Pilar : It's mostly the cake thing, and how Pilar Pineda is already standing behind you inside the heavily warded area within the Palace's Forbiddance, and nobody has ever seen her teleport.
But it's also that she went to Elysium, somehow; and apparently voluntarily came back; and now she's skipping through the temple halls on the way to the torture chamber, to assign her own punishment for heresy; and then getting tortured, which she seems to take pretty well; and in fact starts to sing a song afterwards about how being properly punished can make you feel better, until a priest slaps her to shut her up (which she obeys immediately).
And if you're worried about the amount of Chaotic or Good aura she radiates, well, nobody except Aspexia Rugatonn is authorized to correct her on matters of faith.
Why? Because Pilar Pineda is one of the Project Lawful girls, that's why. Now shut up. You don't inquire further about Project Lawful.
Cheliax: Even for Golarion, this is not business as usual.
But it does seem to be true. Credible sources of rumor have repeated the key facts, there are multiple accounts.
Maybe other things... might also be true?
Skepticism breaks, not completely, but far enough to permit mutation and variation to propositions more interesting than usual in an Inner-Ring rumor. The variety and strangeness of the rumors is sufficient that each 1 remark sparks >1 other remarks, people competing to say what they heard; the host population is large enough that new mutated rumors are being originated in the host population faster than individuals get bored with old ones. Replication coefficients go past the critical threshold of 1, not to 1.05, but to 2+.
A phenomenon is born that appears very rarely in Golarion. Any dath ilani who reads fiction discussion boards would immediately recognize it; the victims here don't even know what's feeding on them. It's gone past rumor, it's gone past avidly repeated rumor, it's gone past wild rumors that you can hear out in one night's drinking and that most people don't actually believe.
In the heart of Cheliax within the Imperial palace in Egorian, among the members of the Inner Ring of Asmodeus's tyranny, 'Project Lawful' has become a meme.
Cheliax: Rumors presently circulating about Project Lawful:
Project Lawful was started because of a direct divine vision from Asmodeus Himself.
The project manager of Project Lawful committed suicide and had to be severely tortured in Hell into consenting to be Raised before he was put back on the project.
The top weapons enchanter at the entire Worldwound now works at Project Lawful instead. No she isn't actually third-circle, are you stupid?
All of the Security wizards on Project Lawful have requested reassignment.
Otolmens is very concerned about Project Lawful. [Rumored among Otolmens-cleared individuals only, of course.]
The oldest Project Lawful girl is secretly the real leader of Project Lawful.
If an event worth celebrating happens to you, one of the girls on Project Lawful will already be standing behind you and will offer you cake. It's good cake and eating it seems to be completely safe as far as anyone can tell. Nobody knows what happens if you refuse to eat it.
You are not authorized to correct the heresies of Project Lawful.
One of the Project Lawful girls is secretly Abrogail Thrune, no, you shut up, she totally does that to people.
Nobody at the Palace knows where the original authorization for Project Lawful came from but everybody is afraid to be the one who takes responsibility for canceling it.
Abrogail Thrune is negotiating with Project Lawful for the use of its women.
When Project Lawful moved out of their previous location, they left behind sealed-up skeletons decades old despite having only been operating there for 2 days.
No the cake girl doesn't give a shit what kind of Forbiddance is up or what kind of wards were on the room. Because Project Lawful that's why. Why yes, that does sound potentially useful if it could be controlled! In unrelated news I hear that Nidal's diamond supply is now in Cheliax for some reason and that their first strike in the war was on Project Lawful, did you think about that question for literally five seconds before opening your mouth?
Starting a war among the gods isn't the most extreme thing Project Lawful has ever done, just the most extreme thing they couldn't cover up.
Project Lawful originally started in an incredibly expensive archduke's villa that it took them nearly 2 full days to finish destroying - no, I heard it was mostly gone before the Nidal attack started -
One Project Lawful girl believes she's one of only 12 people Aspexia Rugatonn really trusts - no seriously, that's what she was thinking to herself, the guy said - no, her thoughts weren't otherwise crazy -
So apparently every devil in Hell has heard of Carissa Sevar by name. Because of resurrectees who reported to their contract devil, that's why. Yes, in principle that could be true, but why would it be only contract devils who work with Cheliax -
Even Barons of Hell can't afford to buy the souls of Project Lawful girls in Dis's markets.
I heard Carissa Sevar was chosen by Asmodeus Himself, no, they didn't say chosen for what exactly, that's classified -
If Contessa Lrilatha, Gorthoklek, Aspexia Rugatonn, and Abrogail Thrune want to meet Carissa Sevar, and Carissa Sevar wants a nap, guess who gets notified when who else's nap gets finished.
Project Lawful's manager once managed to piss off Aspexia Rugatonn, Contessa Lrilatha, and Gorthoklek, all in the same day. No shit it didn't turn out well for him. Needed his ass pulled out of the torture room by Asmodeus Himself. That absolutely happened, I was on duty. Yes a direct divine intervention to do that would be very surprising anywhere else. You're new to Project Lawful, aren't you? Project Lawful has never made it through an entire day without a direct divine intervention, the average is usually more like 3, and at some point the gods are literally going to run out of energy to prevent whatever it is they're trying to prevent.
Are we actually sure that Hell itself knows what is going on with Project Lawful, I mean, has anyone actually summoned a senior devil and checked that they know, is what I'm trying to ask here - all right, that's fair, if Contessa Lrilatha has been spotted on-site then I'm less worried -
One of Project Lawful's girls can see the future even with prophecy broken, and warned of a coming war with Nidal, but the project manager ignored her until it got to the point where she was yelling about incoming shadows in thirty seconds. Yeah 'oops' doesn't really cover it, Gorthoklek didn't think so either.
The project manager of Project Lawful has been cursed by Pharasma Herself with all of Her malice.
One of the girls on Project Lawful who died during the Nidal attack got sorted to Elysium - no, they Raised her successfully - well obviously she consented to be Raised so she could try harder for Lawful Evil next time, just as any faithful Asmodean would do in her place, now would you care to explain why you asked a question with such an obvious answer -
One of the girls on Project Lawful is constantly calling out to Takaral, who is apparently a Neutral Evil herald of the god Nethys, not that anybody seems to think this could possibly be heretical or something.
Asmodeus and Abadar are collaborating on Project Lawful. [Because the two gods are known collaborators and it's called 'Project Lawful', not because it leaked via knowledge about Keltham directly.]
Asmodeus and Erecura are collaborating on Project Lawful.
Asmodeus and Nethys are collaborating on Project Lawful.
Asmodeus and Cayden Cailean are collaborating on Project Lawful.
Oh, well, I heard that Asmodeus and Milani are collaborating on Project Lawful - yes of course I made that up just now, now how about you admit the Cayden Cailean thing is also made up -
One of the girls in Project Lawful sometimes thinks about herself as belonging to Nethys, not that anybody else in Security seems to consider this could possibly represent a serious concern for multiple reasons.
Nethys just fucking loves Project Lawful
one of the girls on Project Lawful has been rigged to EXPLODE
secret prediction markets in Osirion are giving odds of 1:8 that Project Lawful DESTROYS THE MULTIVERSE
even the gods are forbidden to intervene in Project Lawful
The discovery that started up Project Lawful was made by Carissa Sevar while she was serving at the Worldwound, no shit you're not allowed to ask what it is.
Project Lawful has been instrumental in all of Cheliax's military victories over Nidal.
One of the Project Lawful girls is secretly the heiress of a County and dresses accordingly.
The library of Project Lawful looks tiny but apparently has as many books available as a major academy library, if someone asks the Project Lawful girl serving as a librarian to 'go look for them in another room', not that there's a Forbiddance in place or anything.
The librarian of Project Lawful knows any time one of her books is damaged.
The librarian of Project Lawful cannot leave her library and sleeps in a room inside it.
Project Lawful 'wizard' girls have been spotted also casting cleric/oracle spells up to second circle.
