Abrogail Thrune II: "Mm.  Suppose I asked you who is the current greatest weak point of Project Lawful?"

Asmodia: "Given that you're asking me, the answer is probably supposed to be myself, but without that information I would've said Tonia."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Oh?  How so?"

Asmodia: "Almost never speaks out in class when Keltham has just said something alarming to somebody in realCheliax and less alarming to someone in alterCheliax, a problem partially shared by Gregoria and Peranza though Gregoria is improving.  Tonia is too scared generally to think interesting thoughts that will let her say interesting things to Keltham.  From Keltham's perspective Tonia probably doesn't have a distinct personality at this point, also a problem she shares with Gregoria and Peranza.  That's with Jacme and Pela out of the running, as otherwise they'd be much worse offenders."

...apparently she can talk okay, more or less, so long as it's about her work, and so long as the amount she's sweating under her clothes won't count against her.

Abrogail Thrune II: "What an interesting perspective.  Well, Tonia, Gregoria, Peranza, would you care to gainsay that, or shall we all ponder now what sort of personalities you ought to develop?"

lintamande: Tonia tries to open her mouth and say something and it doesn't work. Aaaaah. Good job proving Asmodia right. This is terrible. This is terrifying. Say something. 

"Alter Tonia is also scared and in over her head," she says after a horrifyingly long silence. "She's not like you, she met a stranger for the first time when she was ten, she doesn't know much about the way Cheliax works, outside its farms, where most people live, and which I've been representing fine to Keltham, when it comes up. She's very awed about meeting all these fifth-circle wizards who can really teleport."

"The big barrier to my showing more personality traits," Gregoria says, "is that the occasion when I think alter Gregoria would be most tempted to argue with Keltham is about all the putting classes on hold for the sake of his sex life, and I don't think we want him to do less of that."

Peranza: "There isn't anything interesting about the real me," Peranza manages to say.  "Nobody has - ordered me -"  This probably sounds like making excuses to the Queen of Cheliax and that is probably not a smart career move.  "I stand ready to obey orders on how alterPeranza should be more interesting than I am."

Abrogail Thrune II: "It's not clear to me, Gregoria, that Cheliax wouldn't be served better by Keltham teaching more and fucking less.  While he is awake and thinking we are losing ground, while he teaches us Law and technology we are gaining it.  But that is Sevar's remit finally, and if I will not gainsay her decision, you certainly shouldn't.  Meanwhile, consider that alterGregoria could have as many as two or even three different facts being true about her, rather than one."

"AlterTonia, perhaps, could try being scared and in over her head loudly rather than quietly.  Showing vulnerability in alterCheliax would be much less punished; alterTonia should have less reason to hide her weakness and her fears."

"Peranza, if there is any benefit to this reduced-punishment conceit of Sevar's, it will be that when people like you are failing, you are less afraid to go to your superiors and ask for new orders instead of waiting to receive them.  Have you felt any positive motivation to do anything, has there been anything you wanted or felt interested in, over the last few days?"

Carissa Sevar: "If you think alter Gregoria would take Keltham to task over delaying lessons for sex, then do that; whether or not it serves our interests directly, which I think is a bit of a wash, it is bad for our interests for anything to be absent that ought to be present in alter Cheliax, and a student who is annoyed about all of the sex distracting from building Civilization seems like it might be that. Is this alter Gregoria motivated by jealousy?"

lintamande: " - she can be, if that's convenient? Mostly she's motivated by wanting to build Civilization and noticing that everyone keeps flirting instead."

Carissa Sevar: "Well, she can't be asexual, Asmodia's doing that and two would be distinctly overrepresented, in a population that was selected for being willing to have Keltham's children. But she can be very pragmatic, that seems fine. I might pass you instructions on when you may or may not push, but it seems fine. As one of your several personality traits, as Her Majesty pointed out."

lintamande: "Has anyone got a list of personality traits it'd be nice to see represented, or anything?" says Gregoria. 

Abrogail Thrune II: "It generally helps if the personality traits are inside you somewhere, at least until your Bluff is a great deal higher than at present.  Peranza here, for example, thought about Keltham's Silent Image show of dath ilan and its surroundings, which someone will somehow arrange for me to see at some point and yes that is an order.  Then Peranza was terrified of having had such a heretical thought, and tried to hide it from herself so that she would not be committing treason by hiding it from me.  AlterPeranza then could have the personality trait of being fascinated by the things of Civilization and pressing Keltham to say more about it, which is itself something that I think will work generally to our advantage."

Asmodia: Try to forget you heard her admit to running Detect Thoughts maybe there's enough other people around she won't notice oh no that's censored isn't it -

"Keltham will notice if everyone in alterCheliax has personality traits that serve a purpose of realCheliax.  I think that's a problem even if the trait is also there in realPeranza.  Where are the traits that disadvantage realCheliax?  Where are the traits that don't mean anything?"

Wait did she just criticize the Queen?  She needs to stop thinking suicidal thoughts when she tries not to think hidden ones.

Peranza: Peranza is frozen in utter terror and horror if anybody's bothering to track that.

