Keltham: "If Cheliax isn't just throwing Pilar to me because I'm important, the amount they know about me should not stack up to the amount they know about many non-aliens who would want a Pilar..."

Keltham: His arms tighten around her.  "I'm sorry.  I don't want to talk about this, maybe shouldn't talk about it for a bit.  I should go with Yaisa before I go anywhere near Pilar, and I know that in the Conspiracy it wouldn't be that you were making this all up yourself and I caught you out in an inconsistency that easily, but -"

"I thought I'd be less scared than this, after the Suggestion spell, but now I'm in love with you and lose you if masochists are a Conspiracy invention and now I'm actually scared about that."

Carissa Sevar: It's not even an inconsistency!!!!!!! Those numbers are her actual best guess!

"I - I know there's nothing I can say to you about that, because I could say it in the Conspiracy too. I hope you figure it out soon, though."

Keltham: "I'll ask Subirachs.  It's stupid for me to be talking about this with you of all people, that's just being cruel to myself."

"And Subirachs is going to say something about - I shouldn't say it out loud.  Not if I'm actually going to try to test the Conspiracy on this, even though, even though why would the Conspiracy be doing that if the plan isn't just to hurt me as much as possible.  Don't answer that either, if I'm going to play that game with anybody I'll ask Asmodia."

Keltham: ...some part of his brain does seem to be convinced that letting himself fall in love with Carissa, as much as that looked like the courageous act of living your own best life and not backing away from that out of simple fear, on the surface appearances of things, was actually a huge mistake.

Keltham floats the internal argument that, if so, he has in fact already now made that mistake and might as well go all in on it, and that what comes of it will come.

...it lands a little, maybe.

Keltham: "If I could make safe Wishes," Keltham whispers, "ones that should not work even in a world of magic, I'd Wish that all the Kelthams across all the worlds could ask one true question to their Carissa of the Conspiracy, no matter how rare she is among their worlds, to ask her if somehow even she loves him, or maybe just, if she's okay despite having to play the role of being tortured -"

"I don't know why I'm thinking that.  She'd just be like 'no obviously', and how would that help."

Carissa Sevar: "I might not be imagining the same Conspiracy as you and I don't have the slightest idea what I could say that would - capture the Carissae in the conspiracy that you're imagining, meaningfully -

- like, I can swear to it, I'm tempted to, but I'd be scared that - Carissa in the Conspiracy just - condemns herself to Abaddon and burns the Law and becomes someone who can never serve at the Worldwound and who can't sustain a world that fights the Worldwound at all - because I don't understand what Carissa in the Conspiracy wants so I'm not sure it makes sense to say she wouldn't do that -"

Keltham: "Don't swear to it, that reasoning is correct.  Maybe I just want to hear her say no, so that those Kelthams can apologize to her, and go back to their more probable Carissas.  Why am I thinking so much about her, she's not you."

"You don't have to solve this problem.  Basic Security reasoning says you can't, I have to, and the way it gets solved is that I orient to Golarion and play the game against people who aren't you and rule out at least the Conspiracies that are weak enough that they can't just synthesize real masochists, rule out the Conspiracies that have to improvise after I run into Carissa at the Worldwound and whose scans didn't detect me the instant I showed up in Golarion, because those weaker Conspiracies, I could catch, and if they're enough smarter than I am then I'll never know, but also you won't be hurting, because that's not what's efficient if they have the power to eliminate that risk of being caught, you'll just be an actual masochist they made for me, or maybe not exist at all except as a more complicated illusion, and if so I'll never find out, and I'll know that, and someday I'll go to a Lawful being who doesn't answer to Asmodeus and say that I'm looking to buy a consensual permanent version of a Suggestion to not have to think about that possibility anymore unless I deliberately decide to, and then I'll be done and able to live inside Golarion as it appears to be."

Carissa Sevar: " - that doesn't sound like a satisfactorily good ending. I want a better one."

Keltham: "I genuinely don't see how you get a better ending than that even as a god.  There could always be a bigger god that's fooling you."

"And we have now lain in bed long enough for the conversation to turn incredibly depressing, which is silly, and next time, we should get out of bed while we're still ahead of ourselves on points."

Carissa Sevar: "You become the biggest god." But she gets out of bed. 

Keltham: He follows.

"There isn't a biggest god any more than there's a biggest number.  I mean, as a large enough god, much bigger than Asmodeus by the sound of it, maybe you can calculate where you mostly are inside Reality directly, but there could still be a larger god containing you and messing with your calculations and then that's the possibility you'd rewrite yourself to not bother thinking about anymore."

"I suppose there could be some clever solution I'm not seeing due to not actually being even a small god."

Irori: Declaring that you need to become a better god is sometimes worth an extra cleric level from Irori, if He has that sort of relationship with someone, but He and Carissa Sevar currently don't.

Project Lawful: Meanwhile, the Project Lawful researchers have decided that Pilar is usually a pretty nice person so long as you don't punch her in the faith, but can be provoked.  Asmodia sends Pilar to ask Maillol for tips on how that sort of thing works with the worshippers of other gods, which Maillol can in fact provide her; though Maillol also informs Asmodia afterwards that he, Maillol, is not particularly tolerant of attempts to duck out potential punishments by sending your subordinate to annoy somebody instead of doing that yourself.

The Conspirators work some on figuring out who they are in alter-Cheliax, and spend some time reading in the library because that's probably what non-Asmodeans do??  If Keltham asks they were mostly reading in the library or getting in some magical practice.

