Carissa Sevar: Carissa has thought about this endlessly and also the Most High's going to tear through it like tissue paper, isn't she.

Well. If it's false she wants to know that. She cannot build dath ilan on any lies.

"Asmodeus wants the error undone, of mortal free will; He wants His possessions not to possess that nature. He wants them obedient to Him. They should suffer if He wills that they suffer, and not only if He wills it for some reason, because if that weren't true then his power over them would not be absolute. Asmodeus desires that the power He rightly has over all of us is - reproduced after a fashion, that we own those weaker than us as Asmodeus owns us, and so obviously anyone I possess should suffer if I will it, and I don't need a reason, so long as I am myself obedient to Asmodeus, and not motivated by a rejection of His will. But the object of torture is the shaping of a soul, to be more useful, and closer to satisfactory; some torture is probably for the shaping of the torturer, not the victim, and it's still plainly Asmodean, to torture someone who is mine because I happen to want to and it doesn't undermine Asmodeus's goals.

But a slave of Asmodeus who just wants to cause their slaves maximum suffering at all times is indeed more like Zon-Kuthon than like Asmodeus; while perhaps bounds on their conduct can properly be placed only by those above them, and only on their own whims or insofar as it serves Asmodeus, it seems like they'd be a better slave of Asmodeus if they tortured their slaves exactly insofar as it improved them, in a manner that improved them, and thus left Asmodeus richer and not poorer. So torture is right whenever it strengthens Asmodeus, by strengthening his reputation or his tyranny or the incentive not to annoy him or his more valuable slaves, or by strengthening one of his possessions; but the purpose is strength."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "I think you are missing an important point about what Asmodeus might be trying to accomplish in the average and typical case of a worshipper subject to Him, because, in fact, you are not ordinary in how you yourself relate to being tortured."

"For most mortals in Golarion, Sevar, the way torture works is that they don't want to be tortured, so by torturing them if they do a thing, we ensure that they do not do it, or if we torture them in all cases but one, we force them to that exact path, and even, we can torture them unless some particular outcome eventuates and force them to try with such intelligence as is in them to find means to that outcome."

"I will pause in case you have questions about this seemingly unfamiliar concept."

Carissa Sevar: It only works because no one knows any Law. 

She was not asked for comments, just questions. She's silent.

Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia, like a number of high-ranking Chelish authorities who scare people too much for them to talk, just runs Detect Thoughts instead.  It saves time on trying to scare people into not being too terrified to tell you things, or even on the less terrified ones trying to decide what to say in front of you.

"You are thinking that it only works because they don't know Law," Aspexia repeats for benefit of Subirachs.  "But knowledge of Law alone is not enough to convey immunity, I rather doubt.  I expect that Abrogail could shatter an average dath ilani if she wished, perhaps an average temple torturer could, and I expect that threats would work on them thenceforth whether or not they retained their knowledge of Law.  Mayhap not a Keeper, there is no way we may know from where we stand."

"Torture alone cannot force a greater devil to obedience if they do not deem you above themselves in Hell's hierarchy; greater devils, then, relate to pain and threats in some other fashion indeed.  There are torments in Hell even for they, when they fail, but they must be to other purposes than simply enforcing obedience from those that would not otherwise obey.  If a greater devil fell into the hands of Kuthites, say, they could not be moved to obedience for any amount of pain.  On a god it would not work at all.  Would it have worked on mortals in the days before they were cursed with free will?  I do not know, but I suspect not."

"Asmodeus is known to prefer mortals as they were before free will, even though this would render nonsensical any such system of tyranny as now exists in Cheliax.  In Asmodeus's Hell, devils are remade as beings who are more difficult to move by simple threats, and yet even for greater devils in Hell there is punishment."

"What to Asmodeus, then, is the object of torture?  What is to him tyranny, that in Cheliax we call this tyranny, but better would be if none here had free will or could be moved to actions by threat of torment?"

Carissa Sevar: She thinks about it.

She's not surprised, that devils can't be moved by torture; it may take more than knowing the Law, but it is part of Law, and beings that Asmodeus chose to shape would not be so. That part feels right. 

It makes sense for Asmodeus to want more valuable devils. She doesn't need to understand Asmodeus to predict He wants that; whatever else He wants, if He has more valuable devils, it's easier for him to get. Torture making devils more valuable makes sense. If it's not the answer -

 - separate out some instances of it not being the answer -

- maybe torture is good to Asmodeus when it makes devils more valuable, but that's a small share of what makes it valuable and she's being asked to identify the rest. That doesn't require undoing every bit of reasoning that starts with the assumption Asmodeus runs Hell in a way that enables Him to better achieve His goals.

 - maybe torture doesn't make devils more valuable but otherwise causes Asmodeus to have more resources. For example, if Asmodeus had a deal of some kind with Zon-Kuthon and Hell were a blend of their tastes. ....no, feels wrong. For example, if torture is in some magical sense directly a source of power for Asmodeus, the way prayer is sort of understood to be. ....no, also feels wrong, if that were true it wouldn't be a complicated secret. Maybe torture makes minds more predictable to Asmodeus? Tortured minds are more alike, and so more useful? ....that's just a clever way to get back to her favored hypothesis that torture makes devils more valuable. Maybe torture makes the Good gods get all mad at Asmodeus and that in in some sense directly useful. ...also doesn't feel persuasive. 

- maybe torture does not cause Asmodeus to have more of anything else he cares about, and the only reason there is torture in Hell is because of Asmodeus's fondness for torture, like Zon-Kuthon, if not wholly like Zon-Kuthon because He does apparently care about several other things. In which case there is torture in Hell because Asmodeus likes it that way and no new way of training devils could improve the situation because Asmodeus doesn't regard it as potentially benefitting from improvement. 

That feels like an actually dangerous heresy, the kind of thing where if she believed it she'd - she's not sure what she'd do how about she stops thinking about that. What is it with her new urge to when she thinks of something dangerous keep thinking about it, like there's always a safe answer at the other end.

....though the best time to have unsafe thoughts is right now while they can be corrected promptly. 

Okay.

If the point of torture is that it makes Asmodeus weaker, makes His triumph less likely, but He likes it, so it happens anyway even though it makes devils worse, then Carissa thinks Iomedae kind of has a point. Carissa in that world is not going to betray the project because she mostly cares about Carissa and they are competent to make that not in the interests of Carissa, but she'd cease feeling like Good was obviously and plainly her enemy. Good would kind of deserve to win, if Asmodeus wasn't trying to because He was so busy torturing people in ways that undermined his other goals. The contempt that Carissa feels for anyone else who undermines Asmodeus, she feels for this hypothetical Asmodeus, undermining himself.  

There; she thought it; now it's obviously not the answer to the puzzle, so keep thinking. 

The answer is not that a Hell with torture leaves Asmodeus weaker than a Hell without it; now that she's actually thought it it's self-refuting. 

So it leaves Asmodeus stronger, or at least the same. 

But she's not supposed to just again give the answer 'to make devils better', that would be - failing to engage with what the High Priestess is trying to say to her - 

What does pain have to do with tyranny?

Well, someone who can hurt you without reprisal is above you. Maybe that's important; maybe in a sense there's no real chain of command, if everyone's seamlessly working together to advance Asmodeus's goals, and for it to be a tyranny at all it has to be clear who can hurt who. That explains why torture is allowed; it doesn't explain why it's a particularly common proclivity. Is torture unique in having that property? Or maybe another way of thinking about it is - is everything which has that property torture?If so, then this tea was torture; it was, after all, orchestrated in significant part to make it clear to the girls on the project who could hurt who. And the elaborate rituals of formality among nobles are torture too; they are after all about establishing who can hurt who without reprisal, communicated with every degree of incline of one's head -

- yeah, that's not a useful definition. Torture is one way to communicate that, but not the only one. But maybe the others bottom out in torture. Or, they could just bottom out in final execution, but that would be horrible and wasteful; better for everyone if they bottom out in torture. Except people like Asmodia. 