One of the Project Lawful 'girls' used 5 different cantrips in a day - well, I mean, she wasn't obvious about it, two different Securities had to compare notes to figure it out -
One of the girls on Project Lawful is secretly the cleric of a god other than Asmodeus and nobody on Project Lawful knows who, including the girl herself. Yes, the question of how they know that is then an interesting question, and if we were talking about anything except for Project Lawful you might have a point.
All of the Project Lawful girls were completely normal before they started working for Project Lawful, yeah, I know, right, it didn't sound very plausible to me either.
So about the old halfling who detects as Lawful Neutral if you can detect him at all, the most interesting theory I've heard is that he's another form of The Old Man - yeah, I know it's confusing, but one of the heralds of Irori is apparently called that - how would I know why, maybe it's called 'Project Lawful' for a reason -
A Lawful outsider is being held prisoner inside Project Lawful and interrogated for information. [Not a Keltham info leak except indirectly via the name 'Project Lawful'.]
Project Lawful is intensively studying the history of Taldor in order to launch a team of operatives into Taldor's past which will convert Taldor to worship of Asmodeus in the present.
The girls of Project Lawful are collaborating on writing a new kind of romance novel for official publication.
Cheliax's most-senior retired honeypot instructor was summoned to teach a Project Lawful girl to corrupt paladins more effectively, but after reviewing transcripts the instructor said she was vastly out of her league and went home.
Project Lawful goes through an awful lot of mice on a daily basis.
Actually all the Project Lawful girls except Sevar are from the current graduating class at Ostenso wizard academy. No you shut up, I don't care how little sense that makes, my brother is attending that academy. Yeah that's the same thing I was thinking, they probably were normal girls at first, rounded up for an experiment, who got exposed to whatever it is that Project Lawful is studying.
Project Lawful girls get to decide their own punishments, especially for heresy.
Can we maybe talk in the first place about why everyone in Project Lawful who isn't Security is apparently a pretty girl or beautiful woman - we're not talking about that, okay, fine, we're not talking about it.
Project Lawful reports are the only known thing that causes Aspexia Rugatonn to laugh.
Keltham: Keltham finishes letting Carissa out of her chains, and falls back into bed beside her.
He feels like he's starting to get the hang of this whole 'just doing what I want in the cuddleroom' concept; it's strange and alien and he can still feel unworn sharp edges of his own ?????? reactions jolting him each time he moves, but he is generalizing quickly and mental motions are transitioning from unfamiliar to familiar.
'Just do what I actually want in the cuddleroom' is not actually that complicated of an idea. And if Carissa can't easily have standard pleasure goals completed for her, then he may as well do what he wants and let her enjoy that without other pressures. Maybe that's why the eroLARP gave her that exact sex problem in the first place look he just had a really pleasant trope-free interaction, and it is possible there are not in fact any tropes, okay?
His brain occasionally pokes him and says that he should do something nice for Carissa now, give her something that she wants. Keltham has to remind his brain that Carissa is probably not feeling him to be net in debt to her right now; even if, perhaps, the various things he's finished doing for her, are things that would not have made sense to Keltham as gifts to himself. Also he doesn't have 600gp in hand and also also he doesn't really know how to buy things yet...
Eh, he'll just say it.
"I feel warm and fuzzy things towards you and want to do something nice for you," Keltham murmurs, "even though I don't have anything specific in mind. Yes I realize that I've done some fairly nice things for you today already, my brain keeps feeling it anyways."
Carissa Sevar: Carissa rolls over and leans into him, hiding a smile but incredibly incompetently. "I like spellsilver, and rare books of ancient magic, and - wearing things, having things - that tell people I'm important - if you ever want a collar I want it to be visibly absurdly expensive -"
Keltham: "Shorter-term, I was thinking, I may not be set up to do those other things for like a whole 'nother week or possibly even longer."
Carissa Sevar: "Mmm. Dunno what nice things I want right this minute that I don't already have. ...aside from your shirt."
Keltham: "...if you are very very confident of your ability to return it completely intact, you can borrow it for an hour. I want to note for the record that I'm trusting you a lot, here, far more than any way in which you've ever trusted me over the last few hours."
Carissa Sevar: She sits up, more serious. "I promise that I have no plans that should endanger it, wholly expect I can bring it back intact, and wholly expect Mending to work normally to perfect it if anything happens to it, not that we should test that. I'd just want to - walk around a little in it. Make an evening report to the project manager, add in a couple more requests for the relocation. Maybe try to learn anything at all about what the Queen of Cheliax likes in bed - I'm still mystified about how you possibly -"
Also give an actual careful read to the contract she just signed, just in case.
Keltham: "Isidre claims that Abrogail's a sadist, has a known type, you're it, looked interested while reading reports about you. Basic window of opportunity and suggestion to rent you at all was Isidre. Tactics, setup, and the terms and conditions were all me."
Carissa Sevar: Kiss. "I'm terrified. You did wonderfully."
She's gonna not push further on the shirt thing. She doesn't want to seem obsessive.
Keltham: "Don't know if it's a good time for it, but want to put a pin in it before I forget, because I don't have a good task-management system right now; there's a rumor the Queen of Cheliax is already sleeping with you," this now being a completely safe fact to tell to Carissa if he has understood any of this at all, "and Isidre was worried I would think that the rumor impinged on my own reputation or your own value, independently of the actual truth of that rumor, and I was like whaaaaaat, and Isidre was yeah ask Sevar about that."
"Oh, uh, to be explicit, you walking around in my shirt for an hour is fine."
dath ilan: AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Carissa Sevar: "Eeeeeeeeeeee!
Uh. You just - can't follow the logic of why you'd be insulted that there was a rumor like that? No one in dath ilan would be insulted? If you imagine instead of the Queen it's some random other person then would dath ilani people be insulted?"
Keltham: "So, like, the nearest thing to that I can figure in dath ilan, is, you've agreed on monogamy with somebody, your friends know you're monogamous, you tell them you super trust her and she doesn't seem at all like the kind of complete crazy person who will secretly violate an agreement like that instead of just terminating it explicitly like a sane person. Then a somehow-credible rumor starts that she fucked somebody else, who presumably didn't know about the monogamy agreement. Somehow this rumor is exactly credible enough as evidence that it balances the improbability of violating an agreement like that. Your friends are like 'well gosh in the possible world where that's true, you sure did fail to detect a crazy person'. Then they don't cofound a startup with you where you manage hiring, until that gets resolved."
"So, by this incredibly circuitous route, it is possible for an unverified story that somebody who is not me, fucked somebody else who is not me, to impinge on my own reputation for being competent or trustworthy at something."
"This, I conjecture, is not even remotely what is going on in Golarion, not least because I get the implicit sense that the rumor was supposed to be damaging independently of the state of evidence behind it." He really needs to explain Law of Probability so these words will mean any things.
Carissa Sevar: "- indeed not. So one thing is that, in general, a girl who is more selective is more impressive to have caught, right, so if your girl is sleeping with lots of people, or thought to be, then it's less to your credit that she's sleeping with you."
Keltham: "So, first, I agree that a woman with known higher standards will impress your friends more if she selects you."
"I can't figure out the steps after that. Now, I already realize that this is not going to be how it works in Golarion, but in the non-monogamy mating market of dath ilan, the number of men a woman is simultaneously dating is determined by her ero regeneration rate, how many times per month she wants to have sex, divided by the number of times per month she wants to have sex with any one man. The quality of the men she fucks would be mainly determined by her own desirability on the informal mating market, what qualities she has that are in high demand and low supply, that sort of thing. The main correlation pathway would be if more men wanted to heavily date a low-supply monogamous version of her, than to shallowly date a high-supply nonmonogamous version of her, in which case being nonmonogamous would lower her mating market value, but it's not obvious to me that this is how things work particularly."
"Like, why can't you just have a woman with high standards who is herself desirable enough that she catches lots of people who meet her standards? See also, heiress to the Dark Unilateral Ruler and her harem of four men with different economicmagic powers. If you're number five you're probably pretty cool."
