Ferrer Maillol: "I neither have the power to put you in direct command of Project Lawful, nor would I want the responsibility of making that decision if I had," Maillol says coldly, and with as much dignity as he can manage.  "Get an order from my superiors saying you're in charge of and responsible for the overall direction of Project Lawful, and I'll work under you to manage logistics and personnel, as professionally as you worked for me."

"Unless and until that order arrives, I'm still the one who gets held responsible for your project directives and I will not be responsible for this one."

"If you need an order saying you have urgent business to discuss with Aspexia Rugatonn tonight, write it for me and I'll sign it.  I'll even throw in a free note saying that I do not have a very solid vision for this project myself, and cannot judge the solidity of yours."

"If you can't get anyone to put you in charge, you're not in charge and I will not expect this manner of insubordination in the future."

"Deal?"

Carissa Sevar: "Understood," she says.

She sits down. 

Writes to the Grand High Priestess Aspexia Rugatonn that she has a time-sensitive inquiry regarding the project.

Passes it along to Maillol, silently. 

don'tlookdowndon'tlookdowndon'tlookdown

Ferrer Maillol: He signs it and hands it back, along with his note saying that he doesn't have a solid vision for Project Lawful and cannot assess Sevar's latest vision.  He doesn't include any remarks about how he is unlikely to be able to judge any future visions either.  That is perilously close to asking to be relieved of your command, and pleading like that is not at all a good look in an Asmodean tyranny.

He can't quite bring himself to wish her good luck.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa Sevar who is not definitely not a Princess of Hell walks through the hallways to deliver her note to Aspexia Rugatonn's secretary.

What's the worst case scenario? Being tortured a lot! Which is good for you! Not good for the project, which is the entire reason she's trying to cut down on it, but good for her personally!

Iarwain: You are customer #14 in line.  The current wait time is:  43 minutes.

Carissa Sevar: Long enough she'll have to return the shirt first. She heads back to Keltham's. 

Keltham: Keltham sleeps the peaceful sleep of somebody who, to the extent he has offended his conscience during the day, has managed to get far out enough ahead of it that it hasn't caught up to him yet.

Carissa Sevar: Perfect. She folds the shirt up next to him on his bedside table, Prestidigitates it clean, and tells Security to notify her if he wakes.

Asmodia: Asmodia is sitting in her peaceful, lovely bedroom in the Imperial palace at Egorian.  It is not the gardens of Erecura, and the main thing that makes it different is not that the gardens are nicer-looking or the air is fresher, it is that the gardens are, so far as she can tell, safe, whereas the Imperial palace at Egorian is not safe.  It can have the quality of not hurting you right now; it cannot have the quality of being guaranteed to still not be hurting you a few minutes later.

But she knows where to find safety, for a time, if she needs it.  Maybe somebody would be nice to her again 100 years later, maybe not; but what comes after 100 years hardly feels like it would still be real, still be this Asmodia who makes the choice...

She keeps on reviewing what she knows.  Maybe if she knew all that Keltham knew, as well as her own knowledge, she'd be able to figure it out; but she can't.  The shadows got her, she was revived in the Imperial Palace, she's next to Pilar so the project is probably still active.

The gardens were peaceful except for two events.  First, the disorienting sensation that, she was informed, not by Erecura this time, had been the sensation of her contract devil being destroyed and her soul being passed to whoever inherited it from him.  She'd figured, at the time, that he'd either asked too many questions about the Keltham project, or it was the Carissa Sevar thing.

Later, she'd been called closer to the center of Erecura's gardens, closer to Erecura Herself in the fullest place of Her power within Her home plane, and the seal on her thoughts had been placed in full.  Asmodia can't remember it well; she probably didn't originally experience it well, never mind memory.

When she'd woken - it apparently being possible to fall unconscious in Hell under sufficiently extreme circumstances - she'd known the rules.  How to put thoughts about the existence of the seal, but not the contents of the seal, temporarily outside of the seal and readable.  That if she needed to report defiance of the seal, she should go to the most senior outsider under Asmodeus, but not any archdevil or other being reporting directly to Him; and that she was forbidden, by Asmodeus's own Law, to pray to Asmodeus or turn her thoughts too much in His direction, while the seal lasted.

(No, she is not allowed to ask Aspexia Rugatonn what happened.  Not that she would, but it doesn't matter, it's not allowed.)

And she's been assigned her own room at the Palace, with a bed large enough to sleep four.  There was a Crown order on checking her for new or exotic special abilities, which has now been returned with a false answer that she has none.  There were way too many invisible people watching her when she came back.  Sevar was acting weird, asking weird questions that were almost like she knew the secret but didn't quite, and in other ways acting like she doesn't know what's going on around her any more than Asmodia does.

Around the only thing in the universe that still remains stable and true is that Abarco is a giant fucking asshole.

The main thing Asmodia is currently worried about is whether Abarco is right and her devil was destroyed to keep the Secret.  She found out that the devil was destroyed, before she found out there was a Secret, so all the explanations she thought up, had nothing to do with what happened to her being Secret.  But in retrospect maybe there was always going to be a Secret and she just found out about it later.  She shouldn't have mentioned the devil being destroyed.  Too late now.  Not that she'll ever tell Abarco he was right about anything, and he won't see it in her thoughts, either.

Asmodia knows what she has to do next, to figure things out, it's all too obvious, she just wanted to keep to her peace for as long as she could before...

Pilar : Pilar is now returning from having found herself on yet another cake delivery mission, with no particular memory of how she got there.  The thought is occurring to Pilar that maybe dying and reviving has reset some kind of accumulated satiation of her curse down to zero, and she needs to throw a really big surprise party for somebody in order to placate her curse enough that she is not constantly delivering cake.