Abrogail Thrune II: "Yes, Asmodia, you did criticize my suggestion just then.  It's a very dangerous game, but for the criticism to be apt is a winning move.  Indeed, if we are playing against a dath ilani then we must create an illusion indistinguishable to him from reality, and that means people having traits inconvenient as well as convenient to the true Cheliax.  We do already have some such, for example, alterAsmodia's and alterIone's tendency to say clever things."

lintamande: "My being shy is inconvenient to Cheliax," says Tonia somewhere between stubbornly and hopefully.

Carissa Sevar: "Someone can get miserable when cooped up in a fortress and plead with Maillol and when that fails with Keltham to be allowed out to go swim at the beach, that's the kind of thing that happens in places with worse discipline. And if they just uneventfully go swimming and come back that's evidence against tropes, to Keltham. Best for someone who actually will get miserable when cooped up in a fortress.

Peranza, it's not actually heretical to notice that Keltham, a random teenager smarter than average but not by much who dath ilan didn't think incredibly highly of, lived like a King, or to think that dath ilan manages to present a really really nice front to people who don't know the secrets it's keeping, or to think maybe you'd like it even if you did know as many of them as your mind can stand. It is heretical to think that Asmodeus's Civilization won't be grander, I suppose, but if you're panicking at the stage of noticing that Keltham's world looked nice you're not just protecting yourself from heresy, you're protecting yourself from thinking. Heresy we can correct. There's no corrective I know for not having any thoughts in the first place."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Well said.  It's also really really boring."

"Correctives include running a Detect Thoughts and hurting someone every time they try not to think, until they start thinking again.  It works about half the time, and better if you are more gentle and patient, which, at that point, I'm usually not."

lintamande: "Do you think dath ilan's keeping secrets that'd make it seem less Good, then?" asks Meritxell.

Carissa Sevar: "It's pretty much got to be. Keltham knows nothing about the entire way that societies structured themselves before Civilization. His language doesn't have words for it, and Tongues wouldn't just give me the words that he specifically knows. They rewrote their whole history to hide something, and the most Good explanation I can think of is that it was to enable the mass censorship effort that keeps sadists from ever knowing. In terms of running a Conspiracy, they put us to shame. Everyone knows there are vast swathes of human knowledge they're not allowed to have, and figures the reason is good enough, and they train that in in early childhood too. Good is too weak to pull that off, frankly, and even if dath ilani Good aren't that weak, Good would also be constantly internally divided about it. You need a tyranny to manage that kind of achievement."

lintamande: - nod. "So maybe dath ilan's not so different than us, but hides that from people like Keltham, because they're more useful that way? And maybe - they're hiding something that we're going to blow up the project when we trip on."

Carissa Sevar: "Those are two of the possibilities that have come to mind, yeah."

Abrogail Thrune II: Abrogail sighs.  People who are not herself are sometimes very silly.

"While that is a fine thing to worry about, I do instruct all you here to be more wary of what Keltham may know that is safe for him to know, in a world that seemingly lacks or perhaps has hidden all traces of magic and wizardry and clerics, which is not safe to have known here in Golarion with its magic.  We are very wary of whether Cayden Cailean does in truth hold any common interest with Asmodeus, but that is one of the plausible ones."

"I should also think it slightly more likely that Keltham's Civilization went to such fantastic lengths to, for example, kill every worshipper of every god and destroy every scrap of information by which those gods could again be given an anchor in their world.  And then, perhaps, decided to eliminate the knowledge of sadism, so long as they were about their larger endeavor.  To be clear, I do not know that it is possible for a world to cast loose its gods in such a way; I do not know it to be impossible either.  It seems a more plausible thought in the light of dath ilan's secrecy."

Carissa Sevar: "....I guess probably Cayden Cailean wouldn't want that but I wish I was more sure."

lintamande: "Did Chaotic Good help seal Rovagug?" asks Meritxell. " - I mean, I know what the textbook says, but -"

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Yes.  Desna, and Dou-Bral who later was inverted to Zon-Kuthon, both participated in that battle."

Asmodia: "Most High, I request such knowledge of those truths as may have been compiled for those trusted.  It is impossible for me to guess what truth of our gods may be something Keltham sees as entangled with other truths.  That he is as yet too confused to ask much about gods is no guarantee he will remain confused tomorrow."

"We do not get a pass on having failed if Keltham catches us in a lie that we did not know was a lie, from a Conspiracy above our own Conspiracy."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "I shall consider it."

Asmodia: "I also ask how much of this conversation took place in alterCheliax - not at this time, obviously, but sometime.  I ask whether alterCheliax is talking to Keltham about these matters, what knowledge he may hold that is more dangerous in this place, whether his world hid knowledge of magic and gods.  He may think of it; he may predict we will think of it; and alterCheliax is not in the reflexive habit of never talking to Keltham."

Carissa Sevar: "The Grand High Priestess and Queen are paying this less attention in alter Cheliax, I think; that isn't obvious from other things we've established about alter Cheliax, but it's safer for the project to be apparently not run all that competently, and there's the obvious excuse that running a war with Nidal consumes all their time. In alter Cheliax the war is a much closer thing. Perhaps without them Maillol has this on his list of worries, and perhaps we come up with it independently over dinner; and perhaps one of them spares an hour to read transcripts at some point and gets worried about it and sends a pointed letter. All of those look different....