Carissa Sevar: " - do people on dath ilan think of themselves as having a specific number of times per month they want to have sex? - probably not the main point. Uh, on Golarion even if there's not a monogamy agreement it's some evidence you are dissatisfied with your existing relationships if you're shopping around, so it speaks somewhat negatively of your existing partners. Also, on Golarion, women are generally assumed to be - bottlenecked on people who meet their standards - so if they have a lot of sex, they probably have low standards. Though less applicable if one is rumored to be sleeping with the Queen in particular."
Keltham: "So, I mean, there's this obviously incredibly naive version of this where a woman dates literally every possible man who meets her standards and therefore her dating more people is evidence of lower standards, but, first of all, I don't see how that ends up being true in real life because the available population size wouldn't exactly balance -"
"Tiny villages. Right. Um."
"Okay but then how does that make any sense about a rumor that you are fucking the very busy and picky Queen of Cheliax. How is that not a case of, 'Hey, you know who I'm fucking? Carissa Sevar. And you know who else she's fucking? Abrogail Thrune. Why yes that does validate my hotness, you should date me too.' Assuming that claim is credible, which, all of the mechanisms here go through the degree to which the rumor is credible and not the mere existence of a rumor, so I can tell I am still very confused here."
Carissa Sevar: "Yes, I agree that this particular rumor does less than most to compromise my presumed value. But, uh, in general, in terms of the things that people learn and the things they'll automatically on a first pass find - disgusting or pathetic or contemptible, before they even think about it - women who have lots of sex are disgusting and pathetic and contemptible, and if people are rumoring that about your girlfriend, it's an insult."
Keltham: "Suppose I passed temporarily on the question of why what huh, to ask about how it's an insult to me rather than her, and why it's an insult independently of the quantitative credibility."
Carissa Sevar: "Well, it's an insult to her also, but that's an insult to you because you're dating her, it's saying that something you have is less valuable. And - if people are repeating it - then they're -" shoot how to explain this without explaining that people aren't deciding what's true they're deciding what they're allowed to believe - but of course, there are rumors in Taldor -
" -deciding to share information they think might not be true, but which would reflect badly on you if it was, is something people are more likely to do if they don't like you or want to bring you down a peg."
Keltham: "...do most people in Golarion just not - have the idea - that things you say are supposed to be things you believe and that things you believe are supposed to be true. Why would words go on meaning things? Why wouldn't people just walk off cliffs?"
Carissa Sevar: "Not for rumors they don't have that! For rumors you say them because they're funny or because you want to make other people look better or worse. ...I'm honestly not sure whether they have the idea in general. Wizards do have the idea in general and still indulge in rumors.... they don't walk off cliffs because they know what's actually true about some things, things they need to succeed at to keep eating. Or to not fall off cliffs."
Keltham: "So, I can feel the shape of the piece of knowledge I'm missing, and it's something about - how the local equilibrium is able to look like one person lying and the other person not knowing whether this is a lying situation, and that equilibrium holds up over time and doesn't collapse into every occasion being either a known lying occasion where communication is impossible or a known truth occasion, and this will turn out to require that people not be ideal-agents in some key way and I don't know where and what exactly that key way is."
"Maybe I'm just being lazy, here, because it's frankly gone late; but I feel like this is maybe a lecturing-to-the-class situation, and then you or somebody will know how to speak my language about this, and can tell me the exact thing I need to know about Golarion?"
Carissa Sevar: "That sounds like a good lecture to the class. I don't know, now, what the missing piece is, unless it's something obvious like that lying is a skill and so is noticing lies so it's not worth lying if people will notice and it's worth getting good at noticing and getting good at lying. But that doesn't actually explain rumors, which are a sort of game, really. - I'll think on it."
Keltham: Keltham yawns; he's had a busy day, and unlike some other people, no nap. "If you need me to give you permission to go, by the way, you have it, to be explicit about that. I'll probably sleep soon. No weird spells this time."
"Oh, uh, if you're stealing my shirt, please tell them to send me in a small meal for dinner, since I'd rather not go out without a shirt and I don't have any other clothing." The thought of borrowing one of Carissa's shirts doesn't particularly occur to him, not so much because of gendertropes but because why would that, like, work, he's still a bit mystified about her wanting to wear a Keltham-shaped shirt.
Carissa Sevar: "I'll tell them." And she puts on his shirt - which doesn't fit perfectly, of course, but the ways in which it fails to fit are precisely the desired ones, the cut that isn't meant for breasts rather drawing attention to them, and she beams at Keltham and heads out.
Keltham: He'll read more of the weird history books and await his dinner.
Carissa Sevar: She orders his dinner sent and then trots over to where she last saw Maillol for a checkin.
Iarwain: People are looking at her with an unusual amount of - respect? Fear? Or if they're powerful enough themselves, like a sixth-circle priest of Asmodeus, maybe curiosity or wariness instead of fear? It's not easy to tell because Cheliax. Nobody's giving her looks that are not-respectful, though, that difference is definitely noticeable.
Carissa Sevar: It's a very good shirt, but that's more of an effect than she'd have expected from it.
She looks for Maillol.
Ferrer Maillol: He's here. He wishes he wasn't. But he's a professional about that. Not every day in Asmodeus's tyranny is a good one, even in the Inner Ring, and if you can't be professional about that you'll soon be very low on the ladder indeed.
(would it actually be that terrible if the new fortress got a sixth-circle priest in charge and Maillol was their subordinate and only was Responsible about vision things)
Carissa Sevar: "I'd like to see the contract I signed earlier. I don't suppose there are any procedures for signing things in character in a way that doesn't, you know, maybe ruin a couple million years of my eternity."
Ferrer Maillol: "Contract? If this is a sufficiently recent event I will not have worked my way to it in the stack."
He's not as completely on top of things as he was a day ago before the Nidal attack.
(He does manage to notice she's wearing Keltham's shirt. This is not relevant to anything except to give her minus two points for unprofessionalism, which he doesn't have the energy to comment out loud.)
Carissa Sevar: - that's weird. "Contessa Lrilatha wrote, for Keltham, a contract obliging Cheliax to force me to have an abortion, if he gets me pregnant and I'm being difficult. A major step forward, which I'm very proud of, and which involved me signing whatever she wrote with about forty five seconds of reading, and I'm curious if I've also sold off my firstborn."
Ferrer Maillol: Maillol experiences a rare bit of theological uncertainty, which he'd maybe be able to resolve faster if his mind were working faster; he's not sure if that's supposed to be contemptible of Sevar, for not figuring some way out, or if that makes her a true and heroic servant of Asmodeus who knew the sacrifice she had to make.
"I'll file a request to get you a copy," he says wearily. He can't actually afford to offend Sevar, she picked up some of his own backlog earlier. "You can also write the request and I'll sign it, if you want it to go out earlier."
This is Inner-Ring-speak for I acknowledge you did some of my work earlier, you get to exercise some of my power, under my supervision of course, to encourage you to go on doing it. Dangerous sort of thing to indicate, in the Inner Ring; but it would, in fact, at least for now, be helpful to make more use of Sevar. If she can decode the message at all.
Carissa Sevar: She gets that there's something she's being asked to get. Which is dangerous, if you aren't precisely sure you've translated it correctly. But it's - not a hostile move, because it was an offer - "I'll write it," she says coolly, her face neutral. "I'd like it to come in before I return to Keltham."
She puzzles the rest of it out while she writes. Non-hostile, and in fact very slightly generous; her getting something she wants and doesn't really strictly need, faster. Does he want to be owed a favor - no, she's owed one, for doing the project work earlier, even though she did that for the project not for him - well, obviously they're not doing anything out of generosity for each other, but she was a more useful project collaborator, and so, a minor benefit from it. Why tell her she can write it herself, rather than that he'll write it at the top of the queue for her? He can't be that tired. Maybe something in the genre of - the reward for a job well done is more of a job - you want to do some of my work, you may do it for your benefit - yep, that feels closer to right -
Contessa Lrilatha, addressed with appropriate courtesy, has a copy of a contract she wrote and to which Sevar has placed her signature in the course of Sevar's work on Project Lawful. Sevar requires it so that she knows to what she has bound herself. If she is expected to have difficulty noticing it, key bits could be underlined.