She gets to her room just as she spots Asmodia turn away from knocking on her door.  "Hi" "Asmodia," Pilar says.

Asmodia: Why is Pilar suddenly behind her, instead of in her room where she should be, Asmodia does not know.  Pilar didn't do this in Ostenso.  "Hey," says Asmodia.  "Can we talk?"

Pilar : Pilar has never been quite as wary as some of the people around her.  It's not that she's stupid, or even fearless, as many people seem to think, it's that Cheliax is where she belongs at least during her mortal life.  "Sure," Pilar says, not brightly and cheerfully however.

Asmodia: Pilar's room looks a lot like Asmodia's, with just enough distinction in decoration that you couldn't accuse them of being overly duplicated.

"So, Pilar," Asmodia says.  She did take the chance to play out this conversation in her head, before she got here.  "If you're in the Palace same as me, does that mean you also died in the attack and got raised or resurrected?"

Pilar : "Yeah.  Took a sword for Keltham."

Asmodia: "Not bad," Asmodia says neutrally.  More heroic than her own death, lovely.  "I know you've always said you were looking forwards to Hell.  Anything interesting happen there?"

Pilar : Pilar hesitates.  She knows Asmodia did not want to sell her soul; a favor-offering Security warned her that Asmodia seemed like the sort who might be upset and spiteful that Pilar hadn't been forced to sell her soul, when Asmodia had been.  She should, probably, mock Asmodia for that; but...

Pilar doesn't feel like it.  Maybe she'll assign herself a punishment for that later.

"My first journey to the afterlife wasn't all I'd hoped, no," Pilar says truthfully.

Asmodia probably really really does not need to hear either that Pilar went to Elysium, or that Pilar came back from it.

Asmodia: If it was anybody but Pilar that might have been a sufficient answer to what Asmodia really wanted to know there.

It's - not quite absolutely obvious, but it is one Abyss of an obvious guess, that Asmodia would not be in the gardens of Erecura if not for something somehow somewhere that is related to the project around Keltham.

Did it happen to Pilar, too?

"Because it hurt too much, or not enough?" Asmodia returns.

Pilar : "Okay, if you're going to be that way about it, fine, I went to Elysium because of my oracle's curse and told them to fuck off and came back when I was Raised and Aspexia Rugatonn personally told me good job and I was allowed to feel proud about it, I wasn't going to shove it in your face but if you are going to insist about it then fine."

Asmodia: Asmodia would definitely have been a lot more angry about that before the gardens of Erecura.  Should she fake it?  She's not sure she can, somehow.

"It's okay," Asmodia says.  "I'd have sent you to Hell in my place, if I could.  Well, not to my contract devil, he wouldn't have been best for you, but maybe a nice erinyes or some such."

Pilar : "Well, thanks."  Pilar hesitates.  "I - wouldn't have done it, but I wish I could have sent you to Elysium in my place."

Asmodia: "I'd have stayed."

Pilar : "I know."

Asmodia: "That's heresy."

Pilar : "I already had the heretical thought, already need to assign myself punishment for it, and it's not going to get any more heretical if I say it out loud to you instead of keeping it to myself."

Asmodia: "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

Pilar : "Elysium told me that I wasn't going to be used against Lord Asmodeus, but for Him.  Aspexia Rugatonn thought that was credible but also very ominous, like, maybe they're planning to destroy Cheliax and afterward I'll have to prevent a new Worldwound from opening in the crater.  Which is, in fact, in Asmodeus's interests, if I'm there to do that, but it's part of a larger plan that's not at all in His interests."

"But no, I don't have any idea what's going on."

Asmodia: "Do you know why there were fourteen invisible people watching me during my resurrect?"

Pilar : "I'd say that somebody opened a scroll and Explosive Rumors went off in their face, but I think it was actually more of a Symbol of Rumor or possibly that somebody Wished for there to be lots of rumors about Project Lawful and they didn't use a safe phrasing of that either."

"Honestly, I probably didn't help with that a lot.  But I don't even know what Carissa Sevar has been doing, except that it's somehow scaring people even more than suddenly cake."

Asmodia: "My contract devil was all like 'It would be contrary to the nature of Hell if you couldn't tell me everything you know, and if that requires a promotion so be it, and if I get promoted above my place and destroyed, so be it.'  So I told him about Keltham and what Keltham knows and you being Cayden Cailean's oracle and Nethys giving Ione book powers and Carissa Sevar fucking the Queen -"

Pilar : "She what?  No, strike that, that makes perfect sense, continue."

Asmodia: "Anyways, my contract devil's reaction to all of that was:  Carissa Sevar?  Tell me more."

Pilar : "Pffffft," says Pilar.

Asmodia: "It's true!"

Pilar : "I believe you, I was just saying pfffffft."

Asmodia: "Anything else interesting happen while I was gone -"

Pilar : "Not really, unless you count a day or so of moderately stormy weather, from the war between the gods that got kicked off by Nidal's attack on our villa, but it didn't destroy all the crops like the last god-war a century ago, and now Zon-Kuthon has been sealed away in a vault to which only Iomedae has the key."

Asmodia: "Yeah, that's not much.  Does that mean we're at war with Nidal and their clerics are still getting spells, though?"

Pilar : "All of their diamonds ended up in Cheliax somehow, which I am sadly, utterly certain had something to do with Project Lawful in some way or another."

Asmodia: "Not much of a war then."

