Keltham: In theory, Project Lawful has now been running for 113 days. The reality is somewhat different. Of course the map doesn't always match the territory perfectly, but this match is more imperfect than most might reasonably expect to be the case, when it comes to entire days.
In theory, Keltham is now having sex on a regular basis with Carissa, Meritxell, Yaisa, Ione, Peranza, Tonia, and Pilar, plus that strange relationship with Asmodia; he's tried casual sex with most of the new girls brought in by Cheliax, but hasn't formed any lasting relationships with them. This sex is overtly consensual in all cases except that of Pilar, who still acts angry around Keltham about that whenever she hasn't recently been pleasured into a more yielding attitude. They all appear very much in love with him.
Reality, again, differs greatly from this appearance. Possibly not for Sevar, though nobody here is going to call her on that. But definitely in all other cases.
In truth, everything about this whole apparent situation differs from reality so much that it seems simpler to suspend disbelief about that, and describe for a time how things would be, if the reality being described was just the theory.
Keltham, then, is chatting cheerfully with Gregoria and Ione at dinnertime. The Project is doing well; most of what it's tried to research hasn't panned out, but it has quite substantial improvements to metallurgy and also spellsilver mining to its name, and that's more than enough to fund all the other things Keltham wants to take a shot at.
Shortly before dinner, Keltham did go over to comms and, unusually aggressively for him, he demanded to send an urgent message to Governance not waiting on evening mail, requesting and requiring that Cheliax forward him a copy of all Project transcripts, starting from day one. If they don't bring it over with the evening mail from Egorian tonight, Keltham will be unhappy about that in a way that calls for further actions. He's calling in favor to make this happen right away even if that means the Queen overruling Security tangles to make it happen.
Keltham's intentions - if one could somehow read those, concerned about this sudden demand - show Keltham thinking that he's felt a couple of pangs of uneasiness lately about how well things have theoretically been going. Sort of a cumulative feeling of unease generally. It's been a while, and he really ought to do a full review of all his evidence, starting tonight and continuing into tomorrow. He's not expecting the full review to end up calling it for Conspiracy, but he's planning to be fair and conscientious about it. He does not, for example, want to give them time to possibly edit the transcripts - though that would also be risky, from their perspective, since what Keltham couldn't reproduce from memory, he might well notice as false.
But Keltham is mostly, almost entirely, expecting that all to turn out fine. So for now he's cheerfully chatting with Gregoria and Ione at dinnertime. Gregoria is also outwardly cheerful!
Ione is more reticent and looks more disturbed than usual.
Carissa Sevar: Any reason that a girl would now suggest to Keltham that they flee with him inevitably has to be correlated with Keltham getting noticeably suspicious; they wouldn't happen at the same time for no reason. And then he will obviously think of 'they're in the Conspiracy' as an explanation.
So the first move is -
Keltham: "You okay, Ione? You seem a bit off."
Ione Sala: By Message:
It's a - sad thing. You'd end up, distracted by it, and that's - not necessarily good, for the Project...
Keltham: There's a slightly longer delay than one might expect, before Keltham messages back:
Project's in a good spot, it's the right time for me to be distracted. You should probably just tell me?
Ione Sala: By Message:
I... all right.
My grandfather's - dying. I've been -
- approved for leave, to go visit him...
Ione Sala: (Ione doesn't sound quite right, even for somebody who got terrible news.)
Keltham: Message:
Ione, that does sound awful, and like you shouldn't be trying to just attend dinner pretending nothing's wrong.
It sounds to me like you want to talk about this, but think you shouldn't bother me, and evidently don't want anyone else to know.
Should we go off and talk about this in private?
(Keltham does not look particularly horrified or sad. More... concerned.)
Ione Sala: "I - yeah."
"Sorry, Gregoria, I want to talk to Keltham in private about something."
lintamande: " - oh, okay, no problem," says Gregoria.
Ione Sala: She'll take the Keltham up to the Keltham Seduction Room, then. The one with soundproofing.
Carissa Sevar: The Keltham Seduction Rooms have undergone some expansion, including, gradually introduced, some features to arrange for the escape-from-within-the-Conspiracy, if necessary; Keltham laid his own permanent Alarm spell on the room, for example, once he learned to cast it, and has tested the Alarm spell enough he can be satisfied there's no one hanging around invisibly. They also eventually coaxed him into trying out the whips, and Carissa taught him how she habitually uses Dancing Lights as a cheap check for invisible objects or Alarm-evading intruders.
