Abrogail Thrune II: It's quite the opposite of what Governance wanted to hear, but Abrogail didn't expect better.

This - seems like a good opportunity, or maybe excuse would be a better word, to change the subject.  Abrogail is starting to think that figuring out how to wield Keltham's Second Law is not, in any case, the incredibly good idea that it may have seemed to Sevar at the time.

Iarwain: "That does bring up another topic I'd meant to discuss," Isidre says.  "We can possibly return later to the topic of the patterns you're recognizing, if there's time, but I wanted to be sure we covered this other topic, before I return to my unfortunately busy schedule."

Keltham: "Understood."

Iarwain: "We have a great deal more experience with people like Carissa Sevar, or, for that matter, like yourself, than dath ilan seems to have, by Sevar's reports.  Is this correct?"

Keltham: "You can just ask me to review the reports, you know."

"But yes, or rather, my suspicion is that not many sadists in dath ilan know what they are and Civilization tries to prevent us from finding out, because dath ilan does not have masochists.  If you've reviewed the transcript of my lecture on evolutionary theory as the basis of biological order, the notion of enjoying pain, the signal of damage to the body, is not something you'd expect to see.  Carissa, if I was interpreting her correctly, thought masochism might have evolved in a situation where women are continuously - not having a great time but could maybe do better by bonding with their captors.  I'd put at least even money on it being something a god put in instead, or otherwise artificial."

"The fact that something like that even exists here - that I, a sadist, am complemented here by a perfect complement to my own desires, one that shouldn't exist - is part of why I suspect that I'm not in a universe that I matched up to at random."

Iarwain: "I'm sorry, I'd meant to move on from that but - are you saying that masochists in Golarion were created for you?"

Carissa Sevar: No!!!!! - not in a universe I matched up to at random - lots of worlds, and why he ended up in this world is confusing, and the most notable feature of this world from his perspective is that there are perfect matches for all his incredibly conventional kinks that dath ilan tried and only sort of succeeded at breeding out of their Lawful Good planet of Lawful Goodness - Carissa would have responded 'I'd predict that most worlds have masochists, I'm not sure how heavily that weighs in your reasoning' -

Keltham: "That'd correspond to some of the more relatively disturbing possibilities that I'm sure hoping aren't true, because I'm kind of screwed that way, either by being the only real person here, or by being responsible for the existence of a whole lot of other people many of whom seem not to be leading very fun lives right now."

"But no, my main theory is that a vast or weighted-infinite number of worlds exist, and I was nonrandomly sent to a world where masochists exist, nonrandomly dropped at the Worldwound where I'd run into Carissa Sevar, and by the way, it so happens that whatever bureaucratic process that world used to pick the people who'd be my students, would happen to run across Ione and Pilar and also somewhere in there a girl who's working against the rest of us."

Iarwain: Sala and Pineda got oracled after they met Keltham, but she's not sure if this changes anything from his perspective; and this cannot be asked, because he doesn't know they're oracles.

"I'm not sure how heavily this weighs in your reasoning, but I think I would expect - most places to have masochists, in fact?  It seems to me that masochists make perfect sense under the theory that you described to your class -"

Keltham: Dath ilani anti-interruption norms with respect to Paracountess-level people are much, much less strong than they are in Golarion.  Sure, you'd notice if it happened often, but everybody can take a few interruption tokens per conversation, it doesn't mean anything.

"Applying evolutionary theory in general is surprisingly hard and doing it to human psychology in particular can run into a lot of pitfalls.  I'm sorry, I should have attached warnings about that, we got those in the classes I took, but I was trying to run through the subject on the way to other things and neglected that.  There's very exact rules for what you should and shouldn't predict using that theory, and if you're doing it after you've already seen what reality's answer sheet looks like, there's even more precautions you need to take, which rest on the Law of Probability, which I'd previously planned to explain today, before stuff happened."

Abrogail Thrune II: Keltham's thought processes show no awareness of himself being rude, only sincerity plus some background thoughts that are full of incomprehensible concepts.  Not that this is an excuse in Cheliax, obviously, but it means that reprimanding Keltham cannot be the correct move.

Iarwain: (She's not particularly happy about being interrupted, but has a great deal more impulse control than certain people seem to think.)

"Well, I won't challenge your expertise or your warning, then," Isidre says calmly.  "The point remains:  You are a newcomer here, we have had masochists for a while, and we have sadists who know what they are."

Keltham: "This I do understand, and had not meant at all to contradict."

Iarwain: "I foresee some possible points of trouble ahead for the two of you, and wish to avert those, if possible."

Keltham: "I am listening very intently."

Iarwain: "Sevar, being the sort of woman that she is, is almost certainly attracted to you in part because of a fact and quality about your situation that she is probably rather reluctant to explain directly for a number of reasons."

"Namely, that you have, in fact, great power over her."

Keltham: "Because I can fire her from the project if she, what, doesn't have sex with me?"

Keltham doesn't like it, but he has started to grasp that Golarion is full of people who seem to think that the correct thing to do with a threatening decision matrix that would not counterfactually exist absent your predicted tendency to give in to threats is to give in to the threat.

Abrogail Thrune II: His world doesn't - have what - no this sounds like things Aspexia has told her about gods and godarrangements, are they all pretending to be gods there - but that's not what she's pursuing right now -

Carissa Sevar: (Keltham is adorable.)

Carissa Sevar: (Carissa lights her own hand on fire about this thought since other people seem to be kind of negligent on that.)

Abrogail Thrune II: She so does not have time for this.

Iarwain: "As Sevar interprets her situation," Isidre says seriously, "if she tried to leave you, and you wanted to keep her anyways, you could tell the government of Cheliax that you wanted to keep and have power over Carissa Sevar, as a condition of your continued cooperation with us.  And then, she thinks, we'd give her to you, to keep you happy."

"This fact is important to her sexuality, it very nearly is her sexuality, and you need to understand that and not blunder into acts or words which cut against it."

Keltham: Keltham's thoughts show concealed shock and horror, this is exactly the fear he had when Carissa started saying she was giving herself to him, that she wanted something strange that she wasn't saying and that Keltham would prove unable to give her.

He does a pretty good job of controlling his own expression for a Chelish two-year-old.  "Are you saying - are you implying - that I'm with her under false premises?"

Iarwain: What a beautiful opening.  "You're with her under true premises.  She's exactly correct.  I'm not necessarily saying that to encourage you to mistreat her.  But you need to understand, Keltham, there are no sane countries on the face of Golarion that would not do the equivalent of handing over Carissa Sevar to you, or worse, if that was the price of banishing plagues from our cities and growing enough wheat for one farmer to feed two others and closing the Worldwound and offering refuge to women in Osirion who want to leave their husbands and someday, yes, matching the accomplishments and wisdom of dath ilan.  Or, perhaps, the price of what those other countries would ask from you, instead of that.  Giving one woman to you who would not enjoy being so given, would not be something that pleases the modern Chelish government or the Church of Asmodeus that we work with, but we would weigh the price if we did not, and conclude that it was far more than worth it."