Carissa's authority on the project, she is well aware, is located in significant part in the girls' knowledge that an experiment is being run, and that if they're incompetent even when barely punished then they'll be properly punished. She's doing without much torture, but not without the threat of it; the threat of it underlies the whole thing. 

That feels like it might be as close to an answer as she's going to get on the spot, but the thought of backtracing inferences into spoken words is suddenly quite intimidating. Well, presumably the Grand High Priestess is reading her mind.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "I am.  Abrogail has certainly made progress on her goal of having your thoughts not collapse when you know they are being read, and in teaching you to think in Asmodeus's service without being afraid of thinking."  Aspexia hopes that was, in fact, the right goal.  It was certainly a very proactive one.

"Further facts to consider:  Hell - not Asmodeus, who cannot speak to us except in sharply circumscribed vision, but Hell - has never made any offer so merciful as you are contemplating, even though, you might think, Hell could gain advantage by making that offer to souls that would otherwise come to Asmodeus not at all.  Because other souls would then demand it?  Possibly, even as those recruited to your Project, if they were warned, might demand more than others to sell their souls -"

"No, Sevar, you should not do that.  Hell is circumscribed not in how many souls they may buy, but in how much they may pay out and in the minimum they must pay per soul.  If you'd succeeded in your sale, I expect it would have been worth it, to Asmodeus, but it might have caused ten or a hundred others not to be able to sell theirs, this year, I do not know the exact rate of exchange.  Let your recruits sell you contracts on themselves such as you sold to Keltham, if you dislike the thought of devils cheating you."

Carissa Sevar: "I don't think Hell is advantaged by being known to make such offers, not in - the current world they have to negotiate with. But Civilization's going to be bad for Hell, if we don't figure out how to make it good for Hell; the correct general policies are going to be different in a world that's building Civilization than they were in the world for all of history."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Mm.  Leaving aside the question of Hell negotiating with a more Lawful future Cheliax, I do hope to hear some acknowledgment from you that you will not warn your new recruits of their fair prices.  It is theoretically a matter of the Queen to make it an order, as it is Crown rather than Church which depends on soul-sales to function, but I doubt she will be amused if she must tell you herself what I am telling you that she'd tell you."

Carissa Sevar: "Of course. I understand, and I won't tell them. If I think of something clever that doesn't reduce Cheliax's ability to sell souls I will seek authorization before I do it."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Good.  With such a contract as you sold Keltham, you can rebuy their souls later, at some more reasonable price than your price to Keltham, and force Hell to either repurchase them more fairly, or yield them to your own purposes.  So long as you don't cripple the entire Chelish Security apparatus."

"To return to the point.  It should be clear to you by now that the lynchpin of your entire plan is the question of what - not the Church's doctrine, not Hell's hierarchy - what Asmodeus will accept in terms of Hell's possible arrangements.  Cheliax is probably less important to Him than that; here He may accept more pragmatic sleights."

"And I call your attention again to the notion that torment is not simply for shaping souls.  It has something to do with tyranny and slavery, with how the threat of torment produces obedience in mortals - though better still apparently would be if those mortals had no free will to begin with.  It has to do, you suggest, with how the question of who torments who, makes there to be a hierarchy in Hell; and so a place in that hierarchy which one's pride lies in owning and defending, rather than a mob pursuing one goal without other organization."

"Is that enough for you to deduce the answer you are seeking, with such knowledge of Law as you now have?  I bid you think about it, don't just say 'no' and refer the question back to me."

Carissa Sevar: She tries to make herself speak the thoughts out loud, this time, for Subirachs's benefit and because it's not like she's less accountable for them if she only thinks them. 

"Torture does shape souls, but it would not be acceptable to Asmodeus if Hell only used torture for the shaping of souls. Torture is also the bedrock of the Asmodean tyranny; if you could not use torture for punishment, then Hell would resemble just - one of Keltham's organizations, that fires you if it's displeased with you, and considers itself otherwise to have only the authority you agreed to. There probably wouldn't be discipline problems, if I had a little shard of Hell that merely fired those who displeased or disobeyed, but that's because they'd be tortured once fired; the shard would still be using torture as its bedrock, just making other parts of Hell actually do it. That would be unacceptable, I think. I don't know why. It feels intuitively unacceptable, like a tyranny trying to pretend it isn't one. If that shard of Hell produced much of value to Asmodeus, maybe those who owned it could afford to obfuscate the tyranny - but -

- oh, I have it, it wouldn't work. Humans, who are very very flawed, might treat 'you are treated well here, but could be fired' as substantially different from 'you're tortured for disobedience', and might flock to my shard if they were qualified, but if it's just an obfuscation then a more careful and more Lawful being wouldn't see a difference, it wouldn't produce different strategies in response, it's a dead end. It has to be actually different, to do anything actually valuable with beings that are not starting as incoherent as humans. If the tyranny is founded in something different, something that uses dath ilani better, it has to be founded in that all the way to its core. 

if you were building it out of Carissae you could have its currency of power be intelligence. The weakest devils and petitioners are very stupid, and by proving themselves they are granted more intelligence, having demonstrated that they'll actually serve better with it, and the punishment for failure is for those enhancements to be stripped away; pride and tyranny and slavery, with pain only in whatever place it needs occupy for Asmodeus's other purposes. That might only work on people who are very like me. Then again, the appeal doesn't need to be anywhere near universal. 

My answer is that if I'm not doing that with torture, I have to figure out what does do it, and ideally does it in a manner just as pleasing to Asmodeus and at no higher cost, because torture is cheap, and if it doesn't suit His will for Hell then no pragmatic concerns about the survival of Cheliax in this new world will make it possible, and if it does suit His will for Hell then it should be done. Though - 

- such a thing wouldn't be granted to me unless I am such that it does not injure the order of Hell, to grant it to me. And right now I'm not Asmodean enough or frankly Lawful Evil enough."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Mm.  Have you guessed yet how I will answer?"

Carissa Sevar: "If I knew your answer it would be mine, Most High."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "I surely hope not."  It seems Aspexia Rugatonn has decided to look suddenly very tired, as she speaks.  "My answer is that I don't know what exactly Asmodeus seeks.  Why would I?  We obey His orders, and by this means does He work His will.  To command and be obeyed is Asmodeus's nature as a god, as much as Cayden Cailean is acting here through his domain of revelry.  If Asmodeus tried to act otherwise, outside His domains, He would face much greater costs and difficulties."

"I know what tyranny we were instructed to create in Cheliax, but not the question to which that was His answer, I cannot say what else would have served Him well had matters been other than what they were.  I know Hell's current doctrine.  I don't know what bargains and compacts constrain the shape of Hell, in addition to His pure will, or what the combination of those two might permit in terms of alternative arrangements."

"If I knew Asmodeus's exact true goals and tried to serve those goals to the greatest possible extent, without awaiting His instructions, I could not be Most High, I could not be His cleric at all.  Even if that served His interests best, He could not use me that way.  It is outright contrary to His domain.  If you hold Him in contempt for that you must hold every other god in the same contempt.  Gods are beings of means and not just ends."

"And how could I know Asmodeus's own true answer?  He is not mortal, was never mortal, His true answer will be some god-thing spoken in a language of Law I know not."

"What is tyranny, what is slavery, what is pride, what does Asmodeus truly want from us?  If you told me that the actual and correct answer to this question had to be produced within one hour or all Hell would be destroyed, I would call Asmodia to this place and give her my Crown, then call Abrogail here to lend her mightier Crown to you, and hope that the two of you could solve it together."

Carissa Sevar: "Oh. 

Well, if I have your leave to try, I'm going to try. ...pray for me."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "If it did not seem that there were other gods assisting here, if I was not nearly certain that Asmodeus has bargained with some Good god and paid them for some benefit He received, I would order you off this course.  You are trying to understand what Asmodeus wants out of Hell and then create a new arrangement there He finds more satisfactory.  That is something that Asmodeus alone literally could not arrange to have happen, even if, once on that course, He predicted your success."