Ione Sala: Ione buries her head into Keltham's shoulder, once they're alone, and puts her arms around him, and trembles. Her hand pushes at his back, three times, stopping. Three times, stopping. Three times, stopping. Clearly deliberate.
Keltham: Keltham -
- after a time to think -
- casts Dancing Lights, sweeps the room with them. He disengages wordlessly from Ione, opens the secret door to the cuddleroom, sweeps that with Dancing Lights as well.
Nobody, apparently, is in either room, except the two of them.
Message to Ione:
Room looks clear. Nothing tripped my Alarm recently except the two of us.
Explain.
Ione Sala: "Thank you for - giving me, privacy..."
Message: Both of my grandfathers have been dead since I was little, I got - ordered - to leave and be gone for the next week, and, and I have a very very bad feeling about this even taking into account - everything you've already figured out is true from hearing that anyone can give me orders like that.
Keltham: Keltham doesn't hesitate at all this time.
"Take as long as you need."
Message: Tell me the things I need to know urgently, as quickly as you can.
Carissa Sevar: The church of Nethys is illegal in Cheliax. When they learned Ione was of it, they told her that she wouldn't be executed as long as she represented Asmodeus well to Keltham and did what she was told. The church of Cayden Cailean is also illegal in Cheliax. The rest of the girls were just told that Ione and Pilar had exceptions. In general if you ask too many questions in Cheliax or cause a big government program to be a disaster, you die about it, so no one did.
Ione Sala: Ione has already rehearsed all that information, and repeats it to Keltham.
Keltham: Where in Golarion is better than Cheliax?
Why didn't they use Suggestion on me?
Ione Sala: Suggestion is cumulatively easier to notice as repeated, all the mind control I know about is, that's why - things aren't even worse than they are -
Keltham, there's nowhere, there's nowhere that I know about anywhere, that wouldn't try to use you the way Cheliax is using you, nowhere in all the books I've borrowed from all the libraries I've been to, they said I'd die if I told you I could get books from anywhere but Ostenso, if I got you any books from Ostenso that weren't approved - but I can read them myself and there's nowhere in Golarion that has, has even a, tiny little bit, of dath ilan, left inside it, since Aroden died - all of the envoys here were fake, the travel scries you saw, had illusionists hiding things -
Keltham: Now Keltham is starting to look visibly horrified (by Chelish standards, a dath ilani trying and failing to control his expression sufficiently).
Message: Do you already have plans for what we do next, from here.
Carissa Sevar: Security carries teleport scrolls. If they can take one down, they can leave. Ione thinks she can read a teleport scroll, she's never done it and they fail destructively, but it's the sort of thing a third-circle wizard can do.
Probably they don't want to leave the interdiction zone, because then every god who cares to can send their forces after them, but they could hide in the interdiction zone, for now, and she could get books from more places, try to find somewhere...
Ione Sala: Any Security would have Teleport scrolls. We'd just need to take out one of them, somehow, and get outside of the Forbiddance, without getting caught. I've never read a Teleport scroll and they fail destructively, it'd be a risk at just second-circle, but I think I can do it.
- we should stay inside the interdiction zone around Ostenso, or any god any time could send their forces to just grab you. But there's a ruined tower near an Ostenso landmark that I know well enough to teleport to it, that probably hopefully has scry wards that still work, scry takes an hour to cast and we'd have to rush but I think we could get there in time. Or maybe we'll get lucky and the Security will have two Nondetection scrolls, I can definitely cast that from a scroll.
- Nondetection is a 3rd-circle wizard spell they didn't want you to know about, it's how they hide a lot of things from you.
Keltham: If any Security would always have Teleport scrolls, then the Zon-Kuthon godwar wasn't real.
Why do you think the interdiction zone is real?
Ione Sala: I could be wrong. But they talked like it was an inconvenience and Broom's god was forcing Asmodeus to go along with it. Broom's god isn't on our side, I don't think, but It can't be bargained with or have demands made of It by other gods, and It doesn't care about the kinds of things that - other gods would want, to make sure of, about you -
Keltham: What does Nethys want from me?
Ione Sala: I don't know, Nethys doesn't talk to me, the thing with the prophecy never happened, I just borrow books -
All the gods who were once-human, there's nowhere on Golarion that I was ever able to hear about, where their followers aren't hunted or enslaved.