"So Carissa Sevar is, in fact, under your de facto power, exactly where she wants to be and needs to be.  The possible problems I foresee, stem from you failing to understand that this is what she needs, this is what she wants, this is how her sexuality works, and that your de facto power to do anything you want with Sevar is part though of course not all of why she started being attracted to you in the first place.  It is in the interest of Cheliax for obvious reasons that you continue to be happy with Carissa, fond of her home country of Cheliax, energized and productive for your project, and not distracted by being heartbroken after what happened when you were always careful to emphasize to Carissa how much she was free to go at any time if she didn't want to stay."

Keltham: "I... need to think about this," Keltham says.

Iarwain: "I shall wait."

Keltham: Question 1:  Are they being honest with him, or not?

Subquestion 1.1:  What motive do they have to lie?  How do they gain from tricking him into doing something terrible to Sevar?  It's not like they could threaten him with the revelation of that to Governance, even if they mistakenly think he'd respond to a threat like that.

...and now the tree isn't branching further.  Keltham is having more trouble than usual thinking about this.  Part of himself is recoiling in horror and it's not because the situation being described sounds awful for Carissa, it's because something about it seems terrible and threatening for him.

Is it that he distrusts himself with power?

Is it that he's afraid of pressuring himself into doing something to Carissa that he didn't really want to do, even if she turns out to want it?

Is it that the ENTIRE FUCKING SITUATION IS MANDATORILY ILLEGIBLE WITH NO CAREFULLY OPTIMIZED MESHING GENDERTROPES AND NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO NEGOTIATE ANYTHING IN PLAIN BASELINE?

"How do you know the contents of Carissa's mind in such detail?"

Abrogail Thrune II: She's picked up, now, on some of the rhythm of Keltham's internal thoughts, has noticed a notion of, what does it predict, did it come true, much plainer in his Baseline thoughts to himself than in Taldane speech to others.

Iarwain: "I know masochists - or rather, 'submissives', which is the more precise term for the relevant part of what Carissa is, correlated with masochism but not identical to it.  I read reports on Sevar and yourself.  I guessed what would happen or rather had probably already happened.  And then I had Security ask Sevar if she had, by any chance, tried to tell you, possibly several times, that you could do anything you want to her - including killing her, if she thought you were ready to hear that part - and she confirmed that it was so.  It is a very mundane form of pattern-seeing that rests on having seen many such relationships play out, rather than on coming here from another world; but it is not, I think, less reliable for that.  To be clear, I am not saying every submissive is like this, but Sevar is, and I can recognize that."

"There are, I suppose, other possible interpretations of why a submissive would give herself entirely to a man, whom she somehow happens to be very attracted to, who coincidentally happens to have de facto absolute-power over her.  But given that Sevar has in any case told you to do anything you want with her, I don't see why you would be worried that I am, say, trying to lure you into doing too much to her, more than she wants, which is itself a rather odd thing for me to try to accomplish."

"The part where her new dominant, that's what you are, does not understand that he has de facto absolute-power over her, where he does not understand that this fact is itself something that she needs in the foundation of her sexuality, seems like something of a Fireball trap waiting to go off in somebody's face.  I am trying to defuse it."

Keltham: "And the reason that you, and not her, are saying these things to me?"

Iarwain: "First of all, that is itself something you do not make a submissive do, especially one like Sevar.  You don't make her spell out exactly what you could do to take her, in a way that makes it clear you haven't thought of that yourself and would never think of that yourself.  That makes it feel fake to her, like the whole thing is pretend."

"Second of all, I am under the perhaps mistaken impression that she tried to lead you to those answers and you did not listen, perhaps because she was too close to your own age and not wearing a sufficiently impressive-looking intelligence headband."

Keltham: Keltham tries to think about this.  His mind feels tired.  A dath ilani remains able to complete their thoughts except when under the effect of relatively significant drugs or maybe if they're in the middle of falling asleep, but right now, what his mind patterns are mainly saying is 'Come back to this later and slower.'

"Do you have a recommended course of action for me that's different from what I was doing already," Keltham says.  Part of him suggests that their provided course of action will look a lot like chaining up Carissa and actually raping her a lot and ignoring her (countermanded, if she was still obeying) requests to be let out, he doesn't know why Cheliax would do that but it's what it feels like they're trying to get him to do.

Abrogail Thrune II: Oh, so he's not a complete fool then, in the sense that there may be a nonfool trapped inside there somewhere.  You should trust your instincts more, Civilized boy.

That business with ordering Carissa never to verbally request that he stop was really quite clever of him, now that his thoughts have run over it; Abrogail can't immediately see a way out of that as a checkmate against the way they were planning to lure him into Evil.  Carissa should've looked sad and told him that an order like that would take the fun out for her, found some excuse to turn him down; as the Keltham expert it was her job to realize what he was really doing there, even if Abrogail didn't realize from the transcript.  If Sevar is worried she's not being punished enough, she can repent her failures there.

Iarwain: "I think, first and foremost, that you should not press yourself too hard or make yourself unhappy by going too far too early, even if that's what Sevar wants," Isidre says, making a sudden change of plans.  "This is an Evil country, not a Good one, and among the foundational reasons for that is that Good people all trying to help each other instead of themselves seem to inevitably end up sad and unhappy at the end of it.  You have a Civilization to build here, Keltham, your role in life is not actually to make Sevar happy.  She is responsible for her own life's happiness, as you are for yours."

"With that said, if you yourself, for your own sake and not hers, decided one day to demand that the government of Cheliax give you absolute-power over her and order our Security to put her forcibly into her chains any time she didn't want to go, Carissa Sevar herself would be very, very happy about that.  But I will quite understand if you do not wish to essay that until you are confident of your ability to discern that happiness for yourself."

"And.  There are other women in Cheliax if Sevar's happiest outcome is not what you want.  You are not obliged to give literally the first girl in this world that you talked to everything that she wants from life, at your own expense.  That is what it means to be Evil rather than Good."

"A further warning.  Sevar is not the most extreme case of what she is.  Pilar Pineda is more submissive than Sevar, substantially more masochistic than Sevar, and would, in a way very strange to you, feel raped if you made her have a careful conversation about sex instead of just forcibly throwing her onto a bed.  My considered opinion is that if you are struggling and flailing with Sevar you are absolutely certainly not ready for Pineda."

Carissa Sevar: Okay, Carissa likes this person, that was the correct thing to tell Keltham there. 

Abrogail Thrune II: Awww.  Now Abrogail wants to keep the Isidre identity and develop her and let Isidre get closer to Sevar and see if she can get to the point of actual fucking before she drops the guise in the middle.

...but can't possibly actually do that in real life due to being Queen of Cheliax and, yes, busier than that.

Keltham: Oh, so it's a theorem he's not ready for Pilar, is it?  Keltham's brain automatically tries to generate counterexamples to this totally obviously not-absolute-certainty which Golarion's very smart people seem to foolishly believe; and gets as far as suggesting the visibly non-impossible world where Keltham's own sadistic instincts would kick in and they'd have great sex and it would be fine; before the rest of Keltham's brain tells that subthread to shut up.  One must distinguish the possible from the probable, and what a local un-Lawful very smart person says is absolutely certain may, nonetheless, be a better bet than not-that.