"It doesn't mean that you aren't Chosen of Asmodeus, Sevar, or that He is not backing you in this.  Only that the plan, if there is one, literally could not have been His alone."

Carissa Sevar: "That occurred to me. Optimistically, that the Good gods have foreseen their defeat, now, and are bargaining for the world of Asmodeus's victory to contain some of that which they value. Less optimistically - bringing Keltham here perhaps had to be satisfactory to a number of different powers. 

What does Irori even value." She says it aloud because she's instinctively saying all her thoughts aloud, and then realizes that maybe that wasn't one to say aloud.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "People solving their own problems for themselves.  In a way Irori is more opposed to Asmodeus than Iomedae, in nature if not in goals.  Iomedae commands paladins to Her service.  Irori cannot act on anything in Golarion except insofar as somebody pursuing their own pathway may happen to benefit His goals."

"Yes, it's a very obvious thought.  Do keep in mind that you were specifically warned against certain pitfalls here.  Irori will not have asked Asmodeus to deliver you to Him in return, if that is what is going on here; that too is not Irori's nature as a god.  He cares nothing for faith in Him, devotion to Him, for that is also contrary to His nature."

Carissa Sevar: "I understand." What does it even mean to be a god of people solving their own problems for themselves. - no, Irori's aims don't matter here even if He is among the collaborators on this. Carissa belongs to Asmodeus and her only problem is how best to serve Him, and she's been promised Hell. Not exactly promised Hell. Promised that if she comes to Asmodeus with no thought of other choices she will be treasured. Perhaps someone else paid Asmodeus; what of it? She hopes Asmodeus got a lot of whatever He values, in exchange, and He gets Carissa too.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "And Sevar.  Don't start thinking that torture can't be the answer to anything just because you suspect the current form of Hell is sometimes using it wrongly.  You've seen Abrogail use it in a fashion of which you approve.  I'm told that Keltham swiftly reinvented one of her hard-learned principles.  The new Hell you are envisioning is a lot more likely to go over well with our Lord if it is, in fact, Hell, rather than a tiny section of Axis carved out of it."

Carissa Sevar: "Yes, Most High." She knows that very well, so she's taking the reprimand not as 'you might not have known that' but as 'you are despite knowing that likely to err this way'. Which is fair. 

It would backfire, wouldn't it, to tell most of the girls they're at risk of being too Lawful Neutral. Axis is generally understood to be pretty comfortable. It's not backfiring on Carissa. She can't fix Hell if she doesn't figure out how to be actually Lawful Evil and actually Asmodean and go to Asmodeus as ordered with no thought of any others, so that's a fixed point in all of her plans; she'll do that, and do the other things around that which make sense and serve Asmodeus. 

Aspexia Rugatonn: "Better thoughts.  Some of your previous ones were frankly not trending in a positive direction.  Do you know which ones I am referring to?"

Carissa Sevar: "...the hypothetical inside which I decided if it was real I couldn't respect Asmodeus, Most High." And here she'd thought they were just going to ignore that since it was obviously stupid.

Aspexia Rugatonn: "It is possible to present me with an alternate version of Asmodeus, such that I lift my head in contempt and say I would not serve such a god of Lawful Evil.  If He had been Zon-Kuthon, for example."

"The hypothetical Asmodeus who cares anything at all for torture even if it serves not one of His other ends, as if He had been a little like Zon-Kuthon but still had His other goals and natures, is not one I hold in contempt.  He would simply be paying costs now and then to have more torture happen, not on blind instinct torturing someone a little even if that ruined all His other goals.  That is how He is with respect to tyranny, slavery, compacts, pride, they are, from His perspective, what having plans is for."

"The issue here is that you did not think clearly inside your hypothetical and decided with worrying speed inside it that such an Asmodeus could not be good enough for you.  If you are that hasty in half-formed judgments I think you will end up too far from our Lord in spirit to present Him with an acceptable new Hell, and quite possibly fall into heresy at the level of outright disaster."

"You have flown very high and very far, and I think there is starting to be in you some of the recklessness that you saw in Asmodia.  Do you recall her remedy?"

Carissa Sevar: That's fair. And it is comforting, in a way; that she is at risk of falling into disastrous heresy means that she hasn't, yet. 

"I slapped her, Most High. - but she's on the light punishment regimen."

Aspexia Rugatonn: "And then she assigned herself to read a book, and when that failed her, Asmodia asked Security to hold her down and set her hand on fire, and that remedy was seemingly effective."

"It reassured me to hear of it, that the chosen of tropes and other gods are not thereby rendered entirely non-Asmodeans."

"I think you will have an easier time of redesigning Hell if you learn anything about how to use pain.  Abrogail knows, the boy out of a Lawful Good world is learning swiftly, it is time for you to stop dawdling.  The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a first step, and assigning standard torture codes to Pilar is not that step."

"Consult with Subirachs and devise a punishment for yourself that you expect to restore your cautionary judgment about when to decide in your thoughts that Lord Asmodeus would be a fool.  If enduring that torment makes you weaker, if it fails and must be repeated stronger, you will have only yourself to blame for either end."

Carissa Sevar: "Yes, Most High."

Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia Rugatonn rises, feeling older than her age, which is itself not negligible.  If that's not how to get a cleric of Irori to come closer to embracing Asmodeus's true ways, she doesn't know what would be; but at the same time, what an Abyss of a problem to even find yourself trying to solve.

"Go with Asmodeus, Chosen," she says, letting her real weariness into her voice, as she turns to go.  For Sevar surely is Chosen, probably of Irori, possibly of Asmodeus, definitely of the tropes, maybe all three.

Carissa Sevar: She'll do her best!

Abrogail Thrune II: Abrogail Thrune (having just departed her own meeting with Sevar) finds for herself an unremarkable room of Project Lawful.

The Queen then orders her most trusted Security on staff - one with a friendly and well-paid agreement with Abrogail Thrune to eventually let himself be made a statue until after the Queen's death, should the Queen's own end not come before his, because the Queen doesn't want some things spread about in Hell while she's alive - to tell Meritxell to come by for her terribly exciting secret meeting.

lintamande: Meritxell, terribly excited, arrives. 

(She knows that probably the Queen's attention is a bad thing. However, Carissa Sevar has it, and Meritxell is a very competitive person.)

Abrogail Thrune II: Abrogail Thrune approves of her attitude, in fact.  Meritxell is not quite Abrogail Thrune before she donned the Crown of Infernal Majesty, but she's surely closer than some.

"Rise."

"I overheard your thought before about wanting to be one of the interesting girls."

"I'd already planned to make a certain arrangement with you that will, I suppose, make you somewhat more interesting.  This will involve some nighttime Teleports to and from Egorian once your Ring of Sustenance kicks for you, and a license to commit what would be, for anyone but you, massive treason."

"But it is perhaps worth going to greater lengths than that, so long as we are about it.  You see, it occurs to me that it would perhaps be well to have one uncomplicated unheretical Asmodean not touched by any other gods among Keltham's romantic interests."

"I have no idea if we can make you interesting enough to qualify as a true romantic interest to Keltham, but I'm willing to try."

"Anything your heart might be set upon already?"

lintamande: Meritxell is speechless for a moment, because of how she has just had all of her wildest dreams offered to her because of her uncomplicated unheretical Asmodeanness and desire to be interesting, which is - better than her wildest dreams. And she learned lucid dreaming so as to eventually be able to fuck with people in elaborate mindscapes and has some pretty weird dreams. 

"- I haven't given the question much thought," she says. The first thing that is coming to mind is 'being secretly part dragon' but she's pretty sure you can't suddenly become part dragon. "Or, actually - Keltham says he can't fall in love with me unless I enjoy it when he hurts me. Is that - can you -"

Abrogail Thrune II: "It wouldn't be easy.  Scribe's Binding, maybe?  Miracle?  I'm not sure Asmodeus would be willing to grant any Miracles targeting someone who was clearly to return to this interdiction zone...  Keltham would ask questions.  I suppose it's not especially more likely to happen in the Conspiracy than in alterCheliax?  Well, except for the amount of government attention on the Project it implies, if you can have a ninth-circle scroll of extremely-alterCheliax-forbidden mind-control used on you... though, Keltham need not know that something quite so drastic was required, but then what if he asks for it to be used again..."