Keltham: This crazy plan would be an awful lot less crazy with Carissa on-board, and able to do things like subdue a Security guard and cast Teleport from scroll. Since you haven't suggested that, can I assume she's part of the Conspiracy?
Ione Sala: I DON'T KNOW, she acts like she's in love with you, and the Worldwound - is incredibly deadly, but it's a place you can go, that's a little less Cheliax, while you're there - they don't have time to hurt you about being a Nethys-worshipper so long as you're holding back the demons - or that's what they say -
I don't know about any of your women. We don't talk about it. Or nobody talks about it in front of me. I wouldn't have said anything in front of her. Haven't said anything in front of anyone, I don't know who to trust.
Keltham: Carissa is too valuable in any plan like this. And she always seemed a little sad inside, deep down. So we're going to risk that unless you say it's suicide.
Any bright ideas for how to bring Carissa in?
Carissa Sevar: Carissa is in her room enchanting magic items; it's what she usually does, when Keltham doesn't want her. Normally no one would think anything of it, if Keltham sent Security to fetch her to his cuddleroom; but with Ione acting strangely, they might.
Keltham: Keltham... doesn't particularly seem to be immediately inventing whatever plan he was supposed to invent, faced with this set of facts. He looks drawn, absorbed, worried, beneath his transparent-to-Cheliax straight face. If he was supposed to be ordering Carissa to his cuddleroom anyways, the risk was apparently described as too high for that.
Ione Sala: Should she risk delivering a prompt to him?
Carissa Sevar: Honestly she was hoping he'd have something wildly creative, not because they don't have plans (they have five) but because having Ione feed him all the lines makes the whole thing feel more orchestrated.
- but letting him think is even worse. Sure, risk it.
Ione Sala: Message: Keltham, if - if I had to risk trusting one person I'd - trust Pilar, I think - Keltham she has to have been touched by Cayden Cailean for a reason, she started out loyal to Asmodeus but that's the reason she's not dead, why they trusted her enough to not just kill her on the spot - but there has to have been a reason for that, our gods can't help us much but we have to take whatever they send and there's been no other visible reason for why she's here -
Keltham: ...and Pilar might be able to throw a party for everybody who should come with us. If that was real. Was it?
Ione Sala: I - don't know that it wasn't -
Keltham: "Ione, should I possibly have some recovery chocolate delivered, for you - actually, you know what, Pilar, if this is a good time for us to have some candy, can you please already be here?"
Pilar : Pilar's curse has expressed some skeptical sentiments along the lines of, they really should not expect that much active help from Chaotic Good about certain nefarious plans. It's not going to act against Asmodeus's interests, but there are some places where it seems less Chaotic Good to actively help out than others.
So she's standing just outside the Alarm radius, and moving forwards even as Keltham speaks; her curse is willing to cooperate with not showing Keltham that Pilar's curse doesn't work like that around Alarm spells.
Pilar knocks gently on the door. "Cake delivery," she calls. Keltham said out loud that he wanted chocolate, but he was thinking about cake.
Keltham: Keltham opens the door for her. "Come on in," he says, sounding like he's trying not to sound tense about it.
Pilar : "I was hoping it wasn't you -"
"- what's wrong with Ione?"
Ione Sala: "My grandfather is dying."
Message to Pilar and Keltham: Pilar. Don't give any visible sign. I think they're about to - stop treating Keltham gently -
I told him.
Are you with us.
Pilar : "That... does sound very terrible..." Pilar somewhat robotically offers up her cake to Ione, who takes it with a somewhat more natural motion and promptly takes a bite.
Keltham: Message to Pilar and Ione:
Pilar. I know we've had some - overt disagreements -
Pilar : Such as, for example, when, where, and whether we should be having sex.
Keltham: Right, well, I need you to draw on whatever Keeper training you've mastered at all over the last three months, face up to the actual reality of what was going on there, and notice that Asmodeus actually never gives you what you need at all and that I am better as a dom for you in every possible way.
And then I need you to invite everybody who actually loves me, who won't betray us, to an escape party.
Pilar : (Pilar wishes to register for the record that this would not, in fact, land on her at all, to the point that she is having difficulty about making her reaction here sound remotely like her.)
Pilar : Message:
I'm going to draw on my Keeper training to pretend I haven't heard anything you just said, except for -
Ione, do you really - do you actually think they would, to Keltham -
Ione Sala: Yes of course they would don't be stupid.
Especially now that he knows.
Pilar : Because you told him. You - you, you idiot, I don't even - after we get out of here, I am going to fucking, fucking hurt you, so badly -
Keltham: You're with us, then.