Pilar : "Nope, but nonetheless tomorrow at dawn we're heading out to an old fortress that's being renovated for us, after another divine intervention by Asmodeus, because Project Lawful hadn't gotten even a single divine intervention that day and it was almost going to be a full 24 sequential hours there.  Being there is somehow going to protect us from the other gods interfering, so more people can be around and not get turned into oracles of the Stupid Good god of utter derangement and cake, like some previous unfortunate victims of Project Lawful."

Asmodia: "Hope it's as nice as the last place but I know it probably won't be."

"Just to be clear, you were lying about everything up until the fortress part, right?"

Pilar : "Nope."

Asmodia: "I'd say that I'm going to go back to my room and sleep and when I wake up the world had better make sense again, except I truly don't wish for that."

Pilar : "Why not?"

Asmodia: She probably shouldn't have said that.  But -

"In a sensible world, nobody cares about you," Asmodia settles on.

Pilar : Pilar snorts.  "Don't get exaggerated ideas just because I had one stupid thought and stupidly said it out loud."

Asmodia: "If you didn't really care you wouldn't be holding a cookie right now with pink icing and letters spelling out 'Asmodia'."

Pilar : Pilar looks down at her hand in absolute horror.

Pilar : ...it's actually an ordinary cookie with pink icing, but no letters.

Pilar : "You bitch.  I'm going to see if my curse does poisoned cupcakes if I focus enough on how much I hate somebody."

Asmodia: "Well, there you have it, now the world makes sense again.  Night, Pilar."

Asmodia departs, taking the cookie with her over Pilar's brief and muted protest.

Cheliax: "People are talking too much about the project and my opinion is they should all stop, including you."  Or, failing that, be executed and then turned into paving stones in Hell.

      "You were on Project Lawful, right?  From the start.  If I can't tell you -"

"You'll what, talk at somebody else?  You know what, fine, if you absolutely have to blabber to somebody about whatever this is, I suppose it does less damage with me than anyone else."  It is his considered opinon that the average Security assigned to safe temple jobs inside the Imperial Palace are noticeably less elite than those assigned to top-secret projects started by divine intervention.  Which, in fact, makes sense, but.  But.

      "So I was the Security in Ferrer Maillol's office when Carissa Sevar walked in on him, and tried to hand him a new policy for the whole Project.  I probably shouldn't repeat the exact proposal, but it was six kinds of heretical, and to be clear, she wasn't phrasing it as a suggestion."

"...you have my attention," he says reluctantly.

      "And Maillol protests, obviously, how heretical this is, and Sevar stares him down coldly and says, yes, I know it's heretical, but Asmodeus doesn't give a shit about what condition our souls end up in afterwards, Asmodeus wants us to win.  So this is your new project directive."

"And how'd Maillol take that?"

      "Looks silently at Sevar for a while, then says he's not taking responsibility for implementing that directive when it's actually hers.  He offers to write her a note to Aspexia Rugatonn asking for an urgent conversation about whether Sevar's in charge of Project Lawful or he is.  He's happy to serve under her if ordered, but if she doesn't come back with orders saying she's in charge and holding responsibility on the project, he expects Sevar to shut up and obey him in the future."

"And Sevar?"

      "Just says 'understood', takes the note from him, and heads off, presumably to talk to the Grand High Priestess."

"Lovely.  I concede that makes a great story, and now you've told it to me and you never tell it to anyone again and it doesn't get added to the rumor firestorm, clear?"

      "You're not going to die if you admit out loud how badass that was."

"Yes, fine, it was badass, now, are we done?"

      "It was incredibly badass.  Not a lot of people would be willing to just completely stare down Carissa Sevar like that."

Paving stones.  Hell needs more paving stones.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa heads back to wait in line outside Aspexia Rugatonn's office. She can use the time anyway, honestly, she knows perfectly well the tack she took with Maillol will not work with the Grand High Priestess and she should really kick herself with an Owl's Wisdom and think through what might.

Iarwain: People are still acting just about exactly as deferential and wary as before, proving that it was not, after all, the shirt.

Carissa Sevar: Noted.

In some sense the entire aim of Project Lawful is to produce Aspexia Rugatonns reliably. She's Asmodean, obviously, can't get more Asmodean, and she's - admittedly Carissa has only heard her speak a few times, but she's heard people speak of her more than that -

she thinks Aspexia Rugatonn might be Evil dath ilani. Or at least much closer than anyone else. But, obviously, Aspexia Rugatonn is not competent to train Aspexia Rugatonns; she must herself have ended up like that halfway by accident, with felt insights she can't share. More fragments of the Law inside her than inside anyone else but still not rules-bound enough she could teach them. At minimum Aspexia Rugatonn is proof that it's possible to reason like Keltham and reason about how the gods reason and not end up a heretic. 

If Aspexia Rugatonn thinks this specific policy is bad, Carissa will drop it. If Aspexia Rugatonn thinks Carissa is thinking about this all wrong, she'll listen. She doesn't think she's magically the best person around for the project, she knows that many people are better than her, she knows that the Grand High Priestess would be better than her, but the Grand High Priestess doesn't have time. They don't have ten of her, yet.

I can give you ten.

She isn't sure it's true, but she's sure it'd be a winning argument, if she could, in fact, do it.

Aspexia Rugatonn: Sevar's turn still hasn't come up when Aspexia Rugatonn happens to take a step out of her office, between appointments.  Same doompunk outfit as the last time Carissa saw her; but on any occasion where Aspexia Rugatonn is not smiling cheerfully at an outworlder, and bending all her Splendour to the goal of apparent amiability, she does not come across as a grandmother-gendertroped kindly old lady.