"I don't know if you got to this in your stack yet," she says, handing it to Maillol, "but I did not intend to make Contessa Lrilatha and Gorthoklek and the Grand High Priestess and Her Imperial Majestry all wait for me, understand my error, and if there's not a punishment code in there already will expect one from the Queen when Keltham hands me over. Other than that, the meeting went well."
Ferrer Maillol: Some of his spite for her not saving him his own errors dissipates, maybe, a little. Yeah she also done fucked up and her life won't be pleasant. It may plausibly be worse than his. "No punishment code, I expect the Queen plans to take it out on you personally so long as you're there."
Carissa Sevar: "That's what I assumed," says Carissa, aiming for - not cheerfulness, then they'd just think she was naive, but a sort of calm acceptance that she doesn't really feel.
Maillol, when he angered that same group of people, came back worse. There's not actually a way around that conclusion. He is worse. That's not how punishment is supposed to work but evidently it is in the range of mistakes that Cheliax is capable of making. And she can't afford to get worse; she needs to get stronger as quickly as possible.
Maybe she can propose to the Queen that she be sent to Hell for however long it's going to need to be. Cheliax has a lot of diamonds, now.
"I was told to expect Asmodia's return this evening. Is she back?"
Ferrer Maillol: He did make it that far. "Should be. They'd put her with Pilar Pineda, I expect, room 4-14, unless somebody's decided that all of Keltham's girls get their own individual guest rooms in the Imperial Palace." He snorts, to make it clear that he doesn't particularly expect this to be the case.
Carissa Sevar: She'd make a joke back but they're not, actually, friends. Instead she smiles at his to communicate that it wasn't out of line. "Understood."
And off she goes.
Asmodia: When Asmodia's soul hears the call, she's sitting by a stream and letting the water just wash over her toes. She hasn't eaten, she doesn't need to, and that fact itself seems worth enjoying in its own way. She did try wandering the gardens to see if there was anybody interesting to talk to, but she can't - really hear, understand, the conversations here, they are not conversations permitted to be understood by those who might be fated to return.
Nothing much at all has happened to Asmodia in the last few hours, by Hell's standards; and of the two events that did happen to her, neither were awful. Well, she doesn't know who owns her soul, anymore, that's a little unnerving. But also - it shouldn't matter, right, if she can figure out what she needs to do to buy an eternity of this, and do it. Or if whoever cares about her, goes on caring.
Asmodia feels stronger, now, knowing that good things can ever happen to her, and that someone somewhere might even care. Maybe the 100 years aren't a threat, a week would be a threat. 100 years could just be a message: Go back, you still have something to do, please, I lent you a hand, lend me one too.
She's not looking forwards to Cheliax, it's too much like Hell. But she'll face it, for that, whether she's buying her eternal peace from a broker, or just paying back somebody who cares.
"I wish I could stay," Asmodia breathes, and does not stay, but lets herself go.
lintamande: Elias Abarco is one of fairly few people authorized to read Asmodia's mind when she comes back.
That's half the problem, right, all these people hear that they're not authorized to mindread the Project Lawful girls, or to punish them, or even to smack fucking Pilar in her fucking face when she offers then cake, so then things grow out of all proportion and they think the girls are something special.
People are sneakily lingering around where the resurrections are happening, hoping to get a glimpse of Asmodia. Haven't they got something better to do with their time than drool over a bunch of halfwitted wizard children that were meant to just be a nice welcoming present for Keltham, and which ideally would all be chained up in his room right now.
Whatever.
He tells them they can stay if they go invisible, because obviously he's not going to ask her any secret questions aloud, and if they want to gawk at this completely normal teenager and owe him a favor for it afterwards, why not.
And a cleric Resurrects Asmodia.
Asmodia: And Asmodia opens her eyes in Cheliax.
Abarco. Why did it have to be Abarco he's scary no, she can do this, she has a reason to go on.
"Asmodia reporting for duty," she says, she's not actually sure of what the protocol for coming back might be; she wasn't previously the sort of person who could expect to be brought back.
Wait, should she be faking being much more traumatized? Bursting into tears of relief from not being in Hell anymore? This whole thing is supposed to be a secret. Oh well, too late now, should've thought it through earlier.
lintamande: "Hope you had fun," he says dryly.
He casts Detect Thoughts and reads her mind.
(A cleric taps her with Restoration.)
Asmodia: Asmodia's thoughts are touching upon the gardens of the goddess Erecura and her secret stay there. Those thoughts cannot be read by the likes of Elias Abarco, nor, indeed, any mortal nor most immortals that walk the face of Golarion.
"Thank you for your good wishes, sir," Asmodia says evenly, she is not sure what response Abarco is looking for but that - could be something she would say if she was showing him that he'd hurt her, right, is that the right thing to say -
lintamande: - wait what the fuck.
He kicks her in the ribs.
"Did you just attempt to save against Detect Thoughts? That's six kinds of illegal. You're lucky I can cast it again and we don't need to haul Maillol in here to listen to you."
Asmodia: "I'm sorry, sir, I forgot to - the spell should be working, you don't need to cast it again, I just need to -"
Don't think at all about why. About what happened. Just -
Some of my thoughts are under seal of a greater power of Hell. This fact is itself secret and must be kept as tightly restricted as possible.
lintamande: " - ah," he says.
And there are other people around.
Shit.
Now he's going to have to let the Crown know the answer to 'did Asmodia come back with superpowers' is "I can't tell you". That'll be fun.
"You know, if Hell can teach people to stop thinking thoughts in a day I'm surprised we don't send more people there for a day. Or maybe you take particularly well to instruction. Standard screening, then I'll show you to your room."
And he asks questions and pretends to be reading the answers out of a mind he in fact cannot read. Hopefully Asmodia will catch on; it'll be evident to her that they aren't alone.
Asmodia: Asmodia is, yes, glancing around at the locations of the visible illusion magic screening the invisible people, wondering what they're all doing there.
(If anybody was wondering whether it's true that Project Lawful girls have arcane sight, they clearly do.)
She'll answer the screening questions honestly and out loud, because Abarco is still a lot a little scary and she doesn't want to give him any excuse to hurt her when he checks her answers later, probably under Zone of Truth. Yes, she's fit for duty. A recovery period would be appreciated but she can serve immediately if necessary.
(Some of her thoughts are readable, and those seem to indicate honesty.)
One of the standard questions is whether Hell sent her back with any messages.
"I have a message for Carissa Sevar from Ahuvir Dulzomaud, my former owner, but, uh, it's probably moot now," Asmodia answers. "Ahuvir Dulzomaud was destroyed... maybe about two hours ago if time was running at the same rate."
lintamande: " - I see," says Elias. "I suppose pass it on to her anyway and let her be the judge of that." Also, what, but he's not going to ask in front of an audience. "No further questions, you can stand up and I'll show you to your room."
Asmodia: "I'm not sure he didn't get destroyed for trying to pester Carissa Sevar with an offer, either it was that or he'd asked me too many questions about the project," Asmodia volunteers as she follows Elias out.
lintamande: Then he will drag her into the next room, close the door behind her, and start flicking bits of skin off her neck with the tip of his knife. "Why. Did. You. Say. That."
Cheliax: Project Lawful girls aren't very fazed by Hell: Rumor ADDED.
Project Lawful girls have to make a special effort to allow their minds to actually be read: Rumor ADDED.
Project Lawful girls have arcane sight: Rumor CONFIRMED.
All devils in Hell know Carissa Sevar by name: Rumor CONFIRMED.
Asking too much about Project Lawful and/or pestering Carissa Sevar with offers is an execution offense in Hell: Rumor ADDED.