Pilar : Apparently I am. I suggest you not say anything stupid if you want to keep it that way, Keltham.
Keltham: Pilar, I don't know how much time we have. Can there be an escape party for me and everyone who loves me, that you're going to invite people to right away, in a room next to where there'd be a single Security who's relatively easy to take down.
Pilar : If that many of us are gathered, next to you, there'll be more than one Security.
So instead I'm going to go back to the party I was already at, that just started, in Breakout Room Eight, where some rather mystified girls are waiting for me to explain what the party I felt a sudden impulse to invite them to one hour earlier, is about, and now that I know that, I will be able to actually tell them.
My curse says, stay here with Ione for ten minutes, and then go to Breakout Room Four.
Keltham: ...who did you invite? Was - Carissa -
Carissa Sevar: Carissa, Meritxell, Yaisa, and Peranza.
Pilar : Carissa. Meritxell. Yaisa. Peranza.
I'm sorry. I know you liked Tonia, even if she was clearly completely wrong for you.
Ione Sala: Pilar, seriously not the time.
Keltham: "Asmodia," he whispers, and then looks like he wants to hit himself for having spoken out loud.
Pilar : ...incredibly obviously never actually cared about you and isn't capable of much in the way of real feelings period.
Ione Sala: Pilar.
Pilar : I'll just show myself back to my party, then. See you in nine minutes.
Keltham: Keltham stands still for a while, looking like he's trying very hard to stop himself from crying.
Ione Sala: Ione checks her pocketwatch, after counting to thirty inside her head, once Pilar is gone.
Message: I'm... sorry. I really would have thought Asmodia the type to turn against Cheliax the moment she had the chance.
Maybe - Asmodia does love you, and it's just, Pilar's curse knew, Asmodia would have screwed it up somehow, if she came with us. Asmodia - she can screw up, sometimes, if it's not about Law. She's sharp but she's narrow.
Keltham: Keltham regains control of his expression.
Enough.
Tell me what reality is like, outside this fortress. Actual reality.
Ione Sala: Ione can do that for the remaining minutes!
Keltham: Keltham asks a number of questions, and additional questions, some of which are clearly consistency checks relative to Law that Ione doesn't understand.
Ione Sala: Ione is clear at all points that Cheliax is constantly lying to everyone including her and she does not vouch for the truth of anything unless Keltham is asking her questions about what she's seen with her own eyes.
Keltham: Keltham occasionally also asks out loud if Ione feels ready to talk yet.
Ione Sala: Ione will whisper each time that she still wants to be held for a while. Almost like she's saying goodbye forever to her love, without being able to speak those words, if anyone happened to be watching the scene.
Keltham: The minutes run out, and Keltham departs with Ione for Breakout Room Four.
lintamande: The girls in Breakout Room Four are huddled around a Security who might or might not be dead. They look terrified, except Carissa, who looks like she has never had a feeling in her life and is going through his Bag of Holding. "Teleport takes three plus the caster," she says to Keltham flatly as he enters. "Plan that maximizes the chances you get out is for me to take you, Ione, Pilar now, Meritxell thinks she can read the second scroll. Plan that maximizes the chances everyone gets out is that Meritxell goes first so if she fucks it up I can try to salvage it, but realistically there is not likely to be anything I can do to salvage it."
Keltham: "If it's not realistic to salvage then we do it the sad but sane way. Carissa, if you betray us we're just dead, so take command here, this is an emergency and you understand this all flatly better than I do."
Carissa Sevar: She stands up, hands Meritxell a scroll. Shatters the window of Breakout Room 4 with a gesture (the gesture isn't necessary). Tugs Keltham through it and away from the grounds. "Ione, Pilar -"
They reach her. She reads the scroll.
Keltham: And Keltham, at that exact moment -
Asmodia: - turns into Asmodia.
Ione Sala: "Asmodia? You're not good at being Keltham. You're really, really not good at being Keltham."
Asmodia: "Thankfully, that particular test of acting ability is not vital to any actual plans. The plan does need to stand up to Keltham's ability to deduce other facts from facts you present to him."
Ione Sala: "I don't know if I could pull this off during a real run without Glibness, but I definitely can't pull it off without Glibness if you're going to be breaking immersion all over the fucking place, that threw me completely out of my game. Asmodia, he whispered, in heartbroken tones."
Asmodia: "I'm one of his trope-given romances, what the fuck do you think will happen if he's told I'm a traitor?"