Keltham and Carissa arrive rather late to lunch, but there's sufficient food left to feed them.

Afterwards Keltham announces that he needs to think over the whole Keeper thing in the back of his mind; and also in fact, he does have work to be done at some point which isn't lessons: namely, writing up an interim contract between the Project and Cheliax, and of course writing up a contract for the Project itself.  He's sorry for not thinking ahead to this part earlier, but yeah, everybody go take the rest of the day off, or catch up on things.  He'll figure out by tomorrow what to do about the Keeper business.

And Keltham writes up the contracts, or rather, sketches what should be in them; there's no point in going formal or handing it to somebody like Lrilatha before having negotiated the pieces.  He does successfully remember to actually use the Lesser Restoration on himself when he starts feeling tired.  When he's done, he writes up a summary of the key points and ideas, and hands it in to Maillol to hopefully make its way to some appropriate person in Governance.

Flirting occurs at dinnertime, but of the girls no longer employed by Project Lawful, only Yaisa attempts to flirt with Keltham.  He doesn't take anybody to the cuddleroom; that part of him feels a little tired, but only in a temporary way.

Keltham takes time for wizard practice as well, and successfully hangs an Auditory Hallucination.  It only targets one person per level, alas, unlike Silent Image, so he uses it to play some of Civilization's professional-level music for Carissa, pieces Keltham has listened to often enough to remember in due order.

And then Keltham goes to sleep, and shortly before dawn becomes a statue.

Project Lawful: PL-timestamp:  Day 8-9 (7) / Late Night

Carissa Sevar: "What actually am I missing about the allocation of Pilars and the allocation of people suitable for them, do they mostly end up snatched up by people who aren't very suitable, or are a lot of nobles suitable..." Carissa asks Subirachs during her debrief once Keltham's gone to sleep. Her Ring of Sustenance has kicked in, and she feels more rested just in the anticipation of the extra six hours, even before she's had them. 

Jacint Subirachs: "I remind you - gently, because it is in one way a good sign that you are making this mistake, though a potentially fatal mistake if untreated - that the real Pilar does not have an obligate rape fetish."

"The alter-Pilars of the real Cheliax, if that phrase makes sense, are a great deal less in want than I imagine they should be in alter-Cheliax.  In the true Cheliax, most people who can afford to keep an alter-Pilar can choose from any number of prey without a rape fetish, and most of those with power and wealth in Cheliax would find that the more satisfying alternative.  I apologize; it should have been my place as well as yours to realize that in alter-Cheliax they would be in greater demand than here, before Keltham asked after it."

Carissa Sevar: " - right. 

I think I don't know enough about real Cheliax to be good at thinking where I'll need to lie. 

Before Keltham....I rather intended to run my magic shop and never leave it and not come to anyone powerful's attention, in significant part because they might rape me though also because they might murder me, and I'm not sure if that was a fault of mine, or - a cost Cheliax is paying because it's cheaper than other ways of getting tyranny, or - if someone would've at some point corrected me in that - but it seems wasteful."

Jacint Subirachs: "I might previously have had a different answer, but I now think we're not actually very Lawful compared to how Evil we are."

"If we are talking about the typical magic-shop owner, then I think they in fact just wouldn't have any grand ambitions of serving Asmodeus that we should be encouraging.  Maybe missing a few Carissa Sevars into the mix is a problem we cannot avoid at our levels of Law.  It would be a more plausible argument if you didn't have a native Intelligence of 18 or the Spellcraft that you did..."

"I think we're failing to pick up on potential Inner Ring members who'd serve Asmodeus better as more than shopkeepers.  I don't have a good idea yet of how the new Cheliax could do better.  Except that there could be a dath ilani track for people with native intelligences of 18, and then, something about Keltham strikes me as not the type to hide in his magic shop and never come to anyone's attention, but I could not begin to guess which portion of Law that represents..."

"I think a lot of the real answer is that the real Cheliax is just not very organized by dath ilani standards.  We aren't sweeping peasant villages for alter-Pilars and training the most attractive and Intelligent ones for sale to the highest bidders that might make a more Asmodean use of them, because we simply aren't rich enough to afford infrastructure like that."

Carissa Sevar: "Keltham has a bizarre attitude towards being deterred from doing things which might or might not have an Evil dath ilani equivalent and which actually seems important to figure out, I worry it's close to the fragment of Law where he wouldn't just be a shopkeeper."

Jacint Subirachs: "If it's Law, you're going to have to figure it out, or maybe Asmodia.  The only way I can make headway on it myself is by imagining that dath ilan shaped Keltham from childhood not to become his Evil self, in ways hidden from him.  We may be doing the equivalent of wandering through a dungeon laid in his mind to prevent his escape, and wondering why there are so many traps lying around, where did they come from, who would put a spike pit there."

Carissa Sevar: "Rings - partially true. He said a bunch of things about how he only cares what Civilization would think of him in the sense that Civilization is sensible but - I think it's why the possibility that we're specifically trying to get him to do things his civilization would abhor looms so large. I think dath ilan would be incredibly hostile to anyone actually Evil and he admits it tried quite hard to make sure he never learned he likes hurting people during sex...the Law part is separate from that, though. If I were to take a stab at it I'd say that - if everyone will predictably not choose their course of action based on threats, then there's no point issuing them, so dath ilan worked incredibly hard to make everyone believe about themselves and about everyone else that they predictably won't choose their course of action based on threats. Which is just false of normal humans but maybe they managed to make it true enough about dath ilani."