I think alter Carissa, who has been asked to try not to become a Keeper at top speed, and who is worried for Keltham's emotional wellbeing, when she thinks of things like this adds them to a list titled something like 'things that are worrying/things that will make Keltham sad', for things without immediate implications that might turn out to be important, and tell him he can read it if he wants to. I bet he won't."

lintamande: "Are you - in fact considering yourself ordered by Keltham not to become a Keeper at top speed -" says Meritxell. 

Carissa Sevar: "Yes. I'm not that good an actress - yet! I'm going to try for Glibness swords today! - and I'm not sure I could stop seeing the world as Asmodia does once I start. And - it feels like there's a fragment of Law here, though I've barely started identifying it, where we want to at least be cooperating with the version of Keltham who does end up being possible to win over, who even after embracing Evil is going to be annoyed if I wasn't actually his - or maybe it's not a fragment of Law and it's just that I want that Keltham, my greatest triumph, to consider the punishment warranted to be one I can withstand."

lintamande: "Glibness swords?" says Tonia. 

Carissa Sevar: "Not trained in Wondrous Items, don't have time to learn. There's no reason swords can't hold Glibness. They'll be tiny swords, obviously, they'll fit in your notebooks."

Abrogail Thrune II: Carissa is adorable and absurd.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Pilar will attempt to become a Keeper at full speed.  It is all too plausible that Golarion will in fact prove to need one.  It has been established well enough that alterPilar might do the same."

Pilar : "Acknowledged."

Asmodia: "Sevar," it's safer to request this of her and not seem to be going over anyone's head, "so long as I'm requesting resources, can we have some fresh intelligent wizard students our age kidnapped from Taldor, not broken slaves, not terrorized, ideally with no idea that they've been taken by Cheliax particularly, kept in surprisingly good living conditions, who I can try to teach Law to see how they react to that?  It's probably far too late for us to act anything like they would, but it would be helpful to have any idea what not-too-scared wizard students are like outside Cheliax.  I want to know what we've already given away before Keltham sees it."

Carissa Sevar: "I've thought about that. You can convince me it's worth it but the ways they'll fail to correspond are going to include 'they won't be girls' - noble girls learn wizardry sometimes, but we can't realistically get away with kidnapping a decent sample of Taldane noble girls - 'they won't have learned in a school, but as an apprentice of a specific senior wizard', they'll be older than you lot or considerably weaker as wizards, and they're often going to be their family's one investment meant to support all the rest of them for life, selected as the child likeliest to - abide by that contract, if you want to give them credit for Law, or be socially pressurable into paying for all the deadweights, if you want to think of it that way. 

If given all that you still want them, sure, let's do it, but if we want the closest analogy to Cheliax we want a wizarding academy and I think we'll get noticed if we kidnap a sample from those."

Asmodia: "You could give me two such girls, so that they'd have any interactions with each other to observe, and no more."

"We could look further afield than Taldor, my sense is that this is not just about alterCheliax but about what holds in Evil countries generally that we are giving away."

Ferrer Maillol: "Adding a safe holding area for unfriendly wizards, even just two second-circle unfriendlies, otherwise isolated from Keltham, unable to make any trouble Keltham could notice, is not a trivial request."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Not trivial is project manager language for don't wanna.  Don't tell us not trivial, tell us what it actually costs."

Ferrer Maillol: "Ten thousand gold over four months, perhaps, not including kidnapping costs, and some lingering chance they do cause trouble that Keltham notices if they're being held in or near his location."

Asmodia: "Once my Ring of Sustenance kicks in, maybe I could go to Egorian on an evening Teleport and visit them there...?"

Carissa Sevar: "Can we hire them? - noting the trend where I keep making the Abadaran suggestion, and maybe it only seems good to me because I've tilted myself too much towards making sense of Keltham. But we could have someone go to the wizard schools in Absalom I'd hesitate to kidnap a student from, and offer a lot of money for a couple years' indenture working on some wizard's secret project, he reserves the right to stop you from leaking his secrets. .....she, actually, if we don't want the wrong kind of filter on what girls we get."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Potentially adds a number of complexities on top of keeping simple prisoners.  Still, I expect that wizard girls in Absalom will sign up for some arduous restrictions if you offer ten times more money than they could otherwise earn in a year.  I'll have somebody look into it."

Asmodia: "I observe that I don't actually want to teach them Law over the next months or years, I want to quickly observe how they behave in the first week.  If I think I've learned all I can after a week, what do we do with them after?  With simple prisoners we can statue them when I'm done with them, since we don't want to send them to their afterlife where they might talk.  If their school is expecting them back, or responsive to Sendings..."

Carissa Sevar: "Yeah, you'd have to get them to agree not to be expected back at school. I'm fine with some exploratory looks at kidnapping as well, but" this is sure an awkward conversation to have in front of Abrogail "my impression from what wizards not from Cheliax say at the Worldwound, is that the big wizard academies are the Academae in Korvosa, which is more or less also the reason we don't own Korvosa, and Felandriel Morgethai's university in Almas, which is definitely the reason we don't own Andoran, and the Magesterium in Absalom which is the reason no one's conquered it in five thousand years. And if any of that is half accurate then kidnapping the kids who are the best close equivalent might get the attention of one of the few powerful people in the Inner Sea who aren't yet meddling."