"I believe I understand, but I should take time to mull it over," Keltham says.

Iarwain: "Please do," Isidre says.  "I do have a pending and somewhat awkward further topic, but it seems wise to let this one sink in first."

Keltham: Keltham starts to reach for one of the snacks, catches himself, and tries a Detect Poison first, now that he has that cantrip.

(Nothing shows up, but then, it's not like he's tried with a known poison to check that the cantrip is working.)

Iarwain: Isidre smiles slightly.  "They do check the food before they serve it to me, you know, let alone to you."

Keltham: "Why trust what you can verify," Keltham says unapologetically, and eats a snack.

...actually, why did he use Detect Poison, this time, when he didn't think to try it in the dining hall before?

Are his instincts trying to tell him something?  Keltham now wishes he hadn't eaten that snack; but he's at least not going to eat any more.

His brain, still running in the background and creative as ever, suggests that, if this is an eroLARP-ish context and therefore Keltham has a dreadful buried urge to rape somebody which Pilar matches, he could in fact run three Augury spells before trying that, to check what the consequences would be.  Obviously after having first done a bunch more work to verify that the Augury uses his own utility function or a sufficiently aligned neighboring one.

Keltham tells that thread to shut up.  He's starting to doubt this whole eroLARP business if it implies that he would enjoy that.  Anyways the concept of a 'rape fetish' in the sense of 'wanting unwanted sex' is literally paradoxical and the term presumably means something else.

Abrogail Thrune II: Keltham thinks in such a fascinating way.  Actually, there's something about it that reminds Abrogail of herself contrasted to the way that most people who are not Abrogail don't seem to usually try to be clever, possibly because they expect they'll be punished for trying.  Keltham is all about the cleverness, not in the false artificial way that Abrogail associates with people who are not Abrogail, but in a genuine way that permeates all his thoughts.  He is constantly thinking of ways to make his day even more fun, one might say, if not in quite the same way as herself.

They're also going to have to prevent Keltham from finding out the False Future spell exists.  Can they do something clever with that, with giving him false answers to Auguries?  The trouble is, if you have sufficiently good cause to think you're helping somebody, it may not count as Evil.  Even if Pharasma counts it, it may not help in the sense that it fails to corrupt Keltham in the required way.

Keltham: "You say," Keltham says, after some further contemplation and letting things sink in, "that you'd give Carissa to me even if she didn't want to go, because the other lives at stake in Cheliax outweighed her life.  Then you do not seem to feel yourself forbidden to do that sort of thing, to override the," deontology meant to be reliable without having to think about it a lot and forcing everyone else to think about it a lot, "rules and protections and guardrails around one life, when many other lives are at stake.  Then inquiring minds might want to know if you would not also, in the event I stopped cooperating with Cheliax, decide to try to keep me here anyways, with so many lives at stake.  If we hadn't made and then formalized an agreement saying otherwise, that is."

And perhaps even if they had made that agreement, because somebody breaking an oath and going to Abaddon over it is maybe still worth it for them.

Abrogail Thrune II: Sevar should have foreseen this annoying fucking consequence of giving him that planned story about her sexuality.  Abrogail herself should have seen it coming, really.  It's a stereotypically Good thing to say and his Good society would absolutely have programmed that particular whiny complaint into everybody from childhood.  It's just not easy to think like that.

Iarwain: Isidre inclines her head.  "And you're wondering why we didn't just kidnap you here directly from the Worldwound and not make any agreements with you first, if that's how we operate?"

Keltham: It's very obvious why they wouldn't do that, especially if they were okay with sacrificing a few souls to Abaddon if that became necessary; namely, to keep Keltham cooperative at the start.  "This would be my own primary objection to societies that are Good instead of Lawful, and from my perspective no society on Golarion is remotely Lawful.  There was also a certain tendency, in dath ilan, for the very smart people who are smarter than the other people to also lean more Good - but kept sensible, in our own case, by Law that those very smart people comprehend far better than I do.  I get along fine with Carissa, and expect to get along fine with my other research group members.  I am concerned that perhaps the upper rank of Chelish Governance is a little too Good for me."

Abrogail Thrune II: Why is her life like this.

Iarwain: "In theory," Isidre says, unperturbed, "there's a set of complicated replies here, and in practice, a much simpler one.  In theory, for example, you arrived at the Worldwound, which is itself governed by treaties that Cheliax signed and indeed had a primary hand in designing; we could not have stopped you from walking out on us there, and so it was reasonable to offer you guarantees to come away from the Worldwound to Cheliax proper.  In theory, our government has never said to Carissa Sevar at any point that we would not sacrifice her if that becomes necessary; it's not that we'd be violating a rule around her, but that it's understood that this sort of thing might unfortunately happen, because all of Golarion is in a far more precarious situation than dath ilan.  In principle, if Sevar had been disturbed enough by that, she could have tried to sign a compact with the government saying otherwise, which we would have kept if signed; but Sevar would have needed to find something to make it worth our while to sign that compact, and it would have been pointless and expensive and not really worth it.  And if you ask why Sevar didn't go to a country with more rules instead, my reply would be that, while there are some countries with many more rules, they are not good ones, and also that moving countries is expensive in Golarion and not just in the cost of the teleport.  In the understandings that exist in Golarion, Cheliax is starting with you from scratch, not from the sort of relationship we had with Sevar as a citizen, where it's understood that we can sacrifice her if necessary for some much larger benefit."

"In practice, the actual and much simpler reply is that the revelation from Asmodeus which led to this project's establishment said, or at least, we think this is what Asmodeus was trying to say, to not pull any of that on you.  So no such discussion was ever entertained at any level of government.  If you're looking for a simple answer that doesn't require you to worry about backroom discussions by people like me, it's right there, I suppose.  Possibly that's why Asmodeus ordained it so, if you feel that way.  I don't think we would have decided to unsheathe blades at you, absent His order, but I can see His order simplifying things from your perspective."

Keltham: "You might be well served at some point by contemplating in more detail why Asmodeus found it necessary to do that, and pay out what I gather to be very limited communications capacity on doing that.  He would not have needed to do it in dath ilan, for all that dath ilan is supposedly a Good country and Cheliax is supposedly an Evil one.  But, yeah, I'm glad Asmodeus had his act together there."

Iarwain: Isidre inclines her head again.  "As you say, and yes, you may well be right.  We are very aware of how far short we fall of Asmodeus's wisdom."

Abrogail Thrune II: That couldn't actually be the reason for Asmodeus's instructions, could it?  No, it has to be some pre-existing godagreement, or a bargain with Abadar and Nethys whose initial premise was that they cooperated to bring Keltham here and Cheliax got first crack at him, or one of the other likely possibilities that Aspexia reluctantly discussed (reluctantly because Aspexia would rather that Abrogail shut up and follow His orders).  Absent those instructions, Cheliax most certainly could have gotten compliance out of Keltham, regardless of his society's silly pretense of a godlike immunity to threats -

And now Keltham is thinking about how the other possibility would've played out, whether he could commit suicide using a Create Water cantrip or other tools that his god could unilaterally give him.  But Cheliax could just raise you, then, poor fool; Miracle doesn't require consent.  The only danger would be if Abadar could instruct Osirion to raise Keltham before Cheliax could, and Cheliax would know it was in a race and they would have that information first -

Now Keltham is also thinking about Raise Dead, and thinking about the story Carissa gave him about oaths, and how he could if necessary break an oath over something trivial, unilaterally in a way that nobody else depended on so it wouldn't actually violate the ~~~~~~~~~~, and so go to Abaddon.