Asmodia: "Because you would blame me and hurt me if you pestered Sevar and got hurt for it and I hadn't warned you?" Asmodia says blankly, not feeling nearly as relatively hurt or scared about the knife as she would've a couple of days ago, but worried that things are about to become actually bad.
lintamande: Then the knife can go a bit deeper. People vary in how deep the knife needs to go to bother them properly.
"All right, you piece of shit, let's be clear about a couple of things. First thing, if you have a secret the fact of which also needs to be secret, you can communicate that by Messaging that you need to be alone, or by asking to go to the temple for your debrief, or by saying 'debrief may cover highly classified materials, ask the project head if you're the person to do it', or by exercising literally any initiative whatsoever. I'm not going to rip you apart for that, because I didn't expect any better, but that's how it's done, among people who aren't catastrophically stupid.
Second. If you have a secret the fact of which also need to be secret, you don't just randomly volunteer potentially-relevant information to a large group of strangers for no reason. I am going to guess, wildly, with only my intelligence which is apparently at least double yours, that your devil dying might have had something to do with this very secret secret. Which they are destroying people, in Hell, to protect. If a secret is important enough to destroy devils over, it's probably important enough to say in a whisper, or in a Message, or by passing a note, or by waiting until we got out of the room, because I was very evidently avoiding doing a real debrief until we got out of the room. Instead of any of those things, you opened your stupid fucking mouth, you worthless fucking idiot. I did actually expect you to be slightly less stupid than that because you somehow survived to adulthood, and I repent of my error."
Asmodia: Asmodia is frightened because Abarco is scary but it is not her first time being frightened in Cheliax, and for the first time in her whole life she knows that there is a way out, at least for 100 years, if things get bad enough.
"None of that was relevant to the secret," Asmodia says, keeping her voice as controlled as she can. "If it was I'd have lied and not volunteered information."
lintamande: "Don't volunteer information! I don't care if you think it's relevant to the secret or not! Simply keep your stupid mouth shut when not asked a direct question in private by someone authorized to know the answer!
Who, in Cheliax, is authorized to read your mind at this time."
Asmodia: That shouldn't be spoken aloud. "Read my mind, sir, I'll try to put out thoughts you can see."
My sealed thoughts can't be read period. Gorthoklek authorized to know that seal exists. No mortals to know there is anything unusual about me, if possible, everything should look normal.
lintamande: "The Crown wants to know if you have superpowers.
Do you have superpowers."
Asmodia: Just the seal if that counts, and the Crown is not authorized to know except Gorthoklek.
Wait, why ask that, why do they want to know if she has superpowers, what?
(As the above thought is not about Erecura's gardens, it's also readable.)
lintamande: "You don't need to know," Elias says, and then starts off on the unpleasant task of doing the debrief for real and then the even more unpleasant task of asking Gorthoklek what answer he should give the Queen about the superpowers question.
Asmodia: Asmodia's answers all match the answers she gave before.
Iarwain: Gorthoklek has no idea what this is about, but is uncurious since he is not supposed to be curious. If it's under seal then whatever's under that seal and the seal itself are things you pretend don't exist, if you are a mortal unfortunate enough to know about them. If Asmodia has no superpowers not under the seal, then the answer the Crown gets is no. Obviously. Gorthoklek doesn't add that it was a stupid question; mortals are stupid.
Carissa Sevar: It is shortly after all this that Carissa knocks on the door of the room Asmodia shares with Pilar.
Pilar : "Hi!" fuck "I mean - what can I do for you?"
Carissa Sevar: "Is Asmodia here?"
Pilar : "Palace gave her the room to the right of mine," Pilar reports concisely and professionally like a sane person. "Looked distracted more than traumatized, just sort of nodded at me and went in, didn't need cake." Aaaarrghh.
- wait, is she wearing Keltham's shirt? Good for her! Thiiiiiiiiis does NOT call for a party, good she caught it that time.
Carissa Sevar: "Mmm."
She knocks on the correct door this time.
Asmodia: Asmodia opens her door -
SHIT.
"I have a useless message for you from a devil who's dead now, do you want that at all," Asmodia says, trying to control the sudden hammering of her heart. She just got to this nice private room, could she not have had three consecutive minutes to herself before this.
Carissa Sevar: ".....well that must have been an interesting day. I'll...pass, if the message might cause me to also end up dead. How was Hell.'
Asmodia: That was not the response Asmodia was expecting at all.
"Copying spell diagrams, had a bad time at first even though it was very light torment for Hell," Asmodia replies. She fails to remember why Sevar might be asking her that, namely to see if she's more motivated now to cut deals; Asmodia's thoughts are too occupied with neither revealing the Secret nor outright lying to CARISSA SEVAR. "I... thought maybe the devil was destroyed for having the temerity to try to pester you, is that not a thing that was true."
Oh, she's wearing Keltham's shirt. Well, apparently Keltham is still considered worthy of her.
Carissa Sevar: WHAT
Carissa Sevar: "Maybe he was, but not by me; I was busy." Also there's something sickening at the thought of killing a devil; if you do that, they're gone. It's not like killing a person. "Project restarts tomorrow; are you ready?" Am I right, that Hell's punishments don't damage people the way Cheliax's do -
Asmodia: "I expect so," Asmodia says levelly. She keeps wishing she could be back in the gardens; after having her neck carved up and being scared a few times it is hard to remember the thought that led her to consent to being Resurrected. Well, it's not as if Asmodia couldn't go back, just that she shouldn't; she is choosing not to for now, but it is her choice. "I am mostly recovered from how bad the early parts were, I think."
Carissa Sevar: "Were the later parts - more useful?"
Asmodia: Shitshitshit that's directly about the secret thing, is it time to just lie - wait does Sevar know - "Useful? Can you be specific? Copying spell diagrams is useful to Hell."
Carissa Sevar: "Useful to you, for getting better at thinking, which is the thing I want from you."
Asmodia: Yes in this very rare case, Asmodia now knows something is true that needs to be true for her to be whole, and that's probably going to help her think better. Why is Sevar asking that does she know is she trying to figure out whether Asmodia received a gift she sent -
"When I got to Hell," Asmodia replies, trying to keep her voice neutral, "one of the first things my then-owner said was that, since they'd probably raise me, there wouldn't be time to do any training. I was set to copying spell diagrams instead, as quickly as possible, with painful potions to drink if I lost focus or fell behind. I imagine, if they wanted me to be better at thinking, they should've given me time to think, or maybe told me something surprising and worth thinking about, but how likely would that be in Hell?"
Carissa Sevar: Carissa doesn't know what to make of that.
Or, she can sort of think of something, but it's -
"I'll see you tomorrow, then," she says, and lets the door swing closed, and stares at it for a little while.
What if we're doing this wrong. Not Hell, Hell isn't doing this wrong, but what if Cheliax in its effort to imitate Hell is, what if they're as far off Asmodeus's vision as Osirion is off Abadar's - because the latter is easy to see from the outside, easy to see how the prejudices of the people who started the project shaped what they were capable of understanding when their god said it.
She walks back towards the temple.
The worst case scenario, unless she offends the Queen, is just that she'll be tortured a lot and that doesn't seem as helpful as it's supposed to be but it also doesn't exactly damage her, it can't even get her lack of feelings about Keltham to stick.
Asmodia: Did she... screw that up somehow? Was Sevar the one who saved her and she, gave the wrong responses, somehow, and now at the end of 100 years she'll -
Asmodia takes some deep breaths. Sevar doesn't talk like a Power of Hell, Asmodia has some idea about that, now that she's met one. She acted more like - she maybe doesn't know why her contract devil would think she's more interesting than anything else in Keltham's project?
Asmodia is not sure what to do about this, but, for now, nobody is hurting her, and she has a refuge to run to if she truly needs it, and in Golarion a nice room -
Wait. She's been assigned a personal private room of her very own in the Imperial Palace, even with Pilar right next door, and her own room is obviously large enough for four people if they share the bed.