Asmodia: "We could hire them under a contract where they are to go entirely out of contact and unscryable for 2 years, I suppose, if anyone would agree to that.  If they go home and only two weeks have passed, oops, guess there was a time accident."

"Though - I'd worry that even after 2 years, maybe I would've taught some piece of the Law we don't want them taking back, if we can really win Keltham over or keep him that long - if they're Lawful, they could swear a secrecy oath, I guess, but -"

"Are there girls our age in other countries who are known to be good at math, with Intelligence 17, without their being wizard-tracked, or being quite so missed if they are kidnapped?"

Carissa Sevar: "I'm sure there are peasants overlooked everywhere, it's a question of how resource-intensive it'd be to find them, and how much we'd learn if they're that different. If you only want two maybe we can fake the deaths of a couple of wizard students in a way that doesn't raise too many questions. I do think it's worth expending some effort on; I'm curious about the answers too, and I expect Keltham is already looking for some correlate we don't know about."

Asmodia: "I do think they need previous education in math, if we want to test the effects on them of Law.  Not peasants, but - girls apprenticed to send out merchant ships, ships not owned by any powerful wizards -"

Abrogail Thrune II: "Teaching girls such is rather rarer outside Cheliax.  Likewise for those philosophical academies that teach those who study mathematics for its own sake.  If you are satisfied with a pair of boys to examine, the task will be simpler."

Asmodia: "I know far too little of women and men outside Cheliax to guess whether that would matter."

lintamande: " - huh," says Gregoria aloud, since she won't be lit on fire for it apparently, "I sort of assumed that wasn't really true, that only Cheliax educates women."

Carissa Sevar: "It's true. You'd have learned soon enough, at the Worldwound."

Asmodia: "I request to know why that's true.  Can Keltham - deduce Hell and Asmodeus's true nature from that, somehow, if it's just Cheliax?"

Carissa Sevar: " - I want to refer that upwards because I know it to be an occasion of heresy for me."

She thinks that this is great and speaks to the fundamental superiority of Asmodeus to other churches and Cheliax to other places, but that can still be heresy if you do it wrong enough.

Abrogail Thrune II: "Human societies are like that by default.  Elves and drow and dragons less so.  Only in Cheliax has Asmodeus exerted the force to come in and smash aside existing social orders and impose a tyranny of His own image, which does not share this common property of human societies."

"We are, I think, becoming lost in the weeds.  Asmodia, I will assign you some worldly intelligence officer to answer all such questions; now speak not for a time.  Have others other matters to discuss, over our tea and snacks?"

lintamande: "Are we getting more students? Ones better selected for - the thing we're now doing?"

Carissa Sevar: "Likely yes. Though we should wait and see the attrition rates from having a breakdown and becoming an incorrigible heretic, before we start funneling all Cheliax's best and brightest here."

lintamande: "If you're not an incorrigible heretic somehow then I think we'll be fine," Meritxell says. 

Carissa Sevar: "Well, I think whether I'm an incorrigible heretic or not remains unclear and you had better not benchmark off me."

Ione Sala: "I'm currently making up all of my Nethysian theology as I go along and it's not impossible Keltham will catch me out on that.  I request true books of Nethysian theology, sworn to me to be unaltered and uncensored, that I may better serve my god in whatever ways He is very evidently cooperating with Cheliax.  Including protecting the Project from attacks by Nidal, giving Keltham a particularly convenient channel through which to send him only approved or modified books, and opening the possibility for Keltham to apparently flee and hide while continuing his research, so long as I can provide him with a library takaral."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Denied.  If I send Asmodia any books of secrets I will instruct her to tell you nothing of what is said of Nethys there."

"As annoying as you are, the actual worshippers of Nethys are far less pleasant to deal with.  Had you ever met Nefreti Clepati, you yourself might agree that you were better off reinventing your own theology."

Abrogail Thrune II: "She's not lying."

Ione Sala: Ione will keep quiet, then, and try not to think any angry thoughts very loudly until she is back among less dangerous people.  Lord Nethys will have foreseen this pass, the petty slights of Asmodeans directed against the follower of a greater god; what she invents for herself will be enough to serve Him.

lintamande: "What do you think are the biggest weaknesses of Project Lawful," Meritxell asks the Queen after letting Ione's sulky silence speak poorly of her for a moment.

Abrogail Thrune II: "Keltham knows far too much that you don't."

"You are crippled by an education almost absolutely unsuited to the task you now face, only able to stumble along by grace of your naive enemy undoing some of the damage and re-teaching you."

"Neither Asmodia nor Carissa are as yet really more clever than Keltham even with their headbands; I have a sense that only I am presently his match there, if I, and Aspexia has bid me not replace Asmodia in her duties."

"You have previously been terrorized out of thinking for yourselves, and that is now suddenly your job, with far less initiation and preparation and filtering than is usual in Cheliax."