Keltham expects to - just end up somewhere else, if he did that?  But he knows he might not and this doesn't faze him.  He'd literally rather go to Abaddon than comply.  True death doesn't scare him as much as it scares some dath ilani, he's thinking now, and - he's not even imagining Cheliax severely torturing him in a scary way to which he'd prefer nonexistence, the thought that they could break him with torture still hasn't occurred to him, he'd just walk out on this entire universe and existence itself rather than accept a forced unfair division of gains from trade, because if you can't do that, why would anybody bother bargaining fairly with you.

He wouldn't actually have been able to do it, if Cheliax was running Detect Thoughts on him, and not otherwise restrained by Asmodeus.  They've ever had experience with uncooperative torture victims.  You don't instantly end up in Abaddon and instantly get eaten.

...but maybe, just maybe, Abrogail feels the tiniest shred of respect for Keltham at this point.  That degree of 'fuck you' is something she can appreciate.

Of course now she wants even more to see what Keltham's mind would look like when it broke, but Asmodeus said not to do that so she won't.

Carissa Sevar: See, Keltham's lips are moving again and Carissa's getting confused about the nature of Good and Evil again, it's getting to be a pattern. Lastwall wouldn't hand her over, probably - why? 'simplifies cooperation with people like Keltham' jumps to mind as an explanation with Fox's Cunning up, in a way it wouldn't jump to mind otherwise. But obviously the Good gods do sacrifice people to horrible fates to achieve their goals ....what's the difference? Is it just that Good gets incredibly worked up about rape in particular?

Why did Asmodeus tell them to cooperate with Keltham? It's one of three important glaring confusions right now, along with "what is Maillol in trouble for" because Carissa suspects she's probably in trouble for the same thing, even if they're going to punish them one at a time about it, and "what does Cayden Cailean want" which she's trying not to think about but which feels salient since they're talking about, you know, Good and whether they sacrifice people to be raped if it achieves their long goals...

Abrogail Thrune II: Maillol, presumably, is having the sort of bad day that can only be achieved by simultaneously pissing off Aspexia Rugatonn, Contessa Lrilatha, and Gorthoklek.  Oh, don't worry, my dear, my personal order of Irori monks won't blame you much, despite your obvious complicity in the error; they're hardly expecting you to manage me, what with my having ordered transcripts of your thoughts.

And besides, your natural and self-inflicted punishment is about to come due anyways.

Iarwain: "May I raise the final topic?" Isidre says.  "Other thoughts may, I hope, be thought by you after; other duties will soon call me."

Keltham: "Let me finish up my current thought..."

"Go ahead."

Iarwain: "It requires some exposition to introduce with context, though hopefully not as much as the source of your mysterious patterns in Golarion.  First, the thought occurs to me that dath ilan, as a far more Lawful society, may perhaps not have the phenomenon we refer to as 'rumors', in which people manage to - accidentally, more or less, though sometimes also purposefully, invent stories and tell them to each other, hearing one thing and saying another and not really keeping track of things -"

"In almost any place and organization in Golarion, you will find a large number of people running around believing things that are not true, that bear at best a tenuous connection to reality, or no connection at all, stories that got repeatedly passed around and distorted.  I would guess that dath ilan prevents this, somehow, I can't actually imagine how, which means it might never occur to you that something people were whispering excitedly to each other might not be true."

Carissa Sevar: (Carissa's not sure where Isidre is going with this but recommends not pushing Keltham on Carissa-related or kink-related things any further, he's off balance in the way that generally signifies not wanting to have sex and not thinking through the lens of what's sexy, and while pushing him off-balance was much of the goal here, once achieved they should back off.)

Abrogail Thrune II: Hmmm.  Difficult to work past and still achieve her goals, but not impossible.

Keltham: "I have literally any experience with false social beliefs on account of having once been a six-year-old boy, I suppose; and some abstract understanding of the phenomenon as a bad equilibrium that motivates precautions to avoid it.  But yes, adults who follow simple epistemic hygiene procedures are not subject to that phenomenon."

"I think if I heard anything really ridiculous, I would have managed to distrust that on grounds of Golarion generally seeming to have epistemic problems, but your caution is well-taken.  You're right, that might not have occurred to me.  Is there some particular 'rumor' circulating that you're concerned I might have believed?"

Keltham is, of course, already considering the proposition that this dire 'rumor', whatever it is, is going to be completely true.

Iarwain: "As of yesterday before the assault started, a rumor began inside your project - which rumor is false, to the best of my own knowledge, which knowledge I would in this case expect to be accurate - that the Queen of Cheliax is sleeping with your girlfriend."

Carissa Sevar: That was absolutely not a -

Carissa Sevar: .....a large number of things click into place at once. 

Carissa Sevar: Maillol requested an eighth-circle caster and someone with extremely high Splendour to have a conversation with Keltham about Carissa Sevar. The palace found one inside four hours. One, not two; there isn't an invisible person with Detect Thoughts somewhere telepathically bonded to Isidre and passing along Carissa's thoughts with impressively little delay. There isn't a random countess Carissa's never heard of who's read all the project transcripts. 

There's just Her Imperial Majestrix, certainly the highest Splendour they could find on such short notice. Presumably not literally just here to fuck with Carissa, that'd be taking pride a little far, but certainly going to fuck with Carissa while she's here. As she is entitled to. Because she can do whatever she wants.

(Carissa isn't exactly surprised by, but does admire, the perfectly straight face 'Isidre' has been keeping for the last twenty seconds.)

Abrogail Thrune II: She ever learns!  Look at that.

Why yes, dear, while all our eighth-circle wizards are currently on the front lines with Nidal, there is an eighth-circle sorcerer remaining with incredibly high Splendour who would enjoy having a chat about Carissa Sevar's sexuality and, oh, yes, that other topic you requested be introduced.

So nice of you to write such a perfectly targeted request, less than 12 hours after my personal order of Irori monks had arduously, painstakingly badgered me into agreeing to not bother you again unless and until my strictly conventional duties to Cheliax called for that.

Keltham: The first thought to cross Keltham's mind is why the Queen of Cheliax needs to use Sevar as a cuddle pillow, as cuddlesome as she is in that regard, before it clicks to him that if you have sex in bedrooms then 'sleeping with' is probably a euphemism for sex.

The second thought is to ask whether this rumor is perhaps true.

It admittedly does in fact sound a lot more like the sort of thing that would be passed around six-year-old kids, than would make very much sense in real life, but even in Golarion, presumably, the people who pass around rumors like that are probably running their own sanity checks at all, and think it's not completely obviously false?

