the hope of recognizing the taste of blood in her mouth.

???: "Oh, absolutely. That's rather the point, dear. The current Queen has a pact with Asmodeus. The Queen is not Asmodeus's servant. The compact between the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune and Asmodeus Himself specifies that He is not to punish them in Hell for presuming to pursue their own interests as well as His, in this world. Now, somebody truly loyal to Asmodeus, someone who Asmodeus deemed worthy even of His explicit notice, to be someday among the most treasured souls in His possession, might, perhaps, think it was presumptuous for the Thrunes to dare to bargain so with our god, as if the Thrunes were only His juniors and not His servants. Or simply believe that it served Asmodeus better to have a Queen who was His slave in truth."

Carissa Sevar: Carissa does not understand Aspexia Rugatonn, but she's met her, and so she has a fraction more context with which to reject this than she would have had yesterday, when she would have rejected it on general principle. You do not serve a god by giving his interventions unexpected effects.

So that's the question answered, but not the strategic situation at all resolved; only in tests for five year olds do you win by defiantly screaming the truth for all the world to hear. And the Church and Queen do diverge, sometimes, Maillol's story about the slave implied it, and it's possible this is a test from a different angle than Aspexia Rugatonn's. The first priority is to survive it, then to report it, then to seek correction in any mistaken details of her understanding of precisely why you do not overthrow the Queen of Cheliax.

"I presume myself to understand nothing about the Queen, or her House, or any matters in which I have not been directed," she says. "But I was directed that, if I serve Asmodeus in this world, I will be raised high in it, and so I will listen to your explanation; I assume you have more of one."

How could she possibly win this. She hasn't prepared her spells yet. - she isn't sure if she'll get enough sleep tonight, to prepare her spells. One should of course die for their country as needed, but if there's a plot against the Queen it is better to live to report it. She can try talking her way into getting more time unsupervised, but that kind of Splendour usually comes with excellent interpersonal reading and she shouldn't count on it. Can she cancel the candle. Quietly trigger a ward.

???: "Dear, I have the transcript of your conversation with Hell. And not from the Grand High Priestess, either." A playfully raised eyebrow. "You asked for a county, I believe? That doesn't sound to me like a meek little unambitious thing who knows nothing about any matters in which she hasn't been directed. Do discard that pretense. What do you want from your mortal life, Carissa Sevar, besides a county and a crafting allowance? Do your ambitions lead you to want a more Asmodean rule of this country, for you to be raised high in? Would you take the throne yourself, if you could? If your answer is that Asmodeus would hold either ambition against you, I'd like to hear your explanation of the theology behind that. The Church doesn't teach that Her Infernal Majestrix is a poor Asmodean for having presumed to murder her predecessor Infrexus."

(On paper, Infrexus I accidentally drowned. For a seventh-circle sorcerer to accidentally drown, and then for Cheliax to accidentally forget they had any clerics who could resurrect him, is the sort of story you put in the official history books when you actually don't want people getting confused about what really happened.)

Carissa Sevar: Disrupting the candle seems doable but if the woman's smart the candle will have nothing to do with whatever protections might hide this conversation from security. She didn't even claim it did, just, 'while this candle burns', and while you're not supposed to give in to the temptation to speak to adversaries in beautiful technical-truths like that when a simple lie would do it's still information.

"Well, see, I don't know how I'd like having a county; and it was pointed out to me that if it had been the will of Asmodeus that I have one He could have ordered it." And it feels like there's an incoherence, in the claim that Asmodeus wants a slave and not one who made a pact with Him to serve their own interests, and in claiming that Carissa's own interests point her towards power, but confusions there don't matter very much because there's already no way that the Church desires this and her top priority now isn't parsing out precisely why not. "And the throne, as you note, seems to burn one up sooner or later, besides which it feels implausible you'd go to all this trouble to put someone else on it."

???: "You're more boring than I'd hoped, Carissa, for someone who made such fascinating inroads into our new pet outsider. I hope you can exchange a more seductive banter than this on those occasions when your new profession calls for it. Come, come, I know you think this a test, but they'll hardly hold it against you if you try not to bore me, so you could survive and report as you ought to, if this is not a test. Or you could even try a little honesty with me, if you'd really never raise a hand against the Queen, and tell me honestly why not. I'm hardly going to kill Asmodeus's own favored, if I am as I've presented myself."

Carissa Sevar: She tries quietly to trigger a ward at the door with a Mage Hand; nothing evidently happens.

Sure, fine, she'll do the five year old thing; she doesn't, actually, see how to do better, and it's a way to keep talking. "They teach different shards of Asmodeanism, I think, to nobles. I haven't learned them. I don't know how the Queen justifies herself, or if she needs to; perhaps she acted only directed by the advisors Asmodeus sent her, more loyal and obedient than she cares to have anyone guess. But I know what's going on here. A lot is going on here, and it's very important; more important to Asmodeus, I think, than how mortals He owns conceive of their loyalty to Him, even mortals who are the Queen. He intervened here, so that our pathetic inadequate efforts to represent Him and our country here might stand a chance of success they otherwise wouldn't. I'm supposed to be here. And if I invent a way to correct the flaws in human nature and make us His worthy servants, then perhaps I'll get some titles out of that, as it pleases the Queen, but if I merely learn for Cheliax how the exact same bit of metal is manufactured three thousand times over to a precision so high they will all interlock then I will still have wisely spent the resources that Crown and Church have allocated here. And I would have to be an idiot to risk any of that to correct some flaw in Cheliax that is in the slightest less time sensitive.

Also, you know, it would be treason, and treason is wrong."