"To be clear, we are trying to do this without making Asmodia sad.  Alas.  There would be so many more exciting options if not for that."

lintamande: "'I wrote to my cleric mother and she said she'd try to obtain some expensive secret things for me' will work on Keltham," says Meritxell determinedly rather than try to fathom the concept of using a Miracle on this, "Or we'll have to sort out whether we're allowed to talk to our parents and what they know, but we should sort that out anyway. We were planning to at some point make Keltham aware Scribe's Binding exists so he'll decide there's definitely not a conspiracy..." She is rambling. One should not ramble at the Queen. 

I don't think I have requests, other than that. What would you have of me?"

Abrogail Thrune II: "Due time, Meritxell, due time.  You becoming a masochist, even if we could do that, would not itself make you more interesting than Yaisa, even if it was done in an interesting way."

"I do know a Baron with no heir, who owes me a rather severe favor, and for you to secretly be his heir..."

"Honestly, it strikes me as just too uncreative.  I feel there must be something better to do with your character.  But we can fall back on that if we lack better options."

lintamande: "Gregoria's got that," says Meritxell with considerable irritation at Gregoria. " - I mean, she's not a Baron's heir but she's a Baron's heir's daughter and we can't have two, I would imagine, your Majesty." Her tone softening as she goes on with the sentence and remembers she is not remotely in a conversation with a classmate. "Long lost twin? No, that's boring too, and obviously tropey. Kidnapped by some foreign government that wants to learn the secrets of Project Lawful, and tortured horribly, but conveniently now I'm into that......Asmodia is absolutely going to veto that. Contacted by the agents of a foreign government who offered me wealth and power beyond my wildest dreams if I deliver them Keltham, or even his lecture notes, and like a responsible person I reported this immediately but I do want to see how much wealth and power beyond my wildest dreams I can squeeze out of them before they catch on."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Perhaps alterCheliax is openly, deliberately making you more interesting, such as by appointing you para-Baroness, to test whether this causes you to have always matched one of Keltham's fetishes other than sadism..."

"Well, the problem there is, what if that works?  Though I don't expect it would be all that damning, by Keltham's rules, unless the quality is very rare and we can't pretend it's more common..."

"I don't suppose you have a conveniently long-held fantasy about some way you could become something greater than what you are now, quickly, if you had access to moderately vast resources to bring it about?"

lintamande: "I sort of always figured I'd uncover a treacherous plot against the Crown and get an important appointment out of it and have an ominous laboratory that glows for no particular reason but all of that's objectively less interesting than Project Lawful. Maybe if it was a really good plot against the Crown." ....she could catch Carissa plotting against the crown, that'd be dramatically interesting, and Carissa'd get in trouble and Keltham would intervene and say she's his and Cheliax can't break his things and that'd be progress... that's an Ione or Asmodia plan, by which Meritxell means too clever by half. Meritxell is clever but not actually too clever by half.

Abrogail Thrune II: "Mm.  Well, we both have some time to think about it."

"As to the purpose for which I initially selected you, the first step is for you to become exceptionally familiar with the sight of my naked body."

lintamande: Meritxell blinks rapidly in confusion. 

(She's not actually particularly interested in women, not that she expects that to matter or cares very much about it herself.)

(....no, the reason for that request is impersonation. Abrogail....wants Meritxell..... to impersonate her? ...sure, seems reasonable..... for what?)

Abrogail Thrune II: "Indeed, the first step is for you to become able to, by Alter Self and Disguise Self, impersonate my body.  Asking you to impersonate my demeanor is a bit much, of course.  Even Altered and Disguised, it is unlikely that anyone would mistake you for myself for very long at all.  But that particular mistake is not one we shall be requiring anyone to make."

"We can talk about the second step of the plan after you master the first."

"While we may perhaps end up discussing with others the possibilities for granting you a more interesting background, the matter of you learning to don my bodily form is very very secret, including from Sevar, Maillol, Subirachs, and literally everyone else besides the Most High.  Security will be instructed accordingly.  Do not simply acknowledge that order, repeat it back to me."

lintamande: "I am ordered to learn to use Alter Self and Disguise Self to impersonate your body. This is secret, from everyone including Sevar and Maillol and Subirachs, and Security knows that, so if I think about it they presumably won't report that. Is there a specific lie I should tell if somehow it comes to their attention."

Abrogail Thrune II: "Keltham seems to think Abrogail Thrune looks hotter than you do, and this, to Meritxell, is something that bothers you and leads to the thought that you could be better at seducing Keltham if only you also had my body.  I heard you thinking that, smiled mysteriously at you, and granted you the secret permission."

lintamande: - nod. "May I have a hair clipping, to use as the focus for the Alter Self."

Abrogail Thrune II: A light flick of her will, and one long strand is severed from Abrogail Thrune's head, coiled into a ring, and presented to Meritxell.

"Let us hope that this is the start of a fruitful partnership," says Abrogail Thrune.

She's not sure that the ominous wordplay helps with anything, but who knows, perhaps it might.

lintamande: Meritxell takes it, very carefully, as one who is pretty sure all her dreams have come true and who is already at work on more ambitious dreams. 

It is her most fervent desire to serve very well, and she can't think of a nonstupid way to say that but she suspects that Her Infernal Majestrix knows.

Project Lawful: PL-timestamp:  Day 9 (7) / MorningPL-placestamp:  Osirion / Sothis / Black Dome

Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Well, I notice the odds of the destruction of the multiverse are down to three percent. Did you do that?"

Merenre: "Do you mean, did I move the market, yes of course I did, or did I take actions that reduced the odds of the destruction of the multiverse by seven percent. I did not do that."

Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Oh good. I would have to give you such a raise and I'm not sure the treasury could stand it."

Merenre: "The multiverse getting destroyed looks less likely because we have a more completely satisfying account of Otolmens' cause for concern - Keltham being from another world with more advanced technology is basically sufficient to explain all Her interventions so far. It also fell some off Keltham getting petrified again for the second time in three days because that moves our timelines on how long Cheliax can hold onto him in an optimistic direction, and the multiverse is less likely to get destroyed if he gets out sooner before he's taught them too much. I might change my mind on that once I get a close look at the interim contracts he's drawn up."

Ruby Prince Khemet III: Abadar can see contracts just fine, in nearly-human amounts of detail, but conveying them to the pharaoh is still completely incapacitating, and they have to work carefully around anything that'll leave the pharaoh insensible for a day, with as many things up in the air as are at present. "Tomorrow, if nothing comes up."

Merenre: "...there's actually something I was here to ask about."

Ruby Prince Khemet III: It's not the kind of thing he'd usually miss, even with a god-headache. "Ah. Go ahead."

Merenre: "Lastwall wants to buy all our Chelish intelligence, and warns that, uh, Cayden Cailean's Project Lawful contribution is apparently helping Cheliax track down and deport all Lastwall's intelligence apparatus, including people who worked for someone else but indirectly for Lastwall, and so therefore that selling it to them might make us subject to the mysterious possibly cake-related forces that have scourged their own people."

Ruby Prince Khemet III: "Well, at least it's not anything weird."

Iarwain: Cayden Cailean doesn't have temples.  It's not on-theme.

In Absalom where He ascended, there's a tavern-cathouse run by a wife-and-husband pair, a madam and a brewmaster.  The drink there isn't especially expensive.  Neither are the women; they're tapped by Remove Disease weekly, which usually costs a hefty premium, but the women here tend to run older and not as pretty as most in that tier of the profession.  

If you want a Regenerate on your missing hand, don't bother waving around 750gp, not here.  They don't want the kind of custom that would bring them, if anything that expensive were sold here for money.  Try saying under truthspell that you lost your hand during a drunken fight with a nobleman's bodyguard after the nobleman kicked a beggar in front of you.  Afterwards you might get a drink poured for you that also can't be bought with money, and a night of warmth that's real.