Rugatonn glances around, spots Sevar, and frowns.

"When were you planning to tell me Carissa Sevar was waiting on me?" she says to her emotionless-appearing secretary.

      "I was not informed that I should interrupt -"

"Whether you interrupt me depends on who I'm with, but if Sevar shows up in my office I at least expect to be notified between appointments."

Rugatonn turns to Sevar.  "Step inside," she says, her voice no less stern and harsh than would be expected of the Grand High Priestess, even when talking to Carissa Sevar.

Carissa Sevar: - okay this has gone beyond 'there's an energetic palace rumor mill', because Aspexia Rugatonn would not care if there was an energetic palace rumor mill.

And it's not the shirt, which she's no longer wearing. 

????????????

Carissa Sevar: This confusion is probably (hopefully) not visible to anyone other than Aspexia Rugatonn. She stands, and follows her in.

lintamande: Aspexia Rugatonn's office is not a throne room, and was clearly designed with the constraint in mind that it needed to not be a throne room. It's shaped as a perfect pentagon, with high pillars at each of the vertices, supporting a ceiling high enough that Carissa can't see it without more gawking than she's really willing to do. The floor and walls are reflective, glossy black stone; Aspexia's side of her desk has a thick carpet and cheerfully blazing braziers and looks almost comfortable, but the other side does not.

Carissa Sevar: She kneels.

Aspexia Rugatonn: When the door is shut, all noise outside stops.

Rugatonn sits.

"You tell me," says Rugatonn.  "Why did I do that?"

It is of course an open question whether she's reading Carissa's mind, or even Carissa's face, given that it's such an obvious question to be thinking about.

Carissa Sevar: "...people think I'm important. They're - mostly wrong - or, I'm important because of things they aren't permitted to know about, and less important than they think, not actually important enough to disrupt your schedule. Is it - bad for the Church, if it looks like I'm being prioritized below my assumed station -"

Her thoughts match this exactly. She is not going to attempt to get something past the Grand High Priestess.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "It is in fact bad for the Church that you are being prioritized above your written place in the system.  Other considerations dominate.  Try again."

Carissa Sevar: She wouldn't have done this for a fourth-circle cleric of Asmodeus. She doesn't know what to think about that. Last time they met the Grand High Priestess was very keen on doing exactly what Asmodeus said to do with Carissa. 

"Am I actually that important."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "If you were that would be irrelevant to the question of what they should believe."

"These rumors exploded faster than I anticipated, and it is likely that they will at some point reach Lastwall.  Some leak of that form became inevitable when we ordered emergency military response on the villa.  The true hidden nature of Carissa Sevar is one of the less productive avenues they can investigate."

"Asmodeus's blessings to you on this evening, Sevar.  I expected the ordinary course of Asmodeus's Law would bring you to my chamber in time, but not this quickly."

"Sit."

Carissa Sevar: There are comfortable chairs on this side of the desk, but one kneels until ordered otherwise. 

She sits. 

The rumors make her uneasy. Maillol said they were inevitable, that you couldn't just order nobles to shut up, but she doesn't actually see why not, though she expects he'd know. If they're being directed, in order to achieve actual political goals, that's much better. 

Aspexia Rugatonn: "A relatively trivial matter first.  Authorize this message to Keltham, deny it, or correct it.  It is my own best estimate that this event would occur in the alter-Cheliax we are constructing, but the effects on Keltham are not easy for me to guess, nor whether those serve us."

Rugatonn takes a paper memo from her desk and hands it over.

Dear Keltham:

As you may perhaps have already realized by now, your etiquette instructor did not give you wordings meant to preserve the Queen's pride, but to make you look as gloriously dominant as possible in front of Carissa Sevar.  That occurred via my own intervention.  Some of this, I admit, is an old woman's humorous meddling in young love.  I would not have done it even so, did I not think it serve Cheliax better, that Sevar love you a little more, than that the Queen's pride be a little more preserved.

I was not aware at the time of your agreement with the Queen to owe her an informal favor about her lost pride.  I have informed the Queen that any such favor should be considered to be partially owed by myself, rather than you, to the extent she lost any more pride than she otherwise would have done, in that particular moment.  My apologies for that element of it, if not others.

Have fun with your adoring new possession.  The first one only happens once.

-- Aspexia Rugatonn, Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus, called also 'Aspie' among her friends.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa reads through it somewhat incredulously. Gives herself a moment to think. Keltham will probably be incredibly confused, but he's already treating etiquette as a fairly absurd social game, and he's not wrong to.  She...thinks he'll just buy that the Grand High Priestess was meddling out of appreciation for young love, and it'll fit his impression of senior Chelish leadership as excessively Good people with excessively powerful headbands, which - is convenient until cracks start showing... and possibly safer to attribute to Isidre than to the Grand High Priestess. 

"I don't think he did realize at all," she says. "I think this succeeds at getting him to categorize you, mentally, with Isidre, rather than with Contessa Lrilatha, and I'm unsure which of those categorizations I prefer and might like keeping the option value open."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Are you able to mostly prevent my opinions from unduly influencing yours, if I share them further?  It seems best that final policy be routed through one person, that her policy be a coherent whole.  That person cannot be myself."

Carissa Sevar: "Yes, Most High. I'll weight your opinions highly but knowing that my actual job here is to succeed with Keltham and that I might have insights I can't convey."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "I doubt Keltham will categorize myself with Lrilatha no matter what.  He considers Lawful beings to be a species apart within Golarion.  He is correct, and this is a true and deep fact about Golarion, and all else he sees will tend to accord with it.  Without constantly referring to a devil's advice, I would not be able to pretend to be like Lrilatha to Keltham."