Jacint Subirachs: Subirachs doesn't see where Sevar is going with this - Subirachs is not currently having Detect Thoughts run on Sevar, it doesn't seem important enough and Security burns a lot of those spells in Project Lawful - but maybe she's only meant to serve as a listening-pet to the Chosen of Asmodeus, at this point.

"If my bedroom partners were immune to threats, they would be less fun in many ways, but that would leave enough forms of fun left to still take them," Jacint ventures.  "Being immune to threats, if that could be done, is not the same as being able to avoid reacting to pain in interesting ways."

Carissa Sevar: - nod. "And also it's only a threat in the relevant sense, I think, if it's costly to do and you're doing it anyway as followthrough on the commitment, made in the hope you wouldn't have to pay it - like, that we will flog thieves, that's a threat, because no one wants to expend all the resources tracking down and flogging the thieves, but if we didn't then there'd be lots of them.

If you say, I want to torture people to death, I just enjoy it, it's fun, but for reasons of maintaining a functioning organization I commit to restraining unless you betray me, at which point I'll do the thing I want to do -

- not a threat. I think. I should run this by Asmodia, but Keltham's built off it at a very deep level and it might be an edge Evil dath ilan has, that we can credibly promise punishment even to the kind of entity that doesn't respond to threats as long as we're doing it because we genuinely love and enjoy it."

Jacint Subirachs: "My mind's picture of Keltham's Civilization reacts by turning all our lands into fire and ash, if they can, or turning their own lands to fire and ash if they cannot.  But perhaps I attribute too much pride to them."

"The Most High would know for certain how gods would see it."

Carissa Sevar: "I think you're right about dath ilan's Civilization, it has built itself into something that will destroy us or destroy itself on contact. It can't live alongside anyone whose values are sufficiently different."

Carissa Sevar: "I hope that's not true of Keltham's Civilization. I don't want to lose him like that. I hope that even once it breaks he'll look at us and see something that he is willing to live in the same world as. But maybe he won't, and then we kill him."

And the only way she can protect him is by changing his mind. 

Or, if she's wrong to think that Cheliax would win, then the only way she can protect the whole world is by changing his mind. 

Well, fine, then, she'll do that.

Jacint Subirachs: "We are not forbidden to kill him."

"We are forbidden to Maledict him, so it amounts to giving him to Abadar and thence to Osirion, and we can't keep him prisoner here either."

"Whatever game is occurring, Asmodeus has not allowed us any easy lesser victories in it."

Carissa Sevar: "Oh."

" - well, Abadar doesn't want the world reduced to fire and ash either.

Right?"

Jacint Subirachs: "Nethys might."

"Cayden Cailean probably doesn't."

dath ilan: If this were an eroLARP, which god got their preferred outcome would depend on which romantic interest Keltham ended up most favoring.

It's probably for the best that Keltham hasn't thought to mention that to anyone yet.

Carissa Sevar: "Can we kill Nethys."

Jacint Subirachs: "We can't even Maledict Ione, and if she revives in Nethys's grand temple in Sothis, knowing what she already knows of Law and Keltham -"

"Maybe the Most High would contradict my interpretation, in fact I rather suspect she would, it is not the place of 7th-circle priestesses to set their wits against those of gods.  But to me it feels as if we are being told, maybe even by tropes, to submit and play the game that was set for us."

Carissa Sevar: "Win Keltham by playing fair and possessing that which appeals most to him."

Jacint Subirachs: "Playing fair would be taking it much too far.  Keltham does not seem to think that particularly Lawful, and I'm quite sure it's not Evil."

dath ilan: (Civilization's hypothetical policy toward things that really really want to minimize your utility function unless you pay them $5, and which totally didn't get there by strategic self-modification no really, is in fact to pay any costs required to remove them from reality.

You could rationalize it by saying that you expect most of those entities did get there by strategic self-modification even if they say otherwise, or via some error that their ancestors are less likely to make if it's obvious that's how most of the potential victims will respond.

But that's only part of the reason.  The other part is that if you're finding yourself inside horrible broken counterfactuals that shouldn't exist in the first place and some bastards went and fucked up actual reality, well, even the Keepers did start out as human at one point, so fuck all those aforesaid bastards.)

Project Lawful: PL-timestamp:  Day 8-9 (7) / Late Night

(yes, still)

Iarwain: Usually when Security suddenly comes for you in the middle of the night while you're catching up on your Project's paperwork, the scenario in which this happens is a lot more scary than the one Carissa Sevar is confronting right now.

The Security usually isn't kneeling to you with their head bowed, for one thing.

Carissa Sevar: - no actually that is stressful because he must have fucked up something badly enough he's not sure if the low-punishment rules still apply. 

" - what."

Iarwain: "My name is Olegario, 5th-circle, conjuration specialist.  I was the Security who watched over Subirachs's office while you spoke to her of your thoughts on creating a place for dath ilani in Hell."

"I fear Hell.  If it is not heresy to do so, and offends not Queen nor Church nor Hell, I would offer my allegiance to you in hopes of receiving whatever place in Hell there may be for the vassals of dath ilani who are not dath ilani themselves."

Carissa Sevar: Oh. 

Well, there's going to be a lot of that, if she really does build something that's able to use more of people than the rest of Hell is building. 

(Or even if she doesn't, but people hold out hope that she might.)