And when she came back, the whole room was full of invisible people. And there was a message from the CROWN asking if she had any superpowers, she should probably have focused a bit more on that part, it seems possibly important.
"I have no idea what's going on right now," Asmodia says out loud. "I don't suppose anybody in Security is there and listening and would like to hear my report about a whole lot of people acting very strange?"
(There's no answer. Very few people in palace Security are authorized to spy on Project Lawful girls.)
Iarwain: People continue to treat Sevar with wary deference as she passes by. It's probably the shirt. Anyone would show wary deference to somebody sexily wearing a shirt as strange and wondrous as Keltham's.
Carissa Sevar: She'll order dinner. And watch Maillol's desk waiting for the contract copy to arrive.
And think.
Asmodia does seem better off. There's evidently infinite subtext there she's not getting but that's - promising, and a path away from the most dangerous category of thoughts. Hell is good for people. It's just Cheliax that is imperfect at being good for people.
(Is she being a heretic? The answer to that is almost always 'yes', if you're thinking original thoughts, but she doesn't think she's motivated by an un-Asmodean impulse, in fretting about people breaking her game pieces that she is in the middle of using for an important project.)
Cheliax: The palace refectory nearest the outer palace temple is quite a lot nicer than the canteen in Project Lawful's old villa site, with a variety of high-quality-food smells on par with the nicest restaurant in Corentyn that her father deigned to take her to once per year, to show her what wealth could buy for her in the way of pride if she ever lived up to her promise. The Continual Lights that illuminate it are warm enough to see the food, but aside from that the decor is definitely a great deal more doompunk than the Corentyn restaurant aspired to be.
It's mostly priests here up to third-circle, a scattering of nobles, nobody who obviously looks like a Security.
They don't exactly all hush as she enters like Abrogail Thrune walked into the room, because what actually has to happen is a rapid propagation of people whispering "Carissa Sevar" to people who don't know that, who then stop whatever they're saying and glance in her direction before hurriedly turning back to resume their conversation in quieter tones.
So there isn't a sudden silence, just a conversation that enters a slowly troughing lull as more and more people glance at her, falling silent, and then start speaking again but quieter. Afterwards there are a lot more faces at tables that happen to be turned in Carissa Sevar's direction coincidentally. And others that are very determinedly looking down at their food and definitely not looking straight at her.
It sure is one heck of a shirt.
Carissa Sevar: That's not the shirt.
Which means probably the earlier stuff wasn't the shirt either.
Something's up and she needs to understand it.
Carissa Sevar: She burns a Fox's Cunning. She's aware that she's using practically all her spell slots for intelligence enhancement these days, and that she's doing it despite having a headband that makes Fox's Cunning not even as good. She feels fine with this. It feels correct, about a Carissa Sevar capable of pulling this off, that she spends practically all her time tugging her brain into smarter configurations. Maybe some of the habits will stick.
- an incidental solution to a different problem occurs to her. She should have a collar commissioned for herself, as a present to Keltham, that stops her from refusing him. Since, after all, he told her not to. If she presents it to him with enough genuine delight and pride she doesn't think he'll have the nerve to say that actually he wants her to be capable of refusing him and actively choosing not to do it. He seems to know he shouldn't say that to her. ...there's some details to work out but it's a promising general approach.
These people know who she is, and think she's important and dangerous. That's - well, first of all, that's not ideal, since the project is supposed to be a secret. Probably the fact that she's on a very secret project has spread, somehow - maybe also the fact that the Queen wants her -
Asmodia said she had a message to Carissa from a devil who was now dead -
- the devil she tried to sell her soul to knew her name. He had instructions about Carissa Sevar. It wouldn't have been left up to chance whether a summoned devil knew her name, not for something that important. So all the contract devils in Cheliax knew to do something different than their usual, if presented with Carissa Sevar. Maybe that's how people here know about her; they're in regular communication with Hell, and in Hell people know who she is. Almost no one ever comes to Asmodeus's direct attention, the devil told her. Why didn't she take that more seriously? She only half believed it, but even so.
(Idea: stop half-believing things. You're either right or wrong, and either one has implications. Keltham doesn't half-believe a thing.)
(Further idea: eat. That's what you came here for.)
She shouldn't really have needed a Fox's Cunning for that last idea. She approaches the food line like she didn't overthink this at all.
Cheliax: As Carissa approaches the food line, the handful of priests and nobles awaiting their turns calmly and dignifiedly step out of her way to let her through. The sole exception is one man about her age, who's wearing clothing that identifies him as a cadet of House Thrune as well as being a third-circle priest of Asmodeus, handsome the way you'd expect a royal scion to be perfected. The man doesn't step aside like the others, but smiles amusedly and walks up with Carissa Sevar to the suddenly cleared small buffet table.
"Shall we find an empty spot and sit together?" he says. "I doubt you'll have much conversation of these terrified wretches otherwise. Alexite Gellius Rutilus Thrune."
Carissa Sevar: Carissa is continuing to be surprised, which is bad, it's the mistake Keltham observed himself to be making when Golarion kept undershooting his expectations. Shouldn't be surprised in the same direction repeatedly.
What would it be, to be surprised in the opposite direction.
"An empty spot?" she asks, taking food. "Are you sure I couldn't just glare people out of a table they're seated at?"
Cheliax: "So it was a recent empowerment, then," he says, though this much more quietly, and with a slight smile. "You can always tell that first flush of pride. I won't accompany you, if you do; it would be fun, but not wise."
Alexite Gellius Rutilus Thrune takes his own foods, that would be rather expensive in Corentyn, with the boredom of someone who finds them proletarian but acceptable.
Carissa Sevar: Hah, succeeded at overshooting, unless he's lying; she wouldn't be able to tell. He's doing a very convincing 'I'm your ally who'll help you make sense of this world you'll find yourself in', but that is exactly zero information and she's not about to forget it. The one thing he's definitely not lying about is the 'Thrune'. That you're not allowed to lie about.
She takes her own food, smiles at him encouragingly, heads to an empty table.
Cheliax: Alexite Gellius Rutilus Thrune sits next to her. He sets down his food, then reaches into his priestly robes and fiddles with something.
Sounds from the room around them vanish.
"Silent Table, ten minutes," he says. "I've got another charge left but would prefer not to burn it."
"So, is everything they say about Project Lawful true? Or, for that matter, anything?"
It's said in the tones of somebody who expects that nobody ever opens a conversation with Carissa Sevar in any other way. Having thus asked his obligatory question, he begins to eat, efficiently; this is not a man planning to linger long over his food but one who does have other duties.
Carissa Sevar: What the fuck do they say about Project Lawful?
It seems bad that they say anything about Project Lawful!
....surely the palace has its reasons for whatever security measures are standard here; maybe it's good for important nobles to know some of what's going on, in case they think of something relevant, and there are precautions to ensure that it doesn't leak beyond them.
"To answer the first question I'd have to know everything they say about Project Lawful, which sounds like a tall order," she says, taking a bite of her own food. "The answer to the second question is of course 'yes'." Someone has said something true about Project Lawful at some point.
Cheliax: He finishes chewing and swallowing before replying, putting him several steps up on table manners among Worldwound adventurers.
"A storm-giant of a tall order, yes. I suspect that a true fact got out somewhere in there, and nobody had any better ideas than to bury it under a flood of untrue ones spread as fast as possible by Securities all attesting to what they saw with their own eyes."
"My best attempt to filter through the lot and reconstruct something that could have plausibly happened: An ordinary weapons enchanter, stationed at the Worldwound, received a vision from Asmodeus directing them to find some manner of mini-Starstone, which empowers people in several ways. One of those includes bypassing Forbiddances in order to move about cake slices, books, and, in a much more important case, diamonds. You need to give the cake to somebody who'll eat it, or give the book to somebody who'll read it, the ability can't be used that freely. The mini-Starstone bestows powerful auras that may not match true alignments, but are sufficient to change afterlife destinations. It may grant minor cleric spells and magical detection. I do not, presently, buy the claim that seeing the future is included among bestowed powers, since if that were possible at all, the gods would still have it. The initial group of subjects exposed to it were graduating students at Ostenso's wizard academy."