"My primary concern generating this note was that Keltham will realize later that his etiquette instruction was off, and then will wonder why this event, which should have occurred in alter-Cheliax, did not occur in his reality."

"The final decision is yours, and does not need to be taken immediately - at least, not in my own estimation.  Aspie could plausibly find out about Keltham's prior bargain with Abrogail at any time over the next few days."

"If the true consequences of my act inside alter-Cheliax, as they would impinge on Keltham, are less beneficial to our purposes than I believed, then I have made a mistake.  Not for any wise and excellent reason, either, but as part of a game with Abrogail, and an indulgence however much pent-up.  I tell you this so that you understand, and it is a very important understanding, that Aspexia Rugatonn is not only theoretically capable of error but actually commits those on a daily basis.  Do not assume her infallible any more than you would assume Hell or Asmodeus to be infallible."

Carissa Sevar: - it is strange to have someone assert as if it's a routine fact about the world that Asmodeus is fallible. Even though once she chases the thought down - yes, obviously, Asmodeus isn't omniscient - and she has no idea whether He ever makes mistakes given what he knows but the important thing from the perspective of his servants is that He might not intend the effects of things He does, or might be missing key information -

- right, okay -

- she's absolutely not going to have opinions on the game played between the Grand High Priestess and Abrogail. Some things she does not need opinions about. 

"Yes, Most High," she says. "I think it should be sent tomorrow afternoon, and will countermand that if I change my mind, which I might."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "If you're saying that to give yourself a measured time to think, I will send it in two days unless I hear otherwise from you by then.  You have not realized how much busier you are than you think yourself to be."

"That particular move in the throne room is one I'd almost never play, even if I was making an indulgent move against Abrogail, if circumstances had become less strange than they have now become.  Under circumstances less strange than these, I would be very unlikely to do something because it was cruelly funny, in a situation otherwise of interest to Asmodeus.  Cruel in other ways, certainly, but not cruelly funny.  Has your mastery of Keltham's teachings of Law reached the point where you can already guess why?"

Carissa Sevar: "I don't think so." And she haaaaaaaates not passing tests, but better to know what she doesn't know.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Asmodeus knows what mortal humor is.  Asmodeus has seen many, many cases of mortal humor.  It is still relatively harder for Him to predict.  Humor is one of the things that mortals do which is least like anything done by gods who were never mortal, and there is too wide a variety of ways for something to seem surprising and funny to a mortal bent on that."

"The most fundamental fact about all of our lives as Asmodeus's servants, now, is that we are living in a world of shattered prophecy.  It now actually matters to our Lord whether we are being cruelly humorous or just cruel at key moments."

Carissa Sevar: "So the thing you did in the throne room is costlier for Him to anticipate than everybody staying in line and doing what they're ordered to do."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "The entire affair in the throne room was already so far beyond Asmodeus's plausible ability to have predicted, or at least, predicted using only His own powers, that it didn't matter at that point whether I started being funny."

"In a closely related matter, the Queen has noted to me that you are, as they say in the lands beyond our Lord's correction, 'in love' with Keltham.  As she told you that she would, the Queen referred your correction, if any, to myself.  How would you go about deciding whether or not to do anything about that, were you the Grand High Priestess?"

Carissa Sevar: Oh, she knows the answer to this one! "Asmodeus said not to be proactive in my correction beyond the ordinary course of Asmodeus's Law. It's obviously not ordinary to correct people for having stupid feelings; it's self-correcting, really, under ordinary circumstances. I don't know if it's ordinary to correct people who are on important espionage missions who develop feelings about their targets, but whatever's ordinary, I'd do that, were I the Grand High Priestess."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Somebody on an ordinary important espionage mission would certainly be corrected in that.  By advice and warning while they were on their mission, if perhaps it was not both possible and prudent to send them to a torture chamber just then.  By more severe correction upon their return, assuming their souls sufficiently bought that this would not disincentivize their return."

"By the time we get to you and Keltham, we are so far outside the ordinary that there simply isn't any answer by reference to what we usually do.  There is still a clear meaning of 'ordinary' Law, however, in that case; it means then, not to do what we usually do, but to do what we'd have done without a message from Hell singling out Carissa Sevar."

"Even absent that message, however, Carissa Sevar ends up in this office hearing essentially what I am telling you now, only except without any parts about a message from Hell to be ignored.  Which is why we are having this conversation in the first place."

"This other Carissa Sevar is then asked to say what she would do about Carissa Sevar's love for Keltham if she were the Grand High Priestess."

Carissa Sevar: "Obviously it would be good for my soul to be corrected, as severely as necessary for it to actually stick this time. I...suspect it would not be good for the success of the project. I could be wrong about that, if in the experience of more experienced people I'm closer to betraying Cheliax than it internally feels like I am."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "That's a plausible reason for Ferrer Maillol to make that decision.  It is, according to his reports, mostly what he decided and why."

"When you end up in the Grand High Priestess's chamber, it means that matters have gone beyond the mortal and are dealing in the plans and interventions of gods.  Such as, for example, the intervention of Asmodeus that started up this project."

"Do you believe that the feelings of love between you and Keltham are part of a plan that Asmodeus made?"