"Everything you do occurs under the shadow of forces greater than yourself, of which Pilar's snack service is only the most overt manifestation, and it is not clear where those forces are steering you or how they could be exploited."

"Key project members have questionable or openly non-Asmodean loyalties.  The one among you strongest in her faith is the center of Cayden Cailean's manipulations."

"The Law you are ultimately attempting to learn was taught to Keltham in a form perhaps deliberately designed to contradict and poison philosophies such as Asmodeanism, especially as that philosophy was taught to you before you entered the inner ring that has tea with the Queen."

"Multiple gods may be very unhappy with what we are trying, only Broom's god protects this place from their direct interventions, and it's not at all clear that Broom's god will remain happy with us."

"Other countries have had their attention dramatically called to Project Lawful and the misdirection of the false Project Lawful may not hold."

"Everything you do is under the time limit of Keltham's waking hours as he progresses towards awareness."

"In trying to awaken Keltham to Evil you may well be matching wits against Lawful Good minds barely short of gods, who designed his education to keep him asleep and hobbled."

"Some of the knowledge Keltham holds may be vastly destructive to Golarion if not contained."

"To contain the Project's dangers we may need our own Keepers and not just our own ilani."

"The improvised early days of Project Lawful may have revealed some truth to Keltham that will eventually prove fatal once he understands the rest."

Carissa Sevar: Carissa is not going to argue with the Grand High Priestess that they should have the Queen at Asmodia's job for a day so they can learn from her. That sounds like a great way to die horribly. 

Not going to argue. Not arguing. 

Aspexia Rugatonn: To Sevar alone:  I fear what the tropes would make of it.  I fear the results if we try to replace the asexual - who watches it all and now also controls the game, beginning from a disfavored position but rising rapidly, who is learning Keltham's own Law to wield against him - with Keltham's already-defeated rival for your heart.

Carissa Sevar: See, that's why to not argue with the Grand High Priestess aside from the Asmodean virtue of obedience, or at the root of it; she has reasons you didn't think of.

Carissa is not sure if the tropes are, uh, real. But probably better to err on the side of assuming they are, even if it means they lose something that would be very useful to them. And anyway that is the decision that was made.

Ferrer Maillol: "This would usually be the point where I said something about how I've been on more doomed projects than this one, and pushed through.  But if I make it out of Project Lawful alive, I'm pretty sure that will top all other candidates for which projects I tell future subordinates I survived."

"You do have a bit more support from upper management than most projects can expect, and vast though not adequate resources to back you.  Believe me when I say that it could have been much, much, much worse."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Our allotted time here is passing, I fear.   Pilar, the Most High has business with your curse.  Subirachs, Sevar, a word with you before the Most High returns."

"The rest of you are dismissed."

"Maillol, see them out."

Meritxell, I have a certain matter to discuss with you privately.  Be available for my summons, in some minutes, before I go.  Security who see of this in your thoughts are to speak of it to no one.

lintamande: Meritxell is aware she should be terrified but instead she's delighted. She wants to be one of the interesting girls, not one of the boring ones, and that involves some terrifying summonses. She leaves and waits, genuinely unsure if she's more scared or excited.

Carissa Sevar: "We are honored to have had you join us, your Majesty," Carissa says once those directed to depart have done so.

Abrogail Thrune II: "You certainly are."

"Carissa, dear.  How is my work on you holding up, as seen by you from within?  Any stumbles in its annealing?  I am not presently reading your thoughts, so you must speak what you know."

Carissa Sevar: "I think I still don't fully understand the shape you desire for me, because I was confused when Keltham wanted the same thing. Confused, but able to give it to him. I notice myself being more ambitious - noticing that my plans require something hard to get, and thinking of solutions like 'well I guess maybe I'll have to become an archdevil, all right, which one's seat would be easiest to play for - I'm not sure if that's an intended effect or an unintended one. I'm not feeling scared of being hurt like I was immediately afterwards and am instead back to wishing I could just suffer until I stopped having problems but unreasonably they'll still be there if I suffer about them a lot. I think I have uncovered more desires, but - not uncovered the ones that'd close any path but Hell to me. Not yet. I promise I'm looking for them. .....uh, there is 'if I don't go to Hell then it will continue being unsatisfactory, so I will be sure to' but I think that's heretical and does not count as a desire that Axis can't fulfill, even if technically Axis can't fulfill it."

Abrogail Thrune II: "The latter part of that is the Most High's place to speak of to you."

"Though on my imperfect understanding of the Outer Planes, my gift to you - and I am pleased that you know it for such - is not a gift that would have been given to you in Axis, had you died and found yourself there."

Carissa Sevar: "I know. There aren't people like you in Axis, and if there were no one would let them do anything interesting." The part of Carissa that has gotten very stubborn about all goals being only minor inconveniences volunteers that probably Carissa could have just thought about her priorities until she improved in the same way; she does not share that stupid opinion which is probably not even true. "I am ready already to unhesitatingly choose a Hell that would treat me like you do, even knowing I may never again merit such a gift. And I think Keltham would accept that Hell, but my job is convincing him to accept the real Hell, so I have to track the differences. I think Hell mostly isn't, for people, what you've been for me. Maybe it could be. Once I'm an archdevil."