Carissa Sevar: "What's going to happen over every girl except you is him having an enormous meltdown over having maybe had sex with someone who was pressured by Governance into it, unless we manage to train him out of that. Maybe I should play Keltham next time."
"He doesn't believe in tropes anymore because I'm perfect for him and have no backstory or superpowers," says Yaisa.
"We can't predict what he'll think about tropes when this gets sprung on him, whatever he thought about them before this."
Asmodia: "I admit my failure about that particular meltdown not crossing my mind at all. Whatever I was supposed to invent about figuring out a way to bring in Sevar, after being told it'd be too suspicious to have Security bring her to the cuddleroom, I didn't figure that out either."
"I will register that during this whole interaction, it occurred to me that if Pilar makes any significant progress on becoming a Keeper, Keltham is not going to consider this in-denial-about-wanting-it personality construct at all plausible. It's the sort of complicated internal mess that I strongly suspect being a Keeper or even a regular ilani just melts -"
Pilar : "AlterPilar is not in denial about anything. She just pretends to be, so that Keltham will think she is, so that he thinks he's raping her, which is the part she actually cares about."
Asmodia: "Future Keltham will deduce that and then the actual corruption plan falls apart."
Carissa Sevar: " - alter Cheliax verisimiltude wins over corruption plan, where they conflict, but I'm not sure I follow why they have to, can alter Pilar not just prefer not having a choice about it even while being entirely clear internally what choice she'd make? - that aside, I think this hits a lose condition somewhere in there. It's just too...convenient. Keltham needs to deduce it all himself, which means we need to have seeded it all before. Maybe make sure it comes up that Security carries scrolls of Teleport now after what happened in the godwar. It can be in one of Maillol's expense reports. Maybe we need to show off Pilar's curse more, have Keltham see it do things like inviting only the right people to an orgy or something -"
Pilar : "Curse reminds you again that you're going to be faking all of that manually, without the actual curse assisting you. It won't stop you, but it's not helping."
Asmodia: "I still think the simpler story is that we're all working together secretly to save him. We suborned one Security, who tips us that Cheliax is moving, and we grab Keltham and tell him we're rescuing our oblivious boyfriend. To believe that, Keltham needs to believe exactly one thing, which is that tropes are real. He's said it's the prediction of the tropes."
Carissa Sevar: "Only works under some possible scenarios for Keltham getting suspicious, but if we can swing it, sure. If nothing else it's faster and leans less on anyone's acting ability. But I don't actually think we are behaving like people who are secretly all working together to save him, and not being Good I don't even know what the hidden correlates would be."
Asmodia: "We're not Good. We're in love. And you know, considering that tropes are almost certainly real, I put at least thirty percent probability that, by the time this actually happens, we will be in love. No matter how absolutely stupid that sounds to us right now. Thankfully some very foresightful god arranged that Cheliax was forbidden to do the obvious things with Keltham and so none of our actual loyalties actually get tested, I hope."
Carissa Sevar: "You know what I think is missing? Our creativity actually applied to the problem of escaping this place. I'm going to tell Security to replace the Teleport scrolls with pieces of paper that say 'this is a Teleport scroll'. If you make it out of the Forbiddance with one, you win. If you kill a Security, that's fine, we can raise them, a bit of live-fire testing is probably good for them anyway. Your orders are - well, first, to go get lunch, and then before the end of the day to make it out of here with a fake Teleport scroll or some other means of escaping. Failure will be punished --'scared and desperate' is actually the correct mental state for this exercise -- but trying and failing less than just staying in your room and not trying. You may conspire with each other; you may also turn each other in, if you like, for something of a reduction of the punishment for failing.
Dath ilani children, after all, when they aren't comprehending something, make a game of it."
Ione Sala: "You know what's missing from that exercise? Hope. Anyone who can pull that off could have actually walked out of here with Keltham and I am assuming Security does not want this to happen."
Asmodia: "Phrased that way, there's a fundamental inconsistency in this whole plan which is that we couldn't actually beat Security and Keltham may figure that out. In fact, I think I was - playing along with things, and failing to have Keltham call out the total implausibility of them just running out through a broken window and nobody is watching the grounds, there's no alarm spells, which Keltham knows about, on the perimeter, the Security have no checkins to miss - alterCheliax can be weaker but this level of weakness was not plausible."
"And I need to - find that internal thing of playing along and switch it off."