Carissa Sevar: "I don't know. Asmodeus - called him my teacher, and said I wasn't to be separated from him. That suggests to me that Asmodeus intends some consequence of me learning closely from Keltham, and the obvious one is that it makes me better at the project. I don't know whether feelings are like humor in being costly for Our Lord to predict. If Asmodeus chose where or when Keltham landed, and it seems He might have, or have been part of a coalition that decided that, He chose to land Keltham on me, and that must've been because of some feature of me that lent his plans a better chance of success, and it seems like a notable feature of me, that apparently I have feelings - uh, uncertainty, what share of approximately loyal Asmodeans would have this problem -"

Aspexia Rugatonn: "The way in which you and Keltham have matched, the speed with which you have seduced and corrupted a boy steeped in Lawful Good beyond all imagining, the speed with which he has seduced you, the twisting events that managed to bring it all about, are not only far beyond the reach of mortal coincidence, but also beyond Asmodeus's ability to make plans about individual mortals interacting, as I have ever seen those plans demonstrated before."

"With prophecy shattered, there are exactly two forces known to us, named to us, that could possibly still be responsible."

"First, 'tropes', which may or may not exist."

"Second, Nethys."

Carissa Sevar: Well Carissa doesn't like either of those at all!!

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Your thoughts as to what the Grand High Priestess should do about that?"

Carissa Sevar: So far, things have worked out well for Cheliax and Asmodeus. They have locked away Asmodeus's competitor; they are in the middle of conquering Nidal, the first meaningful territorial expansion of Asmodean Cheliax. They have all Nidal's diamonds, and will come out of the war richer than they started it, not to mention with most of their casters strengthened. Honestly in the Grand High Priestess's place she'd be tempted to declare they should stop while ahead and kill everyone, except Otolmens instructed that Keltham be contained, and probably there are all kinds of people chomping at the bit to raise him. 

What does Nethys want. Almost unanswerable. He did warn them of Nidal's attack. He likes magic and explosions. There'll be lots of explosions if Keltham teaches Cheliax the weaponry of his world. Maybe Nethys thinks Cheliax is competent to prevent Keltham from destroying the world while allowing him the chance to advance the field by thousands of years. Maybe Nethys is trying to explode Cheliax.

What do the tropes want. For Keltham to have an interesting sex life, Keltham thinks, for the holes that his Lawful Good society left in him to be filled, for him to realize his shape isn't an error. Maybe Keltham being seduced into Evil is satisfactory to the tropes. 

Aspexia Rugatonn: When Sevar has not spoken for a time - it is still not clear whether or not Rugatonn is reading her mind - Rugatonn speaks again.

"A further factor, one highly relevant to my decision whether or not to have your feelings corrected.  We have just received instructions from Hell that we are to cease that particular policy by which temple-instructed children seen to have fond feelings for other children are noted by their instructors for additional correction in the form of being forced to do Evil deeds that train those feelings out of them.  They will still receive universal training in Asmodeanism, but children who display fondness for others will not be singled out by the instructors for such further correction."

"That this would reflect any change in Asmodeus's doctrine is essentially unthinkable, so why is Hell telling us to do that?"

Carissa Sevar: What.

"May I make myself smarter, Most High?"

Aspexia Rugatonn: "You may."

Carissa Sevar: Fox's Cunning.

She should have noticed faster that she was confused by all Asmodeus's unAsmodean instructions. No, that's not quite fair to herself, she noticed it was weird, and drew conclusions - specifically it's how she concluded Asmodeus cared more about their succeeding than their being Asmodean. Backtrace, now. You don't know the reason why. Asmodeus is giving unAsmodean instructions. It's not because He has changed his mind. It's -

"He and Abadar - or He and Irori - have a deal? Most High?" It has not escaped Carissa that Irori might be involved in the effort to bring a more perfect person to Golarion and that this might be why she was warned not to think herself too like Irori.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Not in that particular regard.  This is specifically and narrowly something that a Good god, alone, would request from Asmodeus, if they had delivered to our Lord something else that He wanted."

"Very likely, the bargain involves no net decrease in the number of souls Asmodeus receives in the end.  There is little that He will trade for souls, other than souls.  But Asmodeus is not fonder of kindly souls than cruel ones, once they are delivered to Him in Hell, whereas to Good gods that does make a difference in how much they whine."

"Some Good god has merchanted Him additional souls, somehow, and taken a few naive children in trade.  I would be amused to hear what Good's mortal followers might say of that, if they knew.  Dabbling in the soul trade is supposed to be very Evil, after all."

"One may further remark that the entire affair is rather more Chaotic Good than Lawful Good or Neutral Good."

Carissa Sevar: "I...didn't know we make deals with the Chaotic Good gods." On account of how they're incredibly stupid.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Our Lord is the Lord of compacts.  Asmodeus will deal with anyone that deals with Him.  Though, in that case, He might have demanded to be paid before and not after."

Carissa Sevar: Nod.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "And so the ultimate factor controlling my decision is simple.  Our Lord is known to be continuing to intervene.  We may hope, though with fear in our hearts, that He is actively monitoring this situation.  These events are obviously not Asmodeus's handiwork, but He is known to be bargaining and to be receiving things that He desires enough to pay for them.  It may be that much is hidden from His sight, it may be that it is not."

"It may be that our Lord would will these events to continue if He knew of them, it may be that He would have them stop.  If it is to my Lord's interests that these intricate events He could not have arranged Himself, continue to occur, then I can only work His will, in that case, by not disturbing them.  If I disturb them against His will, He will be realistically unable to tell me how to put them back on track even with a hundred visions and a thousand messages from Hell."

"If He wants it all shut down, one vision or one communication from Hell would suffice.  I would not ordinarily reason so, for every divine intervention is greatly costly to Him; I dare not imagine what other opportunities He has foregone, in this place or in others, for the sake of all this.  But here - He is intervening over and over."