She feels dizzy. It feels like somehow even though the stakes were plainly high enough for a godwar they just keep getting higher. She has to win Keltham or he'll set up a Civilization built off one that would destroy them if it could. She has to fix Hell or - possibly billions of people - will go there and get weaker, because no one knows how to use them - caring about other people is pathetic but it's sort of allowed if they belong to you, which is precisely what he's offering -

- or it could be a test. But if it's a test she's not sure what it's testing. It isn't heretical to make agreements that explicitly specify themselves to hold as long as they displease none of the Church or the Queen or Hell itself; it approximately can't be. 

(It could be Abrogail! volunteers the part of her brain that seems to have assigned itself the role of declaring that everything and everyone could be Abrogail.)

She takes a moment to think. That's probably terrifying, to him, but you're supposed to take a moment to think if you're doing anything actually serious, and this is incredibly serious. 

"If it offends not Church nor Queen nor Hell, I accept your allegiance," she says, "though I'll have to build Evil dath ilan before I can even begin to guess the use it will have for its vassals. I - don't predict that it would have none."

Iarwain: He remains kneeling.  "Have you any different orders for me, or requests of me?"

Carissa Sevar: " - I'm going to go check if this does, in fact, offend Church or Queen or Hell, and then revisit that question. You're dismissed for now." Does her voice sound childish and incompetent to anyone except her.

Iarwain: Olegario thought somehow that the Chosen of Asmodeus would already know what wouldn't offend Church nor Queen nor Hell.  There is in his stomach the sickening feeling of having taken the wrong risk, a foolish risk, a doomed risk.  Should he have waited?  But the Chosen will have half of Cheliax wanting to swear to her, if the opportunity becomes known and less risky, and she would have less use for a 5th-circle then.

He rises.  "I go then to watch over you, as is my duty this night," he says, and steps through her door to put back on his Invisibility ring.

Carissa Sevar: The Chosen of Asmodeus really really wishes she knew what would offend Church or Queen or Hell but you see actually she's just fourth-circle herself and holding all this together through the sheer conviction that a Fly spell can't expire if you aren't looking at your watch. 

Okay, maybe she knows some things. Abrogail's not going to object. Abrogail would pay attention to Carissa amassing an independent power base but Carissa's pretty sure at this point Abrogail's correctly assessed Carissa as not at all a threat on that front, and also fifth-circle conjuration specialists aren't even dangerous in that evaluation, especially. Hell...presumably owns the wizard's soul, and if she makes it known she wants to buy it the price will spike wildly....she wishes she could tell Keltham about this, he'd be a delightful accomplice in trying to solve problems like that -

So that's just Church, to check. She goes to Maillol's office; this feels like a thing that has to do with Carissa's fairly inadequate tyranny.

Iarwain: Maillol's office is empty.  He is dead and Raised, and his own Ring of Sustenance won't kick until tomorrow night.

Carissa Sevar: Right, that. She's gotten accustomed to thinking of him as just fixed in that chair for her to visit whenever it occurs to her. 

Subirachs hasn't died recently, she should be up.

Jacint Subirachs: She is always ready, if perhaps a bit nervous at this point, to receive the Chosen of Asmodeus again.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa recounts what happened. "I - expect it might come up again. My not alarming Her Majestrix is between us, I understand, but would anything I might do inspire concern from the Church?"

Jacint Subirachs: "Yes."

"Quite a lot of concern actually."

"I think this is a matter for the Most High, period."

Carissa Sevar: " - understood. I - regret my error in underestimating its seriousness. Should I write to her or should you."

Jacint Subirachs: Jacint sighs.  What was she thinking.  What was he thinking.  WAS ANYONE INCLUDING HERSELF ACTUALLY THINKING AT ANY POINT.

"I shall permit you the privilege," Jacint says.

Carissa Sevar: Well, if this is one of those Carissa-errors that actually can be solved by hurting her then that'd be good news since so many of them apparently can't and if it can't then it's going to boil down to 'it's allowed if you genuinely succeed at serving Asmodeus with all this nonsense and otherwise not' which is the place Carissa has been for a long time. 

And she has tomorrow off! There's that! 

She writes a note for the next dispatch to the Most High that Olegario has if it does not offend Church, Queen and Hell offered Carissa his allegiance, and she accepted if those conditions obtain, and then went to check if the conditions in fact obtained, and now repents of her error in not asking first whether, in fact, the Church is so offended, which she is given to understand is a matter for the Most High. 

Iarwain: Comms accepts the message from Carissa Sevar to Aspexia Rugatonn with the numb air of somebody who is trying not to think about any of the names now involved in his daily life.

Project Lawful: PL-timestamp:  Day 9 (7) / Pre-Dawn

???: "Ahem."

Asmodia: "Blergh?" says Asmodia, who is not a morning person.  You might think that this wouldn't be a problem, since it is not, in fact, morning, but these two negations utterly fail to cancel.

???: ...all right, she'll just give the girl a moment, then.

Asmodia: ...there's an unfamiliar person wearing spiky armor in her bedroom, holding a black candle in one hand that burns with a blood-red flame.

Right, well, it's not like her life has been normal for a while.  "I think I'd like to hear an authorization code sometime about now," says Asmodia, because that's what Security would like her to say.

???: "I don't particularly have one.  Security won't hear us while this candle burns.  Promise."  The words are accompanied by a charming, conspiratorial smile that's backed by enough Splendour that a sorcerer could burn down a city with it.

Asmodia: Uh huh.