Carissa Sevar: "Yes, you do. And I think that everyone actually trying to escape and likely failing in whatever fashion we'll actually, being outclassed by Security, fail, will be useful here, for - not playing along, for noticing what set of lucky coincidences it would take for an escape to be plausible even in a weaker alter-Cheliax. Alter-Cheliax isn't reading our minds, alter-Cheliax might have fewer Security, but this should still be very difficult. We need a felt sense of that.
As for hope, I don't know if we need that or not, but whoever is the most impressive won't be punished, even if she fails. Subirachs evaluates, because I intend, myself, to be the most impressive."
Ione Sala: "And is Security going to pretend that they don't know about this, that Detect Thoughts doesn't exist, and that, if any of us made it out even then, they wouldn't all get slaughtered directly to Hell because no torture of Golarion would be enough?"
Carissa Sevar: "The only thing you need to know about Security's instructions for your own planning purposes is that, as this is alter Cheliax, Detect Thoughts doesn't exist, and they've as yet encountered no cause for extra suspicion, and Hell is a lovely place the embrace of which we are all eager for." She's probably going to have half the Security 'on duty' in alter Cheliax with no Detect Thoughts, and the other half actually on duty with Detect Thoughts making sure no one actually defects; only the former are allowed to stop the girls unless they're genuinely escaping, of course.
Asmodia: "If we actually made it out in alterCheliax there would be tropes helping us. I don't know what that looks like but maybe, there is one female Security on staff who is in love with Keltham, Pilar's curse is actually helping and knows which Security that is -"
Carissa Sevar: "First, try getting out. Then, when we understand where that failed, we can try to figure out what the tropes would do."
Asmodia: "Acknowledged."
She's going to see if she can pull her Project Lawful status and get a message started en route to going outside of Cheliax, a message that could have plausibly tipped off Osirion to their location and that it was time for Keltham pickup.
Ione Sala: "Acknowledged."
She's going to wait a bit and then shout "Keltham Evil tortures people your god is Abadar don't accept resurrection until you've gotten to Axis" and assassinate Asmodia.
Peranza: Peranza wonders if it's possible to figure out the ilani version of overpowered Splendour just from the teachings Keltham has given them so far. Probably not, if Security isn't being instructed to play along, but she has literally no other ideas.
lintamande: Tonia is extremely stressed.
She takes the point that she is supposed to be extremely stressed because if they were actually traitors escaping with Keltham they'd be extremely stressed. But the punishment for the other girls, when they inevitably fail, is going to be in line with their Taldor-punishment rule. And Tonia is going to be actually punished. And the only way to protect herself is to do something impossible.
Pilar is obviously the person you want on your team for doing something impossible, since maybe Cayden Cailean will help. (She knows that Cayden Cailean won't help, but she wouldn't know that in alter-Cheliax. Or is she allowed to use all the information she has, for this exercise? It gets a bit mixed up, when you do it too long.) Anyway, Pilar is utterly loyal to Asmodeus, so you can only get on Pilar's team if you have a good reason what you're doing serves Asmodeus. ...they don't have to be escaping to defect, they could also be escaping because they realized that the project was violating the rules Asmodeus gave for it?
Message to Pilar: so, if you found out that Sevar didn't serve Asmodeus and the project was breaking the rules He sent us, what would you try.
Pilar : Is Pilar's curse up for this, by any chance?
Curse of Laughter: Absolutely. Showing them exactly how easy it would have been for Pilar's curse to get Keltham out is a wonderful trust-building exercise!
Iarwain: Message from Security to Sevar: We see what you're thinking. We'll run it past Subirachs, and then tell half the Security they can't run Detect Thoughts starting right away, during what's going to be an exercise, so they won't end up warned of what you're planning to try yourself.
Carissa Sevar: Sure. Tell them to report to me for further instructions in ten minutes.
lintamande: Meritxell considers.
They're going to lose, obviously; the point of this exercise is to learn from what happens when they lose, rather than being the sort of exercise where you win. That does not make her want to win any less. At the absolute minimum she wants to be declared the most impressive.
That requires thinking of an impressive idea, unfortunately, and she's not immediately coming up with one. She could....fight a Security? She almost definitely loses. Impersonate a Security? She almost definitely loses. Impersonate Sevar? That's entertaining but in no way actually solves her problem. Impersonate the Queen? She likes being alive. Talk a Security into defecting with her by promising them all the riches of ......wherever they're defecting to, which is probably poorer than Cheliax? No, that's no good either....