"Does the rumor say it's consensual or a pharaoh-of-Osirion situation?" Keltham inquires.  He is putting any flashes of anger on hold pending evaluation of probabilities.

Carissa Sevar: Presumably the Queen has realized this but Keltham will in fact attempt to leave Cheliax with Carissa on the spot if he thinks -

Carissa Sevar: (Carissa's going to have an awful afternoon but Keltham is protective of her isn't that adorable)

Iarwain: "I - do not know offhand whether the rumor is even bothering to say."

"I'm glad to see that you are not apparently - the kind of man who would consider his own honor mortally insulted, or Carissa's appeal to him ruined, by the mere existence of the rumor itself, which - which I did not expect to be your reaction, given everything I knew about dath ilan, but is a very common way for men to think in countries outside Cheliax -"

"It's really incredibly extremely unlikely to be true, Keltham, that's something I'm in a position to know, and I know it.  I'm prepared to swear you my oath on that if required."

Keltham: "Am I going to understand why anyone would consider his own reputation shattered by the mere existence of an untrue rumor that somebody who was not him was sleeping with somebody else who was not him, or why the rumor affects Carissa's attractiveness to him independently of the truth of the rumor, if you try to explain that using only two sentences?"

Iarwain: "Probably not and I suggest asking Sevar about the topic later.  Though if you introduce the specific rather than the general context, you might want to take care to ask her... carefully."

Keltham: "I'm not going to ask you for an oath that potentially destroys your soul," because Good people may be all too willing to sacrifice it, if they think that's sufficiently motivated.  He considers, momentarily, trying to tap her with a truthspell, but in worlds where she's lying and can't defeat the truthspell, a lot of chaos would break loose moments later, and this may not be the place for it.

Also the rumor is, you know, credibly not true at all, and if it were true, it could be consensual -

- and if it weren't consensual, Carissa might be into that??  Is that how it works???

"Why would I need to introduce the topic to Carissa carefully?" Keltham says, feeling a sudden tinge of dread.

Iarwain: "Because, while the specific balances of power between the Church of Asmodeus and the House of Thrune are complicated and you are frankly unlikely to understand them going on your current level of Golarion political sophistication, the Queen of Cheliax is arguably, and especially as Carissa might see it, the other person in all of Cheliax who could, so far as Carissa knows, successfully get her chained to a bed whether she liked that or not.  It would cost the Queen serious political capital with the Church of Asmodeus, but they wouldn't burn down the country over it."

Carissa Sevar: - okay probably Her Imperial Majestrix is mostly talking to Keltham for project reasons but Carissa feels like perhaps it'd be valuable to Her Imperial Majestrix to note that the constraint here is that Asmodeus has intentions for Carissa. And maybe, if that is restricting Her Imperial Majestrix from things she'd otherwise like to do, they can ensure Carissa remains shaped appropriately for Asmodeus's goals with memory-erasing magic so Carissa has no idea what the Queen is doing with her?

...Carissa's model of Aspexia Rugatonn is still not happy about that plan and oh, yep, that'd be why Maillol's in trouble, he waded into a Church-Crown conflict. 

Over Carissa. 

PRESUMABLY THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF GIRLS AS PRETTY AS HER AND EXACTLY AS TERRIFIED OF THE QUEEN -

 - okay set that aside and focus on Keltham. How is he taking this, they may have pushed him too far.

Keltham: Keltham is mostly - confused!  "We would ordinarily say in dath ilan that it was not my business or even much of a terrible problem whether Carissa developed a crush on the Queen of Cheliax, and we would also expect that situation to be resolved among mature grownups by Carissa sending the Queen a note to see if she was interested and the Queen's secretary replying 'no'.  Or is the problem that Carissa is mono-romantic," Taldane lets him construct the word, thankfully, and hopefully it's obvious what it means, "and falls out of love with me if she falls in love with someone else?"

Iarwain: "Has nobody mentioned yet to you who the Queen of Cheliax is, exactly.  Their - general personal attributes."

Keltham: Oh no.

Tonia Barrero, when he asked her, under truthspell, what questions somebody in his position ought to ask somebody under truthspell, listed, 'What sort of person is the Queen of Cheliax', and said a few things that didn't - make much sense at the time, and then said she didn't know much more, in which case, why did she bring up the question - he should have asked her that, in retrospect, but he was very uncomfortable with the maybe-arguably-at-best-semiconsensual-pseudo-mind-reading situation and wanted to get out of it early.

If Keltham's trope alert level had already been raised to its current point, he might, possibly, have remembered earlier to ask more questions, of Carissa say, about this obvious plothook.

"She - took power when she was sixteen, which is young even for Golarion - I guess by coming in and killing whoever previously held power, because she was stronger?"

If Keltham's ~~~~~ alert level had already been raised to its current point, he might, possibly, have remembered earlier to ask more questions, of Carissa say, about this obvious plot~~~~.

What the fuck is a ~~~~~!?  And did he just call her a 'plot~~~~'?  What's a 'plot~~~~'!?

And damn straight she was stronger, little boy, when she was younger than you are now.

Iarwain: Isidre shakes her head.  "By executing the compact with Asmodeus that transformed Cheliax into its present form, which did include the careful removal of many elements of the then-current power structure and their replacement with more sensible persons, which in turn did involve a certain amount of early departure for the afterlife.  But, Keltham, you really need to understand what Cheliax was like before that, before you suggest that we should have made any different choices there.  Dath ilan, unless I entirely miss my guess, would have regarded them as extreme criminals under whatever notion you have of criminality."

Keltham: "I'm more used to the Chief Executive of a country getting there by a different process, yes.  Well, let me ask you a question that, apparently, I should've asked somebody else some time earlier.  What sort of person is the Queen?"

Iarwain: "Abrogail Thrune the Second is a few years older than Sevar, now, but that is still - really very young, for a Queen, and she often does not pretend to conduct herself as if she is any older or more mature than she actually is.  Maybe in dath ilan you wouldn't expect any such pretense, but it is expected here, and she often does not make it.  She is a sorceress of vast power, among the strongest casters in this country and truly inferior to only one, without which basic requisite she could not survive even now in the new Cheliax.  Rumors would paint a different picture of her, possibly; but based on a more direct knowledge of Abrogail, I would personally say, myself, that she spends far too much of her time doing her duties and not nearly enough time doing things she finds fun, and that her closest advisors are currently making this problem worse.  If you were a Golarion native, I would say that her Evil standing might be threatened, at this rate; but a Golarion native would understand that for hyperbole, it isn't really.  But she has been possibly - I don't know if you have the expression.  Building up frustration."

"She also happens to be a sexual sadist like yourself.  Though that is, again, a much more common thing here and not exceptional, but still."

"She has a known type.  Carissa matches it."

Keltham: Keltham's trope alarms are going off so flamingpoop hard right now.  He's never heard of such a walking trope.  The Queen of Cheliax must be more trope than flesh.

Abrogail Thrune II: WHAT THE FUCK IS A ~~~~~?