Asmodia gets out of her bed, wearing the same student uniform that you might as well call your pajamas as an Ostenso wizard student.  She goes on past the spiky woman to test the door to her bedroom, finds it locked.

She tries to snuff the candle with a Mage Hand.  There's no counterspell visible to her Arcane Sight, but the candle goes on burning.

Asmodia goes to sit on her bed, illuminates her room with a simple cantrip, and raises her eyebrows at her visitor.

???: "Are your loyalties, by any chance, for sale?"

Asmodia: "Anyone can be bought for the right price.  You might have some trouble finding mine."

Actually, that's sort of alterCheliax Asmodia, not real Asmodia... well, she's not as sure what realAsmodia says anyways, that would require actual thinking and it's way too early in the morning.

???: "How about a long life of luxury somewhere far from Cheliax, followed by a Plane Shift to Abaddon at the end of your life, to leave some overeager devil appropriately bereft?"

Asmodia: "Uh huh.  In exchange for what, pray tell?"

???: Asmodia's thoughts show that, first of all, she's pretty sure this is a test, second, that's not even much better than the offer she already got from the Most High, and third -

Asmodia's thoughts abruptly cut out.

Now that is truly interesting, not that Asmodia was being particularly boring in the first place.

"Teaching the Law you've learned, somewhere far from Cheliax, to patrons who reward with more than a simple surcease of punishment," the mysterious visitor ventures.

Asmodia: "Thank you blatant loyalty test.  I'd like to get back to sleep now so I can prepare spells tomorrow, and oh, by the way, do my important job for Cheliax.  Did somebody miss the part where I just said under Keltham's truthspell that I want the Project to be able to continue doing what it's doing?"

???: "I suppose I can't blame you for thinking this a test.  Well, consider yourself to be tested on your answer to this - why wouldn't you take the offer, if it was real?"

Asmodia: In case someone, somewhere, cares about me more than that.

"You didn't significantly outbid Aspexia Rugatonn, I'm having more fun than I've ever had in my life doing what I'm currently doing, I would actually like to see the Project continue its work, and my trying to go anywhere Keltham can't flirt with me is prohibited by factors I have no reason to think you're cleared to know about.  May I go back to sleep now?"

???: "One last question.  How is it possible that you are concealing some of your thoughts from me?"

It simply shouldn't be possible to mentally enforce a suppression so complete, not against eighth-circle sorcery.

Asmodia: Oh fuck it.  She'd gotten so far without - did she screw up, somehow, think too many opaqued thoughts...

"Project Lawful bullshit that you are not cleared to know about," Asmodia tries, just to see if that works.

???: "It does not, in fact, work."

Asmodia: Asmodia gets Gorthoklek's authorization, hands it over.  "Okay.  Hell's bullshit you're not cleared to know about.  And I really hope for your sake that you were telling the truth about no other Security listening, because if you were lying about that, we're going to have to call them in to get the same orders, now that you went and said all that out loud."

"Otherwise get out of my bedroom, admit to your superior that you failed at running a convincing loyalty test and take whatever punishment goes with that, and don't mention anything about my opaque thoughts in your report.  Understood?"

Abrogail Thrune II: She's feeling genuinely torn here between bowing her head submissively and saying "Understood", to see where this goes if it's allowed to keep running, and backhanding the child into Hell, to be entertained there for a few hours before being Raised.

Asmodia: "Understood?" Asmodia repeats in a slightly sharper voice, as she takes the authorization out of the obvious loyalty-tester's hands.

Abrogail Thrune II: "Understood," says Abrogail Thrune II, reigning Queen of Cheliax, and bows her head submissively.

She hasn't actually had a chance to consider the implications of Gorthoklek's authorization, which is not particularly written in such fashion as to exclude Abrogail Thrune from the scope of Hell's command.  Abrogail would as soon not do anything with Asmodia she can't undo, before she's had that chance to think, and this pathway does least.

Besides.  It potentially sets up an interesting reveal later.

Asmodia: "You say that, but I'm still waiting for you to not be here."

Abrogail Thrune II: If she insists.

Asmodia: And suddenly there's nobody in her bedroom, without any magical phenomena or illusions having been particularly visible to her Arcane Sight.

A slight prickle of unease pokes at Asmodia, then.  There are people in Cheliax who can do that, but not a lot of them... she thinks.  Who knows what Security actually gets up to, or what you can do with items... the whole thing seems kind of weird, suddenly, in light of that weird ending.

"Was that a trope?" Asmodia says out loud in her bedroom, and goes outside to briefly report an appropriately censored version of the encounter to Security.

Iarwain: Security refuses to confirm or deny that a loyalty test occurred, but isn't particularly reacting as if to an unexpected invader.

Asmodia: Huh.  Well, whatever.

Asmodia gets back to sleep.

Project Lawful: PL-timestamp:  Day 9 (7) / Morning

Iarwain: A long oval table has been set up on a rampart of the fortress, overlooking the ocean in one direction, in another direction lit by the morning sun.  At present, only five people are sitting here, all of whom have been spending too much time indoors of late.  Tea is available, and light snacks of the highest quality, but they are mostly being ignored.

Carissa Sevar: The time indoors is not really wearing on her; there's only sunlight six months of the year, at the Worldwound border that Cheliax holds. 

But everything else is kind of wearing on her, such as having to act like she belongs in present company. Not that she's doing a bad job of concealing that she's still scared of them all, but she bets they all (except possibly Maillol) can tell.