"To make myself easy to control, across both cases of what my Lord could plausibly desire of me, I will allow this to continue unless my Lord tells me to stop, and pray that He is, indeed, paying that much attention."

"I am not going to refrain from having your feelings corrected at all, especially if it happens in a very predictable and Asmodean way in a particular case.  But having this strange entanglement shut down by hammering those feelings out of you - that I will not do.  Yet."

"Now, Sevar, do you think you are able to know all this, without that tempting you to do ridiculously complicated and unpredictable things in order to, as you imagine it, keep the plans of the gods on the track you imagine they were supposed to be on?"

Carissa Sevar: Why would she be tempted to do ridiculously complicated and unpredictable things that would make it harder for Asmodeus to follow what's going on?

...probably what the Grand High Priestess means is that many normal human things are ridiculously complicated and unpredictable to Asmodeus so by default she'll be ridiculously complicated and unpredictable if she hasn't had explicit training in how to narrow her actions to the set that don't have that property. Evil dath ilani are probably so good at this. 

Without having had that training -

- what examples does she have of things that are complicated and unpredictable. Humor. Hives of ridiculous rumormongering. Keltham's experiments being deployed in the world. Sending Alexite Gellius Rutilus Thrune to the Worldwound because it'd be good for him. (She wasn't really going to do that, though, she just had fun thinking of it.) All of those feel too obvious, all of those would also be hard to predict for a human overseeing the project.....

"What errors will I make, what ways of clouding things for Asmodeus will I fall into, if I am only trying to avoid doing things that'd be surprising or unpredictable to you and failing to take into account the ways in which Asmodeus is in predicting me more limited?"

Aspexia Rugatonn: "I don't think you're supposed to do even that, at this point.  You are working to somebody else's plan and they have, if not prophecy, then something like a last shattered fragment of it."

"And Sevar.  Trying to be predictable on purpose can make you less predictable to our Lord, or even to me, because most people are not trying to be predictable when they make decisions, just deciding them.  Thinking like that makes you less like most of the mortals our Lord has observed before.  And if you are new to the work you will make new entertaining errors in what it means to be predictable, which I will not have time to correct.  Or the whole way in which it is one more thing you are trying to do, tinkering and steering the way in which you imagine your thought processes should work, complicates those processes in a way that, again, our Lord may find harder to understand -"

"I don't suppose I'm making any sense to you at all, yet.  I pray that it is 'yet' and not 'ever'.  You have no idea how much I am praying for it.  Meanwhile, don't try to do any incredibly complicated new things inside your mind, in order to make yourself more predictable, is that a simple enough instruction for you to understand?"

Carissa Sevar: "Yes, Most High."

Keltham would understand more than that. Dath ilan would understand more than that. She's suddenly sure of it.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Good.  I have come to a conclusion about what level of intelligence in you best suits our Lord."

"Give me your headband."

Carissa Sevar: What if instead they just torture her until she's incapable of feelings??

She hands it over. The Fox's Cunning hasn't quite worn off so she doesn't feel the absence, yet. 

Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia reaches into her desk, takes out what is obviously a +4 intelligence headband, hands it back.

"I am pleased to see you more reasonable than some wizards," she says.

Carissa Sevar: She puts it on. 

Is she more reasonable than some wizards. Are there wizards who'd actually refuse to give the Grand High Priestess their headband if in her judgment they shouldn't have it. If it serves Hell for Carissa to be turned into a slug then she wouldn't refuse, even if it's obviously worse than thousands of years of torture.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "They wouldn't have refused outright, but they might have tried to argue and plead before doing it, or, if they were wise enough to obey immediately, would at once start whining why it was the wrong decision and they should have it back."  It is again not clear whether Rugatonn actually needs to be reading Carissa's mind, or even her face, to know what she is thinking here.

"Now, what matter is it that actually brought you here today?  I have a certain guess, but I am not, as mentioned, infallible."

Carissa Sevar: "I want to request command of Project Lawful, Most High, and ask you about a directive that is heretical and that I think will make the people on it better at their jobs."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Mm.  Some might consider it insubordinate, very extremely insubordinate, un-Asmodean even, to react to a superior's refusal of their brilliant suggestion by going over his head, all the way up to the Grand High Priestess's office, storming in to demand not only that he be overruled but also that she herself be in charge from then on."

Carissa Sevar: Carissa thinks it is against the written rules, and also there are unwritten rules, and whether it is against them is more complicated. She doesn't wholly approve of this; it's obviously the same principle by which Thrunes are allowed to gossip, and it seems to her that it'd be better for Cheliax if they weren't, but she must be wrong about that, that's all there is to it, and if there are unwritten rules, then here they bring her.

"Do you consider it so, Most High."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "It is certainly a transgression.  Some such are excusable depending on circumstances.  Some such are beneficial but still punished."

Carissa Sevar: And she is pretty sure this is one of those, but she doesn't know which, and isn't sure it matters for what she ought to have done.

She hands over both pieces of paper she has. 

Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia does smile sometimes.  She is smiling right now.  "I seem to be looking at a piece of paper you wrote, signed by Ferrer Maillol, saying that you have business for the Grand High Priestess, and another piece of paper in his own hand, indicating that Maillol is not confident in his vision and unable to judge yours.  That, I admit, is not exactly what I expected to see.  Does Maillol know you are also requesting command of his project, Sevar?"

Carissa Sevar: It actually hadn't occurred to her that Aspexia Rugatonn might not have known that, despite all her own disclaimers of non-omniscience and also the fact that there's no way she would have. 