Keltham: ...but the person in front of him doesn't know that, doesn't think like that, so why would she -

"Surely there are many other women in Cheliax who are also her type, especially if Carissa's type is as common as you say.  Why would you expect the Queen to be interested?"

Carissa Sevar: An EXCELLENT FUCKING QUESTION.

Iarwain: "I am not sure that you properly appreciate who your current girlfriend is, precisely, perhaps because she has held back from telling you.  Carissa Sevar had the best spellcraft of anyone at her Worldwound installation, including wizards two circles higher than her wearing +4 Intelligence headbands.  Sevar produced enchanted weapons of extraordinary quality and precision.  I am reasonably sure that Sevar understands the Law you have spoken upon better than any of your other current students.  Better than me, with my headband that provides +6 to Intelligence and +4 to Wisdom, a literally priceless and irreplaceable relic of Cheliax second only to the crown worn by the Queen herself.  I'm too busy to directly attend your lessons, it would leave a genuinely huge gap in our government structure if I did, but even if I was there, I am not confident I would understand those lessons better than Sevar does.  Cheliax has only twenty million people in it, Keltham, almost all of them very poor and very few of them approaching what you would consider to be average intelligence."

"...also I've observed Abrogail paging through the sections of reports mentioning Sevar looking more than usually interested, so."

"I am interested - if there is any possible way for events to go, past this point, that could possibly be not complicated."

Abrogail Thrune II: Is Sevar internally screaming about this?  Abrogail hopes she's internally screaming.  You have to work hard to get the level of justified internal screaming that Abrogail hopes this is producing.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa was braced for the Queen to say a bunch of flattering nonsense that has nothing to do with the real reason which is that Asmodeus chose her. Or, well, maybe Asmodeus choosing her was related to her understanding the Law better than almost anyone, but, realistically, it was probably a combination of that plus being attractive to Keltham plus being a heretic in a coincidentally useful direction -

- anyway. Obviously the Queen of Cheliax doesn't like Carissa for the traits that Carissa values most in herself. It would be pathetic to believe that. It would be pathetic to believe even if it's being spoken into your ears with very high Splendour by someone who would know. Carissa is not pathe- okay, Carissa is pathetic, Carissa has spent like five percent of her mental motions this conversation on being happy that Keltham is protective of her, you can't do that and then claim you're not pathetic, but Carissa's not that pathetic. The Queen wants Carissa because she can't have her, and Carissa's personality has very little to do with it, because one doesn't show that much personality while being horribly tortured anyway and the thing the Queen wants to do with Carissa is horribly torture her. This is the not pathetic thing to believe and Carissa believes it. 

But it's true that she had the highest spellcraft at her Worldwound installation. And it's kind of nice that Cheliax did have that written down somewhere. (Unless they didn't, and learned it from her irritably thinking it earlier today, which now that she thinks about it seems likelier.)

And it's true that she understands something no one else did, which made Asmodeus choose her. 

....and it's true that he'd have done that even if there were only a tiny chance she did anything useful, and that if she fails he won't care if the Queen turns her into a statue and she never ever ever exists again. Stop being pathetic you will be gone you won't exist the stakes are much too high to be that contemptible 

Carissa exists because she might serve Asmodeus and might serve Cheliax, and she intends to try to do that, and she does not have any feelings at all.

Abrogail Thrune II: Somebody needs to have a talk with that girl about how Asmodeus does not necessarily desire a tyranny in which all the victims suffer very boringly and pretend to have no feelings about what's being done to them.

Keltham: "If this world is governed by - not the patterns I recognize - then you'd expect that this problem could be solved through the Queen's closest advisors having a talk with her about how it's a bad time to mess around with the project that Asmodeus started and complicate it, especially when a war with Nidal and a war between the gods just started.  And then finding her literally anybody else to get laid with."

Iarwain: "That sort of talk has been the approach taken by the Queen's closest advisors for too long a time, and I'm not sure it's really working at this point."

"Keltham, you're missing a lot of context here on how submission works, but - among the approaches that had occurred to me, if things developed in that direction of greater complication - was seeing if the Queen could rent Sevar from you for a half-day for five hundred gold pieces and get it out of her system.  Please don't object that you don't own Sevar, the point is that this is a recognized practice when somebody like Sevar gives herself to you, and the fact that the Queen would be renting Sevar from you means that she isn't stealing Sevar from you or fighting with you over Sevar and the whole thing is occurring in a way that acknowledges Sevar is yours and not the Queen's and the Queen only gets to have her because you said so -"

"Did that - make any sense to you, at all, or do I need to back up, I'm sorry if that's all coming on too quickly -"

Keltham: "That's a very heroic attempt to avoid and defuse that complication, and I will put some additional questions on hold to admire your cleverness and creativity there."

"The problem is, if this world isn't governed by patterns, that won't be necessary because the Queen will have one drop of common sense anywhere in her intelligence-boosting super-headband."

"And if this world is governed by the patterns I see, the Queen literally can't make any decision except pursuing Sevar in a way that brings her into conflict with me, possibly the sort that resolves with her being revealed as having finally betrayed Asmodeus and removed from office, and possibly the sort that resolves with the Queen also added to my harem, but the point is, expecting the Queen to not make things more complicated is like asking for Pilar not to end up in Elysium, which no doubt made things more complicated, or for Ione to not deliver prophetic warnings, or for masochists not to exist, or for me to not land close to Sevar at the Worldwound.  If the Queen could make any other choice but the one that the 'trope' requires her to make, you'd have some different Queen instead."

Iarwain: "I'm - I'm sorry, I don't think I understood.  Are you saying that if the Queen doesn't pursue Sevar, she'll - be overthrown by a different Queen?  Or blink out of existence?"

Carissa Sevar: - okay. Carissa's project authority absolutely does not extend to giving the Queen of Cheliax orders but -

- no! You're bad at understanding where Keltham understands selection to be operating, it's over entire universes. More urgently, the thing to say here is 'I suppose I appreciate you presenting so clear a test of whether your theory is true. I....hope very much that it isn't, but if the Queen of Cheliax ends up inevitably in conflict with you then we'll prepare you for the betrayal of a Kuthite spy; I don't need to understand the patterns to acknowledge that if they're making good predictions they might keep doing that.'

And then once my Ring of Sustenance is working you can have me every night as long as Keltham doesn't end up concluding he was directed to this universe because it'd be the one out of an infinite number where he has the most fascinating sex.

Keltham: "More that the universes with a Queen who doesn't complicate things would have failed to exist in the first place, or maybe from my perspective it's more that I inevitably landed in a universe with a Queen who would.  Though from your perspective, if the other universes still exist, it's arguable you should conclude that it's too unlikely that... well, never mind, that starts to trail off into complications again."

Keltham's thoughts are pretty full of ~~~~~~ right now, from the perspective of anybody listening whose nongrasp of probability theory would still have Bayes's Rule coming out as ~~~~~, to say nothing of anthropics producing persistent epistemic disagreements.

Iarwain: "So - if the Queen could rent Sevar from you for a few hours, and then seemed to have gotten Sevar out of her system and was able to maintain amiable relations with you - that would - prove that our world wasn't governed by those patterns?  And if that's a decision the Queen just can't seem to make, somehow, we look even harder for a Kuthite spy among your women?"