Neither the wife nor the husband has Grand High Anything in front of their titles, or indeed, any particular titles at all.

It is the center of Cayden Cailean's faith in Golarion if anything is.

The revelry in that place has been diminished, these last few days since the gods fought.

"You too," the swashbuckling swordsman in leather armor says to the somber-looking barkeep, as one of the special drinks is drawn for him.

"Yeah."

They haven't lost all their spells.

They've lost some of their spells.  Higher-level ones in particular.  Cayden Cailean is still able to grant a Regenerate, it seems, if that is necessary to restore the missing hand of some drunken do-gooder.

"Any idea why?" says the swashbuckler to the barkeep.  "Sent from Him, or otherwise?  I'm sure not getting any touches of reassurance about it."

The barkeep shakes his head.  "Nothing direct, and what I'm getting implied from - the tavern rumors, that He might influence, from the wanderers that might be drawn here, by His will - it's not -"

There's moisture in the barkeep's eyes.

The swashbuckler sips his drink.  It's still pretty good.  "If there's news that bad, it's not going to get better if you delay in the telling."

"The tavern rumors are leaning that He sacrificed too much of His divinity fighting against Zon-Kuthon, so that Zon-Kuthon would die inside the vault after being sealed there.  Just.  You know.  The obvious stupid stuff that drunks make up, because, because how would they know, even if that was true, right?  Probably made up after they heard rumors about His clerics losing some of their spells, and put that together with Cheliax cutting into Nidal faster than expected."

The swashbuckler nods.  "I don't suppose the tavern rumors say that it's just temporary and He'll recover in a year, or a century?"

"Priestesses of - Desna - and Shelyn - have been wandering in, on impulse, they don't know what this place is, but when they get here, they tend to feel an impulse to preach, to our faithful -"  There's tears running down the barkeep's cheeks now.

Some of the other drinkers look uncomfortable, but not surprised, like this is a sight they've seen before.

"Oh," the swashbuckler says.  "Do we know how long."

The barkeep shakes his head.

The swashbuckler realizes, somewhat to his own surprise, that he's also crying.  "Well, He had a good run, since He first got drunk enough to go for the Starstone, you know, having that actually work was more than anyone could've expected, really, and if the tavern rumors are true, it's a fine way to finally go."

The barkeep pours himself a glass, a small one, because it's not the first time he's had this conversation today, and won't be the last, and clinks it against the last of the swashbuckler's beer.  "To Cayden Cailean."

"To Cayden Cailean."

They drink.

"He's obviously not actually dead," the swashbuckler says, after that.  "I'm still getting spells, you're still getting spells.  He could just be - warning us - that it might happen.  Telling us we might need to find a new deity, or else adjust our lifestyles, sometime soon.  Making sure we're not taken by surprise, if it happens."

"Hell of a way to warn us, if it's just a possibility."

"He might still pull through.  He's lucky that way, right?  Practically the god of having things unexpectedly work out okay."

"If He lives, I will Plane Shift to Elysium so I can personally punch Him in the fucking face."

Project Lawful: PL-timestamp:  Day 9 (7) / Late MorningPL-placestamp:  Otolmens Containment Zone / Project Lawful main site

Jacint Subirachs: Jacint Subirachs slides a slim folder across the table, the first of many.

"I suppose I may as well start with the only native Intelligence 19 candidate that turned up in the right age bracket.  Wisdom 15.  Second-circle wizard.  Was definitely angling for the research track.  Loyalty mindreads consistent with someone keeping their head down, doing well in school, aiming for a comfortable life in magical research or crafting, not thinking a lot about what happens after that life ends, no unusual heresies or resentments.  Enough submission and masochism to be trainable without much difficulty.  Not very ambitious, a follower not a leader.  Mathematical talent high, more outstanding at that than at wizardry."

"There is of course the obvious sticking point, and I expect you'll turn this one down, but it seemed worth checking if you wanted to apply the obvious fix."

Carissa Sevar: "Alter Cheliax wouldn't. I'm ....worried that sex has weird correlates beneath the surface somewhere which a potion won't fix and Keltham will notice. I guess he could be open about having done it, and claim it was voluntary? ...does that imply weird things....preventing pregnancy would be cheaper if sex change potions were incredibly cheap, but they could be in the price range a wizard can afford without changing society much.... - let's see how much better he is than the other candidates and come back to it."

Jacint Subirachs: Jacint slides another folder across to her.  "Intelligence 18, Wisdom 17.  One point ahead of Asmodia in both.  Personality traits... well, you read it."

lintamande: Raised by a wizard father, an accomplished devil binder, who decided to have his children raised by devils and cut off entirely from the rest of human civilization in case they ended up more Asmodean that way. Eight kids, four suicides, but this one turned out well. Loyal, incredibly smart, third-circle already at age 18 having been tutored privately rather than going to a wizarding academy.  She is noted not to be good at talking to other human beings. Splendour could probably fix that. 

Carissa Sevar: " - very cool experiment but we absolutely can't use that. Or maybe she can be separately tutored in Law, but Keltham can't meet her."

Jacint Subirachs: Another folder.  "Intelligence 18, Wisdom 16, second-circle.  Faint tiefling ancestry, only visible in pointed ears and slitted, brightly colored eyes.  She played it up heavily at her wizard academy, and pretended to be half vampire and half succubus at anyone foolish enough to buy a young girl's bluff.  Not particularly submissive, masochistic enough to be less scared of Hell than most.  Terrorized what other students she could, but always acted with great obedience and discipline towards those formally above her in the chain of command."

Carissa Sevar: "If that one works out terribly what went wrong. ...gets Keltham thinking about nonhumans? No, actually, I think that's fine, it's a tangent where we don't have anything to hide. I guess we'll have to make a call about whether alter Golarion has succubi, but I lean 'yes, we're not pretending the Abyss is nice'. Yeah, all right, let's show her to him."

Next file. Intelligence 18, Wisdom 17, boy aged 22; he'd be pulled back from the Worldwound. Clean disciplinary record, notably good at math; enjoys coming up with elaborate torture variant potions in his free time. Not a match for Keltham sex-wise even if they made him into a girl. "Probably makes sense to present Keltham with some boys? Even if it makes him jealous, that seems potentially productive..."

Jacint Subirachs: "Well, I assume - actually, who originally made the policy decision that we wanted to go on presenting Keltham only with girls if possible?  Was that you, or Maillol, or...?"

Carissa Sevar: "I want more masochist girls we can potentially distract him with but I haven't said it should only be girls. I think the - tropes - might want it to be girls, but we don't know if they're real and I don't know what happens if we defy them. Anyway alter Cheliax's government mostly is interested in the engineering stuff, here, and it'd be silly to gender-segregate that."

Jacint Subirachs: It's possible that Jacint may have misunderstood the Chosen's will, here.  But Jacint did say that she'd go hunting for masochistic female mathematicians and the Chosen didn't tell her not to... admittedly, Jacint is, in theory, Sevar's superior...

Oh well.  They sent her some boys anyways.

"I would not be too surprised, under his circumstances, if Keltham finds himself mysteriously dissatisfied with all the male candidates.  Or - if the tropes try to stop us from adding males, do they do anything visible, that Keltham would notice?  Like mysterious accidents occurring to all the males he chooses..."

Carissa Sevar: " - maybe? I think things so far have been - not subtler, they haven't been subtle at all, but not accidents, they've all been the product of some agent doing things for its own reasons. This might be a question alter Cheliax just brings to Keltham, if they're still worried about tropes, though they're much less worried than us about tropes because Carissa sold her soul without incident and Asmodia doesn't have superpowers......

Ugh. Tropes are probably real and alter Cheliax doesn't think so, which doesn't feel very sustainable at all.....how many good candidates do we have if we leave out the boys."

Jacint Subirachs: "We have about five-sixths of the candidates.  But all the boys they included were boys where somebody decided 'maybe this one's good enough to be worth an elixir of sex-shifting', and while in some cases those judgments seem a bit questionable, still..."