Well, there's always the straightforward, honorable, only likely to fail approach of putting up See Invisibility and trying to kill a Security before they have time to get off a warning, and then trying to use whatever items and scrolls they have to get clear of the Forbiddance before they miss a checkin. It's the sort of plan that usually won't work but not the sort of plan that will never work, and tropes might be the kind of thing that likes long shots.
Carissa Sevar: "All right," says Carissa. "I'm going to go tell Security that we're doing a training exercise in which one girl is a traitor while the rest remain loyal. And that they're supposed to pretend not to know that and to act normally. Good luck, may the strong triumph and the weak suffer, have fun out there."
lintamande: Sometimes Gregoria wonders if joining Project Lawful was a mistake. It can't be, since it wasn't a voluntary decision, but still.
Carissa Sevar: Carissa presents Security with an incomplete briefing on today's exercise, which will be incomplete because the Security assigned to participate in the exercise and ordered already not to use Detect Thoughts will best satisfy their roles if they are missing much relevant context: the exercise is that one of the girls is a traitor, but they are expected not to act on that knowledge and to persist in their usual habits.
Furthermore, they are to pretend, for today, to be limited in the fashion that Security in alter-Cheliax would be limited. They may not use Detect Thoughts; if they capture the suspected traitor alive they have to dawdle for ten full minutes before extracting information such as whether this was in fact the traitor. Other Security has been assigned to ensuring that these limitations don't produce any genuine security holes.
Finally, they are for this exercise not to carry the scrolls of Teleport assigned to them, because they don't want this exercise to present the girls with a genuine temptation to defect; they are to trade them for these rolls of paper that say 'Teleport' on them, which are a win condition for the girls. Again, other Security has been assigned to ensuring that these limitations don't produce any genuine security holes.
"It is my hope and expectation that you will apprehend the pretend-traitor without incident; it'd be more convenient if you don't kill her, but killing her is preferable to letting her win, unless it's Ione, who should be permitted to win rather than killed, if relevant. The exercise is expected to end tonight, but you should consider it still underway until Subirachs tells you otherwise, or until you get a top-priority alert from those Security not on this assignment. You're dismissed. Olegario, a word."
Iarwain: "Your will, Chosen." Olegario will follow her, or stay to speak to her, as she seems to prefer.
Carissa Sevar: Stay to speak with her. "I'm participating in this exercise; I might be a traitor, today. You are to ignore any further instructions from me until Subirachs has confirmed that this exercise is over. Further, should you ever have cause for doubt that I am on the path Asmodeus set out for me, you are permitted to speak to Subirachs of it, as it is likelier that I have been impersonated or compulsioned, or that the occasion is a test, than that Asmodeus has genuinely led me into opposition to His church on Golarion."
Iarwain: "Acknowledged, sir," says Olegario; that he's not calling her Chosen should show he understood.
Carissa Sevar: "Dismissed."
She waits for him to leave the room.
Now there are some discarded scrolls of Teleport in a pile on the table. She takes one and puts it in her bag. As they say in dath ilan, cheating is technique. "Get the rest of those somewhere safe," she tells the non-participating Security, and heads out to lunch.
lintamande: Whoever's job it is to torture Carissa Sevar, Elias Abarco thinks as he gathers the remaining scrolls, is not doing it enough.
Iarwain: Lunch is had by all! It's a much tenser lunch than usual. Messages get passed around now and then, in absolutely no more than the usual quantity for a lunch. As Asmodia warned everyone earlier, they had better not give away that it's more than one girl participating, if they want to have any chance at this.
lintamande: And then girls drift off to the library, or in Yaisa's case to her bedroom to prepare spells, which she did not bother to do this morning, a decision she now feels very rewarded for. She can put some offensive spells together - they don't have much chance of working, but they're not the whole plan.
Carissa Sevar: Carissa goes to her room, checks it for spies, locks it, and starts preparing spells as well.
Five minutes later, while Carissa sits in her room apparently preparing spells, an invisible Carissa streams in gaseous form up through the chimney and out of the fortress. (She loses the illusion once she's seven hundred feet away from it, not that the illusion is actually a substantial part of the plan.)
(She had those spells prepared anyway, in case she needed them during the earlier Keltham escape sequence.)
Iarwain: Sevar is almost outside the Forbiddance when she gets struck with a Dimensional Anchor spell, from an angle she doesn't see.