"Most High," she says, "I had a question for you." Two, actually, but this one makes her look good so she wants to ask it first.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "I make no promises about whether I have an answer, under our circumstances.  But ask."

Carissa Sevar: "Keltham spoke to us of how, in dath ilan, a group of non-conspirators credibly accused of being in a conspiracy would try to pick the set of actions that would most disadvantage the conspiracy, as an act of cooperation with Civilization in the worlds in which there was a conspiracy in truth, and for the same reason, a person accused of a murder wrongfully would give the police great detail on their potential motives and reasons to commit it. 

It occurred to me last night that -"

Carissa Sevar: " - so I, and I think many other people, are in a state of uncertainty about whether I am in fact Chosen by Asmodeus for a work that will require, or at least that has allowance for, the errors and heresies I've fallen into in the course of pursuing it, or whether I am like Pilar and Ione the product of the intervention of some other power, presumably acting with Asmodeus's agreement but not necessarily in His interests. I imagine you have a guess, but I'm not asking for it; I know what I'm meant to know, and it's obvious why I wouldn't be meant to know more.

But I understand, then, that a dath ilani in my position would try to - cooperate with the Church across the worlds in which she is acting in Asmodeus's interests and the worlds in which she is, against her own will, acting against them, and can't be told so. By doing things which make me easy to countermand or undermine in those worlds where I need countermanding or undermining, or by - closing routes that I'd only need if I later desired to betray us. 

I see why this wouldn't have been pointed out to me, lest it raise to my attention in the first place that I don't know whether Asmodeus chose me or not. But now that I reasoned through it, is there by any chance a standard list of things I can do."

Abrogail Thrune II: "I suppose that decisively answers the question of whether exposing people to Keltham can turn them into Aspexia Rugatonn, because that is the most Aspexia Rugatonn thing that has ever been said by anyone who is not Aspexia Rugatonn."

(She's still keeping it professional and still won't be looking at Carissa's thoughts.)

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Alas, your Infernal Majestrix, it is easier to sound like me than to be me."

"Sevar.  When your thoughts become that complicated, it is time to simplify them if at all possible.  You are no true dath ilani as yet."

"The first fundamental principle, in any case where Asmodeus's orders have been given, is to follow Asmodeus's orders.  I'm not sure you appreciate the gift you are given in having orders you can follow.  I must usually operate without them, myself."

"Whatever the unclarity of His vision of the mortal realm, Asmodeus does balance across worlds like those you describe without the slightest difficulty.  Perhaps, indeed, the orders to let you travel beyond Cheliax without selling your soul are to the advantage of some other god hoping to receive you from us.  Or perhaps they are intended to let you wait on a higher soul-price, and yet follow Keltham in some circumstance where you should and must, to Asmodeus's advantage."

"Suppose we can be confident that the first case was always the one that held, that it is only to some other god's advantage that you have freedom of travel.  Even if we are certain of this we must not disobey our orders, not push them around the edges to what we think is our Lord's advantage, because the effect of that is simply to require our Lord to work harder to instruct us when some other god pays Him to grant someone freedom of travel."

"Our Lord has gone to great lengths to make the Asmodean system one of obedience once orders have been given.  It is in His nature as a god, and when we try to make Him work through means whose nature is contrary to giving orders to be obeyed, making Him take into account our possible disobedience or edge-flirtation, we are going against His nature and costing Him yet more."

"How do we balance our choices across the worlds that might be, the reasons our Lord might have, His possible interests, His likely goals?  If we have orders, the answer is, by just obeying Him."

"What is it that you think not covered by our orders, of which you'd ask such complicated questions?"

Carissa Sevar: "Accepting the allegiance of those who call me Chosen of Asmodeus, and desire to be among the vassals of my kingdom in Hell. ...and buying their souls in secret so the fact of my interest doesn't drive the price through the roof."

Abrogail Thrune II: "I'd say that possibilities like these are exactly why I visited you in your bedroom to check your loyalties, that morning.  But in fact, this is so vastly worse than any possibility I'd actually envisioned.  You are very lucky to have the quality of being visibly and clearly loyal to me personally."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "It is not apparent to me that we need especially complicated reasoning to handle this issue.  Why not just say among ourselves that we are uncertain about whether you are Chosen only of Asmodeus or Chosen of some other or Chosen perhaps of both, and then proceed in the face of that uncertainty?  We know of Hell that our Lord is eager to have you, that your price there is somewhere beyond vast, He has instructed you to serve him well in this world and come to Him in Hell to be treasured by Him.  It is not a negligible imprimatur, whether the original spur for it was Asmodeus or an old pact or new bargain."

"What you are looking for, I think, is some assurance that your theology is correct, that your plans for Hell are correct, and this is a kind of assurance that is problematic to get into a habit of seeking, even if you are Chosen of Asmodeus and no other.  What if you are roughly on the right track, but destined to arrive at better theology and better plans in eighty-one days instead of nine?"

"And if you are not originally Chosen of Asmodeus and no other?  Then He nonetheless instructed you to serve Him well in this world and be raised high in it, and indicated that you were a soul who might be exceptionally treasured by Him in Hell, and Hell's vast price on you is justified to us as centering around your ability to produce better devils, though we are told that of other matters it is forbidden to speak.  We can scarcely assume your ideas wrong, even if we somehow know for certain that you were singled out by some other god."