Next folder.  Intelligence 18-possibly-19-ish, it detected as 19 once but 18 all other times tried.  Wisdom 14.  Intellectual achievements include mastering a dozen different languages and punching above her weight in Wondrous Items crafting classes.  Sped through her math classes in academy.  Neither submissive nor masochistic, spotted history of disciplinary problems related to taking orders from people she deems less intelligent than herself, but those seem to have yielded to correction.  Loyalty scans show that her overt loyalty to Asmodeus is heavily predicated on imagining Him as a supremely intelligent mastermind.  Did not require much correction from the Church to look out solely for herself first and foremost within her own thoughts, holds non-Lawful-Evil alignments in genuine contempt.

Jacint comments that this is a known personality type that would desert Cheliax if given a clear opportunity, but tends to fall promptly into line once forced to sell her soul.  Jacint is not quite sure what happens if you force her to sell her soul and then try to turn her into a dath ilani, but it seems to Jacint that if they go with all meek obedient engineers then those will be lacking some fire that is probably important?

Next candidate.  Intelligence 16, Wisdom 18, Splendour 8, barely 2nd-circle, submissive-masochistic-slave nature, unusually pretty.  Left something of a mess by her school experiences and her difficulty in placing herself as anything but a victim there, struggling through by sheer force of academic effort and excellence.  Younger than Keltham but within his stated one-year age-difference limit, if they don't want to lie about that.  Did excellently at the mathematical part of the curriculum, punching well above her measured Intelligence level.  Her theology is whatever she thinks she's been told her theology is, by the last person who looked like an authority and told her that; she has no signs of theological opinions otherwise.

Jacint comments that this is somebody who might actually fall in love with Keltham if he showed her kindness, assuming that this problem was not otherwise headed off at the pass, which Jacint is pretty sure she can do.  Or if Carissa Sevar herself happens to want a slave in love with her, it wouldn't take long.

Carissa Sevar: It seems inefficient to be kind to people so infrequently they're bowled over when they encounter it. ...she's going to not share that thought, she is working on humility and not jumping to heresy as soon as she notices something done differently than she'd do it. 

"Maybe when I'm less busy," she says absently about having a slave who is in love with her. " - or actually - it seems to me like I barely have enough hours in the day as it is and don't really have time for entertainment, but becoming Eviller isn't entertainment, it's really important, so maybe I should be prioritizing it more? Is this a good angle on becoming Eviller, do you think?"

Jacint Subirachs: "Do you want to have a slave in love with you for purposes of being more cruel to her?  If yes, then let that be pursued by all means, any count's heiress could have the same for herself.  If not, I think that forcing it isn't especially likely to be good for you.  Hell's exact wordings often don't bear as much weight as we might hope, when passing instructions down from Asmodeus, but they did say to find the desires within yourself that would keep you out of Axis and not to force them."

Carissa Sevar: "Well, then the answer is that I don't especially because it sounds like a lot of work." 

lintamande: INT 17, WIS 18, left wizard school when Asmodeus chose him. Noted as a strong mathematician back when he was in school. Loyal, obviously; when Asmodeus selected him it wasn't in a temple or during prayer, as is most typical, but while he was witnessing the execution of a heretic, and he was initially concerned that the heretic's god had chosen him and immediately turned himself in. 25, which is older than they were asked for but two different teachers mentioned him when asked about math talents. 

Iarwain: An actual countess's heir who applied via the entirely different route of wanting to be in the next batch of 'Project Lawful girls' and get her own cake powers.  There were something like fifty of those, from various daughters of nobility.

This is the one with Intelligence 17, Wisdom 15, Splendour 18, third-circle at age 18, and an interest in mathematics for which she's received private tutoring since she was 14.  A prior member of the Asmodean inner ring, who knows herself to be inescapably damned via the route of being unable to sincerely Atone for what she's done.  She's lived a proud life but a disciplined one, and has proven herself able to endure privations more severe than Project Lawful's living standards.  Will probably take orders from the Chosen of Asmodeus without problems; having Asmodia instruct her on her alter-self seems more like it might run into issues of overt obedience and internal contempt.  It will expend some noticeable amount of political capital if she ends up executed as an irretrievable heretic, but not disastrously so; it can be made clear to her mother that Project Lawful is not safe physically or spiritually.

Carissa Sevar: " - yes, all right, I definitely want her, though we're going to have to be careful how we present that application to Keltham, I predict he hasn't extrapolated very much about nobles from the things he got told about nobles. I assume all the other such are much less promising?"

Jacint Subirachs: "You'd think those hopefuls might deduce that the first batch being recruited from Ostenso's wizard academy would have tipped them off that we might possibly want something associated with wizardry in some fashion, but in this you would be optimistic.  I suppose I should not call it stupid; they saw a potential advantage and it costs them little to ask if they might have it."

Carissa Sevar: Carissa finds it incomprehensible that not all nobles learn wizardry. Well, the ones who are sorcerers have an excuse, she guesses. "Well, too bad, because we could use all their Bluff and I suspect they might have another angle on some of our deception challenges. .... we show Keltham some mediocre applicants, actually, since he doesn't think we did pre-filtering, though I expect it'll be easy enough to write their profiles such that he rejects them..."

Jacint Subirachs: "A dangerous game, I think, if he perchance wants one of those anyways.  If we have more than eight candidates he must needs to do some selecting in any case... I think he is not expecting us to have filtered the candidates but will be reasoning that 'Governance' has filtered it somehow, since we're not just presenting him with a list of every wizard student in Cheliax?"

Intelligence 16, Wisdom 13, very pretty, a decent wizard, did fine in math class, and actually has an obligate rape fetish that mindreads show her as still being internally conflicted and in denial about.  Would be a tier-2 researcher at best - though her prior accomplishments look no worse than Tonia's, say - but possibly useful for Sevar's corruption plans?

Carissa Sevar: Honestly Carissa is presently feeling worried that Keltham's just going to cheerfully do things that might technically be Evil but that he's very sure won't hurt anyone no matter what kinds of people she throws his way. But she doesn't actually have enough evidence to reach that conclusion, just a doomy feeling.  "And we can get her a Ring of Sustenance and extra tutoring, to keep up....actually, can we quote Keltham a start date that's five or seven days out for all the new candidates, for screening/travel/orientation, so they're close on their Rings and we get nights with them? Those'll be extra important while they're new and getting oriented."

Jacint Subirachs: "All the potential obstacles I see to the later start date seem more your business than mine, Chosen - how Keltham reacts, whether the new candidates are then further behind in lessons compared to the previous..."

"With respect to this particular candidate, I note that I don't have a solution yet in mind for getting Keltham to choose her when her overt accomplishments seem less than those of others, and we cannot tell him the real reason, and I am not sure what lie would reliably avoid being caught out?  I presented her to you in hopes you would see a solution that has not yet come to me."

Carissa Sevar: "Hmmm. Note from her recommender saying that she's only average at the - calculating part of math, and a little below average at how fast she works things out, but strikingly clever at deriving underlying rules and so on - where we can produce the 'strikingly clever' by giving her a headband and extra six hours?"

Jacint Subirachs: "Except that if she, the only candidate who seems slow inside classes but to show up the next day with better understanding, then turns out to possess a very convenient fetish from the standpoint of a Conspiracy trying to corrupt Keltham sexually...  I don't see how it gives very much away, actually, but I imagine Asmodia wailing and pleading that it didn't happen in alterCheliax."

Carissa Sevar: "In alter Cheliax we just let Keltham pick which students he gets. ....and possibly we should just do that, once we've filtered for loyalty. We can have a second list of girls for him to introduce once the project gets bigger and needs more than just very bright researchers."

Iarwain: The review goes on for quite some time, though Subirachs did front-load some of the more promising or interesting candidates.