Abrogail Thrune II: "The treatment that Keltham improvised for you, yesterday, has an aspect I find truly fascinating.  It is not quite what I would have done, but - the part that your transcript showed your thoughts stumbling on, Keltham's instructions to you not to punish yourself, that you thought so much unlike Hell, is strangely like what I would have done."

"To be precise, I would have told you that I was going to read your thoughts and punish you as I deemed appropriate, and you were neither required nor allowed to usurp my place and punish yourself.  It is, in fact, an appropriate instruction when the problem you are trying to solve is a tangle of somebody's thoughts getting in the way of themselves, and your method is cutting the tangle with pain applied from without."

"Keltham seemingly arrived at nearly the same answer, and with far less experience than it took me to reach it.  The question that fascinates me is whether this indicates that the way in which Keltham tortured you is Lawful in some way I cannot see."

Carissa Sevar: Abrogail's phrasing does not seem nearly as concerningly un-Hellish, of course. She thinks on the puzzle for half a minute. "I think Keltham has an instinctive understanding of - some rules that dath ilan went out of its way not to teach him, but which still might form part of the Law. Like that one, maybe, and like - that it was his task to succeed or fail at, and I was just present for it. But I don't have the math, and I'm not sure even he does. I'll think more on it."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Do so.  I admit, I have less hopes for your plans of Hell, than do you.  But if there truly is some defect of Lawfulness in how the current devils are treating new petitioners -"

"It seems too absurd to speak out loud.  But there remains your price in Dis."

Carissa Sevar: "Indeed. 

Any sane person would have less hopes for my plans of Hell than I do. Knowing that, a proper dath ilani would of course believe what they think a sane person ought to believe; but I'm not one, yet, and I'm going to try to find the flaw that might not be there; it is as important as arranging our ultimate triumph, and might be related to it. And there are already lots of people at work on other clearer bits of Our Lord's will. ....I hope. Now you're going to tell me that there are actually only six reasonable competent people in the whole country."

Abrogail Thrune II: "It depends on what task you want to assign them.  We probably have six reasonable competent tailors in Egorian alone."

"People in the tier you're challenging now?  People who could be assigned to head up something as strange as Project Lawful has become?  Sometime when we're not at war with Nidal, I'll invite you to dinner with all of the proven souls like that in all of Cheliax.  It won't be a large dinner."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Pilar.  Will it suit you if I address your oracle's curse as snack service, or would you rather it receive some other name?"

Pilar : Pilar halts her initial impulse to agree with anything the Most High wants to do.  She wouldn't be asking if she didn't want Pilar's opinion.

"It was Ione's term, but considering how offended I felt when I thought she was calling me that, I find myself pleased by the thought of my curse being called the same."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Mm.  Snack service, I address you now.  A disturbing thought has occurred to me, that if Golarion must needs have its own Keepers to survive, you might claim to be serving Asmodeus's interests on the whole, if you convinced Keltham to permit those, while along the way giving Keltham far more information than Asmodeus would have wished."

Pilar : Pilar can feel the sinking all the way down to her stomach.  Even if it was Sevar's call, if it turns out it was like that, then maybe it's - Pilar's own fault - for not thinking more about her curse, asking smarter questions earlier -

Project Lawful: Asmodeans sure are suspicious!  Is that how a nice Chaotic Good curse would treat a host who's been so accommodating to her?

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Answer the question, snack service."

Project Lawful: Aspexia Rugatonn didn't actually ask a question, nor is she, in fact, a being whose words command immediate and unquestioning obedience from Chaotic Good oracle curses.

Pilar's curse enjoys being nice, though, so if Aspexia Rugatonn asks politely, she'll definitely get a polite answer back.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Oh, is that what niceness is, now.  You expect me not to recognize sadism when I see it?"

Project Lawful: Pilar's curse especially enjoys being nice to Lawful Evil and setting up conditions where Lawful Evil has to be nice, yes.  Chaotic Good does know the concept of sadism, but it's not quite your kind of sadism and the difference is important.

Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia Rugatonn has pride, yes, in much the same way she has the Crown of the Most High; it's indeed a part of herself, but not in a way where she can't remove it as soon as there's something to be gained for Asmodeus thereby.

"Very well then.  Please, if you'd be so kind, tell me whether in having Pilar castigate Keltham, you gave to Asmodeus with one hand, and took with another."

Project Lawful: The answer is... nope!  The suspicious Asmodeans are completely wrong!  Telling Keltham significantly more or significantly less than Pilar did would have served Asmodeus less well, even if Keltham had come to the same decision about Keepers either way.

Having Pilar speak out passionately to Keltham like that, about something she really cared about, and having her passion turn out to hurt Asmodeus in the end, would be something that Pilar's curse would never ever do to Pilar!

Aspexia Rugatonn: "And would you then, also, please speak to my suspicion that Cayden is with his left hand setting in motion injuries to Lord Asmodeus which will produce subsidiary disasters, and with his right hand using Pilar to cancel those out and perhaps also do Asmodeus's interests some lesser injuries along the way, such that she may be truthfully told that Asmodeus will be better off than if she were never oracled?"

Pilar : Pilar's flinch is barely perceptible, to anyone not Chelish; to Aspexia's Sense Motive, it looks like screaming.