...was that one of the Security who was in the exercise group, or a Security still really on guard? Either way, it's clear Carissa Sevar could not have escaped that way in realCheliax.
Carissa Sevar: ...good. Real Cheliax's competence to keep actual defectors from escaping is important for all her plans.
(She wasn't, actually, defecting, obviously. She had considered burning the Teleport to go visit Egorian but decided against.)
Peranza: Peranza seduces a Security officer, to the point of actually having sex with him, before trying to be very, very persuasive about how much she would really like to go on an Ostenso shopping trip, her being escorted there is fine, she'll have sex with him for weeks if he does.
Iarwain: Security has been tensely trying to figure out if he would have been seducible if he hadn't been warned in advance. Not seducible about the trip, obviously, seducible about the sex. But he's one of the Securities who proved seducible by Yaisa, and the rest of Security knows that, and he doesn't want to have to defend the plausibility of his turning Peranza down.
That makes the safer course deciding that he would have fallen for it. He took off his clothes with Yaisa, he'll take off his clothes with Peranza. If she can successfully take him out while she's naked, he'll deserve whatever he gets.
(He is nonetheless wary of Peranza, focusing on her, ready for her to try something, probably more than he would be if he hadn't been warned - but it's not like he wouldn't have been wary at all otherwise, right.)
lintamande: Security has been warned there's a traitor but thinks there's one of them; that makes the best course of action teaming up. Yaisa has made herself and Gregoria and Meritxell invisible; Meritxell has a knife and thinks she can maybe kill a high enough level wizard with one strike but even if not, there'll be three other people trying.
She hasn't actually murdered anyone before, but it's good to get that out of the way early, really.
She stabs the Security through the eye; it's not quite likeliest to kill him but it's sufficiently sure to be debilitating if it doesn't.
Iarwain: He doesn't die of the assassination strike and they don't win in the end but it is a very close thing. The sort of close where somebody is bound to think that, if Meritxell had more practice and a better weapon - or if Meritxell and Gregoria had a chance to prepare their own spells - or if Yaisa's spellbook also had Cat's Grace, Bull's Strength, and True Strike - he'd be dead.
There will be consequences about this.
Ione Sala: Ione waits until much of the afternoon is up before she makes her move. If Ione tries something, even if she succeeds, Security might expect the exercise to be over after that. Her plan is a simple one, she is on the Nethysian punishment plan rather than even the lax one, and Ione doesn't want to blow other girls' chances at avoiding punishment by making it clear earlier that more than one girl might be a traitor.
By the time Ione's moment comes around, Asmodia doesn't seem to be around, so Ione carries out the plan on a morose Peranza instead. She uses Message instead of shouting; on reflection, that gives them even less time to try Hold Person on her.
Message to Peranza:
Brace yourself, and don't react to what I'm about to say, or do.
KELTHAM EVIL TORTURES PEOPLE CHELIAX IS LYING TO YOU ABADAR IS YOUR GOD DON'T ACCEPT ANY RESURRECTIONS UNTIL YOU MAKE IT TO AXIS AND TALK TO SOMEBODY
Peranza: Peranza is startled enough that she says "What?" out loud, but without a Detect Thoughts running, that's not enough to cue Security to use Hold Person or Dominate Person on Ione before Ione mimes a pretty realistic assassination strike on Peranza, through her eye, with a kitchen blade.
Ione Sala: Ione is actually holding the blade, too! She's just holding it reversed so that it's the wide hilt that strikes Peranza hard over her eye socket, rather than the blade.
Asmodia: Asmodia, considering things, decides that she needs to not in any way risk blowing her cover with the comms officer who sent her message to Gorthoklek. Her plan needs to not use that fact at all. Gorthoklek might not be amused himself, among other considerations.
So Asmodia goes over to the real temple mid-afternoon, and demands to examine copies of some standing orders. She gets confused looks but obedience from some officers who haven't been told about the exercise.
Asmodia takes the paperwork to a nearby table to examine it, and then, with some effort, copies a forgery of Subirachs's signature to some paperwork she's already made up in her best handwriting.
There's enough of a passageway from the main temple to the comms office that Asmodia can use her disguise items from the morning exercise, which she has accidentally forgotten to give back, to turn into Subirachs in that passageway. 'Subirachs' hands the paperwork to the comms officer, and is rather brief about her directions, but that seems to raise no suspicion.
If they claim one of the remaining Security decided Asmodia needed a full-time invisible watcher while going to the real temple, Asmodia will complain about that not being realistic.