The other Project Lawful researchers are meanwhile working on their alterCheliax personalities; in particular, trying to make sure they have some.

lintamande: "I think if we force this too much it's not going to work," Gregoria says after two hours of Personality Workshopping Sessions. "Tonia's shy, but speaks up when people are talking about farmers, and sort of thinks of nobility as something from fairy tales. She has a massive crush on Keltham but has never dated anyone before and doesn't actually know how seducing people works and so she's planning to just nurse it forever. Peranza wants to travel the world and now that she's seen Civilization wants to travel there too even though that's probably metaphysically impossible. She's going to ask Keltham to ask if we can go to the beach, and display some enthusiasm when we're shopping in Absalom via scry, and read some travel novels.  I think everyone should stop having sex and do their jobs, though I'll change my mind if Keltham wants me.

Whenever we try to add things on top of that they seem artificial and stupid because that's actually perfectly descriptive of many people and most people don't also have a tragic backstory where their sister was murdered by muggers in front of them or an ex-boyfriend who was Good and that's why they will only date Evil people now or -" She rips up an entire ideas sheet, demonstratively. "It's okay if we're background characters, as long as we're mastering Law and asking Keltham good questions in class and not looking awestruck whenever he says 'if the Queen were mean to someone you'd obviously overthrow the government' or whatever."

"I think having a brother who joined a paladin order isn't that much of a weird backstory, doesn't require acting ability, and preserves some options for us later," says Meritxell. "Leave it on the list for Sevar to look at at least. Also leave on the one where your father died in the revolution where the Queen took power, it'd be genuinely weird if none of us have relatives who did."

"Fine."

Asmodia: Asmodia has mostly been trying to collect a list of everything that Keltham now has seen about alterCheliax and it is a LONG list and she wants it to be SHORTER and then NOT GROW ANY MORE but Keltham would unfortunately NOTICE THAT because in alterCheliax everyone would obviously be CHEERFUL about Keltham learning MORE AND MORE THINGS.

Occasionally part of her mind overhears somebody is saying something that is not Probability-Sightful thinking and she casts a sniper shot in that direction, like right now, where Keltham is obviously immediately going to ask 'how many people join paladin orders' in order to calculate exactly how odd that is and even if the person he's asking shouldn't appear to know that they need to know it themselves so that when Keltham asks correlated questions he will get answers that all make sense put together.  

Iarwain: Lunchtime comes around.  Are failed not-researchers-anymore welcome at lunchtime on the extra days, when they're not pretending to Keltham that Cheliax is nice?

Carissa Sevar: If they make themselves useful, sure. Yaisa in particular should stay abreast on developments in alter Cheliax. They should get food last, obviously, after the valuable people. 

lintamande: (Gregoria thinks that in alter Cheliax probably a lot of those who serve at the Worldwound for a decade join a paladin order, but obviously they should check the rates from Taldor first. Between the eight girls there are thirty living siblings, though, so lots of things that happen in alter Cheliax in one in thirty people should be represented with someone's sibling.)

Iarwain: There's less Security running fewer Detect Thoughts today, as they catch up on their own downtime, but lunch is a good time to scan everyone again; Security reports to Sevar that Peranza's mind is obsessing about that thing the Queen said about torturing people until they start having thoughts again.  In a way that this particular Security finds somewhat reminiscent of that earlier thing with being turned into a statue, which he absolutely does not mean any insult to the Chosen by observing, but he has seen Sevar thinking at all about some things and is resigned to being a statue for a few decades after his own death and possibly someone doesn't want Peranza to fall in love with the Queen or... whatever it is that tropes do.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa is slightly worried that everyone including her is just using tropes as shorthand for 'extremely weird things will happen.'

But, Peranza does seem concerning. Carissa has no idea how to tell if someone is obsessing over 'I'll hurt you until you have thoughts' in a way that makes it a good idea to hurt them until they have thoughts or not. She tried being sympathetic and generous and that didn't work at all; maybe that's the indicator that the way to get through to Peranza is torture? 

Let's keep a closer eye on her, mindread her more often, she responds.

Asmodia: Asmodia shows up to lunch late, looking slightly twitchy, and after lunch takes aside Sevar to request that Keltham possibly stay a statue for longer, because she's starting to realize the actual magnitude of the problems involved in constructing alterCheliax and they are large and in particular for example it's clear that Keltham saw something anomalous about the 500gp/week price of Security wizards compared to 100gp/week for good 4th-circle enchanters, and just because this is true in realCheliax does not mean that it is necessarily true in alterCheliax, and the promised consultant from intelligence isn't here yet, and even if they were Asmodia now needs some other kind of consultant instead, and maybe it would be kind of a good idea to figure out exactly how tanned everyone should look and then keep them that tanned and keep Keltham a statue at least until everyone's Rings of Sustenance kick.

Carissa Sevar: " - I think we'll give other things away, smaller things, if we haven't seen him in a week. We'll change too much; he'll notice. The difference in price is fine, it's because Cheliax holds the northern Worldwound perimeter where it's approximately impossible to supply the forts by land or by sea so teleporters earn a massive premium, Keltham doesn't have any understanding of military logistics but if he did he'd say 'wow, you're holding a sixty mile border with twenty thousand troops a thousand miles from your own territory somewhere crops don't grow and there's no local populace no fucking wonder your teleporters can do whatever they want as long as they do their jobs.'"

Asmodia: Asmodia doesn't look terribly reassured, but nods obediently and goes back to trying to triage everything that has to be true about alterCheliax simultaneously.

Asmodia: An hour later Asmodia comes back and argues, talking slightly faster than usual for her, that maybe they actually need to keep Keltham a statue for slightly less than a month, in case Keltham noticed that Golarion has a moon.  Two days is enough of a skip for him to possibly notice the anomaly in the Moon's expected phase change - even if not right away, later when he knows what the phase changes are supposed to be, Keltham might look back and notice the anomaly if he remembers -

Carissa Sevar: "The Moon has phases and the planet has seasons. We can't do this very often for that reason; it's not a reason to do it longer this time. Asmodia, take a break. Go for a walk. Get Security to take you to Ostenso and go shopping, if you like shopping."

Asmodia: Apparently this was the wrong thing to say somehow?  Asmodia nods obediently, turns to go, walks toward the door, and gets maybe four paces before she falls down and doesn't move thereafter.

Carissa Sevar: " - we need a cleric here -" 

Does she have a pulse? Does she have the shriveling-fingernails associated with being cursed? Or the swollen lips and tongue associated with being poisoned?

Asmodia: Pulse maybe a bit fast but regular.  No external visible signs associated with curses or poisoning.  Sevar's permanent Detect Magic didn't show anything and neither did Security's Arcane Sight.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa is somewhat at a loss. At the Worldwound the medical issues are mostly 'guts torn out by demons' or 'life drained by demons'. She pokes Asmodia, tentatively. 

Asmodia: Nonreactive.

Iarwain: A fourth-circle comms cleric is now here, slightly out of breath.  They're not a medical specialist, but can try a Cure Light Wounds and a Lesser Restoration, neither of which appear to do anything, nor does a hard slap wake her.

...possibly Asmodia should be put into a bed somewhere and Subirachs should have a look at her?  He doesn't have a Restoration ready but Subirachs probably has one.  Also vastly more medical experience.

(A sufficiently good roll on Sense Motive may show that this cleric very slightly flinched on seeing that Asmodia was the patient.)

Carissa Sevar: Yes, someone should get Subirachs, and someone should float or carry Asmodia to a bed, and -

- she doesn't like it, and she doesn't entirely believe it's coincidence -

- and how are questions for Hell, specifically rather than for the Church, usually conveyed.

Iarwain: Sending information to Hell is cheap.  Getting information back from Hell is often not.

Both cases get routed through the Grand High Priestess's office.  The comms officer could go do that?

Carissa Sevar: - not right now.

Maybe if Asmodia doesn't wake up.

Jacint Subirachs: Message relayed by Security from Subirachs to Sevar, a few minutes later:

Asmodia is unconscious and nonresponsive for no visible reason, full Restoration didn't help, nor did a couple of more extreme stimuli than slapping (now healed, of course).

This is consistent with an unfortunately large number of different phenomena, though most of those can be ruled out by the absence of visibly attacking shadows and so on.  