"The mini-Starstone either fails to empower men who touch it, or turns them into women. It makes people more physically ideal and perfected, over time; which is why you, as the first person to touch it, are now the prettiest of this very noticeably pretty group; and, according to at least one rumor, have become visibly prettier over the last few days."
"I admit, I'd given less credence to the turns-into-women theory, and probably wouldn't have mentioned it at all, if you weren't wearing an obviously-magical-looking man's shirt that no longer fits you. Not that I'd hold that against you, if you're not exclusive with Abrogail." He smiles in a way that makes it very clear that this is supposed to be a complete joke, or at least, deniable as such. "Oh, and your project manager is a complete fuckup but I don't think anyone has actually deduced what the details were."
Carissa Sevar: "What a fascinating theory," says Carissa. He's presumably not expecting her to answer him but thinks he can learn interesting things from her facial expressions; he probably can, but precisely for this reason she stopped tracking the specifics of the things he was saying about five seconds in. She'll mentally review them later. "It raises the question of why Asmodeus would have charged me, in particular, with this, out of all the loyal Chelish soldiers at the Worldwound."
Cheliax: Slight smile. "With prophecy broken, the gods see and plan less completely than the common mud would attribute to them. They are greater than us, yes, but that greatness is manifest in how they plan around the severe limitations to which they are now subject. My first guess would be that you went out on a walk, and happened to come close enough to the treasure to suit Asmodeus's purposes there. Not all of His plans need to be subtle and hidden; sometimes, I expect, they are straightforward plans that just work."
"Or perhaps I'm entirely wrong and you are the Princess of Hell that rumors proclaim, with every devil in Hell knowing your name, and taking it too much in vain being punishable by final execution. If that's the case, I beg of you not to hurt me too much in my lesson, for I am Asmodeus's loyal possession and strive only to be useful to Him."
Carissa Sevar: Okay, there's a lot to unpack there, but -
Carissa Sevar: "Go for a walk," she says, delightedly. "You know, I'd confirm that, except at some point it'd be repeated to someone who has ever been to the Worldwound."
Cheliax: "Mm. Rumor proclaims you a fair wizard, and rumor also says that wizards have ways of keeping warm, but perhaps one or the other is untrue."
"I was also speaking metaphorically, in such fashion as to include any number of other reasons to be one of a small handful of people going somewhere, but without intent to inquire any further."
Carissa Sevar: "Endure Elements doesn't always cut it in wintertime that far north, but that's not the problem with your theory." She smiles in a friendly sort of way and takes another bite of food. Swallows. "Nor is the danger of travelling alone, though it's considerable. Perhaps if you track down a random soldier and present your theory they'll spot it, though of course you'd have to kill them, afterwards....I have to say, in the circles I've travelled in, a name being maybe punishable with final execution is a reason not to say it. But one assumes that the people here who can't stop speaking it have some justification beyond that they're very bored all the time."
Cheliax: Alexite Gellius Rutilus Thrune doesn't look particularly frightened. He does wear a considering expression as he consumes more of his food.
"I think my own assessment would be that there are those wise enough not to believe your name alone that dangerous, and those less wise, who say they believe it, but don't then refrain from speaking your name."
"But if I am the foolish one myself, you will demonstrate that or not as it pleases you, no doubt."
Carissa Sevar: It would please her to send him to the Worldwound for a tour of duty but this is a stupid desire that does not really advance Asmodeus's aims and she's not entirely sure where it came from. - well, if she happens to be coherent enough for speech at some point when she next meets Abrogail she can ask.
She eats in silence.
She needs to get stronger as quickly as possible, everything is only useful to her insofar as it lets her have that. This has to be tradeable for that, somehow.
Fox's Cunning wears off.
"I think you're foolish, but not because my name alone is dangerous," she says. "I think you're foolish because you don't need to know this, and want to, and because fools saying something is dangerous made you decide it's safe.
And because, secure in the conviction that my name alone is not dangerous, you forgot you don't know in combination with what my name would be dangerous."
That seems like the sort of note to end on, so she stands up, nods to him. Smiles.
Cheliax: He remains seated, of course, for his food isn't finished. "You do seem new to this. If I helped you at all, in this, it's customary to toss me a little bone of favor or knowledge. I am content to collect it later if you don't believe me about that now. Or if I've been of no use to you, of course, then you have Alexite Gellius Rutilus Thrune's apologies for wasting your time." The emphasis on Thrune is barely barely noticeable.
Carissa Sevar: It is noticed.
(That advice was a favor.)
(Or maybe it was bad advice; she doesn't, actually, know how court works.)
Telling him anything true would be really stupid; the project is secret for reasons. And she doesn't have favors that aren't knowledge. And it wouldn't make any sense for arbitrary Thrunes to be able to get classified information by sitting with you at dinner - maybe it's a test? Except how many people are authorized to test her, even, at this point -
- maybe it's the Queen?
- no -
"I don't know if you helped me," she says, honestly. "We'll see. Repaying favors is much easier than identifying them, for ignorant girls from the Worldwound who are new at all of this."
Cheliax: He smiles, at that. "I shall consider myself repaid, Sevar. And would be pleased to deal with you again on future occasions, if you have gained skill and wish to test it, or if you have not gained skill and are willing to bargain for guidance. Go with Asmodeus's blessing, if you do not already have it."
He does return his attention to his food, then.
Carissa Sevar: Right. Okay. That was very fine and normal.
- actually, there's an obvious thing to do here, which is to report a potential Security breach to Maillol. It's so nice to have an obvious thing to do. She'll head off to do it.
Ferrer Maillol: The pile of unread papers on Maillol's desk is larger than when Carissa left.
"Your copy of the contract came in," Maillol says, gesturing to where it's been carefully set aside.
Carissa Sevar: "I just went to dinner and was greeted by a Alexite Gellius Rutilus Thrune who tells me that from the rumors swirling around our project - which include that I'm sleeping with the Queen and that I am a Princess of Hell and devils are executed for speaking my name in vain - he has inferred that I discovered a mini-Starstone at the Worldwound, on Asmodeus's direction, and that we've been testing it out on wizarding students in Ostenso, who it might or might not turn into pretty girls with random alignments. I'd be delighted to learn that all of this is acceptable for random Thrunes to know, or that that was Her Imperial Majestrix again, though I think she's bored of me."
She takes her copy of the contract.
Ferrer Maillol: "Yeah, it's not good, but it's not as terrible as you might think. I've lived through a couple of rampages of the rumor dragons. I admit, this is worse than I've ever seen it. But it blows over, and if it started in Asmodeus's inner circle it stays confined to His inner circle. I wouldn't so much say that Asmodeus is overjoyed about random Thrunes knowing, as that part of tyranny is that random Thrunes get to delight in the privilege of knowing what their lessers don't. People like that, you can't tell them to just shut up about everything that's none of their business, without taking away part of their pride as tyrants above the people who just have to shut up."
"To be clear on this, I only ever played that game when I had to in order to not look stupid, and if there was ever a true word in any of it, I never repeated that part on purpose. But pride isn't mostly the direction in which I walk towards Hell."
Iarwain: Contessa Lrilatha's contract is headed up by a prominent seal saying that only Carissa Sevar is allowed to read it, on pain of Lrilatha keeping any violator as a toy for their rest of their mortal lives. This probably didn't help the rumors any.
The interior contains another note saying that Lrilatha hopes it went entirely without saying that if Sevar ever talks about Keltham's no-tricks condition as something you should even dream of demanding from a devil, or publishing one word of this contract as having been authored by Lrilatha, then Lrilatha and Abrogail can have a contest to see who ends up as the one Carissa least likes to visit.
Lrilatha hopes that Sevar will duly advise the same to any other women who end up reading and signing this contract.
Carissa Sevar: - ah. So it's not a trick. And Lrilatha is annoyed that it isn't a trick. Well, Carissa would be honored to preserve her pride.