Carissa Sevar: That is a WORSE VERSION of what Carissa suggested saying and she would light the Queen on fire about it if, you know, everything about the world were completely different.

Abrogail Thrune II: Abrogail's instincts and boosted Splendour were warning her that Keltham would have found Sevar's version suspicious somehow, possibly because it's too characteristic of something only Sevar herself would say.  Sevar's mental insolence is, however, noted.

Abrogail's compact does require her to remain an Asmodean in good standing, and she probably stops counting as Asmodean if Sevar doesn't get tortured over this.

Keltham: "For somebody who's never heard of the Law of Probability, you have a remarkable intuitive grasp of what that Law would tell you.  Yeah, that's roughly -"

"Well, except for the part where we do have to back up.  A lot.  Before we actually go try the experiment of the Queen renting Carissa from me."

"First of all."

"What?  Lady, what?"

Iarwain: "It is a common and accepted practice for a man who has taken a woman like Sevar - well, in the sense of a woman who's submitted herself to him, not in the sense of her having Sevar's facility with spellcraft - to rent out her, well, her sexuality.  Especially if for whatever reason he doesn't have the time or desire to fulfill some parts of her sexuality, and so occasionally rents her to somebody who does."

"The version of this you would - find least disturbing - is when the rental is to particular parties whom the man has carefully scrutinized, and in relationships where at least the woman, and usually also the man, considers themselves to be sexually turned on rather than turned off by the whole premise."

"Outside of Cheliax you would find more disturbing versions of the practice.  But also, to be forthright about this, even in Cheliax, it is - fundamentally considered that couple's own business if they want to do more disturbing things, including if the woman says that her man makes all the decisions about that."

Keltham: "So usually when money is moving around that represents, you know, equalizing the supply and demand of something.  But this doesn't sound like a market, it sounds like - a sex thing to which the money is incidental.  There is not actually a standard market somewhere at which the price of somebody of around Carissa's quality, for half a day, is standardly five hundred gold pieces.  Check?  I think that's the first very basic point to confirm here."

Iarwain: "Yes, correct.  The practice is considered - very distinct from that of prostitution."

Keltham: "Okay, and also you keep saying 'man' and 'woman' as if these were the appropriate abstractions over myself and Carissa.  Is this a," Taldane cannot say 'polarized gendertrope' because it lacks anything corresponding to the Baseline terms 'polarized' or 'gendertrope' or any simple way to compose those concepts.  "Is this a, behavior pattern that people in Golarion can adopt, relating to sex and relationships and so on, such that a bunch more men than women do one thing and a bunch more women than men do another?"

Abrogail Thrune II: ...having Keltham actually do this to you feels very different when it's happening to you directly than when it happens to Sevar in the transcripts.  This was not how Abrogail expected this conversation to go.

Iarwain: "There are many more female prostitutes than male prostitutes, and then most of the male prostitutes serve male customers.  I would guess that a similar ratio holds between female-submissive couples where the woman gets rented out, and male-submissive couples where the man gets rented out, and then most of the time the man gets rented to other men."

"I admit I don't understand why this is an important question."

Keltham: "Because you are describing something that is on my own terms somewhat odd and unexpected and I am trying to figure out which existing concepts it maps onto."

"In dath ilan, we have systems of revocable delegation that people can use to aggregate into much larger political factions in a way that remains legible at every level of organization.  Among its other uses, this permits Civilization to annually form a Masculine Faction and Feminine Faction to negotiate with each other about what common masculine and feminine behaviors should be, not one standard for everyone, but pieces you can make your own behavior out of and have them be quickly describable to others and mesh well with other standard behaviors.  Like, grandmothers are one subkind of women and grandfathers are one subkind of men, that sort of thing.  This requires real Lawfulness and therefore shouldn't be able to exist in Golarion, and therefore all of your notions of what grandmothers and grandfathers should be like, must come from somewhere else -"

"I'm probably digressing here, my point is, you're describing something weird enough that I'm trying to fall back to basics and make sure of my foundations.  You are describing a system in which somebody, usually a man, does something with a second person, usually a woman, that falls into a standard pattern that they both understand, and which some third party therefore also understands."

"That system of meshing behavior patterns is that the party of the second part -" Taldane please, you can't use that many syllables for that, your contracts would be infinity pages long.

"That meshing-pattern system is that Two tells One that One can do whatever One wants with Two.  After which One rents out some of Two's time to Three, but it's not that Two is anything like a rentable resource that One rents into a market for Twos, it's that One and Two and Three all think that's hot.  And maybe also Two likes to trade oral sex for footrubs and Three likes to give footrubs and One does not like to give footrubs, and usually you'd just solve this problem by Two and Three forming a secondary or tertiary relationship," like normal sane people do when monogamy isn't working for someone, "but if Two gave themselves fully to One, then One is supposed to decide who Two fucks, so One being able to demand money for that from Three, is a symbol of how One still has all the Two and hasn't given any of it back to Two to use, or Three paying One is symbolic of how much Three isn't taking away some of what Two gave One, Three is paying One for it.  Is that about right?"

Carissa Sevar: Carissa is concerned about Keltham's inference-pattern here but they're not lying and they're not describing something that doesn't exist in Taldor, so - probably it's just the kind of concerned Keltham is going to be ten times a day until he learns how Golarion works. 

Probably. 

Iarwain: "Righter than I would have expected, frankly."  They've hit on something governed by a bit of Law, maybe?  Or a pattern, a 'trope'?  "Is it - something you would find acceptable, if it was something that Sevar found acceptable?  Maybe I should back up and ask whether Sevar has said anything to you yet about you getting to decide who she sleeps with?  Because if she hasn't, I would predict that you wouldn't even need to ask her explicitly, just wait for her to raise the topic herself."

(There is an art form to these things, you don't ask someone, 'Do you find that unacceptable', because then they'll look for reasons to reject it, you don't even ask them 'is that acceptable' and wait for them to consider the contrary, you add on clauses like 'if Carissa found it acceptable' so they can focus on that and then add another topic afterwards.  You don't want them to have nothing to think about except the question of what unacceptable aspects they can find.)

Keltham: "We've had that conversation, yes."  Though it of course occurs to him to wonder whether Carissa reported it to Security and now it's being used to fake an advance prediction that's actually a retrodiction.

Abrogail Thrune II: Shit, that's an actual blunder on her part.  She jumped on this interesting new successful-predictions-for-credibility trick, and didn't think ahead to how dath ilan would be far more practiced in that, far more sophisticated in it, and far more practiced at catching out simple tricks like the one she just tried.  Make a wrong prediction next, to make up for that, or would that itself be the Childishly Obvious Recovery Tactic After Getting Caught Stealing A Successful Prediction in dath ilan?

Iarwain: "And?  Is this a way that we can try to prevent this silly pointless triangle between you, Sevar, and the Queen from - Keltham, I'm sorry, I shouldn't pressure you on this, if the concept is unfamiliar.  If the answer isn't obviously yes, then - but I don't suppose it's obviously true that money and a small fair trade is the answer?"