Given the way things have been on Project Lawful, Subirachs would otherwise suspect a divine vision, with similar effects as Ione Sala would've shown before she recovered.  But Otolmens should've prevented that, if Subirachs understands that setup correctly?

Carissa Sevar: Yeah. Okay. They need to convey a question to Hell. The question is approximately just 'in light of Asmodia being insensate can someone authorized to know what's going on with her advise.' Subirachs is welcome to suggest a more diplomatic wording; Carissa doesn't send letters to Hell a lot.

Jacint Subirachs: They'd usually wait a few hours to see if the patient comes out of it naturally.  Does the Chosen want to rush this one?

Carissa Sevar: "...I don't know. On the one hand contacting Hell with this is an expenditure of totally unknowable size. On the other, if we got another divine vision despite the interdiction -or if someone put her in a coma as part of kidnapping her consciousness to talk to -

- immediate report to the Grand High Priestess on what happened to Asmodia, note that contacting Hell is contemplated to ask the advice of someone who knows what's up with her." That's just making this decision someone else's problem but a decision this big should be.

Jacint Subirachs: Sounds sensible to her.  She'll write a report, since she's got the more complete medical knowledge, and forward it to the comms cleric.

Carissa Sevar: Carissa paces unhappily and then realizes that won't help and then paces unhappily while being aware that a dath ilani wouldn't be pacing unhappily and being additionally upset about that. 

Iarwain: Well, Asmodia doesn't wake up in the next few minutes of unhappy pacing, anyways!

Carissa Sevar: ....how about she makes a GLIB SWORD. How about that. 

Iarwain: The other students will continue working on their background stories!  It goes faster with Asmodia absent and not objecting to everything.  Oh, sure, she'll complain when she gets back and veto a bunch of stuff, but this way is still probably faster.

Asmodia: (Previously:)

Asmodia has entered a state of permanent low-grade panic that she is probably never coming out of again, now that she's had time to catch her breath, get organized, read through more of the transcripts, and realize that her job is impossible.

Keltham was told that 5th-circle wizards got paid 500gp/week and 4th-circle wizards got paid 100gp/week and he immediately asked questions about that which means he was DEDUCING SOMETHING and Asmodia does not know WHAT HE WAS DEDUCING and in fact Asmodia does not have ANY IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE of why a 5th-circle wizard gets paid 500gp/week and not 400gp/week or 700gp/week and probably NOBODY ELSE IN CHELIAX REALLY KNOWS EITHER except that Keltham clearly DOES KNOW and what's worse the numbers in alterCheliax are going to be DIFFERENT for example they're nicer to their peasants so they probably have LOWER TAXES instead of starving everyone so the nobles can have fancier parties and so the figure of 500gp/week for a Security wizard is probably WRONG and will be LOWER except that maybe actually that number is supposed to be HIGHER because alterCheliax hasn't bought the souls of its Security wizards and can't force them to work with threats of Hell and the one thing Asmodia is sure of is that the figure of 500gp/week for a Security wizard in alterCheliax is WRONG except that they ALREADY TOLD KELTHAM THAT NUMBER and now a bunch of other things in alterCheliax have to CHANGE and Asmodia does not know WHICH THINGS and Keltham obviously DOES and it is dawning on Asmodia that actually what they are trying to do here is construct AN ENTIRE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE TO CONTAIN KELTHAM whose internal consistency it is now Asmodia's job to MAINTAIN except that instead of Asmodia getting to carefully design this universe it is being PUT TOGETHER AT RANDOM by all her fellow researchers running around TELLING KELTHAM THINGS like when Sevar told him about the alterPilars and EVEN ON THEIR OFF-DAYS people are RUNNING AROUND MAKING THEIR BROTHERS JOIN PALADIN ORDERS while Asmodia was SUPPOSED TO BE CATCHING UP and Asmodia cannot begin to GUESS what else needs to be true for 1 in 30 siblings of Ostenso wizard students to join paladin orders but she can't just ORDER EVERYBODY TO STOP DOING ANYTHING INFORMATIVE because they need to be a NATURAL amount of informative or Keltham will NOTICE and by the time Asmodia figures out how all the pieces actually needed to fit together it is all going to be INCONSISTENT and NOT MAKE ANY SENSE and they need to make Keltham a statue for NEARLY ONE MONTH so that when he comes out the MOON IS IN THE CORRECT PHASE in case Keltham NOTICED THE MOON AT ALL but mostly so that Asmodia can figure out WHAT ALL OF ALTER-CHELIAX LOOKS LIKE including inventing all the Law she NEEDS in order to understand how ALL OF THE NUMBERS FIT TOGETHER and she is now trying AGAIN to REPORT ON THIS TO SEVAR but Asmodia is having trouble putting stuff into WORDS instead of intuitions about NUMBERS THAT WON'T FIT and she didn't explain CONVINCINGLY enough so Sevar SHOT HER DOWN and said that Asmodia needed to take a break and go SHOPPING and probably thinks she's MANIC but this is the opposite of MANIC it is being in a state of permanent low-grade panic that THEIR HASTILY CONSTRUCTED UNIVERSE is going to end up FULL OF INCONSISTENCIES any one of which could DESTROY IT because SEVAR ISN'T LISTENING TO HER and even if Sevar DID Asmodia is FLATLY NOT SMART ENOUGH TO HOLD IT ALL TOGETHER and can't possibly get enough TIME and this would be a great moment for somebody to give her a HEADBAND MORE POWERFUL THAN THE QUEEN'S or possibly one of the gods running around here could RAISE HER INTELLIGENCE BY 20 POINTS if they wanted this whole Keltham containment endeavor to be even SLIGHTLY POSSIBLE -

Otolmens: Asmodeus.

Look at that MORTAL there.  The one who is currently UNCONSCIOUS possibly for reasons of PURE COINCIDENCE that have nothing to do with any MISTAKES Otolmens may have made recently.

That mortal is thinking CORRECTLY.  Asmodeus should tell the other mortals to listen to THAT ONE.

Asmodeus: Is Otolmens recommending that Asmodeus do an intervention targeting the interdiction zone.

Did someone else do an intervention such that that squirrel became unconscious. They don't usually do that.

Otolmens: No!  Nobody else intervened on that squirrel.  OBVIOUSLY.  That wouldn't happen inside the interdiction zone without AUTHORIZATION from Otolmens which obviously She would not have granted them.

Never mind, then!  Otolmens has LOTS of work still to do and should not have bothered ASMODEUS who is probably ALSO very busy!

Asmodeus: ....

Asmodeus: Asmodeus proposes a trade with Otolmens! There's this here unconscious squirrel who has ideas for containing the squirrel on behalf of Cheliax. Asmodeus obviously cannot intervene in the interdiction zone, but if Otolmens were to shower that squirrel with a bunch of element-57, or element-62, or element-65, extracted from deep under the earth, the nearby squirrels would learn that Asmodeus and Otolmens want that squirrel listened to, and then it would be listened to. Once it's conscious, which Asmodeus is sure His squirrels are working very diligently on and definitely don't suspect it happened for god-related-reasons.

Otolmens: Never MIND!  Probably there is not ACTUALLY anything important about that mortal and NOBODY really needs to be PAYING ANY MORE ATTENTION to it.

(connection terminated)

Iarwain: If at some point Sevar seems to be taking a breather on her Glib Sword work, Security will inform her that the girls think they're done with their background stories and are asking Security if they know when Asmodia will be back to check them.

Carissa Sevar: Asmodia is indisposed. If necessary Keltham will be petrified for another day while this is resolved. Any word from the Grand High Priestess's office about the query made with respect to Asmodia.

Iarwain: Checking... they've sent the information to Hell, which is cheap, and which enables Hell to send back instructions if those instructions are urgent.  They didn't phrase it as a request for instruction.  No word back from Hell.

Carissa Sevar: Understood. 

How about Carissa checks over the girls' backstories for now, with an Owl's Wisdom up, trying to catch most of what Asmodia would catch.