"So we must proceed regardless with care for the case where your plans make sense, and care for the case where they do not.  You are loyal to us either way, for in either case you are the Carissa Sevar that stands before me and whose thoughts lie open to my examination.  You do not need to play games against a version of yourself opposed to us whose mind I cannot read.  You are simply yourself planning across two possibilities, and we can simplify away all the complications of which Keltham spoke in his own case, where possible people he is dealing with have intentions and wills explicitly opposed to their other possible selves."

"It is all too easy to introduce complications that sound like Aspexia Rugatonn.  The true qualification for being her is being able to simplify away those complications that were not needed, and introduce those that were missing."

Carissa Sevar: "Yes, Most High."

Probably she'd still be loyal if she knew some other god had chosen her. She hates Nethys and doesn't think much of Cayden Cailean. Most people apparently aren't loyal when they have options, but. Probably she'd still be loyal even if she knew for sure, and doesn't need to play against a traitor she would never be.

Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia notes the rather visible absence of Abadar and Irori from Sevar's consideration, after she was told to stay out of Axis and not to think herself Irori, and has fallen in love with Abadar's cleric.  Aspexia hesitates, though, to inquire further of Sevar upon those Two, right at this moment.  Sevar is making progress herself, in some directions, even as she becomes more worrying within others.

Neither does she remind Sevar that she was offered support in descending into cruelty, wickedness, and the darkness of her own soul, on which Sevar has not made much visible progress recently; they were instructed not to be proactive about that... a worrying sign, however.

Abrogail Thrune II: "What does all that amount to in practice, though, as policy?  I know what my first thought would be, but Keltham seems to think that I should not speak mine until others have spoken theirs.  I see some amusing possibilities in the practice, maybe even useful ones.  Maillol?"

Ferrer Maillol: Fuck Keltham.  Seriously.  "No.  It's a huge disaster and explosion waiting to happen, and strikes at the heart of the Chelish state itself.  Tell Olegario no, put the whole concept under real actual no-rumors classification."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Subirachs?"

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Abrogail."

Abrogail Thrune II: "I stand by my ordering.  Subirachs?"

Jacint Subirachs: "Allow absolutely no word of this to pass beyond the fortress walls, but within it, let the Chosen do as she wills.  She needs the practice."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Sevar."

Carissa Sevar: "It's a thing I want and can't possibly ever find in Axis. And I want it quite a lot. But it does seem to me like a terrible plan if I get out of hand in the future, and possible that I am rather than finding the wickedness and cruelty I'm supposed to be looking for mostly finding the high opinion of myself, and enjoyment of power, that aren't going to be sufficient for whatever I need to be cruel and wicked for. I could imagine myself getting eternally distracted from cruelty and wickedness by trying to do whatever seems most practical from where I presently stand, and since where I presently stand is as the heretic who is testing what happens when you don't punish people very much, I'd end up trapped in a - set of results that you can reach from that start while only doing things that accumulate resources, and which is worse than the place I'd land if I was doing something better. So I don't know, which is why I have referred the question to my betters. 

If there were any doubt in my heart that my loyalty to you will survive any power at all I might attain," she adds to Abrogail, "then I wouldn't do it. Because that seems like a great way to set myself on a course where I betray you eventually, or look tempted to, or even just look infuriatingly like I think I could get away with it. But there's no doubt in my heart, there, and you can look as long as you'd like."

Keeping it professional. Mostly. That was professionally necessary!

Abrogail Thrune II: "Sometime later, dear, the way in which your thoughts change when I read them is not something you should be juggling right now."

"My own impulse would be to prohibit all such shifts of allegiances until we are sure there are any new places in Hell to be had, and that all offers of such are aligned to the purposes of Church and Crown, perhaps required to be approved by them.  I see possibilities of explosive disappointment here, and Olegario's unilateral decision that these places are to be offered at the whim of individual ilani to their vassals is one I do not recall approving."

"Aspexia, your decision?  I yield it fully to you."

This is very very obviously a matter that impinges on Asmodeus's own fun.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Realistically, the most important consideration here is Sevar herself.  If Subirachs thinks that Sevar having her own fiefdom is likely to produce good effects on her spiritual development, all else must yield to that, provided we think that we can in fact restrict that information sufficiently tightly that it does not affect the rest of Cheliax.  Abrogail?"

Abrogail Thrune II: "Maillol, fail your Will save against my Detect Thoughts and then think about whether it can in fact be done, given conditions on the Project."

"I see."

"You will have those authorities, then."

"Do not fail Cheliax in this, Maillol."

"Sevar.  The Most High has spoken upon this matter of faith."

Carissa Sevar: Is that a yes? Those phrases were more consistent with a yes than a no but also Abrogail likes playing games. 

"And now we speak of politics, your majesty?"

Abrogail Thrune II: "No, dear, I mean that the Most High has spoken upon this matter, which I concede to be a matter foremost of faith; she referred back to me a political part and I ordained it so."

"This place is now your fiefdom, and if some believe that you have power over Hell's punishment also, well, we shall see what comes of that.  Who knows, perhaps they are right."

Carissa Sevar: And if not, that's on them for assuming it was so.

She does not squeal in delight, though probably to Abrogail she might as well have. She nods. 

"My other question, Most High, is whether, while you're here, you have correction for me." Since they're not supposed to be proactive. 

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Yes, but not all here need be present for it.  Subirachs, perhaps, but not the others.  I shall tarry after, for that."

Abrogail Thrune II: "If we have no other business among all of ourselves...?"