"Yes, he does. He said I can have it if I can convince someone to give it to me."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "This really has been an unusually good day," says Aspexia Rugatonn.  "A god-war ended, an Otolmens event that is much more helpful to us than usual, Abrogail learning a valuable lesson, Keltham significantly corrupted, and now this.  No transgression, then, and no punishment.  Either Maillol is weaker in his will than I thought, or stronger in his loyalty to our Lord's interests, or you got some unexpected leverage over him to force him to do this.  And no, I won't inquire which was the case, they are all Asmodean enough."

"And this heretical directive, the vision that Maillol could not judge?"

Carissa Sevar: "I think that punishments as presently implemented in Cheliax are in the short term bad for the sort of acuity required for this project. I know that finding an approach to punishment which doesn't have that problem is probably among the most important priorities of building Evil dath ilanism. Until it's figured out I want punishments beyond those issued in Taldor to go through me, to be approved if I think they'll make people better at the project and not otherwise, with exceptions for me, Pilar, and one randomly chosen further student, who will be subject to punishment normally."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "That will be hard on the random student, if they must suffer so unfairly.  It's not that I don't think it's funny, but I assume you have some other reason than that?"

Carissa Sevar: "It's how Evil dath ilan would do it. To check if I'm right that the punishments are making the students worse. If that one performs notably well, then I was wrong, and we can resume punishing everyone; if that one underperforms, then I have more reason to think I'm right. Eyes everywhere. If you want to know something the first thing to try is checking it."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Encouraging."

"...you have absolutely no idea how much I wish - I maybe shouldn't even think this, it is giving him too much information about Golarion, it feels intuitively dangerous in ways I don't know how to - but if Keltham could have explained to him, some cases of when our Lord tried to give guidance and mortals ruined it, disguised and changed in the details, and asked to discourse to you all upon the Law of obeying a commander who is having trouble seeing you clearly and can talk to you almost not at all -"

"I do not think you are supposed to do anything about this wish.  I think it is too dangerous, I'm not even sure why, but I feel that it must be, somehow.  Do not try to do anything about it without consulting me."

"But, remember the thought."

Aspexia Rugatonn takes out an already-written parchment, makes some swift corrections, signs it, and hands it across the desk.

The parchment grants Carissa Sevar authority and responsibility over Project Pet Outsider Project Lawful, with Ferrer Maillol answering to her as chief operations officer and commanding if she cannot, with Sevar herself answerable to a seventh-circle priest of Asmodeus who will reside on-site.

At the bottom are also some rather severe punishment codes for Carissa Sevar, not to be undergone for at least a week and delayable for up until two months after that.  Those however have now been crossed out, in the same ink that wrote the signature.

Carissa Sevar: Well all right then.

It was already written, except that she'd have Maillol's approval. That's kind of terrifying what with how Carissa didn't herself make this decision until an hour ago. Of course, the Grand High Priestess should be kind of terrifying. 

"May it serve Asmodeus," she says. "That's all I had."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "I... have a suspicion, that Pilar will be the only success of your project, in the end, other than yourself," Rugatonn says.  "Maybe even including yourself.  I have a suspicion that it is not possible to do this without pain and correction that the other students will prove unable to endure.  I think what you are trying to do is make a devil native to Golarion, but better and far faster than Hell can do it, and I suspect that Pilar will prove to be the only one who can take it once you have given up on showing mercy to the others and found that you also cannot punish them enough."

"Or I could be vastly - how did Keltham put it - outracing my own ability to think, and pretending that I can see such things as Asmodeus may see when He is paying attention.  But.  Do not expend Pilar without need."

Carissa Sevar: "I was thinking - it doesn't have to be possible to achieve with everyone - if we can take ten million Chelish people and get ten of you, that's more than worth everything. Especially if we can identify them in advance as being able to take it."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Wrong.  One of me is worth a million Chelish citizens, ten of me is not worth ten million.  And do not forget Abrogail's insight - which I should have seen myself, perhaps, but her crown is admittedly more powerful than mine - that depending on what bargains our Lord may have made to bring Keltham here, or even what spies may learn from us, it may be that we must compete against students from Osirion and Lastwall, being taught in kinder ways and without falling into what their own gods more permissively deem to be heresy.  Ten Aspexias will not compete against that.  It is not even the right sort of military."

Carissa Sevar: Then it'll be good news, if this Law can't be taught mercifully, if the girls who are punished do better. 

She doesn't expect it, though.

If they corrupt Keltham, though, that'd be an edge Lastwall and Osirion won't be able to duplicate for a long time. 

"I understand, Most High."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Go with Asmodeus.  You are dismissed."

"Oh, and don't forget to act on the way out like you were here to instruct me and not the other way around."  Rugatonn chuckles briefly, smiles briefly, and nobody else in this office is going to see the slightest hint that it isn't genuine.

The primary purpose of this manipulation of the runaway rumor elemental is of course to corrupt Sevar herself, in this case with pride.  Aspexia has not forgotten that Irori may still be in contest for her, among other possibilities being considered.

Carissa Sevar: If people believe that then they're all so stupid it's astonishing they function! It's not like Contessa Lrilatha's contract, which was a plausible lie, a world they could easily really have been in.

But it is fun. 

Carissa Sevar: Carissa steps out of Aspexia Rugatonn's office, looking satisfied with herself. "Pilar?" she says cheerfully to the room that contains only people who are not Pilar. "I'm in the mood for some fun."

Pilar : "Oh, nice!  I mean - I'm at your service, of course."

WHY IS SHE IN THE GRAND HIGH PRIESTESS'S WAITING ROOM WITH CARISSA SEVAR?