Ferrer Maillol: That's not the expression of somebody reading a completely innocuous contract.
Carissa Sevar: Hopefully the rumor mill will convey away that when Carissa Sevar read Contessa Lrilatha's contract she looked like it was the worst news she'd ever gotten, worse even than the earlier news that her nap annoyed every single powerful person in Cheliax all at once. Maillol is too reasonable to pass it along himself, of course, but there's Security standing around in the distance.
Hopefully Contessa Lrilatha will appreciate this and continue handing Carissa nice contracts that are in fact totally innocuous.
She pulls herself together quickly. "Next question, is there anything I'm authorized to know about Asmodia? She was vague with me."
Ferrer Maillol: "Crown order to determine whether Asmodia came back with new special abilities, came back negative, my guess is either somebody being stupid or somebody being careful about all the rumors. Asmodia reported having noticed her contract devil dying, which she would, but not knowing why that happened or who owns her now. Detect Thoughts says she's being honest. I am devoutly hoping that Hell's business is none of our business in this case."
"Sounded like a standard stay in Hell otherwise, she was put to work copying spell diagrams, which is normal for a soul they don't want to break before sending it back."
Carissa Sevar: "I wanted them to fix her. Does that take too long?"
Ferrer Maillol: "In a word, yes, or they'd just do that to everyone."
Maillol has a lot more he could say about this but he is not sure if he should. He is maybe legitimately at the point where he could properly, not proactively, declare himself insufficient to guide Sevar's spiritual growth, and kick her up to a sixth-circle priest of Asmodeus, maybe one stationed full-time at Project Lawful's new worksite.
Carissa Sevar: "We don't know how, do we. Or - some people make it through and turn out well as devils, but we don't know how in the average case, and Cheliax knows even less than Hell. I assumed I'd be stronger after my punishment because - I know that not all punishment always makes people stronger but obviously in this context you'd do that if you possibly could do it at all. But it didn't surprise anyone else, that I was - that you are -"
Ferrer Maillol: His hand comes down on the desk with a sharp bang. "I'm going to stop you right there before you say something insubordinate. You've been tortured, you're going to be much more severely tortured, and I don't think you need any more torture in between, hmm?"
"Sevar, you've got some kind of more-Lawful Lawful Evil vision that, I'm not saying is wrong, but whatever it is, it's as far beyond what we can do right now as dath ilani Law is beyond what we use. If people didn't end up in the long run being more pleasing to Asmodeus from being threatened with punishment and actually punished, He'd tell us to stop doing it. What happens in the short run is another matter. You're apparently doing fine a few hours later, well, good for fucking you. Expecting to be fine one minute afterwards is fucking stupid even so, unless you're Pilar Pineda and can rise up from being tortured with a song of gratitude on your lips. Maybe someday we'll do dath ilan's thing and shape everybody's heritage into being her, but meanwhile you're not. Don't plan on doing anything else useful the day the Queen gets around to you, and maybe not the day afterwards either."
"And you don't comment on how well you think I'm doing. You see me making an actual mistake, you point it out, that's it."
Carissa Sevar: "Of course it's good for us in the long run! But we'll be lucky if we manage to spin this out for a month, and by the end of that month the world is going to look so different that I only have half an idea what shape Asmodeus will need us in. Hell can be concerned with our long run; project governance needs to be able to operate at the very brink of what we're capable of at our absolute best."
And she can see it, then, what she should do, except -
Carissa Sevar: "I propose a new project directive. No one, except me, Pilar, and one of the girls at the villa, chosen randomly, gets punished beyond whatever they do in fucking Taldor, without my express authorization, which I'll grant when it looks liable to make them better at the project, and not otherwise. Have you got some way to read my mind."
Ferrer Maillol: "Sounds a lot more than just slightly dangerous and heretical, but I'll hear you out as to why we'd do that."
"Every day there's fewer and fewer Security cleared to read your mind directly, for some strange reason, but I've got a Zone of Truth if you want me to believe you about something."
Carissa Sevar: "I want to make sure this gets put down exactly accurately.
We matter far, far more right now than we will in Hell. If Asmodeus could in destroying all our future potential for Him make us better servants of Him right here and right now, I think He obviously would; in Hell there are millions of souls like us, but here and now we are the only people who can do the most important thing that there is to be done. I am not interested in our long-term spiritual improvement. I have not adopted some kind of heretical belief that punishment is bad for us, in the long run; it is good for us, in the long run, which isn't our priority at all. I have not adopted some kind of heretical belief that it is bad for people to suffer unless they grow from it; if this directive works better paired with some directive to round up a bunch of orphans and torture them, I'll do that, or delegate it if that's allowed because I am kind of busy.
I have a theory, which is that punishment is in the short term particularly bad for the kind of acuity needed to succeed at this project, and I need this project to succeed, so I want everyone to stop torturing my project members without reason to think it will make the project likelier to succeed.
Exception for myself, because I don't think any justification short of Asmodeus personally saying so would protect me now, and I don't want there to be any question of whether I conveniently developed this conviction when facing down something I know I can't handle. Exception for Pilar, because as noted, she likes it. Exception for one random girl at the villa because everything is an eye, and if the girl who still gets punished normally is performing well then we'll go back on this. It's how Evil dath ilan would do it.
I don't care about any of you, but I need to be able to use you if I'm going to win. You need to be better than Cheliax knows how to make people. And it needs to happen fast. So we try this."
Ferrer Maillol: She is getting very close to insubordination here. Well, no, she's past it, and now he'll have to figure out what to do about that.
"My frank assessment of this idea is that it may pass as Lawful Evil, you're the expert on whether it's dath ilani, but Zon-Kuthon is also Lawful Evil and this proposal is not very Asmodean at all."
Carissa Sevar: It's like one of those dreams where you can Fly but the spell runs out the instant you look down.
"You're misunderstanding me," she says coldly. "It's not very Asmodean, not to torture Keltham, but it's what Asmodeus told us to do. It's not very Asmodean, to promise to let him go, but it's what Asmodeus told us to do, too. Asmodeus wants us to win. This is your new project directive."
Ferrer Maillol: He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, over the last day, that this was probably coming.
He probably should have thought it out earlier. If he wanted to win this, he is far worse off trying to win this fight starting now, than if he'd set up his pieces for this conflict starting after the first moment he'd tried giving Sevar a taste of power.
Can he take her, if he contests her control of the project right now? It's not at all clear that he can. Yesterday he could've, at the villa where he was running everything and had all the reports. Today he's in the Palace, where he's that pathetic guy who got tortured by Gorthoklek, and Sevar has now met the Queen and her advisers. Paper lines of power count for a lot in a tyranny, but not for everything, not among the Inner Ring. It's not entirely clear that the Security would obey him if Ferrer Maillol ordered Sevar cut down on the spot. This Security isn't one of the older Security from the villa; this Security knows Carissa Sevar only as a Power at least on Ferrer Maillol's level, who always has been such.
Does he want to take down Sevar, does he want to fight back at all, would he rather just let her have it? Maybe that question should've come first, but if he can't take her, it's a moot one.
Ferrer Maillol: He misses the Worldwound.
Ferrer Maillol: He misses the Worldwound because he knew how his mission worked, and what needed to be done to accomplish it; and what was needed was keeping a pack of nearly-adventurers in line with fire and lash so that they didn't run out on him and the demons didn't overrun them all; and he, whose concern among Asmodeus's domains was tyranny, was good at that job.
He never asked to be reassigned from the Worldwound to the Imperial Palace in Egorian, where the real games of power were played. Pride never was the part of this he was best at.
Now all he is, is a fifth-circle priest with two relevant visions from Asmodeus and a job he doesn't understand. And because of those visions, he's not getting away back to the Worldwound. He's stuck with Project Lawful no matter what.
He doesn't have to be stuck at the top of it, though. Does he want to be the one responsible for Project Lawful when whatever happens, happens, on Day #4?