"Well then.  Security, escort them in for morning tea."

lintamande: The other girls come in. And kneel, obviously, because that's the Queen. ....and the Grand High Priestess. At a breakfast table with Carissa, who looks noticeably cheerful. 

Ione Sala: Lord Nethys, Ione thinks, trying not to shudder visibly where she kneels, please have foreseen this, and planned for it, that I may continue to serve you unbroken; or if instead nearly all my purpose has been served, make sure my end teaches a lesson to those who think it easy to evade your all-foreseeing sight and your retributive explosions.

Asmodia: Quick, think uncensored thoughts.  Nice crown, there.  What does it take to get Hell to make you another one of those?  How much progress could she make on Law, if the next time the Queen needs to sleep -

She needs more practice at frantically thinking uncensored thoughts that won't instead get her killed.

Abrogail Thrune II: "Rise."

"Seat yourselves."

"Have some tea."

"I am a gentle and benevolent Queen and you are awed by me, not terrified.  Aspexia here is stern, but kind, and as Asmodeus's most trusted agent is certainly not dangerous to any law-abiding citizen of Cheliax.  That is to be your demeanor; but discuss matters at this table of the true Cheliax, not the alter."

lintamande: Tonia tries quite hard to stand up and go to the table to join them for tea but her legs seem to have turned to stone. This is probably not because the Queen petrified her, though the Queen does do that. 

Is this a test. (Yes, everything is a test.)

What is it testing.

Their - suicidality?

Eventually she manages to make her legs move by leaning forward far enough they have to move to catch her, and once she's taken the first step it's easier to take the next one. She is trembling.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa sips tea. Because this is fun.

Asmodia: There's seven empty chairs about the table, so exactly as many as remaining Project Lawful members.  Sevar, Maillol, and Subirachs are all seated next to each other in a cluster, the Queen and Aspexia Rugatonn each have two empty chairs apiece to either side of them.  It leaves exactly one seat for a Project Lawful member to sit where she won't have anyone dangerous to either side of herself.

There's a cold terror in her, if the Queen is running Detect Thoughts then she is not getting out of here without showing Gorthoklek's authorization to the Queen of Cheliax and that is something difficult to visualize going at all well.

At the same time, Asmodia is currently rocking serious Wisdom and has spent much time visualizing alterAsmodia in her head.  AlterAsmodia is awed but opportunistic, not frozen, not terrified.

And if this is a test of anything, or a lesson in anything, that thing is to stop fucking freezing up while scared the way half of Project Lawful does every time Keltham says something that implies the Project might fail sometime in the next minute.

RealAsmodia is frozen and trying not to think dangerous thoughts, and in her own absence she makes the decision to let alterAsmodia talk.

"Pilar, Ione, I think you probably have the most interesting things to talk about with the Most High so you two get to sit next to her.  Meritxell, Queen's right, myself, Queen's left.  Tonia, you're privileged to sit next to Sevar. Gregoria, by Subirachs.  Peranza, between Gregoria and myself."

AlterAsmodia is suicidal, apparently.

...No.  There were not, in fact, better options, considering that it's not a good look for the whole Project if everyone tries to avoid sitting next to the Queen and scrambles for the one seat that would have other girls to either side.

If the Project looks weak, Sevar's heretical low-punishment regimen looks ineffective.

lintamande: Meritxell shoots Asmodia what is getting to be a characteristic look that says she can mostly follow along with what Asmodia is doing but absolutely wouldn't have thought of it herself, and she hates that passionately, and then she sits at the right hand of the Queen of Cheliax. "Is anyone tracking whether the sun will change our complexions and whether Keltham will notice?" she says, as she does, because Asmodia shouldn't be the only person who can say things. 

Carissa Sevar: "It's a reason not to skip more than a day at a time, but a concern that goes both ways, right, I also don't know that you all who spent more time outside before the project will be getting paler at the right pace if you hide indoors on rest days. Considerations like these are among the reasons we decided not to tell Keltham that powerful memory magic exists, even though we're not using it and the Conspiracy he hypothesizes would be; he might start looking for memory magic in places like our complexions and find other things we're not telling him."

lintamande: "Once we're on a more stable footing and done taking skip days," says Gregoria -

Carissa Sevar: "It has occurred to me that maybe then we manufacture occasion for Keltham to learn of the spell Scribe's Binding, or something, at which point he hopefully stops evaluating everything as Conspiracy and we stop doing any kind of absurd lengths, but planning more than three days ahead seems unwise, so far."

Ione Sala: Walk into the potential explosion and see what happens, that should be the way of Nethys, right?

Without really having any memory of how she got there, Ione is sitting to the left of the Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus in Golarion, Aspexia Rugatonn, there is a cute little plate in front of her bearing some expensively intricate snack several steps up from what Project Lawful gets from Cayden Cailean or at least that they've earned from Him so far.

She isn't talking yet.  Pilar can totally talk, right, Ione doesn't need to talk.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "So, how is life after betraying our Lord working out for you?" the Most High says, in the voice of someone's kindly grandmother.

People who are never cruel don't get spells granted of Asmodeus.

Abrogail Thrune II: "So, Asmodia.  What would you say is the current greatest weak point of Project Lawful?"

Asmodia: "That Keltham is checking the consistency of everything we tell him using Laws we don't understand, both in terms of the Laws that govern the way he expects the world around him must be arranged, and in terms of Laws he is using to think."

She is mostly, numbly, letting alterAsmodia's personality talk, and hoping that if anything really suicidal comes up realAsmodia will realize in time what she is about to say.