Project Lawful: Also totally wrong!  For that to be true would definitely count as Pilar being used against her Lord, since Cayden Cailean would not set those disasters in motion, if Pilar wasn't there to stop them.

It wouldn't be playing nice with Broom's god either, to set a disaster in motion, and then invoke the importance of Broom's god to stop that disaster while also doing something else you wanted.  Other gods would be unhappy with Cayden Cailean about that; Cayden Cailean couldn't get away with that sort of thing the way Asmodeus can.

Aspexia Rugatonn's clever suspicion was in fact a pretty silly one!  Any god would've seen that right away.  Aspexia Rugatonn should remember that she isn't actually very good at this kind of reasoning, just better than all the mortals around her except Keltham.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "...would you perhaps care to answer, please, so long as I'm asking politely, whether it's the case that everything you've done so far has in truth had no purpose but that which seemed overt to myself."  If the curse claims this, Aspexia will mostly conclude it's just lying.

Project Lawful: Ha ha!  Of course not.  Don't be silly.  Snack service is a Chaotic Good divine oracle's curse.  What Pilar does has all kinds of hidden effects.

That benefit Asmodeus.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "And why not tell us, hm, if the effects are so purely beneficial to Asmodeus?"

Project Lawful: Because the suspicious Asmodeans wouldn't trust Snack Service about it, obviously.

This will become clearer in a few weeks, after one of the real effects of Pilar's actions becomes apparent, and Aspexia Rugatonn sees that it did benefit Asmodeus, and also that it would obviously have not served Asmodeus better if Pilar's curse had just told Pilar.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Would you please tell me of Cayden Cailean's real goal in all of this?"

Project Lawful: Nope!

Project Lawful: To be clear, that means nope, Pilar's curse won't say; not that Cayden Cailean's ultimate goal is nope.  The noping of all things is definitely not Cayden Cailean's goal here.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Could you perhaps please tell me of Nethys's goal in all this?  Or Irori's?  Or who is Asmodia's own god?  Or whence truly come the tropes?"

Project Lawful: Nope!  To be clear, that was a nope about answering any of the above questions, not the noping of all things being Nethys's goal in this particular case.

Chaotic Good is not really much bigger than Asmodeus on Asmodeans being told what's going on or why.  Asmodeus thinks Asmodeans should just follow their orders.  Chaotic Good would like to see that happen too!

Aspexia Rugatonn: "I now hate Chaotic Good noticeably more than I did at the start of this conversation, which I concede to be an impressive accomplishment."

Pilar : "Most High - what am I to do?"

Aspexia Rugatonn: "If your curse tells you that something must be done to serve the interests of Asmodeus where they overlap with those of Broom's god, and there is no time to consult Sevar or myself or Abrogail Thrune - use your best judgment, but on the whole, obey."

Pilar : "Acknowledged."

It really wasn't the answer Pilar was hoping for.  She was hoping for something more like 'just do anything it tells you' or 'tell it to fuck off unless it gets approval from your superiors'.  'Use your best judgment' not so much.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "What serves best Asmodeus is not always what makes you most happy.  Even you, Pilar, are not always made most happy by what serves Him best."

Pilar : "Understood."

Pilar knows that is true but Pilar doesn't have to like it.

Abrogail Thrune II: "Do you suppose I am allowed to just plainly ask Keltham for the logic behind what he tried?  You reported to Subirachs on what had occurred, Subirachs reported to me in my capacity as your recent past sadist rather than as Queen, I write Keltham an incognito letter from one sadist to another..."

Carissa Sevar: "Maybe? It tips our hand that you're paying a lot of attention, and, uh, from a tropes standpoint makes you a recurring character, but might be worth it, if he can explain himself. I could also just ask him for the logic, which is safer but perhaps permits you less to get at your exact question."

Abrogail Thrune II: "I suspect the matter of the recurring character is a ship that will certainly sail at some point if it has not already; the real story does not make sense if I am mentioned in it but once."

"I could have sent the letter to you, to show to Keltham only if you deemed that acceptable.  The Queen of alterCheliax is solicitous of her subjects' rights in such matters, if no great stakes otherwise prohibit her from it."

Carissa Sevar: "Alter Cheliax has so far been treating me as Keltham's possession, which of course it only does because that's what I said and I ought to be taken seriously when I say it. I don't think it'd make me responsible for deciding which letters Keltham reads." She is less terrified about disagreeing with the Queen than she would have been before, but it's still a very salient thing to do, like jumping onto a bed of hot coals while you have Protection from Energy up.

Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia Rugatonn is now approaching the table.

Abrogail Thrune II: "My time here is up, I fear.  Well, Keltham will very likely show the letter to you if I tell him that it is safe to do so.  I think you may ask better followup questions than I myself would, if there is anything of Law in his answer."

Abrogail rises, smiles at Carissa with blinding levels of Splendour, and departs.

Carissa Sevar: How does she smile like that. Why does she smile like that. Just for fun??

"Most High," she says. She is not gaping wide-eyed at departing Abrogail, she's not.

Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia Rugatonn drops into a chair without much ceremony.  "Subirachs.  Sevar.  A relatively minor matter first:  When Pilar's curse turned her in for unAsmodean thought, after she considered donating her new earnings to the Church without expecting to benefit herself thereby, you said that you thought you knew what mistake she was making.  What mistake do you suspect in Pilar, Sevar, and how would you remedy it in her if such fell to you?"

Carissa Sevar: "I was directed to try to discover in myself desires that Axis could not fulfill, and to be supported in my education in cruelty and wickedness, because those are skills, skills that Asmodeus values in mortals, and if you try to loyally serve Asmodeus while possessing none of them you'll - end up too Lawful Neutral,  in my case, probably others would err in different directions.

It seems to me that Pilar is absolutely and unshakeably loyal to Asmodeus, but possesses little, herself, in an appetite for cruelty, or power, or slaves, or much of anything else, and I think it hadn't occurred to her that that could be a deficit, because after all, time spent pursuing her own personal interests is time not spent serving Asmodeus. But - devils are cruel, and enjoy cruelty. Asmodeus in making His servants did not actually make beings with no desire but to obey orders, even though He obviously could have; they are to obey orders and within the bounds of their orders to pursue Evil that pleases them. It pleases Pilar to obey, but she doesn't know what pleases her when obedience requires nothing in particular, or requires only that she do some Evil. 

That's what I think the error is. As for how to correct it, I have no idea, because Pilar is more devout than me, and this is an area in which I need to improve as well, and I would fear that in trying to teach her I would end up causing damage. I assume there's not an established route of escalating cruelty that takes people who don't find it particularly appealing and makes them masters of it, or it would have been offered to me. If I absolutely had to do something and there was no one else to ask at all I'd, uh, have her help Ione torture Ione's brother who Ione hates or something?"

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Mm.  I did not expect you to be able to correct Pilar in this particular matter of faith, but it seemed worth checking.  Subirachs?"

Jacint Subirachs: "Order Pilar to try out standard Asmodean enjoyments that cost money, read her mind to see if any such had appealed to her.  Do not order her to any enjoyments that resemble torturing orphans, per standing orders on Pineda.  Only once Pilar knows some other right path for herself, punish her for her unAsmodean thought.  With an additional punishment for the fact that her Chaotic Good curse usurped Lawful Evil's authority in presuming to have her reported and punished, lest she think that her curse have the power to punish her and determine the right path thereby."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Good enough.  Try that and see how the initial steps go.  I so authorize it.  Should they fail, I think I would be interested in hearing what her curse suggested as an alternative."

"Sevar.  You inquired after your correction."

"I mark first that there has been a developing anomaly in our attempt to follow those orders we first received: you are simply more important at this point than an ordinary county's heiress or fourth-circle cleric.  The ordinary course of Asmodeus's Law would have us offering you far more theological support than a fourth-circle cleric would receive, should you request that.  That events have gone beyond Asmodeus's plans is one obvious interpretation, but for you to serve Him well in this world and be raised high within it, would also inevitably mark you as a priority for theological support over time.  Then the developing conflict in the instructions should have been foreseeable, and perhaps we were meant to follow those orders strictly no matter how important you became."

"Given that the orders came by way of a contract devil rather than Asmodeus's direct vision and intervention, I am now making the judgment call that I am to offer you no less theological support than your actual importance merits under the ordinary course of Asmodeus's Law, should you request that support, and I mean to tell the Queen that she is free herself to support your more material journey towards Asmodeus above the county-heiress level, as her own whims may move her."

"This is the most visibly dangerous decision you've seen me make so far, and if you feel any sense of nervousness about it yourself, this would be a good time to speak up."

Carissa Sevar: - Carissa pulls the transcript of what the contract devil said out of her bag, opens it with her magic, rereads it.

"County heiresses don't usually have three Wishes and ten pounds of spellsilver," she says after a little while thinking. "We obliged a clarification anyway, when I tried again to sell my soul, and I didn't get told that I shouldn't possess such resources. I - do feel nervous, but I don't think I see a reason to decide differently."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Hell, had it paid you such a price, would not be a slave of Church and Queen."

"Arguably, though it is rather a stretch, neither am I or Abrogail.  Slaves of Asmodeus, perhaps, but not of Church and Queen.  Mark well that I resorted to no such twisted interpretation when first we met."

"But on, then, to greater matters, which a fourth-circle cleric could not call in the Most High to clarify to her."  Aspexia Rugatonn looks tired, which means she is choosing to look tired, but that still means something and signals something even if it's a deliberate choice.  "You want to know if you're a heretic, or rather, if your heresy is wrong.  According to the doctrine of the Church, it is anathema.  According to the doctrine of Hell as we know it, it is anathema.  Even to offer your potential vassals some temporary and false hope in the face of Hell, is anathema under Asmodeanism as we know it, for Hell is the destruction of hope."

"The question is whether it is anathema to Asmodeus, and the problem we face there is that Asmodeus truly does not think in human concepts."

"To Zon-Kuthon, the object of torture is torture.  This only goes to show that not everything of Lawful Evil is thereby of Asmodeus.  What, to Asmodeus, is the object of torture?  Answer as you believe from within your heresy, and not from doctrine."