(He's an Abadar cleric, it might work.)

Carissa Sevar: Keltham even if he's taken everything maximally well is going to want to ask Carissa. It'd be great news if he didn't but he will. They should let him go and keep reading him to see which parts he did take well, and show Carissa the transcript so she can confirm her working Second Law understanding, and then she can do damage control on whichever parts he didn't take well.

And then probably at some point she will be punished a lot but it would ideally wait until there isn't any immediate damage control needed.

Keltham: "If this was a market problem yes, but it's not, that's part of why I was asking that.  It's not obviously no.  I think mostly this is all too alien for me as a thing to do with money, and I need to let it sink in over more than just one minute."

"I suspect I would probably want to meet the Queen before renting anybody I care about to her, even if that practice was something that turned out to work for my brain at all, which I am not promising at this point because my brain mostly feels numb.  And it's possible that the result of meeting the Queen - Arbograil Thrune Number Two, what was it again - will be that I think she's such a blatant walking living avatar of my memory patterns that I'm not going to think there's any hope in just letting her get it out of her system.  I say again, if you could be like, oh, well, there's a sensible person who isn't manifesting 'tropes' at all, that sensible person wouldn't be messing with Asmodeus's project, during a godwar, over Carissa, at all, in the first place."

Iarwain: "You make a solid and potentially concerning point."

"But if Abrogail Thrune II is not - manifesting 'tropes', as you put it - then I would have actually liked to see - a resolution where the Queen has a few hours of fun and Carissa has some fun and you are cheerful about that.  And not the case where, once again, the Queen's advisors just shout her down and tell her to get on with her job and go sleep with somebody else she isn't really attracted to.  People who are innately Evil cannot, must not, try to be too Good, it isn't good for them."

"I must say that - my loyalty to the Queen - makes me wonder if the correct course is not simply to say all these things to the Queen herself.  Withholding information from her would usually be considered an act of disloyalty, depending on the stakes."

Keltham: "Clever, and it possibly might even work, going on the patterns themselves, because to know them is sometimes to be able to avert them - though this itself, of course, is only another 'trope'.  But if you do that -"

"I guess I didn't actually put a confidentiality seal on anything, and sort of assumed given the subject that this part was not just all being transcribed and copied to the Queen, but still.  I recommend in strong terms, and request even if retroactively, that you tell her only the part where the 'tropes' are trying to force her to introduce complications in a place they clearly aren't needed.  And not mention to her that the two most obvious fates for her if she tries it are, first, being revealed as a traitor and removed as Queen, and second, ending up as my girlfriend.  Because if it's the first one, let's not let her know that we know, and if it's the second one, I have no intention of telling any of my kids that is how I met their mother."

Actually now that he's said it out loud, it doesn't sound too bad as a story to tell your kids?  Kind of awesome, actually.

Abrogail Thrune II: A relationship with Keltham does seem increasingly desirable!  It is not the one he has in mind and Asmodeus has explicitly forbidden it so Abrogail isn't going to go there.

Abrogail Thrune II: This does leave the point about the first of these two fates not being all that desirable either, really; and Keltham is visibly-to-her being quite sincere about what these 'tropes' would imply as likely outcomes for her.

Iarwain: "I - cannot promise I'll never tell her, it's potentially a matter of loyalty, but I will consider it well and take your words under advisement."

"On that topic - I don't suppose, before I go - though I am already running quite over my time - that you've come to any new thoughts about sharing dath ilan's heritage with Cheliax?"

Abrogail Thrune II: (Abrogail thinks of herself as the person in Cheliax whose job it is to have vision; any vision at all, really.  She gives more credence than some people in her government that some critical part of dath ilan's power is not teachable as Law but simply something in their blood.  Getting some of Keltham's children for Cheliax - and doing that before this operation blows up and he leaves, if that is something they prove unable to prevent - is a priority she is annoyed by others largely neglecting.  She planned to Detect his Thoughts on that subject so long as he was here.)

Keltham: "Probably going to see if this is the sort of godwar that kills fifteen percent of the world population before I bring my kids into it, at the very least.  I don't know this place well enough, as yet, to understand what world I would be giving to my children."

Though at least, Governance continuing to pressure him about that, mildly suggests that they're not just teleporting sperm out of his epididymis... well, no, it probably wouldn't survive in the uterus's acidic environment if not mixed with protective seminal fluid, though maybe you could put it directly into the more basic environment past the cervix?  Not grabbing the results when he gets oral sex and inserting into vaginas under cover of invisibility, anyways.

Though if they were doing that, they'd be clever enough to go on exerting the same amount of social pressure on him afterwards so he wouldn't get suspicious.  But mostly, it sort of seems like Cheliax doesn't really have the optimizing spirit that would do either.

Iarwain: "We can - I hope - wait for the godwar to end, which at least some of our theological advisors seem to think might happen very soon.  We are all literally praying for it."

"Keltham, please do consider that if the attack from Nidal had managed to kill you in a way that doesn't allow resurrection - it's not easy but they must have had some goal beyond just inconveniencing us temporarily - then there would be very little of your ideas left, and none of your blood at all to build on them.  Golarion would stay as it is for possibly a very long time.  Yes.  I know.  I'm being Good."

Keltham: "Yeah, you are," Keltham says. "My children are not something I'll give away to Good, that's a me-decision and mine alone."

He knows, even as he says it, that it's the sort of thing he might think better of with an Owl's Wisdom.

Abrogail Thrune II: Well that's not great news about his spiritual progress either.  Can they give him something really valuable to do with second-circle spells such that he doesn't start using Owl's Wisdom on himself more?  Sevar's problem, she supposes.

Iarwain: Paracountess Isidre Astrid Asgavan Thrune rises from her chair, and gives a sober bow to Keltham.  "Isidre Thrune," she says, "Isidre of House Thrune, Isidre of the royal house, Paracountess Isidre, all those names are mine alone and will reach me.  Do send a message to Isidre, if you think you might want to meet the Queen for purposes of seeing if she's worthy of your Carissa, or if you become sure that you'll never want that.  In the latter case, I'm not really sure what to do besides - siding with the Queen's advisors again."

"For whatever it's worth, I've known Abrogail since roughly the day she was born, and I think Abrogail is worthy of Carissa and they would both be a good experience for each other."

Keltham: "Understood.  Thank you for continuing to be a very smart person in Cheliax, and for all your hard work running around behind the scenes trying to optimize things."

Keltham: "Ah, that said, before you go, can you point me in whichever direction I should go to get back to Carissa."

Abrogail Thrune II: "I expect you'll have an escort waiting outside, and they'll either take you to Carissa or take you back to your quarters and take a message to Carissa; I don't actually know where she'd be or what she'd be doing right now."

Abrogail Thrune departs the room, her outward form continuing to appear as the sober middle-aged woman; her inward self being, as usual, Abrogail Thrune.

Carissa Sevar: That's an unauthorized lie, Carissa thinks against her better judgment, and then thinks much louder that she does not have ANY CRITICISMS AT ALL of the Queen.